Page 232 - ANNA KARENINA
P. 232
Anna Karenina
the station-master was deferentially escorting through the
crowd. ‘Ah, yes! The husband.’ Only now for the first
time did Vronsky realize clearly the fact that there was a
person attached to her, a husband. He knew that she had a
husband, but had hardly believed in his existence, and
only now fully believed in him, with his head and
shoulders, and his legs clad in black trousers; especially
when he saw this husband calmly take her arm with a
sense of property.
Seeing Alexey Alexandrovitch with his Petersburg face
and severely self-confident figure, in his round hat, with
his rather prominent spine, he believed in him, and was
aware of a disagreeable sensation, such as a man might feel
tortured by thirst, who, on reaching a spring, should find a
dog, a sheep, or a pig, who has drunk of it and muddied
the water. Alexey Alexandrovitch’s manner of walking,
with a swing of the hips and flat feet, particularly annoyed
Vronsky. He could recognize in no one but himself an
indubitable right to love her. But she was still the same,
and the sight of her affected him the same way, physically
reviving him, stirring him, and filling his soul with
rapture. He told his German valet, who ran up to him
from the second class, to take his things and go on, and he
himself went up to her. He saw the first meeting between
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