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‘You’ve changed in many ways since you got married, and for the better,’ said Sergei Ivanovich, smiling at Kitty and obviously not much interested in the conversation they had begun, ‘but you’ve remained loyal to your passion for defending the most paradoxical themes.’

‘Katia, it’s not good for you to stand,’ her husband said to her, moving a chair over for her and giving her a meaningful look.

‘Well, yes, and anyway there’s no time,’ Sergei Ivanovich added, seeing the children run out.

Ahead of them all came Tanya in her tight stockings, galloping sideways, waving her basket and Sergei Ivanovich’s hat and running straight towards him.

Having boldly run up to Sergei Ivanovich, her eyes shining, so like her father’s beautiful eyes, she handed him his hat and made as if to put it on him, softening her liberty with a timid and tender smile.

‘Varenka’s waiting,’ she said, carefully putting the hat on his head, seeing by Sergei Ivanovich’s smile that it was allowed.

Varenka stood in the doorway, having changed into a yellow cotton dress, with a white kerchief tied on her head.

‘Coming, coming, Varvara Andreevna,’ said Sergei Ivanovich, finishing his cup of coffee and putting his handkerchief and cigar-case in his pockets.

‘How lovely my Varenka is, isn’t she?’ Kitty said to her husband, as soon as Sergei Ivanovich got up. She said it so that Sergei Ivanovich could hear her, which she obviously wanted. ‘And how beautiful she is, how nobly beautiful! Varenka!’ Kitty shouted, ‘will you be in the mill wood? We’ll meet you there.’

‘You quite forget your condition, Kitty,’ the old princess said, hurrying out of the door. ‘You mustn’t shout like that.’

Varenka, hearing Kitty’s voice and her mother’s reprimand, quickly came up to her with a light step. Her quickness of movement, the colour that suffused her animated face, all showed that something extraordinary was taking place in her. Kitty knew what this extraordinary thing was and observed her closely. She had called Varenka now only so as to bless her mentally for the important event which, in Kitty’s mind, was to take place after dinner today in the forest.

‘Varenka, I’ll be very happy if a certain thing happens,’ she said in a whisper, kissing her.

‘And will you come with us?’ Varenka said to Levin, embarrassed and pretending not to have heard what had been said to her.

‘I will, but only as far as the threshing floor, and I’ll stay there.’

‘Now, what have you got to do there?’ said Kitty.

‘I must look over the new wagons and do some figures,’ said Levin. ‘And where will you be?’

‘On the terrace.’

II

The entire company of women gathered on the terrace. They generally liked to sit there after dinner, but today they also had things to do. Besides the sewing of little shirts and the knitting of baby blankets, with which they were all occupied, jam was being made there according to a method new to Agafya Mikhailovna, without the addition of water. Kitty was introducing this new method which they used at home. Agafya Mikhailovna, who had been in charge of it before, considering that nothing done in the Levins’ house could be bad, had put water in the strawberry and wild strawberry jam all the same, insisting that it could not be done otherwise; she had been caught at it, and now raspberry jam was being made in front of everyone, and Agafya Mikhailovna had to be brought to believe that jam without water could turn out well.

Agafya Mikhailovna, with a flushed and upset face, her hair tousled, her thin arms bared to the elbows, rocked the basin in circular movements over the brazier and stared gloomily at the raspberry jam, wishing with all her heart that it would thicken before it was cooked through. The princess, feeling that Agafya Mikhailovna’s wrath must be directed at her, as the chief adviser on making raspberry jam, tried to pretend she was busy with something else and not interested in the jam, talked about unrelated things, but kept casting