Anna Karenina
coming to the Levins’ to go over with him, at least once a day, the
most difficult lessons of Latin and arithmetic. Levin had offered to
take her place, but the mother, having once overheard Levin’s lesson,
and noticing that it was not given exactly as the teacher in Moscow had
given it, said resolutely, though with much embarrassment and anxiety
not to mortify Levin, that they must keep strictly to the book as the
teacher had done, and that she had better undertake it again herself.
Levin was amazed both at Stepan Arkadyevitch, who, by neglecting his
duty, threw upon the mother the supervision of studies of which she had
no comprehension, and at the teachers for teaching the children so
badly. But he promised his sister-in-law to give the lessons exactly as
she wished. And he went on teaching Grisha, not in his own way, but by
the book, and so took little interest in it, and often forgot the hour
of the lesson. So it had been today.
“No, I’m going, Dolly, you sit still,” he said. “We’ll do it all
properly, like the book. Only when Stiva comes, and we go out shooting,
then we shall have to miss it.”
And Levin went to Grisha.
Varenka was saying the same thing to Kitty. Even in the happy,
well-ordered household of the Levins Varenka had succeeded in making
herself useful.
“I’ll see to the supper, you sit still,” she said, and got up to go to
Agafea Mihalovna.
“Yes, yes, most likely they’ve not been able to get chickens. If so,
ours....”
“Agafea Mihalovna and I will see about it,” and Varenka vanished with
her.
“What a nice girl!” said the princess.
“Not nice, maman; she’s an exquisite girl; there’s no one else like
her.”
“So you are expecting Stepan Arkadyevitch today?” said Sergey
Ivanovitch, evidently not disposed to pursue the conversation about
Varenka. “It would be difficult to find two sons-in-law more unlike
than yours,” he said with a subtle smile. “One all movement, only
living in society, like a fish in water; the other our Kostya, lively,
alert, quick in everything, but as soon as he is in society, he either
sinks into apathy, or struggles helplessly like a fish on land.”
“Yes, he’s very heedless,” said the princess, addressing Sergey
Ivanovitch. “I’ve been meaning, indeed, to ask you to tell him that
it’s out of the question for her” (she indicated Kitty) “to stay here;
that she positively must come to Moscow. He talks of getting a doctor
down....”
“Maman, he’ll do everything; he has agreed to everything,” Kitty said,
angry with her mother for appealing to Sergey Ivanovitch to judge in
such a matter.
In the middle of their conversation they heard the snorting of horses
and the sound of wheels on the gravel. Dolly had not time to get up to
go and meet her husband, when from the window of the room below, where
Grisha was having his lesson, Levin leaped out and helped Grisha out
after him.
“It’s Stiva!” Levin shouted from under the balcony. “We’ve finished,
Dolly, don’t be afraid!” he added, and started running like a boy to
meet the carriage.
“_Is ea id, ejus, ejus, ejus!_” shouted Grisha, skipping along the
avenue.
“And someone else too! Papa, of course!” cried Levin, stopping at the
entrance of the avenue. “Kitty, don’t come down the steep staircase, go
round.”
But Levin had been mistaken in taking the person sitting in the
carriage for the old prince. As he got nearer to the carriage he saw
beside Stepan Arkadyevitch not the prince but a handsome, stout young
man in a Scotch cap, with long ends of ribbon behind. This was Vassenka
Veslovsky, a distant cousin of the Shtcherbatskys, a brilliant young
gentleman in Petersburg and Moscow society. “A capital fellow, and a
keen sportsman,” as Stepan Arkadyevitch said, introducing him.
Not a whit abashed by the disappointment caused by his having come in
place of the old prince, Veslovsky greeted Levin gaily, claiming
acquaintance with him in the past, and snatching up Grisha into the
carriage, lifted him over the pointer that Stepan Arkadyevitch had
brought with him.
Levin did not get into the carriage, but walked behind. He was rather
vexed at the non-arrival of the old prince, whom he liked more and more
the more he saw of him, and also at the arrival of this Vassenka
Veslovsky, a quite uncongenial and superfluous person. He seemed to him
still more uncongenial and superfluous when, on approaching the steps
where the whole party, children and grown-up, were gathered together in
much excitement, Levin saw Vassenka Veslovsky, with a particularly warm
and gallant air, kissing Kitty’s hand.
“Your wife and I are cousins and very old friends,” said Vassenka
Veslovsky, once more shaking Levin’s hand with great warmth.
“Well, are there plenty of birds?” Stepan Arkadyevitch said to Levin,
hardly leaving time for everyone to utter their greetings. “We’ve come
with the most savage intentions. Why, maman, they’ve not been in Moscow
since! Look, Tanya, here’s something for you! Get it, please, it’s in
the carriage, behind!” he talked in all directions. “How pretty you’ve
grown, Dolly,” he said to his wife, once more kissing her hand, holding
it in one of his, and patting it with the other.
Levin, who a minute before had been in the happiest frame of mind, now
looked darkly at everyone, and everything displeased him.
“Who was it he kissed yesterday with those lips?” he thought, looking
at Stepan Arkadyevitch’s tender demonstrations to his wife. He looked
at Dolly, and he did not like her either.
“She doesn’t believe in his love. So what is she so pleased about?
Revolting!” thought Levin.
He looked at the princess, who had been so dear to him a minute before,
and he did not like the manner in which she welcomed this Vassenka,
with his ribbons, just as though she were in her own house.
