The conversation Vassenka had started with Kitty was running on the same lines as on the previous evening, discussing Anna, and whether love is to be put higher than worldly considerations.
Kitty disliked the conversation, and she was disturbed both by the subject and the tone in which it was conducted, and also by the knowledge of the effect it would have on her husband.
But she was too simple and innocent to know how to cut short this conversation, or even to conceal the superficial pleasure afforded her by the young man's very obvious admiration.
She wanted to stop it, but she did not know what to do.
Whatever she did she knew would be observed by her husband, and the worst interpretation put on it.
And, in fact, when she asked Dolly what was wrong with Masha, and Vassenka, waiting till this uninteresting conversation was over, began to gaze indifferently at Dolly, the question struck Levin as an unnatural and disgusting piece of hypocrisy.
"What do you say, shall we go and look for mushrooms today?" said Dolly.
"By all means, please, and I shall come too," said Kitty, and she blushed.
She wanted from politeness to ask Vassenka whether he would come, and she did not ask him. "Where are you going, Kostya?" she asked her husband with a guilty face, as he passed by her with a resolute step.
This guilty air confirmed all his suspicions.
"The mechanician came when I was away; I haven't seen him yet," he said, not looking at her.
He went downstairs, but before he had time to leave his study he heard his wife's familiar footsteps running with reckless speed to him.
"What do you want?" he said to her shortly. "We are busy."
"I beg your pardon," she said to the German mechanician; "I want a few words with my husband."
The German would have left the room, but Levin said to him:
"Don't disturb yourself."
"The train is at three?" queried the German. "I mustn't be late."
Levin did not answer him, but walked out himself with his wife.
"Well, what have you to say to me?" he said to her in French.
He did not look her in the face, and did not care to see that she in her condition was trembling all over, and had a piteous, crushed look.
"I...I want to say that we can't go on like this; that this is misery..." she said.
"The servants are here at the sideboard," he said angrily; "don't make a scene."
"Well, let's go in here!"
They were standing in the passage.
Kitty would have gone into the next room, but there the English governess was giving Tanya a lesson.
"Well, come into the garden."
In the garden they came upon a peasant weeding the path.
And no longer considering that the peasant could see her tear-stained and his agitated face, that they looked like people fleeing from some disaster, they went on with rapid steps, feeling that they must speak out and clear up misunderstandings, must be alone together, and so get rid of the misery they were both feeling.
"We can't go on like this!
It's misery!
I am wretched; you are wretched.
What for?" she said, when they had at last reached a solitary garden seat at a turn in the lime tree avenue.
"But tell me one thing: was there in his tone anything unseemly, not nice, humiliatingly horrible?" he said, standing before her again in the same position with his clenched fists on his chest, as he had stood before her that night.
"Yes," she said in a shaking voice; "but, Kostya, surely you see I'm not to blame?
All the morning I've been trying to take a tone...but such people ...Why did he come?
How happy we were!" she said, breathless with the sobs that shook her.
Although nothing had been pursuing them, and there was nothing to run away from, and they could not possibly have found anything very delightful on that garden seat, the gardener saw with astonishment that they passed him on their way home with comforted and radiant faces.
Chapter 15
After escorting his wife upstairs, Levin went to Dolly's part of the house.
Darya Alexandrovna, for her part, was in great distress too that day.
She was walking about the room, talking angrily to a little girl, who stood in the corner roaring.
"And you shall stand all day in the corner, and have your dinner all alone, and not see one of your dolls, and I won't make you a new frock," she said, not knowing how to punish her.
"Oh, she is a disgusting child!" she turned to Levin. "Where does she get such wicked propensities?"
"Why, what has she done?" Levin said without much interest, for he had wanted to ask her advice, and so was annoyed that he had come at an unlucky moment.
"Grisha and she went into the raspberries, and there...I can't tell you really what she did.
It's a thousand pities Miss Elliot's not with us.
This one sees to nothing--she's a machine.... _Figurez-vous que la petite_?..."
And Darya Alexandrovna described Masha's crime.
"That proves nothing; it's not a question of evil propensities at all, it's simply mischief," Levin assured her.
"But you are upset about something?