48 49
meaning to come and see you,” he said; and then, recollecting with
what intention he was trying to see her, he was promptly overcome
with confusion and blushed.
“I didn’t know you could skate, and skate so well.”
She looked at him earnestly, as though wishing to make out the
cause of his confusion.
“Your praise is worth having. The tradition is kept up here that you
are the best of skaters,” she said, with her little black-gloved hand
brushing a grain of hoarfrost off her muff.
“Yes, I used once to skate with passion; I wanted to reach perfec-
tion.”
“You do everything with passion, I think,’ she said smiling. “I
should so like to see how you skate. Put on skates, and let us skate
together.”
“Skate together! Can that be possible?” thought Levin, gazing at
her.
“I’ll put them on directly,” he said.
And he went off to get skates.
“It’s a long while since we’ve seen you here, sir,” said the attendant,
supporting his foot, and screwing on the heel of the skate. “Except you,
there’s none of the gentlemen first-rate skaters. Will that be all right?”
said he, tightening the strap.
“Oh, yes, yes; make haste, please,” answered Levin, with difficulty
restraining the smile of rapture which would overspread his face. “Yes,”
he thought, “this now is life, this is happiness! Together, she said; let us
skate together! Speak to her now? But that’s just why I’m afraid to
speak—because I’m happy now, happy in hope, anyway.... And then?....
But I must! I must! I must! Away with weakness!”
Levin rose to his feet, took off his overcoat, and scurrying over the
rough ice round the hut, came out on the smooth ice and skated with-
out effort, as it were, by simple exercise of will, increasing and slacken-
ing speed and turning his course. He approached with timidity, but
again her smile reassured him.
She gave him her hand, and they set off side by side, going faster
and faster, and the more rapidly they moved the more tightly she
grasped his hand.
“With you I should soon learn; I somehow feel confidence in you,”
she said to him.
“And I have confidence in myself when you are leaning on me,” he
said, but was at once panic-stricken at what he had said, and blushed.
And indeed, no sooner had he uttered these words, when all at once,
like the sun going behind a cloud, her face lost all its friendliness, and
Levin detected the familiar change in her expression that denoted the
working of thought; a crease showed on her smooth brow.
“Is there anything troubling you?—though I’ve no right to ask such
a question,” he added hurriedly.
“Oh, why so?.... No, I have nothing to trouble me,” she responded
coldly; and she added immediately: “You haven’t seen Mlle. Linon,
have you?”
“Not yet.”
“Go and speak to her, she likes you so much.”
“What’s wrong? I have offended her. Lord help me!” thought
Levin, and he flew towards the old Frenchwoman with the gray ring-
lets, who was sitting on a bench. Smiling and showing her false teeth,
she greeted him as an old friend.
“Yes, you see we’re growing up,” she said to him, glancing towards
Kitty, “and growing old. Tiny bear has grown big now!” pursued the
Frenchwoman, laughing, and she reminded him of his joke about the