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," he said, and looked round at the officer who

came in behind the lady.

"That must be Vronsky," thought Levin, and, to be sure of it,

glanced at Kitty. She had already had time to look at Vronsky, and

looked round at Levin. And, simply from the look in her eyes, that

grew unconsciously brighter, Levin knew that she loved this man-

knew it as surely as if she had told him in so many words. But what

sort of a man was he?

Now, whether for good or for ill, Levin could not choose but remain;

he must find out what the man was like whom she loved.

There are people who, on meeting a successful rival, no matter in

what, are at once disposed to turn their backs on everything good in

him, and to see only what is bad. There are people who, on the

contrary, desire above all to find in that successful rival the

qualities by which he has worsted them, and seek with a throbbing ache

at heart only what is good. Levin belonged to the second class. But he

had no difficulty in finding what was good and attractive in

Vronsky. It was apparent at the first glance. Vronsky was a squarely

built, dark man, not very tall, with a good-humored, handsome and

exceedingly calm and firm face. Everything about his face and

figure, from his short-cropped black hair and freshly shaven chin down

to his loosely fitting, brand-new uniform, was simple and at the

same time elegant. Making way for the lady who had come in, Vronsky

went up to the Princess and then to Kitty.

As he approached her, his beautiful eyes shone with an especially

tender light, and with a faint, happy and modestly triumphant smile

(so it seemed to Levin), bowing carefully and respectfully over her,

he held out his small broad hand to her.

Greeting and saying a few words to everyone, he sat down without

once glancing at Levin, who had never taken his eyes off him.

"Let me introduce you," said the Princess, indicating Levin.

"Constantin Dmitrievich Levin, Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky."

Vronsky got up and, looking cordially at Levin, shook hands with

him.

"I believe I was to have dined with you this winter," he said,

smiling his simple and open smile; "but you had unexpectedly left

for the country."

"Constantin Dmitrievich despises and hates the town, and us

townspeople," said Countess Nordstone.

"My words must make a deep impression on you, since you remember

them so well," said Levin, and, suddenly becoming conscious that he

had said just the same thing before, he reddened.

Vronsky looked at Levin and Countess Nordstone, and smiled.

"Are you always in the country?" he inquired. "I should think it

must be dull in the winter."

"It's not dull if one has work to do; besides, one's not dull by

oneself," Levin replied abruptly.

"I am fond of the country," said Vronsky, noticing, yet affecting

not to notice, Levin's tone.

"But I hope, Count, you would not consent to live in the country

always," said Countess Nordstone.

"I don't know; I have never tried for long. I experienced a queer

feeling once," he went on. "I never longed so for the country- Russian

country, with bast shoes and peasants- as when I was spending a winter

with my mother in Nice. Nice itself is dull enough, you know. And,

indeed, Naples and Sorrento are only pleasant for a short time. And

it's just there that Russia comes back to one's mind most vividly, and

especially the country. It's as though..."

He talked on, addressing both Kitty and Levin, turning his serene,

friendly eyes from one to the other, and saying obviously just what

came into his head.

Noticing that Countess Nordstone wanted to say something, he stopped

short without finishing what he had begun, and listened attentively to

her.

The conversation did not flag for an instant, so that the old

Princess, who always kept in reserve, in case a subject should be

lacking, two heavy guns- the classical and professional education, and

universal military service- had not to move out either of them,

while Countess Nordstone had no chance of chaffing Levin.

Levin wanted to, and could not, take part in the general

conversation; saying to himself every instant, "Now go," he still

did not go, as though waiting for something.

The conversation fell upon table turning and spirits, and Countess

Nordstone, who believed in spiritualism, began to describe the

miracles she had seen.

"Ah, Countess, you really must take me; for pity's sake do take me

to see them! I have never seen anything extraordinary, though I am

always on the lookout for it everywhere," said Vronsky, smiling.

"Very well- next Saturday," answered Countess Nordstone. "But you,

Constantin Dmitrievich- are you a believer?" she asked Levin.

"Why do you ask me? You know what I shall say."

"But I want to hear your opinion."

"My opinion," answered Levin, "is merely that this table turning

proves that educated society- so called- is no higher than the

peasants. They believe in the evil eye, and in witchcraft and

conjurations, while we..."

"Oh, then you aren't a believer?"

"I can't believe, Countess."

"But if I've seen for myself?"

"The peasant women, too, tell us they have seen hobgoblins."

"Then you think I tell a lie?"

And she laughed a mirthless laugh.

"Oh, no, Masha, Constantin Dmitrievich merely said he could not

believe," said Kitty, blushing for Levin, and Levin saw this, and,

still more exasperated, would have answered; but Vronsky with his

bright frank smile rushed to the support of the conversation, which

was threatening to become disagreeable.

"You do not admit the possibility at all?" he queried. "But why not?

We admit the existence of electricity, of which we know nothing. Why

should there not be some new force, still unknown to us, which..."

"When electricity was discovered," Levin interrupted hurriedly,

"it was only the phenomenon that was discovered, and it was unknown

from what it proceeded and what were its effects, and ages passed

before its applications were conceived. But the spiritualists, on

the contrary, have begun with tables writing for them, and spirits

appearing to them, and have only later started saying that it is an

unknown force."

Vronsky listened attentively to Levin, as he always did listen,

obviously interested in his words.

"Yes, but the spiritualists say we don't know at present what this

force is, but there is a force, and these are the conditions in

which it acts. Let the scientific men find out what the force consists

of. No, I don't see why there should not be a new force, if it..."

"Why, because with electricity," Levin interrupted again, "every

time you rub tar against wool, a certain phenomenon is manifested; but

in this case it does not happen every time, and so it follows it is

not a natural phenomenon."

Feeling probably that the conversation was taking a tone too serious

for a drawing room, Vronsky made no rejoinder, but by way of trying to

change the conversation, he smiled brightly, and turned to the ladies.

"Do let us try at once, Countess," he said; but Levin would finish

saying what he thought.

"I think," he went on, "that this attempt of the spiritualists to

explain their miracles as some sort of new natural force is most

futile. They boldly talk of spiritual force, and then try to subject

it to material experiment."

Everyone was waiting for him to finish, and he felt this.

"Why, I think you would be a first-rate medium," said Countess

Nordstone, "there's something enthusiastic about you."

Levin opened his mouth, was about to say something, reddened, and

said nothing.

"Do let us try table turning at once, please," said Vronsky.

"Princess, will you allow it?

And Vronsky stood up, looking about for a little table.

Kitty got up to fetch a table, and, as she passed, her eyes met

Levin's. She felt for him with her whole heart, the more because she

was pitying him for a suffering of which she was herself the cause.

"If you can forgive me, forgive me," said her eyes, "I am so happy."

"I hate them all, and you, and myself," his eyes responded, and he

took up his hat. But he was not destined to escape. just as they

were arranging themselves round the table, and Levin was on the

point of retiring, the old Prince came in, and, after greeting the

ladies, addressed Levin.

"Ah!" he began joyously. "Been here long, my boy? I didn't even know

you were in town. Very glad to see you." The old Prince embraced

Levin, and, talking to him, did not observe Vronsky, who had risen,

and was calmly waiting till the Prince should turn to him.

Kitty felt how grievous her father's cordiality was to Levin after

what had happened. She saw, too, how coldly her father responded at

last to Vronsky's bow, and how Vronsky looked with amiable

perplexity at her father, trying and failing to understand how and why

anyone could be hostilely disposed toward him, and she flushed.

"Prince, let us have Constantin Dmitrievich," said Countess

Nordstone, "we want to try an experiment."

"What experiment? Table turning? Well, you must excuse me, ladies

and gentlemen, but to my mind it is better fun to play the ring game,"

said the old Prince, looking at Vronsky, and guessing that it had been

his suggestion. "There's some sense in that, anyway."

Vronsky looked wonderingly at the Prince with his firm eyes, and,

with a faint smile, began immediately talking to Countess Nordstone of

the great ball that was to come off next week.

"I hope you will be there?" he said to Kitty. As soon as the old

Prince turned away from him, Levin slipped out unnoticed, and the last

impression he carried away with him of that evening was the smiling,

happy face of Kitty answering Vronsky's inquiry about the ball.

XV.

At the end of the evening Kitty told her mother of her

conversation with Levin, and in spite of all the pity she felt for

Levin, she was glad at the thought that she had received a proposal.

She had no doubt that she had acted rightly. But after she had gone to

bed, she could not sleep for a long while. One impression pursued

her relentlessly. It was Levin's face, with his scowling brows, and

his kind eyes looking out in dark dejection below them, as he stood

listening to her father, and glancing at her and at Vronsky. And she

felt so sorry for him that tears came into her eyes. But immediately

she thought of the man for whom she had given him up. She vividly

recalled his manly, firm face, his noble calmness, and the good nature

so conspicuous toward everyone. She remembered the love for her of the

man she loved, and once more all was gladness in her soul, and she lay

on the pillow smiling with happiness. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry; but

what could I do? It's not my fault," she said to herself; but an inner

voice told her otherwise. Whether she felt remorse at having

captivated Levin, or at having refused him, she did not know. But

her happiness was poisoned by doubts. "Lord, have pity on us; Lord,

have pity, Lord, have pity!" she said over to herself till she fell

asleep.

Meanwhile there took place below, in the Prince's little study,

one of the scenes so often repeated between the parents on account

of their favorite daughter.

"What? I'll tell you what!" shouted the Prince, brandishing his

arms, and at once wrapping his squirrel-lined dressing gown round

him again. "That you've no pride, no dignity; that you're

disgracing, ruining your daughter by this vulgar, stupid matchmaking!"

"But, really, for mercy's sake, Prince, what have I done?" said

the Princess, almost crying.

She, pleased and happy after her conversation with her daughter, had

gone to the Prince to say good night as usual, and though she had no

intention of telling him of Levin's proposal and Kitty's refusal,

still she hinted to her husband that she fancied things were

practically settled with Vronsky, and would be definitely so as soon

as his mother arrived. And thereupon, at those words, the Prince had

all at once flown into a passion, and begun to use unseemly language.

"What have you done? I'll tell you what. First of all, you're trying

to allure an eligible gentleman, and all Moscow will be talking of it,

and with good reason. If you have evening parties, invite everyone,

don't pick out the possible suitors. Invite all these whelps [so the

Prince styled the youths of Moscow]; engage a piano player, and let

them dance- and not as you did tonight: only the wooers, and doing

your matching. It makes me sick- sick to see it- and you've gone on

till you've turned the poor lass's head. Levin's a thousand times

the better man. As for this Peterburg swell- they're turned out by

machinery, all on one pattern, and all precious rubbish. But if he

were a prince of the blood, my daughter need not run after anyone."

"But what have I done?"

"Why, you've..." The Prince was yelling wrathfully.

"I know if one were to listen to you," interrupted the Princess, "we

should never marry off our daughter. If it's to be so, we'd better

go into the country."

"Well, we had better."

"But do wait a minute. Do I wheedle them? I don't wheedle them in

the least. A young man, and a very nice one, has fallen in love with

her, and she, I fancy..."

"Oh, yes, you fancy! And how if she really is in love, and he's no

more thinking of marriage than I am!... Oh, that I should live to

see it!... "Ah- spiritualism! Ah- Nice! Ah- the ball!'" And the

Prince, imagining that he was mimicking his wife, made a mincing

curtsy at each word. "And this is how we prepare wretchedness for

Katenka; and she's really got the notion into her head...."

"But what makes you suppose so?"

"I don't suppose; I know. For such things we have eyes; womenfolk

haven't. I see a man who has serious intentions, that's Levin: and I

see a quail, like this cackler, who's only amusing himself."

"Oh, well, when once you get an idea into your head!..."

"Well, you'll remember my words, but too late, just as with

Dashenka."

"Well, well, we won't talk of it," the Princess stopped him,

recollecting her unlucky Dolly.

"By all means, and good night!"

And signing each other with the cross, the husband and wife parted

with a kiss, feeling that each remained of his or her own opinion.

The Princess had at first been quite certain that that evening had

settled Kitty's fortune, and that there could be no doubt of Vronsky's

intentions, but her husband's words had disturbed her. And returning

to her own room, in terror before the unknown future, she, too, like

Kitty, repeated several times in her heart, "Lord, have pity; Lord,

have pity; Lord, have pity!"

XVI.

Vronsky had never had a real home life. His mother had been in her

youth a brilliant society woman, who had had during her married

life, and still more afterward, many love affairs notorious in the

whole fashionable world. His father he scarcely remembered, and he had

been educated in the Corps of Pages.

Leaving the school very young as a brilliant officer, he had at once

got into the circle of wealthy Peterburg army men. Although he did

go more or less into Peterburg society, his love affairs had always

hitherto been outside it.

In Moscow he had for the first time felt, after his luxurious and

coarse life at Peterburg, all the charm of intimacy with a sweet and

innocent girl of his own rank, who cared for him. It never even

entered his head that there could be any harm in his relations with

Kitty. At balls he danced principally with her. He was a constant

visitor at her house. He talked to her as people commonly do talk in

society- all sorts of nonsense, but nonsense to which he could not

help attaching a special meaning in her case. Although he said nothing

to her that he could not have said before everybody, he felt that

she was becoming more and more dependent upon him, and the more he

felt this, the better he liked it, and the tenderer was his feeling

for her. He did not know that this mode of behavior in relation to

Kitty had a definite character, that it is courting young girls with

no intention of marriage, and that such courting is one of the evil

actions common among brilliant young men such as he was. It seemed

to him that he was the first who had discovered this pleasure, and

he was enjoying his discovery.

If he could have heard what her parents were saying that evening, if

he could have put himself at the point of view of the family, and have

heard that Kitty would be unhappy if he did not marry her, he would

have been greatly astonished, and would not have believed it. He could

not believe that what gave such great and delicate pleasure to him,

and above all to her, could be wrong. Still less could he have

believed that he ought to marry.

Marriage had never presented itself to him as a possibility. He

not only disliked family life, but a family, and especially a husband,

in accordance with the views general in the bachelor world in which he

lived, were conceived as something alien, repellent, and, above all,

ridiculous. But though Vronsky had not the least suspicion of what the

parents were saying, he felt on coming away from the Shcherbatskys'

that the secret spiritual bond which existed between him and Kitty had

grown so much stronger that evening that some step must be taken.

But what step could and should be taken he could not imagine.

"What is so exquisite," he thought, as he returned from the

Shcherbatskys', carrying away with him, as he always did, a

delicious feeling of purity and freshness, arising partly from the

fact that he had not been smoking for a whole evening, and with it a

new feeling of tenderness at her love for him- "what is so exquisite

is that not a word has been said by me or by her, yet we understand

each other so well in this unseen language of looks and tones, that

this evening more clearly than ever she told me she loves me. And

how sweetly, simply, and most of all, how trustfully! I feel myself

better, purer. I feel that I have a heart, and that there is a great

deal of good in me Those sweet, loving eyes! When she said: 'Indeed

I do...'"

"Well, what then? Oh, nothing. It's good for me, and good for

her." And he began wondering where to finish the evening.

He passed in review the places he might go to. "Club? a game of

bezique; champagne with Ignatov? No, I'm not going. Chateau des

Fleurs; there I shall find Oblonsky, songs, the cancan. No, I'm sick

of it. That's why I like the Shcherbatskys', because I'm growing

better. I'll go home." He went straight to his room at Dussot's Hotel,

ordered supper, and then undressed, and as soon as his head touched

the pillow, fell into a sound sleep.

XVII.

Next day, at eleven o'clock in the morning, Vronsky drove to the

station of the Peterburg railway to meet his mother, and the first

person he came across on the great flight of steps was Oblonsky, who

was expecting his sister by the same train.

"Ah! Your Excellency!" cried Oblonsky, "Whom are you meeting?"

"My mother," Vronsky responded, smiling, as everyone did who met

Oblonsky. He shook hands with him, and together they ascended the

steps. "She is to be here from Peterburg today."

"I was looking out for you till two o'clock last night. Where did

you go from the Shcherbatskys'?"

"Home," answered Vronsky. "I must own I felt so well content

yesterday after the Shcherbatskys' that I didn't care to go anywhere."

"'I can tell the gallant steeds' by some... I don't know what...

'paces'; I can tell youths 'by their faces,'" declaimed Stepan

Arkadyevich, just as he had done before to Levin.

Vronsky smiled with a look that seemed to say that he did not deny

it, but he promptly changed the subject.

"And whom are you meeting?" he asked.

"I? I've come to meet a pretty woman," said Oblonsky.

"So that's it!"

"Honi soit qui mal y pense! My sister Anna."

"Ah! that's Madame Karenina," said Vronsky.

"You know her, no doubt?"

"I think I do. Or perhaps not... I really am not sure," Vronsky

answered heedlessly, with a vague recollection of something stiff

and tedious evoked by the name Karenina.

"But Alexei Alexandrovich, my celebrated brother-in-law, you

surely must know. All the world knows him."

"I know him by reputation and by sight. I know that he's clever,

learned, religious somewhat... But you know that's not... not in my

line," said Vronsky in English.

"Yes, he's a very remarkable man; rather a conservative, but a

very nice man," observed Stepan Arkadyevich, "a very nice man."

"Oh, well, so much the better for him," said Vronsky smiling. "Oh,

you've come," he said, addressing a tall old footman of his mother's

standing at the door; "come here."

Besides the charm Oblonsky had in general for everyone, Vronsky

had felt of late specially drawn to him by the fact that in his

imagination he was associated with Kitty.

"Well, what do you say? Shall we give a supper on Sunday for the

diva?" he said to him with a smile, taking his arm.

"Of course. I'm collecting subscriptions. Oh, did you make the

acquaintance of my friend Levin?" asked Stepan Arkadyevich.

"Yes; but he left rather early."

"He's a capital fellow," pursued Oblonsky. "Isn't he?"

"I don't know why it is," responded Vronsky, "in all Moscow

people- present company of course excepted," he put in jestingly,

"there's something uncompromising. They are all on the defensive, lose

their tempers, as though they all want to make one feel something...."

"Yes, that's true, it's so," said Stepan Arkadyevich, laughing

cheerfully.

"Will the train be in soon?" Vronsky asked a railway official.

"The train's signaled," answered the man.

The approach of the train was more and more evident by the

preparatory bustle in the station, the rush of porters, the movement

of gendarmes and attendants, and crowding people meeting the train.

Through the frosty vapor could be seen workmen in short sheepskins and

soft felt boots crossing the rails of the curving line. The hiss of

the boiler could be heard on the distant rails, and the rumble of

something heavy.

"No," said Stepan Arkadyevich, who felt a great inclination to

tell Vronsky of Levin's intentions in regard to Kitty. "No, you

haven't got a true impression of Levin. He's a very nervous man, and

is sometimes out of humor, it's true, but then he is often very

charming. He has such a true, honest nature, and a heart of gold.

But yesterday there were special reasons," pursued Stepan Arkadyevich,

with a meaning smile, totally oblivious of the genuine sympathy he had

felt the day before for his friend, and feeling the same sympathy now,

only for Vronsky. "Yes, there were reasons why he could not help being

either particularly happy or particularly unhappy."

Vronsky stood still and asked directly: "How so? Do you mean he

proposed to your belle-soeur yesterday?"

"Maybe," said Stepan Arkadyevich. "I fancied something of the sort

yesterday. Yes, if he went away early, and was out of humor too,

such must be the case.... He's been so long in love, and I'm very

sorry for him."

"So that's it!... I should imagine, though, she might reckon on a

better match," said Vronsky, setting his chest straight and walking

about again, "though I don't know him, of course," he added. "Yes,

that is a hateful position! That's why most fellows prefer to have

to do with the Claras. If you don't succeed with them it only proves

that you've not enough cash, but in this case one's dignity is in

the balance. But here's the train."

The engine had already whistled in the distance. A few instants

later the platform began to shake, and, with puffs of steam hanging

low in the air from the frost, the engine rolled up, with the rod of

the middle wheel rhythmically moving up and down, and the bowed,

muffled figure of the engine driver covered with hoarfrost. Behind the

tender, setting the platform more and more slowly and more

powerfully shaking, came the luggage van with a dog whining in it.

At last the passenger carriages rolled in, quivering before coming

to a standstill.

A smart guard jumped out, giving a whistle, and after him one by one

the impatient passengers began to get down: an officer of the

guards, holding himself erect, and looking severely about him; a

nimble young merchant with a bag, smiling gaily; a peasant with a sack

over his shoulder.

Vronsky, standing beside Oblonsky, watched the carriages and the

passengers, totally oblivious of his mother. What he had just heard

about Kitty excited and delighted him. Unconsciously he straightened

his chest, and his eyes flashed. He felt himself a conqueror.

"Countess Vronskaia is in that compartment," said the smart guard,

going up to Vronsky.

The guard's words roused him, and forced him to think of his

mother and his approaching meeting with her. He did not in his heart

respect his mother, and, without acknowledging it to himself, he did

not love her, though in accordance with the ideas of the set in

which he lived, and with his own upbringing, he could not have

conceived of any behavior to his mother not in the highest degree

respectful and obedient, and the more externally obedient and

respectful, the less in his heart he respected and loved her.

XVIII.

Vronsky followed the guard to the carriage, and at the door of the

compartment he stopped short to make room for a lady who was getting

out.

With the habitual feeling of a man of the world, from one glance

at this lady's appearance Vronsky classified her as belonging to the

best society. He begged pardon, and was getting into the carriage, but

felt he must glance at her once more; not because she was very

beautiful, not because of that elegance and modest grace which were

apparent in her whole figure, but because in the expression of her

charming face, as she passed close by him, there was something

peculiarly caressing and soft. As he looked round, she too turned

her head. Her shining gray eyes, that looked dark because of her thick

lashes, rested with friendly attention on his face, as though she were

recognizing him, and then promptly turned away to the passing crowd,

as though seeking someone. In that brief look Vronsky had time to

notice the suppressed animation which played over her face, and

flitted between the brilliant eyes and the faint smile that curved her

red lips. It was as though her nature were so brimming over with

something that, against her will, it showed itself now in the flash of

her eyes, and now in her smile. Deliberately she shrouded the light in

her eyes, but it shone against her will in her faintly perceptible

smile.

Vronsky stepped into the carriage. His mother, a dried-up old lady

with black eyes and ringlets, screwed up her eyes, scanning her son,

and smiled slightly with her thin lips. Getting up from the seat and

handing her maid a handbag, she gave her little wrinkled hand to her

son to kiss, and lifting his head from her hand, kissed him on the

cheek.

"You got my telegram? Quite well? Thank God."

"You had a good journey?" said her son, sitting down beside her, and

involuntarily listening to a woman's voice outside the door. He knew

it was the voice of the lady he had met at the door.

"All the same I don't agree with you," said the lady's voice.

"It's the Peterburg view, madame."

"Not Peterburg, but simply feminine," she responded.

"Well, well, allow me to kiss your hand."

"Good-by, Ivan Petrovich. And would you see if my brother is here,

and send him to me?" said the lady in the doorway, and stepped back

again into the compartment.

"Well, have you found your brother?" said Countess Vronskaia,

addressing the lady.

Vronsky understood now that this was Madame Karenina.

"Your brother is here," he said, standing up. "Excuse me, I did

not know you, and, indeed, our acquaintance was so slight," said

Vronsky bowing, "that no doubt you do not remember me."

"Oh, no," said she, "I should have known you because your mother and

I have been talking, I think, of nothing but you all the way." As

she spoke she let the animation that would insist on coming out show

itself in her smile. "And still no sign of my brother."

"Do call him, Aliosha," said the old countess.

Vronsky stepped out onto the platform and shouted: "Oblonsky! Here!"

Madame Karenina, however, did not wait for her brother, but catching

sight of him she stepped out with her light, resolute step. And as

soon as her brother had reached her, with a gesture that struck

Vronsky by its decision and its grace, she flung her left arm around

his neck, drew him rapidly to her, and kissed him warmly. Vronsky

looked on, never taking his eyes from her, and smiled, he could not

have said why. But recollecting that his mother was waiting for him,

he went back again into the carriage.

"She's very sweet, isn't she?" said the Countess of Madame Karenina.

"Her husband put her with me, and I was delighted to have her. We've

been talking all the way. And so you, I hear... vous filez le

parfait amour. Tant mieux, mon cher, tant mieux."

"I don't know what you are referring to, maman," he answered coldly.

"Come, maman, let us go."

Madame Karenina entered the carriage again to say good-by to the

Countess.

"Well, Countess, you have met your son, and I my brother," she

said gaily. "And all my stories are exhausted; I should have nothing

more to tell you."

"Oh, no," said the Countess, taking her hand. "I could go all around

the world with you and never be dull. You are one of those

delightful women in whose company it's sweet either to be silent or to

chat. Now please don't fret over your son; you can't expect never to

be parted."

Madame Karenina stood quite still, holding herself very erect, and

her eyes were smiling.

"Anna Arkadyevna," the Countess said in explanation to her son, "has

a little son eight years old, I believe, and she has never been parted

from him before, and she keeps fretting over leaving him."

"Yes, the Countess and I have been talking all the time, I of my son

and she of hers," said Madame Karenina, and again a smile lighted up

her face- a caressing smile intended for him.

"I am afraid that you must have been dreadfully bored," he said,

promptly catching the ball of coquetry she had flung him. But

apparently she did not care to pursue the conversation in that strain,

and she turned to the old Countess.

"Thank you so much. The time has passed so quickly. Good-by,

Countess."

"Good-by, my love," answered the Countess. "Let me kiss your

pretty face. I speak plainly, at my age, and I tell you simply that

I've lost my heart to you."

Stereotyped as the phrase was, Madame Karenina obviously believed it

and was delighted by it. She flushed, bent down slightly, and put

her cheek to the Countess's lips, drew herself up again, and, with the

same smile fluttering between her lips and her eyes, she gave her hand

to Vronsky. He pressed the little hand she gave him, and was

delighted, as though at something special, by the energetic squeeze

with which she freely and vigorously shook his hand. She went out with

the rapid step which bore her rather fully developed figure with

such strange lightness.

"Very charming," said the Countess.

That was precisely what her son was thinking. His eyes followed

her till her graceful figure was out of sight, and then the smile

remained on his face. He saw out of the window how she went up to

her brother, put her arm in his, and began telling him something

animatedly- obviously something that had nothing to do with him,

Vronsky, and at that he felt annoyed.

"Well, maman, are you perfectly well?" he repeated, turning to his

mother.

"Everything has been delightful. Alexandre has been very good, and

Marie has grown very pretty. She's very interesting."

And she began telling him again of what interested her most- the

christening of her grandson, for which she had been staying in

Peterburg, and the special favor shown her elder son by the Czar.

"Here's Lavrentii," said Vronsky, looking out of the window; "now we

can go, if you like."

The old butler who had traveled with the Countess came to the

carriage to announce that everything was ready, and the Countess got

up to go.

"Come; there's not such a crowd now," said Vronsky.

The maid took a handbag and the lap dog, the butler and a porter the

other baggage. Vronsky gave his mother his arm; but just as they

were getting out of the carriage several men ran suddenly by with

panic-stricken faces. The stationmaster, too, ran by in his

extraordinarily colored cap. Obviously something unusual had happened.

The crowd was running to the tail end of the train.

"What?... What?... Where?... Flung himself!... Crushed!..." was

heard among the crowd.

Stepan Arkadyevich, with his sister on his arm, turned back. They

too looked scared, and stopped at the carriage door to avoid the

crowd.

The ladies got in, while Vronsky and Stepan Arkadyevich followed the

crowd to find out details of the disaster.

A watchman, either drunk or too much muffled up in the bitter frost,

had not heard the train moving back, and had been crushed.

Before Vronsky and Oblonsky came back the ladies heard the facts

from the butler.

Oblonsky and Vronsky had both seen the mutilated corpse. Oblonsky

was evidently distressed. He frowned and seemed ready to cry.

"Ah, how awful! Ah, Anna, if you had seen it! Ah, how awful!" he

kept repeating.

Vronsky did not speak; his handsome face was serious, but

perfectly calm.

"Ah, if you had seen it, Countess," said Stepan Arkadyevich. "And

his wife was there.... It was awful to see her!... She flung herself

on the body. They say he was the only support of an immense family.

How awful!"

"Couldn't one do anything for her?" said Madame Karenina in an

agitated whisper.

Vronsky glanced at her, and immediately got out of the carriage.

"I'll be back directly, maman," he remarked, turning round in the

doorway.

When he came back a few minutes later, Stepan Arkadyevich was

already in conversation with the Countess about a new singer, while

she was impatiently looking toward the door, waiting for her son.

"Now let us be off," said Vronsky, coming in.

They went out together. Vronsky was in front with his mother. Behind

walked Madame Karenina with her brother. Just as they were going out

of the station the stationmaster overtook Vronsky.

"You gave my assistant two hundred roubles. Would you kindly explain

for whose benefit you intend them?"

"For the widow," said Vronsky, shrugging his shoulders. "I should

have thought there was no need to ask."

"You gave that?" cried Oblonsky behind, and, pressing his sister's

hand, he added: "Most charming, most charming! Isn't he a fine fellow?

Good-by, Countess."

And he and his sister stood still, looking for her maid.

When they went out the Vronskys' carriage had already driven away.

People coming in were still talking of what had happened.

"What a horrible death!" said a gentleman, passing by. "They say

he was cut in two."

"On the contrary, I think it's the easiest- instantaneous," observed

another.

"How is it they don't take proper precautions?" a third was saying.

Madame Karenina seated herself in the carriage, and Stepan

Arkadyevich saw with surprise that her lips were quivering, and that

she was with difficulty restraining her tears.

"What is it, Anna?" he asked, when they had driven a few hundred

sagenes.

"It's an omen of evil," she said.

"What nonsense!" said Stepan Arkadyevich. "You've come, that's the

chief thing. You can't conceive how I'm resting my hopes on you."

"Have you known Vronsky long? she asked.

"Yes. You know we're hoping he will marry Kitty."

"Yes?" said Anna softly. "Come now, let us talk of you," she

added, tossing her head, as though she would physically shake off

something superfluous oppressing her. "Let us talk of your affairs.

I got your letter, and here I am."

"Yes, all my hopes are in you," said Stepan Arkadyevich.

"Well, tell me all about it."

And Stepan Arkadyevich began his story.

On reaching home Oblonsky helped his sister out, sighed, pressed her

hand, and set off to his office.

XIX.

When Anna entered the tiny drawing room, she found Dolly sitting

there with a white-headed plump little boy, already resembling his

father; she was listening to a lesson in French reading. As the boy

read, he kept twisting and trying to tear off a button that was nearly

off his jacket. His mother had several times taken his hand from it,

but the plump little hand went back to the button again. His mother

pulled the button off and put it in her pocket.

"Keep your hands still, Grisha," she said, and she took up her work,

a coverlet she had long been making. She always set to work on it at

depressed moments, and now she knitted at it nervously, twitching

her fingers and counting the stitches. Though she had sent word the

day before to her husband that it was nothing to her whether his

sister came or not, she had made everything ready for her arrival, and

was expecting her sister-in-law with agitation.

Dolly was crushed by her sorrow, utterly swallowed up by it. Still

she did not forget that Anna, her sister-in-law, was the wife of one

of the most important personages in Peterburg, and was a Peterburg

grande dame. And, thanks to this circumstance, she did not carry out

her threat to her husband- that is to say, she had not forgotten

that her sister-in-law was coming. "And, after all, Anna is in no wise

to blame," thought Dolly. "I know nothing save the very best about

her, and I have seen nothing but kindness and affection from her

toward myself." It was true that as far as she could recall her

impressions at Peterburg at the Karenins', she did not like their

household itself; there was something artificial about the whole

arrangement of their family life. "But why should I not receive her?

If only she doesn't take it into her head to console me!" thought

Dolly. "All consolations and exhortations and Christian forgiveness- I

have thought all this over a thousand times, and it's all no use."

All these days Dolly had been alone with her children. She did not

want to talk of her sorrow, but with that sorrow in her heart she

could not talk of outside matters.

She knew that in one way or another she would tell Anna

everything, and she was alternately glad at the thought of speaking

freely, and angry at the necessity of speaking of her humiliation with

her, his sister, and of hearing her ready-made phrases of

exhortation and consolation.

She had been on the lookout for her, glancing at her watch every

minute, and, as often happens, let slip that precise minute when her

visitor arrived, so that she did not hear the bell.

Catching the sound of skirts and of light steps at the door, she

looked round, and her careworn face unconsciously expressed not

gladness, but wonder. She got up and embraced her sister-in-law.

"What, here already?" she said as she kissed her.

"Dolly, how glad I am to see you!"

"I am glad, too," said Dolly, faintly smiling, and trying by the

expression of Anna's face to find out whether she knew. "Most likely

she knows," she thought, noticing the sympathy in Anna's face.

"Well, come along, I'll take you to your room," she went on, trying to

defer as long as possible the time of explanation.

"Is this Grisha? Heavens, how he's grown!" said Anna; and kissing

him, never taking her eyes off Dolly, she stood still and flushed.

"No, please, let us stay here."

She took off her shawl and her hat, and catching it in a lock of her

black hair, which was a mass of curls, she tossed her head and shook

her hair down.

"You are radiant with health and happiness!" said Dolly, almost with

envy.

"I?... Yes," said Anna. "Merciful heavens, Tania! You're the same

age as my Seriozha," she added, addressing the little girl as she

ran in. She took her in her arms and kissed her. "Delightful child,

delightful! Show me them all."

She mentioned them, not only remembering the names, but the years,

months, characters, illnesses of all the children, and Dolly could not

but appreciate that.

"Very well, we will go to them," she said. "It's a pity Vassia's

asleep."

After seeing the children, they sat down, alone now, in the

drawing room, to coffee. Anna took the tray, and then pushed it away

from her.

"Dolly," she said, "he has told me."

Dolly looked coldly at Anna; she was waiting now for

hypocritically sympathetic phrases, but Anna said nothing of the sort.

"Dolly, darling," she said, "I don't want to intercede for him,

nor to try to comfort you- that's impossible. But, my dearest, I'm

simply sorry, sorry from my heart for you!"

Under the thick lashes of her shining eyes tears suddenly glittered.

She moved nearer to her sister-in-law and took her hand in her own,

vigorous and little. Dolly did not shrink away, but her face did not

lose its frigid expression. She said:

"To comfort me is impossible. Everything's lost after what has

happened, everything's over!"

And directly she had said this, her face suddenly softened. Anna

lifted the wasted, thin hand of Dolly, kissed it and said:

"But, Dolly, what's to be done, what's to be done? How is it best to

act in this awful position- that's what you must think of."

