The vicomte was a nice-looking young man with soft
features and polished manners, who evidently considered
himself a celebrity but out of politeness modestly placed
himself at the disposal of the circle in which he found himself. Anna Pavlovna was obviously serving him up as a treat
to her guests. As a clever maitre d’hotel serves up as a specially choice delicacy a piece of meat that no one who had
seen it in the kitchen would have cared to eat, so Anna Pavlovna served up to her guests, first the vicomte and then the
abbe, as peculiarly choice morsels. The group about Mortemart immediately began discussing the murder of the
Duc d’Enghien. The vicomte said that the Duc d’Enghien
had perished by his own magnanimity, and that there were
17
particular reasons for Buonaparte’s hatred of him.
‘Ah, yes! Do tell us all about it, Vicomte,’ said Anna Pavlovna, with a pleasant feeling that there was something a la
Louis XV in the sound of that sentence: ‘Contez nous cela,
Vicomte.’
The vicomte bowed and smiled courteously in token of
his willingness to comply. Anna Pavlovna arranged a group
round him, inviting everyone to listen to his tale.
‘The vicomte knew the duc personally,’ whispered Anna
Pavlovna to of the guests. ‘The vicomte is a wonderful raconteur,’ said she to another. ‘How evidently he belongs to
the best society,’ said she to a third; and the vicomte was
served up to the company in the choicest and most advantageous style, like a well-garnished joint of roast beef on a
hot dish.
The vicomte wished to begin his story and gave a subtle
smile.
‘Come over here, Helene, dear,’ said Anna Pavlovna to
the beautiful young princess who was sitting some way off,
the center of another group.
The princess smiled. She rose with the same unchanging
smile with which she had first entered the roomthe smile
of a perfectly beautiful woman. With a slight rustle of her
white dress trimmed with moss and ivy, with a gleam of
white shoulders, glossy hair, and sparkling diamonds, she
passed between the men who made way for her, not looking
at any of them but smiling on all, as if graciously allowing each the privilege of admiring her beautiful figure and
shapely shoulders, back, and bosomwhich in the fashion of
18
War and Peace
those days were very much exposedand she seemed to bring
the glamour of a ballroom with her as she moved toward
Anna Pavlovna. Helene was so lovely that not only did she
not show any trace of coquetry, but on the contrary she even
appeared shy of her unquestionable and all too victorious
beauty. She seemed to wish, but to be unable, to diminish
its effect.
‘How lovely!’ said everyone who saw her; and the vicomte
lifted his shoulders and dropped his eyes as if startled by
something extraordinary when she took her seat opposite
and beamed upon him also with her unchanging smile.
‘Madame, I doubt my ability before such an audience,’
said he, smilingly inclining his head.
The princess rested her bare round arm on a little table
and considered a reply unnecessary. She smilingly waited.
All the time the story was being told she sat upright, glancing now at her beautiful round arm, altered in shape by its
pressure on the table, now at her still more beautiful bosom,
on which she readjusted a diamond necklace. From time
to time she smoothed the folds of her dress, and whenever
the story produced an effect she glanced at Anna Pavlovna,
at once adopted just the expression she saw on the maid of
honor’s face, and again relapsed into her radiant smile.
The little princess had also left the tea table and followed
Helene.
‘Wait a moment, I’ll get my work…. Now then, what are
you thinking of?’ she went on, turning to Prince Hippolyte.
‘Fetch me my workbag.’
There was a general movement as the princess, smiling
19
and talking merrily to everyone at once, sat down and gaily
arranged herself in her seat.
‘Now I am all right,’ she said, and asking the vicomte to
begin, she took up her work.
Prince Hippolyte, having brought the workbag, joined
the circle and moving a chair close to hers seated himself
beside her.
Le charmant Hippolyte was surprising by his extraordinary resemblance to his beautiful sister, but yet more by
the fact that in spite of this resemblance he was exceedingly ugly. His features were like his sister’s, but while in
her case everything was lit up by a joyous, self-satisfied,
youthful, and constant smile of animation, and by the wonderful classic beauty of her figure, his face on the contrary
was dulled by imbecility and a constant expression of sullen self-confidence, while his body was thin and weak. His
eyes, nose, and mouth all seemed puckered into a vacant,
wearied grimace, and his arms and legs always fell into unnatural positions.
‘It’s not going to be a ghost story?’ said he, sitting down
beside the princess and hastily adjusting his lorgnette, as if
without this instrument he could not begin to speak.
‘Why no, my dear fellow,’ said the astonished narrator,
shrugging his shoulders.
‘Because I hate ghost stories,’ said Prince Hippolyte in a
tone which showed that he only understood the meaning of
his words after he had uttered them.
