Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART SIX
Chapter 1
DARYA Alexandrovna spent the summer with her children at Pokrovskoe, at her
sister Kitty Levin’s. The house on her own estate was quite in ruins, and Levin
and his wife had persuaded her to spend the summer with them. Stepan Arkadyevitch
greatly approved of the arrangement. He said he was very sorry his official duties
prevented him from spending the summer in the country with his family, which
would have been the greatest happiness for him; and remaining in Moscow, he came
down to the country from time to time for a day or two. Besides the Oblonskys, with
all their children and their governess, the old princess too came to stay that summer
with the Levins, as she considered it her duty to watch over her inexperienced
daughter in her interesting condition. Moreover, Varenka, Kitty’s friend abroad, kept
her promise to come to Kitty when she was married, and stayed with her friend. All
of these were friends or relations of Levin’s wife. And though he liked them all, he
rather regretted his own Levin world and ways, which was smothered by this influx
of the “Shtcherbatsky element,” as he called it to himself. Of his own relations there
stayed with him only Sergey Ivanovitch, but he too was a man of the Koznishev and
not the Levin stamp, so that the Levin spirit was utterly obliterated.
In the Levins’ house, so long deserted, there were now so many people that almost
all the rooms were occupied, and almost every day it happened that the old princess,
sitting down to table, counted them all over, and put the thirteenth grandson or
granddaughter at a separate table. And Kitty, with her careful housekeeping, had
no little trouble to get all the chickens, turkeys, and geese, of which so many were
needed to satisfy the summer appetites of the visitors and children.
The whole family were sitting at dinner. Dolly’s children, with their governess and
Varenka, were making plans for going to look for mushrooms. Sergey Ivanovitch,
who was looked up to by all the party for his intellect and learning, with a respect
that almost amounted to awe, surprised everyone by joining in the conversation
about mushrooms.
“Take me with you. I am very fond of picking mushrooms,” he said, looking at
Varenka; “I think it’s a very nice occupation.”
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