"All's over, and there's nothing more," said Dolly. "And the worst

of it all is, you see, that I can't cast him off: there are the

children- my hands are tied. And I can't live with him! It's a torture

for me to see him."

"Dolly, darling, he has spoken to me, but I want to hear it from

you: tell me all about it."

Dolly looked at her inquiringly.

Sympathy and love unfeigned were apparent on Anna's face.

"Very well," she suddenly said. "But I will begin at the

beginning. You know how I was married. With the education maman gave

us I was more than innocent- I was foolish. I knew nothing. They

say, I know, men tell their wives of their former lives, but Stiva"-

she corrected herself- "Stepan Arkadyevich told me nothing. You'll

hardly believe it, but till now I imagined that I was the only woman

he had known. So I lived eight years. You must understand that I was

not only far from suspecting infidelity, but I regarded it as

impossible, and then- try to imagine it- with such conceptions to find

out suddenly all the horror, all the loathsomeness... You must try and

understand me. To be fully convinced of one's happiness, and all at

once..." continued Dolly, holding back her sobs, "To get a letter...

His letter to his mistress, a governess in my employ. No, it's too

awful!" She hastily pulled out her handkerchief and hid her face in

it. "I can understand if it were passion," she went on, after a

brief silence, "but to deceive me deliberately, slyly... And with

whom?... To go on being my husband while he and she... It's awful! You

can't understand..."

"Oh, yes, I understand! I understand! Dolly, dearest, I do

understand," said Anna, pressing her hand.

"And do you imagine he realizes all the awfulness of my position?

Dolly resumed. "Not in the slightest! He's happy and contented."

"Oh, no!" Anna interposed quickly. "He's to be pitied, he's

weighed down by remorse..."

"Is he capable of remorse?" Dolly interrupted, gazing intently

into her sister-in-law's face.

"Yes. I know him. I could not look at him without feeling sorry

for him. We both know him. He's good-natured, but he's proud, and

now he's so humiliated. What touched me most..." (And here Anna

guessed what would touch Dolly most.) "He's tortured by two things:

that he's ashamed for the children's sake, and that, loving you-

yes, yes, loving you beyond everything on earth," she hurriedly

interrupted Dolly, who would have rejoined- "he has hurt you,

pierced you to the heart. 'No, no, she cannot forgive me,' he keeps on

saying."

Dolly looked pensively past her sister-in-law as she listened to her

words.

"Yes, I can see that his position is awful; it's worse for the

guilty than the innocent," she said, "if he feels that all the

misery comes from his fault. But how am I to forgive him, how am I

to be his wife again after her? For me to live with him now would be

torture, just because I love my past love for him..."

And sobs cut short her words.

But as though of set design, each time she was softened she began to

speak again of what exasperated her.

"She's young, you see, she's pretty," she went on. "Do you know,

Anna, my youth and my beauty are gone, taken by whom? By him and his

children. I have worked for him, and all I had has gone in his

service, and now of course any fresh, vulgar creature has more charm

for him. No doubt they talked of me together, or, worse still, they

were silent about me.... Do you understand?"

Again her eyes glowed with hatred.

"And after that he will tell me... What! Am I to believe him? Never!

No, everything is over, everything that once constituted my comfort,

the reward of my work and of my sufferings... Would you believe it?

I was teaching Grisha just now: once this was a joy to me, now it is a

torture. What have I to strive and toil for? Why to have children?

What's so awful is that all at once my heart's turned, and instead

of love and tenderness, I have nothing but hatred for him; yes,

hatred. I could kill him and..."

"Darling Dolly, I understand, but don't torture yourself You are

so insulted, so excited, that you look at many things mistakenly."

Dolly grew calmer, and for two minutes both were silent.

"What's to be done? Think for me, Anna, help me. I have thought over

everything, and I see nothing."

Anna could not find anything, but her heart echoed instantly to each

word, to each change of expression on her sister-in-law's face.

"One thing I would say," began Anna. "I am his sister, I know his

character, that faculty of forgetting everything, everything" (she

waved her hand before her forehead), "that faculty for being

completely carried away, but for completely repenting, too. He

cannot believe it, he cannot comprehend now, how he could have acted

as he did."

"No; he understands, and understood!" Dolly broke in. "But I...

You are forgetting me... Does that make it easier for me?"

"Wait a minute. When he told me, I will own I did not realize all

the horror of your position. I saw nothing but him, and that the

family was broken up. I felt sorry for him, but after talking to

you, I see it, as a woman, quite differently. I see your agony, and

I can't tell you how sorry I am for you! But, Dolly, darling, while

I fully realize your sufferings, there is one thing I don't know; I

don't know... I don't know how much love there is still in your

heart for him. That you know- whether there is enough for you to be

able to forgive him. If there is- forgive him!"

"No," Dolly was beginning, but Anna cut her short, kissing her

hand once more.

"I know more of the world than you do," she said. I know how men

like Stiva look at it. You speak of his talking of you with her.

That never happened. Such men are unfaithful, but their own home and

wife are sacred to them. Somehow or other these women are still looked

on with contempt by them, and do not touch on their feeling for

their family. They draw a sort of line that can't be crossed between

them and their families. I don't understand it, but it is so."

"Yes, but he has kissed her..."

"Dolly, hush, darling. I saw Stiva when he was in love with you. I

remember the time when he came to me and cried, talking of you, and of

what a poetry and loftiness you were for him, and I know that the

longer he has lived with you the loftier you have been in his eyes.

You know we have sometimes laughed at him for putting in at every

word: "Dolly's a marvelous woman." have always been a divinity for

him, and you are that still, and this has not been a passion of the

heart...

"But if it be repeated?"

"It cannot be, as I understand it...

"Yes, but could you forgive it?"

"I don't know, I can't judge... No, I can judge," said Anna,

thinking a moment; and grasping the position in her thought and

weighing it in her inner balance, she added: "Yes, I can, I can, I

can. Yes, I could forgive. I could not be the same, no; but I could

forgive, and forgive as though it had never been, never been at

all...."

"Oh, of course," Dolly interposed quickly, as though saying what she

had more than once thought, "else it would not be forgiveness. If

one forgives, it must be completely, completely. Come, let us go; I'll

take you to your room," she said, getting up, and on the way she

embraced Anna. "My dear, how glad I am you came. It has made things

better, ever so much better."

XX.

The whole of that day Anna spent at home- that is, at the

Oblonskys', and received no one, though some of her acquaintances

had already heard of her arrival, and came to call the same day.

Anna spent the whole morning with Dolly and the children. She merely

sent a brief note to her brother to tell him that he must not fail

to dine at home. "Come, God is merciful," she wrote.

Oblonsky did dine at home: the conversation was general, and his

wife, speaking to him, addressed him as "Stiva," as she had not done

for some time past. In the relations of husband and wife the same

estrangement still remained, but there was no talk of separation,

and Stepan Arkadyevich saw the possibility of explanation and

reconciliation.

Immediately after dinner Kitty came in. She knew Anna Arkadyevna,

but only very slightly, and she came now to her sister's with some

trepidation, at the prospect of meeting this fashionable Peterburg

lady, of whom everyone spoke so highly. But she made a favorable

impression on Anna Arkadyevna- she perceived that at once. Anna was

unmistakably admiring her loveliness and her youth: before Kitty

knew where she was she found herself not merely under Anna's sway, but

in love with her, as young girls do fall in love with older and

married women. Anna did not resemble a fashionable lady, or the mother

of a boy eight years old. In the elasticity of her movements, the

freshness and the animation which persisted in her face and broke

out in her smile and her glance, she would rather have passed for a

girl of twenty, had it not been for a serious and, at times, a

mournful look in her eyes, which struck and attracted Kitty. Kitty

felt that Anna was perfectly simple and was concealing nothing, but

that she had another higher world of interests, complex and poetic,

which were inaccessible to Kitty.

After dinner, when Dolly withdrew to her own room, Anna rose quickly

and went up to her brother, who was just lighting a cigar.

"Stiva," she said to him, winking gaily, making the sign of the

cross over him, and glancing toward the door, "go, and God help you.

He tossed away his cigar, having understood her, and departed

through the doorway.

When Stepan Arkadyevich had disappeared, she went back to the sofa

where she had been sitting, surrounded by the children. Either because

the children saw that their mother was fond of this aunt, or that they

themselves sensed a special charm in her, the two elder ones, and

the younger following their lead, as children so often do, had clung

about their new aunt since before dinner, and would not leave her

side. And it had become a sort of game among them to sit as close as

possible to their aunt, to touch her, hold her little hand, kiss it,

play with her ring, or even touch the flounce of her skirt.

"Come, come, as we were sitting before," said Anna Arkadyevna,

sitting down in her place.

And again Grisha poked his little face under her arm, and nestled

with his head on her gown, beaming with pride and happiness.

"And when is your next ball?" she asked Kitty.

"Next week- and a splendid ball. One of those balls where one always

enjoys oneself."

"Why, are there balls where one always enjoys oneself?" Anna said,

with tender irony.

"It's strange, but there are. At the Bobrishchevs' one always enjoys

oneself, and at the Nikitins' too, while at the Mezhkovs' it's

always dull. Haven't you noticed it?"

"No, my dear, for me there are no balls now where one enjoys

oneself," said Anna, and Kitty detected in her eyes that peculiar

world which was not revealed to her. "For me there are some which

are less dull and tiresome than others."

"How can you be dull at a ball?"

"Why should not I be dull at a ball?" inquired Anna.

Kitty perceived that Anna knew what answer would follow.

"Because you always look the loveliest of all."

Anna had the faculty of blushing. She blushed, and said:

"In the first place it's never so; and secondly, if it were, what

difference would it make to me?"

"Are you coming to this ball? asked Kitty.

"I imagine it won't be possible to avoid going. Here, take it,"

she said to Tania, who was pulling the loosely fitting ring off her

white, slender-tipped finger.

"I shall be so glad if you go. I should so like to see you at a

ball."

"Anyway, if I do go, I shall comfort myself with the thought that

it's a pleasure to you.... Grisha, don't pull my hair. It's untidy

enough without that," she said, putting up a straying lock, which

Grisha had been playing with.

"I imagine you at the ball in lilac."

"And why in lilac, precisely?" asked Anna, smiling. "Now,

children, run along, run along. Do you hear? Miss Hoole is calling you

to tea," she said tearing the children from her, and sending them

off to the dining room.

"I know why you press me to come to the ball. You expect a great

deal of this ball, and you want everyone to be there and take part

in it."

"How do you know? Yes!"

"Oh! What a happy time you are at," pursued Anna. "I remember, and I

know this blue haze, like the mist on the mountains in Switzerland.

This mist, which covers everything in that blissful time when

childhood is just ending, and out of that vast circle, happy and

gay, there is a path growing narrower and narrower, and it is

delightful and alarming to enter the ballroom, bright and splendid

as it is.... Who has not been through it?"

Kitty smiled without speaking. "But how did she go through it? How I

should like to know all her love story!" thought Kitty, recalling

the unromantic appearance of Alexei Alexandrovich, her husband.

"I know something. Stiva told me, and I congratulate you. I liked

him so much," Anna continued. "I met Vronsky at the railway station."

"Oh, was he there?" asked Kitty, blushing. "What was it Stiva told

you?"

"Stiva blabbed about it all. And I should be so glad. I traveled

yesterday with Vronsky's mother," she went on; "and his mother

talked without a pause of him; he's her favorite. I know mothers are

partial, but..."

"What did his mother tell you?"

"Oh, a great deal! And although I know that he's her favorite, one

can still see how chivalrous he is.... Well, for instance, she told me

that he had wanted to give up all his property to his brother; that he

had done something extraordinary when he was quite a child- saved a

woman from the water. He's a hero, in fact," said Anna, smiling and

recollecting the two hundred roubles he had given at the station.

But she did not tell Kitty about the two hundred roubles. For some

reason it was disagreeable to her to think of it. She felt that

there was something that had to do with her in it, and something

that ought not to have been.

"She pressed me very much to go and see her," Anna went on; "and I

shall be glad to go to see her tomorrow. Stiva is staying a long while

in Dolly's room, thank God," Anna added, changing the subject, and

getting up, Kitty fancied, displeased with something.

"No, I'm first! No, I!" screamed the children, who had finished tea,

running up to their Aunt Anna.

"All together," said Anna, and she ran laughing to meet them, and,

embracing them, threw all the children, shrieking with delight, into a

swarming heap.

XXI.

Dolly came out of her room to the tea of the grownups. Stepan

Arkadyevich did not come out. He must have left his wife's room by a

back door.

"I am afraid you'll be cold upstairs," observed Dolly, addressing

Anna; "I want to move you downstairs, and we shall be nearer."

"Oh, please, don't trouble about me," answered Anna, looking

intently into Dolly's face, trying to make out whether there had

been a reconciliation or not.

"It will be lighter for you here," answered her sister-in-law.

"I assure you that I can sleep like a marmot anywhere and any time."

"What's all this?" inquired Stepan Arkadyevich, coming out of his

room and addressing his wife.

From his tone both Kitty and Anna at once gathered that a

reconciliation had taken place.

"I want to move Anna downstairs, but we must hang up blinds. No

one knows how to do it; I must see to it myself," answered Dolly

addressing him.

"God knows whether they are fully reconciled," thought Anna, hearing

her tone, cold and composed.

"Come, Dolly, why be always making difficulties," answered her

husband. "There, I'll do it all, if you like..."

"I know how you do everything," answered Dolly. "You tell Matvei

to do what can't be done, and go away yourself, leaving him to make

a muddle of everything," and her habitual, mocking smile curved the

corners of Dolly's lips as she spoke.

"Full, full reconciliation- full," thought Anna, "thank God!" and

rejoicing that she was the cause of it, she went up to Dolly and

kissed her.

"Not at all. Why do you always look down on me and Matvei?" said

Stepan Arkadyevich, smiling hardly perceptibly, and addressing his

wife.

The whole evening Dolly was, as always, a little mocking in her tone

to her husband, while Stepan Arkadyevich was happy and cheerful, yet

not so as to seem as if, having been forgiven, he had forgotten his

fault.

At half-past nine o'clock a particularly joyful and pleasant

family conversation over the tea table at the Oblonskys' was broken up

by an apparently simple incident. But this simple incident for some

reason struck everyone as strange. Having begun talking about common

acquaintances in Peterburg, Anna got up quickly.

"She is in my album," she said; "and, by the way, I'll show you my

Seriozha," she added, with a mother's smile of pride.

Toward ten o'clock, when she usually said good night to her son, and

often, before going to a ball put him to bed herself, she felt

depressed at being so far from him; and whatever she was talking

about, she kept coming back in thought to her curly-headed Seriozha.

She longed to look at his photograph and talk of him. Seizing the

first pretext, she got up, and with her light, resolute step went

for her album. The stairs up to her room came out on the landing of

the great warm main staircase.

Just as she was leaving the drawing room, a ring was heard in the

hall.

"Who can that be?" said Dolly.

"It's too early for me to be fetched, and for anyone else it's too

late," observed Kitty.

"It's sure to be someone with papers for me," put in Stepan

Arkadyevich. When Anna was passing the top of the staircase, a servant

was running up to announce the visitor, while the visitor himself

was standing under a lamp. Anna, glancing down, at once recognized

Vronsky, and a strange feeling of pleasure and, at the same time, of

some dread, stirred in her heart. He stood there, without taking off

his coat, and pulling something out of his pocket. At the instant when

she was just halfway up the stairs he raised his eyes, caught sight of

her, and the expression of his face changed to embarrassment and

dismay. With a slight inclination of her head she passed, hearing

behind her Stepan Arkadyevich's loud voice calling him to come up, and

the quiet, soft, and calm voice of Vronsky refusing.

When Anna returned with the album he was already gone, and Stepan

Arkadyevich was telling them that he had called to inquire about the

dinner they were giving next day to a foreign celebrity.

"And nothing would induce him to come up. What a queer fellow he

is!" added Stepan Arkadyevich.

Kitty blushed. She thought that she was the only person who knew why

he had come, and why he would not come up. "He has been at home,"

she thought, "and didn't find me, and thought I should be here, but he

did not come up because he thought it late, and Anna's here."

All of them looked at each other, saying nothing, and began to

look at Anna's album.

There was nothing either exceptional or strange in a man's calling

at half-past nine on a friend to inquire details of a proposed

dinner party and not coming in, yet it seemed strange to all of

them. And to Anna it seemed stranger and more unpleasant than to any

of the others.

XXII.

The ball was only just beginning as Kitty and her mother walked up

the great staircase, flooded with light, and lined with flowers and

footmen in powder and red coats. From the rooms came a constant,

steady noise, like that of a hive aswarm; and as they were giving

the final little touches to hair and dresses before a mirror on the

landing between potted trees, they heard, coming from the ballroom,

the gently distinct notes of the fiddles of the orchestra, beginning

the first waltz. A little ancient in civilian dress, arranging his

gray curls before another mirror, and diffusing an odor of scent,

stumbled against them on the stairs, and stood aside, evidently

admiring Kitty, whom he did not know. A beardless youth, one of

those society youths whom the old Prince Shcherbatsky called whelps,

in an exceedingly open waistcoat, straightening his white tie as he

went, bowed to them and after running by, came back to ask Kitty for a

quadrille. As the first quadrille had already been given to Vronsky,

she had to promise this youth the second. An officer, buttoning his

glove, stood aside in the doorway, and, stroking his mustache, admired

the rosy Kitty.

Although her dress, her coiffure, and all the preparations for the

ball had cost Kitty much trouble and planning, at this moment she

walked into the ballroom in the elaborate tulle dress over a pink slip

as unconcernedly and simply as though all the rosettes and lace, all

the minute details of her attire, had not cost her or her family a

moment's attention, as though she had been born in this tulle and

lace, with this towering coiffure, surmounted by a rose and two

small leaves.

When, just before entering the ballroom, the old Princess tried to

adjust a sash ribbon that had become twisted, Kitty had drawn back a

little. She felt that everything must be right of itself, and

graceful, and that nothing could need setting straight.

Kitty had one of her good days. Her dress was not uncomfortable

anywhere; her lace bertha did not droop anywhere; her rosettes were

neither crushed nor torn off; her pink slippers with high, curving

heels did not pinch, but gladdened her tiny feet; and the thick

bandeaux of fair hair kept up on her head. All the three buttons

buttoned up without tearing on the long glove that covered her hand

without concealing its lines. The black velvet ribbon of her locket

nestled with special tenderness round her neck. This velvet ribbon was

a darling; at home, regarding her neck in the looking glass, Kitty had

felt that that velvet was speaking. About all the rest there might

be a doubt, but the velvet ribbon was a darling. Kitty smiled here

too, at the ball, when she glanced at it in the glass. Her bare

shoulders and arms gave Kitty a sensation of chill marble- a sensation

she particularly liked. Her eyes sparkled, and her rosy lips could not

help but smile from the consciousness of their own attractiveness. She

had scarcely entered the ballroom and reached the

tulle-ribbon-lace-colored throng of ladies, waiting to be asked to

dance- Kitty was never one of that throng- when she was asked for a

waltz, and asked by the best partner, the first star in the

hierarchy of the ballroom, a renowned conductor of the dances and

master of ceremonies, married man, handsome and well built, Iegorushka

Korsunsky. He had only just left the Countess Banina, with whom he had

danced the first turn of the waltz, and, scanning his demesne- that is

to say, a few couples who had started dancing- he caught sight of

Kitty entering, and flew up to her with that peculiar, easy amble

which is confined to conductors of the dances. Bowing and without even

asking her if she cared to dance, he put out his arm to encircle her

slender waist. She looked round for someone to give her fan to, and

their hostess, smiling to her, took it.

"How good of you to come in good time," he said to her, embracing

her waist; "such a bad habit to be late."

Bending her left arm, she laid it on his shoulder, and her little

feet in their pink slippers began swiftly, lightly, and rhythmically

moving over the slippery floor in time to the music.

"It's a rest to waltz with you," he said to her, as they fell into

the first slow steps of the waltz. "It's charming- such lightness,

precision." He said to her the same thing he said to almost all his

partners whom he knew well.

She smiled at his praise, and continued to look about the room

over his shoulder. She was not like a girl at her first ball, for whom

all faces in the ballroom melt into one vision of fairyland. And she

was not a girl who had gone the stale round of balls till every face

in the ballroom was familiar and tiresome. But she was in the middle

stage between these two; she was excited, and at the same time she had

sufficient self-possession to be able to observe. In the left corner

of the ballroom she saw the very flower of society grouped together.

There- impossibly naked- was the beauty Liddy, Korsunsky's wife; there

was the lady of the house; there shone the bald pate of Krivin, always

to be found wherever the best people were; in that direction gazed the

young men, not venturing to approach; there, too, she descried

Stiva, and there she saw the charming figure and head of Anna in a

black velvet gown. And he was there. Kitty had not seen him since

the evening she refused Levin. With her farsighted eyes, knew him at

once, and was even aware that he was looking at her.

"Another turn, eh? You're not tired?" said Korsunsky, a little out

of breath.

"No, thank you!"

"Where shall I take you?"

"Madame Karenina's here, I think.... Take me to her."

"Wherever you command."

And Korsunsky began waltzing with measured steps straight toward the

group in the left corner, continually saying, "Pardon, mesdames,

pardon, pardon, mesdames," and steering his course through the sea

of lace, tulle and ribbon, and not disarranging a feather, he turned

his partner sharply round, so that her slim ankles, in light,

transparent stockings, were exposed to view, and her train floated out

in fan shape and covered Krivin's knees. Korsunsky bowed, set straight

his open shirt front, and gave her his arm to conduct her to Anna

Arkadyevna. Kitty, flushed, took her train from Krivin's knees, and, a

little giddy, looked round, seeking Anna. Anna was not in lilac, as

Kitty had so urgently wished, but in a black, low-cut, velvet gown,

showing her full shoulders and bosom, that looked as though carved

in old ivory, and her rounded arms, with tiny, slender hands. The

whole gown was trimmed with Venetian guipure. On her head, among her

black hair- her own, with no false additions- was a little wreath of

pansies, and a similar one on the black ribbon of her sash, among

white lace. Her coiffure was not striking. All that was noticeable was

the little willful tendrils of her curly hair that persisted in

escaping on the nape of her neck, and on her temples. Encircling her

sculptured, strong neck was a thread of pearls.

Kitty had been seeing Anna every day; she adored her, and had

pictured her invariably in lilac. But now, seeing her in black, she

felt that she had not fully perceived her charm. She saw her now as

someone quite new and surprising to her. Now she understood that

Anna could not have been in lilac, and that her charm was precisely in

that she always stood out against her attire, that her dress could

never be noticeable on her. And her black dress, with its sumptuous

lace, was not noticeable on her; it was only the frame and all that

was seen was she- simple, natural, elegant, and at the same time gay

and animated.

She was standing, as always, very erect, and when Kitty drew near

the group she was speaking to the master of the house, her head

slightly turned toward him.

"No, I won't cast a stone," she was saying, in answer to

something, "though I can't understand it she went on, shrugging her

shoulders, and she turned at once with a soft smile of protection

toward Kitty. With a cursory feminine glance she scanned her attire,

and made a movement of her head, hardly perceptible, but understood by

Kitty, signifying approval of her dress and her looks. "You came

into the room dancing," she added.

"This is one of my most faithful supporters," said Korsunsky, bowing

to Anna Arkadyevna, whom he had not yet seen. "The Princess helps to

make any ball festive and successful. Anna Arkadyevna, a waltz?" he

said, bending down to her.

"Why, have you met?" inquired their host.

"Is there anyone we have not met? My wife and I are like white

wolves- everyone knows us," answered Korsunsky. "A waltz, Anna

Arkadyevna?"

"I don't dance whenever it's possible not to," she said.

"But tonight it's impossible," answered Korsunsky.

During the conversation Vronsky was approaching them.

"Well, since it's impossible tonight, let us start," she said, not

noticing Vronsky's bow, and hastily put her hand on Korsunsky's

shoulder.

"What is she vexed with him about?" thought Kitty, discerning that

Anna had intentionally not responded to Vronsky's bow. Vronsky went up

to Kitty, reminding her of the first quadrille, and expressing his

regret at not having seen her all this time. Kitty gazed in admiration

at Anna waltzing, as she listened to him. She expected him to ask

her for a waltz, but he did not, and she glanced wonderingly at him.

He flushed, and hurriedly asked her to waltz, but he had barely put

his arm round her slender waist and taken the first step when the

music suddenly stopped. Kitty looked into his face, which was so close

to her own, and long afterward- for several years- this look, full

of love, to which he made no response, cut her to the heart with an

agony of shame.

"Pardon! Pardon! Waltz! Waltz!" shouted Korsunsky from the other

side of the room, and, seizing the first young lady he came across

he began dancing.

XXIII.

Vronsky and Kitty waltzed several times round the room. After the

waltz Kitty went to her mother, and she had hardly time to say a few

words to Countess Nordstone when Vronsky came up again for the first

quadrille. During the quadrille nothing of any significance was

said: there was disjointed talk between them of the Korsunskys,

husband and wife, whom he described very amusingly, as delightful

children at forty, and of the future popular theater; and only once

did the conversation touch her to the quick- when he asked her whether

Levin were here, and added that he liked him very much. But Kitty

did not expect much from the quadrille. She looked forward with a

sinking heart to the mazurka. She fancied that the mazurka would

decide everything. The fact that he did not during the quadrille ask

her for the mazurka did not trouble her. She felt sure she would dance

it with him, as she had done at former balls, and refused five young

men, saying she was engaged for the mazurka. The whole ball up to

the last quadrille was for Kitty an enchanted vision of delightful

colors, sounds and motions. She only sat down when she felt too

tired and begged for a rest. But as she was dancing the last quadrille

with one of the tiresome young men whom she could not refuse, she

chanced to be vis-a-vis with Vronsky and Anna. She had not been near

Anna since the beginning of the evening, and now she again suddenly

saw her as quite new and surprising. She saw in her the signs of

that excitement of success she knew so well in herself; she saw that

she was intoxicated with the delighted admiration she was exciting.

She knew that feeling and knew its signs, and saw them in Anna; saw

the quivering, flashing light in her eyes, and the smile of

happiness and excitement unconsciously curving her lips, and the

distinct grace, precision and lightness of her movements.

"Who is it?" she asked herself. "All- or one?" And without keeping

up her end of the conversation, the thread of which the harassed young

man she was dancing with lost and could not pick up again, she

obeyed with external liveliness the peremptory shouts of Korsunsky

starting them all into the grand rond, and then into the chaine, and

at the same time she kept watch with a growing pang at her heart. "No,

it's not admiration of the crowd that has intoxicated her, but the

adoration of one. And that one? Can it be he?" Every time he spoke

to Anna the joyous light flashed into her eyes, and the smile of

happiness curved her red lips. She seemed to make an effort to control

herself, in order not to show these signs of delight, but they

appeared on her face of themselves. "But what of him?" Kitty looked at

him and was horrified. What was pictured so clearly to Kitty in the

mirror of Anna's face she saw in him. What had become of his always

calm, firm manner, and the carelessly calm expression of his face? Now

every time he turned to her he bent his head, as though he would

have fallen at her feet, and in his eyes there was nothing but

humble submission and dread. "I would not offend you," his eyes seemed

to be saying each time, "but I want to save myself, and I don't know

how." On his face was a look such as Kitty had never seen before.

They were speaking of common acquaintances, keeping up the

smallest of small talk, but to Kitty it seemed that every word they

said was determining their fate and hers. And strangely enough,

although they were actually talking of how absurd Ivan Ivanovich was

with his French, and how the Eletsky girl might have made a better

match, these words were yet fraught with significance for them, and

they sensed this as much as Kitty did. The whole ball, the whole

world, everything seemed screened by a fog within Kitty's soul.

Nothing but the stern discipline of her bringing-up supported her

and forced her to do what was expected of her- that is, to dance, to

answer questions, to talk, even to smile. But before the mazurka, when

they were beginning to rearrange the chairs and a few couples moved

out of the smaller rooms into the big room, a moment of despair and

horror came for Kitty. She had refused five partners, and now she

was not dancing the mazurka. She had not even a hope of being asked

for it, because she was so successful in society that the idea would

never occur to anyone that she had remained disengaged till now. She

would have to tell her mother she felt ill and go home, yet she had

not the strength to do this. She felt crushed.

She went to the farthest end of the second drawing room and sank

into a low chair. Her light, transparent skirts rose like a cloud

about her slender waist; one bare, thin, soft, girlish arm, hanging

listlessly, was lost in the folds of her pink tunic; in the other

she held her fan and with rapid, short strokes fanned her burning

face. Yet, while she looked like a butterfly clinging to a blade of

grass, and just about to open its rainbow wings for fresh flight,

her heart ached with a horrible despair.

"But perhaps I am wrong- perhaps it was not so?" And again she

recalled all she had seen.

"Kitty, what is it?" said Countess Nordstone, stepping noiselessly

over the carpet toward her. "I don't understand it."

Kitty's lower lip began to quiver; she got up quickly.

"Kitty, you're not dancing the mazurka?"

"No, no," said Kitty in a voice shaking with tears.

"He asked her for the mazurka in my presence," said Countess

Nordstone, knowing Kitty would understand who he and her were. "She

said: 'Why, aren't you going to dance it with Princess

Shcherbatskaia?'"

"Oh, it doesn't matter to me!" answered Kitty.

No one but she herself understood her position; no one knew that she

had refused yesterday the man whom perhaps she loved, and refused

him because she had put her faith in another.

Countess Nordstone found Korsunsky, with whom she was to dance the

mazurka, and told him to ask Kitty.

Kitty danced in the first couple, and luckily for her she had not to

talk because Korsunsky was all the time running about, overseeing

his demesne. Vronsky and Anna were sitting almost opposite her. She

saw them with her farsighted eyes, and saw them, too, close by when

they met in the figures, and the more she saw of them the more

convinced was she that her unhappiness was consummated. She saw that

they felt themselves alone in this crowded room. And on Vronsky's

face, always so firm and independent, she saw the look that had struck

her, of bewilderment and humble submissiveness, like the expression of

an intelligent dog when it has done wrong.

Anna smiled- and her smile was reflected by him. She grew

thoughtful- and he became serious. Some supernatural force drew

Kitty's eyes to Anna's face. She was charming in her simple black

dress; charming were her round arms with their bracelets; charming was

her firm neck with its thread of pearls; charming the straying curls

of her loose hair; charming the graceful, light movements of her

little feet and hands, charming was that lovely face in its animation-

yet there was something terrible and cruel in her charm.

Kitty admired her more than ever, and more and more acute did her

suffering grow. Kitty felt crushed, and her face showed it. When

Vronsky caught sight of her, coming upon her in the mazurka, he did

not at once recognize her, so changed was she.

"Delightful ball!" he said to her, merely for the sake of saying

something.

"Yes," she answered.

In the middle of the mazurka, repeating a complicated figure,

newly invented by Korsunsky, Anna came forward into the center of

the circle, chose two gentlemen, and summoned Kitty and another

lady. Kitty gazed at her in dismay as she went up. Anna looked at

her with drooping eyelids, and smiled, pressing her hand. But,

noticing that Kitty only responded to her smile by a look of despair

and amazement, she turned away from her, and began gaily talking to

the other lady.

"Yes, there is something uncanny, devilish and charming about

her," said Kitty to herself.

Anna did not want to stay for supper, but the master of the house

began urging her.

"Nonsense, Anna Arkadyevna," said Korsunsky placing her bare hand

upon his coat sleeve. "I've such an idea for a cotillon! Un bijou!"

And he moved gradually on, trying to draw her along with him.

Their host smiled approvingly.

"No, I'm not going to stay," answered Anna, smiling, but, in spite

of her smile, both Korsunsky and the master of the house saw from

her resolute tone that she would not stay.

"No; why, as it is, I have danced more at your ball in Moscow than I

have all the winter in Peterburg," said Anna, looking round at

Vronsky, who stood near her. "I must rest a little before my journey."

"Are you definitely going tomorrow then?" asked Vronsky.

"Yes, I suppose so," answered Anna, as though wondering at the

boldness of his question; but the irrepressible, quivering

brilliance of her eyes and her smile set him on fire as she said it.

Anna Arkadyevna did not stay to supper, but went home.

XXIV.

"Yes, there must be something disgusting, repulsive about me,"

reflected Levin, as he left the Shcherbatskys', and set out on foot

for his brother's lodgings. "And I don't get on with other people.

Pride, they say. No, I haven't even pride. If I had any pride, I

should not have put myself in such a position." And he pictured to

himself Vronsky, happy, good-natured, clever and calm- certainly never

placed in the awful position in which he had been that evening.

"Yes, she was bound to choose him. It must be so, and I cannot

complain of anyone or anything. I am myself to blame. What right had I

to imagine she would care to join her life to mine? Who am I, and what

am I? A nobody, not wanted by anyone, nor of use to anybody." And he

recalled his brother Nikolai, and dwelt with pleasure on the thought

of him. "Isn't he right in saying that everything in the world is

bad and vile? And are we fair in our judgment, present and past, of

brother Nikolai? Of course, from the point of view of Procophii,

seeing him in a torn cloak and tipsy, he's a despicable person. But

I know him differently. I know his soul, and know that we are alike.

And I, instead of going to seek him out, went out to dinner, and

then came here." Levin walked up to a lamppost, read his brother's

address, which was in his pocketbook, and called a cabby. All the long

way to his brother's Levin vividly recalled all the facts, familiar to

him, of his brother Nikolai's life. He remembered how his brother,

while at the university, and for a year afterward, had, in spite of

the jeers of his companions, lived like a monk, strictly observing all

religious rites, services and fasts, and avoiding every sort of

pleasure- especially women. And now, afterward, he had all at once

broken out: had associated with the most horrible people, and rushed

into the most senseless debauchery. He remembered later the scandal

over a boy, whom he had taken from the country to bring up, and, in

a fit of rage, had so violently beaten that proceedings were brought

against him for personal injury. Then he remembered the scandal with a

sharper, to whom he had lost money, and given a promissory note, and

against whom he had himself lodged a complaint, asserting that he

had cheated him. (This was the money Sergei Ivanovich had paid.)

Then he remembered how he had spent a night in a police station for

disorderly conduct in the street. He remembered the shameful

proceedings he had instituted against his brother Sergei Ivanovich,

accusing him of not having paid him, apparently, his share of his

mother's estate; and the last scandal, when he had gone to a Western

province in an official capacity, and there had got into trouble for

assaulting a village elder.... It was all horribly vile, yet to

Levin it appeared not at all as vile as it inevitably would to those

who did not know Nikolai, did not know all his story, did not know his

heart.

