Over dinner he talked with his wife about Moscow affairs, asked with a mocking smile about Stepan Arkadyich; but the conversation was mainly general, about Petersburg administrative and social affairs. After dinner he spent half an hour with his guests and, again pressing his wife's hand with a smile, left and went to the Council. This time Anna went neither to see Princess Betsy Tverskoy, who, on learning of her return, had invited her for the evening, nor to the theatre, where she had a box for that night. She did not go mainly because the dress she had counted on was not ready. Having turned to her toilette after her guests' departure, Anna was very annoyed. Before leaving for Moscow, she, who was generally an expert at dressing not very expensively, had given her dressmaker three dresses to be altered. The dresses needed to be altered so that they could not be recognized, and they were to have been ready three days ago. It turned out that two of the dresses were not ready at all, and the third had not been altered in the way Anna wanted. The dressmaker came and explained that it was better as she had done it, and Anna got so upset that afterwards she was ashamed to remember it. To calm herself completely, she went to the nursery and spent the whole evening with her son, put him to bed herself, made a cross over him and covered him with a blanket. She was glad that she had not gone anywhere and had spent the evening so well. She felt light and calm. She saw clearly that everything that had seemed so important to her on the train was merely one of the ordinary, insignificant episodes of social life, and there was nothing to be ashamed of before others or herself. Anna sat by the fireplace with her English novel and waited for her husband. At exactly half-past nine the bell rang, and he came into the room.
'It's you at last!' she said, giving him her hand.
He kissed her hand and sat down beside her.
'Generally, I see your trip was a success,' he said to her.
'Yes, very,' she replied, and started telling him everything from the beginning: her journey with Mme Vronsky, her arrival, the accident at the railway station. Then she told of the pity she had felt, first for her brother, then for Dolly.
'I don't suppose one can possibly excuse such a man, though he is your brother,' Alexei Alexandrovich said sternly.
Anna smiled. She understood that he had said it precisely to show that considerations of kinship could not keep him from expressing his sincere opinion. She knew this feature in her husband and liked it.
'I'm glad it all ended satisfactorily and that you've come back,' he continued. 'Well, what are they saying there about the new statute I passed in the Council?'
Anna had heard nothing about this statute, and felt ashamed that she could so easily forget something so important for him.
'Here, on the contrary, it caused a good deal of stir,' he said with a self-satisfied smile.
She could see that Alexei Alexandrovich wanted to tell her something that pleased him about this matter, and by her questions she led him to telling it. With the same self-satisfied smile, he told her about an ovation he had received as a result of the passing of this statute.
'I was very, very glad. This proves that a reasonable and firm view of the matter is finally being established among us.'
Having finished his bread and a second glass of tea with cream, Alexei Alexandrovich got up and went to his study.
'And you didn't go out anywhere - it must have been boring for you?' he said.
'Oh, no!' she replied, getting up after him and accompanying him across the drawing room to his study. 'What are you reading now?' she asked.
'I'm now reading the Duc de Lille, Poesie des enfers,[43] he replied. 'A very remarkable book.'
Anna smiled, as one smiles at the weaknesses of people one loves, and, putting her arm under his, accompanied him to the door of the study. She knew his habit, which had become a necessity, of reading in the evenings. She knew that in spite of the responsibilities of service which consumed almost all his time, he considered it his duty to follow everything remarkable that appeared in the intellectual sphere. She also knew that he was indeed interested in books on politics, philosophy, theology, that art was completely foreign to his nature, but that, in spite of that, or rather because of it, Alexei Alexandrovich did not miss anything that caused a stir in that area, and considered it his duty to read everything. She knew that in the areas of politics, philosophy and theology, Alexei Alexandrovich doubted or searched; but in questions of art and poetry, and especially music, of which he lacked all understanding, he had the most definite and firm opinions. He liked to talk about Shakespeare, Raphael, Beethoven, about the significance of the new schools in poetry and music, which with him were all sorted out in a very clear order.
'Well, God bless you,' she said at the door of the study, where a shaded candle and a carafe of water had already been prepared for him beside the armchair. 'And I'll write to Moscow.'
He pressed her hand and again kissed it.
'All the same, he's a good man, truthful, kind and remarkable in his sphere,' Anna said to herself, going back to her room, as if defending him before someone who was accusing him and saying that it was impossible to love him. 'But why do his ears stick out so oddly? Did he have his hair cut?'
Exactly at midnight, when Anna was still sitting at her desk finishing a letter to Dolly, she heard the measured steps of slippered feet, and Alexei Alexandrovich, washed and combed, a book under his arm, came up to her.
'It's time, it's time,' he said with a special smile, and went into the bedroom.
'And what right did he have to look at him like that?' thought Anna, recalling how Vronsky had looked at Alexei Alexandrovich.
She undressed and went to the bedroom, but not only was that animation which had simply burst from her eyes and smile when she was in Moscow gone from her face: on the contrary, the fire now seemed extinguished in her or hidden somewhere far away.
XXXIV
On his departure from Petersburg, Vronsky had left his big apartment on Morskaya to his friend and favourite comrade Petritsky.
