Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/239

 "Certainly; if you have not counted them, Rabinin did, and his children will have the means whereby to live and get an education, whereas yours, perhaps, will not."

"Well, forgive me, but there is something pitiful in such minute calculations. We have our ways of doing things, and they have theirs; and let them get the profits. There now! Moreover, it is done, and that's the end of it. .... And here is my favorite omelette coming in; and then Agafya Mikhaïlovna will certainly give us a glass of her marvelous herb-beer." ....

Stepan Arkadyevitch sat down at the table and began to joke with Agafya Mikhaïlovna, assuring her that he had not eaten such a dinner and such a supper for an age.

"You can give fine speeches, at least," said Agafya Mikhaïlovna. "But Konstantin Dmitritch, whatever was set before him, if only a crust of bread, would eat it and go away."

Levin, in spite of his efforts to control himself, was melancholy and gloomy. He wanted to ask Stepan Arkadyevitch one question, but he could not make up his mind, nor could he find either the opportunity in which to ask it, or a suitable form in which to couch it.

Stepan Arkadyevitch had gone down to his room, and, after another bath, had put on a ruffled night-shirt and gone to bed. Levin still dallied in his room, talking about various trifles, but not having the courage to ask what he had at heart.

"How wonderfully well this is made!" said he, taking from its wrapper a piece of perfumed soap, which Agafya Mikhaïlovna had prepared for the guest, but which Oblonsky had not used. "Just look; isn't it truly a work of art?"

"Yes; all sorts of improvements nowadays," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, with a beatific yawn. "The theaters, for example, and—a—a—a"—yawning again—"these amusing a-a-a .... and electric lights everywhere a-a-a-a-a .... "

"Yes, the electric lights," repeated Levin. "And