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WHEN Vronsky returned Anna had not yet come home. He was told that, soon after he left, a lady came to see her and they went away together. Her departure without mentioning where she was going, her prolonged absence, and the fact that she had been away somewhere in the morning without telling him about it, added to her strangely excited look that morning, and the animosity with which in Yashvin’s presence she had almost snatched her son’s photographs out of his hands, made Vronsky reflect. He decided that it was necessary to have an explanation with her, and he waited for her in the drawing-room. But Anna did not return alone; she brought with her her old maiden aunt, Princess Oblonskaya. She it was who had been to see Anna that morning, and they had been shopping together. Anna seemed not to notice the worried look of inquiry on Vronsky’s face, but chattered gaily about what she had been buying. He saw that something unusual was taking place within her: her eyes glittered with an expression of strained attention when her look rested on him, and in her speech and motions there was that nervous quickness and grace which, during the first period of their intimacy, had so captivated him, but which now troubled and alarmed him.

 

The table was laid for four. They were all assembled and about to enter the little dining-room, when Tushkevich arrived with a message for Anna from the Princess Betsy. The Princess asked to be excused for not coming to say goodbye; she was not well, but asked Anna to come and see her between half-past six and nine. Vronsky glanced at Anna when that definite time was mentioned, which showed that care had been taken to prevent her meeting anyone there; but Anna did not seem to observe it.

 

‘I’m sorry that between half-past six and nine is just the time when I cannot come,’ she replied with a faint smile.

 

‘The Princess will be very sorry.’

 

‘And I too.’

 

‘I expect you are going to hear Patti?’ asked Tushkevich.

 

‘Patti? That’s an idea! I would go if I could get a box.’

 

‘I could get you one,’ said Tushkevich.

 

‘I should be very, very grateful if you would!’ replied Anna. ‘But won’t you stay and dine with us?’

 

Vronsky slightly shrugged his shoulders. He could not in the least understand what Anna was after. Why had she brought the old Princess, why had she asked Tushkevich to stay to dinner, and, strangest of all, why was she sending him to get her a box for the opera? Was it conceivable that, in her position, she was going to the opera when Patti was to sing, and when all the subscribers, her Society acquaintances, would be present? He looked seriously at her, but she answered him with the same provocative glance of high spirits or desperation, the meaning of which he could not make out. At dinner Anna was aggressively merry, seeming to flirt with both Tushkevich and Yashvin. After dinner Tushkevich went to get a box and Yashvin to have a smoke. Vronsky went with Yashvin down to his own rooms, but after sitting with him a while, ran upstairs again. Anna was already dressed in a light silk dress cut low in front and trimmed with velvet — a dress she had had made in Paris; and on her head she wore some rich, white lace, which outlined her face and set off her brilliant beauty to great advantage.

 

‘You are really going to the theatre?’ said he, trying not to look at her.

 

‘Why do you ask in such a frightened way?’ she said, again offended because he did not look at her. ‘Why should I not go?’

 

She appeared not to grasp the meaning of her words.

 

‘Of course there is no reason whatever,’ he replied with a frown.

 

‘That’s just what I say,’ she answered, purposely ignoring the sarcasm of his tone and calmly pulling up her long perfumed glove.

 

‘Anna! For heaven’s sake, what has come to you?’ he said, trying to recall her to her senses, as her husband once used to do.

 

‘I don’t understand your question.’

 

‘You know it is out of the question for you to go.’

 

‘Why? I am not going alone! The Princess Barbara has gone to dress, and is coming with me.’

 

He shrugged his shoulders with a bewildered and despairing look.

 

‘But don’t you know . . . ?’ he began.

 

‘I don’t want to know!’ she almost screamed. ‘I don’t! Do I repent of what I have done? No! No! No! If it had to begin again from the beginning I should do just the same. For us, for you and me, only one thing is important: whether we love each other. No other considerations exist. Why do we live here, separated and not seeing one another? Why can’t I go? I love you, and it’s all the same to me,’ she said, changing from French into Russian, while her eyes as she looked at him glittered with a light he could not understand, ‘so long as you have not changed toward me! Why don’t you look at me?’

 

He looked at her. He saw all the beauty of her face and of her dress, which suited her as her dresses always did. But now it was just this beauty and elegance that irritated him.

 

‘My feelings cannot change, you know that; but I beg you not to go! I entreat you!’ he said, again speaking French with tender entreaty in his voice but with a cold look in his eyes.

 

She did not hear his words, but saw the coldness of his look, and replied irritably:

 

‘And I beg you will explain why I should not go.’

