Anna Karenina

particularly annoyed Vronsky. He could recognize in no one but himself an
indubitable right to love her. But she was still the same, and the sight of her
affected him the same way, physically reviving him, stirring him, and
filling his soul with rapture. He told his German valet, who ran up to him
from the second class, to take his things and go on, and he himself went up
to her. He saw the first meeting between the husband and wife, and noted
with a lover's insight the signs of slight reserve with which she spoke to her
husband. "No, she does not love him and cannot love him," he decided to
himself.
At the moment when he was approaching Anna Arkadyevna he noticed too
with joy that she was conscious of his being near, and looked round, and
seeing him, turned again to her husband.
"Have you passed a good night?" he asked, bowing to her and her husband
together, and leaving it up to Alexey Alexandrovitch to accept the bow on
his own account, and to recognize it or not, as he might see fit.
"Thank you, very good," she answered.
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Her face looked weary, and there was not that play of eagerness in it,
peeping out in her smile and her eyes; but for a single instant, as she
glanced at him, there was a flash of something in her eyes, and although the
flash died away at once, he was happy for that moment. She glanced at her
husband to find out whether he knew Vronsky. Alexey Alexandrovitch
looked at Vronsky with displeasure, vaguely recalling who this was.
Vronsky's composure and self-confidence have struck, like a scythe against
a stone, upon the cold self-confidence of Alexey Alexandrovitch.
"Count Vronsky," said Anna.
"Ah! We are acquainted, I believe," said Alexey Alexandrovitch
indifferently, giving his hand.
"You set off with the mother and you return with the son," he said,
articulating each syllable, as though each were a separate favor he was
bestowing.
"You're back from leave, I suppose?" he said, and without waiting for a
reply, he turned to his wife in his jesting tone: "Well, were a great many
tears shed at Moscow at parting?"
By addressing his wife like this he gave Vronsky to understand that he
wished to be left alone, and, turning slightly towards him, he touched his
hat; but Vronsky turned to Anna Arkadyevna.
"I hope I may have the honor of calling on you," he said.
Alexey Alexandrovitch glanced with his weary eyes at Vronsky.
"Delighted," he said coldly. "On Mondays we're at home. Most fortunate,"
he said to his wife, dismissing Vronsky altogether, "that I should just have
half an hour to meet you, so that I can prove my devotion," he went on in
the same jesting tone.
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"You lay too much stress on your devotion for me to value it much," she
responded in the same jesting tone, involuntarily listening to the sound of
Vronsky's steps behind them. "But what has it to do with me?" she said to
herself, and she began asking her husband how Seryozha had got on
without her.
"Oh, capitally! Mariette says he has been very good, And...I must
disappoint you...but he has not missed you as your husband has. But once
more merci, my dear, for giving me a day. Our dear Samovar will be
delighted." (He used to call the Countess Lidia Ivanovna, well known in
society, a samovar, because she was always bubbling over with
excitement.) "She has been continually asking after you. And, do you
know, if I may venture to advise you, you should go and see her today. You
know how she takes everything to heart. Just now, with all her own cares,
she's anxious about the Oblonskys being brought together."
The Countess Lidia Ivanovna was a friend of her husband's, and the center
of that one of the coteries of the Petersburg world with which Anna was,
through her husband, in the closest relations.
"But you know I wrote to her?"
"Still she'll want to hear details. Go and see her, if you're not too tired, my
dear. Well, Kondraty will take you in the carriage, while I go to my
committee. I shall not be alone at dinner again," Alexey Alexandrovitch
went on, no longer in a sarcastic tone. "You wouldn't believe how I've
missed..." And with a long pressure of her hand and a meaning smile, he
put her in her carriage.
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