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 "No one is satisfied with his circumstances, and every one is satisfied with his brain," said a diplomat, quoting a French couplet.

"There, that is the very thing," exclaimed the Princess Miagkaya turning to him, "but I make an exception of Anna. She is so lovely and good. Is it her fault if all men fall in love with her and follow her like shadows?"

"Well! I do not allow myself to judge her," said Anna's friend, justifying herself.

"Because no one follows us like a shadow, it does not prove that we have the right to judge."

Having thus appropriately disposed of Anna's friend, the Princess Miagkaya arose, and with the ambassador's wife drew up to the table, and joined in the general conversation about some trifle.

"Whom have you been gossiping about?" asked Betsy.

"About the Karenins. The princess has been picturing Alekseï Aleksandrovitch," replied the ambassador's wife, sitting down near the table, with a smile.

"Shame that we could not have heard it," said Betsy, looking toward the door. "Ah! here you are at last," said she, turning to Vronsky, who at that moment came in.

Vronsky knew, and met every day, all the people whom he found collected in his cousin's drawing-room; therefore he came in with the calmness of a man who rejoins friends from whom he has only just parted.

"Where have I come from?" said he, in reply to a question from the ambassador's wife. "What can I do? I must confess,—from Les Bouffes. 'T is for the hundredth time, and always with a new pleasure. It is charming. It is humiliating, I know, but I get sleepy at the opera; but at Les Bouffes I sit it out up to the very last minute and enjoy it. To-night .... "

He mentioned a French actress, and was going to tell some story about her, but the ambassador's wife stopped him with an expression of mock terror.