Page 660 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

‘You’re incorrigible,’ said Stremov, not looking at her,
and he spoke again to Anna. As he rarely met Anna, he
could say nothing but commonplaces to her, but he said
those commonplaces as to when she was returning to

Petersburg, and how fond Countess Lidia Ivanovna was of
her, with an expression which suggested that he longed
with his whole soul to please her and show his regard for
her and even more than that.
Tushkevitch came in, announcing that the party were
awaiting the other players to begin croquet.
‘No, don’t go away, please don’t,’ pleaded Liza
Merkalova, hearing that Anna was going. Stremov joined
in her entreaties.
‘It’s too violent a transition,’ he said, ‘to go from such
company to old Madame Vrede. And besides, you will
only give her a chance for talking scandal, while here you
arouse none but such different feelings of the highest and
most opposite kind,’ he said to her.
Anna pondered for an instant in uncertainty. This
shrewd man’s flattering words, the naive, childlike
affection shown her by Liza Merkalova, and all the social
atmosphere she was used to,— it was all so easy, and what
was in store for her was so difficult, that she was for a
minute in uncertainty whether to remain, whether to put

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