Pierre began feeling in his pockets for the papers, but could not find them. Still slapping his pockets, he kissed the hand of the countess who entered the room and glanced uneasily around, evidently expecting Natásha, who had left off singing but had not yet come into the drawing room.
“On my word, I don’t know what I’ve done with it,” he said.
“There he is, always losing everything!” remarked the countess.
Natásha entered with a softened and agitated expression of face and sat down looking silently at Pierre. As soon as she entered, Pierre’s features, which had been gloomy, suddenly lighted up, and while still searching for the papers he glanced at her several times.
“No, really! I’ll drive home, I must have left them there. I’ll certainly …”
“But you’ll be late for dinner.”
“Oh! And my coachman has gone.”
But Sónya, who had gone to look for the papers in the anteroom, had found them in Pierre’s hat, where he had carefully tucked them under the lining. Pierre was about to begin reading.
“No, after dinner,” said the old count, evidently expecting much enjoyment from that reading.
At dinner, at which champagne was drunk to the health of the new chevalier of St. George, Shinshín told them the town news, of the illness of the old Georgian princess, of Métivier’s disappearance from Moscow, and of how some German fellow had been brought to Rostopchín and accused of being a French “spyer” (so Count Rostopchín had told the story), and how Rostopchín let him go and assured the people that he was “not a spire at all, but only an old German ruin.”