These men pressed close to the wall to let Pierre and Anna Mikhaylovna pass and did not evince the least surprise at seeing them there.
"Is this the way to the princesses' apartments ?" asked Anna Mikhaylovna of one of them.
"Yes," replied a footman in a bold loud voice, as if anything were now permissible; "the door to the left, ma'am." "Perhaps the count did not ask for me," said Pierre when he reached the landing.

"I'd better go to my own room." Anna Mikhaylovna paused and waited for him to come up.
"Ah, my friend!" she said, touching his arm as she had done her son's when speaking to him that afternoon, "believe me I suffer no less than you do, but be a man!" "But really, hadn't I better go away ?" he asked, looking kindly at her over his spectacles.
"Ah, my dear friend! Forget the wrongs that may have been done you.
Think that he is your father...

perhaps in the agony of death." She sighed.

"I have loved you like a son from the first.

Trust yourself to me, Pierre.