Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART TWO CHAPTER 29
“Excuse me, princess,” he said, smiling courteously but looking her very firmly in
the face, “but I see that Anna’s not very well, and I wish her to come home with me.”
Anna looked about her in a frightened way, got up submissively, and laid her hand
on her husband’s arm.
“I’ll send to him and find out, and let you know,” Betsy whispered to her.
As they left the pavilion, Alexey Alexandrovitch, as always, talked to those he met,
and Anna had, as always, to talk and answer; but she was utterly beside herself, and
moved hanging on her husband’s arm as though in a dream.
“Is he killed or not? Is it true? Will he come or not? Shall I see him today?” she
was thinking.
She took her seat in her husband’s carriage in silence, and in silence drove out of
the crowd of carriages. In spite of all he had seen, Alexey Alexandrovitch still did
not allow himself to consider his wife’s real condition. He merely saw the outward
symptoms. He saw that she was behaving unbecomingly, and considered it his duty
to tell her so. But it was very difficult for him not to say more, to tell her nothing but
that. He opened his mouth to tell her she had behaved unbecomingly, but he could
not help saying something utterly different.
“What an inclination we all have, though, for these cruel spectacles,” he said. “I
observe...”
“Eh? I don’t understand,” said Anna contemptuously.
He was offended, and at once began to say what he had meant to say.
“I am obliged to tell you,” he began.
“So now we are to have it out,” she thought, and she felt frightened.
“I am obliged to tell you that your behavior has been unbecoming today,” he said
to her in French.
“In what way has my behavior been unbecoming?” she said aloud, turning her
head swiftly and looking him straight in the face, not with the bright expression
that seemed covering something, but with a look of determination, under which she
concealed with difficulty the dismay she was feeling.
“Mind,” he said, pointing to the open window opposite the coachman.
He got up and pulled up the window.
“What did you consider unbecoming?” she repeated.
“The despair you were unable to conceal at the accident to one of the riders.”
He waited for her to answer, but she was silent, looking straight before her.
“I have already begged you so to conduct yourself in society that even malicious
tongues can find nothing to say against you. There was a time when I spoke of
your inward attitude, but I am not speaking of that now. Now I speak only of your
external attitude. You have behaved improperly, and I would wish it not to occur
again.”
She did not hear half of what he was saying; she felt panic-stricken before him,
and was thinking whether it was true that Vronsky was not killed. Was it of him
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