VII.

Vronsky and Anna had been traveling for three months together in Europe. They had visited Venice, Rome and Naples, and had just arrived at a small Italian town where they meant to stay some time.

A handsome headwaiter, with thick pomaded hair parted from the neck upward, wearing an evening coat, a broad white cambric shirt front, and a bunch of watch charms dangling above his small bay window, stood with his hands in his pockets, looking contemptuously from under his eyelids, while he gave some frigid reply to a gentleman who had stopped still. Catching the sound of footsteps coming from the other side of the entry toward the staircase, the headwaiter turned round, and, seeing the Russian Count, who had taken their best rooms, he took his hands out of his pockets deferentially, and with a bow informed him that a courier had come, and that the business about the palazzo had been arranged. The steward was prepared to sign the agreement.

“Ah! I’m glad to hear it,” said Vronsky. “Is Madame at home or not?”

“Madame has been out for a walk but has returned now,” answered the waiter.

Vronsky took off his soft, wide-brimmed hat and passed his handkerchief over his heated brow and hair, which had grown half over his ears, and was brushed back covering the bald patch on his head. And, glancing casually at the gentleman, who still stood there gazing intently at him, he would have gone on.

“This gentleman is a Russian, and was inquiring after you,” said the headwaiter.

With mingled feelings of annoyance at never being able to get away from acquaintances anywhere, and longing to find some sort of diversion from the monotony of his life, Vronsky looked once more at the gentleman, who had retreated and stood still again, and at the same moment a light came into the eyes of both.

“Golenishchev!”

“Vronsky!”

It really was Golenishchev, a comrade of Vronsky’s in the Corps of Pages. In the Corps Golenishchev had belonged to the liberal party; he left the Corps without entering the army, and had never taken office under the government. Vronsky and he had gone completely different ways on leaving the Corps, and had only met once since.

At that meeting Vronsky perceived that Golenishchev had taken up a sort of lofty intellectually liberal line, and was consequently disposed to look down upon Vronsky’s interests and calling in life. Hence Vronsky had met him with the chilling and haughty manner he so well knew how to assume, the meaning of which was: “You may like or dislike my ways of life, that’s a matter of the most perfect indifference to me; you will have to treat me with respect if you want to know me.” Golenishchev had been contemptuously indifferent to the tone taken by Vronsky. That meeting might have been expected to estrange them still more. But now they beamed and exclaimed with delight on recognizing one another. Vronsky would never have expected to be so pleased to see Golenishchev, but probably he was not himself aware how bored he was. He forgot the disagreeable impression of their last meeting, and with a face of frank delight held out his hand to his old comrade. The same expression of delight replaced the look of uneasiness on Golenishchev’s face.

“How glad I am to meet you!” said Vronsky, showing his strong white teeth in a friendly smile.

“I heard the name Vronsky, but I didn’t know which one. I’m very, very glad!”

“Let’s go in. Come, tell me what you’re doing.”

“I’ve been living here for two years. I’m working.”

“Ah!” said Vronsky, with sympathy. “Let’s go in.”

And with the habit common among Russians, instead of saying in Russian what he wanted to keep from the servants, he began to speak in French.

“Do you know Madame Karenina? We are traveling together. I am going to see her now,” he said in French, carefully scrutinizing Golenishchev’s face.

“Ah, I did not know” (though he did know), Golenishchev answered carelessly. “Have you been here long?” he added.

“Three days,” Vronsky answered, once more scrutinizing his friend’s face intently.

“Yes, he’s a decent fellow, and will look at the thing properly,” Vronsky said to himself, catching the significance of Golenishchev’s face and the change of subject. “I can introduce him to Anna — he looks at it properly.”

During the three months that Vronsky had spent abroad with Anna, he had always on meeting new people asked himself how the new person would look at his relations with Anna, and for the most part, in men, he had met with the “proper” way of looking at it. But if he had been asked, and those who looked at it “properly” had been asked exactly how they did look at it, both he and they would have been greatly puzzled to answer.

In reality, those who in Vronsky’s opinion had the “proper” view had no sort of view at all, but behaved in general as well-bred persons do behave in regard to all the complex and insoluble problems with which life is encompassed on all sides; they behaved with propriety, avoiding allusions and unpleasant questions. They assumed an air of fully comprehending the import and force of the situation, of accepting and even approving of it, but of considering it superfluous and uncalled-for to put all this into words.

Vronsky at once divined that Golenishchev was of this class, and therefore was doubly pleased to see him. And, in fact, Golenishchev’s manner to Madame Karenina, when he was taken to call on her, was all that Vronsky could have desired. Obviously without the slightest effort he steered clear of all subjects which might lead to embarrassment.

