Page 820 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

been very affable and had talked to him as to an
acquaintance. Consequently Stepan Arkadyevitch deemed
it his duty to call upon him in his non-official dress. The
thought that the new chief might not tender him a warm

reception was the other unpleasant thing. But Stepan
Arkadyevitch instinctively felt that everything would come
round all right. ‘They’re all people, all men, like us poor
sinners; why be nasty and quarrelsome?’ he thought as he
went into the hotel.
‘Good-day, Vassily,’ he said, walking into the corridor
with his hat cocked on one side, and addressing a footman
he knew; ‘why, you’ve let your whiskers grow! Levin,
number seven, eh? Take me up, please. And find out
whether Count Anitchkin’ (this was the new head) ‘is
receiving.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Vassily responded, smiling. ‘You’ve not been
to see us for a long while.’
‘I was here yesterday, but at the other entrance. Is this
number seven?’
Levin was standing with a peasant from Tver in the
middle of the room, measuring a fresh bearskin, when
Stepan Arkadyevitch went in.
‘What! you killed him?’ cried Stepan Arkadyevitch.
‘Well done! A she-bear? How are you, Arhip!’

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