Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/508

 coachman to stop, and ran through the snow to the carriage.

"How long have you been here? What a sin not to let us know you were coming! I was at Dusseaux's last evening, and I saw the name of Karenin on the list of arrivals, but it never occurred to me that it was you, else I should have looked you up," said he, passing his head through the door. "How glad I am to see you," he went on to say, striking his feet together to shake off the snow. "What a sin not to let us know."

"I had n't time. I am very busy," replied Alekseï Aleksandrovitch, curtly.

"Come and speak to my wife; she wants to see you very much."

Alekseif Aleksandrovitch threw off the plaid which covered his chilly limbs, and, leaving his carriage, made a way through the snow to Darya Aleksandrovna.

"Why, what has happened, Alekseï Aleksandrovitch, that you avoid us in this way?" said she, smiling.

"I was very busy. I am delighted to see you," replied Karenin, in a tone which clearly proved that he was annoyed. "How is your health?"

"How is my dear Anna?"

Alekseï Aleksandrovitch muttered a few words, and was about to leave her, but Stepan Arkadyevitch detained him.

"Do you know what we are going to do to-morrow? Dolly, invite him to dine. Have Koznuishef and Pestsof, so as to regale him with the representative intellects of Moscow."

"Oh, please come! " said Dolly; "we will name any hour that is convenient—five or six, as you please. But how is my dear Anna? It is so long ...."

"She is well," muttered Alekseï Aleksandrovitch again, frowning. "Very happy to have met you."

And he went back to his carriage.

"Will you come?" cried Dolly again.

Alekseï Aleksandrovitch said something in reply which Dolly could not hear in the rumble of carriages.