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set had called it “the conscience of Petersburg society.” Alexey
Alexandrovitch had the highest esteem for this circle, and Anna with
her special gift for getting on with everyone, had in the early days of her
life in Petersburg made friends in this circle also. Now, since her return
from Moscow, she had come to feel this set insufferable. It seemed to
her that both she and all of them were insincere, and she fell so bored
and ill at ease in that world that she went to see the Countess Lidia
Ivanovna as little as possible.
The third circle with which Anna had ties was preeminently the
fashionable world—the world of balls, of dinners, of sumptuous dresses,
the world that hung on to the court with one hand, so as to avoid
sinking to the level of the demi-monde. For the demi-monde the
members of that fashionable world believed that they despised, though
their tastes were not merely similar, but in fact identical. Her connec-
tion with this circle was kept up through Princess Betsy Tverskaya, her
cousin’s wife, who had an income of a hundred and twenty thousand
roubles, and who had taken a great fancy to Anna ever since she first
came out, showed her much attention, and drew her into her set, mak-
ing fun of Countess Kidia Ivanovna’s coterie.
“When I’m old and ugly I’ll be the same,” Betsy used to say; “but
for a pretty young woman like you it’s early days for that house of
charity.”
Anna had at first avoided as far as she could Princess Tverskaya’s
world, because it necessitated an expenditure beyond her means, and
besides in her heart she preferred the first circle. But since her visit to
Moscow she had done quite the contrary. She avoided her serious-
minded friends, and went out into the fashionable world. There she
met Vronsky, and experienced an agitating joy at those meetings. She
met Vronsky specially often at Betsy’s for Betsy was a Vronsky by birth
and his cousin. Vronsky was everywhere where he had any chance of
meeting Anna, and speaking to her, when he could, of his love. She
gave him no encouragement, but every time she met him there surged
up in her heart that same feeling of quickened life that had come upon
her that day in the railway carriage when she saw him for the first time.
She was conscious herself that her delight sparkled in her eyes and
curved her lips into a smile, and she could not quench the expression of
this delight.
At first Anna sincerely believed that she was displeased with him
for daring to pursue her. Soon after her return from Moscow, on arriv-
ing at a soiree where she had expected to meet him, and not finding
him there, she realized distinctly from the rush of disappointment that
she had been deceiving herself, and that this pursuit was not merely
not distasteful to her, but that it made the whole interest of her life.
A celebrated singer was singing for the second time, and all the
fashionable world was in the theater. Vronsky, seeing his cousin from
his stall in the front row, did not wait till the entr’acte, but went to her
box.
“Why didn’t you come to dinner?” she said to him. “I marvel at the
second sight of lovers,” she added with a smile, so that no one but he
could hear; “SHE WASN’T THERE. But come after the opera.”
Vronsky looked inquiringly at her. She nodded. He thanked her by
a smile, and sat down beside her.
“But how I remember your jeers!” continued Princess Betsy, who
took a peculiar pleasure in following up this passion to a successful
issue. “What’s become of all that? You’re caught, my dear boy.”
“That’s my one desire, to be caught,” answered Vronsky, with his
serene, good-humored smile. “If I complain of anything it’s only that
I’m not caught enough, to tell the truth. I begin to lose hope.”