Page 504 - ANNA KARENINA
P. 504
Anna Karenina
‘So you sent word to the princess that we weren’t
going!’ he whispered to her angrily, losing his voice.
‘Good morning, princess,’ said Anna Pavlovna, with an
assumed smile utterly unlike her former manner. ‘Very
glad to make your acquaintance,’ she said to the prince.
‘You’ve long been expected, prince.’
‘What did you send word to the princess that we
weren’t going for?’ the artist whispered hoarsely once
more, still more angrily, obviously exasperated that his
voice failed him so that he could not give his words the
expression he would have liked to.
‘Oh, mercy on us! I thought we weren’t going,’ his
wife answered crossly.
‘What, when....’ He coughed and waved his hand. The
prince took off his hat and moved away with his daughter.
‘Ah! ah!’ he sighed deeply. ‘Oh, poor things!’
‘Yes, papa,’ answered Kitty. ‘And you must know
they’ve three children, no servant, and scarcely any means.
He gets something from the Academy,’ she went on
briskly, trying to drown the distress that the queer change
in Anna Pavlovna’s manner to her had aroused in her.
‘Oh, here’s Madame Stahl,’ said Kitty, indicating an
invalid carriage, where, propped on pillows, something in
gray and blue was lying under a sunshade. This was
503 of 1759