Attendant to the Empress, Anna Anna Pávlovna Schérer, is proud to have some of St. Petersburg's finest nobles in her drawing room.

Princess Hélène Kuragina is noted by all to be strikingly gorgeous. Little Princess Lise is upset her husband, Price Andrei Bolknosky, has joined the Coalition against Napoleon. She is pregnant with their first child and is naturally worried about soon becoming a widow. 

Little groups are forming and discussing the topics of the day, such as alliances and the latest plans for peace. 

Pierre Bezukhov then arrives. Pierre (obviously not the most Russian of first names but one that would be common in the Russian aristocracy that preferred speaking French) has returned home from about a decade studying abroad, including spending time in France. Pierre believes himself to have been enriched of the ideals of the French Revolution and aftermath. 

Pierre is the illegitimate son of the most prominent Count in Russia, who is quite ill.  The Count holds many estates that are as big as actual states in the United States. Pierre struggles to get into conversations and once he sees an opening, feels the irresistible need to make his point known -- something Tolstoy notes -- young people are apt to do.