, and morose air.

Since the ball he had felt the approach of a fit of nervous depression
and had made desperate efforts to combat it. Since the intimacy of
his wife with the royal prince, Pierre had unexpectedly been made a
gentleman of the bedchamber, and from that time he had begun to feel
oppressed and ashamed in court society, and dark thoughts of the vanity
of all things human came to him oftener than before. At the same time
the feeling he had noticed between his protegee Natasha and Prince
Andrew accentuated his gloom by the contrast between his own position
and his friend's. He tried equally to avoid thinking about his wife,
and about Natasha and Prince Andrew; and again everything seemed to him
insignificant in comparison with eternity; again the question: for what?
presented itself; and he forced himself to work day and night at Masonic
labors, hoping to drive away the evil spirit that threatened him. Toward
midnight, after he had left the countess' apartments, he was sitting
upstairs in a shabby dressing gown, copying out the original transaction
of the Scottish lodge of Freemasons at a table in his low room cloudy
with tobacco smoke, when someone came in. It was Prince Andrew.

"Ah, it's you!" said Pierre with a preoccupied, dissatisfied air. "And
I, you see, am hard at it." He pointed to his manuscript book with that
air of escaping from the ills of life with which unhappy people look at
their work.

Prince Andrew, with a beaming, ecstatic expression of renewed life on
his face, paused in front of Pierre and, not noticing his sad look,
smiled at him with the egotism of joy.

"Well, dear heart," said he, "I wanted to tell you about it yesterday
and I have come to do so today. I never experienced anything like it
before. I am in love, my friend!"

Suddenly Pierre heaved a deep sigh and dumped his heavy person down on
the sofa beside Prince Andrew.

"With Natasha Rostova, yes?" said he.

"Yes, yes! Who else should it be? I should never have believed it,
but the feeling is stronger than I. Yesterday I tormented myself and
suffered, but I would not exchange even that torment for anything in
the world, I have not lived till now. At last I live, but I can't live
without her! But can she love me?... I am too old for her.... Why don't
you speak?"

"I? I? What did I tell you?" said Pierre suddenly, rising and beginning
to pace up and down the room. "I always thought it.... That girl is
such a treasure... s