of no appeal, raising her eyebrows)—“such charming children? And you really seem to appreciate them less than any one, and so you don’t deserve them.”

And she smiled her ecstatic smile.

“What would you have? Lavater would have said that I have not the bump of paternity,” said the prince.

“Don’t keep on joking. I wanted to talk to you seriously. Do you know I’m not pleased with your youngest son. Between ourselves” (her face took its mournful expression), “people have been talking about him to her majesty and commiserating you…”

The prince did not answer, but looking at him significantly, she waited in silence for his answer. Prince Vassily frowned.

“What would you have me do?” he said at last. “You know I have done everything for their education a father could do, and they have both turned out des imbéciles. Ippolit is at least a quiet fool, while Anatole’s a fool that won’t keep quiet, that’s the only difference,” he said, with a smile, more unnatural and more animated than usual, bringing out with peculiar prominence something surprisingly brutal and unpleasant in the lines about his mouth.

“Why are children born to men like you? If you weren’t a father, I could find no fault with you,” said Anna Pavlovna, raising her eyes pensively.

“I am your faithful slave and to you alone I can confess. My children are the bane of my existence. It’s the cross I have to bear, that’s how I explain it to myself. What would you have?” … He broke off with a gesture expressing his resignation to a cruel fate. Anna Pavlovna pondered a moment.

“Have you never thought of marrying your prodigal son Anatole? People say,” she said, “that old maids have a mania for matchmaking. I have never been conscious of this failing before, but I have a little person in my mind, who is very unhappy with her father, a relation of ours, the young Princess Bolkonsky.”

Prince Vassily made no reply, but with the rapidity of reflection and memory characteristic of worldly people, he signified by a motion of the head that he had taken in and was considering what she said.

“No, do you know that that boy is costing me forty thousand roubles a year?” he said, evidently unable to restrain the gloomy current of his thoughts. He paused. “What will it be in five years if this goes on? These are the advantages of being a father.… Is she rich, your young princess?”

“Her father is very rich and miserly. He lives in the country. You know that notorious Prince Bolkonsky, retired under the late emperor, and nicknamed the ‘Prussian King.’ He’s a very clever man, but eccentric and tedious. The poor little thing is as unhappy as possible. Her brother it is who has lately been married to Liza Meinen, an adjutant of Kutuzov’s. He’ll be here this evening.”

“Listen, dear Annette,” said the prince, suddenly taking his companion’s hand, and for some reason bending it downwards. “Arrange this matter for me and I am your faithful slave for ever and ever. She’s of good family and well off. That’s all I want.”

And with the freedom, familiarity, and grace that distinguished him, he took the maid-of-honour’s hand, kissed it, and as he kissed it waved her hand, while he stretched forward in his low chair and gazed away into the distance.

“Wait,” said Anna Pavlovna, considering. “I’ll talk to Lise (the wife of young Bolkonsky) this very evening, and perhaps it can be arranged. I’ll try my prentice hand as an old maid in your family.”