Anna Karenina Volume 1

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: .;-.-.-'' ' ' .-.-., textit{' ' . r . KAKKMN TAKES POSSESSION OF HIS WIFE'S LETTERS. PART IV. Raknin and his wife continued to live under the same roof, to meet every day, and yet to remain entire strangers to each other. Aleksei Aleksandrovitch made a point of avoiding comments from the servants by appearing with his wife, but he seldom dined at home. Vrousky was never seen there: Anna met him outside, and her husband knew it. ' AH three suffered from a situation which would have been intolerable, had not each believed it to be transitory. Alek- sei Aleksandrovitch expected to see this passion, like every thing else in the world, come to an end before his name was dishonored. Anna, the cause of all the trouble, and the one on whom the consequences weighed the most cruelly, only accepted her position in the conviction that a crisis was near at hand. As to Vronsky, he had come to believe as she did. Towards the middle of the winter Vronsky had to spend a tiresome week. He was delegated to show a foreign prince about St. Petersburg; and this honor, due to his irreproachable bearing, and his familiarity with foreign languages, was disagreeable to him. The prince was anxious to be able to answer any questions that might be put to him on his return, and at the same time to enjoy all the pleasures peculiar to the country; so he had to be instructed during the day, and amused in the evening. This prince enjoyed exceptionally good health, even for a prince; and, owing to the scrupu lous care he took of himself, he could endure excessive fatigue, remaining all the while as fresh as a great, green, shiny Dutch cucumber. He had been a great traveller, recognizing in the great advantage of easy modern communication a means of amusing himself in various ways. I...