ANNA_KAR.

1870
ANNA KARENINA
by Leo Tolstoy
translated by Constance Garnett
PART ONE

Vengeance is mine; I will repay

I.

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 two days,
and not only the husband and wife themselves, but all the members of
their family and the household, were painfully conscious of it. All
the members of the family and the household felt that there was no
sense in their living together, and that even stray people brought
together by chance in any inn had more in common with one another than
they, the members of the family and the household of the Oblonskys.
The wife did not leave her own apartments; the husband had not been
home for two 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 employ for her; the man cook
had walked off the day before just at dinnertime; the kitchenmaid
and the coachman had given warning.
Two days after the quarrel, Prince Stepan Arkadyevich 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 its 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.
"Yes, how was it? Yes! 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- no, not Il mio tesoro, but something
better, and there were some sort of little decanters on the table,
and, at the same time, these decanters were women," he recalled.
Stepan Arkadyevich's eyes twinkled gaily, and he pondered with a
smile. "Yes, it was jolly, very jolly. There was a great deal more
that was delightful, only there's no putting it into words, or even
expressing it in one's waking thoughts." And noticing a gleam of light
peeping in beside one of the woolen-cloth 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 used to do for the last
nine years, he stretched out his hand, without getting up, toward
the place where his dressing gown always hung in the bedroom. And
thereupon he suddenly remembered that he was not sleeping in his
wife's room, but in his study, as well as the reason; the smile
vanished from his face and he knit 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 tragedy," 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 from the
theater, good-humored and lighthearted, with a huge pear in his hand
for his wife, he had not found his wife in the drawing room, to his
surprise, nor in the study, but saw her at last in her bedroom,
clutching the unlucky letter that revealed everything.
She, his Dolly, forever fussing and worrying over household details,
and limited in her ideas, as he considered, was sitting motionless
with the letter in her hand, looking at him with an expression of
horror, despair and indignation.
"What is this? This?" she asked, pointing to the letter.
And at this recollection, Stepan Arkadyevich, 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 that which happens to people
when they are unexpectedly caught in something very disgraceful. He
did not succeed in adapting his face to the situation in which he
was placed toward 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 without his volition ("cerebral
reflexes," mused Stepan Arkadyevich, who was fond of physiology) had
assumed its habitual good-humored, and therefore stupid, smile.
This stupid smile he could not forgive himself. Catching sight of
that smile Dolly shuddered as though from 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 all the fault of that stupid smile," Stepan Arkadyevich was
thinking.
"But what's to be done? What's to be done?" he kept saying to
himself in despair- and found no answer.
II.

Stepan Arkadyevich was a truthful man in his relations with himself.
He was incapable of self-deception and of persuading himself that he
repented his conduct. He could not at this date repent the fact that
he, handsome, susceptible to love, a 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 was that he
had not succeeded better in hiding this 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 upon her. He had never clearly
reflected on the subject, but he had vaguely conceived that his wife
must long ago have suspected him of being unfaithful to her, and had
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
uncommon- 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 Arkadyevich 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. 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, save that universal solution which life gives
to all questions, even the most complex and insolvable: 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 Arkadyevich 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
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, Matvei,
carrying his clothes, his boots and a telegram. Matvei was followed by
the barber with all the necessaries for shaving.
"Are there any papers from the board?" asked Stepan Arkadyevich,
taking the telegram and seating himself at the looking glass.
"On the table," replied Matvei, glancing with inquiring sympathy
at his master; and, after a short pause, he added with a sly smile:
"They've sent from the carriage jobber."
Stepan Arkadyevich made no reply, but merely glanced at Matvei in
the looking glass. The glance, in which their eyes met in the
looking glass, made it clear that they understood one another.
Stepan Arkadyevich's eyes seemed to ask: "Why do you tell me that?
Don't you know?"
Matvei put his hands in his jacket pockets, thrust out one leg,
and gazed silently, with a good-humored, 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 Arkadyevich saw Matvei wanted to make a joke and attract
attention to himself. Tearing open the telegram, he read it through,
guessing at the words, misspelled as they always are in telegrams, and
his face brightened.
"Matvei, 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 between his long, curly side whiskers.
"Thank God!" said Matvei, showing by this response that he, like his
master, realized the significance of this arrival: Anna Arkadyevna,
the sister his master was so fond of, might bring about a
reconciliation between husband and wife.
"Alone, or with her husband?" inquired Matvei.
Stepan Arkadyevich could not answer, as the barber was at work on
his upper lip, and he raised one finger. Matvei nodded at the
looking glass.
"Alone. Is the room to be got ready upstairs?"
"Inform Darya Alexandrovna: where she orders."
"Darya Alexandrovna?" Matvei 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 out," Matvei guessed, but only said: "Yes, sir."
Stepan Arkadyevich was already washed and combed and ready to be
dressed, when Matvei, stepping slowly 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'- that is you- 'do 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 Arkadyevich was silent a minute.
Then a good-humored and rather pitiful smile showed itself on his
handsome face.
"Eh, Matvei?" he said, shaking his head.
"Never mind, sir; everything will come round," said Matvei.
"Come round?"
"Just so, sir."
"Do you think so?- Who's there?" asked Stepan Arkadyevich, hearing
the rustle of a woman's dress at the door.
"It's I," said a firm, pleasant feminine voice, and the stern,
pockmarked face of Matriona Philimonovna, the nurse, was thrust in
at the door.
"Well, what's the matter, Matriosha?" queried Stepan Arkadyevich,
meeting her in the doorway.
Although Stepan Arkadyevich was completely in the wrong as regards
his wife, and was conscious of this himself, almost everyone in the
house (even the nurse, Darya Alexandrovna's chief ally) was on his
side.
"Well, what now?" he asked cheerlessly.
"Go to her, sir; own your fault again. Maybe God will aid you. She
is suffering so, it's pitiful to see 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 pay the
piper...."
"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 Arkadyevich, blushing
suddenly. "Well, now, let's dress," he turned to Matvei and resolutely
threw off his dressing gown.
Matvei 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-cared-for person of his master.
III.

When he was dressed, Stepan Arkadyevich 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
misfortune, he walked with a slight swing of each leg into the
dining room, where coffee was already waiting for him- and,
alongside of his cup, the 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 led 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 Arkadyevich moved the
office papers close to him, rapidly looked through two cases, made a
few notes with a big pencil, and, pushing away the papers, turned to
his coffee. Sipping it, he opened a still damp morning paper and began
to read it.
Stepan Arkadyevich 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 Arkadyevich 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 accepted 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
was wrong, and indeed Stepan Arkadyevich had many debts and was
decidedly short of money. The liberal party said that marriage was
an institution quite out of date, and that it stood in need of
reconstruction, and indeed family life afforded Stepan Arkadyevich
little gratification, and forced him into lying and hypocrisy, which
were so repulsive to his nature. The liberal party said, or rather
allowed it to be understood, that religion was only a curb to keep
in check the barbarous classes of the people, and indeed Stepan
Arkadyevich could not stand through even a short service without his
legs aching, 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
Arkadyevich, who liked a merry joke, was fond of embarrassing some
plain man by saying that if one were to pride oneself on one's origin,
one ought not to stop at Rurik and disown the founder of the line- the
monkey. And so liberalism had become a habit of Stepan Arkadyevich,
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, which 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 imaginary 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 quick-wittedness 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 gratification. But today that gratification was embittered
by Matriona Philimonovna's advice and the unsatisfactory state of
his 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 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 Arkadyevich recognized the voices of
Grisha, his youngest boy, and Tania, 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 Arkadyevich; "there
are the children running about by themselves." And going to the
door, he called them. They left off 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
well-known 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 smile responsively to his
father's chilly smile.
"Mamma? She is up," answered the girl.
Stepan Arkadyevich sighed.
"That means she hasn't 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, Tania, 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 bonbon.
"For Grisha?" said the little girl, pointing to the chocolate.
"Yes, yes." And still stroking her little shoulder, he kissed the
nape of her neck, and let her go.
"The carriage is ready," said Matvei; "but there's someone to see
you with a petition."
"Been here long?" asked Stepan Arkadyevich.
"Half an hour or so."
"How many times have I told you to tell me at once?"
"One must let you drink your coffee in peace, at least," said
Matvei, 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 Arkadyevich, 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 for her, easily and clearly, in his
large, sprawling calligraphic and legible hand, a little note to a
personage who might be of use to her. Having got rid of the staff
captain's widow, Stepan Arkadyevich 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
melancholy 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 day, though: it can't go on like this," he said,
trying to give himself courage. He set straight his chest, took out
a cigarette, lighted it, took two whiffs at it, flung it into a
mother-of-pearl ash tray, and with rapid steps walked through the
drawing room and opened the other door into his wife's bedroom.
IV.