 

‘Because it might cause you . . .’ He became confused.

 

‘I don’t understand you at all! Yashvin n’est pas compromettant [is not compromising] and Princess Barbara is no worse than other people. Ah, here she is!’

 

Chapter 33

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VRONSKY for the first time felt vexed and almost angry with Anna for her unwillingness to realize her position. This feeling was strengthened by the fact that he could not tell her the reason of his vexation. Had he told her frankly what he thought he could have said:

 

‘To appear dressed as you are at the theatre, accompanied by the Princess, whom everybody knows, means not only to acknowledge your position as a fallen woman, but to throw down a challenge to Society — which means, to renounce it for ever.’

 

But he could not say this to her. ‘But how can she fail to understand it? And what is happening to her?’ he asked himself. He felt that his regard for her had diminished and his consciousness of her beauty increased simultaneously.

 

He went down frowning to his rooms, and taking a seat beside Yashvin, who sat with his long legs stretched out on a chair drinking brandy and seltzer, ordered the same for himself.

 

‘You were talking about Lankovsky’s Powerful. He is a good horse, and I advise you to buy him,’ said Yashvin, glancing at his comrade’s gloomy countenance. ‘It’s true he has a goose rump, but his legs and head leave nothing to be desired.’

 

‘I think I’ll take him,’ replied Vronsky.

 

This conversation about horses interested him, but he never forgot Anna, and involuntarily listened to the steps in the corridor and glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece.

 

‘Anna Arkadyevna sent me to say that she has gone to the theatre,’ said a servant.

 

Yashvin emptied another glass of brandy into the sparkling water, drank it, and then rose, buttoning his coat.

 

‘Well, let us go,’ he said, smiling slightly under cover of his big moustache, and showing by that smile that he understood the cause of Vronsky’s depression, but did not attach importance to it.

 

‘I’m not going,’ said Vronsky dismally.

 

‘Well, I have got to, I promised. Then au revoir! But why not come to the stalls? Take Krasinsky’s place,’ Yashvin added as he went out.

 

‘No, I have something to do.’

 

‘With a wife one has trouble, but with one who is not a wife it’s worse,’ thought Yashvin as he left the hotel.

 

Left alone, Vronsky got up and began pacing the room.

 

‘What is on to-day? The fourth abonnement. . . . Alexander will be there with his wife, and probably Mother also. That’s to say, all Petersburg will be there. . . . Now she has gone in, taken off her cloak and come forward into the light. Tushkevich, Yashvin, the Princess Barbara . . .’ he pictured them to himself. ‘And what of me? Am I afraid, or have I put her under Tushkevich’s protection? Whichever way one looks at it, it’s a stupid position. . . . Why does she put me in such a position?’ he said with a wave of his arm.

 

As he made this gesture he struck the little table on which the seltzer and a decanter of brandy were standing and almost knocked it over. In trying to save it from falling he overturned it, and in his vexation kicked it and rang the bell.

 

‘If you wish to remain in my service,’ he said to the valet when the latter came in, ‘remember your duties. There must be none of this sort of thing. You must clear it away.’

 

The valet, conscious that he was not to blame, was about to defend himself, but, glancing at his master, saw by his face that there was nothing for it but to keep silent; so, stooping quickly, he knelt on the carpet and began sorting out the whole and broken glasses and bottles.

 

‘That’s not your business! Send a waiter to clear it up, and get out my dress suit!’

 

Vronsky entered the theatre at half-past eight. The performance was in full swing. The attendant, an old man, helped him off with his overcoat, recognized him, and, addressing him as ‘Your Excellency,’ suggested that he need not take a ticket for his coat, but should merely call for ‘Theodore’ when he wanted it. There was nobody in the brightly illuminated corridor except the attendant and two footmen, who, with their masters’ coats over their arms, stood listening outside a door. Through a door slightly ajar came the sounds of a muffled staccato accompaniment by the orchestra and of a female voice rendering a musical phrase with precision. The door opened to let an attendant slip through, and the nearly completed phrase struck Vronsky’s ears distinctly. The door was closed immediately and he did not hear the end of the phrase nor the trill after it, but knew from the thunder of applause behind the door that the trill was finished. When he entered the auditorium, brilliantly illuminated by chandeliers and bronze gas brackets, the noise still continued. On the stage the singer, in a glitter of bare shoulders and diamonds, was bowing low and smiling as she picked up with the help of the tenor — who held her hand — bouquets that had been clumsily flung across the footlights; she went up to a gentleman, with hair shiny with pomatum and parted in the middle, who was stretching his long arms across the footlights to hand her something — and the whole audience in the stalls and in the boxes stirred, leaned forward, shouted and applauded. The conductor from his raised seat helped to pass the bouquets, and rearranged his white tie. Vronsky went to the middle of the floor, then stopped and looked around him. To-day he paid less attention than ever to the familiar surroundings: the stage, the noise, and all that well-known, uninteresting, motley herd of audience in the packed theatre.

