Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/232

 CHAPTER XVI

their way home, Levin questioned his friend about Kitty's illness and the plans of the Shcherbatskys. Though it caused some conscientious scruples, what he heard was pleasant news to him. It was pleasant because it left him with some grounds for hope, and it was still more pleasant to think that she who had caused him so much suffering, was suffering herself. But when Stepan Arkadyevitch began to speak of the reason of Kitty's illness, and pronounced the name of Vronsky, he interrupted him.

"I have no right to know these family matters, since I am not concerned."

Stepan Arkadyevitch smiled imperceptibly as he noticed the sudden and characteristic change in Levin, who, in an instant, had passed from gayety to sadness.

"Have you succeeded in your transaction with Rabinin about the wood?" he asked.

"Yes, I have made the bargain. He gives me an excellent price,—thirty-eight thousand rubles, eight in advance, and the rest in six years. I had been long about it; no one offered me any more."

"That means you are selling your wood for a song," said Levin, frowning.

"Why so?" said Stepan Arkadyevitch, with a good-humored smile, knowing that now Levin would totally disapprove of everything.

"Because your wood is worth at least five hundred rubles a desyatin."

"Oh! You rural economists!" replied Stepan Arkadyevitch, banteringly. "What a tone of scorn to us, your city brother! .... And yet, when it comes to business matters, we come out of it better than you do. Believe me, I have made a careful calculation. The wood is sold under very favorable conditions; and I fear only one thing, and that is lest the merchant will back out of it! You see, it is wretched wood," he went on, accenting the word wretched, so as to convince