“We can’t go on like this! It’s misery! I am wretched; you are wretched.
What for?” she said, when they had at last reached a solitary garden seat at
a turn in the lime tree avenue.
“But tell me one thing: was there in his tone anything unseemly, not nice,
humiliatingly horrible?” he said, standing before her again in the same
position with his clenched fists on his chest, as he had stood before her that
night.
“Yes,” she said in a shaking voice; “but, Kostya, surely you see I’m not
to blame? All the morning I’ve been trying to take a tone … but such
people…. Why did he come? How happy we were!” she said, breathless
with the sobs that shook her.
Although nothing had been pursuing them, and there was nothing to run
away from, and they could not possibly have found anything very delightful
on that garden seat, the gardener saw with astonishment that they passed
him on their way home with comforted and radiant faces.
Chapter 15
After escorting his wife upstairs, Levin went to Dolly’s part of the house.
Darya Alexandrovna, for her part, was in great distress too that day. She
was walking about the room, talking angrily to a little girl, who stood in the
corner roaring.
“And you shall stand all day in the corner, and have your dinner all alone,
and not see one of your dolls, and I won’t make you a new frock,” she said,
not knowing how to punish her.
“Oh, she is a disgusting child!” she turned to Levin. “Where does she get
such wicked propensities?”
“Why, what has she done?” Levin said without much interest, for he had
wanted to ask her advice, and so was annoyed that he had come at an
unlucky moment.
“Grisha and she went into the raspberries, and there … I can’t tell you
really what she did. It’s a thousand pities Miss Elliot’s not with us. This one
sees to nothing—she’s a machine…. Figurez-vous que la petite?…”
And Darya Alexandrovna described Masha’s crime.
“That proves nothing; it’s not a question of evil propensities at all, it’s
simply mischief,” Levin assured her.
“But you are upset about something? What have you come for?” asked
Dolly. “What’s going on there?”
And in the tone of her question Levin heard that it would be easy for him
to say what he had meant to say.
“I’ve not been in there, I’ve been alone in the garden with Kitty. We’ve
had a quarrel for the second time since … Stiva came.”
Dolly looked at him with her shrewd, comprehending eyes.
“Come, tell me, honor bright, has there been … not in Kitty, but in that
gentleman’s behavior, a tone which might be unpleasant—not unpleasant,
but horrible, offensive to a husband?”
“You mean, how shall I say…. Stay, stay in the corner!” she said to
Masha, who, detecting a faint smile in her mother’s face, had been turning
round. “The opinion of the world would be that he is behaving as young
men do behave. Il fait la cour à une jeune et jolie femme, and a husband
who’s a man of the world should only be flattered by it.”
“Yes, yes,” said Levin gloomily; “but you noticed it?”
“Not only I, but Stiva noticed it. Just after breakfast he said to me in so
many words, Je crois que Veslovsky fait un petit brin de cour à Kitty.”
“Well, that’s all right then; now I’m satisfied. I’ll send him away,” said
Levin.
“What do you mean! Are you crazy?” Dolly cried in horror; “nonsense,
Kostya, only think!” she said, laughing. “You can go now to Fanny,” she
said to Masha. “No, if you wish it, I’ll speak to Stiva. He’ll take him away.
He can say you’re expecting visitors. Altogether he doesn’t fit into the
house.”
“No, no, I’ll do it myself.”
“But you’ll quarrel with him?”
“Not a bit. I shall so enjoy it,” Levin said, his eyes flashing with real
enjoyment. “Come, forgive her, Dolly, she won’t do it again,” he said of the
little sinner, who had not gone to Fanny, but was standing irresolutely
before her mother, waiting and looking up from under her brows to catch
her mother’s eye.
The mother glanced at her. The child broke into sobs, hid her face on her
mother’s lap, and Dolly laid her thin, tender hand on her head.
“And what is there in common between us and him?” thought Levin, and
he went off to look for Veslovsky.
As he passed through the passage he gave orders for the carriage to be
got ready to drive to the station.
“The spring was broken yesterday,” said the footman.
“Well, the covered trap, then, and make haste. Where’s the visitor?”
“The gentleman’s gone to his room.”
Levin came upon Veslovsky at the moment when the latter, having
unpacked his things from his trunk, and laid out some new songs, was
putting on his gaiters to go out riding.
Whether there was something exceptional in Levin’s face, or that
Vassenka was himself conscious that ce petit brin de cour he was making
was out of place in this family, but he was somewhat (as much as a young
man in society can be) disconcerted at Levin’s entrance.
“You ride in gaiters?”
“Yes, it’s much cleaner,” said Vassenka, putting his fat leg on a chair,
fastening the bottom hook, and smiling with simple-hearted good humor.
He was undoubtedly a good-natured fellow, and Levin felt sorry for him
and ashamed of himself, as his host, when he saw the shy look on
Vassenka’s face.
On the table lay a piece of stick which they had broken together that
morning, trying their strength. Levin took the fragment in his hands and
began smashing it up, breaking bits off the stick, not knowing how to begin.
“I wanted….” He paused, but suddenly, remembering Kitty and
everything that had happened, he said, looking him resolutely in the face: “I
have ordered the horses to be put-to for you.”
“How so?” Vassenka began in surprise. “To drive where?”
“For you to drive to the station,” Levin said gloomily.
“Are you going away, or has something happened?”
“It happens that I expect visitors,” said Levin, his strong fingers more
and more rapidly breaking off the ends of the split stick. “And I’m not
expecting visitors, and nothing has happened, but I beg you to go away. You
can explain my rudeness as you like.”
Vassenka drew himself up.
“I beg you to explain….” he said with dignity, understanding at last.
“I can’t explain,” Levin said softly and deliberately, trying to control the
trembling of his jaw; “and you’d better not ask.”
And as the split ends were all broken off, Levin clutched the thick ends in
his finger, broke the stick in two, and carefully caught the end as it fell.
Probably the sight of those nervous fingers, of the muscles he had proved
that morning at gymnastics, of the glittering eyes, the soft voice, and
quivering jaws, convinced Vassenka better than any words. He bowed,
shrugging his shoulders, and smiling contemptuously.
“Can I not see Oblonsky?”
The shrug and the smile did not irritate Levin.
“What else was there for him to do?” he thought.
“I’ll send him to you at once.”
“What madness is this?” Stepan Arkadyevitch said when, after hearing
from his friend that he was being turned out of the house, he found Levin in
the garden, where he was walking about waiting for his guest’s departure.
“Mais c’est ridicule! What fly has stung you? Mais c’est du dernier
ridicule! What did you think, if a young man….”
But the place where Levin had been stung was evidently still sore, for he
turned pale again, when Stepan Arkadyevitch would have enlarged on the
reason, and he himself cut him short.
“Please don’t go into it! I can’t help it. I feel ashamed of how I’m treating
you and him. But it won’t be, I imagine, a great grief to him to go, and his
presence was distasteful to me and to my wife.”
“But it’s insulting to him! Et puis c’est ridicule.”
“And to me it’s both insulting and distressing! And I’m not at fault in any
way, and there’s no need for me to suffer.”
“Well, this I didn’t expect of you! On peut être jaloux, mais à ce point,
c’est du dernier ridicule!”
