It was decided that they would go together the next day. Levin told his wife that he believed she wanted to go only in order to be of use, agreed that Marya Nikolaevna’s presence at his brother’s side did not present any impropriety; but in the depths of his soul he went away displeased with her and with himself. He was displeased with her for being unable to bring herself to let him go when it was necessary (and how strange it was for him to think that he, who so recently had not dared to believe in the happiness of her loving him, now felt unhappy because she loved him too much!), and displeased with himself for not standing firm. Still less did he agree in the depths of his soul that she was not concerned about the woman who was with his brother, and he thought with horror of all the confrontations that might occur. The fact alone that his wife, his Kitty, would be in the same room with a slut already made him shudder with revulsion and horror.
XVII
The hotel in the provincial capital where Nikolai Levin lay was one of those provincial hotels that are set up in accordance with new, improved standards, with the best intentions of cleanliness, comfort and even elegance, but which, because of their clients, turn extremely quickly into dirty pot-houses with a pretence to modern improvements, and by that very pretence become still worse than the old hotels that were simply dirty. This hotel had already reached that state; the soldier in a dirty uniform, smoking a cigarette at the entrance, who was supposed to represent the doorman, the gloomy and unpleasant wrought-iron stairway, the casual waiter in a dirty tailcoat, the common room with a dusty bouquet of wax flowers adorning the table, the dirt, dust and slovenliness everywhere in the hotel, and with that some sort of new, modern-railwayish, smug preoccupation - gave the Levins, after their newlywed life, a most painful feeling, especially as the false impression made by the hotel could not be reconciled with what awaited them.
As always, after the question of how much they wanted to pay for a room, it turned out that there were no good rooms: one of the good rooms was occupied by a railway inspector, another by a lawyer from Moscow, and the third by Princess Astafyev coming from her estate. There remained one dirty room, with an adjacent room which they were told would be vacated by evening. Vexed with his wife because what he had anticipated was coming true - namely, that at the moment of arrival, when his heart was seized with agitation at the thought of his brother, he had to be concerned with her instead of running to him at once - Levin brought her to the room they had been given.
‘Go, go!’ she said, giving him a timid, guilty look.
He silently went out the door and straight away ran into Marya Nikolaevna, who had learned of his arrival and had not dared to enter his room. She was exactly the same as he had seen her in Moscow: the same woollen dress with no collar or cuffs, the same kindly, dull, pockmarked face, grown slightly fuller.
‘Well, what? How is he?’
‘Very bad. Bedridden. He’s been waiting for you. He... Are you... with your wife?’
Levin did not understand at first what made her embarrassed, but she explained it to him at once.
‘I’ll leave, I’ll go to the kitchen,’ she managed to say. ‘He’ll be glad. He’s heard, and he knows her and remembers her from abroad.’
Levin understood that she meant his wife and did not know what to answer.
‘Let’s go, let’s go!’ he said.
But just as he started off, the door of his room opened and Kitty peeked out. Levin flushed from shame and vexation with his wife for putting herself and him in this painful situation; but Marya Nikolaevna flushed even more. She shrank all over and flushed to the point of tears, and, seizing the ends of her kerchief with both hands, twisted them in her red fingers, not knowing what to say or do.
For the first moment Levin saw an expression of eager curiosity in the look Kitty gave this, for her, incomprehensible and terrible woman; but it lasted only an instant.
‘Well? How is he?’ she turned to her husband and then to her.
‘We really can’t start talking in the corridor!’ Levin said, turning crossly to look at a gentleman who, as if on his own business, was just then walking down the corridor with a jerky gait.
‘Well, come in then,’ said Kitty, addressing Marya Nikolaevna, who had now recovered; but she added, noticing her husband’s frightened face, ‘or else go, go and send for me later,’ and returned to the room. Levin went to his brother.
