第 6 页

Whether it was that she did not hear 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 toward 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 concentric and eccentric circles.

At that moment one of the young men, the best of the skaters of the day, came out of the coffeehouse on his skates, with a cigarette in his mouth. Taking a run he dashed down the steps on his skates, crashing and leaping. He flew down, and without even changing the free-and-easy 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 perform this new trick.

`Don't break your neck! This needs practice!' Nikolai Shcherbatsky 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.

`What a fine, darling chap he is!' Kitty was thinking at that moment, as she came out of the pavilion with Mlle. Linon and looked toward him with a smile of quiet kindness, as though he were a favorite brother. `And can it be my fault, can I have done anything wrong? They talk of coquetry. I know it's not he that I love; but still I am happy with him, and he's so nice. 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 Shcherbatskaia. `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-by till this evening.'

At that moment Stepan Arkadyevich, his hat cocked on one side, with beaming face and eyes, strode into the garden like a buoyant conqueror. But as he approached his mother-in-law, he responded to her inquiries about Dolly's health with a mournful and guilty countenance. After a little subdued and dejected conversation with her he set straight his chest again, and took Levin by the arm.

`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-by till this evening,' and seeing the smile with which it was said.

`To England or The Hermitage?'

`It's all the same to me.'

`Well, then, England it is,' said Stepan Arkadyevich, selecting that restaurant because he owed more there than at The Hermitage, and consequently considered it mean to avoid it. `Have you got a sleigh? That's fine - 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-by till this evening.'

Stepan Arkadyevich 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 Arkadyevich. 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, and with napkins under their arms. Bowing right and left to acquaintances who, here as everywhere, greeted him joyously, he went up to the bar, took a little wineglass of vodka and a snack of fish, and said to the painted Frenchwoman decked in ribbons, lace and ringlets, behind the desk, something so amusing that even that Frenchwoman was moved to genuine laughter. Levin for his part refrained from taking any vodka only because he found most offensive this 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 coattails gaping widely behind. `Walk in, your Excellency,' he said to Levin - being attentive to his guest as well, by way of showing his respect to Stepan Arkadyevich.

Instantly flinging a fresh cloth over the round table under the bronze sconce, though it already had a tablecloth on it, he pushed up velvet chairs and came to a standstill before Stepan Arkadyevich 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 Golitsin with a lady. Fresh oysters have come in.'

`Ah, oysters!' Stepan Arkadyevich 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?'

`It's all the same to me. I should like cabbage soup and porridge better than anything; but of course there's nothing like that here.'

`Porridge à la Russe, Your Honor would like?' said the Tatar, bending down to Levin, like a nurse speaking to a child.

`No, joking apart, whatever you choose is sure to be good. I've been skating, and I'm hungry. And don't imagine,' he added, detecting a look of dissatisfaction on Oblonsky's face, `that I shan't appreciate your choice. I don't object to a good dinner.'

`I should hope so! After all, it's one of the pleasures of life,' said Stepan Arkadyevich. `Well, then, my friend, you give us two - or better say three - dozen oysters, clear soup with vegetables...'

`Printaniere,' prompted the Tatar. But Stepan Arkadyevich apparently did not care to allow him the satisfaction of giving the French names of the dishes.

`With vegetables in it, you know. Then turbot with thick sauce, then... roast beef; and mind it's good. Yes, and capons, perhaps, and then stewed fruit.'

The Tatar, recollecting that it was Stepan Arkadyevich's way not to call the dishes by the names in the French bill of fare, did not repeat them after him, but could not resist rehearsing the whole menu to himself according to the bill: `Soupe printaniere, turbot sauce Beaumarchais, poulard à l'estragon, Macédoine de fruits...' and then instantly, as though worked by springs, laying down one bound bill of fare, he took up another, the list of wines, and submitted it to Stepan Arkadyevich.

`What shall we drink?'

`What you like, only not too much. Champagne,' said Levin.

`What! to start with? You're right though, I dare say. Do you like the white seal?'

`Cachet blanc,' prompted the Tatar.

`Very well, then, give us that brand with the oysters, and then we'll see.'

`Yes, sir. And what table wine?'

`You can give us Nuits. Oh, no - better the classic Chablis.'

`Yes, sir. And your cheese, Your Excellency?'

`Oh, yes, Parmesan. Or would you like another?'

`No, it's all the same to me,' said Levin, unable to suppress a smile.

And the Tatar ran off with flying coattails, and in five minutes darted in with a dish of opened oysters in their nacreous shells, and a bottle between his fingers.

Stepan Arkadyevich crushed the starchy napkin, tucked it into his waistcoat, and, settling his arms comfortably, started on the oysters.

`Not bad,' he said, detaching the jellied oysters from their pearly shells with a small silver fork, and swallowing them one after another. `Not bad,' he repeated, turning his dewy, brilliant eyes now upon Levin, now upon the Tatar.

