Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART SIX CHAPTER 8
shoot well that day himself. Not to disgrace himself before a new spectator–not to
be outdone by Oblonsky–that too was a thought that crossed his brain.
Oblonsky was feeling the same, and he too was not talkative. Vassenka Veslovsky
kept up alone a ceaseless flow of cheerful chatter. As he listened to him now, Levin
felt ashamed to think how unfair he had been to him the day before. Vassenka was
really a nice fellow, simple, good-hearted, and very good-humored. If Levin had met
him before he was married, he would have made friends with him. Levin rather disliked
his holiday attitude to life and a sort of free and easy assumption of elegance. It
was as though he assumed a high degree of importance in himself that could not be
disputed, because he had long nails and a stylish cap, and everything else to correspond;
but this could be forgiven for the sake of his good nature and good breeding.
Levin liked him for his good education, for speaking French and English with such
an excellent accent, and for being a man of his world.
Vassenka was extremely delighted with the left horse, a horse of the Don Steppes.
He kept praising him enthusiastically. “How fine it must be galloping over the
steppes on a steppe horse! Eh? isn’t it?” he said. He had imagined riding on a
steppe horse as something wild and romantic, and it turned out nothing of the sort.
But his simplicity, particularly in conjunction with his good looks, his amiable smile,
and the grace of his movements, was very attractive. Either because his nature was
sympathetic to Levin, or because Levin was trying to atone for his sins of the previous
evening by seeing nothing but what was good in him, anyway he liked his
society.
After they had driven over two miles from home, Veslovsky all at once felt for a
cigar and his pocketbook, and did not know whether he had lost them or left them
on the table. In the pocketbook there were thirty-seven pounds, and so the matter
could not be left in uncertainty.
“Do you know what, Levin, I’ll gallop home on that left trace-horse. That will be
splendid. Eh?” he said, preparing to get out.
“No, why should you?” answered Levin, calculating that Vassenka could hardly
weigh less than seventeen stone. “I’ll send the coachman.”
The coachman rode back on the trace-horse, and Levin himself drove the remaining
pair.
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