Vassilievitch. I'm ordered exercise by the doctors too. I'll walk, and fancy myself at the springs again.'
'There's no hurry,' said Anna. 'Would you like tea?'
She rang.
'Bring in tea, and tell Seryozha that Alexey Alexandrovitch is here. Well, tell me, how have you been? Mihail Vassilievitch, you've not been to see me before. Look how lovely it is out on the terrace,' she said, turning first to one and then to the other.
She spoke very simply and naturally, but too much and too fast. She was the more aware of this from noticing in the inquisitive look Mihail Vassilievitch turned on her that he was, as it were, keeping watch on her.
Mihail Vassilievitch promptly went out on the terrace.
She sat down beside her husband.
'You don't look quite well,' she said.
'Yes,' he said; 'the doctor's been with me today and wasted an hour of my time. I feel that some one of our friends must have sent him: my health's so precious, it seems.'
'No; what did he say?'
she questioned him about his health and what he had been doing, and tried to persuade him to take a rest and come out to her.
All this she said brightly, rapidly, and with a peculiar brilliance in her eyes. But Alexey Alexandrovitch did not now attach any special significance to this tone of hers. He heard only her words and gave them only the direct sense they bore. And he answered simply, though jestingly. There was nothing remarkable in all this conversation, but never after could Anna recall this brief scene without an agonizing pang of shame.
Seryozha came in preceded by his governess. If Alexey Alexandrovitch had allowed himself to observe he would have noticed the timid and bewildered eyes with which Seryozha glanced first at his father and then at his mother. But he would not see anything, and he did not see it.
'Ah, the young man! He's grown. Really, he's getting quite a man. How are you, young man?'
And he gave his hand to the scared child. Seryozha had been shy of his father before, and now, ever since Alexey Alexandrovitch had taken to calling him young man, and since that insoluble question had occurred to him whether Vronsky were a friend or a foe, he avoided his father. He looked round towards his mother as though seeking shelter. It was only with his mother that he was at ease. Meanwhile, Alexey Alexandrovitch was holding his son by the shoulder while he was speaking to the governess, and Seryozha was so miserably uncomfortable that Anna saw he was on the point of tears.
Anna, who had flushed a little the instant her son came in, noticing that Seryozha was uncomfortable, got up hurriedly, took Alexey Alexandrovitch's hand from her son's shoulder, and kissing the boy, led him out onto the terrace, and quickly came back.
'It's time to start, though,' said she, glancing at her watch. 'How is it Betsy doesn't come?...'
'Yes,' said Alexey Alexandrovitch, and getting up, he folded his hands and cracked his fingers. 'I've come to bring you some money, too, for nightingales, we know, can't live on fairy tales,' he said. 'You want it, I expect?'
'No, I don't...yes, I do,' she said, not looking at him, and crimsoning to the roots of her hair. 'But you'll come back here after the races, I suppose?'
'Oh, yes!' answered Alexey Alexandrovitch. 'And here's the glory of Peterhof, Princess Tverskaya,' he added, looking out of the window at the elegant English carriage with the tiny seats placed extremely high. 'What elegance! Charming! Well, let us be starting too, then.'
Princess Tverskaya did not get out of her carriage, but her groom, in high boots, a cape, and block hat, darted out at the entrance.
'I'm going; good-bye!' said Anna, and kissing her son, she went up to Alexey Alexandrovitch and held out her hand to him. 'It was ever so nice of you to come.'
Alexey Alexandrovitch kissed her hand.
'Well, au revoir, then! You'll come back for some tea; that's delightful!' she said, and went out, gay and radiant. But as soon as she no longer saw him, she was aware of the spot on her hand that his lips had touched, and she shuddered with repulsion.
Chapter 28
When Alexey Alexandrovitch reached the race-course, Anna was already sitting in the pavilion beside Betsy, in that pavilion where all the highest society had gathered. She caught sight of her husband in the distance. Two men, her husband and her lover, were the two centers of her existence, and unaided by her external senses she was aware of their nearness. She was aware of her husband approaching a long way off, and she could not help following him in the surging crowd in the midst of which he was moving. She watched his progress towards the pavilion, saw him now responding condescendingly to an ingratiating bow, now exchanging friendly, nonchalant greetings with his equals, now assiduously trying to catch the eye of some great one of this world, and taking off his big round hat that squeezed the tips of his ears. All these ways of his she knew, and all were hateful to her. 'Nothing but ambition, nothing but the desire to get on, that's all there is in his soul,' she thought; 'as for these lofty ideals, love of culture, religion, they are only so many tools for getting on.'
From his glances towards the ladies' pavilion (he was staring straight at her, but did not distinguish his wife in the sea of muslin, ribbons, feathers, parasols and flowers) she saw that he was looking for her, but she purposely avoided noticing him.
'Alexey Alexandrovitch!' Princess Betsy called to him; 'I'm sure you don't see your wife: here she is.'
He smiled his chilly smile.
'There's so much splendor here that one's eyes are dazzled,' he said, and he went into the pavilion. He smiled to his wife as a man should smile on meeting his wife after only just parting from her, and greeted the princess and other acquaintances, giving to each what was due--that is to say, jesting with the ladies and dealing out friendly greetings among the men. Below, near the pavilion, was standing an adjutant-general of whom Alexey
