“Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the

Buonapartes. But I warn you, if you don’t tell me that this means war,

if you still try to defend the infamies and horrors perpetrated by that

Antichrist—I really believe he is Antichrist—I will have nothing

more to do with you and you are no longer my friend, no longer my

‘faithful slave,’ as you call yourself! But how do you do? I see I

have frightened you—sit down and tell me all the news.”



It was in July, 1805, and the speaker was the well-known Anna Pávlovna

Schérer, maid of honor and favorite of the Empress Márya Fëdorovna.

With these words she greeted Prince Vasíli Kurágin, a man of high

rank and importance, who was the first to arrive at her reception. Anna

Pávlovna had had a cough for some days. She was, as she said, suffering

from la grippe; grippe being then a new word in St. Petersburg, used

only by the elite.



All her invitations without exception, written in French, and delivered

by a scarlet-liveried footman that morning, ran as follows:



“If you have nothing better to do, Count (or Prince), and if the

prospect of spending an evening with a poor invalid is not too terrible,

I shall be very charmed to see you tonight between 7 and 10—Annette

Schérer.”



“Heavens! what a virulent attack!” replied the prince, not in the

least disconcerted by this reception. He had just entered, wearing an

embroidered court uniform, knee breeches, and shoes, and had stars on

his breast and a serene expression on his flat face. He spoke in that

refined French in which our grandfathers not only spoke but thought, and

with the gentle, patronizing intonation natural to a man of importance

who had grown old in society and at court. He went up to Anna Pávlovna,

kissed her hand, presenting to her his bald, scented, and shining head,

and complacently seated himself on the sofa.



“First of all, dear friend, tell me how you are. Set your friend’s

mind at rest,” said he without altering his tone, beneath the

politeness and affected sympathy of which indifference and even irony

could be discerned.



“Can one be well while suffering morally? Can one be calm in times

like these if one has any feeling?” said Anna Pávlovna. “You are

staying the whole evening, I hope?”



“And the fete at the English ambassador’s? Today is Wednesday. I

must put in an appearance there,” said the prince. “My daughter is

coming for me to take me there.”



“I thought today’s fete had been canceled. I confess all these

festivities and fireworks are becoming wearisome.”



“If they had known that you wished it, the entertainment would have

been put off,” said the prince, who, like a wound-up clock, by force

of habit said things he did not even wish to be believed.



“Don’t tease! Well, and what has been decided about Novosíltsev’s

dispatch? You know everything.”



“What can one say about it?” replied the prince in a cold, listless

tone. “What has been decided? They have decided that Buonaparte has

burnt his boats, and I believe that we are ready to burn ours.”



Prince Vasíli always spoke languidly, like an actor repeating a stale

part. Anna Pávlovna Schérer on the contrary, despite her forty years,

overflowed with animation and impulsiveness. To be an enthusiast had

become her social vocation and, sometimes even when she did not

feel like it, she became enthusiastic in order not to disappoint the

expectations of those who knew her. The subdued smile which, though it

did not suit her faded features, always played round her lips expressed,

as in a spoiled child, a continual consciousness of her charming defect,

which she neither wished, nor could, nor considered it necessary, to

correct.



In the midst of a conversation on political matters Anna Pávlovna burst

out:



“Oh, don’t speak to me of Austria. Perhaps I don’t understand

things, but Austria never has wished, and does not wish, for war. She

is betraying us! Russia alone must save Europe. Our gracious sovereign

recognizes his high vocation and will be true to it. That is the one

thing I have faith in! Our good and wonderful sovereign has to perform

the noblest role on earth, and he is so virtuous and noble that God will

not forsake him. He will fulfill his vocation and crush the hydra of

revolution, which has become more terrible than ever in the person of

this murderer and villain! We alone must avenge the blood of the just

one.... Whom, I ask you, can we rely on?... England with her commercial

spirit will not and cannot understand the Emperor Alexander’s

loftiness of soul. She has refused to evacuate Malta. She wanted to

find, and still seeks, some secret motive in our actions. What answer

did Novosíltsev get? None. The English have not understood and cannot

understand the self-abnegation of our Emperor who wants nothing for

himself, but only desires the good of mankind. And what have they

promised? Nothing! And what little they have promised they will not

perform! Prussia has always declared that Buonaparte is invincible, and

that all Europe is powerless before him.... And I don’t believe a

word that Hardenburg says, or Haugwitz either. This famous Prussian

neutrality is just a trap. I have faith only in God and the lofty

destiny of our adored monarch. He will save Europe!”



She suddenly paused, smiling at her own impetuosity.



“I think,” said the prince with a smile, “that if you had been

sent instead of our dear Wintzingerode you would have captured the King

of Prussia’s consent by assault. You are so eloquent. Will you give me

a cup of tea?”



“In a moment. À propos,” she added, becoming calm again, “I am

expecting two very interesting men tonight, le Vicomte de Mortemart, who

is connected with the Montmorencys through the Rohans, one of the best

French families. He is one of the genuine émigrés, the good ones. And

also the Abbé Morio. Do you know that profound thinker? He has been

received by the Emperor. Had you heard?”



