Anna Karenina - Part 7

She had risen to meet him, not concealing her pleasure at seeing

him; and in the quiet ease with which she held out her little

vigorous hand, introduced him to Vorkuev and indicated a

red-haired, pretty little girl who was sitting at work, calling

her her pupil, Levin recognized and liked the manners of a woman

of the great world, always self-possessed and natural.

"I am delighted, delighted," she repeated, and on her lips these

simple words took for Levin's ears a special significance. "I

have known you and liked you for a long while, both from your

friendship with Stiva and for your wife's sake.... I knew her

for a very short time, but she left on me the impression of an

exquisite flower, simply a flower. And to think she will soon be

a mother!"

She spoke easily and without haste, looking now and then from

Levin to her brother, and Levin felt that the impression he was

making was good, and he felt immediately at home, simple and

happy with her, as though he had known her from childhood.

"Ivan Petrovitch and I settled in Alexey's study," she said in

answer to Stepan Arkadyevitch's question whether he might smoke,

"just so as to be able to smoke"--and glancing at Levin, instead

of asking whether he would smoke, she pulled closer a

tortoise-shell cigar-case and took a cigarette.

"How are you feeling today?" her brother asked her.

"Oh, nothing. Nerves, as usual."

"Yes, isn't it extraordinarily fine?" said Stepan Arkadyevitch,

noticing that Levin was scrutinizing the picture.

"I have never seen a better portrait."

"And extraordinarily like, isn't it?" said Vorkuev.

Levin looked from the portrait to the original. A peculiar

brilliance lighted up Anna's face when she felt his eyes on her.

Levin flushed, and to cover his confusion would have asked

whether she had seen Darya Alexandrovna lately; but at that

moment Anna spoke. "We were just talking, Ivan Petrovitch and I,

of Vashtchenkov's last pictures. Have you seen them?"

"Yes, I have seen them," answered Levin.

"But, I beg your pardon, I interrupted you...you were saying?..."

Levin asked if she had seen Dolly lately.

"She was here yesterday. She was very indignant with the high

school people on Grisha's account. The Latin teacher, it seems,

had been unfair to him."

"Yes, I have seen his pictures. I didn't care for them very

much," Levin went back to the subject she had started.

Levin talked now not at all with that purely businesslike

attitude to the subject with which he had been talking all the

morning. Every word in his conversation with her had a special

significance. And talking to her was pleasant; still pleasanter

it was to listen to her.