Meanwhile, she behaved with perfect propriety and was fearfully bored.
It is five o'clock, and the heavy curtains before the windows of her drawing-room are already drawn close. The lamps shed a mild, agreeable light. A lackey has just brought in the tea. Upon a pretty Japanese stand, beside the silver samovar, sparkle the glass decanters of cordial and all the modern accompaniments of afternoon tea.
It is the Princess's reception-day.
That she entirely ignores in her intercourse with Stasy her own loss of position, that she ascribes her seclusion solely to a voluntary retirement from a hollow world which disgusts her, there is as little need of saying as that Stasy, without a word from the Princess to induce her to do so, feels herself under obligations to introduce Sophie to a new social circle.
This 'circle' consists as yet but of a few wealthy Americans, just arrived in Paris, and of--artists.
The Princess has a special liking for artists; they are, she maintains, so much fresher, so much quicker and pleasanter as companions, than her equals in rank, of whose wearisome shallowness she has many a story to tell. And her special favourite among these is the pianist Fuhrwesen. Why, good heavens, the only occupation which really interests the Princess at this time is the search for some private irregularity in the lives of women of extreme apparent respectability; and in these investigations the pianist is always ready to assist her.
Dressed with great taste but with severe simplicity, holding a small Japanese hand-screen between her face and the glow from the fire, the Princess is leaning back in a low chair near the hearth, complaining of headache, and hoping that there will not be as many people here to-day as on her last reception-day.
A quarter of an hour--yes, half an hour--passes, and no one appears. Stasy is hungry; the foie gras sandwiches are very tempting, but to partake of one would be a tacit admission that there is no hope of a visitor, and she must not be the first to confess the fact.
"Poor Boissy!"--this is a painter whom the Oblonsky has taken under her protection,--"poor Boissy! probably he cannot summon up the courage to come; he is ashamed of his wife. Ah, he really cannot dream how considerate I am for artists' wives. It is a theory of mine that it is our duty, as ladies, to educate artists' wives for their husbands. I know it is not usual to receive them; but that seems to me very petty, and I hate all pettiness."
Another quarter of an hour passes. Stasy is faint with hunger.