Darya Alexandrovna, in a dressing jacket, and with her now scanty
hair (once luxuriant and beautiful) 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 toward the door, and
trying in vain 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 undertake something, 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 of 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 all of them. 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, expressed bewilderment and
suffering.
"Dolly!" he said in a subdued and timid voice. He had hunched up his
shoulders 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, beaming with freshness and health. "Yes, he is happy and
content!" she thought; "while I... And that disgusting good nature
which everyone likes him for and praises- I hate that good nature of
his," she thought. Her mouth stiffened, the muscles of the cheek
trembled 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, without looking at him,
as though this shriek were called up by physical pain.
Stepan Arkadyevich could be calm when he thought of his wife, he
could hope that everything would come round, as Matvei expressed it,
and had been able to 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, his breath was
cut short and a lump came to this 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 me... Remember, cannot
nine years of our life atone for an instant..."
She dropped her eyes and listened, expecting what he would say, as
if 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 passions and your vilenesses."
She tried to go out, but tottered, and clung to the back of a
chair to support herself. His face relaxed, his lips became puffy;
tears welled up in his eyes.
"Dolly!" he said, sobbing now. "For mercy's sake, think of the
children; they are not to blame! I am to blame- punish me then, make
me expiate my fault. Anything I can do, I am ready to do! 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 made several attempts to speak, but
could not. He waited.
"You remember the children, Stiva, to play with them; but I
remember, and know that they go to ruin now," she said- obviously
one of the phrases she had more than once repeated to herself in the
course of the last three 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 remember the children, and for that reason I would do anything in
the world to save them; but I don't myself know the means. 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? Do tell me- 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's to be done? What's to be done?" 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 a heart nor a sense of honor! 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 that it was his pity for her that
exasperated her. She saw in him compassion 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 pulling herself together for a few seconds, as though she
did not know where she was nor what she was doing, and, getting up
rapidly, she moved toward 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 then?"
"Dolly, one word more," he said, following her.
"If you follow me, I will call in the servants, and the children!
Let them 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 Arkadyevich sighed, mopped his face, and with a subdued tread
walked out of the room. "Matvei says everything will come round; but
how? I don't see the least chance of it. Ah, ah, how horrible it is!
And how vulgarly she shouted," he said to himself, remembering her
shrieks and the words- "scoundrel" and "mistress." "And very likely
the maids were listening! Horribly vulgar, horribly." Stepan
Arkadyevich stood a few seconds alone, wiped his eyes, thrust out
his chest and walked out of the room.
It was Friday, and in the dining room the watchmaker, a German,
was winding up the clock. Stepan Arkadyevich 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
Arkadyevich was fond of a nice joke. "And maybe it will come round!"
That's a good expression, 'come round,' he thought. "I must tell
that."
"Matvei!" he shouted. "Arrange everything with Marya in the
sitting room for Anna Arkadyevna," he said to Matvei when he came in.
"Yes, sir."
Stepan Arkadyevich put on his fur coat and went out on the front
steps.
"You won't dine at home?" said Matvei, seeing him off.
"It all depends. But here's for the housekeeping," he said, taking
ten roubles from his pocketbook. "Will it be enough?"
"Enough or not enough, we must make it do," said Matvei, slamming
the carriage door and going back to the steps.
Darya Alexandrovna meanwhile having pacified the child, and
knowing from the sound of the carriage that he had gone off, went back
to her bedroom. It was her only 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
Matriona 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 she had occupied when talking
to her husband, clasping tightly her thin hands, her rings slipping
down on her bony fingers, and fell to going over her recollections
of the entire interview. "He has gone! But what has he finally arrived
at 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 Matriona
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.
V.

