Chapter IV
The highest Petersburg society is
essentially one: in it every one knows every one else, every one
even visits every one else. But this great set has its
subdivisions. Anna Arkadyevna Karenina had friends and close ties
in three different circles of this highest society. One circle was
her husband’s government official set, consisting of his colleagues
and subordinates, brought together in the most various and
capricious manner, and belonging to different social strata. Anna
found it difficult now to recall the feeling of almost awe-stricken
reverence which she had at first entertained for these persons. Now
she knew all of them as people know one another in a country town;
she knew their habits and weaknesses, and where the shoe pinched
each one of them. She knew their relations with one another and
with the head authorities, knew who was for whom, and how each one
maintained his position, and where they agreed and disagreed. But
that circle of political, masculine interests had never interested
her, in spite of Countess Lidia Ivanovna’s influence, and she
avoided it.
Another little set with which Anna was in close
relations was the one by means of which Alexey Alexandrovitch had
made his career. The center of this circle was the Countess Lidia
Ivanovna. It was a set made up of elderly, ugly, benevolent, and
godly women, and clever, learned, and ambitious men. One of the
clever people belonging to the set had called it “the conscience of
Petersburg society.” Alexey Alexandrovitch had the highest esteem
for this circle; and Anna with her special gift for getting on with
every one, had in the early days of her life in Petersburg made
friends in this circle also. Now, since her return from Moscow, she
had come to feel this set insufferable. It seemed to her that both
she and all of them were insincere, and she felt so bored and ill
at ease in that world that she went to see the Countess Lidia
Ivanovna as little as possible.
The third circle with which Anna had ties was
preëminently the fashionable world—the world of balls, of dinners,
of sumptuous dresses, the world that hung on to the court with one
hand, so as to avoid sinking to the level of the demi-monde.w For
the demi-monde the members of that fashionable world believed that
they despised, though their tastes were not merely similar, but in
fact identical. Her connection with this circle was kept up through
Princess Betsy Tverskaya, her cousin’s wife, who had an income of a
hundred and twenty thousand roubles, and who had taken a great
fancy to Anna ever since she first came out, showed her much
attention, and drew her into her set, making fun of Countess Lidia
Ivanovna’s coterie.
“When I’m old and ugly I’ll be the same,” Betsy
used to say; “but for a pretty young woman like you it’s early days
for that house of charity.”
Anna had at first avoided as far as she could
Princess Tverskaya’s world, because it necessitated an expenditure
beyond her means, and besides in her heart she preferred the first
circle. But since her visit to Moscow she had done quite the
contrary. She avoided her serious-minded friends, and went out into
the fashionable world. There she met Vronsky, and experienced an
agitating joy at those meetings. She met Vronsky specially often at
Betsy’s, for Betsy was a Vronsky by birth and his cousin. Vronsky
was everywhere where he had any chance of meeting Anna, and
speaking to her, when he could, of his love. She gave him no
encouragement, but every time she met him there surged up in her
heart that same feeling of quickened life that had come upon her
that day in the railway carriage when she saw him for the first
time. She was conscious herself that her delight sparkled in her
eyes and curved her lips into a smile, and she could not quench the
expression of this delight.
At first Anna sincerely believed that she was
displeased with him for daring to pursue her. Soon after her return
from Moscow, on arriving at a soiréex where
she had expected to meet him, and not finding him there, she
realized distinctly from the rush of disappointment that she had
been deceiving herself, and that this pursuit was not merely not
distasteful to her, but that it made the whole interest of her
life.
A celebrated singer was singing for the second
time, and all the fashionable world was in the theater. Vronsky,
seeing his cousin from his stall in the front row, did not wait
till the entr’acte,y but
went to her box.
“Why didn’t you come to dinner?” she said to him.
“I marvel at the second-sight of lovers,” she added with a smile,
so that no one but he could hear; “she wasn’t there. But
come after the opera.”
Vronsky looked inquiringly at her. She nodded. He
thanked her by a smile, and sat down beside her.
“But how I remember your jeers!” continued Princess
Betsy, who took a peculiar pleasure in following up this passion to
a successful issue. “What’s become of all that? You’re caught, my
dear boy.”
“That’s my one desire, to be caught,” answered
Vronsky, with his serene, good-humored smile. “If I complain of
anything it’s only that I’m not caught enough, to tell the truth. I
begin to lose hope.”
“Why, whatever hope can you have?” said Betsy,
offended on behalf of her friend. “Entendons nous . . .
”z But in
her eyes there were gleams of light that betrayed that she
understood perfectly and precisely as he did what hope he might
have.
“None whatever,” said Vronsky, laughing and showing
his even rows of teeth. “Excuse me,” he added, taking an
opera-glass out of her hand, and proceeding to scrutinize, over her
bare shoulder, the row of boxes facing them. “I’m afraid I’m
becoming ridiculous.”
He was very well aware that he ran no risk of being
ridiculous in the eyes of Betsy or any other fashionable people. He
was very well aware that in their eyes the position of an
unsuccessful lover of a girl, or of any woman free to marry, might
be ridiculous. But the position of a man pursuing a married woman,
and, regardless of everything, staking his life on drawing her into
adultery, has something fine and grand about it, and can never be
ridiculous; and so it was with a proud and gay smile under his
mustaches that he lowered the opera-glass and looked at his
cousin.
“But why was it you didn’t come to dinner?” she
said, admiring him.
“I must tell you about that. I was busily employed,
and doing what, do you suppose? I’ll give you a hundred guesses, a
thousand . . . you’d never guess. I’ve been reconciling a husband
with a man who’d insulted his wife. Yes, really!”
“Well, did you succeed?”
“Almost.”
“You really must tell me about it,” she said,
getting up. “Come to me in the next entr’acte.”
“I can’t; I’m going to the French theater.”
“From Nilsson?”1 Betsy
queried in horror, though she could not herself have distinguished
Nilsson’s voice from any chorus girl’s.
“Can’t help it. I’ve an appointment there, all to
do with my mission of peace.”
“ ‘Blessed are the peacemakers; theirs is the
kingdom of heaven,’”2 said
Betsy, vaguely recollecting she had heard some similar saying from
some one. “Very well, then, sit down, and tell me what it’s all
about.”
And she sat down again.