‘I was, but I evaporated,’ the doctor replied with gloomy jocularity.
‘So you got some good exercise?’
‘Magnificent!’
‘Well, and how’s the old woman’s health? I hope it’s not typhus.’
‘Typhus or no, her condition is not of the most advantageous.’
‘What a pity!’ said Anna, and having granted due courtesy to the people of the household, she turned to her own friends.
‘But still, it would be difficult to build a machine from your description, Anna Arkadyevna,’ Sviyazhsky said jokingly.
‘No, why?’ Anna replied with a smile which said that she knew there had been something endearing in the way she had explained the construction of the machine, something Sviyazhsky had noticed as well. This new feature of youthful coquetry struck Dolly unpleasantly.
‘On the other hand, Anna Arkadyevna’s knowledge of architecture is amazing,’ said Tushkevich.
‘That it is! Yesterday I heard Anna Arkadyevna say “in strobilus” and “plinths”,’ said Veslovsky. ‘Am I saying it right?’
‘There’s nothing amazing about it when one has seen and heard so much,’ said Anna. ‘And you probably don’t even know what houses are made of!’
Darya Alexandrovna saw that Anna was displeased with that playful tone between her and Veslovsky but involuntarily fell into it herself.
Vronsky in this case acted not at all like Levin. He obviously did not attach any significance to Veslovsky’s chatter and, on the contrary, encouraged these jokes.
‘So, tell us, Veslovsky, what holds the bricks together?’
‘Cement, naturally.’
‘Bravo! And what is cement?’
‘Just some sort of paste ... no, putty,’ said Veslovsky, provoking general laughter.
The conversation among the diners, except for the doctor, the architect, and the steward, who were sunk in gloomy silence, never flagged, now gliding along smoothly, now touching and cutting someone to the quick. On one occasion Darya Alexandrovna was cut to the quick and got so excited that she even turned red and later tried to recall whether she had said anything out of place or unpleasant. Sviyazhsky had started talking about Levin, telling of his strange opinions about machines being only harmful for Russian farming.
‘I don’t have the pleasure of knowing this Mr Levin,’ Vronsky said, smiling, ‘but he has probably never seen the machines he denounces. And if he has seen and tried one, it was not of foreign make but some Russian version. And what views can there be here?’
‘Turkish views, generally,’ Veslovsky said with a smile, turning to Anna.
‘I cannot defend his opinions,’ Darya Alexandrovna said, flushing, ‘but I can tell you that he’s a very educated man, and if he were here he would know how to answer you, though I’m unable to.’
‘I like him very much and we’re great friends,’ said Sviyazhsky, smiling good-naturedly.
‘That’s our Russian apathy,’ said Vronsky, pouring water from a chilled carafe into a thin glass with a stem, ‘not to feel the responsibilities imposed on us by our rights and thus to deny those responsibilities.’
‘I don’t know a man more strict in fulfilling his responsibilities,’ said Darya Alexandrovna, annoyed by Vronsky’s superior tone.
‘I, on the contrary,’ Vronsky went on, evidently touched to the quick for some reason by this conversation, ‘I, on the contrary, such as I am, feel very grateful for the honour done me, thanks to Nikolai Ivanych here’ (he indicated Sviyazhsky), ‘in electing me an honourable justice of the peace. I think that for me the responsibility of attending the sessions, of judging the case of a muzhik and his horse, is as important as anything I can do. And I will consider it an honour if I’m elected to the council. That is the only way I can pay back the benefits I enjoy as a landowner. Unfortunately, people don’t understand the significance major landowners ought to have in the state.’
Darya Alexandrovna found it strange to hear how calmly in the right he was, there at his own table. She remembered Levin, who thought the opposite, being just as resolute in his opinions at his own table. But she loved Levin and was therefore on his side.
‘So we can rely on you, Count, for the next session?’ said Sviyazhsky. ‘But you must leave early so as to be there by the eighth. Why don’t you honour me with a visit first?’
