Page 921 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

‘It’s not for my husband; for myself I don’t wish it.
Don’t say that!’ answered Anna’s excited voice.
‘Yes, but you must care to say good-bye to a man who
has shot himself on your account...’

‘That’s just why I don’t want to.’
With a dismayed and guilty expression, Alexey
Alexandrovitch stopped and would have gone back
unobserved. But reflecting that this would be undignified,
he turned back again, and clearing his throat, he went up
to the bedroom. The voices were silent, and he went in.
Anna, in a gray dressing gown, with a crop of short
clustering black curls on her round head, was sitting on a
settee. The eagerness died out of her face, as it always did,
at the sight of her husband; she dropped her head and
looked round uneasily at Betsy. Betsy, dressed in the
height of the latest fashion, in a hat that towered
somewhere over her head like a shade on a lamp, in a blue
dress with violet crossway stripes slanting one way on the
bodice and the other way on the skirt, was sitting beside
Anna, her tall flat figure held erect. Bowing her head, she
greeted Alexey Alexandrovitch with an ironical smile.
‘Ah!’ she said, as though surprised. ‘I’m very glad
you’re at home. You never put in an appearance
anywhere, and I haven’t seen you ever since Anna has

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