Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART FIVE CHAPTER 16
Chapter 16
WHEN Levin went upstairs, his wife was sitting near the new silver samovar behind
the new tea service, and, having settled old Agafea Mihalovna at a little
table with a full cup of tea, was reading a letter from Dolly, with whom they were in
continual and frequent correspondence.
“You see, your good lady’s settled me here, told me to sit a bit with her,” said
Agafea Mihalovna, smiling affectionately at Kitty.
In these words of Agafea Mihalovna, Levin read the final act of the drama which
had been enacted of late between her and Kitty. He saw that, in spite of Agafea
Mihalovna’s feelings being hurt by a new mistress taking the reins of government
out of her hands, Kitty had yet conquered her and made her love her.
“Here, I opened your letter too,” said Kitty, handing him an illiterate letter. “It’s
from that woman, I think, your brother’s...” she said. “I did not read it through.
This is from my people and from Dolly. Fancy! Dolly took Tanya and Grisha to a
children’s ball at the Sarmatskys’: Tanya was a French marquise.”
But Levin did not hear her. Flushing, he took the letter from Marya Nikolaevna,
his brother’s former mistress, and began to read it. This was the second letter he
had received from Marya Nikolaevna. In the first letter, Marya Nikolaevna wrote
that his brother had sent her away for no fault of hers, and, with touching simplicity,
added that though she was in want again, she asked for nothing, and wished for
nothing, but was only tormented by the thought that Nikolay Dmitrievitch would
come to grief without her, owing to the weak state of his health, and begged his
brother to look after him. Now she wrote quite differently. She had found Nikolay
Dmitrievitch, had again made it up with him in Moscow, and had moved with him
to a provincial town, where he had received a post in the government service. But
that he had quarreled with the head official, and was on his way back to Moscow,
only he had been taken so ill on the road that it was doubtful if he would ever leave
his bed again, she wrote. “It’s always of you he has talked, and, besides, he has no
more money left.”
“Read this; Dolly writes about you,” Kitty was beginning, with a smile; but she
stopped suddenly, noticing the changed expression on her husband’s face.
“What is it? What’s the matter?”
“She writes to me that Nikolay, my brother, is at death’s door. I shall go to him.”
Kitty’s face changed at once. Thoughts of Tanya as a marquise, of Dolly, all had
vanished.
“When are you going?” she said.
“Tomorrow.”
“And I will go with you, can I?” she said.
“Kitty! What are you thinking of?” he said reproachfully.
“How do you mean?” offended that he should seem to take her suggestion unwillingly
and with vexation. “Why shouldn’t I go? I shan’t be in your way. I...”
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