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Updated: June 16, 2025
"Ah, my friend!" said he, taking Pierre by the elbow; and there was in his voice a sincerity and weakness Pierre had never observed in it before. "How often we sin, how much we deceive, and all for what? I am near sixty, dear friend... I too... All will end in death, all! Death is awful..." and he burst into tears. Anna Mikhaylovna came out last. She approached Pierre with slow, quiet steps.
"How handsome the old man still was only a year ago!" remarked the countess. "I have never seen a handsomer man." "He is very much altered now," said Anna Mikhaylovna.
"Is it possible?" exclaimed Anna Mikhaylovna. "Oh, how awful! It is terrible to think.... This is my son," she added, indicating Boris. "He wanted to thank you himself." Boris bowed again politely. "Believe me, Prince, a mother's heart will never forget what you have done for us."
Pierre did not understand a word, but the conviction that all this had to be grew stronger, and he meekly followed Anna Mikhaylovna who was already opening a door. This door led into a back anteroom. An old man, a servant of the princesses, sat in a corner knitting a stocking. Pierre had never been in this part of the house and did not even know of the existence of these rooms.
Anna Mikhaylovna evinced no surprise, she only smiled faintly and sighed, as if to say that this was no more than she had expected. "Be a man, my friend. I will look after your interests," said she in reply to his look, and went still faster along the passage.
But neither Anna Mikhaylovna nor the footman nor the coachman, who could not help seeing these people, took any notice of them. "It seems to be all right," Pierre concluded, and followed Anna Mikhaylovna. She hurriedly ascended the narrow dimly lit stone staircase, calling to Pierre, who was lagging behind, to follow.
She could hardly do so, not having seen him for almost twenty years. 'Don't think ill of me, Father. Perhaps you want something to eat? He took the bread and the money, and Praskovya Mikhaylovna was surprised that he did not go, but stood looking at her. 'Pashenka, I have come to you! Take me in...
"Annette, for heaven's sake don't refuse me," the countess began, with a blush that looked very strange on her thin, dignified, elderly face, and she took the money from under the handkerchief. Anna Mikhaylovna instantly guessed her intention and stooped to be ready to embrace the countess at the appropriate moment. "This is for Boris from me, for his outfit."
At sight of this smile Pierre felt an unexpected quivering in his breast and a tickling in his nose, and tears dimmed his eyes. The sick man was turned on to his side with his face to the wall. He sighed. "He is dozing," said Anna Mikhaylovna, observing that one of the princesses was coming to take her turn at watching. "Let us go." Pierre went out.
"It seems that while he was abroad this young man was allowed to do as he liked, now in Petersburg I hear he has been doing such terrible things that he has been expelled by the police." "You don't say so!" replied the countess. "He chose his friends badly," interposed Anna Mikhaylovna. "Prince Vasili's son, he, and a certain Dolokhov have, it is said, been up to heaven only knows what!
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