Читать книгу Anna Karenina - 2 Classic Unabridged Translations in one eBook (Garnett and Maude translations) - Leo Tolstoy - Страница 95

SOUNDS of footsteps and a man’s voice, then that of a woman followed by laughter, reached them, and the expected visitors entered the room, Sappho Stolz and a young man, shining with a super-abundance of health, known as Vaska. It was evident that he flourished on underdone beef, truffles, and Burgundy. Vaska bowed to the ladies, only glancing at them for a second. He came into the drawing-room behind Sappho and followed her across the room as if he were tied to her, with his glittering eye fixed on her as if he were ready to eat her. Sappho Stolz had fair hair and black eyes. She entered with a short, brisk step, in shoes with high French heels, and shook hands with the ladies with a firm grip like a man.

Anna had never met this celebrity before, and was struck by her beauty, by the extravagant fashion of her costume, and by the boldness of her manners. On her head the delicate golden hair (her own and others’) was built up into such an erection that her head was as large as her shapely, well-developed and much-exposed bust. At each strenuous step as she advanced, the shape of her knees and thighs was distinctly visible under her dress, and one involuntarily wondered just where, behind, under her heaped and swaying bustle, the real, graceful little body ended which was so exposed at the top and so hidden at the back and below.

Betsy hastened to introduce her to Anna.

‘Just fancy! We nearly ran over two soldiers,’ she began at once, winking and smiling as she threw back her train which she had jerked too much to one side. ‘I was with Vaska… . Oh, but you are not acquainted!’ and she introduced the young man by his surname and burst into ringing laughter at her mistake in speaking of him as Vaska to a stranger. Vaska again bowed to Anna, but said nothing. He turned to Sappho: ‘You have lost the bet: we have arrived first. Pay up!’ he said smiling.

Sappho laughed still more merrily.

‘Surely not now!’ she said.

‘Never mind, I will have it later.’

‘All right! All right! Oh yes!’ she suddenly said, addressing her hostess. ‘I’m a nice one. I quite forgot … I have brought you a visitor! Here he is.’

The unexpected young visitor Sappho had brought with her and forgotten was nevertheless so important a personage that, in spite of his youth, both ladies rose to greet him.

He was Sappho’s new admirer, and followed at her heels just like Vaska.

Then the Prince Kaluzhsky arrived, and Lisa Merkalova with Stremov. Lisa Merkalova was a slight brunette with a lazy Oriental type of face and beautiful (everybody said unfathomable) eyes. The character of her dark costume, as Anna at once noticed and appreciated, was perfectly suited to her style of beauty.

Just to the same extent as Sappho was compact and spruce Lisa was limp and 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.