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FIFTEEN

Chapter 4

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THE highest Petersburg Society is really all one: all who belong to it know and even visit one another. But this large circle has its sub-divisions. Anna Arkadyevna Karenina had friends and close connections in three different sets. One of these was her husband’s official set, consisting of his colleagues and subordinates, who in most varied and capricious ways were connected and separated by social conditions. Anna found it hard now to recall the feeling of almost religious respect she had at first felt for these people. Now she knew them all as well as the inhabitants of a provincial town know one another; she knew the habits and weaknesses of each of them, and where the shoe pinched this or that foot; she knew their relations to one another and to the governing centre; she knew who sided with whom, and how and by what means each supported himself, and who agreed or disagreed with whom and about what; but (in spite of admonitions and advice from the Countess Lydia Ivanovna) this bureaucratic circle of male interests could not interest Anna, and she avoided it.
Another circle with which Anna was intimate was that through which Karenin had made his career. The centre of that circle was the Countess Lydia Ivanovna. It consisted of elderly, plain, philanthropic and pious women and clever, well-educated, ambitious men. One of the clever men who belonged to it called it, ‘the conscience of Petersburg Society.’
Karenin set great value on this circle, and Anna, who knew how to get on with every one, had during the first part of her life in Petersburg made friends in it too. But now, on her return from Moscow, that circle became unbearable to her. It seemed to her that she, and all of them, were only pretending, and she felt so bored and uncomfortable in that Society that she visited Lydia Ivanovna as rarely as possible.
The third circle with which Anna was connected was Society in the accepted meaning of the word: the Society of balls, dinner-parties, brilliant toilettes, the Society which clung to the Court with one hand lest it should sink to the demi-monde, for this the members of that Society thought they despised, though its tastes were not only similar but identical with their own. Anna was connected with this set through the Princess Betsy Tverskaya, the wife of her cousin, who had an income of Rs. 120,000 a year, and who, from the time Anna first appeared in Society, had particularly liked her, made much of her, and drawn her into her own set, making fun of that to which the Countess Lydia Ivanovna belonged.
‘When I am old and ugly I will become like that,’ Betsy used to say, ‘but for you, a young and beautiful woman, it is too early to settle down in that almshouse.’
At first Anna had avoided the Princess Tverskaya’s set as much as she could, because it demanded more expense than she could afford; and also because she really approved more of the other set; but after her visit to Moscow all this was reversed. She avoided her moral friends and went into grand Society. There she saw Vronsky, and experienced a tremulous joy when meeting him. She met him most frequently at Betsy’s, who was a Vronsky herself and his cousin. Vronsky went everywhere where he had a chance of meeting Anna, and spoke to her of his love whenever he could. She gave him no encouragement, but every time they met there sprang up that feeling of animation which had seized her in the train on the morning when she first saw him. She was aware that when they met joy lit up her eyes and drew her lips into a smile, but she could not hide the expression of that joy.
At first Anna sincerely believed that she was displeased with him for allowing himself to persecute her; but soon after her return from Moscow, having gone to a party where she expected to meet him but to which he did not come, she clearly realized, by the sadness that overcame her, that she had been deceiving herself and that his persecution supplied the whole interest of her life.
· · · · · · ·
A famous prima donna was giving her second performance and all high Society was at the Opera House. Vronsky, from the front row of the stalls, seeing his cousin, went to her box without waiting for the interval.
‘Why did you not come to dinner?’ she said, adding with a smile and so that only he could hear her: ‘I am amazed at the clairvoyance of lovers! She was not there! But come in after the opera.’
Vronsky looked at her inquiringly. She nodded, and he thanked her by a smile and sat down beside her.
‘And how well I remember your ridicule!’ continued the Princess Betsy, who took particular pleasure in following the progress of this passion. ‘What has become of it all? You are caught, my dear fellow!’
‘I wish for nothing better than to be caught,’ replied Vronsky with his calm good-natured smile. ‘To tell the truth, if I complain at all, it is only of not being caught enough! I am beginning to lose hope.’
‘What hope can you have?’ said Betsy, offended on her friend’s behalf: ‘entendons nous!’ [‘let us understand one another!’] But in her eyes little sparks twinkled which said that she understood very well, and just as he did, what hope he might have.
