‘Here you are at last,’ she said, holding out her hand to him.
He kissed her hand and sat down next to her.
‘I can see that, on the whole, your trip was a success,’ he said to her.
‘Yes, very much so,’ she replied, and started to tell him everything from the beginning: her journey with Countess Vronskaya, her arrival, and the incident at the railway station. Then she told him about her feelings of pity, first for her brother, and then for Dolly.
‘I do not believe a person like that can be excused, even if he is your brother,’ said Alexey Alexandrovich sternly.
Anna smiled. She realized that he had said that precisely to show that family considerations could not prevent him from expressing his sincere opinion. She knew this quality of her husband’s, and she liked it.
‘I am glad that everything ended happily and that you have come home,’ he continued. ‘Well, what are they saying there about the new statute I passed in the Council?’
Anna had not heard anything about this statute, and felt contrite to have so easily forgotten something which was so important to him.
‘It’s caused quite a stir here, however,’ he said with a self-satisfied smile.
She could see that Alexey Alexandrovich wanted to tell her something about this matter which gratified him, and she drew the story out with questions. With the same self-satisfied smile he told her about the ovations he had received as a result of this statute being passed.
‘I was very, very pleased. It shows that finally we are beginning to establish a sensible and robust view on this matter.’
After finishing a second glass of tea with cream and bread, Alexey Alexandrovich got up and went into his study.
‘But you didn’t go out anywhere; I expect you were bored?’ he asked.
‘Oh no!’ she replied, getting up after him to escort him through the drawing room to his study. ‘What are you reading at the moment?’
‘I’m reading Duc de Lille’s Poésie des enfers* at the moment,’ he replied. ‘A very remarkable book.’
Anna smiled, as people do smile at the weaknesses of people they love, and putting her arm under his, she escorted him to the doors of his study. She knew his habit, which had become a necessity, of reading in the evening. She knew that, despite his official duties consuming almost all of his time, he considered it his duty to keep abreast of everything noteworthy appearing in the intellectual sphere. She also knew that books on politics, philosophy, and theology really did interest him, and that art was completely alien to his nature, but that despite this, or rather because of this, Alexey Alexandrovich never missed anything that created a stir in this area, and considered it his duty to read everything. She knew that in politics, philosophy, and theology, Alexey Alexandrovich either had doubts or was still searching; but where art and poetry were concerned, and particularly music, which he had not the first idea about, he had the most definite and firm opinions. He liked talking about Shakespeare, Raphael, Beethoven, and the significance of the new schools in poetry and music, which were all classified by him into a very clear sequence of development.
‘Well, God bless you,’ she said at the door of his study, where a shaded candle and a carafe of water had already been prepared for him next to his armchair. ‘And I’m going to write to Moscow.’
He pressed her hand and kissed it again.
‘All the same, he is a good man, trustworthy and kind, and remarkable in his own sphere,’ said Anna to herself as she went back to her room, as if defending him to someone who was accusing him and saying he was impossible to love. ‘But why do his ears stick out so strangely? Or has he had his hair cut?’
On the dot of midnight, when Anna was still sitting at her desk, finishing her letter to Dolly, she heard the sound of measured steps in slippers, and Alexey Alexandrovich, washed and combed, came up to her with a book under his arm.
‘Come along now, it’s time,’ he said with a special smile, and proceeded into the bedroom.
‘And what right did he have to look at him like that?’ thought Anna, remembering the glance Vronsky had given Alexey Alexandrovich.
After she had undressed, she went into the bedroom, but not only was there none of that liveliness in her face which had sparkled in her eyes and smile during her stay in Moscow, but on the contrary, the light now seemed to have been extinguished in her or was hidden somewhere far away.
34
WHEN he was departing from Petersburg, Vronsky had left his large apartment on Morskaya Street* to his friend and favourite comrade Petritsky.
Petritsky was a young lieutenant, not particularly distinguished, and not only not rich but mired in debt, always drunk by evening, frequently in the guard-house for various exploits both amusing and seedy, but loved by his comrades and his superiors alike. When he drove up to his apartment from the railway station towards noon, Vronsky saw a familiar hired carriage by the entrance. Even as he was ringing the bell, he could hear behind the door men laughing, a woman’s voice babbling in French, and Petritsky shouting: ‘If it’s one of those scoundrels, don’t let him in!’ Vronsky told the batman not to announce him, and went quietly into the front room. Petritsky’s lady-friend, Baroness Shilton, resplendent in her lilac satin dress, blonde hair, and pink-cheeked little face, was sitting at the round table making coffee and filling the whole room with her Parisian chatter, like a canary. Petritsky, in a greatcoat, and Captain Kamerovsky, in full uniform, probably just off duty, were sitting on either side of her.
‘Bravo! Vronsky!’ shouted out Petritsky, his chair clattering as he jumped up. ‘The host himself! Baroness, some coffee for him from the new coffee-pot. We weren’t expecting you! I hope you’re pleased with the decoration of your study,’ he said, indicating the Baroness. ‘You do know each other, don’t you?’
‘I’ll say!’ said Vronsky, smiling happily, and pressing the Baroness’s dainty little hand. ‘Of course we do. Old friends.’
‘You’ve just arrived home from a journey,’ said the Baroness, ‘so I must be off. Oh, I’ll leave this very minute if I am in the way.’
‘You are at home wherever you are, Baroness,’ said Vronsky. ‘Hello Kamerovsky,’ he added, shaking Kamerovsky’s hand coldly.
‘Now you never seem to be able to say such nice things,’ said the Baroness to Petritsky.
‘You don’t think so? After dinner I’ll say no worse.’