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Chapter 32.
When Vronsky returned home, Anna was not yet home. Soon
after he had left, some lady, so they told him, had come to see her, and
she had gone out with her. That she had gone out without leaving
word where she was going, that she had not yet come back, and that all
the morning she had been going about somewhere without a word to
him—all this, together with the strange look of excitement in her face
in the morning, and the recollection of the hostile tone with which she
had before Yashvin almost snatched her son’s photographs out of his
hands, made him serious. He decided he absolutely must speak openly
with her. And he waited for her in her drawing room. But Anna did not
return alone, but brought with her her old unmarried aunt, Princess
Oblonskaya. This was the lady who had come in the morning, and
with whom Anna had gone out shopping. Anna appeared not to
notice Vronsky’s worried and inquiring expression, and began a lively
account of her morning’s shopping. He saw that there was something
working within her; in her flashing eyes, when they rested for a mo-
ment on him, there was an intense concentration, and in her words and
movements there was that nervous rapidity and grace which, during
the early period of their intimacy, had so fascinated him, but which now
so disturbed and alarmed him.
The dinner was laid for four. All were gathered together and about
to go into the little dining room when Tushkevitch made his appear-
ance with a message from Princess Betsy. Princess Betsy begged her
to excuse her not having come to say good-bye; she had been indis-
posed, but begged Anna to come to her between half-past six and nine
o’clock. Vronsky glanced at Anna at the precise limit of time, so sugges-
tive of steps having been taken that she should meet no one; but Anna
appeared not to notice it.
“Very sorry that I can’t come just between half-past six and nine,”
she said with a faint smile.
“The princess will be very sorry.”
“And so am I.”
“You’re going, no doubt, to hear Patti?” said Tushkevitch.
“Patti? You suggest the idea to me. I would go if it were possible
to get a box.”
“I can get one,” Tushkevitch offered his services.
“I should be very, very grateful to you,” said Anna. “But won’t you
dine with us?”
Vronsky gave a hardly perceptible shrug. He was at a complete
loss to understand what Anna was about. What had she brought the
old Princess Oblonskaya home for, what had she made Tushkevitch
stay to dinner for, and, most amazing of all, why was she sending him
for a box? Could she possibly think in her position of going to Patti’s
benefit, where all the circle of her acquaintances would be? He looked
at her with serious eyes, but she responded with that defiant, half-
mirthful, half-desperate look, the meaning of which he could not com-
prehend. At dinner Anna was in aggressively high spirits—she almost
flirted both with Tushkevitch and with Yashvin. When they got up
from dinner and Tushkevitch had gone to get a box at the opera,
Yashvin went to smoke, and Vronsky went down with him to his own