Page 1153 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

more gloomily, and he got up in silence, understanding
that his sister-in-law’s decision was not to be shaken.
‘Alexey! don’t be angry with me. Please understand
that I’m not to blame,’ began Varya, looking at him with a

timid smile.
‘I’m not angry with you,’ he said still as gloomily; ‘but
I’m sorry in two ways. I’m sorry, too, that this means
breaking up our friendship—if not breaking up, at least
weakening it. You will understand that for me, too, it
cannot be otherwise.’
And with that he left her.
Vronsky knew that further efforts were useless, and that
he had to spend these few days in Petersburg as though in
a strange town, avoiding every sort of relation with his
own old circle in order not to be exposed to the
annoyances and humiliations which were so intolerable to
him. One of the most unpleasant features of his position in
Petersburg was that Alexey Alexandrovitch and his name
seemed to meet him everywhere. He could not begin to
talk of anything without the conversation turning on
Alexey Alexandrovitch; he could not go anywhere
without risk of meeting him. So at least it seemed to
Vronsky, just as it seems to a man with a sore finger that

1152 of 1759