‘None whatever,’ said Vronsky, laughing and showing his close-set teeth. ‘Excuse me!’ he added, taking from her hand the opera-glasses, and he set to work to scan across her bare shoulder the row of boxes opposite. ‘I am afraid I am becoming ridiculous.’
He knew very well that he ran no risk of appearing ridiculous either in Betsy’s eyes or in the eyes of Society people generally. He knew very well that in their eyes, the rôle of the disappointed lover of a maiden or of any single woman might be ridiculous; but the rôle of a man who was pursuing a married woman, and who made it the purpose of his life at all cost to draw her into adultery, was one which had in it something beautiful and dignified and could never be ridiculous; so it was with a proud glad smile lurking under his moustache that he put down the opera-glasses and looked at his cousin.
‘And why did you not come to dinner?’ she said admiringly.
‘I must tell you about that. I was engaged, and with what do you think? I’ll give you a hundred or a thousand guesses — and you won’t find out! I was making peace between a husband and a fellow who had insulted his wife. Yes, really!’
‘Well, and did you succeed?’
‘Nearly.’
‘You must tell me all about it,’ she said, rising. ‘Come back in the next interval.’
‘I can’t: I am going to the French Theatre.’
‘What? From Nilsson?’ asked Betsy, quite horrified, though she could not have distinguished Nilsson’s voice from that of a chorus girl.
‘It can’t be helped, I have an appointment there in connection with this same peacemaking of mine.’
‘ “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be saved!” ’ said Betsy, remembering that she had heard some one say something like that. ‘Well, then, sit down and tell me about it.’
And she sat down again.

Chapter 5

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‘IT’S rather improper but so charming that I long to tell it,’ said Vronsky, gazing at her with laughing eyes. ‘I shan’t mention names.’
‘So much the better. I shall guess them.’
‘Well then, listen: two gay young fellows were out driving . . .’
‘Officers of your regiment, of course?’
‘I didn’t say officers, but just two young men who had been lunching . . .’
‘Translate that “not wisely but too well.” ’
‘It may be. They were on their way to dine with a comrade, and in the highest spirits. They see that a pretty woman in a hired sledge is passing them, looking at them, and laughing and nodding to them — at any rate they think so. Of course off they go after her, galloping full speed. To their surprise the lovely one stops at the door of the very house they are going to. She runs up to the top flat. They only manage to see a pair of red lips beneath a short veil, and lovely little feet . . .’
‘You tell it with so much feeling that I think you yourself must have been one of the two.’
‘And what did you say to me just now? Well, the young men go into their comrade’s flat. He was giving a farewell dinner. There they may really have drunk rather too much, as always happens at farewell dinners. At dinner they inquire who lives in the top flat. No one knows; but their host’s footman, in answer to their question whether “girls” lived there, replies that there are a lot of them thereabouts. After dinner the young men go into the host’s study to compose a letter to the fair stranger, and, having written one full of passion and containing a declaration, they carry it upstairs themselves, in order to explain anything that might not be quite clear in the letter.’
‘Why do you tell me such horrors? Well?’
‘They ring. A maid opens the door; they give her the letter and assure her that they are both so much in love that they will die at once on the doorstep. The maid, quite bewildered, carries on the negotiations. Suddenly a gentleman with sausage-shaped whiskers, and as red as a lobster, appears, announces that no one but his wife lives in that flat and turns them both out. . . .’
‘How do you know he had “sausage-shaped whiskers,” as you say?’
‘You just listen! To-day I went to reconcile them.’
‘Well, what happened?’
‘This is the most interesting part. It turns out that the happy couple are a Titular Councillor [a modest rank in the Civil Service] and a Titular Councilloress! The Titular Councillor lodges a complaint, and I turn into a peacemaker — and what a peacemaker! . . . I assure you Talleyrand was nothing to me!’
‘What was the difficulty?’
‘You shall hear. We duly apologized: “We are in despair; we beg to be forgiven for our unfortunate mistake.” The Titular Councillor with his sausages begins to thaw, but also wishes to express his feelings, and as soon as he begins to express them he begins to get excited and grows insulting, and again I have to set all my diplomatic talents in motion. “I agree that they acted badly, but beg you to consider that it was a mistake; consider their youth; besides which the young men had just dined. You understand! They repent from the bottom of their hearts, and ask you to forgive their fault.” The Titular Councillor again softens. “I am willing to forgive them, Count, but you must understand that my wife, a respectable woman, has been subjected to the rudeness and insults of these hobbledehoys, these scound . . .” And you must remember that one of the hobbledehoys is standing there, and I have to reconcile them! Again I set my diplomacy going, and again, just as the whole business should be concluded, my Titular Councillor flies into a rage, gets red, his sausages stick out, and again I dissolve into diplomatic subtlety.’
