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‘No, she doesn’t and can’t love him,’ he decided8 mentally.
While he was approaching her from behind he observed with joy that she became aware of his approach and was about to turn but, on recognizing him, again addressed her husband.
‘Did you have a good night?’ he inquired, bowing toward them both, and leaving it to Karenin to take the greeting as meant for herself and to recognize him, or not, as he pleased.
‘Yes, quite comfortable, thank you,’ she replied.
Her face seemed tired and had none of that play which showed now in a smile and now in the animation9 of her eyes; but just for an instant as she looked at him he saw a gleam in her eyes and, though the spark was at once extinguished, that one instant made him happy. She glanced at her husband to see whether he knew Vronsky. Karenin looked at him with displeasure, absently trying to recall who he might be. Vronsky’s calm self-confidence struck like a scythe10 on a stone against the cold self-confidence of Karenin.
‘Count Vronsky,’ said Anna.
‘Ah! I believe we have met before,’ said Karenin, extending his hand with indifference11. ‘You travelled there with the mother and came back with the son,’ he said, uttering every word distinctly as though it were something valuable he was giving away. ‘I suppose you are returning from furlough?’ he remarked; and without waiting for an answer said to his wife in his playful manner: ‘Well, were many tears shed in Moscow over the parting?’
By addressing himself thus to his wife he conveyed to Vronsky his wish to be alone with her, and turning to Vronsky he touched his hat. But Vronsky, addressing Anna, said: ‘I hope to have the honour of calling on you.’ Karenin glanced at him with his weary eyes. ‘I shall be very pleased,’ he said coldly. ‘We are at home on Mondays.’ Then having finally dismissed Vronsky he said to his wife in his usual bantering12 tone: ‘What a good thing it was that I had just half an hour to spare to meet you and was able to show my devotion!’
‘You insist too much on your devotion, for me to value it greatly,’ she replied in the same playful tone, while she involuntarily listened to the sound of Vronsky’s footsteps following them. ‘But what does he matter to me?’ she asked herself, and began inquiring of her husband how Serezha had got on during her absence.
‘Oh, splendidly! Mariette says he was very sweet. But — I’m sorry to grieve you! — he did not fret13 after you . . . like your husband! . . . But I must thank you once again, my dear, for having made me the present of a day. Our dear Samovar will be in ecstasies14.’ (He called the celebrated15 Countess Lydia Ivanovna samovar because she was always getting heated and boiling over about something.) ‘She was asking after you. And, do you know, if I may advise, you should go and see her to-day. Her heart is always aching about somebody. At present, in addition to all her other worries, she is concerned about the Oblonskys’ reconciliation16.’
Countess Lydia Ivanovna was Anna’s husband’s friend, and the centre of that set in Petersburg Society with which Anna, through her husband, was most closely connected.
‘But I wrote to her.’
‘Yes, but she wants the particulars. Go and see her, my dear, if you are not too tired. . . . Kondraty is here with the carriage for you, and I must be off to the Committee. Now I shan’t have to dine alone,’ he went on, no longer in a bantering manner. ‘You can’t think how I used . . .’ and with a long pressure of her hand and a special kind of smile he helped her into the carriage.
‘I told you it was Mama!’ he shouted to the governess. ‘I knew!’ Her son, like his father, produced on Anna a feeling akin to disappointment. Her fancy had pictured him nicer than he was in reality. She had to come down to reality in order to enjoy him as he was. But even as he was, he was charming, with his fair curls, blue eyes, and plump shapely legs in tight-fitting stockings. Anna experienced an almost physical pleasure in feeling his proximity and his caresses, and a moral solace when she met his simple, trustful, and loving gaze and heard his naïve questions. She unpacked the presents which Dolly’s children had sent him, and told him that there was a girl in Moscow whose name was Tanya, who could read and even teach other children.
‘And am I worse than she?’ asked Serezha.
‘To me, you are the best in the world.’
‘I know,’ he said, smiling.
Before Anna had time to finish her coffee the Countess Lydia Ivanovna was announced. The Countess was a tall, stout woman with a sickly sallow complexion and beautiful, dreamy, black eyes. Anna was fond of her, but to-day she seemed to see her for the first time with all her defects.
‘Well, my dear! did you take the olive branch?’ asked the Countess Lydia Ivanovna as soon as she entered the room.
‘Yes, it’s all over; but the whole affair was not as serious as we thought,’ Anna replied. ‘My sister-in-law is, in general, too impulsive.’
But the Countess, who was interested in everything that did not concern her, had a habit of never listening to what interested her, and she interrupted Anna:
‘Ah, yes! There is much sorrow and evil in the world, and to-day I am terribly worried.’
‘Why! What is the matter?’ asked Anna, trying to suppress a smile.
‘I am getting tired of breaking lances uselessly in the cause of truth, and sometimes I feel quite unstrung. That Little Sisters’ affair’ (this was a philanthropic, religio-patriotic society) ‘was going splendidly, but to work with those gentlemen is impossible,’ continued the Countess Lydia Ivanovna with an ironical air of resignation to fate. ‘They took the idea and perverted it, and are now discussing it in such a trivial, petty way! Two or three, your husband among them, understand the full significance of the affair, but the others just drop it. Yesterday I had a letter from Pravdin. . . .’
