‘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 gaslight 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
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