(^11861187)
cold sweat.
When she got up, the previous day came back to her as though
veiled in mist.
“There was a quarrel. Just what has happened several times. I
said I had a headache, and he did not come in to see me. Tomorrow
we’re going away; I must see him and get ready for the journey,” she
said to herself. And learning that he was in his study, she went down
to him. As she passed through the drawing room she heard a carriage
stop at the entrance, and looking out of the window she saw the car-
riage, from which a young girl in a lilac hat was leaning out giving some
direction to the footman ringing the bell. After a parley in the hall,
someone came upstairs, and Vronsky’s steps could be heard passing
the drawing room. He went rapidly downstairs. Anna went again to
the window. She saw him come out onto the steps without his hat and
go up to the carriage. The young girl in the lilac hat handed him a
parcel. Vronsky, smiling, said something to her. The carriage drove
away, he ran rapidly upstairs again.
The mists that had shrouded everything in her soul parted sud-
denly. The feelings of yesterday pierced the sick heart with a fresh
pang. She could not understand now how she could have lowered
herself by spending a whole day with him in his house. she went into
his room to announce her determination.
“That was Madame Sorokina and her daughter. They came and
brought me the money and the deeds from maman. I couldn’t get them
yesterday. How is your head, better?” he said quietly, not wishing to
see and to understand the gloomy and solemn expression of her face.
She looked silently, intently at him, standing in the middle of the
room. He glanced at her, frowned for a moment, and went on reading
a letter. She turned, and went deliberately out of the room. He still
might have turned her back, but she had reached the door, he was still
silent, and the only sound audible was the rustling of the note paper as
he turned it.
“Oh, by the way,” he said at the very moment she was in the
doorway, “we’re going tomorrow for certain, aren’t we?”
“You, but not I,” she said, turning round to him.
“Anna, we can’t go on like this...”
“You, but not I,” she repeated.
“This is getting unbearable!”
“You...you will be sorry for this,” she said, and went out.
Frightened by the desperate expression with which these words
were uttered, he jumped up and would have run after her, but on
second thoughts he sat down and scowled, setting his teeth. This
vulgar—as he thought it—threat of something vague exasperated him.
“I’ve tried everything,” he thought; “the only thing left is not to pay
attention,” and he began to get ready to drive into town, and again to
his mother’s to get her signature to the deeds.
She heard the sound of his steps about the study and the dining
room. At the drawing room he stood still. But he did not turn in to see
her, he merely gave an order that the horse should be given to Voytov
if he came while he was away. Then she heard the carriage brought
round, the door opened, and he came out again. But he went back into
the porch again, and someone was running upstairs. It was the valet
running up for his gloves that had been forgotten. She went to the
window and saw him take the gloves without looking, and touching the
coachman on the back he said something to him. Then without looking
up at the window he settled himself in his usual attitude in the car-
riage, with his legs crossed, and drawing on his gloves he vanished
round the corner.
barré
(Barré)
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