________________________________________________
_ Anna looked at Dolly's thin, care-worn face, with its wrinkles
filled ha with dust from the road, and she was on the point of
saying what she was thinking, that is, that Dolly had got
thinner. But, conscious that she herself had grown handsomer, and
that Dolly's eyes were telling her so, she sighed and began to
speak about herself.
"You are looking at me," she said, "and wondering how I can be
happy in my position? Well! it's shameful to confess, but I . . .
I'm inexcusably happy. Something magical has happened to me, like
a dream, when you're frightened, panic-stricken, and all of a
sudden you wake up and all the horrors are no more. I have waked
up. I have lived through the misery, the dread, and now for a
long while past, especially since we've been here, I've been so
happy! . . ." she said, with a timid smile of inquiry looking at
Dolly.
"How glad I am!" said Dolly smiling, involuntarily speaking more
coldly than she wanted to. "I'm very glad for you. Why haven't
you written to-me?"
"Why? ... Because I hadn't the courage.... You forget my position
. . ."
"To me? Hadn't the courage? If you knew how I ...I look at . .
."
Darya Alexandrovna wanted to express her thoughts of the morning,
but for some reason it seemed to her now out of place to do so.
"But of that we'll talk later. What's this, what are all these
buildings?" she asked, wanting to change the conversation and
pointing to the red and green roofs that came into view behind
the green hedges of acacia and lilac. "Quite a little town."
But Anna did not answer.
"No, no! How do you look at my position, what do you think of
it?" she asked.
"I consider ..." Darya Alexandrovna was beginning, but at that
instant Vassenka Veslovsky, having brought the cob to gallop with
the right leg foremost, galloped past them, bumping heavily up
and down in his short jacket on the chamois leather of the
side-saddle. "He's doing it, Anna Arkadyevna!" he shouted.
Anna did not even glance at him; but again it seemed to Darya
Alexandrovna out of place to enter upon such a long conversation
in the carriage, and so she cut short her thought.
"I don't think anything," she said, "but I always loved you, and
if one loves any one, one loves the whole person, just as they
are and not as one would like them to be...."
Anna, taking her eyes off her friend's face and dropping her
eyelids (this was a new habit Dolly had not seen in her before),
pondered, trying to penetrate the full significance of the words.
And obviously interpreting them as she would have wished, she
glanced at Dolly.
"If you had any sins," she said, "they would all be forgiven you
for your coming to see me and these words."
And Dolly saw that tears stood in her eyes. She pressed Anna's
hand in silence.
"Well, what are these buildings? How many there are of them!"
After a moment's silence she repeated her question.
"These are the servants' houses, barns, and stables," answered
Anna. "And there the park begins. It had all gone to ruin, but
Alexey had everything renewed. He is very fond of this place,
and, what I never expected, he has become intensely interested in
looking after it. But his is such a rich nature! Whatever he
takes up, he does splendidly. So far from being bored by it, he
works with passionate interest. He--with his temperament as I
know it--he has become careful and businesslike, a first-rate
manager, he positively reckons every penny in his management of
the land. But only in that. When it's a question of tens of
thousands, he doesn't think of money." She spoke with that
gleefully sly smile with which women often talk of the secret
characteristics only known to them--of those they love. "Do you
see that big building? that's the new hospital. I believe it will
cost over a hundred thousand; that's his hobby just now. And do
you know how it all came about? The peasants asked him for some
meadowland, I think it was, at a cheaper rate, and he refused,
and I accused him of being miserly. Of course it was not really
because of that, but everything together, he began this hospital
to prove, do you see, that he was not miserly about money.
C'est une petitesse, if you like, but I love him all the more for
it. And now you'll see the house in a moment. It was his
grandfather's house, and he has had nothing changed outside."
"How beautiful!" said Dolly, looking with involuntary admiration
at the handsome house with columns, standing out among the
different-colored greens of the old trees in the garden.
"Isn't it fine? And from the house, from the top, the view is
wonderful."
They drove into a courtyard strewn with gravel and bright with
flowers, in which two laborers were at work putting an edging of
stones round the light mould of a flower-bed, and drew up in a
covered entry.
"Ah, they're here already!" said Anna, looking at the
saddle-horses, which were just being led away from the steps. "It
is a nice horse, isn't it? It's my cob; my favorite. Lead him
here and bring me some sugar. Where is the count?" she inquired
of two smart footmen who darted out. "Ah, there he is!" she said,
seeing Vronsky coming to meet her with Veslovsky.
"Where are you going to put the princess?" said Vronsky in
French, addressing Anna, and without waiting for a reply, he once
more greeted Darya Alexandrovna, and this time he kissed her
hand. "I think the big balcony room."
"Oh, no, that's too far off! Better in the corner room, we shall
see each other more. Come, let's go up," said Anna, as she gave
her favorite horse the sugar the footman had brought her.
"Et vous oubliez votre devoir," she said to Veslovsky, who came
out too on the steps.
"Pardon, j'en at tout plein les poches," he answered, smiling,
putting his fingers in his waistcoat pocket.
"Mais vous venez trop tard," she said, rubbing her handkerchief
on her hand, which the horse had made wet in taking the sugar.
Anna turned to Dolly. "You can stay some time? For one day only?
That's impossible!"
"I promised to be back, and the children . . ." said Dolly,
feeling embarrassed both because she had to get her bag out of
the carriage, and because she knew her face must be covered with
dust.
"No, Dolly, darling! ...Well, we'll see. Come along, come
along!" and Anna led Dolly to her room.
That room was not the smart guest-chamber Vronsky had suggested,
but the one of which Anna had said that Dolly would excuse it.
And this room, for which excuse was needed, was more full of
luxury than any in which Dolly had ever stayed, a luxury that
reminded her of the best hotels abroad.
"Well, darling, how happy I am!" Anna said, sitting down in her
riding- habit for a moment beside Dolly. "Tell me about all of
you. Stiva I had only a glimpse of, and he cannot tell one about
the children. How is my favorite, Tanya? Quite a big girl, I
expect?"
"Yes, she's very tall," Darya Alexandrovna answered shortly,
surprised herself that she should respond so coolly about her
children. "We are having a delightful stay at the Levins'," she
added.
"Oh, if I had known," said Anna, "that you do not despise me! . .
.
You might have all come to us. Stiva's an old friend and a great
friend of Alexey's, you know," she added, and suddenly she
blushed.
"Yes, but we are all . . ." Dolly answered in confusion.
"But in my delight I'm talking nonsense. The one thing, darling,
is that I am so glad to have you!" said Anna, kissing her again.
"You haven't told me yet how and what you think about me, and I
keep wanting to know. But I'm glad you will see me as I am. The
chief thing I shouldn't like would be for people to imagine I
want to prove anything. I don't want to prove anything; I merely
want to live, to do no one harm but myself. I have the right to
do that, haven't I? But it is a big subject, and we'll talk over
everything properly later. Now I'll go and dress and send a maid
to you." _
Read next: Part six: Chapter 19
Read previous: Part six: Chapter 17
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