Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART FOUR CHAPTER 21
Chapter 21
BEFORE Betsy had time to walk out of the drawing-room, she was met in the doorway
by Stepan Arkadyevitch, who had just come from Yeliseev’s, where a consignment
of fresh oysters had been received.
“Ah! princess! what a delightful meeting!” he began. “I’ve been to see you.”
“A meeting for one minute, for I’m going,” said Betsy, smiling and putting on her
glove.
“Don’t put on your glove yet, princess; let me kiss your hand. There’s nothing I’m
so thankful to the revival of the old fashions for as the kissing the hand.” He kissed
Betsy’s hand. “When shall we see each other?”
“You don’t deserve it,” answered Betsy, smiling.
“Oh, yes, I deserve a great deal, for I’ve become a most serious person. I don’t
only manage my own affairs, but other people’s too,” he said, with a significant
expression.
“Oh, I’m so glad!” answered Betsy, at once understanding that he was speaking of
Anna. And going back into the drawing room, they stood in a corner. “He’s killing
her,” said Betsy in a whisper full of meaning. “It’s impossible, impossible...”
“I’m so glad you think so,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, shaking his head with a
serious and sympathetically distressed expression, “that’s what I’ve come to Petersburg
for.”
“The whole town’s talking of it,” she said. “It’s an impossible position. She pines
and pines away. He doesn’t understand that she’s one of those women who can’t
trifle with their feelings. One of two things: either let him take her away, act with
energy, or give her a divorce. This is stifling her.”
“Yes, yes...just so...” Oblonsky said, sighing. “That’s what I’ve come for. At least
not solely for that...I’ve been made a Kammerherr; of course, one has to say thank you.
But the chief thing was having to settle this.”
“Well, God help you!” said Betsy.
After accompanying Betsy to the outside hall, once more kissing her hand above
the glove, at the point where the pulse beats, and murmuring to her such unseemly
nonsense that she did not know whether to laugh or be angry, Stepan Arkadyevitch
went to his sister. He found her in tears.
Although he happened to be bubbling over with good spirits, Stepan Arkadyevitch
immediately and quite naturally fell into the sympathetic, poetically emotional
tone which harmonized with her mood. He asked her how she was, and how she
had spent the morning.
“Very, very miserably. Today and this morning and all past days and days to
come,” she said.
“I think you’re giving way to pessimism. You must rouse yourself, you must look
life in the face. I know it’s hard, but...”
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