Anna Karenina by graf Leo Tolstoy
Chapter 161
992 words | Chapter 161
Darya Alexandrovna spent the summer with her children at Pokrovskoe, at
her sister Kitty Levin’s. The house on her own estate was quite in
ruins, and Levin and his wife had persuaded her to spend the summer
with them. Stepan Arkadyevitch greatly approved of the arrangement. He
said he was very sorry his official duties prevented him from spending
the summer in the country with his family, which would have been the
greatest happiness for him; and remaining in Moscow, he came down to
the country from time to time for a day or two. Besides the Oblonskys,
with all their children and their governess, the old princess too came
to stay that summer with the Levins, as she considered it her duty to
watch over her inexperienced daughter in her _interesting condition_.
Moreover, Varenka, Kitty’s friend abroad, kept her promise to come to
Kitty when she was married, and stayed with her friend. All of these
were friends or relations of Levin’s wife. And though he liked them
all, he rather regretted his own Levin world and ways, which was
smothered by this influx of the “Shtcherbatsky element,” as he called
it to himself. Of his own relations there stayed with him only Sergey
Ivanovitch, but he too was a man of the Koznishev and not the Levin
stamp, so that the Levin spirit was utterly obliterated.
In the Levins’ house, so long deserted, there were now so many people
that almost all the rooms were occupied, and almost every day it
happened that the old princess, sitting down to table, counted them all
over, and put the thirteenth grandson or granddaughter at a separate
table. And Kitty, with her careful housekeeping, had no little trouble
to get all the chickens, turkeys, and geese, of which so many were
needed to satisfy the summer appetites of the visitors and children.
The whole family were sitting at dinner. Dolly’s children, with their
governess and Varenka, were making plans for going to look for
mushrooms. Sergey Ivanovitch, who was looked up to by all the party for
his intellect and learning, with a respect that almost amounted to awe,
surprised everyone by joining in the conversation about mushrooms.
“Take me with you. I am very fond of picking mushrooms,” he said,
looking at Varenka; “I think it’s a very nice occupation.”
“Oh, we shall be delighted,” answered Varenka, coloring a little. Kitty
exchanged meaningful glances with Dolly. The proposal of the learned
and intellectual Sergey Ivanovitch to go looking for mushrooms with
Varenka confirmed certain theories of Kitty’s with which her mind had
been very busy of late. She made haste to address some remark to her
mother, so that her look should not be noticed. After dinner Sergey
Ivanovitch sat with his cup of coffee at the drawing-room window, and
while he took part in a conversation he had begun with his brother, he
watched the door through which the children would start on the
mushroom-picking expedition. Levin was sitting in the window near his
brother.
Kitty stood beside her husband, evidently awaiting the end of a
conversation that had no interest for her, in order to tell him
something.
“You have changed in many respects since your marriage, and for the
better,” said Sergey Ivanovitch, smiling to Kitty, and obviously little
interested in the conversation, “but you have remained true to your
passion for defending the most paradoxical theories.”
“Katya, it’s not good for you to stand,” her husband said to her,
putting a chair for her and looking significantly at her.
“Oh, and there’s no time either,” added Sergey Ivanovitch, seeing the
children running out.
At the head of them all Tanya galloped sideways, in her tightly-drawn
stockings, and waving a basket and Sergey Ivanovitch’s hat, she ran
straight up to him.
Boldly running up to Sergey Ivanovitch with shining eyes, so like her
father’s fine eyes, she handed him his hat and made as though she would
put it on for him, softening her freedom by a shy and friendly smile.
“Varenka’s waiting,” she said, carefully putting his hat on, seeing
from Sergey Ivanovitch’s smile that she might do so.
Varenka was standing at the door, dressed in a yellow print gown, with
a white kerchief on her head.
“I’m coming, I’m coming, Varvara Andreevna,” said Sergey Ivanovitch,
finishing his cup of coffee, and putting into their separate pockets
his handkerchief and cigar-case.
“And how sweet my Varenka is! eh?” said Kitty to her husband, as soon
as Sergey Ivanovitch rose. She spoke so that Sergey Ivanovitch could
hear, and it was clear that she meant him to do so. “And how
good-looking she is—such a refined beauty! Varenka!” Kitty shouted.
“Shall you be in the mill copse? We’ll come out to you.”
“You certainly forget your condition, Kitty,” said the old princess,
hurriedly coming out at the door. “You mustn’t shout like that.”
Varenka, hearing Kitty’s voice and her mother’s reprimand, went with
light, rapid steps up to Kitty. The rapidity of her movement, her
flushed and eager face, everything betrayed that something out of the
common was going on in her. Kitty knew what this was, and had been
watching her intently. She called Varenka at that moment merely in
order mentally to give her a blessing for the important event which, as
Kitty fancied, was bound to come to pass that day after dinner in the
wood.
“Varenka, I should be very happy if a certain something were to
happen,” she whispered as she kissed her.
“And are you coming with us?” Varenka said to Levin in confusion,
pretending not to have heard what had been said.
“I am coming, but only as far as the threshing-floor, and there I shall
stop.”
“Why, what do you want there?” said Kitty.
“I must go to have a look at the new wagons, and to check the invoice,”
said Levin; “and where will you be?”
“On the terrace.”
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