Anna Karenina полностью

‘I’m agreeable to everything,’ said Sviyazhsky.

‘I think Dolly would like most to take a stroll, isn’t that right? And then go for a boat ride,’ said Anna.

So it was decided. Veslovsky and Tushkevich went to the bathing house, and promised to get the boat ready there and wait for them.

They walked down the path in two pairs, Anna with Sviyazhsky and Dolly with Vronsky. Dolly was slightly embarrassed and worried in the totally new milieu in which she found herself. Abstractly, theoretically, she not only justified but even approved of what Anna had done. Weary of the monotony of a moral life, as irreproachably moral women in general often are, she not only excused criminal love from a distance but even envied it. Besides, she loved Anna from the heart. But in reality, seeing her among these people she found so alien, with their good tone that was so new for her, she felt awkward. It was especially unpleasant for her to see Princess Varvara, who forgave them everything for the sake of the comfort she enjoyed.

In general, abstractly, Dolly approved of what Anna had done, but to see the man for whose sake she had done it was unpleasant for her. Besides, she had never liked Vronsky. She considered him very proud and saw nothing in him that he could be proud of except his wealth. But, against her will, here, in his own house, he impressed her still more than before, and she could not be comfortable with him. She felt with him as she had felt with the maid about her chemise. As she had felt not so much ashamed as ill at ease with the maid about the patches, so with him she felt not so much ashamed as ill at ease about herself.

Dolly felt embarrassed and searched for a topic of conversation. She thought that he, with his pride, was sure to find praise of his house and garden displeasing but, unable to come up with anything else, she told him all the same that she liked his house very much.

‘Yes, it’s a very handsome building and in the good old style,’ he said.

‘I like the courtyard in front of the porch very much. Is that how it was?’

‘Oh, no!’ he said, and his face lit up with pleasure. ‘You should have seen that courtyard in the spring!’

And, cautiously at first, but then more and more enthusiastically, he began to draw her attention to various details of the embellishment of the house and garden. One could see that, having devoted much work to improving and embellishing his estate, Vronsky felt a need to boast of it before a new person and was heartily glad of Darya Alexandrovna’s praise.

‘If you’re not tired and would like to have a look at the hospital, it’s not far. Let’s go,’ he said, glancing at her face to be sure she was indeed not bored.

‘Will you come, Anna?’ he turned to her.

‘Yes, we’ll come. Won’t we?’ She turned to Sviyazhsky. ‘Mais il ne faut pas laisser le pauvre Veslovsky et Tushkevich se morfondre là dans le bateau.^cb Send somebody to tell them. Yes, he’ll leave it behind as a memorial,’ said Anna, turning to Dolly with the same sly, knowing smile as when she had spoken of the hospital earlier.

‘Oh, a capital affair!’ said Sviyazhsky. But to avoid seeming to fall in with Vronsky, he at once added a slightly deprecatory observation. ‘I’m astonished, though, Count,’ he said, ‘that you, who are doing so much for the people in the sanitary respect, are so indifferent to schools.’

‘C’est devenu tellement commun, les écoles!‘^cc said Vronsky. ‘It’s not because of that, you understand, I just got carried away. This way to the hospital.’ He turned to Darya Alexandrovna, pointing to a side path off the avenue.

The ladies opened their parasols and went down the side path. After making several turns and passing through a gate, Darya Alexandrovna saw on a rise before her a large, red, fancifully designed and nearly completed building. The still unpainted iron roof shone dazzlingly in the bright sun. Beside the completed building, another one, surrounded by scaffolding, was under construction, and on the planks workmen in aprons were laying bricks, taking mortar from troughs and smoothing it with trowels.

‘How quickly your work’s going!’ said Sviyazhsky. ‘The last time I was here, there was no roof yet.’

‘It will all be done by the autumn. The interior’s nearly finished now,’ said Anna.

‘And what’s this new one?’

‘This will house the doctor and the dispensary,’ Vronsky replied and, seeing the architect in his short coat coming towards them, he excused himself to the ladies and went to meet him.

Sidestepping a trough from which the workmen took lime, he stopped with the architect and heatedly began telling him something.

‘The pediment still comes out too low,’ he answered Anna, who had asked him what was the matter.

‘I kept saying the foundation had to be raised,’ said Anna.

‘Yes, certainly, that would have been better, Anna Arkadyevna,’ said the architect, ‘but it’s too late now.’