Levin remembered that when Nikolai had been in the devout stage, the

period of fasts and monks and church services, when he was seeking

in religion a support and a curb for his passionate temperament,

everyone, far from encouraging him, had jeered at him- and Levin

had, too, with the others. They had teased him, calling him Noah and

Monk; yet, when he had broken out, no one had helped him, but had

all turned away from him, with horror and loathing.

Levin felt that brother Nikolai, in spite of all the ugliness of his

life, in his soul, in the very depths of his soul, was no more in

the wrong than the people who despised him. He was not to blame for

having been born with his unbridled character and some pressure upon

his intellect. For he had always wanted to be good. "I will tell him

everything, without reserve, and I will make him speak without

reserve, too, and I'll show him that I love him, and therefore

understand him," Levin resolved to himself, as, toward eleven o'clock,

he reached the hotel of which he had the address.

"At the top, twelve and thirteen," the porter answered Levin's

inquiry.

"At home?"

"Probably he is at home."

The door of No. 12 was half open, and, together with a streak of

light, there issued thick fumes of cheap, poor tobacco, and the

sound of a voice, unknown to Levin; but he knew at once that his

brother was there: he recognized his cough.

As he went in at the door, the unknown voice was saying:

"It all depends with how much judgment and knowledge the thing's

done."

Konstantin Levin looked in at the door, and saw that the speaker was

a young man with an immense shock of hair, wearing a Russian coat, and

that a pock-marked young woman in a woolen gown, without collar or

cuffs, was sitting on the sofa. His brother was not to be seen.

Konstantin felt a sharp pang at his heart at the thought of the

strange company in which his brother spent his life. No one had

heard him, and Konstantin, taking off his galoshes, listened to what

the gentleman in the Russian coat was saying. He was speaking of

some enterprise.

"Well, the devil flay them, these privileged classes," his brother's

voice responded, with a cough. "Masha! get us some supper, and serve

up some wine, if there's any left; or else send for some."

The woman rose, came out from behind the partition, and saw

Konstantin.

"There's some gentleman here, Nikolai Dmitrievich," she said.

"Whom do you want?" said the voice of Nikolai Levin, angrily.

"It's I," answered Konstantin Levin, coming forward into the light.

"Who's I?" Nikolai's voice said again, still more angrily. He

could be heard getting up hurriedly, stumbling against something,

and Levin saw, facing him in the doorway, the big scared eyes, and the

huge, gaunt, stooping figure of his brother, so familiar, and yet

astonishing in its oddity and sickliness.

He was even thinner than three years before, when Konstantin Levin

had seen him last. He was wearing a short coat, and his hands and

big bones seemed huger than ever. His hair had grown thinner, the same

straight mustache hid his lips, the same eyes gazed strangely and

naively at his visitor.

"Ah, Kostia!" he exclaimed suddenly, recognizing his brother, and

his eyes lighted up with joy. But the same second he looked round at

the young man, and gave the nervous jerk of his head and neck that

Konstantin knew so well, as if his cravat were choking him; and a

quite different expression- wild, suffering and cruel- rested on his

emaciated face.

"I wrote to you and Sergei Ivanovich both that I don't know you, and

don't want to know you. What is it you want?"

He was not at all the same as Konstantin had been fancying him.

The worst and most oppressive part of his character, which made all

relations with him so difficult, had been forgotten by Konstantin

Levin when he thought of him; and now, when he saw his face, and

especially that nervous twitching of his head, he remembered it all.

"I didn't want to see you for anything," he answered timidly.

"I've simply come to see you."

His brother's timidity obviously softened Nikolai. His lips

twitched.

"Oh, so that's it?" he said. "Well, come in; sit down. Like some

supper? Masha, bring supper for three. No, stop a minute. Do you

know who this is?" he said, addressing his brother, and indicating the

gentleman in the Russian coat: "This is Mr. Kritsky, a friend of my

Kiev days- a very remarkable man. He's persecuted by the police, of

course, since he's not a scoundrel."

And he surveyed, as it was a habit of his, everyone in the room.

Seeing that the woman standing in the doorway was starting to go, he

shouted to her. "Wait a minute, I said." And with that inability to

express himself, the incoherence that Konstantin knew so well, he

began, with another look round at everyone, to tell Kritsky's story to

his brother: how he had been expelled from the university for starting

a benevolent society for the poor students, and classes on Sunday, and

how he had afterward been a teacher in a rural school, and had been

driven out of that, too; and had afterward been on trial for something

or other.

"You're of the Kiev University?" said Konstantin Levin to Kritsky,

to break the awkward silence that followed.

"Yes- I was in Kiev," Kritsky replied angrily, his face darkening.

"And this woman," Nikolai Levin interrupted him, pointing to her,

"is my lifemate, Marya Nikolaevna. I took her out of a dive, and he

jerked his neck as he said it. "But I love her and respect her, and

anyone who wants to know me," he added, raising his voice and knitting

his brows, "is requested to love her and respect her. She's

precisely the same as a wife to me- precisely. So now you know whom

you've got to do with. And if you think you're lowering yourself-

well, there's the door, and God speed thee!"

And again his eyes traveled inquiringly over all of them.

"But how will I lower myself? I don't understand."

"Then, Masha, tell them to bring supper; three portions, and vodka

and wine... No, wait a minute... No, it doesn't matter... Go ahead."

XXV.

"So you see," pursued Nikolai Levin, painfully wrinkling his

forehead and twitching.

It was obviously difficult for him to think of what to say and do.

"Here, do you see?... He pointed to some sort of short iron bars,

fastened together with twine, lying in a corner of the room. "Do you

see that? That's the beginning of a new enterprise we're going into.

This enterprise will be an industrial association...."

Konstantin scarcely heard him. He looked into his sickly,

consumptive face, and he was more and more sorry for him, and he could

not force himself to listen to what his brother was telling him

about the association. He saw that this association was a mere

anchor to save him from self-contempt. Nikolai Levin went on talking:

"You know that capital oppresses the worker. Our workers, the

mouzhiks, bear all the burden of labor, and are so placed that, no

matter how much they work, they can't escape from their position of

beasts of burden. All the profits of labor, on which they might

improve their position, and gain leisure for themselves, and after

that education- all the surplus values, are taken from them by the

capitalists. And society is so constituted that the harder they

work, the greater the profit of the merchants and landowners, while

they stay beasts of burden to the end. And that state of things must

be changed," he finished up, and looked questioningly at his brother.

"Yes, of course," said Konstantin, looking at the patch of red

that had come out on his brother's projecting cheekbones.

"And so we're founding a locksmiths' association, where all the

production and profit, and the chief instruments of production-

everything- will be in common."

"Where is the association to be?" asked Konstantin Levin.

"In the village of Vozdrem, government of Kazan."

"But why in a village? In the villages, I think, there is plenty

of work as it is. Why a locksmiths' association in a village?"

"Why? Because the peasants are just as much slaves as they ever

were, and that's why you and Sergei Ivanovich don't like people to try

and get them out of their slavery," said Nikolai Levin, exasperated by

the objection.

Konstantin Levin sighed, looking meanwhile about the cheerless and

dirty room. This sigh seemed to exasperate Nikolai still more.

"I know Sergei Ivanovich's, and your, aristocratic views. I know

that he applies all the power of his intellect to justify existing

evils."

"I say, why do you talk of Sergei Ivanovich?" Levin let drop,

smiling.

"Sergei Ivanovich? I'll tell you why!" Nikolai Levin shrieked

suddenly at the name of Sergei Ivanovich. "I'll tell you why... But

what's the use of talking? There's only one thing... What did you come

to me for? You look down on all this; very well, then; but go away, in

God's name- go away!" he shrieked, getting up from his chair. "Go

away- go away!"

"I don't look down on it at all," said Konstantin Levin timidly.

"I don't even dispute it."

At that instant Marya Nikolaevna came back. Nikolai Levin looked

round angrily at her. She went quickly to him, and whispered

something.

"I'm not well; I've grown irritable," said Nikolai Levin, getting

calmer and breathing painfully; "and then you talk to me of Sergei

Ivanovich and his essay. It's such rubbish, such lying, such

self-deception! What can a man write about justice who knows nothing

of it? Have you read his essay?" he turned to Kritsky, sitting down

again at the table, and clearing a space for himself by pushing back

some half-made cigarettes.

"I haven't," Kritsky responded gloomily, obviously not desiring to

enter into the conversation.

"Why not?" said Nikolai Levin, now turning with exasperation upon

Kritsky.

"Because I didn't see the use of wasting my time over it."

"Oh, if you please- how did you know it would be wasting your

time? That essay's too deep for many people- that is to say, it's over

their heads. But it's different with me, I see through his ideas,

and I know wherein the essay's weakness lies."

They all fell silent. Kritsky got up sluggishly and reached for

his cap.

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

the locksmith."

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

"He, too, is poor stuff," he said. "For I can see..."

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

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

Left alone with Marya Nikolaevna, Levin turned to her.

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

"Yes, more than a year. His health has become very poor. He drinks a

great deal," she said.

"Just how?"

"He drinks vodka, and it's bad for him."

"And a great deal?" whispered Levin.

"Yes," she said, looking timidly toward the doorway, where Nikolai

Levin had reappeared.

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

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

"Oh, nothing," Konstantin answered in confusion.

"Oh, if you don't want to say, don't. Only it's no good your talking

to her. She's a wench, and you're a gentleman," he said, with a jerk

of the neck. "You understand everything, I see, and have taken stock

of everything, and look with commiseration on my transgressions," he

began again, raising his voice.

"Nikolai Dmitrich, Nikolai Dmitrich," whispered Marya Nikolaevna,

again going up to him.

"Oh, very well, very well!... But where's the supper? Ah, here it

is," he said, seeing a waiter with a tray. "Here, set it here," he

added angrily, and promptly seizing the vodka, he poured out a pony

and drank it greedily. "Like a drink?" he turned to his brother, and

at once became better-humored. "Well, enough of Sergei Ivanovich.

I'm glad to see you, anyway. After all's said and done, we're not

strangers. Come, have a drink. Tell me what you're doing," he went on,

greedily munching a piece of bread, and pouring out another pony. "How

are things with you?"

"I live alone in the country, as I always have. I'm busy looking

after the land," answered Konstantin, watching with horror the

greediness with which his brother ate and drank, and trying to conceal

that he noticed it.

"Why don't you get married?"

"No opportunity has presented itself," Konstantin answered,

reddening.

"Why not? For me now, everything's at an end! I've made a mess of my

life. But this I've said, and I say still, that if my share had been

given me when I needed it, my whole life would have been different."

Konstantin made haste to change the conversation.

"Do you know your little Vania's with me- a clerk in the

countinghouse at Pokrovskoe?"

Nikolai jerked his neck, and sank into thought.

"Yes, tell me what's going on at Pokrovskoe. Is the house still

standing, and the birch trees, and our schoolroom? And Philip the

gardener- is he living? How I remember the summerhouse and the sofa!

Now mind and don't alter anything in the house, but make haste and get

married, and make everything as it used to be again. Then I'll come

and see you, if your wife is a fine woman."

"Why, come to me now," said Levin. "How snugly we could settle

down!"

"I'd come and see you if I were sure I shouldn't find Sergei

Ivanovich."

"You wouldn't find him there. I live quite independently of him."

"Yes, but say what you like, you have to choose between me and him,"

he said, looking timidly into his brother's face.

This timidity touched Konstantin.

"If you want to hear my confession of faith on the subject, I tell

you that in your quarrel with Sergei Ivanovich I take neither side.

You're both wrong. You're rather wrong outwardly, and he, rather

inwardly."

"Ah, ah! You see that, you see that!" Nikolai shouted joyfully.

"But I personally value friendly relations with you more because..."

"Why, why?"

Konstantin could not say that he valued it more because Nikolai

was unhappy, and needed affection. But Nikolai knew that this was just

what he meant to say, and scowling he took to the vodka again.

"Enough, Nikolai Dmitrich!" said Marya Nikolaevna, stretching out

her plump, bare arm toward the decanter.

"Let it be! Don't annoy me! I'll beat you!" he shouted.

Marya Nikolaevna smiled a sweet and good-humored smile, which was at

once reflected on Nikolai's face, and whisked the decanter off.

"And do you suppose she understands nothing?" said Nikolai. "She

understands everything better than all of us. Tell the truth- isn't

there something good and sweet about her?"

"Were you never before in Moscow?" Konstantin said to her, for the

sake of saying something.

"Only you mustn't be formal with her. It frightens her. No one

ever spoke to her so but the justice of the peace who tried her for

trying to get out of a house of ill fame. My God, what senselessness

there is in this world!" he cried suddenly. "These new institutions,

these justices of the peace, these Zemstvo- what hideousness it all

is!"

And he began to enlarge on his encounters with the new institutions.

Konstantin Levin listened to him, and that disbelief in the sense of

all public institutions, which he shared with him, and often

expressed, was now distasteful to him, coming from his brother's lips.

"In the other world we shall understand it all," he said lightly.

"In the other world? Ah, I don't like that other world! I don't like

it," he said, letting his scared wild eyes rest on his brother's face.

"Here one would think that to get out of all the baseness and the

mess, one's own and other people's, would be a good thing, and yet I'm

afraid of death, awfully afraid of death." He shuddered. "But do drink

something. Would you like some champagne? Or shall we go somewhere?

Let's go to the gypsies! Do you know, I've gotten very fond of the

gypsies, and of Russian songs."

His speech had begun to falter, and he skipped at random from one

subject to another. Konstantin, with the help of Masha, persuaded

him not to go out anywhere, and got him to bed hopelessly drunk.

Masha promised to write to Konstantin in case of need, and to

persuade Nikolai to go and stay with his brother.

XXVI.

In the morning Konstantin Levin left Moscow, and toward evening he

reached home. On the journey in the train he talked to his fellow

travelers about politics and the new railways, and, just as in Moscow,

he was overcome by a sense of confusion of ideas, by dissatisfaction

with himself, and shame of something or other. But when he got out

at his own station, when he saw his one-eyed coachman Ignat, with

the collar of his coat turned up; when, in the dim light falling

through the station windows, he saw his own carpeted sledge, his own

horses with their tails up, in their harness trimmed with rings and

tassels; when the coachman Ignat, as he put in his luggage, told him

the village news- that the contractor had arrived, and that Pava had

calved- he felt that little by little the confusion was clearing up,

and the shame and self-dissatisfaction were passing away. He felt this

at the mere sight of Ignat and the horses; but he began to see what

had happened to him in quite a different light, when he had put on the

sheepskin coat brought for him, and, all muffled up, had taken his

seat in the sleigh and started off, pondering on the work that lay

before him in the village, and staring at the off horse, that had been

formerly his saddle horse, overridden, but a spirited animal from

the Don. He felt himself, and did not want to be anyone else. All he

wanted now was to be better than before. In the first place, he

resolved that from that day on he would give up hoping for the

extraordinary happiness which the marriage was to afford him, and

consequently he would not disdain the present so. In the second place,

he would never again let himself give way to low passion, the memory

of which had so tortured him when he had been making up his mind to

propose. Then, remembering his brother Nikolai, he resolved that he

would never allow himself to forget him, that he would watch him,

and not lose sight of him, so as to be ready to help should things

go ill with him. And that would be soon, he felt. Then, too, his

brother's talk of communism, which he had treated so lightly at the

time, now made him reflect. He considered an alteration in economic

conditions nonsense; yet he had always felt the injustice of his own

abundance in comparison with the poverty of the common folk, and he

now determined that, in order to feel quite in the right, though he

had worked hard and lived by no means luxuriously before, he would now

work still harder, and would allow himself even less luxury. And all

this seemed to him so easy a conquest over himself that he spent the

whole drive in most pleasant reveries. With a lively feeling of hope

in a new, better life, he drove up to his house about nine o'clock

at night.

The snow of the little quadrangle before the house was lit up by

light falling from the windows in the room of his old nurse, Agathya

Mikhailovna, who performed the duties of housekeeper in his house. She

was not yet asleep. Kouzma, awakened by her, sleepy and barefooted,

ran out onto the steps. A setter bitch, Laska, leaped out too,

almost upsetting Kouzma, and whining, rubbed against Levin's knees,

jumping up and longing, yet not daring, to put her forepaws on his

chest.

"You're soon returned, my dear," said Agathya Mikhailovna.

"I grew homesick, Agathya Mikhailovna. East or West, home is

best," he answered, and went into his study.

The study was gradually lit up as the candle was brought in. The

familiar details came out: the stag's horns; the bookshelves; the

plain stove with its warm-hole, which had long wanted mending; his

father's sofa, a large table, and, on the table, an open book, a

broken ash tray, a notebook with his handwriting. As he saw all

this, there came over him for an instant a doubt of the possibility of

arranging the new life, of which he had been dreaming on the road. All

these traces of his life seemed to clutch him, and to say to him: "No,

you're not going to get away from us, and you're not going to be

different- but you're going to be the same as you've always been: with

doubts, everlasting dissatisfaction with yourself, vain efforts to

amend, and lapses, and everlasting expectation of a happiness which

you won't get, and which isn't possible for you."

But it was his things that said this to him, while another voice

in his heart was telling him that he must not fall under the sway of

the past, and that one can do anything with oneself. And hearing

that voice, he went into the corner where stood his two dumbbells,

of one pood each, and began jerking and pushing them up, trying to

induce a state of well-being. There was a creak of steps at the

door. He hastily put down the dumbbells.

The bailiff came in, and said that everything, thank God, was

well, but also informed him that the buckwheat in the new drying

machine had been a little scorched. This piece of news irritated

Levin. The new drying machine had been constructed and partly invented

by Levin. The bailiff had always been against this drying machine, and

now it was with suppressed triumph that he announced that the

buckwheat had been scorched. Levin was firmly convinced that if the

buckwheat had been scorched it was only because precautions had not

been taken, for which he had hundreds of times given orders. He was

annoyed, and reprimanded the bailiff. But there had been an

important and joyful event: Pava, his best cow, an expensive beast,

bought at a show, had calved.

"Kouzma, give me my sheepskin coat. And you, do tell them to fetch a

lantern- I'm going to have a look at her," he said to the bailiff.

The cowhouse for the more valuable cows was just behind the house.

Walking across the yard, passing a snowdrift by the lilac tree, he

went into the cowhouse. There came a warm, steamy smell of dung when

the frozen door was opened, and the cows, astonished at the unfamiliar

light of the lantern, stirred on their fresh straw. He caught a

glimpse of the broad, smooth, black and piebald back of a Dutch cow.

Berkoot, the bull, was lying down with his ring in his lip, and seemed

about to get up, but thought better of it, and only gave two snorts as

they passed by him. Pava, the reddish beauty, huge as a

hippopotamus, with her back turned to them, screened her calf from the

arrivals and sniffed it all over.

Levin went into the stall, looked Pava over, and hefted the

reddish and red-dappled calf up on its unsteady, spindly legs. Pava,

uneasy, began lowing, but when Levin put the calf close to her she was

soothed, and, sighing heavily, began licking her with her rough

tongue. The calf fumbling, poked its nose under its mother's groin,

and twirled its tiny tail.

"Bring the light here, Fiodor- bring the lantern here," said

Levin, examining the heifer. "Like the dam! though the color takes

after the sire. A perfect beauty! Long, and broad in the haunch. Isn't

she a beauty now, Vassilii Fiodorovich?" he addressed the bailiff,

quite forgiving him for the buckwheat under the influence of his

delight in the heifer.

"What bad blood could she take after?- Semion the contractor came

the day after you left. You must settle with him, Konstantin

Dmitrich," said the bailiff. "And I have already told you about the

machine."

This matter alone was enough to bring Levin back to all the

details of his estate, which was on a large scale, and complicated. He

went straight from the cowhouse to the countinghouse, and, after a

short talk with the bailiff and Semion the contractor, he went back to

the house and straight upstairs to the drawing room.

XXVII.

The house was big and old-fashioned, and Levin, though he lived

alone, heated and used the whole house. He knew that this was

stupid, he knew that it was even wrong, and contrary to his present

new plans, but this house was a whole world to Levin. It was the world

in which his father and mother had lived and died. They had lived just

the life that to Levin seemed the ideal of perfection, and that he had

dreamed of renewing with his wife, with his family.

Levin scarcely remembered his mother. His conception of her was

for him a sacred memory, and his future wife was bound to be, in his

imagination, a repetition of that exquisite, holy ideal of a woman

that his mother had been.

He was so far from conceiving of love for woman apart from

marriage that he positively pictured to himself first the family,

and only secondarily the woman who would give him a family. His

ideas of marriage were, consequently, quite unlike those of the

great majority of his acquaintances, for whom getting married was

merely one of the many affairs of everyday life. For Levin it was

the chief affair of life, on which its whole happiness turned. And now

he had to give up that!

When he had gone into the second drawing room, where he always had

tea, and had settled himself in his armchair with a book, and

Agathya Mikhailovna had brought him tea, and with her usual, "Well,

I'll stay a while, my dear," had taken a chair at the window, he

felt that, however strange it might be, he had not parted from his

daydreams, and that he could not live without them. Whether with

her, or with another- it was still bound to be. He was reading his

book, pondering on what he was reading, and pausing to listen to

Agathya Mikhailovna, who gossiped away without flagging, and yet, with

all that, all sorts of pictures of his work and a future family life

rose disconnectedly before his imagination. He felt that in the

depth of his soul something was steadying, settling down, and abating.

He heard Agathya Mikhailovna talking of how Prokhor had forgotten

his duty to God, and, with the money Levin had given him to buy a

horse, had been drinking without a letup, and had beaten his wife till

he'd half-killed her. He listened, and read his book, and recalled the

whole train of ideas suggested by his reading. It was Tyndall's

Treatise on Heat. He recalled his own criticisms of Tyndall for his

self-complacency in the cleverness of his experiments, and for his

lack of philosophic insight. And suddenly there floated into his

mind the joyful thought: "In two years' time I shall have two Dutch

cows in my herd; Pava herself will perhaps still be alive; a dozen

young daughters of Berkoot, and these three added for show- it would

be marvelous!" He took up his book again. "Now well, electricity and

heat are the same thing; but is it possible to substitute one quantity

for the other in an equation for the solution of any problem? No.

Well, then what of it? The connection between all the forces of nature

is felt instinctively, anyway.... It'll be particularly pleasant

when Pava's daughter will be a red-dappled cow like all the herd, to

which the other three should be added! Splendid! I'll go out with my

wife and visitors to meet the herd.... My wife says, 'Kostia and I

looked after that heifer like a child.' 'How can it interest you so

much?' says a visitor. 'Everything that interests him, interests

me.' But who will she be?" And he remembered what had happened at

Moscow.... "Well, there's nothing to be done.... It's not my fault.

But now everything shall go on in a new way. It's nonsense to

pretend that life won't let one, that the past won't let one. One must

struggle to live better- far better...." He raised his head, and

sank into thought. Old Laska, who had not yet fully digested her

delight at his return, and had run out into the yard to bark, came

back wagging her tail, and crept up to him, bringing in the scent of

the fresh air, put her head under his hand, and yelped plaintively,

asking to be stroked.

"If she could but speak," said Agathya Mikhailovna. "Even though

it's a dog... Yet she understands that her master's come home, and

that he's low-spirited."

"Why low-spirited?"

"Do you suppose I don't see it, my dear? It's high time I should

know the gentlefolk. Why, I've grown up from a little thing with them.

Never mind, sir, so long as one has health and a clear conscience."

Levin looked intently at her, surprised at how well she had fathomed

his thoughts.

"Shall I fetch you another cup?" she asked and, taking his cup, went

out.

Laska kept poking her head under his hand. He stroked her, and she

promptly curled up at his feet, laying her head on a protruding

hand-paw. And in token of all now being well and satisfactory, she

opened her mouth a little, smacked her lips, and settling her sticky

lips more comfortably about her old teeth, she sank into blissful

respose. Levin watched her last movements attentively.

"That's what I'll do," he said to himself; "that's what I'll do!

Never mind.... All's well."

XXVIII.

After the ball, early next morning, Anna Arkadyevna sent her husband

a telegram that she was leaving Moscow the same day.

"No, I must go, I must go"; she explained the change in her plans to

her sister-in-law, in a tone that suggested that she had to remember

so many things that there was no enumerating them: "no, really, it had

better be today!"

Stepan Arkadyevich was not dining at home, but he promised to come

and see his sister off at seven o'clock.

Kitty, too, did not come, sending a note that she had a headache.

Dolly and Anna dined alone with the children and the English

governess. Whether it was because children are fickle, or because they

have acute senses, and they felt that Anna was quite different that

day from what she had been when they had taken such a fancy to her,

that she was not now interested in them- they had abruptly dropped

their play with their aunt, and their love for her, and were quite

indifferent to her leaving. Anna was absorbed the whole morning in

preparations for her departure. She wrote notes to her Moscow

acquaintances, jotted down her accounts, and packed. Altogether

Dolly fancied she was not in a placid state of mind, but in that

worried mood which Dolly knew so well in her own case, and which

does not come without cause, and for the most part covers

dissatisfaction with oneself. After dinner, Anna went up to her room

to dress, and Dolly followed her.

"How queer you are today!" Dolly said to her.

"I? Do you think so? I'm not queer, but I'm nasty. I am like that

sometimes. I keep feeling as if I could cry. It's very stupid, but

it'll pass off," said Anna quickly, and she bent her flushed face over

a tiny bag in which she was packing a nightcap and some cambric

handkerchiefs. Her eyes were particularly bright, and were continually

dimmed with tears. "In the same way I didn't want to leave

Peterburg- and now I don't want to go away from here."

"You came here and did a good deed," said Dolly, looking intently at

her.

Anna's eyes were wet with tears as she looked at her.

"Don't say that, Dolly. I've done nothing, and could do nothing. I

often wonder why people are all in league to spoil me. What have I

done, and what could I do? In your heart there was found love enough

to forgive...."

If it had not been for you, God knows what would have happened!

How happy you are, Anna!" said Dolly. "Everything is clear and good in

your heart."

"Every heart has its own skeleton, as the English say."

"You have no sort of skeleton, have you? Everything is so clear in

you."

"I have!" said Anna suddenly, and, unexpectedly after her tears, a

sly, mocking smile puckered her lips.

"Come, he's amusing, anyway, your skeleton, and not depressing,"

said Dolly, smiling.

"No, he is depressing. Do you know why I'm going today instead of

tomorrow? This is a confession that weighs on me; I want to make you

its recipient," said Anna resolutely letting herself drop into an

armchair, and looking straight into Dolly's face.

And to her surprise Dolly saw that Anna was blushing up to her ears,

up to the curly black ringlets on her neck.

"Yes," Anna went on. "Do you know why Kitty didn't come to dinner?

She's jealous of me. I have spoiled... I've been the cause of that

ball being a torture to her instead of a pleasure. But truly, truly,

it's not my fault, or only my fault a little bit," she said,

daintily drawling the words "a little bit."

"Oh, how like Stiva you said that!" said Dolly, laughing.

Anna was hurt.

"Oh no, oh no! I'm not Stiva," she said, knitting her brows. "That's

why I'm telling you, just because I do not even for an instant

permit myself to doubt about myself," said Anna.

But at the very moment she was uttering the words, she felt that

they were not true. She was not merely doubting about herself- she

felt emotion at the thought of Vronsky, and was going away sooner than

she had meant, solely to avoid meeting him.

"Yes, Stiva told me you danced the mazurka with him, and that he..."

"You can't imagine how absurdly it all came about. I only meant to

be matchmaking, and all at once it turned out quite differently.

Possibly against my own will..."

She flushed and stopped.

"Oh, they feel it immediately!" said Dolly.

"But I should be in despair if there were anything serious in it

on his side," Anna interrupted her. "And I'm certain it will all be

forgotten, and Kitty will leave off hating me."

"All the same, Anna, to tell you the truth, I'm not very anxious for

this marriage for Kitty. And it's better it should come to nothing, if

he, Vronsky, is capable of falling in love with you in a single day."

"Oh, heavens, that would be too silly!" said Anna, and again a

deep flush of pleasure appeared on her face, as she heard the idea

that absorbed her put into words. "And so here I am, going away,

having made an enemy of Kitty, whom I liked so much! Ah, how sweet she

is! But you'll make it right, Dolly? Eh?"

Dolly could scarcely suppress a smile. She loved Anna, but she was

pleased to see that she, too, had her weaknesses.

"An enemy? That can't be."

"I did so want you all to care for me, as I do for you, and now I

care for you more than ever," said Anna, with tears in her eyes.

"Ah, how silly I am today!"

She passed her handkerchief over her face and began dressing.

At the very moment of starting Stepan Arkadyevich arrived, late,

rosy and good-humored, smelling of wine and cigars.

Anna's emotionalism infected Dolly, and when she embraced her

sister-in-law for the last time, she whispered:

"Remember, Anna, what you've done for me- I shall never forget.

And remember that I love you, and shall always love you as my

dearest friend!"

"I don't know why," said Anna, kissing her and hiding her tears.

"You understand me, and still understand. Good-by, my darling!"

XXIX.

"Now, it's all over- God be praised!" was the first thought that

came to Anna Arkadyevna, when she had said good-by for the last time

to her brother, who had stood blocking up the entrance to the carriage

till the third bell rang. She sat down on her lounge beside

Annushka, and looked about her in the twilight of the sleeping

carriage. "Thank God! tomorrow I shall see Seriozha and Alexei

Alexandrovich, and my life, good and familiar, will go on in the old

way."

Still in the same anxious frame of mind in which she had been all

that day, Anna took a meticulous pleasure in making herself

comfortable for the journey. With her tiny, deft hands she opened

and shut her little red bag, took out a cushion, laid it on her knees,

and, carefully wrapping up her feet, settled herself comfortably. An

invalid lady had already lain down to sleep. Two other ladies began

talking to Anna, and a stout elderly lady tucked up her feet, and made

observations about the heating of the train. Anna answered the

ladies in a few words, but not foreseeing any entertainment from the

conversation, she asked Annushka to get a small lantern, hooked it

on the arm of her seat, and took from her bag a paper knife and an

English novel. At first she could not get interested in her reading.

The fuss and stir were disturbing; then, when the train had started,

she could not help listening to the noises; then the snow beating on

the left window and sticking to the pane, and the sight of the muffled

guard passing by, covered with snow on one side, and the conversations

about the terrible blizzard raging outside, distracted her

attention. And after that everything was the same and the same: the

same jouncing and rattling, the same snow lashing the window, the same

rapid transitions from steaming heat to cold, and back again to

heat, the same flitting of the same faces in the half-murk, and the

same voices; and then Anna began to read, and to grasp what she

read. Annushka was already dozing, the red bag on her lap, clutched by

her broad hands, in gloves, of which one was torn. Anna Arkadyevna

read and grasped the sense, yet it was annoying to her to read- that

is, to follow the reflection of other people's lives. She had too

great a desire to live herself. If she read that the heroine of the

novel were nursing a sick man, she longed to move with noiseless steps

about his sickroom; if she read of a member of Parliament delivering a

speech, she longed to deliver it; if she read of how Lady Mary had

ridden after the hounds, and had provoked her sister-in-law, and had

surprised everyone by her daring- she, too, longed to be doing the

same. But there was no chance of doing anything; and, her little hands

toying with the smooth paper knife, she forced herself to read.

The hero of the novel was already beginning to attain his English

happiness, a baronetcy, and an estate, and Anna was feeling a desire

to go with him to his estate, when she suddenly felt that he ought

to feel ashamed, and that she was ashamed of the same thing. But

what was it he was ashamed of? "What have I to be ashamed of?" she

asked herself in injured surprise. She abandoned the book and sank

against the back of her chair, tightly gripping the paper knife in

both hands. There was nothing to be ashamed of. She went over all

her Moscow recollections. All were fine, pleasant. She recalled the

ball, recalled Vronsky and his enamored, submissive face; she recalled

all her conduct with him- there was nothing shameful. Yet, with all

that, at this very point in her reminiscences, the feeling of shame

was intensified, as though some inner voice, precisely here, when

she recalled Vronsky, were saying to her: "Warm, very warm- hot!"

"Well, what is it?" she said to herself resolutely, shifting on her

seat. "What does it mean? Am I afraid to look at this without

blinking? Well, what is it? Can it be that between me and this

boy-officer there exist, or can exist, any other relations than such

as are common with every acquaintance?" She laughed contemptuously and

took up her book again; but now she was absolutely unable to make

sense of what she read. She passed the paper knife over the

windowpane, then laid its smooth, cool surface to her cheek, and

almost laughed aloud at the unreasoning joy that all at once possessed

her. She felt that her nerves, like strings, were being tautened

more and more upon some kind of tightening peg. She felt her eyes

opening wider and wider, her fingers and toes twitching nervously,

something within stopping her breathing, while all images and sounds

seemed in the swaying half-murk to strike her with extraordinary

vividness. Moments of doubt were continually besetting her: was the

car going forward, or back, or was it standing absolutely still? Was

it really Annushka at her side, or a stranger? "What's that on the arm

of the chair- a fur cloak or some beast? And what am I myself: is it

I, or some other woman?" She was afraid of yielding to this trance-

but something was drawing her into it, and, at will, she could yield

to it or resist it. She got up to rouse herself, and slipped off her

plaid and the cape of warm dress. For a moment she regained her

self-possession, and realized that the thin peasant who had come in

wearing a long nankeen overcoat, with a button missing from it, was

the fireman, that he was looking at the thermometer, that the wind and

snow had burst in after him through the door; but then everything grew

confused again.... That peasant with the long waist took to gnawing

something within the wall; the little crone started stretching her

legs the whole length of the car and filled it with a black cloud;

then there was a dreadful screeching and banging, as though someone

were being rent into pieces; then a red blaze blinded her eyes, and,

at last, everything was screened by a wall. Anna felt that she had

plunged downward. Yet all this was not terrible, but joyful. The voice

of a man muffled up and covered with snow shouted something in her

very ear. She arose and came to, realizing that they had come to a

station, and that this was the conductor. She requested Annushka to

hand her the cape she had taken off, and her shawl, put them on, and

went toward the door.

"Do you wish to get out?" asked Annushka.

"Yes, I want to get a breath of air. It's very hot in here."