Levin ate the oysters too, though white bread and cheese pleased him better. But he was admiring Oblonsky. Even the Tatar, uncorking the bottle and pouring the sparkling wine into the delicate funnel-shaped glasses, and adjusting his white cravat, kept on glancing at Stepan Arkadyevich with a perceptible smile of satisfaction.

`You don't care much for oysters, do you?' said Stepan Arkadyevich, emptying his wineglass, `or are you worried about something. Eh?'

He wanted Levin to be in good spirits. But it was not that Levin was not in good spirits, he was ill at ease. With what he had in his soul, he felt hard and awkward in the restaurant, in the midst of private rooms where men were dining with ladies, in all this fuss and bustle; the surroundings of bronzes, looking glasses, gas and Tatars - all of this was offensive to him. He was afraid of sullying what his soul was brimful of.

`I? Yes, I am worried; but besides that, all this bothers me,' he said. `You can't conceive how queer it all seems to a countryman like me, as queer as that gentleman's nails I saw at your office....'

`Yes, I saw how much interested you were in poor Grinevich's nails,' said Stepan Arkadyevich, laughing.

`It's too much for me,' responded Levin. `Do try, now, to put yourself in my place - take the point of view of a countryman. We in the country try to bring our hands into such a state as will be most convenient for working with. So we cut our nails; sometimes we tuck up our sleeves. And here people purposely let their nails grow as long as possible, and link on small saucers by way of studs, so that they can do nothing with their hands.'

Stepan Arkadyevich smiled gaily.

`Oh, yes, that's just a sign that he has no need to do coarse work. His work is with the mind....'

`Maybe. But still it's queer to me, just as at this moment it seems queer to me that we countryfolks try to satiate ourselves as soon as we can, so as to be ready for work, while here are we trying to delay satiety as long as possible, and with that object are eating oysters....'

`Why, of course,' objected Stepan Arkadyevich. `But that's just the aim of culture - to make everything a source of enjoyment.'

`Well, if that's its aim, I'd rather be a savage.'

`You are a savage, as it is. All you Levins are savages.'

Levin sighed. He remembered his brother Nikolai, and felt ashamed and pained, and he scowled; but Oblonsky began speaking of a subject which at once drew his attention.

`Oh, I say, are you going tonight to our people - the Shcherbatsky's, I mean?' he said, his eyes sparkling significantly as he pushed away the empty rough shells, and drew the cheese toward him.

`Yes, I shall certainly go,' replied Levin; `though I fancied the Princess was not very warm in her invitation.'

`What nonsense! That's her manner.... Come, boy, the soup!... That's her manner - grande dame,' said Stepan Arkadyevich. `I'm coming, too, but I have to go to the Countess Bonin's rehearsal. Come, isn't it true that you're a savage? How do you explain the sudden way in which you vanished from Moscow? The Shcherbatskys were continually asking me about you, as though I ought to know. The only thing I know is that you always do what no one else does.'

`Yes,' said Levin, slowly and with emotion, `you're right. I am a savage. Only, my savageness is not in having gone away, but in coming now. Now I have come...'

`Oh, what a lucky fellow you are!' broke in Stepan Arkadyevich, looking into Levin's eyes.

`Why?'

`I can tell the gallant steeds,' by some... I don't know what... ``pace's; I can tell youths ``by their faces,''' declaimed Stepan Arkadyevich. `Everything is before you.'

`Why, is it over for you already?'

`No; not over exactly, but the future is yours, and the present is mine, and the present - well, it's only fair to middling.'

`How so?'

`Oh, things aren't right. But I don't want to talk of myself, besides I can't explain it all,' said Stepan Arkadyevich. `Well, why have you come to Moscow, then?... Hi! clear the table!' he called to the Tatar.

`Are you trying to surmise?' responded Levin, his eyes, gleaming in their depth, fixed on Stepan Arkadyevich.

`I am, but I can't be the first to talk about it. You can see by that whether I surmise right or wrong,' said Stepan Arkadyevich, gazing at Levin with a subtle smile.

`Well, and what have you to say to me?' said Levin in a quivering voice, feeling that all the muscles of his face were quivering too. `How do you look at it?

Stepan Arkadyevich slowly emptied his glass of Chablis, never taking his eyes off Levin.

`I?' said Stepan Arkadyevich. `There's nothing I desire so much as that - nothing! It would be the best thing that could happen.'

`But you're not making a mistake? You know what we're speaking of?' said Levin, piercing him with his eyes. `You think it's possible?'

`I think it's possible. Why not?'

`No! Do you really think it's possible? No - tell me all you think! Oh, but if... If refusal's in store for me!... Indeed I feel sure...'

`What makes you think so?' said Stepan Arkadyevich, smiling at his excitement.