believe everything anybody says. You were told that Dolokhov was my lover, and you believed it. What did you prove by doing this? What could you prove with this duel? That you are a fool? But everyone already knew that. Now all this'll end up in my being the laughing stock of Moscow. And everyone will be able to say that you had drunk so much that you challenged a man of whom you were jealous for no reason and who, in every way, is a better man than you are. What ever made you think that he was my lover? Because I've enjoyed his company? If you hadn't been so dull I might have enjoyed yours more. Will you stop speaking? Please. Why should I stop speaking? I'm going to say outright that there isn't another woman who married to such a husband wouldn't have taken several lovers. And I've never had any. I think we had better separate. Separate? Only on the condition that you give me a fortune. Separate! Don't you think you can frighten me! I'm going to kill you! Get out! Tikhon! Go upstairs to Maria Bogdanovna and just say to her: "The Prince has sent me to ask how she is?" Then come back and tell me what she says. You can tell His Highness that labor has started. According to a popular belief, the fewer people know about the suffering of a woman in labor the less is her suffering. Everyone pretended to be unaware of it. Nobody spoke about it, but everyone in the house wore a common stamp of worry, of soft-heartedness and of knowing that something momentous and incomprehensible was happening at that time. If God is merciful, no doctor would be needed. Princess, someone is coming. Up the driveway, with lanterns lighted. Must be the doctor. Thank God! I'll go out to meet him. He doesn't speak Russian. - Is the Princess well? - Very well. No, it can't be! It would be so incredible! There is a kind fate! Masha, my dear! Oh, darling... God is merciful. She was not surprised at seeing him there. She didn't understand that he had returned. His coming had nothing to do with her agony, nor with its relief. No, you're not allowed in. Why have they taken a baby in there? Why a baby? Has a baby been born? I loved you all. I did no harm to anyone. And now what have you done to me? What have you done? Oh, what have you done to me? And why? I can't begin to tell you what I've been through since then. Yes, we have all changed a great deal. - What are your plans? - My plans? What can I say? But why aren't you serving in the army? After Austerlitz? No, thank you very much. If Bonaparte were here, near Smolensk, I wouldn't serve in our army even then. - Did you hear about the duel? - You had to go through that too. The one thing I thank God for is he wasn't killed. Why? Killing a mad dog is a good thing. It's evil to kill a man. It's wrong. But why is it wrong? It's not up to men to judge what is right and what is wrong. Men will always be wrong, and never so wrong as when they decide what's right and wrong. Anything that does harm to another man is wrong. How can you be sure what will do harm to another man? Personally, I know of only two real evils in life: Remorse and sickness. And happiness is the absence of those two evils. To live for one's self in such a way as to avoid these two evils is my whole philosophy now. But how can anyone live for himself alone? No, no, I couldn't live like that. I'm feeling deep in my heart that I'm part of this vast, harmonious whole. I feel that not only I cannot disappear, as nothing disappears in this world, but I have been and will be forever. This is Herder's philosophy. But it's not going to convince me. Life and death are the only convincing things. I'm only convinced when I've seen someone who's dear to me, who's close to me, toward whom I behaved wrongly and still hoped to make it right, all of a sudden suffering terrible pain and breathing her last.
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