Levin recalled Kitty's answer. She had said: "_No, that cannot

be_..."

"Darya Alexandrovna," he said dryly, "I appreciate your

confidence in me; I believe you are making a mistake. But

whether I am right or wrong, that pride you so despise makes any

thought of Katerina Alexandrovna out of the question for me,--

you understand, utterly out of the question."

"I will only say one thing more: you know that I am speaking of

my sister, whom I love as I love my own children. I don't say

she cared for you, all I meant to say is that her refusal at that

moment proves nothing."

"I don't know!" said Levin, jumping up. "If you only knew how

you are hurting me. It's just as if a child of yours were dead,

and they were to say to you: He would have been like this and

like that, and he might have lived, and how happy you would have

been in him. But he's dead, dead, dead!..."

"How absurd you are!" said Darya Alexandrovna, looking with

mournful tenderness at Levin's excitement. "Yes, I see it all

more and more clearly," she went on musingly. "So you won't come

to see us, then, when Kitty's here?"

"No, I shan't come. Of course I won't avoid meeting Katerina

Alexandrovna, but as far as I can, I will try to save her the

annoyance of my presence."

"You are very, very absurd," repeated Darya Alexandrovna, looking

with tenderness into his face. "Very well then, let it be as

though we had not spoken of this. What have you come for,

Tanya?" she said in French to the little girl who had come in.

"Where's my spade, mamma?"

"I speak French, and you must too."

The little girl tried to say it in French, but could not remember

the French for spade; the mother prompted her, and then told her

in French where to look for the spade. And this made a

disagreeable impression on Levin.

Everything in Darya Alexandrovna's house and children struck him

now as by no means so charming as a little while before. "And

what does she talk French with the children for?" he thought;

"how unnatural and false it is! And the children feel it so:

Learning French and unlearning sincerity," he thought to himself,

unaware that Darya Alexandrovna had thought all that over twenty

times already, and yet, even at the cost of some loss of

sincerity, believed it necessary to teach her children French in

that way.




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