‘Madame went out for a walk but has now come back,’ said the maître d‘hôtel.
Vronsky removed his soft, wide-brimmed hat, took out a handkerchief and wiped his sweaty forehead and his hair, grown half-way over his ears and combed back to cover his bald spot. Glancing distractedly at the gentleman, who was still standing there studying him, he was about to go in.
‘This gentleman is a Russian and has asked about you,’ said the maitre d‘hôtel.
With a mixed feeling of vexation at being unable to get away from acquaintances and of desire to find at least some distraction from the monotony of his life, Vronsky glanced once again at the gentleman, who had moved aside and then stopped. The two men’s eyes lit up simultaneously.
‘Golenishchev!’
‘Vronsky!’
It was indeed Golenishchev, Vronsky’s comrade in the Corps of Pages. In the corps Golenishchev had belonged to the liberal party; he had left the corps with civil rank and had not served anywhere. The comrades had totally drifted apart after leaving the corps and had met only once since.
At that meeting Vronsky had understood that Golenishchev had chosen some high-minded liberal activity and as a result wanted to despise Vronsky’s activity and rank. Therefore, on meeting Golenishchev, Vronsky had given him that cold and proud rebuff he knew how to give people, which meant: ‘You may or may not like my way of life, it makes absolutely no difference to me: you must respect me if you want to know me.’ Golenishchev, however, had been contemptuously indifferent to Vronsky’s tone. That meeting ought, it would seem, to have estranged them still further. Now, however, they brightened up and exclaimed joyfully on recognizing each other. Vronsky had never expected that he could be so glad to see Golenishchev, but he probably did not know himself how bored he was. He forgot the unpleasant impression of their last meeting and with an open, joyful face offered his hand to his former comrade. The same expression of joy now replaced the earlier uneasy look on Golenishchev’s face.
‘I’m so glad to see you!’ said Vronsky, baring his strong white teeth in a friendly smile.
‘And I heard “Vronsky”, but which Vronsky I didn’t know. I’m very, very glad!’
‘Let’s go in. Well, what are you up to?’
‘It’s the second year I’ve been here. Working.’
‘Ah!’ Vronsky said with sympathy. ‘But let’s go in.’
And by a common Russian habit, so as not to say in Russian what he wanted to conceal from the servants, he began to speak in French.
‘Do you know Mme Karenina? We’re travelling together. I’m on my way to see her,’ he said in French, peering intently into Golenishchev’s face.
‘Ah! I didn’t know,’ Golenishchev replied indifferently (though he did know). ‘Have you been here long?’ he added.
‘I? Three days,’ Vronsky replied, once again peering attentively into his comrade’s face.
‘Yes, he’s a decent man and looks at the matter in the right way,’ Vronsky said to himself, understanding the meaning of Golenishchev’s look and the change of subject. ‘I can have him meet Anna, he looks at it in the right way.’
In those three months he had spent with Anna abroad, Vronsky, on meeting new people, had always asked himself how this new person looked at his relations with Anna, and had found that the men, for the most part, understood it ‘in the right way’. But if he or those men who understood it ‘in the right way’ had been asked what that understanding was, both he and they would have been in great difficulty.
In fact, those who understood it, to Vronsky’s mind, ‘in the right way’, did not understand it in any way, but behaved generally as well-bred people do with regard to all the complicated and insoluble questions that surround life on all sides - decently, avoiding hints and unpleasant questions. They pretended to understand fully the significance and meaning of the situation, to acknowledge and even approve of it, but considered it inappropriate and unnecessary to explain it all.
Vronsky realized at once that Golenishchev was one of those people, and was therefore doubly glad to see him. Indeed, Golenishchev behaved himself with Anna, when brought to her, just as Vronsky would have wished. He avoided, obviously without the least effort, any conversation that might have led to awkwardness.
