Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Anna Karenina

by

Leo Tolstoy

Part 1 out of 22

FullBooks.com homepage

Index of Anna Karenina

Etext prepared by David Brannan.

Anna Karenina

by Leo Tolstoy

Translated by Constance Garnett

Chapter 1

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in

its own way.

Everything was in confusion in the Oblonskys' house. The wife

had discovered that the husband was carrying on an intrigue with

a French girl, who had been a governess in their family, and she

had announced to her husband that she could not go on living in

the same house with him. This position of affairs had now lasted

three days, and not only the husband and wife themselves, but all

the members of their family and household, were painfully

conscious of it. Every person in the house felt that there was

so sense in their living together, and that the stray people

brought together by chance in any inn had more in common with one

another than they, the members of the family and household of the

Oblonskys. The wife did not leave her own room, the husband had

not been at home for three days. The children ran wild all over

the house; the English governess quarreled with the housekeeper,

and wrote to a friend asking her to look out for a new situation

for her; the man-cook had walked off the day before just at

dinner time; the kitchen-maid, and the coachman had given

warning.

Three days after the quarrel, Prince Stepan Arkadyevitch

Oblonsky--Stiva, as he was called in the fashionable world--

woke up at his usual hour, that is, at eight o'clock in the

morning, not in his wife's bedroom, but on the leather-covered

sofa in his study. He turned over his stout, well-cared-for

person on the springy sofa, as though he would sink into a long

sleep again; he vigorously embraced the pillow on the other side

and buried his face in it; but all at once he jumped up, sat up

on the sofa, and opened his eyes.

"Yes, yes, how was it now?" he thought, going over his dream.

"Now, how was it? To be sure! Alabin was giving a dinner at

Darmstadt; no, not Darmstadt, but something American. Yes, but

then, Darmstadt was in America. Yes, Alabin was giving a dinner

on glass tables, and the tables sang, Il mio tesoro--not Il mio

tesoro though, but something better, and there were some sort of

little decanters on the table, and they were women, too," he

remembered.

Stepan Arkadyevitch's eyes twinkled gaily, and he pondered with a

smile. "Yes, it was nice, very nice. There was a great deal

more that was delightful, only there's no putting it into words,

or even expressing it in one's thoughts awake." And noticing a

gleam of light peeping in beside one of the serge curtains, he

cheerfully dropped his feet over the edge of the sofa, and felt

about with them for his slippers, a present on his last birthday,

worked for him by his wife on gold-colored morocco. And, as he

had done every day for the last nine years, he stretched out his

hand, without getting up, towards the place where his

dressing-gown always hung in his bedroom. And thereupon he

suddenly remembered that he was not sleeping in his wife's room,

but in his study, and why: the smile vanished from his face, he

knitted his brows.

"Ah, ah, ah! Oo!..." he muttered, recalling everything that had

happened. And again every detail of his quarrel with his wife

was present to his imagination, all the hopelessness of his

position, and worst of all, his own fault.

"Yes, she won't forgive me, and she can't forgive me. And the

most awful thing about it is that it's all my fault--all my

fault, though I'm not to blame. That's the point of the whole

situation," he reflected. "Oh, oh, oh!" he kept repeating in

despair, as he remembered the acutely painful sensations caused

him by this quarrel.

Most unpleasant of all was the first minute when, on coming,

happy and good-humored, from the theater, with a huge pear in his

hand for his wife, he had not found his wife in the drawing-room,

to his surprise had not found her in the study either, and saw

her at last in her bedroom with the unlucky letter that revealed

everything in her hand.

She, his Dolly, forever fussing and worrying over household

details, and limited in her ideas, as he considered, was sitting

perfectly still with the letter in her hand, looking at him with

an expression of horror, despair, and indignation.

"What's this? this?" she asked, pointing to the letter.

And at this recollection, Stepan Arkadyevitch, as is so often the

case, was not so much annoyed at the fact itself as at the way in

which he had met his wife's words.

There happened to him at that instant what does happen to people

when they are unexpectedly caught in something very disgraceful.

He did not succeed in adapting his face to the position in which

he was placed towards his wife by the discovery of his fault.

Instead of being hurt, denying, defending himself, begging

forgiveness, instead of remaining indifferent even--anything

would have been better than what he did do--his face utterly

involuntarily (reflex spinal action, reflected Stepan

Arkadyevitch, who was fond of physiology)--utterly involuntarily

assumed its habitual, good-humored, and therefore idiotic smile.

This idiotic smile he could not forgive himself. Catching sight

of that smile, Dolly shuddered as though at physical pain, broke

out with her characteristic heat into a flood of cruel words, and

rushed out of the room. Since then she had refused to see her

husband.

"It's that idiotic smile that's to blame for it all," thought

Stepan Arkadyevitch.

"But what's to be done? What's to be done?" he said to himself

in despair, and found no answer.

Chapter 2

Stepan Arkadyevitch was a truthful man in his relations with

himself. He was incapable of deceiving himself and persuading

himself that he repented of his conduct. He could not at this

date repent of the fact that he, a handsome, susceptible man of

thirty-four, was not in love with his wife, the mother of five

living and two dead children, and only a year younger than

himself. All he repented of was that he had not succeeded better

in hiding it from his wife. But he felt all the difficulty of

his position and was sorry for his wife, his children, and

himself. Possibly he might have managed to conceal his sins

better from his wife if he had anticipated that the knowledge of

them would have had such an effect on her. He had never clearly

thought out the subject, but he had vaguely conceived that his

wife must long ago have suspected him of being unfaithful to her,

and shut her eyes to the fact. He had even supposed that she, a

worn-out woman no longer young or good-looking, and in no way

remarkable or interesting, merely a good mother, ought from a

sense of fairness to take an indulgent view. It had turned out

quite the other way.

"Oh, it's awful! oh dear, oh dear! awful!" Stepan Arkadyevitch

kept repeating to himself, and he could think of nothing to be

done. "And how well things were going up till now! how well we

got on! She was contented and happy in her children; I never

interfered with her in anything; I let her manage the children

and the house just as she liked. It's true it's bad HER having

been a governess in our house. That's bad! There's something

common, vulgar, in flirting with one's governess. But what a

governess!" (He vividly recalled the roguish black eyes of Mlle.

Roland and her smile.) "But after all, while she was in the

house, I kept myself in hand. And the worst of it all is that

she's already...it seems as if ill-luck would have it so! Oh,

oh! But what, what is to be done?"

There was no solution, but that universal solution which life

gives to all questions, even the most complex and insoluble.

That answer is: one must live in the needs of the day--that is,

forget oneself. To forget himself in sleep was impossible now,

at least till nighttime; he could not go back now to the music

sung by the decanter-women; so he must forget himself in the

dream of daily life.

"Then we shall see," Stepan Arkadyevitch said to himself, and

getting up he put on a gray dressing-gown lined with blue silk,

tied the tassels in a knot, and, drawing a deep breath of air

into his broad, bare chest, he walked to the window with his

usual confident step, turning out his feet that carried his full

frame so easily. He pulled up the blind and rang the bell

loudly. It was at once answered by the appearance of an old

friend, his valet, Matvey, carrying his clothes, his boots, and a

telegram. Matvey was followed by the barber with all the

necessaries for shaving.

"Are there any papers form the office?" asked Stepan

Arkadyevitch, taking the telegram and seating himself at the

looking-glass.

"On the table," replied Matvey, glancing with inquiring sympathy

at his master; and, after a short pause, he added with a sly

smile, "They've sent from the carriage-jobbers."

Stepan Arkadyevitch made no reply, he merely glanced at Matvey in

the looking-glass. In the glance, in which their eyes met in the

looking-glass, it was clear that they understood one another.

Stepan Arkadyevitch's eyes asked: "Why do you tell me that?

don't you know?"

Matvey put his hands in his jacket pockets, thrust out one leg,

and gazed silently, good-humoredly, with a faint smile, at his

master.

"I told them to come on Sunday, and till then not to trouble you

or themselves for nothing," he said. He had obviously prepared

the sentence beforehand.

Stepan Arkadyevitch saw Matvey wanted to make a joke and attract

attention to himself. Tearing open the telegram, he read it

through, guessing at the words, misspelt as they always are in

telegrams, and his face brightened.

"Matvey, my sister Anna Arkadyevna will be here tomorrow," he

said, checking for a minute the sleek, plump hand of the barber,

cutting a pink path through his long, curly whiskers.

"Thank God!" said Matvey, showing by this response that he, like

his master, realized the significance of this arrival--that is,

that Anna Arkadyevna, the sister he was so fond of, might bring

about a reconciliation between husband and wife.

"Alone, or with her husband?" inquired Matvey.

Stepan Arkadyevitch could not answer, as the barber was at work

on his upper lip, and he raised one finger. Matvey nodded at the

looking-glass.

"Alone. Is the room to be got ready upstairs?"

"Inform Darya Alexandrovna: where she orders."

"Darya Alexandrovna?" Matvey repeated, as though in doubt.

"Yes, inform her. Here, take the telegram; give it to her, and

then do what she tells you."

"You want to try it on," Matvey understood, but he only said,

"Yes sir."

Stepan Arkadyevitch was already washed and combed and ready to be

dressed, when Matvey, stepping deliberately in his creaky boots,

came back into the room with the telegram in his hand. The

barber

had gone.

"Darya Alexandrovna told me to inform you that she is going away.