And she opened the door. The blizzard and the wind rushed to meet

her and began to contend with her for the door. And even this seemed

joyful to her. She opened the door and stepped out. This seemed to

be all that the wind had been lying in wait for; it set up a gleeful

whistle and was about to snatch her up and whirl her away, but she

clutched the cold doorpost and, holding on to her shawl, descended

to the platform and the shelter of the car. The wind had been mighty

on the steps, but on the platform, in the lee of the train, there

was a lull. With enjoyment she drew deep breaths of the snowy,

frosty air and, standing near the car, looked about the platform and

the lighted station.

XXX.

The frightful storm raged and whistled between the wheels of the

cars, along the posts, around the corner of the station. The cars,

posts, people- everything in sight- were covered with snow on one

side, and were getting more and more snowed under. For a moment

there would come a lull in the storm, but then it would again swoop

down with such gusts that it seemed impossible to withstand it.

Meanwhile some men or other were dashing about, gaily talking to one

another, making the boards of the platform creak and ceaselessly

opening and shutting the big doors. A stooping human shadow glided

by at her feet, and she heard a hammer tapping upon iron. "Let's

have the telegram!" came an angry voice out of the stormy murk on

the other side. "This way! No. 28!" other voices were also shouting,

and muffled figures scurried by, plastered with snow. Two gentlemen

passed by her, cigarettes glowing in their mouths. She drew in one

more deep breath, and had just taken her hand out of her muff to grasp

the doorpost and enter the car, when still another man in a military

overcoat, quite close beside her, stepped between her and the

flickering light of a lantern. She looked round, and the same

instant recognized Vronsky's face. Putting his hand to the peak of his

cap, he bowed to her and asked if there weren't anything she wanted,

whether he could not be of some service to her? She gazed rather

long at him, without any answer, and, in spite of the shadow in

which he was standing, she saw (or fancied she saw) the expression

both of his face and his eyes. It was again that expression of

reverent rapture which had affected her so yesterday. More than once

she had told herself during the past few days, and only just now, that

Vronsky was for her only one of the hundreds of young men, forever

exactly the same, that one meets everywhere; that she would never

permit herself even to think of him; yet now at the first flush of

meeting him, she was seized by an emotion of joyous pride. She had

no need to ask why he was here. She knew, as surely as if he had

told her, that he was here only to be where she was.

"I didn't know you were going. And why are you going?" she said,

letting fall the hand which had grasped the doorpost. And

irrepressible joy and animation shone in her face.

"Why am I going?" he repeated, looking straight into her eyes.

"You know that I am going to be where you are," he said; "I cannot

do otherwise."

And at this very point, as though it had overcome all obstacles, the

wind scattered the snow from the car roofs, and began to flutter

some sheet of iron it had torn off, while the low-pitched whistle of

the engine set up a roar in front, dismal and lamenting. All the

awesomeness of the blizzard now seemed still more splendid to her.

He had uttered precisely what her soul yearned for, but which her

reason dreaded. She made no answer, and in her face he beheld a

struggle.

"Forgive me, if what I have said displeases you," he said humbly.

He had spoken courteously, deferentially, yet so firmly, so

obdurately that, for long, she could find no answer.

"What you say is wrong, and I beg of you, if you are a good man,

to forget what you have said, even as I shall forget it," she said

at last.

"Not a single word of yours, nor a single gesture, shall I ever

forget- nor could I forget...."

"Enough, enough!" she cried, vainly attempting to give a stern

expression to her face, which he was avidly scrutinizing. Clutching at

the cold doorpost, she clambered up the steps and quickly entered

the corridor of the car. But in this little corridor she paused,

reviewing in her imagination all that had occurred. Without

recalling her own words or his, she realized instinctively that that

conversation had brought them fearfully closer; and she was both

frightened and made happy thereby. After standing thus a few

seconds, she went into the car and sat down in her place. That

tensed state which had tormented her at first was not only renewed,

but grew greater and reached such a pitch that she was afraid that, at

any moment, something would snap within her from the excessive

tension. She did not sleep all night. But in that nervous tension, and

in the reveries that filled her imagination, there was nothing

unpleasant or gloomy; on the contrary, there was something joyous,

glowing and exhilarating. Toward morning Anna dozed off as she sat,

and when she awoke it was already light, and the train was nearing

Peterburg. At once thoughts of home, of her husband and son, and the

details of the day ahead, and days to follow, came thronging upon her.

At Peterburg, as soon as the train stopped and she got out, the

first face that attracted her attention was that of her husband.

"Oh, my God! What has happened to his ears?" she thought looking at

his frigid and imposing figure, and especially the ears, that struck

her so now, as they propped up the brim of his round hat. Catching

sight of her he went to meet her, pursing his lips into their habitual

mocking smile, and fixing her with his big, tired eyes. Some

unpleasant sensation contracted her heart as she met his obdurate

and tired glance, as though she had expected to see him a different

man. She was particularly struck by that feeling of dissatisfaction

with herself which she experienced on meeting him. This was an

intimate, familiar feeling, like that state of dissimulation which she

experienced in her relations with her husband; but hitherto she had

not taken note of the feeling; now she was clearly and painfully aware

of it.

"Yes, as you see, your tender spouse, as devoted as he was during

the second year after marriage, was consumed by the desire of seeing

you," he said in his dilatory, high-pitched voice, and in that tone

which he almost always used to her- a tone of bantering at anyone

who should speak thus in earnest.

"Is Seriozha quite well?" she asked.

"And is this all the reward," said he, "for my ardor? He's well-

quite well...."

XXXI.

Vronsky had not even attempted to fall asleep all that night. He sat

in his armchair, his eyes fixed before him or scanning the people

who got in and out, and if he had indeed, on previous occasions,

struck and aroused people who did not know him by his air of

unshakable calmness, he now seemed prouder and more self-sufficient

than ever. He regarded people as if they were things. A nervous

young man, a clerk in a law court, who had the seat opposite his,

conceived a hatred for him because of this air. The young man asked

him for a light, and entered into conversation with him, and even

jostled him, to make him feel that he was not a thing, but a man.

But Vronsky kept on regarding him as if he were a lamppost, and the

young man grimaced, feeling that he was losing his self-possession

under the oppressiveness of this refusal to recognize him as a human

being.

Vronsky saw nothing and no one. He felt himself a king, not

because he believed that he had made any impression on Anna- he did

not yet believe that- but because the impression she had made on him

afforded him happiness and pride.

What would come of it all he did not know, or even think. He felt

that all his forces, hitherto dissolute, scattered, were centered on

one thing, and bent with fearful energy toward one blissful goal.

And therein lay his happiness. He did but know that he had told her

the truth, that he had come where she was, that all the happiness of

life, the sole meaning in life for him, now lay in seeing her and

hearing her voice. And when he got out of his car at Bologovo to get

some seltzer water, and had caught sight of Anna, his very first

word had involuntarily told her his very thoughts. And he was glad

he had told her, that she knew now, and was thinking of it. He did not

sleep all night. Back in his compartment, he incessantly kept

ruminating upon every posture in which he had seen her, every word she

had uttered; and, in his imagination, making his heart swoon,

floated pictures of a possible future.

When he got out of the train at Peterburg, he felt after his

sleepless night as lively and fresh as after a cold bath. He paused

near his car, waiting for her to emerge. "Once more," he said to

himself, smiling unconsciously, "once more I shall see her walk, her

face; she may say something, turn her head, glance, smile, perhaps."

But before he caught sight of her, he saw her husband, whom the

stationmaster was deferentially escorting through the crowd. "Ah, yes.

The husband." Only now, for the first time, did Vronsky realize

clearly the fact that there was someone attached to her- a husband. He

had known that she had a husband, but had hardly believed in his

existence, and only now, when he saw him, did he fully believe in him,

with his head, and shoulders, and his black-trousered legs; especially

when he saw this husband placidly take her arm, with a consciousness

of proprietorship.

Seeing Alexei Alexandrovich with his spick-and-span Peterburg face

and austerely self-confident figure, in his round hat, with his rather

prominent spine, he believed in him, and was aware of a disagreeable

sensation, such as might be felt by a man who, tortured by thirst,

finds, on reaching a spring, a dog, a sheep or a pig therein that

has not only drunk of it, but also muddied the water. Alexei

Alexandrovich's manner of walking, gyrating his whole pelvis and his

flat feet, was especially offensive to Vronsky. He could recognize

in no one but himself an indubitable right to love her. But she was

still the same, and the sight of her affected him the same way,

physically reviving him, stirring him, and filling his soul with

happiness. He told his German valet, who ran up to him from the second

class, to take his things and go on, he himself went up to her. He saw

the first meeting between the husband and wife, and noted, with a

lover's insight, the sign of the slight embarrassment with which she

spoke to her husband. "No, she does not love him, and cannot love

him," he decided to himself.

At the very moment that he was approaching Anna Arkadyevna from

the back, he noticed with joy that she was conscious of his drawing

near, and that she looked round; after which, seeing him, she turned

again to her husband.

"Have you had a good night?" he said, bowing both to her and to

her husband, and leaving it to Alexei Alexandrovich to accept the

bow on his own account, and to return it or not, as he might see fit.

"Thank you- a very good one," she answered.

Her face seemed tired, and lacking in that play of animation which

usually hovered between her smile and her eyes; but for a single

instant, as she glanced at him, something flashed in her eyes, and

although this flash died away at once, he was made happy by that

moment. She glanced at her husband, to find out whether he knew

Vronsky. Alexei Alexandrovich was regarding Vronsky with

displeasure, absent-mindedly trying to recall who he was. Vronsky's

calmness and self-confidence had here run up, like a scythe against

a stone, on the frigid self-confidence of Alexei Alexandrovich.

"Count Vronsky," said Anna.

"Ah! We are acquainted, I believe," said Alexei Alexandrovich

apathetically, proffering his hand. "You set out with the mother and

return with the son," he said to Anna, articulating distinctly, as

though each word were a coin of high value bestowed by him on his

hearers.- "You're back from leave, I suppose?" he said, and without

waiting for a reply, he addressed his wife in his bantering tone:

"Well, were a great many tears shed in Moscow at parting?"

By addressing his wife thus he meant Vronsky to perceive that he

wished to be left alone, and, turning slightly toward him, he

touched his hat; but Vronsky turned to Anna Arkadyevna:

"I hope to have the honor of calling on you," he said.

Alexei Alexandrovich glanced with his weary eyes at Vronsky.

"Delighted," he said coldly. "We're at home Mondays." Then,

dismissing Vronsky entirely, he said to his wife: "I am rather lucky

to have just half an hour to meet you, so that I can prove to you my

fondness," he went on, in the same bantering tone.

"You lay too great a stress on your fondness for me to value it very

much," she responded in the same bantering tone, involuntarily

listening to the sound of Vronsky's steps behind them. "But what

have I to do with that?" she said to herself, and began questioning

her husband as to how Seriozha had got on without her.

"Oh, capitally! Mariette says he has been a very darling boy, and...

I must disappoint you... But he has not languished for you as your

husband has. But once more merci, my dear, for bestowing a whole day

upon me. Our dear Samovar will be enraptured." (He called the Countess

Lidia Ivanovna, well known in society, a samovar, because she was

bubbling over with excitement on any and every occasion.) "She has

been asking for you. And, d'you know, if I may venture to advise

you, you ought to go to see her today. You know how she takes

everything to heart. Just now, with all her own cares, she's anxious

about the reconciliation of the Oblonskys."

The Countess Lidia Ivanovna was a friend of her husband's, and the

center of that one of the coteries of the Peterburg beau monde with

which Anna was, through her husband, in the closest rapport.

"But I wrote to her."

"Yes, but she must have full details. Go to see her, if you're not

too tired, my dear. Well, Kondratii will take you in the carriage,

while I go to my committee. Once more I shall not be alone at dinner,"

Alexei Alexandrovich continued, but no longer in a jesting tone.

"You wouldn't believe how I've grown used to you...."

And, with a prolonged pressure of her hand, and a particular

smile, he helped her into her carriage.

XXXII.

The first person to meet Anna at home was her son. He dashed down

the stairs to her, in spite of the governess's call, and with frenzied

rapture shrieked: "Mother! mother!" Running up to her, he hung on

her neck.

"I told you it was mother!" he shouted to the governess. "I knew

it!"

And her son, like her husband, aroused in Anna a feeling akin to

disappointment. In her imagination he had been better than he was in

reality. She had to descend to reality to enjoy him as he was. But,

even so, he was charming, with his fair curls, his blue eyes and his

chubby, graceful little legs in tightly pulled-up stockings. Anna

experienced an almost physical delight in the sensation of his

nearness, and his caresses; and a moral reassurance, when she met

his ingenuous, trusting and loving glance, and heard his naive

questions. Anna took out the presents Dolly's children had sent him,

and told her son about Tania, a little girl in Moscow, and how Tania

could read, and even taught the other children.

"Why, am I not as good as she?" asked Seriozha.

"To me you're better than anyone else in the whole world."

"I know that," said Seriozha, smiling.

Anna had scarcely drunk her coffee when the Countess Lidia

Ivanovna was announced. The Countess Lidia Ivanovna was a tall, fleshy

woman, with an unwholesomely yellow complexion and beautiful,

pensive black eyes. Anna liked her, but today she seemed, for the

first time, to see her with all her shortcomings.

"Well, my friend, were you the bearer of the olive branch?" asked

Countess Lidia Ivanovna, the minute she entered the room.

"Yes, it's all over, but it was not at all as serious as we

thought," answered Anna. "My belle-soeur is, in general, much too

categorical."

But Countess Lidia Ivanovna, who was interested in everything that

did not concern her, had a habit of never listening to what interested

her; she interrupted Anna:

"Yes, there's plenty of sorrow and evil in the world- and I am so

fatigued today!"

"Oh, why?" asked Anna, trying to repress a smile.

"I'm beginning to weary of vainly breaking lances for the truth, and

at times I'm altogether unstrung. The affair with our Dear Sisters

[this was a religiously patriotic, philanthropic institution]

started off splendidly, but it's impossible to do anything with such

people," added Countess Lidia Ivanovna, with a mocking

submissiveness to fate. "They pounced on the idea, and mangled it, and

afterward they thrash it out so pettily and trivially. Two or three

people, your husband among them, grasp all the significance of this

affair but the others merely degrade it. Yesterday Pravdin wrote to

me..."

Pravdin was a well-known Pan-Slavist abroad, and Countess Lidia

Ivanovna told the gist of his letter.

Next the Countess spoke of other unpleasantnesses and intrigues

against the work of the unification of the churches, and departed in

haste, since that day she had to attend the meeting of another

society, and also a Slavonic committee.

"All this is as it has always been; but how is it I didn't notice it

before?" Anna asked herself. "Or has she been very much irritated

today? It's really ludicrous: her object is to do good; she's a

Christian; yet she's forever angry, and forever having enemies- and

always enemies in the name of Christianity and doing good."

After Countess Lidia Ivanovna another friend came, the wife of a

director of the Department, who told her all the news of the town.

At three o'clock she too went away, promising to come to dinner.

Alexei Alexandrovich was at the Ministry. Anna, left alone, spent

the time till dinner in lending her presence to her son's dinner (he

dined apart from his parents), in putting her things in order, and

in reading and answering the notes and letters which had accumulated

on her escritoire.

The feeling of unreasoning shame, which she had felt during the

journey, and her agitation, had completely vanished. In the accustomed

conditions of her life she again felt herself firm and irreproachable.

She recalled with wonder her state of mind only yesterday. "What was

it? Nothing. Vronsky said something silly, which it was easy to put an

end to, and I answered just as I should have. To speak of it to my

husband would be unnecessary and impermissible. To speak of it would

be to attach importance to that which has none." She remembered how

she had told her husband of what was almost declaration made her in

Peterburg by a young man, a subordinate of her husband's, and how

Alexei Alexandrovich had answered that every woman of the world was

exposed to this sort of thing, but that he had the fullest

confidence in her tact, and would never permit himself to degrade

her and himself by jealousy. "So then, there's no reason to say

anything? And, thank God, there isn't anything to say," she told

herself.

XXXIII.

Alexei Alexandrovich came back from the Ministry at four o'clock,

but as often happened, had no chance to drop in at her room. He went

into his study to see the people waiting for him with petitions, and

to sign certain papers brought him by his head clerk. At dinnertime

(there were always at least three people dining with the Karenins)

there arrived an old lady, a cousin of Alexei Alexandrovich; the

director of the Department and his wife; and a young man who had

been recommended to Alexei Alexandrovich for a post. Anna went into

the drawing room to entertain these guests. Precisely at five o'clock,

before the bronze Peter the First clock had finished the fifth stroke,

Alexei Alexandrovich made his entry, in white tie and evening coat

with two stars, as he had to go out directly after dinner. Every

minute of Alexei Alexandrovich's life was taken up and apportioned.

And in order to accomplish all that each day held for him, he

adhered to the strictest orderliness. "Nor haste nor rest," was his

device. He entered the dining hall, bowed to all, and hurriedly sat

down, smiling to his wife:

"Yes, my solitude is over. You wouldn't believe how uncomfortable

[he laid stress on the word uncomfortable] it is to dine alone."

At dinner he chatted with his wife about things at Moscow, and

asked, with his mocking smile, about Stepan Arkadyevich; but the

conversation was for the most part general, dealing with the

official and public news of Peterburg. After dinner he spent half an

hour with his guests, and, again with a smile, pressed his wife's

hand, withdrew, and drove off to the Council. Anna went that evening

neither to the Princess Betsy Tverskaia, who, hearing of her return,

had invited her, nor to the theater, where she had a box for that

evening. Her principal reason for not going out was because the

dress she had expected to wear was not ready. All in all, Anna was

exceedingly annoyed when she started to dress for the evening after

the departure of her guests. Before her departure for Moscow she,

who was generally a mistress of the art of dressing well yet

inexpensively, had given her dressmaker three dresses to make over.

The dresses were to be made over so that their old selves would be

unrecognizable, and they should have been ready three days ago. It

turned out that two dresses were nowhere near ready, while the other

one had not been made over to Anna's liking. The dressmaker came to

explain, asserting that her way was best, and Anna had become so

heated that she blushed at the recollection. To regain her composure

fully she went into the nursery and spent the whole evening with her

son, putting him to bed herself, making the sign of the cross over

him, and tucking him in. She was glad she had not gone out anywhere,

and had spent the evening so well. She felt so lighthearted and

calm, she saw so clearly that all that had seemed to her so

significant on her railway journey was merely one of the ordinary

trivial incidents of fashionable life, and that she had no cause to

feel ashamed before anyone else or before herself. Anna sat down

near the fireplace with an English novel and waited for her husband.

Exactly at half-past nine she heard his ring, and he entered the room.

"Here you are at last!" she observed, extending her hand to him.

He kissed her hand and sat down beside her.

"All in all, I can see your trip was a success," he said to her.

"Yes, very much so," said she, and she began telling him

everything from the beginning: her journey with Countess Vronskaia,

her arrival, the accident at the station. Then she described the

pity she had felt, first for her brother, and, afterward, for Dolly.

"I do not suppose there is any excuse for such a man, even though he

is your brother," said Alexei Alexandrovich sternly.

Anna smiled. She knew that he said this precisely to show that

family considerations could not prevent him from expressing his

sincere opinion. She knew this trait in her husband and liked it.

"I am glad everything has ended so well, and that you have

returned," he went on. "Well, and what do they say there about the new

bill I have got passed in the Council?"

Anna had heard nothing of this bill, and she felt

conscience-stricken that she could so readily forget what was to him

of such importance.

"Here, on the other hand, this has created a great deal of talk,"

said he, with a self-satisfied smile.

She saw that Alexei Alexandrovich wanted to tell her something

that pleased him about it, and she brought him by questions to telling

it. With the same self-satisfied smile he told her of the ovations

he had received as a consequence of the bill he had passed.

"I was very, very happy. It shows that at last an intelligent and

firm view of the matter is forming among us."

After his second cup of tea, with cream and bread, Alexei

Alexandrovich got up, and went toward his study.

"And you went nowhere this evening? Weren't You really bored?" he

said.

"Oh, no!" she answered, getting up after him and accompanying him

across the room to his study. "What are you reading now?" she asked.

"Just now I'm reading Duc de Lille- Poisie des enfers," he answered.

"A most remarkable book."

Anna smiled, as people smile at the weaknesses of those they love,

and, putting her hand in his, she kept him company to the door of

his study. She knew his habit, now become a necessity, of reading in

the evening. She knew, too, that in spite of his official duties,

which engrossed almost all his time, he deemed it his duty to keep

up with everything of note that appeared in the intellectual sphere.

She knew, too, that his actual interest lay in books dealing with

politics, philosophy and theology, that art was utterly foreign to his

nature; but, in spite of this- or rather, in consequence of it- Alexei

Alexandrovich never missed anything which created a sensation in the

world of art, but made it his duty to read everything. She knew that

in politics, in philosophy, in theology, Alexei Alexandrovich was a

doubter and a seeker; yet in matters of art and poetry- and, above

all, of music, of which he was totally devoid of understanding- he had

the most definite and decided opinions. He was fond of discoursing

on Shakespeare, Raphael, Beethoven, on the significance of new schools

of poetry and music, all of which were classified by him with most

obvious consistency.

"Well, God be with you," she said at the door of the study, where

a shaded candle and a decanter of water were already placed near his

armchair. "As for me, I'm going to write to Moscow."

He squeezed her hand, and again kissed it.

"Still, he's a good man; truthful, kindhearted, and remarkable in

his own sphere," Anna said to herself, back in her room, as though

defending him before someone who accused him, saying that one could

not love him. "But why is it his ears stick out so queerly? Or has

he had his hair cut?..."

Exactly at twelve, as Anna was still sitting at her desk finishing a

letter to Dolly, she heard the sound of measured, slippered steps, and

Alexei Alexandrovich, washed and combed, a book under his arm,

approached her.

"Come, come," said he, with a particular smile, and passed on into

their bedroom.

"And what right had he to look at him like that?" reflected Anna,

recalling how Vronsky had looked at Alexei Alexandrovich.

Having disrobed, she went into the bedroom; but her face had none of

the animation which, during her stay at Moscow, had fairly spurted

from her eyes and her smile; on the contrary, now the fire seemed

extinct in her, or hidden somewhere far away.

XXXIV.

Upon his departure from Peterburg Vronsky had left his large

apartments on Morskaia to his friend and favorite comrade Petritsky.

Petritsky was a young lieutenant, not particularly well-connected,

and not merely not wealthy, but in debt all around. Toward evening

he was always drunk, and he had often found himself in the

guardhouse because of sorts of ludicrous and disgraceful scrapes,

but he was a favorite both of his comrades and his superior

officers. At twelve o'clock, as Vronsky was driving up from the

station to his quarters, he saw, near the entrance of the house, a

hired carriage familiar to him. Even as he rang he heard, beyond the

door, masculine laughter, the twitter of a feminine voice, and

Petritsky's shout: "If that's one of the villains, don't let him

in!" Vronsky told the servant not to announce him, and slipped

noiselessly into the first room. Baroness Shilton, a friend of

Petritsky's, with a rosy little face and flaxen-fair, resplendent in a

lilac satin gown, and filling the whole room, like a canary, with

her Parisian accents, sat at a round table, brewing coffee. Petritsky,

in his overcoat, and the cavalry captain Kamerovsky, in full

uniform, probably just come from duty, were sitting near her.

"Bravo! Vronsky!" shouted Petritsky, jumping up, scraping his chair.

"Our host himself! Baroness, some coffee for him out of the new

coffeepot. There, we didn't expect you! I Hope you're satisfied with

the adornment of your study," he said, indicating the Baroness. "You

know each other, of course?"

"I should say so!" said Vronsky, with a bright smile, squeezing

the Baroness's little hand. "Why, we're old friends."

"You've just returned after traveling," said the Baroness, "so

I'll run along. Oh, I'll be off this minute, if I'm in the way!"

"You're home, wherever you are, Baroness," said Vronsky. "How do you

do, Kamerovsky?" he added, coldly shaking hands with Kamerovsky.

"There, you can never say such charming things," said the

Baroness, turning to Petritsky.

"No- why not? After dinner even I can say things quite as good."

"After dinner there's no merit in them! Well, then, I'll give you

some coffee; go wash and tidy up," said the Baroness, sitting down

again, and anxiously turning a gadget in the new coffee urn.

"Pierre, give me the coffee," she said, addressing Petritsky, whom she

called Pierre, playing on his surname, making no secret of her

relations with him. "I want to put some more in."

"You'll spoil it!"

"No, I won't spoil it! Well, and how is your wife?" said the

Baroness suddenly, interrupting Vronsky's conversation with his

comrade. "We've been marrying you off here. Have you brought your wife

along?"

"No, Baroness. I was born a gypsy, and a gypsy I'll die."

"So much the better- so much the better. Shake hands on it."

And the Baroness, detaining Vronsky, began telling him,

interspersing her story with many jokes, about her latest plans of

life, and seeking his counsel.

"He persists in refusing to give me a divorce! Well, what am I to

do?" (He was her husband.) "Now I want to begin a suit against him.

What would you advise? Kamerovsky, look after the coffee- it's

boiled out; you can see I'm taken up with business! I want a

lawsuit, because I must have my property. You can understand the

stupidity of his saying that I am unfaithful to him," she said

contemptuously, "yet through it he wants to get the benefit of my

fortune."

Vronsky heard with pleasure this lighthearted prattle of a pretty

woman, said yes to everything, gave her half-joking counsel, and

altogether dropped at once into the tone habitual to him in talking to

such women. In his Peterburg world all people were divided into two

utterly opposed kinds. One, the lower, consisted of vulgar, stupid

and, above all, ridiculous people, who believe that one husband

ought to live with the one wife whom he has lawfully wedded; that a

girl should be innocent, a woman modest, and a man manly,

self-controlled, and strong; that one ought to bring up one's

children, earn one's bread and pay one's debts; and various similar

absurdities. Those people were of an old-fashioned and ridiculous

kind. But there was another kind of people- real people, to which they

all belonged, and here the chief thing was to be elegant, magnanimous,

daring, gay, and to abandon oneself without a blush to every

passion, and to laugh at everything else.

For the first moment only, Vronsky was startled, after the

impressions of a quite different world that he had brought with him

from Moscow; but immediately, as though he had thrust his feet into

old slippers, he stepped into his former lighthearted, pleasant world.

The coffee was really never made, but spluttered over everyone and

boiled away, doing just what was required of it- that is, providing

cause for much noise and laughter, and spoiling a costly rug and the

Baroness's gown.

"Well, good-by now- or else you'll never get washed, and I shall

have on my conscience the worst offense any decent person can

commit- uncleanliness. So you would advise a knife at his throat?"

"Absolutely- and in such a way that your little hand may not be

far from his lips. He'll kiss it, and all will end well," answered

Vronsky.

"So, the Francais tonight!" and, with a rustle of her skirts, she

vanished.

Kamerovsky got up too, and Vronsky, without waiting for him to go,

shook hands and went off to his dressing room. While he was washing,

Petritsky briefly outlined to him his position, as far as it had

changed since Vronsky's departure from Peterburg. No money whatsoever.

His father said he wouldn't give him any, nor pay his debts. His

tailor was trying to get him locked up, and another fellow, too, was

threatening to do so without fail. The colonel of his regiment had

announced that if these scandals did not cease a resignation would

be inevitable. As for the Baroness, he was fed up with her,

particularly because she was forever wanting to give him money. But

there was another girl- he intended showing her to Vronsky- a

marvel, exquisite, in the strict Oriental style, "genre of the slave

Rebecca, you see." He had had a row, too, with Berkoshev, and the

latter intended sending seconds, but, of course, it would all come

to nothing. Altogether everything was going splendidly and was most

jolly. And, without letting his comrade enter into further details

of his position, Petritsky proceeded to tell him all the interesting

news. As he listened to Petritsky's familiar stories, in the

familiar setting of the rooms he had spent the last three years in,

Vronsky felt the delightful sensation of coming back to the insouciant

and customary life of Peterburg.

"Impossible!" he cried, releasing the pedal of the wash basin in

which he had been sousing his stalwart red neck. "Impossible!" he

cried, at the news that Laura had dropped Fertinghof and had tied up

with Mileev. "And is he as stupid and satisfied as ever? Well, and

what's Buzulukov doing?"

"Oh, Buzulukov got into a scrape- simply lovely!" cried Petritsky.

"You know his passion for balls- and he never misses a single one at

court. He went to a big ball in a new casque. Have you seen the new

casques? Very good, and lighter. Well, he's standing... No- do

listen."

"I am listening," answered Vronsky, rubbing himself with a rough

towel.

"The Grand Duchess passes by with some ambassador or other, and,

as ill luck would have it, their talk veers to the new casques. And so

the Grand Duchess wanted to show the new casque to the

ambassador.... Just then they catch sight of our dear boy standing

there." (Petritsky mimicked him, standing with his casque.) "The Grand

Duchess requested him to give her the casque- he doesn't do so. What's

up? Well, they all wink at him, and nod and frown- give it to her, do!

He still doesn't. Just stands there, stock-still. You can picture it

to yourself!... Well, this... what's his name... tries to take the

casque from him... He won't give it up!... This chap tore it from him,

and hands it to the Grand Duchess. "This is the new casque," says

the Grand Duchess. She turned the casque over, and- just picture

it!- bang went a pear and candy out of it- two pounds of candy!...

He'd collected all that- our dear boy!"

Vronsky rolled with laughter. And, long afterward, even when he

was talking of other things, he would go off into peals of his

hearty laughter baring his strong, closely set teeth, whenever he

thought of the casque.

Having learned all the news, Vronsky, with the assistance of his

valet, got into his uniform, and went off to report himself. He

intended, afterward, to go to his brother and to Betsy, and to pay

several visits, as an entering wedge into that society where he

might meet Madame Karenina. As always in Peterburg, he left home

without any intention of returning before very late at night.

PART TWO

I.

Toward the end of winter, in the house of the Shcherbatskys, a

consultation was being held, which was to determine the state of

Kitty's health, and what was to be done to restore her failing

strength. She had been ill, and, as spring came on, she grew worse.

The family doctor gave her cod-liver oil, then iron, then lunar

caustic; but since neither the first, nor the second, nor the third

availed, and since his advice was to go abroad before the beginning of

the spring, a celebrated doctor was called in. The celebrated

doctor, not yet old and a very handsome man, demanded an examination

of the patient. He maintained, with special satisfaction, it seemed,

that maiden modesty is merely a relic of barbarism, and that nothing

could be more natural than for a man who was not yet old to handle a

young girl in the nude. He deemed this natural, because he did it

every day, and neither felt nor thought, as it seemed to him, anything

evil as he did it and, consequently, he considered girlish modesty not

merely as a relic of barbarism, but, as well, an insult to himself.

It was necessary to submit, for, although all the doctors studied in

the same school, all using the same textbooks, and all learned in

the same science, and though some people said this celebrated doctor

was but a poor doctor, in the Princess's household and circle it was

for some reason held that this celebrated doctor alone had some

peculiar knowledge, and that he alone could save Kitty. After thorough

examination and tapping of the patient, distraught and dazed with

shame, the celebrated doctor, having painstakingly washed his hands,

was standing in the drawing room talking to the Prince. The Prince

frowned and coughed as he listened to the doctor. As a man who had

seen something of life, and neither a fool nor an invalid, he had no

faith in medicine, and at soul was wrought up with all this comedy,

especially as he was probably the only one who fully understood the

cause of Kitty's illness. "You're barking up the wrong tree," he

mentally applied this phrase from the hunter's vocabulary to the

celebrated doctor, as he listened to the latter's patter about the

symptoms of his daughter's complaint. The doctor, for his part,

found difficulty in restraining the expression of his contempt for

this old grandee, as well as in condescending to the low level of

his comprehension. He perceived that it was useless to talk to the old

man, and that the head of this house was the mother- and she it was

before whom he intended to scatter his pearls. It was at this point

that the Princess entered the drawing room with the family doctor. The

Prince retreated, doing his best not to betray how ridiculous he

regarded the whole comedy. The Princess was distraught, and did not

know what to do. She felt herself at fault before Kitty.

"Well, doctor, decide our fate," said the Princess. "Tell me

everything."- "Is there any hope?" was what she had wanted to say, but

her lips quivered, and she could not utter this question. "Well,

doctor?"

"Immediately, Princess- I will discuss the matter with my colleague,

and then have the honor of laying my opinion before you."

"Then we had better leave you?"

"As you please."

The Princess, with a sigh, stepped outside.

When the doctors were left alone, the family doctor began timidly

explaining his opinion, that there was an incipient tubercular

process, but... and so on. The celebrated doctor listened to him,

and in the middle of the other's speech looked at his big gold watch.

"That is so," said he. "But..."

The family doctor respectfully ceased in the middle of his speech.

"As you know, we cannot determine the incipience of the tubercular

process; until the appearance of vomicae there is nothing determinate.

But we may suspect it. And there are indications: malnutrition,

nervous excitability, and so on. The question stands thus: if we

suspect a tubercular process, what must we do to maintain nutrition?"

"But then, you know, there are always moral, spiritual causes at the

back of these cases," the family doctor permitted himself to

interpolate with a subtle smile.

"Yes, that's to be taken for granted," retorted the celebrated

doctor, again glancing at his watch. "Beg pardon- but is the Iauzsky

bridge finished yet, or must one still make a detour?" he asked.

"Ah! It is finished. Well, in that case I can make it in twenty

minutes. As we were saying, the question may be posited thus: the

nutrition must be maintained and the nerves improved. The one is bound

with the other; one must work upon both sides of this circle."

"But what about the trip abroad?" asked the family doctor.

"I am a foe to trips abroad. And take notice: if there is any

incipient tubercular process, which we cannot know, a trip abroad will

not help. We must have a remedy that would improve nutrition, and do

no harm."

And the celebrated doctor expounded his plan of treatment with Soden

waters, in designating which his main end was evidently their

harmlessness.

The family doctor heard him out attentively and respectfully.

"But in favor of foreign travel I would urge the change of habits,

the removal from conditions which evoke memories. And then- the mother

wishes it," he added.

"Ah! Well, in that case, one might go; well, let them go; but

those German charlatans may do harm.... Our instructions ought to be

followed.... Well, let them go then."

He again glanced at his watch.

"Oh! it's time to go," and he went to the door.

The celebrated doctor informed the Princess (prompted by a feeling

of propriety) that he must see the patient once more.

"What! Another examination!" the mother exclaimed in horror.

"Oh, no- I merely need certain details, Princess."

"Come this way."