Stepan Arkadyevich 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, Alexei
Alexandrovich Karenin, who held one of the most important positions in
the ministry to which 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 like it, together
with the salary of six thousand absolutely needful for him, as his
affairs, in spite of his wife's considerable property, were in a
poor state.
Half Moscow and Peterburg were friends and relations of Stepan
Arkadyevich. He was born in the midst of those who had been, and had
become, 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 pinafores; another third were his intimate chums, and the
remainder were friendly acquaintances. Consequently the distributors
of earthly blessings in the shape of posts, rents, concessions 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 this
kind than any other man.
Stepan Arkadyevich was not merely liked by all who knew him for
his good humor, his bright disposition and his unquestionable honesty;
in him, in his handsome, radiant figure, his sparkling eyes, black
hair and eyebrows, and his white and pink complexion, there was
something which produced a physical effect of kindliness and good
humor on the people who met him. "Aha! Stiva! Oblonsky! The man
himself!" 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, everyone was just as delighted to meet him
again.
After filling for two years the post of president of one of the
government boards at Moscow, Stepan Arkadyevich 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 Arkadyevich 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 rank might be; and
thirdly- the most important point- of his complete indifference to the
business in which he was engaged, in consequence of which he was never
carried away, and made no mistakes.
On reaching the offices of the board Stepan Arkadyevich, escorted by
a deferential porter with a portfolio, went into his little private
room, put on his uniform, and went into the board room. The clerks and
officials all rose, greeting him with good-humored deference. Stepan
Arkadyevich moved quickly, as always, to his place, shook hands with
the members of the board, 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 Arkadyevich how to hit on that
exact limit of freedom, simplicity and official stiffness which is
necessary for the agreeable conduct of business. A secretary, with the
good-humored deference common to everyone in Stepan Arkadyevich's
office, came up with papers, and began to speak in the familiar and
easy tone which had been introduced by Stepan Arkadyevich.
"We have succeeded in getting the information from the government
department of Penza. Here, would you care?..."
"You've got it at last?" said Stepan Arkadyevich, laying his
finger on the paper. "Now, gentlemen..."
And the sitting of the board began.
"If they but knew," he thought, inclining his head with an important
air and listening 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- then there would be an interval and luncheon.
It was not yet two, when the large glass doors of the board room
suddenly opened and someone came in.
All the members of the board, sitting at the table, from below the
portrait of the Czar and from behind the mirror of justice,
delighted at any distraction, looked round at the door; but the
doorkeeper standing there at once drove out the intruder, and closed
the glass door after him.
When the case had been read through, Stepan Arkadyevich got up and
stretched, and by way of tribute to the liberalism of the times took
out a cigarette, being in the board room, and went into his private
room. Two of his board fellows, the old veteran in the service,
Nikitin, and the Kammerjunker Grinevich, went in with him.
"We shall have time to finish after lunch," said Stepan Arkadyevich.
"To be sure we shall!" said Nikitin.
"A pretty sharp fellow this Fomin must be," said Grinevich of one of
the persons taking part in the case they were examining.
Stepan Arkadyevich frowned at Grinevich's words, giving him
thereby to understand that it was improper to pass judgment
prematurely, and made him no reply.
"Who was it who came in?" he asked the doorkeeper.
"Some fellow, your excellency, sneaked 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, he was strolling here till now.
That's he," said the doorkeeper, pointing to a strongly built, broad
shouldered 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 officials going down- a lean fellow
with a portfolio- stood out of his way, looked disapprovingly at the
legs of the running man, and then glanced inquiringly at Oblonsky.
Stepan Arkadyevich 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, gazing on the approaching man. "How is it you have
deigned to look me up in this den?" said Stepan Arkadyevich 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 about him shyly, and, at the same time, angrily and uneasily.
"Well, let's go into my room," said Stepan Arkadyevich, who knew his
friend's sensitive and irritable shyness, and, taking his arm, he drew
him along, as though guiding him through dangers.
Stepan Arkadyevich 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 any possible disagreeable impression.
Levin was not a disreputable chum, but Oblonsky, with his ready
tact, felt that Levin fancied Oblonsky might not care to show his
intimacy with him before subordinates, and so Stepan Arkadyevich
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 Arkadyevich could never quite make out,
and indeed 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 Arkadyevich 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, since he
was doing the same as everyone did, laughed assuredly and
good-humoredly, while Levin laughed without assuredness and
sometimes angrily.
"We have long been expecting you," said Stepan Arkadyevich, 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, what now? How are you? When did you come?"
Levin was silent, looking at the unfamiliar faces of Oblonsky's
two companions, and especially at the elegant Grinevich's hands-
with such long white fingers, such long yellow nails, curved at
their end, and such huge shining studs on the shirt cuff, that
apparently these hands 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 Ivanich Nikitin, Mikhail Stanislavich Grinevich"- and turning
to Levin- "a Zemstvo member, a modern Zemstvo man, a gymnast who lifts
five poods with one hand, a cattle breeder and sportsman, and my
friend- Constantin Dmitrievich Levin, the brother of Sergei
Ivanovich Koznishev."
"Delighted," said the veteran.
"I have the honor of knowing your brother, Sergei Ivanovich," said
Grinevich, 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 Constantin Levin, but as the brother of the celebrated
Koznishev.
"No, I am no longer a Zemstvo man. I have quarreled with them all,
and don't go to the sessions 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
began telling him at once. "Well, to put it shortly, I was convinced
that nothing was really done by the Zemstvo councils, or ever could
be," he began, as though someone 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 feather their nests. Formerly they did this through
wardships and courts of justice, now they do it through the Zemstvo-
instead of taking the bribes, they take the unearned salary," he said,
as hotly as though one of those present had opposed his opinion.
"Aha! You're in a new phase again, I see- a conservative," said
Stepan Arkadyevich. "However, we can go into that later."
"Yes, later. But I had to see you," said Levin, looking with
hatred at Grinevich's hand.
Stepan Arkadyevich gave a scarcely perceptible smile.
"But you used to say you'd never wear European dress again," he
said, gazing on Levin's new suit, obviously cut by a French tailor.
"So! 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 another
visit to make."
"All right, then, let's dine together."
"Dine together? But I have nothing very particular- just a word or
two, a question; then a little chatting."
"Well, let's have your word or two right now- and we'll talk it over
in the course of the dinner."
"Well, it's this," said Levin, "however- it's of no importance."
His face suddenly assumed an expression of anger from the effort
he was making to surmount his shyness.
"What are the Shcherbatskys doing? Everything as it used to be?"
he said.
Stepan Arkadyevich, 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've said your word or two, but I can't answer in a few words,
because... Excuse me for just 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 affairs; he went up to Oblonsky with
some papers, and began, under pretense of asking a question, to
explain some objection. Stepan Arkadyevich, without hearing him out,
laid his hand genially on the secretary's sleeve.
"No, you do as I told you," he said, smoothing his remark with a
smile, and with a brief explanation of his view of the matter he moved
away the papers, and said: "So do it that way, if you please, Zakhar
Nikitich."
The secretary retired in confusion. During the consultation with the
secretary Levin had completely recovered from his embarrassment. He
was standing with 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 just as
cheerfully, 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 be serious about it?"
"Why not?"
"Why, because there's nothing in it."
"You think so- yet 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 to have such a great person as a friend. 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 three thousand dessiatinas 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, frightened.
"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 Arkadyevich. "I should ask you to
come to us, you know, but my wife's not quite well. But I'll 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-by till then."
"Now mind, you'll forget- I know you!- or rush off home to the
country!" Stepan Arkadyevich called out laughing.
"No, truly!"
And Levin went out of the room, recalling only when he was in the
doorway that he had forgotten to take leave of Oblonsky's colleagues.
"That gentleman must be a man of great energy," said Grinevich, when
Levin had gone away.
"Yes, my dear sir," said Stepan Arkadyevich, nodding his head, "he's
a lucky fellow! Three thousand dessiatinas in the Karazinsky district;
everything before him; and what youth and vigor! Not like some of us."
"But why are you complaining, Stepan Arkadyevich?"
"Why, it goes hard with me, very bad," said Stepan Arkadyevich
with a heavy sigh.
VI.

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 a proposal,"
though that was solely what he had come for.
The families of the Levins and the Shcherbatskys 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
Shcherbatsky, the brother of Kitty and Dolly, and had entered at the
same time with him. In those days Levin was a frequent visitor at
the house of the Shcherbatskys, and he was in love with the
Shcherbatsky household. Strange as it may appear, it was with the
household, the family that Constantin 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 Shcherbatskys' house that he saw for the first time that
inner life of an old, noble, cultured 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 Tverskoy boulevard, dressed in
their satin cloaks, Dolly in a long one, Natalie 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 Tverskoy 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
Natalie, 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 Shcherbatsky went into the navy, was drowned in
the Baltic and Levin's visits to the Shcherbatskys, despite his
friendship with Oblonsky, became less frequent. But when early in
the winter of this year Levin came to Moscow, after a year in the
country, and saw the Shcherbatskys, 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 Shcherbatskaia 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, a creature so far above everything earthly, while 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 befuddlement,
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 comrades 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 chairman 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
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
as to whether she would or would not be his wife; that his despair had
arisen only from his own imaginings, and that he had no sort of
proof that he would be rejected. So he had now come to Moscow with a
firm determination to make a proposal, and get married if he were
accepted. Or... he could not conceive what would become of him if he
were rejected.
VII.

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 Charkov 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. Sergei Koznishev had been following this crusade
with interest, and after reading the professor's last article 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 psychical and physiological phenomena in man? And if so,
where?
Sergei Ivanovich 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 when 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 to himself of life and death, 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 Sergei Ivanovich, with his habitual
clearness and distinctness of expression, and elegance of diction.
"I cannot in any case agree with Keiss that my whole conception of the
external world has been derived from impressions. 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- Wurst, and Knaust, and Pripassov- 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. Wurst, indeed, says plainly that,
assuming there are no sensations, it follows that there is no idea
of existence."
"I maintain the contrary," began Sergei Ivanovich.
But here it seemed again 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
hauler of a barge than a philosopher, and turned his eyes upon
Sergei Ivanovich, as though to ask: What's one to say to him? But
Sergei Ivanovich, who had been talking with far less stress 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," confirmed the professor, and he
went back to his argument. "No," he said; "I would point out the
fact that if, as Pripassov directly asserts, sensation is based on
impression, then we are bound to distinguish sharply between these two
conceptions."
Levin listened no more, and simply waited for the professor to go.
VIII.

