friendly way to prevent his rising. ‘This unfortunate fete at
the ambassador’s deprives me of a pleasure, and obliges me
to interrupt you. I am very sorry to leave your enchanting
party,’ said he, turning to Anna Pavlovna.
His daughter, Princess Helene, passed between the chairs,
lightly holding up the folds of her dress, and the smile shone
still more radiantly on her beautiful face. Pierre gazed at her
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with rapturous, almost frightened, eyes as she passed him.
‘Very lovely,’ said Prince Andrew.
‘Very,’ said Pierre.
In passing Prince Vasili seized Pierre’s hand and said to
Anna Pavlovna: ‘Educate this bear for me! He has been staying with me a whole month and this is the first time I have
seen him in society. Nothing is so necessary for a young
man as the society of clever women.’
Anna Pavlovna smiled and promised to take Pierre in
hand. She knew his father to be a connection of Prince Vasili’s. The elderly lady who had been sitting with the old aunt
rose hurriedly and overtook Prince Vasili in the anteroom.
All the affectation of interest she had assumed had left her
kindly and tearworn face and it now expressed only anxiety and fear.
‘How about my son Boris, Prince?’ said she, hurrying
after him into the anteroom. ‘I can’t remain any longer in
Petersburg. Tell me what news I may take back to my poor
boy.’
Although Prince Vasili listened reluctantly and not very
politely to the elderly lady, even betraying some impatience,
she gave him an ingratiating and appealing smile, and took
his hand that he might not go away.
‘What would it cost you to say a word to the Emperor,
and then he would be transferred to the Guards at once?’
said she.
‘Believe me, Princess, I am ready to do all I can,’ answered
Prince Vasili, ‘but it is difficult for me to ask the Emperor. I
should advise you to appeal to Rumyantsev through Prince
25
Golitsyn. That would be the best way.’
The elderly lady was a Princess Drubetskaya, belonging to one of the best families in Russia, but she was poor,
and having long been out of society had lost her former influential connections. She had now come to Petersburg to
procure an appointment in the Guards for her only son. It
was, in fact, solely to meet Prince Vasili that she had obtained an invitation to Anna Pavlovna’s reception and had
sat listening to the vicomte’s story. Prince Vasili’s words
frightened her, an embittered look clouded her once handsome face, but only for a moment; then she smiled again
and dutched Prince Vasili’s arm more tightly.
‘Listen to me, Prince,’ said she. ‘I have never yet asked
you for anything and I never will again, nor have I ever reminded you of my father’s friendship for you; but now I
entreat you for God’s sake to do this for my sonand I shall
always regard you as a benefactor,’ she added hurriedly. ‘No,
don’t be angry, but promise! I have asked Golitsyn and he
has refused. Be the kindhearted man you always were,’ she
said, trying to smile though tears were in her eyes.
‘Papa, we shall be late,’ said Princess Helene, turning
her beautiful head and looking over her classically molded
shoulder as she stood waiting by the door.
Influence in society, however, is a capital which has to
be economized if it is to last. Prince Vasili knew this, and
having once realized that if he asked on behalf of all who
begged of him, he would soon be unable to ask for himself, he became chary of using his influence. But in Princess
Drubetskaya’s case he felt, after her second appeal, some26
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thing like qualms of conscience. She had reminded him of
what was quite true; he had been indebted to her father for
the first steps in his career. Moreover, he could see by her
manners that she was one of those womenmostly motherswho, having once made up their minds, will not rest until
they have gained their end, and are prepared if necessary to
go on insisting day after day and hour after hour, and even
to make scenes. This last consideration moved him.
‘My dear Anna Mikhaylovna,’ said he with his usual familiarity and weariness of tone, ‘it is almost impossible for
me to do what you ask; but to prove my devotion to you and
how I respect your father’s memory, I will do the impossibleyour son shall be transferred to the Guards. Here is my
hand on it. Are you satisfied?’
‘My dear benefactor! This is what I expected from youI
knew your kindness!’ He turned to go.
‘Waitjust a word! When he has been transferred to the
Guards…’ she faltered. ‘You are on good terms with Michael
Ilarionovich Kutuzov… recommend Boris to him as adjutant! Then I shall be at rest, and then..’
Prince Vasili smiled.
‘No, I won’t promise that. You don’t know how Kutuzov
is pestered since his appointment as Commander in Chief.
He told me himself that all the Moscow ladies have conspired to give him all their sons as adjutants.’
‘No, but do promise! I won’t let you go! My dear benefactor..’
‘Papa,’ said his beautiful daughter in the same tone as before, ‘we shall be late.’
