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Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

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PART SIX CHAPTER 15<br />

“No, no, I’ll do it myself.”<br />

“But you’ll quarrel with him?”<br />

“Not a bit. I shall so enjoy it,” Levin said, his eyes flashing with real enjoyment.<br />

“Come, forgive her, Dolly, she won’t do it again,” he said of the little sinner, who<br />

had not gone to Fanny, but was standing irresolutely before her mother, waiting and<br />

looking up from under her brows to catch her mother’s eye.<br />

The mother glanced at her. The child broke into sobs, hid her face on her mother’s<br />

lap, and Dolly laid her thin, tender hand on her head.<br />

“And what is there in common between us and him?” thought Levin, and he went<br />

off to look for Veslovsky.<br />

As he passed through the passage he gave orders for the carriage to be got ready<br />

to drive to the station.<br />

“The spring was broken yesterday,” said the footman.<br />

“Well, the covered trap, then, and make haste. Where’s the visitor?”<br />

“The gentleman’s gone to his room.”<br />

Levin came upon Veslovsky at the moment when the latter, having unpacked his<br />

things from his trunk, and laid out some new songs, was putting on his gaiters to go<br />

out riding.<br />

Whether there was something exceptional in Levin’s face, or that Vassenka was<br />

himself conscious that ce petit brin de cour he was making was out of place in this<br />

family, but he was somewhat (as much as a young man in society can be) disconcerted<br />

at Levin’s entrance.<br />

“You ride in gaiters?”<br />

“Yes, it’s much cleaner,” said Vassenka, putting his fat leg on a chair, fastening the<br />

bottom hook, and smiling with simple-hearted good humor.<br />

He was undoubtedly a good-natured fellow, and Levin felt sorry for him and<br />

ashamed of himself, as his host, when he saw the shy look on Vassenka’s face.<br />

On the table lay a piece of stick which they had broken together that morning,<br />

trying their strength. Levin took the fragment in his hands and began smashing it<br />

up, breaking bits off the stick, not knowing how to begin.<br />

“I wanted....” He paused, but suddenly, remembering Kitty and everything that<br />

had happened, he said, looking him resolutely in the face: “I have ordered the horses<br />

to be put-to for you.”<br />

“How so?” Vassenka began in surprise. “To drive where?”<br />

“For you to drive to the station,” Levin said gloomily.<br />

“Are you going away, or has something happened?”<br />

“It happens that I expect visitors,” said Levin, his strong fingers more and more<br />

rapidly breaking off the ends of the split stick. “And I’m not expecting visitors, and<br />

nothing has happened, but I beg you to go away. You can explain my rudeness as<br />

you like.”<br />

554

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