Page 802 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

‘Coming immediately,’ said the clerk; and two minutes
later there did actually appear in the doorway the large
figure of an old solicitor who had been consulting with
the lawyer himself.

The lawyer was a little, squat, bald man, with a dark,
reddish beard, light-colored long eyebrows, and an
overhanging brow. He was attired as though for a
wedding, from his cravat to his double watch-chain and
varnished boots. His face was clever and manly, but his
dress was dandified and in bad taste.
‘Pray walk in,’ said the lawyer, addressing Alexey
Alexandrovitch; and, gloomily ushering Karenin in before
him, he closed the door.
‘Won’t you sit down?’ He indicated an armchair at a
writing table covered with papers. He sat down himself,
and, rubbing his little hands with short fingers covered
with white hairs, he bent his head on one side. But as
soon as he was settled in this position a moth flew over the
table. The lawyer, with a swiftness that could never have
been expected of him, opened his hands, caught the moth,
and resumed his former attitude.
‘Before beginning to speak of my business,’ said Alexey
Alexandrovitch, following the lawyer’s movements with
wondering eyes, ‘I ought to observe that the business

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