Prince Vasili expressed his opinion more openly.
He shrugged his shoulders when Pierre was mentioned and, pointing to his forehead, remarked: "A bit touched--I always said so.
" "I said from the first," declared Anna Pavlovna referring to Pierre, "I said at the time and before anyone else" (she insisted on her priority) "that that senseless young man was spoiled by the depraved ideas of these days.
I said so even at the time when everybody was in raptures about him, when he had just returned from abroad, and when, if you remember, he posed as a sort of Marat at one of my soirees.