feel it so yourself. Let us write her a letter at once, and
she'll come here and all will be explained, or else, my dear boy, let me
tell you it's quite likely you'll have to suffer for it."

Prince Vasili gave Pierre a significant look.

"I know from reliable sources that the Dowager Empress is taking a keen
interest in the whole affair. You know she is very gracious to Helene."

Pierre tried several times to speak, but, on one hand, Prince Vasili did
not let him and, on the other, Pierre himself feared to begin to speak
in the tone of decided refusal and disagreement in which he had firmly
resolved to answer his father-in-law. Moreover, the words of the Masonic
statutes, "be kindly and courteous," recurred to him. He blinked, went
red, got up and sat down again, struggling with himself to do what was
for him the most difficult thing in life--to say an unpleasant thing
to a man's face, to say what the other, whoever he might be, did not
expect. He was so used to submitting to Prince Vasili's tone of careless
self-assurance that he felt he would be unable to withstand it now, but
he also felt that on what he said now his future depended--whether he
would follow the same old road, or that new path so attractively shown
him by the Masons, on which he firmly believed he would be reborn to a
new life.

"Now, dear boy," said Prince Vasili playfully, "say 'yes,' and I'll
write to her myself, and we will kill the fatted calf."

But before Prince Vasili had finished his playful speech, Pierre,
without looking at him, and with a kind of fury that made him like his
father, muttered in a whisper:

"Prince, I did not ask you here. Go, please go!" And he jumped up and
opened the door for him.

"Go!" he repeated, amazed at himself and glad to see the look of
confusion and fear that showed itself on Prince Vasili's face.

"What's the matter with you? Are you ill?"

"Go!" the quivering voice repeated. And Prince Vasili had to go without
receiving any explanation.

A week later, Pierre, having taken leave of his new friends, the Masons,
and leaving large sums of money with them for alms, went away to his
estates. His new brethren gave him letters to the Kiev and Odessa Masons
and promised to write to him and guide him in his new activity.

CHAPTER VI

The duel between Pierre and Dolokhov was hushed up and, in spite of the
Emperor's severity regarding duels at that time, neither the principals
nor their seconds su