Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART TWO CHAPTER 4
come upon her that day in the railway carriage when she saw him for the first time.
She was conscious herself that her delight sparkled in her eyes and curved her lips
into a smile, and she could not quench the expression of this delight.
At first Anna sincerely believed that she was displeased with him for daring to
pursue her. Soon after her return from Moscow, on arriving at a soiree where she
had expected to meet him, and not finding him there, she realized distinctly from
the rush of disappointment that she had been deceiving herself, and that this pursuit
was not merely not distasteful to her, but that it made the whole interest of her life.
A celebrated singer was singing for the second time, and all the fashionable world
was in the theater. Vronsky, seeing his cousin from his stall in the front row, did not
wait till the entr’acte, but went to her box.
“Why didn’t you come to dinner?” she said to him. “I marvel at the second sight
of lovers,” she added with a smile, so that no one but he could hear; “she wasn’t there.
But come after the opera.”
Vronsky looked inquiringly at her. She nodded. He thanked her by a smile, and
sat down beside her.
“But how I remember your jeers!” continued Princess Betsy, who took a peculiar
pleasure in following up this passion to a successful issue. “What’s become of all
that? You’re caught, my dear boy.”
“That’s my one desire, to be caught,” answered Vronsky, with his serene, goodhumored
smile. “If I complain of anything it’s only that I’m not caught enough, to
tell the truth. I begin to lose hope.”
“Why, whatever hope can you have?” said Betsy, offended on behalf of her friend.
“Enendons nous....” But in her eyes there were gleams of light that betrayed that she
understood perfectly and precisely as he did what hope he might have.
“None whatever,” said Vronsky, laughing and showing his even rows of teeth.
“Excuse me,” he added, taking an opera glass out of her hand, and proceeding to
scrutinize, over her bare shoulder, the row of boxes facing them. “I’m afraid I’m
becoming ridiculous.”
He was very well aware that he ran no risk of being ridiculous in the eyes of
Betsy or any other fashionable people. He was very well aware that in their eyes the
position of an unsuccessful lover of a girl, or of any woman free to marry, might be
ridiculous. But the position of a man pursuing a married woman, and, regardless
of everything, staking his life on drawing her into adultery, has something fine and
grand about it, and can never be ridiculous; and so it was with a proud and gay
smile under his mustaches that he lowered the opera glass and looked at his cousin.
“But why was it you didn’t come to dinner?” she said, admiring him.
“I must tell you about that. I was busily employed, and doing what, do you suppose?
I’ll give you a hundred guesses, a thousand...you’d never guess. I’ve been
reconciling a husband with a man who’d insulted his wife. Yes, really!”
“Well, did you succeed?”
“Almost.”
120