Page 251 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

she said, addressing Petritsky, whom she called as a
contraction of his surname, making no secret of her
relations with him. ‘I’ll put it in.’
‘You’ll spoil it!’

‘No, I won’t spoil it! Well, and your wife?’ said the
baroness suddenly, interrupting Vronsky’s conversation
with his comrade. ‘We’ve been marrying you here. Have
you brought your wife?’
‘No, baroness. I was born a Bohemian, and a
Bohemian I shall die.’
‘So much the better, so much the better. Shake hands
on it.’
And the baroness, detaining Vronsky, began telling
him, with many jokes, about her last new plans of life,
asking his advice.
‘He persists in refusing to give me a divorce! Well,
what am I to do?’ (HE was her husband.) ‘Now I want to
begin a suit against him. What do you advise?
Kamerovsky, look after the coffee; it’s boiling over. You
see, I’m engrossed with business! I want a lawsuit, because
I must have my property. Do you understand the folly of
it, that on the pretext of my being unfaithful to him,’ she
said contemptuously, ‘he wants to get the benefit of my
fortune.’

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