Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/925

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ANNA KARENINA
243

so undecided. But this is the point: she has been waiting three months for that divorce here in Moscow, where everybody knows her and him; and she does n't see a single woman but Dolly, because, don't you see, she does n't wish that any one should come to see her from pity. What do you think? That fool of a Princess Varvara left her because she considered it irregular. Any other woman than Anna would not have found resources in herself; but you shall see how she lives, how dignified and calm she is.—To the left, at the corner opposite the church," cried Oblonsky to the coachman, leaning out of the window. "Fu, how hot it is!" he added, throwing open his shuba in spite of twelve degrees of cold.

"Well, she has a daughter, hasn't she, to take up her time and attention?"

"You seem to imagine every woman to be only a setting-hen, une couveuse," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, "Why, yes, of course, she gives her time and attention to her daughter; but she does n't make any fuss about it. She is occupied mainly with her writing. I see you smile ironically, but you are wrong. She has written a book for young people. She has n't spoken of it to any one, except to me; and I showed the manuscript to Vorkuyef, the publisher .... you know he is a writer himself, it seems. He is up in such matters, and he says that it is a remarkable thing. Do you think that she sets up for a blue stocking? Not at all. Anna is, above all things, a woman with a heart, as you will see. She has in her house a little Enghsh girl and a whole family, and is looking after them."

"What? Some philanthropical scheme?"

"Here you are immediately trying to turn it into something absurd! It is not for philanthropy's sake, but because she loves to do it. They had—that is, Vronsky had—an English trainer, a master in his calling, but a drunkard. He did nothing but drink—delirium tremens—and abandoned his family. Anna saw them, helped them, got drawn in more and more, and now has the whole family on her hands. I don't mean