Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART SIX CHAPTER 17
They were Vronsky with a jockey, Veslovsky and Anna on horseback, and Princess
Varvara and Sviazhsky in the char-à -banc. They had gone out to look at the working
of a new reaping machine.
When the carriage stopped, the party on horseback were coming at a walking
pace. Anna was in front beside Veslovsky. Anna, quietly walking her horse, a sturdy
English cob with cropped mane and short tail, her beautiful head with her black hair
straying loose under her high hat, her full shoulders, her slender waist in her black
riding habit, and all the ease and grace of her deportment, impressed Dolly.
For the first minute it seemed to her unsuitable for Anna to be on horseback. The
conception of riding on horseback for a lady was, in Darya Alexandrovna’s mind,
associated with ideas of youthful flirtation and frivolity, which, in her opinion, was
unbecoming in Anna’s position. But when she had scrutinized her, seeing her closer,
she was at once reconciled to her riding. In spite of her elegance, everything was so
simple, quiet, and dignified in the attitude, the dress and the movements of Anna,
that nothing could have been more natural.
Beside Anna, on a hot-looking gray cavalry horse, was Vassenka Veslovsky in
his Scotch cap with floating ribbons, his stout legs stretched out in front, obviously
pleased with his own appearance. Darya Alexandrovna could not suppress a goodhumored
smile as she recognized him. Behind rode Vronsky on a dark bay mare,
obviously heated from galloping. He was holding her in, pulling at the reins.
After him rode a little man in the dress of a jockey. Sviazhsky and Princess Varvara
in a new char-à -banc with a big, raven-black trotting horse, overtook the party on
horseback.
Anna’s face suddenly beamed with a joyful smile at the instant when, in the little
figure huddled in a corner of the old carriage, she recognized Dolly. She uttered a
cry, started in the saddle, and set her horse into a gallop. On reaching the carriage
she jumped off without assistance, and holding up her riding habit, she ran up to
greet Dolly.
“I thought it was you and dared not think it. How delightful! You can’t fancy how
glad I am!” she said, at one moment pressing her face against Dolly and kissing her,
and at the next holding her off and examining her with a smile.
“Here’s a delightful surprise, Alexey!” she said, looking round at Vronsky, who
had dismounted, and was walking towards them.
Vronsky, taking off his tall gray hat, went up to Dolly.
“You wouldn’t believe how glad we are to see you,” he said, giving peculiar significance
to the words, and showing his strong white teeth in a smile.
Vassenka Veslovsky, without getting off his horse, took off his cap and greeted the
visitor by gleefully waving the ribbons over his head.
“That’s Princess Varvara,” Anna said in reply to a glance of inquiry from Dolly as
the char-à -banc drove up.
“Ah!” said Darya Alexandrovna, and unconsciously her face betrayed her dissatisfaction.
Princess Varvara was her husband’s aunt, and she had long known her, and did
not respect her. She knew that Princess Varvara had passed her whole life toadying
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