War And Peace step 1

CHAPTER I

"Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the Buonapartes. But I warn you, if you

don't tell me that this means war, if you still try to defend the infamies and horrors perpetrated by that

Antichrist--I really believe he is Antichrist--I will have nothing more to do with you and you are no longer my

friend, no longer my 'faithful slave,' as you call yourself! But how do you do? I see I have frightened you--sit

down and tell me all the news."

It was in July, 1805, and the speaker was the well-known Anna Pavlovna Scherer, maid of honor and favorite

of the Empress Marya Fedorovna. With these words she greeted Prince Vasili Kuragin, a man of high rank

and importance, who was the first to arrive at her reception. Anna Pavlovna had had a cough for some days.

She was, as she said, suffering from la grippe; grippe being then a new word in St. Petersburg, used only by

the elite.

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