第171章

Shcherbatsky moved away from them, and Kitty, going up to a card table, sat down, and, taking up the chalk, began drawing diverging circles over the new green cloth.

They began again on the subject that had been started at dinner - the liberty and occupations of women. Levin was of the opinion of Darya Alexandrovna that a girl who did not marry should find a woman's duties in a family. He supported this view by the fact that no family can get on without women to help; that in every family, poor or rich, there are and must be nurses, either relations or hired.

`No,' said Kitty, blushing, but looking at him all the more bravely with her truthful eyes; `a girl may be so circumstanced that she cannot live in the family without humiliation, while she herself...'

At the hint he understood her.

`Oh, yes,' he said. `Yes, yes, yes - you're right; you're right!'

And he saw all that Pestsov had been maintaining at dinner about the liberty of woman, simply from getting a glimpse of the terror of an old maid's existence and its humiliation in Kitty's heart; and loving her, he felt that terror and humiliation, and at once gave up his arguments.

A silence followed. She was still drawing with the chalk on the table. Her eyes were shining with a soft light. Under the influence of her mood he felt in all his being a continually growing tension of happiness.

`Ah! I've scribbled all over the table!' she said, and, laying down the chalk, she made a movement as though to get up.

`What! Shall I be left alone - without her?' he thought with horror, and he took the chalk. `Wait a minute,' he said, sitting down to the table.

`I've long wanted to ask you one thing.'

He looked straight into her caressing, though frightened eyes.

`Please, ask it.'

`Here,' he said; and he wrote the initial letters, w, y, t, m:

i, c, n, b, d, t, m, n, o, t. These letters meant, `When you told me: it could never be, did that mean never, or then?' There seemed no likelihood that she could make out this complicated sentence; but he looked at her as though his life depended on her understanding the words.

She glanced at him seriously, then leaned her puckered brow on her hands and began to read. Once or twice she stole a look at him, as though asking him, `Is it what I think it is?'

`I understand,' she said, flushing.

`What is this word?' he said, pointing to the n that stood for never.

`It means never,' she said; `but that's not true!'

He quickly rubbed out what he had written, gave her the chalk, and stood up. She wrote, t, i, c, n, a, d.

Dolly was completely comforted in the depression caused by her conversation with Alexei Alexandrovich when she caught sight of the two figures: Kitty with the chalk in her hand, with a shy and happy smile looking upward at Levin, and his handsome figure bending over the table with glowing eyes fastened one minute on the table and the next on her. He was suddenly radiant: he had understood. It meant, `Then I could not answer differently.'

He glanced at her questioningly, timidly.

`Only then?'

`Yes,' her smile answered.

`And n... And now?' he asked.

`Well, read this. I'll tell you what I should like - should like so much!' She wrote the initial letters, i, y, c, f, a, f, w, h. This meant, `If you could forget and forgive what happened.'

He snatched the chalk with nervous, trembling fingers, and breaking it, wrote the initial letters of the following phrase, `I have nothing to forget and to forgive; I have never ceased to love you.'

She glanced at him with a smile that did not waver.

`I understand,' she said in a whisper.

He sat down and wrote a long phrase. She understood it all, and without asking him, `Is it this?' took the chalk and at once answered.

For a long while he could not understand what she had written, and often looked into her eyes. He was stupefied with happiness. He could not supply the words she had meant; but in her charming eyes, beaming with happiness, he saw all he needed to know. And he wrote three letters. But he had hardly finished writing when she read them over her arm, and herself finished and wrote the answer, `Yes.'

`You're playing secretaire?' said the old Prince. `But we must really be getting along if you want to be in time at the theater.'

Levin got up and escorted Kitty to the door.

In their conversation everything had been said; it had been said that she loved him, and that she would tell her father and mother that he would come tomorrow morning.

[Next Chapter] [Table of Contents]TOLSTOY: Anna Karenina Part 4, Chapter 14[Previous Chapter] [Table of Contents] Chapter 14 When Kitty had gone and Levin was left alone, he felt such uneasiness without her and such an impatient longing to get as quickly as possible to tomorrow morning, when he would see her again and be plighted to her forever, that he felt afraid, as though of death, of those fourteen hours that he had to get through without her. It was essential for him to be with someone to talk to, so as not to be left alone; to deceive time. Stepan Arkadyevich would have been the companion most congenial to him, but he was going out, he said, to a soiree - in reality to the ballet. Levin only had time to tell him he was happy, and that he loved him, and would never, never forget what he had done for him. The eyes and the smile of Stepan Arkadyevich showed Levin that he comprehended that feeling fittingly.

`Oh, so it's not time to die yet?' said Stepan Arkadyevich, pressing Levin's hand with emotion.

`N-n-no!' said Levin.

Darya Alexandrovna too, as she said good-by to him, gave him a sort of congratulation, saying, `How glad I am you have met Kitty again!

One must value old friends.' Levin did not like these words of Darya Alexandrovna's.

She could not understand how lofty and beyond her it all was, and she ought not to have dared to allude to it. Levin said good-by to them, but, not to be left alone, he attached himself to his brother.

`Where are you going?'

`I'm going to a meeting.'

`Well, I'll come with you. May I?'

`What for? Yes, come along,' said Sergei Ivanovich, smiling. `What is the matter with you today?'