War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [29]
“What makes you say this young man is so wealthy?” asked the countess, leaning away from the girls, who at once pretended they were not listening. “The man has only illegitimate children. It seems…Pierre, too, is illegitimate.”
The guest waved her hand.
“He has a score of them, I should think.”
Princess Anna Mikhailovna mixed into the conversation, clearly wishing to show her connections and her knowledge of all the circumstances of society.
“The thing is this,” she said significantly and also in a half whisper. “Count Kirill Vladimirovich’s reputation is well-known…He’s lost count of his children, but this Pierre was his favorite.”
“How good-looking the old man was,” said the countess, “even last year! I’ve never seen a handsomer man.”
“He’s quite changed now,” said Anna Mikhailovna. “So, as I was about to say,” she went on, “Prince Vassily is the direct heir to the whole fortune through his wife, but the father loved Pierre very much, concerned himself with his upbringing, and wrote to the sovereign…so that when he dies (he’s so poorly that they expect it any moment, and Lorrain has come from Petersburg), no one knows who will get this enormous fortune, Pierre or Prince Vassily. Forty thousand souls,25 and millions of roubles. I know it very well, because Prince Vassily told me himself. And Kirill Vladimirovich is my uncle twice removed through my mother. And he’s Borya’s godfather,” she added, as if ascribing no importance to this circumstance.
“Prince Vassily came to Moscow yesterday. He’s going to do some inspecting, I’m told,” said the guest.
“Yes, but entre nous,”*85 said the countess, “it’s a pretext. He’s come, essentially, to see Count Kirill Vladimirovich, having learned that he was so poorly.”
“However, ma chère, that was a nice stunt,” said the count and, noticing that the elder guest was not listening, he turned to the young ladies. “A fine figure that policeman cut, I imagine.”
And, picturing how the policeman waved his arms, he again burst into resounding, bass-voiced laughter, which shook his whole stout body, as people laugh who always eat, and especially drink, very well. “So please do come for dinner,” he said.
VIII
Silence ensued. The countess looked at the guest with a pleasant smile, without concealing, however, that she would not be upset in the least now if the guest got up and left. The guest’s daughter was already smoothing her dress, looking questioningly at her mother, when suddenly from the neighboring room came the sound of several men’s and women’s feet running to the door, the crash of a tripped-over and fallen chair, and a thirteen-year-old girl ran in, bundling something in her short muslin skirt, and stopped in the middle of the room. It was obvious that she had run so far inadvertently, miscalculating the distance. At the same moment a student in a raspberry-colored collar,26 an officer of the guards, a fifteen-year-old girl, and a fat, red-cheeked boy in a child’s jacket appeared in the doorway.
The count jumped up and, swaying, spread his arms wide around the running girl.
“Ah, here she is!” he shouted, laughing. “The name-day girl! Ma chère name-day girl!”
“Ma chère, il y a un temps pour tout,”*86 said the countess, feigning sternness. “You always spoil her, Élie,” she added to her husband.
“Bonjour, ma chère, je vous félicite,” said the guest. “Quelle délicieuse enfant!”†87 she added, turning to the mother.
The dark-eyed, big-mouthed, not beautiful, but lively girl, with her child’s bare shoulders popping out of her bodice from running fast, with her black ringlets all thrown back, her thin, bare arms, her little legs in lace-trimmed knickers and low shoes, was at that sweet age when a girl is no longer a child, but the child is not yet