. There was unmistakable sympathy in those good-natured
little gray eyes.

"Annushka, dear, what am I to do?" said Anna, sobbing and sinking
helplessly into a chair.

"Why fret yourself so, Anna Arkadyevna? Why, there's nothing out
of the way. You drive out a little, and it'll cheer you up,"
said the maid.

"Yes, I'm going," said Anna, rousing herself and getting up.
"And if there's a telegram while I'm away, send it on to Darya
Alexandrovna's...but no, I shall be back myself."

"Yes, I mustn't think, I must do something, drive somewhere, and
most of all, get out of this house," she said, feeling with
terror the strange turmoil going on in her own heart, and she
made haste to go out and get into the carriage.

"Where to?" asked Pyotr before getting onto the box.

"To Znamenka, the Oblonskys'."

Chapter 28

It was bright and sunny. A fine rain had been falling all the
morning, and now it had not long cleared up. The iron roofs, the
flags of the roads, the flints of the pavements, the wheels and
leather, the brass and the tinplate of the carriages--all
glistened brightly in the May sunshine. It was three o'clock,
and the very liveliest time in the streets.

As she sat in a corner of the comfortable carriage, that hardly
swayed on its supple springs, while the grays trotted swiftly, in
the midst of the unceasing rattle of wheels and the changing
impressions in the pure air, Anna ran over the events of the last
days, and she saw her position quite differently from how it had
seemed at home. Now the thought of death seemed no longer so
terrible and so clear to her, and death itself no longer seemed
so inevitable. Now she blamed herself for the humiliation to
which she had lowered herself. "I entreat him to forgive me. I
have given in to him. I have owned myself in fault. What for?
Can't I live without him?" And leaving unanswered the question
how she was going to live without him, she fell to reading the
signs on the shops. "Office and warehouse. Dental surgeon.
Yes, I'll tell Dolly all about it. She doesn't like Vronsky. I
shall be sick and ashamed, but I'll tell her. She loves me, and
I'll follow her advice. I won't give in to him; I won't let him
train me as he pleases. Filippov, bun shop. They say they send
their dough to Petersburg. The Moscow water is so good for it.
Ah, the springs at Mitishtchen, and the pancakes!"

And she remembered how, long, long ago, when she was a girl