Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/1007

Rh They covet some of that bad ice-cream," she said to herself, as she watched two little street children standing in front of a vender, who had just set down from his head his tub of ice-cream, and was wiping his face with a corner of his coat.

"We all want our sweet delicacies; if not sugarplums, then bad ice-cream, just like Kitty, who, not catching Vronsky, took Levin. She envies me, she hates me; and we all hate one another, I Kitty, and Kitty me. That is a fact.—Tiutkin coiffeur—Je me fais coiffer par Tiutkin. .... I will tell him this nonsense when he comes," thought she, and smiled, and then instantly remembered that there was no one now to whom she could tell amusing things. "There is nothing amusing, nothing gay; it is all disgusting. The vesper-bell is ringing, and that storekeeper is crossing himself so quickly that one would think he was afraid of losing the chance.

"Why these churches, these bells, these lies? Just to hide the fact that we all hate one another, like those izvoshchiks who are swearing at each other so angrily. Yashvin was right when he said, 'He is after my shirt, and I am after his.' That is a fact."

She was so engrossed by these thoughts that she forgot her grief for a while, and was surprised when the carriage stopped in front of her house. The sight of the Swiss, coming to meet her, reminded her that she had sent a letter and a telegram.

"Is there an answer yet?"

"I will go and see," said the Swiss; and, looking on the secretary, he came back in a moment with a telegram in a thin, square envelop. Anna read:—

"And has the messenger come back?"

"Not yet," replied the Swiss.

"Ah! if that is so, then I know what I must do;" and, feeling a vague sense of anger and a desire for vengeance arising in her soul, she ran up-stairs.

"I myself will go and find him," thought she.