night. And these pictures presented themselves to her so clearly and in such detail that they seemed now present, now past, and now future.
She vividly recalled the moment when he had his first stroke and was being dragged along by his armpits through the garden at Bald Hills, muttering something with his helpless tongue, twitching his gray eyebrows and looking uneasily and timidly at her.
“Even then he wanted to tell me what he told me the day he died,” she thought. “He had always thought what he said then.” And she recalled in all its detail the night at Bald Hills before he had the last stroke, when with a foreboding of disaster she had remained at home against his will. She had not slept and had stolen downstairs on tiptoe, and going to the door of the conservatory where he slept that night had listened at the door. In a suffering and weary voice he was saying something to Tikhon, speaking of the Crimea and its warm nights and of the Empress. Evidently he had wanted to talk. “And why didn’t he call me? Why didn’t he let me be there instead of Tikhon?” Princess Mary had thought and thought again now. “Now he will never tell anyone what he had in his soul. Never will that moment return for him or for me when he might have said all he longed to say, and not Tikhon but I might have heard and understood him. Why didn’t I enter the room?” she thought. “Perhaps he would then have said to me what he said the day he died. While talking to Tikhon he asked about me twice. He wanted to see me, and I was standing close by, outside the door. It was sad and painful for him to talk to Tikhon who did not understand him. I remember how he began speaking to him about Lise as if she were alive—he had forgotten she was dead—and Tikhon reminded him that she was no more, and he shouted, ‘Fool!’ He was greatly depressed. From behind the door I heard how he lay down on his bed groaning and loudly exclaimed, ‘My God!’ Why didn’t I go in then? What could he have done to me? What could I have lost? And perhaps he would then have been comforted and would have said that word to me.” And Princess Mary uttered aloud the caressing word he had said to her on the day of his death. “Dear-est!” she repeated, and began sobbing, with tears that relieved her soul. She now saw his face before her. And not the face she had known ever since she could remember and had always seen at a distance, but the timid, feeble face she had seen for the first time quite closely, with all its wrinkles and details, when she stooped near to his mouth to catch what he said.
“Dear-est!” she repeated again.
“What was he thinking when he uttered that word? What is he thinking now?” This question suddenly presented itself to her, and in answer she saw him before her with the expression that was on his face as he lay in his coffin with his chin bound up with a white handkerchief. And the horror that had seized her when she touched him and convinced herself that that was not he, but something mysterious and horrible, seized her again. She tried to think of something else and to pray, but could do neither. With wide-open eyes she gazed at the moonlight and the shadows, expecting every moment to see his dead face, and she felt that the silence brooding over the house and within it held her fast.
“Dunyasha,” she whispered. “Dunyasha!” she screamed wildly, and tearing herself out of this silence she ran to the servants’ quarters to meet her old nurse and the maidservants who came running toward her.

13. Nicholas and Ilyín ride to Boguchárovo. They are asked by Alpátych to protect the princess. Nicholas makes her acquaintance and places himself at her service
    ON THE SEVENTEENTH OF AUGUST Rostov and Ilyin, accompanied by Lavrushka who had just returned from captivity and by an hussar orderly, left their quarters at Yankovo, ten miles from Bogucharovo, and went for a ride—to try a new horse Ilyin had bought and to find out whether there was any hay to be had in the villages.
    For the last three days Bogucharovo had lain between the two hostile armies, so that it was as easy for the Russian rearguard to get to it as for the French vanguard; Rostov, as a careful squadron commander, wished to take such provisions as remained at Bogucharovo before the French could get them.
    Rostov and Ilyin were in the merriest of moods. On the way to Bogucharovo, a princely estate with a dwelling house and farm where they hoped to find many domestic serfs and pretty girls, they questioned Lavrushka about Napoleon and laughed at his stories, and raced one another to try Ilyin’s horse.
    Rostov had no idea that the village he was entering was the property of that very Bolkonski who had been engaged to his sister.
