During the time of the children's tea the grown-up people sat in
the balcony and talked as though nothing had happened, though
they all, especially Sergey Ivanovitch and Varenka, were very
well aware that there had happened an event which, though
negative, was of very great importance. They both had the same
feeling, rather like that of a schoolboy after an examination,
which has left him in the same class or shut him out of the
school forever. Everyone present, feeling too that something
had happened, talked eagerly about extraneous subjects. Levin
and Kitty were particularly happy and conscious of their love
that evening. And their happiness in their love seemed to imply
a disagreeable slur on those who would have liked to feel the
same and could not--and they felt a prick of conscience.
"Mark my words, Alexander will not come," said the old princess.
That evening they were expecting Stepan Arkadyevitch to come down
by train, and the old prince had written that possibly he might
come too.
"And I know why," the princess went on; "he says that young
people ought to be left alone for a while at first."
"But papa has left us alone. We've never seen him," said Kitty.
"Besides, we're not young people!--we're old, married people by
now."
"Only if he doesn't come, I shall say good-bye to you children,"
said the princess, sighing mournfully.
"What nonsense, mamma!" both the daughters fell upon her at once.
"How do you suppose he is feeling? Why, now..."
And suddenly there was an unexpected quiver in the princess's
voice. Her daughters were silent, and looked at one another.
"Maman always finds something to be miserable about," they said
in that glance. They did not know that happy as the princess was
in her daughter's house, and useful as she felt herself to be
there, she had been extremely miserable, both on her own account
and her husband's, ever since they had married their last and
favorite daughter, and the old home had been left empty.
"What is it, Agafea Mihalovna?" Kitty asked suddenly of Agafea
Mihalovna, who was standing with a mysterious air, and a face
full of meaning.
"About supper."
"Well, that's right," said Dolly; "you go and arrange about it,
and I'll go and hear Grisha repeat his lesson, or else he will
have nothing done all day."
"That's my lesson! No, Dolly, I'm going," said Levin, jumping
up.
Grisha, who was by now at a high school, had to go over the
lessons of the term in the summer holidays. Darya Alexandrovna,
who had been studying Latin with her son in Moscow before, had
made it a rule on coming to the Levins' to go over with him, at
least once a day, the most difficult lessons of Latin and
arithmetic. Levin had offered to take her place, but the mother,
having once overheard Levin's lesson, and noticing that it was
not given exactly as the teacher in Moscow had given it, said
resolutely, though with much embarrassment and anxiety not to
mortify Levin, that they must keep strictly to the book as the
teacher had done, and that she had better undertake it again
herself. Levin was amazed both at Stepan Arkadyevitch, who, by
neglecting his duty, threw upon the mother the supervision of
studies of which she had no comprehension, and at the teachers
for teaching the children so badly. But he promised his
sister-in-law to give the lessons exactly as she wished. And he
went on teaching Grisha, not in his own way, but by the book, and
so took little interest in it, and often forgot the hour of the
lesson. So it had been today.