“I believe I may congratulate you,” Anna Pavlovna whispered to Princess Kuragin, as she kissed her warmly. “If I hadn’t a headache, I would stay on.” The princess made no answer; she was tormented by envy of her daughter’s happiness.

While the guests were taking leave, Pierre was left a long while alone with Ellen in the little drawing- room, where they were sitting. Often before, during the last six weeks, he had been left alone with Ellen, but he had never spoken of love to her. Now he felt that this was inevitable, but he could not make up his mind to this final step. He felt ashamed; it seemed to him that here at Ellen’s side he was filling some other man’s place. “This happiness is not for you,” some inner voice said to him. “This happiness is for those who have not in them what you have within you.” But he had to say something, and he began to speak. He asked her whether she had enjoyed the evening. With her habitual directness in replying, she answered that this name-day had been one of the pleasantest she had ever had.

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.