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Sviazhsky was predvodityel or marshal of the nobility in his district. He was five years
older than Levin, and had been married some time. His sister-in-law was an inmate of his
family, and to Levin she was a very attractive young lady; and Levin knew that Sviazhsky
and his wife would be very glad for him to marry her. He knew this infallibly, as marriageable
young men usually know such things, and he knew also that though he dreamed of marriage,
and was sure that this fascinating young lady would make a charming wife, he would sooner
have been able to fly to heaven than to marry her, even if he had not been in love with
Kitty Shcherbatsky. And this knowledge poisoned his pleasure in his prospective visit.
On receiving Sviazhsky's letter, with its invitation to go hunting, Levin had immediately
thought about this; but in spite of it, decided that such views in regard to him on the part
of Sviazhsky were entirely gratuitous, and he decided to accept the invitation. Moreover
he had in the depths of his soul a strong curiosity to see this girl once more, and
experiment on the effect that she would produce on him.
Sviazhsky's domestic life was in the highest degree pleasant, and Sviazhsky himself was
the very best type of the proprietor devoted to the affairs of the province, and this fact
always interested Levin.
He was one of those men that always excited Levin's amazement, whose opinions, very logical,
although never self-formed, take one direction, while their lives, perfectly defined and confident
in their course, take another, absolutely independent of each other and almost always
in opposition. Sviazhsky was a thorough-going liberal. He despised the nobility, charged
the majority of the nobles with secretly, and from motives of cowardice, opposing emancipation;
and he regarded Russia as a rotten country like Turkey, and its government so wretched
that he did not permit himself seriously to criticize its acts; and yet he had accepted
public office, and attended faithfully to his duties. He never even went out without
donning his official cap, with its red border and cockade. He declared that human existence
was endurable only abroad, where he was going to Hve at the first opportunity; but at the
same time he carried on in Russia a very complicated estate ^ in the most perfect style, and was
interested in all that was going on in Russia, and was fully up with the times. The Russian
muzhik, in his eyes, stood between man and monkey; but, when the elections came, he gave
his hand to the peasants by preference, and listened to them with the utmost attention.
He believed neither in God nor in the devil; but he showed great concern in the questions
concerning ameliorating the condition of the clergy, and the diminution of the revenues,
and moreover he labored with especial zeal to have his village church kept in repair.
In regard to the complete emancipation of woman and especially her right to work, he
sided with the most extreme supporters of this doctrine, but he lived with his wife
in such perfect harmony that though they had no children every one admired them, and he
took entire direction of the family affairs, so that his wife did nothing, and could do
nothing, except in cooperation with him, in order to pass the time as agreeably as possible.
If Levin had not been naturally disposed to see the best side of people the analysis of
Sviazhsky's character would have caused him no trouble or question; he would have said
to himself: "Fool or Good-for-nothing," and that would have been the end of it. But he
could not say fool — dnrak — because Sviazhsky was undoubtedly not only very clever, but
also a very cultivated and an extraordinarily simple-hearted man, entirely free from conceit;
there was no subject which he did not know; but he displayed his knowledge only when it
was needed still less could he say that he was a good-for-nothing, because Sviazhsky
was unquestionably an honorable, excellent, sensible man, who was always doing his work
cheerfully and alertly, and had apparently never intentionally done anything wrong or
could do anything wrong.
Levin tried to comprehend and could not understand him and always looked at him and his life
as a living enigma.
He and Levin had been friends and therefore Levin allowed himself to study Sviazhsky,
and tried to trace his view of life to the very source. But this was always an idle task.
Every time Levin made the effort to penetrate a little farther into the hidden chambers
of Sviazhsky's mind he discovered that the man was somewhat confused; a sort of terror
showed itself in his eyes, as if he feared that Levin was going to entrap him; and he
would give him a good-natured and jolly rebuff.
Now, after his disenchantment on the subject of farm management. Levin was especially glad
to be at Sviazhsky's. To say nothing of the fact that he was always pleasantly impressed
by the sight of these doves so contented with themselves and all they possessed, and their
comfortable nest, he had a great longing, now that he was so dissatisfied with his own
life, to discover the secret of his having such clear, decided, and cheerful views of
life. Moreover, Levin knew that he should meet at Sviazhsky's the proprietors of the
neighborhood, and he was especially desirous to talk with them, to hear about their experiences
in farm management, about their crops, their ways of hiring service, and the like, which,
as Levin knew well, it was the fashion to regard as very trifling topics of conversation,
but which seemed to him more important than anything else.
"Perhaps these things were not important during the days of serfdom or in England. In both
those cases conditions are definitely fixed; but with us at the present time when everything
has been overturned and the new order is only just begun, the question how to regulate these
conditions is the only important one in Russia." Such was Levin's conviction.
The hunting which Sviazhsky gave him was poorer than Levin had expected: the marshes were
dry, and the woodcock scarce. Levin walked all day, and bagged only three birds; but
in compensation he brought back with him as always from hunting a ravenous appetite, capital
spirits, and that intellectual excitement which violent physical exercise always gave
him. Even while he was out hunting, while, as it would seem, his thoughts were not busy
about anything, he kept remembering the old man and his family, and the impression remained
with him that there was some peculiar tie between himself and that family.
In the evening, at the tea-table in the company of two proprietors, who had come on some business
with the marshal, the interesting conversation that he had looked forward to soon began.
At the tea-table Levin sat next the hostess and had to keep up a conversation with her
and her sister who sat opposite him. His hostess was a moon-faced lady of medium stature and
light complexion, all radiant with smiles and dimples. Levin endeavored, through her,
to unravel the enigma which her husband's character offered him; but he could not get
full control of his thoughts, because opposite him sat the pretty sister-in-law in a gown
worn, as it seemed to him, for his especial benefit, with a square corsage cut rather
low in front, and giving a glimpse of a very white ***. This decollete gown, in spite
of the fact that the *** was very white or perhaps from the very reason that it was
very white, stopped the free flow of his thought. He could not help imagining, though of course
erroneously, that this display was made for his benefit, and yet he felt that he had no
right to look at it, and he tried not to look at it; but he was conscious of being to blame
for her wearing such a gown. It seemed to Levin that he was deceiving some one, that
he ought to make some kind of an explanation, but that it was an utter impossibility to
do it, and so he kept blushing and felt ill at ease, and his constraint communicated itself
to the pretty young lady. But the hostess seemed not to notice it, and kept up a lively
conversation.
"You say that my husband does not take an interest in Russian affairs?" she asked. "On
the contrary, he was happy when he was abroad, but not so happy as he is here. Here he feels
that he is in his sphere. He has so much to do, and he has the faculty of interesting
himself in everything. Oh! you have not been to see our school, have you?"
"Yes, I have, — that little house covered with ivy."
"Yes; that is Nastia's work," said she, glancing at her sister.
"Do you yourself teach?" asked Levin, trying to look at Nastia's face, but feeling that,
in spite of himself, he would see the low corsage.
"Yes, I teach, and intend to keep on teaching; but we have an excellent schoolmistress. And
we have gymnastics."
"No, thank you, I will not take any more tea," said Levin. He felt that he was committing
a solecism; but he could not keep up the conversation, and he rose in confusion. "I am very much
interested in what they are saying," he added, and went to the other end of the table, where
the host was talking with the two landed proprietors. Sviazhsky was sitting with his side toward
the table, twirling his cup around with one hand, and with the other stroking his long
beard, lifting it up to his nose and dropping it again as if he were smelling of it. His
bright black eyes were fixed with keen amusement on one of the proprietors, a man with a white
mustache, who was complaining bitterly about the peasantry. Levin saw that Sviazhsky had
an answer ready for the worthy gentleman's comical complaints, and could reduce his arguments
to powder if his official position did not compel him to respect the proprietor's.
The proprietor with the white mustache was evidently a narrow-minded country gentleman,
an inveterate opponent of the emancipation, and an old-style farmer. Levin could see the
signs of it in his old-fashioned, shiny coat, in his keen, angry eyes, in his well-balanced
Russian speech, in his authoritative, slow, and studied manner, and his imperious gestures
with his large, handsome, sunburnt hands, on one of which for sole ornament was an old-fashioned
wedding-ring.
CHAPTER XXVII
"If it only weren't a pity to abandon what has been done, — cost so much labor, — it
would be better to give up, sell out, go abroad, and hear 'La Belle Helene,' like Nikolai Ivanovitch,"
the old proprietor was saying, while his intelligent face lighted up with a pleasant smile.
"There now! but still you don't sell out," said Nikolai Ivanovitch Sviazhsky; "so you
must be well off, on the whole."
"I am well off in one way, because I have a home of my own, with board and lodging.
Besides, one always hopes that the peasantry will improve. But would you believe it, — this
drunkenness, this laziness! Everything goes to destruction. No horses, no cows. They starve
to death. But try to help them, — take them for farmhands: they manage to ruin you; yes,
even before a justice of the peace!"
"But you, too, can complain to the justice of the peace," said Sviazhsky.
"What! I complain? Not for the world! All such talk shows that complaints are idle.
Here, at the mill, they took their handsel, and went off. What did the justice of the
peace do? Acquitted them. Your only chance is to go to the communal court, — to the
starshina. The starshina will have the man thrashed for you. He settles things in the
old-fashioned way. If it were not for him you had better sell out, fly to the ends of
the world!"
^ In the Russian w/r, or commune, the starshina, or elder, is the chief elected every three
The proprietor was evidently trying to tease Sviazhsky; but Sviazhsky not only did not
lose his temper, but was much amused.
"Well, we carry on our estates without these measures," said he, smiling. "I and Levin
and he."
He pointed to the other proprietor.
"Yes; but ask Mikhail Petrovitch how his affairs are getting along. Is that a rational way?"
demanded the proprietor, especially accenting the word "rational."
"My way is very simple," said Mikhafl Petrovitch, "thank the Lord! My whole business lies in
seeing that the money is ready for the autumn taxes. The muzhiks come, and say, 'Batyushka,
help us, father.' well, all these muzhiks are neighbors; I pity 'em. well, I advance
'em the first third. Only I say, 'Remember, children, I help you; and you must help me
when I need you, — sowing the oats, getting in the hay, harvesting,' Now, I get along
with them as with my own family. To be sure, there are some among them who haven't any
conscience."
Levin, who knew of old about these patriarchal traditions, exchanged glances with Sviazhsky;
and, interrupting Mikhail Petrovitch, he said, "How would you advise?' addressing the old
proprietor with the gray mustache. "How do you think one's estate ought to be managed?"
"Well, manage it just as Mikhafl Petrovitch does, — either give half the land to the
muzhiks, or go shares with them. That is possible; but, all the same, the wealth of the country
is growing less and less. Places on my lands which in the time of serfage, under good management,
produced ninefold, now produce only threefold. Emancipation has ruined Russia."
Sviazhsky looked at Levin with smiling eyes, and even made a. scarcely noticeable gesture
to express his disdain, but Levin did not find the old proprietor's words ridiculous;
he understood them better than he understood Sviazhsky. Much that the old man said in his
complaint, that Russia was ruined by the emancipation, seemed to him true; for him it was novel and
unanswerable. The proprietor evidently expressed his honest thought, — a thought which arose,
not from any desire to show an idle wit, but from the conditions of his life, which had
been spent in the country, where he could see the question practically from every side.
"The fact is, please to acknowledge," continued the old proprietor, who evidently wished to
show that he was not an enemy of civilization, "all progress is accomplished by force alone.
Take the reforms of Peter, of Catherine, of Alexander; take European history itself; still
more so for progress in agriculture. The potato, for instance, — to introduce potatoes into
Russia required force. We have not always plowed with iron plows; perhaps they have
been introduced into our domains, but it required force. Now, until recently, when we had control
over our serfs, we proprietors could conduct our affairs with all sorts of improvements:
drying-rooms and winnowing-machines and dung-carts — all sorts of tools — we could introduce,
because we had the power; and the muzhiks at first would oppose, and then would imitate
us. But now, by the abrogation of serfage, they have taken away our authority; and so
our estates, now that everything is reduced to the same level, must necessarily sink back
to the condition of primitive barbarism. This is my view of it."
"Yes, but why? If that were rational, then you could keep on with your improvements by
aid of hired labor," said Sviazhsky.
"We have no power. How could I? allow me to ask."
"This — this is the working-force, the chief element in the problem before us," thought
Levin.
"With hired men."
"Hired men will not work well, or work with good tools. Our laborers know how to do only
one thing, — to drink like pigs, and, when they are drunk, to ruin everything you intrust
them with. They water your horses to death, destroy your best harnesses, take the tires
off your wheels and sell them to get drink, and stick bolts into your winnowing-machines
so as to render them useless. Everything that is not done in their way is nauseous to them.
And thus the affairs of our estates go from bad to worse. The lands are neglected, and
go to weeds, or else are abandoned to the muzhiks instead of producing millions of tchetverts
of wheat, you can raise only a few hundred thousand. The public wealth is diminishing.
If they were going to free the serfs, they should have done it gradually." ....
And he developed his own scheme of emancipation whereby all these difficulties would have
been avoided.
This plan did not interest Levin, but when the gentleman had finished he returned to
his first proposition, with the hope of inducing Sviazhsky to tell what he seriously thought
about it. He said, addressing Sviazhsky: —
"It is very true that the level of our agriculture-is growing lower and lower, and that in our present
relations with the peasantry, it is impossible to carry on our estates rationally," he said.
"I am not of that opinion," said Sviazhsky, seriously.
"I only see that we are not up to the point of managing our estates, and that on the contrary,
since serfage was abolished, agriculture has decayed; I argue that in those days it was
very wretched, and very low. We never had any machines, or good oxen or decent supervision.
We did not even know how to make up our accounts. Ask a proprietor: he could not tell you what
a thing cost, or what it would bring him."
"Italian book-keeping!" said the old proprietor ironically. "Reckon all you please, and get
things mixed as much as you please, there will be no profit in it."
"Why get things mixed up? Your miserable flail, your Russian topchachek, will break all to
pieces; my steam-thresher will not break to pieces. Then your wretched nags; how are they?"
A puny breed that you can pull by the tails, comes to nothing; but our Percherons are vigorous
horses, they are worth something.
And so with everything. Our agriculture always needed to be helped forward."
"Yes! but it would need some power, Nikolay Ivanuitch. Very well for you; but when one
has one son at the university, and several others at school, as I have, he can't afford
to buy Percherons."
"There are banks on purpose."
"To have my last goods and chattels sold under the hammer. No, thank you!"
"I don't agree that it is necessary or possible to lift the level of agriculture much higher,"
said Levin. "I am much interested in this question; and I have the means, but I cannot
do anything. And as for banks, I don't know whom they profit. Up to the present time,
whatever I have spent on my estate, has resulted only in loss. Cattle — loss; machines — loss."
"That is true," said the old proprietor with the gray mustache, laughing with hearty satisfaction.
"And I am not the only man," continued Levin. "I call to mind all those who have made experiments
in the 'rational manner.' All, with few exceptions, have come out of it with losses. Will you
admit that your farming is profitable" he asked, and at that instant he detected in
Sviazhsky's face that transient expression of embarrassment which he noticed when he
wanted to penetrate farther into the inner chambers of Sviazhsky's mind.
However, the question was not entirely fair play on Levin's part. His hostess had told
him at tea that they had just had a German expert up from Moscow, who, for five hundred
rubles' fee, agreed to put the bookkeeping of the estate in order; and he found that
there had been a net loss of more than three thousand rubles. She could not remember exactly
how much, but the German accountant had calculated it to within forty kopeks.
The old proprietor smiled when he heard Levin's question about the profits of Sviazhsky's
management. it was evident that he knew about the state of his neighbors' finances.
"Maybe it is unprofitable," replied Sviazhsky. "This only proves that either I am a poor
manager, or I sink my capital to increase the revenue."
"Oh! revenue!" cried Levin, with horror. "Maybe there is such a thing as revenue in Europe,
where the land is better for the labor spent on it; but with us, the more labor spent on
it, the worse it is — that is because it exhausts it — so there is no revenue."
