that had overspread her cheeks while she was talking to
Veslovsky, gone far indeed. Now as he heard her words, he
construed them in his own fashion. Strange as it was to him
afterwards to recall it, it seemed to him at the moment clear
that in asking whether he was going shooting, all she cared to
know was whether he would give that pleasure to Vassenka
Veslovsky, with whom, as he fancied, she was in love.

"Yes, I'm going," he answered her in an unnatural voice,
disagreeable to himself.

"No, better spend the day here tomorrow, or Dolly won't see
anything of her husband, and set off the day after," said Kitty.

The motive of Kitty's words was interpreted by Levin thus: "Don't
separate me from _him_. I don't care about _your_ going, but do
let me enjoy the society of this delightful young man."

"Oh, if you wish, we'll stay here tomorrow," Levin answered,
with peculiar amiability.

Vassenka meanwhile, utterly unsuspecting the misery his presence
had occasioned, got up from the table after Kitty, and watching
her with smiling and admiring eyes, he followed her.

Levin saw that look. He turned white, and for a minute he could
hardly breathe. "How dare he look at my wife like that!" was the
feeling that boiled within him.

"Tomorrow, then? Do, please, let us go," said Vassenka, sitting
down on a chair, and again crossing his leg as his habit was.

Levin's jealousy went further still. Already he saw himself a
deceived husband, looked upon by his wife and her lover as simply
necessary to provide them with the conveniences and pleasures of
life.... But in spite of that he made polite and hospitable
inquiries of Vassenka about his shooting, his gun, and his boots,
and agreed to go shooting next day.

Happily for Levin, the old princess cut short his agonies by
getting up herself and advising Kitty to go to bed. But even at
this point Levin could not escape another agony. As he said
good-night to his hostess, Vassenka would again have kissed her
hand, but Kitty, reddening, drew back her hand and said with a
naive bluntness, for which the old princess scolded her
afterwards:

"We don't like that fashion."

In Levin's eyes she was to blame for having allowed such
relations to arise, and still more to blame for showing so
awkwardly that she did not like them.

"Why, how can one want to go to bed!" said Stepan Arkadyevitch,
who, after drinking several glasses of wine at supper, was now in
his most char