104 105
When they went out the Vronsky’s carriage had already driven
away. People coming in were still talking of what happened.
“What a horrible death!” said a gentleman, passing by. “They say
he was cut in two pieces.”
“On the contrary, I think it’s the easiest—instantaneous,” observed
another.
“How is it they don’t take proper precautions?” said a third.
Madame Karenina seated herself in the carriage, and Stepan
Arkadyevitch saw with surprise that her lips were quivering, and she
was with difficulty restraining her tears.
“What is it, Anna?” he asked, when they had driven a few hun-
dred yards.
“It’s an omen of evil,” she said.
“What nonsense!” said Stepan Arkadyevitch. “You’ve come, that’s
the chief thing. You can’t conceive how I’m resting my hopes on you.”
“Have you known Vronsky long?” she asked.
“Yes. You know we’re hoping he will marry Kitty.”
“Yes?” said Anna softly. “Come now, let us talk of you,” she added,
tossing her head, as though she would physically shake off something
superfluous oppressing her. “Let us talk of your affairs. I got your
letter, and here I am.”
“Yes, all my hopes are in you,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch.
“Well, tell me all about it.”
And Stepan Arkadyevitch began to tell his story.
On reaching home Oblonsky helped his sister out, sighed, pressed
her hand, and set off to his office.
Chapter 19.
When Anna went into the room, Dolly was sitting in the little
drawing-room with a white-headed fat little boy, already like his father,
giving him a lesson in French reading. As the boy read, he kept twist-
ing and trying to tear off a button that was nearly off his jacket. His
mother had several times taken his hand from it, but the fat little hand
went back to the button again. His mother pulled the button off and
put it in her pocket.
“Keep your hands still, Grisha,” she said, and she took up her work,
a coverlet she had long been making. She always set to work on it at
depressed moments, and now she knitted at it nervously, twitching her
fingers and counting the stitches. Though she had sent word the day
before to her husband that it was nothing to her whether his sister
came or not, she had made everything ready for her arrival, and was
expecting her sister-in-law with emotion.
Dolly was crushed by her sorrow, utterly swallowed up by it. Still
she did not forget that Anna, her sister-in-law, was the wife of one of
the most important personages in Petersburg, and was a Petersburg
grande dame. And, thanks to this circumstance, she did not carry out
her threat to her husband—that is to say, she remembered that her
sister-in-law was coming. “And, after all, Anna is in no wise to blame,”
thought Dolly. “I know nothing of her except the very best, and I have