"How, no revenue? It is a law."
"Then we are no exceptions to the law. The word renfa, revenue, has no clearness for
us, and explains nothing, but rather confuses. No; tell me how the doctrine of revenue can
be ....
"Won't you have some curds? — Masha, send us some curds or some raspberries," said Sviazhsky
to his wife. "Raspberries have lasted unusually late this
year."
And, with his usual jovial disposition of soul, Sviazhsky got up and went out, evidently
assuming that the discussion was ended, while for Levin it seemed that it had only just
begun.
Levin was now left with the old proprietor, and continued to talk with him, endeavoring
to prove to him that all the trouble arose from the fact that we did not try to understand
our laborers' habits and peculiarities. but 'the old proprietor, like all people accustomed
to think alone and for himself, found it difficult to enter into the thought of another, and
clung firmly to his own opinions. He declared that the Russian muzhik was a pig, and loved
swinishness, and that it needed force or else a stick to drive him out of his swinishness;
but we are such liberals that we have suddenly swapped off the thousand-year-old stick for
these lawyers and jails, where the good-for-nothing, stinking muzhik gets fed on good soup, and
has his pure air by the cubic foot.
"Why," asked Levin, wishing to get back to the question, "do you think that it is impossible
to reach an equilibrium which will utilize the forces of the laborer, and render them
productive?"
"That will never come about with the Russian people; there is no force," replied the proprietor.
"Why could not new conditions be found?" asked Sviazhsky, who had been eating his curds,
and smoking a cigarette, and now approached the two disputants.
"All the needful forms are ready for use, and well learned. That relic of barbarism,
the primitive commune where each member is responsible for all, is falling to pieces
of its own weight; the right of holding serfs has been abolished; now there remains only
free labor, and its forms are at hand, — the day-laborer, the journeyman, the ordinary
farmer, — and you can't get rid of this."
"But Europe is discontented with these forms."
"Yes, and perhaps discontent will find new ones, and will progress probably."
"This is all I say about that," said Levin. "Why should we not seek for them on our side?"
"Because it would be much the same as our pretending to invent new methods of constructing
railways. Our methods are all ready; all we have to do is to apply them."
"But if they do not suit us? if they are hurtful?" Levin insisted.
And again he saw the frightened look in Sviazhsky's eyes.
"Well! this: we throw up our caps, we follow wherever Europe leads! All this I know; but
tell me, are you acquainted with all that is going on in Europe about the organization
of labor?"
"No; I know very little."
"This question is now occupying the best minds in Europe. Schulze-Delitzsch ^ and his school
.... then all this prodigious literature on the labor question .... the tendencies of
Lassalle, the most radical of all of them .... the Miilhausen organization .... this
all is a fact, you surely must know."
Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch, who founded the first People's Bank, and in the German Parliament
labored for constitutional reform, was born in Prussian Saxony, August 29, 1808, died
at Potsdam, April 29, 1883. At the time of his death the United Bank Organization of
which he was manager had thirty-five hundred branches, with fifty million dollars' capital,
and about a hundred millions of deposits. He was an opponent of Lassalle's socialism.
— Ed.
"I have an idea of it, but it's very vague."
"No, you only say so; you know all this as well as I do. I don't set up to be a professor
of social science, but these things interest me; and I assure you, if they interest you,
you should go into them."
"But where do they lead you?" ....
"Beg pardon." ....
The two proprietors got up; and Sviazhsky, again arresting Levin in his disagreeable
habit of looking into the inner chambers of his mind, went out to bid his guests good-by.
CHAPTER XXVIII
Levin spent the evening with the ladies, and found it unendurably stupid. His mind was
stirred, as never before, at the thought that the dissatisfaction he felt in the administration
of his estate was not peculiar to himself, but was a general condition into which affairs
in Russia had evolved, and that an organization of labor, whereby the work would be carried
on in such a manner as he saw at the muzhik's on the highway, was not an illusion, but a
problem to be solved. And it seemed to him that he could settle this problem, and that
he must attempt to do it.
Levin bade the ladies good-night, promising to go with them the following morning for
a ride to visit some interesting spots in the Crown woods. Before going to bed he went
to the library, to get some of the books on the labor question which Sviazhsky had recommended.
Sviazhsky's library was an enormous room, lined with book-shelves, and having two tables,
one a massive writing-table, standing in the center of the room, and the other a round
one, laden with recent numbers of journals and reviews, in different languages, arranged
about a lamp. Near the writing-table was a cabinet, sto'ika, containing drawers inscribed
with gilt lettering for the reception of various documents.
Sviazhsky got the volumes, and sat down in a rocking chair.
"What is that you are looking at?" he asked of Levin, who was standing by the round table,
and turning the leaves of a review.
Levin held up the review.
"Oh, yes! that is a very interesting article indeed. it argues," he continued with gay
animation, "that the principal culprit in the partition of Poland was not Frederic after
all. It appears .... "and he gave with the clearness characteristic of him a digest of
these new and important discoveries. Although Levin was now more interested in the question
of farm management than in anything, he asked himself, as he listened to his friend: —
"What is he in reality? and why, why does the partition of Poland interest him?"
When Sviazhsky had. finished, Levin could not help saying: —
"Well, and what of it?"
But he had nothing to say. It was interesting simply from the fact that it "argued."
But Sviazhsky did not explain, and did not think it necessary to explain, why it was
interesting to him.
"Well, but the irascible old proprietor interested me very much," said Levin, sighing. "He's
sensible, and a good deal of what he says is true."
"Ah! don't speak of it! he is a confirmed slave' holder at heart, like the rest of them,"
"With you at their head"....
"Yes, only I am trying to lead them in the other direction," replied Sviazhsky, laughing.
"His argument struck me very forcibly," said Levin.
"He is right when he says that our affairs, that is, the 'rational management,' cannot
succeed; that the only kind that can succeed is the money-lending system like that of the
other proprietor, or, in other words, the one that is simplest Who is to blame for this?"
"We ourselves, of course. But then it is not true that it does not succeed. It succeeds
with Vasiltchi kof."
"The mill...."
"But still I don't know what surprises you about it. the peasantry stand on such a low
plane of development, both materially and morally, that it is evident they'll oppose
everything that is strange to them. In Europe the 'rational management' succeeds because
the people are civilized. In the first place, we must civilize our peasantry, — that's
the point."
"But how will you civilize them?"
"To civilize the people, three things are necessary, — schools, schools, and schools."
"But you yourself say that the peasantry stand on a low plane of material development. What
good will schools do in that respect."
"Do you know, you remind me of a story of the advice given to a sick man: 'You had better
try a purgative.' He tried it; he grew worse. 'Apply leeches.' he applied them; he grew
worse. 'Well, then, pray to God.' He tried it; he grew worse. So it is with you. I say
political economy; you say you 're worse for it. I suggest socialism; worse still. Education;
still worse."
"Yes. But how can schools help?"
"They will create other needs."
"But this is just the very thing I could never understand," replied Levin, vehemently. "In
what way will schools help the peasantry to better their material condition." You say
that schools — education — will create new needs. So much the worse, because they
will not have the ability to satisfy them; and I could never see how a knowledge of addition
and subtraction and the catechism could help them to better themselves materially. Day
before yesterday I met a peasant woman with a baby at the breast, and I asked her where
she was going. She said she had been 'to the babka's; the child had a crying fit, and I
took him to be cured.'
I asked, 'How did the babka cure the crying fit?' She set him on the hen-roost, and muttered
something.'"
"Well there!" cried Sviazhsky, laughing heartily. "You yourself confess it. In order to teach
them that they can't cure children by setting them on hen-roosts, you must ...."
"Ah no!" interrupted Levin, with some vexation. "Your remedy of schools for the people I only
compared to the babka's method of curing. The peasantry are poor and uncivilized; this
we see as plainly as the woman saw her child's distress because he was crying. But that schools
can raise them from their wretchedness is as inconceivable as the hen-roost cure for
sick children. You must first remedy the cause of the poverty."
"Well! In this at least you agree with Spencer, whom you do not like. He says that civilization
can result from increased happiness and comfort in life, from frequent ablutions, but not
by learning to read and cipher." ....
"There now! I am very glad, or rather very sorry, if I am in accord with Spencer. But
this I have felt for a long time: schools cannot help; the only help can come from some
economical organization, whereby the peasantry will be richer, will have more leisure. Then
schools also will come."
"Nevertheless, schools are obligatory now all over Europe."
"But how would you harmonize this with Spencer's ideas?" asked Levin.
But into Sviazhsky's eyes again came the troubled expression; and he said with a smile: —
"No, this story of the crying fit was capital! Is it possible that you heard it yourself?"
Levin saw that there was no connection between this man's life and his thoughts. Evidently
it was perfectly indifferent to him where his conclusions led him. Only the process
of reasoning was what appealed to him; and it was disagreeable to him. When this process
of reasoning led him into some stupid, blind alley. This was what he did not like, and
he avoided it by leading the conversation to some bright and agreeable topic.
All the impressions of this day, including those which arose from his visit to the old
muzhik, and which seemed somehow to give a new basis to his thoughts, troubled Levin
profoundly. This genial Sviazhsky who kept his thoughts for general use and evidently
had entirely different principles for the conduct of his life, keeping them hidden from
Levin, while at the same time he and the majority of men — the throng whose name is legion
— seemed to be ruled by the general consensus of opinions by means of ideas strange to him;
the testy old proprietor, perfectly right in his judicious views of life, but wrong
in despising one entire class in Russia, and that perhaps the best; his own discontent
with his activity, and the confused hope of setting things right at last, — all this
excited and disturbed him.
Levin retired to his room, and lay down on his springy mattress, which unexpectedly exposed
his arms and legs every time he moved; but it was long before he could get to sleep.
His conversation with Sviazhsky, though many good things were said, did not interest him;
but the old proprietor's arguments haunted him. He involuntarily remembered every word
that he said, and his imagination supplied the answer.
"Yes, I ought to have replied to him." You say that our management is not succeeding
because the muzhik despises all improvements, and that force must be applied to them. But
if our estates were not retrograding, even where these improvements are not found, you
would be right; but advance is made only where the laborer works in conformity with his own
customs, as at the old man's by the roadside. Our general dissatisfaction with our management
proves that either we or the laborers are at fault. We have long been losing, both by
our own methods and by European methods, by neglecting the qualities of the laboring force.
Let us be willing to acknowledge that the laboring force is not ideal as a force, but
is the Russian muzhik with his instincts, and we shall then be able to manage our estates
in conformity with this.' I should have said to him.
'Imagine that you were carrying on an estate like that of my old man by the roadside, that
you had found a way of interesting your laborers in the success of their work, and had found
that by means of improvements such as they would acknowledge to be improvements, you
had succeeded in doubling or trebling your returns without exhausting the soil; then
suppose you make a division and give a half to your working force. The residue which you
would have would be larger, and that which would come to the working force would be larger.'
but to do this, there must be a coming down from anything like ideal management and the
laborers must be interested in the success of the management. How can it be done? This
is a question of details, but there is no doubt that it is possible."
This idea kept Levin in a state of agitation. Half the night he did not sleep, thinking
of the details connected with carrying out his new plans and schemes. he had not intended
to leave so soon, but now he decided to go home on the morrow. Moreover, the memory of
the young lady with the open dress came over him with a strange sense of shame and disgust.
But the main thing that decided him was his desire to lay before his muzhiks his new project
before the autumn harvests, so that they might reap under the new conditions. He decided
to reform his whole method of administration.
CHAPTER XXIX
The carrying out of Levin's plan offered many difficulties; but he persevered, and finally
succeeded in persuading himself without self-deception that the enterprise was worth the labor even
though he should not succeed in doing all that he wanted to do. One of the principal
obstacles which met him was the fact that his estate was already in running order, and
that it was impossible to come to a sudden stop and begin anew, but that he had to remodel
his machine while it was going.
When he reached home in the evening, he summoned his overseer, and explained to him his plans.
The overseer received with undisguised satisfaction all the details of this scheme as far as they
showed that all that had been done hitherto was absurd and unproductive. The overseer
declared that he had long ago told him so, but that no one would listen to him. But when
it came to Levin's proposition to share the profits of the estate with the laborers, on
the basis of an association, the overseer put on an expression of the deepest melancholy,
and immediately began to speak of the necessity of bringing in the last sheaves of wheat,
and commencing the second plowing; and Levin felt that now was not a propitious time.
On conversing with the muzhiks about his project of dividing with them the products of the
earth, he found that here his chief difficulty lay in the fact that they were too much occupied
with their daily tasks to comprehend the advantages and disadvantages of his enterprise.
A simple-minded muzhik, Ivan the herdsman, seemed to comprehend and to approve Levin's
proposal to share with him in the profits of the cattle; but whenever Levin went on
to speak of the advantages that would result, Ivan's face grew troubled, and, without waiting
to hear Levin out, he would hurry off to attend to some work that could not be postponed,
— either to pitch the hay from the pens, or to draw water, or to clear away the manure.
Another obstacle consisted in the inveterate distrust of the peasants, who would not believe
that a proprietor could have any other aim than to get all he could out of them. They
were firmly convinced, in spite of all he could say, that his real purpose was hidden.
They, on their side, in expressing their opinions had much to say; but they carefully guarded
against telling what their actual object was.
Levin came to the conclusion that the irate proprietor was right in saying that the peasants
demanded, as the first and indispensable condition for any arrangement, that they should never
be bound to any of the new agricultural methods, or to use the improved tools. They agreed
that the new-fashioned plow worked better, that the weed-extirpator was more successful;
but they invented a thousand reasons why they should not use them; and, although he had
made up his mind that there must be a coming down from anything like ideal management,
he felt deep regret to give up improvements the advantages of which were so evident. But
in spite of all these difficulties, he persevered; and by autumn the new arrangement was in working
order, or at least seemed to be.
At first Levin intended to give up his whole domain ^ just as it was to the muzhiks — the
laborers — and overseer on the new conditions of association. But very soon he found that
this was impracticable; and he made up his mind to divide the management of the estate.
The cattle, the garden, the kitchen-garden, the hay-fields, and some lands fenced off
into several lots were to be reckoned as special and separate divisions.
Ivan, the simple-minded herdsman, who seemed to Levin better fitted than any one else,
formed an artel, or association, composed of members of his family, and took charge
of the cattle-yard. A distant field, which for eight years had been lying fallow, was
taken by the shrewd carpenter Feodor Rezunof, who joined with him seven families of muzhiks;
and the muzhik Shuraef entered into the same arrangements for superintending the gardens.
All the rest was left as it had been; but these three divisions constituted the beginning
of the new arrangement, and they kept Levin very busy.
It was true that matters were not carried on in the cattle-yard any better than before,
and that Ivan was obstinate in his opposition to giving the cows a warm shelter, and to
butter made of sweet cream, asserting that cows kept in a cold place required less feed,
and that butter made of sour cream was made quicker; and he demanded his wages as before,
and he was not at all interested in the fact that the money that he received was not his
wages but his share of the profits of the association.
It was true that Rezunof and his associates did not give the field a second plowing, as
they had been advised to do, and excused themselves on the ground that they had no time. It was
true that the muzhiks of this company, although they had agreed to take this work under the
new conditions, called this land, not common land, but shared land, and the muzhiks and
Rezunof himself said to Levin: "If you would take money for the land it would be less bother
to you and that would let us out."
Moreover, these muzhiks kept putting off under various pretexts the building of the cattle-yard
and barn, and did not get it done till winter, though they had agreed to build it immediately.
It was true that Shuraef tried to exchange for a trifle with the muzhiks the products
of the gardens which he had undertaken to manage. He evidently had a wrong notion and
a purposely wrong notion of the conditions under which he had taken the land.
It was true that often in talking with the muzhiks and explaining to them all the advantages
of the undertaking. Levin was conscious that all they heard was the sound of his voice,
that they were firmly convinced that they were too shrewd to let him deceive them. He
was especially conscious of this when talking with the cleverest of the muzhiks, Rezunof.
