War And Peace: Book 1 - CHAPTER XII

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“Mon cher Boris,” said Anna Mihalovna as the Countess Rostov's carriage

drove along the street strewn with straw and into the wide courtyard of Count Kirill

Vladimirovitch Bezuhov's house. “Mon cher Boris,” said the mother, putting

her hand out from under her old mantle, and laying it on her son's hand with a timid,

caressing movement, “be nice, be attentive. Count Kirill Vladimirovitch is after all

your godfather, and your future depends on him. Remember that, mon cher, be

charming, as you know so well how to be.…”

“If I knew anything would come of it but humiliation,” her son answered coldly. “But

I have promised, and I will do it for your sake.”

Although the carriage was standing at the entrance, the hall-porter, scanning the

mother and son (they had not sent in their names, but had walked straight in through the

glass doors between two rows of statues in niches), and looking significantly at the old

mantle, inquired whom they wanted, the princesses or the count; and hearing that they

wanted to see the count, said that his excellency was worse to-day, and his excellency

could see no one.

“We may as well go away,” the son said in French.

“Mon ami!” said the mother in a voice of entreaty, again touching her son's

hand, as though the contact might soothe or rouse him. Boris said no more, but without

taking off his overcoat, looked inquiringly at his mother.

“My good man,” Anna Mihalovna said ingratiatingly, addressing the hall-porter, “I

know that Count Kirill Vladimirovitch is very ill … that is why I am here … I am a

relation … I shall not disturb him, my good man … I need only see Prince Vassily

Sergyevitch; he's staying here, I know. Announce us, please.”

The hall-porter sullenly pulled the bell-rope that rang upstairs and turned away.

“Princess Drubetskoy to see Prince Vassily Sergyevitch,” he called to a footman in

stockings, slippers and a frockcoat, who ran down from above, and looked down from the

turn in the staircase.

The mother straightened out the folds of her dyed silk gown, looked at herself in the

full-length Venetian looking-glass on the wall, and boldly walked up on the stair carpet

in her shabby, shapeless shoes.

“My dear, you promised me,” she turned again to her son, rousing him by a touch on

his arm. The son, with his eyes on the door, walked submissively after her.

They went into a large room, from which a door led to the apartments that had been

assigned to Prince Vassily.

At the moment when the mother and son reached the middle of the room and were about to

ask their way of an old footman, who had darted out at their entrance, the bronze handle

of one of the doors turned, and Prince Vassily, dressed in a house jacket of velvet, with

one star, came out, accompanying a handsome, black-haired man. This man was the celebrated

Petersburg doctor, Lorrain.

“It is positive, then?” said the Prince.

“Prince, errare est humanum,” answered the doctor, lisping, and pronouncing

the Latin words with a French accent.

“Very well, very well …”

Perceiving Anna Mihalovna and her son, Prince Vassily dismissed the doctor with a bow,

and in silence, with an air of inquiry, advanced to meet them. The son noticed how an

expression of intense grief came at once into his mother's eyes, and he smiled slightly.

“Yes, in what distressing circumstances we were destined to meet again, prince.…

Tell me how is our dear patient?” she said, apparently not observing the frigid,

offensive glance that was fixed on her. Prince Vassily stared at her, then at Boris with a

look of inquiry that amounted to perplexity. Boris bowed politely. Prince Vassily, without

acknowledging his bow, turned away to Anna Mihalovna, and to her question he replied by a

movement of the head and lips, indicative of the worst fears for the patient.

“Is it possible?” cried Anna Mihalovna. “Ah, this is terrible! It is dreadful to

think … This is my son,” she added, indicating Boris. “He wanted to thank you in

person.”

Boris once more made a polite bow.

“Believe me, prince, a mother's heart will never forget what you have done for us.”

“I am glad I have been able to do you any service, my dear Anna Mihalovna,” said

Prince Vassily, pulling his lace frill straight, and in voice and manner manifesting here

in Moscow, before Anna Mihalovna, who was under obligation to him, an even greater sense

of his own dignity than in Petersburg at Anna Pavlovna's soir

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