udging by Anna Mikhaylovna's air of assurance
and haste, Pierre concluded that it was all absolutely necessary.
Halfway up the stairs they were almost knocked over by some men who,
carrying pails, came running downstairs, their boots clattering. 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. I shall not forget your interests."

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, addressing a maid who was hurrying past
with a decanter on a tray as "my dear" and "my sweet," asked about the
princess' health and then led Pierre along a stone passage. The first
door on the left led into the princesses' apartments. The maid with the
decanter in her haste had not closed the door (everything in the house
was done in haste at that time), and Pierre and Anna Mikhaylovna in
passing instinctively glanced into the room, where Prince Vasili and the
eldest princess were sitting close together talking. Seeing them pass,
Prince Vasili drew back with obvious impatience, while the princess
jumped up and with a gesture of desperation slammed the door with all
her might.

This action was so unlike her usual composure and the fear depicted
on Prince Vasili's face