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‘Yes. How do you know?’

‘Oh! how good to be your age,’ Anna went on. ‘I remember and know that blue mist, the same as in the mountains in Switzerland. The mist that envelops everything during the blissful time when childhood is just coming to an end, and the path away from that vast, cheerful and happy circle grows narrower and narrower, and you feel cheerful and eerie entering that suite of rooms, though it seems bright and beautiful ... Who hasn’t gone through that?’

Kitty silently smiled. ‘But how did she go through it? I’d so love to know her whole romance!’ thought Kitty, recalling the unpoetical appearance of Alexei Alexandrovich, her husband.

‘There’s something I know. Stiva told me, and I congratulate you, I like him very much,’ Anna went on. ‘I met Vronsky at the railway station.’

‘Ah, he was there?’ Kitty asked, blushing. ‘But what did Stiva tell you?’

‘Stiva gave it all away. And I’d be very glad. I travelled with Vronsky’s mother yesterday,’ she went on, ‘and his mother didn’t stop talking to me about him; he’s her favourite; I know how partial mothers can be, but...’

‘But what did his mother tell you?’

‘Oh, a lot! I know he’s her favourite, but even so one can tell he’s chivalrous ... Well, for instance, she told me he wanted to give the whole fortune to his brother, that while still a child he did something extraordinary, rescued a woman from the water. In short, a hero,’ Anna said, smiling and remembering the two hundred roubles he gave at the station.

But she did not mention the two hundred roubles. For some reason it was unpleasant for her to remember it. She felt there was something in it that concerned her, and of a sort that should not have been.

‘She insisted that I call on her,’ Anna went on, ‘and I’ll be glad to see the old lady and will call on her tomorrow. However, thank God Stiva has spent a long time in Dolly’s boudoir,’ Anna added, changing the subject and getting up, displeased at something, as it seemed to Kitty.

‘No, me first! no, me!’ the children shouted, having finished their tea and rushing out to Aunt Anna.

‘All together!’ said Anna and, laughing, she ran to meet them, and embraced and brought down the whole heap of swarming, rapturously squealing children.

XXI

For the grown-ups’ tea Dolly came from her room. Stepan Arkadyich did not come out. He must have left his wife’s room through the back door.

‘I’m afraid you’ll be cold upstairs,’ Dolly remarked, addressing Anna. ‘I’d like to move you down, and we’ll be nearer each other.’

‘Oh, now, please don’t worry about me,’ Anna replied, peering into Dolly’s eyes and trying to make out whether or not there had been a reconciliation.

‘There’s more light here,’ her sister-in-law replied.

‘I tell you, I sleep always and everywhere like a dormouse.’

‘What’s this about?’ asked Stepan Arkadyich, coming out of his study and addressing his wife.

By his tone Kitty and Anna both understood at once that a reconciliation had taken place.

‘I want to move Anna down here, but the curtains must be changed. No one else knows how to do it, I must do it myself,’ Dolly replied, turning to him.

‘God knows, are they completely reconciled?’ thought Anna, hearing her cold and calm tone.

‘Oh, enough, Dolly, you keep making difficulties,’ said her husband. ‘Well, I’ll do it, if you like ...’

‘Yes,’ thought Anna, ‘they must be reconciled.’

‘I know how you’ll do it,’ Dolly answered, ‘you’ll tell Matvei to do something impossible, then you’ll leave, and he’ll get it all wrong’ - and a habitual mocking smile wrinkled Dolly’s lips as she said it.

‘Complete, complete reconciliation, complete,’ thought Anna, ‘thank God!’ and rejoicing that she had been the cause of it, she went over to Dolly and kissed her.

‘Not at all, why do you despise me and Matvei so?’ Stepan Arkadyich said, smiling barely perceptibly and turning to his wife.

All evening, as usual, Dolly was slightly mocking towards her husband, and Stepan Arkadyich was content and cheerful, but just enough so as not