Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART FOUR CHAPTER 6
And having obtained permission, Alexey Alexandrovitch prepared to set off to these
remote provinces.
Alexey Alexandrovitch’s departure made a great sensation, the more so as just before
he started he officially returned the posting-fares allowed him for twelve horses,
to drive to his destination.
“I think it very noble,” Betsy said about this to the Princess Myakaya. “Why take
money for posting-horses when everyone knows that there are railways everywhere
now?”
But Princess Myakaya did not agree, and the Princess Tverskaya’s opinion annoyed
her indeed.
“It’s all very well for you to talk,” said she, “when you have I don’t know how
many millions; but I am very glad when my husband goes on a revising tour in
the summer. It’s very good for him and pleasant traveling about, and it’s a settled
arrangement for me to keep a carriage and coachman on the money.”
On his way to the remote provinces Alexey Alexandrovitch stopped for three days
at Moscow.
The day after his arrival he was driving back from calling on the governor-general.
At the crossroads by Gazetoy Place, where there are always crowds of carriages and
sledges, Alexey Alexandrovitch suddenly heard his name called out in such a loud
and cheerful voice that he could not help looking round. At the corner of the pavement,
in a short, stylish overcoat and a low-crowned fashionable hat, jauntily askew,
with a smile that showed a gleam of white teeth and red lips, stood Stepan Arkadyevitch,
radiant, young, and beaming. He called him vigorously and urgently, and
insisted on his stopping. He had one arm on the window of a carriage that was
stopping at the corner, and out of the window were thrust the heads of a lady in a
velvet hat, and two children. Stepan Arkadyevitch was smiling and beckoning to his
brother-in-law. The lady smiled a kindly smile too, and she too waved her hand to
Alexey Alexandrovitch. It was Dolly with her children.
Alexey Alexandrovitch did not want to see anyone in Moscow, and least of all his
wife’s brother. He raised his hat and would have driven on, but Stepan Arkadyevitch
told his coachman to stop, and ran across the snow to him.
“Well, what a shame not to have let us know! Been here long? I was at Dussot’s
yesterday and saw ‘Karenin’ on the visitors’ list, but it never entered my head that
it was you,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, sticking his head in at the window of the
carriage, “or I should have looked you up. I am glad to see you!” he said, knocking
one foot against the other to shake the snow off. “What a shame of you not to let us
know!” he repeated.
“I had no time; I am very busy,” Alexey Alexandrovitch responded dryly.
“Come to my wife, she does so want to see you.”
Alexey Alexandrovitch unfolded the rug in which his frozen feet were wrapped,
and getting out of his carriage made his way over the snow to Darya Alexandrovna.
“Why, Alexey Alexandrovitch, what are you cutting us like this for?” said Dolly,
smiling.
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