Page 560 sur 2288

The external relations of Alexey Alexandrovitch and his wife had

remained unchanged. The sole difference lay in the fact that he

was more busily occupied than ever. As in former years, at the

beginning of the spring he had gone to a foreign watering-place

for the sake of his health, deranged by the winter's work that

every year grew heavier. And just as always he returned in July

and at once fell to work as usual with increased energy. As

usual, too, his wife had moved for the summer to a villa out of

town, while he remained in Petersburg. From the date of their

conversation after the party at Princess Tverskaya's he had never

spoken again to Anna of his suspicions and his jealousies, and

that habitual tone of his bantering mimicry was the most

convenient tone possible for his present attitude to his wife. He

was a little colder to his wife. He simply seemed to be slightly

displeased with her for that first midnight conversation, which

she had repelled.