Она нащупала рычаг в темноте.

Not quite. Нащупала means something like found by touch, located by feeling around, or felt and reached.

So in this sentence, she did not merely touch the lever. The idea is that she was in the dark and managed to find it with her hands.

Compare:

• трогала = touched
• щупала = felt, was feeling around
• нащупала = felt around and successfully found

So нащупала includes a sense of successful result.

Because Russian uses the verb нащупать as a direct transitive verb. The idea of feeling for something and finding it is already built into the verb.

So Russian says:

• нащупала рычаг

literally closer to:

• found the lever by touch

rather than word-for-word felt for the lever.

That is very common in Russian: a single verb often covers what English expresses with a verb + preposition.

Because the subject is она, and in the past tense Russian verbs agree with the subject in gender and number.

Past tense forms of нащупать:

• он нащупал = he found by touch
• она нащупала = she found by touch
• оно нащупало = it found by touch
• они нащупали = they found by touch

So нащупала is the feminine singular past form.

Because the sentence presents the action as completed: she successfully found the lever.

Нащупала is perfective. It focuses on the result.

If you wanted the ongoing process instead, you would use an imperfective verb, for example:

• Она щупала рычаг в темноте. = She was feeling the lever / feeling around at the lever in the dark.
• Она нащупывала рычаг в темноте. = She was trying to locate the lever by touch.

But Она нащупала рычаг в темноте. tells us that she did manage to find it.

In this verb, the prefix helps create the meaning of reaching a result by touch.

The base verb щупать means to feel, to grope, to palpate.
The prefixed verb нащупать means to feel around and find.

So the prefix is part of what gives the verb its perfective, result-oriented sense.

It is best to learn нащупать as a whole vocabulary item, not as a perfectly predictable combination every time.

Рычаг is in the accusative singular, because it is the direct object of the verb.

The dictionary form is:

• рычаг = lever

For inanimate masculine nouns, the accusative singular is usually the same as the nominative singular. So:

• nominative: рычаг
• accusative: рычаг

That is why the form does not change here.

В темноте is prepositional case after в, because it expresses location/state, not movement.

• в темноте = in the dark / in darkness

If you had movement into darkness, you would use the accusative:

• в темноту = into the darkness

So:

• Она нащупала рычаг в темноте. = She found the lever in the dark.
• Она шагнула в темноту. = She stepped into the darkness.

Because в темноте is a noun phrase meaning in the dark or in darkness, and it modifies the action.

• в темноте = in the dark

By contrast, темно is usually a predicative adverb meaning it is dark:

• Здесь темно. = It is dark here.
• В комнате было темно. = The room was dark.

So in this sentence, в темноте is the natural way to say that the action happened under dark conditions.

Yes. Russian often omits subject pronouns when the subject is clear from context.

So in a narrative, you might also see:

• Нащупала рычаг в темноте.

That can still mean She found the lever in the dark, if the context already makes it clear who is being talked about.

Using она can add:

• clarity
• contrast
• emphasis
• a slightly more explicit narrative style

The word order is flexible.

The neutral version here is:

• Она нащупала рычаг в темноте.

But Russian can move parts around for emphasis:

• В темноте она нащупала рычаг. = In the dark, she found the lever.
• Рычаг она нащупала в темноте. = It was the lever that she found in the dark.

The basic meaning stays the same, but the focus changes.

Russian has no articles.

So рычаг by itself can mean either a lever or the lever, depending on context.

In many situations, English would naturally translate this as the lever, because the scene often implies a specific lever she was trying to find. But Russian itself does not mark that directly.

You decide from context, not from an article.

The stresses are:

• она́
• нащу́пала
• рыча́г
• в темноте́

A rough pronunciation guide:

• она́ = a-NA
• нащу́пала = na-SHOO-pa-la
• рыча́г = ri-CHAG
• в темноте́ = f tyim-na-TYE

A learner-friendly stressed version of the whole sentence:

• Она́ нащу́пала рыча́г в темноте́.

Note that в is pronounced close to f before the voiceless т in connected speech.