Chapter 20

 

 

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THE whole of that day Anna remained at home, that is at the Oblonskys’ house, and did not receive anybody, although several of her acquaintances who had heard of her arrival came to see her. She spent the earlier part of the day with Dolly and the children, and sent a note to her brother to be sure and come home to dinner. ‘Come,’ she wrote. ‘God is merciful.’

 

Oblonsky dined at home, the conversation was general, and his wife addressed him familiarly in the second person singular, which she had not done all these days. There was still the same estrangement in their manner to each other, but no longer any question of separating, and Oblonsky saw that explanation and reconciliation were possible.

 

Immediately after dinner Kitty came. She knew Anna, but only slightly, and came to her sister’s not without fear of how she might be received by this Petersburg Society woman whom everybody admired so much. But she noticed at once that Anna liked her. It was evident that her beauty and youth gave Anna pleasure, and before Kitty had time to regain her self-possession she felt not only that she was under Anna’s influence but that she was in love with her, as young girls often are with married women older than themselves. Anna was not like a Society woman or the mother of an eight-year-old son. The flexibility of her figure, her freshness, and the natural animation of her face appearing now in her smile, now in her eyes, would have made her look more like a girl of twenty had it not been for a serious and sometimes even sad expression in her eyes which struck Kitty and attracted her. Kitty felt that Anna was perfectly unaffected and was not trying to conceal anything, but that she lived in another, higher world full of complex poetic interests beyond Kitty’s reach.

 

After dinner, when Dolly had gone to her own room, Anna got up quickly and went to her brother who was just lighting a cigar.

 

‘Stiva,’ she said to him with a merry twinkle in her eye and making the sign of the cross over him as she indicated the door with a look. ‘Go, and may God help you.’ He understood, threw down his cigar, and disappeared through the door.

 

When Oblonsky had gone, she returned to the sofa where she had been sitting surrounded by the children. Whether because they saw that ‘Mama’ was fond of this aunt, or because they themselves felt her peculiar charm, first the two older children and then the younger ones, as is often the way with children, had even before dinner begun clinging to her, and now would not leave her side. And they started something like a game which consisted in trying to get as close to her as possible, to touch her, hold her little hand, kiss her, play with her ring, or at least touch the frills of her dress.

 

‘Now how were we sitting before?’ said Anna, resuming her seat.

 

And Grisha again pushed his head under her arm and leaning against her dress beamed with pride and joy.

 

‘And when is the ball to be?’ said Anna, turning to Kitty.

 

‘Next week, and it will be a delightful ball. One of those balls which are always jolly.’

 

‘Are there any that are always jolly?’ asked Anna with tender irony.

 

‘It is strange, but there are! It’s always jolly at the Bobrishchevs’ and also at the Nikitins’, while it’s always dull at the Meshkovs’. Haven’t you noticed it?’

 

‘No, my dear, there are no more jolly balls for me,’ said Anna, and Kitty saw in her eyes that peculiar world which was not yet revealed to her. ‘There are some that are not as difficult and dull as the rest.’

 

‘How can you be dull at a ball?’

 

‘Why cannot I be dull at a ball?’ asked Anna.

 

Kitty saw that Anna knew the answer that would follow.

 

‘Because you must always be the belle of the ball.’

 

Anna had a capacity for blushing. She blushed and answered, ‘In the first place, I never am: but even if I were, what use would it be to me?’

 

‘Will you go to that ball?’ asked Kitty.

 

‘I suppose I shall have to. Here take this,’ she said, turning to Tanya who was drawing off a ring which fitted loosely on her aunt’s small tapering finger.

 

‘I shall be very glad if you go. I should so like to see you at a ball.’

 

‘Well, then, if I have to go, I shall console myself with the reflection that it will give you pleasure. . . . Grisha, please don’t pull so hard, it is all in a tangle already,’ she said, arranging a loose lock of hair with which Grisha was playing.

 

‘I imagine you at that ball in lilac!’

 

‘Why must it be lilac?’ asked Anna half laughing. ‘Now, children, run away, run away. Don’t you hear? There’s Miss Hull calling you to tea,’ she went on, disengaging herself from the children and dispatching them to the dining-room. ‘But I know why you are asking me to go to that ball. You’re expecting much from it, and would like everybody to be there and have a share in it.’

 

‘How do you know? Well, yes!’

 

‘Oh yes, it is good to be your age,’ Anna continued. ‘I remember and know that blue mist, like the mist on the Swiss mountains . . . that mist which envelops everything at that blissful time when childhood is just, just coming to an end, and its immense, blissful circle turns into an ever-narrowing path, and you enter the defile gladly yet with dread, though it seems bright and beautiful. . . . Who has not passed through it?’

