But even without looking in the mirror she thought it was still not too late. She remembered Sergei Ivanovich, who was especially amiable towards her, and Stiva’s friend, the kindly Turovtsyn, who had helped her take care of her children when they had scarlet fever and was in love with her. And there was also one quite young man who, as her husband had told her jokingly, found her the most beautiful of all the sisters. And Darya Alexandrovna pictured the most passionate and impossible love affairs. ‘Anna acted splendidly, and I am not going to reproach her. She’s happy, she makes another person happy, and she’s not downtrodden the way I am, but is probably as fresh, intelligent and open to everything as ever,’ she thought, and a sly, contented smile puckered her lips, particularly because, as she thought about Anna’s love affair, she imagined, parallel to it, an almost identical love affair of her own, with an imaginary collective man who was in love with her. She confessed everything to her husband, just as Anna had done. And Stepan Arkadyich’s astonishment and perplexity at the news made her smile.
In such reveries she reached the turning from the high road that led to Vozdvizhenskoe.
XVII
The coachman reined in the four-in-hand and looked to the right, at a field of rye, where some muzhiks were sitting by a cart. The clerk was about to jump down, then changed his mind and shouted peremptorily to a muzhik, beckoning him over. The breeze they had felt during the drive became still when they stopped; horseflies covered the sweaty horses, who angrily tried to shake them off. The metallic ring of a scythe blade being hammered beside the cart became still. One of the muzhiks stood up and came over to the carriage.
‘See how rusty he is!’ the clerk shouted angrily at the barefooted muzhik stepping slowly over the bumps of the dry, untrampled road. ‘Come on, you!’
The curly-headed old man, his hair tied with a strip of bast, his hunched back dark with sweat, quickened his pace, came up to the carriage and placed his sunburnt hand on the splash-board.
‘Vozdvizhenskoe? The master’s house? The count’s?’ he repeated. ‘Just beyond that little rise. There’s a left turn. Straight down the havenue and you run smack into it. Who is it you want? Himself?’
‘And are they at home, my dear man?’ Darya Alexandrovna said vaguely, not even knowing how to ask the muzhik about Anna.
‘Should be,’ said the muzhik, shifting his bare feet and leaving a clear, five-toed footprint in the dust. ‘Should be,’ he repeated, obviously willing to strike up a conversation. ‘There’s more guests came yesterday. No end of guests ... What is it?’ He turned to a lad who shouted something to him from the cart. ‘Ah, yes! They just passed here on horseback to go and look at a reaper. They should be home by now. And where are you from? ...’
‘Far away,’ said the coachman, getting up on the box. ‘So it’s near by?’
‘I told you, it’s right here. Just beyond ...’ he said, moving his hand on the splash-board.
A young, hale, strapping fellow also came over.
‘Is there any work at the harvesting?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know, my dear.’
‘So just go left and you come straight to it,’ said the muzhik, obviously wishing to talk and reluctant to let the travellers go.
The coachman started, but they had no sooner made the turn than they heard the muzhik shouting:
‘Wait! Hey, wait, man!’ two voices cried.
The coachman stopped.
‘It’s them coming! There they are!’ cried the muzhik. ‘See them coming along!’ he said, pointing to four people on horseback and two in a char
It was Vronsky with his jockey, Veslovsky and Anna on horseback, and Princess Varvara and Sviyazhsky in the
When the carriage stopped, the riders came on at a slow pace. At their head rode Anna beside Veslovsky. Anna rode calmly on a short, sturdy English cob with a cropped mane and short tail. Her beautiful head with black hair escaping from under the top hat, her full shoulders, her slender waist in the black riding habit, and her whole calm, graceful bearing struck Dolly.
In the first moment it seemed improper to her that Anna should be on horseback. To Darya Alexandrovna’s mind, the notion of ladies on horseback was connected with the notion of light, youthful coquetry, which in her opinion did not suit Anna’s situation; but when she saw her closer up, she at once became reconciled with her horseback riding. In spite of her elegance, everything in Anna’s bearing and dress and movement was so simple, calm and dignified that nothing could have been more natural.
