maids have a mania for matchmaking, and though I don’t feel that weakness in myself as yet, I know a little person who is very unhappy with her father. She is a relation of yours, Princess Márya Bolkónskaya.”
Prince Vasíli did not reply, though, with the quickness of memory and perception befitting a man of the world, he indicated by a movement of the head that he was considering this information.
“Do you know,” he said at last, evidently unable to check the sad current of his thoughts, “that Anatole is costing me forty thousand rubles a year? And,” he went on after a pause, “what will it be in five years, if he goes on like this?”
Presently he added:
“That’s what we fathers have to put up with. … Is this princess of yours rich?”
“Her father is very rich and stingy. He lives in the country. He is the well-known Prince Bolkónski who had to retire from the army under the late Emperor, and was nicknamed ‘the King of Prussia.’ He is very clever but eccentric, and a bore.
The poor girl is very unhappy. She has a brother; I think you know him, he married Liza Meinen lately. He is an aide-de-camp of Kutúzov’s and will be here tonight.”
“Listen, dear Annette,” said the prince, suddenly taking Anna Pávlovna’s hand and for some reason drawing it downwards. “Arrange that affair for me and I shall always be your most devoted slave— slafe with an f , as a village elder of mine writes in his reports. She is rich and of good family and that’s all I want.”
And with the familiarity and easy grace