neath, came up so rapidly that they had to hurry so as to reach the house before the rain was on them. The clouds coming on as the vanguard, hung low, were as black as soot, and drove across the sky with extraordinary rapidity. They had reached within two hundred feet of the house, and already the wind had begun to rise, and the downpour might be expected at any second.
The children ran on ahead laughing and screaming with delight and terror. Darya Aleksandrovna, struggling with her skirts, which the wind blew round her legs, no longer walked, but ran, not letting the children out of her sight. The gentlemen, holding on their hats with difficulty, walked with long strides. They had just reached the porch when the great drops began to strike and splash against the edge of the iron gutter. The children, and just behind them their elders, with gay exclamations ran under the shelter of the porch.
"Where is Katerina Aleksandrovna?" asked Levin of Agafya Mikhaïlovna, who was coming out of the door, loaded with shawls and plaids.
"We supposed she was with you."
"And Mitya?"
"He must be in the Kolok woods with his nurse."
Levin seized the plaids, and started for Kolok.
In the few minutes that had elapsed, the storm had reached beyond the sun, and it was as dark as if there was an eclipse. The wind blew obstinately as if insisting on its own way, tried to stop Levin, and, tearing off the leaves and flowers from the lindens, and rudely and strangely baring the white branches of the birches, bent everything to one side,—acacias, flowers, burdocks, the grass, and the tree-tops. The girls working in the garden ran squealing under the shelter of the servants' quarters. The white screen of the pouring rain had already cut off the distant forest and half of the adjacent field, and was rapidly advancing on Kolok. The dampness of the shower was felt in the atmosphere like fine drops.
Bending his head, and fighting vigorously against the gale, which tugged at his shawls, Levin was already on
