Briggs: Andrey experiences joy and a lightness of being just before he dies.
Pevear and Volokhonsky: Prince Andrei's thoughts about death before and after Princess Marya's arrival. His 'awakening from life."
Translation:
XVI.
Prince Andrey not only knew that he would die, but he felt that he was dying, that he now was half dead. He felt the consciousness of alienation from not only the earthly and joyful, but a strange easy being. He, not in a hurry and not anxious, saw what it was to him. That formidable, eternal, unknown and distant, presence which he had not stopped feeling in continuation throughout his life, now for him was close and, — by that strange ease of being which he felt — almost understandably felt ........................................................................................
Before he was afraid of the end. He two times experienced this scary excruciating feeling of fear of death, the end, and now he did not understand it.
The first time he experienced this feeling then, when the grenade as a spinning top spun before him, and he watched on the stubble, on the bushes, on the sky, and knew that before him was death. When he woke up after the wounds and in his soul, instantly, as would be freed from holding his oppressive life, blossomed this flower of love of the eternal, free, not dependent from this life, he now was not afraid of death and did not think about it.
The more he, in that time of suffering solitude and being half-delirious, which he spent after his wounds, pondered at the new, open to him start of eternal love, by the more he, himself not feeling this, abdicated from earthly life. Everything, all love, always sacrificing himself for love, meant to love nobody, meant to not live this earthly life. And the more he penetrated this beginning of love, by that the more he abdicated from life and by that more perfectly destroyed that terrible barrier, which, when in us is no love, stands between life and death. When he, this first time, remembered about how he was needed to die, he spoke to himself: well what the same, by that better.
Yet after that night in Mytishcha, when at the floor before him appeared that whom he desired and when he, pressing to his lips her hand, crying a quiet, joyful tear, love to one woman crept in his heart unnoticed and again attached him to life. And the joyful, disturbing thought began to come to him. Remembering that moment at the dressing room point when he saw Kuragin, he now could not return to that feeling: he now was tormented by the question about whether he was alive. And he did not dare to ask this.
His disease went by his physical order, but that what Natasha called: this was made with him, happening with him two days before the arrival of Princess Marya. This was that last, moral fight between life and death, in which death won victory. This was the unexpected consciousness that he still cherished life, presented to him at the love of Natasha, and the last, conquered seizure of horror before the unknown.
This was night. He was, as usually after dinner, in an easy, feverish condition, and his thoughts were extremely clear. Sonya sat at the table. He nodded off. Suddenly the sensation of happiness overcame him.
“Ah, this is her entering!" he thought.
Really, in the location Sonya sat only with some inaudible steps entered Natasha.
With that since as she began to walk for him, he always felt this physical sensation of her proximity. She sat in the armchair, sideways to him, overshadowing him from the now light candles, and knitted a stocking. (She learned to knit tights from that since, as the time Prince Andrey said to her that she does not know how to walk behind the sick, as an old nanny that ties up tights, and that knitting stockings is somehow sedative). Her subtle fingers quickly recalled the occasionally colliding knitting needles, and her pensive profile and omitted face was clearly visible to him. She made a movement — rolled down from her knees. She was startled, looked around at him and, overshadowing the candle with her hand, in a careful, flexible and accurate movement bent, raised the roll and sat in her former position.
He watched her not stirring and saw that she needed after her movements to sigh in all her chest, but she did not decide to do this and carefully transferred her breathing.
At Trinity Lavra they talked about the past, and he said to her that should he be alive, he would thank God forever for his wound, which brought him again with her; but with that since they never talked about the future.
"Could this be or not be?" he thought now, looking at her and listening to the easy steel sound of the needle. "Is it really only behind that so weird fate brought me with her, so that I die?.. Is it really I opened the truth of life only for that I lived in a lie? I love her more only in the world. Yet what again is it for me to do, should I love her?" he said, and he suddenly unwittingly groaned by habit, which he brought in time of his misery.
Upon hearing this sound, Natasha placed a stocking, bent over nearer to him, and suddenly, noticed his glowing eyes, came up to him in an easy step and bent over.
— You do not sleep?
— No, I for a long time looked at you; I felt, when you entered. No one, as you, gives me that soft silence... this light. And I want to cry from joy.
Natasha moved nearer to him. Her face shone enthusiastic joy.
— Natasha, I also love you. More only in the world.