 

In the boxes sat the same kind of ladies with the same kind of officers behind them as usual; the same kind of people, heaven only knew who; the same gaily-dressed women, uniforms, frock coats; the same dirty crowd in the gallery; and in the whole of that throng, in the boxes and front seats, some forty real men and women. To these oases Vronsky at once turned his attention and immediately got into touch with them.

 

The act had just finished when he came in, so before going to his brother’s box he went up to the front row and paused beside Serpukhovskoy, who was standing with his knee bent, tapping the wall of the orchestra with his heel. He had noticed Vronsky afar off and welcomed him with a smile.

 

Vronsky had not yet seen Anna, he intentionally avoided looking her way; but from the direction in which people were looking he knew where she was. He glanced around unobtrusively, but did not look at her: prepared for the worst, he looked for Karenin. Luckily for him, Karenin was not in the theatre that evening.

 

‘How little of the military man is left in you!’ remarked Serpukhovskoy. ‘You might be a diplomatist, an artist, or anything of that kind.’

 

‘Yes, as soon as I returned home I put on a black coat,’ Vronsky replied with a smile, slowly taking out his opera-glasses.

 

‘Now in that, I confess, I envy you! I, when I come back from abroad and put this on again, regret my freedom,’ he said, touching his shoulder-knot.

 

Serpukhovskoy had long ago ceased to trouble himself about Vronsky’s career, but was as fond of him as ever and was particularly amiable to him now.

 

‘A pity you were late for the first act!’

 

Vronsky, listening with one ear, levelled his glasses first at the lower tier and then at the boxes in the dress circle, taking them all in review. Next to a lady wearing a turban, and a bald old man who blinked angrily just as Vronsky’s moving glass reached him, he suddenly saw Anna’s proud head, strikingly beautiful, and smiling in its frame of lace. She was in the fifth box in the lower tier, some twenty paces from him. She sat in the front of the box and, slightly turning back, was saying something to Yashvin. The poise of her head on her fine broad shoulders, and the gleam of restrained excitement in her eyes and her whole face, reminded him precisely of how he had seen her at the ball in Moscow. But her beauty affected him very differently now. There was no longer anything mysterious in his feelings for her, and therefore though her beauty attracted him even more strongly, it also offended him. She was not looking his way, but he felt that she had already seen him.

 

When Vronsky directed his glasses that way again he noticed that the Princess Barbara was very red, and that she was laughing unnaturally and looking round incessantly at the next box, while Anna, tapping with her closed fan the red-velvet edge of the box, was gazing fixedly, somewhere else, not seeing, and evidently not wishing to see, what was taking place in the next box. Yashvin’s face wore the expression it had when he was losing at cards. He was frowning and drawing the left side of his moustache further and further into his mouth, looking askance at the adjoining box.

 

In that box to the left were the Kartasovs. Vronsky knew them and knew that Anna had been acquainted with them. The wife, a thin little woman, was standing up in her box with her back to Anna, putting on an opera-cloak which her husband was holding for her. Her face looked pale and angry and she was speaking excitedly. Kartasov, a stout bald-headed man, kept glancing round at Anna while trying to pacify his wife. When the wife left the box the husband loitered behind, trying to catch Anna’s eye and evidently wishing to bow to her. But Anna, with obvious intention, took no notice of him and, turning round, was saying something to Yashvin, whose cropped head was bent toward her. Kartasov went out without bowing and the box remained empty.

 

Vronsky could not make out what had taken place between the Kartasovs and Anna, but he saw that it was something humiliating for Anna. He realized that from what he had seen, and especially from Anna’s face, who, he knew, was summoning her utmost strength to sustain the rôle she had undertaken. She fully succeeded in playing that rôle — of external tranquillity. Those who did not know her and her set, and heard none of the expressions of pity, indignation, or surprise uttered by the women because she had allowed herself to appear in public and to show herself so ostentatiously in her lace headdress and in all her beauty, admired the composure and loveliness of the woman, and did not suspect that she felt as though pilloried.

 

Knowing that something had happened, but not knowing just what, Vronsky felt painfully agitated, and, hoping to find out something, set out for his brother’s box. Intentionally leaving the auditorium at the opposite side to where Anna was, he encountered the Commander of his old regiment, who stood talking to two acquaintances. Vronsky heard them mention the name of Karenin, and noticed how the Commander hastened to call him loudly by name, with a significant glance at the others.

