Although it was troublesome to look after all the children and keep them out of mischief and difficult to remember whose were all those little stockings and drawers, not to mix up the shoes of all those different feet, to untie, unbutton, and then fasten up again all the tapes and buttons, yet Dolly, who had always been fond of bathing and considered it good for the children, knew no greater pleasure than bathing them. To hold in her hands all those plump little legs, to draw on their stockings, to take the naked little bodies in her arms and dip them in the water, to hear them shrieking now with fear and now with delight, and to see her cherubs gasping and splashing, with their frightened yet merry eyes, was a great joy.
When half the children were dressed again, some smartly-dressed peasant women who had been gathering herbs came up and halted shyly by the bathing-house. Matrena Filimonovna called to one of these to ask her to dry a bath-sheet and a chemise that had fallen into the water, and Dolly entered into conversation with them. The peasant women, who had begun by laughing behind their hands without comprehending her questions, soon became bolder and more talkative, and at once captivated Dolly by their frank admiration of her children.
‘Just look at the little beauty, as white as sugar!’ said one, gazing admiringly at Tanya and stroking her head. ‘But she’s thin.’
‘Yes, she’s been ill.’
‘Why, you seem to have been bathing that one too!’ said the other woman, looking at the baby.
‘No, she is only three months old,’ Dolly answered proudly.
‘Dear me!’
‘And have you any children?’
‘I had four; two are left, a boy and a girl. I weaned her in the spring.’
‘How old is she?’
‘In her second year.’
‘Why did you nurse her so long?’
‘It’s our custom.’
And the conversation turned upon the topic that interested Dolly more than any other: confinements, children’s illnesses, husbands’ whereabouts, and whether they came home often.
Dolly did not want to part from the peasant women; their conversation pleased her so much because their interests were exactly similar to hers. What pleased Dolly most was the women’s evident admiration for the great number of children she had, and their loveliness.
The women amused her and offended the English governess, who noticed that she was the object of their laughter, which she did not understand. One of the young women was watching the governess, who was dressing after all the others, and seeing her put on a third petticoat could not refrain from remarking:
‘Look at her! She’s wrapping herself up and wrapping herself up, and hasn’t got enough round her yet!’ and all the women burst out laughing.
Chapter 9
SURROUNDED by her children, all freshly bathed and with heads still damp, Dolly with a kerchief tied round her own head was nearing home when the coachman said:
‘There’s a gentleman coming — I think it’s the Pokrovsk squire.’
Dolly leant forward and was pleased to see the familiar figure of Levin, who in a grey hat and coat was walking toward them. She was always glad to see him, but on this day was more pleased than ever because he would now see her in all her glory. No one could understand the dignity of her position better than Levin. On seeing her he found himself confronted by just such a picture of family life as his fancy painted.
‘You are like a hen with her chickens, Darya Alexandrovna!’
‘Oh, I’m so glad!’ said she, holding out her hand.
‘You’re glad, yet you never sent me word. My brother is staying with me. It was from Stephen I heard, at last, that you were here.’
‘From Stephen?’ asked Dolly in a surprised tone.
‘Yes, he wrote that you had moved here, and he thought I might be of some use to you,’ replied Levin, and having said this grew confused. Without finishing what he was going to say he continued walking beside the trap, breaking off twigs from the lime trees and biting them. He was confused because he imagined that Dolly might not like to accept the help of a stranger in matters that ought to be attended to by her husband. She really did not like the way Oblonsky had of forcing his family affairs upon strangers, and knew at once that Levin understood this. It was for his quick perception and delicacy of feeling that Dolly liked him.
‘Of course I understood that this only meant you wanted to see me, and was very pleased. I can well imagine how strange everything here must seem to you, used as you are to managing a town house; and if you require anything I am quite at your disposal.’
‘Oh no!’ said Dolly. ‘At first it was inconvenient, but now everything is quite comfortable, thanks to my old nurse,’ she said, indicating the nurse, who, aware that she was being mentioned, looked at Levin with a bright and friendly smile. She knew him, knew that he would be a good match for the young lady, and hoped the affair would come off.
‘Won’t you sit down, sir? We’ll move closer together,’ she said to Levin.
‘No, I will walk. Children, who will race the horses with me?’
Though the children did not know Levin well and did not remember when they had last seen him, they did not feel toward him any of that strange shyness and antagonism so often felt by children toward grown-up people who ‘pretend’, which causes them to suffer so painfully. Pretence about anything sometimes deceives the wisest and shrewdest man, but, however cunningly it is hidden, a child of the meanest capacity feels it and is repelled by it.
Whatever Levin’s defects may have been, there was not a trace of pretence about him; therefore the children evinced toward him the same friendliness that they saw in their mother’s face. The two eldest, responding to his invitation, at once jumped out to him and ran with him as they would have done with their nurse, Miss Hull, or their mother. Lily wanted to go too, and her mother handed her to him; he put her on his shoulder and ran on.
‘Don’t be afraid! Don’t be afraid, Darya Alexandrovna! There’s no fear of my hurting or dropping her,’ said he, smiling brightly at the mother.
And as she looked at his easy, strong, considerate, careful and ultra-cautious movements, the mother lost her fears and looked at them with a smile of approval.
Here in the country among the children, and in the company of Dolly whom he found very congenial, Levin’s spirits rose to that childlike merriment Dolly liked so much in him.
He ran about with the children, taught them gymnastics, amused Miss Hull by his broken English, and talked to Dolly about his rural occupations.
After dinner, left alone with him on the verandah, Dolly alluded to Kitty.
‘Do you know Kitty is coming here to spend the summer with me?’
‘Really?’ said he, flushing up; and to change the subject he at once added: ‘Well, then, shall I send you two cows? If you insist on squaring accounts, pay me five roubles a month, if your conscience allows it.’
‘No, thank you. We are getting on all right now.’
‘Well, then, I will just have a look at your cows and, with your permission, will give directions about the feeding. Everything depends on the feeding.’
To change the conversation Levin went on to explain to