Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Three/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X
"Kitty writes me that she is longing for solitude and repose," began Dolly, after a moment's silence.
"Is her health better?" asked Levin, with emotion.
"Thank the Lord, she is entirely well! I never believed that she had any lung trouble."
"Oh! I am very glad," said Levin; and Dolly thought that, as he said it, and then looked at her in silence, his face had a pathetic, helpless expression.
"Tell me, Konstantin Dmitritch," said Darya Aleksandrovna with a friendly, and at the same time a rather mischievous, smile, "why are you angry with Kitty?"
"I? I am not angry with her," said Levin.
"Yes, you are. Why did n't you come to see any of us the last time you were in Moscow?"
"Darya Aleksandrovna," he exclaimed, blushing to the roots of his hair, "I am astonished that, with your kindness of heart, you can think of such a thing! How can you not pity me when you know ...."
"What do I know?"
"You know that I offered myself, and was rejected." And as he said this, all the tenderness that he had felt for Kitty a moment before changed in his heart into a sense of anger at the memory of this injury.
"How could you suppose that I knew?"
"Because everybody knows it."
"That is where you are mistaken. I suspected it, but I knew nothing positive."
"Ah, well, and so you know now!"
"All that I know is that there was something which keenly tortured her, and that she has besought me never to mention it. If she has not told me, then she has not told any one. Now, what have you against her? Tell me!"
"I have told you all that there was."
"When was it?"
"When I was at your house the last time."
"But do you know? I will tell you," said Darya Aleksandrovna. "I am sorry for Kitty, awfully sorry. You suffer only in your pride ...."
"Perhaps so," said Levin, "but...."
She interrupted him.
"But she, poor little girl, I am awfully sorry for her. Now I understand all!"
"Well, Darya Aleksandrovna, excuse me," said he, rising. "Prashchaïte—good-by, Darya Aleksandrovna, da svidanya!"
"No! wait!" she cried, holding him by the sleeve; "wait! sit down!"
"I beg of you, I beg of you, let us not speak of this any more," said Levin, sitting down again, while a ray of that hope which he believed forever vanished flashed into his heart.
"If I did not like you," said Dolly, and the tears came into her eyes, "if I did not know you as I do ...."
The hope which he thought was dead awoke more and more, filled Levin's heart, and took masterful possession of it.
"Yes, I understand all now," said Dolly: "you cannot understand this, you men, who are free in your choice; it is perfectly clear whom you love; but a young girl, with that feminine, maidenly reserve which is imposed on her, and seeing you men only at a distance, is constrained to wait, and she is, and must be, so agitated that she will not know what answer to give."
"Yes, if her heart does not speak...."
"No; her heart speaks, but think for a moment: you men decide on some girl, you visit her home, you watch, observe, and you make up your minds whether you are in love or not, and then, when you have come to the conclusion that you love her, you offer yourselves.... "
"Well, now! we don't always do that."
"All the same, you don't propose until your love is fully ripe, or when you have made up your mind between two possible choices. But the young girl cannot make a choice. They pretend that she can choose, but she cannot; she can only answer 'yes' or 'no.'"
"Well! the choice was between me and Vronsky," thought Levin; and the resuscitated dead love in his soul seemed to die a second time, giving his heart an additional pang.
"Darya Aleksandrovna," said he, "thus one chooses a gown or any trifling merchandise, but not love. Besides, the choice has been made, and so much the better .... and it cannot be done again."
"Oh! pride, pride! " said Dolly, as if she would express her scorn for the degradation of his sentiments compared with those which only women are able to comprehend. "When you offered yourself to Kitty, she was in just that situation where she could not give an answer. She was in doubt; the choice was you or Vronsky. She saw him every day; you she had not seen for a long time. If she had been older, it would have been different; if I, for example, had been in her place, I should not have hesitated. He was always distasteful to me, and so that is the end of it."
Levin remembered Kitty's reply: "No, this cannot be...."
"Darya Aleksandrovna," said he, dryly, "I am touched by your confidence in me, but I think you are mistaken. But whether I am right or wrong, this pride which you so despise makes it impossible for me ever to think about Katerina Aleksandrovna; you understand? utterly impossible."
"I will say only one thing more. You must know that I am speaking to you of my sister, whom I love as my own children. I don't say that she loves you, but I only wish to say that her reply at that moment amounted to nothing at all."
"I don't know," said Levin, leaping suddenly to his feet. "If you only realized the pain that you cause me! It is just the same as if you had lost a child, and they came to you and said, 'He would have been like this, like this, and he might have lived, and you would have had so much joy in him But he is dead, dead, dead.'" ....
"How absurd you are!" said Darya Aleksandrovna, with a melancholy smile at the sight of Levin's emotion. "Well! I understand it all better and better," she continued pensively. "Then you won't come to see us when Kitty is here?"
"No, I will not. Of course I will not avoid Katerina Aleksandrovna; but, when it is possible, I shall endeavor to spare her the affliction of my presence."
"You are very, very absurd," said Darya Aleksan-drovna, looking at him affectionately. "Well, then, let it be as if we had not said a word about it.—What do you want, Tania?" said she in French to her little girl, who came running in.
"Where is my little shovel, mamma?"
"I speak French to you, and you must answer in French."
The child tried to speak, but could not recall the French word for lopatka, shovel. Her mother whispered it to her, and then told her, still in French, where she should go to find it. This made Levin feel unpleasant.
Everything now seemed changed in Darya Aleksandrovna's household; even the children were not nearly so attractive as before.
"And why does she speak French with the children?" he thought. "How false and unnatural! Even the children feel it. Teach them French, and spoil their sincerity," he said to himself, not knowing that Darya Aleksandrovna had twenty times asked the same question, and yet, in spite of the harm that it did their simplicity, had come to the conclusion that this was the right way to teach them.
"But why are you in a hurry? Sit a little while longer."
Levin stayed to tea; but all his gayety was gone, and he felt uncomfortable.
After tea he went out into the anteroom to give orders about harnessing the horses; and when he came in he found Darya Aleksandrovna in great disturbance, with flushed face, and tears in her eyes. During his short absence an occurrence had ruthlessly destroyed all the pleasure and pride that she took in her children. Grisha and Tania had quarreled about a ball. Darya Aleksandrovna, hearing their cries, ran to them, and found them in a frightful state. Tania was pulling her brother's hair; and he, with face distorted with rage, was pounding his sister with all his might. When Darya Aleksandrovna saw it, something seemed to snap in her heart. A black cloud, as it were, came down on her life. She saw that these children of hers, of whom she was so proud, were not only ordinary and ill-trained, but were even bad, and inclined to the most evil and tempestuous passions.
This thought troubled her so that she could not speak or think, or even explain her sorrow to Levin.
Levin saw that she was unhappy, and he did his best to comfort her, saying that this was not so very terrible, after all, and that all children quarreled; but in his heart he said, "No, I will not bother myself to speak French with my children. I shall not have such children. There is no need of spoiling them, and making them unnatural; and they will be charming. No! my children shall not be like these."
He took his leave, and rode away; and she did not try to keep him longer.