Just as in the old days there were so many government functionaries that one had to call in a functionary for every single thing, so now everyone's doing some sort of public duty. Alexei has been here now six months, and he's a member, I do believe, of five or six different public bodies, a guardian, a justice of the peace, a member of the council, a juryman, an equine something. Du train que cela va , his whole time will be wasted on it. And I'm afraid that with such a multiplicity of these bodies, they'll end in being a mere form. How many are you a member of, Nikolai Ivanich?'
she turned to Sviiazhsky. `Over twenty, I fancy.'
Anna spoke lightly, but irritation could be discerned in her tone.
Darya Alexandrovna, watching Anna and Vronsky attentively, detected it instantly. She noticed, too, that as she spoke Vronsky's face had immediately taken a serious and obstinate expression. Noticing this, and that Princess Varvara at once made haste to change the conversation by talking of Peterburg acquaintances, and remembering what Vronsky had without apparent connection said in the garden of his work in the country, Dolly surmised that this question of public activity was connected with some deep private disagreement between Anna and Vronsky.
The dinner, the wine, the dinner set, were all very good; but it was all like what Darya Alexandrovna had seen at formal dinners and balls which of late years had become quite unfamiliar to her; it all had the same impersonal and constrained character, and so on an ordinary day and in a little circle of friends it made a disagreeable impression on her.
After dinner they sat on the terrace; then they proceeded to play lawn tennis. The players, divided into two parties, stood on opposite sides of a tightly drawn net with gilt poles, on the carefully leveled and rolled croquet ground. Darya Alexandrovna made an attempt to play, but it was a long time before she could understand the game, and by the time she did understand it she was so tired that she sat down with Princess Varvara and simply looked on at the players. Her partner, Tushkevich, gave up playing too, but the others kept the game up for a long time. Sviiazhsky and Vronsky both played very well and seriously. They kept a sharp lookout on the balls served to them, and without loitering, they ran adroitly up to them, waited for the rebound, and neatly and accurately returned them over the net.
Veslovsky played worse than the others. He was too eager, but he kept the players lively with his high spirits. His laughter and outcries never paused.
Like the other men of the party, with the ladies' permission, he took off his coat, and his solid, comely figure in his white shirt sleeves, with his red perspiring face and his impulsive movements, made a picture that imprinted itself vividly on the memory.
When Darya Alexandrovna lay in bed that night, as soon as she closed her eyes, she saw Vassenka Veslovsky flying about the croquet ground.
During the game Darya Alexandrovna was not enjoying herself. She did not like the light tone of playfulness that was kept up all the time between Vassenka Veslovsky and Anna, and the unnaturalness, altogether, of grown-up people, all alone without children, playing at a child's game.
But to avoid breaking up the party and to get through the time somehow, after a rest she joined the game again, and pretended to be enjoying it.
All that day it seemed to her as though she were acting in a theater with actors cleverer than she, and that her bad acting was spoiling the whole performance.
She had come with the intention of staying two days, if all went well. But in the evening, during the game, she made up her mind that she would go home next day. The maternal cares and worries, which she had so hated on the way, now, after a day spent without them struck her in quite another light, and tempted her back to them.
When, after evening tea and a row by night in the boat, Darya Alexandrovna went alone to her room, took off her dress, and began arranging her thin hair for the night, she had a great sense of relief.
It was positively disagreeable to her to think that Anna would be coming to see her immediately. She longed to be alone with her own thoughts.
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TOLSTOY: Anna Karenina Part 6, Chapter 23[Previous Chapter] [Table of Contents] Chapter 23 Dolly was just about to go to bed when Anna came in to see her, attired for the night.
In the course of the day Anna had several times begun to speak of matters near her heart, and every time after a few words she had stopped:
`Afterward, by ourselves, we'll talk about everything. I've got so much I want to tell you,' she had said.
Now they were by themselves, and Anna did not know what to talk about. She sat in the window looking at Dolly, and going over in her own mind all the stores of intimate talk which had seemed so inexhaustible beforehand, and she found nothing. At that moment it seemed to her that everything had been said already.
`Well, what of Kitty?' she said with a heavy sigh, looking penitently at Dolly. `Tell me the truth, Dolly: isn't she angry with me?'
`Angry? Oh, no!' said Darya Alexandrovna, smiling.
`But she hates me, despises me?'
`Oh, no! But you know that sort of thing isn't forgiven.'
`Yes, yes,' said Anna, turning away and looking out of the open window. `But I was not to blame. And who is to blame? What's the meaning of being to blame? Could it have been otherwise? What do you think? Could it possibly have happened otherwise than that you should become the wife of Stiva?'
`Really, I don't know. But this is what I want you to tell me...'
`Yes, yes, but we've not finished about Kitty. Is she happy? He's a very fine man, they say.'
`He's much more than very fine. I don't know a better man.'
`Ah, how glad I am! I'm so glad! Much more than very fine,' she repeated.
Dolly smiled.
`But tell me about yourself. We've a great deal to talk about.
And I've had a talk with...' Dolly did not know what to call him. She felt it awkward to call him either the Count or Alexei Kirillovich.