Petritsky was a young lieutenant, of no especially high nobility, not only not rich but in debt all around, always drunk towards evening, and often ending up in the guard house for various funny and dirty episodes, but loved by both his comrades and his superiors. Driving up to his apartment from the railway station towards noon, Vronsky saw a familiar hired carriage by the entrance. In response to his ring, he heard men's laughter from behind the door, a woman's voice prattling in French and Petritsky's shout: 'If it's one of those villains, don't let him in!' Vronsky told the orderly not to announce him and quietly went into the front room. Baroness Shilton, Petritsky's lady-friend, her lilac satin dress and rosy fair face shining, and her canary-like Parisian talk filling the whole room, was sitting at a round table making coffee. Petritsky in
civilian overcoat and the cavalry captain Kamerovsky in full uniform, probably just off duty, were sitting on either side of her.
'Bravo! Vronsky!' cried Petritsky, jumping up noisily from his chair. 'The host himself! Coffee for him, Baroness, from the new coffeepot. We weren't expecting you! I hope you're pleased with the new ornament of your study,' he said, pointing to the baroness. 'You're acquainted?'
'What else!' said Vronsky, smiling gaily and pressing the baroness's little hand. 'We're old friends!'
'You're back from a trip,' said the baroness, 'so I'll run off. Oh, I'll leave this very minute if I'm in the way.'
'You're at home right where you are, Baroness,' said Vronsky. 'Good day, Kamerovsky,' he added, coldly shaking Kamerovsky's hand.
'See, and you never know how to say such pretty things.' The baroness turned to Petritsky.
'No? Why not? I'll do no worse after dinner.'
'After dinner there's no virtue in it! Well, then I'll give you some coffee, go wash and tidy yourself up,' said the baroness, sitting down again and carefully turning a screw in the new coffeepot. 'Pass me the coffee, Pierre.' She turned to Petritsky, whom she called Pierre after his last name, not concealing her relations with him.
'I'll add some more.'
'You'll spoil it.'
'No, I won't! Well, and your wife?' the baroness said suddenly, interrupting Vronsky's conversation with his comrade. 'We've got you married here. Did you bring your wife?'
'No, Baroness. I was born a gypsy and I'll die a gypsy.'
So much the better, so much the better. Give me your hand.'
And the baroness, without letting go of Vronsky's hand, began telling mm her latest plans for her life, interspersing it with jokes, and asking for his advice.
He keeps refusing to grant me a divorce! Well, what am I to do?' ('He' was her husband.) 'I want to start proceedings. How would you advise me? Kamerovsky, keep an eye on the coffee, it's boiling over - you can see I'm busy! I want proceedings, because I need my fortune.
Do you understand this stupidity - that I'm supposedly unfaithful to him,' she said with scorn, 'and so he wants to have use of my estate?'
Vronsky listened with pleasure to this merry prattle of a pretty woman, agreed with her, gave half-jocular advice, and generally adopted his habitual tone in dealing with women of her kind. In his Petersburg world, all people were divided into two completely opposite sorts. One was the inferior sort: the banal, stupid and, above all, ridiculous people who believed that one husband should live with one wife, whom he has married in church, that a girl should be innocent, a woman modest, a man manly, temperate and firm, that one should raise children, earn one's bread, pay one's debts, and other such stupidities. This was an old-fashioned and ridiculous sort of people. But there was another sort of people, the real ones, to which they all belonged, and for whom one had, above all, to be elegant, handsome, magnanimous, bold, gay, to give oneself to every passion without blushing and laugh at everything else.
Vronsky was stunned only for the first moment, after the impressions of a completely different world that he had brought from Moscow; but at once, as if putting his feet into old slippers, he stepped back into his former gay and pleasant world.
The coffee never got made, but splashed on everything and boiled over and produced precisely what was needed - that is, gave an excuse for noise and laughter, spilling on the expensive carpet and the baroness's dress.
'Well, goodbye now, or else you'll never get washed, and I'll have on my conscience the worst crime of a decent person - uncleanliness. So your advice is a knife at his throat?'
'Absolutely, and with your little hand close to his lips. He'll kiss your hand, and all will end well,' Vronsky replied.
'Tonight, then, at the French Theatre!' And she disappeared, her dress rustling.
Kamerovsky also stood up, and Vronsky, not waiting for him to leave, gave him his hand and went to his dressing room. While he washed, Petritsky described his own situation in a few strokes, to the extent that it had changed since Vronsky's departure. Of money there was none. His father said he would not give him any, nor pay his debts. One tailor wanted to have him locked up, and the other was also threatening to have him locked up without fail. The commander of the regiment announced that if these scandals did not stop, he would have to resign. He was fed up with the baroness, especially since she kept wanting to give him money; but there was one, he would show her to Vronsky, a wonder, a delight, in the severe Levantine style, the 'slave-girl Rebecca genre[44] you know'. He had also quarrelled yesterday with Berkoshev, who wanted to send his seconds, but surely nothing would come of that. Generally, everything was excellent and extremely jolly. And, not letting his friend go deeper into the details of his situation, Petritsky started telling him all the interesting news. Listening to his so-familiar stories, in the so-familiar surroundings of his apartment of three years, Vronsky experienced the pleasant feeling of returning to his accustomed and carefree Petersburg life.
