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and two flashes gleamed, and two gangs sounded at the very same
instant. The snipe flying high above instantly folded its wings and fell
into a thicket, bending down the delicate shoots.
“Splendid! Together!” cried Levin, and he ran with Laska into the
thicket to look for the snipe.
“Oh, yes, what was it that was unpleasant?” he wondered. “Yes,
Kitty’s ill.... Well, it can’t be helped; I’m very sorry,” he thought.
“She’s found it! Isn’t she a clever thing?” he said, taking the warm
bird from Laska’s mouth and packing it into the almost full game bag.
“I’ve got it, Stiva!” he shouted.
Chapter 16.
On the way home Levin asked all details of Kitty’s illness and the
Shtcherbatskys’ plans, and though he would have been ashamed to
admit it, he was pleased at what he heard. He was pleased that there
was still hope, and still more pleased that she should be suffering who
had made him suffer so much. But when Stepan Arkadyevitch began
to speak of the causes of Kitty’s illness, and mentioned Vronsky’s name,
Levin cut him short.
“I have no right whatever to know family matters, and, to tell the
truth, no interest in them either.”
Stepan Arkadyevitch smiled hardly perceptibly, catching the in-
stantaneous change he knew so well in Levin’s face, which had become
as gloomy as it had been bright a minute before.
“Have you quite settled about the forest with Ryabinin?” asked
Levin.
“Yes, it’s settled. The price is magnificent; thirty-eight thousand.
Eight straight away, and the rest in six years. I’ve been bothering
about it for ever so long. No one would give more.”
“Then you’ve as good as given away your forest for nothing,” said
Levin gloomily.
“How do you mean for nothing?” said Stepan Arkadyevitch with a
good-humored smile, knowing that nothing would be right in Levin’s