He had been in Spain, and there had indulged in serenades and had

made friends with a Spanish girl who played the mandolin. In

Switzerland he had killed chamois. In England he had galloped in

a red coat over hedges and killed two hundred pheasants for a

bet. In Turkey he had got into a harem; in India he had hunted

on an elephant, and now in Russia he wished to taste all the

specially Russian forms of pleasure.

Vronsky, who was, as it were, chief master of the ceremonies to

him, was at great pains to arrange all the Russian amusements

suggested by various persons to the prince. They had race

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horses, and Russian pancakes and bear hunts and three-horse

sledges, and gypsies and drinking feasts, with the Russian

accompaniment of broken crockery. And the prince with surprising

ease fell in with the Russian spirit, smashed trays full of

crockery, sat with a gypsy girl on his knee, and seemed to be

asking--what more, and does the whole Russian spirit consist in

just this?

In reality, of all the Russian entertainments the prince liked

best French actresses and ballet dancers and white-seal

champagne. Vronsky was used to princes, but, either because he

had himself changed of late, or that he was in too close

proximity to the prince, that week seemed fearfully wearisome to

him. The whole of that week he experienced a sensation such as a

man might have set in charge of a dangerous madman, afraid of the

madman, and at the same time, from being with him, fearing for

his own reason. Vronsky was continually conscious of the

necessity of never for a second relaxing the tone of stern

official respectfulness, that he might not himself be insulted.

The prince's manner of treating the very people who, to Vronsky's

surprise, were ready to descend to any depths to provide him with

Russian amusements, was contemptuous. His criticisms of Russian

women, whom he wished to study, more than once made Vronsky

crimson with indignation. The chief reason why the prince was so

particularly disagreeable to Vronsky was that he could not help

seeing himself in him. And what he saw in this mirror did not

gratify his self-esteem. He was a very stupid and very

self-satisfied and very healthy and very well-washed man, and

nothing else. He was a gentleman--that was true, and Vronsky

could not deny it. He was equable and not cringing with his

superiors, was free and ingratiating in his behavior with his

equals, and was contemptuously indulgent with his inferiors.

Vronsky was himself the same, and regarded it as a great merit to

be so. But for this prince he was an inferior, and his

contemptuous and indulgent attitude to him revolted him.




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