When the professor had gone, Sergei Ivanovich turned to his brother.
"Delighted that you've come. For how long? 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 therefore he told
him only 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 afterward 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
broach to him his intention of marrying. He felt that his brother
would not look on it as he would have wished him.
"Well, how is your Zemstvo doing?" asked Sergei Ivanovich, who was
greatly interested in Zemstvo establishments and attached great
importance to them.
"I really don't know."
"What! But 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 sessions."
"What a pity!" commented Sergei Ivanovich, frowning.
Levin in self-defense began to describe what took place at the
sessions in his district.
"That's how it always is!" Sergei Ivanovich interrupted him. "We
Russians are always like that. Perhaps it's our strong point,
really- this 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 Zemstvo
establishments to any other European people, and... Why, the Germans
or the English would have worked their way to freedom with them, while
we simply turn them into ridicule."
"But how can it be helped?" said Levin penitently. "It was my last
trial. 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 Sergei Ivanovich, "it
is that you don't look at it as you should."
"Perhaps not," Levin answered dejectedly.
"Oh! do you know brother Nikolai's turned up again?"
This brother Nikolai was the elder brother of Constantin Levin,
and half-brother of Sergei Ivanovich; a man who was done for, 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?"
"Procophii 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'm sorry I told you," said Sergei Ivanovich, shaking his head at
his younger brother's excitement. "I sent to find out where he is
living, and sent him his I O U to Trubin, which I paid. This is the
answer he sent me."
And Sergei Ivanovich took a note from under a paperweight 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.- Nikolai Levin."
Levin read it, and without raising his head stood with the note in
his hands opposite Sergei Ivanovich.
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 Sergei Ivanovich; "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 Sergei
Ivanovich. "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's something I don't understand," said Sergei
Ivanovich. "One thing I do understand," he added, "it's a lesson in
humility. I have come to look very differently and more indulgently on
what is called infamy since brother Nikolai has become what he is...
you know what he did...."
"Oh, it's awful, awful!" repeated Levin.
After obtaining his brother's address from Sergei Ivanovich'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 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 Shcherbatskys from him, he drove to
the place where he had been told he might find Kitty.
IX.

At four o'clock, conscious of his throbbing heart, Levin stepped out
of a hired sleigh 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 Shcherbatskys'
carriage at the entrance.
It was a bright, frosty day. Rows of carriages, sleighs, drivers and
gendarmes 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 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 toward 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 still, foolish one," 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 toward the
mounds, whence came the clank of the chains of sleighs as they slipped
down or were dragged up, the rumble of the sliding sleighs and the
sounds of merry voices. He walked on a few steps, and the skating
ground lay open before him, and at once, amid all the skaters, he
recognized her.
He knew she was there by the rapture and the terror that seized
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 around her. "Is it possible I
can go over there on the ice- approach 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 have come there to skate. He descended, for a long while
avoiding looking at her as at the sun, yet 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
skillful skaters there, showing off their skill, and beginners
clinging to chairs with timid, awkward movements, and 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 toward her,
skated by her, even spoke to her, and were happy, quite apart from
her, enjoying the capital ice and the fine weather.
Nikolai Shcherbatsky, Kitty's cousin, in a short jacket and tight
trousers, was sitting on a bench 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, she, with obvious timidity, skated toward
him. A boy in Russian dress, desperately waving his arms and bending
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 toward Levin, whom she
had recognized, she smiled at him and at her own fears. When she had
got round the turn, she got a start with one foot and skated
straight up to Shcherbatsky. Clutching at his arm, she nodded with a
smile to Levin. She was more beautiful than 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 kindness. Her childish countenance, together with the
delicate beauty of her figure, made up that special charm of hers,
which he appreciated so well. 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 moved and tender, as he
remembered himself during certain rare 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? Not long ago... yesterday... I mean I arrived... today..."
answered Levin, in his emotion not comprehending her question
immediately. "I meant to come and see you," he said; and then,
recollecting what his intention was in seeking her, he was promptly
overcome with confusion, and blushed. "I didn't know you could
skate, and skate so well."
She looked at him attentively, 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 some needles of hoarfrost off her muff.
"Yes, I used to skate with passion once upon a time; I wanted to
attain perfection."
"You do everything with passion, I think," she said smiling. "I
should so like to see how you skate. Do put on skates, and let's 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 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 even though only
in hope.... And then?... But I must! I must! I must! Away,
faintheartedness!"
Levin rose to his feet, took off his overcoat, and, gaining speed
over the rough ice round the pavilion, 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 her 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 frightened at what he had said, and blushed. And
indeed, no sooner had he uttered these words, than all at once, like
the sun going behind a cloud, her face lost all its tenderness, and
Levin detected the familiar change in her expression that denoted
mental concentration; a tiny wrinkle came upon her smooth brow.
"Is there anything troubling you? However, I've no right to ask such
a question," he said hurriedly.
"Oh, why so?... No, I have nothing to trouble me," she responded
coldly, and immediately added: "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 toward
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 tenderness, but Levin
fancied that in her tenderness 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 feel dull in the country in the winter," she said.
"No, I'm not dull- I am very busy," he said, feeling that she was
making him submit to her composed tone, which he would not have the
strength to break through- just as had been the case 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 came into his mind that if he were held in submission by her
tone of quiet friendliness he would end by going back again without
deciding anything, and he resolved to mutiny 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 did not hear 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 toward 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 concentric and eccentric
circles.
At that moment one of the young men, the best of the skaters of
the day, came out of the coffeehouse on his skates, with a cigarette
in his mouth. Taking a run he dashed down the steps on his skates,
crashing and leaping. He flew down, and without even changing the
free-and-easy 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 perform this new trick.
"Don't break your neck! This needs practice!" Nikolai Shcherbatsky
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.
"What a fine, darling chap he is!" Kitty was thinking at that
moment, as she came out of the pavilion with Mlle. Linon and looked
toward him with a smile of quiet kindness, as though he were a
favorite brother. "And can it be my fault, can I have done anything
wrong? They talk of coquetry. I know it's not he that I love; but
still I am happy with him, and he's so nice. 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 Shcherbatskaia. "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-by till this evening."
At that moment Stepan Arkadyevich, his hat cocked on one side,
with beaming face and eyes, strode into the garden like a buoyant
conqueror. But as he approached his mother-in-law, he responded to her
inquiries about Dolly's health with a mournful and guilty countenance.
After a little subdued and dejected conversation with her he set
straight his chest again, and took Levin by the arm.
"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-by till this evening," and
seeing the smile with which it was said.
"To England or The Hermitage?"
"It's all the same to me."
"Well, then, England it is," said Stepan Arkadyevich, selecting that
restaurant because he owed more there than at The Hermitage, and
consequently considered it mean to avoid it. "Have you got a sleigh?
That's fine- 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-by till this evening."
Stepan Arkadyevich was absorbed during the drive in composing the
menu of the dinner.
"You like turbot, don't you?" he said to Levin as they were
arriving.
"Eh?" responded Levin. "Turbot? Yes, I'm awfully fond of turbot."
X.

