Anna Karenina

party in the billiard room, and returned with them to the terrace. There was
still a long time before the dinner-hour, it was exquisite weather, and so
several different methods of spending the next two hours were proposed.
There were very many methods of passing the time at Vozdvizhenskoe, and
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these were all unlike those in use at Pokrovskoe.
"Une partie de lawn-tennis," Veslovsky proposed, with his handsome smile.
"We'll be partners again, Anna Arkadyevna."
"No, it's too hot; better stroll about the garden and have a row in the boat,
show Darya Alexandrovna the river banks." Vronsky proposed.
"I agree to anything," said Sviazhsky.
"I imagine that what Dolly would like best would be a stroll-- wouldn't
you? And then the boat, perhaps," said Anna.
So it was decided. Veslovsky and Tushkevitch went off to the bathing
place, promising to get the boat ready and to wait there for them.
They walked along the path in two couples, Anna with Sviazhsky, and
Dolly with Vronsky. Dolly was a little embarrassed and anxious in the new
surroundings in which she found herself. Abstractly, theoretically, she did
not merely justify, she positively approved of Anna's conduct. As is indeed
not unfrequent with women of unimpeachable virtue, weary of the
monotony of respectable existence, at a distance she not only excused illicit
love, she positively envied it. Besides, she loved Anna with all her heart.
But seeing Anna in actual life among these strangers, with this fashionable
tone that was so new to Darya Alexandrovna, she felt ill at ease. What she
disliked particularly was seeing Princess Varvara ready to overlook
everything for the sake of the comforts she enjoyed.
As a general principle, abstractly, Dolly approved of Anna's action; but to
see the man for whose sake her action had been taken was disagreeable to
her. Moreover, she had never liked Vronsky. She thought him very proud,
and saw nothing in him of which he could be proud except his wealth. But
against her own will, here in his own house, he overawed her more than
ever, and she could not be at ease with him. She felt with him the same
feeling she had had with the maid about her dressing jacket. Just as with the
maid she had felt not exactly ashamed, but embarrassed at her darns, so she
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felt with him not exactly ashamed, but embarrassed at herself.
Dolly was ill at ease, and tried to find a subject of conversation. Even
though she supposed that, through his pride, praise of his house and garden
would be sure to be disagreeable to him, she did all the same tell him how
much she liked his house.
"Yes, it's a very fine building, and in the good old-fashioned style," he said.
"I like so much the court in front of the steps. Was that always so?"
"Oh, no!" he said, and his face beamed with pleasure. "If you could only
have seen that court last spring!"
And he began, at first rather diffidently, but more and more carried away by
the subject as he went on, to draw her attention to the various details of the
decoration of his house and garden. It was evident that, having devoted a
great deal of trouble to improve and beautify his home, Vronsky felt a need
to show off the improvements to a new person, and was genuinely
delighted at Darya Alexandrovna's praise.
"If you would care to look at the hospital, and are not tired, indeed, it's not
far. Shall we go?" he said, glancing into her face to convince himself that
she was not bored. "Are you coming, Anna?" he turned to her.
"We will come, won't we?" she said, addressing Sviazhsky. "Mais il ne faut
pas laisser le pauvre Veslovsky et Tushkevitch se morfondre la dans le
bateau. We must send and tell them."
"Yes, this is a monument he is setting up here," said Anna, turning to Dolly
with that sly smile of comprehension with which she had previously talked
about the hospital.
"Oh, it's a work of real importance!" said Sviazhsky. But to show he was
not trying to ingratiate himself with Vronsky, he promptly added some
slightly critical remarks.
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"I wonder, though, count," he said, "that while you do so much for the
health of the peasants, you take so little interest in the schools."
"C'est devenu tellement commun les ecoles," said Vronsky. "You
understand it's not on that account, but it just happens so, my interest has
been diverted elsewhere. This way then to the hospital," he said to Darya
Alexandrovna, pointing to a turning out of the avenue.
The ladies put up their parasols and turned into the side path. After going
down several turnings, and going through a little gate, Darya Alexandrovna
saw standing on rising ground before her a large pretentious-looking red
building, almost finished. The iron roof, which was not yet painted, shone
with dazzling brightness in the sunshine. Beside the finished building
another had been begun, surrounded by scaffolding. Workmen in aprons,
standing on scaffolds, were laying bricks, pouring mortar out of vats, and
smoothing it with trowels.
"How quickly work gets done with you!" said Sviazhsky. "When I was here
last time the roof was not on."
"By the autumn it will all be ready. Iside almost everything is done," said
Anna.
"And what's this new building?"
"That's the house for the doctor and the dispensary," answered Vronsky,
seeing the architect in a short jacket coming towards him; and excusing
himself to the ladies, he went to meet him.
Going round a hole where the workmen were slaking lime, he stood still
with the architect and began talking rather warmly.
"The front is still too low," he said to Anna, who had asked what was the
matter.
"I said the foundation ought to be raised," said Anna.
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"Yes, of course it would have been much better, Anna Arkadyevna," said
the architect, "but now it's too late."
"Yes, I take a great interest in it," Anna answered Sviazhsky, who was
expressing his surprise at her knowledge of architecture. "This new
building ought to have been in harmony with the hospital. It was an
afterthought, and was begun without a plan."
Vronsky, having finished his talk with the architect, joined the ladies, and
led them inside the hospital.
Although they were still at work on the cornices outside and were painting
on the ground floor, upstairs almost all the rooms were finished. Going up
the broad cast-iron staircase to the landing, they walked into the first large
room. The walls were stuccoed to look like marble, the huge plate-glass
windows were already in, only the parquet floor was not yet finished, and
the carpenters, who were planing a block of it, left their work, taking off the
bands that fastened their hair, to greet the gentry.
"This is the reception room," said Vronsky. "Here there will be a desk,
tables, and benches, and nothing more."
"This way; let us go in here. Don't go near the window," said Anna, trying
the paint to see if it were dry. "Alexey, the paint's dry already," she added.
From the reception room they went into the corridor. Here Vronsky showed
them the mechanism for ventilation on a novel system. Then he showed
them marble baths, and beds with extraordinary springs. Then he showed
them the wards one after another, the storeroom, the linen room, then the
heating stove of a new pattern, then the trolleys, which would make no
noise as they carried everything needed along the corridors, and many other
things. Sviazhsky, as a connoisseur in the latest mechanical improvements,
appreciated everything fully. Dolly simply wondered at all she had not seen
before, and, anxious to understand it all, made minute inquiries about
everything, which gave Vronsky great satisfaction.
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"Yes, I imagine that this will be the solitary example of a properly fitted
hospital in Russia," said Sviazhsky.
"And won't you have a lying-in ward?" asked Dolly. "That's so much
needed in the country. I have often..."
In spite of his usual courtesy, Vronsky interrupted her.
"This is not a lying-in home, but a hospital for the sick, and is intended for
all diseases, except infectious complaints," he said. "Ah! look at this," and
he rolled up to Darya Alexandrovna an invalid chair that had just been
ordered for the convalescents. "Look." He sat down in the chair and began
moving it. "The patient can't walk--still too weak, perhaps, or something
wrong with his legs, but he must have air, and he moves, rolls himself
along...."
Darya Alexandrovna was interested by everything. She liked everything
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.
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