Page 281 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

Princess Betsy Tverskaya, her cousin’s wife, who had an
income of a hundred and twenty thousand roubles, and
who had taken a great fancy to Anna ever since she first
came out, showed her much attention, and drew her into

her set, making fun of Countess Kidia Ivanovna’s coterie.
‘When I’m old and ugly I’ll be the same,’ Betsy used to
say; ‘but for a pretty young woman like you it’s early days
for that house of charity.’
Anna had at first avoided as far as she could Princess
Tverskaya’s world, because it necessitated an expenditure
beyond her means, and besides in her heart she preferred
the first circle. But since her visit to Moscow she had done
quite the contrary. She avoided her serious-minded
friends, and went out into the fashionable world. There
she met Vronsky, and experienced an agitating joy at those
meetings. She met Vronsky specially often at Betsy’s for
Betsy was a Vronsky by birth and his cousin. Vronsky was
everywhere where he had any chance of meeting Anna,
and speaking to her, when he could, of his love. She gave
him no encouragement, but every time she met him there
surged up in her heart that same feeling of quickened life
that had come upon her that day in the railway carriage
when she saw him for the first time. She was conscious
herself that her delight sparkled in her eyes and curved her

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