He recalled Anna Pavlovna's words and looks when she spoke to him about his house, recalled thousands of such hints from Prince Vasili and others, and was seized by terror lest he had already, in some way, bound himself to do something that was evidently wrong and that he ought not to do.

But at the very time he was expressing this conviction to himself, in another part of his mind her image rose in all its womanly beauty.

In November, 1805, Prince Vasili had to go on a tour of inspection in four different provinces.