Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART THREE CHAPTER 26
Levin was sitting beside his hostess at the tea table, and was obliged to keep up a
conversation with her and her sister, who was sitting opposite him. Madame Sviazhskaya
was a round-faced, fair-haired, rather short woman, all smiles and dimples.
Levin tried through her to get a solution of the weighty enigma her husband presented
to his mind; but he had not complete freedom of ideas, because he was in an
agony of embarrassment. This agony of embarrassment was due to the fact that the
sister-in-law was sitting opposite to him, in a dress, specially put on, as he fancied,
for his benefit, cut particularly open, in the shape of a trapeze, on her white bosom.
This quadrangular opening, in spite of the bosom’s being very white, or just because
it was very white, deprived Levin of the full use of his faculties. He imagined, probably
mistakenly, that this low-necked bodice had been made on his account, and felt
that he had no right to look at it, and tried not to look at it; but he felt that he was
to blame for the very fact of the low-necked bodice having been made. It seemed to
Levin that he had deceived someone, that he ought to explain something, but that
to explain it was impossible, and for that reason he was continually blushing, was
ill at ease and awkward. His awkwardness infected the pretty sister-in-law too. But
their hostess appeared not to observe this, and kept purposely drawing her into the
conversation.
“You say,” she said, pursuing the subject that had been started, “that my husband
cannot be interested in what’s Russian. It’s quite the contrary; he is always in cheerful
spirits abroad, but not as he is here. Here, he feels in his proper place. He has so
much to do, and he has the faculty of interesting himself in everything. Oh, you’ve
not been to see our school, have you?”
“I’ve seen it.... The little house covered with ivy, isn’t it?”
“Yes; that’s Nastia’s work,” she said, indicating her sister.
“You teach in it yourself?” asked Levin, trying to look above the open neck, but
feeling that wherever he looked in that direction he should see it.
“Yes; I used to teach in it myself, and do teach still, but we have a first-rate
schoolmistress now. And we’ve started gymnastic exercises.”
“No, thank you, I won’t have any more tea,” said Levin, and conscious of doing a
rude thing, but incapable of continuing the conversation, he got up, blushing. “I hear
a very interesting conversation,” he added, and walked to the other end of the table,
where Sviazhsky was sitting with the two gentlemen of the neighborhood. Sviazhsky
was sitting sideways, with one elbow on the table, and a cup in one hand, while
with the other hand he gathered up his beard, held it to his nose and let it drop again,
as though he were smelling it. His brilliant black eyes were looking straight at the excited
country gentleman with gray whiskers, and apparently he derived amusement
from his remarks. The gentleman was complaining of the peasants. It was evident to
Levin that Sviazhsky knew an answer to this gentleman’s complaints, which would
at once demolish his whole contention, but that in his position he could not give utterance
to this answer, and listened, not without pleasure, to the landowner’s comic
speeches.
The gentleman with the gray whiskers was obviously an inveterate adherent of
serfdom and a devoted agriculturist, who had lived all his life in the country. Levin
saw proofs of this in his dress, in the old-fashioned threadbare coat, obviously not
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