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 Arkadyevich.
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, and with napkins under their
arms. Bowing right and left to acquaintances who, here as
everywhere, greeted him joyously, he went up to the bar, took a little
wineglass of vodka and a snack of fish, and said to the painted
Frenchwoman decked in ribbons, lace and ringlets, behind the desk,
something so amusing that even that Frenchwoman was moved to genuine
laughter. Levin for his part refrained from taking any vodka only
because he found most offensive this 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- being attentive to his guest
as well, by way of showing his respect to Stepan Arkadyevich.
Instantly flinging a fresh cloth over the round table under the
bronze sconce, though it already had a tablecloth on it, he pushed
up velvet chairs and came to a standstill before Stepan Arkadyevich
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 Golitsin with a lady. Fresh oysters have come in."
"Ah, oysters!" Stepan Arkadyevich 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 don't object to a good dinner."
"I should hope so! After all, it's one of the pleasures of life,"
said Stepan Arkadyevich. "Well, then, my friend, you give us two- or
better say three- dozen oysters, clear soup with vegetables..."
"Printaniere," prompted the Tatar. But Stepan Arkadyevich 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 stewed fruit."
The Tatar, recollecting that it was Stepan Arkadyevich'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
menu to himself according to the bill: "Soupe printaniere, turbot
sauce Beaumarchais, poulard a l'estragon, Macedoine de fruits..."
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 Arkadyevich.
"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 in their nacreous shells,
and a bottle between his fingers.
Stepan Arkadyevich crushed the starchy napkin, tucked it into his
waistcoat, and, settling his arms comfortably, started on the oysters.
"Not bad," he said, detaching the jellied oysters from their
pearly shells with a small silver fork, and swallowing them one
after another. "Not bad," he repeated, turning his dewy, brilliant
eyes now upon Levin, now upon the Tatar.
Levin ate the oysters too, though white bread and cheese pleased him
better. But he was admiring Oblonsky. Even the Tatar, uncorking the
bottle and pouring the sparkling wine into the delicate
funnel-shaped glasses, and adjusting his white cravat, kept on
glancing at Stepan Arkadyevich with a perceptible smile of
satisfaction.
"You don't care much for oysters, do you?" said Stepan
Arkadyevich, emptying his wineglass, "or are you 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 hard and awkward 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
Tatars- all of this was offensive to him. He was afraid of sullying
what his soul was brimful of.
"I? Yes, I am worried; but besides that, all this bothers me," he
said. "You can't conceive how queer it all seems to a countryman
like me, as queer as that gentleman's nails I saw at your office...."
"Yes, I saw how much interested you were in poor Grinevich's nails,"
said Stepan Arkadyevich, laughing.
"It's too much for me," responded Levin. "Do try, now, to put
yourself in my place- take the point of view of a countryman. 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 tuck up
our sleeves. And here people purposely let their nails grow as long as
possible, and link on small saucers by way of studs, so that they
can do nothing with their hands."
Stepan Arkadyevich 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 countryfolks try to satiate ourselves as
soon as we can, so as to be ready for work, while here are we trying
to delay satiety as long as possible, and with that object are
eating oysters...."
"Why, of course," objected Stepan Arkadyevich. "But that's just
the aim of culture- to make everything a source of enjoyment."
"Well, if that's its aim, I'd rather be a savage."
"You are a savage, as it is. All you Levins are savages."
Levin sighed. He remembered his brother Nikolai, and felt ashamed
and pained, 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 Shcherbatskys',
I mean?" he said, his eyes sparkling significantly as he pushed away
the empty rough shells, and drew the cheese toward 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 Arkadyevich. "I'm coming, too,
but I have to go to the Countess Bonin'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 Shcherbatskys 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..."
"Oh, what a lucky fellow you are!" broke in Stepan Arkadyevich,
looking into Levin's eyes.
"Why?"
"I can tell the gallant steeds," by some... I don't know what...
'paces'; I can tell youths 'by their faces,'" declaimed Stepan
Arkadyevich. "Everything is before you."
"Why, is it over for you already?"
"No; not over exactly, but the future is yours, and the present is
mine, and the present- well, it's only fair to middling."
"How so?"
"Oh, things aren't right. But I don't want to talk of myself,
besides I can't explain it all," said Stepan Arkadyevich. "Well, why
have you come to Moscow, then?... Hi! clear the table!" he called to
the Tatar.
"Are you trying to surmise?" responded Levin, his eyes, gleaming
in their depth, fixed on Stepan Arkadyevich.
"I am, but I can't be the first to talk about it. You can see by
that whether I surmise right or wrong," said Stepan Arkadyevich,
gazing at Levin with a subtle smile.
"Well, and what have you to say to me?" said Levin in a quivering
voice, feeling that all the muscles of his face were quivering too.
"How do you look at it?
Stepan Arkadyevich slowly emptied his glass of Chablis, never taking
his eyes off Levin.
"I?" said Stepan Arkadyevich. "There's nothing I desire so much as
that- nothing! It would be the best thing that could happen."
"But you're not making a mistake? You know what we're speaking
of?" said Levin, piercing him with his eyes. "You think it's
possible?"
"I think it's possible. Why not?"
"No! Do you really think it's possible? No- tell me all you think!
Oh, but if... If refusal's in store for me!... Indeed I feel sure..."
"What makes you think so?" said Stepan Arkadyevich, smiling at his
excitement.
"It seems so to me sometimes. That will be awful for me, and for her
too."
"Oh, well, anyway there's nothing awful in it for a girl. Every
girl's proud of a proposal."
"Yes, every girl, but not she."
Stepan Arkadyevich smiled. He so well knew that feeling of
Levin's, that for him all the girls in the world were divided into two
classes: one class- all the girls in the world except her, and those
girls with all sorts of human failings, and very ordinary girls: the
other class- she alone, having no failings of any sort and higher than
all humanity.
"Stay, take some sauce," he said, holding back Levin's hand, who was
pushing the sauce away.
Levin obediently helped himself to sauce, but would not let Stepan
Arkadyevich go on with his dinner.
"No, stop a minute, stop a minute," he said. "You must understand
that it's a question of life and death for me. I have never spoken
to anyone of this. And there's no one to whom I could speak of it,
except yourself. You know we're utterly unlike each other, different
in tastes, and views, and everything; but I know you're fond of me and
understand me, and that's why I like you awfully. But for God's
sake, be quite straightforward with me."
"I tell you what I think," said Stepan Arkadyevich, smiling. "But
I'll say more: my wife is a wonderful woman..." Stepan Arkadyevich
sighed, recalling his relations with his wife, and, after a moment's
silence, resumed- "She has a gift of foreseeing things. She sees right
through people; but that's not all; she knows what will come to
pass, especially in the way of marriages. She foretold, for
instance, that Princess Shahovskaia would marry Brenteln. No one would
believe it, but it came to pass. And she's on your side."
"How do you mean?"
"It's not only that she likes you- she says that Kitty is certain to
be your wife."
At these words Levin's face suddenly lighted up with a smile, a
smile not far from touching tears.
"She says that!" cried out Levin. "I always said she was charming,
your wife. There, that's enough said about it," he said, getting up
from his seat.
"Well, but do sit down."
But Levin could not sit down. He walked with his firm tread twice up
and down the little cage of a room, blinked his eyelids that his tears
might not fall, and only then sat down to the table.
"You must understand," said he, "it's not love. I've been in love,
but it's not that. It's not my feeling, but a sort of force outside me
that has taken possession of me. I went away, you see, because I
made up my mind that it could never be- you understand, like a
happiness which is not of this earth; but I've struggled with
myself, and I see there's no living without it. And it must be
settled."
"What did you go away for?"
"Ah, stop a minute! Ah, the thoughts that come crowding on one!
The questions one must ask oneself! Listen. You can't imagine what
you've done for me by what you said. I'm so happy that I've become
positively hateful; I've forgotten everything. I heard today that my
brother Nikolai... you know, he's here... I had forgotten even him. It
seems to me that he's happy too. It's a sort of madness. But one
thing's awful.... Here, you've been married, you know the
feeling.... It's awful that we- fully mature- with a past... a past
not of love, but of sins... are brought all at once so near to a
creature pure and innocent; it's loathsome, and that's why one can't
help feeling oneself unworthy."
"Oh, well, you haven't many sins on your conscience."
"Ah, still," said Levin, "'When, with loathing, I go o'er my life, I
shudder and I curse and bitterly regret...' Yes."
"What would you have? That's the way of the world," said Stepan
Arkadyevich.
"There's one comfort, like that of the prayer which I always
liked: 'Forgive me not according to my deeds, but according to Thy
loving-kindness.' That's the only way she can forgive me."
XI.

