“I was very busy.  Delighted to see you!” he said in a tone clearly indicating that he was annoyed by it.  “How are you?”

“Tell me, how is my darling Anna?”

Alexey Alexandrovitch mumbled something and would have gone on.  But Stepan Arkadyevitch stopped him.

“I tell you what we’ll do tomorrow.  Dolly, ask him to dinner.  We’ll ask Koznishev and Pestsov, so as to entertain him with our Moscow celebrities.”

“Yes, please, do come,” said Dolly; “we will expect you at five, or six o’clock, if you like.  How is my darling Anna?  How long...”

“She is quite well,” Alexey Alexandrovitch mumbled, frowning.  “Delighted!” and he moved away towards his carriage.

“You will come?” Dolly called after him.

Alexey Alexandrovitch said something which Dolly could not catch in the noise of the moving carriages.

“I shall come round tomorrow!” Stepan Arkadyevitch shouted to him.

Alexey Alexandrovitch got into his carriage, and buried himself in it so as neither to see nor be seen.

“Queer fish!” said Stepan Arkadyevitch to his wife, and glancing at his watch, he made a motion of his hand before his face, indicating a caress to his wife and children, and walked jauntily along the pavement.

“Stiva!  Stiva!” Dolly called, reddening.

He turned round.

“I must get coats, you know, for Grisha and Tanya.  Give me the money.”

“Never mind; you tell them I’ll pay the bill!” and he vanished, nodding genially to an acquaintance who drove by.

Chapter 7

The next day was Sunday.  Stepan Arkadyevitch went to the Grand Theater to a rehearsal of the ballet, and gave Masha Tchibisova, a pretty dancing-girl whom he had just taken under his protection, the coral necklace he had promised her the evening before, and behind the scenes in the dim daylight of the theater, managed to kiss her pretty little face, radiant over her present.  Besides the gift of the necklace he wanted to arrange with her about meeting after the ballet.  After explaining that he could not come at the beginning of the ballet, he promised he would come for the last act and take her to supper.  From the theater Stepan Arkadyevitch drove to Ohotny Row, selected himself the fish and asparagus for dinner, and by twelve o’clock was at Dussot’s, where he had to see three people, luckily all staying at the same hotel:  Levin, who had recently come back from abroad and was staying there; the new head of his department, who had just been promoted to that position, and had come on a tour of revision to Moscow; and his brother-in-law, Karenin, whom he must see, so as to be sure of bringing him to dinner.