Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART SIX CHAPTER 20
unimpeachable virtue, weary of the monotony of respectable existence, at a distance
she not only excused illicit love, she positively envied it. Besides, she loved Anna
with all her heart. But seeing Anna in actual life among these strangers, with this
fashionable tone that was so new to Darya Alexandrovna, she felt ill at ease. What
she disliked particularly was seeing Princess Varvara ready to overlook everything
for the sake of the comforts she enjoyed.
As a general principle, abstractly, Dolly approved of Anna’s action; but to see the
man for whose sake her action had been taken was disagreeable to her. Moreover,
she had never liked Vronsky. She thought him very proud, and saw nothing in him
of which he could be proud except his wealth. But against her own will, here in his
own house, he overawed her more than ever, and she could not be at ease with him.
She felt with him the same feeling she had had with the maid about her dressing
jacket. Just as with the maid she had felt not exactly ashamed, but embarrassed at
her darns, so she felt with him not exactly ashamed, but embarrassed at herself.
Dolly was ill at ease, and tried to find a subject of conversation. Even though she
supposed that, through his pride, praise of his house and garden would be sure to
be disagreeable to him, she did all the same tell him how much she liked his house.
“Yes, it’s a very fine building, and in the good old-fashioned style,” he said.
“I like so much the court in front of the steps. Was that always so?”
“Oh, no!” he said, and his face beamed with pleasure. “If you could only have
seen that court last spring!”
And he began, at first rather diffidently, but more and more carried away by the
subject as he went on, to draw her attention to the various details of the decoration
of his house and garden. It was evident that, having devoted a great deal of trouble
to improve and beautify his home, Vronsky felt a need to show off the improvements
to a new person, and was genuinely delighted at Darya Alexandrovna’s praise.
“If you would care to look at the hospital, and are not tired, indeed, it’s not far.
Shall we go?” he said, glancing into her face to convince himself that she was not
bored. “Are you coming, Anna?” he turned to her.
“We will come, won’t we?” she said, addressing Sviazhsky. “Mais il ne faut pas
laisser le pauvre Veslovsky et Tushkevitch se morfondre là dans le bateau. We must send
and tell them.”
“Yes, this is a monument he is setting up here,” said Anna, turning to Dolly with
that sly smile of comprehension with which she had previously talked about the
hospital.
“Oh, it’s a work of real importance!” said Sviazhsky. But to show he was not
trying to ingratiate himself with Vronsky, he promptly added some slightly critical
remarks.
“I wonder, though, count,” he said, “that while you do so much for the health of
the peasants, you take so little interest in the schools.”
“C’est devenu tellement commun les écoles,” said Vronsky. “You understand it’s not
on that account, but it just happens so, my interest has been diverted elsewhere. This
way then to the hospital,” he said to Darya Alexandrovna, pointing to a turning out
of the avenue.
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