Page 1353 - ANNA KARENINA
P. 1353
Anna Karenina
him, she suddenly felt afraid; his laughing eyes and stern
expression scared her.
The most diverse suppositions as to what he was about
to speak of to her flashed into her brain. ‘He is going to
beg me to come to stay with them with the children, and
I shall have to refuse; or to create a set will receive Anna
in Moscow.... Or isn’t it Vassenka Veslovsky and his
relations with Anna? Or perhaps about Kitty, that he feels
he was to blame?’ All her conjectures were unpleasant, but
she did not guess what he really wanted to talk about to
her.
‘You have so much influence with Anna, she is so fond
of you,’ he said; ‘do help me.’
Darya Alexandrovna looked with timid inquiry into his
energetic face, which under the lime-trees was continually
being lighted up in patches by the sunshine, and then
passing into complete shadow again. She waited for him to
say more, but he walked in silence beside her, scratching
with his cane in the gravel.
‘You have come to see us, you, the only woman of
Anna’s former friends—I don’t count Princess Varvara—
but I know that you have done this not because you
regard our position as normal, but because, understanding
all the difficulty of the position, you still love her and want
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