it was the real living
Natasha, and he was not surprised but quietly happy. Natasha, motionless
on her knees (she was unable to stir), with frightened eyes riveted on
him, was restraining her sobs. Her face was pale and rigid. Only in the
lower part of it something quivered.

Prince Andrew sighed with relief, smiled, and held out his hand.

"You?" he said. "How fortunate!"

With a rapid but careful movement Natasha drew nearer to him on her
knees and, taking his hand carefully, bent her face over it and began
kissing it, just touching it lightly with her lips.

"Forgive me!" she whispered, raising her head and glancing at him.
"Forgive me!"

"I love you," said Prince Andrew.

"Forgive...!"

"Forgive what?" he asked.

"Forgive me for what I ha-ve do-ne!" faltered Natasha in a scarcely
audible, broken whisper, and began kissing his hand more rapidly, just
touching it with her lips.

"I love you more, better than before," said Prince Andrew, lifting her
face with his hand so as to look into her eyes.

Those eyes, filled with happy tears, gazed at him timidly,
compassionately, and with joyous love. Natasha's thin pale face, with
its swollen lips, was more than plain--it was dreadful. But Prince
Andrew did not see that, he saw her shining eyes which were beautiful.
They heard the sound of voices behind them.

Peter the valet, who was now wide awake, had roused the doctor.
Timokhin, who had not slept at all because of the pain in his leg, had
long been watching all that was going on, carefully covering his bare
body with the sheet as he huddled up on his bench.

"What's this?" said the doctor, rising from his bed. "Please go away,
madam!"

At that moment a maid sent by the countess, who had noticed her
daughter's absence, knocked at the door.

Like a somnambulist aroused from her sleep Natasha went out of the room
and, returning to her hut, fell sobbing on her bed.

From that time, during all the rest of the Rostovs' journey, at every
halting place and wherever they spent a night, Natasha never left the
wounded Bolkonski, and the doctor had to admit that he had not expected
from a young girl either such firmness or such skill in nursing a
wounded man.

Dreadful as the countess imagined it would be should Prince Andrew
die in her daughter's arms during the journey--as, judging by what
the doctor said, it seemed might easily happen--she could not oppose
Natasha. Though with the intimacy now established b