Chapter XXXII
When Vronsky returned home, Anna was not
yet home. Soon after he had left, some lady, so they told him, had
come to see her, and she had gone out with her. That she had gone
out without leaving word where she was going, that she had not yet
come back, and that all the morning she had been going about
somewhere without a word to him—all this, together with the strange
look of excitement in her face in the morning, and the recollection
of the hostile tone with which she had before Yashvin almost
snatched her son’s photographs out of his hands, made him serious.
He decided he absolutely must speak openly with her. And he waited
for her in her drawing-room. But Anna did not return alone, but
brought with her her old unmarried aunt, Princess Oblonskaya. This
was the lady who had come in the morning, and with whom Anna had
gone out shopping. Anna appeared not to notice Vronsky’s worried
and inquiring expression, and began a lively account of her
morning’s shopping. He saw that there was something working within
her; in her flashing eyes, when they rested for a moment on him,
there was an intense concentration, and in her words and movements
there was that nervous rapidity and grace which, during the early
period of their intimacy, had so fascinated him, but which now so
disturbed and alarmed him.
The dinner was laid for four. All were gathered
together and about to go into the little dining-room when
Tushkevitch made his appearance with a message from Princess Betsy.
Princess Betsy begged her to excuse her not having come to say
good-bye; she had been indisposed, but begged Anna to come to her
between half-past six and nine o’clock. Vronsky glanced at Anna at
the precise limit of time, so suggestive of steps having been taken
that she should meet no one; but Anna appeared not to notice
it.
“Very sorry that I can’t come just between
half-past six and nine,” she said with a faint smile.
“The princess will be very sorry.”
“And so am I.”
“You’re going, no doubt, to hear Patti?”1 said
Tushkevitch.
“Patti? You suggest the idea to me. I would go if
it were possible to get a box.”
“I can get one,” Tushkevitch offered his
services.
“I should be very, very grateful to you,” said
Anna. “But won’t you dine with us?”
Vronsky gave a hardly perceptible shrug. He was at
a complete loss to understand what Anna was about. What had she
brought the old Princess Oblonskaya home for, what had she made
Tushkevitch stay to dinner for, and, most amazing of all, why was
she sending him for a box? Could she possibly think in her position
of going to Patti’s benefit, where all the circle of her
acquaintances would be? He looked at her with serious eyes, but she
responded with that defiant, half-mirthful, half-desperate look,
the meaning of which he could not comprehend. At dinner Anna was in
aggressively high spirits—she almost flirted both with Tushkevitch
and with Yashvin. When they got up from dinner and Tushkevitch had
gone to get a box at the opera, Yashvin went to smoke, and Vronsky
went down with him to his own rooms. After sitting there for some
time he ran up-stairs. Anna was already dressed in a low-necked
gown of light silk and velvet that she had had made in Paris, and
with costly white lace on her head, framing her face, and
particularly becoming, showing up her dazzling beauty.
“Are you really going to the theater?” he said,
trying not to look at her.
“Why do you ask with such alarm?” she said, wounded
again at his not looking at her. “Why shouldn’t I go?”
She appeared not to understand the motive of his
words.
“Oh, of course, there’s no reason whatever,” he
said, frowning.
“That’s just what I say,” she said, willfully
refusing to see the irony of his tone, and quietly turning back her
long, perfumed glove.
“Anna, for God’s sake! what is the matter with
you?” he said, appealing to her exactly as once her husband had
done.
“I don’t understand what you are asking.”
“You know that it’s out of the question to
go.”
“Why so? I’m not going alone. Princess Varvara has
gone to dress, she is going with me.”
He shrugged his shoulders with an air of perplexity
and despair.
“But do you mean to say you don’t know? . . .” he
began.
“But I don’t care to know!” she almost shrieked. “I
don’t care to. Do I regret what I have done? No, no, no! If it were
all to do again from the beginning, it would be the same. For us,
for you and for me, there is only one thing that matters, whether
we love each other. Other people we need not consider. Why are we
living here apart and not seeing each other? Why can’t I go? I love
you, and I don’t care for anything,” she said in Russian, glancing
at him with a peculiar gleam in her eyes that he could not
understand. “If you have not changed to me, why don’t you look at
me?”
He looked at her. He saw all the beauty of her face
and full dress, always so becoming to her. But now her beauty and
elegance were just what irritated him.
“My feeling cannot change, you know, but I beg you,
I entreat you,” he said again in French, with a note of tender
supplication in his voice, but with coldness in his eyes.
She did not hear his words, but she saw the
coldness of his eyes, and answered with irritation:
“And I beg you to explain why I should not
go.”
“Because it might cause you...” he hesitated.
“I don’t understand. Yashvin n’est pas
compromettant, br and
Princess Varvara is no worse than others. Oh, here she is!”