Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/491

 "It is an entirely different kind of cultivation—their cultivation! One would say that he was cultivated only for the sake of scorning cultivation, as he scorns everything else, except animal pleasures."

"But are you not also fond of all these animal pleasures yourself?" said Anna, and once more he noticed the gloomy look in her eyes which avoided his.

"Why do you defend him?" he asked, smiling.

"I am not defending him; it is all absolutely indifferent to me. But it seems to me if you did not like these pleasures, you might dispense with them. But you enjoyed going to see that Thérèse in the costume of Eve." ....

"There is the demon again," said Vronsky, taking her hand which lay on the table and kissing it.

"Yes; but I can't help it. You can't imagine what I suffered while I was waiting for you. I do not think I am jealous; I am not jealous: when you are here with me I believe in you; but when you are away, leading a life so incomprehensible to me...."

She drew away from him, drew the crochet-needle out of her work, and speedily, with the help of her index finger, the stitches of white wool gleaming in the lamplight began one after the other to take form, and swiftly, nervously, the delicate wrist moved back and forth in the embroidered cuff.

"Tell me, how was it? where did you meet Alekseï Aleksandrovitch," she asked suddenly, in a voice still sounding unnatural.

"We ran against each other at the door."

"And did he greet you like this?"

She drew down her face and, half closing her eyes, instantly changed her whole expression, and Vronsky suddenly saw the same look in her pretty features which Alekseï Aleksandrovitch had worn when he bowed to him. He smiled, and Anna began to laugh, with that fresh, ringing laugh which was one of her greatest charms.

"I really do not understand him," said Vronsky. "I should have supposed that after your explanation at the