 

Kitty smiled and remained silent. ‘How did she pass through it? How I should like to know her story!’ thought she, recollecting the unpoetic appearance of Anna’s husband Alexis Karenin.

 

‘I know something — Stiva told me and I congratulate you. I like him very much,’ Anna continued. ‘I met Vronsky at the railway station.’

 

‘Oh, was he there?’ asked Kitty, blushing. ‘What did Stiva tell you?’

 

‘Stiva let it all out to me, and I shall be very pleased. . . . I travelled yesterday with Vronsky’s mother,’ she continued, ‘and she talked about him all the time. He is her favourite son. I know how partial mothers are, but . . .’

 

‘What did his mother tell you?’

 

‘Oh very much! and I know he is her favourite, but anyone can see he is full of chivalry. . . . For instance she told me that he wished to give all his property to his brother, that already as a boy he had done something extraordinary, saved a woman from drowning. In a word, he is a hero,’ said Anna, smiling and remembering the 200 roubles he had given away at the station.

 

But she did not mention the 200 roubles. For some reason she did not like to think of them. She felt that there had been something in it relating personally to her that should not have been.

 

‘She particularly wished me to go and see her,’ continued Anna. ‘I shall be glad to see the old lady again, and will go to-morrow. Well, thank heaven Stiva is stopping a long time with Dolly,’ she added changing the subject, and she rose, dissatisfied with something, Kitty thought.

 

‘I was first!’ ‘No, I!’ cried the children, who having finished their tea rushed back to Aunt Anna.

 

‘All together!’ said Anna laughing and running to meet them, and putting her arms round them she tumbled the whole heap of children — struggling and shrieking joyfully — on to the floor.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 21

 

 

 

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DOLLY came out of her room for the grown-up people’s tea. Oblonsky did not appear. He had probably left his wife’s room by the other door.

 

‘I’m afraid you will be cold upstairs,’ remarked Dolly to Anna. ‘I want to move you down, and then we shall be nearer to one another.’

 

‘Oh, please don’t trouble about me,’ said Anna, scrutinizing Dolly’s face and trying to discover whether a reconciliation had taken place.

 

‘It will be too light for you downstairs,’ said her sister-in-law.

 

‘I assure you that I sleep always and anywhere like a dormouse.’

 

‘What are you talking about?’ asked Oblonsky, entering the room from his study and addressing his wife.

 

From his tone both Kitty and Anna gathered that a reconciliation had taken place.

 

‘I want to move Anna downstairs, only the curtains must be changed. I shall have to do it myself, no one else can do it,’ Dolly answered addressing him.

 

‘Goodness knows if they have quite made it up,’ thought Anna on hearing her tone, which was cold and calm.

 

‘Come now, Dolly! always making difficulties,’ said her husband. ‘If you like I will do it all.’

 

‘Yes, they must have come together again,’ thought Anna.

 

‘I know how you’ll do it all,’ answered Dolly. ‘You will tell Matthew to do something that cannot be done and will go away yourself, and he will muddle everything,’ and as she spoke her usual ironical smile wrinkled the corners of Dolly’s mouth.

 

‘Yes, a full, a full reconciliation, quite complete. Thank God!’ thought Anna, and pleased to have been the means of bringing it about, she went up to Dolly and kissed her.

 

‘Not at all. Why do you so despise Matthew and me?’ said Oblonsky, turning to his wife with a slight smile.

 

All that evening Dolly maintained her usual slightly bantering manner toward her husband, and Oblonsky was contented and cheerful, but not to the extent of seeming to forget his guilt after having obtained forgiveness.

 

At half-past nine an unusually pleasant and happy family conversation round the Oblonskys’ tea-table was disturbed by an apparently very ordinary occurrence which yet struck them all as strange. While they were talking about their mutual Petersburg acquaintances Anna rose suddenly.

 

‘I have her photo in my album,’ said she, ‘and I’ll show you my Serezha’s too,’ she added with a mother’s proud smile.

 

For toward ten o’clock — the time when she generally said good-night to her son and often put him to bed herself before going to a ball — she felt sad at being so far from him, and, whatever they talked about, her thoughts kept returning to her curly-headed Serezha. She longed to look at his portrait and to talk about him. Seizing the first opportunity she rose and, stepping firmly and lightly, went out to fetch her album. The flight of stairs to her room went up from a landing of the well-heated front staircase. As she was coming out of the drawing-room there was a ring at the door.

 

‘Who can it be?’ asked Dolly.

 

‘It is too early to fetch me, and late for anyone else,’ said Kitty.

 

‘Papers from the office for me, I expect,’ said Oblonsky.

 

A footman ran up to announce the new arrival, who stood at the foot of the stairs under a lamp. Anna looked down from the landing where she stood and at once recognized Vronsky, and a strange feeling of pleasure mixed with fear suddenly stirred in her heart.

