him.

"Well, what a shame not to have let us know! Been here long? I
was at Dussot's yesterday and saw 'Karenin' on the visitors'
list, but it never entered my head that it was you," said Stepan
Arkadyevitch, sticking his head in at the window of the carriage,
"or I should have looked you up. I am glad to see you!" he
said, knocking one foot against the other to shake the snow off.
"What a shame of you not to let us know!" he repeated.

"I had no time; I am very busy," Alexey Alexandrovitch responded
dryly.

"Come to my wife, she does so want to see you."

Alexey Alexandrovitch unfolded the rug in which his frozen feet
were wrapped, and getting out of his carriage made his way over
the snow to Darya Alexandrovna.

"Why, Alexey Alexandrovitch, what are you cutting us like this
for?" said Dolly, smiling.

"I was very busy. Delighted to see you!" he said in a tone
clearly indicating that he was annoyed by it. "How are you?"

"Tell me, how is my darling Anna?"

Alexey Alexandrovitch mumbled something and would have gone on.
But Stepan Arkadyevitch stopped him.

"I tell you what we'll do tomorrow. Dolly, ask him to dinner.
We'll ask Koznishev and Pestsov, so as to entertain him with our
Moscow celebrities."

"Yes, please, do come," said Dolly; "we will expect you at five,
or six o'clock, if you like. How is my darling Anna? How
long..."

"She is quite well," Alexey Alexandrovitch mumbled, frowning.
"Delighted!" and he moved away towards his carriage.

"You will come?" Dolly called after him.

Alexey Alexandrovitch said something which Dolly could not catch
in the noise of the moving carriages.

"I shall come round tomorrow!" Stepan Arkadyevitch shouted to
him.

Alexey Alexandrovitch got into his carriage, and buried himself
in it so as neither to see nor be seen.

"Queer fish!" said Stepan Arkadyevitch to his wife, and glancing
at his watch, he made a motion of his hand before his face,
indicating a caress to his wife and children, and walked jauntily
along the pavement.

"Stiva! Stiva!" Dolly called, reddening.

He turned round.

"I must get coats, you know, for Grisha and Tanya. Give me the
money."

"Never mind; you tell them I'll pay the bill!" and he vanished,
nodding genially to an acquaintance who drove by.

Chapter 7

The next day was Sunday. Stepan Arkadyevitch went to the Grand
Theater to a rehearsal of the ballet, and gave Masha Tchibisova,
a pretty dancing-girl who