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“How spiteful you are today!”
“Not a bit. I’d no other way out of it. One of the two had to be a
fool. And, well, you know one can’t say that of oneself.”
“‘No one is satisfied with his fortune, and everyone is satisfied with
his wit.’” The attache repeated the French saying.
“That’s just it, just it,” Princess Myakaya turned to him. “But the
point is that I won’t abandon Anna to your mercies. She’s so nice, so
charming. How can she help it if they’re all in love with her, and follow
her about like shadows?”
“Oh, I had no idea of blaming her for it,” Anna’s friend said in self-
defense.
“If no one follows us about like a shadow, that’s no proof that we’ve
any right to blame her.”
And having duly disposed of Anna’s friend, the Princess Myakaya
got up, and together with the ambassador’s wife, joined the group at
the table, where the conversation was dealing with the king of Prussia.
“What wicked gossip were you talking over there?” asked Betsy.
“About the Karenins. The princess gave us a sketch of Alexey
Alexandrovitch,” said the ambassador’s wife with a smile, as she sat
down at the table.
“Pity we didn’t hear it!” said Princess Betsy, glancing towards the
door. “Ah, here you are at last!” she said, turning with a smile to Vronsky,
as he came in.
Vronsky was not merely acquainted with all the persons whom he
was meeting here; he saw them all every day; and so he came in with
the quiet manner with which one enters a room full of people from
whom one has only just parted.
“Where do I come from?” he said, in answer to a question from the
ambassador’s wife. “Well, there’s no help for it, I must confess. From
the opera bouffe. I do believe I’ve seen it a hundred times, and always
with fresh enjoyment. It’s exquisite! I know it’s disgraceful, but I go to
sleep at the opera, and I sit out the opera bouffe to the last minute, and
enjoy it. This evening...”
He mentioned a French actress, and was going to tell something
about her; but the ambassador’s wife, with playful horror, cut him short.
“Please don’t tell us about that horror.”
“All right, I won’t especially as everyone knows those horrors.”
“And we should all go to see them if it were accepted as the correct
thing, like the opera,” chimed in Princess Myakaya.