Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Two/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI
The Princess Betsy left the theater without waiting for the end of the last act. She had scarcely had more than time enough, after reaching home, to go into her dressing-room, and scatter a little rice-powder over her long, pale face, rearrange her toilet, and order tea to be served in the large drawing-room, when the carriages began one after another to arrive at her enormous house on the Bolshaya Morskaya. The guests came up to the wide entrance, and a portly Swiss who during the morning read the newspaper for the edification of passers-by, as he sat behind the glass door, now kept noiselessly opening this great door and admitting the visitors. They came in by one door almost at the same instant that by another came the mistress of the mansion, with renewed color, and hair rearranged. The walls of the great drawing-room were hung with somber draperies, and on the floor were thick rugs. On the table, which was covered with a cloth of dazzling whiteness, shining in the light of numberless candles, stood a silver samovar and a tea-service of transparent porcelain.
The princess took her place behind the samovar and drew off her gloves. With the help of attentive servants, the guests brought up chairs and took their places, dividing into two camps, the one around the princess, the other at the opposite end of the drawing-room around the wife of a foreign ambassador, a handsome lady, dressed in black velvet, and with black, well-defined eyebrows. The conversation, as usual at the beginning of a reception, was desultory, being interrupted by the arrival of newcomers, offers of tea, and the exchange of salutations, and seemed to be endeavoring to find a common subject of interest.
"She is remarkably handsome for an actress; you can see that she has studied Kaulbach," said a diplomatist in the group around the ambassador's wife. "Did you notice how she fell?" ....
"Akh! please let us not speak of Nilsson. Nothing new can be said about her," said a great fat lady, with light complexion, without either eyebrows or chignon, and dressed in an old silk gown. This was the Princess Miagkaya, famous for her simplicity and frightful manners, and surnamed the Enfant terrible. Princess Miagkaya was seated between the two groups, listening to what was said on both sides of her, and taking impartial interest in both. "This very day, three people have made that same remark about Kaulbach. It must be fashionable. I don't see why that phrase should be so successful."
The conversation was cut short by this remark, and a new theme had to be started.
"Tell us something amusing, but don't let it be naughty," said the ambassador's wife, who was a mistress of the art of conversation called, by the English, small talk. She was addressing the diplomatist, who was at a loss what topic to start.
"They say this is very hard, that only naughty things are amusing," replied the diplomatist, with a smile. "However, I will do my best. Give me a theme. Everything depends upon the theme. When you get that for a background, you can easily fill it in with embroidery. I often think that the celebrated talkers of the past would be exceedingly embarrassed if they were alive now; everything intellectual is considered so dull."....
"That was said long ago," remarked the ambassador's wife, interrupting him with a smile.
The conversation began amiably, and for the very reason that it was too amiable, it languished again. It was necessary to have recourse to an unfailing, never changing subject—gossip.
"Don't you think that there is something Louis XV. about Tushkievitch? " asked he, indicating a handsome, light-haired young man, who was standing near the table.
"Oh, yes! he 's quite in the style of the drawing-room, and that is why he is here so often."
This subject sustained the conversation, since it consisted wholly of hints regarding something which could not be treated openly in that drawing-room, in other words, Tushkievitch's relations with the Princess Betsy.
Around the samovar, the conversation hesitated for some time upon three inevitable subjects,—the news of the day, the theater, and a lawsuit which was to be tried the next day. At last the same subject arose that was occupying the other group—gossip.
"Have you heard that Maltishcheva—that is, the mother, not the daughter—has had a costume in diable rose?"
"Is it possible? No! That is delicious."
"I am astonished that with her sense,—for she is certainly not stupid,—she does not perceive how ridiculous she is."
Every one found something in which to criticize and tear to pieces the unfortunate Madame Maltishcheva; and the conversation grew lively, brilliant, and gay, like a flaming pyre.
The Princess Betsy's husband, a tall, good-natured man, a passionate collector of engravings, hearing that his wife had guests, came into the drawing-room before going to his club, and desired to show himself in her circle. Noiselessly, on the thick carpet, he approached the Princess Miagkaya.
"How did you like Nilsson?" he asked.
"Akh! Do you steal in upon a body that way? How you startled me!" she cried. "Don't speak to me about the opera, I beg of you; you don't know anything about music. I prefer to descend to your level and talk with you about your engravings and majolicas. Well! What treasures have you discovered lately?"
"If you would like, I will show them to you; but you are no judge of them."
"Show them to me all the same. I am getting my education among these—bankers, as you call them. They have lovely engravings. They like to show them."
