War And Peace: Book 9 - CHAPTER XVI

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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, hom

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1. Ebooks list page : 83
2. War And Peace: Book 4 - CHAPTER V
3. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER III
4. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER II
5. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER I
6. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER IV
7. War And Peace: Book 3 - CHAPTER XIX
8. War And Peace: Book 3 - CHAPTER XVI
9. War And Peace: Book 3 - CHAPTER XV
10. War And Peace: Book 3 - CHAPTER XIV
11. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER V
12. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER VI
13. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER XIX
14. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER XVI
15. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER XIV
16. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER XV