Let him do--that is you--as he likes," he said, laughing only

with his eyes, and putting his hands in his pockets, he watched

his master with his head on one side. Stepan Arkadyevitch was

silent a minute. Then a good-humored and rather pitiful smile

showed itself on his handsome face.

"Eh, Matvey?" he said, shaking his head.

"It's all right, sir; she will come round," said Matvey.

"Come round?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do you think so? Who's there?" asked Stepan Arkadyevitch,

hearing the rustle of a woman's dress at the door.

"It's I," said a firm, pleasant, woman's voice, and the stern,

pockmarked face of Matrona Philimonovna, the nurse, was thrust

in at the doorway.

"Well, what is it, Matrona?" queried Stepan Arkadyevitch, going

up to her at the door.

Although Stepan Arkadyevitch was completely in the wrong as

regards his wife, and was conscious of this himself, almost every

one in the house (even the nurse, Darya Alexandrovna's chief

ally) was on his side.

"Well, what now?" he asked disconsolately.

"Go to her, sir; own your fault again. Maybe God will aid you.

She is suffering so, it's sad to hee her; and besides, everything

in the house is topsy-turvy. You must have pity, sir, on the

children. Beg her forgiveness, sir. There's no help for it! One

must take the consequences..."

"But she won't see me."

"You do your part. God is merciful; pray to God, sir, pray to

God."

"Come, that'll do, you can go," said Stepan Arkadyevitch,

blushing suddenly. "Well now, do dress me." He turned to Matvey

and threw off his dressing-gown decisively.

Matvey was already holding up the shirt like a horse's collar,

and, blowing off some invisible speck, he slipped it with obvious

pleasure over the well-groomed body of his master.

Chapter 3

When he was dressed, Stepan Arkadyevitch sprinkled some scent on

himself, pulled down his shirt-cuffs, distributed into his

pockets his cigarettes, pocketbook, matches, and watch with its

double chain and seals, and shaking out his handkerchief, feeling

himself clean, fragrant, healthy, and physically at ease, in

spite of his unhappiness, he walked with a slight swing on each

leg into the dining-room, where coffee was already waiting for

him, and beside the coffee, letters and papers from the office.

He read the letters. One was very unpleasant, from a merchant

who was buying a forest on his wife's property. To sell this

forest was absolutely essential; but at present, until he was

reconciled with his wife, the subject could not be discussed.

The most unpleasant thing of all was that his pecuniary interests

should in this way enter into the question of his reconciliation

with his wife. And the idea that he might be let on by his

interests, that he might seek a reconciliation with his wife on

account of the sale of the forest--that idea hurt him.

When he had finished his letters, Stepan Arkadyevitch moved the

office-papers close to him, rapidly looked through two pieces of

business, made a few notes with a big pencil, and pushing away

the papers, turned to his coffee. As he sipped his coffee, he

opened a still damp morning paper, and began reading it.

Stepan Arkadyevitch took in and read a liberal paper, not an

extreme one, but one advocating the views held by the majority.

And in spite of the fact that science, art, and politics had no

special interest for him, he firmly held those views on all these

subjects which were held by the majority and by his paper, and he

only changed them when the majority changed them--or, more

strictly speaking, he did not change them, but they imperceptibly

changed of themselves within him.

Stepan Arkadyevitch had not chosen his political opinions or his

views; these political opinions and views had come to him of

themselves, just as he did not choose the shapes of his hat and

coat, but simply took those that were being worn. And for him,

living in a certain society--owing to the need, ordinarily

developed at years of discretion, for some degree of mental

activity--to have views was just as indispensable as to have a

hat. If there was a reason for his preferring liberal to

conservative views, which were held also by many of his circle,

it arose not from his considering liberalism more rational, but

from its being in closer accordance with his manner of life. The

liberal party said that in Russia everything is wrong, and

certainly Stepan Arkadyevitch had many debts and was decidedly

short of money. The liberal party said that marriage is an

institution quite out of date, and that it needs reconstruction;

and family life certainly afforded Stepan Arkadyevitch little

gratification, and forced him into lying and hypocrisy, which was

so repulsive to his nature. The liberal party said, or rather

allowed it to be understood, that religion is only a curb to keep

in check the barbarous classes of the people; and Stepan

Arkadyevitch could not get through even a short service without

his legs aching from standing up, and could never make out what

was the object of all the terrible and high-flown language about

another world when life might be so very amusing in this world.

And with all this, Stepan Arkadyevitch, who liked a joke, was

fond of puzzling a plain man by saying that if he prided himself

on his origin, he ought not to stop at Rurik and disown the first

founder of his family--the monkey. And so Liberalism had become

a habit of Stepan Arkadyevitch's, and he liked his newspaper, as

he did his cigar after dinner, for the slight fog it diffused in

his brain. He read the leading article, in which it was

maintained that it was quite senseless in our day to raise an

outcry that radicalism was threatening to swallow up all

conservative elements, and that the government ought to take

measures to crush the revolutionary hydra; that, on the contrary,

"in our opinion the danger lies not in that fantastic

revolutionary hydra, but in the obstinacy of traditionalism

clogging progress," etc., etc. He read another article, too, a

financial one, which alluded to Bentham and Mill, and dropped

some innuendoes reflecting on the ministry. With his

characteristic quickwittedness he caught the drift of each

innuendo, divined whence it came, at whom and on what ground it

was aimed, and that afforded him, as it always did, a certain

satisfaction. But today that satisfaction was embittered by

Matrona Philimonovna's advice and the unsatisfactory state of the

household. He read, too, that Count Beist was rumored to have

left for Wiesbaden, and that one need have no more gray hair, and

of the sale of a light carriage, and of a young person seeking a

situation; but these items of information did not give him, as

usual, a quiet, ironical gratification. Having finished the

paper, a second cup of coffee and a roll and butter, he got up,

shaking the crumbs of the roll off his waistcoat; and, squaring

his broad chest, he smiled joyously: not because there was

anything particularly agreeable in his mind--the joyous smile

was evoked by a good digestion.

But this joyous smile at once recalled everything to

him, and he grew thoughtful.

Two childish voices (Stepan Arkadyevitch recognized the voices of

Grisha, his youngest boy, and Tanya, his eldest girl) were heard

outside the door. They were carrying something, and dropped it.

"I told you not to sit passengers on the roof," said the little

girl in English; "there, pick them up!"

"Everything's in confusion," thought Stepan Arkadyevitch; "there

are the children running about by themselves." And going to the

door, he called them. They threw down the box, that represented

a train, and came in to their father.

The little girl, her father's favorite, ran up boldly, embraced

him, and hung laughingly on his neck, enjoying as she always did

the smell of scent that came from his whiskers. At last the

little girl kissed his face, which was flushed from his stooping

posture and beaming with tenderness, loosed her hands, and was

about to run away again; but her father held her back.

"How is mamma?" he asked, passing his hand over his daughter's

smooth, soft little neck. "Good morning," he said, smiling to

the boy, who had come up to greet him. He was conscious that he

loved the boy less, and always tried to be fair; but the boy felt

it, and did not respond with a smile to his father's chilly

smile.

"Mamma? She is up," answered the girl.

Stepan Arkadyevitch sighed. "That means that she's not slept

again all night," he thought.

"Well, is she cheerful?"

The little girl knew that there was a quarrel between her father

and mother, and that her mother could not be cheerful, and that

her father must be aware of this, and that he was pretending when

he asked about it so lightly. And she blushed for her father.

He at once perceived it, and blushed too.

"I don't know," she said. "She did not say we must do our

lessons, but she said we were to go for a walk with Miss Hoole to

grandmamma's."

"Well, go, Tanya, my darling. Oh, wait a minute, though," he

said, still holding her and stroking her soft little hand.

He took off the mantelpiece, where he had put it yesterday, a

little box of sweets, and gave her two, picking out her

favorites, a chocolate and a fondant.

"For Grisha?" said the little girl, pointing to the chocolate.

"Yes, yes." And still stroking her little shoulder, he kissed

her on the roots of here hair and neck, and let her go.

"The carriage is ready," said Matvey; "but there's some one to

see you with a petition."

"Been here long?" asked Stepan Arkadyevitch.

"Half an hour."

"How many times have I told you to tell me at once?"

"One must let you drink your coffee in peace, at least," said

Matvey, in the affectionately gruff tone with which it was

impossible to be angry.

"Well, show the person up at once," said Oblonsky, frowning with

vexation.

The petitioner, the widow of a staff captain Kalinin, came with a

request impossible and unreasonable; but Stepan Arkadyevitch, as

he generally did, made her sit down, heard her to the end

attentively without interrupting her, and gave her detailed

advice as to how and to whom to apply, and even wrote her, in his

large, sprawling, good and legible hand, a confident and fluent

little note to a personage who might be of use to her. Having

got rid of the staff captain's widow, Stepan Arkadyevitch took

his hat and stopped to recollect whether he had forgotten

anything. It appeared that he had forgotten nothing except what

he wanted to forget--his wife.

"Ah, yes!" He bowed his head, and his handsome face assumed a

harassed expression. "To go, or not to go!" he said to himself;

and an inner voice told him he must not go, that nothing could

come of it but falsity; that to amend, to set right their

relations was impossible, because it was impossible to make her

attractive again and able to inspire love, or to make him an old

man, not susceptible to love. Except deceit and lying nothing

could come of it now; and deceit and lying were opposed to his

nature.

