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three young ladies whom he had compared to the three bears in the
English nursery tale. “Do you remember that’s what you used to call
them?”
He remembered absolutely nothing, but she had been laughing at
the joke for ten years now, and was fond of it.
“Now, go and skate, go and skate. Our Kitty has learned to skate
nicely, hasn’t she?”
When Levin darted up to Kitty her face was no longer stern; her
eyes looked at him with the same sincerity and friendliness, but Levin
fancied that in her friendliness there was a certain note of deliberate
composure. And he felt depressed. After talking a little of her old
governess and her peculiarities, she questioned him about his life.
“Surely you must be dull in the country in the winter, aren’t you?”
she said.
“No, I’m not dull, I am very busy,” he said, feeling that she was
holding him in check by her composed tone, which he would not have
the force to break through, just as it had been at the beginning of the
winter.
“Are you going to stay in town long?” Kitty questioned him.
“I don’t know,” he answered, not thinking of what he was saying.
The thought that if he were held in check by her tone of quiet friend-
liness he would end by going back again without deciding anything
came into his mind, and he resolved to make a struggle against it.
“How is it you don’t know?”
“I don’t know. It depends upon you,” he said, and was immediately
horror-stricken at his own words.
Whether it was that she had heard his words, or that she did not
want to hear them, she made a sort of stumble, twice struck out, and
hurriedly skated away from him. She skated up to Mlle. Linon, said
something to her, and went towards the pavilion where the ladies took
off their skates.
“My God! what have I done! Merciful God! help me, guide me,”
said Levin, praying inwardly, and at the same time, feeling a need of
violent exercise, he skated about describing inner and outer circles.
At that moment one of the young men, the best of the skaters of
the day, came out of the coffee-house in his skates, with a cigarette in
his mouth. Taking a run, he dashed down the steps in his skates,
crashing and bounding up and down. He flew down, and without
even changing the position of his hands, skated away over the ice.
“Ah, that’s a new trick!” said Levin, and he promptly ran up to the
top to do this new trick.
“Don’t break you neck! it needs practice!” Nikolay Shtcherbatsky
shouted after him.
Levin went to the steps, took a run from above as best he cold, and
dashed down, preserving his balance in this unwonted movement with
his hands. On the last step he stumbled, but barely touching the ice
with his hand, with a violent effort recovered himself, and skated off,
laughing.
“How splendid, how nice he is!” Kitty was thinking at that time, as
she came out of the pavilion with Mlle. Linon, and looked towards him
with a smile of quiet affection, as though he were a favorite brother.
“And can it be my fault, can I have done anything wrong? They talk of
flirtation. I know it’s not he that I love; but still I am happy with him,
and he’s so jolly. Only, why did he say that?...” she mused.
Catching sight of Kitty going away, and her mother meeting her at
the steps, Levin, flushed from his rapid exercise, stood still and pon-
dered a minute. He took off his skates, and overtook the mother and
daughter at the entrance of the gardens.