Pravdin was a well-known Panslavist who resided abroad.
The Countess told Anna what he had written.
She then went on to tell her of other unpleasantnesses, and of the underhand opposition to the plan for uniting the Churches, and she went away in a hurry, as she had that afternoon to be at a meeting of another society as well as to attend a Slavonic Committee meeting.
‘This is all just as it was before, but how is it that I never noticed it before?’ said Anna to herself. ‘Or is it that she is specially irritated this morning? But it is really funny; her aim is to do good, she is a Christian, and yet she is always angry and always has enemies — all on account of Christianity and philanthropy!’
After the Countess had left, a friend — a high official’s wife arrived and gave Anna all the Petersburg news. At three she also left, promising to come back to dinner.
Karenin was at the Ministry. Anna, left alone, spent part of the time before dinner in seeing her son have his dinner (he dined apart), in putting her things in order, and in reading and answering the notes and letters that had accumulated on her table.
The feeling of causeless shame she had felt during the journey, and her agitation, had quite vanished. In her accustomed conditions of life she again felt firm and blameless.
She thought with wonder of her state the day before. ‘What had happened? Nothing! Vronsky said some silly things, to which it will be easy to put a stop, and I said what was necessary. It is unnecessary and impossible to speak of it to my husband. To speak of it would be to give it an importance that does not belong to it.’ She remembered how she had once told her husband about one of his subordinates who very nearly made her a declaration, and how Karenin had answered that every woman living in Society was liable to such things, but that he had full confidence in her tact and would never degrade himself and her by being jealous. ‘So there is no need to tell him! Besides, thank Heaven, there is nothing to tell!’ she said to herself.
‘So my solitude has come to an end. You wouldn’t believe how uncomfortable’ — he put special emphasis on the word uncomfortable — ‘it is to dine alone!’
At dinner he spoke a little about Moscow affairs with his wife, asking with an ironical smile after Stephen Oblonsky; but for the most part the conversation was general and dealt with Petersburg service and social affairs. After dinner he spent half an hour with his guests, and then, having again with a smile pressed his wife’s hand, went away to the Council. That evening Anna went neither to see the Princess Betsy Tverskaya, who having heard of Anna’s return had invited her, nor to the theatre, where she had a box for that evening. Her chief reason for not going was that a dress on which she had counted was not ready. Altogether, when, after her visitors had left, Anna busied herself with her toilet, she was much vexed. Before going to Moscow, she — being an adept at dressing on comparatively little money — left three dresses to be altered. She wanted them made up so that they should be unrecognizable, and they were to have been sent home three days ago; but she now found that two were not ready at all, while the third had not been done in the way she wished. The dressmaker came to explain that it was better as she had done it, and Anna lost her temper to such a degree that she afterwards felt ashamed. Completely to regain her composure, she went to the nursery and spent the evening with her son. She put him to bed herself, made the sign of the cross over him, and tucked him up. She was glad she had not gone out that evening but had spent it so pleasantly at home. She felt light-hearted and tranquil, and saw clearly that what in the train had appeared so important had merely been an ordinary and trivial incident of Society life, and that there was no reason for her to feel ashamed, or for anyone to blame her. She sat down by the fire with an English novel and awaited her husband. Exactly at half-past nine there was a ring at the front door, and he entered the room.
‘Here you are at last!’ she said, holding out her hand to him.
He kissed it, and seated himself beside her.
‘In general, I see that your journey has been a success,’ said he.
‘Yes, quite,’ she replied, and related everything that had happened from the beginning: her journey with the Countess Vronskaya, her arrival, the accident at the railway station. Then she spoke of her pity, first for her brother and then for Dolly.
‘I don’t think that one can excuse such a man, even though he is your brother,’ remarked Karenin, severely.
Anna smiled. She knew he had said that in order to show that no consideration of kinship could hinder the expression of his sincere opinion. She knew that trait in her husband’s character, knew and liked it.
‘I am glad it has all ended satisfactorily and that you are back again,’ he continued. ‘But what are they saying there about the new Statute I carried in the Council?’
Anna had heard nothing about the Statute, and felt ashamed that she had so lightly forgotten what was of such importance to him.
‘Here, on the contrary, it has made quite a stir,’ he said with a self-satisfied smile.
Anna saw that he wanted to tell her something pleasant to himself about that affair, and by questioning she led him on to tell her all about it. With the same self-satisfied smile he told her about the ovations he had received on account of the enactment of that Statute.
‘I was very, very pleased. It shows that at last a clear and reasonable view of the matter is beginning to be firmly held among us.’
Having finished his second cup of tea and cream and his bread and butter, he rose and went into his study.
‘And have you not been out anywhere? You must have been dull,’ he said.
‘Oh no!’ she answered, rising and following him through the room to his study. ‘And what are you reading now?’ she asked.
‘I am now reading the Duc de Lille’s Poésie des enfers [Poetry of the underworld],’ he replied. ‘A very remarkable book.’
