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“Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the
Buonapartes. But I warn you, if you don’t tell me that this means war,
if you still try to defend the infamies and horrors perpetrated by that
Antichrist—I really believe he is Antichrist—I will have nothing
more to do with you and you are no longer my friend, no longer my
‘faithful slave,’ as you call yourself! But how do you do? I see I
have frightened you—sit down and tell me all the news.”

It was in July, 1805, and the speaker was the well-known Anna Pávlovna
Schérer, maid of honor and favorite of the Empress Márya Fëdorovna.
With these words she greeted Prince Vasíli Kurágin, a man of high
rank and importance, who was the first to arrive at her reception. Anna
Pávlovna had had a cough for some days. She was, as she said, suffering
from la grippe; grippe being then a new word in St. Petersburg, used
only by the elite.

All her invitations without exception, written in French, and delivered
by a scarlet-liveried footman that morning, ran as follows:

“If you have nothing better to do, Count (or Prince), and if the
prospect of spending an evening with a poor invalid is not too terrible,
I shall be very charmed to see you tonight between 7 and 10—Annette
Schérer.”

“Heavens! what a virulent attack!” replied the prince, not in the
least disconcerted by this reception. He had just entered, wearing an
embroidered court uniform, knee breeches, and shoes, and had stars on
his breast and a serene expression on his flat face. He spoke in that
refined French in which our grandfathers not only spoke but thought, and
with the gentle, patronizing intonation natural to a man of importance
who had grown old in society and at court. He went up to Anna Pávlovna,
kissed her hand, presenting to her his bald, scented, and shining head,
and complacently seated himself on the sofa.

“First of all, dear friend, tell me how you are. Set your friend’s
mind at rest,” said he without altering his tone, beneath the
politeness and affected sympathy of which indifference and even irony
could be discerned.

“Can one be well while suffering morally? Can one be calm in times
like these if one has any feeling?” said Anna Pávlovna. “You are
staying the whole evening, I hope?”

“And the fete at the English ambassador’s? Today is Wednesday. I
must put in an appearance there,” said the prince. “My daughter is
coming for me to take me there.”

“I thought today’s fete had been canceled. I confess all these
festivities and fireworks are becoming wearisome.”

“If they had known that you wished it, the entertainment would have
been put off,” said the prince, who, like a wound-up clock, by force
of habit said things he did not even wish to be believed.

“Don’t tease! Well, and what has been decided about Novosíltsev’s
dispatch? You know everything.”

“What can one say about it?” replied the prince in a cold, listless
tone. “What has been decided? They have decided that Buonaparte has
burnt his boats, and I believe that we are ready to burn ours.”