ried man, but because
Natasha felt very strongly with him that moral barrier the absence of
which she had experienced with Kuragin that it never entered her head
that the relations between him and herself could lead to love on her
part, still less on his, or even to the kind of tender, self-conscious,
romantic friendship between a man and a woman of which she had known
several instances.

Before the end of the fast of St. Peter, Agrafena Ivanovna Belova, a
country neighbor of the Rostovs, came to Moscow to pay her devotions at
the shrines of the Moscow saints. She suggested that Natasha should fast
and prepare for Holy Communion, and Natasha gladly welcomed the idea.
Despite the doctor's orders that she should not go out early in the
morning, Natasha insisted on fasting and preparing for the sacrament,
not as they generally prepared for it in the Rostov family by attending
three services in their own house, but as Agrafena Ivanovna did, by
going to church every day for a week and not once missing Vespers,
Matins, or Mass.

The countess was pleased with Natasha's zeal; after the poor results of
the medical treatment, in the depths of her heart she hoped that prayer
might help her daughter more than medicines and, though not without
fear and concealing it from the doctor, she agreed to Natasha's wish and
entrusted her to Belova. Agrafena Ivanovna used to come to wake Natasha
at three in the morning, but generally found her already awake. She was
afraid of being late for Matins. Hastily washing, and meekly putting on
her shabbiest dress and an old mantilla, Natasha, shivering in the fresh
air, went out into the deserted streets lit by the clear light of dawn.
By Agrafena Ivanovna's advice Natasha prepared herself not in their
own parish, but at a church where, according to the devout Agrafena
Ivanovna, the priest was a man of very severe and lofty life. There were
never many people in the church; Natasha always stood beside Belova in
the customary place before an icon of the Blessed Virgin, let into the
screen before the choir on the left side, and a feeling, new to her, of
humility before something great and incomprehensible, seized her when
at that unusual morning hour, gazing at the dark face of the Virgin
illuminated by the candles burning before it and by the morning light
falling from the window, she listened to the words of the service which
she tried to follow with understanding. When she understood them her
pers