A few of the nearest relations were still lingering on. They were sitting in the big drawing-room. Prince Vassily walked with languid steps towards Pierre. Pierre rose and observed that it was getting late. Prince Vassily levelled a look of stern inquiry upon him, as though what he had said was so strange that one could not believe one’s ears. But the expression of severity immediately passed away, and Prince Vassily taking Pierre’s hand drew him down into a seat and smiled affectionately.
“Well, Ellen？” he said at once, addressing his daughter in that careless tone of habitual tenderness which comes natural to parents who have petted their children from infancy, but in Prince Vassily’s case was only arrived at by imitation of other parents. And he turned to Pierre again： “ ‘Sergey Kuzmitch on all sides,’ ” he repeated, unbuttoning the top button of his waistcoat.
Pierre smiled, but his smile betrayed that he understood that it was not the anecdote of Sergey Kuzmitch that interested Prince. Vassily at that moment, and Prince Vassily knew that Pierre knew it. Prince Vassily all at once muttered something and went away. It seemed to Pierre that Prince Vassily was positively disconcerted. The sight of the discomfiture of this elderly man of the world touched Pierre; he looked round at Ellen—and she, he fancied, was disconcerted too, and her glance seemed to say： “Well, it’s your own fault.”
“I must inevitably cross the barrier, but I can’t, I can’t,” thought Pierre, and he began again speaking of extraneous subjects, of Sergey Kuzmitch, inquiring what was the point of the anecdote, as he had not caught it all. Ellen, with a smile, replied that she did not know it either.
When Prince Vassily went into the drawing-room, the princess was talking in subdued tones with an elderly lady about Pierre.
“Of course it is a very brilliant match, but happiness, my dear …”
“Marriages are made in heaven,” responded the elderly lady.
Prince Vassily walked to the furthest corner and sat down on a sofa, as though he had not heard the ladies. He closed his eyes and seemed to doze. His head began to droop, and he roused himself.
“Aline,” he said to his wife, “go and see what they are doing.”
The princess went up to the door, walked by it with a countenance full of meaning and affected nonchalance, and glanced into the little drawing-room. Pierre and Ellen were sitting and talking as before.
“Just the same,” she said in answer to her husband. Prince Vassily frowned, twisting his mouth on one side, his cheeks twitched with the unpleasant, brutal expression peculiar to him at such moments. He shook himself, got up, flung his head back, and with resolute steps passed the ladies and crossed over to the little drawing-room. He walked quickly, joyfully up to Pierre. The prince’s face was so extraordinarily solemn that Pierre got up in alarm on seeing him.
“Thank God！” he said. “My wife has told me all about it.” He put one arm round Pierre, the other round his daughter. “My dear boy！ Ellen！ I am very, very glad.” His voice quavered. “I loved your father … and she will make you a good wife … God’s blessing on you！ …” He embraced his daughter, then Pierre again, and kissed him with his elderly lips. Tears were actually moist on his cheeks. “Aline, come here,” he called.
The princess went in and wept too. The elderly lady also put her handkerchief to her eye. They kissed Pierre, and he several times kissed the hand of the lovely Ellen. A little later they were again left alone.
“All this had to be so and could not have been otherwise,” thought Pierre, “so that it’s no use to inquire whether it was a good thing or not. It’s a good thing because it’s definite, and there’s none of the agonising suspense there was before.” Pierre held his betrothed’s hand in silence, and gazed at the heaving and falling of her lovely bosom.
“Ellen！” he said aloud, and stopped. “There’s something special is said on these occasions,” he thought; but he could not recollect precisely what it was that was said on these occasions. He glanced into her face. She bent forward closer to him. Her face flushed rosy red.
“Ah, take off those … those …” she pointed to his spectacles.
Pierre took off his spectacles, and there was in his eyes besides the strange look people’s eyes always have when they remove spectacles, a look of dismay and inquiry. He would have bent over her hand and have kissed it. But with an almost brutal movement of her head, she caught at his lips and pressed them to her own. Pierre was struck by the transformed, the unpleasantly confused expression of her face.
“Now it’s too late, it’s all over, and besides I love her,” thought Pierre.
“I love you！” he said, remembering what had to be said on these occasions. But the words sounded so poor that he felt ashamed of himself.
Six weeks later he was married, and the lucky possessor of a lovely wife and millions of money, as people said; he took up his abode in the great, newly decorated Petersburg mansion of the Counts Bezuhov.
