Anna Karenina (Literature Classics Series). Leo Tolstoy

pliant.

      But to Anna Lisa was by far the more attractive.

      When Betsy had spoken to Anna about her, she had said that Lisa was playing the rôle of an ingenuous child; but when Anna saw her she knew that this was untrue. She was really ingenuous, and a perverted but a sweet and irresponsible woman. It is true she had adopted the same tone as Sappho, and, as in Sappho’s case, two admirers followed her as if tied to her and devoured her with their eyes; one a young and the other an old man; but in her there was something superior to her surroundings, — she had the radiance of a real diamond among false stones. This radiance shone out of her beautiful and really unfathomable eyes. The weary yet passionate look of those eyes, with the dark circles beneath them, was striking in its perfect sincerity.

      Looking into those eyes every one felt as if they knew her perfectly, and knowing her could not help loving her. At the sight of Anna her whole face lit up with a joyful smile.

      ‘Oh, I am pleased to see you!’ she said, walking up to Anna.

      ‘Yesterday at the races I was just trying to get near you when you went away. I was so anxious to see you, yesterday especially. Was it not dreadful?’ and she gave Anna a look that seemed to reveal her whole soul.

      ‘Yes, I never thought it would be so exciting,’ replied Anna, blushing.

      The company rose to go into the garden.

      ‘I won’t go,’ said Lisa, smiling and sitting down beside Anna. ‘You won’t either? Who wants to play croquet?’

      ‘I like it,’ said Anna.

      ‘Tell me, how do you manage not to feel bored? It cheers me to look at you. You are full of life, but I am bored.’

      ‘You bored? Why, yours is the gayest set in Petersburg,’ said Anna.

      ‘It may be that those who are not in our set are still more bored, but we — I at any rate — do not feel merry, but terribly, terribly bored.’

      Sappho lit a cigarette and went out into the garden with the two young men. Betsy and Stremov stayed at the tea-table.

      ‘Bored!’ said Betsy. ‘Sappho said that they had a very jolly time at your house yesterday.’

      ‘Oh dear! It was so dull!’ said Lisa Merkalova. ‘We went back to my place after the races. Always the same people, the very same! Always the same goings on, the very same! We spent the whole evening lolling about on sofas. What was there jolly about it? Do tell me how you manage not to get bored?’ said she again to Anna. ‘One has only to look at you to see that you are a woman who may be happy or unhappy, but who is not dull. Teach me how you do it!’

      ‘I do not do anything,’ said Anna, blushing at these insistent questions.

      ‘That is the best way,’ Stremov joined in. Stremov was a man of about fifty, getting grey, but still fresh-looking, with a very plain though intelligent face full of character. Lisa Merkalova was his wife’s niece and he spent all his spare time with her. On meeting Anna Karenina he, like a clever man of the world, being Karenin’s enemy in the service, tried to be specially amiable to her, the wife of his foe.

      ‘Don’t do anything!’ he repeated with a smile. ‘That is the best way. I have always told you,’ he went on, turning to Lisa Merkalova, ‘that if one wishes not to be bored one must not expect to be bored, just as one must not be afraid of not falling asleep if one wishes to avoid sleeplessness. That is what Anna Arkadyevna says.’

      ‘I should have been pleased to have said it, for it is not only wise, but true,’ said Anna, smiling.

      ‘No, but tell me why one cannot fall asleep and cannot help being bored?’

      ‘To fall asleep one must have worked, and also to amuse oneself one must have worked.’

      ‘Why should I work when no one wants my work? And I can’t and won’t do it just for a pretence.’

      ‘You are incorrigible,’ said Stremov without looking at her, and again turned to Anna.

      As he rarely met Anna he could not say anything to her except trivialities, but he said these trivialities, about her return from the country to Petersburg and of how fond the Countess Lydia Ivanovna was of her, in a way that expressed his whole-hearted desire to be agreeable to her, and to show her his respect and even more.

      Tushkevich came in to say that everybody was waiting for the croquet players.

      ‘No, please don’t go!’ begged Lisa Merkalova when she heard that Anna was leaving. Stremov joined her in the entreaty.

      ‘The contrast will be too great,’ he remarked, ‘if you go to see the old Countess Vrede after leaving this company here. Besides, your visit will give her an opportunity to backbite, while here, on the contrary, you arouse the best feelings, quite opposed to backbiting.’

      Anna hesitated for a moment. The flattering words of this clever man, the naïve, childish sympathy which Lisa Merkalova expressed to her, all these familiar Society surroundings made her feel so tranquil, while what was lying in wait for her was so hard, that for a moment she doubted whether to remain and put off the dread moment of explanation. But recalling what awaited her when alone at home if she took no decision, and remembering her action (the recollection of which was terrible) when she took hold of her hair with both hands, she took her leave and went away.

      Chapter 19

       Table of Contents

      IN spite of his apparently reckless existence, Vronsky was a man who hated disorder. While quite young and still in the Cadet Corps he had experienced the humiliation of a refusal when, having got into debt, he had tried to borrow money, and since then he had never again allowed himself to get into such a position.

      To keep things straight he was in the habit, some five or six times a year according to circumstances, of secluding himself and clearing up all his affairs. He called it having a clean up, or faire la lessive [doing the laundry]. The morning after the races he woke late, and without having a bath or shaving he put on a linen tunic and, spreading out before him his money, his accounts, and his bills and letters, he set to work.

      When Petritsky — who knew that on such occasions Vronsky was often cross — on waking saw his friend at his writing-table, he dressed quietly and went out without disturbing him.

      Every one, knowing intimately all the complexities of his own circumstances, involuntarily assumes that these complexities and the difficulty of clearing them up are peculiar to his own personal condition, and never thinks that others are surrounded by similar complexities. And so thought Vronsky. And not without some inward pride, nor without some justification, he reflected that any other man would long ago have got embroiled and been obliged to act badly if placed in a situation as difficult as his. But Vronsky felt that it was necessary for him to investigate his affairs just at that time in order to keep out of trouble.

      He began by first attacking his money problems, as the easiest to deal with. Having noted down in his small handwriting on a piece of notepaper all he owed, he made up the account and found that it came to seventeen thousand and a few hundred roubles. Having struck out the odd hundreds in order to have a round sum, counted his money and looked over his bank-book, he found that he had 1800 roubles, and there was no prospect of receiving any more before the New Year. After reading over the list of his debts, he divided them into three classes, each of which he noted down separately. Under the first head came the debts that had to be paid at once, or the money for which had at any rate to be kept ready, so that they could be paid on demand without any delay. These debts came to about 4000 roubles: 1500 for a horse and 2500 he had incurred by standing security for his young comrade Venevsky, who in Vronsky’s presence had lost that sum to a card-sharper. Vronsky had wished to pay at the time — he had the money with him — but Venevsky and Yashvin insisted that they would pay, and would not permit Vronsky, who had not even been playing, to do so. This was