by Leo Tolstoy
Levin stayed at the other end of the table and, without ceasing to talk with the princess and Varenka, saw that an animated and mysterious conversation was going on between Dolly, Kitty and Veslovsky. Not only was a mysterious conversation going on, but he could see in his wife's face an expression of serious feeling as she gazed into the handsome face of Vasenka, who was animatedly telling them something.
'It's very nice at their place,' Vasenka was saying about Vronsky and Anna. 'Naturally, I don't take it upon myself to judge, but in their house you feel as if you're in a family.'
'And what do they intend to do?'
'It seems they want to go to Moscow for the winter.'
'How nice it would be for us all to get together at their place! When are you going?' Stepan Arkadyich asked Vasenka.
'I'll spend July with them.'
'And will you go?' Stepan Arkadyich turned to his wife.
'I've long wanted to go and certainly will,' said Dolly. 'I pity her, and I know her. She's a wonderful woman. I'll go alone after you leave, and I won't be in anyone's way. It will even be better without you.'
'Well, splendid,' said Stepan Arkadyich. 'And you, Kitty?' 'Me? Why should I go?' said Kitty, flushing all over. And she turned to look at her husband.
'Are you acquainted with Anna Arkadyevna?' Veslovsky asked her. 'She's a very attractive woman.'
'Yes,' Kitty, turning still more red, replied to Veslovsky, got up and went to her husband.
'So you're going hunting tomorrow?' she said.
His jealousy had gone far in those few minutes, especially after the blush that had covered her cheeks as she talked with Veslovsky. Listening to her words, he now understood them in his own way. Strange as it was for him to recall it later, it seemed clear to him now that if she asked him whether he was going hunting, she was interested only in knowing whether he would give this pleasure to Vasenka Veslovsky, with whom, to his mind, she was already in love.
'Yes, I am,' he replied in an unnatural voice that he himself found disgusting.
'No, better if you stay at home tomorrow, since Dolly hasn't seen her husband at all, and go the day after,' said Kitty.
Levin now interpreted the meaning of Kitty's words as follows: 'Don't part me from him. I don't care if you leave, but let me enjoy the company of this charming young man.'
'Oh, if you wish, we can stay at home tomorrow,' Levin replied with special pleasantness.
Vasenka meanwhile, not in the least suspecting all the suffering his presence caused, got up from the table after Kitty and followed her with a smiling, gentle gaze.
Levin saw this gaze. He paled and could not catch his breath for a moment. 'How can he allow himself to look at my wife like that!' seethed in him.
'Tomorrow, then? Let's go, please,' said Vasenka, sitting down on a chair and again tucking his leg under, as was his habit.
Levin's jealousy had gone further still. He already saw himself as a deceived husband, needed by his wife and her lover only to provide them with life's conveniences and pleasures ... But, despite that, he courteously and hospitably questioned Vasenka about his hunting, guns, boots and agreed to go the next day.
Fortunately for Levin, the old princess put an end to his agony by getting up herself and advising Kitty to go to bed. But here, too, it did not pass without new suffering for Levin. Saying good-night to his hostess, Vasenka again went to kiss her hand, but Kitty, blushing, with a naive rudeness for which she was later reprimanded by her mother, drew back her hand and said:
'That's not done in our house.'
In Levin's eyes she was to blame for having permitted such relations, and still more to blame for showing so awkwardly that she did not like them.
'Well, who cares about sleep!' said Stepan Arkadyich, who, after drinking several glasses of wine at dinner, was in his sweetest, most poetical mood. 'Look, Kitty, look!' he said, pointing to the moon rising from behind the lindens. 'How lovely! Veslovsky, it's time for a serenade. You know, he has a fine voice; he and I sang together on our way here. He's brought some wonderful romances along, two new ones. We should sing with Varvara Andreevna.'
When they had all dispersed, Stepan Arkadyich and Veslovsky paced up and down the drive for a long time, and their voices could be heard singing a new romance together.
Listening to those voices, Levin sat scowling in the armchair in his wife's bedroom and to her questions about what was the matter maintained an obstinate silence; but when she finally asked with a timid smile: 'Was it something you disliked about Veslovsky?' - he burst out and said everything. What he said was insulting to himself and therefore irritated him still more.
He stood before her, his eyes flashing terribly from under his scowling eyebrows, pressing his strong hands to his chest, as if straining with all his might to hold himself back. The expression on his face would have been stern and even cruel had it not at the same time expressed suffering, which touched her. His jaw was twitching, and his voice broke.
'You understand that I'm not jealous: it's a vile word. I cannot be jealous, or believe that... I cannot say what I'm feeling, but it's terrible ... I'm not jealous, but I'm offended, humiliated that someone dares to think, dares to look at you with such eyes ...'
'What eyes?' said Kitty, trying as conscientiously as she could to recall all the words and gestures of that evening and all their nuances.
In the depths of her soul she found that there had been something of the sort, precisely at the moment when he had gone after her to the other end of the table, but she dared not confess it even to herself, much less venture to tell it to him and so increase his suffering.
