e a table on which tea and a cold supper were laid in the small
circular room. Around the table all who were at Count Bezukhov's house
that night had gathered to fortify themselves. Pierre well remembered
this small circular drawing room with its mirrors and little tables.
During balls given at the house Pierre, who did not know how to dance,
had liked sitting in this room to watch the ladies who, as they passed
through in their ball dresses with diamonds and pearls on their bare
shoulders, looked at themselves in the brilliantly lighted mirrors which
repeated their reflections several times. Now this same room was dimly
lighted by two candles. On one small table tea things and supper dishes
stood in disorder, and in the middle of the night a motley throng
of people sat there, not merrymaking, but somberly whispering, and
betraying by every word and movement that they none of them forgot what
was happening and what was about to happen in the bedroom. Pierre did
not eat anything though he would very much have liked to. He looked
inquiringly at his monitress and saw that she was again going on tiptoe
to the reception room where they had left Prince Vasili and the eldest
princess. Pierre concluded that this also was essential, and after a
short interval followed her. Anna Mikhaylovna was standing beside the
princess, and they were both speaking in excited whispers.

"Permit me, Princess, to know what is necessary and what is not
necessary," said the younger of the two speakers, evidently in the same
state of excitement as when she had slammed the door of her room.

"But, my dear princess," answered Anna Mikhaylovna blandly but
impressively, blocking the way to the bedroom and preventing the other
from passing, "won't this be too much for poor Uncle at a moment when he
needs repose? Worldly conversation at a moment when his soul is already
prepared..."

Prince Vasili was seated in an easy chair in his familiar attitude, with
one leg crossed high above the other. His cheeks, which were so flabby
that they looked heavier below, were twitching violently; but he wore
the air of a man little concerned in what the two ladies were saying.

"Come, my dear Anna Mikhaylovna, let Catiche do as she pleases. You know
how fond the count is of her."

"I don't even know what is in this paper," said the younger of the two
ladies, addressing Prince Vasili and pointing to an inlaid portfolio she
held in her hand. "All I know is that his r