Toward midnight, after he had left the countess' apartments, he was sitting upstairs in a shabby dressing gown, copying out the original transaction of the Scottish lodge of Freemasons at a table in his low room cloudy with tobacco smoke, when someone came in.

It was Prince Andrew.

"Ah, it's you!" said Pierre with a preoccupied, dissatisfied air.

"And I, you see, am hard at it.

" He pointed to his manuscript book with that air of escaping from the ills of life with which unhappy people look at their work.