Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/414

 "I am not going," said Liza, sitting down near Anna, "You are n't going, are you? What pleasure can any one find in croquet?"

"But I am very fond of it," said Anna.

"There! how is it that you don't get ennuyée? To look at you is a joy. You live, but I vegetate."

"How vegetate? Why! they say you have the gayest society in Petersburg," said Anna.

"Perhaps those who are not of our circle are still more ennuyée. But we, it seems to me, are not happy, but are bored, terribly bored."

Safo lighted a cigarette, and went to the lawn with the two young men. Betsy and Stremof stayed at the tea-table.

"How bored?" asked Betsy. "Safo says she had a delightful evening with you yesterday."

"Oh! how unendurable it was!" said Liza. "They all came to my house with me after the races, and it was all so utterly monotonous. It is forever one and the same thing. They sat on the divans the whole evening. How could that be delightful? No; but what do you do to keep from being bored?" she asked again of Anna. "It is enough to look at you! You are evidently a woman who can be happy or unhappy, but never ennuyée. Now explain what you do."

"I don't do anything," said Anna, confused by such a stream of questions.

"That is the best way," said Stremof, joining the conversation.

Stremof was a man fifty years old, rather gray, but well preserved, very ugly, but with a face full of character and intelligence. Liza Merkalof was his wife's niece, and he spent with her all his leisure time. Though he was an employee in the service of Alekseï Aleksandrovitch's political enemies, he endeavored, now that he met Anna in society, to act the man of the world, and be exceedingly amiable to his enemy's wife.

"The very best way is to do nothing," he continued, with his wise smile. "I have been telling you this long time," turning to Liza Merkalof, "that, if you don't want