Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART ONE CHAPTER 9
back again without deciding anything came into his mind, and he resolved to make
a struggle against it.
“How is it you don’t know?”
“I don’t know. It depends upon you,” he said, and was immediately horrorstricken
at his own words.
Whether it was that she had heard his words, or that she did not want to hear
them, she made a sort of stumble, twice struck out, and hurriedly skated away from
him. She skated up to Mlle. Linon, said something to her, and went towards the
pavilion where the ladies took off their skates.
“My God! what have I done! Merciful God! help me, guide me,” said Levin,
praying inwardly, and at the same time, feeling a need of violent exercise, he skated
about describing inner and outer circles.
At that moment one of the young men, the best of the skaters of the day, came
out of the coffee-house in his skates, with a cigarette in his mouth. Taking a run, he
dashed down the steps in his skates, crashing and bounding up and down. He flew
down, and without even changing the position of his hands, skated away over the
ice.
“Ah, that’s a new trick!” said Levin, and he promptly ran up to the top to do this
new trick.
“Don’t break your neck! it needs practice!” Nikolay Shtcherbatsky shouted after
him.
Levin went to the steps, took a run from above as best he could, and dashed down,
preserving his balance in this unwonted movement with his hands. On the last step
he stumbled, but barely touching the ice with his hand, with a violent effort recovered
himself, and skated off, laughing.
“How splendid, how nice he is!” Kitty was thinking at that time, as she came
out of the pavilion with Mlle. Linon, and looked towards him with a smile of quiet
affection, as though he were a favorite brother. “And can it be my fault, can I have
done anything wrong? They talk of flirtation. I know it’s not he that I love; but still I
am happy with him, and he’s so jolly. Only, why did he say that?...” she mused.
Catching sight of Kitty going away, and her mother meeting her at the steps, Levin,
flushed from his rapid exercise, stood still and pondered a minute. He took off his
skates, and overtook the mother and daughter at the entrance of the gardens.
“Delighted to see you,” said Princess Shtcherbatskaya. “On Thursdays we are
home, as always.”
“Today, then?”
“We shall be pleased to see you,” the princess said stiffly.
This stiffness hurt Kitty, and she could not resist the desire to smooth over her
mother’s coldness. She turned her head, and with a smile said:
“Good-bye till this evening.”
At that moment Stepan Arkadyevitch, his hat cocked on one side, with beaming
face and eyes, strode into the garden like a conquering hero. But as he approached
his mother-in-law, he responded in a mournful and crestfallen tone to her
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