'But what can be attractive in me the way I am?...'
'Ah!' he cried, clutching his head. 'Hear what she says! ... So, if you were attractive ...'
'No, Kostya, wait, listen!' she said, looking at him with an expression of suffering commiseration. 'What can you be thinking? When nobody exists for me, nobody, nobody!... Do you want me not to see anyone?'
In the first moment his jealousy offended her; she was vexed that the smallest diversion, and the most innocent, was forbidden her; but now she would gladly have sacrificed not just such trifles but everything to deliver him from the suffering he was going through.
'You understand the horror and comicality of my position,' he went on in a desperate whisper, 'that he's in my house, that he essentially did nothing improper, except for this casualness and tucking his leg under. He considers it the best tone, and so I have to be courteous to him.'
'But, Kostya, you're exaggerating,' said Kitty, who in the depths of her soul rejoiced at the strength of his love which was now expressing itself in his jealousy.
'The most terrible thing is that you - the way you always are, and now, when you're so sacred to me and we're so happy, so especially happy, and suddenly this trash... Not trash, why do I abuse him? I don't care about him. But why should my happiness, your happiness ... ?'
'You know, I understand how it happened,' Kitty began.
'How? How?'
'I saw the way you looked as we were talking over dinner.'
'Ah, yes, yes!' Levin said fearfully.
She told him what they had been talking about. And as she told it, she was breathless with agitation. Levin remained silent, then looked closer at her pale, frightened face and suddenly clutched his head.
'Katia, I'm tormenting you! Darling, forgive me! It's madness! Katia, it's my fault all round. How could I suffer so over such stupidity?'
'No, I'm sorry for you.'
'For me? For me? What am I? A madman! ... But why you? It's terrible to think that any outsider can upset our happiness.'
'Of course, that's the offensive thing ...'
'No, but, on the contrary, I'll have him stay with us all summer, on purpose, and I'll overflow with courtesy,' Levin said, kissing her hands. 'You'll see. Tomorrow . .. Ah, right, tomorrow we're leaving.'
VIII
The next day, before the ladies were up, the hunting ca
rriages, carts and a small wagon stood at the entrance, and Laska, who since morning had understood that they were going hunting, having squealed and jumped her fill, got into the cart beside the driver, looking at the doorway through which the hunters had yet to come with excitement and disapproval of the delay. The first to come out was Vasenka Veslovsky, in big, new boots that reached half-way up his fat haunches, in a green blouse tied at the waist with a cartridge belt smelling of new leather, and in his cap with ribbons, carrying a new English gun with no swivel or sling. Laska bounded over to him, jumped up to greet him, asked him in her own way whether the others were coming out, but, receiving no answer, went back to her lookout post and again froze, her head cocked and one ear pricked up. Finally the door opened with a bang, out flew Krak, Stepan Arkadyich's golden and white pointer, spinning and turning in the air, and then Stepan Arkadyich himself came out with a gun in his hands and a cigar in his mouth. 'Good boy, good boy, Krak!' he called tenderly to the dog, who put his paws on his stomach and chest, clawing at the game bag. Stepan Arkadyich was dressed in brogues and leggings, tattered trousers and a short coat. On his head was the wreck of some hat, but his new-system gun was a jewel, and his game bag and cartridge belt, though worn, were of the best quality.
Vasenka Veslovsky had not previously understood this true hunter's dandyism - to wear rags but have hunting gear of the best make. He understood it now, looking at Stepan Arkadyich, shining in those rags with the elegance of his well-nourished, gentlemanly figure, and decided that before the next hunting season he would be sure to set himself up in the same way.
'Well, and what about our host?' he asked.
'A young wife,' Stepan Arkadyich said, smiling.
'Yes, and such a lovely one.'
'He was already dressed. He must have run back to her.'
Stepan Arkadyich had guessed right. Levin had run back to his wife to ask her once more if she had forgiven him for yesterday's foolishness, and also to beg her for the Lord's sake to be more careful. Above all, to keep further away from the children - they could always bump into her.
Then he had to have her confirm once again that she was not angry with him for leaving for two days, and also to ask her to be sure to send a mounted messenger the next morning with a note, to write just two words so that he would know she was well.
Kitty, as always, was pained at having to be parted from her husband for two days, but seeing his animated figure, which seemed particularly big and strong in hunting boots and a white blouse, and with the glow of some hunting excitement incomprehensible to her, she forgot her own distress because of his joy and cheerfully said goodbye to him.
'Sorry, gentlemen!' he said, running out to the porch. 'Did they put the lunch in? Why is the chestnut on the right? Well, never mind. Laska, enough, go and sit down!'
'Put them in with the heifers,' he turned to the cow-man, who had been waiting by the porch with a question about some bullocks. 'Sorry, here comes another villain.'
Levin jumped down from the cart in which he was already seated to meet the hired carpenter, who was walking up to the porch with a ruler.
'You see, you didn't come to the office yesterday and now you're holding me up. Well, what is it?'
'Let me make another turn, sir. To add three more steps. And we'll fit it right in. It'll be much more convenient.'
