To be an enthusiast had become her social vocation and, sometimes even when she did not feel like it, she became enthusiastic in order not to disappoint the expectations of those who knew her.

The subdued smile which, though it did not suit her faded features, always played round her lips expressed, as in a spoiled child, a continual consciousness of her charming defect, which she neither wished, nor could, nor considered it necessary, to correct.
In the midst of a conversation on political matters Anna Pavlovna burst out: "Oh, don't speak to me of Austria.

Perhaps I don't understand things, but Austria never has wished, and does not wish, for war.

She is betraying us! Russia alone must save Europe.

Our gracious sovereign recognizes his high vocation and will be true to it.