Listening to the captain’s tales, Pierre⁠—as often happens late in the evening and under the influence of wine⁠—followed all that was told him, understood it all, and at the same time followed a train of personal memories which, he knew not why, suddenly arose in his mind. While listening to these love stories his own love for Natásha unexpectedly rose to his mind, and going over the pictures of that love in his imagination he mentally compared them with Ramballe’s tales. Listening to the story of the struggle between love and duty, Pierre saw before his eyes every minutest detail of his last meeting with the object of his love at the Súkharev water tower. At the time of that meeting it had not produced an effect upon him⁠—he had not even once recalled it. But now it seemed to him that that meeting had had in it something very important and poetic.

“Pyotr Kirílych, come here! We have recognized you,” he now seemed to hear the words she had uttered and to see before him her eyes, her smile, her traveling hood, and a stray lock of her hair⁠ ⁠… and there seemed to him something pathetic and touching in all this.