{"product_id":"2940014486125","title":"War and Peace","description":"“WELL, PRINCE, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family\u003cbr\u003eestates of the Buonapartes. But I warn you, if you\u003cbr\u003edon’t tell me that this means war, if you still try to defend\u003cbr\u003ethe infamies and horrors perpetrated by that Antichrist—\u003cbr\u003eI really believe he is Antichrist—I will have nothing more\u003cbr\u003eto do with you and you are no longer my friend, no longer\u003cbr\u003emy ‘faithful slave,’ as you call yourself! But how do you\u003cbr\u003edo? I see I have frightened you—sit down and tell me all\u003cbr\u003ethe news.”\u003cbr\u003eIt was in July, 1805, and the speaker was the wellknown\u003cbr\u003eAnna Pavlovna Scherer, maid of honor and favorite\u003cbr\u003eof the Empress Marya Fedorovna. With these\u003cbr\u003ewords she greeted Prince Vasili Kuragin, a man of high\u003cbr\u003erank and importance, who was the first to arrive at her\u003cbr\u003ereception. Anna Pavlovna had had a cough for some\u003cbr\u003edays. She was, as she said, suffering from la grippe; grippe\u003cbr\u003ebeing then a new word in St. Petersburg, used only by\u003cbr\u003ethe elite.\u003cbr\u003eAll her invitations without exception, written in French,\u003cbr\u003eand delivered by a scarlet-liveried footman that morning,\u003cbr\u003eran as follows:\u003cbr\u003e“If you have nothing better to do, Count [or Prince],\u003cbr\u003eand if the prospect of spending an evening with a poor\u003cbr\u003einvalid is not too terrible, I shall be very charmed to see\u003cbr\u003eyou tonight between 7 and 10-Annette Scherer.”\u003cbr\u003e“Heavens! what a virulent attack!” replied the prince,\u003cbr\u003enot in the least disconcerted by this reception. He had\u003cbr\u003ejust entered, wearing an embroidered court uniform, knee\u003cbr\u003ebreeches, and shoes, and had stars on his breast and a\u003cbr\u003eserene expression on his flat face. He spoke in that refined\u003cbr\u003eFrench in which our grandfathers not only spoke\u003cbr\u003ebut thought, and with the gentle, patronizing intonation\u003cbr\u003enatural to a man of importance who had grown old in\u003cbr\u003esociety and at court. He went up to Anna Pavlovna,\u003cbr\u003ekissed her hand, presenting to her his bald, scented, and\u003cbr\u003eshining head, and complacently seated himself on the\u003cbr\u003esofa.\u003cbr\u003e“First of all, dear friend, tell me how you are. Set your\u003cbr\u003efriend’s mind at rest,” said he without altering his tone,\u003cbr\u003ebeneath the politeness and affected sympathy of which\u003cbr\u003eindifference and even irony could be discerned.\u003cbr\u003e“Can one be well while suffering morally? Can one be\u003cbr\u003ecalm in times like these if one has any feeling?” said Anna\u003cbr\u003ePavlovna. “You are staying the whole evening, I hope?”\u003cbr\u003e“And the fete at the English ambassador’s? Today is\u003cbr\u003eWednesday. I must put in an appearance there,” said the\u003cbr\u003eprince. “My daughter is coming for me to take me there.”\u003cbr\u003e“I thought today’s fete had been canceled. I confess\u003cbr\u003eall these festivities and fireworks are becoming wearisome.”\u003cbr\u003e“If they had known that you wished it, the entertainment\u003cbr\u003ewould have been put off,” said the prince, who,\u003cbr\u003elike a wound-up clock, by force of habit said things he\u003cbr\u003edid not even wish to be believed.\u003cbr\u003e“Don’t tease! Well, and what has been decided about\u003cbr\u003eNovosiltsev’s dispatch? You know everything.”\u003cbr\u003e“What can one say about it?” replied the prince in a\u003cbr\u003ecold, listless tone. “What has been decided? They have\u003cbr\u003edecided that Buonaparte has burnt his boats, and I believe\u003cbr\u003ethat we are ready to burn ours.”\u003cbr\u003ePrince Vasili always spoke languidly, like an actor repeating\u003cbr\u003ea stale part. Anna Pavlovna Scherer on the contrary,\u003cbr\u003edespite her forty years, overflowed with animation\u003cbr\u003eand impulsiveness. To be an enthusiast had become her\u003cbr\u003esocial vocation and, sometimes even when she did not\u003cbr\u003efeel like it, she became enthusiastic in order not to disappoint\u003cbr\u003ethe expectations of those who knew her. The subdued\u003cbr\u003esmile which, though it did not suit her faded features,\u003cbr\u003ealways played round her lips expressed, as in a\u003cbr\u003espoiled child, a continual consciousness of her charming\u003cbr\u003edefect, which she neither wished, nor could, nor considered\u003cbr\u003eit necessary, to correct.\u003cbr\u003eIn the midst of a conversation on political matters Anna\u003cbr\u003ePavlovna burst out:\u003cbr\u003e“Oh, don’t speak to me of Austria. Perhaps I don’t\u003cbr\u003eunderstand things, but Austria never has wished, and\u003cbr\u003edoes not wish, for war. She is betraying us! Russia alone\u003cbr\u003emust save Europe. Our gracious sovereign recognizes\u003cbr\u003ehis high vocation and will be true to it. That is the one\u003cbr\u003ething I have faith in! Our good and wonderful sovereign\u003cbr\u003ehas to perform the noblest role on earth, and he is so\u003cbr\u003evirtuous and noble that God will not forsake him. He will\u003cbr\u003efulfill his vocation and crush the hydra of revolution, which\u003cbr\u003ehas become more terrible than ever in the person of this\u003cbr\u003emurderer and villain! We alone must avenge the blood\u003cbr\u003eof the just one.... Whom, I ask you...","brand":"All classic book warehouse","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47070616355056,"sku":"2940014486125","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940014486125_p0.jpg?v=1763609435","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940014486125","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}