Leo Tolstoy: Anna Karenina

PART 7 Chapter 27 (continued)

At the moment when she had moved away to the big clock to compare it with her watch, someone drove up. Glancing out of the window, she saw his carriage. But no one came upstairs, and voices could be heard below. It was the messenger who had come back in the carriage. She went down to him.

"We didn't catch the count. The count had driven off on the lower city road."

"What do you say? What!..." she said to the rosy, good-humored Mihail, as he handed her back her note.

"Why, then, he has never received it!" she thought.

"Go with this note to Countess Vronskaya's place, you know? and bring an answer back immediately," she said to the messenger.

"And I, what am I going to do?" she thought. "Yes, I'm going to Dolly's, that's true or else I shall go out of my mind. Yes, and I can telegraph, too." And she wrote a telegram. "I absolutely must talk to you; come at once." After sending off the telegram, she went to dress. When she was dressed and in her hat, she glanced again into the eyes of the plump, comfortable-looking Annushka. There was unmistakable sympathy in those good-natured little gray eyes.

"Annushka, dear, what am I to do?" said Anna, sobbing and sinking helplessly into a chair.

"Why fret yourself so, Anna Arkadyevna? Why, there's nothing out of the way. You drive out a little, and it'll cheer you up," said the maid.

"Yes, I'm going," said Anna, rousing herself and getting up. "And if there's a telegram while I'm away, send it on to Darya Alexandrovna's...but no, I shall be back myself."

"Yes, I mustn't think, I must do something, drive somewhere, and most of all, get out of this house," she said, feeling with terror the strange turmoil going on in her own heart, and she made haste to go out and get into the carriage.