He noticed in the man's eye a gleam which betrayed evident scorn for Levin and a firm
conviction that if any one was to be cheated it was not he — Rezunof.
But, in spite of all these drawbacks, Levin felt that he was making progress, and that
if he rigorously kept his accounts and persevered he should be able to show his associates at
the end of the year that the new order of things could bring excellent results.
All this-business, together with his work in connection with the rest of his estate,
which still remained in his own hands, and together with his work in the library on his
new book, so filled his time during the summer that he scarcely ever went out, even to hunt.
Toward the end of August he learned through the man that brought back the saddle that
the Oblonskys had returned to Moscow. By not having replied to darya Aleksandrovna's letter,
by his rudeness which he could not remember without a flush of shame, he felt that he
had burnt his ships and he never again could go to them. In exactly the same way he owed
apologies to Sviazhsky for having left his house without bidding him good-by. Neither
would he again dare to go to Sviazhsky's. But now all this was a matter of indifference
to him. He was more interested and absorbed in his new scheme of managing his estate than
in anything that he had ever attempted.
He finished the books which Sviazhsky had lent him, and others on political economy
and socialism, which he had sent for. In the books on political economy, in Mill, for example,
which he studied first with eagerness, hoping every minute to find a solution of the questions
which occupied him, he found laws deduced from the position of European husbandry; but
he could not see how these laws could be profitably applied to Russian conditions. He found a
similar lack in the books of the socialist writers. Either they were beautiful but impracticable
fancies, such as he dreamed when he was a student, or modifications of that situation
of things applicable to Europe, but offering no solution for the agrarian question in Russia.
Political economy said that the laws by which the wealth of Europe was developed and would
develop were universal and fixed; socialistic teachings said that progress according to
these laws would lead to destruction; but neither school gave him any answer or as much
as a hint on the means of leading him and all the Russian muzhiks and agriculturists,
with their millions of hands and of desyatins, to more successful methods of reaching prosperity.
As he was already involved in this enterprise, he conscientiously read through everything
that bore on the subject and decided in the autumn to go abroad and study the matter on
the spot, so that he might not have with this question the experience that had so often
met him with various questions in the past. How many times in a discussion he had just
begun to understand his opponent's thought and to expound his own, when suddenly the
question would be asked: "But Kaufmann, Jones, Du Bois, Mitchell? You have not read them?
Read them, they have worked out this question."
He saw clearly now that Kaufmann and Mitchell could not tell him anything. He knew what
he wanted. he saw that Russia possessed an admirable soil and admirable workmen, and
that in certain cases, as with the muzhik by the roadside, the land and the laborers
could produce abundantly, but that in the majority of cases when capital was spent upon
them in the European manner, they produced little, and that this resulted entirely from
the fact that the laborers like to work, and work well only in their own way, and that
this contrast was not the result of chance, but was permanent and based on the very nature
of the people. he thought that the Russian people, which was destined to colonize and
cultivate immense unoccupied spaces, would consciously, until all these lands were occupied,
hold to these methods as necessary to them, and that these methods were not so bad as
they were generally considered. And he wanted to demonstrate this theoretically in his book,
and practically on his estate.
CHAPTER ***
Toward the end of September the lumber was brought for the construction of a barn on
the artel land, and the butter was sold, and showed a profit. The new administration, on
the whole, worked admirably in practice, or at least it seemed so to Levin.
But in order to explain the whole subject into a clear night theoretically, and to finish
his treatise, which Levin imagined was likely not only to revolutionize political economy,
but even to annihilate this science, and to make the beginnings of a new one, treating
of the relations of the peasantry to the soil, he felt that it was necessary to go abroad,
and to learn, from observation on the spot, all that was going on in that direction, and
to find conclusive proofs that all that was done there was not the right thing.
He was only waiting for the delivery of the wheat to get his money, and make the journey.
But the autumn rains set in, and portions of the wheat and potatoes were not as yet
garnered. All work was at a standstill, and it was impossible to deliver the wheat. The
roads were impracticable, Tavo mills were washed away by the freshet, and the weather
kept growing worse and worse.
But on the morning of October 12 the sun came out; and Levin, hoping for a change in the
weather, began resolutely to prepare for his journey. He sent the overseer to the merchant
to negotiate for the sale of the wheat, and he himself went out for a tour of inspection
of the estate, in order to make the last remaining arrangements for his journey.
Having accomplished all that he wished, he returned at nightfall, wet from the rivulets
that trickled from his waterproof down his neck and inside his high boots, but in a happy
and animated frame of mind. Toward evening the storm increased; the hail pelted so violently
the drenched horse, that she shook her ears and her head, and went sidewise; but Levin,
protected by his bashluik, felt comfortable enough, and he cheerfully gazed around him,
— now at the muddy streams running down the wheel-tracks; now at the raindrops trickling
down every bare twig; now at the white spots where the hail had not yet melted on the planks
of the bridge; now at the dry but still pulpy leaf, clinging with its stout stem to the
denuded elm. In spite of the gloomy aspect of nature, he felt in particularly good spirits.
His talks with the peasants in a distant village convinced him that they were beginning to
get used to his new arrangements; and an old dvornik, at whose house he stopped to dry
himself, evidently approved of his plan, and wanted to join the association for the purchase
of cattle.
"What is required is to go straight to my goal, and I shall succeed," thought Levin;
"but the labor and the pains have an object. I am not working for myself alone, but the
question concerns the good of all. The whole way of managing our estates, the condition
of all the people, must be absolutely changed. Instead of poverty, universal well-being,
contentment; instead of enmity, agreement and union of interests; in a word, a bloodless
revolution, but a mighty revolution^ beginning in the little circuit of our district, then
reaching the province, Russia, the whole world! The conception is so just that it cannot help
being fruitful. Yes, indeed, this goal is worth working for. And there is absolutely
no significance in the fact that I, Kostia Levin, my own self, a man who went to a ball
in a black necktie, and was rejected by a Shcherbatsky, am a stupid and a good-for-nothing;
that is neither here nor there. i believe that Franklin felt that he was just such a
good-for-nothing, and had just as little faith in himself, when he took everything into account.
And, probably, he had his Agafya Mikhadovna also, to whom he confided his secrets."
With such thoughts. Levin reached home in the dark. The overseer, who had been to the
merchant, came and handed him a part of the money from the wheat. The agreement with the
dvornik was drawn up; and then the overseer told how he had seen wheat still standing
in the field by the road, while his one hundred and sixty stacks, not yet brought in, were
nothing in comparison to what others had.
After supper Levin sat down in his chair, as usual, with a book; and as he read he began
to think of his projected journey, especially in connection with his book. That evening
the whole significance of his undertaking presented itself to him with remarkable clearness,
and his ideas fell naturally into flowing periods, which expressed the essence of his
thought.
"I must write this down," he said to himself, "It must go into a short introduction, though
before I thought that was unnecessary."
He got up to go to his writing-table; and Laska, who had been lying at his feet, also
got up, and, stretching herself, looked at him, as if asking where he was going. But
he had no time for writing; for the various superintendents came for their orders, and
he had to go to meet them in the anteroom.
After giving them their orders, or rather, having made arrangements for their morrow's
work, and having received all the muzhiks who came to consult with him. Levin went back
to his library, and sat down to his work. Laska lay under the table; Agafya Mikhaiflovna,
with her knitting, took her usual place.
After writing some time. Levin suddenly arose, and began to walk up and down the room. The
memory of Kitty and her refusal, and the recent glimpse of her, came before his imagination
with extraordinary vividness.
"Now, there's no need of your getting blue," said agafya Mikhailovna. "Now why do you stay
at home? you had better go to the warm springs if your mind is made up."
"I am going day after to-morrow, Agafya Mikhalflovna; but I had to finish up my business."
"Your business, indeed! Haven't you given these muzhiks enough already? And they say,
' Our barin is trying to buy some favor from the Tsar; ' and strange it is: why do you
bother yourself so about the muzhiks?"
"I am not bothering myself about them; I am doing it for my own good."
Agafya Mikhailovna knew all the details of Levin's plans, for he had explained them to
her, and he had often had discussions with her and had not agreed with her comments;
but now she entirely misapprehended what he said to her.
"For your own soul it is certainly important; to think of that is above everything," said
she, with a sigh.
"Here is Parfen Denisuitch: although he could not read, yet may God give us all to die as
he did!" said she, referring to a household servant who had recently died. "They confessed
him and gave him extreme unction."
"I did not mean that," said he; "I mean that I am working for my own profit. It will be
more profitable to me if the muzhiks will work better."
"There! you will only have your labor for your pains. The lazy will be lazy and always
do things over his left shoulder. Where he has a conscience, he'll work; if not, nothing
will be done."
"Well, well! But don't you yourself say that Ivan is beginning to look out for the cows
better."
"I say this one thing," replied Agafya Mikhail ovna, evidently not at random but with a keen
logical connection of thought: "You must get married, that's what."
Agafya MikhaVlovna's observation about the very matter that preoccupied him angered him
and insulted him. He frowned, and, without replying, sat down to his work again, repeating
to himself all that he had thought about the importance of his work. Occasionally amid
the silence he noticed the clicking of Agafya mikhaTlovna's needles; and, remembering what
he did not wish to remember, he would frown.
At nine o'clock the sound of bells was heard, and the heavy rumbling of a carriage on the
muddy road.
"There! here's some visitors coming to see you: you won't be bored any more," said Agafya
Mikhai'lovna, rising, and going to the door. But Levin stepped ahead of her. His work did
not progress now, and he was glad to see any guest.
CHAPTER XXXI
Before Levin got halfway down-stairs he heard in the vestibule the sound of a familiar cough;
but the sound was covered by the noise of his own footsteps, and he hoped that he was
mistaken. Then he saw the tall bony figure which he knew so well. But even now, when
there seemed to be no possibility of deception, he still hoped that he was mistaken, and that
this tall man who was divesting himself of his shuba, and coughing, was not his brother
Nikolai'.
Levin loved his brother, but it was always extremely disagreeable to live with him. Now
especially, when Levin was under the influence of the thoughts and suggestions awakened by
Agafya Mikhaylovna, and was in a dull and melancholy humor, the presence of his brother
was indeed an affliction. Instead of a gay, healthy visitor, — some stranger, who, he
hoped, would drive away his perplexities, — he was obliged to receive his brother,
who knew him through and through, who could read his most secret thoughts, and who would
oblige him to share them with him. And this he did not like to do.
Angry with himself for his unworthy sentiments, Levin ran down into the vestibule; and, as
soon as he saw his brother close at hand, the feeling of personal discomfort instantly
disappeared, and was succeeded by a feeling of pity. Terrible as his brother Nikolaif
had been when he saw him before by reason of his emaciation and illness, he was now
still more emaciated, still more feeble. He was like a skeleton covered with skin.
He was standing in the vestibule stretching out his long, thin neck and unwinding a scarf
from it; and he smiled with a strange melancholy smile. When Levin saw his brother's humble
and pitiful smile, he felt a choking sensation.
"Well! I have come to you," said Nikolai', in a thick voice, and not for a second taking
his eyes from his brother's face, "I have been wanting to come for a long time; yes,
I have, but I have been so ill. Now I am very much better," he added, rubbing his beard
with his great bony hand.
"Yes, yes," replied Levin; and it was still more terrible to him when, as he touched his
brother's shriveled cheeks with his lips, he felt his fever flush, and saw the gleam
of his great, strangely brilliant eyes.
Some time before this, Konstantin Levin had written his brother that, having disposed
of the small portion of their common inheritance, consisting of personal property, a sum of
two thousand rubles was due as his share.
Nikolaf said that he had come to get this money, and especially to see the old nest;
to put his foot on the natal soil, so as to get renewed strength, like the heroes of ancient
times. Notwithstanding his tall stooping form, notwithstanding his frightful emaciation,
his movements were, as they had always been, quick and impetuous. Levin took him to his
room.
Nikolaif changed his dress, and took great pains with his toilet, which in former times
he neglected. He brushed his thin shaven hair, and went up-stairs smiling.
He was in the gayest and happiest humor, just as Konstantin had seen him when he was a child.
He even spoke of Sergyei Ivanovitch without bitterness. When he saw Agafya Mikhailovna,
he jested with her, and questioned her about the old servants. The news of the death of
Parfen Denisuitch made a deep impression on him. A look of fear crossed his face, but
he instantly recovered himself.
"He was very old, was he not?" he asked, and quickly changed the conversation. "Yes, I
am going to stay a month or two with you, and then go back to Moscow. You see, Miagkof
has promised me a place, and I shall enter the service. Now I have turned over a new
leaf entirely," he added. "You see, I have sent away that woman."
"Marya Nikolayevna? How? What for?"
"Ah! she was a wretched woman! She caused a heap of tribulations."
But he did not tell what the tribulations were. He could not confess that he had sent
Marya Nikolayevna away because she made his tea too weak, still less because she insisted
on treating him as an invalid.
"Then, besides, I wanted to begin an entirely new kind of life. Of course, I, like everybody
else, have committed follies; but the present, — I mean the last one, — I don't regret
it, provided only I get better; and better, thank the Lord! I feel already."
Levin listened, and tried, but tried in vain, to find something to say. Apparently Nikolai'
had somewhat the same feeling; he began to ask him about his affairs; and Konstantin
was glad to speak about himself because he could speak without any pretense. He frankly
related his plans and his experiments.
Nikolaf listened, but did not show the least interest.
These two men were so related to each other, and there was such a bond between them, that
the slightest motion, the sound of their voices, spoke more clearly than all the words that
they could say to each other.
At this moment both were thinking the same thought, — Nikolai's illness and approaching
death — dwarfing everything else into insignificance. Neither of them dared make the least allusion
to it, and therefore all that either of them said failed to express what really occupied
their minds — and was therefore false. Never before had Levin been so glad for an evening
to end, for bedtime to come. Never, even when obliged to pay casual or official visits,
had he felt so false and unnatural as that evening. And the consciousness of this unnaturalness,
and his regret, made him more unnatural still. His heart was breaking to see his beloved
dying brother; but he was obliged to dissemble, and to talk about various things as if his
brother was going to live.
As at this time the house was damp and only his own room was warm, Levin offered to share
it, with a partition between them, with his brother.
Nikolai' went to bed, and slept the uneasy sleep of an invalid, turning restlessly from
side to side, and constantly coughing. Sometimes when he could not raise the phlegm, he would
cry out, "Akh! Bozhe mo'f!" sometimes, when the dampness choked him, he would grow angry,
and cry out, "Ah, the devil!"
Levin could not sleep as he listened to him. His thoughts were varied, but they always
returned to one theme, — death.
Death, the inevitable end of all, for the first time appeared to him with irresistible
force. And death was here, with this beloved brother, who groaned in his sleep, and called
now upon God, now upon the devil. It was with him also: this he felt. If not to-day, then
to-morrow; if not to-morrow, then in thirty years; was it not all the same? And what this
inevitable death was, — not only did he not know, not only had he never before thought
about it, but he had not wished, had not dared, to think about it.
"Here I am working, wanting to accomplish something, but I forgot that all must come
to an end, — death."
He was lying in bed in the darkness, curled up, holding his knees, scarcely able to breathe,
so great was the tension of his mind. The more he thought, the more clearly he saw that
from his conception of life he had omitted nothing except this one little factor, death,
which would come and end all, and that there was no help against it — not the least.
Yes, this is terrible, but so it is!
"Yes, but I am still alive. Now, what can be done about it? what can be done?" he asked
in despair. He lighted a candle, and softly arose, and went to the mirror, and began to
look at his face and his hair. Yes! on the temples a few gray hairs were to be seen.
He opened his mouth. His back teeth showed signs of decay. He doubled up his muscular
arms. "Yes, there's much strength. But this poor
Nikolenka, who is breathing so painfully with the little that is left of his lungs, also
had at one time a healthy body." and suddenly he remembered how when they were children,
and were put to bed, they would wait until feodor Bogdanuitch got out of the door, and
then begin a pillow fight, and laugh, laugh so unrestrainedly, that not even the fear
of Feodor Bogdanuitch could quench this exuberant and intoxicating sense of the gayety of life.