He spoke with such self-confidence that his hearers
could not be sure whether what he said was very witty or
20
War and Peace
very stupid. He was dressed in a dark-green dress coat, knee
breeches of the color of cuisse de nymphe effrayee, as he
called it, shoes, and silk stockings.
The vicomte told his tale very neatly. It was an anecdote,
then current, to the effect that the Duc d’Enghien had gone
secretly to Paris to visit Mademoiselle George; that at her
house he came upon Bonaparte, who also enjoyed the famous actress’ favors, and that in his presence Napoleon
happened to fall into one of the fainting fits to which he was
subject, and was thus at the duc’s mercy. The latter spared
him, and this magnanimity Bonaparte subsequently repaid
by death.
The story was very pretty and interesting, especially at
the point where the rivals suddenly recognized one another;
and the ladies looked agitated.
‘Charming!’ said Anna Pavlovna with an inquiring
glance at the little princess.
‘Charming!’ whispered the little princess, sticking the
needle into her work as if to testify that the interest and fascination of the story prevented her from going on with it.
The vicomte appreciated this silent praise and smiling
gratefully prepared to continue, but just then Anna Pavlovna, who had kept a watchful eye on the young man who so
alarmed her, noticed that he was talking too loudly and vehemently with the abbe, so she hurried to the rescue. Pierre
had managed to start a conversation with the abbe about the
balance of power, and the latter, evidently interested by the
young man’s simple-minded eagerness, was explaining his
pet theory. Both were talking and listening too eagerly and
21
too naturally, which was why Anna Pavlovna disapproved.
‘The means are… the balance of power in Europe and the
rights of the people,’ the abbe was saying. ‘It is only necessary for one powerful nation like Russiabarbaric as she is
said to beto place herself disinterestedly at the head of an
alliance having for its object the maintenance of the balance
of power of Europe, and it would save the world!’
‘But how are you to get that balance?’ Pierre was beginning.
At that moment Anna Pavlovna came up and, looking
severely at Pierre, asked the Italian how he stood Russian
climate. The Italian’s face instantly changed and assumed
an offensively affected, sugary expression, evidently habitual to him when conversing with women.
‘I am so enchanted by the brilliancy of the wit and culture of the society, more especially of the feminine society,
in which I have had the honor of being received, that I have
not yet had time to think of the climate,’ said he.
Not letting the abbe and Pierre escape, Anna Pavlovna,
the more conveniently to keep them under observation,
brought them into the larger circle.
22
War and Peace
Chapter IV
Just them another visitor entered the drawing room:
Prince Andrew Bolkonski, the little princess’ husband. He
was a very handsome young man, of medium height, with
firm, clearcut features. Everything about him, from his
weary, bored expression to his quiet, measured step, offered
a most striking contrast to his quiet, little wife. It was evident that he not only knew everyone in the drawing room,
but had found them to be so tiresome that it wearied him to
look at or listen to them. And among all these faces that he
found so tedious, none seemed to bore him so much as that
of his pretty wife. He turned away from her with a grimace
that distorted his handsome face, kissed Anna Pavlovna’s
hand, and screwing up his eyes scanned the whole company.
‘You are off to the war, Prince?’ said Anna Pavlovna.
‘General Kutuzov,’ said Bolkonski, speaking French and
stressing the last syllable of the general’s name like a Frenchman, ‘has been pleased to take me as an aide-de-camp…’
‘And Lise, your wife?’
‘She will go to the country.’
‘Are you not ashamed to deprive us of your charming
wife?’
‘Andre,’ said his wife, addressing her husband in the
same coquettish manner in which she spoke to other men,
23
‘the vicomte has been telling us such a tale about Mademoiselle George and Buonaparte!’
Prince Andrew screwed up his eyes and turned away.
Pierre, who from the moment Prince Andrew entered the
room had watched him with glad, affectionate eyes, now
came up and took his arm. Before he looked round Prince
Andrew frowned again, expressing his annoyance with
whoever was touching his arm, but when he saw Pierre’s
beaming face he gave him an unexpectedly kind and pleasant smile.
‘There now!… So you, too, are in the great world?’ said
he to Pierre.
‘I knew you would be here,’ replied Pierre. ‘I will come to
supper with you. May I?’ he added in a low voice so as not to
disturb the vicomte who was continuing his story.
‘No, impossible!’ said Prince Andrew, laughing and
pressing Pierre’s hand to show that there was no need to ask
the question. He wished to say something more, but at that
moment Prince Vasili and his daughter got up to go and the
two young men rose to let them pass.
‘You must excuse me, dear Vicomte,’ said
