‘I really don’t know what he can be faulted for. I don’t know his tendency, but one thing I do know - he’s an excellent fellow,’ Stepan Arkadyich replied. ‘I’ve just called on him and, really, he’s an excellent fellow. We had lunch, and I taught him to make that drink - you know, wine with oranges. It’s very refreshing. And remarkably enough, he didn’t know it. He liked it very much. No, really, he’s a nice fellow.’
Stepan Arkadyich looked at his watch.
‘Heavens, it’s past four and I still have to see Dolgovushin! So, please do come for dinner. Otherwise you don’t know how upset my wife and I will be.’
Alexei Alexandrovich saw his brother-in-law off quite differently from the way he had met him.
‘I’ve promised and I will come,’ he answered glumly.
‘Believe me, I appreciate it, and I hope you won’t regret it,’ Stepan Arkadyich replied, smiling.
And, putting on his coat as he left, he brushed the valet’s head with his hand, laughed and went out.
‘At five o’clock, and in a frock coat, please!’ he called out once more, coming back to the door.
IX
It was past five and some of the guests had already arrived when the host arrived himself. He came in together with Sergei Ivanovich Koznyshev and Pestsov, who had bumped into each other on the doorstep. These were the two main representatives of the Moscow intelligentsia, as Oblonsky called them. They were both people respected for their character and intelligence. They respected each other but were in complete and hopeless disagreement on almost everything - not because they belonged to opposite tendencies, but precisely because they were from the same camp (their enemies mixed them up), but within that camp each had his own shade. And since there is nothing less conducive to agreement than a difference of thinking in half-abstract things, they not only never agreed in their opinions, but had long grown used to chuckling at each other’s incorrigible error without getting angry.
They were going in the door, talking about the weather, when Stepan Arkadyich overtook them. Prince Alexander Dmitrievich, Oblonsky’s father-in-law, young Shcherbatsky, Turovtsyn, Kitty and Karenin were already sitting in the drawing room.
Stepan Arkadyich saw at once that without him things were going badly in the drawing room. Darya Alexandrovna, in her smart grey silk dress, obviously preoccupied by the children’s having to eat alone in the nursery and by her husband’s absence, had not managed to mix this whole company without him. They all sat like a parson’s daughters on a visit (in the old prince’s expression), obviously perplexed at how they had wound up there, squeezing out words so as not to be silent. The good-natured Turovtsyn obviously felt out of his element, and the thick-lipped smile with which he met Stepan Arkadyich said in all but words: ‘Well, brother, you’ve planted me among some clever ones! A drink at the Château des Fleurs is more in my line!’ The old prince sat silently, glancing sidelong at Karenin with his shining little eyes, and Stepan Arkadyich could see that he had already thought up a little phrase to paste on this statesman, whom one was invited for as if he were a poached sturgeon. Kitty was looking at the door, plucking up her courage so as not to blush when Konstantin Levin came in. Young Shcherbatsky, who had not been introduced to Karenin, was trying to show that this did not embarrass him in the least. Karenin himself, by old Petersburg habit, coming to dinner with ladies, was wearing a tailcoat and white tie, and Stepan Arkadyich could see from his face that he had come only to keep his word and was performing a painful duty by being present in this company. He was the main cause of the chill that had frozen all the guests before Stepan Arkadyich’s arrival.
On entering the drawing room, Stepan Arkadyich excused himself by explaining that he had been delayed by that prince who was the perennial scapegoat each time he was late or absent, and in a moment he got everyone acquainted with everyone else, and, putting Alexei Alexandrovich together with Sergei Koznyshev, slipped them the topic of the russification of Poland,7 which they both seized upon at once, along with Pestsov. Patting Turovtsyn on the shoulder, he whispered something funny to him and sat him down with his wife and the prince. Then he told Kitty how beautiful she was that evening, and introduced Shcherbatsky to Karenin. In a moment he had kneaded this social dough so well that the drawing room was in fine form and ringing with voices. Only Konstantin Levin was missing. But that was for the better, because, going out to the dining room, Stepan Arkadyich saw to his horror that the port and sherry had been bought at Deprez’s and not at Levet‘s, and gave orders for the coachman to be sent to Levet’s as soon as possible. Then he turned to go back to the drawing room.
In the dining room he met Konstantin Levin.
‘I’m not late?’
‘As if you could be anything else!’ Stepan Arkadyich said, taking him under the arm.
