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During the whole week she spent in this way, that feeling grew every day. And the happiness of taking communion, or “communing” as Agrafna Ivnovna, joyously playing with the word, called it, seemed to Natsha so great that she felt she should never live till that blessed Sunday.
But the happy day came, and on that memorable Sunday, when, dressed in white muslin, she returned home after communion, for the first time for many months she felt calm and not oppressed by the thought of the life that lay before her.
The doctor who came to see her that day ordered her to continue the powders he had prescribed a fortnight previously.
“She must certainly go on taking them morning and evening,” said he, evidently sincerely satisfied with his success. “Only, please be particular about it.
“Be quite easy,” he continued playfully, as he adroitly took the gold coin in his palm. “She will soon be singing and frolicking about. The last medicine has done her a very great deal of good. She has freshened up very much.”
The countess, with a cheerful expression on her face, looked down at her nails and spat a little for luck as she returned to the drawing room.
At the beginning of July more and more disquieting reports about the war began to spread in Moscow; people spoke of an appeal by the Emperor to the people, and of his coming himself from the army to Moscow. And as up to the eleventh of July no manifesto or appeal had been received, exaggerated reports became current about them and about the position of Russia. It was said that the Emperor was leaving the army because it was in danger, it was said that Smolnsk had surrendered, that Napoleon had an army of a million and only a miracle could save Russia.
On the eleventh of July, which was Saturday, the manifesto was received but was not yet in print, and Pierre, who was at the Rostvs’, promised to come to dinner next day, Sunday, and bring a copy of the manifesto and appeal, which he would obtain from Count Rostopchn.
That Sunday, the Rostvs went to Mass at the Razumvskis’ private chapel as usual. It was a hot July day. Even at ten o’clock, when the Rostvs got out of their carriage at the chapel, the sultry air, the shouts of hawkers, the light and gay summer clothes of the crowd, the dusty leaves of the trees on the boulevard, the sounds of the band and the white trousers of a battalion marching to parade, the rattling of wheels on the cobblestones, and the brilliant, hot sunshine were all full of that summer languor, that content and discontent with the present, which is most strongly felt on a bright, hot day in town. All the Moscow notabilities, all the Rostvs’ acquaintances, were at the Razumvskis’ chapel, for, as if expecting something to happen, many wealthy families who usually left town for their country estates had not gone away that summer. As Natsha, at her mother’s side, passed through the crowd behind a liveried footman who cleared the way for them, she heard a young man speaking about her in too loud a whisper.
“That’s Rostva, the one who...”
“She’s much thinner, but all the same she’s pretty!”
She heard, or thought she heard, the names of Kurgin and Bolknski. But she was always imagining that. It always seemed to her that everyone who looked at her was thinking only of what had happened to her. With a sinking heart, wretched as she always was now when she found herself in a crowd, Natsha in her lilac silk dress trimmed with black lace walked—as women can walk—with the more repose and stateliness the greater the pain and shame in her soul. She knew for certain that she was pretty, but this no longer gave her satisfaction as it used to. On the contrary it tormented her more than anything else of late, and particularly so on this bright, hot summer day in town. “It’s Sunday again—another week past,” she thought, recalling that she had been here the Sunday before, “and always the same life that is no life, and the same surroundings in which it used to be so easy to live. I’m pretty, I’m young, and I know that now I am good. I used to be bad, but now I know I am good,” she thought, “but yet my best years are slipping by and are no good to anyone.” She stood by her mother’s side and exchanged nods with acquaintances near her. From habit she scrutinized the ladies’ dresses, condemned the bearing of a lady standing close by who was not crossing herself properly but in a cramped manner, and again she thought with vexation that she was herself being judged and was judging others, and suddenly, at the sound of the service, she felt horrified at her own vileness, horrified that the former purity of her soul was again lost to her.
A comely, fresh-looking old man was conducting the service with that mild solemnity which has so elevating and soothing an effect on the souls of the worshipers. The gates of the sanctuary screen were closed, the curtain was slowly drawn, and from behind it a soft mysterious voice pronounced some words. Tears, the cause of which she herself did not understand, made Natsha’s breast heave, and a joyous but oppressive feeling agitated her.
“Teach me what I should do, how to live my life, how I may grow good forever, forever!” she pleaded.
The deacon came out onto the raised space before the altar screen and, holding his thumb extended, drew his long hair from under his dalmatic and, making the sign of the cross on his breast, began in a loud and solemn voice to recite the words of the prayer....
“In peace let us pray unto the Lord.”
“As one community, without distinction of class, without enmity, united by brotherly love—let us pray!” thought Natsha.
“For the peace that is from above, and for the salvation of our souls.”
“For the world of angels and all the spirits who dwell above us,” prayed Natsha.
When they prayed for the warriors, she thought of her brother and Densov. When they prayed for all traveling by land and sea, she remembered Prince Andrew, prayed for him, and asked God to forgive her all the wrongs she had done him. When they prayed for those who love us, she prayed for the members of her own family, her father and mother and Snya, realizing for the first time how wrongly she had acted toward them, and feeling all the strength of her love for them. When they prayed for those who hate us, she tried to think of her enemies and people who hated her, in order to pray for them. She included among her enemies the creditors and all who had business dealings with her father, and always at the thought of enemies and those who hated her she remembered Anatole who had done her so much harm—and though he did not hate her she gladly prayed for him as for an enemy. Only at prayer did she feel able to think clearly and calmly of Prince Andrew and Anatole, as men for whom her feelings were as nothing compared with her awe and devotion to God. When they prayed for the Imperial family and the Synod, she bowed very low and made the sign of the cross, saying to herself that even if she did not understand, still she could not doubt, and at any rate loved the governing Synod and prayed for it.
