Anna Karenina

Chapter 34
When Vronsky went to Moscow from Petersburg, he had left his large set
of rooms in Morskaia to his friend and favorite comrade Petritsky.
Petritsky was a young lieutenant, not particularly well-connected, and not
merely not wealthy, but always hopelessly in debt. Towards evening he was
always drunk, and he had often been locked up after all sorts of ludicrous
and disgraceful scandals, but he was a favorite both of his comrades and his
superior officers. On arriving at twelve o'clock from the station at his flat,
Vronsky saw, at the outer door, a hired carriage familiar to him. While still
outside his own door, as he rang, he heard masculine laughter, the lisp of a
feminine voice, and Petritsky's voice. "If that's one of the villains, don't let
him in!" Vronsky told the servant not to announce him, and slipped quietly
into the first room. Baroness Shilton, a friend of Petritsky's, with a rosy
little face and flaxen hair, resplendent in a lilac satin gown, and filling the
whole room, like a canary, with her Parisian chatter, sat at the round table
making coffee. Petritsky, in his overcoat, and the cavalry captain
Kamerovsky, in full uniform, probably just come from duty, were sitting
each side of her.
"Bravo! Vronsky!" shouted Petritsky, jumping up, scraping his chair. "Our
host himself! Baroness, some coffee for him out of the new coffee pot.
Why, we didn't expect you! Hope you're satisfied with the ornament of
your study," he said, indicating the baroness. "You know each other, of
course?"
"I should think so," said Vronsky, with a bright smile, pressing the
baroness's little hand. "What next! I'm an old friend."
"You're home after a journey," said the baroness, "so I'm flying. Oh, I'll be
off this minute, if I'm in the way."
"You're home, wherever you are, baroness," said Vronsky. "How do you
do, Kamerovsky?" he added, coldly shaking hands with Kamerovsky.
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"There, you never know how to say such pretty things," said the baroness,
turning to Petritsky.
"No; what's that for? After dinner I say things quite as good."
"After dinner there's no credit in them? Well, then, I'll make you some
coffee, so go and wash and get ready," said the baroness, sitting down
again, and anxiously turning the screw in the new coffee pot. "Pierre, give
me the coffee," she said, addressing Petritsky, whom she called as a
contraction of his surname, making no secret of her relations with him. "I'll
put it in."
"You'll spoil it!"
"No, I won't spoil it! Well, and your wife?" said the baroness suddenly,
interrupting Vronsky's conversation with his comrade. "We've been
marrying you here. Have you brought your wife?"
"No, baroness. I was born a Bohemian, and a Bohemian I shall die."
"So much the better, so much the better. Shake hands on it."
And the baroness, detaining Vronsky, began telling him, with many jokes,
about her last new plans of life, asking his advice.
"He persists in refusing to give me a divorce! Well, what am I to do?" (HE
was her husband.) "Now I want to begin a suit against him. What do you
advise? Kamerovsky, look after the coffee; it's boiling over. You see, I'm
engrossed with business! I want a lawsuit, because I must have my
property. Do you understand the folly of it, that on the pretext of my being
unfaithful to him," she said contemptuously, "he wants to get the benefit of
my fortune."
Vronsky heard with pleasure this light-hearted prattle of a pretty woman,
agreed with her, gave her half-joking counsel, and altogether dropped at
once into the tone habitual to him in talking to such women. In his
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Petersburg world all people were divided into utterly opposed classes. One,
the lower class, vulgar, stupid, and, above all, ridiculous people, who
believe that one husband ought to live with the one wife whom he has
lawfully married; that a girl should be innocent, a woman modest, and a
man manly, self-controlled, and strong; that one ought to bring up one's
children, earn one's bread, and pay one's debts; and various similar
absurdities. This was the class of old-fashioned and ridiculous people. But
there was another class of people, the real people. To this class they all
belonged, and in it the great thing was to be elegant, generous, plucky, gay,
to abandon oneself without a blush to every passion, and to laugh at
everything else.
