“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 goodbye and went away.