Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 26, 2025
What are we to do with her? She is like a mad woman when you are away. Doesn't see anything, doesn't remember anything," she went on, repeating her usual phrases. "Look, Anna Timofeevna," she added to her companion, "see what a box for cards my son has brought us!" Belova admired the presents and was delighted with her dress material.
At that table were his mother, his mother's old lady companion Belova, his wife, their three children with their governess and tutor, his wife's nephew with his tutor, Sonya, Denisov, Natasha, her three children, their governess, and old Michael Ivanovich, the late prince's architect, who was living on in retirement at Bald Hills. Countess Mary sat at the other end of the table.
Before the end of the fast of St. Peter, Agrafena Ivanovna Belova, a country neighbor of the Rostovs, came to Moscow to pay her devotions at the shrines of the Moscow saints. She suggested that Natasha should fast and prepare for Holy Communion, and Natasha gladly welcomed the idea.
"What do you think of this?" said he, unrolling a piece of stuff like a shopman. Natasha, who was sitting opposite to him with her eldest daughter on her lap, turned her sparkling eyes swiftly from her husband to the things he showed her. "That's for Belova? Excellent!" She felt the quality of the material. "It was a ruble an arshin, I suppose?" Pierre told her the price. "Too dear!"
Such were Dimmler the musician and his wife, Vogel the dancing master and his family, Belova, an old maiden lady, an inmate of the house, and many others such as Petya's tutors, the girls' former governess, and other people who simply found it preferable and more advantageous to live in the count's house than at home.
The countess was pleased with Natasha's zeal; after the poor results of the medical treatment, in the depths of her heart she hoped that prayer might help her daughter more than medicines and, though not without fear and concealing it from the doctor, she agreed to Natasha's wish and entrusted her to Belova.
After these fits of irritability her face would grow yellow, and her maids knew by infallible symptoms when Belova would again be deaf, the snuff damp, and the countess' face yellow. The old lady's condition was understood by the whole household though no one ever spoke of it, and they all made every possible effort to satisfy her needs.
"When I take little Masha into society? Perhaps they will be fashionable again by then. Well, let's go now." And collecting the presents they went first to the nursery and then to the old countess' rooms. The countess was sitting with her companion Belova, playing grand-patience as usual, when Pierre and Natasha came into the drawing room with parcels under their arms.
Though the most absent-minded and forgetful of men, Pierre, with the aid of a list his wife drew up, had now bought everything, not forgetting his mother and brother-in-law's commissions, nor the dress material for a present to Belova, nor toys for his wife's nephews.
She would begin to say something to her in a low tone from the other end of the room. "It seems a little warmer today, my dear," she would murmur. And when Belova replied: "Oh yes, they've come," she would mutter angrily: "O Lord! How stupid and deaf she is!"
Word Of The Day
Others Looking