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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!"