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and rang.
“If you care to be in my service,” he said to the valet who came in,
“you had better remember your duties. This shouldn’t be here. You
ought to have cleared away.”
The valet, conscious of his own innocence, would have defended
himself, but glancing at his master, he saw from his face that the only
thing to do was to be silent, and hurriedly threading his way in and out,
dropped down on the carpet and began gathering up the whole and
broken glasses and bottles.
“That’s not your duty; send the waiter to clear away, and get my
dress coat out.”
Vronsky went into the theater at half-past eight. The performance
was in full swing. The little old box-keeper, recognizing Vronsky as he
helped him off with his fur coat, called him “Your Excellency,” and
suggested he should not take a number but should simply call Fyodor.
In the brightly lighted corridor there was no one but the box-opener
and two attendants with fur cloaks on their arms listening at the doors.
Through the closed doors came the sounds of the discreet staccato
accompaniment of the orchestra, and a single female voice rendering
distinctly a musical phrase. The door opened to let the box-opener slip
through, and the phrase drawing to the end reached Vronsky’s hearing
clearly. But the doors were closed again at once, and Vronsky did not
hear the end of the phrase and the cadence of the accompaniment,
though he knew from the thunder of applause that it was over. When
he entered the hall, brilliantly lighted with chandeliers and gas jets, the
noise was still going on. On the stage the singer, bowing and smiling,
with bare shoulders flashing with diamonds, was, with the help of the
tenor who had given her his arm, gathering up the bouquets that were
flying awkwardly over the footlights. Then she went up to a gentleman
with glossy pomaded hair parted down the center, who was stretching
across the footlights holding out something to her, and all the public in
the stalls as well as in the boxes was in excitement, craning forward,
shouting and clapping. The conductor in his high chair assisted in
passing the offering, and straightened his white tie. Vronsky walked
into the middle of the stalls, and, standing still, began looking about
him. That day less than ever was his attention turned upon the famil-
iar, habitual surroundings, the stage, the noise, all the familiar, uninter-
esting, particolored herd of spectators in the packed theater.
There were, as always, the same ladies of some sort with officers of
some sort in the back of the boxes; the same gaily dressed women—
God knows who—and uniforms and black coats; the same dirty crowd
in the upper gallery; and among the crowd, in the boxes and in the
front rows, were some forty of the REAL people. And to those oases
Vronsky at once directed his attention, and with them he entered at
once into relation.
The act was over when he went in, and so he did not go straight to
his brother’s box, but going up to the first row of stalls stopped at the
footlights with Serpuhovskoy, who, standing with one knee raised and
his heel on the footlights, caught sight of him in the distance and
beckoned to him, smiling.
Vronsky had not yet seen Anna. He purposely avoided looking in
her direction. But he knew by the direction of people’s eyes where she
was. He looked round discreetly, but he was not seeking her; expecting
the worst, his eyes sought for Alexey Alexandrovitch. To his relief
Alexey Alexandrovitch was not in the theater that evening.
“How little of the military man there is left in you!” Serpuhovskoy
was saying to him. “A diplomat, an artist, something of that sort, one
would say.”