(^12661267)
did not call him.
He was glad of a chance to be alone to recover from the influence
of ordinary actual life, which had already depressed his happy mood.
He thought that he had already had time to lose his temper with Ivan,
to show coolness to his brother, and to talk flippantly with Katavasov.
“Can it have been only a momentary mood, and will it pass and
leave no trace?” he thought. But the same instant, going back to his
mood, he felt with delight that something new and important had
happened to him. Real life had only for a time overcast the spiritual
peace he had found, but it was still untouched within him.
Just as the bees, whirling round him, now menacing him and dis-
tracting his attention, prevented him from enjoying complete physical
peace, forced him to restrain his movements to avoid them, so had the
petty cares that had swarmed about him from the moment he got into
the trap restricted his spiritual freedom; but that lasted only so long as
he was among them. Just as his bodily strength was still unaffected, in
spite of the bees, so too was the spiritual strength that he had just
become aware of.
Chapter 15.
“Do you know, Kostya, with whom Sergey Ivanovitch traveled on
his way here?” said Dolly, doling out cucumbers and honey to the
children; “with Vronsky! He’s going to Servia.”
“And not alone; he’s taking a squadron out with him at his own
expense,” said Katavasov.
“That’s the right thing for him,” said Levin. “Are volunteers still
going out then?” he added, glancing at Sergey Ivanovitch.
Sergey Ivanovitch did not answer. He was carefully with a blunt
knife getting a live bee covered with sticky honey out of a cup full of
white honeycomb.
“I should think sol You should have seen what was going on at the
station yesterday!” said Katavasov, biting with a juicy sound into a
cucumber.
“Well, what is one to make of it? For mercy’s sake, do explain to me,
Sergey Ivanovitch, where are all those volunteers going, whom are they
fighting with?” asked the old prince, unmistakably taking up a conver-
sation that had sprung up in Levin’s absence.
“With the Turks,” Sergey Ivanovitch answered, smiling serenely,
as he extricated the bee, dark with honey and helplessly kicking, and
put it with the knife on a stout aspen leaf.
“But who has declared war on the Turks?—Ivan Ivanovitch Ragozov