Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART SEVEN CHAPTER 25
Yashvin laughed.
“That’s why I’m not married, and never mean to be.”
“And Helsingfors?” said Vronsky, entering into the conversation and glancing at
Anna’s smiling face. Meeting his eyes, Anna’s face instantly took a coldly severe
expression as though she were saying to him: “It’s not forgotten. It’s all the same.”
“Were you really in love?” she said to Yashvin.
“Oh heavens! ever so many times! But you see, some men can play but only
so that they can always lay down their cards when the hour of a rendezvous comes,
while I can take up love, but only so as not to be late for my cards in the evening.
That’s how I manage things.”
“No, I didn’t mean that, but the real thing.” She would have said Helsingfors, but
would not repeat the word used by Vronsky.
Voytov, who was buying the horse, came in. Anna got up and went out of the
room.
Before leaving the house, Vronsky went into her room. She would have pretended
to be looking for something on the table, but ashamed of making a pretense, she
looked straight in his face with cold eyes.
“What do you want?” she asked in French.
“To get the guarantee for Gambetta, I’ve sold him,” he said, in a tone which said
more clearly than words, “I’ve no time for discussing things, and it would lead to
nothing.”
“I’m not to blame in any way,” he thought. “If she will punish herself, tant pis pour
elle.” But as he was going he fancied that she said something, and his heart suddenly
ached with pity for her.
“Eh, Anna?” he queried.
“I said nothing,” she answered just as coldly and calmly.
“Oh, nothing, tant pis then,” he thought, feeling cold again, and he turned and
went out. As he was going out he caught a glimpse in the looking glass of her face,
white, with quivering lips. He even wanted to stop and to say some comforting
word to her, but his legs carried him out of the room before he could think what to
say. The whole of that day he spent away from home, and when he came in late in
the evening the maid told him that Anna Arkadyevna had a headache and begged
him not to go in to her.
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