be so tiresome that it wearied him to look at or listen to them. And among all these faces that he found so tedious, none seemed to bore him so much as that of his pretty wife. He turned away from her with a grimace that distorted his handsome face, kissed Anna Pávlovna’s hand, and screwing up his eyes scanned the whole company.
“You are off to the war, Prince?” said Anna Pávlovna.
“General Koutouzoff,” said Bolkónski, speaking French and stressing the last syllable of the general’s name like a Frenchman, “has been pleased to take me as an aide-de-camp. …”
“And Lise, your wife?”
“She will go to the country.”
“Are you not ashamed to deprive us of your charming wife?”
“ André ,” said his wife, addressing her husband in the same coquettish manner in which she spoke to other men, “the vicomte has been telling us such a tale about Mademoiselle George and Bonaparte!”
Prince Andréy screwed up his eyes and turned away. Pierre, who from the moment Prince Andréy entered the room had watched him with glad, affectionate eyes, now came up and took his arm. Before he looked round Prince Andréy frowned again, expressing his annoyance with whoever was touching his arm, but when he saw Pierre’s beaming face he gave him an unexpectedly kind and pleasant smile.
“There now! … So you, too, are in the great world?” said he to Pierre.
“I knew you would be here,” replied Pierre. “I will come to supper with you. May I?” he added in a low voice so as not to disturb the vicomte who was continuing his story.