Book 3 Part 1 Chapter 16 (Chapter 180 overall)

Chapter Summaries: Dole: The Rostofs in Moscow. Natasha's illness. The utility of doctors. Natasha's symptoms.
Maude: Natasha's illness. The use of doctors
Briggs: Natasha's illness. The absurd and expensive ministrations of doctors.
Pevear and Volokhonsky: Natasha in Moscow. Physical and moral illness. The Rostovs stay for the summer.

Translation:

XVI.

Receiving the news about the disease of Natasha, the countess, still not really healthy and weak, with Petya and with all the house, arrived in Moscow, and all the family of the Rostovs got over from Marya Dmitrievna’s into their house and really settled in Moscow.

The disease of Natasha was so serious, that, to her happiness and to the happiness of her relatives, the idea about all that was the cause of her disease, her act and break with her groom got over to the second plan. She was so sick that it could not be to think about in how much she was to blame in all that happened, so as she did not eat, not sleep, noticeably lost weight, coughed and was, as gave the feeling of the doctor, in danger. It was needed to think only so that to help her. Doctors rode to Natasha separately, in councils, said much by French, and by German, and by Latin, condemned one another, and prescribed the most diverse medicine from all their famous diseases; but not one of them came to the head of that simple idea, that they may not know that disease which suffered Natasha, as it may not be known or only a disease, which obsessed an alive person: for every alive person has their peculiarities and always has their particular new, complex, unknown to medicine disease, not a disease of the lungs, liver, skin, heart, nerves and etc., recorded in medicine, but a disease, consisting from one of the countless connections and misery of these organs. This simple idea could come to doctors (so the same as it may not come to a sorcerer’s head the idea that he may not conjure), because of how their business life consisted in so that to mend, because of how behind that they received money and because of how in this business they spent the best years of their life. But the main thing — this idea could not come to doctors because of how they saw that they undoubtedly are useful, and were really useful for all the home of the Rostovs. They were useful not because of how they forced the sick to swallow for the most part a harmful substance (the harm of this was a little sensitive, because of how the harmful substance was griven in a small quantity), but they were useful, were necessary, were inevitable (the cause — why there always is and will be imaginary healers, sorcerers, and homeopaths), because of how they satisfied the moral needs of the sick and people affectionate to the sick. They satisfied that eternal human need of hope in relief, the need of empathy and activities which test a person in the time of misery. They satisfied that eternal human — in a child noticeable in the most primitive form — need to rub that place which was bruised. The child will be as killed and immediately again run into the hands of the mother, nanny, so he will be kissed and rubbed in the sick place, and it is made easier, when the sick place is rubbed or kissed. The child did not believe so in the strongest and the wisest, it was not a means to help his pain. In hope in relief, and an expression of empathy in that time as the mother rubs his bump, consoles him. The doctors for Natasha were useful by that how they kissed and rubbed the ouch, assuring that now it will pass, should the coachman go in the Arbat pharmacy and take a ruble and seven coins for powders and pills in a pretty box, and should these powders, indispensable in two hours, in no way more and not less, will in boiled water be taken by the sick.

That same would do Sonya, the count and countess, as how would they look, not undertaking it, should not these pills by the hour, drank with a lukewarm chicken cutlet and all the details of life prescribed by the doctor, complying with that form of occupation and comfort for the surrounding? How would the count have carried over the disease of his beloved daughter, if he would not have known that cost a thousand rubles the disease of Natasha, and that he did not pity another thousand, so that to do her favor; if he would not have known how should she not be mended, he did not pity another thousand and to carry her for abroad and there make councils; should he not have the opportunity of telling the details about how Metivier and Feller did not understand, but Friz got it, and Mudrov still better defined the disease? What would the countess do, should she not argue sometimes with the sick Natasha for that she did not quite follow the instructions of the doctor?

— That way you will never recover, — she said, under annoyance forgetting her grief, — should you not listen to the doctor and not in time take the medicine! Because it cannot be to joke by this, when in you may become pneumonia, — said the countess, and in the pronunciation of the not incomprehensible for her alone words she now found great comfort. What would Sonya do, should in her was not a joyful consciousness of how she in the first time did not undress for three nights so that to be ready to enforce in accuracy all the prescriptions of the doctor, and that she now was not sleeping at night, so that but to let pass the hour in which it was needed to give the low-harm pills from the golden box? Even most of Natasha, who, although saying that no medicine will cure her, and that all this is nonsense, to her it was happy to see that for her was made so much donation, that she was needed to at the famous hour take the medicine. And she was even happy that she, neglecting the execution of the prescribed, could show that she did not believe in the treatment and did not cherish her life.