Anna smiled, as one smiles at the weaknesses of people one loves, and slipping her hand under his arm walked with him to the study door. She knew his habit, which had become a necessity, of reading in the evening. She knew that in spite of his time being almost entirely absorbed by the duties of his post, he considered it incumbent on him to follow everything of importance that appeared in the world of thought. She also knew that really he was interested in political, philosophic, and theological books, and that art was quite foreign to his nature, yet in spite of this — or rather because of it — he never ignored anything that caused a stir in that sphere, but considered it his duty to read everything. She knew that in the sphere of politics, philosophy, and theology, Alexis Alexandrovich doubted and searched; but in questions of art, poetry, and especially music — which he did not at all understand — he held most definite and firm opinions. He liked talking of Shakespeare, Raphael, and Beethoven, and about the importance of the new schools of poetry and music, which in his mind were all classified with very logical exactitude.
‘Well, God bless you!’ she said at the door of the study, where a shaded candle and a bottle of water had been placed ready for him beside his arm-chair; ‘and I will go and write to them in Moscow.’
He pressed her hand and again kissed it.
‘After all, he is a good man: truthful, kind, and remarkable in his own sphere,’ said Anna to herself when she had returned to her room, as if defending him from some one who accused him and declared it was impossible to love him. ‘But why do his ears stick out so? Or has he had his hair cut?’
Exactly at midnight, when Anna was still sitting at her writing table finishing a letter to Dolly, she heard the measured tread of slippered feet, and Karenin entered, freshly washed, his hair brushed, and a book under his arm.
‘It’s time! It’s time!’ said he with a peculiar smile, going into their bedroom.
‘And what right had he to look at him as he did?’ thought Anna, remembering how Vronsky had looked at Karenin.
When she was undressed she went into the bedroom, but on her face not only was there not a trace of that animation which during her stay in Moscow had sparkled in her eyes and smile, but on the contrary the fire in her now seemed quenched or hidden somewhere very far away.
Petritsky was a young lieutenant, not of very aristocratic birth, and not only not wealthy but heavily in debt, tipsy every evening, and often under arrest for amusing or improper escapades, but popular both with his comrades and superiors. Arriving home from the station about noon, Vronsky recognized a hired brougham at the front door. When he rang the bell, while still outside, he heard men’s laughter, a woman’s lisping voice, and Petritsky shouting: ‘If it is one of the villains, don’t let him in!’
Vronsky told the servants not to announce his arrival, and softly entered the first room. Petritsky’s friend, the Baroness Chilton, her lilac satin dress and pink and white face glistening, and like a canary filling the whole room with her Parisian voice, was seated at the round table making coffee. Petritsky in his greatcoat, and Captain Kamerovsky in full uniform probably straight from parade, sat on each side of her.
‘Vronsky! Bravo!’ exclaimed Petritsky jumping up and noisily pushing back his chair. ‘The master himself! Baroness, some coffee for him out of the new coffee-pot. . . . Well, this is unexpected! I hope you are pleased with this ornament to your study,’ he added, pointing to the Baroness. ‘Of course, you know one another?’
‘I should think so!’ replied Vronsky with a merry smile, as he pressed the Baroness’s small hand. ‘Of course: quite old friends.’
‘You have returned from a journey?’ said the Baroness. ‘Oh, I’ll be off home this very moment if I am in the way.’
‘You are at home where you are, Baroness,’ said Vronsky. ‘How do you do, Kamerovsky?’ he added, coldly shaking hands with the Captain.
‘There now! You never manage to say such pretty things,’ said the Baroness to Petritsky.
‘Oh yes! Why not? After dinner I’ll say things quite as good as that.’
‘But after dinner there is no merit in it! Well then, I’ll give you some coffee. . . . But have a wash and smarten yourself up,’ said the Baroness, again sitting down and carefully turning a small screw of the coffee-pot.
‘Pierre, pass me the coffee,’ she said to Petritsky, whom, not concealing their relations, she called Pierre (the French for Peter), because of his surname. ‘I’ll put a little more into the pot.’
‘You’ll spoil it!’
‘No, I shan’t! And your wife?’ the Baroness said suddenly, interrupting Vronsky’s conversation with his comrade. ‘We here have been marrying you off! Have you brought your wife?’
‘No, Baroness. A Bohemian I was born, and a Bohemian I shall die!’
‘So much the better! So much the better! Give me your hand.’
And the Baroness, instead of releasing Vronsky, began telling him her plans for the future, interspersing jokes and asking his advice.
‘He won’t agree to a divorce! Whatever am I to do?’ (He was her husband.) ‘I want to begin an action. What would you advise? Kamerovsky, mind the coffee, it’s boiling over! Don’t you see I am occupied? . . . I want to bring an action because I need my property. You see how absurd it is, that because I am supposed to be unfaithful,’ she said contemptuously, ‘he wishes to have the use of my property.’