Levin emptied his glass, and they were silent for a while.
"There's one other thing I ought to tell you. Do you know
Vronsky?" Stepan Arkadyevich asked Levin.
"No, I don't. Why do you ask?"
"Give us another bottle," Stepan Arkadyevich directed the Tatar, who
was filling up their glasses and fidgeting round them just when he was
least wanted.
"Why, you ought to know Vronsky because he's one of your rivals."
"Who's Vronsky?" said Levin, and his face was suddenly transformed
from the look of childlike ecstasy which Oblonsky had just been
admiring to an angry and unpleasant expression.
"Vronsky is one of the sons of Count Kirill Ivanovich Vronsky, and
one of the finest specimens of the gilded youth of Peterburg. I made
his acquaintance in Tver, when I was there on official business, and
he came there for the levy of recruits. Fearfully rich, handsome,
great connections, an aide-de-camp, and with all that a very fine
good-natured fellow. But he's more than simply a good-natured
fellow, as I've found out here- he's a cultured man, too, and very
intelligent; he's a man who'll make his mark."
Levin scowled and kept silent.
"Well, he turned up here soon after you'd gone, and, as I can see,
he's over head and ears in love with Kitty, and you know that her
mother..."
"Excuse me, but I know nothing," said Levin, frowning gloomily.
And immediately he recalled his brother Nikolai, and how vile he was
to have been able to forget him.
"You wait a bit- wait a bit," said Stepan Arkadyevich, smiling and
touching his hand. "I've told you what I know, and I repeat that in
this delicate and tender matter, as far as one can conjecture, I
believe the chances are in your favor."
Levin dropped back in his chair; his face was pale.
"But I would advise you to settle the thing as soon as possible,"
pursued Oblonsky, filling up his glass.
"No, thanks, I can't drink any more," said Levin, pushing away his
glass. "I shall get drunk.... Come, tell me how are you getting on?"
he went on, obviously anxious to change the conversation.
"One word more: in any case I advise you to settle the question
soon. Tonight I don't advise you to speak," said Stepan Arkadyevich.
"Go round tomorrow morning, make a proposal in classic form, and God
bless you...."
"Oh, do you still think of coming to me for some shooting? Come next
spring, do," said Levin.
Now his whole soul was full of remorse that he had begun this
conversation with Stepan Arkadyevich. His peculiar feeling was
profaned by talk of the rivalry of some Peterburg officer, of the
suppositions and the counsels of Stepan Arkadyevich.
Stepan Arkadyevich smiled. He knew what was passing in Levin's soul.
"I'll come some day," he said. "Yes, my dear, women- they're the
pivot everything turns upon. Things are in a bad way with me, very
bad. And it's all through women. Tell me frankly, now," he pursued,
picking up a cigar and keeping one hand on his glass; "give me your
advice."
"Why, what is it?"
"I'll tell you. Suppose you're married; you love your wife, but
are fascinated by another woman..."
"Excuse me, but I'm absolutely unable to comprehend how just as I
can't comprehend how I could now, after my dinner, go straight to a
baker's shop and steal a loaf."
Stepan Arkadyevich's eyes sparkled more than usual.
"Why not? A loaf will sometimes smell so good that one can't
resist it.

"Himmlisch ist's wenn ich bezwungen
Meine irdische Begier;
Aber doch wenn's nicht gelungen
Hatt' ich auch recht hubsch Plaisir!"

As he said this, Stepan Arkadyevich smiled subtly. Levin, too, could
not help smiling.
"Yes, but joking apart," resumed Oblonsky, "you must understand that
the woman, a sweet, gentle, loving creature, poor and lonely, has
sacrificed everything. Now, when the thing's done, don't you see,
can one possibly cast her off? Even supposing one parts from her, so
as not to break up one's family life, still, can one help feeling
for her, setting her on her feet, lightening her lot?"
"Well, you must excuse me there. You know to me all women are
divided into two classes.... Well, no... it would be truer to say:
there are women, and there are... I've never seen charming fallen
beings, and I never shall see them, but such creatures as that painted
Frenchwoman at the counter with the ringlets are vermin to my mind,
and all fallen women are like her."
"But the Magdalen?"
"Ah, drop that! Christ would never have said those words if He had
known how they would be abused. Of all the Gospel those words are
the only ones remembered. However, I'm not saying so much what I
think, as what I feel. I have a loathing for fallen women. You're
afraid of spiders, and I of these vermin. Most likely you've not
made a study of spiders and don't know their character; and so it is
with me."
"It's very well for you to talk like that; it's very much like
that gentleman in Dickens who used to fling all difficult questions
over his right shoulder with his left hand. But denying the facts is
no answer. What's to be done- you tell me that; what's to be done?
Your wife gets older, while you're full of life. Before you've time to
look round, you feel that you can't love your wife with love,
however much you may esteem her. And then all at once love turns up-
and you're done for; you're done for," Stepan Arkadyevich said with
weary despair.
Levin smiled slightly.
"Yes, you're done for," resumed Oblonsky. "But what's to be done?"
"Don't steal loaves."
Stepan Arkadyevich laughed outright.
"Oh, moralist! But you must understand, there are two women; one
insists only on her rights, and those rights are your love, which
you can't give her; while the other sacrifices everything for you
and asks for nothing. What are you to do? How are you to act?
There's a fearful tragedy in it."
"If you care for my profession of faith as regards that, I'll tell
you that I don't believe there was any tragedy about it. And this is
why. To my mind, love... both sorts of love, which you remember
Plato defines in his Banquet, serve as the touchstone of men. Some men
only understand one sort, and some only the other. And those who
only know the nonplatonic love talk in vain of tragedy. In such love
there can be no sort of tragedy. 'I'm much obliged for the
gratification, my humble respects,'- that's all the tragedy. And in
platonic love there can be no tragedy, because in that love all is
clear and pure, because..."
At that instant Levin recollected his own sins and the inner
conflict he had lived through. And he added unexpectedly:
"But perhaps you are right. Very likely... I don't know- I
positively don't know."
"You see," said Stepan Arkadyevich, "you're very much all of a
piece. That's your quality and your failing. You have a character
that's all of a piece, and you want the whole of life to be of a piece
too- but that's not how it is. You despise public official work
because you want the reality to be constantly corresponding with the
aim- and that's not how it is. You want a man's work, too, always to
have a defined aim, and love and family life always to be undivided-
and that's not how it is. All the variety, all the charm, all the
beauty of life is made up of light and shadow."
Levin sighed and made no reply. He was thinking of his own
affairs, and was not listening to Oblonsky.
And suddenly both of them felt that though they were friends, though
they had been dining together, and drunk wine which should have
drawn them closer, yet each was thinking only of his own affairs,
and they had nothing to do with one another. Oblonsky had more than
once experienced this extreme sense of aloofness, instead of intimacy,
coming on after dinner, and he knew what to do in such cases.
"Let's have the check!" he called, and he went into the next room,
where he promptly came across an aide-de-camp of his acquaintance
and dropped into conversation with him about an actress and her
protector. And at once, in this conversation with the aide-de-camp,
Oblonsky had a sense of relaxation and relief after his conversation
with Levin, which always put him to too great a mental and spiritual
strain.
When the Tatar appeared with a check of twenty-six roubles and
some kopecks, besides a tip for himself, Levin, who would another time
have been horrified, like anyone from the country, at his share of
fourteen roubles, did not notice it, paid, and set off homeward to
dress and go to the Shcherbatskys', where his fate was to be decided.
XII.

