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Pierre dropped his eyes, lifted them again, and wished once more

to see her as a distant beauty far removed from him, as he had

seen her every day until then, but he could no longer do it. He

could not, any more than a man who has been looking at a tuft of

steppe grass through the mist and taking it for a tree can again

take it for a tree after he has once recognized it to be a tuft

of grass. She was terribly close to him. She already had power

over him, and between them there was no longer any barrier except

the barrier of his own will.

"Well, I will leave you in your little corner," came Anna

Pavlovna's voice, "I see you are all right there."

And Pierre, anxiously trying to remember whether he had done

anything reprehensible, looked round with a blush. It seemed to

him that everyone knew what had happened to him as he knew it

himself.

A little later when he went up to the large circle, Anna Pavlovna

said to him: "I hear you are refitting your Petersburg house?"