Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART SIX CHAPTER 15
Vassenka drew himself up.
“I beg you to explain...” he said with dignity, understanding at last.
“I can’t explain,” Levin said softly and deliberately, trying to control the trembling
of his jaw; “and you’d better not ask.”
And as the split ends were all broken off, Levin clutched the thick ends in his
finger, broke the stick in two, and carefully caught the end as it fell.
Probably the sight of those nervous fingers, of the muscles he had proved that
morning at gymnastics, of the glittering eyes, the soft voice, and quivering jaws,
convinced Vassenka better than any words. He bowed, shrugging his shoulders,
and smiling contemptuously.
“Can I not see Oblonsky?”
The shrug and the smile did not irritate Levin.
“What else was there for him to do?” he thought.
“I’ll send him to you at once.”
“What madness is this?” Stepan Arkadyevitch said when, after hearing from his
friend that he was being turned out of the house, he found Levin in the garden,
where he was walking about waiting for his guest’s departure. “Mais c’est ridicule!
What fly has stung you? Mais c’est du dernier ridicule! What did you think, if a young
man...”
But the place where Levin had been stung was evidently still sore, for he turned
pale again, when Stepan Arkadyevitch would have enlarged on the reason, and he
himself cut him short.
“Please don’t go into it! I can’t help it. I feel ashamed of how I’m treating you
and him. But it won’t be, I imagine, a great grief to him to go, and his presence was
distasteful to me and to my wife.”
“But it’s insulting to him! Et puis c’est ridicule.”
“And to me it’s both insulting and distressing! And I’m not at fault in any way,
and there’s no need for me to suffer.”
“Well, this I didn’t expect of you! On peut être jaloux, mais à ce point, c’est du dernier
ridicule!”
Levin turned quickly, and walked away from him into the depths of the avenue,
and he went on walking up and down alone. Soon he heard the rumble of the trap,
and saw from behind the trees how Vassenka, sitting in the hay (unluckily there was
no seat in the trap) in his Scotch cap, was driven along the avenue, jolting up and
down over the ruts.
“What’s this?” Levin thought, when a footman ran out of the house and stopped
the trap. It was the mechanician, whom Levin had totally forgotten. The mechanician,
bowing low, said something to Veslovsky, then clambered into the trap, and
they drove off together.
Stepan Arkadyevitch and the princess were much upset by Levin’s action. And
he himself felt not only in the highest degree ridicule, but also utterly guilty and
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