Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/934

 tions,—conversations in which he had listened, and in which he had taken part. No one of the subjects touched on would have occupied him when in the country, but here they were very interesting. And all the conversations in which he had engaged were good: only in two places they were not absolutely good,—one was his remark about the fish at the club, the other was something intangibly wrong in his feeling of tender pity for Anna.

Levin found his wife sad and absent-minded. The dinner of the three sisters had been merry; but afterward they had waited and waited for him, and the evening had seemed long to them; and now Kitty was alone.

"Well, what have you been doing?" she asked him, looking at him, as she did so, with a suspicious light in her eyes; but she took good care to conceal her intentions, so as not to prevent him from telling her the whole story, and with an encouraging smile she listened as he told her how he had spent the evening.

"Well, I met Vronsky at the club, and I am very glad of it. I felt very much at my ease with him, and enjoyed it. Of course, I shall try to avoid him, but still henceforth I shan't feel that awkwardness in his society." As he said these words, he remembered that in order not to "avoid him," he had immediately gone to Anna's house, and his face grew red. "Here we say the peasantry drink; but I don't know which drink more, the peasantry, or men in society. The peasantry drink on festival days, but...."

Kitty was not interested in the question how much the peasantry drink. She saw her husband's face grow red, and she wanted to know the reason,

"Well, where else did you go?"

"Stiva insisted on my going with him to Anna Arkadyevna's," answered he, blushing more and more, and his doubts as to the propriety of his visit to Anna were decided for him. He now knew that he ought not to have done so.

Kitty's eyes opened wide and flashed lightning at the