Anna Karenina - Part 3

The shooting turned out to be worse than Levin had expected. The

marsh was dry and there were no grouse at all. He walked about

the whole day and only brought back three birds, but to make up

for that--he brought back, as he always did from shooting, an

excellent appetite, excellent spirits, and that keen,

intellectual mood which with him always accompanied violent

physical exertion. And while out shooting, when he seemed to be

thinking of nothing at all, suddenly the old man and his family

kept coming back to his mind, and the impression of them seemed

to claim not merely his attention, but the solution of some

question connected with them.

In the evening at tea, two landowners who had come about some

business connected with a wardship were of the party, and the

interesting conversation Levin had been looking forward to sprang

up.

Levin was sitting beside his hostess at the tea table, and was

obliged to keep up a conversation with her and her sister, who

was sitting opposite him. Madame Sviazhskaya was a round-faced,

fair-haired, rather short woman, all smiles and dimples. Levin

tried through her to get a solution of the weighty enigma her

husband presented to his mind; but he had not complete freedom of

ideas, because he was in an agony of embarrassment. This agony

of embarrassment was due to the fact that the sister-in-law was

sitting opposite to him, in a dress, specially put on, as he

fancied, for his benefit, cut particularly open, in the shape of

a trapeze, on her white bosom. This quadrangular opening, in

spite of the bosom's being very white, or just because it was

very white, deprived Levin of the full use of his faculties. He

imagined, probably mistakenly, that this low-necked bodice had

been made on his account, and felt that he had no right to look

at it, and tried not to look at it; but he felt that he was to

blame for the very fact of the low-necked bodice having been

made. It seemed to Levin that he had deceived someone, that he

ought to explain something, but that to explain it was

impossible, and for that reason he was continually blushing, was

ill at ease and awkward. His awkwardness infected the pretty

sister-in-law too. But their hostess appeared not to observe

this, and kept purposely drawing her into the conversation.

"You say," she said, pursuing the subject that had been started,

"that my husband cannot be interested in what's Russian. It's

quite the contrary; he is always in cheerful spirits abroad, but

not as he is here. Here, he feels in his proper place. He has

so much to do, and he has the faculty of interesting himself in

everything. Oh, you've not been to see our school, have you?"