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‘Well, au revoir! Good-by! You hear her?’
‘Then tomorrow you will speak to the Emperor?’
‘Certainly; but about Kutuzov, I don’t promise.’
‘Do promise, do promise, Vasili!’ cried Anna Mikhaylovna as he went, with the smile of a coquettish girl, which
at one time probably came naturally to her, but was now
very ill-suited to her careworn face.
Apparently she had forgotten her age and by force of habit
employed all the old feminine arts. But as soon as the prince
had gone her face resumed its former cold, artificial expression. She returned to the group where the vicomte was still
talking, and again pretended to listen, while waiting till it
would be time to leave. Her task was accomplished.
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Chapter V
‘And what do you think of this latest comedy, the coronation at Milan?’ asked Anna Pavlovna, ‘and of the comedy of
the people of Genoa and Lucca laying their petitions before
Monsieur Buonaparte, and Monsieur Buonaparte sitting on
a throne and granting the petitions of the nations? Adorable! It is enough to make one’s head whirl! It is as if the
whole world had gone crazy.’
Prince Andrew looked Anna Pavlovna straight in the
face with a sarcastic smile.
‘‘Dieu me la donne, gare a qui la touche!’* They say he
was very fine when he said that,’ he remarked, repeating the
words in Italian: ‘‘Dio mi l’ha dato. Guai a chi la tocchi!’’
*God has given it to me, let him who touches it beware!
‘I hope this will prove the last drop that will make the
glass run over,’ Anna Pavlovna continued. ‘The sovereigns
will not be able to endure this man who is a menace to everything.’
‘The sovereigns? I do not speak of Russia,’ said the vicomte, polite but hopeless: ‘The sovereigns, madame… What
have they done for Louis XVII, for the Queen, or for Madame Elizabeth? Nothing!’ and he became more animated.
‘And believe me, they are reaping the reward of their betrayal of the Bourbon cause. The sovereigns! Why, they are
sending ambassadors to compliment the usurper.’
29
And sighing disdainfully, he again changed his position.
Prince Hippolyte, who had been gazing at the vicomte
for some time through his lorgnette, suddenly turned completely round toward the little princess, and having asked
for a needle began tracing the Conde coat of arms on the
table. He explained this to her with as much gravity as if she
had asked him to do it.
‘Baton de gueules, engrele de gueules d’ azurmaison
Conde,’ said he.
The princess listened, smiling.
‘If Buonaparte remains on the throne of France a year
longer,’ the vicomte continued, with the air of a man who,
in a matter with which he is better acquainted than anyone
else, does not listen to others but follows the current of his
own thoughts, ‘things will have gone too far. By intrigues,
violence, exile, and executions, French societyI mean good
French societywill have been forever destroyed, and then..’
He shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands.
Pierre wished to make a remark, for the conversation interested him, but Anna Pavlovna, who had him under
observation, interrupted:
‘The Emperor Alexander,’ said she, with the melancholy
which always accompanied any reference of hers to the Imperial family, ‘has declared that he will leave it to the French
people themselves to choose their own form of government;
and I believe that once free from the usurper, the whole nation will certainly throw itself into the arms of its rightful
king,’ she concluded, trying to be amiable to the royalist
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emigrant.
‘That is doubtful,’ said Prince Andrew. ‘Monsieur le Vicomte quite rightly supposes that matters have already gone
too far. I think it will be difficult to return to the old regime.’
‘From what I have heard,’ said Pierre, blushing and
breaking into the conversation, ‘almost all the aristocracy
has already gone over to Bonaparte’s side.’
‘It is the Buonapartists who say that,’ replied the vicomte
without looking at Pierre. ‘At the present time it is difficult
to know the real state of French public opinion.
‘Bonaparte has said so,’ remarked Prince Andrew with a
sarcastic smile.
It was evident that he did not like the vicomte and was
aiming his remarks at him, though without looking at him.
‘‘I showed them the path to glory, but they did not follow it,’’ Prince Andrew continued after a short silence, again
quoting Napoleon’s words. ‘‘I opened my antechambers and
they crowded in.’ I do not know how far he was justified in
saying so.’
‘Not in the least,’ replied the vicomte. ‘After the murder of the duc even the most partial ceased to regard him
as a hero. If to some people,’ he went on, turning to Anna
Pavlovna, ‘he ever was a hero, after the murder of the duc
there was one martyr more in heaven and one hero less on
earth.’
Before Anna Pavlovna and the others had time to smile
their appreciation of the vicomte’s epigram, Pierre again
broke into the conversation, and though Anna Pavlovna felt
31
sure he would say something inappropriate, she was
