speaking in one of the rooms, and a small crowd was pressing round him. Pierre went up to the circle that had formed round the speaker and listened. Count Ilyá Andréevich, in a military uniform of Catherine’s time, was sauntering with a pleasant smile among the crowd, with all of whom he was acquainted. He too approached that group and listened with a kindly smile and nods of approval, as he always did, to what the speaker was saying. The retired naval man was speaking very boldly, as was evident from the expression on the faces of the listeners and from the fact that some people Pierre knew as the meekest and quietest of men walked away disapprovingly or expressed disagreement with him. Pierre pushed his way into the middle of the group, listened, and convinced himself that the man was indeed a liberal, but of views quite different from his own. The naval officer spoke in a particularly sonorous, musical, and aristocratic baritone voice, pleasantly swallowing his r ’s and generally slurring his consonants: the voice of a man calling out to his servant, “Heah! Bwing me my pipe!” It was indicative of dissipation and the exercise of authority.
“What if the Smolénsk people have offahd to waise militia for the Empewah? Ah we to take Smolénsk as our patte’n? If the noble awistocwacy of the pwovince of Moscow thinks fit, it can show its loyalty to our sov’weign the Empewah in other ways. Have we fo’gotten the waising of the militia in the yeah ‘seven? All that did was to enwich the pwiests’ sons and thieves and wobbahs. …”
Count Ilyá Andréevich smiled blandly and nodded approval.
“And was our militia of any use to the Empia? Not at all! It only wuined our farming! Bettah have