Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/1060

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378
ANNA KARENINA

ing.[1] You'll stay with us awhile, now? We've been expecting you a long time."

"Only a fortnight. I have a great deal to do at Moscow."

At these words the two brothers looked at one another, and Levin, in spite of his usual and now especially strong desire to have friendly, and above all simple, relations with his brother, felt that it was awkward for him to look at him. He dropped his eyes and was at a loss what to say.

Trying to select some topic of conversation which would be agreeable to Sergyeï Ivanovitch, and avoiding the Serbian war and the Slavonic question, a hint at which Sergyeï Ivanovitch's remark about his occupation in Moscow gave, Levin began to talk about his brother's book.

"Well," he asked, "have there been many reviews of your book?"

Sergyeï Ivanovitch smiled at the intention of the question.

"No one thinks anything about it,—I, least of all," he said. "You see, Darya Aleksandrovna, we're going to have a shower," he added, pointing with his umbrella to the white clouds which were piling up above the aspen-tops.

It was evident by these words that the relationship between the brothers, which Levin wanted to overcome, was just the same as of old,—if not unfriendly, at least cool.

Levin approached Katavasof.

"How good it was of you to come to us!" said he.

"I have wanted to come for a long time. Now we shall have time to talk. Have you read Spencer?"

"Not thoroughly, I don't get anything out of him."

"How so? that is interesting. Why is that?"

"I have definitely made up my mind that the answers to certain questions which interest me are not to be found in him or his followers. Now ...."

But he was suddenly struck by the pleasant and

  1. Khozhyaïstvo.