Pagina 250 van 2288

"Won't you have supper? All right, good-bye! Come round tomorrow

with the locksmith."

Kritsky had hardly gone out when Nikolay Levin smiled and winked.

"He's no good either," he said. "I see, of course...."

But at that instant Kritsky, at the door, called him....

"What do you want now?" he said, and went out to him in the

passage. Left alone with Marya Nikolaevna, Levin turned to her.

"Have you been long with my brother?" he said to her.

"Yes, more than a year. Nikolay Dmitrievitch's health has become

very poor. Nikolay Dmitrievitch drinks a great deal," she said.

"That is ... how does he drink?"

"Drinks vodka, and it's bad for him."

"And a great deal?" whispered Levin.

"Yes," she said, looking timidly towards the doorway, where

Nikolay Levin had reappeared.

"What were you talking about?" he said, knitting his brows, and

turning his scared eyes from one to the other. "What was it?"

"Oh, nothing," Konstantin answered in confusion.