“It is the sword of Frederick the Great which I …” she began, but Ippolit interrupted her with the words: “ Le Roi de Prusse … ” and again, as soon as all turned toward him, excused himself and said no more.
Anna Pávlovna frowned. Mortemart, Ippolit’s friend, addressed him firmly.
“Come now, what about your Roi de Prusse? ”
Ippolit laughed as if ashamed of laughing.
“Oh, it’s nothing. I only wished to say …” (he wanted to repeat a joke he had heard in Vienna and which he had been trying all that evening to get in) “I only wished to say that we are wrong to fight pour le Roi de Prusse !”
Borís smiled circumspectly, so that it might be taken as ironical or appreciative according to the way the joke was received. Everybody laughed.
“Your joke is too bad, it’s witty but unjust,” said Anna Pávlovna, shaking her little shriveled finger at him.
“We are not fighting pour le Roi de Prusse , but for right principles. Oh, that wicked Prince Hippolyte!” she said.
The conversation did not flag all evening and turned chiefly on the political news. It became particularly animated toward the end of the evening when the rewards bestowed by the Emperor were mentioned.
“You know N⸺ N⸺ received a snuffbox with the portrait last year?” said “the man of profound intellect.” “Why shouldn’t S⸺ S⸺ get the same distinction?”