Anna Karenina

long?" Kitty questioned him.
"I don't know," he answered, not thinking of what he was saying. The
thought came into his mind that if he were held in submission by her
tone of quiet friendliness he would end by going back again without
deciding anything, and he resolved to mutiny 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 did not hear 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 toward the pavilion where the ladies took
off their skates.
{PART_ONE|CHAPTER_IX ^paragraph 40}
"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 concentric and eccentric
circles.
At that moment one of the young men, the best of the skaters of
the day, came out of the coffeehouse on his skates, with a cigarette
in his mouth. Taking a run he dashed down the steps on his skates,
crashing and leaping. He flew down, and without even changing the
free-and-easy position of his hands, skated away over the ice.
"Ah, that's a new trick!" said Levin, and he promptly ran up to
the top to perform this new trick.
"Don't break your neck! This needs practice!" Nikolai Shcherbatsky
shouted after him.
Levin went to the steps, took a run from above as best he could, and
dashed down, preserving his balance in this unwonted movement with his
hands. On the last step he stumbled, but barely touching the ice
with his hand, with a violent effort recovered himself, and skated
off, laughing.
{PART_ONE|CHAPTER_IX ^paragraph 45}
"What a fine, darling chap he is!" Kitty was thinking at that
moment, as she came out of the pavilion with Mlle. Linon and looked
toward him with a smile of quiet kindness, as though he were a
favorite brother. "And can it be my fault, can I have done anything
wrong? They talk of coquetry. I know it's not he that I love; but
still I am happy with him, and he's so nice. Only, why did he say
that?..." she mused.
Catching sight of Kitty going away, and her mother meeting her at
the steps, Levin, flushed from his rapid exercise, stood still and
pondered a minute. He took off his skates, and overtook the mother and
daughter at the entrance of the gardens.
"Delighted to see you," said Princess Shcherbatskaia. "On
Thursdays we are home, as always."
"Today, then?"
"We shall be pleased to see you," the Princess said stiffly.
{PART_ONE|CHAPTER_IX ^paragraph 50}
This stiffness hurt Kitty, and she could not resist the desire to
smooth over her mother's coldness. She turned her head, and with a
smile said:
"Good-by