‘Oh, splendidly! Mariette says that he was very sweet and … I have to disappoint you … he did not miss you, not like your husband did. But merci once again, my dear, for making me the present of a day. Our dear samovar will be delighted …’ (Samovar was what he called the famous Countess Lydia Ivanovna, because she was always becoming heated about everything and bubbling over.) She has been asking about you. And you know, if I may be so bold as to make a suggestion, you should go and see her today. You know how she takes everything to heart. At the moment she is concerned with the Oblonskys’ reconciliation, apart from all her other worries.’
Countess Lydia Ivanovna was a friend of her husband’s, and the centre of the circle in Petersburg society with which Anna was most closely connected through her husband.
‘But I wrote to her.’
‘But she needs to know all the details. Do go over if you are not too tired, my dear. Well, Kondraty will give you the carriage, as I have a committee to go to. I won’t be dining alone any more,’ Alexey Alexandrovich continued, no longer in his jocular tone. ‘You won’t believe how accustomed I have become …’
And pressing her hand for a long time, he helped her into the carriage with a special smile.
32
THE first person to meet Anna at home was her son. He leapt down the stairs, despite the cries of his governess, and with a wild delight shrieked: ‘Mama, Mama!’ He ran up to her and hung on her neck.
‘I told you it was Mama!’ he shouted to the governess. ‘I knew!’
Her son, just like her husband, also produced in Anna a feeling akin to disappointment. She had imagined him to be better than he was in reality. She had to descend to reality in order to enjoy him as he was. But he was also adorable as he was, with his blond curly hair, blue eyes, and plump, shapely little legs in tightly pulled-up stockings. Anna experienced an almost physical pleasure in feeling his closeness and his affection, as well as a moral serenity when she encountered his ingenuous, trusting, and loving gaze, and heard his naive questions. Anna got out the presents which Dolly’s children had sent, and told her son about how there was a girl in Moscow called Tanya, and how this Tanya could read, and was even teaching the other children.
‘So am I worse than her?’ asked Seryozha.
‘To me, you’re better than anyone else in the world.’
‘I know that,’ said Seryozha, smiling.
Anna had not managed to finish drinking her coffee before Countess Lydia Ivanovna was announced. Countess Lydia Ivanovna was a tall, plump woman with an unhealthy, sallow complexion and lovely, dreamy black eyes. Anna was fond of her, but today it was as if she saw her with all her flaws for the first time.
‘Well, my friend, did you take the olive branch?’ asked Countess Lydia Ivanovna as soon as she entered the room.
‘Yes, that’s all over, but none of it was quite as grave as we thought,’ answered Anna. ‘My belle soeur is generally a bit too intransigent.’
But Countess Lydia Ivanovna, who took an interest in everything which did not concern her, and had a habit of never listening to what did interest her, interrupted Anna: ‘Yes, there is much sorrow and evil in the world, and I am so worn out today.’
‘What’s happened?’ asked Anna, trying to restrain a smile.
‘I am beginning to tire of all this pointless clashing of swords in the name of truth, and sometimes I feel quite undone. The project with the Little Sisters’ (this was a philanthropic, religious, and patriotic institution) ‘ought to have gone splendidly, but you can never do anything with these gentlemen,’ added Countess Lydia Ivanovna, in mock resignation to fate. ‘They seized on the idea, distorted it, and are now discussing it in such a superficial, trivial way. A handful of people, including your husband, understand the full importance of this mission, but the others are just abandoning it. Pravdin wrote to me yesterday …’
Pravdin was a famous Pan-Slavist,* who lived abroad, and Countess Lydia Ivanovna relayed the contents of his letter.
Then the Countess recounted other obstacles and intrigues against the plan to unite the churches, and left in a hurry, since that day she still had to attend a meeting of a society and be at the Slavic Committee.
‘But all this was there before; so why didn’t I notice it before?’ Anna said to herself. ‘Or was she particularly irritated today? It really is quite funny: her aim is to do good works and she is a Christian, but she is always getting cross, she always has enemies, and the disputes are always about Christianity and good works.’
