War And Peace

Young Princess Bolkonsky had brought some work with her in a gold-embroidered velvet bag. Her pretty little upper lip, slightly shadowed with down, barely covered her teeth, but that made it all the prettier when it rose up and lovelier still when it curled down to meet the lower lip. As tends to happen with the best-looking women, a defect – in this case a short lip and a half-open mouth – came out as a distinctive and beautiful feature. Everyone enjoyed the sight of this pretty little mother-to-be, brimming with health and vitality and making light of her condition. After a few minutes in her company and the exchange of a word or two, old men and bored, morose young men felt as if they themselves were becoming like her. Anyone who talked to her, watching her as every word she spoke revealed that bright little smile and the constant gleam of those dazzling white teeth, walked away feeling full of bonhomie. Everybody did.

The little princess waddled slightly as she tripped rapidly round the table, holding her tiny workbag, then she cheerfully smoothed down her dress and sat on a sofa near the silver samovar. Everything she did seemed like a treat for herself and everyone around her.

‘I’ve brought my work,’ she said in French, opening her reticule and addressing all the company. ‘But listen, Annette, you must stop playing tricks on me,’ she said, turning to the hostess. ‘You wrote and said it was only a little party. Just look what I’ve got on.’ And she spread her arms wide to display an elegant grey dress, decorated with lace and set off by a broad sash just below the bosom.

‘Don’t worry, Lise, you’ll always be the prettiest,’ answered Anna Pavlovna.

‘Did you know my husband is deserting me?’ she said to a general, continuing to speak French and using just the same tone. ‘He’s going off to get himself killed. Do tell me what this awful war is all about,’ she asked of Prince Vasily, but before he could answer she had moved on to his daughter, the beautiful Hélène.

‘Isn’t she a gorgeous creature, this little princess?’ said Prince Vasily to Anna Pavlovna.

Shortly after the little princess’s arrival, in walked a big, generously proportioned young man with close-cropped hair and spectacles, wearing the last word in light-coloured breeches and a tan coat with a jabot. This stout young man was the illegitimate son of a celebrated grandee from Catherine’s age, old Count Bezukhov, who was now on his deathbed in Moscow. He had not yet entered any branch of the service, having only just returned from abroad, where he had been completing his education. This was his first appearance in society. Anna Pavlovna welcomed him with the kind of bow she reserved for the lowest persons in the hierarchy of her drawing-room. But even as she bestowed her meanest welcome on this new arrival Anna Pavlovna’s face was transformed; she looked ill at ease and full of alarm, like someone who had come across some gross object, oversized and out of place. By a small margin Pierre was indeed the largest man in the room, but her look of dismay must surely have derived from this man’s special look – intelligent, rather diffident, but also piercing and spontaneous – that made him a distinctive figure in the drawing-room.

‘It is most kind of you, Monsieur Pierre, to come to see a poor sick woman,’ said Anna Pavlovna, looking anxiously across at her aunt as she steered him in her direction. Pierre mumbled something unintelligible, and continued to stare around the room, looking for something. He beamed with pleasure, bowed to the little princess as if she was a close friend of his, and then went over to the aunt. Anna Pavlovna’s worst fears were confirmed when Pierre walked off without hearing the full story of her Majesty’s health. Rattled, Anna Pavlovna detained him with a question.

‘You don’t know the Abbé Morio, do you? Such an interesting man . . .’

‘Yes, I’ve heard about him and his scheme for everlasting peace. All very interesting, but not really feasible.’

‘Don’t you think so?’ asked Anna Pavlovna for the sake of saying something before getting back to her duties as hostess, but Pierre now committed the opposite kind of faux pas. Fresh from walking away without listening properly to a lady who was speaking to him, he now talked on and detained a lady who needed to get away from him. With his head lowered and his great legs thrust wide apart, he set about explaining to Anna Pavlovna why he thought the abbé’s scheme was a silly fancy.

‘Could we talk about this later on?’ smiled Anna Pavlovna.