Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART FIVE CHAPTER 7
Chapter 7
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 head waiter, with thick
pomaded hair parted from the neck upwards, an evening coat, a broad white cambric
shirt front, and a bunch of trinkets hanging above his rounded stomach, stood
with his hands in the full curve of his pockets, looking contemptuously from under
his eyelids while he gave some frigid reply to a gentleman who had stopped him.
Catching the sound of footsteps coming from the other side of the entry towards
the staircase, the head waiter 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 been, 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 head waiter.
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.
“Golenishtchev!”
“Vronsky!”
It really was Golenishtchev, a comrade of Vronsky’s in the Corps of Pages. In
the corps Golenishtchev 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 Golenishtchev 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 way 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.” Golenishtchev
had been contemptuously indifferent to the tone taken by Vronsky. This
second meeting might have been expected, one would have supposed, 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 Golenishtchev,
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
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