- Anna puts on her hostessing A-game and works the party like a machine. She’s here, she’s there, she’s smoothing everything and everyone out everywhere.
- Besides the usual crowd of princes and princesses, she’s got two guests of honor that are supposed to provide the entertainment. She gathers a bunch of guests around one of them, a French dude.
- Helene walks over to listen. Like we said earlier, she is really hot. Like super-duper, oozing pheromones, crazily hot. People are practically drooling just looking at her. It’s out of control.
- Her brother Ippolit also walks over. He looks just like Helene but for some reason this makes him ugly. Also, he’s a total idiot.
- The French guy tells a story about Napoleon running into an enemy while both of them were trying to get it on with a famous actress. Napoleon passed out and the other guy spared his life – which made Napoleon so mad that he killed the other guy. Um, OK. Good story.
- Anna notices that Pierre is again acting inappropriately by getting into a heated debate with the other guest of honor, an abbot. She walks over, shuts it down, and brings the two of them over to listen to Frenchy.
- Liza’s husband Prince Andrei Bolkonsky walks into the party. He’s been there and done that and looks around the room super-bored by everyone, including his wife. He says he’s enlisting for the war as General Kutuzov’s aide-de-camp (a sort of personal assistant).
- Pierre is surprised to see him there and Andrei smiles for the first time to see his friend. They make dinner plans and check out Helene.
- Prince Vassily gets up to leave, then asks Anna Pavlovna to try to work on Pierre’s social skills a little bit.