"But now there he lies in bed with his poor hollow chest — and I — ignorant why, and
what will become of me." ....
"Kah! kah! ah! what the devil are you doing? why don't you go to sleep?" demanded his brother's
voice.
"I don't know; insomnia, I guess."
"But I have been sleeping beautifully. I have not had any sweat at all. Just feel — no
sweat."
Levin felt of him, then he got into bed again, put out the candle, but it was long before
he went to sleep. Still in his mind arose this new question, how to live so as to be
ready for the inevitable death?"
"There! he is dying! Yes! he will die in the spring. How can I aid him? What can I say
to him? what do I know about it." I had even forgotten that there was such a thing."
Levin had long before made the observation that often people who surprise you by an abrupt
transition grow unendurable by reason of their gentleness and excessive humility, unreasonableness,
and peremptory ways. He foresaw that this would be the case with his brother; and, in
fact, Nikolai's sweet temper was not of long duration. On the very next morning he awoke
in an extremely irritable temper, and immediately began to pick a quarrel with his brother by
touching him on the most tender points.
Levin felt himself to blame, but he could not be frank. He felt that if they had not
both dissimulated their thoughts, but had spoken from their very hearts, they would
have looked into each other's eyes, and he would have said only this: "You are going
to die, you are going to die;" and Nikolai would have answered only this: "I know that
I am dying, and I am afraid, afraid, afraid."
And they would have said nothing more if they had spoken honestly from their hearts. But
as this sincerity was not possible, Konstantin tried to do what all his life long he had
never succeeded in doing, though he had observed that many persons could do it and that without
doing it life was almost impossible, — he tried to talk about something that was not
in his mind, and he felt that his brother divined his insincerity, and was therefore
irritated and angry, and found fault with all that he said.
On the third day Nikolai began to discuss the question of his brother's reforms, and
to criticize them, and in a spirit of contrariety to confound his scheme with communism.
"You have only taken your idea from some one else; and you distort it, and want to apply
it to what is not suited to receive it."
"Yes, but I tell you that the two have nothing in common. I have no thought of copying communism,
which denies the right of property, of capital, of inheritance; but I do not disregard these
stimuli." It went against Levin's grain to use these terms, but since he had begun his
treatise he found himself, in spite of him, compelled to use non-Russian words. "All I
want is to regulate labor."
"In other words, you borrow a foreign idea; you take away from it all that gives it force,
and you pretend to make it pass as new," said Nikolai, angrily craning his neck in his cravat.
"Yes, but my idea has not the slightest resemblance...."
"This idea," interrupted Nikolay, smiling ironically, and with an angry light in his
eyes, — "communism, — has at least one attractive feature, — and you might call
it a geometrical one — it has clearness and logical certainty. Maybe it is Utopia.
But let us agree that it can make a tabula rasa of the past, so that there shall be no
property of family, but only freedom of labor. But you don't accept this ...."
"But why do you confound them? I never was a communist."
"But I have been; and I believe that if communism is premature, it is, at least, reasonable;
and it is as sure to succeed as Christianity was in the early centuries."
"And I believe that labor must be regarded from the scientific standpoint; in other words,
it must be studied. Its constitution must be known and ...."
"Now, that is absolutely idle. This force goes of itself, and takes different forms,
according to the degrees of its development. Everywhere this order has been followed, — slaves,
then metayers, free labor, and, here in Russia, we have the farm, the arend or leasehold,
our system of apprenticeship. What more do you want?"
Levin took fire at these last words, the more because he feared in his secret soul that
his brother was right in blaming him for wanting to discover a balance between communism and
the existing forms, — a thing which was scarcely possible.
"I am trying to find a form of labor which will be profitable for all, — for me and
the laborer," he replied warmly.
"That is not what you wish to do; it is simply this: you have, all your life long, sought
to be original; and you want to prove that you are not exploiting the muzhik, but are
working for a principle."
"Well, since you think so let's end it," replied Konstantin, feeling the muscles of his right
cheek twitch involuntarily.
"You never had, and you never will have, any convictions, and you only wanted to flatter
your conceit."
"That is very well to say .... but let's end the matter."
"Certainly I will. It was time long ago. You go to the devil! and I am very sorry that
I came."
Levin tried in vain to calm him. Nikolaf would not listen to a word, and persisted in saying
that they had better separate; and Konstantin saw that it was not possible to live with
him.
Nikolai had already made his preparations to depart, when Konstantin came to him, and
begged him, in a way that was not entirely natural, for forgiveness, if he had offended
him.
"Ah, now! here's magnanimity," said Nikolaif, smiling. "If you are very anxious to be in
the right, then let us agree that this is sensible. You are right, but I am going all
the same."
At the last moment, however, as Nikolai kissed his brother, a strange look of seriousness
came on him.
"Kostia," he said, "don't harbor any animosity against me." And his voice trembled.
These were the only words which were spoken sincerely. Levin understood that they meant:
"You see and know that I am miserable, and we may not meet again."
Levin understood this, and the tears came into his eyes. Once more he kissed his brother,
but he could not find anything to say.
On the third day after his brother's departure. Levin went abroad. At the railway station
he met Shcherbatsky, Kitty's cousin, and astonished him greatly by his melancholy.
"What is the matter?" asked Shcherbatsky.
"Well, nothing, except that there is little happiness in this world."
"Little happiness? Just come with me to Paris instead of going to some place like Mulhouse.
I'll show you how gay it is."
"No, I am done for. I am ready to die."
"What a joke!" said Shcherbatsky, laughing. "I am just learning how to begin."
"I felt the same a little while ago, but now I know that my life will be short."
Levin said what he honestly felt at this time. All that he saw before him was death or its
approach. But still he was just as much interested as ever in his projects of reform. It was
necessary to keep his life occupied till death should come. Darkness seemed to cover everything;
but by reason of this darkness he felt that the only guiding thread through its labyrinth
was to occupy himself with his labors of reform, and he clung to them with all the force of
his character.
PART FOURTH
CHAPTER I
KAREN IN and his wife continued to live in the same house, and to meet every day, and
yet they remained entire strangers to each other. Aleksey Aleksandrovitch made a point
every day to be seen with his wife so that the servants might not have the right to gossip,
but he avoided dining at home. Vronsky was never seen there; Anna met him outside, and
her husband knew it.
All three suffered from a situation which would have been intolerable for a single day
had not each believed it to be transitory. Aleksel Aleksandrovitch expected to see this
passion, like everything else in the world, come to an end and thus his name would not
be dishonored. Anna, the cause of all the trouble, and the one on whom the consequences
weighed the most cruelly, accepted her position simply and solely because she expected — nay,
was firmly convinced — that the matter would soon be explained and settled. She had not
the least idea how it would come about, but she was certain that it would now come about
very speedily.
Vronsky in spite of himself, submitting to her views, was also awaiting something to
happen independent of himself, which should resolve all their difficulty.
Toward the middle of the winter Vronsky had to spend a very tiresome week. He was delegated
to show a foreign prince about Petersburg. Vronsky himself was a representative Russian.
Not only was he irreproachable in his bearing but he was accustomed to the society of such
exalted personages; therefore he was given the charge of the prince. But this responsibility
was very distasteful to him. The prince did not want to let anything pass concerning which
he might be asked on his return, "Did you see that in Russia?" And moreover he wanted
to enjoy as far as possible all the pleasures peculiar to the country. Vronsky was obliged
to be his guide in the one and in the other. In the morning they went out to see the sights;
in the evening they took part in the national amusements.
This prince enjoyed exceptionally good health, even for a prince; and, owing to his gymnastic
exercises and the scrupulous care he took of himself, notwithstanding the excesses to
which he let his love for pleasure carry him, he remained as fresh as a great, green, shiny
Dutch cucumber.
He had been a great traveler, and had found that one of the great advantages of easy modern
communication consisted in the fact that it brought national amusements into easy reach.
In Spain he had given serenades, and fallen in love with a Spanish girl who played the
mandolin; in Switzerland he had killed a chamois; in England leaped ditches in a red shooting-jacket,
and shot two hundred pheasants on a wager; in turkey he had penetrated a harem; in India
he had ridden the elephant; and now he wanted to taste the special pleasures that Russia
afforded.
Vronsky, as master of ceremonies, arranged, with no little difficulty, a program of amusements
truly Russian in character. There were races and blinui, or carnival cakes, and bear-hunts
and troika parties and gipsies, and feasts set forth with Russian dishes, and the prince
with extraordinary aptitude entered into the spirit of these Russian sports, broke his
waiter of glasses with the rest, took a gipsy girl on his knee, and apparently asked himself
if the whole Russian spirit consisted only in this, without going further.
In reality, the prince took more delight in French actresses, ballet-dancers, and white-seal
champagne, than in all the other pleasures which the Russians could offer him.
Vronsky was accustomed to princes, but either because he had changed of late, or else because
he had too close a view of this particular prince, this week seemed terribly burdensome
to him. During the whole week, without cessation, he experienced a feeling like that of a man
placed in charge of a dangerous lunatic, who dreaded his patient, and, at the same time
from very force of proximity, feared for his own reason. Vronsky was constantly under the
necessity of keeping up the strictest barriers of official reserve in order not to feel insulted.
The prince's behavior toward the very persons who, to Vronsky's amazement, were ready to
crawl out of their skin to give him experiences of Russian amusements, was scornful. His criticism
on the Russian women whom he wanted to study more than once made Vronsky grow red with
indignation. What irritated vronsky most violently about this prince was that he could not help
seeing himself in him. And what he saw in this mirror was not flattering to his vanity.
What he saw there was a very stupid, and a very self-confident, and very healthy, and
very fastidious man, and that was all. He was a gentleman and Vronsky could not deny
the fact. He was smooth and frank with his superiors, free and easy with his equals,
coolly kind toward his inferiors. Vronsky himself was exactly the same, and was proud
of it; but in his relations to the prince he was the inferior, and this scornfully good-natured
treatment of himself nettled him.
"Stupid ox! Is it possible that I am like him?" he thought.
However this may have been, at the end of the week, when he took leave of the prince,
who was on his way to Moscow, he was delighted to be delivered from this inconvenient situation
and this disagreeable mirror. They went directly to the station from a bear-hunt, which had
occupied all the night with brilliant exhibitions of Russian daring.
CHAPTER II
On his return home, Vronsky found a note from Anna. She wrote: —
I am ill and unhappy; I cannot go out, and I cannot live longer without seeing you. Come
this evening. Aleksei Aleksandrovitch will be at the council from seven o'clock till
ten.
This invitation, given in spite of her husband's formal prohibition, seemed strange to him;
but he finally decided to go to Anna's.
Since the beginning of the winter, Vronsky had been promoted as colonel; he had left
the regiment and was living alone. After having finished his breakfast, he stretched himself
out on the divan, and in five minutes the recollection of the wild scenes of the preceding
days became curiously mingled in his mind with Anna and a peasant whipper-in, who had
performed an important part in the bear-hunt; finally he fell asleep. He awoke; night had
come. Shivering with apprehension, he hastily lighted a candle. "What has happened to me?
what terrible dream have I had?" he asked himself.
"Yes, yes, the peasant, a dirty little man, with a disheveled beard, bent something or
other up double, and pronounced some strange words in French. I didn't dream anything else;
why am I so terrified?"
But, in recalling the peasant and his incomprehensible French words, a sense of something horrible
sent a cold shiver down his back.
"What nonsense!" he thought as he looked at his watch. It was already half-past eight;
he called his man, dressed quickly, went out, and, entirely forgetting his dream, thought
only of being late.
As he approached the Karenins' house, he again looked at his watch, and saw that it lacked
ten minutes of nine. A high, narrow carriage, drawn by two gray horses, stood in front of
the door; he recognized Anna's carriage.
"She was coming to my house," he said to himself; "and it would be better. It is disagreeable
for me to go into this hovise, but it makes no difference to me, I cannot conceal myself;"
and, with the manner of a man accustomed from childhood to act above board, he left his
sleigh, and mounted the steps. The door opened, and the Swiss, carrying a plaid, motioned
to the carriage to draw near. Vronsky, who was not accustomed to observe details, was
struck by the look of astonishment which the Swiss gave him. At the door Vronsky came near
running into Aleksev Aleksandrovitch. A gaslight placed at the entrance of the vestibule threw
full light on his pale, worn face. He wore a black hat, and a white cravat showing under
a fur collar. Karenin's gloomy, dull eyes fixed themselves on Vronsky, who bowed. Aleksei
Aleksandrovitch, drawing his lips together, raised his hand to his hat, and passed. Vronsky
saw him get into his carriage without turning round, take his plaid and opera-glass, which
the Swiss servant handed through the door, and disappear.
Vronsky went into the anteroom. His brows were contracted, and his eyes flashed with
anger and outraged pride.
"What a situation!" thought Vronsky. "If he would fight to defend his honor, I should
know what to do to express my sentiments; but this weakness or cowardice.... He places
me in the position of a deceiver, which I never was and never will be."
Since the explanation that he had had with Anna in the Vrede garden, Vronsky's idea had
greatly changed. involuntarily overcome by Anna's weakness, — for she had given herself
to him without reserve and expected from him only the decision as to her future fate, — Vronsky
had long ceased to think that this liaison might end as he had supposed it would. His
ambitious plans had again been relegated to the background, and he, feeling that he had
definitely left that circle of activity where everything was determined, gave himself up
entirely to his feeling, and this feeling drew him more and more vigorously toward her.
Even in the reception-room, he heard her footsteps drawing near. He knew that she was waiting
for him and had just entered the drawing-room near by, to watch for him.
"No," she cried, seeing him enter, "things cannot go on in this way! "And at the sound
of her own voice, her eyes filled with tears. "If this is going on this way, it would be
far better if it had ended long ago!"
"What is the matter, my friend?"
"The matter! I have been waiting in torture for two hours; but no, I do not want to quarrel
with you
Of course you could not come. No, I will not scold you any more."
She put her two hands on his shoulders, and looked at him long, with her eyes deep and
tender, although searching. She studied his face for all the time that she had not seen
him. As always happened every time they met, she tried to compare her imaginary presentment
of him — it was incomparably better because it was impossible in reality — with him
as he really was.
CHAPTER XI
"Did you meet him?" she asked, when they were seated under the lamp by the drawing-room
table. "That is your punishment for coming so late."
"Yes; how did it happen? Should he not have been at the council?"
"He went there, but he came back again, and now he has gone off somewhere again. But that
is no matter; let us talk no more about it; where have you been? All this time with the
prince?"
She knew the most minute details of his life.
He wanted to reply that as he had no rest the night before, he allowed himself to oversleep;
but the sight of her happy, excited face, made this acknowledgment difficult, and he
excused himself on the plea of having been obliged to go and present his report about
the prince's departure.
"It is over now, is it? Has he gone?" "Yes, thank the Lord, it is all done with!
You have no idea how intolerable this week has seemed to me."
"Why so? Here you have not been leading the life customary to young men," she said, frowning,
and, without looking at Vronsky, she took up some crocheting that was lying on the table
and pulled out the needle.
"I renounced that life long ago," he replied, wondering at the sudden change in her beautiful
face, and trying to discover what it portended. "I assure you," he added, smiling, and showing
his white teeth, "that it was overpoweringly unpleasant to me to look at that old life
again, as it were, in a mirror."
She kept her crocheting in her hand, though she did not work, but looked at him with strange,
brilliant, not quite friendly eyes.
"Liza came to see me this morning — they are not yet afraid to come to my house, in
spite of the Countess Lidya Ivanovna "— and here she stood up — "and told me about your
Athenian nights. What an abomination!"
"I only wanted to tell you that...."
She interrupted him: —
"That it was Therese whom you used to know?"
"I was going to say ...."
"How odious you men are! How can you suppose that a woman forgets?" said she, growing more
and more animated, and then disclosing the cause of her irritation, — "and above all
a woman who can know nothing of your life? What do I know? What can I know?" she kept
repeating. "What can I know except what you wish to tell me? And how can I know whether
it is the truth?" ....
