Chapter 1
The Karenins,
husband and wife, continued living in the same house, met
every day, but were complete strangers to one another. Alexey
Alexandrovitch made it a rule to see his wife every day, so that the servants
might have no grounds for suppositions, but avoided dining at home.
Vronsky was never at Alexey Alexandrovitch's house, but Anna saw him
away from home, and her husband was aware of it.
The position was one of misery for all three; and not one of them would
have been equal to enduring this position for a single day, if it had not been
for the expectation
that it would change, that it was merely a temporary
painful ordeal which would pass over. Alexey Alexandrovitch hoped that
this passion would pass, as everything does pass, that everyone would
forget about it, and his name would remain unsullied. Anna, on whom the
position depended, and for whom it was more miserable than for anyone,
endured it because she not merely hoped, but firmly believed, that it would
all very soon be settled and come right. She
had not the least idea what
would settle the position, but she firmly believed that something would
very soon turn up now. Vronsky, against his own will or wishes, followed
her lead, hoped too that something, apart from his own action, would be
sure to solve all difficulties.
In the middle of the winter Vronsky spent a very tiresome week. A foreign
prince, who had come on a visit to Petersburg, was put under his charge,
and he had to show him the sights worth seeing. Vronsky was of
distinguished
appearance; he possessed, moreover, the art of behaving with
respectful dignity, and was used to having to do with such grand
personages--that was how he came to be put in charge of the prince. But he
felt his duties very irksome. The prince was anxious to miss nothing of
which he would be asked at home, had he seen that in Russia? And on his
own account he was anxious to enjoy to the utmost all Russian forms of
amusement. Vronsky was obliged to be his guide in satisfying both these
inclinations. The mornings they spent driving to look at places of interest;
the evenings they passed enjoying the national entertainments.
The prince
rejoiced in health exceptional even among princes. By gymnastics and
Chapter 1
501
careful attention to his health he had brought himself to such a point that in
spite of his excess in pleasure he looked as fresh as a big glossy green
Dutch cucumber. The prince had traveled a great deal, and considered one
of the chief advantages of modern facilities of communication was the
accessibility of the pleasures of all nations.
He had been in Spain, and there had indulged in serenades and had made
friends with a Spanish girl who played the mandolin. In Switzerland he had
killed chamois. In England he had galloped in a red coat over hedges and
killed two hundred pheasants for a bet. In Turkey he had got into a harem;
in India
he had hunted on an elephant, and now in Russia he wished to taste
all the specially Russian forms of pleasure.
Vronsky, who was, as it were, chief master of the ceremonies to him, was
at great pains to arrange all the Russian amusements suggested by various
persons to the prince. They had race horses, and Russian pancakes and bear
hunts and three-horse sledges, and gypsies and drinking feasts, with the
Russian accompaniment of broken crockery. And the prince with surprising
ease fell in with the Russian spirit,
smashed trays full of crockery, sat with
a gypsy girl on his knee, and seemed to be asking--what more, and does the
whole Russian spirit consist in just this?
In reality, of all the Russian entertainments the prince liked best French
actresses and ballet dancers and white-seal champagne. Vronsky was used
to princes, but, either because he had himself changed of late, or that he
was in too close proximity to the prince, that week seemed fearfully
wearisome to him. The whole of that week he experienced a sensation such
as a man might have set in
charge of a dangerous madman, afraid of the
madman, and at the same time, from being with him, fearing for his own
reason. Vronsky was continually conscious of the necessity of never for a
second relaxing the tone of stern official respectfulness, that he might not
himself be insulted. The prince's manner of treating the very people who, to
Vronsky's surprise, were ready to descend to any depths to provide him
with Russian amusements, was contemptuous.
His criticisms of Russian
women, whom he wished to study, more than once made Vronsky crimson
with indignation. The chief reason why the prince was so particularly
Chapter 1
502
disagreeable to Vronsky was that he could not help seeing himself in him.
And what he saw in this mirror did not gratify his self-esteem. He was a
very stupid and very self-satisfied and very healthy and very well-washed
man, and nothing else. He was a gentleman--that was true, and Vronsky
could not deny it. He was equable and not cringing with his superiors, was
free and ingratiating in his behavior with his equals, and was
contemptuously indulgent with his inferiors. Vronsky was himself the
same, and regarded it as a great merit to be so. But
for this prince he was an
inferior, and his contemptuous and indulgent attitude to him revolted him.
"Brainless beef! can I be like that?" he thought.
Be that as it might, when, on the seventh day, he parted from the
prince, who was starting for Moscow, and received his thanks, he was
happy to be rid of his uncomfortable position and the unpleasant reflection
of himself. He said good-bye to him at the station on their return from a
bear hunt, at which they had had a display of Russian prowess kept up all
night.
Chapter 1
503
