He did not repeat to himself with a sickening feeling of shame the words he had spoken, or say: “Oh, why did I not say that?” and, “Whatever made me say ‘ Je vous aime ’?” On the contrary, he now repeated in imagination every word that he or Natásha had spoken and pictured every detail of her face and smile, and did not wish to diminish or add anything, but only to repeat it again and again. There was now not a shadow of doubt in his mind as to whether what he had undertaken was right or wrong. Only one terrible doubt sometimes crossed his mind: “Wasn’t it all a dream? Isn’t Princess Márya mistaken? Am I not too conceited and self-confident? I believe all this⁠—and suddenly Princess Márya will tell her, and she will be sure to smile and say: ‘How strange! He must be deluding himself. Doesn’t he know that he is a man, just a man, while I⁠ ⁠… ? I am something altogether different and higher.’ ”

That was the only doubt often troubling Pierre. He did not now make any plans. The happiness before him appeared so inconceivable that if only he could attain it, it would be the end of all things. Everything ended with that.