Anna Karenina (Penguin) - Leo Tolstoy [73]
‘It can’t be!’ he cried, releasing the pedal of the washstand from which water poured over his robust red neck. ‘It can’t be!’ he cried at the news that Laura was now with Mileev and had dropped Fertinhoff. ‘And he’s still just as stupid and content? Well, and what about Buzulukov?’
‘Ah, there was a story with Buzulukov - lovely!’ cried Petritsky. ‘He has this passion for balls, and he never misses a single court ball. So he went to a big ball in a new helmet. Have you seen the new helmets? Very good, much lighter. There he stands ... No, listen.’
‘I am listening,’ Vronsky replied, rubbing himself with a Turkish towel.
‘The grand duchess passes by with some ambassador, and, as luck would have it, they begin talking about the new helmets. So the grand duchess wants to show him a new helmet ... They see our dear fellow standing there.’ (Petritsky showed how he was standing there with his helmet.) ‘The grand duchess tells him to hand her the helmet - he won’t do it. What’s the matter? They wink at him, nod, frown. Hand it over. He won’t. He freezes. Can you imagine? ... Then that one ... what’s his name ... wants to take the helmet from him ... he won’t let go! ... He tears it away, hands it to the grand duchess. “Here’s the new helmet,” says the grand duchess. She turns it over and, can you imagine, out of it - bang! - falls a pear and some sweets - two pounds of sweets! ... He had it all stashed away, the dear fellow!’
Vronsky rocked with laughter. And for a long time afterwards, talking about other things, he would go off into his robust laughter, exposing a solid row of strong teeth, when he remembered about the helmet.
Having learned all the news, Vronsky, with the help of his footman, put on his uniform and went to report. After reporting, he intended to call on his brother, then on Betsy, and then to pay several visits, so that he could begin to appear in the society where he might meet Anna. As always in Petersburg, he left home not to return till late at night.
Part Two
I
At the end of winter a consultation took place in the Shcherbatsky home, which was to decide on the state of Kitty’s health and what must be undertaken to restore her failing strength. She was ill, and as spring approached her health was growing worse. The family doctor gave her cod-liver oil, then iron, then common caustic, but as neither the one nor the other nor the third was of any help, and as he advised going abroad for the spring, a famous doctor was called in. The famous doctor, not yet old and quite a handsome man, asked to examine the patient. With particular pleasure, it seemed, he insisted that maidenly modesty was merely a relic of barbarism and that nothing was more natural than for a not-yet-old man to palpate a naked young girl. He found it natural because he did it every day and never, as it seemed to him, felt or thought anything bad, and therefore he regarded modesty in a girl not only as a relic of barbarism but also as an affront to himself.
They had to submit, because, though all doctors studied in the same school, from the same books, and knew the same science, and though some said that this famous doctor was a bad doctor, in the princess’s home and in her circle it was for some reason acknowledged that he alone knew something special and he alone could save Kitty. After a careful examination and sounding of the patient, who was bewildered and stunned with shame, the famous doctor, having diligently washed his hands, was standing in the drawing room and talking with the prince. The prince frowned and kept coughing as he listened to the doctor. He, as a man who had seen life and was neither stupid nor sick, did not believe in medicine, and in his soul he was angry at this whole comedy, the more so in that he was almost