"How spiteful you are today!"
"Not a bit. I'd no other way out of it. One of the two had to
be a fool. And, well, you know one can't say that of oneself."
"'No one is satisfied with his fortune, and everyone is
satisfied with his wit.'" The attaché repeated the French
saying.
"That's just it, just it," Princess Myakaya turned to him. "But
the point is that I won't abandon Anna to your mercies. She's so
nice, so charming. How can she help it if they're all in love
with her, and follow her about like shadows?"
"Oh, I had no idea of blaming her for it," Anna's friend said in
self-defense.
"If no one follows us about like a shadow, that's no proof that
we've any right to blame her."
And having duly disposed of Anna's friend, the Princess Myakaya
got up, and together with the ambassador's wife, joined the group
at the table, where the conversation was dealing with the king of
Prussia.
"What wicked gossip were you talking over there?" asked Betsy.
"About the Karenins. The princess gave us a sketch of Alexey
Alexandrovitch," said the ambassador's wife with a smile, as she
sat down at the table.
"Pity we didn't hear it!" said Princess Betsy, glancing towards
the door. "Ah, here you are at last!" she said, turning with a
smile to Vronsky, as he came in.
Vronsky was not merely acquainted with all the persons whom he
was meeting here; he saw them all every day; and so he came in
with the quiet manner with which one enters a room full of people
from whom one has only just parted.
"Where do I come from?" he said, in answer to a question from the
ambassador's wife. "Well, there's no help for it, I must
confess. From the _opera bouffé_. I do believe I've seen it a
hundred times, and always with fresh enjoyment. It's exquisite!
I know it's disgraceful, but I go to sleep at the opera, and I
sit out the _opera bouffé_ to the last minute, and enjoy it.
This evening..."
He mentioned a French actress, and was going to tell something
about her; but the ambassador's wife, with playful horror, cut
him short.
"Please don't tell us about that horror."
"All right, I won't especially as everyone knows those horrors."
"And we should all go to see them if it were accepted as the
correct thing, like the opera," chimed in Princess Myakaya.