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"You have taken to having secrets from me of late: that's not right." "Why is it not right?" answered Pyotr Dmitritch drily and not at once. "We all have our personal life, every one of us, and we are bound to have our secrets." "Personal life, our secrets . . . that's all words! Understand you are wounding me!" said Olga Mihalovna, sitting up in bed.
After his levee, that is to say, giving directions about the labors of the next day, and seeing all the peasants who had business with him, Levin went back to his study and sat down to work. Laska lay under the table; Agafea Mihalovna settled herself in her place with her stocking.
"How wonderfully they make this soap," he said gazing at a piece of soap he was handling, which Agafea Mihalovna had put ready for the visitor but Oblonsky had not used. "Only look; why, it's a work of art." "Yes, everything's brought to such a pitch of perfection nowadays," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, with a moist and blissful yawn.
For a second he felt that he was sharing the feeling of Agafea Mihalovna, vexation at their making jam without water, and altogether at the outside Shtcherbatsky element. He smiled, however, and went up to Kitty. "Well, how are you?" he asked her, looking at her with the expression with which everyone looked at her now. "Oh, very well," said Kitty, smiling, "and how have things gone with you?"
One asked for no sugar, another wanted it stronger, another weak, a fourth declined another glass. And all this Olga Mihalovna had to remember, and then to call, "Ivan Petrovitch, is it without sugar for you?" or, "Gentlemen, which of you wanted it weak?"
"You see, your good lady's settled me here, told me to sit a bit with her," said Agafea Mihalovna, smiling affectionately at Kitty. In these words of Agafea Mihalovna, Levin read the final act of the drama which had been enacted of late between her and Kitty.
Marya Dmitrievna launched into a description of her cares and anxieties and maternal sentiments. Lavretsky listened in silence, turning his hat in his hands. His cold, weary glance embarrassed the gossiping lady. "And do you like Lisa?" she asked. "Lisaveta Mihalovna is an excellent girl," replied Lavretsky, and he got up, took his leave, and went off to Marfa Timofyevna.
Agafea Mihalovna, always very anxious for the credit of the house, met him in the hall with inquiries about dinner. "Do just as you like, only let it be as soon as possible," he said, and went to the bailiff. When he came back, Stepan Arkadyevitch, washed and combed, came out of his room with a beaming smile, and they went upstairs together. "Well, I am glad I managed to get away to you!
"All I say is," answered Agafea Mihalovna, evidently not speaking at random, but in strict sequence of idea, "that you ought to get married, that's what I say." Agafea Mihalovna's allusion to the very subject he had only just been thinking about, hurt and stung him.
Olga Mihalovna talked without ceasing; she knew by experience that when she had guests to entertain it was far easier and more comfortable to talk than to listen. When you talk there is no need to strain your attention to think of answers to questions, and to change your expression of face.
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