Page 1125 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

adornments and her own exterior should not be too
appalling. And as far as Alexey Alexandrovitch was
concerned she succeeded, and was in his eyes attractive.
For him she was the one island not only of goodwill to

him, but of love in the midst of the sea of hostility and
jeering that surrounded him.
Passing through rows of ironical eyes, he was drawn as
naturally to her loving glance as a plant to the sun.
‘I congratulate you,’ she said to him, her eyes on his
ribbon.
Suppressing a smile of pleasure, he shrugged his
shoulders, closing his eyes, as though to say that that could
not be a source of joy to him. Countess Lidia Ivanovna
was very well aware that it was one of his chief sources of
satisfaction, though he never admitted it.
‘How is our angel?’ said Countess Lidia Ivanovna,
meaning Seryozha.
‘I can’t say I was quite pleased with him,’ said Alexey
Alexandrovitch, raising his eyebrows and opening his eyes.
‘And Sitnikov is not satisfied with him.’ (Sitnikov was the
tutor to whom Seryozha’s secular education had been
intrusted.) ‘As I have mentioned to you, there’s a sort of
coldness in him towards the most important questions
which ought to touch the heart of every man and every

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