Anna Karenina

he Karenins, husband and wife, continued living in the same house, met
every day, but were complete strangers to one another. Alexey
Alexandrovitch made it a rule to see his wife every day, so that the
servants might have no grounds for suppositions, but avoided dining at
home. Vronsky was never at Alexey Alexandrovitch’s house, but Anna saw
him away from home, and her husband was aware of it.

The position was one of misery for all three; and not one of them would
have been equal to enduring this position for a single day, if it had
not been for the expectation that it would change, that it was merely a
temporary painful ordeal which would pass over. Alexey Alexandrovitch
hoped that this passion would pass, as everything does pass, that
everyone would forget about it, and his name would remain unsullied.
Anna, on whom the position depended, and for whom it was more miserable
than for anyone, endured it because she not merely hoped, but firmly
believed, that it would all very soon be settled and come right. She
had not the least idea what would settle the position, but she firmly
believed that something would very soon turn up now. Vronsky, against
his own will or wishes, followed her lead, hoped too that something,
apart from his own action, would be sure to solve all difficulties.

In the middle of the winter Vronsky spent a very tiresome week. A
foreign prince, who had come on a visit to Petersburg, was put under
his charge, and he had to show him the sights worth seeing. Vronsky was
of distinguished appearance; he possessed, moreover, the art of
behaving with respectful dignity, and was used to having to do with
such grand personages—that was how he came to be put in charge of the
prince. But he felt his duties very irksome. The prince was anxious to
miss nothing of which he would be asked at home, had he seen that in
Russia? And on his own account he was anxious to enjoy to the utmost
all Russian forms of amusement. Vronsky was obliged to be his guide in
satisfying both these inclinations. The mornings they spent driving to
look at places of interest; the evenings they passed enjoying the
national entertainments. The prince rejoiced in health exceptional even
among princes. By gymnastics and careful attention to his health he had
brought himself to such a point that in spite of his excess in pleasure
he looked as fresh as a big glossy green Dutch cucumber. The prince had
traveled a great deal, and considered one of the chief advantages of
modern facilities of communication was the accessibility of the
pleasures of all nations.

He had been in Spain, and there had indulged in serenades and had made
friends with a Spanish girl who played the mandolin. In Switzerland he
had killed chamois. In England he had galloped in a red coat over
hedges and killed two hundred pheasants for a bet. In Turkey he had got
into a harem; in India he had hunted on an elephant, and now in Russia
he wished to taste all the specially Russian forms of pleasure.

Vronsky, who was, as it were, chief master of the ceremonies to him,
was at great pains to arrange all the Russian amusements suggested by
various persons to the prince. They had race horses, and Russian
pancakes and bear hunts and three-horse sledges, and gypsies and
drinking feasts, with the Russian accompaniment of broken crockery. And
the prince with surprising ease fell in with the Russian spirit,
smashed trays full of crockery, sat with a gypsy girl on his knee, and
seemed to be asking—what more, and does the whole Russian spirit
consist in just this?

In reality, of all the Russian entertainments the prince liked best
French actresses and ballet dancers and white-seal champagne. Vronsky
was used to princes, but, either because he had himself changed of
late, or that he was in too close proximity to the prince, that week
seemed fearfully wearisome to him. The whole of that week he
experienced a sensation such as a man might have set in charge of a
dangerous madman, afraid of the madman, and at the same time, from
being with him, fearing for his own reason. Vronsky was continually
conscious of the necessity of never for a second relaxing the tone of
stern official respectfulness, that he might not himself be insulted.
The prince’s manner of treating the very people who, to Vronsky’s
surprise, were ready to descend to any depths to provide him with
Russian amusements, was contemptuous. His criticisms of Russian women,
whom he wished to study, more than once made Vronsky crimson with
indignation. The chief reason why the prince was so particularly
disagreeable to Vronsky was that he could not help seeing himself in
him. And what he saw in this mirror did not gratify his self-esteem. He
was a very stupid and very self-satisfied and very healthy and very
well-washed man, and nothing else. He was a gentleman—that was true,
and Vronsky could not deny it. He was equable and not cringing with his
superiors, was free and ingratiating in his behavior with his equals,
and was contemptuously indulgent with his inferiors. Vronsky was
himself the same, and regarded it as a great merit to be so. But for
this prince he was an inferior, and his contemptuous and indulgent
attitude to him revolted him.

“Brainless beef! can I be like that?” he thought.

Be that as it might, when, on the seventh day, he parted from the
prince, who was starting for Moscow, and received his thanks, he was
happy to be rid of his uncomfortable position and the unpleasant
reflection of himself. He said good-bye to him at the station on their
return from a bear hunt, at which they had had a display of Russian
prowess kept up all night.