‘What does she want?’ he said. ‘She is carrying my daughter, whom I have just saved from the flames,’ he declared. ‘Good-bye!’ and utterly at a loss to explain to himself the aimless lie he had just blurted out, he strode along with a resolute and solemn step between the Frenchmen.
The patrol of Uhlans was one of those that had been sent out by Durosnel’s orders through various streets of Moscow to put a stop to pillage, and still more to capture the incendiaries, who in the genera! opinion of the French officers in the higher ranks on that day were causing the fires. Patrolling several streets, the Uhlans arrested five more suspicious characters, a shopkeeper, two divinity students, a peasant, and a house-serf—all Russians—besides several French soldiers engaged in billage. But of all these suspicious characters Pierre seemed to them the most suspicious of all.
When they had all been brought for the night to a big house on Zubovsky rampart, which had been fixed upon as a guardhouse, Pierre ,vas put apart from the rest under strict guard.
PART XII
I
In the higher circles in Petersburg the intricate conflict between the parties of Rumyantsev, of the French, of Marya Fyodorovna, of the Tsarevitch, and the rest was going on all this time with more heat than ever, drowned, as always, by the buzzing of the court drones. But the easy, luxurious life of Petersburg, troubled only about phantasms, the reflection of life, went on its old way; and the course of that life made it a difficult task to believe in the danger and the difficult position of the Russian people. There were the same levees- and balls, the same French theatre, the same court interests, the same interests and intrigues in the government service. It was only in the very highest circles that efforts were made to recollect the difficulty ot the real position. There was whispered gossip of how the two Empresses had acted in opposition to one another in these difficult circumstances. The Empress Marya Fyodorovna, anxious for the welfare of the benevolent and educational institutions under her patronage, had. arrangements made for the removal of all the institutes to Kazan, and all the belongings of these establishments were already packed. The Empress Elizaveta Alexyevna on being asked what commands she was graciously pleased to give, had been pleased to reply that in regard tc state matters she could give no commands, since that was all in the Tsar’s hands; as far as she personally was concerned, she had graciously declared, with her characteristic Russian patriotism, that she would be the last to leave Petersburg.
On the 26th of August, the very day of the battle of Borodino, there was a soiree at Anna Pavlovna’s, the chief attraction of which was tc be the reading of the Metropolitan’s letter, written on the occasion ol his sending to the Tsar the holy picture of Saint Sergey. This letter was looked upon as a model of patriotic ecclesiastical eloquence. It was tc be read by Prince Vassily himself, who was famed for his fine elocution (He used even to read aloud in the Empress’s drawing-room.) Thd beauty of his elocution was supposed to lie in the loud, resonant voice varying between a despairing howl and a tender whine, in which he rolled off the words quite independently of the sense, so that a howl fel on one word and a whine on others quite at random. This reading, a: was always the case with Anna Pavlovna’s entertainments, had a po litical significance. She was expecting at this soiree several importan personages who were to be made to feel ashamed of patronising th<
878
;?nch theatre, and to be roused to patriotic fervour. A good many 33 ple had already arrived, but Anna Pavlovna did not yet see those rsons whose presence in her drawing-room was necessary, and she *s therefore starting general topics of conversation before proceeding the reading.
The news of the day in Petersburg was the illness of Countess izuhov. The countess had been taken ill a few days previously; she id missed several entertainments, of which she was usually the orna- mt, and it was said that she was seeing no one, and that instead of ; celebrated Petersburg physicians, who usually attended her, she d put herself into the hands of some Italian doctor, who was treating r on some new and extraordinary method.
Everybody was very well aware that the charming countess’s illness ts due to inconveniences arising from marrying two husbands at ice, and that the Italian doctor’s treatment consisted in the removal : such inconvenience. But in the presence of Anna Pavlovna no one ntured to think about that view of the question, or even, as it were, know what they did know about it.
'They say the poor countess is very ill. The doctor says it is angina c tor is.’
‘Angine? Oh, that’s a terrible illness.’
fThey say the rivals are reconciled, thanks to the angine . . .’ The ird angine was repeated with great relish.
