Anna Karenina (Penguin) - Leo Tolstoy [36]
‘I’m very flattered, Countess, that you remember my words so well,’ answered Levin, who had managed to recover and by force of habit entered at once into his banteringly hostile attitude towards Countess Nordston. ‘They must have had a very strong effect on you.’
‘Oh, surely! I write it all down. Well, Kitty, so you went skating again?’
And she began talking with Kitty. Awkward as it was for Levin to leave now, it was still easier for him to commit that awkwardness than to stay all evening and see Kitty, who glanced at him now and then yet avoided his eyes. He was about to get up, but the princess, noticing that he was silent, addressed him: ‘Have you come to Moscow for long? Though it seems you’re involved with the zemstvo and cannot be long away.’
‘No, Princess, I’m no longer involved with the zemstvo,’ he said. ‘I’ve come for a few days.’
‘Something peculiar has happened to him,’ thought Countess Nordston, studying his stern, serious face, ‘something keeps him from getting into his tirades. But I’ll draw him out. I’m terribly fond of making a fool of him in front of Kitty, and so I will.’
‘Konstantin Dmitrich,’ she said to him, ‘explain to me, please, what it means - you know all about this - that on our Kaluga estate the muzhiks and their women drank up all they had and now don’t pay us anything? What does it mean? You praise muzhiks all the time.’
Just then another lady came in, and Levin rose.
‘Excuse me, Countess, but I really know nothing about it and can tell you nothing,’ he said, and turned to look at the military man who came in after the lady.
‘That must be Vronsky,’ thought Levin and, to make sure of it, he glanced at Kitty. She had already had time to glance at Vronsky and now looked at Levin. And by that one glance of her involuntarily brightened eyes Levin understood that she loved this man, understood it as surely as if she had told it to him in words. But what sort of man was he?
Now - for good or ill - Levin could not help staying: he had to find out what sort of man it was that she loved.
There are people who, on meeting a successful rival in whatever it may be, are ready at once to turn their eyes from everything good in him and to see only the bad; then there are people who, on the contrary, want most of all to find the qualities in this successful rival that enabled him to defeat them, and with aching hearts seek only the good. Levin was one of those people. But it was not hard for him to find what was good and attractive in Vronsky. It struck his eyes at once. Vronsky was a sturdily built, dark-haired man of medium height, with a good-naturedly handsome, extremely calm and firm face. In his face and figure, from his closely cropped dark hair and freshly shaven chin to his wide-cut, brand-new uniform, everything was simple and at the same time elegant. Making way for the lady who was entering, Vronsky went up to the princess and then to Kitty.
As he went up to her, his beautiful eyes began to glitter with a special tenderness, and with a barely noticeable happy and modestly triumphant smile (as it seemed to Levin), bending over her respectfully and carefully, he gave her his small but broad hand.
After greeting and saying a few words to everyone, he sat down, without a glance at Levin, who did not take his eyes off him.
‘Allow me to introduce you,’ said the princess, indicating Levin.
‘Konstantin Dmitrich Levin. Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky.’
Vronsky rose and, looking amiably into Levin’s eyes, shook hands with him.
‘I believe I was to have dined with you this winter,’ he said, smiling his simple and frank smile, ‘but you unexpectedly left for the country.’
‘Konstantin Dmitrich despises and hates the city and us city-dwellers,’ said Countess Nordston.
‘My words must have a strong effect on you, since you remember them so well,’ said Levin and, realizing