good-natured Annushka, whose little, gentle gray eyes were full of sympathy.
"Annushka, my dear, what am I to do?" murmured she, dropping into an arm-chair with a sob.
"You mustn't excite yourself so, Anna Arkadyevna. Go out for a drive; that will divert you. These things will happen," said the maid.
"Yes, I am going out," said Anna, collecting her thoughts, and rising. "If a despatch comes while I am gone, send it to Darya Aleksandrovna's. Or ....no, I will come back—I must keep from thinking. I must do something, and go out, and, above all, get out of this house," thought she, listening, with alarm, to the wild beating of her heart. She hastened out and got into the calash.
"Where do you wish to go?" asked Piotr, just before he took his seat on the box.
"To Znamenko, to the Oblonskys'."
CHAPTER XXVIII
The weather was clear. A fine, thick rain had fallen all the morning, but now it had just cleared off. The roofs and flagstones and harnesses and the metal-work of the carriages glittered in the May sunshine. It was three o'clock, the liveliest time in the streets.
Sitting in the corner of the comfortable calash, which swung easily on its elastic springs as it rolled swiftly along, drawn by a pair of grays, Anna, soothed by the monotonous rumble of the wheels and the hurrying impressions that she received in the fresh, pure air, reviewed the events of the past few days, and her situation seemed entirely different from what it had been at home. Now, the idea of death did not frighten her so much, and death itself did not seem to her so inevitable. Now she blamed herself for the humiliation to which she had stooped.
"I begged him to forgive me. I bent before him. I accused myself. Why did I? Can't I live without him?"
