Page 403 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

‘How often I’m asked that question today!’ he said to
himself, and he blushed, a thing which rarely happened to
him. The Englishman looked gravely at him; and, as
though he, too, knew where Vronsky was going, he

added:
‘The great thing’s to keep quiet before a race,’ said he;
‘don’t get out of temper or upset about anything.’
‘All right,’ answered Vronsky, smiling; and jumping
into his carriage, he told the man to drive to Peterhof.
Before he had driven many paces away, the dark clouds
that had been threatening rain all day broke, and there was
a heavy downpour of rain.
‘What a pity!’ thought Vronsky, putting up the roof of
the carriage. ‘It was muddy before, now it will be a perfect
swamp.’ As he sat in solitude in the closed carriage, he
took out his mother’s letter and his brother’s note, and
read them through.
Yes, it was the same thing over and over again.
Everyone, his mother, his brother, everyone thought fit to
interfere in the affairs of his heart. This interference
aroused in him a feeling of angry hatred—a feeling he had
rarely known before. ‘What business is it of theirs? Why
does everybody feel called upon to concern himself about
me? And why do they worry me so? Just because they see

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