‘“Well, I am glad to hear that,” said the genius, looking very grim, “because a joke, without any figure of speech, IS the death of me. Come! Quit this dreary world at once.”

“Somebody’s proposed to you,” she remarked.

"Nice! And so you no longer wish to marry Boris?"

Count Rostopchin had only that morning returned to town from his summer villa at Sokolniki. The anteroom and reception room of his house were full of officials who had been summoned or had come for orders. Vasilchikov and Platov had already seen the count and explained to him that it was impossible to defend Moscow and that it would have to be surrendered. Though this news was being concealed from the inhabitants, the officialsthe heads of the various government departmentsknew that Moscow would soon be in the enemy`s hands, just as Count Rostopchin himself knew it, and to escape personal responsibility they had all come to the governor to ask how they were to deal with their various departments.