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546 was much better that day and Natásha was sitting with him. In the next room sat the count and countess respectfully conversing with the prior, who was calling on them as old acquaintances and benefactors of the monastery. Sónya was there too, tormented by curiosity as to what Prince Andrew and Natásha were talking about. She heard the sound of their voices through the door. That door opened and Natásha came out, looking excited. Not noticing the monk, who had risen to greet her and was drawing back the wide sleeve on his right arm, she went up to Sónya and took her hand.

“Natásha, what are you about? Come here!” said the countess.

Natásha went up to the monk for his blessing, and he advised her to turn for aid to God and His saint.

As soon as the prior withdrew, Natásha took her friend by the hand and went with her into the unoccupied room.

“Sónya, will he live?” she asked. “Sónya, how happy I am, and how unhappy! Sónya, dovey, everything is as it used to be. If only he lives! He cannot because because of” and Natásha burst into tears.

“Yes! I knew it! Thank God!” murmured Sónya. “He will live.”

Sónya was not less agitated than her friend by the latter's fear and grief and by her own personal feelings which she shared with no one. Sobbing, she kissed and comforted Natásha. “If only he lives!” she thought. Having wept, talked, and wiped away their tears, the two friends went together to Prince Andrew's door. Natásha opened it cautiously and glanced into the room, Sónya standing beside her at the half-open door.

Prince Andrew was lying raised high on three pillows. His pale face was calm, his eyes closed, and they could see his regular breathing.

“O, Natásha!” Sónya suddenly almost screamed, catching her companion's arm and stepping back from the door.

“What? What is it?” asked Natásha.

“It's that, that” said Sónya, with a white face and trembling lips.

Natásha softly closed the door and went with Sónya to the window, not yet understanding what the latter was telling her.

“You remember,” said Sónya with a solemn and frightened expression. “You remember when I looked in the mirror for you at Otrádnoe at Christmas? Do you remember what I saw?”

“Yes, yes!” cried Natásha opening her eyes wide, and vaguely recalling that Sónya had told her something about Prince Andrew whom she had seen lying down.

“You remember?” Sónya went on. “I saw it then and told everybody, you and Dunyásha. I saw him lying on a bed,” said she, making a gesture with her hand and a lifted finger at each detail, “and that he had his eyes closed and was covered just with a pink quilt, and that his hands were folded,” she concluded, convincing herself that the details she had just seen were exactly what she had seen in the mirror.

She had in fact seen nothing then but had mentioned the first thing that came into her head, but what she had invented then seemed to her now as real as any other recollection. She not only remembered what she had then said—that he turned to look at her and smiled and was covered with something red but was firmly convinced that she had then seen and said that he was covered with a pink quilt and that his eyes were closed.

“Yes, yes, it really was pink!” cried Natásha, who now thought she too remembered the word pink being used, and saw in this the most extraordinary and mysterious part of the prediction.

“But what does it mean?” she added meditatively.

“Oh, I don't know, it is all so strange,” replied Sónya, clutching at her head.

A few minutes later Prince Andrew rang and Natásha went to him, but Sónya, feeling unusually excited and touched, remained at the window thinking about the strangeness of what had occurred.

They had an opportunity that day to send letters to the army, and the countess was writing to her son.

“Sónya!” said the countess, raising her eyes from her letter as her niece passed, “Sónya, won't you write to Nicholas?” She spoke in a soft, tremulous voice, and in the weary eyes that looked over her spectacles Sónya read all that the countess meant to convey with these words. Those eyes expressed entreaty, shame at having to ask, fear of a refusal, and readiness for relentless hatred in case of such refusal.

Sónya went up to the countess and, kneeling down, kissed her hand.

“Yes, Mamma, I will write,” said she.

Sónya was softened, excited, and touched by all that had occurred that day, especially by