"Never, never marry, my dear fellow!
That's my advice:
never marry till you can say to yourself
that you have done all you are capable of,
and until you have ceased to love the woman
of your choice and have seen her plainly as she is,
or else you will make a cruel and irrevocable mistake.
Marry when you are old and good for nothing-
or all that is good and noble in you will be lost.
It will all be wasted on trifles. Yes! Yes! Yes!
Don't look at me with such surprise.
If you marry expecting anything
from yourself in the future,
you will feel at every step that for you all is ended,
all is closed except the drawing room,
where you will be ranged side by side with
a court lackey and an idiot!...
But what's the good?..." and he waved his arm.
Pierre took off his spectacles,
which made his face seem different
and the good-natured expression still more apparent,
and gazed at his friend in amazement.