Kitty, as always, was pained at having to be parted from her husband for two days, but seeing his animated figure, which seemed particularly big and strong in hunting boots and a white blouse, and with the glow of some hunting excitement incomprehensible to her, she forgot her own distress because of his joy and cheerfully said good-bye to him.
‘Sorry, gentlemen!’ he said, running out to the porch. ‘Did they put the lunch in? Why is the chestnut on the right? Well, never mind. Laska, enough, go and sit down!’
‘Put them in with the heifers,’ he turned to the cow-man, who had been waiting by the porch with a question about some bullocks. ‘Sorry, here comes another villain.’
Levin jumped down from the cart in which he was already seated to meet the hired carpenter, who was walking up to the porch with a ruler.
‘You see, you didn’t come to the office yesterday and now you’re holding me up. Well, what is it?’
‘Let me make another turn, sir. To add three more steps. And we’ll fit it right in. It’ll be much more convenient.’
‘You should have listened to me,’ Levin replied with vexation. ‘I told you to put up the string boards and then cut in the steps. You can’t fix it now. Do as I told you - make a new one.’
The thing was that the carpenter had spoiled the staircase in the wing that was being built, having constructed it separately and miscalculated the height, so that when it was installed all the steps were aslant. Now he wanted to leave the same stairs in place and add three more steps.
‘It will be much better.’
‘But where will it come out with these three steps?’
‘If you please, sir,’ the carpenter said with a scornful smile. ‘It’ll go just right. I mean, it’ll start out below,’ he said with a persuasive gesture, ‘and go up and up and come out just right.’
‘But three steps will also add to the length ... Where will it end?’
‘Like I said, it’ll start below and come out just right,’ the carpenter said stubbornly and persuasively.
‘It will come out under the ceiling and into the wall.’
‘If you please. She’ll start below. She’ll go up and up and come out just right.’
Levin took a ramrod and began drawing a stairway in the dust for him.
‘There, you see?’
‘As you wish,’ said the carpenter, with suddenly bright eyes, obviously understanding the whole thing at last. ‘Looks like I’ll have to make a new one.’
‘Well, then make it the way you were told!’ Levin shouted, getting up on the cart. ‘Drive! Hold the dogs, Filipp!’
Levin, having left all his family and farming cares behind, now experienced such a strong sense of the joy of life and expectation that he did not want to talk. Besides, he had that feeling of concentrated excitement that every hunter experiences as he nears the place of action. If anything concerned him now, it was only the questions of whether they would find anything in the Kolpeno marsh, how Laska would perform in comparison with Krak and how successful his own shooting would be that day. What if he disgraced himself in front of the new man? What if Oblonsky outshot him? - also went through his head.
Oblonsky had similar feelings and was also untalkative. Only Vasenka Veslovsky kept cheerfully talking away. Listening to him now, Levin was ashamed to remember how unfair he had been to him yesterday. Vasenka was indeed a nice fellow, simple, good-natured and very cheerful. If Levin had met him while still a bachelor, he would have become friends with him. He found his holiday attitude towards life and his sort of loose-mannered elegance slightly disagreeable. As if he considered himself lofty and unquestionably important for having long fingernails and a little hat and the rest that went with it; but that could be excused on account of his kind-heartedness and decency. Levin liked in him his good upbringing, his excellent pronunciation of French and English, and the fact that he was a man of his own world.
Vasenka was extremely taken with the left outrunner, a Don Steppe horse. He kept admiring it.
‘How good it must be to gallop over the steppe on a steppe horse! Eh? Am I right?’ he said.
He imagined there was something wild and poetic in riding a steppe horse, though nothing came of it; but his naïvety, especially combined with his good looks, sweet smile, and gracefulness of movement, was very attractive. Either because Veslovsky’s nature was sympathetic to him, or because he was trying to find everything good in him in order to redeem yesterday’s sin, Levin enjoyed being with him.
Having gone two miles, Veslovsky suddenly discovered that his cigars and wallet were missing and did not know whether he had lost them or left them on the table. There were three hundred and seventy roubles in his wallet, and it could not be left like that.
‘You know what, Levin, I’ll ride back on this Don outrunner. That will be splendid. Eh?’ he said, preparing to mount up.
‘No, why?’ replied Levin, who reckoned that Vasenka must weigh no less than two hundred pounds. ‘I’ll send my coachman.’
