“My dear
prince, you are our benefactor. I expected nothing less indeed; I know how good
you are—” He tried to get away. “Wait a moment, one word. Once in the Guards …”
She hesitated. “You are on friendly terms with Mihail Ilarionovitch Kutuzov,
recommend Boris as his adjutant. Then my heart will be set at rest, then indeed
…”
Prince Vassily smiled. “That I can’t
promise. You don’t know how Kutuzov has been besieged ever since he has been
appointed commander-in-chief. He told me himself that all the Moscow ladies were in league together to give
him all their offspring as adjutants.”
“No, promise
me; I can’t let you off, kind, good friend, benefactor …”
“Papa,”
repeated the beauty in the same tone, “we are late.”
“Come, au
revoir, good-bye. You see how it is.”
“To-morrow
then you will speak to the Emperor?”
“Certainly;
but about Kutuzov I can’t promise.”
“Yes; do
promise, promise, Basile,” Anna Mihalovna said, pursuing him with the smile of
a coquettish girl, once perhaps characteristic, but now utterly incongruous
with her careworn face. Evidently she had forgotten her age and from habit was
bringing out every feminine resource. But as soon as he had gone out her face
assumed once more the frigid, artificial expression it had worn all the
evening. She went back to the group in which the vicomte was still talking, and
again affected to be listening, waiting for the suitable moment to get away,
now that her object had been attained.
“And what do
you think of this latest farce of the coronation at Milan?” said Anna Pavlovna.
“And the new comedy of the people of Lucca and Genoa coming to present
their petitions to Monsieur Buonaparte. Monsieur Buonaparte sitting on a throne
and granting the petitions of nations! Adorable! Why, it is enough to drive one
out of one’s senses! It seems as though the whole world had lost its head.”
Prince Andrey smiled sarcastically, looking
straight into Anna Pavlovna’s face.
“God gives it
me; let man beware of touching it,” he said (Bonaparte’s words uttered at the
coronation). “They say that he was very fine as he spoke those words,” he
added, and he repeated the same words in Italian: “Dio me l’ha data, e quai a
chi la tocca.”
“I hope that
at last,” pursued Anna Pavlovna, “this has been the drop of water that will
make the glass run over. The sovereigns cannot continue to endure this man who
is a threat to everything.”
“The
sovereigns! I am not speaking of Russia ,” said the vicomte
deferentially and hopelessly. “The sovereigns! … Madame! What did they do for
Louis the Sixteenth, for the queen, for Madame Elisabeth? Nothing,” he went on
with more animation; “and believe me, they are undergoing the punishment of
their treason to the Bourbon cause. The sovereigns! … They are sending
ambassadors to congratulate the usurper.”
And with a scornful
sigh he shifted his attitude again. Prince Ippolit, who had for a long time
been staring through his eyeglass at the vicomte, at these words suddenly
turned completely round, and bending over the little princess asked her for a
needle, and began showing her the coat-of-arms of the Condé family, scratching
it with the needle on the table. He explained the coat-of-arms with an air of
gravity, as though the princess had asked him about it. “Staff, gules;
engrailed with gules of azure—house of Condé,” he said. The princess listened
smiling.
— r � c a s ��r e ladies — in which I have had the
happiness to be received, that I have not yet had time to think of the
climate,” he said. Not letting the abbé and
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