Between the Countess Nordston and Levin relations had grown up such as are not infrequently met with in Society, when two people outwardly remaining in friendly relations despise each other to such an extent that they cannot treat each other seriously, or even be offended with one another.
The Countess at once attacked Levin.
‘Ah, Mr. Levin! So you have returned to our depraved Babylon!’ she said, holding out her tiny yellow hand and repeating the words he had used early in the winter when he had called Moscow ‘Babylon,’ — ‘Has Babylon improved or have you deteriorated?’ she added, and turned toward Kitty with a sarcastic smile.
‘I am much flattered that you remember my words so well, Countess,’ replied Levin who had had time to recover his self-possession, resuming immediately and by force of habit his banteringly hostile relation with her. ‘They evidently produced a strong impression on you.’
‘Why, of course, I always write them down. Well, Kitty, have you been skating again?’
She began to talk with Kitty. Awkward as it would have been for Levin to leave just then, he would have preferred doing so to remaining in the house for the rest of the evening in sight of Kitty, who now and then glanced at him but avoided catching his eye. He was about to rise, when the Princess noticing his silence turned toward him and said:
‘Have you come to Moscow for long? But I believe you are on the Zemstvo and cannot stay away long?’
‘No, Princess, I am no longer on the Zemstvo,’ he answered, ‘I have come to Moscow for a few days.’
‘Something out of the common has happened to him,’ thought the Countess Nordston, scrutinizing his stern and serious face; ‘why does he not start on one of his discourses? But I’ll draw him out, I do love to make a fool of him when Kitty’s about, and I will.’
‘Mr. Levin,’ she began, ‘explain to me, please, you who know everything, how it is that at our Kaluga estate the peasant men and women have drunk everything they had, and never pay anything they owe us. What is the explanation? You always praise the peasants so much.’
At that moment another lady entered the room and Levin rose.
‘Excuse me, Countess, but really I know nothing about it, and can’t tell you anything,’ he said, and as he turned he saw an officer who had come into the room behind the lady.
‘That must be Vronsky,’ he thought, and looked at Kitty to make sure. She had already glanced at Vronsky and then turned toward Levin. And by the look of her eyes which had involuntarily brightened Levin realized that she loved this man, realized it as surely as if she had told it him in so many words. But what kind of man was he?
Now, rightly or wrongly, Levin could not but remain. He had to find out what sort of a man it was that she loved.
There are people who when they meet a rival, no matter in what, at once shut their eyes to everything good in him and see only the bad. There are others who on the contrary try to discern in a lucky rival the qualities which have enabled him to succeed, and with aching hearts seek only the good in him. Levin belonged to the latter sort. But it was not difficult for him to see what was good and attractive in Vronsky. It struck him immediately. Vronsky was a dark sturdily-built man of medium height, with a good-natured, handsome, exceedingly quiet and firm face. Everything about his face and figure — from his black closely-cropped hair and freshly-shaven chin to his wide, brand-new uniform — was simple and at the same time elegant. Having stepped aside to let a lady pass, Vronsky approached first the Princess and then Kitty. When he moved toward her his fine eyes brightened with a special tenderness, and carefully and respectfully bending over her with a scarcely perceptible, happy, and (as it seemed to Levin) modestly-triumphant smile, he held out to her his small broad hand.
Having greeted and spoken a few words to every one else, he sat down without having once looked at Levin, who had not taken his eyes off him.
‘Let me introduce you,’ said the Princess indicating Levin. ‘Constantine Dmitrich Levin, Count Alexis Kirilovich Vronsky.’
Vronsky rose and looking cordially into Levin’s eyes pressed his hand.
‘I was to have dined with you earlier this winter,’ he said with his simple frank smile, ‘but you unexpectedly went away to the country.’
‘Mr. Levin despises and hates the town and us townspeople,’ said Countess Nordston.
‘My words must make a deep impression on you for you to remember them so long,’ said Levin: then recollecting that he had said this before he blushed.
Vronsky glanced at him and at the Countess, and smiled.
‘And do you always live in the country?’ he asked. ‘Isn’t it dull in the winter?’
‘No, not when one is busy: nor need one be dull in one’s own company,’ replied Levin abruptly.
‘I am fond of the country,’ said Vronsky, noticing, but pretending not to notice, Levin’s tone.
‘But I hope, Count, you would not consent always to live in the country,’ said the Countess Nordston.
‘I don’t know, I never tried it for long. I have experienced a curious feeling,’ he went on. ‘Nowhere have I felt so homesick for the country, our Russian country, with its peasants in bark-shoes, as when I spent a winter with my mother in Nice. Nice in itself is dull, you know. And Naples and Sorrento are pleasant only for a short stay, and it is there that one thinks of Russia, and longs especially for the Russian countryside. They seem to …’
He was addressing both Kitty and Levin, his quiet and friendly glance passing from the one to the other. He was evidently speaking quite sincerely and frankly.
Noticing that the Countess Nordston wished to say something, he stopped without finishing what he was saying, and listened attentively to her.
The conversation did not flag for a moment, so that the old Princess who always had in reserve, in case of need, two heavy guns (classical versus modern education, and general conscription), had no need to bring them forward, and the Countess Nordston had no opportunity to tease Levin.
Levin wished to join in the general conversation, but found it impossible, and kept saying to himself, ‘Now I will go,’ yet he did not go, but waited for something indefinite.
The conversation touched on table-turning and spiritualism, and the Countess Nordston, who believed in spiritualism, began relating miracles she had witnessed.
‘Ah, Countess, you must really take me there. For goodness’ sake take me to them! I have never seen anything supernatural though I always look out for it,’ said Vronsky smiling.
‘Very well, next Saturday,’ replied the Countess Nordston. ‘And you, Mr. Levin, do you believe in it?’ she asked, turning to him.
‘Why do you ask me? You know very well what I shall say.’
‘But I want to hear your opinion.’
‘My opinion is that this table-turning proves that our so-called educated class is on the same level as the peasants. They believe in the evil eye and spells and witchcraft, while we …’
‘Well then, you don’t believe?’
‘I can’t believe, Countess!’
‘But if I have seen it myself?’
‘The peasant women tell how they have seen the goblins with their own eyes.’
‘Then you think I am not telling the truth?’ and she laughed mirthlessly.
‘Oh no, Masha, Mr. Levin only says he can’t believe …’ said Kitty, blushing for Levin, and Levin understanding this became still more irritated and wished to answer, but Vronsky, with his bright and frank smile, came at once to the rescue of the conversation, which was threatening