‘Yes, but all that has to be looked after, and who is going to do it?’ remarked Dolly unwillingly.
Having with Matrena Filimonovna’s help got her household into working order, she did not care to make any change; besides, she had no confidence in Levin’s knowledge of farming. Arguments about cows being milk-producing machines did not commend themselves to her, for she imagined that such arguments were calculated only to interfere with farming. All these matters appeared much simpler to her: all that was necessary, as Matrena Filimonovna said, was to give Spotty and Whiteflank more food and drink, and to see that the cook did not take the kitchen refuse to the laundress for her cow. That was clear. But arguments about cereal and grass feeding were questionable and vague and, above all, she was anxious to talk about Kitty.
Chapter 10
‘KITTY writes that she wishes for nothing so much as seclusion and quiet,’ said Dolly after a pause in the conversation.
‘And her health! Is she better?’ asked Levin anxiously.
‘Yes, thank God! she has quite recovered. I never believed that she had lung trouble.’
‘Oh, I am so glad!’ said Levin, and Dolly thought she saw something pathetic and helpless in his face as he said it, and then silently looked at her.
‘Tell me, Constantine Dmitrich,’ said Dolly with her kind though slightly ironical smile, ‘why are you angry with Kitty?’
‘I? … I am not angry,’ said Levin.
‘Yes, you are. Why did you not call either on us or on them when you were in Moscow?’
‘Darya Alexandrovna,’ said he, blushing to the roots of his hair, ‘I am surprised that one so kind as you are should not feel what the reason was. How is it that you have no pity for me, knowing as you do …’
‘What do I know?’
‘You know I proposed and was rejected,’ muttered Levin, and the tenderness he had a moment ago felt for Kitty was changed into a feeling of anger at the insult.
‘Why did you think I knew?’
‘Because everybody knows it.’
‘In that, at any rate, you are mistaken; I did not know it, though I had my suspicions.’
‘Well, anyhow you know it now.’
‘All I knew was that something had happened that tormented her dreadfully, and she asked me never to speak about it. And since she had not told me, she won’t have told anybody… . Well, what did happen between you? Tell me.’
‘I have told you what happened.’
‘When was it?’
‘When I last visited you.’
‘Do you know,’ said Dolly, ‘I am terribly, terribly sorry for her! You are suffering only through pride …’
‘That may be,’ said Levin, ‘but …’
She interrupted him.
‘But for her, poor child, I am terribly, terribly sorry. Now I understand everything.’
‘Well, Darya Alexandrovna, please excuse me!’ he said, rising. ‘Goodbye, Darya Alexandrovna; au revoir!’
‘No, wait a bit,’ she answered, holding him by the sleeve. ‘Wait a bit. Sit down.’
‘Please, please don’t let us talk about it!’ said he, sitting down again, conscious as he did so that a hope which he had thought dead and buried was waking and stirring within him.
‘If I did not care for you,’ Dolly went on, the tears rising to her eyes, ‘if I did not know you as well as I do …’
The feeling that seemed dead was coming to life again, rising and taking possession of Levin’s heart.
‘Yes, now I understand it all,’ continued Dolly, ‘You can’t understand it, you men who are free and have the choice. You always know for certain whom you love; but a young girl in a state of suspense, with her feminine, maidenly delicacy, a girl who only knows you men from a distance and is obliged to take everything on trust — such a girl may and does sometimes feel that she does not know what to say.’
‘Yes, if her heart does not tell her… .’
‘Oh, no! The heart does tell her; but just imagine: you men, having views on a girl, come to the house, get to know her, observe her and bide your time, and when you are quite certain that you love her you propose …’
‘Well, it’s not quite like that.’
‘Never mind! You propose when your love is ripe, or when the balance falls in favour of one of those between whom your choice lies. But a girl is not asked. She is expected to choose for herself yet she has no choice; she can only say “Yes” or “No”.’
‘Yes, a choice between me and Vronsky,’ thought Levin, and the dead hope that had begun to revive in his soul died again and only weighed painfully on his heart.
‘Darya Alexandrovna,’ said he, ‘in that way one may choose a dress, or … purchases … anything … but not love. The choice is made, and so much the better … a repetition is impossible.’
‘Oh, that pride, that pride!’ said Dolly, speaking as if she despised him for the meanness of his feelings compared to those which only women know. ‘When you proposed to Kitty she was just in that state when it was impossible for her to give an answer: she was undecided — undecided between you and Vronsky; she saw him every day, you she had not seen for a long time. I admit that had she been older … I, for instance, could not have been undecided in her place. To me he was always repulsive, and so he has proved in the end.’
Levin recalled Kitty’s answer. She had said, ‘No, it cannot be.’
‘Darya Alexandrovna,’ he replied drily, ‘I value your confidence in me, but think you are mistaken. Whether I am right or wrong, that pride which you so despise makes any thought of your sister impossible for me — do you understand me? — perfectly impossible.’
‘I will only add just this: you understand that I am speaking about my sister, whom I love as much as my own children. I do not say she loves you; I only wished to tell you that her refusal proves nothing.’
‘I don’t know!’ said Levin, jumping up. ‘If you know how you hurt me! It is just as if you had lost a child, and they kept on telling you: “Now he would have been so and so, and might be living and you rejoicing in him, but he is dead, dead, dead… !” ’
‘How funny you are!’ said Dolly, regarding Levin’s agitation with a sad yet mocking smile. ‘Yes, I understand it more and more,’ she added meditatively. ‘Then you won’t come to see us while Kitty is here?’
‘No, I won’t. Of course I will not avoid her, but whenever I can I will try to save her the unpleasantness of meeting me.’
‘You are very, very funny!’ Dolly repeated, looking tenderly into his face. ‘All right then! Let it be as if nothing had been said about it.’
‘What have you come for, Tanya?’ said Dolly in French to her little girl, who had just come in.
‘Where is my spade, Mama?’
‘I am speaking French, and you must answer in French.’
The little girl had forgotten the French for spade, so her mother told her and went on to say, still in French, where she would find the spade. All this was disagreeable to Levin. Nothing in Dolly’s house, or about her children seemed half as charming as before.
‘Why does she talk French