LITMIR.BIZ

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that Betsy knew nothing about it.

      ‘Ah!’ said Anna, in an indifferent tone as if she cared very little about it, and went on with a smile: ‘How could your company compromise anyone?’ This play of words, this concealment of a secret, had a great charm for Anna, as it has for all women. It was not the necessity for secrecy, not its purpose, but the process itself that was fascinating.

      ‘I cannot be more Catholic than the Pope,’ she said. ‘Stremov and Lisa Merkalova are the cream of the cream of Society! They are received everywhere, and I’ — she put special stress on that I — ‘never was severe or intolerant: I simply have not the time.’

      ‘No! Perhaps you do not want to meet Stremov? Let him and Alexis Alexandrovich break lances at their Committee Meetings, that has nothing to do with us. In Society he is the most amiable man I know, and a passionate croquet player. You’ll see! And in spite of his ridiculous position as Lisa’s old admirer, you should see how he carries it off. He is very charming. Sappho Stolz you do not know? She is quite a new type.’

      While Betsy was saying this Anna saw by her bright intelligent look that she partly understood Anna’s position and was devising something. They were in a small sitting-room.

      ‘But I must write to Alexis;’ and Betsy sat down at the table, wrote a few words, and put the paper in an envelope. ‘I am writing to ask him to come to dinner; I have one lady too many. See if I have made it pressing enough! Excuse me! I must leave you for a minute; please close the envelope and send it,’ she said from the doorway; ‘I have some orders to give.’

      Without thinking for an instant Anna sat down at the table with Betsy’s note, and without reading it added at the bottom: ‘I must see you. Come to Vrede’s garden. I shall be there at six.’ She closed it, and Betsy returning sent it off in her presence.

      Over their tea, which was brought them in the cool little drawing-room, the two women really had before the arrival of the visitors the cosy chat the Princess Tverskaya had promised Anna. They passed in review all who were expected to come, and their conversation dwelt at some length on Lisa Merkalova.

      ‘She is very nice and was always attractive to me,’ said Anna.

      ‘You must love her: she dotes on you. Yesterday she came to me at the races and was quite in despair that she had missed you. She said that you are a real heroine for a novel, and that were she a man she would have committed a thousand follies for your sake. Stremov tells her she is committing them as it is!’

      ‘Yes, but do tell me! I never can understand,’ said Anna after a pause, in a tone that clearly proved she was not putting an idle question and that what she was asking about was more important to her than it ought to be; ‘do tell me what are her relations with Prince Kaluzhsky, whom they call Mishka? I have not often met them… . What are they?’

      Betsy looked at her with smiling eyes. ‘It is a new fashion,’ she replied. ‘They have all adopted that fashion. They have kicked over the traces, but there are different ways of doing it.’

      ‘Yes, but what are her relations with Kaluzhsky?’

      Betsy burst into an unexpected, merry and uncontrollable peal of laughter, a thing she rarely did. ‘You are encroaching on the Princess Myagkaya’s domain! That is a question an enfant terrible might put!’ and Betsy evidently tried to, but could not, control herself and again burst out into the infectious kind of laughter peculiar to those who laugh seldom. ‘You must ask them!’ she uttered, while tears of laughter choked her voice.

      ‘It is all very well for you to laugh,’ said Anna, who could not help laughing too, ‘but I never was able to understand it. I cannot understand the husband’s position.’

      ‘The husband’s! Lisa Merkalova’s husband carries her rugs after her and is always at her service. But what there is behind it all, no one really cares to know. Don’t you know that in good Society no one talks or even thinks about certain details of the toilet? It is just the same in such cases.’

      ‘Will you be at Rolandaki’s fête?’ asked Anna in order to change the subject.

      ‘I don’t think so,’ answered Betsy, and while looking at her friend she began filling the little translucent cup with aromatic tea. She moved one of the cups toward Anna, got out a pachitos [straw-covered cigarette], placed it in a silver holder, and lit it.

      ‘You see,’ she said, ‘I am in a lucky position! I understand you and I understand Lisa. Lisa’s is one of those naïve natures who, like children, are unable to understand the difference between right and wrong. At least she did not understand it when she was very young. And now she knows that the rôle of not understanding becomes her. Now perhaps she is purposely ingenuous,’ and Betsy smiled pointedly. ‘But still it becomes her. You see a thing may be looked at tragically and turned to a torment, or looked at quite simply, and even gaily. Perhaps you are inclined to take things too tragically.’

      ‘How I wish I knew others as I know myself!’ said Anna, seriously and thoughtfully. ‘Am I worse than others or better? Worse I think.’

      ‘Enfant terrible! enfant terrible!’ Betsy repeated. ‘But here they come!’

      Chapter 18

       Table of Contents

      SOUNDS of footsteps and a man’s voice, then that of a woman followed by laughter, reached them, and the expected visitors entered the room, Sappho Stolz and a young man, shining with a super-abundance of health, known as Vaska. It was evident that he flourished on underdone beef, truffles, and Burgundy. Vaska bowed to the ladies, only glancing at them for a second. He came into the drawing-room behind Sappho and followed her across the room as if he were tied to her, with his glittering eye fixed on her as if he were ready to eat her. Sappho Stolz had fair hair and black eyes. She entered with a short, brisk step, in shoes with high French heels, and shook hands with the ladies with a firm grip like a man.

      Anna had never met this celebrity before, and was struck by her beauty, by the extravagant fashion of her costume, and by the boldness of her manners. On her head the delicate golden hair (her own and others’) was built up into such an erection that her head was as large as her shapely, well-developed and much-exposed bust. At each strenuous step as she advanced, the shape of her knees and thighs was distinctly visible under her dress, and one involuntarily wondered just where, behind, under her heaped and swaying bustle, the real, graceful little body ended which was so exposed at the top and so hidden at the back and below.

      Betsy hastened to introduce her to Anna.

      ‘Just fancy! We nearly ran over two soldiers,’ she began at once, winking and smiling as she threw back her train which she had jerked too much to one side. ‘I was with Vaska… . Oh, but you are not acquainted!’ and she introduced the young man by his surname and burst into ringing laughter at her mistake in speaking of him as Vaska to a stranger. Vaska again bowed to Anna, but said nothing. He turned to Sappho: ‘You have lost the bet: we have arrived first. Pay up!’ he said smiling.

      Sappho laughed still more merrily.

      ‘Surely not now!’ she said.

      ‘Never mind, I will have it later.’

      ‘All right! All right! Oh yes!’ she suddenly said, addressing her hostess. ‘I’m a nice one. I quite forgot … I have brought you a visitor! Here he is.’

      The unexpected young visitor Sappho had brought with her and forgotten was nevertheless so important a personage that, in spite of his youth, both ladies rose to greet him.

      He was Sappho’s new admirer, and followed at her heels just like Vaska.

      Then the Prince Kaluzhsky arrived, and Lisa Merkalova with Stremov. Lisa Merkalova was a slight brunette with a lazy Oriental type of face and beautiful (everybody said unfathomable) eyes. The character of her dark costume, as Anna at once noticed and appreciated, was perfectly suited to

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