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Chapter 9.
It was past five, and several guests had already arrived, before the
host himself got home. He went in together with Sergey Ivanovitch
Koznishev and Pestsov, who had reached the street door at the same
moment. These were the two leading representatives of the Moscow
intellectuals, as Oblonsky had called them. Both were men respected
for their character and their intelligence. They respected each other,
but were in complete and hopeless disagreement upon almost every
subject, not because they belonged to opposite parties, but precisely
because they were of the same party (their enemies refused to see any
distinction between their views); but, in that party, each had his own
special shade of opinion. And since no difference is less easily over-
come than the difference of opinion about semi-abstract questions,
they never agreed in any opinion, and had long, indeed, been accus-
tomed to jeer without anger, each at the other’s incorrigible aberrations.
They were just going in at the door, talking of the weather, when
Stepan Arkadyevitch overtook them. In the drawing room there were
already sitting Prince Alexander Dmitrievitch Shtcherbatsky, young
Shtcherbatsky, Turovtsin, Kitty, and Karenin.
Stepan Arkadyevitch saw immediately that things were not going
well in the drawing-room without him. Darya Alexandrovna, in her
best gray silk gown, obviously worried about the children, who were to
have their dinner by themselves in the nursery, and by her husband’s
absence, was not equal to the task of making the party mix without
him. All were sitting like so many priests’ wives on a visit (so the old
prince expressed it), obviously wondering why they were there, and
pumping up remarks simply to avoid being silent. Turovtsin—good,
simple man—felt unmistakably a fish out of water, and the smile with
which his thick lips greeted Stepan Arkadyevitch said, as plainly as
words: “Well, old boy, you have popped me down in a learned set! A
drinking party now, or the Chateau des Fleurs, would be more in my
line!” The old prince sat in silence, his bright little eyes watching
Karenin from one side, and Stepan Arkadyevitch saw that he had
already formed a phrase to sum up that politician of whom guests were
invited to partake as though he were a sturgeon. Kitty was looking at
the door, calling up all her energies to keep her from blushing at the
entrance of Konstantin Levin. Young Shtcherbatsky, who had not
been introduced to Karenin, was trying to look as though he were not
in the least conscious of it. Karenin himself had followed the Peters-
burg fashion for a dinner with ladies and was wearing evening dress
and a white tie. Stepan Arkadyevitch saw by his face that he had come
simply to keep his promise, and was performing a disagreeable duty in
being present at this gathering. He was indeed the person chiefly
responsible for the chill benumbing all the guests before Stepan
Arkadyevitch came in.
On entering the drawing room Stepan Arkadyevitch apologized,
explaining that he had been detained by that prince, who was always
the scapegoat for all his absences and unpunctualities, and in one
moment he had made all the guests acquainted with each other, and,
bringing together Alexey Alexandrovitch and Sergey Koznishev, started
them on a discussion of the Russification of Poland, into which they