After Anna Mikhaylovna had driven off with her son to visit Count Cyril Vladimirovich Bezukhov, Countess Rostova sat for a long time all alone applying her handkerchief to her eyes.

At last she rang.
"What is the matter with you, my dear ?" she said crossly to the maid who kept her waiting some minutes.

"Don't you wish to serve me?
Then I'll find you another place." The countess was upset by her friend's sorrow and humiliating poverty, and was therefore out of sorts, a state of mind which with her always found expression in calling her maid "my dear" and speaking to her with exaggerated politeness.
"I am very sorry, ma'am," answered the maid.
"Ask the count to come to me." The count came waddling in to see his wife with a rather guilty look as usual.
"Well, little countess?
What a saute of game au madere we are to have, my dear! I tasted it.

The thousand rubles I paid for Taras were not ill-spent.

He is worth it!" He sat down by his wife, his elbows on his knees and his hands ruffling his gray hair.
"What are your commands, little countess ?" "You see, my dear...