“This way; let us go in here.  Don’t go near the window,” said Anna, trying the paint to see if it were dry.  “Alexey, the paint’s dry already,” she added.

From the reception room they went into the corridor.  Here Vronsky showed them the mechanism for ventilation on a novel system.  Then he showed them marble baths, and beds with extraordinary springs.  Then he showed them the wards one after another, the storeroom, the linen room, then the heating stove of a new pattern, then the trolleys, which would make no noise as they carried everything needed along the corridors, and many other things.  Sviazhsky, as a connoisseur in the latest mechanical improvements, appreciated everything fully.  Dolly simply wondered at all she had not seen before, and, anxious to understand it all, made minute inquiries about everything, which gave Vronsky great satisfaction.

“Yes, I imagine that this will be the solitary example of a properly fitted hospital in Russia,” said Sviazhsky.

“And won’t you have a lying-in ward?” asked Dolly.  “That’s so much needed in the country.  I have often...”

In spite of his usual courtesy, Vronsky interrupted her.

“This is not a lying-in home, but a hospital for the sick, and is intended for all diseases, except infectious complaints,” he said.  “Ah! look at this,” and he rolled up to Darya Alexandrovna an invalid chair that had just been ordered for the convalescents.  “Look.”  He sat down in the chair and began moving it.  “The patient can’t walk—­still too weak, perhaps, or something wrong with his legs, but he must have air, and he moves, rolls himself along....”

Darya Alexandrovna was interested by everything.  She liked everything very much, but most of all she liked Vronsky himself with his natural, simple-hearted eagerness.  “Yes, he’s a very nice, good man,” she thought several times, not hearing what he said, but looking at him and penetrating into his expression, while she mentally put herself in Anna’s place.  She liked him so much just now with his eager interest that she saw how Anna could be in love with him.

Chapter 21

“No, I think the princess is tired, and horses don’t interest her,” Vronsky said to Anna, who wanted to go on to the stables, where Sviazhsky wished to see the new stallion.  “You go on, while I escort the princess home, and we’ll have a little talk,” he said, “if you would like that?” he added, turning to her.

“I know nothing about horses, and I shall be delighted,” answered Darya Alexandrovna, rather astonished.

She saw by Vronsky’s face that he wanted something from her.  She was not mistaken.  As soon as they had passed through the little gate back into the garden, he looked in the direction Anna had taken, and having made sure that she could neither hear nor see them, he began: 

“You guess that I have something I want to say to you,” he said, looking at her with laughing eyes.  “I am not wrong in believing you to be a friend of Anna’s.”  He took off his hat, and taking out his handkerchief, wiped his head, which was growing bald.