Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/625

 atmosphere of solicitude which he threw around her, was sometimes oppressive to her.

Vronsky, meantime, notwithstanding the complete realization of all that he had desired so long, was not entirely happy. He soon began to feel that the accomplishment of his desires was only a small portion of the mountain of pleasure which he had anticipated. This realization now proved to him the eternal error made by men who imagine their happiness lies in the accomplishment of their desires. During the first of the time after he had begun to live with her, and had put on his citizen's clothes, he experienced all the charm of a freedom such as he had never known before and the freedom of love, and he was satisfied with that; but not for long. He soon began to feel rising in his soul the desire of desires—toska, melancholy, homesickness, ennui. Involuntarily, he began to follow every light caprice as if they were serious aspirations and ends.

It was necessary to fill sixteen hours each day with some occupation, living, as they did, abroad, in perfect freedom, away from the social and military duties that took Vronsky 's time at Petersburg. He could not think of indulging in the pleasures such as he had enjoyed as a bachelor during his previous trips abroad, for one experiment of that kind—a scheme of a late supper with some acquaintances—reduced Anna to a most unexpected and uncomfortable state of dejection. The enjoyment with foreign or Russian society was impossible on account of the peculiarity of their relation. And to amuse himself with the curiosities of the country was not to be spoken of, not only because he had already seen them, but because as a Russian and a man of sense, he could not find in them that immense importance that the English are pleased to attach to them.

And as a hungry animal throws itself on everything that presents itself, hoping to find in it something to eat, so Vronsky, with perfect spontaneity, attacked, now politics, now new books, now painting.

As, when he was young, he had shown some inclination toward art, and, not knowing what to do with his money,