It was past five, and several guests had already arrived, before

the host himself got home. He went in together with Sergey

Ivanovitch Koznishev and Pestsov, who had reached the street door

at the same moment. These were the two leading representatives

of the Moscow intellectuals, as Oblonsky had called them. Both

were men respected for their character and their intelligence.

They respected each other, but were in complete and hopeless

disagreement upon almost every subject, not because they belonged

to opposite parties, but precisely because they were of the same

party (their enemies refused to see any distinction between their

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views); but, in that party, each had his own special shade of

opinion. And since no difference is less easily overcome than

the difference of opinion about semi-abstract questions, they

never agreed in any opinion, and had long, indeed, been

accustomed to jeer without anger, each at the other's

incorrigible aberrations.

They were just going in at the door, talking of the weather, when

Stepan Arkadyevitch overtook them. In the drawing room there

were already sitting Prince Alexander Dmitrievitch Shtcherbatsky,

young Shtcherbatsky, Turovtsin, Kitty, and Karenin.

Stepan Arkadyevitch saw immediately that things were not going

well in the drawing-room without him. Darya Alexandrovna, in her

best gray silk gown, obviously worried about the children, who

were to have their dinner by themselves in the nursery, and by

her husband's absence, was not equal to the task of making the

party mix without him. All were sitting like so many priests'

wives on a visit (so the old prince expressed it), obviously

wondering why they were there, and pumping up remarks simply to

avoid being silent. Turovtsin--good, simple man--felt

unmistakably a fish out of water, and the smile with which his

thick lips greeted Stepan Arkadyevitch said, as plainly as words:

"Well, old boy, you have popped me down in a learned set! A

drinking party now, or the _Château des Fleurs_, would be more in

my line!" The old prince sat in silence, his bright little eyes

watching Karenin from one side, and Stepan Arkadyevitch saw that

he had already formed a phrase to sum up that politician of whom

guests were invited to partake as though he were a sturgeon.

Kitty was looking at the door, calling up all her energies to

keep her from blushing at the entrance of Konstantin Levin.

Young Shtcherbatsky, who had not been introduced to Karenin, was

trying to look as though he were not in the least conscious of

it. Karenin himself had followed the Petersburg fashion for a

dinner with ladies and was wearing evening dress and a white tie.

Stepan Arkadyevitch saw by his face that he had come simply to

keep his promise, and was performing a disagreeable duty in being

present at this gathering. He was indeed the person chiefly

responsible for the chill benumbing all the guests before Stepan

Arkadyevitch came in.




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