"It must be some time, though: it can't go on like this," he

said, trying to give himself courage. He squared his chest, took

out a cigarette, took two whiffs at it, flung it into a

mother-of-pearl ashtray, and with rapid steps walked through the

drawing room, and opened the other door into his wife's bedroom.

Chapter 4

Darya Alexandrovna, in a dressing jacket, and with her now

scanty, once luxuriant and beautiful hair fastened up with

hairpins on the nape of her neck, with a sunken, thin face and

large, startled eyes, which looked prominent from the thinness of

her face, was standing among a litter of all sorts of things

scattered all over the room, before an open bureau, from which

she was taking something. Hearing her husband's steps, she

stopped, looking towards the door, and trying assiduously to give

her features a severe and contemptuous expression. She felt she

was afraid of him, and afraid of the coming interview. She was

just attempting to do what she had attempted to do ten times

already in these last three days--to sort out the children's

things and her own, so as to take them to her mother's--and

again she could not bring herself to do this; but now again, as

each time before, she kept saying to herself, "that things cannot

go on like this, that she must take some step" to punish him, put

him to shame, avenge on him some little part at least of the

suffering he had caused her. She still continued to tell

herself that she should leave him, but she was conscious that

this was impossible; it was impossible because she could not get

out of the habit of regarding him as her husband and loving him.

Besides this, she realized that if even here in her own house she

could hardly manage to look after her five children properly,

they would be still worse off where she was going with them all.

As it was, even in the course of these three days, the youngest

was unwell from being given unwholesome soup, and the others had

almost gone without their dinner the day before. She was

conscious that it was impossible to go away; but, cheating

herself, she went on all the same sorting out her things and

pretending she was going.

Seeing her husband, she dropped her hands into the drawer of the

bureau as though looking for something, and only looked round at

him when he had come quite up to her. But her face, to which she

tried to give a severe and resolute expression, betrayed

bewilderment and suffering.

"Dolly!" he said in a subdued and timid voice. He bent his head

towards his shoulder and tried to look pitiful and humble, but

for all that he was radiant with freshness and health. In a

rapid glance she scanned his figure that beamed with health and

freshness. "Yes, he is happy and content!" she thought; "while

I.... And that disgusting good nature, which every one likes him

for and praises--I hate that good nature of his," she thought.

Her mouth stiffened, the muscles of the cheek contracted on the

right side of her pale, nervous face.

"What do you want?" she said in a rapid, deep, unnatural voice.

"Dolly!" he repeated, with a quiver in his voice. "Anna is

coming today."

"Well, what is that to me? I can't see her!" she cried.

"But you must, really, Dolly..."

"Go away, go away, go away!" she shrieked, not looking at him, as

though this shriek were called up by physical pain.

Stepan Arkadyevitch could be calm when he thought of his wife, he

could hope that she would come round, as Matvey expressed it, and

could quietly go on reading his paper and drinking his coffee;

but when he saw her tortured, suffering face, heard the tone of

her voice, submissive to fate and full of despair, there was a

catch in his breath and a lump in his throat, and his eyes began

to shine with tears.

"My God! what have I done? Dolly! For God's sake!.... You

know...." He could not go on; there was a sob in his throat.

She shut the bureau with a slam, and glanced at him.

"Dolly, what can I say?.... One thing: forgive...Remember,

cannot nine years of my life atone for an instant...."

She dropped her eyes and listened, expecting what he would say,

as it were beseeching him in some way or other to make her

believe differently.

"--instant of passion?" he said, and would have gone on, but at

that word, as at a pang of physical pain, her lips stiffened

again, and again the muscles of her right cheek worked.

"Go away, go out of the room!" she shrieked still more shrilly,

"and don't talk to me of your passion and your loathsomeness."

She tried to go out, but tottered, and clung to the back of a

chair to support herself. His face relaxed, his lips swelled,

his eyes were swimming with tears.

"Dolly!" he said, sobbing now; "for mercy's sake, think of the

children; they are not to blame! I am to blame, and punish me,

make me expiate my fault. Anything I can do, I am ready to do

anything! I am to blame, no words can express how much I am to

blame! But, Dolly, forgive me!"

She sat down. He listened to her hard, heavy breathing, and he

was unutterably sorry for her. She tried several times to begin

to speak, but could not. He waited.

"You remember the children, Stiva, to play with them; but I

remember them, and know that this means their ruin," she

said--obviously one of the phrases she had more than once

repeated to herself in the course of the last few days.

She had called him "Stiva," and he glanced at her with gratitude,

and moved to take her hand, but she drew back from him with

aversion.

"I think of the children, and for that reason I would do anything

in the world to save them, but I don't myself know how to save

them. By taking them away from their father, or by leaving them

with a vicious father--yes, a vicious father.... Tell me, after

what...has happened, can we live together? Is that possible?

Tell me, eh, is it possible?" she repeated, raising her voice,

"after my husband, the father of my children, enters into a

love affair with his own children's governess?"

"But what could I do? what could I do?" he kept saying in a

pitiful voice, not knowing what he was saying, as his head sank

lower and lower.

"You are loathsome to me, repulsive!" she shrieked, getting more

and more heated. "Your tears mean nothing! You have never loved

me; you have neither heart nor honorable feeling! You are

hateful to me, disgusting, a stranger--yes, a complete

stranger!" With pain and wrath she uttered the word so terrible

to herself--stranger.

He looked at her, and the fury expressed in her face alarmed and

amazed him. He did not understand how his pity for her

exasperated her. She saw in him sympathy for her, but not love.

"No, she hates me. She will not forgive me," he thought.

"It is awful! awful!" he said.

At that moment in the next room a child began to cry; probably it

had fallen down. Darya Alexandrovna listened, and her face

suddenly softened.

She seemed to be pulling herself together for a few seconds, as

though she did not know where she was, and what she was doing,

and getting up rapidly, she moved towards the door.

"Well, she loves my child," he thought, noticing the change of

her face at the child's cry, "my child: how can she hate me?"

"Dolly, one word more," he said, following her.

"If you come near me, I will call in the servants, the children!

They may all know you are a scoundrel! I am going away at once,

and you may live here with your mistress!"

And she went out, slamming the door.

Stepan Arkadyevitch sighed, wiped his face, and with a subdued

tread walked out of the room. "Matvey says she will come round;

but how? I don't see the least chance of it. Ah, oh, how

horrible it is! And how vulgarly she shouted," he said to

himself, remembering her shriek and the words--"scoundrel" and

"mistress." "And very likely the maids were listening! Horribly

vulgar! horrible!" Stepan Arkadyevitch stood a few seconds

alone, wiped his face, squared his chest, and walked out of the

room.

It was Friday, and in the dining room the German watchmaker was

winding up the clock. Stepan Arkadyevitch remembered his joke

about this punctual, bald watchmaker, "that the German was wound

up for a whole lifetime himself, to wind up watches," and he

smiled. Stepan Arkadyevitch was fond of a joke: "And maybe she

will come round! That's a good expression, 'come round,'" he

thought. "I must repeat that."

"Matvey!" he shouted. "Arrange everything with Darya in the

sitting room for Anna Arkadyevna," he said to Matvey when he came

in.

"Yes, sir."

Stepan Arkadyevitch put on his fur coat and went out onto the

steps.

"You won't dine at home?" said Matvey, seeing him off.

"That's as it happens. But here's for the housekeeping," he

said, taking ten roubles from his pocketbook. "That'll be

enough."

"Enough or not enough, we must make it do," said Matvey, slamming

the carriage door and stepping back onto the steps.

Darya Alexandrovna meanwhile having pacified the child, and

knowing from the sound of the carriage that he had gone off, went

back again to her bedroom. It was her solitary refuge from the

household cares which crowded upon her directly she went out from

it. Even now, in the short time she had been in the nursery, the

English governess and Matrona Philimonovna had succeeded in

putting several questions to her, which did not admit of delay,

and which only she could answer: "What were the children to put

on for their walk? Should they have any milk? Should not a new

cook be sent for?"

"Ah, let me alone, let me alone!" she said, and going back to her

bedroom she sat down in the same place as she had sat when

talking to her husband, clasping tightly her thin hands with the

rings that slipped down on her bony fingers, and fell to going

over in her memory all the conversation. "He has gone! But has

he broken it off with her?" she thought. "Can it be he sees her?

Why didn't I ask him! No, no, reconciliation is impossible.

Even if we remain in the same house, we are strangers--strangers

forever!" She repeated again with special significance the word

so dreadful to her. "And how I loved him! my God, how I loved

him!.... How I loved him! And now don't I love him? Don't I

love him more than before? The most horrible thing is," she

began, but did not finish her thought, because Matrona

Philimonovna put her head in at the door.

"Let us send for my brother," she said; "he can get a dinner

anyway, or we shall have the children getting nothing to eat till

six again, like yesterday."

"Very well, I will come directly and see about it. But did you

send for some new milk?"

And Darya Alexandrovna plunged into the duties of the day, and

drowned her grief in them for a time.

Chapter 5

Stepan Arkadyevitch had learned easily at school, thanks to his

excellent abilities, but he had been idle and mischievous, and

therefore was one of the lowest in his class. But in spite of

his habitually dissipated mode of life, his inferior grade in the

service, and his comparative youth, he occupied the honorable and

lucrative position of president of one of the government boards

at Moscow. This post he had received through his sister Anna's

husband, Alexey Alexandrovitch Karenin, who held one of the most

important positions in the ministry to whose department the

Moscow office belonged. But if Karenin had not got his brother-

in-law this berth, then through a hundred other personages--

brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles, and aunts--Stiva Oblonsky

would have received this post, or some other similar one,

together with the salary of six thousand absolutely needful for

them, as his affairs, in spite of his wife's considerable

property, were in an embarrassed condition.