'It can't be!' he cried, releasing the pedal of the washstand from which water poured over his robust red neck. 'It can't be!' he cried at the news that Laura was now with Mileev and had dropped Fertinhoff. 'And he's still just as stupid and content? Well, and what about Buzulukov?'
'Ah, there was a story with Buzulukov - lovely!' cried Petritsky. 'He has this passion for balls, and he never misses a single court ball. So he went to a big ball in a new helmet. Have you seen the new helmets? Very good, much lighter. There he stands ... No, listen.'
'I am listening,' Vronsky replied, rubbing himself with a Turkish towel.
'The grand duchess passes by with some ambassador, and, as luck would have it, they begin talking about the new helmets. So the grand duchess wants to show him a new helmet... They see our dear fellow standing there.' (Petritsky showed how he was standing there with his helmet.) 'The grand duchess tells him to hand her the helmet - he won't do it. What's the matter? They wink at him, nod, frown. Hand it over. He won't. He freezes. Can you imagine? ... Then that one ... what's his name ... wants to take the helmet from him ... he won't let go! ... He tears it away, hands it to the grand duchess. "Here's the new helmet," says the grand duchess. She turns it over and, can you imagine, out of it - bang! - falls a pear and some sweets - two pounds of sweets! ... He had it all stashed away, the dear fellow!'
Vronsky rocked with laughter. And for a long time afterwards, talking about other things, he would go off into his robust laughter, exposing a solid row of strong teeth, when he remembered about the helmet.
Having learned all the news, Vronsky, with the help of his footman, put on his uniform and went to report. After reporting, he intended to call on his brother, then on Betsy, and then to pay several visits, so that he could begin to appear in the society where he might meet Anna. As always in Petersburg, he left home not to return till late at night.
Part Two
* * *
I
At the end of winter a consultation took place in the Shcherbatsky home, which was to decide on the state of Kitty's health and what must be undertaken to restore her failing strength. She was ill, and as spring approached her health was growing worse. The family doctor gave her cod-liver oil, then iron, then common caustic, but as neither the one nor the other nor the third was of any help, and as he advised going abroad for the spring, a famous doctor was called in. The famous doctor, not yet old and quite a handsome man, asked to examine the patient. With particular pleasure, it seemed, he insisted that maidenly modesty was merely a relic of barbarism and that nothing was more natural than for a not-yet-old man to palpate a naked young girl. He found it natural because he did it every day and never, as it seemed to him, felt or thought anything bad, and therefore he regarded modesty in a girl not only as a relic of barbarism but also as an affront to himself.
They had to submit, because, though all doctors studied in the same school, from the same books, and knew the same science, and though some said that this famous doctor was a bad doctor, in the princess's home and in her circle it was for some reason acknowledged that he alone knew something special and he alone could save Kitty. After a careful examination and sounding of the patient, who was bewildered and stunned with shame, the famous doctor, having diligently washed his hands, was standing in the drawing room and talking with the prince. The prince frowned and kept coughing as he listened to the doctor. He, as a man who had seen life and was neither stupid nor sick, did not believe in medicine, and in his soul he was angry at this whole comedy, the more so in that he was almost the only one who fully understood the cause of Kitty's illness. 'What a gabbler,' he thought, mentally applying this barnyard term to the famous doctor and listening to his chatter about the symptoms of his daughter's illness. The doctor meanwhile found it hard to keep from expressing his contempt for the old gentleman and descending to the low level of his understanding. He understood that there was no point in talking with the old man, and that the head of this house was the mother. It was before her that he intended to strew his pearls. Just then the princess came into the drawing room with the family doctor. The prince stepped aside, trying not to show how ridiculous this whole comedy was to him. The princess was bewildered and did not know what to do. She felt
herself guilty before Kitty.
'Well, doctor, decide our fate,' she said. 'Tell me everything.' ('Is there any hope?' she wanted to say, but her lips trembled and she could not get the question out.) 'Well, what is it, doctor?...'
'I will presently confer with my colleague, Princess, and then I will have the honour of reporting my opinion to you.'
'So we should leave you?'
'As you please.'
The princess sighed and went out.
When the doctors were left alone, the family physician timidly began to present his opinion, according to which there was the start of a tubercular condition, but... and so forth. The famous doctor listened to him and in the middle of his speech looked at his large gold watch.
'Indeed,' he said. 'But
The family physician fell respectfully silent in the middle of his speech.
'As you know, we cannot diagnose the start of a tubercular condition. Nothing is definite until cavities appear. But we can suspect. And there are indications: poor appetite, nervous excitation and so on. The question stands thus: given the suspicion of a tubercular condition, what must be done to maintain the appetite?'
'But, you know, there are always some hidden moral and spiritual causes,' the family doctor allowed himself to put in with a subtle smile.