ances, 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 decoration of the table 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, Tushkevitch, gave up
playing too, but the others kept the game up for a long time.
Sviazhsky and Vronsky both played very well and seriously. They
kept a sharp lookout on the balls served to them, and without
haste or getting in each other's way, 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 raillery 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