Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (feel good books TXT) 📕

“Good evening, maman. I have come to you,” he said coldly.

“Why aren’t you going to faire la cour à Madame Karenina?” she went on, when Princess Sorokina had moved away. “Elle fait sensation. On oublie la Patti pour elle.”

“Maman, I have asked you not to say anything to me of that,” he answered, scowling.

“I’m only saying what everyone’s saying.”

Vronsky made no reply, and saying a few words to Princess Sorokina, he went away. At the door he met his brother.

“Ah, Alexey!” said his brother. “How disgusting! Idiot of a woman, nothing else.⁠ ⁠… I wanted to go straight to her. Let’s go together.”

Vronsky did not hear him. With rapid steps he went downstairs; he felt that he must do something, but he did not know what. Anger with her for having put herself and him in such a false position, together with pity for her suffering, filled his heart. He went down, and made straight for Anna’s box. At her box stood Stremov, talking to her.

“There are no more tenors. Le moule en est brisé!”

Vronsky bowed to her and stopped to greet Stremov.

“You came in late, I think, and have missed the best song,” Anna said to Vronsky, glancing ironically, he thought, at him.

“I am a poor judge of music,” he said, looking sternly at her.

“Like Prince Yashvin,” she said smiling, “who considers that Patti sings too loud.”

“Thank you,” she said, her little hand in its long glove taking the playbill Vronsky picked up, and suddenly at that instant her lovely face quivered. She got up and went into the interior of the box.

Noticing in the next act that her box was empty, Vronsky, rousing indignant “hushes” in the silent audience, went out in the middle of a solo and drove home.

Anna was already at home. When Vronsky went up to her, she was in the same dress as she had worn at the theater. She was sitting in the first armchair against the wall, looking straight before her. She looked at him, and at once resumed her former position.

“Anna,” he said.

“You, you are to blame for everything!” she cried, with tears of despair and hatred in her voice, getting up.

“I begged, I implored you not to go, I knew it would be unpleasant.⁠ ⁠…”

“Unpleasant!” she cried⁠—“hideous! As long as I live I shall never forget it. She said it was a disgrace to sit beside me.”

“A silly woman’s chatter,” he said: “but why risk it, why provoke?⁠ ⁠…”

“I hate your calm. You ought not to have brought me to this. If you had loved me.⁠ ⁠…”

“Anna! How does the question of my love come in?”

“Oh, if you loved me, as I love, if you were tortured as I am!⁠ ⁠…” she said, looking at him with an expression of terror.

He was sorry for her, and angry notwithstanding. He assured her of his love because he saw that this was the only means of soothing her, and he did not reproach her in words, but in his heart he reproached her.

And the asseverations of his love, which seemed to him so vulgar that he was ashamed to utter them, she drank in eagerly, and gradually became calmer. The next day, completely reconciled, they left for the country.

Darya Alexandrovna spent the summer with her children at Pokrovskoe, at her sister Kitty Levin’s. The house on her own estate was quite in ruins, and Levin and his wife had persuaded her to spend the summer with them. Stepan Arkadyevitch greatly approved of the arrangement. He said he was very sorry his official duties prevented him from spending the summer in the country with his family, which would have been the greatest happiness for him; and remaining in Moscow, he came down to the country from time to time for a day or two. Besides the Oblonskys, with all their children and their governess, the old princess too came to stay that summer with the Levins, as she considered it her duty to watch over her inexperienced daughter in her interesting condition. Moreover, Varenka, Kitty’s friend abroad, kept her promise to come to Kitty when she was married, and stayed with her friend. All of these were friends or relations of Levin’s wife. And though he liked them all, he rather regretted his own Levin world and ways, which was smothered by this influx of the “Shtcherbatsky element,” as he called it to himself. Of his own relations there stayed with him only Sergey Ivanovitch, but he too was a man of the Koznishev and not the Levin stamp, so that the Levin spirit was utterly obliterated.

In the Levins’ house, so long deserted, there were now so many people that almost all the rooms were occupied, and almost every day it happened that the old princess, sitting down to table, counted them all over, and put the thirteenth grandson or granddaughter at a separate table. And Kitty, with her careful housekeeping, had no little trouble to get all the chickens, turkeys, and geese, of which so many were needed to satisfy the summer appetites of the visitors and children.

The whole family were sitting at dinner. Dolly’s children, with their governess and Varenka, were making plans for going to look for mushrooms. Sergey Ivanovitch, who was looked up to by all the party for his intellect and learning, with a respect that almost amounted to awe, surprised everyone by joining in the conversation about mushrooms.

“Take me with you. I am very fond of picking mushrooms,” he said, looking at Varenka; “I think it’s a very nice occupation.”

“Oh, we shall be delighted,” answered Varenka, coloring a little. Kitty exchanged meaningful glances with Dolly. The proposal of the learned and intellectual Sergey Ivanovitch to go looking for mushrooms with Varenka confirmed certain theories of Kitty’s with which her mind had been very busy of late. She made haste to address some remark