Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/734

 kievitch the right to protect her? However you may look at it, it is stupid, it is stupid! .... Why should she place me in this position?" he said, with a gesture of despair.

This movement jostled the stand on which stood the seltzer water and the decanter with cognac, and nearly knocked it over; in trying to rescue it, he upset it entirely; he rang, and gave a kick to the table.

"If you want to remain in my service," said he to his valet who appeared, "then tend to your business. Don't let this happen again; why didn't you take these things away?"

The valet, knowing his innocence, wished to justify himself: but by one glance at his barin's face he realized that it was best for him to be silent; and, making a hasty excuse, he got down on the floor to pick up the broken glasses and water-bottles.

"That is not your business; call a waiter, and get my dress-coat."

Vronsky entered the theater at half-past nine. The performance was in full swing. The Kapelldiener—a little old man—took his fur-lined shuba, and, recognizing him, called him "your excellency," and assured him that he needed not to take a number, but that all he had to do was to call for Feodor.

There was no one in the lighted lobby except the Kapelldiener and two valets with fur garments on their arms, listening at the door. The sound of the orchestra playing staccato could be heard, carefully accompanying a woman's voice which was admirably rendering a musical phrase. The door opened and another Kapelldiener came tiptoeing out, and the phrase, as it was ending, came distinctly to Vronsky's ear. But instantly the door closed again and he could not hear the ending of the phrase or the cadenza; but from the applause that followed he knew that the aria was finished.

The plaudits still continued as he went into the auditorium, brilliantly lighted with chandeliers and bronze gas-fixtures. On the stage, the prima donna, with