Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Five/Chapter 32
CHAPTER XXXII
When Vronsky came back to the hotel, Anna was not there. They told him that she had gone out with a lady who came to call on her. The fact that she had gone out without having left word where, a thing which she had not done before, the fact that she had also gone somewhere in the morning without telling him,—all this coupled with the strange expression of excitement on her face that morning, the manner and the harsh tone with which she had snatched away her son's photographs from him before Yashvin, made Vronsky wonder. He made up his mind to ask for an explanation, and waited in the drawing-room for her return. Anna did not come back alone; she brought with her an old maiden aunt, the Princess Oblonskaya. She was the lady who had come in the morning, and with whom she had been shopping.
Anna pretended not to notice the expression of Vronsky's face and his uneasy, questioning manner, and began to talk gayly about the purchases she had made in the morning. He saw that something unusual was the matter: in her shining eyes, as they flashed their lightning on him, there was evidence of mental strain; and in her speech and movements there was that nervous alertness and grace which in the first epoch of their relationship had so captivated him, but now they troubled and alarmed him.
The table was laid for four, and, just as they were going to sit down in the little dining-room, Tuskievitch came from the Princess Betsy with a message for Anna.
The Princess Betsy sent her excuses for not coming in person to say good-by to her. She was not well, and asked Anna to come to see her between half-past seven and nine o'clock.
Vronsky looked at Anna as if he would draw her attention to the fact that in naming a time she had taken precautions against her meeting any one; but Anna did not seem to pay any attention to it.
"I am very sorry, but just between half-past seven and nine I shall not be at liberty," she said, with a slight smile.
"The princess will be very much disappointed."
"So shall I."
"I suppose you are going to hear Patti," said Tushkievitch.
"Patti? You give me an idea. I would go certainly, if I could get a loge."
"I can get you one," suggested Tushkievitch.
"I should be very much obliged to you," said Anna; "but won't you dine with us?"
Vronsky shrugged his shoulders slightly; he did not know what to make of Anna. Why had she brought home the old princess, why was she keeping Tushkievitch to dinner, and, above all, why did she let him get her a box? Was it to be thought of for a moment that she, in her position, could go to the opera on a Patti subscription night, when she would meet all her acquaintances there? He looked at her seriously, but she responded with a half-despairing, half-mocking look, the meaning of which he could not understand.
All through dinner Anna was aggressively lively, and seemed to flirt both with Tushkievitch and with Yashvin. When they rose from the table, Tushkievitch went to secure a box, but Yashvin was going to smoke and Vronsky took him down to his own room; after some time Vronsky came up-stairs again. Anna was already dressed in a light silk gown bought in Paris. It was trimmed with velvet and had an open front. On her head she wore costly white lace, which set off to advantage the striking beauty of her face.
"Are you really going to the theater?" he asked, trying to avoid looking at her.
"Why do you ask me in such a terrified way?" she replied, again hurt because he did not look at her. "Why shouldn't I go?"
She did not seem to understand the meaning of his words.
"Of course, there is no reason for it," said he; frowning.
"That is exactly what I say," she replied, not wishing to see the sarcasm of his remark, and calmly putting on a long, perfumed glove.
"Anna, for heaven's sake, what is the matter with you?" he said to her, trying to bring her to her senses, as her husband had more than once done.
"I don't know what you mean."
"You know very well that you can't go there."
"Why not? I am not going alone; the Princess Varvara has gone to dress; she is going with me."
He shrugged his shoulders with a look of perplexity and despair.
"But don't you know?" .... he began.
"No, I don't want to know!" she almost shrieked. "I don't want to know. Am I sorry for anything I have done? No, no, no, indeed; if it were to begin over again, I would begin over again. There is only one thing of any consequence to us—to you and me, and that is do we love each other? Everything else is of no account. Why do we live separate here, and not see each other? Why can't I go where I please? I love you, and everything is right, if your feelings have not changed toward me," she said in Russian, looking at him with a peculiar gleam in her eyes which he could not understand; "why don't you look at me?"
He looked at her, he saw all her beauty, of her face, of the toilet, which was so becoming to her; but now this beauty and this elegance were precisely what irritated him.
"You know very well that my feelings cannot change; but I beg you not to go out, I beseech you," he said again in French, with a prayer in his voice, but with a cold look in his eyes.
She did not hear his words, but noticed only the coldness of his look, and replied with an injured air:—
"And I for my part beg you to explain why I should not go."
"Because it may cause you ...."
He grew confused.
"I don't understand at all: Yashvin n'est pas compromettant, and the Princess Varvara is no worse than anybody else. Ah! here she is!"