“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?” 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,’” said
Betsy, vaguely recollecting she had heard some similar saying from
someone. “Very well, then, sit down, and tell me what it’s all about.”
And she sat down again.
Chapter 5
“This is rather indiscreet, but it’s so good it’s an awful temptation to tell
the story,” said Vronsky, looking at her with his laughing eyes. “I’m not
going to mention any names.”
“But I shall guess, so much the better.”
“Well, listen: two festive young men were driving—”
“Officers of your regiment, of course?”
“I didn’t say they were officers,—two young men who had been
lunching.”
“In other words, drinking.”
“Possibly. They were driving on their way to dinner with a friend in the
most festive state of mind. And they beheld a pretty woman in a hired
sledge; she overtakes them, looks round at them, and, so they fancy
anyway, nods to them and laughs. They, of course, follow her. They gallop
at full speed. To their amazement, the fair one alights at the entrance of the
very house to which they were going. The fair one darts upstairs to the top
story. They get a glimpse of red lips under a short veil, and exquisite little
feet.”
“You describe it with such feeling that I fancy you must be one of the
two.”
“And after what you said, just now! Well, the young men go in to their
comrade’s; he was giving a farewell dinner. There they certainly did drink a
little too much, as one always does at farewell dinners. And at dinner they
inquire who lives at the top in that house. No one knows; only their host’s
valet, in answer to their inquiry whether any ‘young ladies’ are living on the
top floor, answered that there were a great many of them about there. After
dinner the two young men go into their host’s study, and write a letter to the
unknown fair one. They compose an ardent epistle, a declaration in fact,
and they carry the letter upstairs themselves, so as to elucidate whatever
might appear not perfectly intelligible in the letter.”
“Why are you telling me these horrible stories? Well?”
“They ring. A maid-servant opens the door, they hand her the letter, and
assure the maid that they’re both so in love that they’ll die on the spot at the
door. The maid, stupefied, carries in their messages. All at once a gentleman
appears with whiskers like sausages, as red as a lobster, announces that
there is no one living in the flat except his wife, and sends them both about
their business.”
“How do you know he had whiskers like sausages, as you say?”
“Ah, you shall hear. I’ve just been to make peace between them.”
“Well, and what then?”
“That’s the most interesting part of the story. It appears that it’s a happy
couple, a government clerk and his lady. The government clerk lodges a
complaint, and I became a mediator, and such a mediator!… I assure you
Talleyrand couldn’t hold a candle to me.”
“Why, where was the difficulty?”
“Ah, you shall hear…. We apologize in due form: we are in despair, we
entreat forgiveness for the unfortunate misunderstanding. The government
clerk with the sausages begins to melt, but he, too, desires to express his
sentiments, and as soon as ever he begins to express them, he begins to get
hot and say nasty things, and again I’m obliged to trot out all my diplomatic
talents. I allowed that their conduct was bad, but I urged him to take into
consideration their heedlessness, their youth; then, too, the young men had
only just been lunching together. ‘You understand. They regret it deeply,
and beg you to overlook their misbehavior.’ The government clerk was
softened once more. ‘I consent, count, and am ready to overlook it; but you
perceive that my wife—my wife’s a respectable woman—has been exposed
to the persecution, and insults, and effrontery of young upstarts,
scoundrels….’ And you must understand, the young upstarts are present all
the while, and I have to keep the peace between them. Again I call out all
my diplomacy, and again as soon as the thing was about at an end, our
friend the government clerk gets hot and red, and his sausages stand on end
with wrath, and once more I launch out into diplomatic wiles.”
“Ah, he must tell you this story!” said Betsy, laughing, to a lady who
came into her box. “He has been making me laugh so.”
“Well, bonne chance!” she added, giving Vronsky one finger of the hand
in which she held her fan, and with a shrug of her shoulders she twitched
down the bodice of her gown that had worked up, so as to be duly naked as
she moved forward towards the footlights into the light of the gas, and the
sight of all eyes.
Vronsky drove to the French theater, where he really had to see the
colonel of his regiment, who never missed a single performance there. He
wanted to see him, to report on the result of his mediation, which had
occupied and amused him for the last three days. Petritsky, whom he liked,
was implicated in the affair, and the other culprit was a capital fellow and
first-rate comrade, who had lately joined the regiment, the young Prince
Kedrov. And what was most important, the interests of the regiment were
involved in it too.
Both the young men were in Vronsky’s company. The colonel of the
regiment was waited upon by the government clerk, Venden, with a
complaint against his officers, who had insulted his wife. His young wife,
so Venden told the story—he had been married half a year—was at church
with her mother, and suddenly overcome by indisposition, arising from her
interesting condition, she could not remain standing, she drove home in the
first sledge, a smart-looking one, she came across. On the spot the officers
set off in pursuit of her; she was alarmed, and feeling still more unwell, ran
up the staircase home. Venden himself, on returning from his office, heard a
ring at their bell and voices, went out, and seeing the intoxicated officers
with a letter, he had turned them out. He asked for exemplary punishment.
“Yes, it’s all very well,” said the colonel to Vronsky, whom he had
invited to come and see him. “Petritsky’s becoming impossible. Not a week
goes by without some scandal. This government clerk won’t let it drop,
he’ll go on with the thing.”
Vronsky saw all the thanklessness of the business, and that there could be
no question of a duel in it, that everything must be done to soften the
government clerk, and hush the matter up. The colonel had called in
Vronsky just because he knew him to be an honorable and intelligent man,
and, more than all, a man who cared for the honor of the regiment. They
talked it over, and decided that Petritsky and Kedrov must go with Vronsky
to Venden’s to apologize. The colonel and Vronsky were both fully aware
that Vronsky’s name and rank would be sure to contribute greatly to the
softening of the injured husband’s feelings.
And these two influences were not in fact without effect; though the
result remained, as Vronsky had described, uncertain.
On reaching the French theater, Vronsky retired to the foyer with the
colonel, and reported to him his success, or non-success. The colonel,
