for a long time, beaming at him with her kindly, slightly quizzical, happy smile.
XVIII
For the last two days, ever since leaving home, Pierre had been living in the empty house of his deceased benefactor, Osip Bazdéev. This is how it happened.
When he woke up on the morning after his return to Moscow and his interview with Count Rostopchín, he could not for some time make out where he was and what was expected of him. When he was informed that among others awaiting him in his reception room there was a Frenchman who had brought a letter from his wife, the Countess Elèna Vasílievna, he felt suddenly overcome by that sense of confusion and hopelessness to which he was apt to succumb. He felt that everything was now at an end, all was in confusion and crumbling to pieces, that nobody