Page 776 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

chief advantages of modern facilities of communication
was the accessibility of the pleasures of all nations.
He had been in Spain, and there had indulged in
serenades and had made friends with a Spanish girl who

played the mandolin. In Switzerland he had killed
chamois. In England he had galloped in a red coat over
hedges and killed two hundred pheasants for a bet. In
Turkey he had got into a harem; in India he had hunted
on an elephant, and now in Russia he wished to taste all
the specially Russian forms of pleasure.
Vronsky, who was, as it were, chief master of the
ceremonies to him, was at great pains to arrange all the
Russian amusements suggested by various persons to the
prince. They had race horses, and Russian pancakes and
bear hunts and three-horse sledges, and gypsies and
drinking feasts, with the Russian accompaniment of
broken crockery. And the prince with surprising ease fell
in with the Russian spirit, smashed trays full of crockery,
sat with a gypsy girl on his knee, and seemed to be
asking—what more, and does the whole Russian spirit
consist in just this?
In reality, of all the Russian entertainments the prince
liked best French actresses and ballet dancers and white-
seal champagne. Vronsky was used to princes, but, either

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