"Anna, you insult me! have you no longer any faith in me? Have I not told you that I have
no thoughts which I would conceal from you?"
"Yes, yes," she said, trying to drive away her jealous fears; "but if you only knew how
I suffer! I believe in you, I do believe in you But what did you want to say to me?"
But he could not instantly remember what he wanted to say. Anna's fits of jealousy were
becoming more and more frequent, and, however much he tried to conceal it, these scenes
made him grow cool toward her, although he knew that the cause of the jealousy was her
very love for him. How many times had he not said to himself that happiness existed for
him only in this love; and now that she loved him as only a woman can love for whom love
outweighs all other treasures in life, happiness seemed farther off than when he had followed
her from Moscow. Then he considered himself unhappy, but happiness was in sight; now he
felt that their highest happiness was in the past. She was entirely different from what
she had been when he first saw her. Both morally and physically she had changed for the worse.
The beauty of her form was gone, and when she spoke about the French actress a wicked
expression came over her face which spoiled it. He looked at her as a man looks at a flower
which he has plucked and which has faded, and he finds it hard to recognize the beauty
for the sake of which he has plucked it and despoiled it. And yet he felt that at the
time when his passion was more violent, he might, if he had earnestly desired it, have
torn his love out of his heart; but now, at the very time when it seemed to him that he
felt no love for her, he knew that the tie that bound him to her was indissoluble.
"Well, well, tell me what you have to say about the prince," replied Anna. "I have driven
away the demon, i have driven him away," she added. Between themselves they called her
jealousy the demon. "You began to tell me something about the prince. Why was it so
disagreeable to you?"
"Oh, it was unbearable," replied Vronsky, trying to pick up the thread of his thought
again. "The prince doesn't improve on close acquaintance. I can only compare him to one
of those highly fed animals which take first prizes at exhibitions," he added, with an
air of vexation, which seemed to interest Anna.
"No, but how? Is he not a cultivated man, who has seen much of the world?"
"It is an entirely different kind of cultivation — their cultivation! One would say that
he was cultivated only for the sake of scorning cultivation, as he scorns everything else,
except animal pleasures."
"But are you not also fond of all these animal pleasures yourself?" said Anna, and once more
he noticed the gloomy look in her eyes which avoided his.
"Why do you defend him?" he asked, smiling.
"I am not defending him; it is all absolutely indifferent to me. But it seems to me if you
did not like these pleasures, you might dispense with them. But you enjoyed going to see that
Th^r^se in the costume of eve." ....
"There is the demon again," said Vronsky, taking her hand which lay on the table and
kissing it.
"Yes; but I can't help it. You can't imagine what I suffered while I was waiting for you.
I do not think I am jealous; I am not jealous: when you are here with me I believe in you;
but when you are away, leading a life so incomprehensible to me...."
She drew away from him, drew the crochet-needle out of her work, and speedily, with the help
of her index finger, the stitches of white wool gleaming in the lamplight began one after
the other to take form, and swiftly, nervously, the delicate wrist* moved back and forth in
the embroidered cuff.
"Tell me, how was it?" where did you meet Aleksei Aleksandrovitch," she asked suddenly,
in a voice still sounding unnatural.
"We ran against each other at the door."
"And did he greet you like this?"
She drew down her face and, half closing her eyes, instantly changed her whole expression,
and Vronsky suddenly saw the same look in her pretty features which Aleksef Aleksandrovitch
had worn when he bowed to him. He smiled, and Anna began to laugh, with that fresh,
ringing laugh which was one of her greatest charms.
"I really do not understand him," said Vronsky. "I should have supposed that after your explanation
at the datcha, he would have broken off with you, and provoked a duel with me; but how
can he endure such a situation? He suffers, that is evident."
"He?" said she, with a sneer. "Oh! he is perfectly content."
"Why should we all torture ourselves in this way, when everything might be so easily arranged?"
"Only that doesn't suit him. Oh, don't I know him, and the falsity on which he subsists.
How could he live as he lives with me if he had any feelings." He has no susceptibilities,
no feelings! Could a man of any susceptibilities live in the same house with his guilty wife?
How can he talk with her? How can he address her family?"
And again she imitated the way her husband would say, "T'a, ma c'ihe, tui, Anna."
"He is not a man, I tell you; he is a puppet. No one knows it, but I know it. Oh, if I had
been in his place, I would long ago have killed, have torn in pieces, a wife like myself, instead
of saying, 'Tiii, ma chhre anjta,' to her; but he is not a man; he is a ministerial machine.
He does not understand that I am your wife, that he is nothing to me, that he is in the
way No, no, let us not talk about him."
"You are unjust, my dear," said Vronsky, trying to calm her; "but all the same, let us not
talk any more about him. Tell me how you do. How are you?" You wrote me you were ill; what
did the doctor say?"
She looked at him with gay raillery. Evidently she still saw ridiculous and abominable traits
in her husband, and would willingly have continued to speak about them.
But he added: —
"I suspect you were not really ill, but that it comes from your condition .... when will
it be."
The sarcastic gleam disappeared from Anna's eyes, but suddenly a different kind of smile
— the token of a gentle melancholy, of some feeling he could not comprehend — took its
place.
"Soon, very soon. You said our position is painful, and that it must be changed. If you
knew how hard it is for me, what I would give to be able to love you freely and openly!
I should not torment myself and I should not torment you with my jealousy.
And this will be soon, but not in the way we think."
And at the thought of how this would take place she felt such pity for herself that
the tears filled her eyes and she could not go on. She put her white hand, with the rings
sparkling in the lamplight, on Vronsky's arm.
"This will not be as we think. I did not intend to speak to you about this, but you compel
me to. Soon, soon, every knot will be disentangled, and all of us, all, will be at peace, and
we shall not be tormented any more."
"I don't know what you mean," he said; yet he understood her.
"You ask, 'When will it be.'" Soon. And I shall not survive it. Don't interrupt me!"
And she went on speaking rapidly: —
"I know it, I am perfectly certain I am going to die; and I am glad to die, and to free
myself and you."
Her tears continued to fall. Vronsky bent over her hand and began to kiss it, and tried
to conceal his own emotion, which he knew he had no ground for feeling, but which he
could not overcome.
"It is better that it should be so," she said, pressing his hand fervently. "It is the only
thing, the only thing left for us."
"What a foolish idea!" said Vronsky, lifting up his head and regaining his self-possession.
"What utter nonsense you are talking!"
"No; it is the truth."
"What do you mean by the truth?"
"That I am going to die. I have seen it in a dream."
"In a dream?" repeated Vronsky, involuntarily recalling the muzhik of his nightmare.
"Yes, in a dream," she continued. "I had this dream a long time ago. I dreamed that I ran
into my room to get something or other. I was searching about, you know, as one does
in dreams," said she, opening her eyes wide with horror, "and I noticed something standing
in the corner of my room."
"What nonsense! How do you suppose ...."
But she would not let him interrupt her; what she was telling was too important to her.
"And this something turned around, and I saw a little dirty muzhik, with an unkempt beard.
I wanted to run away, but he bent toward a bag, in which he moved some object."
She made the motion of a person rummaging in a bag; terror was depicted on her face;
and Vronsky, recalling his own dream, felt the same terror seize his soul.
"And all the while he was searching, he talked fast, very fast, in French, lisping, you know,
'II fant le battre le fer, le broyer, le petrir .... ' I tried to wake up, but I only woke
up in my dream, asking what it could mean and Karnei said to me, 'You are going to die,
you are going to die in child-bed, matushka.' And at last I woke up." ....
"What an absurd dream!" said Vronsky, but he himself felt that there was no conviction
in his voice.
"But let us say no more about it. Ring; I am going to give you some tea, so stay a little
longer. It is a long time since I ...."
She suddenly ceased speaking. The expression of her face instantly changed. Horror and
emotion disappeared from her face, which assumed an expression of gentle, serious, and affectionate
solicitude. He could not understand the significance of that change.
She had felt within her the motion of a new life.
CHAPTER IV
After meeting Vronsky on the porch, Aleksey Aleksandrovitch went, as he had planned, to
the Italian opera. He sat through two acts, and saw every one whom he needed to see. Returning
home, he looked carefully at the hat-rack, and, having assured himself that there was
no uniform overcoat in the vestibule, went straight to his chamber.
Contrary to his usual habit, instead of going to bed, he walked up and down his room till
three o'clock in the morning. Anger kept him awake, for he could not forgive his wife for
not being willing to observe the proprieties, and for not fulfilling the one condition that
he had imposed on her, — that she should not receive her lover in his house. She had
not complied with his requirement, and he felt bound to punish her, carry out his threat,
demand a divorce, and take away his son from her. He knew all the difficulties that would
attend this action, but he had said that he should do it, and now he was bound to carry
out his threat. The Countess Lidia had often said that this was the easiest way out of
his position; and recently the practice of divorce had reached such a pitch of perfection
that Aleksey Aleksandrovitch saw in it a means of escaping , its formal difficulties.
Moreover, misfortunes never come single; and the trouble arising from the organization
of the foreign population, and the irrigation of the fields in the government of Zarat,
had caused Aleksef Aleksandrovitch so much unpleasantness in his office that for some
time he had been in a perpetual state of irritation.
He passed the night without sleeping, and his anger increasing all the while in a sort
of colossal system of progression, by morning was directed even to the most trivial object.
He dressed hastily, and went to Anna as soon as he knew she was up. He was afraid of losing
the energy which he needed for his explanation with his wife; it was as if he carried a full
cup of wrath and was afraid of spilling it.
Anna believed that she thoroughly knew her husband; but she was amazed at his appearance
as he came in. His brows were contracted, and his eyes looked gloomily straight ahead,
avoiding hers. His lips were firm and scornfully compressed. Never had his wife seen so much
decision as she saw now in his gait, in every motion, in the sound of his voice. He entered
without wishing her good morning, and went directly to her writing-desk, and, taking
the key, opened the drawer.
"What do you want?" cried Anna.
"Your lover's letters."
"They are not there," she said, closing the drawer. But he knew by her action that he
had guessed aright, and, roughly pushing away her hand, he quickly seized the portfolio
in which he knew Anna kept her important papers. She attempted to regain it, but he held it
at a distance.
"Sit down; I want to speak to you," he said, placing the portfolio under his arm, and holding
it so firmly with his elbow that his shoulder was raised by it.
Anna looked at him, astonished and frightened, but said nothing.
"I told you that I would not permit you to receive your lover in this house."
"I needed to see him to ...."
She stopped, unable to find a plausible explanation.
"I will not enter into details, and have no desire to know why a woman needs to see her
lover."
"I wished, I only ...." she said, flashing up, and feeling that her husband's rudeness
made her bold — "is it possible that you are not aware how easy it is for you to insult
me?"
"One can insult only an honest man or an honest woman; but to tell a thief that he is a thief,
is only la constatation dun fait — the statement of a fact."
"That is a degree of cruelty that I never recognized in you."
"Ah! you find a husband cruel because he gives his wife perfect freedom, gives her the protection
of an honest, noble name on the sole condition that she respect the laws of propriety? You
call that cruelty?"
"It is worse than cruelty; it is cowardice, if you insist on knowing," cried Anna, with
an outburst of anger, and rising, she started to go.
"No," cried he, in his piping voice, which was now a tone higher than usual; and seizing
her by the arm with his great, bony fingers so roughly that one of Anna's bracelets left
a red print on her flesh, he forced her back into her place.
"Cowardice, indeed! If you wish to employ that word, apply it to her who abandons her
son and husband for a lover, and nevertheless eats her husband's bread."
Anna bowed her head; she not only did not say what she had said the evening before to
her lover, that /le was her husband while her husband was in the way — she did not
even think it. She appreciated all the justice of his words, and she replied in a low voice:
"You cannot judge my position more severely than I do myself; but why do you say all this?"
"Why do I say this?" continued he as angrily as ever; "so that you may know that, since
you have paid no attention to my wishes, and have broken the rules of propriety, I shall
take measures to put an end to this state of affairs."
"Soon, very soon, it will terminate itself," said Anna, and again at the thought of that
death which she felt near at hand, and now so desirable, her eyes filled with tears.
"Sooner even than you and your lover have dreamed of! You need to make atonement by
keen suffering....
"Aleksey Aleksandrovitch! I do not say that this is not magnanimous; but it is not gentlemanly
to strike one who is down."
"You only think of yourself: the suffering of one who has been your husband is of little
interest to you; it is a matter of indifference to you that his life has been overthrown,
that he su....su.... suffers ...."
Alekseif Aleksandrovitch spoke so rapidly that he stammered, and could not speak the
word.
This seemed ridiculous to Anna, but she immediately was ashamed of herself because anything could
seem to her ridiculous at such a moment. For the first time, and for a moment, she felt
for him, and entered into his feelings and pitied him. But what could she say or do?
She bowed her head and was silent. he also was silent for a little, then began again
in a less piercing and colder voice, emphasizing words of no special importance: —
"I came to tell you ...."
She glanced at him. "No, that proves it to me," she said to herself, as she remembered
the expression of his face as he stammered over the word suffered. "No, how can a man,
with his dull eyes, so full of calm self-satisfaction, feel anything."
"I cannot change," she murmured.
"I have come to tell you that to-morrow I am going to Moscow, and that I shall not enter
this house again. You will learn of my determination from the lawyer who will have charge of the
preliminaries of the divorce. My son will go to my sister," he added, recalling with
difficulty what he wanted to say about the child.
"You want to take Serozha away so as to cause me pain," she cried, glaring at him; "you
do not love him .... leave Serozha!"
"Yes, I have even lost my love for my son because the repulsion you inspire in me includes
him; but I shall keep him, nevertheless. Good morning."
He was about to go, but she detained him.
"Alekseif Aleksandrovitch, leave Serozha with me," she whispered again; "that is all I ask
of you; leave him with me tillmy" I shall soon be confined. Leave him with me I"
Aleksef Aleksandrovitch flushed with indignation, pushed away the arm that held him back, and
left her without replying.
CHAPTER V
The reception-room of the celebrated Petersburg lawyer was full of people when Aleksef Aleksandrovitch
entered it. Three ladies, one old, another young, and a merchant's wife; three men, a
German banker with a ring on his hand, a merchant with a beard, and a sullen-looking official
in undress-uniform with a decoration around his neck, had apparently been waiting a long
time.
Two clerks were writing with scratching pens. Their writing utensils — and Aleksef Aleksandrovitch
was a connoisseur of such things — were of unusual excellence. Aleksei could not fail
to take note of that fact. One of the clerks turned his head, with an air of annoyance,
toward the newcomer, and, without rising, asked him, with half-closed eyes: —
"What do you want?"
"I have business with the lawyer."
"He is busy," replied the clerk severely, pointing with his pen toward those who were
already waiting; and he went back to his writing.
"Will he not find a moment to receive me?" asked Aleksei Aleksandrovitch.
"He is not at liberty a single moment; he is always busy: have the goodness to wait."
"Be so good as to give him my card," said Aleksei Aleksandrovitch, with dignity, seeing
that it was impossible to preserve his incognito.
The secretary took his card, and, evidently not approving of it, left the room.
Aleksei Aleksandrovitch, on principle, approved of public courts, but he did not fully sympathize
with certain details of its application in Russia, because of his acquaintance with its
working in the best official relations, and he criticized them as far as he could criticize
anything that received the sanction of the supreme power. His whole life was spent in
administrative activity, and consequently when he did not sympathize with anything,
his lack of sympathy was modified by his recognition of the fact that errors were unavoidable,
but that some things might be remedied. In the new judicial arrangement he did not approve
of the conditions in which the lawyers were placed. Hitherto he had not had occasion to
deal with lawyers, and so he had disapproved of the system only theoretically. But now
his disapprobation was greatly increased by the disagreeable impression made on him in
the lawyer's reception-room.
"The lawyer will be out immediately," said the clerk; and in reality in about two minutes
the door opened, and the lawyer appeared, together with a tall justice of the peace.
The lawyer was a short, thick-set man, with a bald head, a dark reddish beard, a prominent
forehead, and long, shiny eyebrows. His dress, from his necktie and double watch-chain down
to his polished boots, was that of a dandy. His face was intelligent, but vulgar; his
manner pretentious and in bad taste.
