especially admired in him. He played with the children, and taught them gymnastic exercises; he jested with Miss Hull in his broken English; and he told Darya Aleksandrovna of his undertakings in the country.
After dinner, Darya Aleksandrovna, sitting alone with him on the balcony, began to speak of Kitty.
"Did you know? Kitty is coming here to spend the summer with me!"
"Indeed!" replied Levin, confused; and instantly, in order to change the subject, he added:—
"Then I shall send you two cows, shall I? And if you insist on paying, and have no scruples, then you may give me five rubles a month."
"No, thank you. We shall get along."
"Well, then I am going to look at your cows; and, with your permission, I will give directions about feeding them. Everything depends on that."
And Levin, in order to turn the conversation, explained to Darya Aleksandrovna the whole theory of the proper management of cows, which was based on the idea that a cow is only a machine for the conversion of fodder into milk, and so on.
He talked on this subject, and yet he was passionately anxious to hear the news about Kitty, but he was also afraid to hear it. It was terrible to him to think that his peace of mind, so painfully won, might be destroyed.
"Yes; but, in order to do all this, there must be some one to superintend it; and who is there?" asked Darya Aleksandrovna, not quite convinced.
Now that she carried on her domestic affairs so satisfactorily, through Matriona Filimonovna, she had no desire to make any changes; moreover, she had no faith in Levin's knowledge about rustic management. His reasonings about a cow being merely a machine to produce milk were suspicious. It seemed to her that such theories would throw housekeeping into discord; it even seemed to her that it was all far simpler, that it was sufficient, to do as Matriona Filimonovna did,—to give Pestrukha and Byelopakha[1] more fodder and drink,
- ↑ Dapple and White-foot.
