War And Peace

Detaching herself from this young man who had no idea how to conduct himself, she resumed her duties as hostess, watching and listening carefully, ready to render assistance at any point where the conversation was beginning to flag. Just as the foreman of a spinning-mill settles the workers down and then strolls about the place on the lookout for a breakdown or any funny noise from a spindle, the slightest squeak or knock that would bring him rushing over to ease the machinery or make an adjustment, so Anna Pavlovna patrolled her drawing-room, walking over to any group where the talk was too little or too loud, and easing the machinery of conversation back into its proper, steady hum with a single word here or a tiny manoeuvre there. But busy as she was with all these preoccupations, she was still clearly worried about Pierre. She watched him anxiously as he went over to hear what was being said in Mortemart’s circle, and then set off for a different group where the abbé was holding forth.

Pierre had been educated abroad, and this evening party at Anna Pavlovna’s was his first such occasion in Russia. Knowing that all the intelligentsia of Petersburg was gathered here, he was like a child in a toyshop, his eyes darting about everywhere. He was afraid of missing any intellectual talk that might have been his to hear. As he gazed at the assembled company, their faces pictures of refinement and self-confidence, he was expecting to hear something very clever at any moment. Eventually he came over to Morio. The conversation struck him as interesting, so he stood there waiting for a chance to launch forth with his own ideas, as young people are wont to do.

CHAPTER 3

Anna Pavlovna’s soirée was now in full swing. On all sides the spindles were humming away non-stop. Apart from the aunt, and her sole companion, an elderly lady with a thin, careworn face, who seemed rather out of place in this brilliant society, the company had split into three groups. The one with most men in it centred around the abbé; another group, of younger people, was dominated by the beautiful Princess Hélène, Prince Vasily’s daughter, and the pretty little Princess Bolkonsky, with her blushing features and a figure too full for her young age. Mortemart and Anna Pavlovna formed part of the third group.

The viscount was a pleasant-looking young man with gentle features and manners, obviously full of his own importance, but modest enough, because of his good breeding, to indulge any company that he might find himself in. Anna Pavlovna was clearly showing him off to her guests. Just as a skilful head waiter can pass off as a supreme delicacy a cut of beef that would be inedible if you’d seen it in the filthy kitchen, Anna Pavlovna served up to her guests that evening first the viscount and then the abbé as if they were supreme delicacies. In Mortemart’s group the conversation had turned to the execution of the Duke of Enghien.⁸

The viscount held that the duke had perished through his own magnanimity, and there were special reasons behind Bonaparte’s animosity towards him.

‘Oh, I say! Do tell us all about it, Viscount,’ said Anna Pavlovna, delighted to feel she had insinuated a touch of Louis XV⁹ in the old-fashioned French phrase she had used. The viscount gave a polite bow and a willing smile. Anna Pavlovna brought them into a circle around him and beckoned everyone over to hear his story.

‘The viscount was a personal friend of the duke,’ she whispered to one of them, and murmured to someone else, ‘The viscount is such a good raconteur.’ To a third person she said, ‘You see – what a man of quality!’, and the viscount was presented in the most refined and advantageous light, served up like a joint of beef garnished with salad on a hot platter.

The viscount was preparing to launch forth; his smile was subtle.

‘My dear Hélène, do come over here,’ said Anna Pavlovna to the gorgeous princess sitting in the very centre of the other group a little way off.

Princess Hélène rose with a smile, the same unchanging beautiful woman’s smile with which she had entered the room. With a gentle rustle of her white ballgown trimmed with ivy and moss, with her glistening white shoulders, glossy hair and sparkling diamonds, she moved between the men as they stepped aside to make way for her. Without looking anyone in the face, but beaming at the company in general and apparently bestowing permission for everyone to admire her wonderful figure, her full shoulders and her fashionably exposed bosom and back, she glided up to Anna Pavlovna, and the brilliance of the ballroom seemed to come with her. Hélène was so exquisite that she not only avoided the slightest hint of flirtatiousness, she even seemed to be embarrassed by the all-too-evident, truly devastating beauty that was hers. It was as if she wanted to tone down the effect of her beauty, but couldn’t do so.