Half Moscow and Petersburg were friends and relations of Stepan

Arkadyevitch. He was born in the midst of those who had been and

are the powerful ones of this world. One-third of the men in the

government, the older men, had been friends of his father's, and

had known him in petticoats; another third were his intimate

chums, and the remainder were friendly acquaintances.

Consequently the distributors of earthly blessings in the shape

of places, rents, shares, and such, were all his friends, and

could not overlook one of their own set; and Oblonsky had no need

to make any special exertion to get a lucrative post. He had

only not to refuse things, not to show jealousy, not to be

quarrelsome or take offense, all of which from his

characteristic good nature he never did. It would have struck

him as absurd if he had been told that he would not get a

position with the salary he required, especially as he expected

nothing out of the way; he only wanted what the men of his own

age and standing did get, and he was no worse qualified for

performing duties of the kind than any other man.

Stepan Arkadyevitch was not merely liked by all who knew him for

his good humor, but for his bright disposition, and his

unquestionable honesty. In him, in his handsome, radiant figure,

his sparkling eyes, black hair and eyebrows, and the white and

red of his face, there was something which produced a physical

effect of kindliness and good humor on the people who met him.

"Aha! Stiva! Oblonsky! Here he is!" was almost always said

with a smile of delight on meeting him. Even though it happened

at times that after a conversation with him it seemed that

nothing particularly delightful had happened, the next day, and

the next, every one was just as delighted at meeting him again.

After filling for three years the post of president of one of the

government boards at Moscow, Stepan Arkadyevitch had won the

respect, as well as the liking, of his fellow officials,

subordinates, and superiors, and all who had had business with

him. The principal qualities in Stepan Arkadyevitch which had

gained him this universal respect in the service consisted, in

the first place, of his extreme indulgence for others, founded on

a consciousness of his own shortcomings; secondly, of his perfect

liberalism--not the liberalism he read of in the papers, but the

liberalism that was in his blood, in virtue of which he treated

all men perfectly equally and exactly the same, whatever their

fortune or calling might be; and thirdly--the most important

point--his complete indifference to the business in which he was

engaged, in consequence of which he was never carried away, and

never made mistakes.

On reaching the offices of the board, Stepan Arkadyevitch,

escorted by a deferential porter with a portfolio, went into his

little private room, put on his uniform, and went into the

boardroom. The clerks and copyists all rose, greeting him with

good-humored deference. Stepan Arkadyevitch moved quickly, as

ever, to his place, shook hands with his colleagues, and sat

down. He made a joke or two, and talked just as much as was

consistent with due decorum, and began work. No one knew better

than Stepan Arkadyevitch how to hit on the exact line between

freedom, simplicity, and official stiffness necessary for the

agreeable conduct of business. A secretary, with the

good-humored deference common to every one in Stepan

Arkadyevitch's office, came up with papers, and began to speak in

the familiar and easy tone which had been introduced by Stepan

Arkadyevitch.

"We have succeeded in getting the information from the government

department of Penza. Here, would you care?...."

"You've got them at last?" said Stepan Arkadyevitch, laying his

finger on the paper. "Now, gentlemen...."

And the sitting of the board began.

"If they knew," he thought, bending his head with a significant

air as he listened to the report, "what a guilty little boy their

president was half an hour ago." And his eyes were laughing

during the reading of the report. Till two o'clock the sitting

would go on without a break, and at two o'clock there would be an

interval and luncheon.

It was not yet two, when the large glass doors of the boardroom

suddenly opened and someone came in.

All the officials sitting on the further side under the portrait

of the Tsar and the eagle, delighted at any distraction, looked

round at the door; but the doorkeeper standing at the door at

once drove out the intruder, and closed the glass door after him.

When the case had been read through, Stepan Arkadyevitch got up

and stretched, and by way of tribute to the liberalism of the

times took out a cigarette in the boardroom and went into his

private room. Two of the members of the board, the old veteran

in the service, Nikitin, and the Kammerjunker Grinevitch, went in

with him.

"We shall have time to finish after lunch," said Stepan

Arkadyevitch.

"To be sure we shall!" said Nikitin.

"A pretty sharp fellow this Fomin must be," said Grinevitch of

one of the persons taking part in the case they were examining.

Stepan Arkadyevitch frowned at Grinevitch's words, giving him

thereby to understand that it was improper to pass judgment

prematurely, and made him no reply.

"Who was that came in?" he asked the doorkeeper.

"Someone, your excellency, crept in without permission directly

my back was turned. He was asking for you. I told him: when

the members come out, then..."

"Where is he?"

"Maybe he's gone into the passage, but here he comes anyway.

That is he," said the doorkeeper, pointing to a strongly built,

broadshouldered man with a curly beard, who, without taking off

his sheepskin cap, was running lightly and rapidly up the worn

steps of the stone staircase. One of the members going down--a

lean official with a portfolio--stood out of his way and looked

disapprovingly at the legs of the stranger, then glanced

inquiringly at Oblonsky.

Stepan Arkadyevitch was standing at the top of the stairs. His

good-naturedly beaming face above the embroidered collar of his

uniform beamed more than ever when he recognized the man coming

up.

"Why, it's actually you, Levin, at last!" he said with a friendly

mocking smile, scanning Levin as he approached. "How is it you

have deigned to look me up in this den?" said Stepan

Arkadyevitch, and not content with shaking hands, he kissed his

friend. "Have you been here long?"

"I have just come, and very much wanted to see you," said Levin,

looking shyly and at the same time angry and uneasily around.

"Well, let's go into my room," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, who knew

his friend's sensitive and irritable shyness, and, taking his

arm, he drew him along, as though guiding him through dangers.

Stepan Arkadyevitch was on familiar terms with almost all his

acquaintances, and called almost all of them by their Christian

names: old men of sixty, boys of twenty, actors, ministers,

merchants, and adjutant-generals, so that many of his intimate

chums were to be found at the extreme ends of the social ladder,

and would have been very much surprised to learn that they had,

through the medium of Oblonsky, something in common. He was the

familiar friend of everyone with whom he took a glass of

champagne, and he took a glass of champagne with everyone, and

when in consequence he met any of his disreputable chums, as he

used in joke to call many of his friends, in the presence of his

subordinates, he well knew how, with his characteristic tact, to

diminish the disagreeable impression made on them. Levin was

not a disreputable chum, but Oblonsky, with his ready tact, felt

that Levin fancied he might not care to show his intimacy with

him before his subordinates, and so he made haste to take him off

into his room.

Levin was almost of the same age as Oblonsky; their intimacy did

not rest merely on champagne. Levin had been the friend and

companion of his early youth. They were fond of one another in

spite of the difference of their characters and tastes, as

friends are fond of one another who have been together in early

youth. But in spite of this, each of them--as is often the way

with men who have selected careers of different kinds--though in

discussion he would even justify the other's career, in his heart

despised it. It seemed to each of them that the life he led

himself was the only real life, and the life led by his friend

was a mere phantasm. Oblonsky could not restrain a slight

mocking smile at the sight of Levin. How often he had seen him

come up to Moscow from the country where he was doing something,

but what precisely Stepan Arkadyevitch could never quite make

out, and indeed he took no interest in the matter. Levin arrived

in Moscow always excited and in a hurry, rather ill at ease and

irritated by his own want of ease, and for the most part with a

perfectly new, unexpected view of things. Stepan Arkadyevitch

laughed at this, and liked it. In the same way Levin in his

heart despised the town mode of life of his friend, and his

official duties, which he laughed at, and regarded as trifling.

But the difference was that Oblonsky, as he was doing the same as

every one did, laughed complacently and good-humoredly, while

Levin laughed without complacency and sometimes angrily.

"We have long been expecting you," said Stepan Arkadyevitch,

going into his room and letting Levin's hand go as though to show

that here all danger was over. "I am very, very glad to see

you," he went on. "Well, how are you? Eh? When did you come?"

Levin was silent, looking at the unknown faces of Oblonsky's two

companions, and especially at the hand of the elegant Grinevitch,

which had such long white fingers, such long yellow

filbert-shaped nails, and such huge shining studs on the

shirt-cuff, that apparently they absorbed all his attention, and

allowed him no freedom of thought. Oblonsky noticed this at

once, and smiled.

"Ah, to be sure, let me introduce you," he said. "My colleagues:

Philip Ivanitch Nikitin, Mihail Stanislavitch Grinevitch"--and

turning to Levin--"a district councilor, a modern district

councilman, a gymnast who lifts thirteen stone with one hand, a

cattle-breeder and sportsman, and my friend, Konstantin

Dmitrievitch Levin, the brother of Sergey Ivonovitch Koznishev."

"Delighted," said the veteran.

"I have the honor of knowing your brother, Sergey Ivanovitch,"

said Grinevitch, holding out his slender hand with its long

nails.

Levin frowned, shook hands coldly, and at once turned to

Oblonsky. Though he had a great respect for his half-brother, an

author well known to all Russia, he could not endure it when

people treated him not as Konstantin Levin, but as the brother of

the celebrated Koznishev.

