War and peace ( Constance Garnett-1900)

‘What, are you mad? No one would let you. Why, you turn gidd going downstairs,’ various persons protested.

‘I’ll drink it; give me the bottle of rum,’ roared Pierre, striking tl table with a resolute, drunken gesture, and he climbed into the windo\ They clutched at his arms; but he was so strong that he shoved every or far away who came near him.

‘No, there’s no managing him like that,’ said Anatole. ‘Wait a bit, I : get round him. . . . Listen, I’ll take your bet, but for to-morrow, fc we’re all going on now to . . .’

‘Yes, come along,’ shouted Pierre, ‘come along. . . . And take Mishh with us.’ . . . And he caught hold of the bear, and embracing it an lifting it up, began waltzing round the room with it.

Prince Vassily kept the promise he had made at Anna Pavlovna soiree to Princess Drubetskoy, who had petitioned him in favour of h( only son Boris. His case had been laid before the Emperor, and thoug it was not to be a precedent for others, he received a commission as sut lieutenant in the Guards of the Semenovsky regiment. But the post c an adjutant or attache in Kutuzov’s service was not to be obtained fc Boris by all Anna Mihalovna’s efforts and entreaties. Shortly after th gathering at Anna Pavlovna’s, Anna Mihalovna went back to Moscov to her rich relatives the Rostovs, with whom she stayed in Moscow. 1 was with these relations that her adored Borinka, who had only recentl

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entered a regiment of the line, and was now T at once transferred to the Guards as a sub-lieutenant, had been educated from childhood and had lived for years. The Guards had already left Petersburg on the 10th of August, and her son, who was remaining in Moscow to get his equipment, was to overtake them on the road to Radzivilov.

The Rostovs were keeping the name-day of the mother and the younger daughter, both called Natalya. Ever since the morning, coaches with six horses had been incessantly driving to and from the Countess Rostov's big house in Povarsky, which was known to all Moscow. The countess and her handsome eldest daughter were sitting in the drawing-room with their visitors, who came in continual succession to present their congratulations to the elder lady.

The countess was a woman with a thin face of Oriental cast, forty-five years old, and obviously exhausted by child-bearing. She had had twelve children. The deliberate slowness of her movements and conversation, arising from weak health, gave her an air of dignity which inspired respect. Princess Anna Mihalovna Drubetskoy, as an intimate friend of the family, sat with them assisting in the work of receiving and entertaining their guests. The younger members of the family were in the back rooms, not seeing fit to take part in receiving visitors. The count met his visitors and escorted them to the door, inviting all of them to dinner.

‘I am very, very grateful to you, mon cher’ or ‘ma chere,’ he said to every one without exception (making not the slightest distinction between persons of higher or of lower standing than his own), ‘for myself and my two dear ones whose name-day we are keeping. Mind you come to dinner. I shall be offended if you don’t, mon cher. I beg you most sincerely from all the family, my dear.’ These words, invariably accompanied by the same expression on his full, good-humoured, clean-shaven face, and the same warm pressure of the hand, and repeated short bows, he said to all without exception or variation. When he had escorted one guest to the hall, the count returned to the gentleman or lady who was still in the drawing-room. Moving up a chair, and with the air of a man fond of society and at home in it, he would sit down, his legs jauntily apart, and his hands on his knees, and sway to and fro with dignity as he proffered surmises upon the weather, gave advice about health, sometimes in Russian, sometimes in very bad but complacent French. Then again he would get up, and with the air of a man weary but resolute in the performance of his duty, he would escort guests out, stroking up his grey hair over his bald patch, and again he would urge them to come to dinner. Sometimes on his way back from the hall, he would pass through the conservatory and the butler’s room into a big room with a marble floor, where they were setting a table for eighty guests; and looking at the waiters who were bringing in the silver and china, setting out tables and unfolding damask tablecloths, he would call up Dmitry Vassilyevitch, a young man of good family, who performed the duties of a steward in his household, and would say: ‘Now then, Mitenka, mind everything’s right. That’s it, that’s it,’ he would say, looking round with pleasure at

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the immense table opened out to its full extent; ‘the great thing is the service. So, so.’ . . . And he went off again with a sigh of satisfaction to the drawing-room.