And the mother, followed by the doctor, went into the drawing room

to Kitty. Wasted and blushing, with a peculiar glitter in her eyes-

a consequence of the shame she had gone through, Kitty was standing in

the middle of the room. When the doctor came in she turned crimson,

and her eyes filled with tears. All her illness and its treatment

seemed to her a thing so stupid- even funny! Treatment seemed to her

as funny as reconstructing the pieces of a broken vase. It was her

heart that was broken. Why, then, did they want to cure her with pills

and powders? But she could not hurt her mother- all the more so

since her mother considered herself to blame.

"May I trouble you to sit down, Princess?" the celebrated doctor

said to her.

Smiling, he, sat down facing her, felt her pulse, and again

started in with his tiresome questions. She answered him, and

suddenly, becoming angry, got up.

"You must pardon me, doctor- but really, this will lead us

nowhere. You ask me the same things, three times running."

The celebrated doctor did not take umbrage.

"Sickly irritability," said he to the Princess, when Kitty had

left the room. "However, I had finished...."

And the doctor scientifically defined to the Princess, as to an

exceptionally clever woman, the condition of the young Princess, and

concluded by explaining the mode of drinking the unnecessary waters.

When the question of going abroad came up, the doctor was plunged into

profound considerations, as though deciding a weighty problem. Finally

his decision was given: they might go abroad, but must put no faith in

charlatans, but turn to him in everything.

It seemed as though some cheerful influence had sprung up after

the doctor's departure. The mother grew more cheerful when she

returned to her daughter, while Kitty too pretended to be more

cheerful. She had frequent, almost constant, occasions to be

pretending now.

"Really, I'm quite well, maman. But if you want to go abroad,

let's!" she said, and, trying to show that she was interested in the

proposed trip, she began talking of the preparations for the

departure.

II.

Right after the doctor Dolly arrived. She knew that the consultation

was scheduled for that day, and, despite the fact that she had only

recently gotten up from her lying-in (she had had another little

girl at the end of the winter), despite her having enough trouble

and cares of her own, she had left her breast baby and an ailing

girl to come and learn Kitty's fate, which was being decided that day.

"Well, what's what?" said she, entering into the drawing room,

without taking off her hat. "You're all in good spirits. That means

good news, then?"

An attempt was made to tell her what the doctor had said, but it

proved that, even though the doctor had talked coherently and long, it

was utterly impossible to convey what he had said. The only point of

interest was that going abroad was definitely decided upon.

Dolly could not help sighing. Her dearest friend, her sister, was

going away. And her life was far from gay. Her relations with Stepan

Arkadyevich after their reconciliation had become humiliating. The

welding Anna had made proved not at all solid, and family concord

had broken down again at the same point. There was nothing definite,

but Stepan Arkadyevich was hardly ever at home; also, there was hardly

ever any money, and Dolly was constantly being tortured by

suspicions of infidelities, and by now she drove them away from her,

dreading the agony of jealousy she had already experienced. The

first explosion of jealousy, once lived through, could never return,

and even the discovery of infidelities could never affect her now as

it had the first time. Such a discovery now would only mean breaking

up her family habits, and she permitted him to deceive her,

despising him- and still more herself- for this weakness. Besides

this, the cares of her large family were a constant torment to her:

now the nursing of her breast baby did not go well; now the nurse

would leave, now (as at the present time) one of the children would

fall ill.

"Well, how's everybody in your family?" asked her mother.

"Ah, maman, we have enough trouble of our own. Lili has taken ill,

and I'm afraid it's scarlatina. I have come here now to find out about

Kitty, and then I shall shut myself up entirely, if- God forbid- it

really be scarlatina."

The old Prince too had come in from his study after the doctor's

departure, and, after offering his cheek to Dolly, and chatting awhile

with her, he turned to his wife:

"What have you decided- are you going? Well, and what do you want to

do with me?"

"I think you had better stay here, Alexandre," said his wife.

"Just as you wish."

"Maman, why shouldn't father come with us?" said Kitty. "He'll

feel better, and so will we."

The old Prince got up and stroked Kitty's hair. She lifted her

head and looked at him with a forced smile. It always seemed to her

that he understood her better than anyone else in the family did,

though he spoke but little with her. Being the youngest, she was her

father's favorite, and she fancied that his love for her gave him

insight. When now her gaze met his blue, kindly eyes, scrutinizing her

intently, it seemed to her that he saw right through her, and

understood all the evil things that were at work within her.

Reddening, she was drawn toward him, expecting a kiss; but he merely

patted her hair and said:

"These silly chignons! One can't as much as get near one's real

daughter, but simply stroke the hair of defunct females. Well

Dolinka," he turned to his elder daughter, "what's your ace up to

now?"

"Nothing, papa," answered Dolly, who knew that this referred to

her husband. "He's always out; I hardly ever see him," she could not

resist adding with a mocking smile.

"Why, hasn't he gone into the country yet- about the sale of the

forest?"

"No; he's still getting ready."

"Oh, that's it!" said the Prince. "And so I'm to be getting ready,

too? At your service," he said to his wife, sitting down. "And as

for you, Katia," he went on, addressing his younger daughter, "you

must wake up one fine day and say to yourself: Why, I'm quite well,

and merry, and I'm going out again with papa for an early morning

stroll in the frost. Eh?"

What her father said seemed simple enough, yet at these words

Kitty grew confused and upset, like a criminal caught red-handed.

"Yes, he knows all, he understands all, and in these words he's

telling me that though I'm ashamed, I must live through my shame." She

could not pluck up spirit enough to make any answer. She made an

attempt but suddenly burst into tears, and ran out of the room.

"See what comes of your jokes!" the Princess pounced on her husband.

"You're always..." she launched into her reproachful speech.

The Prince listened to the Princess's reproaches rather a long while

and kept silent, but his face grew more and more glowering.

"She's so much to be pitied, poor thing, so much to be pitied, yet

you don't feel how it pains her to hear the least hint as to the cause

of it all. Ah! to be so mistaken in people!" said the Princess, and by

the change in her tone both Dolly and the Prince knew she meant

Vronsky. "I don't know why there aren't laws against such vile,

dishonorable people."

"Ah, I oughtn't to listen to you!" said the Prince glumly, getting

up from his chair, as if to go, yet pausing in the doorway. "There are

laws, my dear, and since you've challenged me to it, I'll tell you

who's to blame for it all: you- you, you alone. Laws against such

young gallants have always existed, and still exist! Yes, if there

weren't anything that ought not to have been, I, old as I am, would

have called him out to the barrier, this swell. Yes, and now go

ahead and physic her, and call in these charlatans."

The Prince, it seemed, had plenty more to say, but no sooner had the

Princess caught his tone than she subsided at once, and became

penitent, as was always the case in serious matters.

"Alexandre, Alexandre," she whispered, approaching him and

bursting into tears.

As soon as she began to weep the Prince, too, calmed down. He went

up to her.

"There, that's enough, that's enough! You feel badly too, I know.

Nothing can be done about it! It's not so very bad. God is merciful...

thanks..." he said, without knowing himself what he was saying now,

responding to the moist kiss of the Princess that he felt on his hand.

And the Prince went out of the room.

No sooner had Kitty gone out of the room, in tears, than Dolly, with

her motherly, domestic habit, had promptly perceived that here a

woman's work lay before her, and got ready for it. She took off her

hat, and, morally speaking, tucked up her sleeves and got ready for

action. While her mother was attacking her father, she tried to

restrain her mother, so far as daughterly reverence would allow.

During the Prince's outburst she was silent; she felt ashamed for

her mother and tender toward her father for so quickly being kind

again. But when her father left, she made ready for what was most

necessary- to go to Kitty and compose her.

"I've intended long since to tell you something, maman: did you know

that Levin meant to propose to Kitty when he was here last? He told

Stiva so."

"Well, what of it? I don't understand..."

"Why, perhaps Kitty refused him?... Did she say nothing to you?"

"No, she said nothing to me either of the one or the other; she's

too proud. But I know it's all on account of this..."

"Yes, but suppose she has refused Levin- and she wouldn't have

refused him if it hadn't been for the other, I know. And then, this

fellow has deceived her so horribly."

It was too frightful for the Princess to think how much at fault she

was before her daughter, and she grew angry.

"Oh, now I really understand nothing! Nowadays everybody thinks to

live after his own way; a mother isn't told a thing, and then you

have..."

"Maman, I'll go to her."

"Do. Am I forbidding you?"

III.

When she went into Kitty's little sanctum, a pretty, rosy little

room, full of knickknacks in vieux saxe, as youthful and rosy and

gay as Kitty herself had been only two months ago, Dolly recalled

how they had together decorated the room the year before, with what

gaiety and love. Her heart turned cold when she beheld Kitty sitting

on the low chair nearest the door, her eyes fixed immovably on a

corner of the rug. Kitty glanced at her sister, and the cold, rather

austere expression of her face did not change.

"I'm going now, and shall entrench myself at home, and you won't

be able to come to see me," said Darya Alexandrovna sitting down

beside her. "I want to talk to you."

"What about?" Kitty asked swiftly, lifting her head in fright.

"What should it be, save what's grieving you?"

"I have no grief."

"Come, Kitty. Do you possibly think I cannot know? I know all.

And, believe me, this is so insignificant... We've all been through

it."

Kitty did not speak, and her face had a stern expression.

"He's not worth your suffering on his account," pursued Darya

Alexandrovna, coming straight to the point.

"Yes- because he has disdained me," said Kitty, in a jarring

voice. "Don't say anything! Please, don't say anything!"

"But whoever told you that? No one has said that. I'm certain he was

in love with you, and remained in love with you, but..."

"Oh, the most awful thing of all for me are these condolences!"

cried out Kitty, in a sudden fit of anger. She turned round on her

chair, turned red, and her fingers moved quickly, as she pinched the

buckle of the belt she held, now with one hand, now with the other.

Dolly knew this trick her sister had of grasping something in turn

with each of her hands, when in excitement; she knew that, in a moment

of excitement Kitty was capable of forgetting herself and saying a

great deal too much and much that was unpleasant, and Dolly would have

calmed her; but it was already too late.

"What- what is it you want to make me feel, eh?" said Kitty quickly.

"That I've been in love with a man who didn't even care to know me,

and that I'm dying for love of him? And this is said to me by my own

sister, who imagines that... that... that she's sympathizing with

me!... I don't want these condolences and hypocrisies!"

"Kitty, you're unjust."

"Why do you torment me?"

"But I... On the contrary... I can see you're hurt...."

But Kitty in her heat did not hear her.

"I've nothing to despair over and be comforted about. I'm

sufficiently proud never to allow myself to care for a man who does

not love me."

"Why, I don't say anything of the kind... Only, tell me the

truth," said Darya Alexandrovna, taking her by the hand, "tell me- did

Levin speak to you?..."

The mention of Levin seemed to deprive Kitty of the last vestige

of self-control. She leaped up from her chair, and, flinging the

buckle to the ground, gesticulating rapidly with her hands, she said:

"Why bring Levin in too? I can't understand- what you want to

torture me for? I've told you, and I repeat it- I have some pride, and

never, never would I do what you're doing- going back to a man who's

deceived you, who has come to love another woman. I can't understand

this! You may- but I can't do it!"

And, having said these words, she glanced at her sister, and

seeing that Dolly sat silent, her head mournfully bowed, Kitty,

instead of leaving the room, as she had intended, sat down near the

door, and, hiding her face in her shawl, let her head drop.

The silence lasted for two minutes. Dolly's thoughts were of

herself. That humiliation of which she was always conscious came

back to her with special pain when her sister reminded her of it.

She had not expected such cruelty from her sister, and was

resentful. But suddenly she heard the rustle of a skirt, and,

simultaneously, an outburst of smothered sobbing, and felt arms

clasping her neck from below. Kitty was on her knees before her.

"Dolinka, I am so, so unhappy!" she whispered penitently.

And the endearing face, covered with tears, hid itself in Darya

Alexandrovna's skirt.

It was as if tears were the indispensable oil without which the

machinery of mutual communion could not run smoothly between the two

sisters; the sisters, after their tears, discussed everything but that

which engrossed them; but, even in talking of outside matters, they

understood one another. Kitty knew that what she had uttered in

anger about her husband's infidelity and her humiliating position

had struck her poor sister to the very depths of her heart, but she

also knew that the latter had forgiven her. Dolly for her part had

comprehended all she had wanted to find out. She had become

convinced that her surmises were correct; that Kitty's misery, her

incurable misery, was due precisely to the fact that Levin had

proposed to her and she had refused him, while Vronsky had deceived

her, and that she stood ready to love Levin and to hate Vronsky. Kitty

said no word of this; she spoke of nothing save her own spiritual

state.

"I have nothing to grieve over," she said, calming down, "but you

could understand that everything has become loathsome, hateful, coarse

to me- and I myself most of all. You can't imagine what loathsome

thoughts I have about everything."

"Why, whatever loathsome thoughts can you have?" asked Dolly,

smiling.

"Most, most loathsome and coarse: I couldn't tell you. This is not

melancholy, nor boredom, but far worse. As if everything of good

that I had were gone out of sight, while only that which was most

loathsome were left. Well, how shall I put it to you?" she went on,

seeing incomprehension in her sister's eyes. "Papa began saying

something to me just now... It seems to me he thinks all I need is

to marry. If mamma takes me to a ball- it seems to me she takes me

only to marry me off as fast as possible, and get me off her hands.

I know this isn't so, but I can't drive away such thoughts. These

suitors so called- I can't bear the sight of them. It seems to me as

if they're always taking stock of me. Formerly, to go anywhere in a

ball dress was a downright joy to me; I used to admire myself; now I

feel ashamed, in at ease. Well, take any example you like... This

doctor... Now..."

Kitty hesitated; she wanted to say further that ever since this

change had taken place in her, Stepan Arkadyevich had become

unbearably repulsive to her, and that she could not see him without

imagining the grossest and most hideous things.

"Well now, everything appears to me, in the coarsest, most loathsome

aspect," she went on. "That is my ailment. Perhaps all this will

pass..."

"Try not to think of such things..."

"I can't help it. I feel well only when I am with the children, at

your house."

"What a pity you can't visit me!"

"Oh, yes, I'll come.- I've had scarlatina, and I'll persuade maman

to let me come."

Kitty insisted on having her way, and went to stay at her sister's

and nursed the children all through the scarlatina- for it really

proved to be scarlatina. The two sisters brought all the six

children successfully through it; Kitty's health, however, did not

improve, and in Lent the Shcherbatskys went abroad.

IV.

There is really only one circle of Peterburg upper society: everyone

knows everyone else, even visits each other. But this great circle has

subdivisions of its own. Anna Arkadyevna Karenina had friends and

close ties in three different circles. One circle was her husband's

set of civil servants and officials, consisting of his colleagues

and subordinates, brought together in a most diversified and

capricious manner, yet separated by social conditions. Anna could

now recall only with difficulty the feeling of almost pious

reverence which she had at first borne for these persons. Now she knew

all of them, as people know one another in a provincial town; she knew

their habits and weaknesses, and where the shoe pinched each one of

them. She knew their attitudes toward one another and to the chief

center; knew who backed whom, and how and wherewithal each one

maintained his position, and who agreed or disagreed with whom; but

this circle of political, masculine interests could not interest

her, and, in spite of Countess Lidia Ivanovna's suggestions, she

avoided it.

Another small circle, with which Anna was intimate, was the one by

means of which Alexei Alexandrovich had made his career. The center of

this circle was the Countess Lidia Ivanovna. This was a circle of

elderly, homely, virtuous and pious women, and clever, learned and

ambitious men. One of the clever people belonging to this small circle

had called it "the conscience of Peterburg society." Alexei

Alexandrovich appreciated this circle very much, and Anna, who knew so

well how to get on with all, had in the early days of her life in

Peterburg found friends even in this circle. But now, upon her

return from Moscow, this set had become unbearable to her. It seemed

to her that both she and all of them were dissimulating, and she

experienced such boredom and lack of ease in their society that she

tried to visit the Countess Lidia Ivanovna as infrequently as

possible.

And, finally, the third circle with which Anna had ties was the

really fashionable world- the world of balls, of dinners, of sumptuous

dresses; the world that hung on to the court with one hand, in order

not to sink to the level of the demimonde, which the members of the

fashionable world believed they despised- yet the tastes of both

were not only similar, but precisely the same. Her connection with

this circle was maintained through Princess Betsy Tverskaia, her

cousin's wife, who had an income of a hundred and twenty thousand

roubles, and who had taken a great liking to Anna ever since she first

came out, looking after her and drawing her into her own circle,

poking fun at that of Countess Lidia Ivanovna.

"When I'm old and shall have lost my looks, I'll be the same," Betsy

used to say; "but for a young and pretty woman like you it's much

too early to join that Old Ladies' Home."

Anna had at first avoided, as much as she could, Princess

Tverskaia's world, because it necessitated expenditures above her

means- and, besides, at soul she preferred the first circle; but after

her trip to Moscow, things fell out quite the other way. She avoided

her moral friends, and went out into the fashionable world. There

she would meet Vronsky, and experienced an agitating joy at such

meetings. Especially often did she meet Vronsky at Betsy's, for

Betsy was a Vronsky by birth, and his cousin. Vronsky went

everywhere where he might meet Anna, and, at every chance he had,

spoke to her of his love. She offered him no encouragement, yet

every time she met him there was kindled in her soul that same feeling

of animation which had come upon her that day in the railway

carriage when she had seen him for the first time. She felt herself

that her delight shone in her eyes and puckered her lips into a smile-

and she could not quench the expression of this delight.

At first Anna had sincerely believed that she was displeased with

him for daring to pursue her; but not long after her return from

Moscow, on arriving at a soiree where she had anticipated meeting him,

yet not finding him there, she realized clearly, from the feeling of

sadness which overcame her, that she had been deceiving herself, and

that this pursuit was not merely not distasteful to her, but that it

constituted all the interest of her life.

It was the second performance of a celebrated cantatrice, and all

the fashionable world was in the theater. Vronsky, seeing his cousin

from his seat in the front row, did not wait till the entr'acte, but

went to her box.

"Why didn't you come to dinner?" she said to him. "I marvel at

this clairvoyance of lovers," she added with a smile, so that no one

but he could hear, "she wasn't there. But do come after the opera."

Vronsky looked inquiringly at her. She nodded. He thanked her by a

smile, and sat down beside her.

"But how I remember your jeers!" continued Princess Betsy, who

took special delight in following up the progress of this passion.

"What's become of all that? You're caught, my dear fellow."

"That's my one desire- to be caught," answered Vronsky, with his

calm, good-natured smile. "If I complain at all, it's only that I'm

not caught enough, if the truth were told. I begin to lose hope."

"Why, whatever hope can you expect?" said Betsy, offended on

behalf of her friend. "Entendons nous...." But in her eyes flitted

gleams of light, which proclaimed that she understood very well,

even as much as he did, what hope he might entertain.

"None whatever," said Vronsky, laughing and showing his closely

set teeth. "Excuse me," he added, taking the binoculars out of her

hand, and proceeding to scrutinize, over her bare shoulder, the row of

boxes opposite them. "I'm afraid I'm becoming ridiculous."

He was very well aware that he ran no risk of being ridiculous in

the eyes of Betsy and all other fashionable people. He was very well

aware that in the eyes of these people the role of the hapless lover

of a girl, or in general, of any woman free to marry, might be

ridiculous; but the role of a man pursuing a married woman, and,

regardless of everything, staking his life on drawing her into

adultery- that role has something beautiful and majestic about it, and

can never be ridiculous, and so it was with a proud and gay smile

under his mustaches that he lowered the binoculars and looked at his

cousin.

"But why didn't you come to dinner?" she said, admiring him.

"I must tell you about that. I was busy- and with what, do you

suppose? I'll give you a hundred guesses, a thousand... you'd never

guess. I've been reconciling a husband with a man who'd insulted his

wife. Yes, really!"

"Well, did you reconcile them?"

"Almost."

"You really must tell me about it," she said, getting up. "Come to

me in the next entr'acte."

"I can't; I'm going to the French theater."

"Leaving Nilsson?" Betsy queried in horror, though she could not

herself have distinguished Nilsson from any chorus girl.

"What can I do? I've an appointment there, all because of my mission

of peace."

"'Blessed are the peacemakers;' 'they shall be saved'," said

Betsy, recalling something of that sort she had heard from somebody or

other. "Very well, then, sit down, and tell me what it's all about."

And she resumed her seat.

V.

"This is rather indiscreet, but it's so charming that one is awfully

tempted to tell the story," said Vronsky, looking at her with laughing

eyes. "I don't intend to mention any names."

"But I shall guess them- so much the better."

"Listen, then: two festive young men were driving along..."

"Officers of your regiment, of course?"

"I didn't say they were officers- just two young men who had been

lunching."

"In other words, drinking."

"Possibly. They were driving on their way to dinner with a friend in

the gayest of moods. And they catch sight of a pretty woman in a hired

sleigh, who overtakes them, looks back at them, and- so it seemed to

them, at any rate- nods to them and laughs. They, of course, follow

her- galloping at full speed. To their amazement, the fair one alights

at the entrance of the very house to which they were going. The fair

one darts upstairs to the top floor. All they got was a glimpse of

rosebud lips under a short veil, and of exquisite little feet."

"You tell this with such feeling that it seems to me you yourself

must have been one of the two."

"But what did you tell me just now?... Well, the young men enter

their comrade's apartment- he was giving a farewell dinner. There they

certainly did take a drop too much, as is always the case at

farewell dinners. And at dinner they inquire who lives at the top in

that house. No one knows; only their host's valet, in answer to

their inquiry whether any 'young ladies' are living on the top

floor, answered that there were a great many of them. After dinner the

two young men go into their host's study, and write a letter to the

fair unknown. They composed a passionate epistle, really a

declaration, and then carry the letter upstairs themselves, so as to

explain whatever might prove not altogether clear in the letter."

"Why do you tell me such nasty things? And then?"

"They ring. A maidservant opens the door, they hand her the

letter, and assure her that they're both so enamored that they'll

die on the spot at the door. The maid, stupefied, carries on the

negotiations. Suddenly a gentleman appears- with side whiskers like

country sausages, he is as red as a lobster and, informing them that

there is no one living in that flat except his wife, he sends them

both packing."

"How do you know he had side whiskers like sausages, as you put it?"

"Ah, do but listen. Recently I went to make peace between them."

"Well, and what was the upshot?"

"That's the most interesting part. This couple turned out to be a

most happy one- a government clerk and his lady. The government

clerk lodges a complaint, whereupon I become a mediator- and what a

mediator!... I assure you Talleyrand was a nobody compared to me."

"Just what was the difficulty?"

"Ah, do but listen.... We make fitting apologies: 'We are in

despair; we entreat forgiveness for the unfortunate misunderstanding.'

The government clerk with the country sausages begins to melt, and he,

too, desires to express his sentiments, but no sooner does he begin to

express them than he gets heated and says nasty things, and again

I'm obliged to trot out all my diplomatic talents. 'I agree that their

action was bad, but I beg of you to take into consideration the

misunderstanding, and their youth; besides, the young men had just

come from their lunch. You understand. Their repentance is heartfelt

and they beg you to forgive their misbehavior.' The government clerk

was softened once more. 'I consent, Count, and am ready to forgive but

you must understand that my wife- my wife!- a respectable woman is

subjected to annoyances, and insults, and impertinences by certain

milksops, scou-...' Yet, you understand, the milksop is present, and

it is up to me to make peace between them. Again I trot out all my

diplomacy, and again, just as the matter is about to be concluded, our

friend the government clerk gets heated and turns red while his

country sausages bristle up, and I once more exert diplomatic

finesse."

"Ah, you must hear this story!" said Betsy, laughing, to a lady

who was entering the box. "He has made me laugh so much... Well, bonne

chance!" she added, giving Vronsky the one finger free from holding

her fan, and with a shrug of her shoulders letting down the bodice

of her gown, that had worked up, so as to be fittingly and fully

nude as she moved forward, toward the footlights, into the lights of

the gas, and within the ken of all.

Vronsky drove to the French theater, where he really had to see

the colonel of his regiment, who never missed a single performance

there; he wanted to talk over his peacemaking, which had been

occupying and amusing him for the last three days. Petritsky, whom

he liked, was implicated in the affair, as well as another fine fellow

and excellent comrade, who had lately joined the regiment- the young

Prince Kedrov. But, mainly, the interests of the regiment were

involved as well.

Both culprits were in Vronsky's squadron. The colonel of the

regiment had received a call from the government clerk, Venden, with a

complaint against his officers, who had insulted his wife. His young

wife, as Venden told the story- he had been married half a year- had

been at church with her mother, and, suddenly feeling indisposed,

due to her interesting condition, found that she could not remain

standing and drove home in the first sleigh with the mettlesome

coachman she came across. It was then that the officers set off in

pursuit of her; she was alarmed, and, feeling still worse, ran home up

the staircase. Venden himself, on returning from his office, had heard

a ring at their bell and voices, had stepped out, and seeing the

intoxicated officers with a letter, he had pushed them out. He was

asking that the culprits be severely punished.

"You may say what you will," said the colonel to Vronsky, whom he

had invited to come and see him. "Petritsky is becoming impossible.

Not a week goes by without some scrape. This clerk chap won't let

matters drop- he'll go on with the thing."

Vronsky saw all the thanklessness of the business, and that a duel

was out of the question here; that everything must be done to soften

this government clerk, and hush the matter up. The colonel had

called in Vronsky precisely because he knew him to be an honorable and

intelligent man, but, above all, one to whom the honor of the regiment

was dear. They talked it over, and decided that Petritsky and Kedrov

must go with Vronsky to this government clerk and apologize. The

colonel and Vronsky were both fully aware that Vronsky's name and

insignia of aide-de-camp were bound to go a long way toward

softening the government clerk. And these two influences proved in

fact not without effect; though the result of the mediation

remained, as Vronsky had described, uncertain.

On reaching the French theater, Vronsky retired to the foyer with

the colonel, and reported to him his success- or lack of it. The

colonel, thinking it all over, decided not to go on with the matter;

but then, for his own delectation, proceeded to question Vronsky about

the details of his interview and for a long while could not restrain

his laughter as he listened to Vronsky's story of how the government

clerk, after subsiding for a while, would suddenly flare up again,

as he recalled the details, and how Vronsky, at the last half-word

of conciliation, had skillfully maneuvered a retreat, shoving

Petritsky out before him.

"It's a disgraceful scrape, but a killing one. Kedrov really can't

fight this gentleman! So he was awfully wrought up?" he asked again,

laughing. "But what do you think of Claire today? She's a wonder!"

he went on, speaking of a new French actress. "No matter how often you

see her, she's different each time. It's only the French who can do

that."

VI.

Princess Betsy drove home from the theater without waiting for the

end of the last act. She had just time enough to go into her

dressing room, sprinkle her long, pale face with powder, rub it off,

set her dress to rights, and order tea in the big drawing room, when

one after another carriages drove up to her huge house on the Bolshaia

Morskaia. Her guests dismounted at the wide entrance, and the stout

porter, who used to read newspapers mornings behind the glass door, to

the edification of the passers-by, noiselessly opened the immense

door, letting the visitors pass by him into the house.

Almost at the same instant that the hostess, with freshly arranged

coiffure and freshened face, entered at one door, her guests entered

at the other, into the drawing room, a large room with dark walls,

downy rugs and a brightly lighted table, gleaming with the light of

candles, the whiteness of napery, the silver of the samovar and the

tea service of transparent porcelain.

The hostess sat down at the samovar and took off her gloves.

Chairs were set with the aid of footmen, moving almost imperceptibly

about the room; the party settled itself, divided into two groups: one

round the samovar near the hostess, the other at the opposite end of

the drawing room, round the handsome wife of an ambassador, in black

velvet, with sharply defined black eyebrows. In both groups

conversation wavered, as it always does, for the first few minutes,

broken up by meetings, salutations, offers of tea, and, as it were,

seeking for some point in common.

"She's exceptionally fine as an actress; one can see she's studied

Kaulbach," said a diplomatist in the circle of the ambassador's

wife. "Did you notice how she fell down?..."

"Oh, please, don't let us talk about Nilsson! No one can possibly

say anything new about her," said a fat, red-faced, flaxen-headed

lady, without eyebrows and without chignon, wearing an old silk dress.

This was Princess Miaghkaia, noted for her simplicity and the

roughness of her manners, and nicknamed enfant terrible. Princess

Miaghkaia was seated halfway between the two groups, and, listening to

both, took part in the conversation first of one and then of the

other. "Three people have used that very phrase about Kaulbach to me

today, just as though they had conspired. And I don't know why that

phrase should be so much to their liking."

The conversation was cut short by this observation, and again a

new subject had to be thought of.

"Do tell us something amusing, yet not spiteful," said the

ambassador's wife, a great proficient in the art of that elegant

conversation called by the English small talk. She addressed the

diplomatist, who was now at a loss just what to begin upon.

"That is said to be a difficult task- only that which is spiteful is

supposed to be amusing," he began with a smile. "However, I'll make

the attempt. Give me a theme. it's all a matter of the theme. If the

theme be but given, it's easy enough to embroider it. I often think

that the celebrated conversationalists of the last century would

find it difficult to talk cleverly now. Everything clever has become

such a bore...."

"That has been said long ago," the ambassador's wife interrupted

him, laughing.

The conversation had begun amiably, but just because it was too

amiable, it came to a stop again. They had to have recourse to the

sure, never-failing remedy- malicious gossip.

"Don't you think there's something Louis Quinze about Tushkevich?"

he said, glancing toward a handsome, fair-haired young man, standing

at the table.

"Oh, yes! He's in the same style as the drawing room, and that's why

it is he's so often here."

This conversation was kept up, since it depended on allusions to

what could not be talked of in that room- that is to say, of the

relations of Tushkevich with their hostess.

Round the samovar and the hostess the conversation having, in the

meanwhile, vacillated in precisely the same way between the three

inevitable topics- the latest piece of public news, the theater, and

censuring the fellow creature- had finally come to rest on the last

topic- that is, malicious gossip.

"Have you heard that even the Maltishcheva- the mother, not the

daughter- has ordered a costume in diable rose color?"

"Impossible! No, that's just charming!"

"I wonder that with her sense- for after all she's no fool- she

doesn't see how funny she is."

Every one had something to say in censure or ridicule of the hapless

Maltishcheva, and the conversation crackled merrily, like a blazing

bonfire.

The husband of Princess Betsy, a good-natured corpulent man, an

ardent collector of engravings, hearing that his wife had visitors,

had come into the drawing room before leaving for his club. Stepping

noiselessly over the thick rugs, he approached Princess Miaghkaia.

"How did you like Nilsson?" he asked.

"Oh, how can you steal up on anyone like that! How you startled me!"

she responded. "Please don't talk to me about the opera; you know

nothing about music. I'd rather come down to your own level, and

discuss with you your majolica and engravings. Come, now, what

treasure have you been buying lately at the rag fair?"

"Would you like me to show you? But you don't understand such

things."

"Yes, show me. I've been learning about them at those- what's

their names?... those bankers... They have some splendid engravings.

They showed them to us."

"Why, have you been at the Schutzburgs?" asked the hostess from

behind the samovar.

"Yes, ma chere. They asked my husband and myself to dinner, and I

was told that the sauce at that dinner cost a thousand roubles,"

Princess Miaghkaia said, speaking loudly, conscious that all were

listening; "and very nasty sauce it was- some green mess. We had to

ask them, and I made a sauce for eighty-five kopecks, and everybody

was very much pleased with it. I can't afford thousand-rouble sauces."

"She's unique!" said the lady of the house.

"Amazing!" somebody else added.

The effect produced by Princess Miaghkaia's speeches was always

the same, and the secret of the effect she produced lay in the fact

that though she spoke not always appropriately, as now, she said

homely truths, not devoid of sense. In the society in which she

lived such utterances had the same result as the most pungent wit.

Princess Miaghkaia could never see why it had that result, but she

knew it had, and took advantage of it.

Since everyone had been listening while Princess Miaghkaia spoke,

and the conversation around the ambassador's wife had dropped,

Princess Betsy tried to bring the whole party together, and she

addressed the ambassador's wife.

"Really won't you have tea? Do come and join us."

"No, we're very comfortable here," the ambassador's wife responded

with a smile, and went on with the interrupted conversation.

It was a most agreeable conversation. They were censuring the

Karenins, husband and wife.

"Anna is quite changed since her stay in Moscow. There's something

strange about her," said one of her feminine friends.

"The great change is that she has brought back with her the shadow

of Alexei Vronsky," said the ambassador's wife.

"Well, what of it? There's a fable of Grimm's about a man without

a shadow- a man deprived of his shadow. As a punishment for

something or other. I never could understand just how this was a

punishment. Yet a woman must probably feel uncomfortable without a

shadow."

"Yes, but women followed by a shadow usually come to a bad end,"

said Anna's friend.

"Bite your tongue!" said Princess Miaghkaia suddenly. "Karenina is a

splendid woman. I don't like her husband- but her I like very much."

"Why don't you like her husband? He's such a remarkable man," said

the ambassador's wife. "My husband says there are few statesmen like

him in Europe."

"And my husband tells me just the same, but I don't believe it,"

said Princess Miaghkaia. "If our husbands didn't talk to us, we should

see the facts as they are. Alexei Alexandrovich, to my thinking, is

simply a fool. I say it in a whisper.... But doesn't it really make

everything clear? Before, when I was told to consider him clever, I

kept looking for his ability, and thought myself a fool for not seeing

it; but directly I said, he's a fool, though only in a whisper,

everything became clear- isn't that so?"

"How spiteful you are today!"

"Not a bit. I'd no other way out of it. One of us two had to be

the fool. And, as you know, one could never say that of oneself."

"No one is satisfied with his fortune, and everyone is satisfied

with his wit," the diplomatist repeated the French saying.

"That's it- that's just it," Princess Miaghkaia turned to him

promptly. "But the point is that I won't abandon Anna to your mercies.

She's such a dear, so charming. How can she help it if they're all

in love with her, and follow her about like shadows?"

"Oh, I had no idea of censuring her," Anna's friend said in

self-defense.

"If we have no shadows following us, it does not prove that we've

any right to blame her."

And, having duly disposed of Anna's friend, the Princess Miaghkaia

got up, and, together with the ambassador's wife, joined the group

at the table, where the general conversation had to do with the king

of Prussia.

"What were you gossiping so maliciously about?" asked Betsy.

"About the Karenins. The Princess gave us a character sketch of

Alexei Alexandrovich," said the ambassador's wife with a smile, as she

sat down at the table.

