"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 bythat Antichrist-
I really believe he is Antichrist-
I will havenothing 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.