Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/646

 new measures introduced by her young mistress into the larder, he saw how wonderfully charming she was when she came to him, half laughing, half crying, to complain because her maid, Masha, insisted on treating her like a child, and no one would heed her orders. It all seemed to him charming, but strange, and he thought it would be better if it were otherwise.

He could not comprehend the sense of metamorphosis which she felt at finding herself the mistress, permitted to see to the preparation of cauliflower and kvas, or confections, to spend all the money she wanted, and to command whatever pastry she pleased, after having always had her parents to restrain her fancies.

She was now making joyful preparations for the arrival of Dolly and the children, and was thinking of the pies which she would have made for them, and how she would surprise Dolly with all her new arrangements. She herself could not have given any reasons for it, but it was a fact that the details of housekeeping had an irresistible attraction for her. She foresaw evil days to come, instinctively feeling the approach of spring; and knowing that unhappy days would also surely come, she prepared her little nest as well as she could, and made haste both to build it and to learn how to build it.

This zeal for trifles, so entirely opposed to Levin's lofty ideal of happiness, seemed to him one thing that disillusioned him; while this same activity, the meaning of which escaped him, but which he could not help loving, was one of the things that gave him new delight.

The quarrels were also a disenchantment and a charm! Never had it entered into Levin's head that between him and his wife there could be any relations other than those of gentleness, respect, tenderness; and here, even in their honeymoon, they were disputing, so that Kitty declared that he did not love her, that he was selfish, and burst into tears and wrung her hands.

The first of these little differences arose in consequence of a ride which Levin took to see a new farm; he stayed half an hour longer than he had said, having missed his way in trying to come home by a shorter