Part Two: Chapter 6

by Leo Tolstoy

　　Princess Betsy drove home from the theater, without waiting forthe end of the last act. She had only just time to go into herdressing room, sprinkle her long, pale face with powder, rub it,set her dress to rights, and order tea in the big drawing room,when one after another carriages drove up to her huge house inBolshaia Morskaia. Her guests stepped out at the wide entrance,and the stout porter, who used to read the newspapers in themornings behind the glass door, to the edification of thepassers-by, noiselessly opened the immense door, letting thevisitors pass by him into the house.

　　Almost at the same instant the hostess, with freshly arrangedcoiffure and freshened face, walked in at one door and her guestsat the other door of the drawing room, a large room with darkwalls, downy rugs, and a brightly lighted table, gleaming withthe light of candles, white cloth, silver samovar, andtransparent china tea things.

　　The hostess sat down at the table and took off her gloves.Chairs were set with the aid of footmen, moving almostimperceptibly about the room; the party settled itself, dividedinto two groups: one round the samovar near the hostess, theother at the opposite end of the drawing room, round the handsomewife of an ambassador, in black velvet, with sharply definedblack eyebrows. In both groups conversation wavered, as italways does, for the first few minutes, broken up by meetings,greetings, offers of tea, and as it were, feeling about forsomething to rest upon.

　　"She's exceptionally good as an actress; one can see she'sstudied Kaulbach," said a diplomatic attache in the group roundthe ambassador's wife. "Did you notice how she fell down?..."

　　"Oh, please ,don't let us talk about Nilsson! No one canpossibly say anything new about her," said a fat, red-faced,flaxen-headed lady, without eyebrows and chignon, wearing an oldsilk dress. This was Princess Myakaya, noted for her simplicityand the roughness of her manners, and nicknamed enfant terrible.Princess Myakaya, sitting in the middle between the two groups,and listening to both, took part in the conversation first of oneand then of the other. "Three people have used that very phraseabout Kaulbach to me today already, just as though they had madea compact about it. And I can't see why they liked that remarkso."

　　The conversation was cut short by this observation, and a newsubject had to be thought of again.

　　"Do tell me something amusing but not spiteful," said theambassador's wife, a great proficient in the art of that elegantconversation called by the English, small talk. She addressedthe attache, who was at a loss now what to begin upon.

　　"They say that that's a difficult task, that nothing's amusingthat isn't spiteful," he began with a smile. "But I'll try. Getme a subject. It all lies in the subject. If a subject's givenme, it's easy to spin something round it. I often think that thecelebrated talkers of the last century would have found itdifficult to talk cleverly now. Everything clever is sostale..."

　　"That has been said long ago," the ambassador's wife interruptedhim, laughing.

　　The conversation began amiably, but just because it was tooamiable, it came to a stop again. They had to have recourse tothe sure, never-failing topic--gossip.

　　"Don't you think there's something Louis Quinze aboutTushkevitch?" he said, glancing towards a handsome, fair-hairedyoung man, standing at the table.

　　"Oh, yes! He's in the same style as the drawing room and that'swhy it is he's so often here."

　　This conversation was maintained, since it rested on allusions towhat could not be talked on in that room--that is to say, of therelations of Tushkevitch with their hostess.

　　Round the samovar and the hostess the conversation had beenmeanwhile vacillating in just the same way between threeinevitable topics: the latest piece of public news, thetheater, and scandal. It, too, came finally to rest on the lasttopic, that is, ill-natured gossip.

　　"Have you heard the Maltishtcheva woman--the mother, not thedaughter--has ordered a costume in diable rose color?"

　　"Nonsense! No, that's too lovely!"

　　"I wonder that with her sense--for she's not a fool, you know--that she doesn't see how funny she is."

　　Everyone had something to say in censure or ridicule of theluckless Madame Maltishtcheva, and the conversation crackledmerrily, like a burning faggot-stack.

　　The husband of Princess Betsy, a good-natured fat man, an ardentcollector of engravings, hearing that his wife had visitors, cameinto the drawing room before going to his club. Steppingnoiselessly over the thick rugs, he went up to Princess Myakaya.

　　"How did you like Nilsson?" he asked.

　　"Oh, how can you steal upon anyone like that! How you startledme!" she responded. "Please don't talk to me about the opera;you know nothing about music. I'd better meet you on your ownground, and talk about your majolica and engravings. Come now,what treasure have yo been buying lately at the old curiosityshops?"

　　"Would you like me to show you? But you don't understand suchthings."

　　"Oh, do show me! I've been learning about them at those--what'stheir names?...the bankers...they've some splendid engravings.They showed them to us."

