It was strange to Darya Alexandrovna to hear how serenely
confident he was of being right at his own table. She thought
how Levin, who believed the opposite, was just as positive in his
opinions at his own table. But she loved Levin, and so she was
on his side.
"So we can reckon upon you, count, for the coming elections?"
said Sviazhsky. "But you must come a little beforehand, so as to
be on the spot by the eighth. If you would do me the honor to
stop with me."
"I rather agree with your beau-frère," said Anna, "though not
quite on the same ground as he," she added with a smile. "I'm
afraid that we have too many of these public duties in these
latter days. Just as in old days there were so many government
functionaries that one had to call in a functionary for every
single thing, so now everyone's doing some sort of public duty.
Alexey has been here now six months, and he's a member, I do
believe, of five or six different public bodies. _Du train que
cela va,_ the whole time will be wasted on it. And I'm afraid
that with such a multiplicity of these bodies, they'll end in
being a mere form. How many are you a member of, Nikolay
Ivanitch?" she turned to Sviazhsky--"over twenty, I fancy."
Anna spoke lightly, but irritation could be discerned in her
tone. Darya Alexandrovna, watching Anna and Vronsky attentively,
detected it instantly. She noticed, too, that as she spoke
Vronsky's face had immediately taken a serious and obstinate
expression. Noticing this, and that Princess Varvara at once
made haste to change the conversation by talking of Petersburg
acquaintances, and remembering what Vronsky had without apparent
connection said in the garden of his work in the country, Dolly
surmised that this question of public activity was connected with
some deep private disagreement between Anna and Vronsky.
The dinner, the wine, the decoration of the table were all very
good; but it was all like what Darya Alexandrovna had seen at
formal dinners and balls which of late years had become quite
unfamiliar to her; it all had the same impersonal and constrained
character, and so on an ordinary day and in a little circle of
friends it made a disagreeable impression on her.
After dinner they sat on the terrace, then they proceeded to play
lawn tennis. The players, divided into two parties, stood on
opposite sides of a tightly drawn net with gilt poles on the
carefully leveled and rolled croquet-ground. Darya Alexandrovna
made an attempt to play, but it was a long time before she could
understand the game, and by the time she did understand it, she
was so tired that she sat down with Princess Varvara and simply
looked on at the players. Her partner, Tushkevitch, gave up
playing too, but the others kept the game up for a long time.
Sviazhsky and Vronsky both played very well and seriously. They
kept a sharp lookout on the balls served to them, and without
haste or getting in each other's way, they ran adroitly up to
them, waited for the rebound, and neatly and accurately returned
them over the net. Veslovsky played worse than the others. He
was too eager, but he kept the players lively with his high
spirits. His laughter and outcries never paused. Like the other
men of the party, with the ladies' permission, he took off his
coat, and his solid, comely figure in his white shirt-sleeves,
with his red perspiring face and his impulsive movements, made a
picture that imprinted itself vividly on the memory.