These different people--businessmen, relations, and acquaintances alike--were all disposed to treat the young heir in the most friendly and flattering manner: they were all evidently firmly convinced of Pierre's noble qualities.

He was always hearing such words as: "With your remarkable kindness," or, "With your excellent heart," "You are yourself so honorable Count," or, "Were he as clever as you," and so on, till he began sincerely to believe in his own exceptional kindness and extraordinary intelligence, the more so as in the depth of his heart it had always seemed to him that he really was very kind and intelligent.

Even people who had formerly been spiteful toward him and evidently unfriendly now became gentle and affectionate.

The angry eldest princess, with the long waist and hair plastered down like a doll's, had come into Pierre's room after the funeral.