Part 2 - Chapter 29

Chapter 29

Everyone was loudly expressing disapprobation, everyone was
repeating a phrase some one had uttered--"The lions and
gladiators will be the next thing," and everyone was feeling
horrified; so that when Vronsky fell to the ground, and Anna
moaned aloud, there was nothing very out of the way in it. But
afterwards a change came over Anna's face which really was beyond
decorum. She utterly lost her head. She began fluttering like a
caged bird, at one moment would have got up and moved away, at
the next turned to Betsy.

"Let us go, let us go!" she said.

But Betsy did not hear her. She was bending down, talking to a
general who had come up to her.

Alexey Alexandrovitch went up to Anna and courteously offered her
his arm.

"Let us go, if you like," he said in French, but Anna was
listening to the general and did not notice her husband.

"He's broken his leg too, so they say," the general was saying.
"This is beyond everything."

Without answering her husband, Anna lifted her opera glass and
gazed towards the place where Vronsky had fallen; but it was so
far off, and there was such a crowd of people about it, that she
could make out nothing. She laid down the opera glass, and would
have moved away, but at that moment an officer galloped up and
made some announcement to the Tsar. Anna craned forward,
listening.

"Stiva! Stiva!" she cried to her brother.

But her brother did not hear her. Again she would have moved
away.

"Once more I offer you my arm if you want to be going," said
Alexey Alexandrovitch, reaching towards her hand.

She drew back from him with aversion, and without looking in his
face answered:

"No, no, let me be, I'll stay."

She saw now that from the place of Vronsky's accident an officer
was running across the course towards the pavilion. Betsy waved
her handkerchief to him. The officer brought the news that the
rider was not killed, but the horse had broken its back.

On hearing this Anna sat down hurriedly, and hid her face in her
fan. Alexey Alexandrovitch saw that she was weeping, and could
not control her tears, nor even the sobs that were shaking her
bosom. Alexey Alexandrovitch stood so as to screen her, giving
her time to recover herself.

"For the third time I offer you my arm," he said to her after a
little time, turning to her. Anna gazed at him and did not know
what to say. Princess Betsy came to her rescue.

"No, Alexey Alexandrovitch; I brought Anna and I promised to take
her home," put in Betsy.

"Excuse me, princess," he said, smiling courteously but looking
her very firmly in the face, "but I see that Anna's not very
well, and I wish her to