872 873
against the colonel of his old regiment talking to two acquaintances.
Vronsky heard the name of Madame Karenina, and noticed how the
colonel hastened to address Vronsky loudly by name, with a meaning
glance at his companions.
“Ah, Vronsky! When are you coming to the regiment? We can’t let
you off without a supper. You’re one of the old set,” said the colonel of
his regiment.
“I can’t stop, awfully sorry, another time,” said Vronsky, and he ran
upstairs towards his brother’s box.
The old countess, Vronsky’s mother, with her steel-gray curls, was
in his brother’s box. Varya with the young Princess Sorokina met him
in the corridor.
Leaving the Princess Sorokina with her mother, Varya held out her
hand to her brother-in-law, and began immediately to speak of what
interested him. She was more excited than he had ever seen her.
“I think it’s mean and hateful, and Madame Kartasova had no
right to do it. Madame Karenina...” she began.
“But what is it? I don’t know.”
“What? you’ve not heard?”
“You know I should be the last person to hear of it.”
“There isn’t a more spiteful creature than that Madame Kartasova!”
“But what did she do?”
“My husband told me.... She has insulted Madame Karenina.
Her husband began talking to her across the box, and Madame
Kartasova made a scene. She said something aloud, he says, some-
thing insulting, and went away.”
“Count, your maman is asking for you,” said the young Princess
Sorokina, peeping out of the door of the box.
“I’ve been expecting you all the while,” said his mother, smiling
sarcastically. “You were nowhere to be seen.”
Her son saw that she could not suppress a smile of delight.
“Good evening, maman. I have come to you,” he said coldly.
“Why aren’t you going to faire la cour a Madame Karenina?” she
went on, when Princess Sorokina had moved away. “Elle fait sensa-
tion. On oublie la Patti pour elle.”
“Maman, I have asked you not to say anything to me of that,” he
answered, scowling.
“I’m only saying what everyone’s saying.”
Vronsky made no reply, and saying a few words to Princess Sorokina,
he went away. At the door he met his brother.
“Ah, Alexey!” said his brother. “How disgusting! Idiot of a woman,
nothing else.... I wanted to go straight to her. Let’s go together.”
Vronsky did not hear him. With rapid steps he went downstairs;
he felt that he must do something, but he did not know what. Anger
with her for having put herself and him in such a false position, to-
gether with pity for her suffering, filled his heart. He went down, and
made straight for Anna’s box. At her box stood Stremov, talking to her.
“There are no more tenors. Le moule en est brise!”
Vronsky bowed to her and stopped to greet Stremov.
“You came in late, I think, and have missed the best song,” Anna
said to Vronsky, glancing ironically, he thought, at him.
“I am a poor judge of music,” he said, looking sternly at her.
“Like Prince Yashvin,” she said smiling, “who considers that Patti
sings too loud.”
“Thank you,” she said, her little hand in its long glove taking the
playbill Vronsky picked up, and suddenly at that instant her lovely face
quivered. She got up and went into the interior of the box.
Noticing in the next act that her box was empty, Vronsky, rousing