He was a man whose circumstances had led him to believe profoundly in his own incapacity, unpopularity, ignorance.

For a moment his love had given him a new confidence but now how was that same love deserting him?
He had foreseen a glorious campaign, his lady and himself side by side, death and terror flying before him.

He found himself leading a country life of perfect quiet and comfort, even as he might have led it in England, with a crowd of people, strangely unfamiliar to him, driving him, as he had been driven in the old days, into a host of awkwardnesses, confusions and foolishnesses.

I could not forgive Marie Ivanovna for her disappointment in him, and yet I could understand how different he must have appeared to her during those last days in Petrograd, when alone with her and on fire with love, he had shown his true and bravest self to her.

She was impatient, she had hoped that the others would see him as she had seen him.