Anna Karenina (Literature Classics Series). Leo Tolstoy

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 armchair; ‘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

       Table of Contents

      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.