“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 Mikháylovna who was already opening a door.