ook.

Pierre took the letter Anatole handed him and, pushing aside a table
that stood in his way, threw himself on the sofa.

"I shan't be violent, don't be afraid!" said Pierre in answer to a
frightened gesture of Anatole's. "First, the letters," said he, as if
repeating a lesson to himself. "Secondly," he continued after a short
pause, again rising and again pacing the room, "tomorrow you must get
out of Moscow."

"But how can I?..."

"Thirdly," Pierre continued without listening to him, "you must never
breathe a word of what has passed between you and Countess Rostova.
I know I can't prevent your doing so, but if you have a spark of
conscience..." Pierre paced the room several times in silence.

Anatole sat at a table frowning and biting his lips.

"After all, you must understand that besides your pleasure there is such
a thing as other people's happiness and peace, and that you are ruining
a whole life for the sake of amusing yourself! Amuse yourself with women
like my wife--with them you are within your rights, for they know what
you want of them. They are armed against you by the same experience
of debauchery; but to promise a maid to marry her... to deceive, to
kidnap.... Don't you understand that it is as mean as beating an old man
or a child?..."

Pierre paused and looked at Anatole no longer with an angry but with a
questioning look.

"I don't know about that, eh?" said Anatole, growing more confident as
Pierre mastered his wrath. "I don't know that and don't want to," he
said, not looking at Pierre and with a slight tremor of his lower jaw,
"but you have used such words to me--'mean' and so on--which as a man of
honor I can't allow anyone to use."

Pierre glanced at him with amazement, unable to understand what he
wanted.

"Though it was tete-a-tete," Anatole continued, "still I can't..."

"Is it satisfaction you want?" said Pierre ironically.

"You could at least take back your words. What? If you want me to do as
you wish, eh?"

"I take them back, I take them back!" said Pierre, "and I ask you to
forgive me." Pierre involuntarily glanced at the loose button. "And if
you require money for your journey..."

Anatole smiled. The expression of that base and cringing smile, which
Pierre knew so well in his wife, revolted him.

"Oh, vile and heartless brood!" he exclaimed, and left the room.

Next day Anatole left for Petersburg.

CHAPTER XXI

Pierre drove to Marya Dmitrievna's to