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guest. The architect he had already introduced to her at the hospital.
A stout butler, resplendent with a smoothly shaven round chin and
a starched white cravat, announced that dinner was ready, and the
ladies got up. Vronsky asked Sviazhsky to take in Anna Arkadyevna,
and himself offered his arm to Dolly. Veslovsky was before Tushkevitch
in offering his arm to Princess Varvara, so that Tushkevitch with the
steward and the doctor walked in alone.
The dinner, the dining room, the service, the waiting at table, the
wine, and the food, were not simply in keeping with the general tone of
modern luxury throughout all the house, but seemed even more sump-
tuous and modern. Darya Alexandrovna watched this luxury which
was novel to her, and as a good housekeeper used to managing a
household—although she never dreamed of adapting anything she
saw to her own household, as it was all in a style of luxury far above her
own manner of living—she could not help scrutinizing every detail,
and wondering how and by whom it was all done. Vassenka Veslovsky,
her husband, and even Sviazhsky, and many other people she knew,
would never have considered this question, and would have readily
believed what every well-bred host tries to make his guests feel, that is,
that all that is well-ordered in his house has cost him, the host, no
trouble whatever, but comes of itself. Darya Alexandrovna was well
aware that even porridge for the children’s breakfast does not come of
itself, and that therefore, where so complicated and magnificent a style
of luxury was maintained, someone must give earnest attention to its
organization. And from the glance with which Alexey Kirillovitch
scanned the table, from the way he nodded to the butler, and offered
Darya Alexandrovna her choice between cold soup and hot soup, she
saw that it was all organized and maintained by the care of the master
of the house himself. It was evident that it all rested no more upon
Anna than upon Veslovsky. She, Sviazhsky, the princess, and Veslovsky,
were equally guests, with light hearts enjoying what had been ar-
ranged for them.
Anna was the hostess only in conducting the conversation. The
conversation was a difficult one for the lady of the house at a small
table with persons present, like the steward and the architect, belong-
ing to a completely different world, struggling not to be overawed by an
elegance to which they were unaccustomed, and unable to sustain a
large share in the general conversation. But this difficult conversation
Anna directed with her usual tact and naturalness, and indeed she did
so with actual enjoyment, as Darya Alexandrovna observed. The con-
versation began about the row Tushkevitch and Veslovsky had taken
alone together in the boat, and Tushkevitch began describing the last
boat races in Petersburg at the Yacht Club. But Anna, seizing the first
pause, at once turned to the architect to draw him out of his silence.
“Nikolay Ivanitch was struck,” she said, meaning Sviazhsky, “at the
progress the new building had made since he was here last; but I am
there every day, and every day I wonder at the rate at which it grows.”
“It’s first-rate working with his excellency,” said the architect with a
smile (he was respectful and composed, though with a sense of his own
dignity). “It’s a very different matter to have to do with the district
authorities. Where one would have to write out sheaves of papers,
here I call upon the count, and in three words we settle the business.”
“The American way of doing business,” said Sviazhsky, with a
smile.
“Yes, there they build in a rational fashion...”
The conversation passed to the misuse of political power in the
United States, but Anna quickly brought it round to another topic, so
as to draw the steward into talk.