must let
me help to
entertain
your
daughters,
though I’m
not here
now for
very long,
nor you
either.
But I’ll
do my best
to amuse
them. I
have heard
a great
deal about
you in
Petersburg,
and wanted
to know
you,” she
said to
Natasha,
with her
unvarying
beautiful
smile. “I
have heard
of you,
too, from
my page,
Drubetskoy—you
have heard
he is to
be
married—and
from my
husband’s
friend,
Bolkonsky,
Prince
Andrey
Bolkonsky,”
she said,
with
peculiar
emphasis,
by which