Emma Watson Pussy
Books:
Anna Karenina
War And Peace
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go and get
some."
The woman rose, came out from behind the screen, and saw
Konstantin.
"Theres some gentleman, Nikolay Dmitrievitch," she said.
"Whom do you want?" said the voice of Nikolay Levin, angrily.
"Its I," answered Konstantin Levin, coming forward into the
light.
"Whos _I_?" Nikolays voice said again, still more angrily. He
could be heard getting up hurriedly, stumbling against something,
and Levin saw, facing him in the doorway, the big, scared eyes,
and the huge, thin, stooping figure of his brother, so familiar,
and yet astonishing in its weirdness and sickliness.
He was even thinner than three years before, when Konstantin
Levin had seen him last. He was wearing a short coat, and his
hands and big bones seemed huger than ever. His hair had grown
thinner, the same straight mustaches hid his lips, the same eyes
gazed strangely and naively at his visitor.
"Ah, Kostya!" he exclaimed suddenly, recognizing his brother, and
his eyes lit up with joy. But the same second he looked round at
the young man, and gave the nervous jerk of his head and neck
that Konstantin knew so well, as if his neckband hurt him; and a
quite different expression, wild, suffering, and cruel, rested
on his emaciated face.
"I wrote to you and Sergey Ivanovitch both that I dont know you
and dont want to know you. What is it you want?"
He was not at all the same as Konstantin had been fancying him.
The worst and most tiresome part of his character, what made all
relations with him so difficult, had been forgotten by Konstantin
Levin when he thought of him, and now, when he saw his face, and
especially that nervous twitching of his head, he remembered it
all.
"I didnt want to see you for anything," he answered timidly.
"Ive simply come to see you."
His brothers timidity obviously softened Nikolay. His lips
twitched.
"Oh, so thats it?" he said. "Well, come in; sit down. Like
some supper? Masha, bring supper for three. No, stop a minute.
Do you know who this is?" he said, addressing his brother, and
indicating the gentleman in the jerkin: "This is Mr. Kritsky, my
friend from Kiev, a very remarkable man. Hes persecuted by the
police, of course, because hes not a scoundrel."
And he looked round in the way he always did at everyone in the
room. Seeing that the woman standing in the doorway was moving
to go, he shouted to her, "Wait a minute, I said." And with the
inability to express himself, the incoherence that Konstantin
knew so well, he began, with another look round at everyone, to
tell his brother Kritskys story: how he had been expelled from
the university for starting a benefit society for the poor
students and Sunday schools; and how he had afterwards been a
teacher in a peasant school, and how he had been driven out of
that too, and had afterwards been condemned for something.
"Youre of the Kiev university?" said Konstantin Levin to
Kritsky, to break the awkward silence that followed.
"Yes, I was of Kiev," Kritsky replied angrily, his face
darkening.
"And this woman," Nikolay Levin interrupted him, pointing to her,
"is the partner of my life, Marya Nikolaevna. I took her out of
a bad house," and he jerked his neck saying this; "but I love her
and respect her, and any one who wants to know me," he added,
raising his voice and knitting his brows, "I beg to love her and
respect her. Shes just the same as my wife, just the same. So
now you know whom youve to do with. And if you think youre
lowering yourself, well, heres the floor, theres the door."
And again his eyes traveled inquiringly over all of them.
"Why I should be lowering myself, I dont understand."
"Then, Masha, tell them to bring supper; three portions, spirits
and wine.... No, wait a minute.... No, it doesnt matter....
Go along."
Chapter 25
"So you see," pursued Nikolay Levin, painfully wrinkling his
forehead and twitching.
It was obviously difficult for him to think of what to say and
do.
"Here, do you see?"... He pointed to some sort of iron bars,
fastened together with strings, lying in a corner of the room.
"Do you see that? Thats the beginning of a new thing were
going into. Its a productive association..."
Konstantin scarcely heard him. He looked into his sickly,
consumptive face, and he was more and more sorry for him, and he
could not force himself
Anna Karenina page 48 Anna Karenina page 50
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