h and a half while he felt himself drawn nearer and nearer to
that dreadful abyss, Pierre said to himself: "What am I doing? I need
resolution. Can it be that I have none?"

He wished to take a decision, but felt with dismay that in this matter
he lacked that strength of will which he had known in himself and really
possessed. Pierre was one of those who are only strong when they feel
themselves quite innocent, and since that day when he was overpowered by
a feeling of desire while stooping over the snuffbox at Anna Pavlovna's,
an unacknowledged sense of the guilt of that desire paralyzed his will.

On Helene's name day, a small party of just their own people--as his
wife said--met for supper at Prince Vasili's. All these friends and
relations had been given to understand that the fate of the young girl
would be decided that evening. The visitors were seated at supper.
Princess Kuragina, a portly imposing woman who had once been handsome,
was sitting at the head of the table. On either side of her sat the
more important guests--an old general and his wife, and Anna Pavlovna
Scherer. At the other end sat the younger and less important guests, and
there too sat the members of the family, and Pierre and Helene, side by
side. Prince Vasili was not having any supper: he went round the table
in a merry mood, sitting down now by one, now by another, of the guests.
To each of them he made some careless and agreeable remark except to
Pierre and Helene, whose presence he seemed not to notice. He enlivened
the whole party. The wax candles burned brightly, the silver and crystal
gleamed, so did the ladies' toilets and the gold and silver of the
men's epaulets; servants in scarlet liveries moved round the table, the
clatter of plates, knives, and glasses mingled with the animated hum of
several conversations. At one end of the table, the old chamberlain was
heard assuring an old baroness that he loved her passionately, at which
she laughed; at the other could be heard the story of the misfortunes of
some Mary Viktorovna or other. At the center of the table, Prince Vasili
attracted everybody's attention. With a facetious smile on his face, he
was telling the ladies about last Wednesday's meeting of the Imperial
Council, at which Sergey Kuzmich Vyazmitinov, the new military governor
general of Petersburg, had received and read the then famous rescript
of the Emperor Alexander from the army to Sergey Kuzmich, in which the
Emperor said