It is Natasha's innate generosity which gives them, however, their last chance of reconciliation; the Rostofs are carting their family property away from Moscow, which is threatened by the French, but there are not sufficient horses to transport the Russian wounded, and Natasha, keenly opposing her mother, demands that the family property shall be sacrificed, and the wounded rescued instead; the Rostofs discover Prince Andrei's presence and forbid Natasha to see him, but {47} her own daring takes her to his side, and there follows the most simple but touching of reconciliations. Natasha becomes his nurse, and proves the depth of her nature by her skill and tenderness. But the brief time of joy is soon over; Prince Andrei's sufferings are agonising, and he passes away. Natasha feels bereavement with the same intensity as everything else; she herself seems to sink out of the world; thin and pale and visibly wasting away, she sits for hours in silence, gazing at the place where Prince Andrei has lain. Her family have lost all hope of saving her life, but tragic news arrives; the younger brother--Petya--has been killed in battle, and the mother is mad with grief; she screams for her beloved Natasha, who is the only person who can comfort her, and, in straining every nerve to save her mother's reason, the girl herself is restored to life. She lives again by virtue of those profound and passionate affections which had almost destroyed her. She is so greatly changed, however, that, when Pierre meets her again, he does not know her; he cannot recognise in her thin, pale, and stern face the Natasha of adorable and abounding life; yet the moment he shows that he loves her, the old Natasha, with her radiant joy, flashes back into his view, and she is willing, almost at once, to become Pierre's affianced. To the Princess Mariya, with a nature much less emotional but infinitely more constant, Natasha is a continual marvel, and, though she is glad of her friend's happiness, the Princess grieves at the inconstancy to her brother. The whole portrait is wonderful in its realism, glowing with vitality and with charm, and, just as in the case of the men, Natasha deepens and changes before our very eyes. But few readers will be inclined, however, to appreciate Tolstoy's final picture of her; he shows us Natasha as Pierre's wife and the mother of four children; she is loving but exacting, very jealous, almost parsimonious in her care for her children, she has become untidy in her personal appearance, and the old poetic charm only in the rarest moments returns. {48}