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ing how to begin.
“I wanted....” He paused, but suddenly, remembering Kitty and
everything that had happened, he said, looking him resolutely in the
face: “I have ordered the horses to be put-to for you.”
“How so?” Vassenka began in surprise. “To drive where?”
“For you to drive to the station,” Levin said gloomily.
“Are you going away, or has something happened?”
“It happens that I expect visitors,” said Levin, his strong fingers
more and more rapidly breaking off the ends of the split stick. “And I’m
not expecting visitors, and nothing has happened, but I beg you to go
away. You can explain my rudeness as you like.”
Vassenka drew himself up.
“I beg you to explain...” he said with dignity, understanding at last.
“I can’t explain,” Levin said softly and deliberately, trying to control
the trembling of his jaw; “and you’d better not ask.”
And as the split ends were all broken off, Levin clutched the thick
ends in his finger, broke the stick in two, and carefully caught the end
as it fell.
Probably the sight of those nervous fingers, of the muscles he had
proved that morning at gymnastics, of the glittering eyes, the soft voice,
and quivering jaws, convinced Vassenka better than any words. He
bowed, shrugging his shoulders, and smiling contemptuously.
“Can I not see Oblonsky?”
The shrug and the smile did not irritate Levin.
“What else was there for him to do?” he thought.
“I’ll send him to you at once.”
“What madness is this?” Stepan Arkadyevitch said when, after
hearing from his friend that he was being turned out of the house, he
found Levin in the garden, where he was walking about waiting for his
guest’s departure. “Mais c’est ridicule! What fly has stung you? Mais
c’est du dernier ridicule! What did you think, if a young man...”
But the place where Levin had been stung was evidently still sore,
for he turned pale again, when Stepan Arkadyevitch would have en-
larged on the reason, and he himself cut him short.
“Please don’t go into it! I can’t help it. I feel ashamed of how I’m
treating you and him. But it won’t be, I imagine, a great grief to him to
go, and his presence was distasteful to me and to my wife.”
“But it’s insulting to him! Et puis c’est ridicule.”
“And to me it’s both insulting and distressing! And I’m not at fault
in any way, and there’s no need for me to suffer.”
“Well, this I didn’t expect of you! On peut etre jaloux, mais a ce
point, c’est du dernier ridicule!”
Levin turned quickly, and walked away from him into the depths
of the avenue, and he went on walking up and down alone. Soon he
heard the rumble of the trap, and saw from behind the trees how
Vassenka, sitting in the hay (unluckily there was no seat in the trap) in
his Scotch cap, was driven along the avenue, jolting up and down over
the ruts.
“What’s this?” Levin thought, when a footman ran out of the house
and stopped the trap. It was the mechanician, whom Levin had totally
forgotten. The mechanician, bowing low, said something to Veslovsky,
then clambered into the trap, and they drove off together.
Stepan Arkadyevitch and the princess were much upset by Levin’s
action. And he himself felt not only in the highest degree ridicule, but
also utterly guilty and disgraced. But remembering what sufferings he
and his wife had been through, when he asked himself how he should
act another time, he answered that he should do just the same again.
In spite of all this, towards the end of that day, everyone except the