rs at a large table under the portrait of the Emperor,
but most of the gentry were strolling about the room.

All these nobles, whom Pierre met every day at the Club or in their own
houses, were in uniform--some in that of Catherine's day, others in that
of Emperor Paul, others again in the new uniforms of Alexander's time or
the ordinary uniform of the nobility, and the general characteristic
of being in uniform imparted something strange and fantastic to these
diverse and familiar personalities, both old and young. The old men,
dim-eyed, toothless, bald, sallow, and bloated, or gaunt and wrinkled,
were especially striking. For the most part they sat quietly in their
places and were silent, or, if they walked about and talked, attached
themselves to someone younger. On all these faces, as on the faces
of the crowd Petya had seen in the Square, there was a striking
contradiction: the general expectation of a solemn event, and at the
same time the everyday interests in a boston card party, Peter the cook,
Zinaida Dmitrievna's health, and so on.

Pierre was there too, buttoned up since early morning in a nobleman's
uniform that had become too tight for him. He was agitated;
this extraordinary gathering not only of nobles but also of the
merchant-class--les etats generaux (States-General)--evoked in him
a whole series of ideas he had long laid aside but which were deeply
graven in his soul: thoughts of the Contrat social and the French
Revolution. The words that had struck him in the Emperor's appeal--that
the sovereign was coming to the capital for consultation with his
people--strengthened this idea. And imagining that in this direction
something important which he had long awaited was drawing near, he
strolled about watching and listening to conversations, but nowhere
finding any confirmation of the ideas that occupied him.

The Emperor's manifesto was read, evoking enthusiasm, and then all moved
about discussing it. Besides the ordinary topics of conversation, Pierre
heard questions of where the marshals of the nobility were to stand when
the Emperor entered, when a ball should be given in the Emperor's
honor, whether they should group themselves by districts or by whole
provinces... and so on; but as soon as the war was touched on, or
what the nobility had been convened for, the talk became undecided and
indefinite. Then all preferred listening to speaking.

A middle-aged man, handsome and virile, in the uniform of