Leo Tolstoy: Anna Karenina

PART 1 Chapter 25 (continued)

"Oh, but excuse me, how did you know it would be wasting your time? That article's too deep for many people--that's to say it's over their heads. But with me, it's another thing; I see through his ideas, and I know where its weakness lies."

Everyone was mute. Kritsky got up deliberately and reached his cap.

"Won't you have supper? All right, good-bye! Come round tomorrow with the locksmith."

Kritsky had hardly gone out when Nikolay Levin smiled and winked.

"He's no good either," he said. "I see, of course..."

But at that instant Kritsky, at the door, called him...

"What do you want now?" he said, and went out to him in the passage. Left alone with Marya Nikolaevna, Levin turned to her.

"Have you been long with my brother?" he said to her.

"Yes, more than a year. Nikolay Dmitrievitch's health has become very poor. Nikolay Dmitrievitch drinks a great deal," she said.

"That is...how does he drink?"

"Drinks vodka, and it's bad for him."

"And a great deal?" whispered Levin.

"Yes," she said, looking timidly towards the doorway, where Nikolay Levin had reappeared.

"What were you talking about?" he said, knitting his brows, and turning his scarred eyes from one to the other. "What was it?"

"Oh, nothing," Konstantin answered in confusion.

"Oh, if you don't want to say, don't. Only it's no good your talking to her. She's a wench, and you're a gentleman," he said with a jerk of the neck. "You understand everything, I see, and have taken stock of everything, and look with commiseration on my shortcomings," he began again, raising his voice.