Page 1388 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

Darya Alexandrovna disliked taking leave of Princess
Varvara and the gentlemen of the party. After a day spent
together, both she and her hosts were distinctly aware that
they did not get on together, and that it was better for

them not to meet. Only Anna was sad. She knew that
now, from Dolly’s departure, no one again would stir up
within her soul the feelings that had been roused by their
conversation. It hurt her to stir up these feelings, but yet
she knew that that was the best part of her soul, and that
that part of her soul would quickly be smothered in the
life she was leading.
As she drove out into the open country, Darya
Alexandrovna had a delightful sense of relief, and she felt
tempted to ask the two men how they had liked being at
Vronsky’s, when suddenly the coachman, Philip, expressed
himself unasked:
‘Rolling in wealth they may be, but three pots of oats
was all they gave us. Everything cleared up till there
wasn’t a grain left by cockcrow. What are three pots? A
mere mouthful! And oats now down to forty-five
kopecks. At our place, no fear, all comers may have as
much as they can eat.’
‘The master’s a screw,’ put in the counting house clerk.
‘Well, did you like their horses?’ asked Dolly.

1387 of 1759