Having snubbed Anna’s friend handsomely, the Princess Myagkaya rose with the ambassador’s wife and joined those at the table, where there was a general conversation about the King of Prussia.
‘Whom were you backbiting there?’ asked Betsy.
‘The Karenins. The Princess was characterizing Karenin,’ replied the ambassador’s wife with a smile, seating herself at the table.
‘It’s a pity we did not hear it!’ said the hostess, glancing at the door. ‘Ah! Here you are at last!’ she added, smilingly addressing Vronsky as he entered the room.
Vronsky not only knew everybody in the room, but saw them all every day, so he entered in the calm manner of one who rejoins those from whom he has parted only a short time before.
‘Where do I come from?’ he said in reply to the ambassador’s wife. ‘There’s no help for it, I must confess that I come from the Théâtre Bouffe. I have been there a hundred times, and always with fresh pleasure. Excellent! I know it’s a disgrace, but at the opera I go to sleep, while at the Bouffe I stay till the last minute enjoying it. Tonight …’
And he named a French actress and was about to tell them something about her when the ambassador’s wife stopped him with mock alarm.
‘Please don’t talk about those horrors!’
‘All right, I won’t — especially as everybody knows those horrors!’
‘And everybody would go there if it were considered the thing, as the opera is,’ put in the Princess Myagkaya.
Chapter 7
STEPS were heard at the entrance, and the Princess Betsy, knowing that it was Anna, glanced at Vronsky. He was looking at the door with a strange new expression on his face. He gazed joyfully, intently, and yet timidly at the lady who was entering, and slowly rose from his seat. Anna entered the room holding herself, as usual, very erect, and without changing the direction of her eyes, approached her hostess, walking with that quick, firm yet light step which distinguished her from other Society women. She shook hands, smilingly, and with the same smile looked round at Vronsky. He bowed low and moved a chair toward her.
Anna responded only by an inclination of the head, though she blushed and frowned. But immediately, nodding rapidly to her acquaintances and pressing the hands extended to her, she turned again to her hostess:
‘I have just been at the Countess Lydia’s. I meant to come sooner, but could not get away. Sir John was there — he is very interesting.’
‘Oh, that missionary?’
‘Yes, he was telling us about Indian life. It was very interesting.’ The conversation, interrupted by her entrance, again burnt up like the flame of a lamp that has been blown about.
‘Sir John! Oh yes, Sir John! I have seen him. He speaks very well. The elder Vlasyeva is quite in love with him.’
‘And is it true that the younger Vlasyeva is going to be married to Topov?’
‘Yes; they say it’s quite settled.’
‘I am surprised at her parents. They say it’s a love match.’
‘Love match! What antediluvian ideas you have! Who talks of love nowadays?’ said the ambassador’s wife.
‘What’s to be done? That silly old fashion hasn’t died out yet!’ said Vronsky.
‘So much the worse for those who follow the fashion! I know of happy marriages, but only such as are founded on reason.’
‘Yes, but how often the happiness of marriages founded on reason crumbles to dust because the very passion that was disregarded makes itself felt later,’ said Vronsky.
‘But by “marriages founded on reason,” we mean marriages between those who have both passed through that madness. It’s like scarlet fever: one has to get it over.’
‘Then some one should invent a way of inoculating love, like vaccination.’
‘When I was young I was in love with a chorister,’ said Princess Myagkaya. ‘I don’t know whether it did me any good.’
‘No, joking apart, I believe that to understand love one must first make a mistake and then correct it,’ said the Princess Betsy.
‘Even after marriage?’ said the ambassador’s wife archly.
‘It is never too late to mend!’ said the attaché, quoting the English proverb.
‘Exactly!’ chimed in Betsy. ‘One has to make mistakes and correct them. What do you think?’ she asked, addressing Anna, who with a scarcely discernible resolute smile was listening to this conversation.
‘I think,’ replied Anna, toying with the glove she had pulled off, ‘I think … if it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.’
Vronsky had gazed at Anna and with sinking heart waited to hear what she would say. He sighed, as after a danger averted, when she had uttered these words.
Suddenly Anna addressed him:
‘I have received a letter from Moscow. They write that Kitty Shcherbatskaya is very ill.’
‘Really?’ said Vronsky, frowning.
Anna glanced sternly at him. ‘It does not interest you?’
‘On the contrary, it interests me very much! What exactly do they write, if I may ask?’ he inquired.
Anna rose and went up to Betsy. ‘Give me a cup of tea,’ she said, stopping behind Betsy’s chair.
While Betsy was pouring out the tea, Vronsky went up to Anna. ‘What do they write?’ he asked again.
‘I often think men don’t understand honour, though they are always talking about it,’ said Anna, without answering his question. ‘I have long wanted to tell you,’ she added, and, moving a few steps to a side table on which lay some albums, she sat down.
‘I don’t quite understand your meaning,’ he said, handing her the cup.
‘I wanted to tell you,’ she began again, without looking at him, ‘that you have behaved badly, very badly.’
‘Don’t I know that I behaved badly? But who was the cause?’
‘Why say that to me?’ she asked, looking severely at him.
‘You know why,’ he answered boldly and joyously, meeting her look and continuing to gaze at her.
It was not he, but she, who became abashed.
‘That only proves you have no heart,’ she said. But her look said that she knew he had a heart and that she therefore feared him.
‘What you have just referred to was a mistake, and not love.’
Anna shuddered, and said: ‘Don’t you remember that I forbade you to mention that word, that horrid word?’ But then she felt that the one word forbade showed that she claimed certain rights over him, thereby encouraging him to speak of love. ‘I have long wanted to say that to you,’ she went on, looking resolutely into his eyes, her face all aglow and suffused with a burning blush, ‘and to-day I came on purpose, knowing I should meet you here. I have come to tell you that this must stop! I have never till now had to blush before anyone, but you make me feel as if I were guilty of something.’
He looked at her, and was struck by the new, spiritual beauty of her face.
‘What do you want of me?’ he asked, simply and seriously.
‘I want you to go to Moscow and beg Kitty’s pardon,’ said she.
‘You don’t want that,’ he replied.