s arm, pointing to her
mother's door. Princess Mary, pale and with quivering chin, came out
from that room and taking Natasha by the arm said something to her.
Natasha neither saw nor heard her. She went in with rapid steps, pausing
at the door for an instant as if struggling with herself, and then ran
to her mother.

The countess was lying in an armchair in a strange and awkward position,
stretching out and beating her head against the wall. Sonya and the
maids were holding her arms.

"Natasha! Natasha!..." cried the countess. "It's not true... it's not
true... He's lying... Natasha!" she shrieked, pushing those around her
away. "Go away, all of you; it's not true! Killed!... ha, ha, ha!...
It's not true!"

Natasha put one knee on the armchair, stooped over her mother, embraced
her, and with unexpected strength raised her, turned her face toward
herself, and clung to her.

"Mummy!... darling!... I am here, my dearest Mummy," she kept on
whispering, not pausing an instant.

She did not let go of her mother but struggled tenderly with her,
demanded a pillow and hot water, and unfastened and tore open her
mother's dress.

"My dearest darling... Mummy, my precious!..." she whispered
incessantly, kissing her head, her hands, her face, and feeling her own
irrepressible and streaming tears tickling her nose and cheeks.

The countess pressed her daughter's hand, closed her eyes, and became
quiet for a moment. Suddenly she sat up with unaccustomed swiftness,
glanced vacantly around her, and seeing Natasha began to press her
daughter's head with all her strength. Then she turned toward her
daughter's face which was wincing with pain and gazed long at it.

"Natasha, you love me?" she said in a soft trustful whisper. "Natasha,
you would not deceive me? You'll tell me the whole truth?"

Natasha looked at her with eyes full of tears and in her look there was
nothing but love and an entreaty for forgiveness.

"My darling Mummy!" she repeated, straining all the power of her love to
find some way of taking on herself the excess of grief that crushed her
mother.

And again in a futile struggle with reality her mother, refusing to
believe that she could live when her beloved boy was killed in the bloom
of life, escaped from reality into a world of delirium.

Natasha did not remember how that day passed nor that night, nor the
next day and night. She did not sleep and did not leave her mother. Her
persevering and patient l