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air, and he moves, rolls himself along....”
Darya Alexandrovna was interested by everything. She liked ev-
erything very much, but most of all she liked Vronsky himself with his
natural, simple-hearted eagerness. “Yes, he’s a very nice, good man,”
she thought several times, not hearing what he said, but looking at him
and penetrating into his expression, while she mentally put herself in
Anna’s place. She liked him so much just now with his eager interest
that she saw how Anna could be in love with him.
Chapter 21.
“No, I think the princess is tired, and horses don’t interest her,”
Vronsky said to Anna, who wanted to go on to the stables, where
Sviazhsky wished to see the new stallion. “You go on, while I escort the
princess home, and we’ll have a little talk,” he said, “if you would like
that?” he added, turning to her.
“I know nothing about horses, and I shall be delighted,” answered
Darya Alexandrovna, rather astonished.
She saw by Vronsky’s face that he wanted something from her. She
was not mistaken. As soon as they had passed through the little gate
back into the garden, he looked in the direction Anna had taken, and
having made sure that she could neither hear nor see them, he began:
“You guess that I have something I want to say to you,” he said,
looking at her with laughing eyes. “I am not wrong in believing you to
be a friend of Anna’s.” He took off his hat, and taking out his handker-
chief, wiped his head, which was growing bald.
Darya Alexandrovna made no answer, and merely stared at him
with dismay. When she was left alone with him, she suddenly felt
afraid; his laughing eyes and stern expression scared her.
The most diverse suppositions as to what he was about to speak of
to her flashed into her brain. “He is going to beg me to come to stay
with them with the children, and I shall have to refuse; or to create a set