Anna Karenina — Chapter 237 in French
By Leo Tolstoy
Pendant toute la journée, Lévine, distrait par les conversations les plus diverses auxquelles il ne prenait part qu’extérieurement, malgré le désenchantement qu’il venait d’éprouver, ne cessait d’écouter joyeusement le débordement de son cœur. In the course of all that day, during the most varied conversations in which Levin took part, as it were, only with the external side of his mind, and notwithstanding his disillusion at finding that the moral regeneration had not taken place in his nature after all, he did not cease to be pleasantly conscious that his heart was full.
Après la pluie, il faisait trop humide pour aller se promener. En outre, des nuages d’orage ne quittaient pas l’horizon, allant tantôt ici, tantôt là, accompagnés de tonnerre, et s’obscurcissant sous les bords du ciel. After the shower, it was too wet to go out for a walk, and, moreover, other threatening clouds were piling up on the horizon, and here and there reaching up high into the sky, black, and laden with thunder. Toute la société passa le reste de la journée à la maison. All the household spent the rest of the day within doors.
On ne discutait plus, au contraire. Après le dîner tous étaient d’excellente humeur. Discussions were avoided, and after dinner all were in the gayest frame of mind.
Katavassov d’abord égaya les dames par ses plaisanteries originales qui plaisaient toujours beaucoup la première fois qu’on se rencontrait avec lui. Mais ensuite, poussé par Serge Ivanovitch, il raconta les observations très intéressantes qu’il avait faites sur la diversité des caractères et même des physionomies chez les mâles et les femelles des mouches, et sur leur genre de vie. Katavasof at first kept the ladies laughing by his original turns of wit, which always pleased people when they made his acquaintance; then afterward being drawn out by Sergyeï Ivanovitch, he related his very interesting observations on the different characteristics and features of male and female flies, and their habits.