Chapter I
Darya Alexandrovna spent the summer with
her children at Pokrovskoe, at her sister Kitty Levin’s. The house
on her own estate was quite in ruins, and Levin and his wife had
persuaded her to spend the summer with them. Stepan Arkadyevitch
greatly approved of the arrangement. He said he was very sorry his
official duties prevented him from spending the summer in the
country with his family, which would have been the greatest
happiness for him; and remaining in Moscow, he came down to the
country from time to time for a day or two. Besides the Oblonskys,
with all their children and their governess, the old princess too
came to stay that summer with the Levins, as she considered it her
duty to watch over her inexperienced daughter in her interesting
condition. Moreover, Varenka, Kitty’s friend abroad, kept her
promise to come to Kitty when she was married, and stayed with her
friend. All of these were friends or relations of Levin’s wife. And
though he liked them all, he rather regretted his own Levin world
and ways, which was smothered by this influx of the “Shtcherbatsky
element,” as he called it to himself. Of his own relations there
stayed with him only Sergey Ivanovitch, but he too was a man of the
Koznishev and not the Levin stamp, so that the Levin spirit was
utterly obliterated.
In the Levins’ house, so long deserted, there were
now so many people that almost all the rooms were occupied, and
almost every day it happened that the old princess, sitting down to
table, counted them all over, and put the thirteenth grandson or
granddaughter at a separate table. And Kitty, with her careful
housekeeping, had no little trouble to get all the chickens,
turkeys, and geese, of which so many were needed to satisfy the
summer appetites of the visitors and children.
The whole family were sitting at dinner. Dolly’s
children, with their governess and Varenka, were making plans for
going to look for mushrooms. Sergey Ivanovitch, who was looked up
to by all the party for his intellect and learning, with a respect
that almost amounted to awe, surprised every one by joining in the
conversation about mushrooms.
“Take me with you. I am very fond of picking
mushrooms,” he said, looking at Varenka; “I think it’s a very nice
occupation.”
“Oh, we shall be delighted,” answered Varenka,
coloring a little. Kitty exchanged meaningful glances with Dolly.
The proposal of the learned and intellectual Sergey Ivanovitch to
go looking for mushrooms with Varenka confirmed certain theories of
Kitty’s with which her mind had been very busy of late. She made
haste to address some remark to her mother, so that her look should
not be noticed. After dinner Sergey Ivanovitch sat with his cup of
coffee at the drawing-room window, and while he took part in a
conversation he had begun with his brother, he watched the door
through which the children would start on the mushroom-picking
expedition. Levin was sitting in the window near his brother.
Kitty stood beside her husband, evidently awaiting
the end of a conversation that had no interest for her, in order to
tell him something.
“You have changed in many respects since your
marriage, and for the better,” said Sergey Ivanovitch, smiling to
Kitty, and obviously little interested in the conversation, “but
you have remained true to your passion for defending the most
paradoxical theories.”
“Katya, it’s not good for you to stand,” her
husband said to her, putting a chair for her and looking
significantly at her.
“Oh, and there’s no time either,” added Sergey
Ivanovitch, seeing the children running out.
At the head of them all Tanya galloped sideways, in
her tightly-drawn stockings, and waving a basket and Sergey
Ivanovitch’s hat, she ran straight up to him.
Boldly running up to Sergey Ivanovitch with shining
eyes, so like her father’s fine eyes, she handed him his hat and
made as though she would put it on for him, softening her freedom
by a shy and friendly smile.
“Varenka’s waiting,” she said, carefully putting
his hat on, seeing from Sergey Ivanovitch’s smile that she might do
so.
Varenka was standing at the door, dressed in a
yellow print gown, with a white kerchief on her head.
“I’m coming, I’m coming, Varvara Andreevna,” said
Sergey Ivanovitch, finishing his cup of coffee, and putting into
their separate pockets his handkerchief and cigar-case.
“And how sweet my Varenka is! eh?” said Kitty to
her husband, as soon as Sergey Ivanovitch rose. She spoke so that
Sergey Ivanovitch could hear, and it was clear that she meant him
to do so. “And how good-looking she is—such a refined beauty!
Varenka!” Kitty shouted. “Shall you be in the mill copse? We’ll
come out to you.”
“You certainly forget your condition, Kitty,” said
the old princess, hurriedly coming out at the door. “You mustn’t
shout like that.”
Varenka, hearing Kitty’s voice and her mother’s
reprimand, went with light, rapid steps up to Kitty. The rapidity
of her movement, her flushed and eager face, everything betrayed
that something out of the common was going on in her. Kitty knew
what this was, and had been watching her intently. She called
Varenka at that moment merely in order mentally to give her a
blessing for the important event which, as Kitty fancied, was bound
to come to pass that day after dinner in the wood.
“Varenka, I should be very happy if a certain
something were to happen,” she whispered as she kissed her.
“And are you coming with us?” Varenka said to Levin
in confusion, pretending not to have heard what had been
said.
“I am coming, but only as far as the
threshing-floor, and there I shall stop.”
“Why, what do you want there?” said Kitty.
“I must go to have a look at the new wagons, and to
check the invoice,” said Levin; “and where will you be?”
“On the terrace.”