War and Peace

nna Pávlovna’s reception was in full swing. The spindles hummed
steadily and ceaselessly on all sides. With the exception of the aunt,
beside whom sat only one elderly lady, who with her thin careworn face
was rather out of place in this brilliant society, the whole company had
settled into three groups. One, chiefly masculine, had formed round
the abbé. Another, of young people, was grouped round the beautiful
Princess Hélène, Prince Vasíli’s daughter, and the little Princess
Bolkónskaya, very pretty and rosy, though rather too plump for her age.
The third group was gathered round Mortemart and Anna Pávlovna.

The vicomte was a nice-looking young man with soft features and polished
manners, who evidently considered himself a celebrity but out of
politeness modestly placed himself at the disposal of the circle in
which he found himself. Anna Pávlovna was obviously serving him up as
a treat to her guests. As a clever maître d’hôtel serves up as a
specially choice delicacy a piece of meat that no one who had seen it in
the kitchen would have cared to eat, so Anna Pávlovna served up to
her guests, first the vicomte and then the abbé, as peculiarly choice
morsels. The group about Mortemart immediately began discussing the
murder of the Duc d’Enghien. The vicomte said that the Duc d’Enghien
had perished by his own magnanimity, and that there were particular
reasons for Buonaparte’s hatred of him.

“Ah, yes! Do tell us all about it, Vicomte,” said Anna Pávlovna,
with a pleasant feeling that there was something à la Louis XV in the
sound of that sentence: “Contez nous çela, Vicomte.”

The vicomte bowed and smiled courteously in token of his willingness to
comply. Anna Pávlovna arranged a group round him, inviting everyone to
listen to his tale.

“The vicomte knew the duc personally,” whispered Anna Pávlovna to
one of the guests. “The vicomte is a wonderful raconteur,” said she
to another. “How evidently he belongs to the best society,” said she
to a third; and the vicomte was served up to the company in the choicest
and most advantageous style, like a well-garnished joint of roast beef
on a hot dish.

The vicomte wished to begin his story and gave a subtle smile.

“Come over here, Hélène, dear,” said Anna Pávlovna to the
beautiful young princess who was sitting some way off, the center of
another group.

The princess smiled. She rose with the same unchanging smile with which
she had first entered the room—the smile of a perfectly beautiful
woman. With a slight rustle of her white dress trimmed with moss
and ivy, with a gleam of white shoulders, glossy hair, and sparkling
diamonds, she passed between the men who made way for her, not looking
at any of them but smiling on all, as if graciously allowing each the
privilege of admiring her beautiful figure and shapely shoulders,
back, and bosom—which in the fashion of those days were very much
exposed—and she seemed to bring the glamour of a ballroom with her as
she moved toward Anna Pávlovna. Hélène was so lovely that not only
did she not show any trace of coquetry, but on the contrary she even
appeared shy of her unquestionable and all too victorious beauty. She
seemed to wish, but to be unable, to diminish its effect.

“How lovely!” said everyone who saw her; and the vicomte lifted his
shoulders and dropped his eyes as if startled by something extraordinary
when she took her seat opposite and beamed upon him also with her
unchanging smile.

“Madame, I doubt my ability before such an audience,” said he,
smilingly inclining his head.

The princess rested her bare round arm on a little table and considered
a reply unnecessary. She smilingly waited. All the time the story was
being told she sat upright, glancing now at her beautiful round arm,
altered in shape by its pressure on the table, now at her still more
beautiful bosom, on which she readjusted a diamond necklace. From time
to time she smoothed the folds of her dress, and whenever the story
produced an effect she glanced at Anna Pávlovna, at once adopted just
the expression she saw on the maid of honor’s face, and again relapsed
into her radiant smile.

The little princess had also left the tea table and followed Hélène.

“Wait a moment, I’ll get my work.... Now then, what are you
thinking of?” she went on, turning to Prince Hippolyte. “Fetch me my
workbag.”

There was a general movement as the princess, smiling and talking
merrily to everyone at once, sat down and gaily arranged herself in her
seat.

“Now I am all right,” she said, and asking the vicomte to begin, she
took up her work.

Prince Hippolyte, having brought the workbag, joined the circle and
moving a chair close to hers seated himself beside her.

Le charmant Hippolyte was surprising by his extraordinary resemblance
to his beautiful sister, but yet more by the fact that in spite of
this resemblance he was exceedingly ugly. His features were like his
sister’s, but while in her case everything was lit up by a joyous,
self-satisfied, youthful, and constant smile of animation, and by the
wonderful classic beauty of her figure, his face on the contrary
was dulled by imbecility and a constant expression of sullen
self-confidence, while his body was thin and weak. His eyes, nose, and
mouth all seemed puckered into a vacant, wearied grimace, and his arms
and legs always fell into unnatural positions.

“It’s not going to be a ghost story?” said he, sitting down beside
the princess and hastily adjusting his lorgnette, as if without this
instrument he could not begin to speak.

“Why no, my dear fellow,” said the astonished narrator, shrugging
his shoulders.

“Because I hate ghost stories,” said Prince Hippolyte in a tone
which showed that he only understood the meaning of his words after he
had uttered them.

He spoke with such self-confidence that his hearers could not be sure
whether what he said was very witty or very stupid. He was dressed in
a dark-green dress coat, knee breeches of the color of cuisse de nymphe
effrayée, as he called it, shoes, and silk stockings.

The vicomte told his tale very neatly. It was an anecdote, then current,
to the effect that the Duc d’Enghien had gone secretly to Paris to
visit Mademoiselle George; that at her house he came upon Bonaparte,
who also enjoyed the famous actress’ favors, and that in his presence
Napoleon happened to fall into one of the fainting fits to which he was
subject, and was thus at the duc’s mercy. The latter spared him, and
this magnanimity Bonaparte subsequently repaid by death.

The story was very pretty and interesting, especially at the point
where the rivals suddenly recognized one another; and the ladies looked
agitated.

“Charming!” said Anna Pávlovna with an inquiring glance at the
little princess.

“Charming!” whispered the little princess, sticking the needle into
her work as if to testify that the interest and fascination of the story
prevented her from going on with it.

The vicomte appreciated this silent praise and smiling gratefully
prepared to continue, but just then Anna Pávlovna, who had kept a
watchful eye on the young man who so alarmed her, noticed that he was
talking too loudly and vehemently with the abbé, so she hurried to the
rescue. Pierre had managed to start a conversation with the abbé about
the balance of power, and the latter, evidently interested by the young
man’s simple-minded eagerness, was explaining his pet theory. Both
were talking and listening too eagerly and too naturally, which was why
Anna Pávlovna disapproved.

“The means are ... the balance of power in Europe and the rights of
the people,” the abbé was saying. “It is only necessary for one
powerful nation like Russia—barbaric as she is said to be—to place
herself disinterestedly at the head of an alliance having for its object
the maintenance of the balance of power of Europe, and it would save the
world!”

“But how are you to get that balance?” Pierre was beginning.

At that moment Anna Pávlovna came up and, looking severely at Pierre,
asked the Italian how he stood Russian climate. The Italian’s
face instantly changed and assumed an offensively affected, sugary
expression, evidently habitual to him when conversing with women.

“I am so enchanted by the brilliancy of the wit and culture of the
society, more especially of the feminine society, in which I have had
the honor of being received, that I have not yet had time to think of
the climate,” said he.

Not letting the abbé and Pierre escape, Anna Pávlovna, the more
conveniently to keep them under observation, brought them into the
larger circle.