Sofia Alexandrovna, ignoring the interruption, continues:
“Why should I really go to my death boldly and resolutely? Is it not
all the same? I shall die in the courtyard, in the dark of night.
Whether I die boldly, or weep like a coward, or beg for mercy, or
resist the executioner—is it not all the same? No one will know how I
died. I shall face death alone. Why should I really suffer this wild
anguish? I will raise up my voice to wail and to weep, and I will shake
the whole gaol with my despairing cries, and I will awake the town, the
so-called free town, which is only a larger gaol—so that I shall not
suffer alone, but that others shall share in my last agony, in my last
dread. But no, I won’t do that. It is my fate to die alone.”
Natasha rises, trembles, presses her mother’s cold hand in hers, and
says:
“Mamma, mamma, it is terrible, if alone. No, don’t say that he felt
alone. We shall be with him.”
Elena Kirillovna whispers:
“Yes, Sonyushka, it would be terrible alone. In such moments!”
“We are with him,” insists Natasha vehemently. “We are with him now.”
A smile is on Sofia Alexandrovna’s lips, a smile such as a dying person
smiles to greet his last consolation. Sofia Alexandrovna speaks:
“My last consolation is the thought that I am not alone. He is with me.
These walls are unrealities, this gaol built by men is a lie. What is
real and true is my suffering and I am one with them in my grief. A
poor consolation! And yet I, just think, this extraordinary I, Boris, I
am dying.”
“I am dying,” repeats Natasha.
Her voice is clouded, and it is fraught with despair. And all three
remain silent for a brief while, overcome by the spell of these tragic
words.