Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART SEVEN CHAPTER 2
Chapter 2
“Go, please, go then and call on the Bols,” Kitty said to her husband, when he came
in to see her at eleven o’clock before going out. “I know you are dining at the club;
papa put down your name. But what are you going to do in the morning?”
“I am only going to Katavasov,” answered Levin.
“Why so early?”
“He promised to introduce me to Metrov. I wanted to talk to him about my work.
He’s a distinguished scientific man from Petersburg,” said Levin.
“Yes; wasn’t it his article you were praising so? Well, and after that?” said Kitty.
“I shall go to the court, perhaps, about my sister’s business.”
“And the concert?” she queried.
“I shan’t go there all alone.”
“No? do go; there are going to be some new things.... That interested you so. I
should certainly go.”
“Well, anyway, I shall come home before dinner,” he said, looking at his watch.
“Put on your frock coat, so that you can go straight to call on Countess Bola.”
“But is it absolutely necessary?”
“Oh, absolutely! He has been to see us. Come, what is it? You go in, sit down, talk
for five minutes of the weather, get up and go away.”
“Oh, you wouldn’t believe it! I’ve got so out of the way of all this that it makes me
feel positively ashamed. It’s such a horrible thing to do! A complete outsider walks
in, sits down, stays on with nothing to do, wastes their time and worries himself,
and walks away!”
Kitty laughed.
“Why, I suppose you used to pay calls before you were married, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did, but I always felt ashamed, and now I’m so out of the way of it that, by
Jove! I’d sooner go two days running without my dinner than pay this call! One’s so
ashamed! I feel all the while that they’re annoyed, that they’re saying, ‘What has he
come for?”’
“No, they won’t. I’ll answer for that,” said Kitty, looking into his face with a laugh.
She took his hand. “Well, good-bye.... Do go, please.”
He was just going out after kissing his wife’s hand, when she stopped him.
“Kostya, do you know I’ve only fifty roubles left?”
“Oh, all right, I’ll go to the bank and get some. How much?” he said, with the
expression of dissatisfaction she knew so well.
“No, wait a minute.” She held his hand. “Let’s talk about it, it worries me. I
seem to spend nothing unnecessary, but money seems to fly away simply. We don’t
manage well, somehow.”
618