Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Three/Chapter 17
CHAPTER XVII
The croquet party to which the Princess Tverskaya invited Anna was to consist of two ladies and their adorers. These two ladies were the leading representatives of a new and exclusive Petersburg clique, called, in imitation of an imitation, les sept merveilles du monde, the seven wonders of the world. Both of them belonged to the highest society, but to a circle absolutely hostile to that in which Anna moved. Moreover, old Stremof, one of the influential men of the city, and Liza Merkalof's lover, was in the service of Alekseï Aleksandrovitch's enemies. From all these considerations Anna did not care to go to Betsy's, and her refusal called forth the hints in the Princess Tverskaya's note; but now she decided to go, hoping to find Vronsky there.
She reached the Princess Tverskaya's before the other guests.
Just as she arrived Vronsky's lackey, with his well-combed side-whiskers, like a kammer-junker, was at the door. Raising his cap, he stepped aside to let her pass. Anna recognized him and only then remembered that Vronsky had told her that he was not coming. Undoubtedly he had sent him with his excuses.
As she was taking off her wraps in the anteroom she heard the lackey, who rolled his R's like a kammer-junker, say, "From the count to the princess," at the same time he delivered his note.
She wanted to ask him where his barin was. She wanted to go back and write him a note, asking him to come to her, or to go and find him herself. But she could not follow out any of these plans, for the bell had already announced her presence, and one of the princess's lackeys was waiting at the door to usher her into the rooms beyond.
"The princess is in the garden. Word has been sent to her. Would you not like to step out into the garden?" said a second lackey in the second room.
Her position of uncertainty, of darkness, was just the same as at home. It was even worse, because she could not make any decision, she could not see Vronsky, and she was obliged to remain in the midst of a company of strangers diametrically opposed to her present mood. But she wore a toilet which she knew was very becoming. She was not alone, she was surrounded by that solemn atmosphere of indolence so familiar; and on the whole it was better to be there than at home. She was not obliged to think what she would do. Things would arrange themselves.
Betsy came to meet her in a white toilet absolutely stunning in its elegance; and Anna greeted her, as usual, with a smile. The Princess Tverskaya was accompanied by Tushkievitch and a young relative who, to the great delight of the provincial family to which she belonged, was spending the summer with the famous princess.
Apparently there was something unnatural in Anna's appearance, for Betsy immediately remarked it.
"I did not sleep well," replied Anna, looking furtively at the lackey, who was coming, as she supposed, to bring Vronsky's note to the princess.
"How glad I am that you came!" said Betsy. "I am just up, and I should like to have a cup of tea before the others come. And you," she said, addressing Tushkievitch, "had better go with Maska and try the kroket-gro-und, which has just been clipped. You and I will have time to have a little confidential talk while taking our tea. We'll have a cozy chat, won't we?" she added in English, addressing Anna with a smile, and taking her hand, in which she held a sunshade.
"All the more willingly because I cannot stay long. I must call on old Vrede; I have been promising for a hundred years to come and see her," said Anna, to whom the lie, though contrary to her nature, seemed not only simple and easy, but even pleasurable. Why she said a thing which she forgot the second after, she herself could not have told; she said it at haphazard, so that, in case Vronsky were not coming, she might have a way of escape, and try to find him elsewhere; and why she happened to select the name of old Freilina Vrede rather than any other of her acquaintances was likewise inexplicable. But, as events proved, out of all the possible schemes for meeting Vronsky, she could not have chosen a better.
"No, I shall not let you go," replied Betsy, scrutinizing Anna's face. "Indeed, if I were not so fond of you, I should be tempted to be vexed with you; anybody would think that you were afraid of my company compromising you.—Tea in the little parlor, if you please," said she to the lackey, blinking her eyes as was habitual with her; and, taking the letter from him, she began to read it.
"Alekseï disappoints us,"[1] said she in French. "He writes that he cannot come," she added, in a tone as simple and unaffected as if it had never entered her mind that Vronsky was of any more interest to Anna than as a possible partner in a game of croquet. Anna knew that Betsy knew all; but, as she heard Betsy speak of Vronsky now, she almost brought herself to believe for a moment that she knew nothing.
"Ah!" she said indifferently, as if it was a detail which did not interest her. "How," she continued, still smiling, "could your society compromise any one?"
This manner of playing with words, this hiding a secret, had a great charm for Anna, as it has for all women. And it was not the necessity of secrecy, or the reason for secrecy, but the process itself, that gave the pleasure.
