Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART SIX CHAPTER 17
on her rich relations, but that she should now be sponging on Vronsky, a man who
was nothing to her, mortified Dolly on account of her kinship with her husband.
Anna noticed Dolly’s expression, and was disconcerted by it. She blushed, dropped
her riding habit, and stumbled over it.
Darya Alexandrovna went up to the char-à -banc and coldly greeted Princess Varvara.
Sviazhsky too she knew. He inquired how his queer friend with the young
wife was, and running his eyes over the ill-matched horses and the carriage with
its patched mud-guards, proposed to the ladies that they should get into the char-à
-banc.
“And I’ll get into this vehicle,” he said. “The horse is quiet, and the princess drives
capitally.”
“No, stay as you were,” said Anna, coming up, “and we’ll go in the carriage,” and
taking Dolly’s arm, she drew her away.
Darya Alexandrovna’s eyes were fairly dazzled by the elegant carriage of a pattern
she had never seen before, the splendid horses, and the elegant and gorgeous people
surrounding her. But what struck her most of all was the change that had taken
place in Anna, whom she knew so well and loved. Any other woman, a less close
observer, not knowing Anna before, or not having thought as Darya Alexandrovna
had been thinking on the road, would not have noticed anything special in Anna.
But now Dolly was struck by that temporary beauty, which is only found in women
during the moments of love, and which she saw now in Anna’s face. Everything
in her face, the clearly marked dimples in her cheeks and chin, the line of her lips,
the smile which, as it were, fluttered about her face, the brilliance of her eyes, the
grace and rapidity of her movements, the fulness of the notes of her voice, even the
manner in which, with a sort of angry friendliness, she answered Veslovsky when
he asked permission to get on her cob, so as to teach it to gallop with the right leg
foremost–it was all peculiarly fascinating, and it seemed as if she were herself aware
of it, and rejoicing in it.
When both the women were seated in the carriage, a sudden embarrassment came
over both of them. Anna was disconcerted by the intent look of inquiry Dolly fixed
upon her. Dolly was embarrassed because after Sviazhsky’s phrase about “this vehicle,”
she could not help feeling ashamed of the dirty old carriage in which Anna
was sitting with her. The coachman Philip and the counting house clerk were experiencing
the same sensation. The counting house clerk, to conceal his confusion,
busied himself settling the ladies, but Philip the coachman became sullen, and was
bracing himself not to be overawed in future by this external superiority. He smiled
ironically, looking at the raven horse, and was already deciding in his own mind that
this smart trotter in the char-à -banc was only good for promenade, and wouldn’t do
thirty miles straight off in the heat.
The peasants had all got up from the cart and were inquisitively and mirthfully
staring at the meeting of the friends, making their comments on it.
“They’re pleased, too; haven’t seen each other for a long while,” said the curlyheaded
old man with the bast round his hair.
“I say, Uncle Gerasim, if we could take that raven horse now, to cart the corn, that
‘ud be quick work!”
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