Part One: Chapter 34

by Leo Tolstoy

　　When Vronsky went to Moscow from Petersburg, he had left hislarge set of rooms in Morskaia to his friend and favorite comradePetritsky.

　　Petritsky was a young lieutenant, not particularlywell-connected, and not merely not wealthy, but always hopelesslyin debt. Towards evening he was always drunk, and he had oftenbeen locked up after all sorts of ludicrous and disgracefulscandals, but he was a favorite both of his comrades and hissuperior officers. On arriving at twelve o'clock from thestation at his flat, Vronsky saw, at the outer door, a hiredcarriage familiar to him. While still outside his own door, ashe rang, he heard masculine laughter, the lisp of a femininevoice, 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, afriend 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 tablemaking coffee. Petritsky, in his overcoat, and the cavalrycaptain Kamerovsky, in full uniform, probably just come fromduty, were sitting each side of her.

　　"Bravo! Vronsky!" shouted Petritsky, jumping up, scraping hischair. "Our host himself! Baroness, some coffee for him out ofthe new coffee pot. Why, we didn't expect you! Hope you'resatisfied with the ornament of your study," he said, indicatingthe baroness. "You know each other, of course?"

　　"I should think so," said Vronsky, with a bright smile, pressingthe 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 doyou do, Kamerovsky?" he added, coldly shaking hands withKamerovsky.

　　"There, you never know how to say such pretty things," said thebaroness, 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 makeyou some coffee, so go and wash and get ready," said thebaroness, sitting down again, and anxiously turning the screw inthe new coffee pot. "Pierre, give me the coffee," she said,addressing Petritsky, whom she called as a contraction of hissurname, making no secret of her relations with him. "I'll putit in."

　　"You'll spoil it!"

　　"No, I won't spoil it! Well, and your wife?" said the baronesssuddenly, 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 shalldie."

　　"So much the better, so much the better. Shake hands on it."

　　And the baroness, detaining Vronsky, began telling him, with manyjokes, about her last new plans of life, asking his advice.

　　"He persists in refusing to give me a divorce! Well, what am Ito do?" (he was her husband.) "Now I want to begin a suitagainst him. What do you advise? Kamerovsky, look after thecoffee; it's boiling over. You see, I'm engrossed with business!I want a lawsuit, because I must have my property. Do youunderstand the folly of it, that on the pretext of my beingunfaithful to him," she said contemptuously, "he wants to get thebenefit of my fortune."

　　Vronsky heard with pleasure this light-hearted prattle of apretty woman, agreed with her, gave her half-joking counsel, andaltogether dropped at once into the tone habitual to him intalking to such women. In his Petersburg world all people weredivided into utterly opposed classes. One, the lower class,vulgar, stupid, and, above all, ridiculous people, who believethat one husband ought to live with the one wife whom he haslawfully married; that a girl should be innocent, a woman modest,and a man manly, self-controlled, and strong; that one ought tobring up one's children, earn one's bread, and pay one's debts;and various similar absurdities. This was the class ofold-fashioned and ridiculous people. But there was another classof people, the real people. To this class they all belonged, andin it the great thing was to be elegant, generous, plucky, gay,to abandon oneself without a blush to every passion, and to laughat everything else.

　　For the first moment only, Vronsky was startled after theimpression of a quite different world that he had brought withhim from Moscow. But immediately as though slipping his feetinto 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 acostly rug and the baroness's gown.

　　"Well now, good-bye, or you'll never get washed, and I shall haveon my conscience the worst sin a gentleman can commit. So youwould advise a knife to his throat?"

　　"To be sure, and manage that your hand may not be far from hislips. He'll kiss your hand, and all will end satisfactorily,"answered Vronsky.

　　"So at the Francais!" and, with a rustle of her skirts, shevanished.

　　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 briefoutlines his position, as far as it had changed since Vronsky hadleft Petersburg. No money at all. His father said he wouldn'tgive him any and pay his debts. His tailor was trying to get himlocked up, and another fellow, too, was threatening to get himlocked up. The colonel of the regiment had announced that ifthese scandals did not cease he would have to leave. As for thebaroness, he was sick to death of her, especially since she'dtaken to offering continually to lend him money. But he hadfound a girl--he'd show her to Vronsky--a marvel, exquisite, inthe strict Oriental style, "genre of the slave Rebecca, don'tyou know." He'd had a row, too, with Berkoshov, and was going tosend seconds to him, but of course it would come to nothing.Altogether everything was supremely amusing and jolly. And, notletting his comrade enter into further details of his position,Petritsky proceeded to tell him all the interesting news. As helistened to Petritsky's familiar stories in the familiar settingof the rooms he had spent the last three years in, Vronsky felt adelightful sense of coming back to the careless Petersburg lifethat he was used to.

　　"Impossible!" he cried, letting down the pedal of the washingbasin in which he had been sousing his healthy red neck."Impossible!" he cried, at the news that Laura had flung overFertinghof and had made up to Mileev. "And is he as stupid andpleased as ever? Well, and how's Buzulukov?"

　　"Oh, there is a tale about Buzulukov--simply lovely!" criedPetritsky. "You know his weakness for balls, and he never missesa single court ball. He went to a big ball in a new helmet.Have you seen the new helmets? Very nice, lighter. Well, sohe's standing.... No, I say, do listen."

　　"I am listening," answered Vronsky, rubbing himself with a roughtowel.

　　"Up comes the Grand Duchess with some ambassador or other, and,as ill-luck would have it, she begins talking to him about thenew helmets. The Grand Duchess positively wanted to show the newhelmet to the ambassador. They see our friend standing there."(Petritsky mimicked how he was standing with the helmet.) "TheGrand Duchess asked him to give her the helmet; he doesn't giveit to her. What do you think of that? Well, every one's winkingat him, nodding, frowning--give it to her, do! He doesn't giveit to her. He's mute as a fish. Only picture it!... Well,the...what's his name, whatever he was...tries to take the helmetfrom him...he won't give it up!... He pulls it from him, andhands 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, thedarling!"

　　Vronsky burst into roars of laughter. And long afterwards, whenhe was talking of other things, he broke out into his healthylaugh, showing his strong, close rows of teeth, when he thoughtof the helmet.

　　Having heard all the news, Vronsky, with the assistance of hisvalet, got into his uniform, and went off to report himself. Heintended, when he had done that, to drive to his brother's and toBetsy's and to pay several visits with a view to beginning to gointo that society where he might meet Madame Karenina. As healways did in Petersburg, he left home not meaning to return tilllate at night.