During the time of the children's tea the grown-up people sat in

the balcony and talked as though nothing had happened, though

they all, especially Sergey Ivanovitch and Varenka, were very

well aware that there had happened an event which, though

negative, was of very great importance. They both had the same

feeling, rather like that of a schoolboy after an examination,

which has left him in the same class or shut him out of the

school forever. Everyone present, feeling too that something

had happened, talked eagerly about extraneous subjects. Levin

and Kitty were particularly happy and conscious of their love

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that evening. And their happiness in their love seemed to imply

a disagreeable slur on those who would have liked to feel the

same and could not--and they felt a prick of conscience.

"Mark my words, Alexander will not come," said the old princess.

That evening they were expecting Stepan Arkadyevitch to come down

by train, and the old prince had written that possibly he might

come too.

"And I know why," the princess went on; "he says that young

people ought to be left alone for a while at first."

"But papa has left us alone. We've never seen him," said Kitty.

"Besides, we're not young people!--we're old, married people by

now."

"Only if he doesn't come, I shall say good-bye to you children,"

said the princess, sighing mournfully.

"What nonsense, mamma!" both the daughters fell upon her at once.

"How do you suppose he is feeling? Why, now..."

And suddenly there was an unexpected quiver in the princess's

voice. Her daughters were silent, and looked at one another.

"Maman always finds something to be miserable about," they said

in that glance. They did not know that happy as the princess was

in her daughter's house, and useful as she felt herself to be

there, she had been extremely miserable, both on her own account

and her husband's, ever since they had married their last and

favorite daughter, and the old home had been left empty.

"What is it, Agafea Mihalovna?" Kitty asked suddenly of Agafea

Mihalovna, who was standing with a mysterious air, and a face

full of meaning.

"About supper."

"Well, that's right," said Dolly; "you go and arrange about it,

and I'll go and hear Grisha repeat his lesson, or else he will

have nothing done all day."

"That's my lesson! No, Dolly, I'm going," said Levin, jumping

up.

Grisha, who was by now at a high school, had to go over the

lessons of the term in the summer holidays. Darya Alexandrovna,

who had been studying Latin with her son in Moscow before, had

made it a rule on coming to the Levins' to go over with him, at

least once a day, the most difficult lessons of Latin and

arithmetic. Levin had offered to take her place, but the mother,

having once overheard Levin's lesson, and noticing that it was

not given exactly as the teacher in Moscow had given it, said

resolutely, though with much embarrassment and anxiety not to

mortify Levin, that they must keep strictly to the book as the

teacher had done, and that she had better undertake it again

herself. Levin was amazed both at Stepan Arkadyevitch, who, by

neglecting his duty, threw upon the mother the supervision of

studies of which she had no comprehension, and at the teachers

for teaching the children so badly. But he promised his

sister-in-law to give the lessons exactly as she wished. And he

went on teaching Grisha, not in his own way, but by the book, and

so took little interest in it, and often forgot the hour of the

lesson. So it had been today.




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