《War And Peace》　Book9 　CHAPTER XVI
　　　　by Leo Tolstoy

COUNTESS ROSTOV had not recovered her strength when she received the news of
Natasha's illness. Weak as she still was, she set out at once for Moscow with
Petya and the whole household, and the Rostovs moved from Marya Dmitryevna's
into their own house, where the whole family were installed.

Natasha's illness was so serious that, luckily for herself and her parents,
all thought of what had caused it, of her conduct and of the breaking off of her
engagement, fell into the background. She was so ill that no one could consider
how far she was to blame for all that had happened, while she could not eat nor
sleep, was growing visibly thinner, coughed, and was, as the doctors gave them
to understand, in actual danger. Nothing could be thought of but how to make her
well again. Doctors came to see Natasha, both separately and in consultation.
They said a great deal in French, in German, and in Latin. They criticised one
another, and prescribed the most diverse remedies for all the diseases they were
familiar with. But it never occurred to one of them to make the simple
reflection that they could not understand the disease from which Natasha was
suffering, as no single disease can be fully understood in a living person; for
every living person has his individual peculiarities and always has his own
peculiar, new, complex complaints unknown to medicine-not a disease of the
lungs, of the kidneys, of the skin, of the heart, and so on, as described in
medical books, but a disease that consists of one out of the innumerable
combinations of ailments of those organs. This simple reflection can never occur
to doctors (just as a sorcerer cannot entertain the idea that he is unable to
work magic spells) because it is the work of their life to undertake the cure of
disease, because it is for that that they are paid, and on that they have wasted
the best years of their life. And what is more, that reflection could not occur
to the doctors because they saw that they unquestionably were of use; and they
certainly were of use to all the Rostov household. They were of use, not because
they made the patient swallow drugs, mostly injurious (the injury done by them
was hardly perceptible because they were given in such small doses). They were
of use, were needed, were indispensable in fact (for the same reason that there
have always been, and always will be, reputed healers, witches, homœopaths and
allopaths), because they satisfied the moral cravings of the patient and those
who loved her. They satisfied that eternal human need of hope for relief, that
need for sympathetic action that is felt in the presence of suffering, that need
that is shown in its simplest form in the little child, who must have the place
rubbed when it has hurt itself. The child is hurt, and runs at once to the arms
of its mother or nurse for them to kiss or rub the tender spot, and it feels
better for the kissing and rubbing. The child cannot believe that these
stronger, cleverer creatures have not the power to relieve its pain. And the
hope of relief and the expressions of sympathy as the mother rubs it comfort it.
To Natasha the doctors took the place of the mother, kissing and rubbing her
"bobo," when they declared that all the trouble would soon be over, if the
coachman were to drive to the chemist's shop, in Arbatsky Place, and buy-for a
rouble and seventy copecks-those powders and pills in a pretty little box, and
if those powders were given to the patient in boiled water precisely every two
hours, neither more nor less.

What would Sonya, and the count, and the countess have done, how would they
have felt if they had taken no steps, if they had not had those pills at certain
hours, and the warm beverage, and the chicken cutlets, and all the detailed
regime laid down by the doctors, which gave occupation and consolation to all of
them. How could the count have borne his dearly loved daughter's illness if he
had not known that it was costing him a thousand roubles, and that he would not
grudge thousands more, if that would do her any good; if he had not known that,
in case she did not get better, he would spend thousands more on taking her
abroad and consulting doctors there; if he had not been able to tell people how
Metivier and Feller had failed to diagnose the complaint, but Friez had fathomed
it, and Mudrov had succeeded even better in defining it? What would the countess
have done if she had not sometimes been able to scold her sick Natasha for not
following the doctors' orders quite faithfully?

"You can never get well like this," she would say, finding a refuge from her
grief in anger, "if you won't listen to the doctors and take your medicine
properly! We can't have any nonsense, when it may turn to pneumonia," said the
countess, and in pronouncing that-not to her only-mysterious word, she found
great comfort. What would Sonya have done, had she not had the glad
consciousness that at first she had not had her clothes off for three nights
running, so as to be in readiness to carry out the doctors' orders, and that now
she did not sleep at night for fear of missing the exact hour at which the
innocuous pills were to be given out of the gilt pill-box? Even Natasha herself,
though she did declare that no medicines could do her any good, and that it was
all nonsense, was glad to see so many sacrifices being made for her, and glad to
have to take medicines at certain hours. And she was even glad, indeed, to be
able by her disregard of the doctors' prescription to show how little faith she
put in them, and how little she cared for life.

The doctor came every day, felt her pulse, looked at her tongue, and made
jokes, regardless of her dejected face. But then when he had gone into the next
room, and the countess had hastily followed him, he assumed a serious face, and
shaking his head gravely, said that though there was indeed danger, he had hopes
from the effect of the most recent medicine, and that they could only wait and
see; that the illness was more due to moral than physical causes, but ... The
countess slipped some gold into his hand, trying to conceal the action from
herself and from him, and always went back to the sick-room with a lighter
heart.

The symptoms of Natasha's illness were loss of appetite, sleeplessness, a
cough, and continual depression. The doctors declared that she must have medical
treatment, and therefore kept her in the stifling atmosphere of the town. And
all the summer of 1812 the Rostovs did not visit the country.

In spite of the numerous little bottles and boxes of pills, drops, and
powders, of which Madame Schoss, who had a passion for them, made a complete
collection, in spite of the loss of the country life to which she was
accustomed, youth gained the upper hand; Natasha's grief began to be covered up
by the impressions of daily life; it ceased to lie like an aching load on her
heart; it began to fade into the past; and Natasha began to return to physical
health again.