The young princess Kitty Shcherbatskaia was eighteen. It was the
first winter that she had been out in the world. Her success in
society had been greater than that of either of her elder sisters, and
greater even than her mother had anticipated. To say nothing of the
young men who danced at the Moscow balls being almost all in love with
Kitty, two serious suitors had already, the first winter, made their
appearance: Levin, and, immediately after his departure, Count
Vronsky.
Levin's appearance at the beginning of the winter, his frequent
visits, and evident love for Kitty, had led to the first serious
conversations between Kitty's parents as to her future, and to
disputes between them. The Prince was on Levin's side; he said he
wished for nothing better for Kitty. The Princess for her part,
going round the question in the manner peculiar to women, maintained
that Kitty was too young, that Levin had done nothing to prove that he
had serious intentions, that Kitty felt no great attraction to him,
and there were some other reasons too; but she did not state the
principal point, which was that she looked for a better match for
her daughter, that Levin was not to her liking, and that she did not
understand him. When Levin had abruptly departed, the Princess was
delighted, and said to her husband triumphantly: 'You see, I was
right.' When Vronsky appeared on the scene, she was still more
delighted, confirmed in her opinion that Kitty was to make not
simply a good, but a brilliant match.
In the mother's eyes there could be no comparison between Vronsky
and Levin. The mother disliked in Levin his strange and uncompromising
opinions and his shyness in society, founded on his pride, as she
supposed, and his queer sort of life, as she considered it, absorbed
in cattle and peasants. She did not very much like it that he, who was
in love with her daughter, had kept coming to the house for six weeks,
as though he were waiting for something, inspecting, as though he were
afraid he might be doing them too great an honor by making a proposal,
and did not realize that a man who continually visits at a house where
there is a young unmarried girl, is bound to make his intentions
clear. And suddenly, without doing so, he disappeared. "It's as well
he's not attractive enough for Kitty to have fallen in love with him,"
thought the mother.
Vronsky satisfied all the mother's desires. Very wealthy, clever, of
aristocratic family, on the highroad to a brilliant career in the army
and at court, and a fascinating man. Nothing better could be wished
for.
Vronsky openly flirted with Kitty at balls, danced with her, and
came continually to the house; consequently there could be no doubt of
the seriousness of his intentions. But, in spite of that, the mother
had spent the whole of that winter in a state of terrible anxiety
and agitation.
Princess Shcherbatskaia had herself been married thirty years ago,
her aunt arranging the match. The wooer, about whom everything was
well known beforehand, had come, looked at his intended, and been
looked at. The matchmaking aunt had ascertained and communicated their
mutual impression. That impression had been favorable. Afterward, on a
day fixed beforehand, the expected proposal was made to her parents,
and accepted. All had passed very simply and easily. So it seemed,
at least, to the Princess. But over her own daughters she had felt how
far from simple and easy is the business, apparently so commonplace,
of marrying off one's daughters. The panics that had been lived
through, the thoughts that had been brooded over, the money that had
been wasted, and the disputes with her husband over marrying the two
elder girls, Darya and Natalya! Now, since the youngest began to
come out in the world, the Princess was going through the same
terrors, the same doubts, and still more violent quarrels with her
husband, than she had over the elder girls. The old Prince, like all
fathers indeed, was exceedingly scrupulous on the score of the honor
and reputation of his daughters; he was unreasonably jealous over
his daughters, especially over Kitty, who was his favorite, and at
every turn he had scenes with the Princess for compromising her
daughter. The Princess had grown accustomed to this already with her
other daughters, but now she felt that there was more ground for the
Prince's scrupulousness. She saw that of late years much was changed
in the manners of society, that a mother's duties had become still
more difficult. She saw that girls of Kitty's age formed some sort
of clubs, went to some sort of lectures, mixed freely in men's
society, drove about the streets alone; many of them did not curtsy;
and, what was the most important thing, all of them were firmly
convinced that to choose their husband was their own affair, and not
their parents'. "Marriages aren't made nowadays as they used to be,"
was thought and said by all these young girls, and even by their
elders. But just how marriages were made nowadays, the Princess
could not learn from anyone. The French fashion- of the parents
arranging their children's future- was not accepted; it was condemned.
The English fashion of the complete independence of girls was also not
accepted, and not possible in Russian society. The Russian fashion
of matchmaking was considered unseemly; it was ridiculed by
everyone- even by the Princess herself. But how girls were to be
married, and how parents were to marry them, no one knew. Everyone
with whom the Princess had chanced to discuss the matter said the same
thing: "Mercy on us, it's high time in our day to cast off all that
old-fashioned business. It's the young people have to marry, and not
their parents; and so we ought to leave the young people to arrange it
as they choose." It was very easy for anyone to say who had no
daughters, but the Princess realized that, in the process of getting
to know each other, her daughter might fall in love, and fall in
love with someone who did not care to marry her, or who was quite
unfit to be her husband. And, however much it was instilled into the
Princess that in our times young people ought to arrange their lives
for themselves, she was unable to believe it, just as she would have
been unable to believe that, at any time whatever, loaded pistols were
the most suitable playthings for children five years old. And so the
Princess was more uneasy over Kitty than she had been over the elder
daughters.
Now she was afraid that Vronsky might confine himself to simply
flirting with her daughter. She saw that her daughter was in love with
him, but tried to comfort herself with the thought that he was an
honorable man, and would not do this. But at the same time she knew
how easy it is, with the freedom of manners of today, to turn a girl's
head, and how lightly men generally regard such a crime. The week
before, Kitty had told her mother of a conversation she had with
Vronsky during a mazurka. This conversation had partly reassured the
Princess; yet her assurance could not be perfect. Vronsky had told
Kitty that both he and his brother were so used to obeying their
mother that they never made up their minds to any important
undertaking without consulting her. "And, just now, I am impatiently
awaiting my mother's coming from Peterburg, as a peculiar piece of
luck," he had told her.
Kitty had repeated this without attaching any significance to the
words. But her mother saw them in a different light. She knew that the
old lady was expected from day to day, that she would be pleased at
her son's choice, and she felt it strange that he should not make
his proposal through fear of vexing his mother. However, she was so
anxious for the marriage itself, and still more for relief from her
fears, that she believed it was so. Bitter as it was for the
Princess to see the unhappiness of her eldest daughter, Dolly, on
the point of leaving her husband, her anxiety over the decision of her
youngest daughter's fate engrossed all her feelings. Today, with
Levin's reappearance, a fresh source of anxiety arose. She was
afraid that her daughter, who had at one time, as she fancied, a
feeling for Levin, might, from an extreme sense of honesty, refuse
Vronsky, and that Levin's arrival might generally complicate and delay
the affair, now so near conclusion.
"Why, has he been here long?" the Princess asked about Levin, as
they returned home.
"He came today, maman."
"There's one thing I want to say..." began the Princess, and from
her serious and alert face, Kitty guessed what it would be.
"Mamma," she said, flushing hotly and turning quickly to her,
"please, please don't say anything about that. I know, I know all
about it."
She wished what her mother wished for, but the motives of her
mother's wishes hurt her.
"I only want to say that to raise hopes..."
"Mamma, darling, for goodness' sake, don't talk about it. It's so
horrible to talk about it."
"I won't," said her mother, seeing the tears in her daughter's eyes;
"but one thing, my love; you promised me you would have no secrets
from me. You won't?"
"Never, mamma- none," answered Kitty, flushing and looking her
mother straight in the face; "but I have nothing to tell you now,
and I... I... If I wanted to, I don't know what to say or how... I
don't know..."
"No, she could not tell an untruth with those eyes," thought the
mother, smiling at her agitation and happiness. The Princess smiled:
so immense and so important seemed to the poor child everything that
was taking place just now in her soul.
XIII.

