Anna Karenina (Annotated Maude Translation) - Leo Tolstoy

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first Anna had avoided the Princess Tverskaya’s set as much as she could, because it demanded more expense than she could afford; and also because she really approved more of the other set; but after her visit to Moscow all this was reversed. She avoided her moral friends and went into grand Society. There she saw Vronsky, and experienced a tremulous joy when meeting him. She met him most frequently at Betsy’s, who was a Vronsky herself and his cousin. Vronsky went everywhere where he had a chance of meeting Anna, and spoke to her of his love whenever he could. She gave him no encouragement, but every time they met there sprang up that feeling of animation which had seized her in the train on the morning when she first saw him. She was aware that when they met joy lit up her eyes and drew her lips into a smile, but she could not hide the expression of that joy.

      At first Anna sincerely believed that she was displeased with him for allowing himself to persecute her; but soon after her return from Moscow, having gone to a party where she expected to meet him but to which he did not come, she clearly realized, by the sadness that overcame her, that she had been deceiving herself and that his persecution supplied the whole interest of her life.

      · · · · · · ·

      A famous prima donna was giving her second performance and all high Society was at the Opera House. Vronsky, from the front row of the stalls, seeing his cousin, went to her box without waiting for the interval.

      ‘Why did you not come to dinner?’ she said, adding with a smile and so that only he could hear her: ‘I am amazed at the clairvoyance of lovers! She was not there! But come in after the opera.’

      Vronsky looked at her inquiringly. She nodded, and he thanked her by a smile and sat down beside her.

      ‘And how well I remember your ridicule!’ continued the Princess Betsy, who took particular pleasure in following the progress of this passion. ‘What has become of it all? You are caught, my dear fellow!’

      ‘I wish for nothing better than to be caught,’ replied Vronsky with his calm good-natured smile. ‘To tell the truth, if I complain at all, it is only of not being caught enough! I am beginning to lose hope.’

      ‘What hope can you have?’ said Betsy, offended on her friend’s behalf: ‘entendons nous!’ [‘let us understand one another!’] But in her eyes little sparks twinkled which said that she understood very well, and just as he did, what hope he might have.

      ‘None whatever,’ said Vronsky, laughing and showing his close-set teeth. ‘Excuse me!’ he added, taking from her hand the opera-glasses, and he set to work to scan across her bare shoulder the row of boxes opposite. ‘I am afraid I am becoming ridiculous.’

      He knew very well that he ran no risk of appearing ridiculous either in Betsy’s eyes or in the eyes of Society people generally. He knew very well that in their eyes, the rôle of the disappointed lover of a maiden or of any single woman might be ridiculous; but the rôle of a man who was pursuing a married woman, and who made it the purpose of his life at all cost to draw her into adultery, was one which had in it something beautiful and dignified and could never be ridiculous; so it was with a proud glad smile lurking under his moustache that he put down the opera-glasses and looked at his cousin.

      ‘And why did you not come to dinner?’ she said admiringly.

      ‘I must tell you about that. I was engaged, and with what do you think? I’ll give you a hundred or a thousand guesses — and you won’t find out! I was making peace between a husband and a fellow who had insulted his wife. Yes, really!’

      ‘Well, and did you succeed?’

      ‘Nearly.’

      ‘You must tell me all about it,’ she said, rising. ‘Come back in the next interval.’

      ‘I can’t: I am going to the French Theatre.’

      ‘What? From Nilsson?’ asked Betsy, quite horrified, though she could not have distinguished Nilsson’s voice from that of a chorus girl.

      ‘It can’t be helped, I have an appointment there in connection with this same peacemaking of mine.’

      ‘ “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be saved!” ’ said Betsy, remembering that she had heard some one say something like that. ‘Well, then, sit down and tell me about it.’

      And she sat down again.

      Chapter 5

      ‘IT’S rather improper but so charming that I long to tell it,’ said Vronsky, gazing at her with laughing eyes. ‘I shan’t mention names.’

      ‘So much the better. I shall guess them.’

      ‘Well then, listen: two gay young fellows were out driving …’

      ‘Officers of your regiment, of course?’

      ‘I didn’t say officers, but just two young men who had been lunching …’

      ‘Translate that “not wisely but too well.” ’

      ‘It may be. They were on their way to dine with a comrade, and in the highest spirits. They see that a pretty woman in a hired sledge is passing them, looking at them, and laughing and nodding to them — at any rate they think so. Of course off they go after her, galloping full speed. To their surprise the lovely one stops at the door of the very house they are going to. She runs up to the top flat. They only manage to see a pair of red lips beneath a short veil, and lovely little feet …’

      ‘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

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