“I don’t think so,” answered Betsy, and, without looking at her friend, she
began filling the little transparent cups with fragrant tea. Putting a cup
before Anna, she took out a cigarette, and, fitting it into a silver holder, she
lighted it.
“It’s like this, you see: I’m in a fortunate position,” she began, quite
serious now, as she took up her cup. “I understand you, and I understand
Liza. Liza now is one of those naïve natures that, like children, don’t know
what’s good and what’s bad. Anyway, she didn’t comprehend it when she
was very young. And now she’s aware that the lack of comprehension suits
her. Now, perhaps, she doesn’t know on purpose,” said Betsy, with a subtle
smile. “But, anyway, it suits her. The very same thing, don’t you see, may
be looked at tragically, and turned into a misery, or it may be looked at
simply and even humorously. Possibly you are inclined to look at things too
tragically.”
“How I should like to know other people just as I know myself!” said
Anna, seriously and dreamily. “Am I worse than other people, or better? I
think I’m worse.”
“Enfant terrible, enfant terrible!” repeated Betsy. “But here they are.”
Chapter 18
They heard the sound of steps and a man’s voice, then a woman’s voice
and laughter, and immediately thereafter there walked in the expected
guests: Sappho Shtoltz, and a young man beaming with excess of health,
the so-called Vaska. It was evident that ample supplies of beefsteak, truffles,
and Burgundy never failed to reach him at the fitting hour. Vaska bowed to
the two ladies, and glanced at them, but only for one second. He walked
after Sappho into the drawing-room, and followed her about as though he
were chained to her, keeping his sparkling eyes fixed on her as though he
wanted to eat her. Sappho Shtoltz was a blonde beauty with black eyes. She
walked with smart little steps in high-heeled shoes, and shook hands with
the ladies vigorously like a man.
Anna had never met this new star of fashion, and was struck by her
beauty, the exaggerated extreme to which her dress was carried, and the
boldness of her manners. On her head there was such a superstructure of
soft, golden hair—her own and false mixed—that her head was equal in
size to the elegantly rounded bust, of which so much was exposed in front.
The impulsive abruptness of her movements was such that at every step the
lines of her knees and the upper part of her legs were distinctly marked
under her dress, and the question involuntarily rose to the mind where in the
undulating, piled-up mountain of material at the back the real body of the
woman, so small and slender, so naked in front, and so hidden behind and
below, really came to an end.
Betsy made haste to introduce her to Anna.
“Only fancy, we all but ran over two soldiers,” she began telling them at
once, using her eyes, smiling and twitching away her tail, which she flung
back at one stroke all on one side. “I drove here with Vaska…. Ah, to be
sure, you don’t know each other.” And mentioning his surname she
introduced the young man, and reddening a little, broke into a ringing laugh
at her mistake—that is, at her having called him Vaska to a stranger. Vaska
bowed once more to Anna, but he said nothing to her. He addressed Sappho:
“You’ve lost your bet. We got here first. Pay up,” said he, smiling.
Sappho laughed still more festively.
“Not just now,” said she.
“Oh, all right, I’ll have it later.”
“Very well, very well. Oh, yes.” She turned suddenly to Princess Betsy:
“I am a nice person … I positively forgot it … I’ve brought you a visitor.
And here he comes.” The unexpected young visitor, whom Sappho had
invited, and whom she had forgotten, was, however, a personage of such
consequence that, in spite of his youth, both the ladies rose on his entrance.
He was a new admirer of Sappho’s. He now dogged her footsteps, like
Vaska.
Soon after Prince Kaluzhsky arrived, and Liza Merkalova with Stremov.
Liza Merkalova was a thin brunette, with an Oriental, languid type of face,
and—as everyone used to say—exquisite enigmatic eyes. The tone of her
dark dress (Anna immediately observed and appreciated the fact) was in
perfect harmony with her style of beauty. Liza was as soft and enervated as
Sappho was smart and abrupt.
