Just then a tall general passed through the pavilion. Interrupting his speech, Alexei Alexandrovich rose hastily, but with dignity, and bowed low to the passing military man.
‘You’re not racing?’ joked the officer.
‘Mine is a harder race,’ Alexei Alexandrovich replied respectfully.
And though the reply did not mean anything, the officer pretended that he had heard a clever phrase from a clever man and had perfectly understood
‘There are two sides,’ Alexei Alexandrovich went on again, sitting down, ‘the performers and the spectators; and the love of such spectacles is the surest sign of low development in the spectators, I agree, but ...’
‘A bet, Princess!’ the voice of Stepan Arkadyich came from below, addressing Betsy. ‘Who are you backing?’
‘Anna and I are for Prince Kuzovlev,’ replied Betsy.
‘I’m for Vronsky. A pair of gloves.’
‘You’re on!’
‘It’s so beautiful, isn’t it?’
Alexei Alexandrovich paused while the people around him talked, but at once began again.
‘I agree, but manly games ...’ he tried to go on.
But at that moment the riders were given the start, and all conversation ceased. Alexei Alexandrovich also fell silent, and everyone rose and turned towards the stream. Alexei Alexandrovich was not interested in the race and therefore did not watch the riders, but began absentmindedly surveying the spectators with his weary eyes. His gaze rested on Anna.
Her face was pale and stern. She obviously saw nothing and no one except one man. Her hand convulsively clutched her fan, and she held her breath. He looked at her and hastily turned away, scrutinizing other faces.
‘Yes, that lady and the others are also very upset,’ Alexei Alexandrovich said to himself. He wanted not to look at her, but his glance was involuntarily drawn to her. He peered into that face again, trying not to read what was so clearly written on it, and against his will read on it with horror what he did not want to know.
The first fall - Kuzovlev’s at the stream - upset everyone, but Alexei Alexandrovich saw clearly on Anna’s pale, triumphant face that the one she was watching had not fallen. When, after Makhotin and Vronsky cleared the big barrier, the very next officer fell on his head and knocked himself out, and a rustle of horror passed through all the public, Alexei Alexandrovich saw that Anna did not even notice it and hardly understood what the people around her were talking about. But he peered at her more and more often and with greater persistence. Anna, all absorbed in watching the racing Vronsky, could feel the gaze of her husband’s cold eyes fixed on her from the side.
She turned for an instant, looked at him questioningly, and with a slight frown turned away again.
‘Ah, I don’t care,’ she all but said to him, and never once glanced at him after that.
The race was unlucky: out of seventeen men more than half fell and were injured. Towards the end of the race everyone was in agitation, which was increased still more by the fact that the emperor was displeased.
XXIX
Everyone loudly expressed his disapproval, everyone repeated the phrase someone had uttered: ‘We only lack circuses with lions,’ and horror was felt by all, so that when Vronsky fell and Anna gasped loudly, there was nothing extraordinary in it. But after that a change came over Anna’s face which was positively improper. She was completely at a loss. She started thrashing about like a trapped bird, now wanting to get up and go somewhere, now turning to Betsy.
‘Let’s go, let’s go,’ she kept saying.
But Betsy did not hear her. She was bending forward to talk to a general who had come up to her.
Alexei Alexandrovich approached Anna and courteously offered her his arm.
‘Let us go, if you wish,’ he said in French; but Anna was listening to what the general was saying and ignored her husband.
‘He also broke his leg, they say,’ the general said. ‘It’s quite unheard-of.’
Anna, without answering her husband, raised her binoculars and looked at the place where Vronsky had fallen; but it was so far away, and there were so many people crowding there, that it was impossible to make anything out. She lowered the binoculars and made as if to leave; but just then an officer galloped up and reported something to the emperor. Anna leaned forward, listening.
‘Stiva! Stiva!’ she called out to her brother.
But her brother did not hear her. She again made as if to leave.
‘I once again offer you my arm, if you want to go,’ said Alexei Alexandrovich, touching her arm.
She recoiled from him in revulsion and, without looking at his face, replied:
‘No, no, let me be, I’ll stay.’
She saw now that an officer was running across the track towards the pavilion from the place where Vronsky had fallen. Betsy was waving a handkerchief to him.
The officer brought the news that the rider was unhurt, but the horse had broken her back.
