Page 1668 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

The princess looked at Koznishev without replying.
But the fact that Sergey Ivanovitch and the princess
seemed anxious to get rid of him did not in the least
disconcert Stepan Arkadyevitch. Smiling, he stared at the

feather in the princess’s hat, and then about him as though
he were going to pick something up. Seeing a lady
approaching with a collecting box, he beckoned her up
and put in a five-rouble note.
‘I can never see these collecting boxes unmoved while
I’ve money in my pocket,’ he said. ‘And how about
today’s telegram? Fine chaps those Montenegrins!’
‘You don’t say so!’ he cried, when the princess told
him that Vronsky was going by this train. For an instant
Stepan Arkadyevitch’s face looked sad, but a minute later,
when, stroking his mustaches and swinging as he walked,
he went into the hall where Vronsky was, he had
completely forgotten his own despairing sobs over his
sister’s corpse, and he saw in Vronsky only a hero and an
old friend.
‘With all his faults one can’t refuse to do him justice,’
said the princess to Sergey Ivanovitch as soon as Stepan
Arkadyevitch had left them. ‘What a typically Russian,
Slav nature! Only, I’m afraid it won’t be pleasant for
Vronsky to see him. Say what you will, I’m touched by

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