Anna Karenina - Part 1 - Page 99/119

After the ball, early next morning, Anna Arkadyevna sent her

husband a telegram that she was leaving Moscow the same day.

"No, I must go, I must go"; she explained to her sister-in-law

the change in her plans in a tone that suggested that she had to

remember so many things that there was no enumerating them: "no,

it had really better be today!"

Stepan Arkadyevitch was not dining at home, but he promised to

come and see his sister off at seven o'clock.

Kitty, too, did not come, sending a note that she had a headache.

Dolly and Anna dined alone with the children and the English

governess. Whether it was that the children were fickle, or that

they had acute senses, and felt that Anna was quite different

that day from what she had been when they had taken such a fancy

to her, that she was not now interested in them,--but they had

abruptly dropped their play with their aunt, and their love for

her, and were quite indifferent that she was going away. Anna

was absorbed the whole morning in preparations for her

departure. She wrote notes to her Moscow acquaintances, put down

her accounts, and packed. Altogether Dolly fancied she was not

in a placid state of mind, but in that worried mood, which Dolly

knew well with herself, and which does not come without cause,

and for the most part covers dissatisfaction with self. After

dinner, Anna went up to her room to dress, and Dolly followed

her.

"How queer you are today!" Dolly said to her.

"I? Do you think so? I'm not queer, but I'm nasty. I am like

that sometimes. I keep feeling as if I could cry. It's very

stupid, but it'll pass off," said Anna quickly, and she bent her

flushed face over a tiny bag in which she was packing a nightcap

and some cambric handkerchiefs. Her eyes were particularly

bright, and were continually swimming with tears. "In the same

way I didn't want to leave Petersburg, and now I don't want to go

away from here."

"You came here and did a good deed," said Dolly, looking intently

at her.

Anna looked at her with eyes wet with tears.

"Don't say that, Dolly. I've done nothing, and could do nothing.

I often wonder why people are all in league to spoil me. What

have I done, and what could I do? In your heart there was found

love enough to forgive..."

"If it had not been for you, God knows what would have happened!

How happy you are, Anna!" said Dolly. "Everything is clear and

good in your heart."