Page 122 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

Moscow will be talking of it, and with good reason. If you
have evening parties, invite everyone, don’t pick out the
possible suitors. Invite all the young bucks. Engage a piano
player, and let them dance, and not as you do things

nowadays, hunting up good matches. It makes me sick,
sick to see it, and you’ve gone on till you’ve turned the
poor wench’s head. Levin’s a thousand times the better
man. As for this little Petersburg swell, they’re turned out
by machinery, all on one pattern, and all precious rubbish.
But if he were a prince of the blood, my daughter need
not run after anyone.’
‘But what have I done?’
‘Why, you’ve...’ The prince was crying wrathfully.
‘I know if one were to listen to you,’ interrupted the
princess, ‘we should never marry our daughter. If it’s to be
so, we’d better go into the country.’
‘Well, and we had better.’
‘But do wait a minute. Do I try and catch them? I
don’t try to catch them in the least. A young man, and a
very nice one, has fallen in love with her, and she, I
fancy..’
‘Oh, yes, you fancy! And how if she really is in love,
and he’s no more thinking of marriage than I am!... Oh,
that I should live to see it! Ah! spiritualism! Ah! Nice! Ah!

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