War and Peace - Noyemi

By Leo Tolstoy

"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 Bolkonskaya."

Prince Vasili 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 Bolkonski 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 Kutuzov's and will be here
tonight."

"Listen, dear Annette," said the prince, suddenly taking Anna
Pavlovna's hand and for some reason drawing it downwards. "Arrange
that affair for me and I shall always be your most devoted slave-
slafe wigh 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 Pavlovna, reflecting, "I'll speak to Lise,
young Bolkonski'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."





CHAPTER II


Anna Pavlovna's drawing room was gradually filling. The highest
Petersburg society was assembled there: people differing widely in age
and character but alike in the social circle to which they belonged.
Prince Vasili's daughter, the beautiful Helene, came to take her
father to the ambassador's entertainment; she wore a ball dress and
her badge as maid of honor. The youthful little Princess
Bolkonskaya, known as la femme la plus seduisante de Petersbourg,* was
also there. She had been married during the previous winter, and being
pregnant did not go to any large gatherings, but only to small
receptions. Prince Vasili's son, Hippolyte, had come with Mortemart,
whom he introduced. The Abbe Morio and many others had also come.


*The most fascinating woman in Petersburg.


To each new arrival Anna Pavlovna said, "You have not yet seen my
aunt," or "You do not know my aunt?" and very gravely conducted him or
her to a little old lady, wearing large bows of ribbon in her cap, who
had come sailing in from another room as soon as the guests began to
arrive; and slowly turning her eyes from the visitor to her aunt, Anna
Pavlovna mentioned each one's name and then left them.

Each visitor performed the ceremony of greeting this old aunt whom
not one of them knew, not one of them wanted to know, and not one of
them cared about; Anna Pavlovna observed these greetings with mournful
and solemn interest and silent approval. The aunt spoke to each of
them in the same words, about their health and her own, and the health
of Her Majesty, "who, thank God, was better today." And each
visitor, though politeness prevented his showing impatience, left
the old woman with a sense of relief at having performed a vexatious
duty and did not return to her the whole evening.

The young Princess Bolkonskaya had brought some work in a
gold-embroidered velvet bag. Her pretty little upper lip, on which a
delicate dark down was just perceptible, was too short for her
teeth, but it lifted all the more sweetly, and was especially charming
when she occasionally drew it down to meet the lower lip. As is always
the case with a thoroughly attractive woman, her defect--the shortness
of her upper lip and her half-open mouth--seemed to be her own special
and peculiar form of beauty. Everyone brightened at the sight of
this pretty young woman, so soon to become a mother, so full of life
and health, and carrying her burden so lightly. Old men and dull
dispirited young ones who looked at her, after being in her company
and talking to her a little while, felt as if they too were
becoming, like her, full of life and health. All who talked to her,
and at each word saw her bright smile and the constant gleam of her
white teeth, thought that they were in a specially amiable mood that
day.

The little princess went round the table with quick, short,
swaying steps, her workbag on her arm, and gaily spreading out her
dress sat down on a sofa near the silver samovar, as if all she was

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By Leo Tolstoy

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