‘Well, then I’ll go and get some from the bank. How much?’ he said, with an expression of displeasure familiar to her.
‘No, wait.’ She held on to his hand. ‘Let’s talk, this bothers me. I don’t think I spend on anything unnecessary, but the money just goes. We’re doing something wrong.’
‘Not at all,’ he said, clearing his throat and looking at her from under his eyebrows.
She knew that clearing of his throat. It was a sign that he was strongly displeased, not with her, but with himself. He was indeed displeased, not that a lot of money had been spent, but that he was reminded of something which he, knowing that things were not right, had wished to forget.
‘I’ve told Sokolov to sell the wheat and take money in advance for the mill. In any case, we’ll have money.’
‘No, but I’m afraid it’s generally too much ...’
‘Not at all, not at all,’ he repeated. ‘Well, good-bye, darling.’
‘No, really, I’m sometimes so sorry I listened to mama. It was so good in the country! And here I’ve worn you all out, and we’re spending money...’
‘Not at all, not at all. Not once since I’ve been married have I said it would have been better otherwise than it is ...’
‘Truly?’ she said, looking into his eyes.
He had said it without thinking, just to comfort her. But when he glanced at her and saw those dear, truthful eyes fixed questioningly on him, he repeated the same thing from the bottom of his heart. ‘I’m decidedly forgetting her,’ he thought. And he remembered what so soon awaited them.
‘Soon now? How do you feel?’ he whispered, taking both her hands.
‘I’ve thought it so many times that now I don’t think or know anything.’
‘And you’re not afraid?’
She smiled scornfully.
‘Not a bit,’ she said.
‘So, if anything happens, I’m at Katavasov’s.’
‘No, nothing will happen, don’t even think of it. I’ll go for a stroll on the boulevard with papa. We’ll stop at Dolly’s. I’ll be expecting you before dinner. Ah, yes! Do you know that Dolly’s situation is becoming quite impossible? She’s in debt all around, and she has no money. Yesterday I talked with mama and Arseny’ (so she called Prince Lvov, her sister’s husband), ‘and we decided to set him and you on Stiva. This is quite impossible. One can’t talk to papa about it ... But if you and he ...’
‘But what can we do?’ asked Levin.
‘Still, while you’re at Arseny’s, talk to him; he’ll tell you what we decided.’
‘Well, with Arseny I’ll agree to everything beforehand. I’ll call on him. By the way, if I do go to the concert, I’ll go with Natalie. Well, good-bye.’
At the porch Kuzma, the old servant from his bachelor days, who was handling their town arrangements, stopped him.
‘Beau’ (this was the left shaft-horse, brought from the country) ‘has been re-shod, but he still limps,’ he said. ‘What are your orders?’
At the beginning of their life in Moscow, Levin had concerned himself with the horses he brought from the country. He had wanted to arrange that part as well and as cheaply as possible; but it turned out that keeping his own horses was more expensive than hiring, and they hired cabs anyway.
‘Send for the horse doctor, it may be a sore.’
‘Well, and for Katerina Alexandrovna?’ asked Kuzma.
Levin was no longer struck now, as he had been at the beginning of their life in Moscow, that to go from Vozdvizhenka to Sivtsev Vrazhek it was necessary to hitch a pair of strong horses to a heavy carriage, take that carriage less than a quarter of a mile through snowy mush, and let it stand there for four hours, having paid five roubles for it. Now it seemed natural to him.
‘Tell the cabby to bring a second pair for our carriage,’ he said.
‘Yes, sir.’
And having solved so simply and easily, thanks to town conditions, a difficulty which in the country would have called for so much personal effort and attention, Levin went out on the porch, hailed a cab, got into it and drove to Nikitskaya. On the way he no longer thought about money, but reflected on how he was going to make the acquaintance of a Petersburg scholar, a specialist in sociology, and talk to him about his book.
