"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 attaché 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?"

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"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 people

from whom one has only just parted.

"Where do I come from?" he said, in answer to a question from the

ambassador's wife. "Well, there's no help for it, I must

confess. From the _opera bouffé_. I do believe I've seen it a

hundred times, and always with fresh enjoyment. It's exquisite!

I know it's disgraceful, but I go to sleep at the opera, and I

sit out the _opera bouffé_ to the last minute, and enjoy it.

This evening..."

He mentioned a French actress, and was going to tell something

about her; but the ambassador's wife, with playful horror, cut

him short.

"Please don't tell us about that horror."

"All right, I won't especially as everyone knows those horrors."

"And we should all go to see them if it were accepted as the

correct thing, like the opera," chimed in Princess Myakaya.




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