Even Sergey Ivanovitch, who had come out too onto the steps, seemed to
him unpleasant with the show of cordiality with which he met Stepan
Arkadyevitch, though Levin knew that his brother neither liked nor
respected Oblonsky.
And Varenka, even she seemed hateful, with her air _sainte nitouche_
making the acquaintance of this gentleman, while all the while she was
thinking of nothing but getting married.
And more hateful than anyone was Kitty for falling in with the tone of
gaiety with which this gentleman regarded his visit in the country, as
though it were a holiday for himself and everyone else. And, above all,
unpleasant was that particular smile with which she responded to his
smile.
Noisily talking, they all went into the house; but as soon as they were
all seated, Levin turned and went out.
Kitty saw something was wrong with her husband. She tried to seize a
moment to speak to him alone, but he made haste to get away from her,
saying he was wanted at the counting-house. It was long since his own
work on the estate had seemed to him so important as at that moment.
“It’s all holiday for them,” he thought; “but these are no holiday
matters, they won’t wait, and there’s no living without them.”
Chapter 7
Levin came back to the house only when they sent to summon him to
supper. On the stairs were standing Kitty and Agafea Mihalovna,
consulting about wines for supper.
“But why are you making all this fuss? Have what we usually do.”
“No, Stiva doesn’t drink ... Kostya, stop, what’s the matter?” Kitty
began, hurrying after him, but he strode ruthlessly away to the
dining-room without waiting for her, and at once joined in the lively
general conversation which was being maintained there by Vassenka
Veslovsky and Stepan Arkadyevitch.
“Well, what do you say, are we going shooting tomorrow?” said Stepan
Arkadyevitch.
“Please, do let’s go,” said Veslovsky, moving to another chair, where
he sat down sideways, with one fat leg crossed under him.
“I shall be delighted, we will go. And have you had any shooting yet
this year?” said Levin to Veslovsky, looking intently at his leg, but
speaking with that forced amiability that Kitty knew so well in him,
and that was so out of keeping with him. “I can’t answer for our
finding grouse, but there are plenty of snipe. Only we ought to start
early. You’re not tired? Aren’t you tired, Stiva?”
“Me tired? I’ve never been tired yet. Suppose we stay up all night.
Let’s go for a walk!”
“Yes, really, let’s not go to bed at all! Capital!” Veslovsky chimed
in.
“Oh, we all know you can do without sleep, and keep other people up
too,” Dolly said to her husband, with that faint note of irony in her
voice which she almost always had now with her husband. “But to my
thinking, it’s time for bed now.... I’m going, I don’t want supper.”
“No, do stay a little, Dolly,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, going round to
her side behind the table where they were having supper. “I’ve so much
still to tell you.”
“Nothing really, I suppose.”
“Do you know Veslovsky has been at Anna’s, and he’s going to them
again? You know they’re hardly fifty miles from you, and I too must
certainly go over there. Veslovsky, come here!”
Vassenka crossed over to the ladies, and sat down beside Kitty.
“Ah, do tell me, please; you have stayed with her? How was she?” Darya
Alexandrovna appealed to him.
Levin was left at the other end of the table, and though never pausing
in his conversation with the princess and Varenka, he saw that there
was an eager and mysterious conversation going on between Stepan
Arkadyevitch, Dolly, Kitty, and Veslovsky. And that was not all. He saw
on his wife’s face an expression of real feeling as she gazed with
fixed eyes on the handsome face of Vassenka, who was telling them
something with great animation.
“It’s exceedingly nice at their place,” Veslovsky was telling them
about Vronsky and Anna. “I can’t, of course, take it upon myself to
judge, but in their house you feel the real feeling of home.”
“What do they intend doing?”
“I believe they think of going to Moscow.”
“How jolly it would be for us all to go over to them together! When are
you going there?” Stepan Arkadyevitch asked Vassenka.
“I’m spending July there.”
“Will you go?” Stepan Arkadyevitch said to his wife.
“I’ve been wanting to a long while; I shall certainly go,” said Dolly.
“I am sorry for her, and I know her. She’s a splendid woman. I will go
alone, when you go back, and then I shall be in no one’s way. And it
will be better indeed without you.”
“To be sure,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch. “And you, Kitty?”
“I? Why should I go?” Kitty said, flushing all over, and she glanced
round at her husband.
“Do you know Anna Arkadyevna, then?” Veslovsky asked her. “She’s a very
fascinating woman.”
“Yes,” she answered Veslovsky, crimsoning still more. She got up and
walked across to her husband.
“Are you going shooting, then, tomorrow?” she said.
His jealousy had in these few moments, especially at the flush that had
overspread her cheeks while she was talking to Veslovsky, gone far
indeed. Now as he heard her words, he construed them in his own
fashion. Strange as it was to him afterwards to recall it, it seemed to
him at the moment clear that in asking whether he was going shooting,
all she cared to know was whether he would give that pleasure to
Vassenka Veslovsky, with whom, as he fancied, she was in love.
“Yes, I’m going,” he answered her in an unnatural voice, disagreeable
to himself.
“No, better spend the day here tomorrow, or Dolly won’t see anything of
her husband, and set off the day after,” said Kitty.
The motive of Kitty’s words was interpreted by Levin thus: “Don’t
separate me from _him_. I don’t care about _your_ going, but do let me
enjoy the society of this delightful young man.”
“Oh, if you wish, we’ll stay here tomorrow,” Levin answered, with
peculiar amiability.
Vassenka meanwhile, utterly unsuspecting the misery his presence had