Page 454 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

Chapter 28

When Alexey Alexandrovitch reached the race-course,
Anna was already sitting in the pavilion beside Betsy, in
that pavilion where all the highest society had gathered.
She caught sight of her husband in the distance. Two
men, her husband and her lover, were the two centers of
her existence, and unaided by her external senses she was
aware of their nearness. She was aware of her husband
approaching a long way off, and she could not help
following him in the surging crowd in the midst of which
he was moving. She watched his progress towards the
pavilion, saw him now responding condescendingly to an
ingratiating bow, now exchanging friendly, nonchalant
greetings with his equals, now assiduously trying to catch
the eye of some great one of this world, and taking off his
big round hat that squeezed the tips of his ears. All these
ways of his she knew, and all were hateful to her.
‘Nothing but ambition, nothing but the desire to get on,
that’s all there is in his soul,’ she thought; ‘as for these lofty
ideals, love of culture, religion, they are only so many
tools for getting on.’

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