"Have you been at the Schützburgs'?" asked the mistress of the house, from her place by the samovar.
"Certainly, ma chère. They invited my husband and me to dinner, and they told me that the sauce at this dinner cost a thousand rubles," replied the Princess Miagkaya, in a loud voice, conscious that all were listening to her; "and it was a very poor sauce, too,—something green. I had to return the compliment, and I got them up a sauce that cost eighty-five kopeks,[1] and all were satisfied. I can't make thousand-ruble sauces!"
"She is unique," said the hostess.
"Astonishing," said another.
The Princess Miagkaya never failed of making her speeches effective, and the secret of their effectiveness lay in the fact that, although she did not always select suitable occasions, as was the case at the present time, yet she spoke simply and sensibly. In the society where she moved, what she said gave the effect of the most subtle wit. She could not comprehend why it had such an effect, but she recognized the fact, and took advantage of it.
While the Princess Miagkaya was speaking, all listened to her, and the conversation around the ambassador's wife stopped; so the hostess, wishing to make the conversation more united, turned to the ambassador's wife and said:—
"Are you sure that you will not have some tea? Then please join us."
"No; we are very well where we are, in this corner, replied the ambassador's wife, with a smile, resuming the thread of a conversation which interested her very deeply.
They were criticizing Karenin and his wife.
"Anna is very much changed since her return from Moscow. There is something strange about her," said one of her friends.
"The change is due to the fact that she brought back in her train the shadow of Alekseï Vronsky," said the ambassador's wife.
"What is that? There 's a story in Grimm—a man without a shadow—a man deprived of his shadow. It was a punishment for something or other. I cannot see where the punishment lies, but it must be disagreeable for a woman to be without her shadow."
"Yes, but the women who have shadows generally come to some bad end," said Anna's friend.
"Hold your tongues!" [2] cried the Princess Miagkaya, as she heard these words. "Madame Karenina is a charming woman; I don't like her husband, but I like her."
"Why don't you like her husband?" asked the ambassador's wife. "He is such a remarkable man. My husband says there are few statesmen in Europe equal to him."
"My husband says the same thing, but I don't believe it," replied the Princess Miagkaya. "If our husbands had not had this idea, we should have seen Alekseï Aleksandrovitch as he really is; and, in my opinion, he is a blockhead, I only say this in a whisper. .... Is it not true how everything comes out clearly? Formerly when I was told that he was clever I used to try to discover it, and I came to the conclusion that I was stupid because I could not see wherein he was clever; but as soon as I said to myself,—under my breath,—he is stupid, all was explained. Is n't that so?"
"How severe you are to-night!"
"Not at all, I have no other alternative. One of us two is stupid. Now you know that one can never say such a thing of oneself."
"No one is satisfied with his circumstances, and every one is satisfied with his brain," said a diplomat, quoting a French couplet.
"There, that is the very thing," exclaimed the Princess Miagkaya a turning to him, "but I make an exception of Anna. She is so lovely and good. Is it her fault if all men fall in love with her and follow her like shadows?"
"Well! I do not allow myself to judge her," said Anna's friend, justifying herself.
"Because no one follows us like a shadow, it does not prove that we have the right to judge."
Having thus appropriately disposed of Anna's friend, the Princess Miagkaya arose, and with the ambassador's wife drew up to the table, and joined in the general conversation about some trifle.[3]
"Whom have you been gossiping about?" asked Betsy.
"About the Karenins. The princess has been picturing Alekseï Aleksandrovitch," replied the ambassador's wife, sitting down near the table, with a smile.
"Shame that we could not have heard it," said Betsy, looking toward the door. "Ah! here you are at last," said she, turning to Vronsky, who at that moment came in.
Vronsky knew, and met every day, all the people whom he found collected in his cousin's drawing-room; therefore he came in with the calmness of a man who rejoins friends from whom he has only just parted.
"Where have I come from?" said he, in reply to a question from the ambassador's wife. " What can I do? I must confess,—from Les Bouffes. 'Tis for the hundredth time, and always with a new pleasure. It is charming. It is humiliating, I know, but I get sleepy at the opera; but at Les Bouffes I sit it out up to the very last minute and enjoy it. To-night ...."
He mentioned a French actress, and was going to tell some story about her, but the ambassador's wife stopped him with an expression of mock terror.
"Please don't speak to us of that fright!"
"Well! I will not, and the more willingly because you all know these frights."
"And you would all go there if it were as fashionable as the opera," added the Princess Miagkaya.