| "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
Pavlovna Scherer, maid of honor and favorite of the Empress Marya
Fedorovna. With these words she greeted Prince Vasili Kuragin,
a man of high rank and importance, who was the first to arrive
at her reception. Anna Pavlovna 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 Scherer."
"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 Pavlovna, 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
Pavlovna. "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 Novosiltsev'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 Vasili always spoke languidly, like an actor repeating
a stale part. Anna Pavlovna Scherer 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 Pavlovna
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
Novosiltsev 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. A 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 emigres, the good ones. And also the Abbe 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 Vasili wished to obtain this post for his son, but
others were trying through the Dowager Empress Marya Fedorovna
to secure it for the baron.
Anna Pavlovna 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 Pavlovna'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
Pavlovna wished both to rebuke him (for daring to speak 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 Pavlovna, 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 Pavlovna 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 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."
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