‘Oh, you must hear this!’ cried Betsy, laughing and turning to a lady who was just entering the box. ‘He has made me laugh so!’
‘Well, bonne chance! [good luck!]’ she added, giving Vronsky a finger that was not engaged in holding her fan, and with a movement of her shoulders making the bodice of her dress, that had risen a little, slip down again that she might be befittingly nude on returning to the front of the box into the glare of gas-light and the gaze of all eyes.
Vronsky went to the French Theatre, where he really had to see the Commander of his regiment (who never omitted a single performance there) to talk over this reconciliation business which had occupied and amused him for the last three days. Petritsky, whom Vronsky was fond of, was mixed up in the affair, and so was young Prince Kedrov, a first-rate fellow and a capital comrade, who had lately joined the regiment. Above all, the interests of the regiment were involved.
Both officers belonged to Vronsky’s squadron. Titular Councillor Wenden had been to see the Commander and had lodged a complaint against the officers who had insulted his wife. His young wife, so Wenden declared (he had been married six months), had been to church with her mother, and suddenly feeling unwell as a result of her interesting condition, was unable to stand any longer and took the first good sledge she could find. These officers, in their sledge, raced after her; she became frightened, and feeling still more unwell ran up the stairs to her flat. Wenden himself having returned from his office and hearing the front-door bell and voices, went out, saw the tipsy officers with the letter, and hustled them out. He requested that they should be severely punished.
‘No, say what you like,’ the Commander remarked to Vronsky, whom he had invited to his house, ‘Petritsky is becoming impossible. Not a week passes without some scandal. That Councillor will not let the matter rest: he will go further with it.’
Vronsky realized how ungrateful a task it was — that a duel was out of the question, and that everything must be done to soften the Titular Councillor and hush up the affair. The C.O. had called Vronsky in just because he knew him to be honourable and able, and above all a man who valued the honour of the regiment. After discussing the matter, they decided that Vronsky should go with Petritsky and Kedrov to apologize to the Councillor. Both the Commander and Vronsky were aware that Vronsky’s name and his badge as aide-de-camp to the Emperor ought greatly to help in softening the Titular Councillor’s feelings, and really these things had a partial effect; but the result of the peacemaking still remained doubtful, as Vronsky had explained.
Having reached the French Theatre, Vronsky went out into the foyer with the C.O., and informed him of his success or lack of success. After considering the whole question, the Commander decided to let the matter drop; but, for amusement, he asked Vronsky for particulars of the interview, and could not help laughing for a long time as he listened to the description of how the Titular Councillor suddenly again flared up at the recollection of some incident of the affair, and how Vronsky manoeuvred so as to retire just at the last half-word of reconciliation, pushing Petritsky before him.
‘A bad business, but most amusing! Kedrov cannot fight that good man! And so he was in a great rage?’ repeated the Commander, laughing. ‘But what do you think of Clare this evening? Wonderful!’ he went on, referring to the new French actress. ‘However often one sees her, she is new each day. Only the French can do that!’

Chapter 6

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PRINCESS BETSY went home without waiting for the end of the last act. She had scarcely time to go to her dressing-room, put powder on her long pale face and rub it off again, smarten herself up, and order tea to be served in the big drawing-room, before one carriage after another began to arrive at the door of her immense house on the Great Morskaya. The visitors passed beneath the broad portico, and the massive hall porter, who in the mornings read a newspaper behind the glass panes of the front door for the edification of passers-by, now noiselessly opened this enormous door to admit them.
Almost at one and the same time the hostess, her hair rearranged and her face freshened up, entered at one door and the visitors at another of the large, dark-walled drawing-room, with its thick carpets and brightly-lit table, shining in the candle-light with white table-cloth, silver samovar and translucent china.
The hostess sat down beside the samovar and took off her gloves. The chairs being moved by the aid of unobtrusive footmen, the company settled down, separating into two circles: one with the hostess round the samovar, the other, at the opposite end of the room, round the wife of an ambassador, a beautiful woman with black sharply-outlined eyebrows, in a black velvet dress. The conversation in both circles, as always happens at first, hesitated for a few minutes, was interrupted by greetings, recognitions, and offers of tea, and seemed to be seeking something to settle on.
