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Those eyes, swimming with happy tears, gazed at him with timid commiseration and joyful love. Natashas thin, pale face, with its swollen lips, was more than uglyit looked terrible. But Prince Andrey did not see her face, he saw the shining eyes, which were beautiful. They heard talk behind them. Pyotr, the valet, by now wide awake, had waked up the doctor. Timohin, who had not slept all night for the pain in his leg, had been long watching all that was happening, and huddled up on his bench, carefully wrapping his bare person up in the sheet. Why, whats this? said the doctor, getting up from his bed on the floor. Kindly retire, madame. At that moment there was a knock at the door; a maid had been sent by the countess in search of her daughter. Like a sleep-walker awakened in the midst of her trance, Natasha walked out of the room, and getting back to her hut, sank sobbing on her bed. From that day at all the halts and resting-places on the remainder of the Rostovs journey, Natasha never left Bolkonskys side, and the doctor was forced to admit that he had not expected from a young girl so much fortitude, nor skill in nursing a wounded man. Terrible as it was to the countess to think that Prince Andrey might (and very probably, too, from what the doctor said) die on the road in her daughters arms, she could not resist Natasha. Although with the renewal of affectionate relations between Prince Andrey and Natasha the idea did occur that in case he recovered their old engagement would be renewed, no oneleast of all Natasha and Prince Andreyspoke of this. The unsettled question of life and death hanging, not only over Prince Andrey, but over all Russia, shut off all other considerations. |
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