“Mais vous venez trop tard,” she said, rubbing her handkerchief on her hand, which the horse had made wet in taking the sugar.

Anna turned to Dolly.  “You can stay some time?  For one day only?  That’s impossible!”

“I promised to be back, and the children...” said Dolly, feeling embarrassed both because she had to get her bag out of the carriage, and because she knew her face must be covered with dust.

“No, Dolly, darling!...  Well, we’ll see.  Come along, come along!” and Anna led Dolly to her room.

That room was not the smart guest chamber Vronsky had suggested, but the one of which Anna had said that Dolly would excuse it.  And this room, for which excuse was needed, was more full of luxury than any in which Dolly had ever stayed, a luxury that reminded her of the best hotels abroad.

“Well, darling, how happy I am!” Anna said, sitting down in her riding habit for a moment beside Dolly.  “Tell me about all of you.  Stiva I had only a glimpse of, and he cannot tell one about the children.  How is my favorite, Tanya?  Quite a big girl, I expect?”

“Yes, she’s very tall,” Darya Alexandrovna answered shortly, surprised herself that she should respond so coolly about her children.  “We are having a delightful stay at the Levins’,” she added.

“Oh, if I had known,” said Anna, “that you do not despise me!...  You might have all come to us.  Stiva’s an old friend and a great friend of Alexey’s, you know,” she added, and suddenly she blushed.

“Yes, but we are all...”  Dolly answered in confusion.

“But in my delight I’m talking nonsense.  The one thing, darling, is that I am so glad to have you!” said Anna, kissing her again.  “You haven’t told me yet how and what you think about me, and I keep wanting to know.  But I’m glad you will see me as I am.  The chief thing I shouldn’t like would be for people to imagine I want to prove anything.  I don’t want to prove anything; I merely want to live, to do no one harm but myself.  I have the right to do that, haven’t I?  But it is a big subject, and we’ll talk over everything properly later.  Now I’ll go and dress and send a maid to you.”

Chapter 19

Left alone, Darya Alexandrovna, with a good housewife’s eye, scanned her room.  All she had seen in entering the house and walking through it, and all she saw now in her room, gave her an impression of wealth and sumptuousness and of that modern European luxury of which she had only read in English novels, but had never seen in Russia and in the country.  Everything was new from the new French hangings on the walls to the carpet which covered the whole floor.  The bed had a spring mattress, and a special sort of bolster and silk pillowcases on the little pillows.  The marble washstand, the dressing table, the little sofa, the tables, the bronze clock on the chimney piece, the window curtains, and the portieres were all new and expensive.