But to Anna’s taste Liza was far more attractive. Betsy had said to Anna
that she had adopted the pose of an innocent child, but when Anna saw her,
she felt that this was not the truth. She really was both innocent and corrupt,
but a sweet and passive woman. It is true that her tone was the same as
Sappho’s; that like Sappho, she had two men, one young and one old,
tacked onto her, and devouring her with their eyes. But there was something
in her higher than what surrounded her. There was in her the glow of the
real diamond among glass imitations. This glow shone out in her exquisite,
truly enigmatic eyes. The weary, and at the same time passionate, glance of
those eyes, encircled by dark rings, impressed one by its perfect sincerity.
Everyone looking into those eyes fancied he knew her wholly, and knowing
her, could not but love her. At the sight of Anna, her whole face lighted up
at once with a smile of delight.
“Ah, how glad I am to see you!” she said, going up to her. “Yesterday at
the races all I wanted was to get to you, but you’d gone away. I did so want
to see you, yesterday especially. Wasn’t it awful?” she said, looking at Anna
with eyes that seemed to lay bare all her soul.
“Yes; I had no idea it would be so thrilling,” said Anna, blushing.
The company got up at this moment to go into the garden.
“I’m not going,” said Liza, smiling and settling herself close to Anna.
“You won’t go either, will you? Who wants to play croquet?”
“Oh, I like it,” said Anna.
“There, how do you manage never to be bored by things? It’s delightful
to look at you. You’re alive, but I’m bored.”
“How can you be bored? Why, you live in the liveliest set in Petersburg,”
said Anna.
“Possibly the people who are not of our set are even more bored; but we
—I certainly—are not happy, but awfully, awfully bored.”
Sappho smoking a cigarette went off into the garden with the two young
men. Betsy and Stremov remained at the tea-table.
“What, bored!” said Betsy. “Sappho says they did enjoy themselves
tremendously at your house last night.”
“Ah, how dreary it all was!” said Liza Merkalova. “We all drove back to
my place after the races. And always the same people, always the same.
Always the same thing. We lounged about on sofas all the evening. What is
there to enjoy in that? No; do tell me how you manage never to be bored?”
she said, addressing Anna again. “One has but to look at you and one sees,
here’s a woman who may be happy or unhappy, but isn’t bored. Tell me
how you do it?”
“I do nothing,” answered Anna, blushing at these searching questions.
“That’s the best way,” Stremov put in. Stremov was a man of fifty, partly
gray, but still vigorous-looking, very ugly, but with a characteristic and
intelligent face. Liza Merkalova was his wife’s niece, and he spent all his
leisure hours with her. On meeting Anna Karenina, as he was Alexey
Alexandrovitch’s enemy in the government, he tried, like a shrewd man and
a man of the world, to be particularly cordial with her, the wife of his
enemy.
“‘Nothing,’” he put in with a subtle smile, “that’s the very best way. I
told you long ago,” he said, turning to Liza Merkalova, “that if you don’t
want to be bored, you mustn’t think you’re going to be bored. It’s just as
you mustn’t be afraid of not being able to fall asleep, if you’re afraid of
sleeplessness. That’s just what Anna Arkadyevna has just said.”
“I should be very glad if I had said it, for it’s not only clever but true,”
said Anna, smiling.
“No, do tell me why it is one can’t go to sleep, and one can’t help being
bored?”
“To sleep well one ought to work, and to enjoy oneself one ought to work
too.”
“What am I to work for when my work is no use to anybody? And I can’t
and won’t knowingly make a pretense about it.”
“You’re incorrigible,” said Stremov, not looking at her, and he spoke
again to Anna. As he rarely met Anna, he could say nothing but
commonplaces to her, but he said those commonplaces as to when she was
returning to Petersburg, and how fond Countess Lidia Ivanovna was of her,
with an expression which suggested that he longed with his whole soul to
please her and show his regard for her and even more than that.
Tushkevitch came in, announcing that the party were awaiting the other
players to begin croquet.
“No, don’t go away, please don’t,” pleaded Liza Merkalova, hearing that
Anna was going. Stremov joined in her entreaties.