"Pity we didn't hear it!" said Princess Betsy, glancing toward the

door. "Ah, here you are at last!" she said, turning with a smile to

Vronsky who was entering.

Vronsky was not merely acquainted with all the persons whom he was

meeting here; he saw them all every day; and so he came in with the

quiet manner with which one enters a room full of people whom one

had left only a short while ago.

"Where do I come from?" he repeated the question of the ambassador's

wife. "Well, there's no help for it- I must confess. From the opera

bouffe. I do believe I've seen it a hundred times, and always with

fresh enjoyment. It's exquisite! I know it's disgraceful, but I go

to sleep at the opera, yet I sit out the opera bouffe to the last

minute, and enjoy it. This evening..."

He mentioned a French actress, and was about to tell something about

her; but the ambassador's wife, with playful trepidation, cut him

short.

"Please, don't tell us about that horror."

"Very well, I won't- especially as everyone knows those horrors."

"And we should all go to see them if it were accepted as the correct

thing, like the opera," chimed in Princess Miaghkaia.

VII.

Steps were heard at the door, and Princess Betsy, knowing it was

Madame Karenina, glanced at Vronsky. He was looking toward the door,

and his face wore a strange new expression. Joyfully, intently, and at

the same time timidly, he gazed at the approaching figure, and

slowly he rose to his feet. Anna walked into the drawing room. Holding

herself extremely erect, as always, looking straight before her, and

moving with her swift, resolute and light step, that distinguished her

walk from that of other society women, she crossed the few paces

that separated her from her hostess, shook hands with her, smiled, and

with the same smile looked around at Vronsky. Vronsky bowed low and

pushed a chair up for her.

She acknowledged this only by a slight nod, flushed, and frowned.

But immediately, while rapidly greeting her acquaintances, and shaking

the hands proffered to her, she addressed Princess Betsy:

"I have been at Countess Lidia's, and meant to have come here

earlier, but I stayed on. Sir John was there. A most interesting man."

"Oh, that's this missionary?"

"Yes; he told us about life in India, most interestingly."

The conversation, interrupted by her coming in, flickered up again

like the light of a lamp being blown out.

"Sir John! Yes, Sir John. I've seen him. He speaks well. Vlassieva

is altogether in love with him."

"And is it true that the younger Vlassieva is to marry Topov?"

"Yes- they say it's quite settled."

"I wonder at the parents! They say it's a marriage of passion."

"Of passion? What antediluvian notions you have! Whoever talks of

passion nowadays?" said the ambassador's wife.

"What would you do? This silly old fashion is still far from

dead," said Vronsky.

"So much the worse for those who keep up the fashion. The only happy

marriages I know are marriages of prudence."

"Yes,- but then, how often the happiness of these prudent

marriages is scattered like dust, precisely because that passion to

which recognition has been denied appears on the scene," said Vronsky.

"But by marriages of prudence we mean those in which both parties

have sown their wild oats already. That's like scarlatina- one has

to go through with it and get it over with."

"In that case we must learn how to vaccinate for love, like

small-pox."

"I was in love in my young days- with a church clerk," said the

Princess Miaghkaia. "I don't know that it did me any good."

"No; I think- all jokes aside- that to know love, one must first

make a fault, and then mend it," said Princess Betsy.

"Even after marriage?" said the ambassador's wife playfully.

"It's never too late to mend," the diplomatist repeated the

English proverb.

"Just so," Betsy agreed; "one must make a mistake and rectify it.

What do you think about it?" She turned to Anna, who, with a barely

perceptible resolute smile on her lips, was listening to the

conversation.

"I think" said Anna, playing with the glove she had taken off, "I

think... if there are as many minds as there are heads, then surely

there must be as many kinds of love as there are hearts."

Vronsky was gazing at Anna, and with a heart sinking was waiting for

what she would say. He sighed as after a danger escaped when she had

uttered these words.

Anna suddenly turned to him.

"Oh, I have had a letter from Moscow. They write me that Kitty

Shcherbatskaia's very ill."

"Really?" said Vronsky, knitting his brows.

Anna looked sternly at him.

"That doesn't interest you?"

"On the contrary, it does- very much. What is it, exactly, that they

write you, if may know?" he asked.

Anna got up and went to Betsy.

"Give me a cup of tea," she said, pausing behind her chair.

While Betsy was pouring out the tea, Vronsky walked up to Anna.

"What is it they write you?" he repeated.

"I often think men have no understanding of what is dishonorable,

though they're forever talking of it," said Anna, without answering

him. "I've wanted to tell you something for a long while," she

added, and, moving a few steps away, she sat down at a corner table

which held albums.

"I don't quite understand the significance of your words," he

said, handing her the cup.

She glanced towards the sofa beside her, and he instantly sat down.

"Yes, I've wanted to tell you," she said, without looking at him.

"Your action was wrong- wrong, very wrong."

"Do you suppose I don't know that I've acted wrongly? But who was

the cause of my doing so?"

"Why do you say that to me?" she said looking at him sternly.

"You know why," he answered, boldly and joyously, meeting her glance

and without dropping his eyes.

It was not he, but she, who became confused.

"That merely proves you have no heart," she said. But her eyes

said that she knew he had a heart, and that was why she was afraid

of him.

"What you spoke of just now was a mistake, and not love."

"Remember that I have forbidden you to utter that word, that

detestable word," said Anna, with a shudder. But at once she felt that

by that very word "forbidden" she had shown that she acknowledged

certain rights over him, and by that very fact was encouraging him

to speak of love. "I have long meant to tell you this," she went on,

looking resolutely into his eyes, and all aflame from the burning

flush on her cheeks. "I've come here purposely this evening, knowing I

should meet you. I have come to tell you that this must end. I have

never blushed before anyone, and you force me to feel guilty of

something."

He looked at her and was struck by a new spiritual beauty in her

face.

"What do you wish of me?" he said, simply and gravely.

"I want you to go to Moscow and ask for Kitty's forgiveness," she

said.

"That is not your wish," he said.

He saw she was saying what she was forcing herself to say, not

what she wanted to say.

"If you love me, as you say," she whispered, "you will do this, so

that I may be at peace."

His face grew radiant.

"Don't you know that you're all my life to me? But I know no

peace, and I can't give it to you; all of myself, and love- yes. I

can't think of you and myself apart. You and I are one to me. And I

see no possibility before us of peace- either for me or for you. I see

a possibility of despair, of wretchedness.... Or else I see a

possibility of happiness- and what a happiness!... Can it be

impossible?" he added, his lips barely moving- yet she heard.

She strained every effort of her mind to say what ought to be

said. But instead of that she let her eyes rest on him, full of

love, and made no answer.

"It's come!" he thought in ecstasy. "When I was beginning to

despair, and it seemed there would be no end- it's come! She loves me!

She owns it!"

"Then do this for me: never say such things to me, and let us be

friends," she said in words; but her eyes spoke quite differently.

"Friends we shall never be- that you know yourself. Whether we shall

be the happiest or the most wretched of people- that lies within

your power."

She would have said something, but he interrupted her.

"For I ask but one thing: I ask for the right to hope, to suffer-

even as I am doing now. But if even that cannot be, command me to

disappear, and I disappear. You shall not see me if my presence is

painful to you."

"I don't want to drive you away."

"Only don't change anything- leave everything as it is," said he, in

a shaky voice. "Here's your husband."

At that instant Alexei Alexandrovich did in fact walk into the

room with his calm, ungainly gait.

Glancing at his wife and Vronsky, he went up to the lady of the

house, and, sitting down for a cup of tea, began talking in his

unhasty, always audible voice, in his habitual tone of banter, as if

he were teasing someone.

"Your Rambouillet is in full conclave," he said looking round at all

the party; "the graces and the muses."

But Princess Betsy could not endure that tone of his- sneering, as

she called it, using the English word, and like a clever hostess she

at once brought him around to a serious conversation on the subject of

universal conscription. Alexei Alexandrovich was immediately carried

away by the subject, and began seriously defending the new imperial

decree before Princess Betsy, who had attacked it.

Vronsky and Anna still sat at the little table.

"This is getting indecorous," whispered one lady, with an expressive

glance at Madame Karenina, her husband and Vronsky.

"What did I tell you?" said Anna's friend.

But it was not only these ladies who watched them- almost everyone

in the room, even the Princess Miaghkaia and Betsy herself, looked

several times in the direction of the two who had withdrawn from the

general circle, as though they found it a hindrance. Alexei

Alexandrovich was the only person who did not once look in their

direction, and was not diverted from the interesting discussion he had

entered upon.

Noticing the disagreeable impression that was being made on

everyone, Princess Betsy slipped someone else into her place to listen

to Alexei Alexandrovich, and walked over to Anna.

"I'm always amazed at the clearness and precision of your

husband's language," she said. "The most transcendent ideas seem to be

within my grasp when he's speaking."

"Oh, yes!" said Anna, radiant with a smile of happiness, and not

understanding a word of what Betsy had said. She crossed over to the

big table and took part in the general conversation.

Alexei Alexandrovich, after staying half an hour, walked up to his

wife and suggested that they go home together. But she answered,

without looking at him, that she was staying to supper. Alexei

Alexandrovich bowed himself out.

The fat old Tatar, Madame Karenina's coachman, in a glistening

leather coat, was with difficulty bridling the left of her pair of

grays, chilled with the cold and rearing at the entrance. A footman

stood by the carriage door he had opened. The hall porter stood

holding open the great door of the house. Anna Arkadyevna, with her

quick little hand, was unfastening the lace of her sleeve, caught in

the hook of her fur cloak, and with bent head was listening

rapturously to the words Vronsky murmured as he saw her down to her

carriage.

"You've said nothing, of course, and I ask nothing," he was

saying; "but you know that friendship is not what I want: that there's

only one happiness in life for me- that word you dislike so... yes,

love!..."

"Love..." she repeated slowly, in an inner voice, and suddenly, at

the very instant she unhooked the lace, she added, "I don't like the

word precisely because it means too much to me, far more than you

can understand," and she glanced into his face. "Good-by."

She gave him her hand, and with her rapid, springy step she passed

by the porter and vanished into the carriage.

Her glance, the touch of her hand, had seared him. He kissed the

palm of his hand where she had touched it, and went home, happy in the

realization that he had got nearer to the attainment of his aims

that evening than during the two last months.

VIII.

Alexei Alexandrovich had seen nothing striking or improper in the

fact that his wife was sitting with Vronsky at a table apart, in eager

conversation with him about something. But he noticed that to the rest

of the party this appeared as something striking and improper, and for

that reason it seemed to him, too, to be improper. He made up his mind

that he must speak of it to his wife.

On reaching home Alexei Alexandrovich went to his study, as he

usually did, seated himself in his low chair, opened a book on the

Papacy at the place he had marked by inserting the paper knife, read

till one o'clock, just as he usually did. But from time to time he

would rub his high forehead and shake his head, as though to drive

away something. At his usual time he got up and made his toilet for

the night. Anna Arkadyevna had not yet come in. With a book under

his arm he went upstairs. But this evening, instead of his usual

thoughts and meditations upon official details, his thoughts were

absorbed by his wife and something disagreeable connected with her.

Contrary to his usual habit, he did not get into bed, but fell to

walking up and down the rooms with his hands clasped behind his

back. He could not go to bed, feeling that it was absolutely needful

for him first to think thoroughly over the situation that had just

arisen.

When Alexei Alexandrovich had made up his mind that he must have a

talk with his wife, it had seemed a very easy and simple matter. But

now, when he began to think over the question that had just

presented itself, it seemed to him very complicated and difficult.

Alexei Alexandrovich was not jealous. Jealousy, according to his

notions, was an insult to one's wife, and one ought to have confidence

in one's wife. Why one ought to have that confidence- that is to

say, a complete conviction that his young wife would always love

him- he did not ask himself. But he had never experienced such a

lack of confidence, because he had confidence in her, and told himself

that he ought to have it. Now, though his conviction that jealousy was

a shameful feeling, and that one ought to feel confidence, had not

broken down, he still felt that he was standing face to face with

something illogical and fatuous, and did not know what ought to be

done. Alexei Alexandrovich was standing face to face with life, with

the possibility of his wife's loving someone other than himself, and

this seemed to him very fatuous and incomprehensible, because it was

of the very stuff of life. All his life Alexei Alexandrovich had lived

and worked in official spheres, having to do merely with the

reflections of life. And every time he had stumbled against life

itself he had shrunk away from it. Now he experienced a feeling akin

to that of a man who, while calmly crossing a precipice by a bridge,

should suddenly discover that the bridge is broken, and that there

is a chasm below. That chasm was life itself- the bridge, that

artificial life in which Alexei Alexandrovich had lived. For the first

time the question presented itself to him of the possibility of his

wife's loving someone else, and he was horrified at it.

He did not undress, but walked up and down with his regular tread

over the resounding parquet of the dining room, where one lamp was

burning; over the carpet of the dark drawing room, in which the

light was reflected merely on the big new portrait of himself

hanging over the sofa; and across her boudoir, where two candles

burned, lighting up the portraits of her parents and feminine friends,

and the pretty knickknacks of her writing table, every one of which he

knew so well. He walked across her boudoir to the bedroom door and

turned back again.

At each turn in his walk, especially on the parquet of the

well-lit dining room, he halted and said to himself, "Yes, this I must

decide and put a stop to; I must express my view of it and my

decision." And he turned back again. "But just what shall I express?

And what decision?" he would say to himself in the drawing room- and

found no answer. "But, after all," he asked himself before turning

into the boudoir," what has occurred? Nothing. She was talking a

long while with him. But what of that? Surely women in society can

talk to whom they please. And then, jealousy means debasing both her

and myself," he soliloquized as he entered her boudoir; but this

dictum, which had always had such weight with him before, had now no

weight and no meaning whatsoever. And from the bedroom door he

turned back again; but as he entered the dark drawing room some

inner voice told him that it was not so, and that if others had

noticed, it meant that there was something. And he said to himself

again in the dining room: "Yes, I must decide and put a stop to it,

and express my views...." And again at the turn in the drawing room he

asked himself: "Decide how?" And again he asked inwardly: "What has

occurred?" And answered: "Nothing," and recollected that jealousy

was a feeling insulting to his wife; but again in the drawing room

he was convinced that something had happened. His thoughts, like his

body, were describing a complete circle, without alighting upon

anything new. He noticed this, rubbed his forehead, and sat down in

her boudoir.

There, looking at her table, with the malachite blotting case

lying at the top, and an unfinished letter, his thoughts suddenly

changed. He began to think of her, of what her thoughts and emotions

must be. For the first time he pictured vividly to himself her

personal life, her ideas, her desires, and the thought that she

could and must have a separate life of her own seemed to him so

appalling that he made haste to drive it away. It was the chasm

which he was afraid to peep into. To put himself in thought and

feeling in another person's place was a spiritual action foreign to

Alexei Alexandrovich. He looked on this spiritual action as a

harmful and dangerous abuse of the fancy.

"And the worst of it all," thought he, "is that just now, at the

very moment when my great work is approaching completion" (he was

thinking of the project he was bringing forward at the time), "when

I stand in need of all my mental peace and all my energies- just now

this stupid worry has to come falling about my ears. But what's to

be done? I'm not one of those men who submit to uneasiness and worry

without having the force of character to face them."

"I must think this over, come to a decision, and put it out of my

mind," he said aloud.

"The question of her feelings, of what has passed and may be passing

in her soul- that's not my affair; that's the affair of her

conscience, and falls under the head of religion," he said to himself,

feeling consolation in the sense that he had found to which division

of regulating principles this new circumstance could be properly

referred.

"And so," Alexei Alexandrovich said to himself, "questions as to her

feelings, and so on, are questions for her conscience, with which I

can have nothing to do. My duty is clearly defined. As the head of the

family, I am a person bound in duty to guide her, and, consequently,

in part the person responsible; I am bound to point out the danger I

perceive, to warn her, even to use my authority. I ought to speak

plainly to her."

And everything that he would say tonight to his wife took clear

shape in Alexei Alexandrovich's head. Thinking over what he would say,

he somewhat regretted that he should have to use his time and mental

powers for domestic consumption, with so little to show for it, but,

in spite of that, the form and consistency of the speech before him

shaped itself as clearly and distinctly in his head as a ministerial

report. "I must speak on, and express fully, the following points:

first, an explanation of the value to be attached to public opinion

and to decorum; secondly, an explanation of the religious significance

of marriage; thirdly, if need be, a reference to the calamity possibly

ensuing to our son; fourthly, a reference to the unhappiness likely to

result to herself." And, interlacing his fingers, the palms

downward, Alexei Alexandrovich stretched his hands, and the joints

of the fingers cracked.

This gesture, this bad habit- the joining of his hands cracking

his fingers, always soothed him, and gave precision to his thoughts,

so needful to him now. There was the sound of a carriage driving up to

the front door. Alexei Alexandrovich halted in the middle of the room.

A woman's step was heard mounting the stairs. Alexei

Alexandrovich, ready for his speech, stood squeezing his crossed

fingers, waiting for their crack to come again. One joint cracked.

Already, from the sound of light steps on the stairs, he was aware

that she was close, and though he was satisfied with his speech, he

felt frightened because of the explanation confronting him.

IX.

Anna came in with her head bent, playing with the tassels of her

hood. Her face was glowing with a vivid glow; but this glow was not

one of joyousness- it recalled the fearful glow of a conflagration

in the midst of a dark night. On seeing her husband, Anna raised her

head and smiled, as though she had just waked up.

"You're not in bed? What a miracle!" she said throwing off her

hood and, without stopping, she went on into the dressing room.

"It's late, Alexei Alexandrovich," she said, from behind the door.

"Anna, I must have a talk with you."

"With me?" she said, wonderingly. She came out from the door, and

looked at him. "Why, what is it? What about?" she asked, sitting down.

"Well, let's talk, if it's so necessary. But it would be better to

go to sleep."

Anna was saying whatever came to her tongue, and marveled, hearing

herself, at her own capacity for lying. How simple and natural were

her words, and how likely that she was simply sleepy She felt

herself clad in an impenetrable armor of falsehood. She felt that some

unseen force had come to her aid and was supporting her.

"Anna, I must warn you," he began.

"Warn me? she said. "Of what?

She looked at him so simply, so brightly, that anyone who did not

know her as her husband knew her could not have noticed anything

unnatural, either in the sound or the sense of her words. But to

him, knowing her, knowing that whenever he went to bed five minutes

later than usual, she noticed it, and asked him the reason- to him,

knowing that every joy, every pleasure and pain that she felt she

communicated to him at once- to him it meant a great deal to see now

that she did not care to notice his state of mind, that she did not

care to say a word about herself. He saw that the inmost recesses of

her soul, that had always hitherto lain open before him, were now

closed against him. More than that, he saw from her tone that she

was not even perturbed at that, but seemed to be saying

straightforwardly to him: "Yes, it is closed now, which is as it

should be, and will be so in future." Now he experienced a feeling

such as a man might have who, returning home, finds his own house

locked up. "But perhaps the key may yet be found," thought Alexei

Alexandrovich.

"I want to warn you," he said in a low voice, "that through

thoughtlessness and lack of caution you may cause yourself to be

talked about in society. Your too animated conversation this evening

with Count Vronsky" (he enunciated the name firmly and with quiet

intervals) "attracted attention."

He talked and looked at her laughing eyes, which frightened him

now with their impenetrable look, and, as he talked, he felt all the

uselessness and futility of his words.

"You're always like that," she answered as though completely

misapprehending him, and of all he had said only taking in the last

phrase. "One time you don't like my being dull, and another time you

don't like my being lively. I wasn't dull. Does that offend you?"

Alexei Alexandrovich shivered, and bent his hands to make the joints

crack.

"Oh, please, don't do that- I dislike it so," she said.

"Anna, is this you?" said Alexei Alexandrovich quietly, making an

effort over himself, and restraining the motion of his hands.

"But what is it all about?" she said, with such genuine and droll

wonder. "What do you want of me?"

Alexei Alexandrovich paused, and rubbed his forehead and his eyes.

He saw that instead of doing as he had intended- that is to say,

warning his wife against a mistake in the eyes of the world- he had

unconsciously become agitated over what was the affair of her

conscience, and was struggling against some imaginary barrier.

"This is what I meant to say to you," he went on coldly and

composedly, "and I beg you to hear me to the end. I consider jealousy,

as you know, a humiliating and degrading feeling, and I shall never

allow myself to be guided by it; but there are certain rules of

decency which cannot be disregarded with impunity. This evening it was

not I who observed it- but, judging by the impression made on the

company, everyone observed that your conduct and deportment were not

altogether what one would desire."

"I positively don't understand," said Anna, shrugging her shoulders.

"He doesn't care," she thought. "But other people noticed it and

that's what upsets him."- "You're not well, Alexei Alexandrovich," she

added, and, getting up, was about to pass through the door; but he

moved forward as though he would stop her.

His face was gloomy and forbidding, as Anna had never seen it

before. She stopped, and bending her head back and to one side,

began taking out her hairpins with her quick-darting hand.

"Well, I'm listening- what does follow?" she said, calmly and

ironically; "and, indeed, I am listening even with interest, for I

should like to understand what it is all about."

She spoke, and marveled at the confident, calm and natural tone in

which she spoke, and at the choice of the words she used.

"To enter into all the details of your feelings I have no right,

and, besides, I regard that as useless and even harmful," began Alexei

Alexandrovich. "Rummaging in our souls, we often bring up something

that might have otherwise lain there unnoticed. Your feelings are an

affair of your own conscience; but I am in duty bound to you, to

myself and to God, to point out to you your duties. Our life has

been joined, not by man, but by God. That union can only be severed by

a crime, and a crime of that nature brings its own chastisement."

"I don't understand a word. And, oh dear! how sleepy I am,

unluckily," she said, rapidly passing her hand through her hair,

feeling for the remaining hairpins.

"Anna, for God's sake don't speak like that!" he said gently.

"Perhaps I am mistaken, but believe me, that which I am saying I say

as much for myself as for you. I am your husband, and I love you."

For an instant her face fell, and the mocking gleam in her eyes died

away; but the phrase "I love" threw her into revolt again. She

thought: "Love? Can he love? If he hadn't heard there was such a thing

as love, he would never have used the word. He doesn't even know

what love is."

"Alexei Alexandrovich, I really do not understand," she said.

"Define what it is you consider..."

"Pardon, let me say all I have to say. I love you. But I am not

speaking of myself; the most important persons in this matter are

our son and yourself. It may very well be, I repeat, that my words

seem to you utterly unnecessary and out of place; it may be that

they are called forth by my mistaken impression. In that case, I beg

you to forgive me. But if you are conscious yourself of even the

smallest foundation for them, then I beg you to think a little, and if

your heart prompts you, to speak out to me..."

Alexei Alexandrovich was unconsciously saying something utterly

unlike what he had prepared.

"I have nothing to say. And besides she said suddenly, with

difficulty repressing a smile, "it's really time to be in bed."

Alexei Alexandrovich sighed, and, without saying more, went into the

bedroom.

When she came into the bedroom, he was already in bed. His lips were

sternly compressed, and his eyes looked away from her. Anna got into

her bed, and lay expecting every minute that he would begin to speak

to her again. She both feared his speaking and wished for it. But he

was silent. She waited for a long while without moving, and forgot

about him. She thought of that other; she pictured him, and felt how

her heart was flooded with emotion and guilty delight at the thought

of him. Suddenly she heard an even, tranquil snore. For the first

instant Alexei Alexandrovich seemed, as it were, appalled at his own

snoring, and ceased; but after a pause of one or two breaths, the

snore sounded again, with a new tranquil rhythm.

"It's late, it's late," she whispered with a smile. A long while she

lay, without moving, and with open eyes, whose brilliance she almost

fancied she could herself see in the darkness.

X.

From that time a new life began for Alexei Alexandrovich and for his

wife. Nothing special happened. Anna went out into society, as she had

always done, was particularly often at Princess Betsy's, and met

Vronsky everywhere. Alexei Alexandrovich saw this, but was powerless

to do anything. All his efforts to draw her into open discussion she

confronted with a barrier which he could not penetrate, made up of a

sort of amused perplexity. Outwardly everything was the same, but

their inner relations were completely changed. Alexei Alexandrovich, a

man of great power in the world of politics, felt himself helpless

in this matter. Like an ox with head bent submissively, he waited

the fall of the poleax which he felt was lifted over him. Every time

he began to think about it, he felt that he must try once more; that

by kindness, tenderness and persuasion there was still hope of

saving her, of bringing her back to herself, and every day he was on

the verge of talking to her. But every time he began he felt that

the spirit of evil and deceit, which had taken possession of her,

had possession of him too, and he talked to her in a tone quite unlike

that which he had meant to use. Involuntarily he talked to her in

his habitual tone of bantering at anyone who should say what he was

saying. And in that tone it was impossible to say to her what the

occasion demanded.

XI.

That which to Vronsky had been for almost a whole year the one

absorbing desire of his life, replacing all his old desires; that

which to Anna had been an impossible, terrible, and, for that very

reason, a more entrancing dream of happiness- that desire had been

fulfilled. He stood before her, pale, his lower jaw quivering, and

besought her to be calm, without himself knowing how or why.

"Anna! Anna!" he said with a quivering voice, "Anna, for God's

sake!..."

But the louder he spoke, the lower she cast down her once proud

and gay, but now shame-stricken head, and she bowed down and sank from

the sofa where she was sitting- down on the floor, at his feet; she

would have fallen on the carpet if he had not held her.

"My God!" Forgive me!" she said, sobbing, pressing his hands to

her bosom.

She felt so sinful, so guilty, that nothing was left her but to

humiliate herself and beg forgiveness, and as now there was no one

in her life but him, to him, too, she addressed her prayer for

forgiveness. Looking at him, she had a physical sense of her

humiliation, and she could say nothing more. And he felt as a murderer

must feel when he beholds the body he has robbed of life. That body,

robbed by him of life, was their love, the first stage of their

love. There was something awful and revolting in the memory of what

had been bought at this fearful price of shame. Shame at her spiritual

nakedness crushed her and infected him. But in spite of all the

murderer's horror before the body of his victim, he must hack it to

pieces, hide the body, must use what the murderer had gained by his

murder.

And as the murderer, with fury, and, as it were, with passion, falls

on the body, and drags it, and hacks at it- so he covered her face and

shoulders with kisses. She held his hand, and did not stir. Yes, these

kisses- that is what has been bought by this shame. Yes, and this

one hand, which will always be mine- the hand of my accomplice. She

lifted up that hand and kissed it. He sank on his knees and tried to

see her face; but she hid it, and said nothing. At last, as though

making an effort over herself, she got up and pushed him away. Her

face was still as beautiful, but it was only the more pitiful for

that.

"All is over," she said; "I have nothing but you. Remember that."

"I can never forget what is my whole life. For one instant of this

happiness..."

"Happiness!" she said with horror and loathing and her horror

unconsciously infected him. "For God's sake, not a word, not a word

more."

She rose quickly and moved away from him.

"Not a word more," she repeated, and with a look of chill despair,

incomprehensible to him, she parted from him. She felt that at that

moment she could not put into words the sense of shame, of rapture,

and of horror at this stepping into a new life, and she did not want

to speak of it, to vulgarize this feeling by inappropriate words.

But later too, and the next day, and the day after, she still found no

words in which she could express the complexity of those feelings;

indeed, she could not even find thoughts in which she could clearly

think out all that was in her soul.

She said to herself. "No, just now I can't think of it- later on,

when I am calmer." But this calm for thoughts never came; every time

the thought rose of what she had done and what would happen to her,

and what she ought to do, a horror came over her and she drove those

thoughts away.

"Later, later," she said, "when I am calmer."

But in her dreams, when she had no control over her thoughts, her

position presented itself to her in all its hideous nakedness. One

dream haunted her almost every night. She dreamed that both were

husbands at once, that both were lavishing caresses on her. Alexei

Alexandrovich was weeping, kissing her hands, and saying, "How happy

we are now!" And Alexei Vronsky was there too, and he, too, was her

husband. And she was marveling that it had once seemed impossible to

her, was explaining to them, laughing, that this was ever so much

simpler, and that now both of them were happy and contented. But

this dream weighed on her like a nightmare, and she would awake from

it in terror.

XII.

In the early days, after his return from Moscow, whenever Levin

shuddered and grew red, remembering the disgrace of his rejection,

he would say to himself: "This was just how I used to shudder and

blush, thinking everything utterly lost, when I was flunked in physics

and did not get promoted; and this is also how I thought myself

utterly ruined after I had mismanaged that affair of my sister's

with which I had been entrusted. And yet, now that the years have

passed, I recall it and wonder that it could distress me so much. It

will be the same thing with this trouble as well. Time will go by, and

I shall not mind this either."

But three months had passed and he had not left off minding about

it; and it was as painful for him to think of it now as it had been

during those first days. He could not be at peace because, after

dreaming so long of family life, and feeling himself so ripe for it,

he was still not married, and was farther than ever from marriage.

He was painfully conscious himself, as were all about him, that at his

years it is not good that man should be alone. He remembered how

before starting for Moscow he had once said to his cowherd Nicolai,

a simplehearted peasant, to whom he liked to talk: "Well, Nicolai! I

mean to get married," and how Nicolai had promptly answered, as of a

matter on which there could be no possible doubt: "And high time

too, Konstantin Dmitrich." But marriage had now become farther off

than ever. The place was taken, and whenever he tried to imagine any

of the girls he knew in that place, he felt that it was utterly

impossible. Moreover, the recollection of the rejection and the part

he had played in the affair tortured him with shame. However often

he told himself that he was in no wise to blame in it, that

recollection, like other similarly humiliating recollections, made him

wince and blush. There had been in his past, as in every man's,

actions, recognized by him as bad, for which his conscience ought to

have tormented him; but the recollection of these evil actions was far

from causing him as much suffering as these trivial but humiliating

recollections. These wounds never healed. And with these recollections

was now ranged his rejection and the sorry plight in which he must

have appeared to others that evening. Yet time and labor were doing

their work. Bitter recollections were more and more being covered up

by the incidents- inconspicuous ones, but important- of his country

life. Every week he thought less often of Kitty. He was impatiently

looking forward to the news that she was married, or just going to

be married, hoping that such news would, like having a tooth out,

completely cure him.

Meanwhile spring came on, beautiful and kindly, without the delays

and treacheries incident to spring- one of those rare springs in which

plants, beasts and man rejoice alike. This lovely spring roused

Levin still more, and strengthened him in his resolution of renouncing

all his past and building up his lonely life firmly and independently.

Though many of the plans with which he had returned to the country had

not been carried out, his most important resolution- that of purity of

life- had nevertheless been kept by him. He was free from that shame

which had usually harassed him after a fall; and he could look

everyone straight in the face. In February he had received a letter

from Marya Nikolaevna telling him that his brother Nikolai's health

was getting worse, but that he would not take advice, and in

consequence of this letter Levin went to Moscow to his brother's,

and succeeded in persuading him to see a doctor and to go to a

watering place abroad. He succeeded so well in persuading his brother,

and in lending him money for the journey without irritating him,

that he was satisfied with himself on that score. In addition to his

farming, which called for special attention in spring, in addition

to reading Levin had begun that winter a work on agriculture, the plan

of which turned on taking into account the character of the laborer on

the land as one of the unalterable data of the question, like the

climate and the soil, and consequently deducing all the principles

of scientific culture, not simply from the data of soil and climate,

but from the data of soil, climate and a certain unalterable character

of the laborer. Thus, in spite of his solitude, or in consequence of

his solitude, life was exceedingly full, save that, on rare occasions,

he suffered from an unsatisfied desire to communicate his stray

ideas to someone besides Agathya Mikhailovna. With her indeed he not

infrequently fell into discussions upon physics, the theory of

agriculture, and, especially, philosophy: philosophy was Agathya

Mikhailovna's favorite subject.

Spring was slow in unfolding. For the last few weeks of Lent it

had been steadily fine and frosty weather. In the daytime there was

a thaw in the sun, but at night there were as many as seven degrees of

frost. The snow was so packed and frozen that loads could be carried

along anywhere, regardless of roads. Easter came in snow. Then all

of a sudden, on Easter Monday, a warm wind sprang up, storm clouds

swooped down, and for three days and three nights the warm,

tempestuous rain fell in torrents. On Thursday the wind dropped, and a

thick gray fog brooded over the land, as though screening the

mysteries of the transformations that were being wrought in nature.

Behind the fog there was the flowing of water, the cracking and

floating of ice, the swift rush of turbid, foaming torrents; and on

the following Monday, in the evening, the fog parted, the storm clouds

split up into little curling crests of cloud, the sky cleared, and the

real spring had come. In the morning the sun arose brilliant and

quickly wore away the thin layer of ice that covered the water, and

all the warm air was quivering with the steam that rose up from the

quickened earth. The old grass looked greener, and the young grass

thrust up its tiny blades; the buds of the guelder-rose and of the

currant, and the sticky birch buds were swollen with sap, and an

exploring bee was humming about the golden blossoms that studded the

willow. Larks trilled unseen above the velvety green fields and the

ice-covered stubble land; pewits wailed over the lowlands and marshes,

flooded by the pools; cranes and wild geese flew high across the sky

uttering their spring calls. The cattle, bald in patches where the new

hair had not grown yet, lowed in the pastures; bowlegged lambs frisked

round their bleating dams, who were shedding their fleece;

nimble-footed children ran along the drying paths, covered with the

prints of bare feet; there was a merry chatter of peasant women over

their linen at the pond, and the ring of axes in the yard, where the

peasants were repairing plows and harrows. The real spring had come.

XIII.

Levin put on his big boots, and, for the first time, a cloth

overcoat instead of his fur cloak, and went out to look after his

farm, stepping over streams of water that flashed in the sunshine

and dazzled his eyes, and stepping one minute on ice and the next into

sticky mud.

Spring is the time of plans and projects. And, as he came out into

the farmyard, Levin, like a tree in spring that knows not what form

will be taken by the young shoots and twigs imprisoned in its swelling

buds, hardly knew what undertakings he was going to launch upon now in

the farmwork that was so dear to him. But he felt that he was full

of the most splendid plans and projects. First of all he went to the

cattle. The cows had been let out into their paddock, and their smooth

sides were already glossy with their new, sleek, spring coats; they

basked in the sunshine and lowed to go to the meadow. Levin gazed

admiringly at the cows he knew so intimately to the minutest detail of

their condition, and gave orders for them to be driven out into the

meadow, and the calves to be let into the paddock. The herdsman ran

gaily to get ready for the meadow. The cowherd girls, picking up their

petticoats, ran splashing through the mud with bare legs, still white,

not yet brown from the sun, waving brushwood in their hands, chasing

the calves that frolicked in the mirth of spring.