"No, I am no longer a district councilor. I have quarreled with

them all, and don't go to the meetings any more," he said,

turning to Oblonsky.

"You've been quick about it!" said Oblonsky with a smile. "But

how? why?"

"It's a long story. I will tell you some time," said Levin, but

he began telling him at once. "Well, to put it shortly, I was

convinced that nothing was really done by the district councils,

or ever could be," he began, as though some one had just insulted

him. "On one side it's a plaything; they play at being a

parliament, and I'm neither young enough nor old enough to find

amusement in playthings; and on the other side" (he stammered)

"it's a means for the coterie of the district to make money.

Formerly they had wardships, courts of justice, now they have the

district council--not in the form of bribes, but in the form of

unearned salary," he said, as hotly as though someone of those

present had opposed his opinion.

"Aha! You're in a new phase again, I see--a conservative," said

Stepan Arkadyevitch. "However, we can go into that later."

"Yes, later. But I wanted to see you," said Levin, looking with

hatred at Grinevitch's hand.

Stepan Arkadyevitch gave a scarcely perceptible smile.

"How was it you used to say you would never wear European dress

again?" he said, scanning his new suit, obviously cut by a French

tailor. "Ah! I see: a new phase."

Levin suddenly blushed, not as grown men blush, slightly, without

being themselves aware of it, but as boys blush, feeling that

they are ridiculous through their shyness, and consequently

ashamed of it and blushing still more, almost to the point of

tears. And it was so strange to see this sensible, manly face in

such a childish plight, that Oblonsky left off looking at him.

"Oh, where shall we meet? You know I want very much to talk to

you," said Levin.

Oblonsky seemed to ponder.

"I'll tell you what: let's go to Gurin's to lunch, and there we

can talk. I am free till three."

"No," answered Levin, after an instant's thought, "I have got to

go on somewhere else."

"All right, then, let's dine together."

"Dine together? But I have nothing very particular, only a few

words to say, and a question I want to ask you, and we can have a

talk afterwards."

"Well, say the few words, then, at once, and we'll gossip after

dinner."

"Well, it's this," said Levin; "but it's of no importance,

though."

His face all at once took an expression of anger from the effort

he was making to surmount his shyness.

"What are the Shtcherbatskys doing? Everything as it used to

be?" he said.

Stepan Arkadyevitch, who had long known that Levin was in love

with his sister-in-law, Kitty, gave a hardly perceptible smile,

and his eyes sparkled merrily.

"You said a few words, but I can't answer in a few words,

because.... Excuse me a minute..."

A secretary came in, with respectful familiarity and the modest

consciousness, characteristic of every secretary, of superiority

to his chief in the knowledge of their business; he went up to

Oblonsky with some papers, and began, under pretense of asking a

question, to explain some objection. Stepan Arkadyevitch,

without hearing him out, laid his hand genially on the

secretary's sleeve.

"No, you do as I told you," he said, softening his words with a

smile, and with a brief explanation of his view of the matter he

turned away from the papers, and said: "So do it that way, if you

please, Zahar Nikititch."

The secretary retired in confusion. During the consultation with

the secretary Levin had completely recovered from his

embarrassment. He was standing with his elbows on the back of a

chair, and on his face was a look of ironical attention.

"I don't understand it, I don't understand it," he said.

"What don't you understand?" said Oblonsky, smiling as brightly

as ever, and picking up a cigarette. He expected some queer

outburst from Levin.

"I don't understand what you are doing," said Levin, shrugging

his shoulders. "How can you do it seriously?"

"Why not?"

"Why, because there's nothing in it."

"You think so, but we're overwhelmed with work."

"On paper. But, there, you've a gift for it," added Levin.

"That's to say, you think there's a lack of something in me?"

"Perhaps so," said Levin. "But all the same I admire your

grandeur, and am proud that I've a friend in such a great person.

You've not answered my question, though," he went on, with a

desperate effort looking Oblonsky straight in the face.

"Oh, that's all very well. You wait a bit, and you'll come to

this yourself. It's very nice for you to have over six thousand

acres in the Karazinsky district, and such muscles, and the

freshness of a girl of twelve; still you'll be one of us one day.

Yes, as to your question, there is no change, but it's a pity

you've been away so long."

"Oh, why so?" Levin queried, panic-stricken.

"Oh, nothing," responded Oblonsky. "We'll talk it over. But

what's brought you up to town?"

"Oh, we'll talk about that, too, later on," said Levin, reddening

again up to his ears.

"All right. I see," said Stepan Arkadyevitch. "I should ask you

to come to us, you know, but my wife's not quite the thing. But

I tell you what; if you want to see them, they're sure now to be

at the Zoological Gardens from four to five. Kitty skates. You

drive along there, and I'll come and fetch you, and we'll go and

dine somewhere together."

"Capital. So good-bye till then."

"Now mind, you'll forget, I know you, or rush off home to the

country!" Stepan Arkadyevitch called out laughing.

"No, truly!"

And Levin went out of the room, only when he was in the doorway

remembering that he had forgotten to take leave of Oblonsky's

colleagues.

"That gentleman must be a man of great energy," said Grinevitch,

when Levin had gone away.

"Yes, my dear boy," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, nodding his head,

"he's a lucky fellow! Over six thousand acres in the Karazinsky

district; everything before him; and what youth and vigor! Not

like some of us."

"You have a great deal to complain of, haven't you, Stepan

Arkadyevitch?"

"Ah, yes, I'm in a poor way, a bad way," said Stepan Arkadyevitch

with a heavy sigh.

Chapter 6

When Oblonsky asked Levin what had brought him to town, Levin

blushed, and was furious with himself for blushing, because he

could not answer, "I have come to make your sister-in-law an

offer," though that was precisely what he had come for.

The families of the Levins and the Shtcherbatskys were old, noble

Moscow families, and had always been on intimate and friendly

terms. This intimacy had grown still closer during Levin's

student days. He had both prepared for the university with the

young Prince Shtcherbatsky, the brother of Kitty and Dolly, and

had entered at the same time with him. In those days Levin used

often to be in the Shtcherbatskys' house, and he was in love with

the Shtcherbatsky household. Strange as it may appear, it was

with the household, the family, that Konstantin Levin was in

love, especially with the feminine half of the household. Levin

did not remember his own mother, and his only sister was older

than he was, so that it was in the Shtcherbatskys' house that he

saw for the first time that inner life of an old, noble,

cultivated, and honorable family of which he had been deprived by

the death of his father and mother. All the members of that

family, especially the feminine half, were pictured by him, as

it were, wrapped about with a mysterious poetical veil, and he

not only perceived no defects whatever in them, but under the

poetical veil that shrouded them he assumed the existence of the

loftiest sentiments and every possible perfection. Why it was

the three young ladies had one day to speak French, and the next

English; why it was that at certain hours they played by turns on

the piano, the sounds of which were audible in their brother's

room above, where the students used to work; why they were

visited by those professors of French literature, of music, of

drawing, of dancing; why at certain hours all the three young

ladies, with Mademoiselle Linon, drove in the coach to the

Tversky boulevard, dressed in their satin cloaks, Dolly in a long

one, Natalia in a half-long one, and Kitty in one so short that

her shapely legs in tightly-drawn red stockings were visible to

all beholders; why it was they had to walk about the Tversky

boulevard escorted by a footman with a gold cockade in his

hat--all this and much more that was done in their mysterious

world he did not understand, but he was sure that everything that

was done there was very good, and he was in love precisely with

the mystery of the proceedings.

In his student days he had all but been in love with the eldest,

Dolly, but she was soon married to Oblonsky. Then he began being

in love with the second. He felt, as it were, that he had to be

in love with one of the sisters, only he could not quite make out

which. But Natalia, too, had hardly made her appearance in the

world when she married the diplomat Lvov. Kitty was still a

child when Levin left the university. Young Shtcherbatsky went

into the navy, was drowned in the Baltic, and Levin's relations

with the Shtcherbatskys, in spite of his friendship with

Oblonsky, became less intimate. But when early in the winter of

this year Levin came to Moscow, after a year in the country, and

saw the Shtcherbatskys, he realized which of the three sisters he

was indeed destined to love.

One would have thought that nothing could be simpler than for

him, a man of good family, rather rich than poor, and thirty-two

years old, to make the young Princess Shtcherbatskaya an offer of

marriage; in all likelihood he would at once have been looked

upon as a good match. But Levin was in love, and so it seemed to

him that Kitty was so perfect in every respect that she was a

creature far above everything earthly; and that he was a creature

so low and so earthly that it could not even be conceived that

other people and she herself could regard him as worthy of her.

After spending two months in Moscow in a state of enchantment,

seeing Kitty almost every day in society, into which he went so

as to meet her, he abruptly decided that it could not be, and

went back to the country.

Levin's conviction that it could not be was founded on the idea

that in the eyes of her family he was a disadvantageous and

worthless match for the charming Kitty, and that Kitty herself

could not love him. In her family's eyes he had no ordinary,

definite career and position in society, while his contemporaries

by this time, when he was thirty-two, were already, one a

colonel, and another a professor, another director of a bank and

railways, or president of a board like Oblonsky. But he (he knew

very well how he must appear to others) was a country gentleman,

occupied in breeding cattle, shooting game, and building barns;

in other words, a fellow of no ability, who had not turned out

well, and who was doing just what, according to the ideas of the

world, is done by people fit for nothing else.

