‘Tell us something amusing but not malicious,’ said the ambassador’s wife, a past master in the art of the refined conversation the English call small talk,2 turning to the diplomat, who was also at a loss to know what subject to raise next.
‘They say that’s very difficult, and that only malicious things are amusing,’ he began with a smile. ‘But I’ll try. Give me a topic. The topic is what counts. Once you have a theme, it’s easy to embroider upon it. I often think that the famous conversationalists of the last century would be hard pressed to talk cleverly now. People are so bored with everything clever …’
‘That has been said long ago,’ said the ambassador’s wife interrupting him with a laugh.
The conversation began amiably, but precisely because it was a bit too amiable, it came to a halt again. They had to resort to the tried-and-trusted remedy—malicious gossip.
‘Don’t you think there’s something Louis Quinze* about Tushkevich?’ he said, indicating with his eyes a handsome, fair-haired young man standing by the table.
‘Oh, yes! He matches the drawing room, and that’s why he’s here so often.’
This conversation was sustained, since they talked by means of insinuation about the one thing which could not be discussed in this drawing room, namely Tushkevich’s relationship to their hostess.
The conversation near the samovar and the hostess, meanwhile, after wavering in just the same way between the three inevitable topics—the latest social news, the theatre, and criticism of one’s neighbour—also settled, once it had stumbled on to it, on the last of these, that is to say, malicious gossip.
‘Have you heard, Maltishcheva—not the daughter, the mother—is making herself a diable rose outfit* now.’
‘I don’t believe it! No, that’s priceless!’
‘I’m surprised that with her brains, she can’t see how ridiculous she will look—she’s not a fool, after all.’
Everyone had something critical or withering to say about the unfortunate Maltishcheva, and the conversation started crackling away merrily, like a well-stoked bonfire.
Princess Betsy’s husband, a good-natured, portly fellow who was a passionate collector of engravings, dropped by the drawing room before going to his club when he found out his wife had guests. Treading silently on the soft carpet, he walked over to Princess Myagkaya.
‘How did you like Nilsson, Princess?’ he asked.
‘Oh, heavens, do you have to steal up on people like that? You gave me such a fright!’ she responded. ‘Please don’t talk to me about the opera, you don’t know anything about music. It’s better if I descend to your level and talk about your majolica and your engravings. Well, what treasure have you bought recently at the flea market?’
‘Do you want me to show you? But you don’t understand these things.’
‘Do show me! I’ve been learning about them from those, what are they called … bankers … they have some splendid engravings. They showed them to us.’
‘What, have you been at the Schützburgs?’ asked the hostess from the samovar.
‘We have, ma chère. They asked me and my husband to dinner, and told me the sauce at the dinner cost a thousand roubles,’ Princess Myagkaya said loudly, aware that everyone was listening; ‘and it was a revolting sauce too, something green. We then had to invite them over, and I made sauce for eighty-five kopecks, and everybody was very pleased with it. I can’t make thousand-rouble sauces.’
‘There’s no one like her!’ said the ambassador’s wife.
‘She’s amazing!’ said someone.
The effect produced by Princess Myagkaya’s pronouncements was always the same, and the secret of the effect she produced lay in the fact that she said simple things which made sense, even if they were not quite to the point, as on this occasion. In the circles in which she moved, such pronouncements produced the effect of an extremely witty joke. Princess Myagkaya could not understand why they had that effect, but she knew they did, and made the most of it.
As everyone had listened to Princess Myagkaya while she was talking and the conversation around the ambassador’s wife had stopped, the hostess wanted to bring the whole party together, and she turned to the ambassador’s wife:
‘Are you sure you don’t want some tea? You should come over and join us.’
‘No, we’re very happy here,’ the ambassador’s wife responded with a smile, and resumed the conversation that had been begun earlier.
It was a very enjoyable conversation. They were criticizing the Karenins, husband and wife.
‘Anna has changed a great deal since her Moscow trip. There’s something odd about her,’ said one of her friends.
‘The main change is that she has brought back with her the shadow of Alexey Vronsky,’ said the ambassador’s wife.
‘Well, what of it? Grimm has a tale: the man without a shadow, about a man who is deprived of his shadow.* It is a punishment he is given for something or other. I never could understand why it was a punishment. But it must be unpleasant for a woman not to have a shadow.’
‘Yes, but women with shadows usually come to a bad end,’ said Anna’s friend.
‘Button your lip!’ said Princess Myagkaya abruptly when she heard these words. ‘Anna Karenina is a fine woman. I don’t care for her husband, but I am very fond of her.’
‘Why don’t you like her husband? He’s such a remarkable man,’ said the ambassador’s wife. ‘My husband says there are few statesmen like him in Europe.’
‘And my husband tells me the same thing, but I don’t believe it,’ said Princess Myagkaya. ‘If our husbands didn’t talk, we would see things as they really are, and in my opinion Alexey Alexandrovich is just stupid. I say this in a whisper … but doesn’t it explain everything? Before, when I was instructed to find him clever, I kept looking for his intelligence, and I thought I myself must be stupid for not seeing it; but as soon as I said he’s stupid in a whisper, it all becomes quite clear, don’t you think?’
‘How malicious you are today!’
‘Not at all. I didn’t have any other option. One of the two of us is stupid. And well, as you know, it’s impossible to say that about yourself.’
‘No one is ever happy with his fortune, but every person is happy with his wits,’ said the diplomat, quoting a French saying.*
‘Exactly so,’ said Princess Myagkaya, quickly turning to him. ‘But the fact is that I won’t surrender Anna to you. She’s such a sweet, lovely person. What is she to do if everybody is in love with her, and follows her about like shadows?’
‘But I have no intention of criticizing her,’ Anna’s friend said, trying to justify herself.
‘Just because no one follows us about like a shadow, it doesn’t mean that we have any right to criticize her.’
And having berated Anna’s friend as she deserved, Princess Myagkaya got up, and she and the ambassador’s wife joined the group at the table, where the conversation was about the king of Prussia.
‘Who were you gossiping about over there?’ asked Betsy.
‘About the Karenins. The Princess was giving us an appraisal of Alexey Alexandrovich,’ the ambassador’s wife replied, sitting down at the table with a smile.
‘A pity we didn’t hear it,’ said Princess Betsy, glancing towards the door. ‘Ah, here you are at last!’ she said, turning with a smile to Vronsky who was coming in.
Vronsky was not only acquainted with everyone he met here, but he saw them every day, and so he came in with the relaxed air of someone coming into a room to join people he has only just left.
‘Where have I just come from?’ he replied to the ambassador’s wife’s question. ‘Nothing for it, I’ll have to confess. From the Opera Bouffe. I must have been about a hundred times, but there is always something new to enjoy. It’s wonderful! I know I should be ashamed of myself, but I sleep through the opera, whereas at the Opera Bouffe I’m glued to my seat until the very end, and it’s fun. This evening …’