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Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

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PART SIX CHAPTER 11<br />

Levin was so hurt that he said, in a tone of vexation, “You might have left me<br />

something!” and he felt ready to cry.<br />

“Then put away the game,” he said in a shaking voice to Philip, trying not to look<br />

at Vassenka, “and cover them with some nettles. And you might at least ask for some<br />

milk for me.”<br />

But when he had drunk some milk, he felt ashamed immediately at having shown<br />

his annoyance to a stranger, and he began to laugh at his hungry mortification.<br />

In the evening they went shooting again, and Veslovsky had several successful<br />

shots, and in the night they drove home.<br />

Their homeward journey was as lively as their drive out had been. Veslovsky sang<br />

songs and related with enjoyment his adventures with the peasants, who had regaled<br />

him with vodka, and said to him, “Excuse our homely ways,” and his night’s adventures<br />

with kiss-in-the-ring and the servant-girl and the peasant, who had asked him<br />

was he married, and on learning that he was not, said to him, “Well, mind you don’t<br />

run after other men’s wives–you’d better get one of your own.” These words had<br />

particularly amused Veslovsky.<br />

“Altogether, I’ve enjoyed our outing awfully. And you, Levin?”<br />

“I have, very much,” Levin said quite sincerely. It was particularly delightful to<br />

him to have got rid of the hostility he had been feeling towards Vassenka Veslovsky<br />

at home, and to feel instead the most friendly disposition to him.<br />

Chapter 14<br />

Next day at ten o’clock Levin, who had already gone his rounds, knocked at the<br />

room where Vassenka had been put for the night.<br />

“Entrez!” Veslovsky called to him. “Excuse me, I’ve only just finished my ablutions,”<br />

he said, smiling, standing before him in his underclothes only.<br />

“Don’t mind me, please.” Levin sat down in the window. “Have you slept well?”<br />

“Like the dead. What sort of day is it for shooting?”<br />

“What will you take, tea or coffee?”<br />

“Neither. I’ll wait till lunch. I’m really ashamed. I suppose the ladies are down?<br />

A walk now would be capital. You show me your horses.”<br />

After walking about the garden, visiting the stable, and even doing some gymnastic<br />

exercises together on the parallel bars, Levin returned to the house with his guest,<br />

and went with him into the drawing room.<br />

“We had splendid shooting, and so many delightful experiences!” said Veslovsky,<br />

going up to Kitty, who was sitting at the samovar. “What a pity ladies are cut off<br />

from these delights!”<br />

“Well, I suppose he must say something to the lady of the house,” Levin said to<br />

himself. Again he fancied something in the smile, in the all-conquering air with<br />

which their guest addressed Kitty....<br />

The princess, sitting on the other side of the table with Marya Vlasyevna and<br />

Stepan Arkadyevitch, called Levin to her side, and began to talk to him about moving<br />

to Moscow for Kitty’s confinement, and getting ready rooms for them. Just as<br />

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