Page 842 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

‘No, we’ve been hunting in the Tver province. It was
coming back from there that I met your beau-frere in the
train, or your beau-frere’s brother-in-law,’ he said with a
smile. ‘It was an amusing meeting.’

And he began telling with droll good-humor how, after
not sleeping all night, he had, wearing an old fur-lined,
full-skirted coat, got into Alexey Alexandrovitch’s
compartment.
‘The conductor, forgetting the proverb, would have
chucked me out on account of my attire; but thereupon I
began expressing my feelings in elevated language,
and...you, too,’ he said, addressing Karenin and forgetting
his name, ‘at first would have ejected me on the ground of
the old coat, but afterwards you took my part, for which I
am extremely grateful.’
‘The rights of passengers generally to choose their seats
are too ill-defined,’ said Alexey Alexandrovitch, rubbing
the tips of his fingers on his handkerchief.
‘I saw you were in uncertainty about me,’ said Levin,
smiling good-naturedly, ‘but I made haste to plunge into
intellectual conversation to smooth over the defects of my
attire.’ Sergey Ivanovitch, while he kept up a conversation
with their hostess, had one ear for his brother, and he
glanced askance at him. ‘What is the matter with him

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