`I believe it's dinnertime,' she said. `We've not seen each other at all yet. I am reckoning on the evening. Now I want to go and dress.
I expect you do too; we all got splashed at the buildings.'
Dolly went to her room and she felt amused. To change her dress was impossible, for she had already put on her best dress. But in order to signify in some way her preparation for dinner, she asked the maid to brush her dress, changed her cuffs and rosette, and put some lace on her head.
`This is all I can do,' she said with a smile to Anna, who came in to her in a third dress, again of extreme simplicity.
`Yes, we are too prim here,' she said, as it were apologizing for her finery. `Alexei is delighted at your visit, as he rarely is at anything. He has completely lost his heart to you,' she added. `You're not tired?'
There was no time for talking about anything before dinner. Going into the drawing room they found Princess Varvara already there, and the gentlemen of the party in black frock coats. The architect wore a swallow-tailed coat. Vronsky presented the doctor and the steward to his guest. The architect he had already introduced to her at the hospital.
A stout butler, resplendent with a smoothly shaven round chin and a starched white cravat, announced that dinner was ready, and the ladies got up. Vronsky asked Sviiazhsky to take in Anna Arkadyevna, and himself offered his arm to Dolly. Veslovsky was before Tushkevich in offering his arm to Princess Varvara, so that Tushkevich with the steward and the doctor walked in alone.
The dinner, the dining room, the service, the waiting at table, the wine and the food, were not simply in keeping with the general tone of modern luxury throughout the house, but seemed even more sumptuous and modern. Darya Alexandrovna watched this luxury which was novel to her, and as a good housekeeper used to managing a household - though she never dreamed of adapting anything she saw to her own household, as it was all in a style of luxury far above her own manner of living - she could not help scrutinizing every detail, and wondering how and by whom it was all done. Vassenka Veslovsky, her husband, and even Sviiazhsky, and many other people she knew, would never have considered this question, and would have readily believed what every well-bred host tries to make his guests feel, that is, that all that is well-ordered in his house has cost him, the host, no trouble whatever, but comes of itself. Darya Alexandrovna was well aware that even porridge for the children's breakfast does not come of itself, and that therefore, where so complicated and magnificent a style of luxury was maintained, someone must give earnest attention to its organization.
And from the glance with which Alexei Kirillovich scanned the table, from the way he nodded to the butler, and offered Darya Alexandrovna her choice between cold soup and hot soup, she saw that it was all organized and maintained by the care of the master of the house himself. It was evident that it all rested no more upon Anna than upon Veslovsky. She, Sviiazhsky, the Princess, and Veslovsky, were equally guests, with light hearts enjoying what had been arranged for them.
Anna was the hostess only in conducting the conversation. The conversation was a difficult one for the lady of the house at a small table with persons present, like the steward and the architect, belonging to a completely different world, struggling not to be overawed by an elegance to which they were unaccustomed, and unable to sustain a large share in the general conversation. But this difficult conversation Anna directed with her usual tact and naturalness, and indeed she did so with actual enjoyment, as Darya Alexandrovna observed.
The conversation began about the row Tushkevich and Veslovsky had taken alone together in the boat, and Tushkevich began describing the last boat races in Peterburg at the Yacht Club. But Anna, seizing the first pause, at once turned to the architect to draw him out of his silence.
`Nikolai Ivanich was struck,' she said meaning Sviiazhsky, `at the progress the new building had made since he was here last; but I am there every day, and every day I wonder at the rate at which it grows.'
`It's first-rate working with His Excellency,' said the architect with a smile (he was respectful and composed, though with a sense of his own dignity). `It's a very different matter to have to do with the district authorities. Where one would have to write out sheaves of papers, here I call upon the Count, and in three words we settle the business.'
`The American way of doing business,' said Sviiazhsky, with a smile.
`Yes, there they build in a rational fashion....'
The conversation passed to the misuse of political power in the United States, but Anna quickly brought it round to another topic, so as to draw the steward into talk.
`Have you ever seen a reaping machine?' she said, addressing Darya Alexandrovna. `We had just ridden over to look at one when we met. It's the first time I ever saw one.'
`How do they work?' asked Dolly.
`Exactly like scissors. A plank and a lot of little scissors.
Like this.'
Anna took a knife and fork in her beautiful white hands, covered with rings, and began showing how the machine worked. It was clear that she saw nothing would be understood from her explanation; but aware that her talk was pleasant, and her hands beautiful, she went on explaining.
`More like little penknives,' Veslovsky said playfully, never taking his eyes off her.
Anna gave a just perceptible smile, but made no answer. `Isn't it true, Karl Fedorich, that it's just like scissors?' she said to the steward.
` Oh, ja ,' answered the German. ` Es ist ein ganz einfaches Ding ,' and he began to explain the construction of the machine.
`It's a pity it doesn't bind too. I saw one at the Vienna exhibition, which binds with a wire,' said Sviiazhsky. `They would be more profitable in use.'
