Chapter 12

`Wasn't I dreadfully untidy?' she wondered, but seeing the smile of ecstasy these reminiscences called up, she felt that the impression she had made had been very good. She blushed and laughed with delight:
`Really I don't remember.'
`How nicely Turovtsin laughs!' said Levin, admiring his humid eyes and heaving chest.
`Have you known him long?' asked Kitty.
`Oh, everyone knows him!'
`And I see you think he's a horrid man?'
`Not horrid, but there's nothing in him.'
`Oh, you're wrong! And you must give up thinking so directly!' said Kitty. `I used to have a very poor opinion of him too, but he's an awfully fine and wonderfully goodhearted man. He has a heart of gold.'
`How could you find out what sort of heart he has?'
`We are great friends. I know him very well. Last winter, soon after... you came to see us,' she said, with a guilty and at the same time a confiding smile, `all Dolly's children had scarlatina, and he happened to come to see her. And only fancy,' she said in a whisper, `he felt so sorry for her that he stayed and began to help her look after the children. Yes, and for three weeks he stopped with them, and looked after the children like a nurse.'
`I am telling Konstantin Dmitrievich about Turovtsin and the scarlatina,' she said, bending over to her sister.
`Yes, it was wonderful, noble!' said Dolly, glancing toward Turovtsin, who had become aware they were talking of him, and smiling gently to him. Levin glanced once more at Turovtsin, and wondered how it was he had not realized all this man's goodness before.
`I'm sorry, I'm sorry, and I'll never think ill of people again!' he said gaily, genuinely expressing what he felt at the moment.
Chapter 12
Connected with the conversation that had sprung up on the rights of women there were certain questions as to the inequality of rights in marriage, improper to discuss before the ladies. Pestsov had several times during dinner touched upon these questions, but Sergei Ivanovich and Stepan Arkadyevich carefully drew him off them.
When they rose from the table and the ladies had gone out, Pestsov did not follow them, but, addressing Alexei Alexandrovich, began to expound the chief ground of inequality. The inequality in marriage, in his opinion, lay in the fact that the infidelity of the wife and infidelity of the husband are punished unequally, both by the law and by public opinion.
Stepan Arkadyevich went hurriedly up to Alexei Alexandrovich and offered him a cigar.