happy I am, and how
unhappy!... Sonya, dovey, everything is as it used to be. If only he
lives! He cannot... because... because... of" and Natasha burst into
tears.

"Yes! I knew it! Thank God!" murmured Sonya. "He will live."

Sonya was not less agitated than her friend by the latter's fear and
grief and by her own personal feelings which she shared with no one.
Sobbing, she kissed and comforted Natasha. "If only he lives!" she
thought. Having wept, talked, and wiped away their tears, the two
friends went together to Prince Andrew's door. Natasha opened it
cautiously and glanced into the room, Sonya standing beside her at the
half-open door.

Prince Andrew was lying raised high on three pillows. His pale face was
calm, his eyes closed, and they could see his regular breathing.

"O, Natasha!" Sonya suddenly almost screamed, catching her companion's
arm and stepping back from the door.

"What? What is it?" asked Natasha.

"It's that, that..." said Sonya, with a white face and trembling lips.

Natasha softly closed the door and went with Sonya to the window, not
yet understanding what the latter was telling her.

"You remember," said Sonya with a solemn and frightened expression.
"You remember when I looked in the mirror for you... at Otradnoe at
Christmas? Do you remember what I saw?"

"Yes, yes!" cried Natasha opening her eyes wide, and vaguely recalling
that Sonya had told her something about Prince Andrew whom she had seen
lying down.

"You remember?" Sonya went on. "I saw it then and told everybody, you
and Dunyasha. I saw him lying on a bed," said she, making a gesture with
her hand and a lifted finger at each detail, "and that he had his eyes
closed and was covered just with a pink quilt, and that his hands were
folded," she concluded, convincing herself that the details she had just
seen were exactly what she had seen in the mirror.

She had in fact seen nothing then but had mentioned the first thing that
came into her head, but what she had invented then seemed to her now
as real as any other recollection. She not only remembered what she had
then said--that he turned to look at her and smiled and was covered with
something red--but was firmly convinced that she had then seen and said
that he was covered with a pink quilt and that his eyes were closed.

"Yes, yes, it really was pink!" cried Natasha, who now thought she
too remembered the word pink being used, and saw in this the most
extraordinary