Anna Karenina - The Unabridged Garnett Translation. Leo Tolstoy

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СКАЧАТЬ the first skater in Russia! Been here long? First-rate ice—do put your skates on.”

      “I haven’t got my skates,” Levin answered, marveling at this boldness and ease in her presence, and not for one second losing sight of her, though he did not look at her. He felt as though the sun were coming near him. She was in a corner, and turning out her slender feet in their high boots with obvious timidity, she skated towards him. A boy in Russian dress, desperately waving his arms and bowed down to the ground, overtook her. She skated a little uncertainly; taking her hands out of the little muff that hung on a cord, she held them ready for emergency, and looking towards Levin, whom she had recognized, she smiled at him, and at her own fears. When she had got round the turn, she gave herself a push off with one foot, and skated straight up to Shtcherbatsky. Clutching at his arm, she nodded smiling to Levin. She was more splendid than he had imagined her.

      When he thought of her, he could call up a vivid picture of her to himself, especially the charm of that little fair head, so freely set on the shapely girlish shoulders, and so full of childish brightness and good humor. The childishness of her expression, together with the delicate beauty of her figure, made up her special charm, and that he fully realized. But what always struck him in her as something unlooked for, was the expression of her eyes, soft, serene, and truthful, and above all, her smile, which always transported Levin to an enchanted world, where he felt himself softened and tender, as he remembered himself in some days of his early childhood.

      “Have you been here long?” she said, giving him her hand. “Thank you,” she added, as he picked up the handkerchief that had fallen out of her muff.

      “I? I’ve not long…yesterday…I mean today…I arrived,” answered Levin, in his emotion not at once understanding her question. “I was meaning to come and see you,” he said; and then, recollecting with what intention he was trying to see her, he was promptly overcome with confusion and blushed.

      “I didn’t know you could skate, and skate so well.”

      She looked at him earnestly, as though wishing to make out the cause of his confusion.

      “Your praise is worth having. The tradition is kept up here that you are the best of skaters,” she said, with her little black-gloved hand brushing a grain of hoarfrost off her muff.

      “Yes, I used once to skate with passion; I wanted to reach perfection.”

      “You do everything with passion, I think,” she said smiling. “I should so like to see how you skate. Put on skates, and let us skate together.”

      “Skate together! Can that be possible?” thought Levin, gazing at her.

      “I’ll put them on directly,” he said.

      And he went off to get skates.

      “It’s a long while since we’ve seen you here, sir,” said the attendant, supporting his foot, and screwing on the heel of the skate. “Except you, there’s none of the gentlemen first-rate skaters. Will that be all right?” said he, tightening the strap.

      “Oh, yes, yes; make haste, please,” answered Levin, with difficulty restraining the smile of rapture which would overspread his face. “Yes,” he thought, “this now is life, this is happiness! Together, she said; let us skate together! Speak to her now? But that’s just why I’m afraid to speak—because I’m happy now, happy in hope, anyway…. And then?…. But I must! I must! I must! Away with weakness!”

      Levin rose to his feet, took off his overcoat, and scurrying over the rough ice round the hut, came out on the smooth ice and skated without effort, as it were, by simple exercise of will, increasing and slackening speed and turning his course. He approached with timidity, but again her smile reassured him.

      She gave him her hand, and they set off side by side, going faster and faster, and the more rapidly they moved the more tightly she grasped his hand.

      “With you I should soon learn; I somehow feel confidence in you,” she said to him.

      “And I have confidence in myself when you are leaning on me,” he said, but was at once panic-stricken at what he had said, and blushed. And indeed, no sooner had he uttered these words, when all at once, like the sun going behind a cloud, her face lost all its friendliness, and Levin detected the familiar change in her expression that denoted the working of thought; a crease showed on her smooth brow.

      “Is there anything troubling you?—though I’ve no right to ask such a question,” he added hurriedly.

      “Oh, why so?…. No, I have nothing to trouble me,” she responded coldly; and she added immediately: “You haven’t seen Mlle. Linon, have you?”

      “Not yet.”

      “Go and speak to her, she likes you so much.”

      “What’s wrong? I have offended her. Lord help me!” thought Levin, and he flew towards the old Frenchwoman with the gray ringlets, who was sitting on a bench. Smiling and showing her false teeth, she greeted him as an old friend.

      “Yes, you see we’re growing up,” she said to him, glancing towards Kitty, “and growing old. Tiny bear has grown big now!” pursued the Frenchwoman, laughing, and she reminded him of his joke about the three young ladies whom he had compared to the three bears in the English nursery tale. “Do you remember that’s what you used to call them?”

      He remembered absolutely nothing, but she had been laughing at the joke for ten years now, and was fond of it.

      “Now, go and skate, go and skate. Our Kitty has learned to skate nicely, hasn’t she?”

      When Levin darted up to Kitty her face was no longer stern; her eyes looked at him with the same sincerity and friendliness, but Levin fancied that in her friendliness there was a certain note of deliberate composure. And he felt depressed. After talking a little of her old governess and her peculiarities, she questioned him about his life.

      “Surely you must be dull in the country in the winter, aren’t you?” she said.

      “No, I’m not dull, I am very busy,” he said, feeling that she was holding him in check by her composed tone, which he would not have the force to break through, just as it had been at the beginning of the winter.

      “Are you going to stay in town long?” Kitty questioned him.

      “I don’t know,” he answered, not thinking of what he was saying. The thought that if he were held in check by her tone of quiet friendliness he would end by going back again without deciding anything came into his mind, and he resolved to make a struggle against it.

      “How is it you don’t know?”

      “I don’t know. It depends upon you,” he said, and was immediately horror-stricken at his own words.

      Whether it was that she had heard his words, or that she did not want to hear them, she made a sort of stumble, twice struck out, and hurriedly skated away from him. She skated up to Mlle. Linon, said something to her, and went towards the pavilion where the ladies took off their skates.

      “My God! what have I done! Merciful God! help me, guide me,” said Levin, praying inwardly, and at the same time, feeling a need of violent exercise, he skated about describing inner and outer circles.

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