He had never met Anna before, and was struck by her beauty, and, still more, by the naturalness with which she accepted her position. She blushed when Vronsky brought in Golenishchev, and he was extremely charmed by this childish blush overspreading her candid and handsome face. But what he liked particularly was the way in which at once, as though on purpose, so that there might be no misunderstanding with an outsider, she called Vronsky simply Alexei, and said they were moving into a house they had just taken — what was here called a palazzo. Golenishchev liked this direct and simple attitude to her own position. Looking at Anna’s manner of simplehearted, spirited gaiety, and knowing Alexei Alexandrovich and Vronsky, Golenishchev fancied that he understood her perfectly. He fancied that he understood what she was utterly unable to understand: how it was that, having made her husband wretched, having abandoned him and her son and lost her good name, she yet felt full of spirits, gaiety, and happiness.

“It’s in the guidebook,” said Golenishchev, referring to the palazzo Vronsky had taken. “There’s a first-rate Tintoretto there. One of his latest period.”

“I tell you what: it’s a lovely day, let’s go and have another look at it,” said Vronsky, addressing Anna.

“I shall be very glad to; I’ll go and put on my hat. Would you say it’s hot?” she said, stopping short in the doorway and looking inquiringly at Vronsky. And again a vivid flush overspread her face.

Vronsky saw from her eyes that she did not know on what terms he cared to be with Golenishchev, and so was afraid of not behaving as he would wish.

He bestowed a long, tender look at her.

“No, not very,” he said.

And it seemed to her that she understood everything — most of all, that he was pleased with her; and, smiling to him, she walked with her rapid step out of the door.

The friends glanced at one another, and a look of hesitation came into both faces, as though Golenishchev, unmistakably admiring her, would have liked to say something about her, and could not find the right thing to say, while Vronsky desired and dreaded his doing so.

“Well then,” Vronsky began, to start a conversation of some sort, “so you’re settled here? You’re still at the same work, then?” he went on, recalling that he had been told Golenishchev was writing something.

“Yes, I’m writing the second part of the Two Elements,” said Golenishchev, coloring with pleasure at the question — “that is, to be exact, I am not writing it yet; I am preparing, collecting materials. It will be of far wider scope, and will touch on almost all questions. We in Russia refuse to see that we are the heirs of Byzantium,” and he launched into a long and heated explanation of his views.

Vronsky at the first moment felt embarrassed at not even knowing of the first part of the Two Elements, of which the author spoke as something well known. But as Golenishchev began to lay down his opinions and Vronsky was able to follow them even without knowing the Two Elements, he listened to him with some interest, for Golenishchev spoke well. But Vronsky was startled and annoyed by the nervous irascibility with which Golenishchev talked of the subject that engrossed him. As he went on talking, his eyes glittered more and more angrily; he was more and more hurried in his replies to imaginary opponents, and his face grew more and more excited and worried. Remembering Golenishchev, a thin, lively, good-natured and well-bred boy, always at the head of the class, Vronsky could not make out the reason for his irritability, and he did not like it. What he particularly disliked was that Golenishchev, a man belonging to a good set, should put himself on a level with some scribbling fellows with whom he was irritated and angry. Was it worth it? Vronsky disliked it, yet he felt that Golenishchev was unhappy, and was sorry for him. Unhappiness, almost mental derangement, was visible on his mobile, rather handsome face, as, without even noticing Anna’s coming in, he went on hurriedly and hotly expressing his views.

When Anna came in in her hat and cape, her lovely hand rapidly swinging her parasol, and stood beside him, it was with a feeling of relief that Vronsky broke away from the plaintive eyes of Golenishchev which fastened persistently upon him, and with a fresh rush of love looked at his charming companion, full of life and happiness. Golenishchev recovered himself with an effort, and at first was dejected and gloomy, but Anna, disposed as she was at that time to feel friendly with everyone, soon revived his spirits by her direct and lively manner. After trying various subjects of conversation, she got him upon painting, of which he talked very well, and she listened to him attentively. They walked to the house they had taken and looked over it.

“I am very glad of one thing,” said Anna to Golenishchev when they were on their way back, “Alexei will have a capital atelier. You must certainly take that room,” she said to Vronsky in Russian, using the affectionately familiar form, as though she saw that Golenishchev would become intimate with them in their isolation, and that there was no need of reserve before him.

“Do you paint?” said Golenishchev turning round quickly to Vronsky.

“Yes, I used to study long ago, and now I have begun to do a little,” said Vronsky, reddening.

“He has great talent,” said Anna with a delighted smile. “I’m no judge, of course. But good judges have said the same.”