For the first moment only, Vronsky was startled after the impression of a
quite different world that he had brought with him from Moscow. But
immediately as though slipping his feet into old slippers, he dropped back
into the light-hearted, pleasant world he had always lived in.
The coffee was never really made, but spluttered over every one, and boiled
away, doing just what was required of it--that is, providing much cause for
much noise and laughter, and spoiling a costly rug and the baroness's gown.
"Well now, good-bye, or you'll never get washed, and I shall have on my
conscience the worst sin a gentleman can commit. So you would advise a
knife to his throat?"
"To be sure, and manage that your hand may not be far from his lips. He'll
kiss your hand, and all will end satisfactorily," answered Vronsky.
"So at the Francais!" and, with a rustle of her skirts, she vanished.
Kamerovsky got up too, and Vronsky, not waiting for him to go, shook
hands and went off to his dressing room.
While he was washing, Petritsky described to him in brief outlines his
position, as far as it had changed since Vronsky had left Petersburg. No
money at all. His father said he wouldn't give him any and pay his debts.
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His tailor was trying to get him locked up, and another fellow, too, was
threatening to get him locked up. The colonel of the regiment had
announced that if these scandals did not cease he would have to leave. As
for the baroness, he was sick to death of her, especially since she'd taken to
offering continually to lend him money. But he had found a girl--he'd show
her to Vronsky--a marvel, exquisite, in the strict Oriental style, "genre of
the slave Rebecca, don't you know." He'd had a row, too, with Berkoshov,
and was going to send seconds to him, but of course it would come to
nothing. Altogether everything was supremely amusing and jolly. And, not
letting his comrade enter into further details of his position, Petritsky
proceeded to tell him all the interesting news. As he listened to Petritsky's
familiar stories in the familiar setting of the rooms he had spent the last
three years in, Vronsky felt a delightful sense of coming back to the
careless Petersburg life that he was used to.
"Impossible!" he cried, letting down the pedal of the washing basin in
which he had been sousing his healthy red neck. "Impossible!" he cried, at
the news that Laura had flung over Fertinghof and had made up to Mileev.
"And is he as stupid and pleased as ever? Well, and how's Buzulukov?"
"Oh, there is a tale about Buzulukov--simply lovely!" cried Petritsky. "You
know his weakness for balls, and he never misses a single court ball. He
went to a big ball in a new helmet. Have you seen the new helmets? Very
nice, lighter. Well, so he's standing.... No, I say, do listen."
"I am listening," answered Vronsky, rubbing himself with a rough towel.
"Up comes the Grand Duchess with some ambassador or other, and, as
ill-luck would have it, she begins talking to him about the new helmets. The
Grand Duchess positively wanted to show the new helmet to the
ambassador. They see our friend standing there." (Petritsky mimicked how
he was standing with the helmet.) "The Grand Duchess asked him to give
her the helmet; he doesn't give it to her. What do you think of that? Well,
every one's winking at him, nodding, frowning--give it to her, do! He
doesn't give it to her. He's mute as a fish. Only picture it!... Well,
the...what's his name, whatever he was...tries to take the helmet from
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him...he won't give it up!... He pulls it from him, and hands it to the Grand
Duchess. 'Here, your Highness,' says he, 'is the new helmet.' She turned the
helmet the other side up, And--just picture it!--plop went a pear and
sweetmeats out of it, two pounds of sweetmeats!...He'd been storing them
up, the darling!"
Vronsky burst into roars of laughter. And long afterwards, when he was
talking of other things, he broke out into his healthy laugh, showing his
strong, close rows of teeth, when he thought of the helmet.
Having heard all the news, Vronsky, with the assistance of his valet, got
into his uniform, and went off to report himself. He intended, when he had
done that, to drive to his brother's and to Betsy's and to pay several visits
with a view to beginning to go into that society where he might meet
Madame Karenina. As he always did in Petersburg, he left home not
meaning to return till late at night.