r heart. But seeing Anna in actual life
among these strangers, with this fashionable tone that was so new
to Darya Alexandrovna, she felt ill at ease. What she disliked
particularly was seeing Princess Varvara ready to overlook
everything for the sake of the comforts she enjoyed.
As a general principle, abstractly, Dolly approved of Anna's
action; but to see the man for whose sake her action had been
taken was disagreeable to her. Moreover, she had never liked
Vronsky. She thought him very proud, and saw nothing in him of
which he could be proud except his wealth. But against her own
will, here in his own house, he overawed her more than ever, and
she could not be at ease with him. She felt with him the same
feeling she had had with the maid about her dressing jacket.
Just as with the maid she had felt not exactly ashamed, but
embarrassed at her darns, so she felt with him not exactly
ashamed, but embarrassed at herself.
Dolly was ill at ease, and tried to find a subject of
conversation. Even though she supposed that, through his pride,
praise of his house and garden would be sure to be disagreeable
to him, she did all the same tell him how much she liked his
house.
"Yes, it's a very fine building, and in the good old-fashioned
style," he said.
"I like so much the court in front of the steps. Was that
always so?"
"Oh, no!" he said, and his face beamed with pleasure. "If you
could only have seen that court last spring!"
And he began, at first rather diffidently, but more and more
carried away by the subject as he went on, to draw her attention
to the various details of the decoration of his house and garden.
It was evident that, having devoted a great deal of trouble to
improve and beautify his home, Vronsky felt a need to show off
the improvements to a new person, and was genuinely delighted at
Darya Alexandrovna's praise.
"If you would care to look at the hospital, and are not tired,
indeed, it's not far. Shall we go?" he said, glancing into her
face to convince himself that she was not bored. "Are you
coming, Anna?" he turned to her.
"We will come, won't we?" she said, addressing Sviazhsky. "_Mais
il ne faut pas laisser le pauvre Veslovsky et Tushkevitch se
morfondre la dans le bateau._ We must send and tell them."
"Yes, this is a monument he is setting up here," said Anna,
turning to Dolly with that sly smile of comprehension with which
she had previously talked about the hospital
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