Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Three/Chapter 18
CHAPTER XVIII
Steps were heard, and a man's voice, then a woman's voice and laughter, and immediately after the expected guests came in: Safo Stoltz, and a young man called Vaska, whose face shone with exuberant health. It was evident that rich blood-making beef, burgundy, and truffles had accomplished their work. Vaska bowed to the two ladies and glanced at them, but only for a second. He followed Safo into the drawing-room, and he followed her through the drawing-room, as if he had been tied to her, and he kept his brilliant eyes fastened on her as if he wished to devour her. Safo Stoltz was a blond with black eyes. She wore shoes with enormously high heels, and she came in with slow, vigorous steps, and shook hands with the ladies energetically, like a man.
Anna had never before met with this new celebrity, and was struck, not only by her beauty, but by the extravagance of her toilet and the boldness of her manners. On her head was a veritable scaffolding of false and natural hair of a lovely golden hue, and of a height corresponding to the mighty proportions of her protuberant and very visible bosom. Her dress was so tightly pulled back, that at every movement it outlined the shape of her knees and thighs; and involuntarily the question arose: Where, under this enormous, tottering mountain, did her neat little body, so exposed above, and so tightly laced below, really end?
Betsy made haste to introduce her to Anna.
"Can you imagine it? We almost ran over two soldiers," she instantly began to relate, winking, smiling, and kicking back her train, which she in turn threw too far over to the other side. "I was coming with Vaska .... oh, yes! You are not acquainted." And she introduced the young man by his family name, laughing heartily at her mistake in calling him Vaska before strangers. Vaska bowed a second time to Anna, but said nothing to her. He turned to Safo.
"The wager is lost. We came first," said he, smiling. "You must pay."
Safo laughed still more gayly.
"Not now, though," said she.
"All right; I'll take it by and by."
"Very well, very well! Oh, by the way!" she suddenly cried out to the hostess. "I .... forgot ....stupid that I was! I bring you a guest; here he is."
The young guest whom Safo presented, after having forgotten him, was a guest of such importance that, not-withstanding his youth, all the ladies rose to receive him.
This was Safo's new adorer; and, just as Vaska did, he followed her every step.
Immediately after came Prince Kaluzhsky and Liza Merkalof with Stremof. Liza was a rather thin brunette, with an Oriental, indolent type of countenance, and with ravishing, and as everybody said, inscrutable eyes. The style of her dark dress was absolutely in keeping with her beauty. Anna noticed it, and approved. Liza was as quiet and unpretentious as Safo was loud and obstreperous.
But Liza, for Anna's taste, was vastly more attractive. Betsy, in speaking of her to Anna, had ridiculed her affectation of the manner of an innocent child; but when Anna saw her, she felt that this was not fair. Liza was really an innocent, gentle, and irresponsible woman, a little spoiled. To be sure, her morals were the same as Safo's. She also had in her train, as if sewed to her, two adorers, one young, the other old, who devoured her with their eyes. But there was something about her better than her surroundings; she was like a diamond of the purest water surrounded by glass. The brilliancy shone out of her lovely, enigmatical eyes. The wearied and yet passionate look of her eyes, surrounded by dark circles, struck one by its absolute sincerity. Any one looking into their depths would think that he knew her completely; and to know her was to love her. At the sight of Anna, her whole face suddenly lighted up with a happy smile.
"Oh! How glad I am to see you!" she said, as she went up to her. "Yesterday afternoon at the races I wanted to get to you, but you had just gone. I was so anxious to see you yesterday especially! Too bad, was n't it?" Said she, gazing at Anna with a look which seemed to disclose her whole soul.
"Yes! I never would have believed that anything could be so exciting," replied Anna, with some color.
The company now began to get ready to go to the lawn.
"I am not going," said Liza, sitting down near Anna, "You are n't going, are you? What pleasure can any one find in croquet?"
"But I am very fond of it," said Anna.
"There! how is it that you don't get ennuyée? To look at you is a joy. You live, but I vegetate."
"How vegetate? Why! they say you have the gayest society in Petersburg," said Anna.
"Perhaps those who are not of our circle are still more ennuyée. But we, it seems to me, are not happy, but are bored, terribly bored."
Safo lighted a cigarette, and went to the lawn with the two young men. Betsy and Stremof stayed at the tea-table.
"How bored?" asked Betsy. "Safo says she had a delightful evening with you yesterday."
"Oh! how unendurable it was!" said Liza. "They all came to my house with me after the races, and it was all so utterly monotonous. It is forever one and the same thing. They sat on the divans the whole evening. How could that be delightful? No; but what do you do to keep from being bored?" she asked again of Anna. "It is enough to look at you! You are evidently a woman who can be happy or unhappy, but never ennuyée. Now explain what you do."
"I don't do anything," said Anna, confused by such a stream of questions.
"That is the best way," said Stremof, joining the conversation.
Stremof was a man fifty years old, rather gray, but well preserved, very ugly, but with a face full of character and intelligence. Liza Merkalof was his wife's niece, and he spent with her all his leisure time. Though he was an employee in the service of Alekseï Aleksandrovitch's political enemies, he endeavored, now that he met Anna in society, to act the man of the world, and be exceedingly amiable to his enemy's wife.
"The very best way is to do nothing," he continued, with his wise smile. "I have been telling you this long time," turning to Liza Merkalof, "that, if you don't want to be bored, you must not think that it is possible to be bored; just as one must not be afraid of not sleeping if he is troubled with insomnia. This is just what Anna Arkadyevna told you."
"I should be very glad if I had said so," said Anna, "because it is not only clever, it is true."
"But will you tell me why it is not hard to go to sleep, and not hard to be free from ennui?"
"To sleep, you must work; and to be happy, you must also work."
"But how can I work when my labor is useful to no one? But to make believe,—I neither can nor will."
"You are incorrigible," sajd he, not looking at her, but turning to Anna again. He rarely met her, and could not well speak to her except in the way of small talk; but he understood how to say light things gracefully, and he asked her when she was going back to Petersburg, and whether she liked the Countess Lidya Ivanovna. And he asked these questions in a manner which showed his desire to be her friend, and to express his consideration and respect.
Tushkievitch came in just then and explained that the whole company was waiting for the croquet players.
"No, don't go, I beg of you," said Liza, when she found that Anna was not intending to stay. Stremof added his persuasions.
"It is too great a contrast," said he, "between our society and old Vrede's; and then, you will be for her only an object for slander, while here you will only awaken very different sentiments, quite the opposite of slander and ill-feeling."
Anna remained for a moment in uncertainty. This witty man's flattering words, the childlike and naive sympathy shown her by Liza Merkalof, and all this agreeable social atmosphere, so opposed to what she expected elsewhere, caused her a moment of hesitation. Could she not postpone the terrible moment of explanation? But remembering what she had to expect alone at home if she should not come to some decision, remembering the pain that she had felt when she pulled her hair with both hands, not knowing what she did, so great was her mental anguish, she took leave, and went.