Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART ONE CHAPTER 31
his soul with rapture. He told his German valet, who ran up to him from the second
class, to take his things and go on, and he himself went up to her. He saw the first
meeting between the husband and wife, and noted with a lover’s insight the signs
of slight reserve with which she spoke to her husband. “No, she does not love him
and cannot love him,” he decided to himself.
At the moment when he was approaching Anna Arkadyevna he noticed too with
joy that she was conscious of his being near, and looked round, and seeing him,
turned again to her husband.
“Have you passed a good night?” he asked, bowing to her and her husband together,
and leaving it up to Alexey Alexandrovitch to accept the bow on his own
account, and to recognize it or not, as he might see fit.
“Thank you, very good,” she answered.
Her face looked weary, and there was not that play of eagerness in it, peeping
out in her smile and her eyes; but for a single instant, as she glanced at him, there
was a flash of something in her eyes, and although the flash died away at once, he
was happy for that moment. She glanced at her husband to find out whether he
knew Vronsky. Alexey Alexandrovitch looked at Vronsky with displeasure, vaguely
recalling who this was. Vronsky’s composure and self-confidence here struck, like a
scythe against a stone, upon the cold self-confidence of Alexey Alexandrovitch.
“Count Vronsky,” said Anna.
“Ah! We are acquainted, I believe,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch indifferently, giving
his hand.
“You set off with the mother and you return with the son,” he said, articulating
each syllable, as though each were a separate favor he was bestowing.
“You’re back from leave, I suppose?” he said, and without waiting for a reply, he
turned to his wife in his jesting tone: “Well, were a great many tears shed at Moscow
at parting?”
By addressing his wife like this he gave Vronsky to understand that he wished
to be left alone, and, turning slightly towards him, he touched his hat; but Vronsky
turned to Anna Arkadyevna.
“I hope I may have the honor of calling on you,” he said.
Alexey Alexandrovitch glanced with his weary eyes at Vronsky.
“Delighted,” he said coldly. “On Mondays we’re at home. Most fortunate,” he
said to his wife, dismissing Vronsky altogether, “that I should just have half an hour
to meet you, so that I can prove my devotion,” he went on in the same jesting tone.
“You lay too much stress on your devotion for me to value it much,” she responded
in the same jesting tone, involuntarily listening to the sound of Vronsky’s
steps behind them. “But what has it to do with me?” she said to herself, and she
began asking her husband how Seryozha had got on without her.
“Oh, capitally! Mariette says he has been very good, And...I must disappoint
you...but he has not missed you as your husband has. But once more merci, my
dear, for giving me a day. Our dear Samovar will be delighted.” (He used to call the
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