A minority of those present were casual guests--chiefly young men, among whom were Denisov, Rostov, and Dolokhov--who was now again an officer in the Semenov regiment.

The faces of these young people, especially those who were military men, bore that expression of condescending respect for their elders which seems to say to the older generation, "We are prepared to respect and honor you, but all the same remember that the future belongs to us.

" Nesvitski was there as an old member of the Club.

Pierre, who at his wife's command had let his hair grow and abandoned his spectacles, went about the rooms fashionably dressed but looking sad and dull.

Here, as elsewhere, he was surrounded by an atmosphere of subservience to his wealth, and being in the habit of lording it over these people, he treated them with absent-minded contempt.