Anna Karenina (Penguin) - Leo Tolstoy [219]
‘Yes, please do come,’ said Dolly, ‘we’ll expect you at five, six if you like. Well, how is my dear Anna? It’s so long since ...’
‘She’s well,’ Alexei Alexandrovich mumbled, frowning. ‘Very glad to see you!’ and he made for his carriage.
‘Will you come?’ Dolly called out.
Alexei Alexandrovich said something that Dolly could not make out in the noise of moving carriages.
‘I’ll drop in tomorrow!’ Stepan Arkadyich called to him.
Alexei Alexandrovich got into his carriage and sank deep inside, so as not to see or be seen.
‘An odd bird!’ Stepan Arkadyich said to his wife and, looking at his watch, made a gesture in front of his face signifying love for his wife and children, and went off jauntily down the pavement.
‘Stiva! Stiva!’ Dolly called out, blushing.
He turned.
‘I have to buy coats for Grisha and Tanya. Give me some money!’
‘Never mind. Tell them I’ll pay,’ and he disappeared, nodding gaily to an acquaintance driving by.
VII
The next day was Sunday. Stepan Arkadyich called in on the ballet rehearsal at the Bolshoi Theatre and gave Masha Chibisova, a pretty dancer, newly signed on through his patronage, the coral necklace he had promised her the day before and, backstage, in the theatre’s daytime darkness, managed to kiss her pretty face, brightened by the gift. Besides giving her the coral necklace, he had to arrange to meet her after the performance. Explaining to her that he could not be there for the beginning of the ballet, he promised to come by the last act and take her to supper. From the theatre Stepan Arkadyich went to the Okhotny Market, personally selected the fish and asparagus for dinner, and by noon was already at the Dussot, where he had to see three people who, fortunately for him, were staying at the same hotel: Levin, who was staying there after recently returning from abroad; his newly appointed superior, who had just taken over that high position and was inspecting Moscow; and his brother-in-law Karenin, to bring him to dinner without fail.
Stepan Arkadyich loved dining, but still more he loved giving a dinner, not a big dinner, but a refined one as to the food, the drinks and the selection of guests. The programme for today’s dinner was very much to his liking: there would be live perch, asparagus and la pièce de résistance - a superb but simple roast beef - and the appropriate wines. So much for the food and drink. And as guests there would be Kitty and Levin, and, to make it less conspicuous, another girl cousin and the young Shcherbatsky, and la pièce de résistance among the guests - Sergei Koznyshev and Alexei Alexandrovich - Muscovite philosopher and Petersburg politician. And he would also invite the well-known eccentric and enthusiast Pestsov, a liberal, a talker, a musician, a historian, and the dearest fifty-year-old boy, who would be like the gravy or garnish for Koznyshev and Karenin. He would rile them up and set them on each other.
The second instalment of the merchant’s money for the wood had been received and was not yet all spent, Dolly had been very sweet and kind lately, and the thought of the dinner gladdened Stepan Arkadyich in all respects. He was in the merriest state of mind. There were two slightly unpleasant circumstances, but they both drowned in the sea of good-natured merriment that surged in his soul. These two circumstances were: first, that yesterday, when he met Alexei Alexandrovich in the street, he noticed that he was dry and stern with him, and, putting together the look on Alexei Alexandrovich’s face, plus the fact that he had not called on them and had not let them know he was there, with the talk he had heard about Anna and Vronsky, Stepan Arkadyich guessed that something was wrong between the husband and wife.
That was one unpleasantness. The other slight unpleasantness was that his new superior, like all new superiors, already had the reputation of being a terrible man, who got up at six o‘clock in