Page 1614 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

all my fortune’s here’—he touched his breast pocket—
‘and just now I’m a wealthy man. But today I’m going to
the club, and I may come out a beggar. You see, whoever
sits down to play with me—he wants to leave me without

a shirt to my back, and so do I him. And so we fight it
out, and that’s the pleasure of it.’
‘Well, but suppose you were married,’ said Anna, ‘how
would it be for your wife?’
Yashvin laughed.
‘That’s why I’m not married, and never mean to be.’
‘And Helsingfors?’ said Vronsky, entering into the
conversation and glancing at Anna’s smiling face. Meeting
his eyes, Anna’s face instantly took a coldly severe
expression as though she were saying to him: ‘It’s not
forgotten. It’s all the same.’
‘Were you really in love?’ she said to Yashvin.
‘Oh heavens! ever so many times! But you see, some
men can play but only so that they can always lay down
their cards when the hour of a rendezvous comes, while I
can take up love, but only so as not to be late for my cards
in the evening. That’s how I manage things.’
‘No, I didn’t mean that, but the real thing.’ She would
have said Helsingfors, but would not repeat the word used
by Vronsky.

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