 

He stood in his overcoat, feeling for something in his pockets. When Anna was half-way up the top flight, he lifted his eyes and saw her, and a look of something like embarrassment and fear came into his face. She bowed slightly and went on. She heard Oblonsky’s loud voice downstairs asking him to come in, and Vronsky’s low, soft voice refusing.

 

When Anna returned with her album he had already gone, and Oblonsky was saying that Vronsky had called to inquire about a dinner they were giving next day to a celebrity who was visiting Moscow, but that he could not be induced to come in. ‘He seemed so queer,’ added Oblonsky.

 

Kitty blushed. She thought that she alone understood why he had come to the house and why he would not come in. ‘He has been to our house,’ she thought, ‘and not finding me in he guessed that I was here. And he would not come in because Anna is here, and he thought it too late.’

 

They all glanced at one another and said nothing but began examining Anna’s album.

 

There was nothing extraordinary or strange in the fact that a man had called at half-past nine at a friend’s house to ask about a dinner they were planning and that he would not come in; but it seemed strange to all of them. To Anna in particular it seemed strange and not right.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 22

 

 

 

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THE ball had only just begun when Kitty and her mother ascended the broad staircase which was deluged with light, decorated with flowering plants, and occupied by powdered footmen in red liveries. From the ball-room as from a beehive came the regular sound of movement, and while they were arranging their hair and dresses before a mirror on the landing between the plants, they heard the accurate measured sound of the orchestra violins just beginning the first waltz. A little old man, who had smoothed the grey hair on his temples before another mirror and who smelt strongly of scent, happened to jostle them on the stairs, and stepped aside in evident admiration of Kitty, whom he did not know. A beardless youth, one of those whom the old Prince Shcherbatsky called puppies, with a very low-cut waistcoat, straightening his white tie as he went along, bowed to them and ran past but returned to ask Kitty for a quadrille. She had given the first quadrille to Vronsky and had to give the second to this youth. An officer, buttoning his glove, stood aside at the doorway to make room for them, and smoothing his moustache looked with evident pleasure at the rosy Kitty.

 

Although Kitty’s gown and coiffure and all her other adornments had given her much trouble and thought, she now entered the ball-room in her complicated dress of white net over a pink slip, as easily and simply as if these bows and laces and all the details of her toilet had not cost her or her people a moment’s attention, as if she had been born in this net and lace and with that high coiffure and the rose and its two leaves on the top.

 

When, just before entering the ball-room, her mother wished to put straight a twisted end of her sash, Kitty drew slightly back: she felt that everything on her must be naturally right and graceful and that there was no need to adjust anything.

 

It was one of Kitty’s happy days. Her dress did not feel tight anywhere, the lace round her bodice did not slip, the bows did not crumple or come off, the pink shoes with their high curved heels did not pinch but seemed to make her feet lighter. The thick rolls of fair hair kept up as if they had grown naturally so on the little head. All three buttons on each of her long gloves, which fitted without changing the shape of her hand, fastened without coming off. The black velvet ribbon of her locket clasped her neck with unusual softness. That ribbon was charming, and when Kitty had looked at her neck in the glass at home, she felt that that ribbon was eloquent. There might be some possible doubt about anything else, but that ribbon was charming. Kitty smiled, here at the ball, when she caught sight of it again in the mirror. Her bare shoulders and arms gave her a sensation as of cold marble, a feeling she liked very much. Her eyes shone and she could not keep her rosy lips from smiling at the consciousness of her attractive appearance, Before she had reached the light-coloured crowd of women in tulle, ribbons, and lace, who were waiting for partners (Kitty never long formed one of the crowd), she was already asked for the waltz and asked by the best dancer, the leader of the dancing hierarchy, the famous dirigeur and Master of the Ceremonies, a handsome stately married man, George Korsunsky. He had just left the Countess Bonin, with whom he had danced the first round of the waltz, and looking round his domain — that is to say, a few couples who had begun to dance — he noticed Kitty just coming in. He approached her with that peculiar free and easy amble natural only to Masters of Ceremonies, bowed, and, without even asking her consent, put his arm round her slim waist. She looked about for some one to hold her fan and the mistress of the house took it from her with a smile.

 

‘How fine that you have come in good time,’ he said with his arm round her waist. ‘It’s wrong of people to come so late.’

 

Bending her left arm she put her hand on his shoulder, and her little feet in their pink shoes began moving quickly, lightly, and rhythmically in time with the music, over the smooth parquet floor.

 

‘It is a rest to waltz with you,’ he said as he took the first slow steps of the dance. ‘What lightness and precision! it’s delightful!’ he remarked, saying to her what he said to almost all the dancing partners whom he really liked.

