There he is lying back in an armchair in his velvet cloak, leaning his head on his thin pale hand. His chest is dreadfully hollow and his shoulders raised. His lips are firmly closed, his eyes glitter, and a wrinkle comes and goes on his pale forehead. One of his legs twitches just perceptibly, but rapidly. Natásha knows that he is struggling with terrible pain. “What is that pain like? Why does he have that pain? What does he feel? How does it hurt him?” thought Natásha. He noticed her watching him, raised his eyes, and began to speak seriously:

“One thing would be terrible,” said he: “to bind oneself forever to a suffering man. It would be continual torture.” And he looked searchingly at her. Natásha as usual answered before she had time to think what she would say. She said: “This can’t go on⁠—it won’t. You will get well⁠—quite well.”

She now saw him from the commencement of that scene and relived what she had then felt. She recalled his long sad and severe look at those words and understood the meaning of the rebuke and despair in that protracted gaze.