n to understand too much. And it doesn't do for man to taste of the
tree of knowledge of good and evil.... Ah, well, it's not for long!" he
added.

"However, you're sleepy, and it's time for me to sleep. Go back to
Gorki!" said Prince Andrew suddenly.

"Oh no!" Pierre replied, looking at Prince Andrew with frightened,
compassionate eyes.

"Go, go! Before a battle one must have one's sleep out," repeated Prince
Andrew.

He came quickly up to Pierre and embraced and kissed him. "Good-by, be
off!" he shouted. "Whether we meet again or not..." and turning away
hurriedly he entered the shed.

It was already dark, and Pierre could not make out whether the
expression of Prince Andrew's face was angry or tender.

For some time he stood in silence considering whether he should follow
him or go away. "No, he does not want it!" Pierre concluded. "And I know
that this is our last meeting!" He sighed deeply and rode back to Gorki.

On re-entering the shed Prince Andrew lay down on a rug, but he could
not sleep.

He closed his eyes. One picture succeeded another in his imagination. On
one of them he dwelt long and joyfully. He vividly recalled an evening
in Petersburg. Natasha with animated and excited face was telling him
how she had gone to look for mushrooms the previous summer and had lost
her way in the big forest. She incoherently described the depths of
the forest, her feelings, and a talk with a beekeeper she met, and
constantly interrupted her story to say: "No, I can't! I'm not telling
it right; no, you don't understand," though he encouraged her by saying
that he did understand, and he really had understood all she wanted to
say. But Natasha was not satisfied with her own words: she felt that
they did not convey the passionately poetic feeling she had experienced
that day and wished to convey. "He was such a delightful old man, and
it was so dark in the forest... and he had such kind... No, I can't
describe it," she had said, flushed and excited. Prince Andrew smiled
now the same happy smile as then when he had looked into her eyes. "I
understood her," he thought. "I not only understood her, but it was
just that inner, spiritual force, that sincerity, that frankness of
soul--that very soul of hers which seemed to be fettered by her body--it
was that soul I loved in her... loved so strongly and happily..." and
suddenly he remembered how his love had ended. "He did not need anything
of that kind. He neither saw nor