The mysterious, enchanting Kitty herself could not love such an

ugly person as he conceived himself to be, and, above all, such

an ordinary, in no way striking person. Moreover, his attitude

to Kitty in the past--the attitude of a grown-up person to a

child, arising from his friendship with her brother--seemed to

him yet another obstacle to love. An ugly, good-natured man, as

he considered himself, might, he supposed, be liked as a friend;

but to be loved with such a love as that with which he loved

Kitty, one would need to be a handsome and, still more, a

distinguished man.

He had heard that women often did care for ugly and ordinary men,

but he did not believe it, for he judged by himself, and he could

not himself have loved any but beautiful, mysterious, and

exceptional women.

But after spending two months alone in the country, he was

convinced that this was not one of those passions of which he had

had experience in his early youth; that this feeling gave him not

an instant's rest; that he could not live without deciding the

question, would she or would she not be his wife, and that his

despair had arisen only from his own imaginings, that he had no

sort of proof that he would be rejected. And he had now come to

Moscow with a firm determination to make an offer, and get

married if he were accepted. Or...he could not conceive what

would become of him if he were rejected.

Chapter 7

On arriving in Moscow by a morning train, Levin had put up at the

house of his elder half-brother, Koznishev. After changing his

clothes he went down to his brother's study, intending to talk to

him at once about the object of his visit, and to ask his advice;

but his brother was not alone. With him there was a well-known

professor of philosophy, who had come from Harkov expressly to

clear up a difference that had arisen between them on a very

important philosophical question. The professor was carrying on

a hot crusade against materialists. Sergey Koznishev had been

following this crusade with interest, and after reading the

professor's last article, he had written him a letter stating his

objections. He accused the professor of making too great

concessions to the materialists. And the professor had promptly

appeared to argue the matter out. The point in discussion was

the question then in vogue: Is there a line to be drawn between

psychological and physiological phenomena in man? and if so,

where?

Sergey Ivanovitch met his brother with the smile of chilly

friendliness he always had for everyone, and introducing him to

the professor, went on with the conversation.

A little man in spectacles, with a narrow forehead, tore himself

from the discussion for an instant to greet Levin, and then went

on talking without paying any further attention to him. Levin

sat down to wait till the professor should go, but he soon began

to get interested in the subject under discussion.

Levin had come across the magazine articles about which they were

disputing, and had read them, interested in them as a development

of the first principles of science, familiar to him as a natural

science student at the university. But he had never connected

these scientific deductions as to the origin of man as an animal,

as to reflex action, biology, and sociology, with those questions

as to the meaning of life and death to himself, which had of late

been more and more often in his mind.

As he listened to his brother's argument with the professor, he

noticed that they connected these scientific questions with those

spiritual problems, that at times they almost touched on the

latter; but every time they were close upon what seemed to him

the chief point, they promptly beat a hasty retreat, and plunged

again into a sea of subtle distinctions, reservations,

quotations, allusions, and appeals to authorities, and it was

with difficulty that he understood what they were talking about.

"I cannot admit it," said Sergey Ivanovitch, with his habitual

clearness, precision of expression, and elegance of phrase. "I

cannot in any case agree with Keiss that my whole conception of

the external world has been derived from perceptions. The most

fundamental idea, the idea of existence, has not been received by

me through sensation; indeed, there is no special sense-organ for

the transmission of such an idea."

"Yes, but they--Wurt, and Knaust, and Pripasov--would answer

that your consciousness of existence is derived from the

conjunction of all your sensations, that that consciousness of

existence is the result of your sensations. Wurt, indeed, says

plainly that, assuming there are no sensations, it follows that

there is no idea of existence."

"I maintain the contrary," began Sergey Ivanovitch.

But here it seemed to Levin that just as they were close upon the

real point of the matter, they were again retreating, and he made

up his mind to put a question to the professor.

"According to that, if my senses are annihilated, if my body is

dead, I can have no existence of any sort?" he queried.

The professor, in annoyance, and, as it were, mental suffering

at the interruption, looked round at the strange inquirer, more

like a bargeman than a philosopher, and turned his eyes upon

Sergey Ivanovitch, as though to ask: What's one to say to him?

But Sergey Ivanovitch, who had been talking with far less heat

and one-sidedness than the professor, and who had sufficient

breadth of mind to answer the professor, and at the same time to

comprehend the simple and natural point of view from which the

question was put, smiled and said:

"That question we have no right to answer as yet."

"We have not the requisite data," chimed in the professor, and he

went back to his argument. "No," he said; "I would point out the

fact that if, as Pripasov directly asserts, perception is based

on sensation, then we are bound to distinguish sharply between

these two conceptions."

Levin listened no more, and simply waited for the professor to

go.

Chapter 8

When the professor had gone, Sergey Ivanovitch turned to his

brother.

"Delighted that you've come. For some time, is it? How's your

farming getting on?"

Levin knew that his elder brother took little interest in

farming, and only put the question in deference to him, and so he

only told him about the sale of his wheat and money matters.

Levin had meant to tell his brother of his determination to get

married, and to ask his advice; he had indeed firmly resolved to

do so. But after seeing his brother, listening to his

conversation with the professor, hearing afterwards the

unconsciously patronizing tone in which his brother questioned

him about agricultural matters (their mother's property had not

been divided, and Levin took charge of both their shares), Levin

felt that he could not for some reason begin to talk to him of

his intention of marrying. He felt that his brother would not

look at it as he would have wished him to.

"Well, how is your district council doing?" asked Sergey

Ivanovitch, who was greatly interested in these local boards and

attached great importance to them.

"I really don't know."

"What! Why, surely you're a member of the board?"

"No, I'm not a member now; I've resigned," answered Levin, "and I

no longer attend the meetings."

"What a pity!" commented Sergey Ivanovitch, frowning.

Levin in self-defense began to describe what took place in the

meetings in his district.

"That's how it always is!" Sergey Ivanovitch interrupted him.

"We Russians are always like that. Perhaps it's our strong

point, really, the faculty of seeing our own shortcomings; but we

overdo it, we comfort ourselves with irony which we always have

on the tip of our tongues. All I say is, give such rights as our

local self-government to any other European people--why, the

Germans or the English would have worked their way to freedom

from them, while we simply turn them into ridicule."

"But how can it be helped?" said Levin penitently. "It was my

last effort. And I did try with all my soul. I can't. I'm no

good at it."

"It's not that you're no good at it," said Sergey Ivanovitch; "it

is that you don't look at it as you should."

"Perhaps not," Levin answered dejectedly.

"Oh! do you know brother Nikolay's turned up again?"

This brother Nikolay was the elder brother of Konstantin Levin,

and half-brother of Sergey Ivanovitch; a man utterly ruined, who

had dissipated the greater part of his fortune, was living in the

strangest and lowest company, and had quarreled with his

brothers.

"What did you say?" Levin cried with horror. "How do you know?"

"Prokofy saw him in the street."

"Here in Moscow? Where is he? Do you know?" Levin got up from

his chair, as though on the point of starting off at once.

"I am sorry I told you," said Sergey Ivanovitch, shaking his head

at his younger brother's excitement. "I sent to find out where

he is living, and sent him his IOU to Trubin, which I paid. This

is the answer he sent me."

And Sergey Ivanovitch took a note from under a paper-weight and

handed it to his brother.

Levin read in the queer, familiar handwriting: "I humbly beg you

to leave me in peace. That's the only favor I ask of my gracious

brothers.--Nikolay Levin."

Levin read it, and without raising his head stood with the note

in his hands opposite Sergey Ivanovitch.

There was a struggle in his heart between the desire to forget

his unhappy brother for the time, and the consciousness that it

would be base to do so.

"He obviously wants to offend me," pursued Sergey Ivanovitch;

"but he cannot offend me, and I should have wished with all my

heart to assist him, but I know it's impossible to do that."

"Yes, yes," repeated Levin. "I understand and appreciate your

attitude to him; but I shall go and see him."

"If you want to, do; but I shouldn't advise it," said Sergey

Ivanovitch. "As regards myself, I have no fear of your doing so;

he will not make you quarrel with me; but for your own sake, I

should say you would do better not to go. You can't do him any

good; still, do as you please."

"Very likely I can't do any good, but I feel--especially at such

a moment--but that's another thing--I feel I could not be at

peace."

"Well, that I don't understand," said Sergey Ivanovitch. "One

thing I do understand," he added; "it's a lesson in humility. I

have come to look very differently and more charitably on what is

called infamous since brother Nikolay has become what he is...you

know what he did..."

"Oh, it's awful, awful!" repeated Levin.

After obtaining his brother's address from Sergey Ivanovitch's

footman, Levin was on the point of setting off at once to see

him, but on second thought he decided to put off his visit till

the evening. The first thing to do to set his heart at rest was

to accomplish what he had come to Moscow for. From his brother's

Levin went to Oblonsky's office, and on getting news of the

Shtcherbatskys from him, he drove to the place where he had been

told he might find Kitty.

Chapter 9

At four o'clock, conscious of his throbbing heart, Levin stepped

out of a hired sledge at the Zoological Gardens, and turned along

the path to the frozen mounds and the skating ground, knowing

that he would certainly find her there, as he had seen the

Shtcherbatskys' carriage at the entrance.

It was a bright, frosty day. Rows of carriages, sledges,

drivers, and policemen were standing in the approach. Crowds of

well-dressed people, with hats bright in the sun, swarmed about

the entrance and along the well-swept little paths between the

little houses adorned with carving in the Russian style. The old

curly birches of the gardens, all their twigs laden with snow,

looked as though freshly decked in sacred vestments.

