Apart from the general feeling of alienation from all people, Natasha experienced a special feeling of alienation from her family. Her father, mother, Sonya, were so close to her, so familiar, so everyday that all their words, feelings seemed to her to be an insult to the world in which she had been living lately, and she was not only indifferent, but hostile to them. She heard Dunyashi's words about Peter Ilyich, about misfortune, but did not understand them.
"What kind of misfortune do they have there, what kind of misfortune can there be? They have all their old, habitual and dead," Natasha said to herself in her mind.
When she walked into the hall, her father was leaving the Countess's room quickly. His face was wrinkled and wet with tears. He must have run out of that room to give free rein to the sobbing. When he saw Natasha, he desperately waved his hands and started sobbing painfully, sobbing his round, soft face.
- Pe... Petya... Come, come, she... she... calling... - And he, crying like a child, quickly with his legs weakened, came up to the chair and fell almost on him, covering his face with his hands.
Suddenly, Natasha ran like an electric current all over the place. Something really hurt her in the heart. She felt a terrible pain; it seemed to her that something was coming off in her and that she was dying. But following the pain, she felt instantly liberated from the ban on life lying on her. When she saw her father and heard her mother scream from behind the door, she immediately forgot herself and her grief. She ran up to her father, but he waved powerlessly at his mother's door. Princess Maria, pale, with her lower jaw shaking, came out of the door and took Natasha by the hand, telling her something. Natasha did not see or hear her. She walked through the door, stopped for a moment, as if fighting herself, and ran to her mother.
The Countess was lying on a chair, strangely awkwardly stretching out and beating her head against the wall. Sonya and the girls held her hands.
- Natasha, Natasha! - The countess shouted. - Not true, not true... He was lying... Natasha! - She shouted, pushing people away from her surroundings. - Everybody go away, it's not true! Killed!... ha ha ha ha ha!... not true!
Natasha knelt down on the chair, bent over her mother, hugged her, raised her up with unexpected force, turned her face to herself and pressed against her.
- Mommy!... little dove!... I am here, my friend. Mommy," she whispered to her, not even for a second.
She wouldn't let her mother out, she would fight gently with her, demand pillows, water, unbutton her and tear her dress to her mother.
- My friend, my dear little dove... Mommy, darling," she whispered, kissing her head, hands, face, and feeling, as irresistibly, the streams, tickling her nose and cheeks, flowing her tears.
The Countess clenched her daughter's hand, closed her eyes and calmed down for a moment. Suddenly, she got up at an unusual rate, looked back meaninglessly, and when she saw Natasha, she struggled to squeeze her head. Then she turned her face to herself, wrinkled in pain, and stared at him for a long time.
- Natasha, you love me," she said in a quiet, gullible whisper. - Natasha, will you not deceive me? Will you tell me the truth?
Natasha looked at her with poured tears in her eyes, and her face was just a plea for forgiveness and love.
- My friend, Mommy," she said, saying, "straining all the power of her love to take away the excess of her grief from her somehow.
Once again, in a powerless struggle with reality, her mother, refusing to believe that she could live when her beloved boy was killed in blossom, was escaping from reality in the world of madness.
Natasha did not remember how that day, the night, the next day, the next night, passed. She was awake and staying with her mother. Natasha's love, stubborn, patient, not as an explanation, not as a consolation, but as a call to life, seemed to hug the Countess from all sides every second. On the third night the countess was quiet for a few minutes and Natasha closed her eyes and put her head around the handle of the chair. The bed squeaked. Natasha opened her eyes. The countess sat on the bed and spoke quietly.
- I am so glad you came. Are you tired, do you want tea? - Natasha came up to her. - You became tired and mature," the Countess continued, holding her daughter's hand.
- Mommy, what are you saying?
- Natasha, he is gone, he is gone! - And after hugging her daughter, the countess began to cry for the first time.