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“Yes, my solitude is over. You wouldn’t believe how uncomfortable” (he laid stress on the word
uncomfortable) “it is to dine alone.”
At dinner he talked a little to his wife about Moscow matters, and,buy lotro gold, with a sarcastic smile, asked
her after Stepan Arkadyevitch; but the conversation was for the most part general, dealing with
Petersburg official and public news. After dinner he spent half an hour with his guests, and again,
with a smile,luna gold, pressed his wife’s hand,buy runescape gold, withdrew, and drove off to the council. Anna did not go out
that evening either to the Princess Betsy Tverskaya, who, hearing of her return, had invited her,
nor to the theater,lord of the rings online gold, where she had a box for that evening. She did not go out principally because the
dress she had reckoned upon was not ready. Altogether, Anna, on turning, after the departure of
her guests, to the consideration of her attire, was very much annoyed. She was generally a mistress
of the art of dressing well without great expense, and before leaving Moscow she had given her
dressmaker three dresses to transform. The dresses had to be altered so that they could not be
recognized, and they ought to have been ready three days before. It appeared that two dresses had
not been done at all, while the other one had not been altered as Anna had intended. The
dressmaker came to explain, declaring that it would be better as she had done it, and Anna was so
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furious that she felt ashamed when she thought of it afterwards. To regain her serenity completely
she went into the nursery, and spent the whole evening with her son, put him to bed herself, signed
him with the cross, and tucked him up. She was glad she had not gone out anywhere, and had
spent the evening so well. She felt so light-hearted and serene, she saw so clearly that all that had
seemed to her so important on her railway journey was only one of the common trivial incidents
of fashionable life, and that she had no reason to feel ashamed before anyone else or before
herself. Anna sat down at the hearth with an English novel and waited for her husband. Exactly at
half-past nine she heard his ring, and he came into the room.
“Here you are at last!” she observed, holding out her hand to him.
He kissed her hand and sat down beside her.
“Altogether then, I see your visit was a success,” he said to her.
“Oh, yes,” she said, and she began telling him about everything from the beginning: her journey
with Countess Vronskaya, her arrival, the accident at the station. Then she described the pity she
had felt, first for her brother, and afterwards for Dolly.
“I imagine one cannot exonerate such a man from blame, though he is your brother,” said Alexey
Alexandrovitch severely.
Anna smiled. She knew that he said that simply to show that family considerations could not
prevent him from expressing his genuine opinion. She knew that characteristic in her husband, and

reason. She made no answer, and in her face he saw conflict.
“Forgive me, if you dislike what I said,” he said humbly.
He had spoken courteously, deferentially, yet so firmly, so stubbornly, that for a long while she
could make no answer.
“It’s wrong, what you say, and I beg you, if you’re a good man, to forget what you’ve said, as I
forget it,” she said at last.
“Not one word, not one gesture of yours shall I, could I, ever forget…”
“Enough, enough!” she cried trying assiduously to give a stern expression to her face, into which
he was gazing greedily. And clutching at the cold door post, she clambered up the steps and got
rapidly into the corridor of the carriage. But in the little corridor she paused, going over in her
imagination what had happened. Though she could not recall her own words or his, she realized
instinctively that the momentary conversation had brought them fearfully closer; and she was
panic-stricken and blissful at it. After standing still a few seconds,forza credits, she went into the carriage and
sat down in her place. The overstrained condition which had tormented her before did not only
come back, but was intensified, and reached such a pitch that she was afraid every minute that
something would snap within her from the excessive tension. She did not sleep all night. But in
that nervous tension, and in the visions that filled her imagination,buy runescape gold, there was nothing disagreeable
or gloomy: on the contrary there was something blissful, glowing, and exhilarating. Towards
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morning Anna sank into a doze, sitting in her place, and when she waked it was daylight and the
train was near Petersburg. At once thoughts of home, of husband and of son, and the details of that
day and the following came upon her.
At Petersburg, as soon as the train stopped and she got out, the first person that attracted her
attention was her husband. “Oh, mercy! why do his ears look like that?” she thought,runescape power leveling, looking at
his frigid and imposing figure, and especially the ears that struck her at the moment as propping
up the brim of his round hat. Catching sight of her, he came to meet her, his lips falling into their
habitual sarcastic smile, and his big, tired eyes looking straight at her. An unpleasant sensation
gripped at her heart when she met his obstinate and weary glance, as though she had expected to
see him different. She was especially struck by the feeling of dissatisfaction with herself that she
experienced on meeting him. That feeling was an intimate,ffxi gil, familiar feeling, like a consciousness
of hypocrisy, which she experienced in her relations with her husband. But hitherto she had not
taken note of the feeling, now she was clearly and painfully aware of it.
“Yes, as you see, your tender spouse, as devoted as the first year after marriage, burned with
impatience to see you,” he said in his deliberate, high-pitched voice, and in that tone which he

used to meet on the ice. There were crack skaters there, showing off their skill, and learners
clinging to chairs with timid, awkward movements, boys, and elderly people skating with hygienic
motives. They seemed to Levin an elect band of blissful beings because they were here, near her.
All the skaters, it seemed, with perfect self-possession, skated towards her, skated by her, even
spoke to her, and were happy, quite apart from her, enjoying the capital ice and the fine weather.
Nikolay Shtcherbatsky, Kitty’s cousin, in a short jacket and tight trousers, was sitting on a garden
seat with his skates on. Seeing Levin, he shouted to him:
“Ah, the first skater in Russia! Been here long? First-rate ice–do put your skates on.”
“I haven’t got my skates,” Levin answered, marveling at this boldness and ease in her presence,
and not for one second losing sight of her,wow power leveling, though he did not look at her. He felt as though the sun
were coming near him. She was in a corner, and turning out her slender feet in their high boots
with obvious timidity, she skated towards him. A boy in Russian dress, desperately waving his
arms and bowed down to the ground, overtook her. She skated a little uncertainly; taking her
hands out of the little muff that hung on a cord, she held them ready for emergency, and looking
towards Levin,warcraft gold, whom she had recognized, she smiled at him,buy warcraft gold, and at her own fears. When she had
got round the turn, she gave herself a push off with one foot, and skated straight up to
Shtcherbatsky. Clutching at his arm, she nodded smiling to Levin. She was more splendid that he
had imagined her.
When he thought of her, he could call up a vivid picture of her to himself, especially the charm of
that little fair head, so freely set on the shapely girlish shoulders, and so full of childish brightness
and good humor. The childishness of her expression, together with the delicate beauty of her
figure, made up her special charm, and that he fully realized. But what always struck him in her as
something unlooked for, was the expression of her eyes, soft, serene, and truthful, and above all,
her smile, which always transported Levin to an enchanted world,buy runescape gold, where he felt himself softened
and tender, as he remembered himself in some days of his early childhood.
“Have you been here long?” she said, giving him her hand. “Thank you,” she added, as he picked
up the handkerchief that had fallen out of her muff.
“I? I’ve not long…yesterday…I mean today…I arrived,” answered Levin, in his emotion not at once
understanding her question. “I was meaning to come and see you,” he said; and then, recollecting
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with what intention he was trying to see her, he was promptly overcome with confusion and
blushed.
“I didn’t know you could skate, and skate so well.”