He walked along the path towards the skating-ground, and kept

saying to himself--"You mustn't be excited, you must be calm.

What's the matter with you? What do you want? Be quiet,

stupid," he conjured his heart. And the more he tried to compose

himself, the more breathless he found himself. An acquaintance

met him and called him by his name, but Levin did not even

recognize him. He went towards the mounds, whence came the clank

of the chains of sledges as they slipped down or were dragged up,

the rumble of the sliding sledges, and the sounds of merry

voices. He walked on a few steps, and the skating-ground lay

open before his eyes, and at once, amidst all the skaters, he

knew her.

He knew she was there by the rapture and the terror that seized

on his heart. She was standing talking to a lady at the opposite

end of the ground. There was apparently nothing striking either

in her dress or her attitude. But for Levin she was as easy to

find in that crowd as a rose among nettles. Everything was made

bright by her. She was the smile that shed light on all round

her. "Is it possible I can go over there on the ice, go up to

her?" he thought. The place where she stood seemed to him a holy

shrine, unapproachable, and there was one moment when he was

almost retreating, so overwhelmed was he with terror. He had to

make an effort to master himself, and to remind himself that

people of all sorts were moving about her, and that he too might

come there to skate. He walked down, for a long while avoiding

looking at her as at the sun, but seeing her, as one does the

sun, without looking.

On that day of the week and at that time of day people of one

set, all acquainted with one another, used to meet on the ice.

There were crack skaters there, showing off their skill, and

learners clinging to chairs with timid, awkward movements, boys,

and elderly people skating with hygienic motives. They seemed to

Levin an elect band of blissful beings because they were here,

near her. All the skaters, it seemed, with perfect

self-possession, skated towards her, skated by her, even spoke to

her, and were happy, quite apart from her, enjoying the capital

ice and the fine weather.

Nikolay Shtcherbatsky, Kitty's cousin, in a short jacket and

tight trousers, was sitting on a garden seat with his skates on.

Seeing Levin, he shouted to him:

"Ah, the first skater in Russia! Been here long? First-rate

ice--do put your skates on."

"I haven't got my skates," Levin answered, marveling at this

boldness and ease in her presence, and not for one second losing

sight of her, though he did not look at her. He felt as though

the sun were coming near him. She was in a corner, and turning

out her slender feet in their high boots with obvious timidity,

she skated towards him. A boy in Russian dress, desperately

waving his arms and bowed down to the ground, overtook her. She

skated a little uncertainly; taking her hands out of the little

muff that hung on a cord, she held them ready for emergency, and

looking towards Levin, whom she had recognized, she smiled at

him, and at her own fears. When she had got round the turn, she

gave herself a push off with one foot, and skated straight up to

Shtcherbatsky. Clutching at his arm, she nodded smiling to

Levin. She was more splendid that he had imagined her.

When he thought of her, he could call up a vivid picture of her

to himself, especially the charm of that little fair head, so

freely set on the shapely girlish shoulders, and so full of

childish brightness and good humor. The childishness of her

expression, together with the delicate beauty of her figure, made

up her special charm, and that he fully realized. But what

always struck him in her as something unlooked for, was the

expression of her eyes, soft, serene, and truthful, and above

all, her smile, which always transported Levin to an enchanted

world, where he felt himself softened and tender, as he

remembered himself in some days of his early childhood.

"Have you been here long?" she said, giving him her hand. "Thank

you," she added, as he picked up the handkerchief that had fallen

out of her muff.

"I? I've not long...yesterday...I mean today...I arrived,"

answered Levin, in his emotion not at once understanding her

question. "I was meaning to come and see you," he said; and

then, recollecting with what intention he was trying to see her,

he was promptly overcome with confusion and blushed.

"I didn't know you could skate, and skate so well."

She looked at him earnestly, as though wishing to make out the

cause of his confusion.

"Your praise is worth having. The tradition is kept up here that

you are the best of skaters," she said, with her little

black-gloved hand brushing a grain of hoarfrost off her muff.

"Yes, I used once to skate with passion; I wanted to reach

perfection."

"You do everything with passion, I think," she said smiling. "I

should so like to see how you skate. Put on skates, and let us

skate together."

"Skate together! Can that be possible?" thought Levin, gazing at

her.

"I'll put them on directly," he said.

And he went off to get skates.

"It's a long while since we've seen you here, sir," said the

attendant, supporting his foot, and screwing on the heel of the

skate. "Except you, there's none of the gentlemen first-rate

skaters. Will that be all right?" said he, tightening the strap.

"Oh, yes, yes; make haste, please," answered Levin, with

difficulty restraining the smile of rapture which would

overspread his face. "Yes," he thought, "this now is life, this

is happiness! Together, she said; let us skate together! Speak

to her now? But that's just why I'm afraid to speak--because I'm

happy now, happy in hope, anyway.... And then?.... But I must!

I must! I must! Away with weakness!"

Levin rose to his feet, took off his overcoat, and scurrying over

the rough ice round the hut, came out on the smooth ice and

skated without effort, as it were, by simple exercise of will,

increasing and slackening speed and turning his course. He

approached with timidity, but again her smile reassured him.

She gave him her hand, and they set off side by side, going

faster and faster, and the more rapidly they moved the more

tightly she grasped his hand.

"With you I should soon learn; I somehow feel confidence in you,"

she said to him.

"And I have confidence in myself when you are leaning on me," he

said, but was at once panic-stricken at what he had said, and

blushed. And indeed, no sooner had he uttered these words, when

all at once, like the sun going behind a cloud, her face lost all

its friendliness, and Levin detected the familiar change in her

expression that denoted the working of thought; a crease showed

on her smooth brow.

"Is there anything troubling you?--though I've no right to ask

such a question," he added hurriedly.

"Oh, why so?.... No, I have nothing to trouble me," she

responded coldly; and she added immediately: "You haven't seen

Mlle. Linon, have you?"

"Not yet."

"Go and speak to her, she likes you so much."

"What's wrong? I have offended her. Lord help me!" thought

Levin, and he flew towards the old Frenchwoman with the gray

ringlets, who was sitting on a bench. Smiling and showing her

false teeth, she greeted him as an old friend.

"Yes, you see we're growing up," she said to him, glancing

towards Kitty, "and growing old. Tiny bear has grown big now!"

pursued the Frenchwoman, laughing, and she reminded him of his

joke about the three young ladies whom he had compared to the

three bears in the English nursery tale. "Do you remember that's

what you used to call them?"

He remembered absolutely nothing, but she had been laughing at

the joke for ten years now, and was fond of it.

"Now, go and skate, go and skate. Our Kitty has learned to skate

nicely, hasn't she?"

When Levin darted up to Kitty her face was no longer stern; her

eyes looked at him with the same sincerity and friendliness, but

Levin fancied that in her friendliness there was a certain note

of deliberate composure. And he felt depressed. After talking a

little of her old governess and her peculiarities, she questioned

him about his life.

"Surely you must be dull in the country in the winter, aren't

you?" she said.

"No, I'm not dull, I am very busy," he said, feeling that she was

holding him in check by her composed tone, which he would not

have the force to break through, just as it had been at the

beginning of the winter.

"Are you going to stay in town long?" Kitty questioned him.

"I don't know," he answered, not thinking of what he was saying.

The thought that if he were held in check by her tone of quiet

friendliness he would end by going back again without deciding

anything came into his mind, and he resolved to make a struggle

against it.

"How is it you don't know?"

"I don't know. It depends upon you," he said, and was

immediately horror-stricken at his own words.

Whether it was that she had heard his words, or that she did not

want to hear them, she made a sort of stumble, twice struck out,

and hurriedly skated away from him. She skated up to Mlle.

Linon, said something to her, and went towards the pavilion where

the ladies took off their skates.

"My God! what have I done! Merciful God! help me, guide me,"

said Levin, praying inwardly, and at the same time, feeling a

need of violent exercise, he skated about describing inner and

outer circles.

At that moment one of the young men, the best of the skaters of

the day, came out of the coffee-house in his skates, with a

cigarette in his mouth. Taking a run, he dashed down the steps

in his skates, crashing and bounding up and down. He flew down,

and without even changing the position of his hands, skated away

over the ice.

"Ah, that's a new trick!" said Levin, and he promptly ran up to

the top to do this new trick.

"Don't break you neck! it needs practice!" Nikolay Shtcherbatsky

shouted after him.

Levin went to the steps, took a run from above as best he could,

and dashed down, preserving his balance in this unwonted movement

with his hands. On the last step he stumbled, but barely

touching the ice with his hand, with a violent effort recovered

himself, and skated off, laughing.

"How splendid, how nice he is!" Kitty was thinking at that time,

as she came out of the pavilion with Mlle. Linon, and looked

towards him with a smile of quiet affection, as though he were a

favorite brother. "And can it be my fault, can I have done

anything wrong? They talk of flirtation. I know it's not he

that I love; but still I am happy with him, and he's so jolly.

Only, why did he say that?..." she mused.

Catching sight of Kitty going away, and her mother meeting her at

the steps, Levin, flushed from his rapid exercise, stood still

and pondered a minute. He took off his skates, and overtook the

mother and daughter at the entrance of the gardens.

"Delighted to see you," said Princess Shtcherbatskaya. "On

Thursdays we are home, as always."

