On arriving in Petersburg, Vronsky and Anna stayed at one of the
best hotels; Vronsky apart in a lower story, Anna above with
her child, its nurse, and her maid, in a large suite of four
rooms.
On the day of his arrival Vronsky went to his brother's. There
he found his mother, who had come from Moscow on business. His
mother and sister-in-law greeted him as usual: they asked him
about his stay abroad, and talked of their common acquaintances,
but did not let drop a single word in allusion to his connection
with Anna. His brother came the next morning to see Vronsky, and
of his own accord asked him about her, and Alexey Vronsky told
him directly that he looked upon his connection with Madame
Karenina as marriage; that he hoped to arrange a divorce, and
then to marry her, and until then he considered her as much a
wife as any other wife, and he begged him to tell their mother
and his wife so.
"If the world disapproves, I don't care," said Vronsky; "but if
my relations want to be on terms of relationship with me, they
will have to be on the same terms with my wife."
The elder brother, who had always a respect for his younger
brother's judgment, could not well tell whether he was right or
not till the world had decided the question; for his part he had
nothing against it, and with Alexey he went up to see Anna.
Before his brother, as before everyone, Vronsky addressed Anna
with a certain formality, treating her as he might a very
intimate friend, but it was understood that his brother knew
their real relations, and they talked about Anna's going to
Vronsky's estate.
In spite of all his social experience Vronsky was, in consequence
of the new position in which he was placed, laboring under a
strange misapprehension. One would have thought he must have
understood that society was closed for him and Anna; but now some
vague ideas had sprung up in his brain that this was only the
case in old-fashioned days, and that now with the rapidity of
modern progress (he had unconsciously become by now a partisan of
every sort of progress) the views of society had changed, and
that the question whether they would be received in society was
not a foregone conclusion. "Of course," he thought, "she would
not be received at court, but intimate friends can and must look
at it in the proper light." One may sit for several hours at a
stretch with one's legs crossed in the same position, if one
knows that there's nothing to prevent one's changing one's
position; but if a man knows that he must remain sitting so with
crossed legs, then cramps come on, the legs begin to twitch and
to strain towards the spot to which one would like to draw them.
This was what Vronsky was experiencing in regard to the world.
Though at the bottom of his heart he knew that the world was shut
on them, he put it to the test whether the world had not changed
by now and would not receive them. But he very quickly perceived
that though the world was open for him personally, it was closed
for Anna. Just as in the game of cat and mouse, the hands raised
for him were dropped to bar the way for Anna.