ood each other.

"I quite understand that," Levin answered. "It's impossible to
give one's heart to a school or such institutions in general, and
I believe that's just why philanthropic institutions always
give such poor results."

She was silent for a while, then she smiled.

"Yes, yes," she agreed; "I never could. _Je n'ai pas le coeur
assez_ large to love a whole asylum of horrid little girls.
_Cela ne m'a jamais reussi._ There are so many women who have
made themselves _une position sociale_ in that way. And now more
than ever," she said with a mournful, confiding expression,
ostensibly addressing her brother, but unmistakably intending her
words only for Levin, "now when I have such need of some occupation,
I cannot." And suddenly frowning (Levin saw that she was frowning
at herself for talking about herself) she changed the subject.
"I know about you," she said to Levin; "that you're not a
public-spirited citizen, and I have defended you to the best of
my ability."

"How have you defended me?"

"Oh, according to the attacks made on you. But won't you have
some tea?" She rose and took up a book bound in morocco.

"Give it to me, Anna Arkadyevna," said Vorkuev, indicating the
book. "It's well worth taking up."

"Oh, no, it's all so sketchy."

"I told him about it," Stepan Arkadyevitch said to his sister,
nodding at Levin.

"You shouldn't have. My writing is something after the fashion
of those little baskets and carving which Liza Mertsalova used to
sell me from the prisons. She had the direction of the prison
department in that society," she turned to Levin; "and they were
miracles of patience, the work of those poor wretches."

And Levin saw a new trait in this woman, who attracted him so
extraordinarily. Besides wit, grace, and beauty, she had truth.
She had no wish to hide from him all the bitterness of her
position. As she said that she sighed, and her face suddenly
taking a hard expression, looked as it were turned to stone.
With that expression on her face she was more beautiful than
ever; but the expression was new; it was utterly unlike that
expression, radiant with happiness and creating happiness, which
had been caught by the painter in her portrait. Levin looked
more than once at the portrait and at her figure, as taking her
brother's arm she walked with him to the high doors and he felt
for her a tenderness and pity at which he wondered himself.

She asked Levin and Vorkuev