Vronsky listened with pleasure to the merry prattle of the pretty young woman, agreed with what she said, and half in fun gave her advice; in a word he immediately took up his habitual manner with women of her kind. In his Petersburg world people were divided into two quite opposite sorts. One — the inferior sort: the paltry, stupid, and, above all, ridiculous people who believe that a husband should live with the one wife to whom he is married, that a maiden should be pure, a woman modest, and a man, manly, self-controlled and firm; that one should bring up one’s children to earn their living, should pay one’s debts, and other nonsense of that kind. These were the old-fashioned and ridiculous people. But there was another sort of people: the real people to which all his set belonged, who had above all to be well-bred, generous, bold, gay, and to abandon themselves unblushingly to all their passions and laugh at everything else.
Just for a moment Vronsky was staggered, having brought back from Moscow the impression of a totally different world, but immediately, as though he had put his foot into an old slipper, he re-entered his former gay and pleasant world.
The coffee never got made, but boiled over and splashed everybody, effecting just what was required: that is, it gave an excuse for much noise and laughter, staining the valuable carpet and the Baroness’s dress.
‘Now good-bye, or you’ll never get washed, and on my conscience will lie the greatest crime of a gentleman — want of cleanliness. . . . So you advise me to put a knife to his throat?’
‘Most certainly, and hold it so that your hand will be near his lips. He will kiss the hand and all will end well!’ said Vronsky.
‘Then we meet at the French Theatre to-night?’ and, her dress rustling, she vanished.
Kamerovsky rose also, and, without waiting for him to go, Vronsky shook hands with him and went to his dressing-room. While he was washing, Petritsky in a few words described his own position in so far as it had changed since Vronsky went away. He had no money at all. His father had said he would not give him any and would not pay his debts. His tailor and another creditor were threatening him with arrest. His C.O. had announced to him that if these scandals continued he (Petritsky) would have to resign. He was sick to death of the Baroness, especially because she was always wanting to give him money; but there was another — he would let Vronsky see her — who was charming, wonderful, of severely Oriental type, in the style of ‘ “The Slave Rebecca,” you know!’ He had also had a quarrel with Berkashev, who wished to send his seconds, but of course nothing would come of it. But, in general, everything was first-rate and extremely jolly; and without letting his friend go into details of his position, Petritsky began telling him all the interesting news. Listening to Petritsky’s familiar tales, in the familiar surroundings of the house he had lived in for three years, Vronsky experienced the satisfaction of returning to his customary careless Petersburg life.
‘Impossible!’ he cried, releasing the pedal of his washstand, which controlled a jet of water under which he was bathing his healthy, ruddy neck. ‘Impossible!’ he cried, at the news that Laura was under the protection of Mileyev and had thrown up Fertinhof. ‘And he is still as stupid and self-satisfied? And what of Buzulukov?’
‘Oh, about Buzulukov there is such a tale — splendid!’ shouted Petritsky. ‘You know his passion for balls? He never misses a single Court ball. He went to a grand ball wearing one of the new helmets — have you seen the new helmets? They’re very good, much lighter. — Well, he stood . . . But you are not listening.’
‘Yes, I am,’ replied Vronsky, rubbing himself with a bath-towel.
‘The Grand Duchess passed by with one of the Ambassadors, and as his ill-luck would have it they were discussing the new helmets. The Grand Duchess wishes to show him one of them. . . . She sees our dear Buzulukov standing there’ — Petritsky imitated the pose — ‘the Grand Duchess asks him for his helmet, but he won’t let her have it! What can this mean? They wink at him, nod, frown, to make him give it up. . . . No! He stands there more dead than alive. . . . Just imagine it! . . . That — what’s his name? — wishes to take it from him, but he won’t let go, . . . The other snatches it away and hands it to the Grand Duchess. “Here, this is one of the new ones,” says the Grand Duchess, turning it over, and — just fancy! — out tumbles a pear and sweets — two pounds of them. . . . The dear fellow had collected them in his helmet!’
Vronsky shook with laughter, and long after, when he was already talking of other things, he again went off into roars of hearty laughter, showing his compact row of strong teeth, at the remembrance of the helmet.
Having heard all the news, Vronsky, with the help of his valet, put on his uniform and went to report himself. After that he intended to go to see his brother and to see Betsy, and to pay a few calls in order to begin visiting the set in which he could meet Anna Karenina. As usual in Petersburg, he left the house not to return till late at night.
THIRTEEN
Karenin’s gait, the swinging of his thighs1, and his wide short feet, particularly offended Vronsky, who acknowledged only his own unquestionable right to love Anna. But she was still the same, and the sight of her still affected2 him physically3, exhilarating and stimulating4 him and filling him with joy. He ordered his German valet, who had run up from a second-class carriage, to get his luggage and take it home, and he himself went up to her. He saw the husband and wife meet, and with the penetration5 of a lover he noticed the signs of slight embarrassment6 when she spoke7 to her husband.‘No, she doesn’t and can’t love him,’ he decided8 mentally.
While he was approaching her from behind he observed with joy that she became aware of his approach and was about to turn but, on recognizing him, again addressed her husband.
‘Did you have a good night?’ he inquired, bowing toward them both, and leaving it to Karenin to take the greeting as meant for herself and to recognize him, or not, as he pleased.