 

She smiled at his praise, and over his shoulder continued to survey the ball-room. She was not a girl just come out, for whom all faces at a ball blend into one fairy-like vision; nor was she a girl who had been dragged from ball to ball till all the faces were familiar to dullness. She was between those two extremes, and though elated was able to control herself sufficiently to be observant. She saw that the élite of the company were grouped in the left-hand corner of the room. There was the beauty Lida, Korsunsky’s wife, in an impossibly low dress, and the hostess, and there shone the bald head of Krivin who was always where the élite were; youths who had not the courage to approach gazed in that direction, and there Kitty’s eyes found Stephen, and then the lovely head and beautiful figure of Anna, in a black velvet dress. And he was there. Kitty had not seen him since the day she had refused Levin. With her far-sighted eyes she recognized him at once and even noticed that he was looking at her.

 

‘Shall we have another turn? You are not tired?’ asked Korsunsky who was a little out of breath.

 

‘No more turns, thank you.’

 

‘Where may I take you?’

 

‘I believe Anna Arkadyevna Karenina is here, take me to her.’

 

‘Wherever you please.’

 

And Korsunsky waltzed toward the left of the room, gradually diminishing his step and repeating ‘Pardon, mesdames, pardon, pardon, mesdames,’ as he steered through that sea of lace, tulle and ribbons without touching as much as a feather, and then turned his partner so suddenly that her delicate ankles in the openwork stockings appeared as her train spread out like a fan and covered Krivin’s knees. Korsunsky bowed, straightened his broad shirt front, and offered Kitty his arm to conduct her to Anna. Kitty flushed, and, a little giddy, took her train off Krivin’s knees and looked round for Anna.

 

Anna was not in lilac, the colour Kitty was so sure she ought to have worn, but in a low-necked black velvet dress which exposed her full shoulder and bosom that seemed carved out of old ivory, and her rounded arms with the very small hands. Her dress was richly trimmed with Venetian lace. In her black hair, all her own, she wore a little garland of pansies, and in her girdle, among the lace, a bunch of the same flowers. Her coiffure was very unobtrusive. The only noticeable things about it were the wilful ringlets that always escaped at her temples and on the nape of her neck and added to her beauty. Round her finely chiselled neck she wore a string of pearls.

 

Kitty had been seeing Anna every day and was in love with her, and had always imagined her in lilac, but seeing her in black she felt that she had never before realized her full charm. She now saw her in a new and quite unexpected light. She now realized that Anna could not have worn lilac, and that her charm lay precisely in the fact that her personality always stood out from her dress, that her dress was never conspicuous on her. And her black velvet with rich lace was not at all conspicuous, but served only as a frame; she alone was noticeable — simple, natural, elegant and at the same time merry and animated. She was standing among that group, very erect as usual, and was talking to the master of the house with her head slightly turned toward him, when Kitty approached.

 

‘No, I am not going to throw the first stone,’ she was saying in reply to some question, adding, with a shrug of her shoulders, ‘although I cannot understand it’; and at once she turned to Kitty with a tender protecting smile. She surveyed Kitty’s dress with a rapid feminine glance, and with a movement of her head, scarcely perceptible but understood by Kitty, she signified her approval of Kitty’s dress and beauty.

 

‘You even come into the room dancing,’ she said.

 

‘She is one of my most faithful helpers,’ said Korsunsky, turning to Anna whom he had not yet seen. ‘The Princess helps to make a ball gay and beautiful. Anna Arkadyevna, shall we have a turn?’ he added, stooping toward her.

 

‘Oh, you know one another?’ asked the host.

 

‘Whom do we not know? My wife and I are like white wolves, every one knows us,’ answered Korsunsky. ‘Anna Arkadyevna, just one turn?’

 

‘I don’t dance if it is possible not to,’ she said.

 

‘But to-night it is not possible,’ he rejoined.

 

At that moment Vronsky approached.

 

‘Well, if it is impossible not to dance to-night, let us dance,’ she said taking no notice of Vronsky’s bow and quickly putting her hand on Korsunsky’s shoulder.

 

‘Why is she displeased with him?’ thought Kitty, noticing that Anna had intentionally taken no notice of Vronsky’s bow. He came up to Kitty, reminding her of the first quadrille and regretting that he had not seen her for such a long time. Kitty, while gazing with admiration at Anna waltzing, listened to him, expecting him to ask her to waltz, but he did not do so and she glanced at him with surprise. He blushed and hurriedly asked her to dance, but scarcely had he put his arm round her slim waist and taken one step when the music stopped. Kitty looked into his face which was so near her own, and long after — for years after — that look so full of love which she then gave him, and which met with no response from him, cut her to the heart with tormenting shame.

 

‘Pardon, pardon, a waltz — a waltz,’ shouted Korsunsky from the other end of the room, and seizing the first girl within reach he himself began dancing.