Page 1174 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

‘But he ought to tell me so. I must know that it is so. If
I knew it, then I know what I should do,’ she said to
herself, utterly unable to picture to herself the position she
would be in if she were convinced of his not caring for

her. She thought he had ceased to love her, she felt close
upon despair, and consequently she felt exceptionally alert.
She rang for her maid and went to her dressing room. As
she dressed, she took more care over her appearance than
she had done all those days, as though he might, if he had
grown cold to her, fall in love with her again because she
had dressed and arranged her hair in the way most
becoming to her.
She heard the bell ring before she was ready. When she
went into the drawing room it was not he, but Yashvin,
who met her eyes. Vronsky was looking through the
photographs of her son, which she had forgotten on the
table, and he made no haste to look round at her.
‘We have met already,’ she said, putting her little hand
into the huge hand of Yashvin, whose bashfulness was so
queerly out of keeping with his immense frame and coarse
face. ‘We met last year at the races. Give them to me,’ she
said, with a rapid movement snatching from Vronsky the
photographs of her son, and glancing significantly at him
with flashing eyes. ‘Were the races good this year? Instead

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