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“Whose calche is that?” she inquired, leaning out of the carriage window.

“Why, didn’t you know, Miss?” replied the maid. “The wounded prince: he spent the night in our house and is going with us.”

“But who is it? What’s his name?”

“It’s our intended that was—Prince Bolknski himself! They say he is dying,” replied the maid with a sigh.

Snya jumped out of the coach and ran to the countess. The countess, tired out and already dressed in shawl and bonnet for her journey, was pacing up and down the drawing room, waiting for the household to assemble for the usual silent prayer with closed doors before starting. Natsha was not in the room.

“Mamma,” said Snya, “Prince Andrew is here, mortally wounded. He is going with us.”

The countess opened her eyes in dismay and, seizing Snya’s arm, glanced around.

“Natsha?” she murmured.

At that moment this news had only one significance for both of them. They knew their Natsha, and alarm as to what would happen if she heard this news stifled all sympathy for the man they both liked.

“Natsha does not know yet, but he is going with us,” said Snya.

“You say he is dying?”

Snya nodded.

The countess put her arms around Snya and began to cry.

“The ways of God are past finding out!” she thought, feeling that the Almighty Hand, hitherto unseen, was becoming manifest in all that was now taking place.

“Well, Mamma? Everything is ready. What’s the matter?” asked Natsha, as with animated face she ran into the room.

“Nothing,” answered the countess. “If everything is ready let us start.”

And the countess bent over her reticule to hide her agitated face. Snya embraced Natsha and kissed her.

Natsha looked at her inquiringly.

“What is it? What has happened?”

“Nothing... No...”

“Is it something very bad for me? What is it?” persisted Natsha with her quick intuition.

Snya sighed and made no reply. The count, Ptya, Madame Schoss, Mvra Kuzmnichna, and Vaslich came into the drawing room and, having closed the doors, they all sat down and remained for some moments silently seated without looking at one another.

The count was the first to rise, and with a loud sigh crossed himself before the icon. All the others did the same. Then the count embraced Mvra Kuzmnichna and Vaslich, who were to remain in Moscow, and while they caught at his hand and kissed his shoulder he patted their backs lightly with some vaguely affectionate and comforting words. The countess went into the oratory and there Snya found her on her knees before the icons that had been left here and there hanging on the wall. (The most precious ones, with which some family tradition was connected, were being taken with them.)

In the porch and in the yard the men whom Ptya had armed with swords and daggers, with trousers tucked inside their high boots and with belts and girdles tightened, were taking leave of those remaining behind.

As is always the case at a departure, much had been forgotten or put in the wrong place, and for a long time two menservants stood one on each side of the open door and the carriage steps waiting to help the countess in, while maids rushed with cushions and bundles from the house to the carriages, the calche, the phaeton, and back again.

“They always will forget everything!” said the countess. “Don’t you know I can’t sit like that?”

And Dunysha, with clenched teeth, without replying but with an aggrieved look on her face, hastily got into the coach to rearrange the seat.

“Oh, those servants!” said the count, swaying his head.

Efm, the old coachman, who was the only one the countess trusted to drive her, sat perched up high on the box and did not so much as glance round at what was going on behind him. From thirty years’ experience he knew it would be some time yet before the order, “Be off, in God’s name!” would be given him: and he knew that even when it was said he would be stopped once or twice more while they sent back to fetch something that had been forgotten, and even after that he would again be stopped and the countess herself would lean out of the window and beg him for the love of heaven to drive carefully down the hill. He knew all this and therefore waited calmly for what would happen, with more patience than the horses, especially the near one, the chestnut Falcon, who was pawing the ground and champing his bit. At last all were seated, the carriage steps were folded and pulled up, the door was shut, somebody was sent for a traveling case, and the countess leaned out and said what she had to say. Then Efm deliberately doffed his hat and began crossing himself. The postilion and all the other servants did the same. “Off, in God’s name!” said Efm, putting on his hat. “Start!” The postilion started the horses, the off pole horse tugged at his collar, the high springs creaked, and the body of the coach swayed. The footman sprang onto the box of the moving coach which jolted as it passed out of the yard onto the uneven roadway; the other vehicles jolted in their turn, and the procession of carriages moved up the street. In the carriages, the calche, and the phaeton, all crossed themselves as they passed the church opposite the house. Those who were to remain in Moscow walked on either side of the vehicles seeing the travelers off.

Rarely had Natsha experienced so joyful a feeling as now, sitting in the carriage beside the countess and gazing at the slowly receding walls of forsaken, agitated Moscow. Occasionally she leaned out of the carriage window and looked back and then forward at the long train of wounded in front of them. Almost at the head of the line she could see the raised hood of Prince Andrew’s calche. She did not know who was in it, but each time she looked at the procession her eyes sought that calche. She knew it was right in front.

In Kdrino, from the Niktski, Prsnya, and Podnovnsk Streets came several other trains of vehicles similar to the Rostvs’, and as they passed along the Sadvaya Street the carriages and carts formed two rows abreast.

As they were going round the Skharev water tower Natsha, who was inquisitively and alertly scrutinizing the people driving or walking past, suddenly cried out in joyful surprise:

“Dear me! Mamma, Snya, look, it’s he!”

“Who? Who?”

“Look! Yes, on my word, it’s Bezkhov!” said Natsha, putting her head out of the carriage and staring at a tall, stout man in a coachman’s long coat, who from his manner of walking and moving was evidently a gentleman in disguise, and who was passing under the arch of the Skharev tower accompanied by a small, sallow-faced, beardless old man in a frieze coat.