War and Peace

by Leo Tolstoy

Pierre, on unexpectedly becoming a rich man and Count Bezukhov, felt himself, after his recent solitary and carefree life, so surrounded, so taken up, that it was only in bed that he managed to remain alone with himself. He had to sign papers, communicate with government offices of whose significance he had no clear notion, ask his chief steward about something, go to his estate near Moscow, and receive a host of persons who formerly did not even care to know of his existence, but who now would be hurt and chagrined if he did not wish to see them. All these various persons—business connections, relations, acquaintances—were equally well and benignly disposed towards the young heir; they were all obviously and indubitably convinced of Pierre’s high merits. He so constantly heard the words: “With your extraordinary kindness,” or “With your excellent heart,” or “You yourself, Count, are so pure …,” or “If he were as intelligent as you are,” and so on, that he was sincerely beginning to believe in his extraordinary kindness and his extraordinary intelligence, the more so because, deep in his heart, it had always seemed to him that he really was very kind and very intelligent.