Page 511 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

increased her distress. She felt a feeling such as she had
known in childhood, when she had been shut in her room
as a punishment, and had heard her sisters’ merry laughter
outside.

‘Well, but what did you buy this mass of things for?’
said the princess, smiling, and handing her husband a cup
of coffee.
‘One goes for a walk, one looks in a shop, and they ask
you to buy. ‘Erlaucht, Durchlaucht?’ Directly they say
‘Durchlaucht,’ I can’t hold out. I lose ten thalers.’
‘It’s simply from boredom,’ said the princess.
‘Of course it is. Such boredom, my dear, that one
doesn’t know what to do with oneself.’
‘How can you be bored, prince? There’s so much that’s
interesting now in Germany,’ said Marya Yevgenyevna.
‘But I know everything that’s interesting: the plum
soup I know, and the pea sausages I know. I know
everything.’
‘No, you may say what you like, prince, there’s the
interest of their institutions,’ said the colonel.
‘But what is there interesting about it? They’re all as
pleased as brass halfpence. They’ve conquered everybody,
and why am I to be pleased at that? I haven’t conquered
anyone; and I’m obliged to take off my own boots, yes,

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