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Anna Karenina - Part 7

Page 2

What had he to do, indeed? He did not care for cards; he did not

go to a club. Spending the time with jovial gentlemen of

Oblonsky's type--she knew now what that meant...it meant drinking

and going somewhere after drinking. She could not think without

horror of where men went on such occasions. Was he to go into

society? But she knew he could only find satisfaction in that if

he took pleasure in the society of young women, and that she

could not wish for. Should he stay at home with her, her mother

and her sisters? But much as she liked and enjoyed their

conversations forever on the same subjects--"Aline-Nadine," as

the old prince called the sisters' talks--she knew it must bore

him. What was there left for him to do? To go on writing at his

book he had indeed attempted, and at first he used to go to the

library and make extracts and look up references for his book.

But, as he told her, the more he did nothing, the less time he

had to do anything. And besides, he complained that he had

talked too much about his book here, and that consequently all

his ideas about it were muddled and had lost their interest for

him.

One advantage in this town life was that quarrels hardly ever

happened between them here in town. Whether it was that their

conditions were different, or that they had both become more

careful and sensible in that respect, they had no quarrels in

Moscow from jealousy, which they had so dreaded when they moved

from the country.

One event, an event of great importance to both from that point

of view, did indeed happen--that was Kitty's meeting with

Vronsky.

The old Princess Marya Borissovna, Kitty's godmother, who had

always been very fond of her, had insisted on seeing her. Kitty,

though she did not go into society at all on account of her

condition, went with her father to see the venerable old lady,

and there met Vronsky.

The only thing Kitty could reproach herself for at this meeting

was that at the instant when she recognized in his civilian dress

the features once so familiar to her, her breath failed her, the

blood rushed to her heart, and a vivid blush--she felt it--

overspread her face. But this lasted only a few seconds. Before

her father, who purposely began talking in a loud voice to

Vronsky, had finished, she was perfectly ready to look at

Vronsky, to speak to him, if necessary, exactly as she spoke to

Princess Marya Borissovna, and more than that, to do so in such a

way that everything to the faintest intonation and smile would

have been approved by her husband, whose unseen presence she

seemed to feel about her at that instant.

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