ever but true," said Anna, smiling.

"No, do tell me why it is one can't go to sleep, and one can't
help being bored?"

"To sleep well one ought to work, and to enjoy oneself one ought
to work too."

"What am I to work for when my work is no use to anybody? And I
can't and won't knowingly make a pretense about it."

"You're incorrigible," said Stremov, not looking at her, and he
spoke again to Anna. As he rarely met Anna, he could say nothing
but commonplaces to her, but he said those commonplaces as to
when she was returning to Petersburg, and how fond Countess Lidia
Ivanovna was of her, with an expression which suggested that he
longed with his whole soul to please her and show his regard for
her and even more than that.

Tushkevitch came in, announcing that the party were awaiting the
other players to begin croquet.

"No, don't go away, please don't," pleaded Liza Merkalova,
hearing that Anna was going. Stremov joined in her entreaties.

"It's too violent a transition," he said, "to go from such
company to old Madame Vrede. And besides, you will only give her
a chance for talking scandal, while here you arouse none but such
different feelings of the highest and most opposite kind," he
said to her.

Anna pondered for an instant in uncertainty. This shrewd man's
flattering words, the naive, childlike affection shown her by
Liza Merkalova, and all the social atmosphere she was used to,--
it was all so easy, and what was in store for her was so
difficult, that she was for a minute in uncertainty whether to
remain, whether to put off a little longer the painful moment of
explanation. But remembering what was in store for her alone at
home, if she did not come to some decision, remembering that
gesture--terrible even in memory--when she had clutched her
hair in both hands--she said good-bye and went away.

Chapter 19

In spite of Vronsky's apparently frivolous life in society, he
was a man who hated irregularity. In early youth in the Corps of
Pages, he had experienced the humiliation of a refusal, when he
had tried, being in difficulties, to borrow money, and since then
he had never once put himself in the same position again.

In order to keep his affairs in some sort of order, he used about
five times a year (more or less frequently, according to
circumstances) to shut himself up alone and put all his affairs
into definite shape. This he used to call his day of reckoning
or _faire la lessi