"Be so good as to walk in," said he, addressing Aleksef Aleksandrovitch; and gloomily ushering
him into the next room, he closed the door.
"Will you not sit?"
He pointed to an arm-chair near his desk covered with papers, and rubbing his short, hairy
hands together, he settled himself in front of the desk, and bent his head to one side.
But he was hardly seated when a mothmiller flew on the table, and the little man, with
unexpected liveliness, caught it on the wing; then he quickly resumed his former attitude.
"Before beginning to explain my business," said Aleksel Aleksandrovitch, following the
movements of the lawyer with astonishment, "I must inform you that the subject which
brings me here is to be kept secret."
An imperceptible smile slightly moved the lawyer's projecting reddish mustache.
"If I were not capable of keeping the secrets intrusted to me, I should not be a lawyer,"
said he; "but if you wish to be assured ...."
Alekset Aleksandrovitch glanced at him and noticed that his gray eyes, full of intelligence,
had apparently read all that he had to tell.
"Do you know my name?" asked Aleksey Aleksandrovitch.
"I know you and how valuable "— here again he caught a miller — "your services are,
as every Russian does," replied the lawyer, bowing.
Aleksey Aleksandrovitch sighed; with difficulty he brought himself to speak; but when he had
once begun, he continued unhesitatingly, in a clear, sharp voice, emphasizing certain
words.
"I have the misfortune to be a deceived husband. I wish to obtain legal separation from my
wife, — that is, a divorce, — and, above all, to separate my son from his mother."
The lawyer's gray eyes did their best to remain serious, but they danced with unrestrained
delight, and Aleksei Aleksandrovitch saw that they were full of an amusement not caused
solely by the prospect of a good suit; they shone with enthusiasm, with triumph, — something
like the brilliancy he had noticed in his wife's eyes.
"You wish my assistance to obtain the divorce?"
"Yes, exactly; but I must warn you that I run the risk of wasting your time, I have
only come to ask preliminary advice. I wish a divorce, but for me certain forms are essential
in which it is possible. Very possibly I shall give up the idea of any legal attempt if these
forms do not coincide with my requirements."
"Oh, that is always the way," said the lawyer; "you will always remain perfectly free."
The little man, that he might not offend his client by the delight which his face ill concealed,
fixed his eyes on Aleksey Aleksandrovitch's feet. He saw a moth flying in front of his
nose and he put out his hand, but he restrained himself, out of respect to Aleksei Aleksandrovitch's
situation.
"The general features of the laws of divorce are well known to me," continued Aleksei Aleksandrovitch;
"but I should like to have a general knowledge of the formalities which are employed in the
practical settlement of affairs of this kind."
"You wish," replied the lawyer, not raising his eyes and entering with no little satisfaction
into the spirit of his client's words, "you wish me to expound for you the way whereby
your wishes may be fulfilled."
And, as Aleksei Aleksandrovitch assented with an inclination of his head, he continued,
casting a furtive glance now and then at his face, which was flushed with red spots.
"Divorce, according to our laws," said he, with a slight shade of disdain for our laws,
"is possible, as you know, in the following cases.... Let them wait!" he cried, seeing
his clerk open the door. However, he rose, went to say a few words to him, came back,
and sat down again: ".... in the following cases: physical defect of one of the parties;
next, the unexplained absence of one of them for five years," — in making this enumeration
he bent down his short, hairy fingers, one after another, — "and finally, adultery."
This word he pronounced with evident satisfaction. "The categories are as follows: "— he kept
on doubling over his fat fingers, although the case before him and the categories, it
was plain enough, could not be classified together, — "physical incapacity of husband
or wife, then adultery of husband or wife." Then as all his fingers were closed he raised
them all again and proceeded: "This is the theoretical view, but I think that, in doing
me the honor to consult me, you desire to know the practical side, do you not." And
therefore, guiding myself by antecedents, it is my duty to inform you that as this case
is neither one of physical defect, nor absence of one of the parties, as I understand."....
Aleksei Aleksandrovitch bowed his head in confirmation of this.
"The reason last named remains, — adultery, — and the conviction of the guilty party
by mutual consent, and without mutual consent, compulsory conviction. I must say that the
last case is rarely met with in practice," said the lawyer; and he glanced at his client
and waited like a gunsmith who explains to a purchaser the use of two pistols of different
caliber, leaving him free to choose between them.
But Aleksei Aleksandrovitch remaining silent, he continued: —
"The commonest, simplest, and most reasonable way, in my opinion, is to recognize the guilt
by mutual agreement. I should not allow myself to say this if I were talking to a man of
less experience than yourself," said the lawyer, "but I suppose that this is comprehensible
to you."
Alekself Aleksandrovitch, however, was so troubled that he did not at the first moment
realize the reasonableness of "adultery, by mutual agreement," and this uncertainty was
to be read in his eyes; but the lawyer came at once to his aid.
"Suppose that a man and wife can no longer live together; if both consent to a divorce,
the details and formalities amount to nothing. This is the simplest and surest way."
Aleksei Aleksandrovitch understood now, but he had religious convictions which stood in
the way of his employing this measure.
"In the present case this means is out of the question," said he. "Here only one case
is possible: compulsory conviction, supported by letters which are in my possession."
At the mention of letters, the lawyer, pressing his lips together, uttered an exclamation
both of pity and disdain.
"Please take notice," he began, "affairs of this sort are, as you well know, decided by
the upper clergy," he said. "Our Fathers the protopopes are great connoisseurs in affairs
of this kind and attend to the minutest details," said he, with a smile which showed his sympathy
for the protopopes. "Letters undoubtedly might serve as partial evidence. But proofs must
be furnished in the right way — by witnesses. However, if you do me the honor to grant me
your confidence, you must give me the choice of measures to be pursued. Where there is
a will, there is a way."
"If that is so...." began Aleksey Aleksandrovitch, suddenly growing very pale. But at that instant
the lawyer again ran to the door, to reply to a fresh interruption from his clerk.
"Tell her, then, that this is not a cheap shop," said he and returned to Aleksef Aleksandrovitch.
As he returned to his place he caught another moth.
"My reps will be in a fine condition by summer!" he said to himself, scowling.
"You were kind enough to say ...."
"I will communicate to you my decision by letter," replied Aleksef Aleksandrovitch,
standing up and leaning his hand on the table. After standing for a moment in thought, he
said: —
"From your words I conclude that a divorce is possible. I shall be obliged to you if
you will make your conditions known to me."
"Everything is possible if you will give me entire freedom of action," said the lawyer,
eluding the last question. "When may I expect a communication from you?" asked he, moving
to the door with eyes as shiny as his boots.
"Within a week. You will then have the goodness to let me know whether you accept the case,
and on what terms?"
"Very good."
The lawyer bowed respectfully, conducted his client to the door, and when he was left alone,
he gave vent to his feelings of joy; he felt so gay that, contrary to his principles, he
made a deduction to a lady skilled in the art of making a bargain, and neglected to
catch a moth, resolving definitely that he would have his furniture upholstered the next
winter with velvet, as Sigonin had.
CHAPTER VI
Aleksei Aleksandrovitch had won a brilliant victory at the session of the Commission of
August 29, but the consequences of his victory were injurious to him. The new committee appointed
to study the situation of the foreign population had been constituted and had gone to its field
of action with a promptness and energy surprising to Aleksei Aleksandrovitch; at the end of
three months it presented its report.
The condition of this population had been studied from a political, administrative,
economical, ethnographical, material, and religious point of view. Each question was
followed by an admirably concise reply, leaving no room to doubt that these answers were the
work, not of a human mind, always liable to mistake, but of an experienced bureaucracy.
These answers were based on official data, such as the reports of governors and archbishops,
based again on the reports of heads of districts and ecclesiastical superintendents, in their
turn based on the reports from communal administrations and country priests. And therefore their correctness
could not be doubted. Questions such as these, "Why are the harvests poor?" and, "Why do
the inhabitants of certain localities persist in their behefs?" and the like — questions
which without the help of the official machine could never be solved, and to which ages would
not have found a reply — were clearly solved, in conformity with the opinions of Aleksef
Aleksandrovitch.
But Stremof, feeling that he had been touched to the quick at the last session, had employed
for the reception of the committee's report a stratagem unexpected by Aleksei Aleksandrovitch.
Taking with him several other members, he suddenly went over to Karenin's side, and,
not satisfied with warmly supporting the measures proposed by Aleksei Aleksandrovitch, he proposed
others, of the same nature. These measures, which were of such a radical nature as to
be entirely opposed to Aleksei' Aleksandrovitch's intention, were adopted and then Stremof's
tactics were revealed. Carried to extremes, these measures seemed so ridiculous that the
government officials, and public opinion, and ladies of influence, and the daily papers,
all attacked them and expressed the greatest indignation both at the measures themselves
and at their avowed promoter, Alekseif Aleksandrovitch.
Stremof slipped out of sight, pretending that he only blindly followed Karenin's plan, and
that he himself was amazed and dumfounded at what had happened. This greatly weakened
Aleksei Aleksandrovitch. But notwithstanding his enfeebled health, notwithstanding his
family annoyances, he did not give up. The committee was split into two factions: some
of them, with stremof at their head, explained their mistake by the fact that they had placed
full confidence in the Revisionary Committee which, under the lead of Alekseif Aleksandrovitch,
had brought in its report, and they declared the report of this committee of inspection
was rubbish and so much wasted paper. Alekset Aleksandrovitch, with a party of men who saw
the peril of such a revolutionary reference to documents, continued to support the data
worked out by the Revisionary committee.
As a result of this, the highest circles and even society was thrown into confusion, and
although this was a question of the greatest interest to every one, no one could make out
whether the foreign populations were in reality suffering and dying out or flourishing.
Karenin's position in consequence of this and partly in consequence of the contempt
which people felt for him by reason of his wife's unfaithfulness became very precarious.
In this state of affairs he made an important resolution: to the great astonishment of the
commission, he announced that he demanded the right to go and study these questions
himself on the spot; and, permission having been granted him, Aleksel Aleksandrovitch
set out for the distant provinces.
His departure made a great sensation, especially from the fact that, at his very departure,
he officially refused the traveling expenses required for twelve post-horses, to take him
to the places of inspection.
"I think that was very noble of him," said Betsy to the Princess Miagkaya. "Why should
they pay for post-horses, when every one knows that you can go everywhere nowadays by rail?"
But the Princess Miagkaya did not agree with her, and she was greatly wrought up by the
Princess Tverskaya's remark.
"This is very well for you to say," she replied, "when you have I don't know how many millions,
but I like it very much when my husband goes off on a tour of inspection in the summer.
It is very healthy and agreeable for him to go driving about, but I have made it a rule
to keep that money for my own horse-hire and Izvoshchiks!"
On his way to the distant provinces, Aleksey Aleksandrovitch stopped at Moscow three days.
The next day after his arrival, he was coming from a call on the governor-general. At the
crossing of the Gazetnot Street, where carriages of every description are always thronging,
he heard his name called in such a gay, sonorous voice, that he could not help stopping. there
stood Stepan Arkadyevitch on the sidewalk, in a short, stylish paletot, with a stylish
hat set on one side, with a radiant smile which showed his white teeth between his red
lips, gay, youthful-looking, brilliant. He kept calling to him and beckoning to him to
stop. He was holding by one hand to the window of a carriage which had drawn up to the sidewalk,
and in the carriage was a woman in a velvet hat, with two little ones; she also beckoned
to him and smiled.
It was Dolly and her children.
Aleksei Aleksandrovitch had not counted on seeing in Moscow any one whom he knew, and
least of all his wife's brother. He took off his hat and would have proceeded, but Stepan
Arkadyevitch motioned to the coachman to stop, and ran through the snow to the carriage.
"How long have you been here? What a sin not to let us know you were coming! I was at Dusseaux's
last evening, and I saw the name of Karenin on the list of arrivals, but it never occurred
to me that it was you, else I should have looked you up," said he, passing his head
through the door. "How glad I am to see you," he went on to say, striking his feet together
to shake off the snow. "What a sin not to let us know."
"I hadn't time. I am very busy," replied Alekseif Aleksandrovitch, curtly.
"Come and speak to my wife; she wants to see you very much."
Alekseif Aleksandrovitch threw off the plaid which covered his chilly limbs, and, leaving
his carriage, made a way through the snow to Darya Aleksandrovna.
"Why, what has happened, Aleksei Aleksandrovitch, that you avoid us in this way?" said she,
smiling.
"I was very busy. I am delighted to see you," replied Karenin, in a tone which clearly proved
that he was annoyed. "How is your health?"
"How is my dear Anna?"
Alekseif Aleksandrovitch muttered a few words, and was about to leave her, but Stepan Arkadyevitch
detained him.
"Do you know what we are going to do to-morrow? Dolly, invite him to dine. Have Koznuishef
and Pestsof, so as to regale him with the representative intellects of moscow."
"Oh, please come!" said Dolly; "we will name any hour that is convenient — five or six,
as you please. But how is my dear Anna? It is so long ...."
"She is well," muttered Aleksei Aleksandrovitch again, frowning. "Very happy to have met you."
And he went back to his carriage.
"Will you come?" cried Dolly again.
Aleksei Aleksandrovitch said something in reply which Dolly could not hear in the rumble
of carriages.
"I am coming to see you to-morrow!" cried Stepan Arkadyevitch.
Aleksef Aleksandrovitch shut himself up in his carriage, and crouched down in one corner
so as not to see and not to be seen.
"What a strange fellow!" said Stepan Arkadyevitch to his wife; and looking at his watch he made
an affectionate sign of farewell to his wife and children, and started off down the sidewalk
at a brisk pace.
"Stiva, Stiva!" cried Dolly, blushing. He came back.
"I must have some money for the children's cloaks. Give me some."
"No matter about that. Tell them that I will settle the bill."
And he disappeared, gayly nodding to some acquaintance as he went.
CHAPTER VII
The next day was Sunday, and Stepan Arkadyevitch went to the Bolsho'i or Great Theater, to
attend the rehearsal of the ballet, and gave the coral necklace to masha Chibisovaya, the
pretty dancing-girl who was making her debut under his protection, as he had promised the
day before, and behind the scenes in the dim twilight of the theater he seized his opportunity
and kissed her pretty little face glowing with pleasure at his gift. Besides fulfilling
his promise as to the coral necklace, he wanted to arrange with her for an assignation after
the ballet. Having explained to her that he could not possibly manage to be present at
the beginning of the ballet, he promised to come for the next act and take her out for
supper.
From the theater Stepan Arkadyevitch went to the okhotnui Ryad, himself selected a fish
and asparagus for the dinner; and at noon he went to Dusseaux's, where three travelers,
friends of his, by happy chance were stopping, — Levin, just returned from his journey
ad; his new nachalnik or chief, who had just been appointed, and had come to Moscow to
look into affairs; and lastly, his brother-in-law, Karenin, whom he was bound to invite to dinner.
Stepan Arkadyevitch liked to go out to dinner, but what he liked better still was to give
a choice little dinner-party with a few select friends. The program that he made out for
this day pleased him, — fresh perch, with asparagus, and a simple but superb roast of
beef, as pike de resistance, and the right kinds of wine. among the guests he expected
Kitty and Levin, and, to offset them, a cousin and the young Shcherbatsky; the pikes de resistance
among the guests were to be sergyel Koznuishef, a Muscovite and philosopher, and Karenin,
a Petersburger and man of affairs. Moreover he would invite the well-known Pestsof, a
comical fellow, a youth of fifty years, an enthusiast, a musician, a ready talker, a
historian and a liberal, who would be the sauce or garnish for Koznuishef and Aleksei
Aleksandrovitch. He would put every one in good spirits and stir them up.
