________________________________________________
_ Kitty was particularly glad of a chance of being alone with her
husband, for she had noticed the shade of mortification that
hadpassed over his face--always so quick to reflect every
feeling--at the moment when he had come onto the terrace and
asked what they were talking of, and had got no answer.
When they had set off on foot ahead of the others, and had come
out of sight of the house onto the beaten dusty road, marked with
rusty wheels and sprinkled with grains of corn, she clung faster
to his arm and pressed it closer to her. He had quite forgotten
the momentary unpleasant impression, and alone with her he felt,
now that the thought of her approaching motherhood was never for
a moment absent from his mind, a new and delicious bliss, quite
pure from all alloy of sense, in the being near to the woman he
loved. There was no need of speech, yet he longed to hear the
sound of her voice, which like her eyes had changed since she had
been with child. In her voice, as in her eyes, there was that
softness and gravity which is found in people continually
concentrated on some cherished pursuit.
"So you're not tired? Lean more on me," said he.
"No, I'm so glad of a chance of being alone with you, and I must
own, though I'm happy with them, I do regret our winter evenings
alone." "That was good, but this is even better. Both are
better," he said, squeezing her hand.
"Do you know what we were talking about when you came in?"
"About jam?"
"Oh, yes, about jam too; but afterwards, about how men make
offers."
"Ah!" said Levin, listening more to the sound of her voice than
to the words she was saying, and all the while paying attention
to the road, which passed now through the forest, and avoiding
places where she might make a false step.
"And about Sergey Ivanovitch and Varenka. You've noticed?... I'm
very anxious for it," she went on. "What do you think about it?"
And she peeped into his face.
"I don't know what to think," Levin answered, smiling. "Sergey
seems very strange to me in that way. I told you, you know . . ."
"Yes, that he was in love with that girl who died...."
"That was when I was a child; I know about it from hearsay and
tradition. I remember him then. He was wonderfully sweet. But
I've watched him since with women; he is friendly, some of them
he likes, but one feels that to him they're simply people, not
women."
"Yes, but now with Varenka ...I fancy there's something . . ."
"Perhaps there is.... But one has to know him.... He's a
peculiar, wonderful person. He lives a spiritual life only. He's
too pure, too exalted a nature."
"Why? Would this lower him, then?"
"No, but he's so used to a spiritual life that he can't reconcile
himself with actual fact, and Varenka is after all fact."
Levin had grown used by now to uttering his thought boldly,
without taking the trouble of clothing it in exact language. He
knew that his wife, in such moments of loving tenderness as now,
would understand what he meant to say from a hint, and she did
understand him.
"Yes, but there's not so much of that actual fact about her as
about me. I can see that he would never have cared for me. She is
altogether spiritual."
"Oh, no, he is so fond of you, and I am always so glad when my
people like you...."
"Yes, he's very nice to me; but . . .
"It's not as it was with poor Nikolay ...you really cared for
each other," Levin finished. "Why not speak of him?" he added. "I
sometimes blame myself for not; it ends in one's forgetting. Ah,
how terrrible and dear he was! ...Yes, what were we talking
about?" Levin said, after a pause.
"You think he can't fall in love," said Kitty, translating into
her own language.
"It's not so much that he can't fall in love," Levin said,
smiling, "but he has not the weakness necessary.... I've always
envied him, and even now, when I'm so happy, I still envy him."
"You envy him for not being able to fall in love?"
"I envy him for being better than I," said Levin. "He does not
live for himself. His whole life is subordinated to his duty. And
that's why he can be calm and contented."
"And you?" Kitty asked, with an ironical and loving smile.
She could never have explained the chain of thought that made her
smile; but the last link in it was that her husband, in exalting
his brother and abasing himself, was not quite sincere. Kitty
knew that this insincerity came from his love for his brother,
from his sense of shame at being too happy, and above all from
his unflagging craving to be better--she loved it in him, and so
she smiled.
"And you? What are you dissatisfied with?" she asked, with the
same smile.
Her disbelief in his self-dissatisfaction delighted him, and
unconsciously he tried to draw her into giving utterance to the
grounds of her disbelief.
"I am happy, but dissatisfied with myself . . ." he said.
"Why, how can you be dissatisfied with yourself if you are
happy?"
"Well, how shall I say? ...In my heart I really care for
nothing whatever but that you should not stumble--see? Oh, but
really you mustn't skip about like that!" he cried, breaking off
to scold her for too agile a movement in stepping over a branch
that lay in the path. "But when I think about myself, and compare
myself with others, especially with my brother, I feel I'm a poor
creature."
"But in what way?" Kitty pursued with the same smile. "Don't you
too work for others? What about your co-operative settlement, and
your work on the estate, and your book? . . ."
"Oh, but I feel, and particularly just now--it's your fault," he
said, pressing her hand--"that all that doesn't count. I do it in
a way halfheartedly. If I could care for all that as I care for
you! ...Instead of that, I do it in these days like a task
that is set me."
"Well, what would you say about papa?" asked Kitty. "Is he a poor
creature then, as he does nothing for the public good?"
"He?--no! But then one must have the simplicity, the
straightforwardness, the goodness of your father: and I haven't
got that. I do nothing, and I-fret about it. It's all your doing.
Before there was you--and THIS too," he added with a glance
towards her waist that she understood-- "I put all my energies
into work; now I can't, and I'm ashamed; I do it just as though
it were a task set me, I'm pretending...."
"Well, but would you like to change this minute with Sergey
Ivanovitch?" said Kitty. "Would you like to do this work for the
general good, and to love the task set you, as he does, and
nothing else?"
"Of course not," said Levin. "But I'm so happy that I don't
understand anything. So you think he'll make her an offer
to-day?" he added after a brief silence.
"I think so, and I don't think so. Only, I'm awfully anxious for
it. Here, wait a minute." She stooped down and picked a wild
camomile at the edge of the path. "Come, count: he does propose,
he doesn't," she said, giving him the flower.
"He does, he doesn't," said Levin, tearing off the white petals.
"No, no!" Kitty, snatching at his hand, stopped him. She had been
watching his fingers with interest. "You picked off two."
"Oh, but see, this little one shan't count to make up," said
Levin, tearing off a little half-grown petal. "Here's the
wagonette overtaking us."
"Aren't you tired, Kitty?" called the princess.
"Not in the least."
"If you are you can get in, as the horses are quiet and walking."
But it was not worth while to get in, they were quite near the
place, and all walked on together. _
Read next: Part six: Chapter 4
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