guilty air, as always.
“Well now, my little countess. What a fine Madeira and woodcock sauté there will be! I have tried it; I was right to give a thousand roubles for Taras. He’s well worth it!”
He sat down beside his wife, propping his arms rakishly on his knees … and ruffling up his grey hair. “What is your pleasure, little countess?”
“Now then, my friend, what’s that stain you have there?” she said, pointing at his waistcoat. “It is the sauté, I suppose,” she added, smiling. “Look, count, I need some money.”
Her face grew sad.
“Ah, my little countess!” said the count and he began busily taking out his wallet.
“I need a lot, count, I need five hundred roubles.” And taking out her batiste lawn handkerchief, she rubbed her husband’s waistcoat with it.
“Straight away, straight away. Hey, is anyone there?” he shouted in the kind of voice only used by people who are certain that those they are calling will come dashing headlong at their summons. “Send Mitenka to me!”
Mitenka, a nobleman’s son who had been raised in the count’s house, and who now managed all his affairs, entered the room with silent steps.
“Now then, my dear chap,” the count said to the deferential young man, “will you bring me …” he thought for a moment. “Yes, 700 roubles, yes. And be sure not to bring torn and dirty notes like last time, but good ones, for the countess.”
“Yes, Mitenka, please, nice clean ones,” said the countess, sighing sadly.
“Your excellency, when do you wish me to bring it?” said Mitenka. “If you please, may I know what … Then, please, do not bother yourself,” he added, noticing that the count had already begun breathing rapidly and heavily, which was always a sign of the onset of rage. “I almost forgot … Do you wish me to bring it this very minute?”
“Yes, yes, do, bring it now. Give it to the countess.”
“Pure gold, that Mitenka of mine,” the count added, smiling, when the young man left the room. “Nothing’s ever impossible. I can’t stand that sort of thing. With him, everything’s possible.”
“Ah, money, count, money, how much grief it causes in the world!” said the countess. “But I do need this money very badly.”
“You, my little countess, are a notorious spendthrift,” said the count and, after kissing his wife’s hand, he went back to his study.
When Anna Mikhailovna came back from Count Bezukhov’s house, the money, all in brand new notes, was already lying on the low table under the countess’s handkerchief, and Anna Mikhailovna noticed that the countess seemed agitated about something and looked sad.
“Well then, my friend?” asked the countess.
“Ah, what a terrible state he is in! He is unrecognisable, he is so bad, so bad: I spent a moment with him and didn’t even say two words …”
“Annette, for God’s sake, do not refuse me,” the countess said suddenly, blushing, which looked very strange with her ageing, thin, solemn face, as she took the money out from under the handkerchief.
Anna Mikhailovna instantly realised what the matter was and eagerly leaned over in order to hug the countess at the proper moment.
“This is for Boris from me to have his uniform made …”
Anna Mikhailovna embraced her eagerly and wept. The countess wept too. They wept because they were friends, and because they were kind-hearted, and because they, who had been friends from their youth, were concerned with such a base item as money, and because their youth was past and gone … But for both, their tears were gratifying.
XXII
Countess Rostova and her daughter and an already large number of guests were sitting in the drawing room. The count showed the male guests through into the study, offering them his own connoisseur’s collection of Turkish pipes. From time to time he came out and asked if she had arrived yet. They were expecting Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova, known in society by the nickname of the fearsome dragon, a lady renowned not for her wealth or her distinctions, but for her straightforward thinking and frank simplicity of manner. Marya Dmitrievna was known to the royal family, she was known to the whole of Moscow and the whole of St. Petersburg, and both cities, while marvelling at her, chuckled in secret over her rudeness and told jokes about her: nonetheless everyone without exception respected and feared her.
In the smoke-filled study the conversation was about the war, which had been declared in a manifesto, and about the levy. No one had yet read the manifesto, but everyone knew it had been published. The count sat on the ottoman between two other men who were smoking and talking. The count himself did not smoke or talk but, inclining his head first to one side and then to the other, he watched the smokers with evident enjoyment and listened to the conversation of his two neighbours, whom he had pitted against each other.
One of the speakers was a civilian, with a wrinkled, bilious, clean-shaven, thin face, a man already approaching old age, although he was dressed like a most fashionable young man: he was sitting with his legs up on the ottoman, with the air of being quite at home and, having thrust the amber mouthpiece deep into his mouth from one side, was fitfully drawing in the smoke and screwing up his eyes. He was a well-known Moscow wit, the old bachelor Shinshin, a cousin of the countess, who was referred to in the salons of Moscow as an affected fop. He seemed to be speaking with condescension towards his conversation partner. The other, a fresh, pink Guards officer, irreproachably washed, buttoned and combed, was holding the amber mouthpiece in the centre of his mouth and drawing the smoke in lightly with his pink lips, releasing it in rings from his shapely mouth, which seemed expressly made for the blowing of smoke rings. He was the lieutenant Berg, an officer of the Semyonovsky Regiment, with whom Boris was to travel to the regiment and about whom Natasha had been teasing Vera, the eldest of the young countesses, calling Berg her fiancé. Berg moved on from conversation about the war to his own affairs, unfolding his future plans for service in the army, and was evidently very proud to be conversing with such a celebrity as Shinshin. The count sat between them and listened carefully. The pastime that the count found most agreeable, apart from playing boston, which he greatly loved, was playing the role of listener, especially when he managed to pit two lively and loquacious conversation partners against each other. Although Berg was clearly not a loquacious partner, the count observed on Shinshin’s lips a mocking smile that seemed to say: “Watch how I sort out this little officer.” And the count, without the slightest animus against Berg, was amusing himself by discovering the wit in Shinshin’s every word.
“Well, come on, old man, my highly esteemed Alphonse Karlovich,” Shinshin said, laughing and combining, in the manner which was the distinguishing feature of his speech, the most trivial Russian expressions with refined French phrases. “Aren’t you counting on having an income from the treasury, and don’t you want the regiment to pay you a little something too?”
“Oh no, Pyotr Nikolaevich, I simply wish to demonstrate that there are far fewer advantages to being in the cavalry than in the infantry. Now, just imagine my situation, Pyotr Nikolaevich.”
Berg always spoke very precisely, calmly and politely. His conversation always concerned only himself, and he always remained calmly silent while the talk was of something that had no direct connection with him. He could remain silent like this for hours at a time, without feeling the slightest embarrassment himself or provoking it in anyone else. But as soon as the conversation concerned him personally, he would begin speaking at length and with obvious enjoyment.
“Just imagine my situation, Pyotr Nikolaevich, if I were in the cavalry, I would receive no more than two hundred roubles every four months, even at the rank of lieutenant, but now I receive two hundred and thirty,” he said with a gleeful, self-satisfied, egotistical smile, regarding Shinshin and the count