"What do you say, shall we go and look for mushrooms today?" said
Dolly.
"By all means, please, and I shall come too," said Kitty, and she
blushed. She wanted from politeness to ask Vassenka whether he
would come, and she did not ask him. "Where are you going,
Kostya?" she asked her husband with a guilty face, as he passed
by her with a resolute step. This guilty air confirmed all his
suspicions.
"The mechanician came when I was away; I haven't seen him yet,"
he said, not looking at her.
He went downstairs, but before he had time to leave his study he
heard his wife's familiar footsteps running with reckless speed
to him.
"What do you want?" he said to her shortly. "We are busy."
"I beg your pardon," she said to the German mechanician; "I want
a few words with my husband."
The German would have left the room, but Levin said to him: "Don't disturb yourself."
"The train is at three?" queried the German. "I mustn't be
late."
Levin did not answer him, but walked out himself with his wife.
"Well, what have you to say to me?" he said to her in French.
He did not look her in the face, and did not care to see that she
in her condition was trembling all over, and had a piteous,
crushed look.
"I...I want to say that we can't go on like this; that this
is misery..." she said.
"The servants are here at the sideboard," he said angrily; "don't
make a scene."
"Well, let's go in here!"
They were standing in the passage. Kitty would have gone into
the next room, but there the English governess was giving Tanya a
lesson.
"Well, come into the garden."
In the garden they came upon a peasant weeding the path. And no
longer considering that the peasant could see her tear-stained
and his agitated face, that they looked like people fleeing from
some disaster, they went on with rapid steps, feeling that they
must speak out and clear up misunderstandings, must be alone
together, and so get rid of the misery they were both feeling.
"We can't go on like this! It's misery! I am wretched; you are
wretched. What for?" she said, when they had at last reached a
solitary garden seat at a turn in the lime tree avenue.
"But tell me one thing: was there in his tone anything unseemly,
not nice, humiliatingly horrible?" he said, standing before her
again in the same position with his clenched fists on his chest,
as he had stood before her that night.