"I cannot be more Catholic than the Pope," she said. "Stremof and Liza Merkalof, they are the cream of the cream of society. They are received everywhere. But I"—she laid special stress on the I—"I have never been severe and intolerant. I simply have not had time."
"No. But perhaps you prefer not to meet Stremof? Let him break lances with Alekseï Aleksandrovitch in committee-meetings; that does not concern us. But in society he is as lovely a man as I know, and a passionate lover of croquet. But you shall see him. And you must see how admirably he conducts himself in his ridiculous position as Liza's aged lover. He is very charming. Don't you know Safo Stoltz? She is the latest, absolutely the latest style."
While Betsy was saying all this, Anna perceived, by her joyous, intelligent eyes, that she saw her embarrassment and was trying to put her at her ease. They had gone into the little boudoir.
"By the way, I must write a word to Alekseï."
And Betsy sat down at her writing-table, hastily penned a few lines, and inclosed them in an envelop. "I wrote him to come to dinner. One of the ladies who is going to be here has no gentleman. See if I am imperative enough. Excuse me if I leave you a moment. Please seal it and direct it," said she at the door, "I have some arrangements to make."
Without a moment's hesitation, Anna took Betsy's seat at the table, and, without reading her note, added these words:—
I must see you without fail. Come to the Vrede's Garden. I will be there at six o'clock.
She sealed the letter; and Betsy, coming a moment later, despatched it at once.
The two ladies took their tea at a little table in the cool boudoir, and had indeed a cozy chat as the princess had promised, until the arrival of her guests. They expressed their judgments on them, beginning with Liza Merkalof.
"She is very charming, and she has always been congenial to me," said Anna.
"You ought to like her. She adores you. Yesterday evening, after the races, she came to see me, and was in despair not to find you. She says that you are a genuine heroine of a romance, and that if she were a man, she would commit a thousand follies for your sake. Stremof told her she did that, even as she was."
"But please tell me one thing I never could understand," said Anna, after a moment of silence, and in a tone which clearly showed that she did not ask an idle question but that what she wanted explained was more important to her than would appear. "Please tell me, what are the relations between her and Prince Kaluzhsky, the man they call Mishka? I have rarely seen them together. What are their relations?"
A smile came into Betsy's eyes, and she looked keenly at Anna.
"It's a new kind," she replied. "All these ladies have adopted it. They've thrown their caps behind the mill. But there are ways and ways of throwing them."
"Yes, but what are her relations with Kaluzhsky?"
Betsy, to Anna's surprise, broke into a gale of irresistible laughter, which was an unusual thing with her.
"But you are trespassing on the Princess Miagkaya's province; it is the question of an enfant terrible," said Betsy, trying in vain to restrain her gayety, but again breaking out into that contagious laughter which is the peculiarity of people who rarely laugh. "But you must ask them," she at length managed to say, with the tears running down her cheeks.
"Well! you laugh," said Anna, in spite of herself joining in her friend's amusement; "but I never could understand it at all, and I don't understand what part the husband plays."
"The husband? Liza Merkalof's husband carries her plaid for her, and is always at her beck and call. But the real meaning of the affair no one cares to know. You know that in good society people don't speak and don't even think of certain details of the toilet; well, it is the same here."
Are you going to Rolandaki's fête?" asked Anna, to change the conversation.
"I don't think so," replied Betsy; and, not looking at her companion, she carefully poured the fragrant tea into little transparent cups. Then, having handed one to Anna, she rolled a cigarette, and, putting it into a silver holder, she began to smoke.
"You see, I am in a fortunate position," she began seriously, holding her cup in her hand. "I understand you, and I understand Liza. Liza is one of these naïve, childlike natures, who cannot distinguish between ill and good,—at least, she was so when she was young, and now she knows that this simplicity is becoming to her. Now perhaps she purposely fails to understand the distinction," said Betsy, with a sly smile. "But all the same, it becomes her. You see, it is quite possible to look on things from a tragic standpoint, and to get torment out of them; and it is possible to look on it simply, and even gayly. Possibly you are inclined to look on things too tragically."
"How I should like to know others as well as I know myself!" said Anna, with a serious and pensive look. "Am I worse than others, or better? Worse, I think."
"You are an enfant terrible, an enfant terrible" was Betsy's comment. "But here they are!"
- ↑ Alexis nous fait faux bond.