Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910). Anna Karenin.
The Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction. 1917.
Chapter XI
E
At first Levin, in answer to Kitty’s question how he could have seen her last year in the carriage, told her how he had been coming home from the mowing along the high-road and had met her.
‘It was very, very early in the morning. You were probably only just awake. Your mother was asleep in the corner. It was an exquisite morning, I was walking along wondering who it could be in a four-in-hand? It was a splendid set of four horses with bells, and in a second you flashed by, and I saw at the window—you were sitting like this, holding the strings of your cap in both hands, and thinking awfully deeply about something,’ he said, smiling. ‘How I should like to know what you were thinking about then! Something important?’
‘Wasn’t I dreadfully untidy?’ she wondered, but seeing the smile of ecstasy these reminiscences called up, she felt that the impression she had made had been very good. She blushed and laughed with delight: ‘Really I don’t remember.’
‘How nicely Turovtsin laughs!’ said Levin, admiring his moist eyes and shaking chest.
‘Have you known him long?’ asked Kitty.
‘Oh, every one knows him!’
‘And I see you think he’s a horrid man?’
‘Not horrid, but nothing in him.’
‘Oh, you’re wrong! And you must give up thinking so directly!’ said Kitty. ‘I used to have a very poor opinion of him too, but he, he’s an awfully nice and wonderfully good-hearted man. He has a heart of gold.’
‘How could you find out what sort of heart he has?’
‘We are great friends. I know him very well. Last winter, soon after … you came to see us,’ she said, with a guilty and at the same time confiding smile, ‘all Dolly’s children had scarlet fever, and he happened to come and see her. And only fancy,’ she said in a whisper, ‘he felt so sorry for her that he stayed and began to help her look after the children. Yes, and for three weeks he stopped with them, and looked after the children like a nurse.’
‘I am telling Konstantin Dmitritch about Turovtsin in the scarlet fever,’ she said, bending over to her sister.
‘Yes, it was wonderful, noble!’ said Dolly, glancing towards Turovtsin, who had become aware they were talking of him, and smiling gently to him. Levin glanced once more at Turovtsin, and wondered how it was he had not realised all this man’s goodness before.
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, and I’ll never think ill of people again!’ he said gaily, genuinely expressing what he felt at the moment.