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 was general; but Alekseï Aleksandrovitch saw clearly by Anna's pale, triumphant face that he that fell was not the one on whom her gaze was riveted.

When, after Makhotin and Vronsky crossed the great hurdle, another officer was thrown head first, and was picked up for dead, a shudder of horror ran through the assembly; but Alekseï Aleksandrovitch perceived that Anna did not even notice it, and scarcely knew what the people around her were talking about.

But he kept studying her face, with deeper and deeper attention. Anna, all absorbed as she was in the spectacle of Vronsky's course, was conscious that her husband's cold eyes were on her. She turned around for an instant and looked at him questioningly. Then with a slight frown she turned away.

"Akh! it is all the same to me," she seemed to say, as she turned her glass to the race. She did not look at him again.

The race was disastrous; out of the seventeen riders, more than half were thrown and hurt. Toward the end the excitement became intense, the more because the emperor was displeased.

CHAPTER XXIX

were loudly expressing their dissatisfaction, and the phrase was going the rounds, "Now only the lions are left in the arena;" and when Vronsky fell, horror was felt by all, and Anna groaned in dismay. In this there was nothing extraordinary. But, from thence on, a change which was positively improper had come over her face, and she entirely lost her presence of mind. She tried to escape, like a bird caught in a snare. Thus she struggled to arise, and to get away; and then she cried to Betsy:—

"Come, let us go, let us go!"

But Betsy did not hear her. She was leaning over, engaged in lively conversation with a general who had just entered the pavilion.