ad sunk half
below the horizon and an evening frost was starring the puddles near
the ferry, but Pierre and Andrew, to the astonishment of the footmen,
coachmen, and ferrymen, still stood on the raft and talked.

"If there is a God and future life, there is truth and good, and man's
highest happiness consists in striving to attain them. We must live, we
must love, and we must believe that we live not only today on this scrap
of earth, but have lived and shall live forever, there, in the Whole,"
said Pierre, and he pointed to the sky.

Prince Andrew stood leaning on the railing of the raft listening to
Pierre, and he gazed with his eyes fixed on the red reflection of the
sun gleaming on the blue waters. There was perfect stillness. Pierre
became silent. The raft had long since stopped and only the waves of the
current beat softly against it below. Prince Andrew felt as if the sound
of the waves kept up a refrain to Pierre's words, whispering:

"It is true, believe it."

He sighed, and glanced with a radiant, childlike, tender look at
Pierre's face, flushed and rapturous, but yet shy before his superior
friend.

"Yes, if it only were so!" said Prince Andrew. "However, it is time to
get on," he added, and, stepping off the raft, he looked up at the sky
to which Pierre had pointed, and for the first time since Austerlitz saw
that high, everlasting sky he had seen while lying on that battlefield;
and something that had long been slumbering, something that was best
within him, suddenly awoke, joyful and youthful, in his soul. It
vanished as soon as he returned to the customary conditions of his
life, but he knew that this feeling which he did not know how to develop
existed within him. His meeting with Pierre formed an epoch in Prince
Andrew's life. Though outwardly he continued to live in the same old
way, inwardly he began a new life.

CHAPTER XIII

It was getting dusk when Prince Andrew and Pierre drove up to the front
entrance of the house at Bald Hills. As they approached the house,
Prince Andrew with a smile drew Pierre's attention to a commotion going
on at the back porch. A woman, bent with age, with a wallet on her back,
and a short, long-haired, young man in a black garment had rushed back
to the gate on seeing the carriage driving up. Two women ran out after
them, and all four, looking round at the carriage, ran in dismay up the
steps of the back porch.

"Those are Mary's 'God's folk,'" said Pri