Page 159 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

‘How can YOU be dull at a ball?’
‘Why should not I be dull at a ball?’ inquired Anna.
Kitty perceived that Anna knew what answer would
follow.

‘Because you always look nicer than anyone.’
Anna had the faculty of blushing. She blushed a little,
and said:
‘In the first place it’s never so; and secondly, if it were,
what difference would it make to me?’
‘Are you coming to this ball?’ asked Kitty.
‘I imagine it won’t be possible to avoid going. Here,
take it,’ she said to Tanya, who was bulling the loosely-
fitting ring off her white, slender-tipped finger.
‘I shall be so glad if you go. I should so like to see you
at a ball.’
‘Anyway, if I do go, I shall comfort myself with the
thought that it’s a pleasure to you...Grisha, don’t pull my
hair. It’s untidy enough without that,’ she said, putting up
a straying lock, which Grisha had been playing with.
‘I imagine you at the ball in lilac.’
‘And why in lilac precisely?’ asked Anna, smiling.
‘Now, children, run along, run along. Do you hear? Miss
Hoole is calling you to tea,’ she said, tearing the children
form her, and sending them off to the dining room.

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