delighted..." came the sounds of animated feminine voices,
interrupting one another and mingling with the rustling of dresses and
the scraping of chairs. Then one of those conversations began which
last out until, at the first pause, the guests rise with a rustle of
dresses and say, "I am so delighted... Mamma's health... and
Countess Apraksina..." and then, again rustling, pass into the
anteroom, put on cloaks or mantles, and drive away. The conversation
was on the chief topic of the day: the illness of the wealthy and
celebrated beau of Catherine's day, Count Bezukhov, and about his
illegitimate son Pierre, the one who had behaved so improperly at Anna
Pavlovna's reception.

"I am so sorry for the poor count," said the visitor. "He is in such
bad health, and now this vexation about his son is enough to kill
him!"

"What is that?" asked the countess as if she did not know what the
visitor alluded to, though she had already heard about the cause of
Count Bezukhov's distress some fifteen times.

"That's what comes of a modern education," exclaimed the visitor.
"It seems that while he was abroad this young man was allowed to do as
he liked, now in Petersburg I hear he has been doing such terrible
things that he has been expelled by the police."

"You don't say so!" replied the countess.

"He chose his friends badly," interposed Anna Mikhaylovna. "Prince
Vasili's son, he, and a certain Dolokhov have, it is said, been up
to heaven only knows what! And they have had to suffer for it.