Page 1311 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

and saddle-horses—not at all a smart-looking set, but
capable of taking Darya Alexandrovna the whole distance
in a single day. At that moment, when horses were wanted
for the princess, who was going, and for the midwife, it

was a difficult matter for Levin to make up the number,
but the duties of hospitality would not let him allow Darya
Alexandrovna to hire horses when staying in his house.
Moreover, he was well aware that the twenty roubles that
would be asked for the journey were a serious matter for
her; Darya Alexandrovna’s pecuniary affairs, which were
in a very unsatisfactory state, were taken to heart by the
Levins as if they were their own.
Darya Alexandrovna, by Levin’s advice, started before
daybreak. The road was good, the carriage comfortable,
the horses trotted along merrily, and on the box, besides
the coachman, sat the counting-house clerk, whom Levin
was sending instead of a groom for greater security. Darya
Alexandrovna dozed and waked up only on reaching the
inn where the horses were to be changed.
After drinking tea at the same well-to-do peasant’s with
whom Levin had stayed on the way to Sviazhsky’s, and
chatting with the women about their children, and with
the old man about Count Vronsky, whom the latter
praised very highly, Darya Alexandrovna, at ten o’clock,

1310 of 1759