— But me? — she turned away for a moment. — From what again? — she said.
— From what?.. Well, as you think, as you feel by your soul, throughout your soul, will I live? As to you it seems?
— I am sure, I am sure! — almost cried out Natasha, in a passionate movement taking him behind both hands.
He was silent.
— How would it be okay! — and, taking her by the hand, he kissed her.
Natasha was happy and excited; and immediately again she remembered that this cannot be, that he needed calm. —
— However you are not sleeping, — she said, suppressing her joy. — Try to fall asleep... please.
He released, shaking her hand, and she went over to the candle and again sat in her former position. Two times she looked around at him, his eyes glowed towards her. She assigned herself a lesson at the stocking and said to herself that before that since she will not look back, while not finishing it.
Really, soon after this he closed his eyes and was asleep. He slept not for long and suddenly in a cold sweat uneasily awoke.
Falling asleep he thought all about the same he thought about all this time — about life and death. And more about death. He felt himself nearer to it.
"Love? What such is love?" he thought.
"Love prevents death. Love is life. All, all that I understand, I understand only because of that love. All that is, all exists only because of how I love. All connected by it alone. Love is God, and death, — meaning to me, the particle of love, to return to the general and eternal source." This thought seemed to him comforting. Yet this was only a thought. Something was not gotten by him, something was unilaterally-personal, mental — not obvious. And it was that same anxiety and indefiniteness. He was asleep.
He saw in a dream that he lied in that same room, in which he lied in reality, but that he was not injured, but healthy. Many different persons, worthless, indifferent, as before were at Prince Andrey. He spoke with them, arguing about something unnecessary. They collected to go somewhere. Prince Andrey vaguely remembered that all this was insignificant and that in him were other more important cares, but he continued to speak, amazing them with some empty, witty words. Little by little, unnoticed all these faces began to disappear, and all were replaced by the one issue about the closed door. He rose and was going to the door, so that to move the gate valve and lock it up. From that he in time or not in time locked it up, depended all. He was going, hastening, but his legs did not move, and he knew that he was not in time to lock up the door, but all the same painfully strained all his forces. And agonizing fear covered him. And this fear was the fear of death: behind the door it stood. Yet at that same time as he powerlessly and awkwardly crawled to the door, this something terrible, now pressed from different parties, broke in it. Something not human — death — broke at the door, and was needed to hold it. He clung behind the door, straining his last efforts — locking it up now could not be — though to hold it; but his forces were weak, awkward, and pressing the terrible door, it opened and again closed.
Another time it pressed from there. The last, supernatural efforts were futile, and both halves moved open. It entered, and it was death. And Prince Andrey died.
Yet at that same moment as he died, Prince Andrey remembered that he was sleeping, and at that same moment as he died, he, making above himself the effort, awoke.
"Yes, this was death. I died— I awoke. Yes, death — an awakening," suddenly brightened in his soul, and the veil, hiding before the still unknown, was raised before him a sincere gaze. He felt as would an exemption before bound in his forces and that strange ease which with that since did not leave him.
When he, waking up in a cold sweat, stirring on the couch, Natasha came up to him and asked what was with him. He did not reply to her and, not understanding her, looked at her with a strange look.
This was that what happened with him behind two days before the arrival of Princess Marya. From this same day, as spoke the doctor, the exhausting fever accepted a bad character, but Natasha was not interested by that what spoke the doctor: she saw this scary, more for her undoubted, moral signs.
From this day started for Prince Andrey together with an awakening from sleep — an awakening from life. And regarding the duration of life it did not seem to him more slowly, than the awakening from sleep regarding the duration of dreaming.
Nothing was scary and sharp in this, regarding the slow awakening.
His last day and time passed usually and simply. Princess Marya and Natasha, not departing from him, felt this. They did not cry, did not shudder, and the latter time, themselves feeling this, went now not behind him (he now was not, he was gone from them), but behind a very close memory about him — behind his body. The feelings of both were so strong that in them did not act the external, terrible side of death, and they did not find it fit to poison their grief. They did not cry at him, or without him, but never not talked about him between themselves. They felt that they could not express words that they understood.
They both saw, as he deeper and deeper, slowly and calmly, lowered from them somewhere there, and both knew that this must be so, and that this was okay.
