Salon Games While Moscow Burns — War and Peace

In Petersburg a complicated struggle among the parties of Rumyantsev, the French, Marya Fedorovna, the Tsarevich, and others went on with greater heat than ever, drowned as usual by the buzzing of court drones. The calm, luxurious life of the capital, concerned only with phantoms and reflections of real life, continued in its old way. Receptions, balls, the French theatre, court interests and service intrigues made it hard, except by a great effort, to realise the danger facing the Russian people. Only in the highest circles were attempts made to keep the difficulty in mind. Stories were whispered of the two Empresses. The Empress Marya, concerned for the charitable and educational institutions under her patronage, had ordered them all removed to Kazan, and the things were already packed. The Empress Elisabeth, asked for instructions, said she could give none about state institutions, that being the sovereign's affair, but that as far as she personally was concerned she would be the last to quit Petersburg.

At Anna Pavlovna's on the twenty-sixth of August, the very day of Borodino, there was a soiree whose chief feature was to be the reading of a letter from the Bishop sending the Emperor an icon of the Venerable Sergius, regarded as a model of ecclesiastical patriotic eloquence. Prince Vasili, famed for rolling words independently of their meaning, was to read it. The reading had a political point: important personages were to be made ashamed of the French theatre and aroused to a patriotic temper. Anna Pavlovna delayed the start, winding up general conversation until all she wanted had arrived.

The news of the day was the illness of Countess Bezukhova. Helene had fallen ill unexpectedly, missed gatherings of which she was usually the ornament, received no one, and had entrusted herself to an Italian doctor instead of the celebrated Petersburg physicians. Everyone knew the enchanting countess's illness arose from the inconvenience of marrying two husbands at the same time, and that the Italian's cure was to remove that inconvenience, but in Anna Pavlovna's presence no one dared appear to know it. They repeated the word angina with satisfaction, said the count had cried like a child, and called her a terrible loss. When an unwary young man wondered at the charlatan, Anna Pavlovna retorted that the doctor was private physician to the Queen of Spain, and demolished him. She turned to Bilibin, who smoothed out a diplomatic mot he had himself composed: the Emperor was returning Austrian banners, friendly banners gone astray and found on a wrong path. Prince Hippolyte added loudly, the path to Warsaw, perhaps, and glanced round in amused surprise, having no more idea than the others what he meant. Into the awkward silence came the insufficiently patriotic guest Anna Pavlovna had been waiting to convert. She invited Prince Vasili to the table. He declaimed Moscow as the New Jerusalem receiving her Christ, and Goliath from the borders of France to be struck by the sling of the Russian David. What force, what a style, the guests said. They offered conjectures about the battle to be fought in a few days. You will see, said Anna Pavlovna: tomorrow, on the Emperor's birthday, we shall receive news. I have a favourable presentiment.