Page 834 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

Alexander Dmitrievitch Shtcherbatsky, young
Shtcherbatsky, Turovtsin, Kitty, and Karenin.
Stepan Arkadyevitch saw immediately that things were
not going well in the drawing-room without him. Darya

Alexandrovna, in her best gray silk gown, obviously
worried about the children, who were to have their
dinner by themselves in the nursery, and by her husband’s
absence, was not equal to the task of making the party mix
without him. All were sitting like so many priests’ wives
on a visit (so the old prince expressed it), obviously
wondering why they were there, and pumping up remarks
simply to avoid being silent. Turovtsin—good, simple
man—felt unmistakably a fish out of water, and the smile
with which his thick lips greeted Stepan Arkadyevitch
said, as plainly as words: ‘Well, old boy, you have popped
me down in a learned set! A drinking party now, or the
Chateau des Fleurs, would be more in my line!’ The old
prince sat in silence, his bright little eyes watching Karenin
from one side, and Stepan Arkadyevitch saw that he had
already formed a phrase to sum up that politician of whom
guests were invited to partake as though he were a
sturgeon. Kitty was looking at the door, calling up all her
energies to keep her from blushing at the entrance of
Konstantin Levin. Young Shtcherbatsky, who had not

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