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

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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.




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