Anna Karenina
and good humor. The childishness of her expression, together with the
delicate beauty of her figure, made up her special charm, and that he
fully realized. But what always struck him in her as something unlooked
for, was the expression of her eyes, soft, serene, and truthful, and
above all, her smile, which always transported Levin to an enchanted
world, where he felt himself softened and tender, as he remembered
himself in some days of his early childhood.
“Have you been here long?” she said, giving him her hand. “Thank you,”
she added, as he picked up the handkerchief that had fallen out of her
muff.
“I? I’ve not long ... yesterday ... I mean today ... I arrived,”
answered Levin, in his emotion not at once understanding her question.
“I was meaning to come and see you,” he said; and then, recollecting
with what intention he was trying to see her, he was promptly overcome
with confusion and blushed.
“I didn’t know you could skate, and skate so well.”
She looked at him earnestly, as though wishing to make out the cause of
his confusion.
“Your praise is worth having. The tradition is kept up here that you
are the best of skaters,” she said, with her little black-gloved hand
brushing a grain of hoarfrost off her muff.
“Yes, I used once to skate with passion; I wanted to reach perfection.”
“You do everything with passion, I think,” she said smiling. “I should
so like to see how you skate. Put on skates, and let us skate
together.”
“Skate together! Can that be possible?” thought Levin, gazing at her.
“I’ll put them on directly,” he said.
And he went off to get skates.
“It’s a long while since we’ve seen you here, sir,” said the attendant,
supporting his foot, and screwing on the heel of the skate. “Except
you, there’s none of the gentlemen first-rate skaters. Will that be all
right?” said he, tightening the strap.
“Oh, yes, yes; make haste, please,” answered Levin, with difficulty
restraining the smile of rapture which would overspread his face.
“Yes,” he thought, “this now is life, this is happiness! _Together,_
she said; _let us skate together!_ Speak to her now? But that’s just
why I’m afraid to speak—because I’m happy now, happy in hope,
anyway.... And then?... But I must! I must! I must! Away with
weakness!”
Levin rose to his feet, took off his overcoat, and scurrying over the
rough ice round the hut, came out on the smooth ice and skated without
effort, as it were, by simple exercise of will, increasing and
slackening speed and turning his course. He approached with timidity,
but again her smile reassured him.
She gave him her hand, and they set off side by side, going faster and
faster, and the more rapidly they moved the more tightly she grasped
his hand.
“With you I should soon learn; I somehow feel confidence in you,” she
said to him.
“And I have confidence in myself when you are leaning on me,” he said,
but was at once panic-stricken at what he had said, and blushed. And
indeed, no sooner had he uttered these words, when all at once, like
the sun going behind a cloud, her face lost all its friendliness, and
Levin detected the familiar change in her expression that denoted the
working of thought; a crease showed on her smooth brow.
“Is there anything troubling you?—though I’ve no right to ask such a
question,” he added hurriedly.
“Oh, why so?... No, I have nothing to trouble me,” she responded
coldly; and she added immediately: “You haven’t seen Mlle. Linon, have
you?”
“Not yet.”
“Go and speak to her, she likes you so much.”
“What’s wrong? I have offended her. Lord help me!” thought Levin, and
he flew towards the old Frenchwoman with the gray ringlets, who was
sitting on a bench. Smiling and showing her false teeth, she greeted
him as an old friend.
“Yes, you see we’re growing up,” she said to him, glancing towards
Kitty, “and growing old. _Tiny bear_ has grown big now!” pursued the
Frenchwoman, laughing, and she reminded him of his joke about the three
young ladies whom he had compared to the three bears in the English
nursery tale. “Do you remember that’s what you used to call them?”
He remembered absolutely nothing, but she had been laughing at the joke
for ten years now, and was fond of it.
“Now, go and skate, go and skate. Our Kitty has learned to skate
nicely, hasn’t she?”
When Levin darted up to Kitty her face was no longer stern; her eyes
looked at him with the same sincerity and friendliness, but Levin
fancied that in her friendliness there was a certain note of deliberate
composure. And he felt depressed. After talking a little of her old
governess and her peculiarities, she questioned him about his life.
“Surely you must be dull in the country in the winter, aren’t you?” she
said.
“No, I’m not dull, I am very busy,” he said, feeling that she was
holding him in check by her composed tone, which he would not have the
force to break through, just as it had been at the beginning of the
winter.
“Are you going to stay in town long?” Kitty questioned him.
“I don’t know,” he answered, not thinking of what he was saying. The
thought that if he were held in check by her tone of quiet friendliness
he would end by going back again without deciding anything came into
his mind, and he resolved to make a struggle against it.
“How is it you don’t know?”
“I don’t know. It depends upon you,” he said, and was immediately
horror-stricken at his own words.
Whether it was that she had heard his words, or that she did not want
to hear them, she made a sort of stumble, twice struck out, and
hurriedly skated away from him. She skated up to Mlle. Linon, said
something to her, and went towards the pavilion where the ladies took
off their skates.
“My God! what have I done! Merciful God! help me, guide me,” said
Levin, praying inwardly, and at the same time, feeling a need of
violent exercise, he skated about describing inner and outer circles.
