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By Root 3512 0

on his knees, he would sway significantly, offer his surmises about the weather, discuss health, sometimes in Russian, sometimes in very poor but self-confident French, and again, with the look of a man weary but firm in the fulfillment of his duty, would go to see people off, smoothing the thin gray hair over his bald spot, and again invite them to dinner. Occasionally, on returning from the front hall, he would pass through the conservatory and the servants’ room to a big marble hall, where a table of eighty settings was being laid, and, looking at the servants carrying silver and china, opening out tables, and spreading damask tablecloths, he would call Dmitri Vassilievich, a nobleman who managed all his affairs, and say:

“Well, well, Mitenka, see that it’s all nice. Right, right,” he would say, looking over the enormous, opened-out table. “The main thing’s the setout. So, so…” And, sighing self-contentedly, he would go back to the drawing room.

“Marya Lvovna Karagin with daughter!” the countess’s enormous footman announced in a bass voice, coming to the door of the drawing room. The countess pondered and took a pinch from a gold snuffbox with her husband’s portrait on it.

“I’m worn out with these visits,” she said. “Well, she’ll be the last I receive. She’s so prim. Ask her in,” she said to the footman in a sad voice, as if to say: “Well, so finish me off.”

A tall, stout, proud-looking lady and her round-faced, smiling daughter came into the room, rustling their skirts.

“Chère comtesse, il y a si longtemps…elle a été alitée, la pauvre enfant…au bal des Razoumowsky…et la comtesse Apraksine…j’ai été si heureuse…”*83 women’s voices were heard, interrupting each other and merging with the rustling of skirts and the moving of chairs. That sort of conversation began which is designed to last just long enough so that one can get up at the first pause, with a rustling of skirts, say, “Je suis bien charmée; la santé de maman…et la comtesse Apraksine,”*84 and again, with a rustling of skirts, go back to the front hall, put on a fur coat or a cloak, and drive off. The conversation turned to the main news of the town at that time—the illness of the rich and famous beau of Catherine’s time, old Count Bezukhov, and his illegitimate son Pierre, who had behaved so improperly at Anna Pavlovna Scherer’s soirée.

“I’m very sorry for the poor count,” said the guest. “He was in poor health to begin with, and now this distress on account of his son. It will kill him!”

“What do you mean?” asked the countess, as if she did not know what the guest was talking about, though she had already heard the cause of Count Bezukhov’s distress a good fifteen times.

“It’s modern upbringing! While still abroad,” the guest went on, “this young man was left to himself, and now in Petersburg, they say, he did such awful things that he’s been banished by the police.”

“You don’t say!” said the countess.

“He chose his acquaintances poorly,” Princess Anna Mikhailovna mixed in. “Prince Vassily’s son, he and a certain Dolokhov, they say, were up to God knows what. And they’ve both suffered for it. Dolokhov has been broken to the ranks, and Bezukhov’s son has been banished to Moscow. As for Anatole Kuragin—his father somehow hushed it up. But they did banish him from Petersburg.”

“Why, what on earth did they do?” asked the countess.

“They’re perfect ruffians, especially Dolokhov,” said the guest. “He’s the son of Marya Ivanovna Dolokhov, such a respectable lady, and what then? Can you imagine: the three of them found a bear somewhere, put it in the carriage with them, and went to the actresses. The police came running to quiet them down. They took a policeman and tied him back to back with the bear, and threw the bear into the Moika. So the bear goes swimming about with the policeman on him.”

“A fine figure the policeman must have cut, ma chère,” cried the count, dying with laughter.

“Ah, how terrible! What is there to laugh at, Count?”

But the ladies could not help laughing themselves.

“They barely managed to save the poor fellow,” the guest went on.