________________________________________________
_ Marya Dmitrievna, having found Sonya weeping in the corridor, made
her confess everything, and intercepting the note to Natasha she
read it and went into Natasha's room with it in her hand.
"You shameless good-for-nothing!" said she. "I won't hear a word."
Pushing back Natasha who looked at her with astonished but
tearless eyes, she locked her in; and having given orders to the
yard porter to admit the persons who would be coming that evening, but
not to let them out again, and having told the footman to bring them
up to her, she seated herself in the drawing room to await the
abductors.
When Gabriel came to inform her that the men who had come had run
away again, she rose frowning, and clasping her hands behind her paced
through the rooms a long time considering what she should do. Toward
midnight she went to Natasha's room fingering the key in her pocket.
Sonya was sitting sobbing in the corridor. "Marya Dmitrievna, for
God's sake let me in to her!" she pleaded, but Marya Dmitrievna
unlocked the door and went in without giving her an answer....
"Disgusting, abominable... In my house... horrid girl, hussy! I'm only
sorry for her father!" thought she, trying to restrain her wrath.
"Hard as it may be, I'll tell them all to hold their tongues and
will hide it from the count." She entered the room with resolute
steps. Natasha lying on the sofa, her head hidden in her hands, and
she did not stir. She was in just the same position in which Marya
Dmitrievna had left her.
"A nice girl! Very nice!" said Marya Dmitrievna. "Arranging meetings
with lovers in my house! It's no use pretending: you listen when I
speak to you!" And Marya Dmitrievna touched her arm. "Listen when when
I speak! You've disgraced yourself like the lowest of hussies. I'd
treat you differently, but I'm sorry for your father, so I will
conceal it."
Natasha did not change her position, but her whole body heaved
with noiseless, convulsive sobs which choked her. Marya Dmitrievna
glanced round at Sonya and seated herself on the sofa beside Natasha.
"It's lucky for him that he escaped me; but I'll find him!" she said
in her rough voice. "Do you hear what I am saying or not?" she added.
She put her large hand under Natasha's face and turned it toward
her. Both Marya Dmitrievna and Sonya were amazed when they saw how
Natasha looked. Her eyes were dry and glistening, her lips compressed,
her cheeks sunken.
"Let me be!... What is it to me?... I shall die!" she muttered,
wrenching herself from Marya Dmitrievna's hands with a vicious
effort and sinking down again into her former position.
"Natalie!" said Marya Dmitrievna. "I wish for your good. Lie
still, stay like that then, I won't touch you. But listen. I won't
tell you how guilty you are. You know that yourself. But when your
father comes back tomorrow what am I to tell him? Eh?"
Again Natasha's body shook with sobs.
"Suppose he finds out, and your brother, and your betrothed?"
"I have no betrothed: I have refused him!" cried Natasha.
"That's all the same," continued Dmitrievna. "If they hear of
this, will they let it pass? He, your father, I know him... if he
challenges him to a duel will that be all right? Eh?"
"Oh, let me be! Why have you interfered at all? Why? Why? Who
asked you to?" shouted Natasha, raising herself on the sofa and
looking malignantly at Marya Dmitrievna.
"But what did you want?" cried Marya Dmitrievna, growing angry
again. "Were you kept under lock and key? Who hindered his coming to
the house? Why carry you off as if you were some gypsy singing
girl?... Well, if he had carried you off... do you think they wouldn't
have found him? Your father, or brother, or your betrothed? And he's a
scoundrel, a wretch- that's a fact!"
"He is better than any of you!" exclaimed Natasha getting up. "If
you hadn't interfered... Oh, my God! What is it all? What is it?
Sonya, why?... Go away!"
And she burst into sobs with the despairing vehemence with which
people bewail disasters they feel they have themselves occasioned.
Marya Dmitrievna was to speak again but Natasha cried out:
"Go away! Go away! You all hate and despise me!" and she threw
herself back on the sofa.
Marya Dmitrievna went on admonishing her for some time, enjoining on
her that it must all be kept from her father and assuring her that
nobody would know anything about it if only Natasha herself would
undertake to forget it all and not let anyone see that something had
happened. Natasha did not reply, nor did she sob any longer, but she
grew cold and had a shivering fit. Marya Dmitrievna put a pillow under
her head, covered her with two quilts, and herself brought her some
lime-flower water, but Natasha did not respond to her.
"Well, let her sleep," said Marya Dmitrievna as she went of the room
supposing Natasha to be asleep.
But Natasha was not asleep; with pale face and fixed wide-open
eyes she looked straight before her. All that night she did not
sleep or weep and did not speak to Sonya who got up and went to her
several times.
Next day Count Rostov returned from his estate near Moscow in time
for lunch as he had promised. He was in very good spirits; the
affair with the purchaser was going on satisfactorily, and there was
nothing to keep him any longer in Moscow, away from the countess
whom he missed. Marya Dmitrievna met him and told him that Natasha had
been very unwell the day before and that they had sent for the doctor,
but that she was better now. Natasha had not left her room that
morning. With compressed and parched lips and dry fixed eyes, she
sat at the window, uneasily watching the people who drove past and
hurriedly glancing round at anyone who entered the room. She was
evidently expecting news of him and that he would come or would
write to her.
When the count came to see her she turned anxiously round at the
sound of a man's footstep, and then her face resumed its cold and
malevolent expression. She did not even get up to greet him. "What
is the matter with you, my angel? Are you ill?" asked the count.
After a moment's silence Natasha answered: "Yes, ill."
In reply to the count's anxious inquiries as to why she was so
dejected and whether anything had happened to her betrothed, she
assured him that nothing had happened and asked him not to worry.
Marya Dmitrievna confirmed Natasha's assurances that nothing had
happened. From the pretense of illness, from his daughter's
distress, and by the embarrassed faces of Sonya and Marya
Dmitrievna, the count saw clearly that something had gone wrong during
his absence, but it was so terrible for him to think that anything
disgraceful had happened to his beloved daughter, and he so prized his
own cheerful tranquillity, that he avoided inquiries and tried to
assure himself that nothing particularly had happened; and he was only
dissatisfied that her indisposition delayed their return to the
country. _
Read next: Book Eight: 1811-12: Chapter 19
Read previous: Book Eight: 1811-12: Chapter 17
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