Anna Karenina (Penguin) - Leo Tolstoy [345]
But the princess did not understand his feelings and explained his unwillingness to think and talk about it as light-mindedness and indifference, and therefore would not leave him in peace. She had charged Stepan Arkadyich with seeing about the apartment, and now she called Levin over.
‘I don’t know a thing, Princess. Do as you like,’ he said.
‘You must decide when you’ll move.’
‘I really don’t know. I know there are millions of children born without Moscow and doctors... why then...’
‘But if that’s ...’
‘But no, it’s as Kitty wants.’
‘It’s impossible to discuss it with Kitty! Do you want me to frighten her? This spring Natalie Golitsyn died because of a bad doctor.’
‘I will do whatever you say,’ he said sullenly.
The princess began telling him, but he was not listening to her. Though the conversation with the princess upset him, he became gloomy not because of that conversation, but because of what he saw by the samovar.
‘No, this is not possible,’ he thought, glancing again and again at Vasenka, who was leaning towards Kitty, talking to her with his handsome smile, and then at her, blushing and excited.
There was something impure in Vasenka’s pose, in his glance, in his smile. Levin even saw something impure in Kitty’s pose and glance. And again everything went dark in his eyes. Again, as yesterday, suddenly, without the least transition, he felt himself thrown down from the height of happiness, peace, dignity, into an abyss of despair, anger and humiliation. Again everyone and everything became repulsive to him.
‘Do as you like, then, Princess,’ he said, turning round again.
‘Heavy is the hat of Monomakh!‘5 Stepan Arkadyich joked, obviously alluding not only to the conversation with the princess but to the cause of Levin’s agitation, which he had noticed. ‘How late you are today, Dolly!’
Everyone rose to greet Darya Alexandrovna. Vasenka rose for a moment and, with that lack of courtesy peculiar to the new young men, bowed slightly and went on with his conversation, laughing at something.
‘Masha has worn me out. She slept poorly and has been very capricious all day,’ said Dolly.
The conversation Vasenka had begun with Kitty was again on yesterday’s subject, on Anna and whether love can be above social conventions. Kitty found this conversation unpleasant. It upset her by its content and by the tone in which it was carried on, and especially by the effect she now knew it would have on her husband. But she was too simple and innocent to be able to stop the conversation or even to hide the external pleasure the young man’s obvious attention gave her. She wanted to stop it, but she did not know how. She knew that whatever she did would be noticed by her husband and interpreted in a bad sense. And indeed, when she asked Dolly what was the matter with Masha, and Vasenka, waiting for that discussion, which he found dull, to be over, began gazing indifferently at Dolly, the question seemed to Levin an unnatural, disgusting ruse.
‘What do you say, shall we go mushrooming today?’ asked Dolly.
‘Let’s go, please, and I’ll go, too,’ said Kitty, and blushed. She wanted, out of politeness, to ask Vasenka if he would go, but did not. ‘Where are you going, Kostya?’ she asked her husband, with a guilty look, as he walked past her with resolute strides. That guilty expression confirmed all his suspicions.
‘The mechanic came in my absence. I haven’t seen him yet,’ he said without looking at her.
He went downstairs, but before he had time to leave his study, he heard the familiar steps of his wife, who was coming to him with incautious haste.
‘What is it?’ he said drily. ‘We’re busy.’
‘Excuse me,’ she turned to the German mechanic, ‘I must say a few words to my husband.’
The German was