Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART FOUR CHAPTER 7
Chapter 7
THE next day was Sunday. Stepan Arkadyevitch went to the Grand Theater to a
rehearsal of the ballet, and gave Masha Tchibisova, a pretty dancing-girl whom
he had just taken under his protection, the coral necklace he had promised her the
evening before, and behind the scenes in the dim daylight of the theater, managed
to kiss her pretty little face, radiant over her present. Besides the gift of the necklace
he wanted to arrange with her about meeting after the ballet. After explaining that
he could not come at the beginning of the ballet, he promised he would come for
the last act and take her to supper. From the theater Stepan Arkadyevitch drove
to Ohotny Row, selected himself the fish and asparagus for dinner, and by twelve
o’clock was at Dussot’s, where he had to see three people, luckily all staying at the
same hotel: Levin, who had recently come back from abroad and was staying there;
the new head of his department, who had just been promoted to that position, and
had come on a tour of revision to Moscow; and his brother-in-law, Karenin, whom
he must see, so as to be sure of bringing him to dinner.
Stepan Arkadyevitch liked dining, but still better he liked to give a dinner, small,
but very choice, both as regards the food and drink and as regards the selection of
guests. He particularly liked the program of that day’s dinner. There would be fresh
perch, asparagus, and la pièce de resistance– first-rate, but quite plain, roast beef, and
wines to suit: so much for the eating and drinking. Kitty and Levin would be of the
party, and that this might not be obtrusively evident, there would be a girl cousin
too, and young Shtcherbatsky, and la pièce de resistance among the guests–Sergey
Koznishev and Alexey Alexandrovitch. Sergey Ivanovitch was a Moscow man, and
a philosopher; Alexey Alexandrovitch a Petersburger, and a practical politician. He
was asking, too, the well-known eccentric enthusiast, Pestsov, a liberal, a great talker,
a musician, an historian, and the most delightfully youthful person of fifty, who
would be a sauce or garnish for Koznishev and Karenin. He would provoke them
and set them off.
The second installment for the forest had been received from the merchant and
was not yet exhausted; Dolly had been very amiable and goodhumored of late, and
the idea of the dinner pleased Stepan Arkadyevitch from every point of view. He was
in the most light-hearted mood. There were two circumstances a little unpleasant,
but these two circumstances were drowned in the sea of good-humored gaiety which
flooded the soul of Stepan Arkadyevitch. These two circumstances were: first, that
on meeting Alexey Alexandrovitch the day before in the street he had noticed that
he was cold and reserved with him, and putting the expression of Alexey Alexandrovitch’s
face and the fact that he had not come to see them or let them know of his
arrival with the rumors he had heard about Anna and Vronsky, Stepan Arkadyevitch
guessed that something was wrong between the husband and wife.
That was one disagreeable thing. The other slightly disagreeable fact was that
the new head of his department, like all new heads, had the reputation already of a
terrible person, who got up at six o’clock in the morning, worked like a horse, and
insisted on his subordinates working in the same way. Moreover, this new head had
the further reputation of being a bear in his manners, and was, according to all reports,
a man of a class in all respects the opposite of that to which his predecessor
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