War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [13]
“Ah, voyons. Contez-nous cela, vicomte,”*34 said Anna Pavlovna, joyfully sensing that something à la Louis XV echoed in this phrase, “contez-nous cela, vicomte.”
The viscount bowed as a sign of submission and smiled politely. Anna Pavlovna circled around the viscount and invited everyone to listen to his story.
“Le vicomte a été personellement connu de monseigneur,” Anna Pavlovna whispered to one. “Le vicomte est un parfait conteur,” she said to another. “Comme on voit l’homme de la bonne compagnie,”†35 she said to a third; and the viscount was presented to the company in a most refined and advantageous light, like a roast beef on a hot platter sprinkled with herbs.
The viscount was just about to begin his story and smiled subtly.
“Come over here, chère Hélène,” Anna Pavlovna said to the beautiful princess, who was sitting some way off, forming the center of another circle.
Princess Hélène was smiling; she got up with the same unchanging smile of a perfectly beautiful woman with which she had entered the drawing room. Lightly rustling her white ball gown trimmed with ivy and moss, her white shoulders gleaming, her hair and diamonds shining, she walked straight on between the parted men, not looking at anyone, but smiling to everyone, and as if kindly granting each of them the right to admire the beauty of her figure, her full shoulders, her very exposed bosom and back, as the fashion then was, and, as if bringing with her the brilliance of a ball, approached Anna Pavlovna. Hélène was so good-looking that there was not only not a trace of coquetry to be seen in her, but, on the contrary, it was as if she was embarrassed by her unquestionable and all too strongly and triumphantly effective beauty. It was as if she wished but was unable to diminish the effect of her beauty.
“Quelle belle personne!”*36 said everyone who saw her. As if struck by something extraordinary, the viscount shrugged his shoulders and lowered his eyes while she was seating herself before him and shining upon him that same unchanging smile.
“Madame, je crains pour mes moyens devant un pareil auditoire,”†37 he said, inclining his head with a smile.
The princess rested the elbow of her bare, rounded arm on a little table and did not find it necessary to say anything. She waited, smiling. Throughout the story she sat erect, glancing occasionally now at her rounded, beautiful arm lying lightly on the table, now at the still more beautiful bosom on which she straightened a diamond necklace; she also straightened the folds of her gown several times, and, when the story produced an impression, turned to look at Anna Pavlovna and at once assumed the same expression as on the maid of honor’s face, and then settled back into a radiant smile. After Hélène, the little princess also came over from the tea table.
“Attendez-moi, je vais prendre mon ouvrage,” she said. “Voyons, à quoi pensez-vous?” she turned to Prince Ippolit. “Apportez-moi mon reticule.”‡38
The princess, smiling and talking with everyone, suddenly effected the transposition, and, taking a seat, cheerily settled herself.
“Now I feel good,” she said several times, and, asking them to begin, started to work.
Prince Ippolit fetched her reticule, came after her, and, moving his chair towards her, sat down close by.
Le charmant Hippolyte was striking in his extraordinary resemblance to his beautiful sister, and still more in being strikingly unattractive, despite that resemblance. The features of his face were the same as his sister’s, but in her everything was lit up by her joyous, self-contented, young, unchanging smile and the extraordinary classical beauty of her body. In her brother, on the contrary, the same face was clouded by idiocy and invariably expressed a self-assured peevishness, and his body was skinny and weak. His eyes, nose, and mouth all seemed to shrink into an indefinite and dull grimace, and his arms and legs always assumed an unnatural position.
“Ce n’est pas une histoire des revenants?”*39 he said, sitting down