　　"Why, have you been at the Schuetzburgs?" asked the hostess fromthe samovar.

　　"Yes, ma chere. They asked my husband and me to dinner, and toldus the sauce at that dinner cost a hundred pounds," PrincessMyakaya said, speaking loudly, and conscious everyone waslistening; "and very nasty sauce it was, some green mess. We hadto ask them, and I made them sauce for eighteen pence, andeverybody was very much pleased with it. I can't run tohundred-pound sauces."

　　"She's unique!" said the lady of the house.

　　"Marvelous!" said someone.

　　The sensation produced by Princess Myakaya's speeches was alwaysunique, and the secret of the sensation she produced lay in thefact that though she spoke not always appropriately, as now, shesaid simple things with some sense in them. In the society inwhich she lived such plain statements produced the effect of thewittiest epigram. Princess Myakaya could never see why it hadthat effect, but she knew it had, and took advantage of it.

　　As everyone had been listening while Princess Myakaya spoke, andso the conversation around the ambassador's wife had dropped,Princess Betsy tried to bring the whole party together, andturned to the ambassador's wife.

　　"Will you really not have tea? You should come over here by us."

　　"No, we're very happy here," the ambassador's wife responded witha smile, and she went on with the conversation that had beenbegun.

　　"It was a very agreeable conversation. They were criticizing theKarenins, husband and wife.

　　"Anna is quite changed since her stay in Moscow. There'ssomething strange about her," said her friend.

　　"The great change is that she brought back with her the shadow ofAlexey Vronsky," said the ambassador's wife.

　　"Well, what of it? There's a fable of Grimm's about a manwithout a shadow, a man who's lost his shadow. And that's hispunishment for something. I never could understand how it was apunishment. But a woman must dislike being without a shadow."

　　"Yes, but women with a shadow usually come to a bad end," saidAnna's friend.

　　"Bad luck to your tongue!" said Princess Myakaya suddenly."Madame Karenina's a splendid woman. I don't like her husband,but I like her very much."

　　"Why don't you like her husband? He's such a remarkable man,"said the ambassador's wife. "My husband says there are fewstatesmen like him in Europe."

　　"And my husband tells me just the same, but I don't believe it,"said Princess Myakaya. "If our husbands didn't talk to us, weshould see the facts as they are. Alexey Alexandrovitch, to mythinking, is simply a fool. I say it in a whisper...but doesn'tit really make everything clear? Before, when I was told toconsider him clever, I kept looking for his ability, and thoughtmyself a fool for not seeing it; but directly I said, he a fool,though only in a whisper, everything's explained, isn't it?"

　　"How spiteful you are today!"

　　"Not a bit. I'd no other way out of it. One of the two had tobe a fool. And, well, you know one can't say that of oneself."

　　"'No one is satisfied with his fortune, and everyone issatisfied with his wit.'" The attache repeated the Frenchsaying.

　　"That's just it, just it," Princess Myakaya turned to him. "Butthe point is that I won't abandon Anna to your mercies. She's sonice, so charming. How can she help it if they're all in lovewith her, and follow her about like shadows?"

　　"Oh, I had no idea of blaming her for it," Anna's friend said inself-defense.

　　"If no one follows us about like a shadow, that's no proof thatwe've any right to blame her."

　　And having duly disposed of Anna's friend, the Princess Myakayagot up, and together with the ambassador's wife, joined the groupat the table, where the conversation was dealing with the king ofPrussia.

　　"What wicked gossip were you talking over there?" asked Betsy.

　　"About the Karenins. The princess gave us a sketch of AlexeyAlexandrovitch," said the ambassador's wife with a smile, as shesat down at the table.

　　"Pity we didn't hear it!" said Princess Betsy, glancing towardsthe door. "Ah, here you are at last!" she said, turning with asmile to Vronsky, as he came in.

　　Vronsky was not merely acquainted with all the persons whom hewas meeting here; he saw them all every day; and so he came inwith the quiet manner with which one enters a room full of peoplefrom whom one has only just parted.

　　"Where do I come from?" he said, in answer to a question from theambassador's wife. "Well, there's no help for it, I mustconfess. From the opera bouffe. I do believe I've seen it ahundred times, and always with fresh enjoyment. It's exquisite!I know it's disgraceful, but I go to sleep at the opera, and Isit out the opera bouffe to the last minute, and enjoy it. Thisevening..."

　　He mentioned a French actress, and was going to tell somethingabout her; but the ambassador's wife, with playful horror, cuthim short.

　　"Please don't tell us about that horror."

　　"All right, I won't especially as everyone knows those horrors."

　　"And we should all go to see them if it were accepted as thecorrect thing, like the opera," chimed in Princess Myakaya.