“Why do you say this young man is so rich?” asked the countess, turning away from the girls, who at once assumed an air of inattention. “His children are all illegitimate. I think Pierre also is illegitimate.”
The visitor made a gesture with her hand.
“I should think he has a score of them.”
Princess Anna Mikháylovna intervened in the conversation, evidently wishing to show her connections and knowledge of what went on in society.
“The fact of the matter is,” said she significantly, and also in a half whisper, “everyone knows Count Cyril’s reputation…. He has lost count of his children, but this Pierre was his favorite.”
“How handsome the old man still was only a year ago!” remarked the countess. “I have never seen a handsomer man.”
“He is very much altered now,” said Anna Mikháylovna. “Well, as I was saying, Prince Vasíli is the next heir through his wife, but the count is very fond of Pierre, looked after his education, and wrote to the Emperor about him; so that in the case of his death—and he is so ill that he may die at any moment, and Dr. Lorrain has come from Petersburg—no one knows who will inherit his immense fortune, Pierre or Prince Vasíli. Forty thousand serfs and millions of rubles! I know it all very well for Prince Vasíli told me himself. Besides, Cyril Vladímirovich is my mother’s second cousin. He’s also my Bóry’s godfather,” she added, as if she attached no importance at all to the fact.
“Prince Vasíli arrived in Moscow yesterday. I hear he has come on some inspection business,” remarked the visitor.
“Yes, but between ourselves,” said the princess, “that is a pretext. The fact is he has come to see Count Cyril Vladímirovich, hearing how ill he is.”
“But do you know, my dear, that was a capital joke,” said the count; and seeing that the elder visitor was not listening, he turned to the young ladies. “I can just imagine what a funny figure that policeman cut!”
And as he waved his arms to impersonate the policeman, his portly form again shook with a deep ringing laugh, the laugh of one who always eats well and, in particular, drinks well. “So do come and dine with us!” he said.
- CHAPTER XI
Silence ensued. The countess looked at her callers, smiling affably, but not concealing the fact that she would not be distressed if they now rose and took their leave. The visitor’s daughter was already smoothing down her dress with an inquiring look at her mother, when suddenly from the next room were heard the footsteps of boys and girls running to the door and the noise of a chair falling over, and a girl of thirteen, hiding something in the folds of her short muslin frock, darted in and stopped short in the middle of the room. It was evident that she had not intended her flight to bring her so far. Behind her in the doorway appeared a student with a crimson coat collar, an officer of the Guards, a girl of fifteen, and a plump rosy-faced boy in a short jacket.
The count jumped up and, swaying from side to side, spread his arms wide and threw them round the little girl who had run in.
“Ah, here she is!” he exclaimed laughing. “My pet, whose name day it is. My dear pet!”
“Ma chère, there is a time for everything,” said the countess with feigned severity. “You spoil her, Ilyá,” she added, turning to her husband.
“How do you do, my dear? I wish you many happy returns of your name day,” said the visitor. “What a charming child,” she added, addressing the mother.
This black-eyed, wide-mouthed girl, not pretty but full of life—with childish bare shoulders which after her run heaved and shook her bodice, with black curls tossed backward, thin bare arms, little legs in lace-frilled drawers, and feet in low slippers—was just at that charming age when a girl is no longer a child, though the child is not yet a young woman. Escaping from her father she ran to hide her flushed face in the lace of her mother’s mantilla not paying the least attention to her severe remark and began to laugh. She laughed, and in fragmentary sentences tried to explain about a doll which she produced from the folds of her frock.
“Do you see?… My doll… Mimi… You see…” was all Natasha managed to utter (to her everything seemed funny). She leaned against her mother and burst into such a loud, ringing fit of laughter that even the prim visitor could not help joining in.
“Now then, go away and take your monstrosity with you,” said the mother, pushing away her daughter with pretended sternness, and turning to the visitor she added: “She is my youngest girl.”
Natásha, raising her face for a moment from her mother’s mantilla, glanced up at her