At that moment one of the young men, the best of the skaters of the
day, came out of the coffee-house in his skates, with a cigarette in
his mouth. Taking a run, he dashed down the steps in his skates,
crashing and bounding up and down. He flew down, and without even
changing the position of his hands, skated away over the ice.
“Ah, that’s a new trick!” said Levin, and he promptly ran up to the top
to do this new trick.
“Don’t break your neck! it needs practice!” Nikolay Shtcherbatsky
shouted after him.
Levin went to the steps, took a run from above as best he could, and
dashed down, preserving his balance in this unwonted movement with his
hands. On the last step he stumbled, but barely touching the ice with
his hand, with a violent effort recovered himself, and skated off,
laughing.
“How splendid, how nice he is!” Kitty was thinking at that time, as she
came out of the pavilion with Mlle. Linon, and looked towards him with
a smile of quiet affection, as though he were a favorite brother. “And
can it be my fault, can I have done anything wrong? They talk of
flirtation. I know it’s not he that I love; but still I am happy with
him, and he’s so jolly. Only, why did he say that?...” she mused.
Catching sight of Kitty going away, and her mother meeting her at the
steps, Levin, flushed from his rapid exercise, stood still and pondered
a minute. He took off his skates, and overtook the mother and daughter
at the entrance of the gardens.
“Delighted to see you,” said Princess Shtcherbatskaya. “On Thursdays we
are home, as always.”
“Today, then?”
“We shall be pleased to see you,” the princess said stiffly.
This stiffness hurt Kitty, and she could not resist the desire to
smooth over her mother’s coldness. She turned her head, and with a
smile said:
“Good-bye till this evening.”
At that moment Stepan Arkadyevitch, his hat cocked on one side, with
beaming face and eyes, strode into the garden like a conquering hero.
But as he approached his mother-in-law, he responded in a mournful and
crestfallen tone to her inquiries about Dolly’s health. After a little
subdued and dejected conversation with his mother-in-law, he threw out
his chest again, and put his arm in Levin’s.
“Well, shall we set off?” he asked. “I’ve been thinking about you all
this time, and I’m very, very glad you’ve come,” he said, looking him
in the face with a significant air.
“Yes, come along,” answered Levin in ecstasy, hearing unceasingly the
sound of that voice saying, “Good-bye till this evening,” and seeing
the smile with which it was said.
“To the England or the Hermitage?”
“I don’t mind which.”
“All right, then, the England,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, selecting
that restaurant because he owed more there than at the Hermitage, and
consequently considered it mean to avoid it. “Have you got a sledge?
That’s first-rate, for I sent my carriage home.”
The friends hardly spoke all the way. Levin was wondering what that
change in Kitty’s expression had meant, and alternately assuring
himself that there was hope, and falling into despair, seeing clearly
that his hopes were insane, and yet all the while he felt himself quite
another man, utterly unlike what he had been before her smile and those
words, “Good-bye till this evening.”
Stepan Arkadyevitch was absorbed during the drive in composing the menu
of the dinner.
“You like turbot, don’t you?” he said to Levin as they were arriving.
“Eh?” responded Levin. “Turbot? Yes, I’m _awfully_ fond of turbot.”
Chapter 10
When Levin went into the restaurant with Oblonsky, he could not help
noticing a certain peculiarity of expression, as it were, a restrained
radiance, about the face and whole figure of Stepan Arkadyevitch.
Oblonsky took off his overcoat, and with his hat over one ear walked
into the dining-room, giving directions to the Tatar waiters, who were
clustered about him in evening coats, bearing napkins. Bowing to right
and left to the people he met, and here as everywhere joyously greeting
acquaintances, he went up to the sideboard for a preliminary appetizer
of fish and vodka, and said to the painted Frenchwoman decked in
ribbons, lace, and ringlets, behind the counter, something so amusing
that even that Frenchwoman was moved to genuine laughter. Levin for his
part refrained from taking any vodka simply because he felt such a
loathing of that Frenchwoman, all made up, it seemed, of false hair,
_poudre de riz,_ and _vinaigre de toilette_. He made haste to move away
from her, as from a dirty place. His whole soul was filled with
memories of Kitty, and there was a smile of triumph and happiness
shining in his eyes.
“This way, your excellency, please. Your excellency won’t be disturbed
here,” said a particularly pertinacious, white-headed old Tatar with
immense hips and coat-tails gaping widely behind. “Walk in, your
excellency,” he said to Levin; by way of showing his respect to Stepan
Arkadyevitch, being attentive to his guest as well.
Instantly flinging a fresh cloth over the round table under the bronze
chandelier, though it already had a table cloth on it, he pushed up
velvet chairs, and came to a standstill before Stepan Arkadyevitch with
a napkin and a bill of fare in his hands, awaiting his commands.
“If you prefer it, your excellency, a private room will be free
directly; Prince Golistin with a lady. Fresh oysters have come in.”
“Ah! oysters.”
Stepan Arkadyevitch became thoughtful.
“How if we were to change our program, Levin?” he said, keeping his
finger on the bill of fare. And his face expressed serious hesitation.
“Are the oysters good? Mind now.”
“They’re Flensburg, your excellency. We’ve no Ostend.”
“Flensburg will do, but are they fresh?”
“Only arrived yesterday.”
“Well, then, how if we were to begin with oysters, and so change the
whole program? Eh?”