"As you like."
They were standing now about fifteen paces from one another.
"Stiva!" said Levin unexpectedly; "how is it you don’t tell me whether your sister-in-law’s married yet, or when she’s going to be?"
Levin felt so resolute and serene that no answer, he fancied, could affect him. But he had never dreamed of what Stepan Arkadyevitch replied.
"She’s never thought of being married, and isn’t thinking of it; but she’s very ill, and the doctors have sent her abroad. They’re positively afraid she may not live."
"What!" cried Levin. "Very ill? What is wrong with her? How has she...?"
While they were saying this, Laska, with ears pricked up, was looking upwards at the sky, and reproachfully at them.
"They have chosen a time to talk," she was thinking. "It’s on the wing.... Here it is, yes, it is. They’ll miss it," thought Laska.
But at that very instant both suddenly heard a shrill whistle which, as it were, smote on their ears, and both suddenly seized their guns and two flashes gleamed, and two bangs sounded at the very same instant. The snipe flying high above instantly folded its wings and fell into a thicket, bending down the delicate shoots.
"Splendid! Together!" cried Levin, and he ran with Laska into the thicket to look for the snipe.
"Oh, yes, what was it that was unpleasant?" he wondered. "Yes, Kitty’s ill.... Well, it can’t be helped; I’m very sorry," he thought.
"She’s found it! Isn’t she a clever thing?" he said, taking the warm bird from Laska’s mouth and packing it into the almost full game bag. "I’ve got it, Stiva!" he shouted.
Chapter 16
On the way home Levin asked all details of Kitty’s illness and the Shtcherbatskys’ plans, and though he would have been ashamed to admit it, he was pleased at what he heard. He was pleased that there was still hope, and still more pleased that she should be suffering who had made him suffer so much. But when Stepan Arkadyevitch began to speak of the causes of Kitty’s illness, and mentioned Vronsky’s name, Levin cut him short.
"I have no right whatever to know family matters, and, to tell the truth, no interest in them either."
Stepan Arkadyevitch smiled hardly perceptibly, catching the instantaneous change he knew so well in Levin’s face, which had become as gloomy as it had been bright a minute before.
"Have you quite settled about the forest with Ryabinin?" asked Levin.
"Yes, it’s settled. The price is magnificent; thirty-eight thousand. Eight straight away, and the rest in six years. I’ve been bothering about it for ever so long. No one would give more."
"Then you’ve as good as given away your forest for nothing," said Levin gloomily.
"How do you mean for nothing?" said Stepan Arkadyevitch with a good-humored smile, knowing that nothing would be right in Levin’s eyes now.
"Because the forest is worth at least a hundred and fifty rubles the acre," answered Levin.
"Oh, these farmers!" said Stepan Arkadyevitch playfully. "Your tone of contempt for us poor townsfolk!... But when it comes to business, we do it better than anyone. I assure you I have reckoned it all out," he said, "and the forest is fetching a very good price—so much so that I’m afraid of this fellow’s crying off, in fact. You know it’s not ‘timber,’" said Stepan Arkadyevitch, hoping by this distinction to convince Levin completely of the unfairness of his doubts. "And it won’t run to more than twenty-five yards of fagots per acre, and he’s giving me at the rate of seventy rubles the acre."
Levin smiled contemptuously. "I know," he thought, "that fashion not only in him, but in all city people, who, after being twice in ten years in the country, pick up two or three phrases and use them in season and out of season, firmly persuaded that they know all about it. ‘Timber, run to so many yards the acre.’ He says those words without understanding them himself."
"I wouldn’t attempt to teach you what you write about in your office," said he, "and if need arose, I should come to you to ask about it. But you’re so positive you know all the lore of the forest. It’s difficult. Have you counted the trees?"
"How count the trees?" said Stepan Arkadyevitch, laughing, still trying to draw his friend out of his ill-temper. "Count the sands of the sea, number the stars. Some higher power might do it."
"Oh, well, the higher power of Ryabinin can. Not a single merchant ever buys a forest without counting the trees, unless they get it given them for nothing, as you’re doing now. I know your forest. I go there every year shooting, and your forest’s worth a hundred and fifty rubles an acre paid down, while he’s giving you sixty by installments. So that in fact you’re making him a present of thirty thousand."
"Come, don’t let your imagination run away with you," said Stepan Arkadyevitch piteously. "Why was it none would give it, then?"
"Why, because he has an understanding with the merchants; he’s bought them off. I’ve had to do with all of them; I know them. They’re not merchants, you know: they’re speculators. He wouldn’t look at a bargain that gave him ten, fifteen per cent profit, but holds back to buy a rouble’s worth for twenty kopecks."
"Well, enough of it! You’re out of temper."
"Not the least," said Levin gloomily, as they drove up to the house.
At the steps there stood a trap tightly covered with iron and leather, with a sleek horse tightly harnessed with broad collar-straps. In the trap sat the chubby, tightly belted clerk who served Ryabinin as coachman. Ryabinin himself was already in the house, and met the friends in the hall. Ryabinin was a tall, thinnish, middle-aged man, with mustache and a projecting clean-shaven chin, and prominent muddy-looking eyes. He was dressed in a long-skirted blue coat, with buttons below the waist at the back, and wore high boots wrinkled over the ankles and straight over the calf, with big galoshes drawn over them. He rubbed his face with his handkerchief, and wrapping round him his coat, which sat extremely well as it was, he greeted them with a smile, holding out his hand to Stepan Arkadyevitch, as though he wanted to catch something.
"So here you are," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, giving him his hand. "That’s capital."
"I did not venture to disregard your excellency’s commands, though the road was extremely bad. I positively walked the whole way, but I am here at my time. Konstantin Dmitrievitch, my respects"; he turned to Levin, trying to seize his hand too. But Levin, scowling, made as though he did not notice his hand, and took out the snipe. "Your honors have been diverting yourselves with the chase? What kind of bird may it be, pray?" added Ryabinin, looking contemptuously at the snipe: "a great delicacy, I suppose." And he shook his head disapprovingly, as though he had grave doubts whether this game were worth the candle.
"Would you like to go into my study?" Levin said in French to Stepan Arkadyevitch, scowling morosely. "Go into my study; you can talk there."
"Quite so, where you please," said Ryabinin with contemptuous dignity, as though wishing to make it felt that others might be in difficulties as to how to behave, but that he could never be in any difficulty about anything.
On entering the study Ryabinin looked about, as his habit was, as though seeking the holy picture, but when he had found it, he did not cross himself. He scanned the bookcases and bookshelves, and with the same dubious air with which he had regarded the snipe, he smiled contemptuously and shook his head disapprovingly, as though by no means willing to allow that this game were worth the candle.
"Well, have you brought the money?" asked Oblonsky. "Sit down."
"Oh, don’t trouble about the money. I’ve come to see you to talk it over."
"What is there to talk over? But do sit down."
"I don’t mind if I do," said Ryabinin, sitting down and leaning his elbows on the back of his