Page 283 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

‘That’s my one desire, to be caught,’ answered
Vronsky, with his serene, good-humored smile. ‘If I
complain of anything it’s only that I’m not caught enough,
to tell the truth. I begin to lose hope.’

‘Why, whatever hope can you have?’ said Betsy,
offended on behalf of her friend. ‘Enendons nous....’ But
in her eyes there were gleams of light that betrayed that
she understood perfectly and precisely as he did what hope
he might have.
‘None whatever,’ said Vronsky, laughing and showing
his even rows of teeth. ‘Excuse me,’ he added, taking an
opera glass out of her hand, and proceeding to scrutinize,
over her bare shoulder, the row of boxes facing them. ‘I’m
afraid I’m becoming ridiculous.’
He was very well aware that he ran no risk of being
ridiculous in the eyes of Betsy or any other fashionable
people. He was very well aware that in their eyes the
position of an unsuccessful lover of a girl, or of any
woman free to marry, might be ridiculous. But the
position of a man pursuing a married woman, and,
regardless of everything, staking his life on drawing her
into adultery, has something fine and grand about it, and
can never be ridiculous; and so it was with a proud and

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