After admiring the increase of that year, which were particularly

fine- the early calves were the size of a peasant's cow, and Pava's

daughter, at three months old, was as big as a yearling- Levin gave

orders for a trough to be brought out and hay to be put in the

racks. But it appeared that, since the paddock had not been used

during the winter, the racks made in the autumn were broken. He sent

for the carpenter, who, according to his orders, ought to have been at

work at the threshing machine. But it appeared that the carpenter

was repairing the harrows, which ought to have been repaired before

Lent. This was very annoying to Levin. It was annoying to come upon

that everlasting slovenliness in the farmwork against which he had

been striving with all his might for so many years. The racks, as he

ascertained, being not wanted in winter, had been carried to the

cart horses' stable, and there broken, as they were of light

construction, only meant for foddering calves. Moreover, it was

apparent also that the harrows and all the agricultural implements,

which he had directed to be looked over and repaired in the winter,

for which very purpose he had hired three carpenters, had not been put

into repair, and the harrows were being repaired when they ought to

have been harrowing the field. Levin sent for his bailiff, but

immediately went off himself to look for him. The bailiff, beaming all

over, like everything that day, in a sheepskin bordered with

astrakhan, came out of the barn, twisting a bit of straw in his hands.

"Why isn't the carpenter at the threshing machine?"

"Oh, I meant to tell you yesterday, the harrows want repairing. Here

it's time they got to work in the fields."

"But what were they doing in the winter, then?"

"But what did you want the carpenter for?"

"Where are the racks for the calves' paddock?"

"I ordered them to be got ready. What would you have with those

people!" said the bailiff, with a wave of his hand.

"It's not those people but this bailiff!" said Levin, getting angry.

"Why, what do I keep you for?" he cried. But, bethinking himself

that this would not help matters, he stopped short in the middle of

a sentence, and merely sighed. "Well, what do you say? Can sowing

begin?" he asked, after a pause.

"Behind Turkino, tomorrow or next day, they might begin."

"And the clover?"

"I've sent Vassilii and Mishka; they're sowing it. Only I don't know

if they'll manage to get through; it's so slushy."

"How many dessiatinas?

"Six."

"Why not sow all?" cried Levin.

That they were only sowing the clover on six dessiatinas, not in all

the twenty, was still more annoying to him. Clover, as he knew, both

from books and from his own experience, never did well except when

it was sown as early as possible, almost in the snow. And yet Levin

could never get this done.

"There's no one to send. What would you do with such people? Three

haven't turned up. And there's Semion..."

"Well, you should have taken some men from the chaffcutter."

"And so I have, as it is."

"Where are the peasants, then?"

"Five are making compote" (which meant compost), "and four are

shifting the oats for fear of being touched, Konstantin Dmitrich."

Levin knew very well that "touching" meant that his English seed

oats were already spoiled. Again they had not done as he had ordered.

"Why, but I told you during Lent to put in pipes," he cried.

"Don't be put out; we shall get it all done in time."

Levin made an angry gesture, and went into the granary to glance

at the oats, and then to the stable. The oats were not yet spoiled.

But the laborers were carrying the oats in spades when they might

simply let them slide down into the lower granary; and arranging for

this to be done, and taking two laborers from there for sowing clover,

Levin got over the vexation his bailiff had caused him. Indeed, it was

such a lovely day that one could not be angry.

"Ignat!" he called to the coachman, who, with his sleeves tucked up,

was washing the carriage wheels, "saddle..."

"Which, sir?"

"Well, let it be Kolpik."

"Yes, sir."

While they were saddling his horse, Levin again called the

bailiff, who was hanging about in sight, to make it up with him, and

began talking to him about the spring operations before them, and

his plans for the farming.

The wagons were to begin carting manure earlier, so as to get all

done before the early mowing. And the plowing of the outlying land was

to go on without a break, so as to let it lie black fallow and

furrowed. And the moving to be all done by hired labor, not on

half-profits.

The bailiff listened attentively, and obviously made an effort to

approve of his employer's projects. But still he had that look Levin

knew so well that always irritated him, a look of hopelessness and

despondency. That look said: "That's all very well, but as God wills."

Nothing mortified Levin so much as that tone. But it was the tone

common to all the bailiffs he had ever had. They had all taken that

attitude to his plans, and so now he was not angered by it, but

mortified, and felt all the more roused to struggle against this

apparently elemental force continually ranged against him, for which

he could find no other name than "as God wills."

"If we can manage it, Konstantin Dmitrich," said the bailiff.

"Why shouldn't you manage it?"

"We positively must have fifteen laborers more. And they don't

turn up. There were some here today asking seventy roubles for the

summer."

Levin was silent. Again he was brought face to face with that

opposing force. He knew that however much they tried, they could not

hire more than forty- thirty-seven perhaps or thirty-eight- laborers

for a reasonable sum; some forty had been taken on, and there were

no more. But still he could not help struggling against it.

"Send to Sury, to Chefirovka, if they don't come. We must look for

them."

"I'll send, to be sure," said Vassilii Fiodorovich despondently.

"But then there are the horses- they're not good for much."

"We'll get some more. I know, of course," Levin added laughing, "you

always want to do with as little and as poor a quality as possible;

but this year I'm not going to let you have things your own way.

I'll see to everything myself."

"Why, I don't think you take much rest as it is. It cheers us up

to work under the master's eye...."

"So they're sowing clover behind the Birch Dale? I'll go and have

a look at them," he said, mounting the little bay cob, Kolpik, who was

led up by the coachman.

"You can't get across the stream, Konstantin Dmitrich," the coachman

shouted.

"All right, I'll go by the forest."

And Levin rode through the slush of the farmyard to the gate and out

into the open country, his good little horse, after his long

inactivity, ambling easily, snorting over the pools, and asking, as it

were, for guidance.

If Levin had felt happy before in the cattle pens and farmyard, he

felt happier yet in the open country. Swaying rhythmically with the

ambling paces of his good little cob, drinking in the warm yet fresh

scent of the snow and the air, as he rode through his forest over

the crumbling, wasted snow, still left in parts, and covered with

dissolving tracks, he rejoiced over every tree, with the moss reviving

on its bark and the buds swelling on its shoots. When he came out of

the forest, in the immense plain before him, his winter fields

stretched in an unbroken carpet of green, without one bare place or

swamp, only spotted here and there in the hollows with patches of

melting snow. He was not put out of temper even by the sight of the

peasants' horse and colt trampling down his young grass (he told a

peasant he met to drive them out), nor by the sarcastic and stupid

reply of the peasant Ipat, whom he met on the way, and asked, "Well,

Ipat, shall we soon be sowing?" "We must get the plowing done first,

Konstantin Dmitrich," answered Ipat. The farther he rode, the

happier he became, and plans for the land rose to his mind each better

than the last: to plant all his fields with hedges along the

southern borders, so that the snow should not lie under them; to

divide them up into six fields of tillage and three for pasture and

hay; to build a cattle yard at the further end of the estate, and to

dig a pond and to construct movable pens for the cattle as a means

of manuring the land. And then three hundred dessiatinas of wheat, one

hundred of potatoes, and one hundred and fifty of clover, and not a

dessiatina exhausted.

Absorbed in such dreams, carefully keeping his horse by the hedges

so as not to trample his young winter fields, he rode up to the

laborers who had been sent to sow clover. A telega with the seed in it

was standing, not at the edge, but in the middle of the tillage, and

the winter corn had been torn up by the wheels and trampled by the

horse. Both the laborers were sitting in the hedge, probably smoking a

pipe, turn and turn about. The earth in the telega, with which the

seed was mixed, was not crushed to powder, but crusted together or

adhering in clods. Seeing the master, the laborer, Vassilii, went

toward the telega, while Mishka set to work sowing. This was not as it

should be, but with the laborers Levin seldom lost his temper. When

Vassilii came up, Levin told him to lead the horse to the hedge.

"Never mind, sir, it'll spring up again," responded Vassilii.

"Please don't argue," said Levin, "but do as you're told."

"Yes, sir," answered Vassilii, and he took the horse's head. "What a

sowing, Konstantin Dmitrich!" he said ingratiatingly. "First-rate.

Only it's a work to get about! A fellow drags thirty pounds of earth

at every step."

"Why is it you have earth that's not sifted?" said Levin.

"Well, we crumble it up," answered Vassilii, taking up some seed and

rolling the earth in his palms.

Vassilii was not to blame for their having fired up his telega

with unsifted earth, but still it was annoying.

Levin had already, more than once, tried a way he knew for

stifling his anger, and turning all that seemed dark right again,

and he tried that way now. He watched how Mishka strode along,

swinging the huge clods of earth that clung to each foot; and, getting

off his horse, he took the sieve from Vassilii and started sowing

himself.

"Where did you stop?"

Vassilii pointed to the mark with his foot, and Levin went forward

as best he could, scattering the seed on the land. Walking was as

difficult as on a bog, and by the time Levin had ended the row he

was in a great heat, and, stopping, gave the sieve over to Vassilii.

"Well master, when summer's here, mind you don't scold me for this

row," said Vassilii.

"Eh?" said Levin cheerily, already feeling the effect of his method.

"Why, you'll see in the summertime. It'll look different. Look you

where I sowed last spring. How I did work at it I do my best,

Konstantin Dmitrich, d'ye see, as I would for my own father. I don't

like botchwork myself, nor would I let another man do it. What's

good for the master is good for us too. It does one's heart good,"

said Vassilii, pointing, "to look over yonder."

"It's a lovely spring, Vassilii."

"Why, it's a spring such as even the old men don't remember the like

of. I was up home; my father there has sown wheat too, three osminas

of it. He was saying you couldn't tell it from rye."

"Have you been sowing wheat long?"

"Why, sir, it was you taught us, the year before last. You gave me

two measures. We sold about one chetvert and sowed three osminas."

"Well, mind you crumble up the clods," said Levin, going toward

his horse, "and keep an eye on Mishka. And if there's a good crop

you shall have half a rouble for every dessiatina."

"Thank you, kindly. We are very well content, sir, with your

treatment, as it is."

Levin got on his horse and rode toward the field where last year's

clover was, and the one which was plowed ready for the spring corn.

The crop of clover coming up in the stubble was magnificent. It

had revived already, and stood up vividly green through the broken

stalks of last year's wheat. The horse sank in up to the pasterns, and

he drew each hoof with a sucking sound out of the half-thawed

ground. Over the plowland the riding was utterly impossible; the horse

could only keep a foothold where there was ice, and in the thawing

furrows he sank in deep at each step. The plowland was in splendid

condition; in a couple of days it would be fit for harrowing and

sowing. Everything was capital, everything was cheering. Levin rode

back across the streams, hoping the water would have gone down. And he

did in fact get across, and startled two ducks. "There must be

woodcock here too," he thought, and just as he reached the turning

homewards he met the forest keeper, who confirmed his theory about the

woodcock.

Levin went home at a trot, so as to have time to eat his dinner

and get his gun ready for the evening.

XIV.

As he rode up to the house in the happiest frame of mind, Levin

heard the bell ring at the side of the principal entrance of the

house.

"Yes, that's someone from the railway station," he thought, "just

the time to be here from the Moscow train.... Who could it be? What if

it's brother Nikolai? He did say: 'I may go to the waters, or I may

come down to you.'" He felt dismayed and vexed for the first minute

that his brother Nikolai's presence should come to his happy mood of

spring. But he felt ashamed of the feeling, and at once he opened,

as it were, the arms of his soul, and with a softened feeling of joy

and expectation, he now hoped with all his heart that it was his

brother. He spurred on his horse, and as he rode out from behind the

acacias, he saw a hired troika from the railway station, and a

gentleman in a fur coat. It was not his brother. "Oh, if it were

only some pleasant person one could talk to a little!" he thought.

"Ah," cried Levin joyfully, flinging up both his hands. "Here's a

delightful visitor! Ah, how glad I am to see you!" he shouted,

recognizing Stepan Arkadyevich.

"I shall find out for certain whether she's married, or when she's

going to be married," he thought.

And on that delicious spring day he felt that the thought of her did

not hurt him at all.

"Didn't expect me, did you?" said Stepan Arkadyevich, getting out of

the sleigh, splashed with mud on the bridge of his nose, on his cheek,

and on his eyebrows, but radiant with health and good spirits. "I've

come primarily to see you," he said, embracing and kissing him,

"secondly, to have some stand shooting, and thirdly, to sell the

forest at Ergushovo."

"Delightful! What a spring we're having! How ever did you get

along in a sleigh?"

"In a wagon it would have been worse still, Konstantin Dmitrievich,"

answered the driver, who knew him.

"Well, I'm very, very glad to see you," said Levin, with a genuine

smile of childlike delight.

Levin led his friend to the guest room, where Stepan Arkadyevich's

things were also carried- a bag, a gun in a case, a satchel for

cigars. Leaving him there to wash and change his clothes, Levin went

off to the countinghouse to speak about the plowing and the clover.

Agathya Mikhailovna, always very anxious for the credit of the

house, met him in the hall with inquiries about dinner.

"Do just as you like, only let it be as soon as possible," he

said, and went to the bailiff.

When he came back, Stepan Arkadyevich, washed and combed, came out

of his room with a beaming smile, and they went upstairs together.

"Well, I am glad I managed to get away to you! Now I shall

understand what the mysterious business is that you are always

absorbed in here. No, really, I envy you. What a house, how splendid

it all is! So bright, so cheerful!" said Stepan Arkadyevich,

forgetting that it was not always spring and fine weather as on this

day. "And your old nurse is simply charming! A pretty maid in an apron

might be even more agreeable, perhaps; but for your severe monastic

style it does very well."

Stepan Arkadyevich imparted to him many interesting bits of news;

especially interesting to Levin was the news that his brother,

Sergei Ivanovich, was intending to spend the summer with him in the

country.

Not one word did Stepan Arkadyevich say in reference to Kitty and

the Shcherbatskys; he merely gave him greetings from his wife. Levin

was grateful to him for his delicacy, and rejoiced exceedingly over

his guest. As always happened with him during his solitude, a mass

of ideas and feelings had been accumulating within him, which he could

not communicate to those about him. And now he poured out upon

Stepan Arkadyevich his poetic joy over the spring, and his failures

and plans for the land, and his thoughts and criticisms on the books

he had been reading, and the idea of his own book, the basis of

which really was, though he was unaware of it himself, a criticism

of all the old books on agriculture. Stepan Arkadyevich, always

charming, understanding everything at the slightest reference, was

particularly charming on this visit, and Levin noticed in him a

special tenderness, as it were, and a new tone of respect that

flattered him.

The efforts of Agathya Mikhailovna and the cook to have the dinner

particularly good, only ended in the two famished friends attacking

the preliminary course, eating a great deal of bread and butter,

salt goose and salted mushrooms, and in Levin's finally ordering the

soup to be served without the accompaniment of little patties, with

which the cook had particularly meant to impress their visitor. But

though Stepan Arkadyevich was accustomed to very different dinners, he

thought everything excellent: the herb brandy, and the bread, and

the butter, and, above all, the salt goose and the mushrooms, and

the nettle soup, and the chicken in white sauce, and the white Crimean

wine- everything was excellent and marvelous.

"Splendid, splendid!" he said, lighting a fat cigar after the roast.

"I feel as if, coming to you, I had landed on a peaceful shore after

the noise and jolting of a steamer. And so you maintain that the

laborer himself is an element to be studied, and to regulate the

choice of methods in agriculture. Of course, I'm an ignorant outsider;

but I should fancy theory and its application will have its

influence on the laborer too."

"Yes, but wait a bit. I'm not talking of political economy- I'm

talking of the science of agriculture. It ought to be like the natural

sciences, and to observe given phenomena and the laborer in his

economic, ethnographical..."

At that instant Agathya Mikhailovna came in with jam.

"Oh, Agathya Fiodorovna," said Stepan Arkadyevich, kissing the

tips of his plump fingers, "what salt goose, what herb brandy!... What

do you think, isn't it time to start, Kostia?" he added.

Levin looked out of the window at the sun sinking behind the bare

treetops of the forest.

"Yes, it's time," he said. "Kouzma, get ready the wide droshky," and

he ran downstairs.

Stepan Arkadyevich, going down, carefully took the canvas cover

off his varnished gun case with his own hands, and opening it, began

to get ready his expensive, new-fashioned gun. Kouzma, who already

scented a big tip, never left Stepan Arkadyevich's side, and put on

him both his stockings and boots, a task which Stepan Arkadyevich

readily left to him.

"Kostia, give orders that if the merchant Riabinin comes- I told him

to come today- he's to be shown in and asked to wait for me..."

"Why, do you mean to say you're selling the forest to Riabinin?"

"Yes. Do you know him?"

"To be sure I do. I have had to do business with him, 'positively

and definitively.'"

Stepan Arkadyevich laughed. 'Positively and definitively' were the

merchant's favorite words.

"Yes, it's wonderfully funny the way he talks. She knows where her

master's going!" he added, patting Laska, who hung about Levin,

whining and licking his hands, his boots, and his gun.

The droshky was already at the steps when they went out.

"I told them to bring the droshky round, though it's not far to

go; or would you rather walk?"

"No, we'd better drive," said Stepan Arkadyevich, getting into the

droshky. He sat down, tucked the tiger-striped rug round him, and

lighted a cigar. "How is it you don't smoke? A cigar is a sort of

thing, not exactly a pleasure, but the crown and outward sign of

pleasure. Come, this is life! How splendid it is! This is how I should

like to live!"

"Why, who prevents you?" said Levin, smiling.

"No, you're a lucky man! You've got everything you like. You like

horses- and you have them; dogs- you have them; shooting- you have it;

farming- you have it."

"Perhaps because I rejoice in what I have, and don't fret for what I

haven't," said Levin, thinking of Kitty.

Stepan Arkadyevich comprehended, looked at him, but said nothing.

Levin was grateful to Oblonsky, for noticing, with his never-failing

tact, that he dreaded conversation about the Shcherbatskys, and so

saying nothing about them. But now Levin was longing to find out about

that which was tormenting him so, yet had not the courage to begin.

"Come, tell me how things are going with you," said Levin,

bethinking himself that it was not good of him to think only of

himself.

Stepan Arkadyevich's eyes sparkled merrily.

"You don't admit, I know, that one can be fond of new rolls when one

has had one's ration of bread- to your mind it's a crime; but I

don't count life as life without love," he said, taking Levin's

question in his own way. "What am I to do? I'm made that way. And

really, one does so little harm to anyone, and gives oneself so much

pleasure..."

"What! is there something new, then?" queried Levin.

"Yes, my boy, there is! There, do you see, you know the type of

Ossian's women... women, such as one sees in dreams... Well, these

women are sometimes to be met with in reality.... And these women

are terrible. Woman, don't you know, is such a subject that no

matter how much you study it, it's always perfectly new."

"Well, then, it would be better not to study it."

"No. Some mathematician has said that enjoyment lies in the search

for truth, not in the finding of it."

Levin listened in silence, and, in spite of all the efforts he made,

he could not in the least enter into the feelings of his friend and

understand his sentiments and the charm of studying such women.

XV.

The place fixed on for the stand shooting was not far above a stream

in a little aspen copse. On reaching the copse, Levin got out of the

droshky and led Oblonsky to a corner of a mossy, swampy glade, already

quite free from snow. He went back himself to a double birch tree on

the other side, and, leaning his gun on the fork of a dead lower

branch, he took off his full overcoat, fastened his belt again, and

worked his arms to see if they were free.

Gray old Laska, who had followed them, sat down warily opposite

him and pricked up her ears. The sun was setting behind a thick

forest, and in the glow of sunset the birch trees, dotted about in the

aspen copse, stood out clearly with their hanging twigs, and their

buds swollen almost to bursting.

From the thickest parts of the copse, where the snow still remained,

came the faint sound of narrow winding streamlets of water running

away. Tiny birds twittered, and now and then fluttered from tree to

tree.

In the pauses of complete stillness there came the rustle of last

year's leaves, stirred by the thawing of the earth and the growth of

grasses.

"Imagine! One can hear and see the grass growing!" Levin said to

himself, noticing a wet, slate-colored aspen leaf moving beside a

blade of young grass. He stood, listened, and gazed sometimes down

at the wet mossy ground, sometimes at Laska listening all alert,

sometimes at the sea of bare treetops that stretched on the slope

below him, sometimes at the darkening sky, covered with white

streaks of cloud. A hawk flew high over a forest far away with a

slow sweep of its wings; another flew with exactly the same motion

in the same direction and vanished. The birds twittered more and

more loudly and busily in the thicket. An owl hooted not far off,

and Laska, starting, stepped cautiously a few steps forward, and,

putting her head on one side, began to listen intently. Beyond the

stream was heard the cuckoo. Twice she uttered her usual call, and

then became hoarse, hurried, and broke down.

"Imagine! The cuckoo already!" said Stepan Arkadyevich, coming out

from behind a bush.

"Yes, I hear it," answered Levin, reluctantly breaking the stillness

with his voice, which sounded disagreeable to himself. "Now it's

coming!"

Stepan Arkadyevich's figure again went behind the bush, and Levin

saw nothing but the bright flash of a match, followed by the red

glow and blue smoke of a cigarette.

Tchk! Tchk! came the snapping sound of Stepan Arkadyevich cocking

his gun.

"What's that cry?" asked Oblonsky, drawing Levin's attention to a

prolonged cry, as though a colt were whinnying in a high voice, in

play.

"Oh, don't you know it? That's a buck hare. But enough talking!

Listen- here it comes!" almost shrieked Levin, cocking his gun.

They heard a shrill whistle in the distance, and in the exact

time, so well known to the sportsman, two seconds later- another, a

third, and, after the third whistle, the hoarse, guttural cry could be

heard.

Levin looked about him to right and to left, and there, just

facing him against the dusky blue sky above the confused mass of

tender shoots of the aspens, he saw the flying bird. It was flying

straight toward him; the guttural cry, like the even tearing of some

strong stuff, sounded close to his ear; the long beak and neck of

the bird could be seen, and at the very instant when Levin was

taking aim, behind the bush where Oblonsky stood, there was a flash of

red lightning: the bird dropped like an arrow, and darted upward

again. Again came the red flash and the sound of a blow, and,

fluttering its wings as though trying to keep up in the air, the

bird paused, stopped still an instant, and fell with a heavy splash to

the slushy ground.

"Can I possibly have missed it?" shouted Stepan Arkadyevich, who

could not see for the smoke.

"Here it is!" said Levin, pointing to Laska, who, with one ear

pricked up, wagging the tip of her shaggy tail, was coming slowly

back, as though she would prolong the pleasure, and seemingly smiling,

was bringing the dead bird to her master. "Well, I'm glad you were

successful," said Levin, who, at the same time, had a sense of envy

that he had not succeeded in shooting the woodcock.

"It was a bad shot from the right barrel," responded Stepan

Arkadyevich, loading his gun. "Sh... Here it comes!"

The shrill whistles rapidly following one another were heard

again. Two woodcocks, playing and chasing one another, and only

whistling, not crying, flew straight at the very heads of the

sportsmen. There was the report of four shots, and like swallows,

the woodcocks turned swift somersaults in the air and vanished from

sight.

The stand shooting was capital. Stepan Arkadyevich shot two more

birds, and Levin two, of which one was not found. It began to get

dark. Venus, bright and silvery, shone with her soft light low down in

the west, behind the birch trees, and high up in the east twinkled the

red fires of somber Arcturus. Over his head Levin made out the stars

of the Great Bear and lost them again. The woodcocks had ceased

flying; but Levin resolved to stay a little longer, till Venus,

which he saw below a branch of birch, should be above it, and the

stars of the Great Bear should be perfectly plain. Venus had risen

above the branch, and the chariot of the Great Bear with its shaft was

now all plainly visible against the dark blue sky, yet still he

waited.

"Isn't it time to go home?" said Stepan Arkadyevich.

It was quite still now in the copse, and not a bird was stirring.

"Let's stay a little while," answered Levin.

"As you like."

They were standing now about fifteen paces from one another.

"Stiva!" said Levin unexpectedly; "how is it you don't tell me

whether your sister-in-law's married yet, or when she's going to be?"

Levin felt so resolute and serene that no answer he fancied could

affect him. But he had never dreamed of the answer which Stepan

Arkadyevich made.

"She's never thought of being married, and isn't thinking of it; but

she's very ill, and the doctors have sent her abroad. They're

positively afraid she may not live."

"What!" cried Levin. "Very ill? What is wrong with her? How is

she?..."

While they were speaking, Laska, with ears pricked up, was looking

upward at the sky, and, reproachfully, at them.

"What a time they have chosen to gab," she was thinking. "There it

comes.... Here it is- yes, sure enough. They'll miss it..." thought

Laska.

But at that very instant both suddenly heard a shrill whistle which,

as it were, smote on their ears, and both suddenly seized their guns

and two flashes gleamed, and two bangs sounded at the very same

instant. The woodcock flying high above instantly folded its wings and

fell into a thicket, bending down the delicate shoots.

"Splendid! Together!" cried Levin, and he ran with Laska into the

thicket to look for the woodcock.

"Oh, yes, what was it that was unpleasant?" he recollected. "Yes,

Kitty's ill... Well, it can't be helped; I'm very sorry," he thought.

"She's found it! Isn't she a clever girl?" he said, taking the

warm bird from Laska's mouth and packing it into the almost full

gamebag. "I've got it, Stiva!" he shouted.

XVI.

On the way home Levin asked all the details of Kitty's illness and

of the Shcherbatskys' plans, and though he would have been ashamed

to admit it, he was pleased at what he heard. He was pleased that

there was still hope, and still more pleased that she, who had made

him suffer, should be suffering so much. But when Stepan Arkadyevich

began to speak of the causes of Kitty's illness, and mentioned

Vronsky's name, Levin cut him short.

"I have no right whatever to know family matters, and, to tell the

truth, no interest in them either."

Stepan Arkadyevich smiled a barely perceptible smile, catching the

instantaneous change he knew so well in Levin's face, which had become

as gloomy as it had been bright a minute before.

"Have you quite settled about the forest with Riabinin?" asked

Levin.

"Yes, it's all settled. The price is magnificent- thirty-eight

thousand. Eight straightaway, and the rest in six years. I've been

bothering about it for ever so long. No one would give more."

"Then you've as good as given away your forest for nothing," said

Levin gloomily.

"How do you mean- for nothing?" said Stepan Arkadyevich with a

good-humored smile, knowing that nothing would be right in Levin's

eyes now.

"Because the forest is worth at least five hundred roubles the

dessiatina," answered Levin.

"Oh, these farmers!" said Stepan Arkadyevich playfully. "Your tone

of contempt for us poor townsfolk!... But when it comes to business,

we are better at it than anyone. I assure you I have reckoned it all

out," he said, "and the forest is fetching a very good price- so

much so that I'm afraid of this fellow's crying off, in fact. You know

it's not 'timber forest,'" said Stepan Arkadyevich, hoping by this

distinction to convince Levin completely of the unfairness of his

doubts, "but for the most part firewood. And it won't run to more than

thirty sazhenes of wood per dessiatina, and he's paying me at the rate

of two hundred roubles the dessiatina."

Levin smiled contemptuously. "I know," he thought, "that fashion not

only in him, but in all city people, who, after being twice in ten

years in the country, pick up two or three phrases and use them in

season and out of season, firmly persuaded that they know all about

it. 'Timber, run to thirty sazhenes the dessiatina.' He says those

words without understanding them himself."

"I wouldn't attempt to teach you what you write about in your

office," said he, "and if need arose, I should come to you to ask

about it. But you're so positive you know all the lore of the

forest. It's difficult. Have you counted the trees?"

"How count the trees?" said Stepan Arkadyevich, laughing, still

trying to draw his friend out of his ill temper. "Count sands of seas,

and rays of stars, though could some higher power..."

"Oh, well, the higher power of Riabinin can. Not a single merchant

ever buys a forest without counting the trees, unless they get it

given them for nothing, as you're doing now. I know your forest. I

go there every year shooting, and your forest's worth five hundred a

dessiatina paid down, while he's giving you two hundred by

installments. So that in fact you're making him a present of thirty

thousand."

"Come, don't let your imagination run away with you," said Stepan

Arkadyevich piteously. "Why was it none would give it, then?"

"Why, because he has an understanding with the merchants; he's

bought them off. I've had to do with all of them; I know them. They're

not merchants, you know; they're speculators. He wouldn't look at a

bargain that gave him ten, fifteen per cent profit, but holds back

to buy a rouble's worth for twenty kopecks."

"Well, enough of it! You're out of temper."

"Not in the least," said Levin gloomily, as they drove up to the

house.

At the steps there stood a trap tightly covered with iron and

leather, with a sleek horse tightly harnessed with broad collar

straps. In the trap sat the chubby, tightly belted overseer who served

Riabinin as coachman. Riabinin himself was already in the house, and

met the friends in the hall. Riabinin was a tall, thinnish,

middle-aged man, with mustache and a projecting clean-shaven chin, and

prominent muddy-looking eyes. He was dressed in a long-skirted blue

coat, with buttons below the waist at the back, and wore high boots

wrinkled over the ankles and straight over the calf, with big galoshes

drawn over them. He mopped his face with his handkerchief, and,

wrapping himself in his coat, which sat extremely well as it was, he

greeted them with a smile, holding out his hand to Stepan Arkadyevich,

as though he wanted to catch something.

"So, here you are," said Stepan Arkadyevich, giving him his hand.

"That's capital."

"I did not venture to disregard Your Excellency's commands, though

the road was extremely bad. I positively covered the whole way at a

walk, but I am here on time. Konstantin Dmitrich, my respects"; he

turned to Levin, trying to seize his hand too. But Levin, scowling,

made as though he did not notice his hand, and took out the woodcocks.

"Your honors have been diverting yourselves with the chase? What

kind of bird may it be, pray?" added Riabinin, looking

contemptuously at the woodcocks: "a great delicacy, I suppose." And he

shook his head disapprovingly, as though he had grave doubts whether

this game were worth the candle.

"Would you like to go into my study?" Levin said in French to Stepan

Arkadyevich, scowling morosely. "Go into my study; you can talk

there."

"Quite so, wherever you please," said Riabinin with supercilious

dignity, as though wishing to make it felt that others might be in

difficulties as to how to behave, but that he could never be in any

difficulty about anything.

On entering the study Riabinin looked about, as it was a habit of

his, as though seeking a holy image, but, when he had found it, he did

not cross himself. He scanned the bookcases and bookshelves, and

with the same dubious air with which he had regarded the woodcocks, he

smiled superciliously and shook his head disapprovingly, as though

by no means willing to allow that this game, either, were worth the

candle.

"Well, have you brought the money?" asked Oblonsky. "Sit down."

"Oh, don't trouble about the money. I've come to see you to talk

it over."

"What is there to talk over? But do sit down."

"I don't mind if I do," said Riabinin, sitting down and leaning

his elbows on the back of his armchair in a position of the

intensest discomfort to himself. "You must knock it down a bit,

Prince. It would be a sin otherwise. As for the money, it is ready

definitively, to the last kopeck. As for money down, there'll be no

hitch there."

Levin, who had meanwhile been putting his gun away in the

cupboard, was just going out of the door, but catching the

merchant's words, he stopped.

"Why, you've got the forest for nothing as it is," he said. "He came

to me too late, or I'd have fixed the price for him."

Riabinin got up, and in silence, with a smile, he looked up at

Levin.

"Konstantin Dmitrievich is very close," he said with a smile,

turning to Stepan Arkadyevich; "there's definitively no dealing with

him. I was bargaining for some wheat of him, and a pretty price I

offered too."

"Why should I give you what's mine for nothing? I didn't pick it

up off the ground, nor did I steal it, either."

"Mercy on us! Nowadays there's positively no chance at all of

stealing. With the definitively open courts, and everything done in

style, nowadays there's no question of stealing. We are just talking

things over like gentlemen. His Excellency's asking too much for the

forest. I can't make both ends meet over it. I must ask for a little

concession."

"But is the thing settled between you or isn't it? If it's

settled, it's useless haggling; but if it isn't," said Levin, "I'll

buy the forest."

The smile vanished at once from Riabinin's face. A hawklike, greedy,

cruel expression was left upon it. With rapid, bony fingers he

unbuttoned his coat, revealing a large shirt, bronze waistcoat

buttons, and a watch chain, and quickly pulled out a fat old

pocketbook.

"Here you are, the forest is mine," he said, crossing himself

quickly, and holding out his hand. "Take the money; it's my forest.

That's Riabinin's way of doing business; he doesn't haggle over

every copper," he added, scowling and waving the pocketbook.

"I wouldn't be in a hurry if I were you," said Levin.

"Come, really," said Oblonsky in surprise, "I've given my word,

you know."

Levin went out of the room, slamming the door. Riabinin looked

toward the door and shook his head with a smile.

"It's all youthfulness- definitively nothing but childishness.

Why, I'm buying it, upon my honor, simply, believe me, for the glory

of it, that Riabinin, and no one else, should have bought the copse of

Oblonsky. And as to the profits, why, I must make what God gives.

God's my witness. If you would kindly sign the title deed..."

Within an hour the merchant, carefully stroking his wrapper down,

and hooking up his coat, with the agreement in his pocket, seated

himself in his tightly covered trap, and drove homeward.

"Ugh, these gentlefolk!" he said to the overseer. "They are all made

alike! they're a fine lot!"

"That's so," responded the overseer, handing him the reins and

buttoning the leather apron. "But can I congratulate you on the

purchase, Mikhail Ignatich?"

"Well, well..."

XVII.

Stepan Arkadyevich went upstairs with his pocket bulging with

notes which the merchant had paid him for three months in advance. The

business of the forest was over, the money in his pocket; their

shooting had been excellent, and Stepan Arkadyevich was in the

happiest frame of mind, and therefore felt especially anxious to

dissipate the ill-humor that had come upon Levin. He wanted to

finish the day at supper as pleasantly as it had been begun.

Levin certainly was out of humor, and, in spite of all his desire to

be affectionate and cordial to his charming guest, he could not

control his mood. The aftereffects of the intoxication of the news

that Kitty was not married had gradually begun to work upon him.

Kitty was not married, and was ill, and ill from love for a man

who had slighted her. This offense, as it were, rebounded upon him.

Vronsky had slighted her, and she had slighted him, Levin.

