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of themselves. It was settled that Levin should go with Natalia to the
concert and the meeting, and that from there they should send the
carriage to the office for Arseny, and he should call for her and take her
to Kitty’s; or that, if he had not finished his work, he should send the
carriage back and Levin would go with her.
“He’s spoiling me,” Lvov said to his wife, “he assures me that our
children are splendid, when I know how much that’s bad there is in
them.”
“Arseny goes to extremes, I always say,” said his wife. “If you look
for perfection, you will never be satisfied. And it’s true, as papa says,—
that when we were brought up there was one extreme—we were kept
in the basement, while our parents lived in the best rooms; now it’s just
the other way—the parents are in the wash house, while the children
are in the best rooms. Parents now are not expected to live at all, but to
exist altogether for their children.”
“Well, what if they like it better?” Lvov said, with his beautiful
smile, touching her hand. “Anyone who didn’t know you would think
you were a stepmother, not a true mother.”
“No, extremes are not good in anything,” Natalia said serenely,
putting his paper knife straight in its proper place on the table.
“Well, come here, you perfect children,” Lvov said to the two hand-
some boys who came in, and after bowing to Levin, went up to their
father, obviously wishing to ask him about something.
Levin would have liked to talk to them, to hear what they would
say to their father, but Natalia began talking to him, and then Lvov’s
colleague in the service, Mahotin, walked in, wearing his court uniform,
to go with him to meet someone, and a conversation was kept up
without a break upon Herzegovina, Princess Korzinskaya, the town
council, and the sudden death of Madame Apraksina.
Levin even forgot the commission intrusted to him. He recollected
it as he was going into the hall.
“Oh, Kitty told me to talk to you about Oblonsky,” he said, as Lvov
was standing on the stairs, seeing his wife and Levin off.
“Yes, yes, maman wants us, les beaux-freres, to attack him,” he
said, blushing. “But why should I?”
“Well, then, I will attack him,” said Madame Lvova, with a smile,
standing in her white sheepskin cape, waiting till they had finished
speaking. “Come, let us go.”