After dinner, and till the beginning of the evening, Kitty was
experiencing a sensation akin to that of a young man before a
battle. Her heart throbbed violently, and her thoughts would not
rest on anything.
She felt that this evening, when both these men would meet for the
first time, would be a turning point in her life. And she was
continually picturing them to herself, at one moment each
individually, and then both together. When she mused on the past,
she dwelt with pleasure, with tenderness, on the memories of her
relations with Levin. The memories of childhood and of Levin's
friendship with her dead brother have a special poetic charm to her
relations with him. His love for her, of which she felt certain, was
flattering and delightful to her; and it was easy for her to think
of Levin. In her memories of Vronsky there always entered a certain
element of awkwardness, though he was in the highest degree a
fashionable and even-tempered man, as though there were some false
note- not in Vronsky, he was very simple and charming- but in herself;
while with Levin she felt herself perfectly simple and clear. But,
on the other hand, directly she thought of the future with Vronsky,
there arose before her a perspective of brilliant happiness; with
Levin the future seemed misty.
When she went upstairs to dress, and looked into the looking
glass, she noticed with joy that it was one of her good days, and that
she was in complete possession of all her forces- she needed this so
for what lay before her: she was conscious of external composure and
free grace in her movements.
At half-past seven she had only just gone down into the drawing
room, when the footman announced, "Constantin Dmitrievich Levin."
The Princess was still in her room, and the Prince had not come in.
"So it is to be," thought Kitty, and all the blood seemed to rush to
her heart. She was horrified at her paleness, as she glanced into
the looking glass.
At that moment she knew beyond doubt that he had come early on
purpose to find her alone and to propose to her. And only then for the
first time the whole thing presented itself in a new, different
aspect; only then she realized that the question did not affect her
only- with whom she would be happy, and whom she loved- but that she
would have that moment to wound a man whom she liked. And to wound him
cruelly... Wherefore? Because he, dear fellow, loved her, was in
love with her. But there was no help for it; it must be so- it would
have to be so.
"My God! shall I myself really have to say it to him?" she
thought. "Can I tell him I don't love him? That will be a lie. What am
I to say to him? That I love someone else? No, that's impossible.
I'm going away- I'm going away."
She had reached the door, when she heard his step. "No It's not
honest. What have I to be afraid of? I have done nothing wrong. What
is to be, will be! I'll tell the truth. And with him one can't be
ill at ease. Here he is," she said to herself, seeing his powerful and
timid figure, with his shining eyes fixed on her. She looked
straight into his face, as though imploring him to spare her, and gave
him her hand.
"It's not time yet; I think I'm too early," he said glancing round
the empty drawing room. When he saw that his expectations were
realized, that there was nothing to prevent him from speaking, his
face became somber.
"Oh, no," said Kitty, and sat down at a table.
"But this was just what I wanted, to find you alone," he began,
without sitting down, and not looking at her, so as not to lose
courage.
"Mamma will be down directly. She was very much tired yesterday.
Yesterday..."
She talked on, not knowing what her lips were uttering, and not
taking her supplicating and caressing eyes off him.
He glanced at her; she blushed, and ceased speaking.
"I told you I did not know whether I should be here long... that
it depended on you..."
She dropped her head lower and lower, not knowing herself what
answer she should make to what was coming.
"That it depended on you," he repeated. "I meant to say... I meant
to say... I came for this... To have you be my wife!" he blurted
out, not knowing what he was saying, but feeling that the most
terrible thing was said, he stopped short and looked at her.
She was breathing heavily, without looking at him. She was feeling
ecstasy. Her soul was flooded with happiness. She had never
anticipated that his utterance of love would produce such a powerful
effect on her. But it lasted only an instant. She remembered
Vronsky. She lifted her clear, truthful eyes, and, seeing Levin's
desperate face, she answered hastily:
"That cannot be... Forgive me."
A moment ago, and how close she had been to him, of what
importance in his life! And how aloof and remote from him she had
become now!
"It could not have been otherwise," he said, without looking at her.
He bowed, and was about to leave.
XIV.

But at that very moment the Princess came in. There was a look of
horror on her face when she beheld them alone, and saw their disturbed
faces. Levin bowed to her, and said nothing. Kitty neither spoke nor
lifted her eyes. "Thank God, she has refused him," thought the mother,
and her face lighted up with the habitual smile with which she greeted
her guests on Thursdays. She sat down and began questioning Levin
about his life in the country. He sat down again, waiting for other
visitors to arrive, in order to go off unnoticed.
Five minutes later there came in a friend of Kitty's, married the
preceding winter- Countess Nordstone.
She was a thin, sallow, sickly and nervous woman, with brilliant
black eyes. She was fond of Kitty, and her affection for her showed
itself, as the affection of married women for girls always does, in
the desire to make a match for Kitty after her own ideal of married
happiness; she wanted her to marry Vronsky. Levin she had often met at
the Shcherbatskys' early in the winter, and she had always disliked
him. Her invariable and favorite pursuit, when they met, consisted
in making fun of him.
"I do like it when he looks down at me from the height of his
grandeur, or breaks off his wise conversation with me because I'm a
fool, or is condescending to me. I like that so- to see him
condescending! I am so glad he can't bear me," she used to say of him.
She was right, for Levin actually could not bear her, and despised
her for what she was proud of and regarded as a fine characteristic-
her nervousness, her refined contempt and indifference for
everything coarse and earthly.
The Countess Nordstone and Levin had got into that mutual relation
not infrequently seen in society, when two persons, who remain
externally on friendly terms, despise each other to such a degree that
they cannot even take each other seriously, and cannot even be
offended by each other.
The Countess Nordstone pounced upon Levin at once.
"Ah, Constantin Dmitrievich! So you've come back to our corrupt
Babylon," she said, giving him her tiny, yellow hand and recalling
what he had chanced to say early in the winter, that Moscow was a
Babylon. "Come, is Babylon reformed, or have you degenerated?" she
added, glancing with a simper at Kitty.
"It's very flattering for me, Countess, that you remember my words
so well," responded Levin, who had succeeded in recovering his
composure, and at once from habit dropped into his tone of joking
hostility to the Countess Nordstone. "They must certainly make a great
impression on you."
"Oh, I should think so! I always note everything down. Well,
Kitty, have you been skating again?..."
And she began talking to Kitty. Awkward as it was for Levin to
withdraw now, it would still have been easier for him to perpetrate
this awkwardness than to remain all the evening and see Kitty, who
glanced at him now and then and avoided his eyes. He was on the
point of getting up, when the Princess, noticing that he was silent,
addressed him.
"Shall you be long in Moscow? You're busy with the Zemstvo,
though, aren't you, and can't be away for long?"
"No, Princess, I'm no longer a member of the board," he said. "I
have come up for a few days."
"There's something the matter with him," thought Countess Nordstone,
glancing at his stern, serious face. "He isn't in his old
argumentative mood. But I'll draw him out. I do love making a fool
of him before Kitty, and I'll do it."
"Constantin Dmitrievich," she said to him, "do explain to me please,
what does it mean- you know all about such things- in our village of
Kaluga all the peasants and all the women have drunk up all they
possessed, and now they can't pay us any rent. What's the meaning of
that? You always praise the mouzhiks so."
At that instant another lady came into the room, and Levin got up.
"Excuse me, Countess, but I really know nothing about it, and
can't tell you anything