 

‘Ah, Vronsky! When are you coming to see us at the regiment? We can’t let you go away without a feast. You are one of our very own!’ said the Commander.

 

‘I shall not have time . . . I’m very sorry! Some other time,’ said Vronsky, and ran up the stairs to his brother’s box.

 

In the box was Vronsky’s mother, the old Countess, with her iron-grey curls. Varya and the Princess Sorokina he met in the corridor outside.

 

Having conducted the Princess Sorokina back to Vronsky’s mother, Varya held out her hand to her brother-in-law and at once began to talk of the matter that interested him. He had rarely seen her so excited.

 

‘I consider it mean and disgusting, and Madame Kartasova had no right to do it! Madame Karenina . . .’ she began.

 

‘But what is it? I don’t know.’

 

‘Haven’t you heard?’

 

‘You know I shall be the last to hear of it!’

 

‘Is there a creature more venomous than that Kartasova?’

 

‘But what has she done?’

 

‘My husband told me. . . . She insulted Madame Karenina. Her husband began conversing with her from his box, and Kartasova flew at him! It seems she said something insulting out loud, and then went out.’

 

‘Count, your maman wants you,’ said the Princess Sorokina, looking out of the box door.

 

‘I have been expecting you all the time,’ said his mother with a sarcastic smile. ‘I never see anything of you.’

 

Her son saw that she could not repress a smile of satisfaction. ‘Good evening, maman! I was coming to you,’ he replied coldly.

 

‘Why don’t you go faire la cour à [pay court to] Madame Karenine?’ she added, when the Princess Sorokina had stepped aside. ‘Elle fait sensation. On oublie la Patti pour elle! [She is making a sensation. They are forgetting Patti because of her!]’

 

‘Maman! I asked you not to speak to me about that subject,’ he answered frowning.

 

‘I am saying what every one says.’

 

Vronsky did not reply, and after a few words addressed to the Princess Sorokina he left the box. In the doorway he met his brother.

 

‘Ah, Alexis!’ said his brother. ‘What a shame! That woman is a fool, that’s all. . . . I was just going to see her! Let’s go together.’

 

Vronsky did not listen to him. He hurried downstairs feeling that he must do something, he knew not what. He was disturbed both by vexation with Anna for placing herself and him in this false position, and by pity for her sufferings. He descended to the stalls and went straight to Anna’s box, in front of which stood Stremov talking to her.

 

‘There are no more tenors. Le moule en est brisé! [The mould for them is smashed!]’

 

Vronsky bowed to her and stopped to shake hands with Stremov.

 

‘I think you got here late and missed the finest aria,’ said Anna to him, with a mocking glance as it seemed to him.

 

‘I am a poor judge,’ he replied, looking severely at her.

 

‘Like Prince Yashvin, who considers that Patti sings too loud,’ she returned with a smile.

 

‘Thank you!’ she said, taking with her small gloved hand a programme Vronsky had picked up for her; and suddenly at that instant her beautiful face quivered. She rose and went to the back of the box.

 

Noticing that during the next act her box remained empty, Vronsky left the theatre amid cries of ‘hush’ from the audience, which had become quiet to listen to a cavatina. He went to his hotel.

 

Anna had already returned. When Vronsky entered she was still dressed as she had been at the theatre. She was sitting in the first arm-chair by the wall, fixedly gazing before her. She glanced at him and immediately resumed her former posture.

 

‘Anna!’ he said.

 

‘It’s all your fault! Your fault!’ she exclaimed with tears of despair and spite in her voice, and rose.

 

‘But I asked, I entreated you not to go! — I knew it would be unpleasant for you!’

 

‘Unpleasant!’ she cried. ‘It was awful! However long I may live I shall never forget it! She said it was a disgrace to sit near me.’

 

‘The words of a silly woman,’ he said. ‘But why risk it? Why provoke . . .’

 

‘I hate your calmness! You should not have driven me to it. If you loved me . . .’

 

‘Anna! Is it a question of my love? . . .’

 

‘Yes! If you loved me as I love you, if you suffered the anguish I do . . .’ she replied with a frightened glance at him.

 

He was sorry for her and yet vexed with her. He assured her of his love, because he saw that that alone could pacify her now, and did not reproach her with words, though he reproached her in his heart.

 

And those assurances of love, which to him appeared so trivial that he felt ashamed to utter them, she drank in, and gradually became calm. Next day, fully reconciled, they left for the country.