The second instalment of money from the sale of the wood had been recently received and
was not all gone; dolly for some time had been lovely and charming; and the thought
of this dinner in every respect delighted Stepan Arkadyevitch. He was in the happiest
frame of mind. There were two things which were rather disagreeable. But these two circumstances
were drowned in the sea of joviality which rolled its billows in Stepan Arkadyevitch's
soul. These two circumstances were: in the first place, when the evening before he had
met AleksetT Aleksandrovitch on the street, he had perceived that he was stern and cold;
and uniting the fact that Aleksey Aleksandrovitch had not called or sent word of his presence
with certain rumors that had reached his ears about his sister's relations with Vronsky,
Stepan Arkadyevitch suspected serious trouble between the husband and wife. This was one
unpleasant thing.
The second slight shadow was the fact that the new nachalnik, like all new chiefs, had
the reputation of being a terribly exacting man, who got up at six o'clock, worked like
a horse, and demanded similar zeal from his subordinates. Moreover, this new nachalnik
had the reputation of being a regular bear in his manners and was, according to rumor,
a man of the opposite party from that to which his predecessor had belonged, and to which
Stepan Arkadyevitch himself had up to that time also belonged.
The afternoon before, Stepan Arkadyevitch had appeared at the office in full uniform
and the new nachalnik had been very cordial and had talked with Oblonsky as with an old
friend. Consequently he thought it his duty to pay him an unofficial visit. The thought
that the new nachalnik might not receive him cordially was the second disturbing element.
But Stepan Arkadyevitch felt instinctively that all would be arranged to perfection.
"All people, all men, are transgressors as well as we. Why get angry and quarrel?" he
said to himself as he went to the hotel.
"How are you, Vasiliy?" said he, as he went through the corridor with his hat cocked on
one side, and met a lackey of his acquaintance; "have you sacrificed your whiskers?" Levin?
in number seven? Please show me. Thanks! Do you know, is Count Anitchkin at home?" this
was the new nachalnik.
"At your service," said Vasili, with a smile. "We have not seen you for a long time."
"I was here yesterday, but came up another stairway. Is this number seven?"
When Stepan Arkadyevitch entered, Levin was standing in the middle of his room with a
muzhik from Tver, measuring a bear-skin.
"Ah! did you kill him?" cried Stepan Arkadyevitch. "Splendid skin! A bear! How are you, Arkhip?"
He held out his hand to the peasant, and then sat down in his paletot and hat.
"Take off your coat, and stay awhile," said Levin, taking his hat.
"I haven't time. I only came in for a little second," replied Oblonsky. He unbuttoned his
paletot, then took it off, and stayed a whole hour to talk with Levin about the hunt and
other subjects.
"Well now! Tell me, please, what you did while you were abroad; where have you been?" he
asked after the peasant had gone.
"I went to Germany, to France, and England, but only to the manufacturing centers, and
not to the capitals. I saw a great deal that was new. I am glad I went."
"Yes, yes, I know your ideas about organized labor."
"Oh, no! in Russia there can be no labor question. The question of the workingman doesn't concern
us; the only important question for Russia is the relation of the workman to the soil;
the question exists there, but it is impossible to remedy it there, while here ...."
Oblonsky listened attentively.
"Yes, yes," said he, "it is possible that you are right, but I am glad that you are
in better spirits; you hunt the bear, you work, you are enthusiastic. Shcherbatsky told
me that he had found you blue and melancholy, talking of nothing but death." ....
"What of that? I am continually thinking of death," replied Levin. "It's true that there
is a time to die, and that all is vanity. But I will tell you honestly I set great value
on my thought and work; but think of this world — just take notice! — this world
of ours, a little mold making the smallest of the planets! and we imagine that our ideas,
our works, are something grand. It's all grains of dust! "....
"All that is as old as the hills, brother!"
"It is old; but you see when this idea becomes clear to us, how miserable life seems! When
we know that death will surely come, and that there will be nothing left of us, the most
important things seem as insignificant as the turning over of this bear-skin. And so
in order to keep away thoughts of death, we hunt and work and try to divert ourselves."
Stepan Arkadyevitch smiled, and gave Levin one of his affectionate looks.
"Well, of course! Here you come to me and you pounce on me because I seek pleasure in
life! Be not so severe, O moralist!"
"All the same, there is some good in life," replied Levin, becoming confused. "Well, I
don't know, I only know that we must soon die."
"Why soon?"
"And you know there is less charm in life when we think of death, but more restfulness."
"On the contrary, we must enjoy what there is of it, anyway But," said Stepan Arkadyevitch,
rising for the tenth time, "I must go."
"Oh, no! stay a little longer," said Levin, holding him back; " when shall we see each
other again? I leave to-morrow."
"I am a *** fellow. This is what I came for! .... don't fail to come and dine with
us to-day. Your brother will be with us; my brother-in-law, Karenin, will be there."
"Is he here?" asked Levin, and he wanted to ask about Kitty; he had heard that she had
been in Petersburg at the beginning of the winter, visiting her sister, the wife of a
diplomatist, and he did not know whether she had returned or not, but he hesitated about
asking.
"Whether she has come back or not, it's all the same. I will accept," he thought.
"Will you come?"
"Well! Of course I will."
"At five o'clock, in ordinary dress."
And Stepan Arkadyevitch rose, and went down to see the new nachalnik. Instinct had not
deceived him: this dreadful man proved to be a good fellow; Stepan arkadyevitch lunched
with him, and stayed so long to talk that it was nearly four o'clock when he got to
Aleksel Aleksandrovitch's room.
CHAPTER VIII
Aleksei Aleksandrovitch, after he returned from mass, spent the morning in his room.
He had two things to accomplish on this day: first, to receive a deputation of the foreign
population which was on its way to Petersburg, and happened just at that time to be at Moscow,
and he wanted to instruct them as to what they should say; and then to write to his
lawyer, as he had promised.
The deputation, although it had been appointed at Aleksef Aleksandrovitch's invitation, was
likely to cause great embarrassment and even to be a source of peril, and Aleksei Aleksandrovitch
was very glad to meet it in Moscow. The members of the deputation had not the slightest comprehension
of their duties and obligations. They were perfectly persuaded that their work consisted
in exposing their needs and explaining the actual state of affairs and asking governmental
assistance; and they really could not comprehend that some of their statements and demands
gave color to the arguments of the hostile party, and therefore spoiled the whole business.
Aleksei Aleksandrovitch had a long discussion with them, made out a program, from which
they were not to deviate on any account in their dealings with the government, and, when
they left him, gave them letters of introduction to various persons in Petersburg, so that
they might be properly treated. The Countess Lidya Ivanovna would be his principal auxiliary
in this matter; she had a specialty for deputations, and knew better than anybody else how to manage
them.
When he had finished this business, Aleksef Aleksandrovitch wrote to his lawyer. Without
the slightest misgiving, he gave him full power to do as he thought best, and sent three
notes from Vronsky to Anna, which he had found in the portfolio. Since Aleksei Aleksandrovitch
had left home with the intention of never returning to his family, and since his interview
with the lawyer, when he had confided to one person at least his intentions, and especially
since he had transferred this episode of his life to a documentary basis, he had become
more and more settled in his convictions, and was now perfectly clear in his mind that
what he wished could be accomplished.
Just as he was sealing his letter, he heard Stepan Arkadyevitch's loud voice asking the
servant if his brother-in-law was at home, and insisting on being announced.
"It's all the same," thought Aleksel Aleksandrovitch, "or rather, so much the better. I will explain
to him my position in regard to his sister, and he will understand that it is impossible
for me to dine at his house."
"Come in," he cried, gathering up his papers and pushing them into a writing-case.
"There now, you see you lied, and he is at home," said Stepan Arkadyevitch to the servant,
who would not let him in; then, taking off his overcoat as he walked along, he came into
Alekset Aleksandrovitch's room.
"I am delighted to find you..." he began gayly, "I hope..."
"I cannot go," said Alekset Aleksandrovitch, coldly, receiving his brother-in-law standing,
and not asking him to sit down, Aleksel" Aleksandrovitch resolved to adopt with his wife's brother
the cool relations which seemed proper since he had decided to get a divorce. But he did
not reckon on that sea of kind-heartedness which was always overflowing its banks in
Stepan Arkadyevitch's heart.
Stepan Arkadyevitch opened wide his bright, clear eyes.
"Why can't you come? What do you mean?" he asked in French with some hesitation. "But
you promised to come, and we all are counting on you."
"I wish to tell you that I cannot come because our family relations must be broken."
"How is that? Why?" said Oblonsky, with a smile.
"Because I have commenced an action for getting a divorce from my wife, your sister. I must...."
But Alekset Aleksandrovitch did not finish his sentence — for Stepan Arkadyevitch acted
in a manner quite contrary to his expectations. Stepan Arkadyevitch sank into an arm-chair,
with a deep sigh.
"Aleksei Aleksandrovitch, it can't be possible," he cried, with pain expressed in his face.
"It is true."
"Pardon me. I cannot, I cannot believe it."
Aleksei Aleksandrovitch sat down; he felt that his words had not produced the effect
that he had looked for, and that whatever explanation he might make his relations with
Oblonsky would remain the same.
"Yes, it is a cruel necessity, but I am forced to demand the divorce," he replied.
"I will say only one thing to you, Aleksey Aleksandrovitch. I know that you are a man
of principle, and I know Anna is one of the best of women, — excuse me if I cannot change
my opinion of her, — I cannot believe it; there must be some misunderstanding!"
"Yes; if it were only a misunderstanding!"....
"Excuse me; I understand; but I beg of you, I beg of you, do not be in haste," interrupted
Stephan Arkadyevitch.
"I have done nothing hastily," said Aleksef Aleksandrovitch, coldly; "but in such a case,
one cannot ask advice of anybody; I am decided."
"This is terrible," exclaimed Stepan Arkadyevitch, with a deep sigh. "I would do one thing, Alekseif
Aleksandrovitch. I beseech you to do this!" said he.
"Proceedings, as I understand, have not yet begun. Before you do anything talk with my
wife. She loves Anna like a sister, she loves you, and she is a woman of good sense. For
God's sake, talk with her. Do me this favor, I beg of you."
Aleksei Aleksandrovitch deliberated, and Stepan Arkadyevitch looked at him sympathetically,
not breaking in on his silence.
"Will you come to her?"
"Well, I don't know. That is the reason I did not call at your house. I suppose our
relations ought to be broken off."
"Why should they be? I don't see that. Allow me to believe that apart from our family connection,
you have toward me, to a certain extent at least, the same friendly sentiments which
I have always felt toward you Andgenuine regard...." said Stepan Arkadyevitch, pressing his hand.
"Even if your worst surmises were justified, I should never take it on myself to criticize
either side, and I see no reason why our relations should be changed. But now do this, — come
and see my wife."
"Well, you and I look on this matter differently," said Aleksei Aleksandrovitch, coldly. "However,
we will not discuss it."
"No, but why should you not come and dine with us at least to-day?" My wife expects
you. Please come! and above all talk with her; she is, I assure you, a superior woman.
For God's sake come, I beg you on my knees."
"If you wish it so much, I will go," said Alekself Aleksandrovitch, sighing. And to
change the conversation, he asked Stepan Arkadyevitch about a matter which interested them both:
about the new nachalnik, a man still young, who had suddenly received such an important
appointment.
Aleksef Aleksandrovitch had never liked Count Anitchkin, and had always differed with him
about many questions; and now he could not help a feeling of envy natural to an official
who had suffered defeat in his work and saw a younger man receiving advancement.
"Well, have you met him yet." asked Aleksef Aleksandrovitch, with a venomous smile.
"Oh, yes; he was with us yesterday at the session. He seems like a man very well informed
and very active."
"Active? but how does he employ his activity?" exclaimed Aleksei' Aleksandrovitch. "Is it
in doing his work, or in destroying what others have done before him? The plague of our government
is this scribbling bureaucracy, of which Anitchkin is a worthy representative."
"Truly I don't know how this criticism applies to him. i don't even know his tendencies;
at any rate, he is a very good fellow," replied Stepan Arkadyevitch. "I have just been with
him... a very good fellow; we lunched together, and I taught him how to make a drink, you
know — wine and oranges. He liked it very much. No, he is a fine young man."
Stepan Arkadyevitch looked at his watch.
"Akh batiushki! it is after four o'clock! and I have still to see Dolgovushin. It is
decided, then, that you will dine with us, isn't it?" Both my wife and myself will feel
really hurt if you refuse to come."
Aleksei Aleksandrovitch took leave of his brother-in-law very differently from the way
in which he had greeted him.
"I have promised, and I will come," he replied in a melancholy tone.
"Believe me, I appreciate it; and I hope you will not regret it," said Stepan Arkadyevitch,
with a smile.
And putting on his overcoat in the hall, he shook his fist at the servant's head, laughed,
and went out.
"At five o'clock, remember, and in ordinary dress," he called back once more, returning
to the door.
CHAPTER IX
It was already six o'clock and several guests had come when the master of the house entered,
meeting Sergyey Ivanovitch Koznuishef and Pestsof at the door.
These were the two chief representatives of Moscow intellect, as Oblonsky had called them,
and were men of distinction both by wit and character. They valued each other, but on
almost every topic were absolutely and hopelessly at odds, not because they belonged to opposing
parties but precisely because they were of the same camp, — their enemies confounded
them in one, — but in this camp they each had their shades of opinion. Now there is
nothing more conducive to disagreement than dissent in small particulars, and so they
not only never agreed in their opinions, but never failed to laugh at each other good-naturedly
for their incorrigible mistakes.
They reached the door, talking about the weather, just as Stepan Arkadyevitch overtook them.
The old Prince Aleksandr Dmitrievitch Shcherbatsky, young Shcherbatsky, Turovtsuin, Kitty, and
Karenin were already in the drawing-room.
Stepan Arkadyevitch instantly perceived that matters in the drawing-room were going badly
without him. Darya Aleksandrovna, in her best gray silk gown, especially preoccupied with
the children, who should have been eating their supper in the nursery by themselves,
and anxious because her husband was late, did not succeed very well in entertaining
her guests. All were sitting "like a pope's daughters making a call," as the old prince
expressed it, evidently perplexed to know why they had come and with difficulty finding
a few words so that the silence might not be absolute. The good-natured Turovtsuin apparently
felt out of his sphere and the smile on his thick lips when he greeted Stepan Arkadyevitch
spoke louder than words: "Well, my dear fellow, you have got me here with clever people! We
are making merry here. It is a regular chateau des fleurs! .... I am doing my part."
The old prince was sitting in silence looking out of the corner of his bright eyes at Stepan
Arkadyevitch, and Stepan Arkadyevitch perceived that he was trying to think up something worth
saying to make an impression on this great statesman who was being served up like a sterlet
for the benefit of the guests. Kitty kept glancing at the door, trying with all her
might not to be caught blushing when Konstantin Levin should appear. Young Shcherbatsky, who
had not been presented to Karenin, was trying to show that this did not cause him any constraint.
Karenin himself was in black coat and white necktie, according to the Petersburg custom,
and Stepan Arkadyevitch perceived by his face that he had come only to keep his promise
and by mingling in this society was performing a burdensome task. He more than any one else
was the cause of the chill which froze all the guests into silence until Stepan Arkadyevitch
made his appearance.
As soon as Stepan Arkadyevitch entered the drawing-room, he made his excuses and explained
that he had been detained by a certain prince who was always his scapegoat for all his delays
and absences. In a twinkling he presented his guests to one another, furnished Koznuishef
and Karenin a subject of conversation, — the Russification of Poland, which they instantly
grappled with, also enlisting Pestsof in the discussion. Then, tapping Turovtsuin on the
shoulder, he whispered some jest into his ear and sat him down between his wife and
Prince Shcherbatsky, Then he complimented kitty on her beauty and introduced young Shcherbatsky
to Karenin. In a twinkling he had so worked on all this mass of social dough that it began
to seem like a salon and the voices intermingled in gay confusion.
Konstantin Levin was the only guest not on hand.
But even this was a fortunate circumstance, because when Stepan Arkadyevitch went into
the dining-room he discovered to his dismay that the port and sherry had come from Des
Pres and not from Levy, and he seized the opportunity to send the coachman in all haste
to Levy's, and then he returned to the drawing-room.
