Page 1064 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

Chapter 17

The hotel of the provincial town where Nikolay Levin
was lying ill was one of those provincial hotels which are
constructed on the newest model of modern
improvements, with the best intentions of cleanliness,
comfort, and even elegance, but owing to the public that
patronizes them, are with astounding rapidity transformed
into filthy taverns with a pretension of modern
improvement that only makes them worse than the old-
fashioned, honestly filthy hotels. This hotel had already
reached that stage, and the soldier in a filthy uniform
smoking in the entry, supposed to stand for a hall-porter,
and the cast-iron, slippery, dark, and disagreeable staircase,
and the free and easy waiter in a filthy frock coat, and the
common dining room with a dusty bouquet of wax
flowers adorning the table, and filth, dust, and disorder
everywhere, and at the same time the sort of modern up-
to-date self-complacent railway uneasiness of this hotel,
aroused a most painful feeling in Levin after their fresh
young life, especially because the impression of falsity
made by the hotel was so out of keeping with what
awaited them.

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