‘Yes, quite comfortable, thank you,’ she replied.
Her face seemed tired and had none of that play which showed now in a smile and now in the animation9 of her eyes; but just for an instant as she looked at him he saw a gleam in her eyes and, though the spark was at once extinguished, that one instant made him happy. She glanced at her husband to see whether he knew Vronsky. Karenin looked at him with displeasure, absently trying to recall who he might be. Vronsky’s calm self-confidence struck like a scythe10 on a stone against the cold self-confidence of Karenin.
‘Count Vronsky,’ said Anna.
‘Ah! I believe we have met before,’ said Karenin, extending his hand with indifference11. ‘You travelled there with the mother and came back with the son,’ he said, uttering every word distinctly as though it were something valuable he was giving away. ‘I suppose you are returning from furlough?’ he remarked; and without waiting for an answer said to his wife in his playful manner: ‘Well, were many tears shed in Moscow over the parting?’
By addressing himself thus to his wife he conveyed to Vronsky his wish to be alone with her, and turning to Vronsky he touched his hat. But Vronsky, addressing Anna, said: ‘I hope to have the honour of calling on you.’ Karenin glanced at him with his weary eyes. ‘I shall be very pleased,’ he said coldly. ‘We are at home on Mondays.’ Then having finally dismissed Vronsky he said to his wife in his usual bantering12 tone: ‘What a good thing it was that I had just half an hour to spare to meet you and was able to show my devotion!’
‘You insist too much on your devotion, for me to value it greatly,’ she replied in the same playful tone, while she involuntarily listened to the sound of Vronsky’s footsteps following them. ‘But what does he matter to me?’ she asked herself, and began inquiring of her husband how Serezha had got on during her absence.
‘Oh, splendidly! Mariette says he was very sweet. But — I’m sorry to grieve you! — he did not fret13 after you . . . like your husband! . . . But I must thank you once again, my dear, for having made me the present of a day. Our dear Samovar will be in ecstasies14.’ (He called the celebrated15 Countess Lydia Ivanovna samovar because she was always getting heated and boiling over about something.) ‘She was asking after you. And, do you know, if I may advise, you should go and see her to-day. Her heart is always aching about somebody. At present, in addition to all her other worries, she is concerned about the Oblonskys’ reconciliation16.’
Countess Lydia Ivanovna was Anna’s husband’s friend, and the centre of that set in Petersburg Society with which Anna, through her husband, was most closely connected.
‘But I wrote to her.’
‘Yes, but she wants the particulars. Go and see her, my dear, if you are not too tired. . . . Kondraty is here with the carriage for you, and I must be off to the Committee. Now I shan’t have to dine alone,’ he went on, no longer in a bantering manner. ‘You can’t think how I used . . .’ and with a long pressure of her hand and a special kind of smile he helped her into the carriage.
Chapter 32
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THE first person to meet Anna when she reached home was her son. He ran down the stairs to her regardless of his governess’s cries, and with desperate delight called out: ‘Mama! Mama!’ When he reached her he clung round her neck.‘I told you it was Mama!’ he shouted to the governess. ‘I knew!’ Her son, like his father, produced on Anna a feeling akin to disappointment. Her fancy had pictured him nicer than he was in reality. She had to come down to reality in order to enjoy him as he was. But even as he was, he was charming, with his fair curls, blue eyes, and plump shapely legs in tight-fitting stockings. Anna experienced an almost physical pleasure in feeling his proximity and his caresses, and a moral solace when she met his simple, trustful, and loving gaze and heard his naïve questions. She unpacked the presents which Dolly’s children had sent him, and told him that there was a girl in Moscow whose name was Tanya, who could read and even teach other children.
‘And am I worse than she?’ asked Serezha.
‘To me, you are the best in the world.’
‘I know,’ he said, smiling.
Before Anna had time to finish her coffee the Countess Lydia Ivanovna was announced. The Countess was a tall, stout woman with a sickly sallow complexion and beautiful, dreamy, black eyes. Anna was fond of her, but to-day she seemed to see her for the first time with all her defects.
‘Well, my dear! did you take the olive branch?’ asked the Countess Lydia Ivanovna as soon as she entered the room.
‘Yes, it’s all over; but the whole affair was not as serious as we thought,’ Anna replied. ‘My sister-in-law is, in general, too impulsive.’
But the Countess, who was interested in everything that did not concern her, had a habit of never listening to what interested her, and she interrupted Anna:
‘Ah, yes! There is much sorrow and evil in the world, and to-day I am terribly worried.’
‘Why! What is the matter?’ asked Anna, trying to suppress a smile.
‘I am getting tired of breaking lances uselessly in the cause of truth, and sometimes I feel quite unstrung. That Little Sisters’ affair’ (this was a philanthropic, religio-patriotic society) ‘was going splendidly, but to work with those gentlemen is impossible,’ continued the Countess Lydia Ivanovna with an ironical air of resignation to fate. ‘They took the idea and perverted it, and are now discussing it in such a trivial, petty way! Two or three, your husband among them, understand the full significance of the affair, but the others just drop it. Yesterday I had a letter from Pravdin. . . .’
