Emma Watson Pussy
Books:
Anna Karenina
War And Peace
|
I dont promise."
"Do promise, do promise, Vasili!" cried Anna Mikhaylovna as he went,
with the smile of a coquettish girl, which at one time probably came
naturally to her, but was now very ill-suited to her careworn face.
Apparently she had forgotten her age and by force of habit
employed all the old feminine arts. But as soon as the prince had gone
her face resumed its former cold, artificial expression. She
returned to the group where the vicomte was still talking, and again
pretended to listen, while waiting till it would be time to leave. Her
task was accomplished.
CHAPTER V
"And what do you think of this latest comedy, the coronation at
Milan?" asked Anna Pavlovna, "and of the comedy of the people of Genoa
and Lucca laying their petitions before Monsieur Buonaparte, and
Monsieur Buonaparte sitting on a throne and granting the petitions
of the nations? Adorable! It is enough to make ones head whirl! It is
as if the whole world had gone crazy."
Prince Andrew looked Anna Pavlovna straight in the face with a
sarcastic smile.
"Dieu me la donne, gare a qui la touche!* They say he was very
fine when he said that," he remarked, repeating the words in
Italian: "Dio mi lha dato. Guai a chi la tocchi!"
*God has given it to me, let him who touches it beware!
"I hope this will prove the last drop that will make the glass run
over," Anna Pavlovna continued. "The sovereigns will not be able to
endure this man who is a menace to everything."
"The sovereigns? I do not speak of Russia," said the vicomte, polite
but hopeless: "The sovereigns, madame... What have they done for Louis
XVII, for the Queen, or for Madame Elizabeth? Nothing!" and he
became more animated. "And believe me, they are reaping the reward
of their betrayal of the Bourbon cause. The sovereigns! Why, they
are sending ambassadors to compliment the usurper."
And sighing disdainfully, he again changed his position.
Prince Hippolyte, who had been gazing at the vicomte for some time
through his lorgnette, suddenly turned completely round toward the
little princess, and having asked for a needle began tracing the Conde
coat of arms on the table. He explained this to her with as much
gravity as if she had asked him to do it.
"Baton de gueules, engrele de gueules dazur--maison Conde," said
he.
The princess listened, smiling.
"If Buonaparte remains on the throne of France a year longer," the
vicomte continued, with the air of a man who, in a matter with which
he is better acquainted than anyone else, does not listen to others
but follows the current of his own thoughts, "things will have gone
too far. By intrigues, violence, exile, and executions, French
society--I mean good French society--will have been forever destroyed,
and then..."
He shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands. Pierre wished to
make a remark, for the conversation interested him, but Anna Pavlovna,
who had him under observation, interrupted:
"The Emperor Alexander," said she, with the melancholy which
always accompanied any reference of hers to the Imperial family,
"has declared that he will leave it to the French people themselves to
choose their own form of government; and I believe that once free from
the usurper, the whole nation will certainly throw itself into the
arms of its rightful king," she concluded, trying to be amiable to the
royalist emigrant.
"That is doubtful," said Prince Andrew. "Monsieur le Vicomte quite
rightly supposes that matters have already gone too far. I think it
will be difficult to return to the old regime."
"From what I have heard," said Pierre, blushing and breaking into
the conversation, "almost all the aristocracy has already gone over to
Bonapartes side."
"It is the Buonapartists who say that," replied the vicomte
without looking at Pierre. "At the present time it is difficult to
know the real state of French public opinion."
"Bonaparte has said so," remarked Prince Andrew with a sarcastic
smile.
It was evident that he did not like the vicomte and was aiming his
remarks at him, though without looking at him.
"I showed them the path to glory, but they did not follow it,"
Prince Andrew continued after a short silence, again quoting
Napoleons words. "I opened my antechambers and they crowded in. I
do not know how far he was justified in saying so."
"Not in the least," replied the vicomte. "After the murder of the
duc even the most partial ceased to regard him as a hero. If to some
people," he went on, turning to Anna Pavlovna, "he ever was
War And Peace page 8 War And Peace page 10
|
