After Prince A Prince Andrew’s engagement to Natásha, Pierre without any apparent cause suddenly felt it impossible to go on living as before. Firmly convin­ced as he was of the truths revealed to him by his benefactor, and happy as he had been in perfecting his inner man, to which he had devoted himself with such ardor all the zest of such a life vanished af­ter the engagement of Andrew and Natásha and the death of Joseph Alexéevich, the news of which rea­ched him almost at the same time. Only the skele­ton of life remained: his house, a brilliant wife who now enjoyed the favors of a very important persona­ge, acquaintance with all Petersburg, and his court service with its dull formalities. And this life sud­denly seemed to Pierre unexpectedly loathsome.