Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART TWO CHAPTER 7
“Your Rambouillet is in full conclave,” he said, looking round at all the party; “the
graces and the muses.”
But Princess Betsy could not endure that tone of his– “sneering,” as she called
it, using the English word, and like a skillful hostess she at once brought him into a
serious conversation on the subject of universal conscription. Alexey Alexandrovitch
was immediately interested in the subject, and began seriously defending the new
imperial decree against Princess Betsy, who had attacked it.
Vronsky and Anna still sat at the little table.
“This is getting indecorous,” whispered one lady, with an expressive glance at
Madame Karenina, Vronsky, and her husband.
“What did I tell you?” said Anna’s friend.
But not only those ladies, almost everyone in the room, even the Princess Myakaya
and Betsy herself, looked several times in the direction of the two who had withdrawn
from the general circle, as though that were a disturbing fact. Alexey Alexandrovitch
was the only person who did not once look in that direction, and was not
diverted from the interesting discussion he had entered upon.
Noticing the disagreeable impression that was being made on everyone, Princess
Betsy slipped someone else into her place to listen to Alexey Alexandrovitch, and
went up to Anna.
“I’m always amazed at the clearness and precision of your husband’s language,”
she said. “The most transcendental ideas seem to be within my grasp when he’s
speaking.”
“Oh, yes!” said Anna, radiant with a smile of happiness, and not understanding a
word of what Betsy had said. She crossed over to the big table and took part in the
general conversation.
Alexey Alexandrovitch, after staying half an hour, went up to his wife and suggested
that they should go home together. But she answered, not looking at him, that
she was staying to supper. Alexey Alexandrovitch made his bows and withdrew.
The fat old Tatar, Madame Karenina’s coachman, was with difficulty holding one
of her pair of grays, chilled with the cold and rearing at the entrance. A footman
stood opening the carriage door. The hall porter stood holding open the great door
of the house. Anna Arkadyevna, with her quick little hand, was unfastening the lace
of her sleeve, caught in the hook of her fur cloak, and with bent head listening to the
words Vronsky murmured as he escorted her down.
“You’ve said nothing, of course, and I ask nothing,” he was saying; “but you know
that friendship’s not what I want: that there’s only one happiness in life for me, that
word that you dislike so...yes, love!...”
“Love,” she repeated slowly, in an inner voice, and suddenly, at the very instant
she unhooked the lace, she added, “Why I don’t like the word is that it means too
much to me, far more than you can understand,” and she glanced into his face. “Au
revoir!”
She gave him her hand, and with her rapid, springy step she passed by the porter
and vanished into the carriage.
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