Page 857 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

and unexpectedly into the conversation, addressing Alexey
Alexandrovitch.
‘You heard, perhaps, about Pryatchnikov?’ said
Turovtsin, warmed up by the champagne he had drunk,

and long waiting for an opportunity to break the silence
that had weighed on him. ‘Vasya Pryatchnikov,’ he said,
with a good-natured smile on his damp, red lips,
addressing himself principally to the most important guest,
Alexey Alexandrovitch, ‘they told me today he fought a
duel with Kvitsky at Tver, and has killed him.’
Just as it always seems that one bruises oneself on a sore
place, so Stepan Arkadyevitch felt now that the
conversation would by ill luck fall every moment on
Alexey Alexandrovitch’s sore spot. He would again have
got his brother-in-law away, but Alexey Alexandrovitch
himself inquired, with curiosity:
‘What did Pryatchnikov fight about?’
‘His wife. Acted like a man, he did! Called him out and
shot him!’
‘Ah!’ said Alexey Alexandrovitch indifferently, and
lifting his eyebrows, he went into the drawing room.
‘How glad I am you have come,’ Dolly said with a
frightened smile, meeting him in the outer drawing room.
‘I must talk to you. Let’s sit here.’

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