Emma Watson Pussy
Books:
Anna Karenina
War And Peace
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of relief at having performed a vexatious
duty and did not return to her the whole evening.
The young Princess Bolkonskaya had brought some work in a
gold-embroidered velvet bag. Her pretty little upper lip, on which a
delicate dark down was just perceptible, was too short for her
teeth, but it lifted all the more sweetly, and was especially charming
when she occasionally drew it down to meet the lower lip. As is always
the case with a thoroughly attractive woman, her defect--the shortness
of her upper lip and her half-open mouth--seemed to be her own special
and peculiar form of beauty. Everyone brightened at the sight of
this pretty young woman, so soon to become a mother, so full of life
and health, and carrying her burden so lightly. Old men and dull
dispirited young ones who looked at her, after being in her company
and talking to her a little while, felt as if they too were
becoming, like her, full of life and health. All who talked to her,
and at each word saw her bright smile and the constant gleam of her
white teeth, thought that they were in a specially amiable mood that
day.
The little princess went round the table with quick, short,
swaying steps, her workbag on her arm, and gaily spreading out her
dress sat down on a sofa near the silver samovar, as if all she was
doing was a pleasure to herself and to all around her. "I have brought
my work," said she in French, displaying her bag and addressing all
present. "Mind, Annette, I hope you have not played a wicked trick
on me," she added, turning to her hostess. "You wrote that it was to
be quite a small reception, and just see how badly I am dressed."
And she spread out her arms to show her short-waisted, lace-trimmed,
dainty gray dress, girdled with a broad ribbon just below the breast.
"Soyez tranquille, Lise, you will always be prettier than anyone
else," replied Anna Pavlovna.
"You know," said the princess in the same tone of voice and still in
French, turning to a general, "my husband is deserting me? He is going
to get himself killed. Tell me what this wretched war is for?" she
added, addressing Prince Vasili, and without waiting for an answer she
turned to speak to his daughter, the beautiful Helene.
"What a delightful woman this little princess is!" said Prince
Vasili to Anna Pavlovna.
One of the next arrivals was a stout, heavily built young man with
close-cropped hair, spectacles, the light-colored breeches fashionable
at that time, a very high ruffle, and a brown dress coat. This stout
young man was an illegitimate son of Count Bezukhov, a well-known
grandee of Catherines time who now lay dying in Moscow. The young man
had not yet entered either the military or civil service, as he had
only just returned from abroad where he had been educated, and this
was his first appearance in society. Anna Pavlovna greeted him with
the nod she accorded to the lowest hierarchy in her drawing room.
But in spite of this lowest-grade greeting, a look of anxiety and
fear, as at the sight of something too large and unsuited to the
place, came over her face when she saw Pierre enter. Though he was
certainly rather bigger than the other men in the room, her anxiety
could only have reference to the clever though shy, but observant
and natural, expression which distinguished him from everyone else
in that drawing room.
"It is very good of you, Monsieur Pierre, to come and visit a poor
invalid," said Anna Pavlovna, exchanging an alarmed glance with her
aunt as she conducted him to her.
Pierre murmured something unintelligible, and continued to look
round as if in search of something. On his way to the aunt he bowed to
the little princess with a pleased smile, as to an intimate
acquaintance.
Anna Pavlovnas alarm was justified, for Pierre turned away from the
aunt without waiting to hear her speech about Her Majestys health.
Anna Pavlovna in dismay detained him with the words: "Do you know
the Abbe Morio? He is a most interesting man."
"Yes, I have heard of his scheme for perpetual peace, and it is very
interesting but hardly feasible."
"You think so?" rejoined Anna Pavlovna in order to say something and
get away to attend to her duties as hostess. But Pierre now
committed a reverse act of impoliteness. First he had left a lady
before she had finished speaking to him, and now he continued to
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