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.
Chapter 2
When he got home, Vronsky found there a note from Anna.
She wrote,
"I am ill and unhappy.
I cannot come out, but I cannot go on longer without seeing you.
Come in this evening.
Alexey Alexandrovitch goes to the council at seven and will be there till ten."
Thinking for an instant of the strangeness of her bidding him come straight to her, in spite of her husband's insisting on her not receiving him, he decided to go.
Vronsky had that winter got his promotion, was now a colonel, had left the regimental quarters, and was living alone.
After having some lunch, he lay down on the sofa immediately, and in five minutes memories of the hideous scenes he had witnessed during the last few days were confused together and joined on to a mental image of Anna and of the peasant who had played an important part in the bear hunt, and Vronsky fell asleep.
He waked up in the dark, trembling with horror, and made haste to light a candle.
"What was it?
What?
What was the dreadful thing I dreamed?
Yes, yes; I think a little dirty man with a disheveled beard was stooping down doing something, and all of a sudden he began saying some strange words in French.
Yes, there was nothing else in the dream," he said to himself. "But why was it so awful?"
He vividly recalled the peasant again and those incomprehensible French words the peasant had uttered, and a chill of horror ran down his spine.
"What nonsense!" thought Vronsky, and glanced at his watch.
It was half-past eight already.
He rang up his servant, dressed in haste, and went out onto the steps, completely forgetting the dream and only worried at being late.
As he drove up to the Karenins' entrance he looked at his watch and saw it was ten minutes to nine.