“I shall be delighted to meet them,” said the prince. “But

tell me,” he added with studied carelessness as if it had only just

occurred to him, though the question he was about to ask was the chief

motive of his visit, “is it true that the Dowager Empress wants

Baron Funke to be appointed first secretary at Vienna? The baron by all

accounts is a poor creature.”



Prince Vasíli wished to obtain this post for his son, but others were

trying through the Dowager Empress Márya Fëdorovna to secure it for

the baron.



Anna Pávlovna almost closed her eyes to indicate that neither she nor

anyone else had a right to criticize what the Empress desired or was

pleased with.



“Baron Funke has been recommended to the Dowager Empress by her

sister,” was all she said, in a dry and mournful tone.



As she named the Empress, Anna Pávlovna’s face suddenly assumed an

expression of profound and sincere devotion and respect mingled with

sadness, and this occurred every time she mentioned her illustrious

patroness. She added that Her Majesty had deigned to show Baron Funke

beaucoup d’estime, and again her face clouded over with sadness.



The prince was silent and looked indifferent. But, with the womanly and

courtierlike quickness and tact habitual to her, Anna Pávlovna

wished both to rebuke him (for daring to speak as he had done of a man

recommended to the Empress) and at the same time to console him, so she

said:



“Now about your family. Do you know that since your daughter came

out everyone has been enraptured by her? They say she is amazingly

beautiful.”



The prince bowed to signify his respect and gratitude.



“I often think,” she continued after a short pause, drawing nearer

to the prince and smiling amiably at him as if to show that political

and social topics were ended and the time had come for intimate

conversation—“I often think how unfairly sometimes the joys of life

are distributed. Why has fate given you two such splendid children?

I don’t speak of Anatole, your youngest. I don’t like him,” she

added in a tone admitting of no rejoinder and raising her eyebrows.

“Two such charming children. And really you appreciate them less than

anyone, and so you don’t deserve to have them.”



And she smiled her ecstatic smile.



“I can’t help it,” said the prince. “Lavater would have said I

lack the bump of paternity.”



“Don’t joke; I mean to have a serious talk with you. Do you know

I am dissatisfied with your younger son? Between ourselves” (and her

face assumed its melancholy expression), “he was mentioned at Her

Majesty’s and you were pitied....”



The prince answered nothing, but she looked at him significantly,

awaiting a reply. He frowned.



“What would you have me do?” he said at last. “You know I did all

a father could for their education, and they have both turned out fools.

Hippolyte is at least a quiet fool, but Anatole is an active one. That

is the only difference between them.” He said this smiling in a way

more natural and animated than usual, so that the wrinkles round

his mouth very clearly revealed something unexpectedly coarse and

unpleasant.



“And why are children born to such men as you? If you were not a

father there would be nothing I could reproach you with,” said Anna

Pávlovna, looking up pensively.



“I am your faithful slave and to you alone I can confess that my

children are the bane of my life. It is the cross I have to bear. That

is how I explain it to myself. It can’t be helped!”



He said no more, but expressed his resignation to cruel fate by a

gesture. Anna Pávlovna meditated.



“Have you never thought of marrying your prodigal son Anatole?” she

asked. “They say old maids have a mania for matchmaking, and though I

don’t feel that weakness in myself as yet, I know a little person who

is very unhappy with her father. She is a relation of yours, Princess

Mary Bolkónskaya.”



Prince Vasíli did not reply, though, with the quickness of memory and

perception befitting a man of the world, he indicated by a movement of

the head that he was considering this information.



“Do you know,” he said at last, evidently unable to check the sad

current of his thoughts, “that Anatole is costing me forty thousand

rubles a year? And,” he went on after a pause, “what will it be in

five years, if he goes on like this?” Presently he added: “That’s

what we fathers have to put up with.... Is this princess of yours

rich?”



“Her father is very rich and stingy. He lives in the country. He is

the well-known Prince Bolkónski who had to retire from the army under

the late Emperor, and was nicknamed ‘the King of Prussia.’ He is

very clever but eccentric, and a bore. The poor girl is very unhappy.

She has a brother; I think you know him, he married Lise Meinen lately.

He is an aide-de-camp of Kutúzov’s and will be here tonight.”



“Listen, dear Annette,” said the prince, suddenly taking Anna

Pávlovna’s hand and for some reason drawing it downwards. “Arrange

that affair for me and I shall always be your most devoted slave-slafe

with an f, as a village elder of mine writes in his reports. She is rich

and of good family and that’s all I want.”



And with the familiarity and easy grace peculiar to him, he raised the

maid of honor’s hand to his lips, kissed it, and swung it to and fro

as he lay back in his armchair, looking in another direction.



“Attendez,” said Anna Pávlovna, reflecting, “I’ll speak to

Lise, young Bolkónski’s wife, this very evening, and perhaps the

thing can be arranged. It shall be on your family’s behalf that I’ll

start my apprenticeship as old maid.”