“I think,” the prince said, smiling, “that if they sent you instead of our dear Wintzingerode, you would take the Prussian king’s consent by storm.7 You’re so eloquent! Will you give me tea?”
“At once. À propos,” she added, calming down again, “I’ll have two very interesting men here tonight, le vicomte de Mortemart, il est allié aux Montmorency par les Rohan,†10 one of the best French families. He’s one of the good émigrés,8 one of the real ones. And then l’abbé Morio‡11 —do you know that profound mind? He’s been received by the sovereign. Do you know him?”
“Ah! I’ll be very glad,” said the prince. “Tell me,” he added, as if just recalling something and with special casualness, though what he asked about was the main purpose of his visit, “is it true that l’impératrice-mère§12 wants Baron Funke to be named first secretary in Vienna? C’est un pauvre sire, ce baron, à ce qu’il paraît.”#13 Prince Vassily wanted his son to be appointed to this post, which, through the empress Maria Feodorovna, had been solicited for the baron.
Anna Pavlovna all but closed her eyes as a sign that neither she nor anyone else could judge of the empress’s good pleasure or liking.
“Monsieur le baron de Funke a été recommandé à l’impératrice-mère par sa soeur,”**14 she merely said in a sad, dry tone. The moment Anna Pavlovna mentioned the empress, her face suddenly presented a profound and sincere expression of devotion and respect, combined with sadness, which happened each time she referred to her exalted patroness in conversation. She said that her majesty had deigned to show Baron Funke beaucoup d’estime,*15 and her eyes again clouded over with sadness.
The prince lapsed into indifferent silence. Anna Pavlovna, with her courtly and feminine adroitness and ready tact, wanted both to swat the prince for daring to make such a pronouncement about a person recommended to the empress, and at the same time to comfort him.
“Mais à propos de votre famille,” she said, “do you know that your daughter, since her coming out, fait les délices de tout le monde? On la trouve belle, comme le jour.”†16
The prince bowed in a sign of respect and gratitude.
“I often think,” Anna Pavlovna went on after a moment’s silence, moving closer to the prince and smiling tenderly at him, as if to show thereby that the political and social conversations were at an end and a heart-to-heart one was beginning, “I often think how unfairly life’s good fortune is sometimes distributed. Why has fate given you two such nice children (excluding Anatole, your youngest, I don’t like him),” she put in peremptorily, raising her eyebrows, “such lovely children? And you really value them less than anyone and are therefore unworthy of them.”
And she smiled her rapturous smile.
“Que voulez-vous? Lavater aurait dit que je n’ai pas la bosse de la paternité,”‡17 said the prince.
“Stop joking. I wanted to talk seriously with you. You know, I’m displeased with your younger son. Just between us,” her face acquired a sad look, “there was talk about him at her majesty’s, and you were pitied…”
The prince did not reply, but she fell silent, looking at him significantly, waiting for a reply. Prince Vassily winced.
“What am I to do?” he said finally. “You know, I did all a father could for their upbringing, and they both turned out des imbéciles. Ippolit is at least an untroublesome fool, but Anatole is a troublesome one. That’s the only difference,” he said, smiling more unnaturally and animatedly than usual, and with that showing especially clearly in the wrinkles that formed around his mouth something unexpectedly coarse and disagreeable.
“Ah, why do such people as you have children? If you weren’t a father, I’d have nothing to reproach you for,” said Anna Pavlovna, raising her eyes pensively.
“Je suis votre faithful slave, et à vous seule je puis l’avouer. My children—ce sont les entraves de mon existence.*18 That’s my cross. I explain it that way to myself. Que voulez-vous?…” He paused, expressing with a gesture his submission to cruel fate.
Anna Pavlovna fell to thinking.
“Have you never thought of getting your prodigal son Anatole married? They say,” she observed, “that old maids ont la manie des marriages.†19 I don’t feel I have that weakness yet, but I know one petite personne who is very unhappy with her father, une parente à nous, une princesse Bolkonsky.”‡20 Prince Vassily did not reply, though, with the quickness of grasp and memory characteristic of society people, he showed by a nod of the head that he had taken this information into account.
“No, you know, this Anatole costs me forty thousand a year,” he said, obviously unable to restrain the melancholy course of his thoughts. He paused.
“How will it be in five years, if it goes on like this? Voilà l’avantage d’être père.§21 Is she rich, this princess of yours?”
“Her father is very rich and stingy. He lives in the country. You know, it’s the famous Prince Bolkonsky,9 already retired under the late emperor and nicknamed ‘the King of Prussia.’ He’s a very intelligent man, but an odd and difficult one. La pauvre petite est malheureuse comme les pierres.#22 She has a brother, Kutuzov’s adjutant, the one who recently married Lise Meinen. He’ll come tonight.”
“Écoutez, chère Annette,” said the prince, suddenly taking his interlocutor by the hand and pulling it down for some reason. “Arrangez-moi cette affaire et je suis votre faithful slave à tout jamais (slafe—comme mon village headman écrit des reports: f instead of v).**23 She’s from a good family and rich. That’s all I need.”
And with those free and familiarly graceful movements which distinguished him, he took the maid of honor’s hand, kissed it, and, having kissed it, waved the maid-of-honorly hand a little, sprawled himself in an armchair, and looked away.
“Attendez,” Anna Pavlovna said, pondering. “Tonight I’ll discuss it with Lise (la femme du jeune Bolkonsky). And maybe something can be settled. Ce sera dans votre famille que je ferai mon apprentissage de vielle fille.”††24
II
Anna Pavlovna’s drawing room gradually began to fill up. The high nobility of Petersburg came, people quite diverse in age and character, but alike in the society they lived in. Prince Vassily’s daughter, the beautiful Hélène, came to fetch her father and go with him to the fête at the ambassador’s. She was wearing a ball gown with a monogram.10 The young little princess Bolkonsky, known as la femme la plus séduisante de Pétersbourg,*25 also came; married the previous winter, she did not go into high society now for reason of her pregnancy, but did still go to small soirées. Prince Ippolit, Prince Vassily’s son, came with Mortemart, whom he introduced; the abbé Morio also came, and many others.