He was undoubtedly a nice fellow, and Levin felt sorry for him and ashamed for himself, the master of the house, when he noticed the timidity in Vasenka’s eyes.
On the table lay a piece of a stick they had broken that morning during gymnastics, when they had tried to raise the jammed bars. Levin took the piece in his hands and started breaking off the splintered end, not knowing how to begin.
‘I wanted ...’ He fell silent, but suddenly, remembering Kitty and all that had taken place, he said, looking him resolutely in the eye: ‘I’ve ordered the horses to be harnessed for you.’
‘How’s that?’ Vasenka began in surprise. ‘To go where?’
‘You are going to the station,’ Levin said darkly, splintering the end of the stick.
‘Are you leaving, or has something happened?’
‘It happens that I am expecting guests,’ said Levin breaking off the splintered ends of the stick more and more quickly with his strong fingers. ‘No, I am not expecting guests, and nothing has happened, but I am asking you to leave. You may explain my discourtesy in any way you like.’
Vasenka drew himself up.
‘I ask
‘I cannot explain to you,’ Levin spoke softly and slowly, trying to hide the quivering of his jaw. ‘And it is better that you not ask.’
And as the splintered ends were all broken off, Levin took the thick ends in his fingers, snapped the stick in two and carefully caught one end as it fell.
Probably it was the sight of those nervously tensed arms, those same muscles that he had felt that morning during the gymnastics, and the shining eyes, the soft voice and quivering jaw, that convinced Vasenka more than any words. He shrugged his shoulders and bowed with a contemptuous smile.
‘May I see Oblonsky?’
The shrug of the shoulders and the smile did not annoy Levin. ‘What else can he do?’ he thought.
‘I’ll send him to you presently.’
‘What is this senselessness?’ said Stepan Arkadyich, on learning from his friend that he was being chased out of the house, and finding Levin in the garden, where he was strolling, waiting for his guest’s departure.
But the place where the fly had bitten Levin was evidently still sore, because he turned pale again when Stepan Arkadyich wanted to explain the reason and hastily interrupted him:
‘Please, don’t explain any reasons! I could not do otherwise! I am very ashamed before you and before him. But for him I don’t think it will be a great misfortune to leave, while for me and my wife his presence is disagreeable.’
‘But it’s insulting to him!
‘And for me it’s both insulting and painful! And I’m not at fault in anything, and there’s no need for me to suffer!’
‘Well, I never expected this from you!
Levin turned quickly, walked away from him into the depths of the alley and went on pacing back and forth alone. Soon he heard the clatter of the tarantass and through the trees saw Vasenka, sitting on some hay (as luck would have it there was no seat on the tarantass), in his Scotch cap, bobbing with the bumps as they rolled down the drive.
‘What’s this now?’ thought Levin, when a footman ran out of the house and stopped the tarantass. It was the mechanic, whom Levin had completely forgotten. The mechanic bowed and said something to Veslovsky; then he got into the tarantass and they drove off together.
Stepan Arkadyich and the princess were indignant at Levin’s act. And he himself felt that he was not only
Despite all that, towards the end of the day everybody except the princess, who could not forgive Levin this act, became extremely animated and merry, like children after being punished or grown-ups after a difficult official reception, and that evening, in the princess’s absence, Vasenka’s banishment was talked about like a long-past event. And Dolly, who had inherited her father’s gift for comic storytelling, made Varenka roll with laughter when she told for the third or fourth time, always with new humorous additions, how she had been about to put on some new ribbons for the guest and come out to the drawing room, when she suddenly heard the noise of the old rattletrap. And who was in the old rattletrap but Vasenka himself, with his Scotch cap, and his romances, and his leggings, sitting on the hay.