Pravdin was a well-known Panslavist who resided abroad.
The Countess told Anna what he had written.
She then went on to tell her of other unpleasantnesses, and of the underhand opposition to the plan for uniting the Churches, and she went away in a hurry, as she had that afternoon to be at a meeting of another society as well as to attend a Slavonic Committee meeting.
‘This is all just as it was before, but how is it that I never noticed it before?’ said Anna to herself. ‘Or is it that she is specially irritated this morning? But it is really funny; her aim is to do good, she is a Christian, and yet she is always angry and always has enemies — all on account of Christianity and philanthropy!’
After the Countess had left, a friend — a high official’s wife arrived and gave Anna all the Petersburg news. At three she also left, promising to come back to dinner.
Karenin was at the Ministry. Anna, left alone, spent part of the time before dinner in seeing her son have his dinner (he dined apart), in putting her things in order, and in reading and answering the notes and letters that had accumulated on her table.
The feeling of causeless shame she had felt during the journey, and her agitation, had quite vanished. In her accustomed conditions of life she again felt firm and blameless.
She thought with wonder of her state the day before. ‘What had happened? Nothing! Vronsky said some silly things, to which it will be easy to put a stop, and I said what was necessary. It is unnecessary and impossible to speak of it to my husband. To speak of it would be to give it an importance that does not belong to it.’ She remembered how she had once told her husband about one of his subordinates who very nearly made her a declaration, and how Karenin had answered that every woman living in Society was liable to such things, but that he had full confidence in her tact and would never degrade himself and her by being jealous. ‘So there is no need to tell him! Besides, thank Heaven, there is nothing to tell!’ she said to herself.
Chapter 33
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KARENIN returned from the Ministry at four o’clock, but, as often happened, he had no time to go up and see his wife. He went straight to his study to receive some petitioners and sign a few documents brought by his private secretary. At the Karenins’ dinners there were usually about three visitors. This time there came an old lady, a cousin of Karenin’s; the Director of a Department; the Director’s wife; and a young man who had been recommended to Karenin for a post under him. Anna went into the drawing-room to entertain them. Exactly at five — the bronze clock (style of Peter I) had not finished striking — Karenin entered in evening dress with a white tie and two stars on his coat, as he had to attend an official meeting directly after dinner. Every moment of his life was filled up and apportioned, and in order to find time to perform all the tasks allotted to each day he observed the strictest regularity. ‘Without haste and without rest,’ was his motto. He entered the room, greeted everybody, and quickly sat down, smiling at his wife.‘So my solitude has come to an end. You wouldn’t believe how uncomfortable’ — he put special emphasis on the word uncomfortable — ‘it is to dine alone!’
At dinner he spoke a little about Moscow affairs with his wife, asking with an ironical smile after Stephen Oblonsky; but for the most part the conversation was general and dealt with Petersburg service and social affairs. After dinner he spent half an hour with his guests, and then, having again with a smile pressed his wife’s hand, went away to the Council. That evening Anna went neither to see the Princess Betsy Tverskaya, who having heard of Anna’s return had invited her, nor to the theatre, where she had a box for that evening. Her chief reason for not going was that a dress on which she had counted was not ready. Altogether, when, after her visitors had left, Anna busied herself with her toilet, she was much vexed. Before going to Moscow, she — being an adept at dressing on comparatively little money — left three dresses to be altered. She wanted them made up so that they should be unrecognizable, and they were to have been sent home three days ago; but she now found that two were not ready at all, while the third had not been done in the way she wished. The dressmaker came to explain that it was better as she had done it, and Anna lost her temper to such a degree that she afterwards felt ashamed. Completely to regain her composure, she went to the nursery and spent the evening with her son. She put him to bed herself, made the sign of the cross over him, and tucked him up. She was glad she had not gone out that evening but had spent it so pleasantly at home. She felt light-hearted and tranquil, and saw clearly that what in the train had appeared so important had merely been an ordinary and trivial incident of Society life, and that there was no reason for her to feel ashamed, or for anyone to blame her. She sat down by the fire with an English novel and awaited her husband. Exactly at half-past nine there was a ring at the front door, and he entered the room.
‘Here you are at last!’ she said, holding out her hand to him.
He kissed it, and seated himself beside her.
‘In general, I see that your journey has been a success,’ said he.
‘Yes, quite,’ she replied, and related everything that had happened from the beginning: her journey with the Countess Vronskaya, her arrival, the accident at the railway station. Then she spoke of her pity, first for her brother and then for Dolly.
‘I don’t think that one can excuse such a man, even though he is your brother,’ remarked Karenin, severely.
Anna smiled. She knew he had said that in order to show that no consideration of kinship could hinder the expression of his sincere opinion. She knew that trait in her husband’s character, knew and liked it.
‘I am glad it has all ended satisfactorily and that you are back again,’ he continued. ‘But what are they saying there about the new Statute I carried in the Council?’
Anna had heard nothing about the Statute, and felt ashamed that she had so lightly forgotten what was of such importance to him.
