Anna Karenina (Penguin) - Leo Tolstoy [174]
‘The courier is asking for the reply,’ the footman reported.
‘Reply? Yes,’ said Anna, ‘have him wait. I’ll ring.’
‘What can I write?’ she thought. ‘What can I decide alone? What do I know? What do I want? What do I love?’ Again she felt that things had begun to go double in her soul. She became frightened at this feeling and seized on the first pretext for action that came to her, to distract her from thoughts of herself. ‘I must see Alexei’ (so she called Vronsky in her mind), ‘he alone can tell me what I must do. I’ll go to Betsy: maybe I’ll see him there,’ she said to herself, completely forgetting that just yesterday, when she had told him that she would not go to Princess Tverskoy’s, he had said that in that case he would not go either. She went to the table, wrote to her husband: ‘I have received your letter. A.’ - rang and handed it to the footman.
‘We’re not going,’ she said to Annushka as she came in.
‘Not going at all?’
‘No, don’t unpack until tomorrow, and hold the carriage. I’m going to see the princess.’
‘What dress shall I prepare?’
XVII
The company at the croquet party to which Princess Tverskoy had invited Anna was to consist of two ladies with their admirers. These two ladies were the chief representatives of a select new Petersburg circle which, in imitation of an imitation of something, was called Les sept merveilles du monde.u16 These ladies belonged to a high circle, true, but one totally hostile to the one frequented by Anna. Besides, old Stremov, one of the influential people of Petersburg, the admirer of Liza Merkalov, was Alexei Alexandrovich’s enemy in the service. Because of all these considerations, Anna had not wished to go, and it was to this refusal that the hints in Princess Tverskoy’s note had referred. But now, in hopes of seeing Vronsky, she wanted to go.
Anna arrived at Princess Tverskoy’s earlier than the other guests.
Just as she came in, Vronsky’s footman, resembling a kammerjunker with his brushed-up side-whiskers, also came in. He stopped by the door and, taking off his cap, allowed her to pass. Anna recognized him and only then remembered Vronsky’s saying the day before that he would not come. Probably he had sent a note to that effect.
As she was taking off her coat in the front hall, she heard the footman, even pronouncing his rs like a kammerjunker, say: ‘From the count to the princess,’ and hand over a note.
She would have liked to ask where his master was. She would have liked to go home and send him a letter that he should come to her, or to go to him herself. But neither the one, nor the other, nor the third was possible: the bells announcing her arrival were already ringing ahead of her, and Princess Tverskoy’s footman was already standing sideways in the opened door, waiting for her to pass into the inner rooms.
‘The princess is in the garden, you will be announced presently. Would you care to go to the garden?’ another footman in another room asked.
The situation of indecision, of uncertainty, was the same as at home; still worse, because it was impossible to do anything, impossible to see Vronsky, and she had to stay here in an alien society so contrary to her mood; but she was wearing a costume that she knew became her; she was not alone, around her were the customary festive surroundings of idleness, and that made it easier for her than at home. She did not need to invent something to do; everything was being done by itself. Meeting Betsy coming towards her in a white gown that struck her with its elegance, Anna smiled at her as always. Princess Tverskoy was walking with Tushkevich and a young lady relation who, to the great delight of her provincial parents, was spending the summer with the famous princess.
Probably there was something special in Anna, because Betsy noticed it at once.
‘I slept badly,’ Anna replied, studying the footman who was coming towards them and, she supposed, bringing Vronsky’s note.
‘I’m so glad you’ve come,’ said Betsy. ‘I’m tired and just wanted to have a cup of tea before they