________________________________________________
_ At four o'clock, conscious of his throbbing heart, Levin stepped
out of a hired sledge at the Zoological Gardens, and turned along
the path to hte frozen mounds and the skating ground, knowing
that he would certainly find her there, as he had seen the
Shtcherbatskys' carriage at the entrance.
It was a bright, frosty day. Rows of carriages, sledges,
drivers, and policemen were standing in the approach. Crowds of
well-dressed people, with hats bright in the sun, swarmed about
the entrance and along the well-swept little paths between the
little houses adorned with carving in the Russian style. The old
curly birches of the gardens, all their twigs laden with snow,
looked as though freshly decked in sacred vestments.
He walked along the path towards the skating-ground, and kept
saying to himself "You mustn't be excited, you must be calm.
What's the matter with you? What do you want? Be quiet,
stupit," he conjured his heart. And the more he tried to compose
himself, the more breathless he found himself. An acquaintance
met him and called him by his name, but Levin did not even
recognize him. He went towards the mounds, whence came the clank
of the chains of sledges as they slipped down or were dragged up,
the rumble of the sliding sledges, and the sounds of merry
voices. He walked on a few steps, and the skating-ground lay
open before his eyes, and at once, amidst all the skaters, he
knew her.
He knw she was there by the rapture and the terror that seized on
his heart. She was standing talking to a lady at the opposite
end of the ground. There was apparently nothing striking either
in her dress or her attitude. But for Levin she was as easy to
find in that crowd as a rose among nettles. Everything was made
bright by her. She was the smile that shed light on all round
her. "Is it possible I can go over there in the ice, go up to
her?" he thought. The place where she stood seemed to him a holy
shrine, unapproachable, and there was one moment when he as
almost retreating, so overwhelmed was he with terror. He had to
make an effort to master himself, and to remind himself that
people of all sorts were moving about her, and that he too might
come there to skate. He walked down, for a long while avoiding
looking at her as at the sun, but seeing her, as one does the
sun, without looking.
On that day of the week and at that time of day people of one
set, all acquainted with one another, used to meet on the ice.
There were crack skaters there, showing off their skill, and
learners clinging to chairs with timid, awkward movements, boys,
and elderly people skating with hygienic motives. They seemed to
Levin an elect band of blissful beings because they were here,
near her. All the skaters, it seemed, with perfect
self-possession, skated towards her, skated by her, even spoke to
her, and were happy, quite apart from her, enjoying the capital
ice and the fine weather.
Nikolay Shtcherbatsky, Kitty's cousin, in a short jacket and
tight trousers, was sitting on a garden seat with his skates on.
Seein Levin, he shouted to him:
"Ah, the first skater in Russia! Been here long? First-rate
ice--do put your skates on."
"I haven't got my skates," Levin answered, maveling at this
boldness and ease in her presence, and not fro one second losing
sight of her, though he did not look at her. He felt as though
the sun were coming near him. She was in a corner, and turnign
out her slender feet in their high boots with obvious timidity,
she skated towards him. A boy in Russian dress, desperately
waving his arms and bowed down to the ground, overtook her. She
skated a little uncertainly; taking her hands out of the little
muff that hung on a cord, she held them ready for emergency, and
looking towards Levin, whom she had recognized, she smiled at him
and at her own fears. Shen she had got round the turn, she gave
herself a push off with one foot, and skated straight up to
Shtcherbatsky. Clutching at his arm, she nodded smiling to
Levin. She was more splendid that he had imagined her.
When he thought of her, he could call up a vivid picture of her
to himself, especially the charm of that little fair head, so
freely set on the shapely girlish shoulders, and so full of
childish brightness nad 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 harfrost 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 sould 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 hte same sincerity and friendliness, but
Levin fancied that in her friendliness there was a certain note
of deliberate composure. And he felt drpressed. 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 ito 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 immediatly
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 ment, the best of the skaters of
the day, came out of the coffee-house in his skates, with a
ciagarette 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, staked 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 you neck! it needs practice!" Nikolay Shtcherbatsky
shouted after him.
Levin went to the steps, took a run from above as best he cold,
and dashed down, preserving his balnce 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, Lving, 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 restfallen tone to her inquiries
about Dolly's health. After a little dubdued 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 woed 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 hadly 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 alling into despair,
seeing clearly that his hopes were insane, and yet all the while
he flet himself quite another man, utterly unlike what he had
been before her smile and those words, "Good-bye till this
evening."
Stepan Arkadyevitch was abosorbed during the drive in composing
the menu of the dinner.
"You like trout, don't you?" he said to Levin as they were
arriving.
"Eh?" responded Levin. "Turbot? Yes, I'm AWFULLY fond of
turbot." _
Read next: Part One: Chapter 10
Read previous: Part One: Chapter 8
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