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 from some unhappiness, they went with swift steps straight on, feeling that they must have a mutual explanation, and find some lonely spot where they could talk, and free themselves from this misery that was oppressing them both.

"It is impossible to live so. It is torture. I suffer. You suffer. Why is it?" she said, when at last they reached a bench standing by itself in the corner of the linden alley.

"But tell me one thing: was not his manner indecent, improper, horribly insulting?" he asked, standing in front of her in the same position, with his fists doubled up on his chest, in which he had stood before her two days before.

"It was," said she, in a trembling voice; " but, Kostia, can't you see that I am not to blame? All this morning I have been trying to act so that.... but oh, these men.... why did he come? How happy we were!" she said, choking with the sobs that shook her whole body.

The gardener saw with surprise that, though nothing was chasing them, and there was nothing to run away from, and there was nothing especially attractive about the bench where they had been sitting, yet still they went past him back to the house with peaceful, shining faces.

CHAPTER XV

soon as he had taken his wife to her room. Levin went to seek Dolly. Darya Aleksandrovna also was in a state of great excitement. She was pacing up and down her chamber, and scolding little Masha, who stood in a corner, crying.

"You shall stay all day in the corner, and eat dinner alone, and you shall not see one of your dolls, and you shall have no new dress," she was saying, though she did not know why she was punishing the child. "This is a naughty little girl," she said to Levin; "where does she get this abominable disposition?"