【有声英语文学名著】战争与和平 Book 11（32）

 Chapter 32

 
Seven days had passed since Prince Andrey found himself in the ambulance station on the field of Borodino. His feverish 1 state and the inflammation of his bowels 2, which were injured, were in the doctor’s opinion sure to carry him off. But on the seventh day he ate with pleasure a piece of bread with some tea, and the doctor noticed that his temperature was lower. He had regained 3 consciousness that morning. The first night after they left Moscow had been fairly warm and he had remained in the caleche, but at Mytishchi the wounded man himself asked to be taken out and given some tea. The pain caused by his removal into the hut had made him groan 4 aloud and again lose consciousness. When he had been placed on his camp bed he lay for a long time motionless with closed eyes. Then he opened them and whispered softly: “And the tea?” His remembering such a small detail of everyday life astonished the doctor. He felt Prince Andrey’s pulse, and to his surprise and dissatisfaction found it had improved. He was dissatisfied because he knew by experience that if his patient did not die now, he would do so a little later with greater suffering. Timokhin, the red-nosed major of Prince Andrey’s regiment 5, had joined him in Moscow and was being taken along with him, having been wounded in the leg at the battle of Borodino. They were accompanied by a doctor, Prince Andrey’s valet, his coach. man, and two orderlies.
They gave Prince Andrey some tea. He drank it eagerly, looking with feverish eyes at the door in front of him as if trying to understand and remember something.
“I don’t want any more. Is Timokhin here?” he asked.
Timokhin crept along the bench to him.
“I am here, your excellency.”
“How’s your wound?”
“Mine, sir? All right. But how about you?”
Prince Andrey again pondered as if trying to remember something.
“Couldn’t one get a book?” he asked.
“What book?”
“The Gospels. I haven’t one.”
The doctor promised to procure 6 it for him and began to ask how he was feeling. Prince Andrey answered all his questions reluctantly but reasonably, and then said he wanted a bolster 7 placed under him as he was uncomfortable and in great pain. The doctor and valet lifted the cloak with which he was covered and, making wry 8 faces at the noisome 9 smell of mortifying 10 flesh that came from the wound, began examining that dreadful place. The doctor was very much displeased 11 about something and made a change in the dressings 12, turning the wounded man over so that he groaned 13 again and grew unconscious and delirious 14 from the agony. He kept asking them to get him the book and put it under him.
“What trouble would it be to you?” he said. “I have not got one. Please get it for me and put it under for a moment,” he pleaded in a piteous voice.
The doctor went into the passage to wash his hands.
“You fellows have no conscience,” said he to the valet who was pouring water over his hands. “For just one moment I didn’t look after you . . . It’s such pain, you know, that I wonder how he can bear it.”
“By the Lord Jesus Christ, I thought we had put something under him!” said the valet.
The first time Prince Andrey understood where he was and what was the matter with him and remembered being wounded and how was when he asked to be carried into the hut after his caleche had stopped at Mytishchi. After growing confused from pain while being carried into the hut he again regained consciousness, and while drinking tea once more recalled all that had happened to him, and above all vividly 15 remembered the moment at the ambulance station when, at the sight of the sufferings of a man he disliked, those new thoughts had come to him which promised him happiness. And those thoughts, though now vague and indefinite, again possessed 16 his soul. He remembered that he had now a new source of happiness and that this happiness had something to do with the Gospels. That was why he asked for a copy of them. The uncomfortable position in which they had put him and turned him over again confused his thoughts, and when he came to himself a third time it was in the complete stillness of the night. Everybody near him was sleeping. A cricket chirped 17 from across the passage; someone was shouting and singing in the street; cockroaches 18 rustled 20 on the table, on the icons 21, and on the walls, and a big fly flopped 22 at the head of the bed and around the candle beside him, the wick of which was charred 23 and had shaped itself like a mushroom.
His mind was not in a normal state. A healthy man usually thinks of, feels, and remembers innumerable things simultaneously 24, but has the power and will to select one sequence of thoughts or events on which to fix his whole attention. A healthy man can tear himself away from the deepest reflections to say a civil word to someone who comes in and can then return again to his own thoughts. But Prince Andrey’s mind was not in a normal state in that respect. All the powers of his mind were more active and clearer than ever, but they acted apart from his will. Most diverse thoughts and images occupied him simultaneously. At times his brain suddenly began to work with a vigor 25, clearness, and depth it had never reached when he was in health, but suddenly in the midst of its work it would turn to some unexpected idea and he had not the strength to turn it back again.
“Yes, a new happiness was revealed to me of which man cannot be deprived,” he thought as he lay in the semi-darkness of the quiet hut, gazing fixedly 26 before him with feverish wide open eyes. “A happiness lying beyond material forces, outside the material influences that act on man — a happiness of the soul alone, the happiness of loving. Every man can understand it, but to conceive it and enjoin 27 it was possible only for God. But how did God enjoin that law? And why was the Son . . .?”