Consequently Vronsky had the right to despise Levin, and therefore

he was his enemy. But all this Levin did not think of. He vaguely felt

that there was something in it insulting to him, and he was not

angry now at what had disturbed him, but he fell foul of everything

that presented itself. The stupid sale of the forest, the fraud

practised upon Oblonsky and concluded in his house, exasperated him.

"Well, finished?" he said, meeting Stepan Arkadyevich upstairs.

"Would you like supper?"

"Well, I wouldn't say no to it. What an appetite I get in the

country! Wonderful! Why didn't you offer Riabinin something?"

"Oh, damn him!"

"Still, how you do treat him!" said Oblonsky. "You didn't even shake

hands with him. Why not shake hands with him?"

"Because I don't shake hands with a waiter, and a waiter's a hundred

times better than he is."

"What a reactionist you are, really! What about the amalgamation

of classes?" said Oblonsky.

"Anyone who likes it is welcome to it, but it sickens me."

"You're a downright reactionist, I see."

"Really. I have never considered what I am. I am Konstantin Levin,

and nothing else."

"And Konstantin Levin very much out of temper," said Stepan

Arkadyevich, smiling.

"Yes, I am out of temper, and do you know why? Because- excuse me-

of your stupid sale...."

Stepan Arkadyevich frowned good-humoredly, like one who feels

himself teased and attacked for no fault of his own.

"Come, enough about that!" he said. "When did anybody ever sell

anything without being told immediately after the sale, 'It was

worth much more'? But when one wants to sell, no one will give

anything.... No, I see you've a grudge against that unlucky Riabinin."

"Maybe I have. And do you know why? You'll say again that I'm a

reactionist, or some other terrible word; but all the same it does

annoy and anger me to see on all sides the impoverishing of the

nobility to which I belong, and, in spite of the amalgamation of

classes, I'm glad to belong. And their impoverishment is not due to

living in luxury- that would be nothing; living in good style-

that's the proper thing for noblemen: it's only the nobles who know

how to do it. Now, the peasants about us buy land, and I don't mind

that. The gentleman does nothing, while the peasant works and

supplants the idle man. That's as it should be. And I welcome the

peasant. But I do mind seeing the process of impoverishment from a

sort of- I don't know what to call it- innocence. Here a Polish lessee

bought for half its value a magnificent estate from a lady who lives

in Nice. And there a merchant leases land, worth ten roubles in rent

the dessiatina, for one rouble. Here, for no kind of reason, you've

made that cheat a present of thirty thousand roubles."

"Well, what should I have done? Counted every tree?"

"Of course, they must be counted. You didn't count them, but

Riabinin did. Riabinin's children will have means of livelihood and

education, while yours, like as not, won't!"

"Well, you must excuse me, but there's something mean in this

counting. We have our business and they have theirs, and they must

make their profit. Anyway, the thing's done, and there's an end of it.

And here come some fried eggs, my favorite dish. And Agathya

Mikhailovna will give us that marvelous herb brandy...."

Stepan Arkadyevich sat down at the table and began jollying

Agathya Mikhailovna, assuring her that it was long since he had tasted

such a dinner and such a supper.

"Well, you praise it, at any rate," said Agathya Mikhailovna, "but

Konstantin Dmitrievich, no matter what you give him- even a crust of

bread- will just eat it and walk away."

Though Levin tried to control himself, he was gloomy and silent.

He wanted to put one question to Stepan Arkadyevich, but he could

not bring himself to the point, and could not find the words or the

moment in which to put it. Stepan Arkadyevich had gone down to his

room, undressed, again washed, and, attired in a nightshirt with

goffered frills, had got into bed, but Levin still lingered in his

room, talking of various trifling matters, and not daring to ask

what he wanted to know.

"How wonderfully they make the soap," he said gazing at a piece of

soap he was unwrapping, which Agathya Mikhailovna had placed in

readiness for the guest, but a brand which Oblonsky did not use. "Just

look- why, it's a work of art."

"Yes, everything's brought to such a pitch of perfection

nowadays," said Stepan Arkadyevich, with a moist and blissful yawn.

"The theater, for instance, and the entertainments... A-a-a!" he

yawned. "The electric light everywhere... A-a-a!"

"Yes, the electric light," said Levin. "Yes. Oh, and where's Vronsky

now?" he asked suddenly, laying down the soap.

"Vronsky?" said Stepan Arkadyevich, checking his yawn; "he's in

Peterburg. He left soon after you did, and hasn't been once in

Moscow since. And, do you know, Kostia, I'll tell you the truth," he

went on, leaning his elbow on the table, and, with his hand,

propping up his handsome ruddy face, in which his humid, good-natured,

sleepy eyes shone like stars. "It's your own fault. You took fright at

the sight of your rival. But, as I told you at the time, I couldn't

say which had the better chance. Why didn't you fight it out? I told

you at the time that..." He yawned inwardly, without opening his

mouth.

"Does he know, or doesn't he, that I did propose?" Levin wondered

gazing at him. "Yes, there's something humbugging, something

diplomatic in his face." And, feeling he was blushing, he looked

Stepan Arkadyevich straight in the face without speaking.

"If there was anything on her side at that time, it was nothing

but a superficial attraction," pursued Oblonsky. "His being such a

perfect aristocrat, you know, and his future position in society,

had an influence not with her, but with her mother."

Levin scowled. The humiliation of his rejection stung him to the

heart, as though it were a fresh wound he had only just received.

But he was at home, and the walls of home are a support.

"Wait, wait," he began, interrupting Oblonsky. "You talk of his

being an aristocrat. But allow me to ask what it consists of, that

aristocracy of Vronsky or of anybody else, beside which I can be

looked down upon? You consider Vronsky an aristocrat, but I don't. A

man whose father crawled up from nothing at all by intrigue, and whose

mother- God knows whom she wasn't mixed up with... No, excuse me,

but I consider myself aristocratic, and people like me, who can

point back in the past to three or four honorable generations of their

family, of the highest degree of breeding (talent and intellect, of

course, are another matter), and have never curried favor with anyone,

never depended on anyone for anything, like my father and my

grandfather. And I know many such. You think it mean of me to count

the trees in my forest, while you make Riabinin a present of thirty

thousand; but you get from the government your liferent, and I don't

know what, while I shall not, and so I prize what's come to me from my

ancestors, or has been won by hard work... We are aristocrats, and not

those who can only exist by favor of the powerful ones of this

earth, and who can be bought for twenty kopecks."

"Well, but whom are you attacking? I agree with you," said Stepan

Arkadyevich, sincerely and genially; though he was aware that in the

class of those who could be bought for twenty kopecks Levin was

reckoning him as well. Levin's animation gave him genuine pleasure.

"Whom are you attacking? A good deal of what you say is not true about

Vronsky, of course, but I won't talk about that. I tell you straight

out, if I were you, I should go back with me to Moscow, and..."

"No; I don't know whether you know it or not, but I don't care.

And I tell you- I did propose, and was rejected, and Katerina

Alexandrovna is nothing now to me but a painful and humiliating

reminiscence."

"Why? What nonsense!"

"But we won't talk about it. Please forgive me, if I've been nasty,"

said Levin. Now that he had opened his heart, he became as he had been

in the morning. "You're not angry with me, Stiva? Please don't be

angry," he said, and, smiling, he took his hand.

"Of course not; not a bit- nor is there any reason to be. I'm glad

we've spoken openly. And, do you know, stand shooting in the morning

is usually good- why not go? I might go, without sleeping, straight

from shooting to the station."

"Capital."

XVIII.

Although all Vronsky's inner life was absorbed in his passion, his

external life unalterably and inevitably followed along the old

accustomed lines of his social and regimental ties and interests.

The interests of his regiment took an important place in Vronsky's

life, both because he was fond of the regiment, and still more because

the regiment was fond of him. They were not only fond of Vronsky in

his regiment, they respected him too, and were proud of him; proud

that this man, with his immense wealth, his brilliant education and

abilities, and the path open before him to every kind of success,

distinction and ambition, had disregarded all that, and of all the

interests of life had the interests of his regiment and his comrades

nearest to his heart. Vronsky was aware of his comrades' view of

him, and in addition to his liking for that sort of life, he felt

bound to keep up that reputation.

It need not be said that he did not speak of his love to any of

his comrades, nor did he betray his secret even in the wildest

drinking bouts (though indeed he was never so drunk as to lose all

control of himself). And he closed the mouths of any of his

thoughtless comrades who attempted to allude to his liaison. But, in

spite of that, his love was known to all the town; everyone guessed

with more or less certainty at his relations with Madame Karenina. The

majority of the younger men envied him for just what was the most

irksome factor in his love- the exalted position of Karenin, and the

consequent transparency to society, of their liaison.

The greater number of the young women, who envied Anna and had

long been weary of having her called righteous, rejoiced at the

fulfillment of their predictions, and were only waiting for a decisive

turn in public opinion to fall upon her with all the weight of their

scorn. They were already making ready their handfuls of mud to cast at

her when the right moment arrived. The greater number of the

middle-aged people and certain great personages were displeased at the

prospect of the impending scandal in society.

Vronsky's mother, on hearing of his liaison, was at first pleased by

it, because nothing to her mind gave such a finishing touch to a

brilliant young man as a liaison in the highest society; she was

pleased, too, that Madame Karenina, who had so taken her fancy, and

had talked so much of her son, was, after all, just like all the other

pretty and decent women- according to the Countess Vronskaia's

ideas. But she had heard of late that her son had refused a position

offered him of great importance to his career, simply in order to

remain in the regiment, where could be constantly seeing Madame

Karenina; she heard that great personages were displeased with him

on this account, and she changed her opinion. She was vexed, too, that

from all she could learn of this liaison it was not that brilliant,

graceful, worldly liaison which she would have welcomed, but a sort of

Werther's desperate passion, so she was told, which might well lead

him into follies. She had not seen him since his abrupt departure from

Moscow, and she sent her elder son to bid him to come to her.

This elder brother, too, was displeased with his younger brother. He

did not distinguish what sort of love his might be, big or little,

passionate or passionless, pure or impure (he kept a ballet girl

himself, though he was the father of a family, so he was rather

indulgent), but he knew that this love displeased those whom it was

necessary to please, and therefore he did not approve of his brother's

conduct.

Besides the service and society, Vronsky had another great interest-

horses; he was passionately fond of horses.

That year races and a steeplechase had been arranged for the

officers. Vronsky had put his name down, bought a thoroughbred English

mare, and in spite of his love, he was looking forward to the races

with intense, though reserved, excitement....

These two passions did not interfere with one another. On the

contrary, he needed occupation and distraction quite apart from his

love, so as to recruit and rest himself from the violent emotions that

agitated him.

XIX.

On the day of the races at Krasnoe Selo, Vronsky had come earlier

than usual to eat beefsteak in the common messroom of the regiment. He

had no need to be strict with himself, as his weight was exactly the

required one; but still he had to avoid gaining flesh, and so he

eschewed farinaceous and sweet dishes. He sat with his coat unbuttoned

over a white waistcoat, resting both elbows on the table, and, while

waiting for the steak he had ordered, was looking over a French

novel that lay open on his plate. He was only looking at the book to

avoid conversation with the officers coming in and out; he was

thinking.

He was thinking of Anna's promise to see him today after the

races. But he had not seen her for three days, and as her husband

had just returned from abroad, he did not know whether she would be

able to meet him today or not, and he did not know how to find out. He

had had his last interview with her at his cousin Betsy's summer

villa. He visited the summer villa of the Karenins as rarely as

possible. Now he wanted to go there, and he pondered the question of

how to do it.

"Of course I shall say Betsy has sent me to ask whether she's coming

to the races. Of course, I'll go," he decided, lifting his head from

the book. And as he vividly pictured the happiness of seeing her,

his face lighted up.

"Send to my house, and tell them to have out the carriage and

three horses as quickly as they can," he said to the servant, who

handed him the steak on a hot silver dish, and moving the dish up

toward him, he began eating.

From the adjoining billiard room came the sound of balls clicking,

of talk and laughter. Two officers appeared at the entrance door: one,

a young fellow with a weak, delicate face, who had lately joined the

regiment from the Corps of Pages; the other, a plump, elderly officer,

with a bracelet on his wrist, and little eyes, lost in fat.

Vronsky glanced at them, frowned, and looking down at his book as

though he had not noticed them, he proceeded to eat and read at the

same time.

"What? Fortifying yourself for your work?" said the plump officer,

sitting down beside him.

"As you see," responded Vronsky, knitting his brows, wiping his

mouth, and without looking at the officer.

"So you're not afraid of getting fat? said the latter, turning a

chair round for the young officer.

"What?" said Vronsky angrily, making a wry face of disgust and

showing his heavy teeth.

"You're not afraid of getting fat?"

"Waiter, sherry!" said Vronsky, without replying, and moving the

book to the other side of him, he went on reading.

The plump officer took up the list of wines and turned to the

young officer.

"You choose what we're to drink," he said, handing him the card, and

looking at him.

"Rhine wine, please," said the young officer, stealing a timid

glance at Vronsky, and trying to pull his scarcely visible mustache.

Seeing that Vronsky did not turn round, the young officer got up.

"Let's go into the billiard room," he said.

The plump officer rose submissively, and they moved toward the door.

At that moment there walked into the room the tan and well-built

Captain Iashvin. Nodding with an air of lofty contempt to the two

officers, he went up to Vronsky.

"Ah! Here he is!" he cried, bringing his big hand down heavily on

his epaulet. Vronsky looked round angrily, but his face lighted up

immediately with his characteristic expression of calm and firm

friendliness.

"That's it, Aliosha," said the captain, in his loud baritone.

"Have a bite and drink one tiny glass."

"Oh, I'm not very hungry."

"There go the inseparables," Iashvin dropped, glancing sarcastically

at the two officers who were at that instant leaving the room. And

he bent his long legs, swathed in tight riding breeches, and sat

down in the chair, too low for him, so that his knees were cramped

up in a sharp angle. "Why didn't you turn up at Theater at Krasnoe

Selo yesterday? Numerova wasn't at all bad. Where were you?"

"I was late at the Tverskys'," said Vronsky.

"Ah!" responded Iashvin.

Iashvin, a gambler and a rake, a man not merely without any

principles, but of immoral principles- Iashvin was Vronsky's

greatest friend in the regiment. Vronsky liked him both for his

exceptional physical strength, which he showed for the most part by

being able to drink like a fish and to do without sleep without

being in the slightest degree affected by it; and for his great

strength of character, which he showed in his relations with his

comrades and superior officers, commanding both fear and respect,

and also at cards, when he would play for tens of thousands and,

however much he might have drunk, always with such skill and

decision that he was reckoned the best player in the English Club.

Vronsky respected and liked Iashvin particularly because he felt

Iashvin liked him, not for his name and his money, but for himself.

And of all men he was the only one with whom Vronsky would have

liked to speak of his love. He felt that Iashvin, in spite of his

apparent contempt for every sort of feeling, was the only man who

could, so he fancied, comprehend the intense passion which now

filled his whole life. Moreover, he felt certain that Iashvin, as it

was, took no delight in gossip and scandal, and interpreted his

feeling rightly- that is to say, knew and believed that this passion

was not a joke, not a pastime, but something more serious and

important.

Vronsky had never spoken to him of his passion, but he was aware

that he knew all about it, and that he put the right interpretation on

it, and he was glad to see this in his eyes.

"Ah! yes," he said, to the announcement that Vronsky had been at the

Tverskys'; and, his black eyes shining, he plucked at his left

mustache, and began twisting it into his mouth- a bad habit he had.

"Well, and what did you do yesterday? Win anything?" asked Vronsky.

"Eight thousand. But three don't count; the chap will hardly pay

up."

"Oh, then you can afford to lose over me," said Vronsky, laughing.

(Iashvin had betted heavily on Vronsky in the races.)

"No chance of my losing. Makhotin's the only one who's a dangerous

entrant."

And the conversation passed to forecasts of the coming race, the

only thing Vronsky could think of just now.

"Come along, I've finished," said Vronsky, and getting up he went to

the door. Iashvin got up too, stretching his long legs and his long

back.

"It's too early for me to dine, but I must have a drink. I'll come

along directly. Hi, wine!" he shouted, in his rich voice, that was

so famous at drill, and set the windows shaking. "No, I don't need

it!" he shouted again, immediately after. "You're going home, so

I'll go with you."

And he walked out with Vronsky.

XX.

Vronsky was staying in a roomy, clean, Finnish hut, divided into two

by a partition. Petritsky lived with him in camp too. Petritsky was

asleep when Vronsky and Iashvin came into the hut.

"Get up, don't go on sleeping," said Iashvin, going behind the

partition and giving Petritsky, who was lying with ruffled hair and

with his nose in the pillow, a prod on the shoulder.

Petritsky jumped up suddenly onto his knees and looked around.

"Your brother's been here," he said to Vronsky. "He waked me up, the

devil take him, and said he'd look in again." And pulling up the rug

he flung himself back on the pillow. "Oh do quit that, Iashvin!" he

said, getting furious with Iashvin, who was pulling the rug off him.

"Quit that!" He turned over and opened his eyes. "You'd better tell me

what to drink; I've such a nasty taste in my mouth that..."

"Vodka's better than anything," boomed Iashvin. "Tereshchenko! Vodka

for your master and cucumbers," he shouted, obviously taking

pleasure in the sound of his own voice.

"Vodka, do you think? Eh?" queried Petritsky, blinking and rubbing

his eyes. "And you'll drink something? All right then, we'll have a

drink together! Vronsky, have a drink?" said Petritsky, getting up and

wrapping the tiger-striped bedcover round him. He went to the door

of the partition wall, raised his hands, and hummed in French: "'There

was a king in Thu-u-le.' Vronsky, will you have a drink?"

"Go along," said Vronsky, putting on the coat his valet handed him.

"Where are you off to?" asked Iashvin. "Oh, here is your troika," he

added, seeing the carriage drive up.

"To the stables, and I've got to see Briansky, too, about the

horses," said Vronsky.

Vronsky had as a fact promised to call at Briansky's, some ten

verstas from Peterhof, and to bring him money owing for some horses;

and he hoped to have time to get that in too. But his comrades were at

once aware that that was not the only place he was going.

Petritsky, still humming, winked and made a pout with his lips, as

though he would say: "Oh, yes, we know your Briansky!"

"Mind you're not late!" was Iashvin's only comment; and, to change

the conversation: "How's my roan? Is he doing all right?" he inquired,

looking out of the window at the shaft horse, which he had sold to

Vronsky.

"Stop!" cried Petritsky to Vronsky, just as he was going out.

"Your brother left a letter and a note for you. Wait a bit; where

are they?"

Vronsky stopped.

"Well, where are they?"

"Where are they? That's just the question!" said Petritsky solemnly,

sliding his forefinger upward along his nose.

"Come, tell me; this is silly!" said Vronsky smiling.

"I haven't lighted the fire. They must be here somewhere."

"Come, enough fooling! Where is the letter?"

"No, I've forgotten, really. Or was it a dream? Wait a bit, wait a

bit! But what's the use of getting in a rage? If you'd drunk four

bottles per man yesterday as I did, you'd forget where you were at.

Wait a bit, I'll remember!"

Petritsky went behind the partition and lay down on his bed.

"Wait a bit! This was how I was lying, and this was how he was

standing. Yes- yes- yes... Here it is!"- and Petritsky pulled a letter

out from under the mattress, where he had hidden it.

Vronsky took the letter and his brother's note. It was the letter he

was expecting- from his mother, reproaching him for not having been to

see her- and the note was from his brother to say that he must have

a little talk with him. Vronsky knew that it was all about the same

thing. "What business is it of theirs!" thought Vronsky, and crumpling

up the letters he thrust them between the buttons of his coat so as to

read them carefully on the road. In the porch of the hut he was met by

two officers; one of his regiment and one of another.

Vronsky's quarters were always a meeting place for all the officers.

"Where are you off to?"

"I must go to Peterhof."

"Has the mare come from Tsarskoe?"

"Yes, but I've not seen her yet."

"They say Makhotin's Gladiator's lame."

"Nonsense! However, are you going to race in this mud?" said the

other.

"Here are my saviors!" cried Petritsky, seeing them come in.

Before him stood the batman with vodka and pickled cucumbers on a

tray. "Here's Iashvin, ordering me to drink a pick-me-up."

"Well, you did make it hot for us yesterday," said one of those

who had come in; "you didn't let us get a wink of sleep all night."

"Oh, didn't we make a pretty finish!" said Petritsky. "Volkov

climbed onto the roof and began telling us how sad he was. I said:

'Let's have music, the funeral march!' He fairly dropped asleep on the

roof over the funeral march."

"Drink it up; you positively must drink the vodka, and then

Seltzer water, and a lot of lemon," said Iashvin, standing over

Petritsky like a mother making a child take medicine, "and then a

little champagne- just a wee bottle."

"Come, there's some sense in that. Stop a bit, Vronsky. We'll all

have a drink."

"No; good-by, all of you. I'm not going to drink today."

"Why, are you gaining weight? All right, then we must have it alone.

Give us the Seltzer water and lemon."

"Vronsky!" shouted someone when he was already outside.

"Well?"

"You'd better get your hair cut, it'll weigh you down- especially at

the bald place."

Vronsky was in fact beginning, prematurely, to get a little bald. He

laughed gaily, showing his heavy teeth, and pulling his cap over the

thin place, went out and got into his carriage.

"To the stables!" he said, and was just pulling out the letters to

read them through, but thought better of it, and put off reading

them so as not to distract his attention before looking at the mare.

"Later on!..."

XXI.

The temporary stable, a wooden booth, had been put up close to the

racecourse, and there his mare was to have been taken the previous

day. He had not yet seen her there. During the last few days he had

not ridden her out for exercise himself, but had put her in the charge

of the trainer, and so now he absolutely did not know in what

condition his mare had arrived yesterday or was in today. He had

scarcely got out of his carriage when his stableboy (groom),

recognizing the carriage some way off, called the trainer. A

dry-looking Englishman, in high boots and a short jacket,

clean-shaven, except for a tuft below his chin, came to meet him

walking with the uncouth gait of a jockey, turning his elbows out

and swaying from side to side.

"Well, how's Frou-Frou?" Vronsky asked in English.

"All right, sir," the Englishman's voice responded somewhere far

down in his throat. "Better not go in," he added, touching his hat.

"I've put a muzzle on her, and the mare's fidgety. Better not go in,

it'll excite the mare."

"No, I'm going in. I want to look at her."

"Come along, then," said the Englishman, frowning, and speaking with

his mouth shut, and, with swinging elbows, he went on in front with

his disjointed gait.

They went into the little yard in front of the shed. The stableboy

on duty, spruce and smart in his holiday attire, met them with a broom

in his hand, and followed them. In the shed there were five horses

in their separate stalls, and Vronsky knew that his chief rival,

Makhotin's Gladiator, a very tall chestnut horse, had been brought

there, and must be standing among them. Even more than his mare,

Vronsky longed to see Gladiator, whom he had never seen, but Vronsky

knew that by the etiquette of the racecourse it was not merely

impossible for him to see the horse, but improper even to ask

questions about him. just as he was passing along the passage, the boy

opened the door into the second horsebox on the left, and Vronsky

caught a glimpse of a big chestnut horse with white legs. He knew that

this was Gladiator, but, with the feeling of a man turning away from

the sight of another man's open letter, he turned round and went

into Frou-Frou's stall.

"The stall belonging to Ma-k... Mak... I never can say the name-

is here," said the Englishman over his shoulder, pointing his

dirty-nailed thumb toward Gladiator's stall.

"Makhotin? Yes, he's my most serious rival," said Vronsky.

"If you were riding him," said the Englishman, "I'd bet on you.

"Frou-Frou's more nervous, while the other is more powerful," said

Vronsky, smiling at the compliment to his riding.

"In a steeplechase it all depends on riding and on pluck," said

the Englishman.

Of pluck- that is, energy and courage- Vronsky did not merely feel

that he had enough; what was of far more importance, he was firmly

convinced that no one in the world could have more of this pluck

than he had.

"Don't you think I want more sweating down?"

"Oh, no," answered the Englishman. "Please, don't speak loud. The

mare's fidgety," he added, nodding toward the horse box, before

which they were standing, and from which came the sound of restless

stamping in the straw.

He opened the door, and Vronsky went into the horse box, dimly

lighted by one little window. In the horse box stood a dark bay

mare, with a muzzle on, shifting her feet on the fresh straw.

Looking round him in the twilight of the horse box, Vronsky

unconsciously took in once more in a comprehensive glance all the

points of his favorite mare. Frou-Frou was an animal of medium size,

not altogether free from reproach, from a breeder's point of view. She

was small-boned all over; though her chest was extremely prominent

in front, it was narrow. Her hindquarters were a little drooping,

and in her forelegs, and still more in her hind legs, there was a

noticeable curvature. The muscles of both hind legs and forelegs

were not very thick; but across her shoulders the mare was

exceptionally broad, a peculiarity specially striking now that she was

lean from training. The bones of her legs below the knees looked no

thicker than a finger from in front, but were extraordinarily thick

seen from the side. She looked altogether, except across the

shoulders, apparently pinched in at the sides and pressed out in

depth. But she had in the highest degree the quality that makes all

defects forgotten: that quality was blood, the blood that tells, as

the English expression has it. The muscles stood up sharply under

the network of sinews, covered with the delicate, mobile skin, soft as

satin, and they were hard as bone. Her clean-cut head, with prominent,

bright, spirited eyes, broadened out at the open nostrils, that showed

the red blood in the cartilage within. About all her figure, and

especially her head, there was a certain expression of energy, and, at

the same time, of softness. She was one of those creatures which

seem devoid of speech only because the mechanism of their mouths

does not allow of it.

To Vronsky, at any rate, it seemed that she understood all he felt

at that moment as he looked at her.

Directly Vronsky went toward her, she drew in a deep breath, and,

turning back her prominent eye tin the white looked bloodshot, she

started at the approaching figures from the opposite side, shaking her

muzzle, and shifting lightly from one leg to the other.

"There, you see how fidgety she is," said the Englishman.

"Whoa, darling! Whoa!" said Vronsky, going up to the mare and

speaking soothingly to her.

But the nearer he came, the more excited she grew. Only when he

stood by her head she was suddenly quieter, while the muscles quivered

under her soft, delicate coat. Vronsky patted her strong neck,

straightened over her sharp withers a stray lock of her mane that

had fallen on the other side, and moved his face near her dilated

nostrils, transparent as a bat's wing. She drew a loud breath and

snorted out through her tense nostrils, started, pricked up her

sharp ear, and put out her strong, black lip toward Vronsky, as though

she would nip hold of his sleeve. But remembering the muzzle, she

shook it and again began restlessly stamping her shapely legs one

after the other.

"Calm down, darling, calm down!" he said, patting her again over her

hindquarters; and, with a glad sense that his mare was in the best

possible condition, he went out of the horse box.

The mare's excitement had infected Vronsky. He felt that his heart

was throbbing, and that he, too, like the mare, longed to move, to

bite; it was both fearful and delicious.

"Well, I rely on you, then," he said to the Englishman, "half-past

six on the ground."

"All right," said the Englishman. "Oh, where are you going, my

lord?" he asked suddenly, using the title my lord, which he scarcely

ever used.

Vronsky in amazement raised his head, and stared, as he knew how

to stare, not into the Englishman's eyes, but at his forehead,

astounded at the impertinence of his question. But realizing that in

asking this the Englishman had been looking at him not as an employer,

but as a jockey, he answered:

"I've got to go to Briansky's; I shall be home within an hour."

"How often I'm asked that question today!" he said to himself, and

he blushed, a thing which rarely happened to him. The Englishman

looked gravely at him; and, as though he, too, knew where Vronsky

was going, he added:

"The great thing is to keep quiet before a race," said he; "don't

get out of temper, or upset about anything."

"All right," answered Vronsky, smiling; and, jumping into his

carriage, he told the man to drive to Peterhof.

Before he had driven many paces away, the dark clouds that had

been threatening rain all day broke, and there was a heavy downpour of

rain.

"What a pity!" thought Vronsky, putting up the roof of the carriage.

"It was muddy before, now it will be a perfect swamp." As he sat in

solitude in the closed carriage, he took out his mother's letter and

his brother's note, and read them through.

Yes, it was the same thing over and over again. Everyone- his

mother, his brother- everyone thought fit to interfere in the

affairs of his heart. This interference aroused in him a feeling of

angry hatred- a feeling he had rarely known before. "What business

is it of theirs? Why does everybody feel called upon to concern

himself about me? And why do they worry me so? Just because they see

that this is something they can't understand. If it were a common,

vulgar, worldly intrigue, they would have left me alone. They feel

that this is something different, that this is not a mere pastime,

that this woman is dearer to me than life. And this is

incomprehensible, and that's why it annoys them. Whatever our

destiny is or may be, we have made it ourselves, and we do not

complain of it," he said, in the word we linking himself with Anna.

"No, they must needs teach us how to live. They haven't an idea of

what happiness is; they don't know that without our love there is

for us neither happiness nor unhappiness- no life at all," he thought.

He was angry with all of them for their interference just because he

felt in his soul that they, all these people, were right. He felt that

the love that bound him to Anna was not a momentary impulse, which

would pass, as worldly intrigues do pass, leaving no other traces in

the life of either save pleasant or unpleasant memories. He felt all

the torture of his own position and hers, all the difficulty in

store for them, conspicuous as they were in the eye of all the

world- in concealing their love, in lying and deceiving; and in lying,

deceiving, feigning and continually thinking of others, when the

passion that united them was so intense that they were both

oblivious of everything else save their love.

He vividly recalled all the constantly recurring instances of

inevitable necessity for lying and deceit, which were so against his

natural bent. He recalled particularly vividly the shame he had more

than once detected in her at this necessity for lying and deceit.

And he experienced the strange feeling that had sometimes come upon

him since his relations with Anna. This was a feeling of loathing

for something- whether for Alexei Alexandrovich, or for himself, or

for the whole world, he could not have said. But he always drove

away this strange feeling. Now, too, he shook it off and continued the

thread of his thoughts.

"Yes, she was unhappy before, but proud and at peace; and now she

cannot be at peace and feel secure in her dignity, though she does not

show it. Yes, we must put an end to it," he decided.

And for the first time the idea clearly presented itself that it was

essential to put an end to this false position, and the sooner the

better. "Abandon everything must we- she and I- and hide ourselves

somewhere alone with our love," he said to himself.

XXII.

The shower did not last long, and by the time Vronsky arrived, his

shaft horse trotting at full speed, and dragging the off horses

galloping through the mud with their reins hanging loose, the sun

had peeped out again, the roofs of the summer villas and the old

lime trees in the gardens on both sides of the high street sparkled

with wet brilliance, and from the twigs came a pleasant drip, and,

from the roofs, rushing streams of water. He thought no more of shower

spoiling the racecourse, but was now rejoicing because- thanks to

the rain- he would be sure to find her at home and alone, as he knew

that Alexei Alexandrovich, who had lately returned from a watering

place, had not moved from Peterburg.

Hoping to find her alone, Vronsky alighted, as he always did, to

avoid attracting attention, before crossing the bridge, and walked

to the house. He did not go up the steps to the street door, but

went into the court.

"Has your master come?" he asked a gardener.

"No, sir. The mistress is at home. But will you please go to the

front door; there are servants there," the gardener answered. "They'll

open the door."

"No, I'll go in from the garden."

And feeling satisfied that she was alone, and wanting to take her by

surprise, since he had not promised to be there today, and she would

certainly not expect him to come before the races, he walked,

holding his sword and stepping cautiously over the sandy path,

bordered with flowers, to the terrace that looked out upon the garden.

Vronsky forgot now all that he had thought on the way of the hardships

and difficulties of his position. He thought of nothing but that he

would see her directly, not in imagination, but living, all of her, as

she was in reality. He was just going in, stepping on his whole foot

so as not to make a noise, up the worn steps of the terrace, when he

suddenly remembered what he always forgot, and what caused the most

torturing side of his relations with her: her son, with his

questioning, and, as he fancied, hostile eyes.

This boy was more often than anyone else a check upon their freedom.

When he was present, both Vronsky and Anna did not merely avoid

speaking of anything that they could not have repeated before

everyone; they did not even allow themselves to refer by hints to

anything the boy did not understand. They had made no agreement

about this, it had been settled of itself. They would have felt it

as wounding themselves to deceive the child. In his presence they

talked like acquaintances. But, in spite of this caution, Vronsky

often saw the child's intent, bewildered glance fixed upon him, and

a strange shyness, uncertainty- at one time there was friendliness, at

another coldness and reserve, in the boy's manner to him, as though

the child felt that between this man and his mother there existed some

important bond, the significance of which he could not understand.

As a matter of fact the boy did feel that he could not understand

this relation, and he tried painfully, yet was unable, to make clear

to himself what feeling he ought to have for this man. With a

child's keen instinct for every manifestation of feeling he saw

distinctly that his father, his governess, his nurse- all not merely

disliked Vronsky, but looked on him with horror and aversion, though

they never said anything about him; while his mother looked on him

as her greatest friend.

"What does it mean? Who is he? How ought I to love him? If I don't

know, it's my fault; either I'm stupid or a naughty boy," thought

the child. And this was what caused his dubious, inquiring,

sometimes hostile expression, and the shyness and uncertainty which

Vronsky found so irksome. This child's presence always and

infallibly called up in Vronsky that strange feeling of inexplicable

loathing which he had experienced of late. This child's presence

called up both in Vronsky and in Anna a feeling akin to the feeling of

a sailor who sees by the compass that the direction in which he is

swiftly moving is far from the right one, but that to arrest his

motion is not in his power, that every instant is carrying him farther

and farther away, and that to admit to himself his deviation from

the right direction is tantamount to admitting his certain ruin.

This child, with his innocent outlook upon life, was the compass

that showed them the point at which they had departed from what they

knew, yet did not want to know.

This time Seriozha was not at home, and she was completely alone.

She was sitting on the terrace waiting for the return of her son,

who had gone out for a stroll and had been caught in the rain. She had

sent out a manservant and a maid to look for him, and was sitting here

waiting for them. Dressed in a white gown, deeply embroidered, she was

sitting in a corner of the terrace behind some flowers, and did not

hear him. Bending her curly dark head, she pressed her forehead

against a cool watering pot that stood on the parapet, and both her

lovely hands, with the rings he knew so well, clasped the pot. The

beauty of her whole figure, her head, her neck, her hands, struck

Vronsky every time as something new and unexpected. He stood still,

gazing at her in ecstasy. But, directly he would have made a step to

come nearer to her, she was aware of his presence,