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understand....”
“No; this is awful! To be such a slave!” cried Levin, getting up, and
unable to restrain his anger any longer. But at the same second he felt
that he was beating himself.
“Then why did you marry? You could have been free. Why did
you, if you regret it?” she said, getting up and running away into the
drawing room.
When he went to her, she was sobbing.
He began to speak, trying to find words not to dissuade but simply
to soothe her. But she did not heed him, and would not agree to
anything. He bent down to her and took her hand, which resisted him.
He kissed her hand, kissed her hair, kissed her hand again—still she
was silent. But when he took her face in both his hands and said
“Kitty!” she suddenly recovered herself, and began to cry, and they
were reconciled.
It was decided that they should go together the next day. Levin
told his wife that he believed she wanted to go simply in order to be of
use, agreed that Marya Nikolaevna’s being with his brother did not
make her going improper, but he set off at the bottom of his heart
dissatisfied both with her and with himself. He was dissatisfied with
her for being unable to make up her mind to let him go when it was
necessary (and how strange it was for him to think that he, so lately
hardly daring to believe in such happiness as that she could love him—
now was unhappy because she loved him too much!), and he was
dissatisfied with himself for not showing more strength of will. Even
greater was the feeling of disagreement at the bottom of his heart as to
her not needing to consider the woman who was with his brother, and
he thought with horror of all the contingencies they might meet with.
The mere idea of his wife, his Kitty, being in the same room with a
common wench, set him shuddering with horror and loathing.
Chapter 17.
The hotel of the provincial town where Nikolay Levin was lying ill
was one of those provincial hotels which are constructed on the newest
model of modern improvements, with the best intentions of cleanli-
ness, comfort, and even elegance, but owing to the public that patron-
izes them, are with astounding rapidity transformed into filthy taverns
with a pretension of modern improvement that only makes them worse
than the old-fashioned, honestly filthy hotels. This hotel had already
reached that stage, and the soldier in a filthy uniform smoking in the
entry, supposed to stand for a hall-porter, and the cast-iron, slippery,
dark, and disagreeable staircase, and the free and easy waiter in a filthy
frock coat, and the common dining room with a dusty bouquet of wax
flowers adorning the table, and filth, dust, and disorder everywhere,
and at the same time the sort of modern up-to-date self-complacent
railway uneasiness of this hotel, aroused a most painful feeling in Levin
after their fresh young life, especially because the impression of falsity
made by the hotel was so out of keeping with what awaited them.
As is invariably the case, after they had been asked at what price
they wanted rooms, it appeared that there was not one decent room for
them; one decent room had been taken by the inspector of railroads,
another by a lawyer from Moscow, a third by Princess Astafieva from
the country. There remained only one filthy room, next to which they