War and peace ( Constance Garnett-1900)

‘Ah, I heard a Moscow story to-day; I must entertain you with it. You will excuse me, vicomte, I must tell it in Russian. If not, the point of the story will be lost.’ And Prince Ippolit began speaking in Russian, using the sort of jargon Frenchmen speak after spending a year in Russia. Every one waited expectant; Prince Ippolit had so eagerly, so insistently called for the attention of all for his story.

‘In Moscow there is a lady, une dame. And she is very stingy. She wanted to have two footmen behind her carriage. And very tall footmen. That was her taste. And she had a lady’s maid, also very tall. She said . . .’

Here Prince Ippolit paused and pondered, apparently collecting his ideas with difficulty.

‘"She said . . . yes, she said: “Girl,” to the lady’s maid, “put on livree, and get up behind the carriage, to pay calls.” ’

Here Prince Ippolit gave a loud guffaw, laughing long before any of his audience, which created an impression by no means flattering to him. Several persons, among them the elderly lady and Anna Pavlovna, did smile, however.

‘She drove off. Suddenly there was a violent gust of wind. The girl lost her hat, and her long hair fell down . . .’

At this point he could not restrain himself, and began laughing violently, articulating in the middle of a loud guffaw, ‘And all the world knew . . .’

There the anecdote ended. Though no one could understand why he had told it, and why he had insisted on telling it in Russian, still Anna Pavlovna and several other people appreciated the social breeding of Prince Ippolit in so agreeably putting a close to the disagreeable and ill-bred outbreak of Monsieur Pierre. The conversation after this episode broke up into small talk of no interest concerning the last and the approaching ball, the theatre, and where and when one would meet so-and-so again.

V

Thanking Anna Pavlovna for her charmante soiree, the guests began to take leave.

Pierre was clumsy, stout and uncommonly tall, with huge red hands; he did not, as they say, know how to come into a drawing-room and still less how to get out of one, that is, how to say something particularly agreeable on going away. Moreover, he was dreamy. He stood up, and picking up a three-cornered hat with the plume of a general in it instead of his own, he kept hold of it, pulling the feathers till the general asked him to restore it. But all his dreaminess and his inability to enter a drawing-room or talk properly in it were atoned for by his expression of good-nature, simplicity and modesty. Anna Pavlovna turned to him, and with Christian meekness signifying her forgiveness for his misbehaviour, she nodded to him and said:

‘I hope I shall see you again, but I hope too you will change your opinions, my dear Monsieur Pierre.’

He made no answer, simply bowed and displayed to every one once more his smile, which said as plainly as words: ‘Opinions or no opinions, you see what a nice, good-hearted fellow I am.’ And Anna Pavlovna and every one else instinctively felt this. Prince Andrey had gone out into the hall and turning his shoulders to the footman who was ready to put his cloak on him, he listened indifferently to his wife’s chatter with Prince Ippolit, who had also come out into the hall. Prince Ippolit stood close to the pretty princess, so soon to be a mother, and stared persistently straight at her through his eyeglass.

‘Go in, Annette, you’ll catch cold,’ said the little princess, saying good-bye to Anna Pavlovna. ‘It is settled,’ she added in a low voice.

Anna Pavlovna had managed to have a few words with Liza about the match she was planning between Anatole and the sister-in-law of the little princess.

‘I rely on you, my dear,’ said Anna Pavlovna, also in an undertone; ‘you write to her and tell me how the father will view the matter. Au revolt I’ And she went back out of the hall.

.

Prince Ippolit went up to the little princess and, bending his face down close to her, began saying something to her in a half whisper.

Two footmen, one the princess’s, the other his own, stood with shawl and redingote waiting till they should finish talking, and listened to their French prattle, incomprehensible to them, with faces that seemed to say that they understood what was being said but would not show it. The princess, as always, talked with a smile and listened laughing.

‘I’m very glad I didn’t go to the ambassador’s,’ Prince Ippolit was saying: ‘such a bore. ... A delightful evening it has been, hasn’t it? delightful.’

‘They say the ball will be a very fine one,’ answered the little princess, twitching up her downy little lip. ‘All the pretty women are to be there.’