Page 300 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

‘Pity we didn’t hear it!’ said Princess Betsy, glancing
towards the door. ‘Ah, here you are at last!’ she said,
turning with a smile to Vronsky, as he came in.
Vronsky was not merely acquainted with all the persons

whom he was meeting here; he saw them all every day;
and so he came in with the quiet manner with which one
enters a room full of people from whom one has only just
parted.
‘Where do I come from?’ he said, in answer to a
question from the ambassador’s wife. ‘Well, there’s no
help for it, I must confess. From the opera bouffe. I do
believe I’ve seen it a hundred times, and always with fresh
enjoyment. It’s exquisite! I know it’s disgraceful, but I go
to sleep at the opera, and I sit out the opera bouffe to the
last minute, and enjoy it. This evening..’
He mentioned a French actress, and was going to tell
something about her; but the ambassador’s wife, with
playful horror, cut him short.
‘Please don’t tell us about that horror.’
‘All right, I won’t especially as everyone knows those
horrors.’
‘And we should all go to see them if it were accepted as
the correct thing, like the opera,’ chimed in Princess
Myakaya.

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