He confessed, implicated; all came to him to say goodbye. When he was brought his son, he attached to him his lips and turned away not because for him it was heavy and a pity (Princess Marya and Natasha understood this), but only because of how he believed that this is all that from him was required; but when to him it was said for him to be blessed, he carried out the required and turned back, as if asking whether it was not needed to do something more.
When occurred the last shudder of the body, the abandoning of the soul, Princess Marya and Natasha were there.
— Finished?! — said Princess Marya, after as his body now for a few minutes was still, getting cold, lied before them. Natasha came up, looked at the dead eyes and hastened to close them. She closed them and did not kiss them, but venerated to that what was the nearest memory about him.
"Where is he gone? Where is he now...?"
When his dressed, washed body lied in the coffin on the table, all approached to him to say goodbye and all cried.
Nikolushka cried from the suffering of perplexity, bursting his heart. The countess and Sonya cried from pity for Natasha and about that he was no more. The old count cried about that soon, he felt, he was to make that same terrible step.
Natasha and Princess Marya now also cried, but they cried not from their personal grief; they cried from reverent affection, embracing their soul before the consciousness of the simple and solemn sacrament of death accomplished before them.
—————
Mentioned: after noon
Locations: see previous chapter
Mentioned: Mytishchi, Troitsa monastery
Pevear and Volokhonsky Notes: Prince Andrei also knows he will die and we get a repeat of the word "palpable" from last chapter. Line break after this opening paragraph that looks a little different, with dots spaced out across the page.
We go back to reflect on when Andrei was afraid of death and the two times he had truly experienced the feeling, when the shell spun near him and how this changed his perspective on life. He also wonders if Anatole is still alive, but does not ask. Line break after this.
We now go to when the moral struggle of death versus life was decided for Andrei. Natasha and Andrei had spoken to each other about how much they loved each other. As Andrei is going to sleep, he reflects:
"Love? What is love" he thought. "Love hinders death. Love is life. Everything, everything I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is connected only by that. Love is God, and to die--means that I, a part of love, return to the common and eternal source."
He then has a dream where he has empty and insignificant conversation with people that are insignificant. They all start to disappear and he tries to lock a door in which death stands behind, but he is unable to stop it from opening. When he wakes up, he realizes that "death is an awakening." Line break after "an awakening from sleep in relation to the length of a dream."
Marya and Natasha cease to be sad and understand his death has to happen and is good. They give him a last farewell, "but only because he supposed that this was all that was expected of him". Line break after "Where is he now?..."
Again there is a clothed and washed body in a coffin. Everyone weeps for different reasons and Marya and Natasha realize "the awareness of the simple and solemn mystery of death that had been accomplished before them."
End of Part 1.
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 *):
Prince Andrei
Natasha (also "one woman")
Anatole ("Kuragin")
Princess Mariya
Sonya
Nikolushka
Countess Rostova ("countess")
Count Rostof ("the old count")
(also the doctor)
Abridged Versions: Line break with dots after "almost comprehensible and palpable" in Dole. Line break in the same place in Wiener, Maude, Mandelker, Garnett, Edmonds, and Dunnigan. Just an ellipsis in Briggs.
Line break after "And he dared not inquire." in Dunnigan.
Line break after "moral symptoms was alarmingly acute" in Bell. End of chapter is end of chapter 4. Line break in same place in Dunnigan.
Line break after "Where is he now?" in Briggs. Line break in the same place in Dunnigan.
End of Part First in Dole.
End of Part the Twelfth in Wiener.
End of Part 1 in Briggs, Mandelker, Edmonds, and Dunnigan.
End of Book Twelve in Maude.
End of Part Twelve in Garnett.
Gibian: line break after "comprehensible and palpable..." End of Book Twelve.
Fuller: Line break after "comprehensible and palpable". Chapter is preserved. End of Part 9.
Komroff: Chapter picks up at "it happened in the evening", eliminating the discussion of Andrei's embrace of death that opes the chapter, as well as making this episode not appear to be a flashback in the way it actually is. Sonya is removed from this narrative. Andrei and Natasha's conversation, as well as some of the description of her actions and his reflections, is shortened, and the "what is love" section is removed. Andrei's dream is also removed. End of Book 12.
Kropotkin: Chapter 10: Chapter is preserved. End of Part Twelfth.
Simmons: line break after "comprehensible and palpable..." The reflections about how Andrew was formerly scared of death is removed. End of Book Twelve.
Additional Notes:
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