“I tell you what, my dear fellow,” said Prince Andrey, who was unmistakably dreary and ill at ease with his visitor, “I’m simply bivouacking here; I only came over to have a look at things. I’m going back again to my sister to-day. I will introduce you to her. But I think you know her, though,” he added, obviously trying to provide entertainment for his guest, with whom he now found nothing in common. “We will set off after dinner. And now would you care to see my place？” They went out and walked about till dinner time, talking of political news and common acquaintances, like people not very intimate. The only thing of which Prince Andrey now spoke with some eagerness and interest was the new buildings and homestead he was building; but even in the middle of a conversation on this subject, on the scaffolding, when Prince Andrey was describing to Pierre the plan of the house, he suddenly stopped. “There’s nothing interesting in that, though, let us go in to dinner and set off.”
At dinner the conversation fell on Pierre’s marriage.
“I was very much surprised when I heard of it,” said Prince Andrey.
Pierre blushed as he always did at any reference to his marriage, and said hurriedly： “I’ll tell you one day how it all happened. But you know that it’s all over and for ever.”
“For ever？” said Prince Andrey; “nothing’s for ever.”
“But do you know how it all ended？ Did you hear of the duel？”
“Yes, you had to go through that too！”
“The one thing for which I thank God is that I didn’t kill that man,” said Pierre.
“Why so？” said Prince Andrey. “To kill a vicious dog is a very good thing to do, really.”
“No, to kill a man is bad, wrong …”
“Why is it wrong？” repeated Prince Andrey; “what’s right and wrong is a question it has not been given to men to decide. Men are for ever in error, and always will be in error, and in nothing more than in what they regard as right and wrong.”
“What does harm to another man is wrong,” said Pierre, feeling with pleasure that for the first time since his arrival Prince Andrey was roused and was beginning to speak and eager to give expression to what had made him what he now was.
“And who has told you what is harm to another man？” he asked.
“Harm？ harm？” said Pierre; “we all know what harms ourselves.”
“Yes, we know that, but it’s not the same harm we know about for ourselves that we do to another man,” said Prince Andrey, growing more and more eager, and evidently anxious to express to Pierre his new view of things. He spoke in French. “I only know two very real ills in life, remorse and sickness. There is no good except the absence of those ills. To live for myself so as to avoid these two evils： that’s the sum of my wisdom now.”
“And love for your neighbour, and self-sacrifice？” began Pierre. “No, I can’t agree with you！ To live with the sole object of avoiding doing evil, so as not to be remorseful, that’s very little. I used to live so, I used to live for myself, and I spoilt my life. And only now, when I’m living, at least trying to live” （modesty impelled Pierre to correct himself） “for others, only now I have learnt to know all the happiness of life. No, I don’t agree with you, and indeed, you don’t believe what you’re saying yourself.”
Prince Andrey looked at Pierre without speaking, and smiled ironically. “Well, you’ll see my sister Marie. You will get on with her,” said he. “Perhaps you are right for yourself,” he added, after a brief pause, “but every one lives in his own way; you used to live for yourself, and you say that by doing so you almost spoiled your life, and have only known happiness since you began to live for others. And my experience has been the reverse. I used to live for glory. （And what is glory？ The same love for others, the desire to do something for them, the desire of their praise.） In that way I lived for others, and not almost, but quite spoilt my life. And I have become more peaceful since I live only for myself.”
“But how are you living only for yourself？” Pierre asked, getting hot. “What of your son, your sister, your father？”
“Yes, but that’s all the same as myself, they are not others,” said Prince Andrey; “but others, one’s neighbours, as you and Marie call them, they are the great source of error and evil. One’s neighbours are those—your Kiev peasants—whom one wants to do good to.”
And he looked at Pierre with a glance of ironical challenge. He unmistakably meant to draw him on.
“You are joking,” said Pierre, getting more and more earnest. “What error and evil can there be in my wishing （I have done very little and done it very badly）, but still wishing to do good, and doing indeed something any way？ Where can be the harm if unhappy people, our peasants, people just like ourselves, growing up and dying with no other idea of God and the truth, but a senseless prayer and ceremony, if they are instructed in the consoling doctrines of a future life, of retribution, and recompense and consolation？ What harm and error can there be in my giving them doctors, and a hospital, and a refuge for the aged, when men are dying of disease without help, and it is so easy to give them material aid？ And isn’t there palpable, incontestable good, when the peasants and the women with young children have no rest day or night, and I give them leisure and rest？ …” said Pierre, talking hurriedly and lisping. “And I have done that; badly it’s true, and too little of it, but I have done something towards it, and you’ll not only fail to shake my conviction that I have done well, you’ll not even shake my conviction that you don’t believe that yourself. And the great thing,” Pierre continued, “is that I know this and know it for a certainty—that the enjoyment of doing this good is the only real happiness in life.”