"Today, then?"

"We shall be pleased to see you," the princess said stiffly.

This stiffness hurt Kitty, and she could not resist the desire to

smooth over her mother's coldness. She turned her head, and with

a smile said:

"Good-bye till this evening."

At that moment Stepan Arkadyevitch, his hat cocked on one side,

with beaming face and eyes, strode into the garden like a

conquering hero. But as he approached his mother-in-law, he

responded in a mournful and crestfallen tone to her inquiries

about Dolly's health. After a little subdued and dejected

conversation with his mother-in-law, he threw out his chest

again, and put his arm in Levin's.

"Well, shall we set off?" he asked. "I've been thinking about

you all this time, and I'm very, very glad you've come," he said,

looking him in the face with a significant air.

"Yes, come along," answered Levin in ecstasy, hearing unceasingly

the sound of that voice saying, "Good-bye till this evening," and

seeing the smile with which it was said.

"To the England or the Hermitage?"

"I don't mind which."

"All right, then, the England," said Stepan Arkadyevitch,

selecting that restaurant because he owed more there than at the

Hermitage, and consequently considered it mean to avoid it.

"Have you got a sledge? That's first-rate, for I sent my

carriage home."

The friends hardly spoke all the way. Levin was wondering what

that change in Kitty's expression had meant, and alternately

assuring himself that there was hope, and falling into despair,

seeing clearly that his hopes were insane, and yet all the while

he felt himself quite another man, utterly unlike what he had

been before her smile and those words, "Good-bye till this

evening."

Stepan Arkadyevitch was absorbed during the drive in composing

the menu of the dinner.

"You like trout, don't you?" he said to Levin as they were

arriving.

"Eh?" responded Levin. "Turbot? Yes, I'm AWFULLY fond of

turbot."

Chapter 10

When Levin went into the restaurant with Oblonsky, he could not

help noticing a certain peculiarity of expression, as it were, a

restrained radiance, about the face and whole figure of Stepan

Arkadyevitch. Oblonsky took off his overcoat, and with his hat

over one ear walked into the dining room, giving directions to

the Tatar waiters, who were clustered about him in evening coats,

bearing napkins. Bowing to right and left to the people he met,

and here as everywhere joyously greeting acquaintances, he went

up to the sideboard for a preliminary appetizer of fish and

vodka, and said to the painted Frenchwoman decked in ribbons,

lace, and ringlets, behind the counter, something so amusing that

even that Frenchwoman was moved to genuine laughter. Levin for

his part refrained from taking any vodka simply because he felt

such a loathing of that Frenchwoman, all made up, it seemed, of

false hair, poudre de riz, and vinaigre de toilette. He made

haste to move away from her, as from a dirty place. His whole

soul was filled with memories of Kitty, and there was a smile of

triumph and happiness shining in his eyes.

"This way, your excellency, please. Your excellency won't be

disturbed here," said a particularly pertinacious, white-headed

old Tatar with immense hips and coattails gaping widely behind.

"Walk in, your excellency," he said to Levin; by way of showing

his respect to Stepan Arkadyevitch, being attentive to his guest

as well.

Instantly flinging a fresh cloth over the round table under the

bronze chandelier, though it already had a table cloth on it, he

pushed up velvet chairs, and came to a standstill before Stepan

Arkadyevitch with a napkin and a bill of fare in his hands,

awaiting his commands.

"If you prefer it, your excellency, a private room will be free

directly; Prince Golistin with a lady. Fresh oysters have come

in."

"Ah! oysters."

Stepan Arkadyevitch became thoughtful.

"How if we were to change our program, Levin?" he said keeping

his finger on the bill of fare. And his face expressed serious

hesitation. "Are the oysters good? Mind now."

"They're Flensburg, your excellency. We've no Ostend."

"Flensburg will do, but are they fresh?"

"Only arrived yesterday."

"Well, then, how if we were to begin with oysters, and so change

the whole program? Eh?"

"It's all the same to me. I should like cabbage soup and

porridge better than anything; but of course there's nothing like

that here."

"Porridge a la Russe, your honor would like?" said the Tatar,

bending down to Levin, like a nurse speaking to a child.

"No, joking apart, whatever you choose is sure to be good. I've

been skating, and I'm hungry. And don't imagine," he added,

detecting a look of dissatisfaction on Oblonsky's face, "that I

shan't appreciate your choice. I am fond of good things."

"I should hope so! After all, it's one of the pleasures of

life," said Stepan Arkadyevitch. "Well, then, my friend, you

give us two--or better say three--dozen oysters, clear soup

with vegetables..."

"Printaniere," prompted the Tatar. But Stepan Arkadyevitch

apparently did not care to allow him the satisfaction of giving

the French names of the dishes.

"With vegetables in it, you know. Then turbot with thick sauce,

then...roast beef; and mind it's good. Yes, and capons, perhaps,

and then sweets."

The Tatar, recollecting that it was Stepan Arkadyevitch's way not

to call the dishes by the names in the French bill of fare, did

not repeat them after him, but could not resist rehearsing the

whole menus to himself according to the bill:--"Soupe

printaniere, turbot, sauce Beaumarchais, poulard a l'estragon,

macedoine de fruits...etc.," and then instantly, as though worked

by springs, laying down one bound bill of fare, he took up

another, the list of wines, and submitted it to Stepan

Arkadyevitch.

"What shall we drink?"

"What you like, only not too much. Champagne," said Levin.

"What! to start with? You're right though, I dare say. Do you

like the white seal?"

"Cachet blanc," prompted the Tatar.

"Very well, then, give us that brand with the oysters, and then

we'll see."

"Yes, sir. And what table wine?"

"You can give us Nuits. Oh, no, better the classic Chablis."

"Yes, sir. And YOUR cheese, your excellency?"

"Oh, yes, Parmesan. Or would you like another?"

"No, it's all the same to me," said Levin, unable to suppress a

smile.

And the Tatar ran off with flying coattails, and in five minutes

darted in with a dish of opened oysters on mother-of-pearl

shells, and a bottle between his fingers.

Stepan Arkadyevitch crushed the starchy napkin, tucked it into

his waistcoat, and settling his arms comfortably, started on the

oysters.

"Not bad," he said, stripping the oysters from the pearly shell

with a silver fork, and swallowing them one after another. "Not

bad," he repeated, turning his dewy, brilliant eyes from Levin to

the Tatar.

Levin ate the oysters indeed, though white bread and cheese would

have pleased him better. But he was admiring Oblonsky. Even the

Tatar, uncorking the bottle and pouring the sparkling wine into

the delicate glasses, glanced at Stepan Arkadyevitch, and settled

his white cravat with a perceptible smile of satisfaction.

"You don't care much for oysters, do you?" said Stepan

Arkadyevitch, emptying his wine glass, "or you're worried about

something. Eh?"

He wanted Levin to be in good spirits. But it was not that Levin

was not in good spirits; he was ill at ease. With what he had in

his soul, he felt sore and uncomfortable in the restaurant, in

the midst of private rooms where men were dining with ladies, in

all this fuss and bustle; the surroundings of bronzes, looking

glasses, gas, and waiters--all of it was offensive to him. He

was afraid of sullying what his soul was brimful of.

"I? Yes, I am; but besides, all this bothers me," he said. "You

can't conceive how queer it all seems to a country person like

me, as queer as that gentleman's nails I saw at your place..."

"Yes, I saw how much interested you were in poor Grinevitch's

nails," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, laughing.

"It's too much for me," responded Levin. "Do try, now, and put

yourself in my place, take the point of view of a country person.

We in the country try to bring our hands into such a state as

will be most convenient for working with. So we cut our nails;

sometimes we turn up our sleeves. And here people purposely let

their nails grow as long as they will, and link on small saucers

by way of studs, so that they can do nothing with their hands."

Stepan Arkadyevitch smiled gaily.

"Oh, yes, that's just a sign that he has no need to do coarse

work. His work is with the mind..."

"Maybe. But still it's queer to me, just as at this moment it

seems queer to me that we country folks try to get our meals over

as soon as we can, so as to be ready for our work, while here are

we trying to drag out our meal as long as possible, and with that

object eating oysters..."

"Why, of course," objected Stepan Arkadyevitch. "But that's just

the aim of civilization--to make everything a source of

enjoyment."

"Well, if that's its aim, I'd rather be a savage."

"And so you are a savage. All you Levins are savages."

Levin sighed. He remembered his brother Nikolay, and felt

ashamed and sore, and he scowled; but Oblonsky began speaking of

a subject which at once drew his attention.

"Oh, I say, are you going tonight to our people, the

Shtcherbatskys', I mean?" he said, his eyes sparkling

significantly as he pushed away the empty rough shells, and drew

the cheese towards him.

"Yes, I shall certainly go," replied Levin; "though I fancied the

princess was not very warm in her invitation."

"What nonsense! That's her manner.... Come, boy, the soup!....

That's her manner--grande dame," said Stepan Arkadyevitch. "I'm

coming, too, but I have to go to the Countess Bonina's rehearsal.

Come, isn't it true that you're a savage? How do you explain the

sudden way in which you vanished from Moscow? The Shtcherbatskys

were continually asking me about you, as though I ought to know.

The only thing I know is that you always do what no one else

does."

"Yes," said Levin, slowly and with emotion, "you're right. I am

a savage. Only, my savageness is not in having gone away, but in

coming now. Now I have come..."

Back to Full Books