Varenka, with her hat on, sat at the table examining the spring of her sunshade, which Kitty had broken. She looked up.
‘Varenka, forgive me, forgive me!’ whispered Kitty, coming close to her. ‘I don’t remember what I said. I …’
‘Really, I did not wish to distress you,’ said Varenka with a smile.
Peace was made. But with her father’s return the world in which she had been living completely changed for Kitty. She did not renounce all she had learnt, but realized that she had deceived herself when thinking that she could be what she wished to be. It was as if she had recovered consciousness; she felt the difficulty of remaining without hypocrisy or boastfulness on the level to which she had wished to rise.
Moreover, she felt the oppressiveness of that world of sorrow, sickness and death in which she was living. The efforts she had been making to love it now seemed tormenting, and she longed to get away quickly to the fresh air, back to Russia, to Ergushovo, where as she knew from a letter her sister Dolly had moved with the children.
But her affection for Varenka was not weakened. When taking leave of her, Kitty tried to persuade her to come and stay with them in Russia.
‘I will come when you are married,’ said Varenka.
‘I shall never marry.’
‘Well, then, I shall never come.’
‘Then I will marry for that purpose only. Mind now, don’t forget your promise!’ said Kitty.
The doctor’s prediction was justified. Kitty returned to Russia quite cured! She was not as careless and light-hearted as before, but she was at peace. Her old Moscow sorrows were no more than a memory.
PART THREE
Chapter 1
SERGIUS IVANICH KOZNYSHEV, wishing to take a rest from mental work, went to stay with his brother in the country instead of going abroad as usual. According to his views country life was preferable to any other, and he had now come to his brother’s house to enjoy it. Constantine Levin was very pleased, especially as he no longer expected his brother Nicholas to come that summer. But in spite of his affection and respect for Koznyshev, Constantine did not feel at ease with his stepbrother in the country. To Constantine the country was the place where one lived — that is to say, where one rejoiced, suffered, and laboured; but to Koznyshev the country was, on the one hand, a place of rest from work, and, on the other, a useful antidote to depravity, an antidote to which he resorted with pleasure and with a consciousness of its utility. To Constantine the country seemed a good place because it was the scene of unquestionably useful labour; to Koznyshev it seemed good because one could and should do nothing there. Besides this, Koznyshev’s attitude toward the peasants jarred on Constantine. Koznyshev was wont to say that he knew and loved the common people: he often conversed with peasants, and was able to do it well, frankly, and without affectation, deducing from every such conversation data in the peasants’ favour and proofs of his own knowledge of the people. Constantine regarded the peasants as the chief partners in a common undertaking, and despite his respect and the feeling of a blood-tie — probably, as he said, sucked in with the milk of his peasant nurse — he as partner in their common undertaking, though often filled with admiration for the strength, meekness, and justice of these people, was very often (when the business required other qualities) exasperated with them for their carelessness, untidiness, drunkenness, and