Anna Karenina (Penguin) - Leo Tolstoy [330]
‘Me tired? I’ve never been tired yet. Let’s not sleep all night! Let’s go for a walk.’
‘Yes, really, let’s not sleep! Excellent!’ agreed Veslovsky.
‘Oh, we’re quite sure of that, that you can go without sleep and keep others from sleeping,’ Dolly said to her husband with that barely noticeable irony with which she almost always treated him now. ‘And I think it’s now time ... I’m off to bed, I won’t have supper.’
‘No, stay here, Dollenka,’ said Stepan Arkadyich, going round to her side of the big table at which they were having supper. ‘I have lots more to tell you!’
‘Nothing, I’m sure.’
‘You know, Veslovsky’s been to see Anna. And he’s going there again. They’re less than fifty miles from us. I’ll certainly go, too. Veslovsky, come here!’
Vasenka moved over to the ladies and sat down beside Kitty.
‘Ah, tell us, please! So you’ve been to see her? How is she?’ Darya Alexandrovna turned to him.
Levin stayed at the other end of the table and, without ceasing to talk with the princess and Varenka, saw that an animated and mysterious conversation was going on between Dolly, Kitty and Veslovsky. Not only was a mysterious conversation going on, but he could see in his wife’s face an expression of serious feeling as she gazed into the handsome face of Vasenka, who was animatedly telling them something.
‘It’s very nice at their place,’ Vasenka was saying about Vronsky and Anna. ‘Naturally, I don’t take it upon myself to judge, but in their house you feel as if you’re in a family.’
‘And what do they intend to do?’
‘It seems they want to go to Moscow for the winter.’
‘How nice it would be for us all to get together at their place! When are you going?’ Stepan Arkadyich asked Vasenka.
‘I’ll spend July with them.’
‘And will you go?’ Stepan Arkadyich turned to his wife.
‘I’ve long wanted to go and certainly will,’ said Dolly. ‘I pity her, and I know her. She’s a wonderful woman. I’ll go alone after you leave, and I won’t be in anyone’s way. It will even be better without you.’
‘Well, splendid,’ said Stepan Arkadyich. ‘And you, Kitty?’
‘Me? Why should I go?’ said Kitty, flushing all over. And she turned to look at her husband.
‘Are you acquainted with Anna Arkadyevna?’ Veslovsky asked her. ‘She’s a very attractive woman.’
‘Yes,’ Kitty, turning still more red, replied to Veslovsky, got up and went to her husband.
‘So you’re going hunting tomorrow?’ she said.
His jealousy had gone far in those few minutes, especially after the blush that had covered her cheeks as she talked with Veslovsky. Listening to her words, he now understood them in his own way. Strange as it was for him to recall it later, it seemed clear to him now that if she asked him whether he was going hunting, she was interested only in knowing whether he would give this pleasure to Vasenka Veslovsky, with whom, to his mind, she was already in love.
‘Yes, I am,’ he replied in an unnatural voice that he himself found disgusting.
‘No, better if you stay at home tomorrow, since Dolly hasn’t seen her husband at all, and go the day after,’ said Kitty.
Levin now interpreted the meaning of Kitty’s words as follows: ‘Don’t part me from him. I don’t care if you leave, but let me enjoy the company of this charming young man.’
‘Oh, if you wish, we can stay at home tomorrow,’ Levin replied with special pleasantness.
Vasenka meanwhile, not in the least suspecting all the suffering his presence caused, got up from the table after Kitty and followed her with a smiling, gentle gaze.
Levin saw this gaze. He paled and could not catch his breath for a moment. ‘How can he allow himself to look at my wife like that!’ seethed in him.
‘Tomorrow, then? Let’s go, please,’ said Vasenka, sitting down on a chair and again tucking his leg under, as was his habit.
Levin’s jealousy had gone further still. He already saw himself as a deceived husband, needed by his wife and her lover only to provide them with life’s conveniences and pleasures ... But, despite that, he courteously