    Rostov and Ilyin gave rein to their horses for a last race along the incline before reaching Bogucharovo, and Rostov, outstripping Ilyin, was the first to gallop into the village street.
    “You’re first!” cried Ilyin, flushed.
    “Yes, always first both on the grassland and here,” answered Rostov, stroking his heated Donets horse.
    “And I’d have won on my Frenchy, your excellency,” said Lavrushka from behind, alluding to his shabby cart horse, “only I didn’t wish to mortify you.”
    They rode at a footpace to the barn, where a large crowd of peasants was standing.
    Some of the men bared their heads, others stared at the new arrivals without doffing their caps. Two tall old peasants with wrinkled faces and scanty beards emerged from the tavern, smiling, staggering, and singing some incoherent song, and approached the officers.
    “Fine fellows!” said Rostov laughing. “Is there any hay here?”
    “And how like one another,” said Ilyin.
    “A mo-o-st me-r-r-y co-o-m-pa . . . !” sang one of the peasants with a blissful smile.
    One of the men came out of the crowd and went up to Rostov.
    “Who do you belong to?” he asked.
    “The French,” replied Ilyin jestingly, “and here is Napoleon himself”—and he pointed to Lavrushka.
    “Then you are Russians?” the peasant asked again.
    “And is there a large force of you here?” said another, a short man, coming up.
    “Very large,” answered Rostov. “But why have you collected here?” he added. “Is it a holiday?”
    “The old men have met to talk over the business of the commune,” replied the peasant, moving away.
    At that moment, on the road leading from the big house, two women and a man in a white hat were seen coming toward the officers.
    “The one in pink is mine, so keep off!” said Ilyin on seeing Dunyasha running resolutely toward him.
    “She’ll be ours!” said Lavrushka to Ilyin, winking.
    “What do you want, my pretty?” said Ilyin with a smile.
    “The princess ordered me to ask your regiment and your name.”
    “This is Count Rostov, squadron commander, and I am your humble servant.”
    “Co-o-om-pa-ny!” roared the tipsy peasant with a beatific smile as he looked at Ilyin talking to the girl. Following Dunyasha, Alpatych advanced to Rostov, having bared his head while still at a distance.
    “May I make bold to trouble your honor?” said he respectfully, but with a shade of contempt for the youthfulness of this officer and with a hand thrust into his bosom. “My mistress, daughter of General in Chief Prince Nicholas Bolkonski who died on the fifteenth of this month, finding herself in difficulties owing to the boorishness of these people”—he pointed to the peasants—“asks you to come up to the house. . . . Won’t you, please, ride on a little farther,” said Alpatych with a melancholy smile, “as it is not convenient in the presence of . . . ?” He pointed to the two peasants who kept as close to him as horseflies to a horse.
    “Ah! . . . Alpatych . . . Ah, Yakov Alpatych . . . Grand! Forgive us for Christ’s sake, eh?” said the peasants, smiling joyfully at him.
    Rostov looked at the tipsy peasants and smiled.
    “Or perhaps they amuse your honor?” remarked Alpatych with a staid air, as he pointed at the old men with his free hand.

“No, there’s not much to be amused at here,” said Rostov, and rode on a little way. “What’s the matter?” he asked.
“I make bold to inform your honor that the rude peasants here don’t wish to let the mistress leave the estate, and threaten to unharness her horses, so that though everything has been packed up since morning, her excellency cannot get away.”
“Impossible!” exclaimed Rostov.
“I have the honor to report to you the actual truth,” said Alpatych.
Rostov dismounted, gave his horse to the orderly, and followed Alpatych to the house, questioning him as to the state of affairs. It appeared that the princess’ offer of corn to the peasants the previous day, and her talk with Dron and at the meeting, had actually had so bad an effect that Dron had finally given up the keys and joined the peasants and had not appeared when Alpatych sent for him; and that in the morning when the princess gave orders to harness for her journey, the peasants had come in a large crowd to the barn and sent word that they would not let her leave the village: that there was an order not to move, and that they would unharness the horses. Alpatych had gone out to admonish them, but was told