Page 1391 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

questions relating to horse-breeding or sport. He was
amazed at her knowledge, her memory, and at first was
disposed to doubt it, to ask for confirmation of her facts;
and she would find what he asked for in some book, and

show it to him.
The building of the hospital, too, interested her. She
did not merely assist, but planned and suggested a great
deal herself. But her chief thought was still of herself—
how far she was dear to Vronsky, how far she could make
up to him for all he had given up. Vronsky appreciated
this desire not only to please, but to serve him, which had
become the sole aim of her existence, but at the same time
he wearied of the loving snares in which she tried to hold
him fast. As time went on, and he saw himself more and
more often held fast in these snares, he had an ever
growing desire, not so much to escape from them, as to
try whether they hindered his freedom. Had it not been
for this growing desire to be free, not to have scenes every
time he wanted to go to the town to a meeting or a race,
Vronsky would have been perfectly satisfied with his life.
The role he had taken up, the role of a wealthy
landowner, one of that class which ought to be the very
heart of the Russian aristocracy, was entirely to his taste;
and now, after spending six months in that character, he

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