Anna Karenina

‘A nice man, a dear man,’ Kitty thought just then, coming out of the shed with Mlle Linon and looking at him with a smile of gentle tenderness, as at a beloved brother. ‘And can it be I’m to blame, can it be I did something bad? Coquettishness, they say. I know it’s not him I love; but even so, it’s fun to be with him, and he’s so nice. Only why did he say that?...’ she thought.

When he saw Kitty leaving and her mother meeting her on the steps, Levin, flushed after such quick movement, stopped and considered. He took off his skates and caught up with the mother and daughter at the exit from the garden.

‘Very glad to see you,’ said the princess. ‘We receive on Thursdays, as usual.’

‘Today, then?’

‘We shall be very glad to see you,’ the princess said drily.

This dryness upset Kitty, and she could not hold back the wish to smooth over her mother’s coldness. She turned her head and said with a smile:

‘See you soon.’

At that moment Stepan Arkadyich, his hat cocked, his face and eyes shining, came into the garden with a merrily triumphant look. But, coming up to his mother-in-law, he answered her questions about Dolly’s health with a mournful, guilty face. Having spoken softly and glumly with her, he straightened up and took Levin’s arm.

‘Well, then, shall we go?’ he asked. ‘I kept thinking about you, and I’m very, very glad you’ve come,’ he said, looking into his eyes with a significant air.

‘Let’s go, let’s go,’ replied the happy Levin, still hearing the sound of the voice saying ‘See you soon’ and picturing the smile with which it had been said.

‘To the Anglia or the Hermitage?’

‘It makes no difference to me.’

‘To the Anglia, then,’ said Stepan Arkadyich, choosing the Anglia because he owed more in the Anglia than in the Hermitage. He therefore considered it not nice to avoid that hotel. ‘Do you have a cab? Excellent, because I dismissed my carriage.’

The friends were silent all the way. Levin thought about the meaning of that change in Kitty’s face, and first assured himself that there was hope, then fell into despair and saw clearly that his hope was mad, and yet he felt himself quite a different man, not like the one he had been before her smile and the words: ‘See you soon’.

Stepan Arkadyich devised the dinner menu on the way.

‘You do like turbot?’ he said to Levin, as they drove up.

‘What?’ asked Levin. ‘Turbot? Yes, I’m terribly fond of turbot.’

X

As Levin entered the hotel with Oblonsky, he could not help noticing a certain special expression, as if of restrained radiance, on the face and in the whole figure of Stepan Arkadyich. Oblonsky took off his coat and with his hat cocked passed into the restaurant, giving orders to the Tartars¹⁶ in tailcoats who clung to him, napkins over their arms. Bowing right and left to the joyful greetings of acquaintances who turned up there, as everywhere, he went to the bar, followed his glass of vodka with a bit of fish, and said something to the painted Frenchwoman in ribbons, lace and ringlets who was sitting at the counter, so that even this Frenchwoman burst into genuine laughter. Levin did not drink vodka, if only because this Frenchwoman, who seemed to consist entirely of other people’s hair, poudre de riz and vinaigre de toilette,^b was offensive to him. He hastened to step away from her as from a dirty spot. His whole soul was overflowing with the remembrance of Kitty, and in his eyes shone a smile of triumph and happiness.

‘This way, your highness, if you please, you will not be disturbed here, your highness,’ said a particularly clinging, blanched old Tartar with broad hips over which the tails of his coat parted. ‘Your hat please, your highness,’ he said to Levin, courting the guest as a token of respect for Stepan Arkadyich.

Instantly spreading a fresh tablecloth on a round table, already covered with a tablecloth, under a bronze lamp-bracket, he drew out the velvet chairs and stood before Stepan Arkadyich, napkin and menu in hand, awaiting orders.

‘If you prefer, your highness, a private room will presently be vacated: Prince Golitsyn and a lady. Fresh oysters have come in.’

‘Ah, oysters!’

Stepan Arkadyich fell to thinking.

‘Shouldn’t we change our plan, Levin?’ he said, his finger pausing on the menu. And his face showed serious perplexity. ‘Are they good oysters? Mind yourself!’

‘Flensburg, your highness, we have no Ostend oysters.’

‘Flensburg, yes, but are they fresh?’

‘Came in yesterday, sir.’

‘In that case, shouldn’t we begin with oysters, and then change the whole plan? Eh?’

‘It makes no difference to me. I like shchi and kasha best,¹⁷ but they won’t have that here.’

‘Kasha a la Russe, if you please?’ the Tartar said, bending over Levin like a nanny over a child.

‘No, joking aside, whatever you choose will be fine. I did some skating and I’m hungry. And don’t think,’ he added, noticing the displeased expression on Oblonsky’s face, ‘that I won’t appreciate your choice. I’ll enjoy a good meal.’