Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/1059

 "Oh, he's an awful, horrid man, who does so with his arms," said Tania, climbing up into the cart and mimicking Katavasof.

"Tell me, is he young or old?" asked Levin, laughing, reminded of some one by Tania's performance.

"Akh, I only hope he is not a bore," said Levin to himself.

As soon as they reached a turn in the road and saw the party approaching. Levin recognized Katavasof, who was in a straw hat, and gesticulating exactly as Tania had represented it.

Katavasof was very fond of talking philosophy, and his conceptions were wholly drawn from the natural sciences, which had always been his specialty; and in Moscow Levin had frequently had discussions with him.

And one of these discussions, in which Katavasof had evidently felt that he was victorious, occurred to Levin's mind as soon as he saw him.

"Henceforth," he said to himself, "I will not enter into discussions, or express myself so flippantly."

Leaping from the cart and joining Katavasof and his brother, he asked where Kitty was.

"She has taken Mitya to Kolok,"—Kolok was a piece of woodland near the house,—"she wanted to get him established there, it was so hot at the house," said Dolly.

Levin always advised his wife against taking the baby to the woods, because he felt it was dangerous; so this news was not pleasant to him.

"She carries that son of hers from one place to another," said the old prince. "I told her she'd better try the ice-house."

"She wanted to go to the beehives. She thought you were there," added Dolly. "That is where we were going."

"Well, what have you been doing that's good?" said Sergyeï Ivanovitch, dropping behind the others, and walking with his brother.

"Oh, nothing particular; as usual, busy with the farm