The doctor drove every day, felt her pulse, watched her tongue and, not turning attention to her killed face, joked with her. But behind that, when he went out to another room, the countess hastily exited behind him, and he, taking a serious view and shaking thoughtfully his head, spoke that although there is danger, he hoped in the action of this last medicine, and that he needed to wait and look; that the disease was more moral, yet...

The countess, trying to hide this act from herself and from the doctor, stuck in his hand gold and any time with a reassured heart returned to the sick.

The signs of disease Natasha took place in that she ate little, slept little, coughed and never quickened. The doctor said that the sick cannot be abandoned without medical assistance, and therefore in the stuffy air held her in the city. And in the summer of the year 1812 the Rostovs were not leaving to the village.

Despite the great number of swallowed pills, drops and powders from jars and boxes, of which madame Schoss, the huntress to these things, collected a big collection, despite the absence of the habitual village life of her youth: the grief of Natasha started covering in layers the impressions of lived life, it stopped the agonizing pain lying on her heart, began to kneel past, and Natasha began to physically recover.

Time: Summer of 1812

Locations: The Rostofs' house in Moscow
Mentioned: Marya Dmitrievna's house, Arbat

Pevear and Volokhonsky Notes: We go to the other Rostovs, with the countess going to Moscow and the Rostovs settling in their house there. Natasha’s illness makes the perception of her more of that of a victim than an instigator. Tolstoy spends time criticizing foreign doctors. “The simple thought never occurred to any of them that they could not know the illness Natasha was suffering from, as no illness that afflicts a living human being can be known: for each human being has his peculiarities”.

The value of doctors lie completely in their appearance of usefulness. They make people feel better because they seem to be doing something. This means, from a story standpoint, that the Rostovs stay in Moscow for the
summer and Natasha starts to get better physically because she begins to get over her grief.

Characters (characters who do not appear, but are mentioned are placed in italics. First appearances are in Bold. First mentions are underlined. Final appearance denoted by *):

Natasha

Countess Rostova (“countess”)

Petya

Marya Dmitrievna

Prince Andrei (her betrothed)

Sonya

Count Rostof (“the count”)

Metivier

Teller (as with the next two, you could argue these are somewhat theoretical doctors, though Metivier is lumped in with them, so probably we should count these as real characters. “Feller” in Wiener, Edmonds and Bell.)

Friese (“Friez” in Dunnigan, Briggs, and Garnett. “Frise” in Maude, Bell, and Mandelker.)

Mudrof (“Mudrov” in Wiener, Dunnigan, and Maude. “Moudrow” in Bell.)

Madame Schoss

(also doctors)

Abridged Versions: Start of Chapter 8 in Bell. No chapter break at the end.
Gibian: Chapter 16.

Fuller: Entire chapter is cut.

Komroff: The long digression about the doctors that makes up the majority of the chapter is severely shortened. The Madame Schoss reference is removed. No break.

Kropotkin: Chapter 10: The chapter jettisons the first paragraph or so of the chapter, starting with Natashia’s symptoms. It then cuts quickly towards the end of the chapter, cutting out all of the doctor digression. No break.

Bromfield: Check chapter 1 of this part.
Simmons: Chapter 16: most of the discussion about doctors is removed.

Additional Notes:

The Kreutzer Sonata (Page 33): ”I see you really don’t like doctors,” I said, noting his particularly spiteful tone of voice every time he made mention of them. “It’s not a matter of likes or dislikes. They destroyed my life,

just as they’ve destroyed and go on destroying the lives of thousands of people, hundreds of thousands, and I can’t help connect the effect with the cause. I understand that they want to earn money, just like lawyers

and others, and I’d gladly give them half their property, as long as they’d refrain from interfering in our family life and would never come anywhere near us.”

The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Maude): "The doctors couldn't say--at least they could, but each of them said something different."

(to the doctor) "It was not a question of Ivan Ilych's life or death, but one between a floating kidney and appendicitis...

From the doctor's summing up Ivan Ilych concluded that things were bad, but that for the doctor, and perhaps for everybody

else, it was a matter of indifference, though for him it was bad. And this conclusion struck him painfully, arousing in him a

great feeling of pity for himself and of bitterness towards the doctor's indifference to a matter of such importance."

Blythe: ..Ivan Ilyich...just as he made others suffer and cringe by exercising the law in a professionally obscure manner which made them powerless,

he sees that the doctors are doing the very same kind of thing to him. Men make money and reputation by joining one or

other of "the conspiracy of clerks."...