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days there were so many government functionaries that one had to call
in a functionary for every single thing, so now everyone’s doing some
sort of public duty. Alexey has been here now six months, and he’s a
member, I do believe, of five or six different public bodies. Du train
que cela va, the whole time will be wasted on it. And I’m afraid that
with such a multiplicity of these bodies, they’ll end in being a mere
form. How many are you a member of, Nikolay Ivanitch?” she turned
to Sviazhsky—”over twenty, I fancy.”
Anna spoke lightly, but irritation could be discerned in her tone.
Darya Alexandrovna, watching Anna and Vronsky attentively, de-
tected it instantly. She noticed, too, that as she spoke Vronsky’s face
had immediately taken a serious and obstinate expression. Noticing
this, and that Princess Varvara at once made haste to change the con-
versation by talking of Petersburg acquaintances, and remembering
what Vronsky had without apparent connection said in the garden of
his work in the country, Dolly surmised that this question of public
activity was connected with some deep private disagreement between
Anna and Vronsky.
The dinner, the wine, the decoration of the table were all very good;
but it was all like what Darya Alexandrovna had seen at formal din-
ners and balls which of late years had become quite unfamiliar to her;
it all had the same impersonal and constrained character, and so on an
ordinary day and in a little circle of friends it made a disagreeable
impression on her.
After dinner they sat on the terrace, then they proceeded to play
lawn tennis. The players, divided into two parties, stood on opposite
sides of a tightly drawn net with gilt poles on the carefully leveled and
rolled croquet-ground. Darya Alexandrovna made an attempt to play,
but it was a long time before she could understand the game, and by
the time she did understand it, she was so tired that she sat down with
Princess Varvara and simply looked on at the players. Her partner,
Tushkevitch, gave up playing too, but the others kept the game up for
a long time. Sviazhsky and Vronsky both played very well and seri-
ously. They kept a sharp lookout on the balls served to them, and
without haste or getting in each other’s way, they ran adroitly up to
them, waited for the rebound, and neatly and accurately returned them
over the net. Veslovsky played worse than the others. He was too
eager, but he kept the players lively with his high spirits. His laughter
and outcries never paused. Like the other men of the party, with the
ladies’ permission, he took off his coat, and his solid, comely figure in his
white shirt-sleeves, with his red perspiring face and his impulsive move-
ments, made a picture that imprinted itself vividly on the memory.
When Darya Alexandrovna lay in bed that night, as soon as she
closed her eyes, she saw Vassenka Veslovsky flying about the croquet
ground.
During the game Darya Alexandrovna was not enjoying herself.
She did not like the light tone of raillery that was kept up all the time
between Vassenka Veslovsky and Anna, and the unnaturalness alto-
gether of grown-up people, all alone without children, playing at a
child’s game. But to avoid breaking up the party and to get through the
time somehow, after a rest she joined the game again, and pretended to
be enjoying it. All that day it seemed to her as though she were acting
in a theater with actors cleverer than she, and that her bad acting was
spoiling the whole performance. She had come with the intention of
staying two days, if all went well. But in the evening, during the game,
she made up her mind that she would go home next day. The maternal
cares and worries, which she had so hated on the way, now, after a day
spent without them, struck her in quite another light, and tempted her