And suddenly the sequence of these thoughts broke off, and Prince Andrey heard (without knowing whether it was a delusion 28 or reality) a soft whispering voice incessantly 29 and rhythmically 31 repeating “piti-piti-piti,” and then “titi,” and then again “piti-piti-piti,” and “ti-ti” once more. At the same time he felt that above his face, above the very middle of it, some strange airy structure was being erected 32 out of slender needles or splinters, to the sound of this whispered music. He felt that he had to balance carefully (though it was difficult) so that this airy structure should not collapse 33; but nevertheless it kept collapsing 34 and again slowly rising to the sound of whispered rhythmic 30 music — “it stretches, stretches, spreading out and stretching,” said Prince Andrey to himself. While listening to this whispering and feeling the sensation of this drawing out and the construction of this edifice 35 of needles, he also saw by glimpses a red halo round the candle, and heard the rustle 19 of the cockroaches and the buzzing of the fly that flopped against his pillow and his face. Each time the fly touched his face it gave him a burning sensation and yet to his surprise it did not destroy the structure, though it knocked against the very region of his face where it was rising. But besides this there was something else of importance. It was something white by the door — the statue of a sphinx, which also oppressed him.
“But perhaps that’s my shirt on the table,” he thought, “and that’s my legs, and that is the door, but why is it always stretching and drawing itself out, and ‘piti-piti-piti’ and ‘ti-ti’ and ‘piti-piti-piti’ . . .? That’s enough, please leave off!” Prince Andrey painfully entreated 36 someone. And suddenly thoughts and feelings again swam to the surface of his mind with peculiar 37 clearness and force.
“Yes — love,” he thought again quite clearly. “But not love which loves for something, for some quality, for some purpose, or for some reason, but the love which I— while dying — first experienced when I saw my enemy and yet loved him. I experienced that feeling of love which is the very essence of the soul and does not require an object. Now again I feel that bliss 38. To love one’s neighbors, to love one’s enemies, to love everything, to love God in all His manifestations 39. It is possible to love someone dear to you with human love, but an enemy can only be loved by divine love. That is why I experienced such joy when I felt that I loved that man. What has become of him? Is he alive? . . .
“When loving with human love one may pass from love to hatred 40, but divine love cannot change. No, neither death nor anything else can destroy it. It is the very essence of the soul. Yet how many people have I hated in my life? And of them all, I loved and hated none as I did her.” And he vividly pictured to himself Natasha, not as he had done in the past with nothing but her charms which gave him delight, but for the first time picturing to himself her soul. And he understood her feelings, her sufferings, shame, and remorse 41. He now understood for the first time all the cruelty of his rejection 42 of her, the cruelty of his rupture 43 with her. “If only it were possible for me to see her once more! Just once, looking into those eyes to say . . . ”
“Piti-piti-piti and ti-ti and piti-piti-piti boom!” flopped the fly . . . And his attention was suddenly carried into another world, a world of reality and delirium 44 in which something particular was happening. In that world some structure was still being erected and did not fall, something was still stretching out, and the candle with its red halo was still burning, and the same shirtlike sphinx lay near the door; but besides all this something creaked, there was a whiff of fresh air, and a new white sphinx appeared, standing 45 at the door. And that sphinx had the pale face and shining eyes of the very Natasha of whom he had just been thinking.
“Oh, how oppressive this continual delirium is,” thought Prince Andrey, trying to drive that face from his imagination. But the face remained before him with the force of reality and drew nearer. Prince Andrey wished to return that former world of pure thought, but he could not, and delirium drew him back into its domain 46. The soft whispering voice continued its rhythmic murmur 47, something oppressed him and stretched out, and the strange face was before him. Prince Andrey collected all his strength in an effort to recover his senses, he moved a little, and suddenly there was a ringing in his ears, a dimness in his eyes, and like a man plunged 48 into water he lost consciousness. When he came to himself, Natasha, that same living Natasha whom of all people he most longed to love with this new pure divine love that had been revealed to him, was kneeling before him. He realized that 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 49 on him, was restraining her sobs 50. Her face was pale and rigid 51. Only in the lower part of it something quivered.
Prince Andrey 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 52 her face over it and began kissing it, just touching 53 it lightly with her lips.
“Forgive me!” she whispered, raising her head and glancing at him. “Forgive me!”
“I love you,” said Prince Andrey.
“Forgive . . .!”
“Forgive what?” he asked.
“Forgive me for what I ha-ve do-ne!” faltered 54 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 Andrey, lifting her face with his hand so as to look into her eyes.
Those eyes, filled with happy tears, gazed at him timidly, compassionately 55, and with joyous 56 love. Natasha’s thin pale face, with its swollen 57 lips, was more than plain — it was dreadful. But Prince Andrey 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 58 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 59 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 Bolkonsky, 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 Andrey 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 60 now established between the wounded man and Natasha the thought occurred that should he recover their former engagement would be renewed, no one — least of all Natasha and Prince Andrey — spoke 61 of this: the unsettled question of life and death, which hung not only over Bolkonsky but over all Russia, shut out all other considerations.