‘She is wonderfully good as an actress; one sees that she has studied Kaulbach,’ remarked an attaché in the circle round the ambassador’s wife. ‘Did you notice how she fell . . .’
‘Oh, please don’t let us talk about Nilsson! It’s impossible to say anything new about her,’ said a stout, red-faced, fair-haired lady who wore an old silk dress and had no eyebrows and no chignon: This was the Princess Myagkaya, notorious for her simplicity and the roughness of her manners, and nicknamed l’enfant terrible. The Princess Myagkaya was seated midway between the two circles, listening and taking part in the conversation of both. ‘This very same sentence about Kaulbach has been repeated to me by three different people to-day, as if by arrangement. That sentence, I don’t know why, seemed to please them very much.’ The conversation was broken by this remark, and it became necessary to find another topic.
‘Tell us something amusing but not malicious,’ said the ambassador’s wife, a great adept at that kind of elegant conversation which the English call ‘small-talk,’ turning to the attaché, who was also at a loss what subject to start.
‘People say that is very difficult, and that only what is malicious is amusing,’ he began with a smile. ‘But I will try, if you will give me a theme. The theme is everything. Once one has a theme, it is easy to embroider on it. I often think that the famous talkers of the last century would find it difficult to talk cleverly nowadays. We are all so tired of the clever things . . .’
‘That was said long ago,’ interrupted the ambassador’s wife, laughingly.
The conversation had begun very prettily, but just because it was too pretty it languished again. They had to return to the one sure and never-failing resource — slander.
‘Don’t you think there is something Louis Quinze about Tushkevich?’ said the attaché, glancing at a handsome, fair-haired young man who stood by the tea-table.
‘Oh yes! He matches the drawing-room; that is why he comes here so often!’
This conversation did not flag, since it hinted at what could not be spoken of in this room, namely, at the relations existing between Tushkevich and their hostess.
Around the hostess and the samovar, the conversation, after flickering for some time in the same way between the three inevitable themes: the latest public news, the theatre, and criticism of one’s neighbour, also caught on when it got to the last of these themes — slander.
‘Have you heard? That that Maltyshcheva woman also — not the daughter but the mother — is having a diable rose [shocking pink] costume made for herself?’
‘You don’t mean to say so! How delicious!’
‘I wonder that she, with her common sense — for she is not stupid — does not see how ridiculous she makes herself.’
Every one had something disparaging to say about the unfortunate Maltyshcheva, and the conversation began crackling merrily like a kindling bonfire.
The Princess Betsy’s husband, a fat, good-natured man, an enthusiastic collector of engravings, hearing that his wife had visitors, entered the drawing-room before going to his club. Stepping silently on the thick carpet, he approached the Princess Myagkaya.
‘How did you like Nilsson?’ he inquired.
‘Oh, how can you steal on one like that? How you frightened me!’ said she in reply. ‘Please don’t talk to me about the opera — you know nothing of music. I had better descend to your level and talk about your majolica and engravings. Come now, tell me about the treasures you have picked up lately at the rag fair!’
‘Shall I show you? But you don’t understand them.’
‘Yes, let me see them. I have learnt from those — what is their name? — the bankers. . . . They have some splendid engravings. They showed them to us.’
‘What? Have you been to the Schuzburgs?’ asked the hostess from her place by the samovar.
‘I have, ma chère. They asked my husband and me to dinner, and I was told that the sauce alone at that dinner cost a thousand roubles,’ said the Princess Myagkaya loudly, feeling that everybody was listening. ‘And a very nasty sauce it was too, something green! We had to invite them, and I gave them a sauce that cost eighty-five kopeks and satisfied every one. I can’t afford thousand-rouble sauces.’
‘She is unique!’ said the hostess.
‘Wonderful!’ said some one else.
The effect produced by the Princess Myagkaya’s words was always the same; and the secret of that effect lay in the fact that although she often — as at that moment — spoke not quite to the point, her words were simple and had a meaning. In the Society in which she lived words of that kind produced the effect of a most witty joke. The Princess Myagkaya did not understand why her words had such an effect, but was aware that they did and availed herself of it.