Emma Watson Pussy
Books:
Anna Karenina
War And Peace
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said this smiling
in a way more natural and animated than usual, so that the wrinkles
round his mouth very clearly revealed something unexpectedly coarse
and unpleasant.
"And why are children born to such men as you? If you were not a
father there would be nothing I could reproach you with," said Anna
Pavlovna, looking up pensively.
"I am your faithful slave and to you alone I can confess that my
children are the bane of my life. It is the cross I have to bear. That
is how I explain it to myself. It cant be helped!"
He said no more, but expressed his resignation to cruel fate by a
gesture. Anna Pavlovna meditated.
"Have you never thought of marrying your prodigal son Anatole?"
she asked. "They say old maids have a mania for matchmaking, and
though I dont feel that weakness in myself as yet, I know a little
person who is very unhappy with her father. She is a relation of
yours, Princess Mary Bolkonskaya."
Prince Vasili did not reply, though, with the quickness of memory
and perception befitting a man of the world, he indicated by a
movement of the head that he was considering this information.
"Do you know," he said at last, evidently unable to check the sad
current of his thoughts, "that Anatole is costing me forty thousand
rubles a year? And," he went on after a pause, "what will it be in
five years, if he goes on like this?" Presently he added: "Thats what
we fathers have to put up with.... Is this princess of yours rich?"
"Her father is very rich and stingy. He lives in the country. He
is the well-known Prince Bolkonski who had to retire from the army
under the late Emperor, and was nicknamed the King of Prussia. He is
very clever but eccentric, and a bore. The poor girl is very
unhappy. She has a brother; I think you know him, he married Lise
Meinen lately. He is an aide-de-camp of Kutuzovs and will be here
tonight."
"Listen, dear Annette," said the prince, suddenly taking Anna
Pavlovnas hand and for some reason drawing it downwards. "Arrange
that affair for me and I shall always be your most devoted slave-slafe
with an f, as a village elder of mine writes in his reports. She is
rich and of good family and thats all I want."
And with the familiarity and easy grace peculiar to him, he raised
the maid of honors hand to his lips, kissed it, and swung it to and
fro as he lay back in his armchair, looking in another direction.
"Attendez," said Anna Pavlovna, reflecting, "Ill speak to Lise,
young Bolkonskis wife, this very evening, and perhaps the thing can
be arranged. It shall be on your familys behalf that Ill start my
apprenticeship as old maid."
CHAPTER II
Anna Pavlovnas drawing room was gradually filling. The highest
Petersburg society was assembled there: people differing widely in age
and character but alike in the social circle to which they belonged.
Prince Vasilis daughter, the beautiful Helene, came to take her
father to the ambassadors entertainment; she wore a ball dress and
her badge as maid of honor. The youthful little Princess
Bolkonskaya, known as la femme la plus seduisante de Petersbourg,* was
also there. She had been married during the previous winter, and being
pregnant did not go to any large gatherings, but only to small
receptions. Prince Vasilis son, Hippolyte, had come with Mortemart,
whom he introduced. The Abbe Morio and many others had also come.
*The most fascinating woman in Petersburg.
To each new arrival Anna Pavlovna said, "You have not yet seen my
aunt," or "You do not know my aunt?" and very gravely conducted him or
her to a little old lady, wearing large bows of ribbon in her cap, who
had come sailing in from another room as soon as the guests began to
arrive; and slowly turning her eyes from the visitor to her aunt, Anna
Pavlovna mentioned each ones name and then left them.
Each visitor performed the ceremony of greeting this old aunt whom
not one of them knew, not one of them wanted to know, and not one of
them cared about; Anna Pavlovna observed these greetings with mournful
and solemn interest and silent approval. The aunt spoke to each of
them in the same words, about their health and her own, and the health
of Her Majesty, "who, thank God, was better today." And each
visitor, though politeness prevented his showing impatience, left
the old woman with a sense
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