After Countess Lydia Ivanovna left, an acquaintance who was the wife of a director arrived, and she relayed all the Petersburg news. At three o’clock she also left, promising to come for dinner. Alexey Alexandrovich was at the ministry. Left alone, Anna used the time before dinner to sit with her son while he ate (he dined separately), put her things into order, and read and answer the notes and letters which had piled up on her desk.
The feeling of groundless shame she had experienced during the journey, as well as the anxiety, had completely disappeared. Back in her usual routine, she once more felt steadfast and beyond reproach.
She recalled her state of mind the previous day with amazement. ‘What exactly happened? Nothing. Vronsky said something foolish, which was easy to put a stop to, and I answered as I should have done. There is no need to tell my husband, nor should I. Talking about it would mean attaching importance to something which has none.’ She remembered recounting to her husband how one of his subordinates in Petersburg had once almost made a confession of love to her, and how Alexey Alexandrovich had replied that every woman in society was liable to encounter this sort of thing, but that he had complete faith in her discretion, and would never allow himself to demean either of them by being jealous. ‘So there’s no reason to tell him? No, and thank goodness there is nothing to tell anyway,’ she said to herself.
33
ALEXEY ALEXANDROVICH returned from the ministry at four o’clock, but as often happened, he did not have time to go in and see her. He went straight to his study to receive the petitioners who were waiting for him, and to sign some papers brought by his secretary. Coming to dinner that evening (there were always about three people dining with the Karenins) were an old lady who was Alexey Alexandrovich’s cousin, the department director and his wife, and a young man who had been recommended to Alexey Alexandrovich for a post. Anna went into the drawing room to entertain them. At five o’clock, before the bronze Peter-the-Great clock had finished striking five times, Alexey Alexandrovich appeared wearing white tie and tails with his two stars,* as he needed to leave straight after dinner. Every minute of Alexey Alexandrovich’s life was allotted and accounted for. And he maintained the strictest punctuality so that he could manage to achieve everything on his agenda each day. ‘No haste and no rest,’ was his motto. He came into the room wiping his brow, bowed to everyone, and hurriedly sat down, smiling at his wife.
‘Yes, my solitude has ended. You wouldn’t believe how awkward’—he stressed the word awkward—‘one feels dining alone.’
During dinner he talked to his wife about Moscow affairs, and enquired after Stepan Arkadyich with an ironic smile; but the conversation was mostly a general one, about Petersburg official and public affairs. After dinner he spent half an hour with the guests, then pressed his wife’s hand again with a smile, left, and went off to the Council. On this occasion Anna went neither to see Princess Betsy Tverskaya, who had heard of her arrival and invited her over that evening, nor to the theatre, where she had a box for that evening. The principal reason she did not go out was because the dress she had been counting on was not ready. Having occupied herself with her wardrobe after the guests had left, Anna had in fact become very angry. Generally expert in dressing inexpensively, before leaving for Moscow she had given three dresses to the seamstress for altering. The dresses needed to be altered in such a way that they would not be recognized, and were supposed to have been ready three days earlier. It turned out that two dresses were nowhere near finished, while the third had been altered, but not in the way Anna wanted. The seamstress came to explain, maintaining it would be better that way, and Anna flew into such a rage that she was ashamed to recall it later on. In order to calm down completely, she went into the nursery and spent the whole evening with her son; she put him to bed herself, made the sign of the cross over him, and covered him up with his blanket. She was glad she had not gone out anywhere and had spent the evening in such a pleasant way. She felt so light-hearted and calm, and saw so clearly that what had seemed so meaningful to her on the train was just another of those typically insignificant events in one’s social life, and that she had no reason to feel ashamed, either on her own account or in respect of anyone else. Anna sat down by the fire with her English novel, and waited for her husband. At precisely half-past nine she heard him ring, and he came into the room.