‘Here, on the contrary, it has made quite a stir,’ he said with a self-satisfied smile.
Anna saw that he wanted to tell her something pleasant to himself about that affair, and by questioning she led him on to tell her all about it. With the same self-satisfied smile he told her about the ovations he had received on account of the enactment of that Statute.
‘I was very, very pleased. It shows that at last a clear and reasonable view of the matter is beginning to be firmly held among us.’
Having finished his second cup of tea and cream and his bread and butter, he rose and went into his study.
‘And have you not been out anywhere? You must have been dull,’ he said.
‘Oh no!’ she answered, rising and following him through the room to his study. ‘And what are you reading now?’ she asked.
‘I am now reading the Duc de Lille’s Poésie des enfers [Poetry of the underworld],’ he replied. ‘A very remarkable book.’
Anna smiled, as one smiles at the weaknesses of people one loves, and slipping her hand under his arm walked with him to the study door. She knew his habit, which had become a necessity, of reading in the evening. She knew that in spite of his time being almost entirely absorbed by the duties of his post, he considered it incumbent on him to follow everything of importance that appeared in the world of thought. She also knew that really he was interested in political, philosophic, and theological books, and that art was quite foreign to his nature, yet in spite of this — or rather because of it — he never ignored anything that caused a stir in that sphere, but considered it his duty to read everything. She knew that in the sphere of politics, philosophy, and theology, Alexis Alexandrovich doubted and searched; but in questions of art, poetry, and especially music — which he did not at all understand — he held most definite and firm opinions. He liked talking of Shakespeare, Raphael, and Beethoven, and about the importance of the new schools of poetry and music, which in his mind were all classified with very logical exactitude.
‘Well, God bless you!’ she said at the door of the study, where a shaded candle and a bottle of water had been placed ready for him beside his arm-chair; ‘and I will go and write to them in Moscow.’
He pressed her hand and again kissed it.
‘After all, he is a good man: truthful, kind, and remarkable in his own sphere,’ said Anna to herself when she had returned to her room, as if defending him from some one who accused him and declared it was impossible to love him. ‘But why do his ears stick out so? Or has he had his hair cut?’
Exactly at midnight, when Anna was still sitting at her writing table finishing a letter to Dolly, she heard the measured tread of slippered feet, and Karenin entered, freshly washed, his hair brushed, and a book under his arm.
‘It’s time! It’s time!’ said he with a peculiar smile, going into their bedroom.
‘And what right had he to look at him as he did?’ thought Anna, remembering how Vronsky had looked at Karenin.
When she was undressed she went into the bedroom, but on her face not only was there not a trace of that animation which during her stay in Moscow had sparkled in her eyes and smile, but on the contrary the fire in her now seemed quenched or hidden somewhere very far away.
Chapter 34
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WHEN he went to Moscow, Vronsky had left his large flat on the Morskaya to his friend and favourite comrade, Petritsky.Petritsky was a young lieutenant, not of very aristocratic birth, and not only not wealthy but heavily in debt, tipsy every evening, and often under arrest for amusing or improper escapades, but popular both with his comrades and superiors. Arriving home from the station about noon, Vronsky recognized a hired brougham at the front door. When he rang the bell, while still outside, he heard men’s laughter, a woman’s lisping voice, and Petritsky shouting: ‘If it is one of the villains, don’t let him in!’
Vronsky told the servants not to announce his arrival, and softly entered the first room. Petritsky’s friend, the Baroness Chilton, her lilac satin dress and pink and white face glistening, and like a canary filling the whole room with her Parisian voice, was seated at the round table making coffee. Petritsky in his greatcoat, and Captain Kamerovsky in full uniform probably straight from parade, sat on each side of her.
‘Vronsky! Bravo!’ exclaimed Petritsky jumping up and noisily pushing back his chair. ‘The master himself! Baroness, some coffee for him out of the new coffee-pot. . . . Well, this is unexpected! I hope you are pleased with this ornament to your study,’ he added, pointing to the Baroness. ‘Of course, you know one another?’
‘I should think so!’ replied Vronsky with a merry smile, as he pressed the Baroness’s small hand. ‘Of course: quite old friends.’
‘You have returned from a journey?’ said the Baroness. ‘Oh, I’ll be off home this very moment if I am in the way.’
‘You are at home where you are, Baroness,’ said Vronsky. ‘How do you do, Kamerovsky?’ he added, coldly shaking hands with the Captain.
‘There now! You never manage to say such pretty things,’ said the Baroness to Petritsky.
‘Oh yes! Why not? After dinner I’ll say things quite as good as that.’
‘But after dinner there is no merit in it! Well then, I’ll give you some coffee. . . . But have a wash and smarten yourself up,’ said the Baroness, again sitting down and carefully turning a small screw of the coffee-pot.
‘Pierre, pass me the coffee,’ she said to Petritsky, whom, not concealing their relations, she called Pierre (the French for Peter), because of his surname. ‘I’ll put a little more into the pot.’
‘You’ll spoil it!’
‘No, I shan’t! And your wife?’ the Baroness said suddenly, interrupting Vronsky’s conversation with his comrade. ‘We here have been marrying you off! Have you brought your wife?’
