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After taking a turn along the Podnovnski Boulevard, Balag began to rein in, and turning back drew up at the crossing of the old Konysheny Street.
The young fellow on the box jumped down to hold the horses and Anatole and Dlokhov went along the pavement. When they reached the gate Dlokhov whistled. The whistle was answered, and a maidservant ran out.
“Come into the courtyard or you’ll be seen; she’ll come out directly,” said she.
Dlokhov stayed by the gate. Anatole followed the maid into the courtyard, turned the corner, and ran up into the porch.
He was met by Gabriel, Mrya Dmtrievna’s gigantic footman.
“Come to the mistress, please,” said the footman in his deep bass, intercepting any retreat.
“To what Mistress? Who are you?” asked Anatole in a breathless whisper.
“Kindly step in, my orders are to bring you in.”
“Kurgin! Come back!” shouted Dlokhov. “Betrayed! Back!”
Dlokhov, after Anatole entered, had remained at the wicket gate and was struggling with the yard porter who was trying to lock it. With a last desperate effort Dlokhov pushed the porter aside, and when Anatole ran back seized him by the arm, pulled him through the wicket, and ran back with him to the troyka.
Mrya Dmtrievna, having found Snya weeping in the corridor, made her confess everything, and intercepting the note to Natsha she read it and went into Natsha’s room with it in her hand.
“You shameless good-for-nothing!” said she. “I won’t hear a word.”
Pushing back Natsha who looked at her with astonished but tearless eyes, she locked her in; and having given orders to the yard porter to admit the persons who would be coming that evening, but not to let them out again, and having told the footman to bring them up to her, she seated herself in the drawing room to await the abductors.
When Gabriel came to inform her that the men who had come had run away again, she rose frowning, and clasping her hands behind her paced through the rooms a long time considering what she should do. Toward midnight she went to Natsha’s room fingering the key in her pocket. Snya was sitting sobbing in the corridor. “Mrya Dmtrievna, for God’s sake let me in to her!” she pleaded, but Mrya Dmtrievna unlocked the door and went in without giving her an answer.... “Disgusting, abominable... In my house... horrid girl, hussy! I’m only sorry for her father!” thought she, trying to restrain her wrath. “Hard as it may be, I’ll tell them all to hold their tongues and will hide it from the count.” She entered the room with resolute steps. Natsha lying on the sofa, her head hidden in her hands, and she did not stir. She was in just the same position in which Mrya Dmtrievna had left her.
“A nice girl! Very nice!” said Mrya Dmtrievna. “Arranging meetings with lovers in my house! It’s no use pretending: you listen when I speak to you!” And Mrya Dmtrievna touched her arm. “Listen when I speak! You’ve disgraced yourself like the lowest of hussies. I’d treat you differently, but I’m sorry for your father, so I will conceal it.”
Natsha did not change her position, but her whole body heaved with noiseless, convulsive sobs which choked her. Mrya Dmtrievna glanced round at Snya and seated herself on the sofa beside Natsha.
“It’s lucky for him that he escaped me; but I’ll find him!” she said in her rough voice. “Do you hear what I am saying or not?” she added.
She put her large hand under Natsha’s face and turned it toward her. Both Mrya Dmtrievna and Snya were amazed when they saw how Natsha looked. Her eyes were dry and glistening, her lips compressed, her cheeks sunken.
“Let me be!... What is it to me?... I shall die!” she muttered, wrenching herself from Mrya Dmtrievna’s hands with a vicious effort and sinking down again into her former position.
“Natalie!” said Mrya Dmtrievna. “I wish for your good. Lie still, stay like that then, I won’t touch you. But listen. I won’t tell you how guilty you are. You know that yourself. But when your father comes back tomorrow what am I to tell him? Eh?”
Again Natsha’s body shook with sobs.
“Suppose he finds out, and your brother, and your betrothed?”
“I have no betrothed: I have refused him!” cried Natsha.
“That’s all the same,” continued Mrya Dmtrievna. “If they hear of this, will they let it pass? He, your father, I know him... if he challenges him to a duel will that be all right? Eh?”
“Oh, let me be! Why have you interfered at all? Why? Why? Who asked you to?” shouted Natsha, raising herself on the sofa and looking malignantly at Mrya Dmtrievna.
“But what did you want?” cried Mrya Dmtrievna, growing angry again. “Were you kept under lock and key? Who hindered his coming to the house? Why carry you off as if you were some gypsy singing girl?... Well, if he had carried you off... do you think they wouldn’t have found him? Your father, or brother, or your betrothed? And he’s a scoundrel, a wretch—that’s a fact!”
“He is better than any of you!” exclaimed Natsha getting up. “If you hadn’t interfered... Oh, my God! What is it all? What is it? Snya, why?... Go away!”
And she burst into sobs with the despairing vehemence with which people bewail disasters they feel they have themselves occasioned. Mrya Dmtrievna was to speak again but Natsha cried out:
“Go away! Go away! You all hate and despise me!” and she threw herself back on the sofa.
Mrya Dmtrievna went on admonishing her for some time, enjoining on her that it must all be kept from her father and assuring her that nobody would know anything about it if only Natsha herself would undertake to forget it all and not let anyone see that something had happened. Natsha did not reply, nor did she sob any longer, but she grew cold and had a shivering fit. Mrya Dmtrievna put a pillow under her head, covered her with two quilts, and herself brought her some lime-flower water, but Natsha did not respond to her.
“Well, let her sleep,” said Mrya Dmtrievna as she went out of the room supposing Natsha to be asleep.
But Natsha was not asleep; with pale face and fixed wide-open eyes she looked straight before her. All that night she did not sleep or weep and did not speak to Snya who got up and went to her several times.
Next day Count Rostv returned from his estate near Moscow in time for lunch as he had promised. He was in very good spirits; the affair with the purchaser was going on satisfactorily, and there was nothing to keep him any longer in Moscow, away from the countess whom he missed. Mrya Dmtrievna met him and told him that Natsha had been very unwell the day before and that they had sent for the doctor, but that she was better now. Natsha had not left her room that morning. With compressed and parched lips and dry fixed eyes, she sat at the window, uneasily watching the people who drove past and hurriedly glancing round at anyone who entered the room. She was evidently expecting news of him and that he would come or would write to her.
