‘Go to her then, she is so fond of you.’
‘What does she mean? I have hurt her. Help me, O Lord!’ thought Levin, hastening toward the old Frenchwoman with the grey curls, who sat on one of the benches. She welcomed Levin as an old friend, showing her set of false teeth in a smile.
‘Yes, you see we grow up,’ she said, indicating Kitty with a glance, ‘and grow old. “Tiny Bear” is grown up!’ continued the Frenchwoman, laughing and reminding him of his old joke when he called the three young ladies the Three Bears of the English fairy tale. ‘Do you remember when you used to call her so?’
He had not the faintest recollection of it, but she was fond of the joke and had laughed at it for the last ten years.
‘Well, go — go and skate! Our Kitty is beginning to skate nicely, isn’t she?’
When Levin returned to Kitty her face was no longer stern and her eyes had their former truthful, kindly look; but he thought there was an intentionally quiet manner in her affability and he felt sad. Having spoken about her old governess and her peculiarities, she asked him about his way of life.
‘Do you really manage not to feel dull in the country in winter?’ she said.
‘I don’t feel at all dull, I am very busy,’ he answered, conscious that she was subduing him to her quiet tone, from which — as had happened at the beginning of the winter — he would not be able to free himself.
‘Have you come for long?’ asked Kitty.
‘I don’t know,’ he answered, without thinking of what he was saying. The idea that if he accepted her tone of calm friendliness he would again go away without having settled anything occurred to him, and he determined to rebel.
‘You don’t know?’
‘I don’t. It all depends on you,’ he said, and was at once terrified at his own words.
Whether she had not heard his words or did not wish to hear them, anyhow, after slightly stumbling and striking her foot twice against the ice, she skated hurriedly away from him toward Mlle Linon, said something to her, and went toward the little house where the ladies took off their skates.
‘My God! What have I done? O Lord, help me and teach me!’ prayed Levin, and feeling at the same time a need of violent exercise, he got up speed and described inner and outer circles.
Just then a young man, the best of the new skaters, with a cigarette in his mouth and skates on, came out of the coffee-room and taking a run, descended the steps leading to the lake, clattering with his skates as he jumped from step to step. He then flew down the slope and glided along the ice without so much as changing the easy position of his arms.
‘Oh, that’s a new trick!’ said Levin, and at once ran up to try that new trick.
‘Don’t hurt yourself — it needs practice!’ Nicholas Shcherbatsky called out.
Levin went up the path as far back as he could to get up speed, and then slid downwards, balancing himself with his arms in this unaccustomed movement. He caught his foot on the last step, but, scarcely touching the ice with his hand, made a violent effort, regained his balance, and skated away laughing.
‘Good! Dear man!’ thought Kitty who at that moment was just coming out of the little house with Mlle Linon, looking at him with a smile of gentle tenderness as at a dear brother. ‘Can I really be guilty — have I really done anything wrong? They say it’s coquetting… . I know it’s not him I love, but still I feel happy with him, he is so charming! Only why did he say that?’ she thought.
When he saw Kitty who was going away, and her mother who had met her on the steps, Levin, flushed with the violent exercise, stood still and considered. He then took off his skates and overtook mother and daughter at the gates of the Gardens.
‘Very pleased to see you,’ said the Princess. ‘We are at home on Thursdays, as usual.’
‘And to-day is Thursday!’
‘We shall be glad to see you,’ said the Princess drily.
Kitty was sorry to hear that dry tone and could not resist the desire to counteract her mother’s coldness. She turned her head and said smilingly:
‘Au revoir!’
Just then Oblonsky, his hat tilted on one side, with radiant face and eyes, walked into the Gardens like a joyous conqueror. But on approaching his motherin-law he answered her questions about Dolly’s health with a sorrowful and guilty air. After a few words with her in a subdued and mournful tone, he expanded his chest and took Levin’s arm.
‘Well, shall we go?’ he asked. ‘I kept thinking about you, and am very, very glad you’ve come,’ he went on, looking significantly into Levin’s eyes.
‘Yes, yes! Let’s go,’ answered the happy Levin, still hearing the voice saying: ‘Au revoir!’ and still seeing the smile with which it had been said.
‘The Angleterre, or the Hermitage?’
‘I don’t care.’
‘Well then, the Angleterre,’ said Oblonsky, choosing the Angleterre because he was deeper in debt to that restaurant than to the Hermitage, and therefore considered it wrong to avoid it. ‘Have you a sledge? … That’s a good thing, because I’ve sent my coachman home.’
The two friends were silent all the way. Levin was considering what the change in Kitty’s face meant; now persuading himself that there was hope, now in despair, seeing clearly that such hope was madness; but yet feeling an altogether different being from what he had been before her smile and the words ‘Au revoir!’
Oblonsky during the drive was composing the menu of their dinner.
‘You like turbot, don’t you?’ he asked, as they drove up to the restaurant.
‘What?’ said Levin. ‘Turbot? Oh yes, I am awfully fond of turbot!’
Chapter 10
WHEN they entered the restaurant Levin could not help noticing something peculiar in his friend’s expression, a kind of suppressed radiance in his face and whole figure. Oblonsky took off his overcoat, and with his hat on one side walked into the dining-room, giving his orders to the Tartar waiters, in their swallowtail coats, with napkins under their arms, who attached themselves to him. Bowing right and left to his acquaintances who, here as elsewhere, greeted him joyfully, he passed on to the buffet, drank a glass of vodka and ate a bit of fish as hors d’œuvre, and said something to the painted Frenchwoman, bedecked with ribbons and lace, who sat at a little counter — something that made even this Frenchwoman burst into frank laughter.
Levin did not take any vodka, simply because that Frenchwoman — made up, as it seemed to him, of false hair, powder, and toilet vinegar — was offensive to him. He moved away from her as from some dirty place. His whole soul was filled with Kitty’s image, and his eyes shone with a smile of triumph and happiness.
‘This way, please your Excellency! This way — no one will disturb your Excellency here,’ said a specially officious waiter, an old white-headed Tartar, so wide in the hips that the tails of his coat separated behind.
‘If you please, your Excellency,’ he said, turning to Levin and as a mark of respect to Oblonsky paying attention to his guest. In a moment he had spread a fresh cloth on a round table already covered with a cloth beneath a bronze chandelier, moved two velvet chairs to the table, and stood with a napkin and menu awaiting the order.
‘If your Excellency would like a private room, one will be vacant in a few moments. Prince Golitzin is there with a lady. We’ve some fresh oysters in, sir.’
‘Ah — oysters!’ Oblonsky paused and considered.
‘Shall we change our plan, Levin?’ he said, with his finger on the bill of fare