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The fat old Tatar, Madame Karenina’s coachman, was with diffi-
culty holding one of her pair of grays, chilled with the cold and rearing
at the entrance. A footman stood opening the carriage door. The hall
porter stood holding open the great door of the house. Anna
Arkadyevna, with her quick little hand, was unfastening the lace of her
sleeve, caught in the hook of her fur cloak, and with bent head listening
to the words Vronsky murmured as he escorted her down.
“You’ve said nothing, of course, and I ask nothing,” he was saying;
“but you know that friendship’s not what I want: that there’s only one
happiness in life for me, that word that you dislike so...yes, love!...”
“Love,” she repeated slowly, in an inner voice, and suddenly, at the
very instant she unhooked the lace, she added, “Why I don’t like the
word is that it means too much to me, far more than you can under-
stand,” and she glanced into his face. “Au revoir!”
She gave him her hand, and with her rapid, springy step she passed
by the porter and vanished into the carriage.
Her glance, the touch of her hand, set him aflame. He kissed the
palm of his hand where she had touched it, and went home, happy in
the sense that he had got nearer to the attainment of his aims that
evening than during the last two months.
Chapter 8.
Alexey Alexandrovitch had seen nothing striking or improper in
the fact that his wife was sitting with Vronsky at a table apart, in eager
conversation with him about something. But he noticed that to the
rest of the party this appeared something striking and improper, and
for that reason it seemed to him too to be improper. He made up his
mind that he must speak of it to his wife.
On reaching home Alexey Alexandrovitch went to his study, as he
usually did, seated himself in his low chair, opened a book on the
Papacy at the place where he had laid the paper-knife in it, and read
till one o’clock, just as he usually did. But from time to time he rubbed
his high forehead and shook his head, as though to drive away some-
thing. At his usual time he got up and made his toilet for the night.
Anna Arkadyevna had not yet come in. With a book under his arm he
went upstairs. But this evening, instead of his usual thought and
meditations upon official details, his thoughts were absorbed by his
wife and something disagreeable connected with her. Contrary to his
usual habit, he did not get into bed, but fell to walking up and down
the rooms with his hands clasped behind his back. He could not go to
bed, feeling that it was absolutely needful for him first to think thor-
oughly over the position that had just arisen.
When Alexey Alexandrovitch had made up his mind that he must