Family Dynamics and Social Maneuvering — War and Peace

The exhausted countess orders no more callers admitted, though the porter must still invite all congratulators to dinner. She sends Vera away so she can speak privately with Anna Mikhaylovna, her old Petersburg friend. Vera, not a favourite, smiles contemptuously and goes. Passing the sitting room she sees two couples at the windows: Nicholas copying his first verses for Sonya, Boris and Natasha talking. She punishes the happiness by taking the inkstand, scolding their rush into the drawing room, and threatening to tell their mother. Natasha defends Boris, calls Vera heartless and a Madame de Genlis, and the four flee like startled birds while Vera calmly fixes her hair and scarf at the glass.

Downstairs the countess complains of the Club and an easygoing husband, then asks how Anna managed ministers. Anna explains the widow's method: write a note, take a cab, go two, three, or four times until you get what you want. She says Prince Vasili put Boris's Guards commission before the Emperor, then cries that the lawsuit has left her one twenty-five-ruble note and she needs five hundred to equip her son. Her only hope is Count Bezukhov, Boris's godfather, alone with his millions.

She announces she will take Boris straight to the dying man before the four o'clock dinner and asks the countess, in a whisper, to wish her good luck. The count, coming from the dining hall, adds that if the old man is better they must invite Pierre: Taras says even Count Orlov never gave such a dinner. The visit is not gossip. It is survival dressed as friendship, and the carriage is already waiting.