t was a
punishment. But a woman must dislike being without a shadow."

"Yes, but women with a shadow usually come to a bad end," said
Anna's friend.

"Bad luck to your tongue!" said Princess Myakaya suddenly.
"Madame Karenina's a splendid woman. I don't like her husband,
but I like her very much."

"Why don't you like her husband? He's such a remarkable man,"
said the ambassador's wife. "My husband says there are few
statesmen like him in Europe."

"And my husband tells me just the same, but I don't believe it,"
said Princess Myakaya. "If our husbands didn't talk to us, we
should see the facts as they are. Alexey Alexandrovitch, to my
thinking, is simply a fool. I say it in a whisper...but doesn't
it really make everything clear? Before, when I was told to
consider him clever, I kept looking for his ability, and thought
myself a fool for not seeing it; but directly I said, _he's a fool,_
though only in a whisper, everything's explained, isn't it?"

"How spiteful you are today!"

"Not a bit. I'd no other way out of it. One of the two had to
be a fool. And, well, you know one can't say that of oneself."

"'No one is satisfied with his fortune, and everyone is
satisfied with his wit.'" The attache repeated the French
saying.

"That's just it, just it," Princess Myakaya turned to him. "But
the point is that I won't abandon Anna to your mercies. She's so
nice, so charming. How can she help it if they're all in love
with her, and follow her about like shadows?"

"Oh, I had no idea of blaming her for it," Anna's friend said in
self-defense.

"If no one follows us about like a shadow, that's no proof that
we've any right to blame her."

And having duly disposed of Anna's friend, the Princess Myakaya
got up, and together with the ambassador's wife, joined the group
at the table, where the conversation was dealing with the king of
Prussia.

"What wicked gossip were you talking over there?" asked Betsy.

"About the Karenins. The princess gave us a sketch of Alexey
Alexandrovitch," said the ambassador's wife with a smile, as she
sat down at the table.

"Pity we didn't hear it!" said Princess Betsy, glancing towards
the door. "Ah, here you are at last!" she said, turning with a
smile to Vronsky, as he came in.

Vronsky was not merely acquainted with all the persons whom he
was meeting here; he saw them all every day; and so he came in
with the quiet manner with which one enters a room full of p