Levin met him at the door of the dining-room.
"I am not late, am I?"
"How could you be?" replied Stepan Arkadyevitch, taking him by the arm.
"Are there many people here? Who are they?" asked Levin, blushing involuntarily, and with
his glove brushing away the snow from his hat.
"No one but relatives. Kitty is here. Come and let me present you to Karenin."
Stepan Arkadyevitch, notwithstanding his liberal views, knew that a presentation to Karenin
could not fail to be flattering, and therefore he regaled his best friends with this pleasure.
But at this moment Konstantin Levin was not in a condition to appreciate all the satisfaction
which this acquaintance would afford.
He had not seen Kitty since that well-remembered evening when he met Vronsky, except for that
glimpse of her which he had as she sat in her carriage. In the depth of his heart he
knew that he was to see her this evening. But in his attempt to preserve all the freedom
of his thoughts, he had tried to persuade himself that he did not know it. And now as
he learned that she was there, he suddenly felt such timidity and at the same time such
terror that he could hardly breathe, and he found it impossible to say what he wanted
to say.
"How will she seem? Just as she used to? Suppose darya Aleksandrovna was right! Why wasn't
she right?" he thought.
"Oh! present me to Karenin, I beg of you," he succeeded in stammering, as he entered
the drawing-room with the courage of despair and saw her.
She was neither as she had been in old time nor as she had been in the carriage: she was
altogether different; she was nervous, timid, modest, and therefore even more charming than
ever.
She saw him the moment he entered the drawing-room. She had been watching for him, and she felt
so glad and so confused by reason of her gladness that at one moment especially when, after
greeting Dolly, he looked at her, she was afraid of bursting into tears. Levin and Dolly
both noticed it. She blushed and turned pale and blushed again; she was so agitated that
her lips trembled.
Levin approached her, and bowed and silently offered his hand. Had it not been for the
slight trembling of her lips and the moisture that suffused her eyes and increased their
brilliancy, her smile would have been almost serene as she said: —
"How long it is since we have met! "And at the same time with a sort of desperate resolution
put her cold hand into his.
"You have not seen me; but I saw you one day," said Levin, with a smile of radiant happiness.
"I saw you when you were going from the railway station to yergushovo."
"When was it?" asked she, in surprise.
"You were on your way to Yergushovo," said Levin, feeling that the joy which flooded
his soul was suffocating him. "How," thought he, "could I have dared to associate anything
but innocence with this fascinating creature? Yes, Darya Aleksandrovna was right."
Stepan Arkadyevitch came to conduct him to Karenin, "Allow me to make you acquainted,"
said he, calling each by name.
"It is very pleasant to meet you again," said Aleksef Aleksandrovitch, coolly, as he took
Levin's hand.
"What! do you already know each other?" asked oblonsky, with surprise.
"We traveled together for three hours," said Levin, smiling, "but we parted as from a masked
ball, very much mystified; at least, it was the case with me."
"Really? .... Will you pass into the dining-room?" said Stepan Arkadyevitch pointing toward the
door.
The gentlemen walked into the dining-room, and went to a table laden with the zakuska,
which was composed of six kinds of ***, as many varieties of cheese with silver shovels
and without, caviare, herring, preserves of different kinds, and platefuls of French bread
sliced thin.
The men stood around the table; and, while waiting for the dinner, the conversation between
Sergye'f Ivanovitch koznuishef, Karenin, and Pestsof, about the Russification of Poland,
began to languish. Sergyei Ivanovitch, who had a faculty peculiar to himself for ending
even the most absorbing and serious dispute, by an unexpected infusion of Attic salt and
so putting the disputants into a better frame of mind, did this now. Alekseif Aleksandrovitch
was trying to prove that the Russification of Poland could be accomplished only by means
of the highest principles, and that these ought to be introduced by the Russian administration.
Pestsof maintained that one nation could only assimilate another by surpassing it in density
of population.
Koznuishef, with certain restrictions, shared the opinions of both; and to close this serious
conversation with a joke, he added as they left the drawing-room, smiling: —
"The most logical way, then, for us to assimilate foreigners, it seems to me, is to have as
many children as possible. It is there where my brother and I are in fault; while you married
gentlemen and especially you, Stepan Arkadyevitch, are acting the part of good patriots. How
many have you?" he asked of the host, handing him a very diminutive glass.
Everybody laughed, and Oblonsky most of all. "Yes, that is certainly the best means!" said
he, taking a bite of cheese and pouring some special kind of *** into the glass that
Koznuishef offered him. But the jest really served to bring the discussion to a close.
"This cheese is not bad; what do you say?" remarked the host.
"Do you still practise gymnastics?" said Oblonsky, addressing Levin, and with his left hand feeling
his friend's muscles.
Levin smiled and doubled up his arm, and Stepan Arkadyevitch felt how under his fingers the
biceps swelled up like a round cheese beneath the smooth cloth of his coat.
"What biceps! a Samson," said he.
"I suppose it is necessary to be endowed with remarkable strength, to hunt bears, isn't
it?" said Aleksel Aleksandrovitch, smearing some cheese on a piece of bread as thin as
a cobweb. His ideas about hunting were of the vaguest.
Levin smiled.
"No; on the contrary, a child could kill a bear; "— and he drew back, with a slight
bow, to make room for the ladies, who with the hostess were coming to the zakuska table.
"I hear that you have just killed a bear," said Kitty, vainly trying to put her fork
into a recalcitrant mushroom which kept flying about on the plate, and as she threw back
the lace in her sleeve there was a glimpse of a white arm. "Are there really bears where
you live?" she added, half turning her pretty face toward him and smiling. What she said
had no especial importance, but what significance inexpressible in words there was for him in
the sound of her voice, in every motion of her lips, of her eyes, hands, when she said
it it implied an entreaty for forgiveness and expression of faith in him, a sweet and
timid caress, and a promise, and a hope, and love for him, and he could not help believing
in it and his heart was filled with happiness.
"Oh, no! we were hunting in the government of tver; and on my way from there, I met your
brother-in-law — Stiva's brother-in-law — in the train," said he, smiling. "The
meeting was very funny."
And he gave a lively and amusing description of how, after having been awake all night,
he forced his way into Karenin's car in his sheepskin jacket.
"The conductor, contrary to the proverb, judging by first impressions wanted to put me out,
and there I was beginning to express myself in sublime style and.... well, sir, you also
—" said he, addressing Karenin and not recollecting his name, "you got your first impression from
my polushubok and were for expelling me, but afterward you took my part, for which I felt
very grateful to you."
"Travelers' rights to their choice of place are generally too little considered," said
Aleksei' Aleksandrovitch, wiping the ends of his fingers with his napkin.
"Oh! I noticed that you were dubious about me," replied Levin, smiling good-naturedly;
"that was why i hastened to open a serious subject of conversation, to make you forget
my sheepskin."
Koznuishef, who was talking with the mistress of the house, and at the same time listening
with one ear to what his brother said, glanced at him.
"What is the matter with him to-night." What makes him look so triumphant?" he asked himself.
He did not know Levin felt as if he had wings. Levin knew that she was listening to him,
she was taking pleasure in what he said; and this was the only thing that interested him.
He was alone with her, not only in this room, but in the whole world. He felt that he was
on a dizzy height, and there far below him were all those excellent people, — Oblonsky,
Karenin, and the rest of humanity.
Stepan Arkadyevitch seemed entirely to forget Levin and Kitty in placing his guests at table
until all but two of the seats were assigned; then he put them side by side.
"Well, you can sit there," said he to Levin.
The dinner was as elegant as the appointments; for Stepan Arkadyevitch was a great connoisseur
in such matters. The Marie-Louise soup was perfect, the little pirogi or pasties which
melted in the mouth were irreproachable; and Matve, with two waiters in white cravats,
skilfully and noiselessly served the roast and the wine.
On the material side the dinner was a success; it was not less so on the non-material side.
The conversation was sometimes general, sometimes special, but it never lagged; and toward the
end of the dinner it had grown so animated that when they left the table the men could
not drop their interesting topics, and even Aleksel Aleksandrovitch was thawed out.
CHAPTER X
Pestsof, who liked to discuss a question thoroughly, was not satisfied with what Koznuishef had
said; he felt that he had not been allowed to express his thought sufficiently.
"In speaking of the density of the population," said he, after the soup, addressing Alekseif
Aleksandrovitch, "I didn't intend to make it the principle of an assimilation, but only
a means."
"It seems to me that that amounts to the same thing," replied Karenin, slowly and indolently.
"In my judgment, a people can have no influence over another people unless it has the highest
development which...."
"That is precisely the question," interrupted Pestsof, who always spoke with so much ardor
that he seemed to put his whole soul into defending his own opinions.
"How is one to decide on what is the highest development? Which stands on the highest plane
of civilization, the English, the French, or the Germans? Which nation is to naturalize
the others? We have seen the Rhine made French; but are the Germans inferior? no; there is
some other law," he cried in his bass voice.
"I believe that the balance will always turn in favor of true civilization," said Aleksei'
Aleksandrovitch, slightly raising his brows.
"But what are the signs of this true civilization?" demanded Pestsof.
"I suppose these signs are known," replied Aleksei Aleksandrovitch.
"But are they really known?" suggested Sergyef Ivanovitch, with a subtle smile. "It is now
admitted that our present civilization can't be anything else than classical, but we have
furious debates on this point, and it cannot be denied that each side brings forward strong
proofs in its favor."
"Are you in favor of the classics, Sergyel Ivanovitch?" said Oblonsky "Shall I give you
some claret?"
"I am not expressing my personal opinions regarding either form of civilization," replied
Koznuishef, with a smile of condescension such as he would have shown a child, as he
reached out his glass. "I only say that both sides have strong arguments," continued he,
addressing Aleksei Aleksandrovitch. "My education was classical; but in this controversy I personally
cannot find any room to stand. I do not see any clear proofs that the classics must take
precedence over the sciences."
"The natural sciences tend just as much to the pedagogical development of the human mind,"
replied Pestsof. "Take astronomy, take botany, and zoology, each with its system of general
laws"
"It seems to me impossible to deny that the very process of learning the forms of languages
has a specially beneficial influence on mental development. Moreover, it must be admitted
that the influence of the classic writers is eminently moral; while, unfortunately for
us, the study of the natural sciences has been complicated with false and fatal doctrines,
which are the bane of our time."
Sergyei Ivanovitch was going to reply, but Pestsof interrupted him in his deep voice.
He began heatedly to demonstrate the incorrectness of this statement. Koznuishef calmly waited
his chance to speak, evidently feeling that it would be a victorious rejoinder.
"But," said he, smiling shrewdly, and addressing Aleksei Aleksandrovitch, "it cannot be denied
that it is a difficult matter completely to balance all the advantages and disadvantages
of the two systems of science, and that the question which is preferable could not be
decided so quickly and definitely if there were not on the side of the classical civilization
that advantage which you just called the moral — disons le mot — the anti-nihilistic
influence."
"Undoubtedly."
"If it were not for this advantage of the anti-nihilistic influence wielded by classic
education, we should rather hesitate, we should weigh the arguments of both sides," said Sergyef
Ivanovitch, with his shrewd smile. "We should give scope to both tendencies. But now we
know that in classical education lies the medical power of anti-nihihsm and we boldly
administer it like a pill to our patients But are we perfectly sure of the healing properties
of these pills?" he said in conclusion, pouring out his Attic salt.
Sergei Ivanovitch's "pills" made every one laugh, turovtsuin more boisterously and heartily
than the rest; for he had been on the lookout for something amusing to laugh at ever since
the conversation began.
Stepan Arkadyevitch had made no mistake in counting on Pestsof. Pestsof never allowed
an intellectual conversation to flag for a moment. Koznuishef had hardly finished with
his jest when Pestsof began again: —
"One cannot even agree with this idea," said he, "that morality has this aim. Morality
is evidently controlled by general considerations and remains indifferent to the influences
of the measures which may be taken. For example, the question of higher education for women
should be regarded as dangerous, yet the government opens the public lectures and the universities
to women."
And the conversation immediately leaped to the new theme of the education of women.
Alekse'i Aleksandrovitch expressed the thought that the education of women was too much confused
with the question of the emancipation of women, and could be considered dangerous only from
that point of view.
"I believe, on the contrary, that these two questions are intimately connected," said
Pestsof. "It is a vicious circle! Woman is deprived of rights because she is deprived
of education, and her lack of education comes from the absence of rights. Let us not forget
that the bondage of woman is so ancient, so interwoven with our customs, that we are very
often incapable of understanding the legal abyss that separates her from us."
"You speak of rights," said Sergyey Ivanovitch, as soon as he had a chance to put in a word;
"is it a right to fulfil the functions of juror, of municipal counselor, of president
of the tribunal, of public functionary, of member of parliament?" ....
"Without doubt."
"But if women can exceptionally fill these functions, then it seems to me we make a mistake
in using the word rights. It would be fairer to say duties. Every one agrees that in fulfilling
the functions of a juror, of town counselor, of telegraph employer, we are fulfilling a
duty. Let us say, then, that women are seeking for duties, and legitimately enough; in this
case we may sympathize with their desire to take part in man's work."
"That is perfectly fair," affirmed Alekset Aleksandrovitch; "the question, I suspect,
consists in deciding whether they are capable of fulfilling these duties."
"They will be, certainly, as soon as they have been generally educated," said Stepan
Arkadyevitch. "We see it ...."
"And the proverb?" asked the old prince, whose little, scornful eyes shone as he listened
to this conversation. "I may repeat it before my daughters: Long hair...."
"That is the way we judged the negroes before their emancipation!" said Pestsof, with dissatisfaction.
"What astonishes me," said Sergyef Ivanuitch, "is that women are seeking new duties, when
we see, unfortunately, that men generally shirk theirs."
"Duties are accompanied by rights; honor, influence, money, these are what women are
after," said Pestsof.
"Exactly as if I solicited the right to become a wet nurse, and found it hard to be refused,
while women are paid for it," said the old prince.
Turovtsuin burst out laughing, and Sergyelf Ivanovitch regretted that he had not said
that. Even Alekseif Aleksandrovitch smiled.
"Yes, but a man can't be a wet nurse," said Sergyel Ivanuitch, "But a woman ...."
"But what is a young girl without any family going to do?" asked Stepan Arkadyevitch, who
found reason to sympathize with Pestsof, as he thought of his little ballet girl, Chibisovaya.
"If you look closely into the lives of these young girls," said Darya Aleksandrovna, unexpectedly
taking part in the conversation and showing some irritation, for it was evident that she
suspected what sort of women Stepan Arkadyevitch meant, "you will doubtless find that they
have left a family or a sister, and that women's work was within their reach."
"But we are defending a principle, an ideal," answered Pestsof, in his ringing bass. "Woman
claims the right to be independent and educated; she suffers from her consciousness of being
unable to accomplish this."
"And I suffer from not being admitted as nurse to the foundling asylum," repeated the old
prince, to the great amusement of Turovtsuin, letting the large end of a piece of asparagus
fall into his sauce.
CHAPTER XI All took part in the general conversation
except kitty and Levin.
At first, when they were talking about the influence of one people over another, Levin
recalled what he had to say on this subject; but his thoughts, which at one time had seemed
to him very important, simply flashed through his mind like notions in a dream, and now
had not the least interest for him; he even thought it strange that people could trouble
themselves about such useless questions.
Kitty, for her part, ought to have been interested in what was said about women's rights and
education. How many times had she pondered over these subjects as she remembered her
friend Varenka, whose dependence was so hard to bear! How many times had she thought what
she herself would do in case she should not marry! How often had she disputed with her
sister on the subject! But now it did not interest her in the least.
She and Levin had their own talk, and yet it was not a conversation so much as it was
a mysterious affinity, which brought them nearer and nearer to each other, and filled
them with a joyful timidity before the unknown which they were about to enter.
At first Kitty asked how he happened to see her in the summer, and Levin told her that
he was returning from the hay-fields by the highway after the mowing: —
"It was very early in the morning. You had probably just waked. Your maman was asleep
End of Chapter 16