Piotr the cook,' she thought, looking at his head and red neck with a feeling of possession strange to herself. 'Though it's a pity to take him from his work (but he has plenty of time!), I must look at his face; will he feel I'm looking at him? I wish he'd turn round...I'll WILL him to!' and she opened her eyes wide, as though to intensify the influence of her gaze.
'Yes, they draw away all the sap and give a false appearance of prosperity,' he muttered, stopping to write, and, feeling that she was looking at him and smiling, he looked round.
'Well?' he queried, smiling, and getting up.
'He looked round,' she thought.
'It's nothing; I wanted you to look round,' she said, watching him, and trying to guess whether he was vexed at being interrupted or not.
'How happy we are alone together!--I am, that is,' he said, going up to her with a radiant smile of happiness.
'I'm just as happy. I'll never go anywhere, especially not to Moscow.'
'And what were you thinking about?'
'I? I was thinking.... No, no, go along, go on writing; don't break off,' she said, pursing up her lips, 'and I must cut out these little holes now, do you see?'
She took up her scissors and began cutting them out.
'No; tell me, what was it?' he said, sitting down beside her and watching the tiny scissors moving round.
'Oh! what was I thinking about? I was thinking about Moscow, about the back of your head.'
'Why should I, of all people, have such happiness! It's unnatural, too good,' he said, kissing her hand.
'I feel quite the opposite; the better things are, the more natural it seems to me.'
'And you've got a little curl loose,' he said, carefully turning her head round.
'A little curl, oh yes. No, no, we are busy at our work!'
Work did not progress further, and they darted apart from one another like culprits when Kouzma came in to announce that tea was ready.
'Have they come from the town?' Levin asked Kouzma.
'They've just come; they're unpacking the things.'
'Come quickly,' she said to him as she went out of the study, 'or else I shall read your letters without you.'
Left alone, after putting his manuscripts together in the new portfolio bought by her, he washed his hands at the new washstand with the elegant fittings, that had all made their appearance with her. Levin smiled at his own thoughts, and shook his head disapprovingly at those thoughts; a feeling akin to remorse fretted him. There was something shameful, effeminate, Capuan, as he called it to himself, in his present mode of life. 'It's not right to go on like this,' he thought. 'It'll soon be three months, and I'm doing next to nothing. Today, almost for the first time, I set to work seriously, and what happened? I did nothing but begin and throw it aside. Even my ordinary pursuits I have almost given up. On the land I scarcely walk or drive about at all to look after things. Either I am loath to leave her, or I see she's dull alone. And I used to think that, before marriage, life was nothing much, somehow didn't count, but that after marriage, life began in earnest. And here almost three months have passed, and I have spent my time so idly and unprofitably. No, this won't do; I must begin. Of course, it's not her fault. She's not to blame in any way. I ought myself to be firmer, to maintain my masculine independence of action; or else I shall get into such ways, and she'll get used to them too.... Of course she's not to blame,' he told himself.
But it is hard for anyone who is dissatisfied not to blame someone else, and especially the person nearest of all to him, for the ground of his dissatisfaction. And it vaguely came into Levin's mind that she herself was not to blame (she could not be to blame for anything), but what was to blame was her education, too superficial and frivolous. ('That fool Tcharsky: she wanted, I know, to stop him, but didn't know how to.') 'Yes, apart from her interest in the house (that she has), apart from dress and broderie anglaise, she has no serious interests. No interest in her work, in the estate, in the peasants, nor in music, though she's rather good at it, nor in reading. She does nothing, and is perfectly satisfied.' Levin, in his heart, censured this, and did not as yet understand that she was preparing for that period of activity which was to come for her when she would at once be the wife of her husband and mistress of the house, and would bear, and nurse, and bring up children. He knew not that she was instinctively aware of this, and preparing herself for this time of terrible toil, did not reproach herself for the moments of carelessness and happiness in her love that she enjoyed now while gaily building her nest for the future.
Chapter 16
When Levin went upstairs, his wife was sitting near the new silver samovar behind the new tea service, and, having settled old Agafea Mihalovna at a little table with a full cup of tea, was reading a letter from Dolly, with whom they were in continual and frequent correspondence.
'You see, your good lady's settled me here, told me to sit a bit with her,' said Agafea Mihalovna, smiling affectionately at Kitty.
In these words of Agafea Mihalovna, Levin read the final act of the drama which had been enacted of late between her and Kitty. He saw that, in spite of Agafea Mihalovna's feelings being hurt by a new mistress taking the reins of government out of her hands, Kitty had yet conquered her and made her love her.
'Here, I opened your letter too,' said Kitty, handing him an illiterate letter. 'It's from that woman, I think, your brother's...' she said. 'I did not read it through. This is from my people and from Dolly. Fancy! Dolly took Tanya and Grisha to a children's ball at the Sarmatskys': Tanya was a French marquise.'
But Levin did not hear her. Flushing, he took the letter from Marya Nikolaevna, his brother's former mistress, and began to read it. This was the second letter he had received from Marya Nikolaevna. In the first letter, Marya Nikolaevna wrote that his brother had sent her away for no fault of hers, and, with touching simplicity, added that though she was in want again, she asked for nothing, and wished for nothing, but was only tormented by the thought that Nikolay Dmitrievitch would come to grief without her, owing to the weak state of his health, and begged his brother to look after him. Now she wrote quite differently. She had found Nikolay Dmitrievitch, had again made it up with him in Moscow, and had moved with him to a provincial town, where he had received a post in the government service. But that he had quarreled with the head official, and was on his way back to Moscow, only he had been taken so ill on the road that it was doubtful if he would ever leave his bed again, she wrote. 'It's always of
