Anna Karenina (Penguin) - Leo Tolstoy [363]
‘American methods,’ Sviyazhsky said, smiling.
‘Yes, sir, building’s done rationally there ...’
The conversation turned to government abuses in the United States, but Anna immediately turned it to a different subject, so as to draw the steward out of his silence.
‘Have you ever seen these harvesting machines?’ She turned to Darya Alexandrovna. ‘We were coming from looking at them when we met you. It was the first time I’d seen them myself.’
‘How do they work?’ asked Dolly.
‘Just like scissors. A board and a lot of little scissors. Like this.’
Anna took a knife and fork in her beautiful, white, ring-adorned hands and began to demonstrate. She obviously could see that her explanation would not make anything understood, but, knowing that her speech was pleasant and her hands were beautiful, she went on explaining.
‘Rather like penknives,’ Veslovsky said playfully, never taking his eyes off her.
Anna gave a barely noticeable smile, but did not reply to him.
‘Isn’t it just like scissors, Karl Fedorych?’ She turned to the steward.
‘Oh, ja,’ the German answered. ‘Es ist ein ganz einfaches Ding,’cf and he began explaining the construction of the machine.
‘Too bad it doesn’t bind. I saw one at an exhibition in Vienna that binds with wire,’ said Sviyazhsky. ‘They’d be more profitable.’
‘Es kommt drauf an... Der Preis vom Draht muss ausgerechnet werden.’cg And the German, roused from his silence, addressed Vronsky: ‘Das lässt sich ausrechnen, Erlaucht.’ch The German was about to go to his pocket, where he had a pencil in a little notebook in which he calculated everything, but, remembering that he was sitting at dinner and noticing Vronsky’s cold gaze, he checked himself. ‘Zu kompliziert, macht zu viel Troubles,’ci he concluded.
‘Wunscbt man Roubles, so hat man auch Troubies,’cj said Vasenka Veslovsky, teasing the German. ‘J’adore l‘allemand.’ck He turned to Anna again with the same smile.
‘Cessez,’cl she said to him with mock severity.
‘And we hoped to find you in the fields, Vassily Semyonych,’ she turned to the doctor, a sickly man. ‘Were you there?’
‘I was, but I evaporated,’ the doctor replied with gloomy jocularity.
‘So you got some good exercise?’
‘Magnificent!’
‘Well, and how’s the old woman’s health? I hope it’s not typhus.’
‘Typhus or no, her condition is not of the most advantageous.’
‘What a pity!’ said Anna, and having granted due courtesy to the people of the household, she turned to her own friends.
‘But still, it would be difficult to build a machine from your description, Anna Arkadyevna,’ Sviyazhsky said jokingly.
‘No, why?’ Anna replied with a smile which said that she knew there had been something endearing in the way she had explained the construction of the machine, something Sviyazhsky had noticed as well. This new feature of youthful coquetry struck Dolly unpleasantly.
‘On the other hand, Anna Arkadyevna’s knowledge of architecture is amazing,’ said Tushkevich.
‘That it is! Yesterday I heard Anna Arkadyevna say “in strobilus” and “plinths”,’ said Veslovsky. ‘Am I saying it right?’
‘There’s nothing amazing about it when one has seen and heard so much,’ said Anna. ‘And you probably don’t even know what houses are made of!’
Darya Alexandrovna saw that Anna was displeased with that playful tone between her and Veslovsky but involuntarily fell into it herself.
Vronsky in this case acted not at all like Levin. He obviously did not attach any significance to Veslovsky’s chatter and, on the contrary, encouraged these jokes.
‘So, tell us, Veslovsky, what holds the bricks together?’
‘Cement, naturally.’
‘Bravo! And what is cement?’
‘Just some sort of paste ... no, putty,’ said Veslovsky, provoking general laughter.
The conversation among the diners, except for the doctor, the architect, and the steward, who were sunk in gloomy