Anna Karenina - Part 1 - Page 52/119

"Oh, I should think so! I always note them all down. Well,

Kitty, have you been skating again?..."

And she began talking to Kitty. Awkward as it was for Levin to

withdraw now, it would still have been easier for him to

perpetrate this awkwardness than to remain all the evening and

see Kitty, who glanced at him now and then and avoided his eyes.

He was on the point of getting up, when the princess, noticing

that he was silent, addressed him.

"Shall you be long in Moscow? You're busy with the district

council, though, aren't you, and can't be away for long?"

"No, princess, I'm no longer a member of the council," he said.

"I have come up for a few days."

"There's something the matter with him," thought Countess

Nordston, glancing at his stern, serious face. "He isn't in his

old argumentative mood. But I'll draw him out. I do love making

a fool of him before Kitty, and I'll do it."

"Konstantin Dmitrievitch," she said to him, "do explain to me,

please, what's the meaning of it. You know all about such

things. At home in our village of Kaluga all the peasants and

all the women have drunk up all they possessed, and now they

can't pay us any rent. What's the meaning of that? You always

praise the peasants so."

At that instant another lady came into the room, and Levin got

up.

"Excuse me, countess, but I really know nothing about it, and

can't tell you anything," he said, and looked round at the

officer who came in behind the lady.

"That must be Vronsky," thought Levin, and, to be sure of it,

glanced at Kitty. She had already had time to look at Vronsky,

and looked round at Levin. And simply from the look in her eyes,

that grew unconsciously brighter, Levin knew that she loved that

man, knew it as surely as if she had told him so in words. But

what sort of a man was he? Now, whether for good or for ill,

Levin could not choose but remain; he must find out what the man

was like whom she loved.

There are people who, on meeting a successful rival, no matter in

what, are at once disposed to turn their backs on everything good

in him, and to see only what is bad. There are people, on the

other hand, who desire above all to find in that lucky rival the

qualities by which he has outstripped them, and seek with a

throbbing ache at heart only what is good. Levin belonged to the

second class. But he had no difficulty in finding what was good

and attractive in Vronsky. It was apparent at the first glance.

Vronsky was a squarely built, dark man, not very tall, with a

good-humored, handsome, and exceedingly calm and resolute face.

Everything about his face and figure, from his short-cropped

black hair and freshly shaven chin down to his loosely fitting,

brand-new uniform, was simple and at the same time elegant.

Making way for the lady who had come in, Vronsky went up to the

princess and then to Kitty.