‘No, Baroness. A Bohemian I was born, and a Bohemian I shall die!’
‘So much the better! So much the better! Give me your hand.’
And the Baroness, instead of releasing Vronsky, began telling him her plans for the future, interspersing jokes and asking his advice.
‘He won’t agree to a divorce! Whatever am I to do?’ (He was her husband.) ‘I want to begin an action. What would you advise? Kamerovsky, mind the coffee, it’s boiling over! Don’t you see I am occupied? . . . I want to bring an action because I need my property. You see how absurd it is, that because I am supposed to be unfaithful,’ she said contemptuously, ‘he wishes to have the use of my property.’
Vronsky listened with pleasure to the merry prattle of the pretty young woman, agreed with what she said, and half in fun gave her advice; in a word he immediately took up his habitual manner with women of her kind. In his Petersburg world people were divided into two quite opposite sorts. One — the inferior sort: the paltry, stupid, and, above all, ridiculous people who believe that a husband should live with the one wife to whom he is married, that a maiden should be pure, a woman modest, and a man, manly, self-controlled and firm; that one should bring up one’s children to earn their living, should pay one’s debts, and other nonsense of that kind. These were the old-fashioned and ridiculous people. But there was another sort of people: the real people to which all his set belonged, who had above all to be well-bred, generous, bold, gay, and to abandon themselves unblushingly to all their passions and laugh at everything else.
Just for a moment Vronsky was staggered, having brought back from Moscow the impression of a totally different world, but immediately, as though he had put his foot into an old slipper, he re-entered his former gay and pleasant world.
The coffee never got made, but boiled over and splashed everybody, effecting just what was required: that is, it gave an excuse for much noise and laughter, staining the valuable carpet and the Baroness’s dress.
‘Now good-bye, or you’ll never get washed, and on my conscience will lie the greatest crime of a gentleman — want of cleanliness. . . . So you advise me to put a knife to his throat?’
‘Most certainly, and hold it so that your hand will be near his lips. He will kiss the hand and all will end well!’ said Vronsky.
‘Then we meet at the French Theatre to-night?’ and, her dress rustling, she vanished.
Kamerovsky rose also, and, without waiting for him to go, Vronsky shook hands with him and went to his dressing-room. While he was washing, Petritsky in a few words described his own position in so far as it had changed since Vronsky went away. He had no money at all. His father had said he would not give him any and would not pay his debts. His tailor and another creditor were threatening him with arrest. His C.O. had announced to him that if these scandals continued he (Petritsky) would have to resign. He was sick to death of the Baroness, especially because she was always wanting to give him money; but there was another — he would let Vronsky see her — who was charming, wonderful, of severely Oriental type, in the style of ‘ “The Slave Rebecca,” you know!’ He had also had a quarrel with Berkashev, who wished to send his seconds, but of course nothing would come of it. But, in general, everything was first-rate and extremely jolly; and without letting his friend go into details of his position, Petritsky began telling him all the interesting news. Listening to Petritsky’s familiar tales, in the familiar surroundings of the house he had lived in for three years, Vronsky experienced the satisfaction of returning to his customary careless Petersburg life.
‘Impossible!’ he cried, releasing the pedal of his washstand, which controlled a jet of water under which he was bathing his healthy, ruddy neck. ‘Impossible!’ he cried, at the news that Laura was under the protection of Mileyev and had thrown up Fertinhof. ‘And he is still as stupid and self-satisfied? And what of Buzulukov?’
‘Oh, about Buzulukov there is such a tale — splendid!’ shouted Petritsky. ‘You know his passion for balls? He never misses a single Court ball. He went to a grand ball wearing one of the new helmets — have you seen the new helmets? They’re very good, much lighter. — Well, he stood . . . But you are not listening.’
‘Yes, I am,’ replied Vronsky, rubbing himself with a bath-towel.
‘The Grand Duchess passed by with one of the Ambassadors, and as his ill-luck would have it they were discussing the new helmets. The Grand Duchess wishes to show him one of them. . . . She sees our dear Buzulukov standing there’ — Petritsky imitated the pose — ‘the Grand Duchess asks him for his helmet, but he won’t let her have it! What can this mean? They wink at him, nod, frown, to make him give it up. . . . No! He stands there more dead than alive. . . . Just imagine it! . . . That — what’s his name? — wishes to take it from him, but he won’t let go, . . . The other snatches it away and hands it to the Grand Duchess. “Here, this is one of the new ones,” says the Grand Duchess, turning it over, and — just fancy! — out tumbles a pear and sweets — two pounds of them. . . . The dear fellow had collected them in his helmet!’
Vronsky shook with laughter, and long after, when he was already talking of other things, he again went off into roars of hearty laughter, showing his compact row of strong teeth, at the remembrance of the helmet.
Having heard all the news, Vronsky, with the help of his valet, put on his uniform and went to report himself. After that he intended to go to see his brother and to see Betsy, and to pay a few calls in order to begin visiting the set in which he could meet Anna Karenina. As usual in Petersburg, he left the house not to return till late at night.
