Entering Andrew’s room with Natásha, Mary realizes her brother is dying. The three try to talk, but conversation is difficult for them. When Andrew’s son comes into the room, he intuitively understands everything.
Entering Andrew’s room with Natásha, Mary realizes her brother is dying. The three try to talk, but conversation is difficult for them. When Andrew’s son comes into the room, he intuitively understands everything.
Book 12, Chapter 15
Entering Andrew’s room with Natásha, Mary realizes her brother is dying. The three try to talk, but conversation is difficult for them. When Andrew’s son comes into the room, he intuitively understands everything.
Summary:
When Mary and Natásha enter Andrew’s room, Mary realizes what Natásha had tried to tell her – that Andrew was dying. Andrew speaks kindly to Mary, but his gaze seems to suggest he knows he is not long for this world. In Andrew’s gaze could be felt an estrangement from everything belonging to this world, terrible in one who is alive. Evidently only with an effort did he understand anything living; but it was obvious that he failed to understand, not because he lacked the power to do so but because he understood something else-something the living did not and could not understand-and which wholly occupied his mind. This awareness made their conversation cold and disconnected and it continually broke off. Mary, Andrew and Natásha try to talk about many things, about conditions in Moscow, about Mary’s journey, about the affection between Mary and Nicholas, about Andrew’s son, about how Natásha has cared for Andrew. But they find conversation impossible. Andrew’s new awareness has come between them. Our feelings, he thinks, all those ideas that seem so important to us, are unnecessary. We cannot understand one another, and he remained silent. But, when Prince Andrew’s little son of seven enters the room, he could not have had a better or more profound understanding of the meaning of the scene he had witnessed between his father, Mary, and Natásha. He understood the situation completely, and, leaving the room without crying, went silently up to Natásha who had come out with him and looked shyly at her with his beautiful, thoughtful eyes, then his uplifted, rosy upper lip trembled and leaning his head against her he began to cry.
quote from the chapter:
Yes, to them it must seem sad! he thought. But how simple it is. The fowls of the air sow not, neither do they reap, yet your Father feedeth them, he said to himself and wished to say to Princess Mary; but no, they will take it their own way, they won’t understand! They can’t understand that all those feelings they prize so-all our feelings, all those ideas that seem so important to us, are unnecessary. We cannot understand one another, and he remained silent. Prince Andrew’s little son was seven. He could scarcely read, and knew nothing. After that day he lived through many things, gaining knowledge, observation, and experience, but had he possessed all the faculties he afterwards acquired, he could not have had a better or more profound understanding of the meaning of the scene he had witnessed between his father, Mary, and Natásha, than he had then. He understood it completely, and, leaving the room without crying, went silently up to Natásha who had come out with him and looked shyly at her with his beautiful, thoughtful eyes, then his uplifted, rosy upper lip trembled and leaning his head against her he began to cry.
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