ming and sentimental humor. "Look, Kitty," he said,
pointing to the moon, which had just risen behind the lime trees
--"how exquisite! Veslovsky, this is the time for a serenade.
You know, he has a splendid voice; we practiced songs together
along the road. He has brought some lovely songs with him, two
new ones. Varvara Andreevna and he must sing some duets."
When the party had broken up, Stepan Arkadyevitch walked a long
while about the avenue with Veslovsky; their voices could be
heard singing one of the new songs.
Levin hearing these voices sat scowling in an easy-chair in his
wife's bedroom, and maintained an obstinate silence when she
asked him what was wrong. But when at last with a timid glance
she hazarded the question: "Was there perhaps something you
disliked about Veslovsky?"--it all burst out, and he told her
all. He was humiliated himself at what he was saying, and that
exasperated him all the more.
He stood facing her with his eyes glittering menacingly under his
scowling brows, and he squeezed his strong arms across his chest,
as though he were straining every nerve to hold himself in. The
expression of his face would have been grim, and even cruel, if
it had not at the same time had a look of suffering which touched
her. His jaws were twitching, and his voice kept breaking.
"You must understand that I'm not jealous, that's a nasty word.
I can't be jealous, and believe that.... I can't say what I
feel, but this is awful.... I'm not jealous, but I'm wounded,
humiliated that anybody dare think, that anybody dare look at
you with eyes like that."
"Eyes like what?" said Kitty, trying as conscientiously as
possible to recall every word and gesture of that evening and
every shade implied in them.
At the very bottom of her heart she did think there had been
something precisely at the moment when he had crossed over after
her to the other end of the table; but she dared not own it even
to herself, and would have been even more unable to bring herself
to say so to him, and so increase his suffering.
"And what can there possibly be attractive about me as I am
now?..."
"Ah!" he cried, clutching at his head, "you shouldn't say
that!... If you had been attractive then..."
"Oh, no, Kostya, oh, wait a minute, oh, do listen!" she said,
looking at him with an expression of pained commiseration. "Why,
what can you be thinking about! When for me there's no one in
the world, no one, no o
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