'You should have listened to me,' Levin replied with vexation. 'I told you to put up the string boards and then cut in the steps. You can't fix it now. Do as I told you - make a new one.'
The thing was that the carpenter had spoiled the staircase in the wing that was being built, having constructed it separately and miscalculated the height, so that when it was installed all the steps were aslant. Now he wanted to leave the same stairs in place and add three more steps.
'It will be much better.'
'But where will it come out with these three steps?'
'If you please, sir,' the carpenter said with a scornful smile. 'It'll go just right. I mean, it'll start out below,' he said with a persuasive gesture, 'and go up and up and come out just right.'
'But three steps will also add to the length ... Where will it end?'
'Like I said, it'll start below and come out just right,' the carpenter said stubbornly and persuasively.
'It will come out under the ceiling and into the wall.'
'If you please. She'll start below. She'll go up and up and come out just right.' Levin took a ramrod and began drawing a stairway in the dust for him.
'There, you see?'
'As you wish,' said the carpenter, with suddenly bright eyes, obviously understanding the whole thing at last. 'Looks like I'll have to make a new one.'
'Well, then make it the way you were told!' Levin shouted, getting up on the cart. 'Drive! Hold the dogs, Filipp!'
Levin, having left all his family and farming cares behind, now experienced such a strong sense of the joy of life and expectation that he did not want to talk. Besides, he had that feeling of concentrated excitement that every hunter experiences as he nears the place of action. If anything concerned him now, it was only the questions of whether they would find anything in the Kolpeno marsh, how Laska would perform in comparison with Krak and how successful his own shooting would be that day. What if he disgraced himself in front of the new man? What if Oblonsky outshot him? - also went through his head.
Oblonsky had similar feelings and was also untalkative. Only Vasenka Veslovsky kept cheerfully talking away. Listening to him now, Levin was ashamed to remember how unfair he had been to him yesterday. Vasenka was indeed a nice fellow, simple, good-natured and very cheerful. If Levin had met him while still a bachelor, he would have become friends with him. He found his holiday attitude towards life and his sort of loose-mannered elegance slightly disagreeable. As if he considered himself lofty and unquestionably important for having long fingernails and a little hat and the rest that went with it; but that could be excused on account of his kind-heartedness and decency. Levin liked in him his good upbringing, his excellent pronunciation of French and English, and the fact that he was a man of his own world.
Vasenka was extremely taken with the left outrunner, a Don Steppe horse. He kept admiring it.
'How good it must be to gallop over the steppe on a steppe horse! Eh? Am I right?' he said.
He imagined there was something wild and poetic in riding a steppe horse, though nothing came of it; but his naivety, especially combined with his good looks, sweet smile, and gracefulness of movement, was very attractive. Either because Veslovsky's nature was sympathetic to him, or because he was trying to find everything good in him in order to redeem yesterday's sin, Levin enjoyed being with him.
Having gone two miles, Veslovsky suddenly discovered that his cigars and wallet were missing and did not know whether he had lost them or left them on the table. There were three hundred and seventy roubles in his wallet, and it could not be left like that.
'You know what, Levin, I'll ride back on this Don outrunner. That will be splendid. Eh?' he said, preparing to mount up.
'No, why?' replied Levin, who reckoned that Vasenka must weigh no less than two hundred pounds. 'I'll send my coachman.'
The coachman went on the outrunner, and Levin drove the pair himself.
IX
'Well, what's our itinerary? Tell us all about it,' said Stepan Arkadyich.
'The plan is the following: right now we're going as far as Gvozdevo.[1] In Gvozdevo there's a marsh with great snipe on the near side, and beyond Gvozdevo there are wonderful snipe marshes, with occasional great snipe. It's hot now, but we'll arrive towards evening (it's twelve miles) and do the evening field. We'll spend the night, and tomorrow we'll go to the big marsh.'
'And there's nothing on the way?'
'There is, but that would delay us, and it's hot. There are two nice spots, though it's not likely there'll be anything.'
Levin himself would have liked to stop at those spots, but they were close to home, he could do them any t
ime, and they were small - three men would have no room to shoot. And so it was with some duplicity that he said it was not likely there would be anything. Coming to the small marsh, he was going to pass by, but the experienced hunter's eye of Stepan Arkadyich at once spotted rushes that were visible from the road.
'Won't we try there?' he said, pointing to the marsh.
'Levin, please! how splendid!' Vasenka Veslovsky started begging, and Levin had to consent.
No sooner had they stopped than the dogs, vying with each other, were already racing for the marsh.
'Krak! Laska!...'
The dogs came back.
'It's too small for three. I'll stay here,' said Levin, hoping they would find nothing but the lapwings that had been stirred up by the dogs and, swaying as they flew, wept plaintively over the marsh.
'No! Come on, Levin, let's go together!' called Vasenka.
'It's really too small. Here, Laska! Here! You don't need two dogs, do you?'
Levin stayed by the wagonette and watched the hunters with envy. They went all around the marsh. Except for a water hen and some lapwings, one of which Vasenka bagged, there was nothing there.
