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"Well, what's our line of march? Give us a good idea of it," said Stepan Arkadyevitch.
"This is my plan: we will go first to Gvozdevo. Just this side of Gvozdevo is a snipe marsh,
but on the other side of Gvozdevo extend splendid woodcock marshes, and there'll be game there.
It's hot now, but toward the cool of the day — it's twenty versts from here — we will
try the field. We will spend the night there, and then to-morrow we will strike into the
great marshes."
"But isn't there anything on the way?"
"Yes, but it would delay us, and it is too hot. There are two splendid little places,
but it is hardly worthwhile."
It was Levin's intention to attack these places, but as they were near home, he could go there
at any time, and as they were small he thought that three hunters were too many. Therefore,
he prevaricated when he said that it was hardly worth while.
When they came up to the little marsh. Levin was proposing to drive by; but Stepan Arkadyevitch,
with the experienced eye of a huntsman, immediately saw the water-soaked ground which was visible
from the road.
"Shan't we try that?" he asked, pointing to the marsh.
"Levin, please stop, how splendid!" Vasenka Veslovsky began to beg, and Levin could not
well refuse.
Before they had fairly stopped, the dogs, in eager emulation, darted into the marsh.
"Krak!.... Laska!" ....
The dogs turned back.
"There won't be room enough for three. I will wai there," said Levin, hoping that they would
not find anything except lapwings, which flew up from in front of the dogs, and, as they
skimmed away over the marshy ground, uttered the most mournful cries.
"No; come on, Levin, let us all go together," called Veslovsky.
"It's a fact, there isn't room. Back, Laska, back.
You don't need more than one dog, do you?"
Levin remained by the lineika and with jealousy in his heart watched the huntsmen, who were
tramping through the whole bog. There was nothing in it, however, except moor-hens and
lapwings, one of which Vasenka killed.
"Now you see that I gave you good advice about the marsh," said Levin. "It's only a waste
of time."
"No, it's good fun all the same! Did you see?" exclaimed Vasenka, awkwardly climbing into
the wagon with his gun and his lapwing in his hands. "Didn't I make a stunning good
shot? Well, will it take long to get to the other one?"
Suddenly the horses plunged. Levin gave himself a violent bump on the head against some one's
gun, and a shot went off. The gun really went off before, but it seemed to Levin the other
way. It happened that Vasenka in uncocking his gun fired one barrel. The shot buried
itself in the ground and no damage was done to any one. Stepan Arkadyevitch shook his
head and laughed reproachfully at Veslovsky. But Levin had not the heart to rebuke him.
In the first place, any reproach would seem to be called forth by a danger past and by
the bump on his forehead; and in the second place, Veslovsky was so innocently filled
with remorse and afterward laughed so good-naturedly and so contagiously over their common alarm
that no one could help joining in.
When they reached the second marsh, which was of considerable size and sure to occupy
much time, Levin advised not getting out. But Veslovsky again put in his entreaties.
Again, since the marsh was not big enough for three, Levin, like a hospitable host,
remained by the teams. As soon as they stopped, Laska darted off to the tussocks. Vasenka
Veslovsky was the first to follow the dog. And before Stepan Arkadyevitch reached the
wet ground a snipe flew up. Veslovsky missed it, and the bird flew over into an unmown
meadow. But this snipe was predestined to be Veslovsky's. Krak again pointed it, and
Veslovsky killed it and returned to the teams.
"Now you go, and I will stay by the horses," said he.
The huntsman's fever had by this time taken possession of Levin. He turned the reins over
to Veslovsky and went into the swamp. Laska, who had been for some time pitifully whining
and complaining at the inequality of fate, darted toward the tussock-filled bog which
Levin knew so well, and to which Krak had not yet found his way.
"Why don't you hold her back?" cried Stepan Arkadyevitch.
"She won't scare them away," replied Levin, delighting in his dog and following after
her.
As Laska went forward, the nearer she came to the tussocks the greater grew her gravity.
A little marsh bird only for a second distracted her attention. She made one sweep around the
tussocks, then began a second, but suddenly trembled and stood stock still.
"Come, Stiva, come," cried Levin, feeling how his heart was beginning to throb, and
how, suddenly as if some bolt had slipped in his ears, all sounds, losing their sense
of proportion, disconnectedly but distinctly began to come to him. He heard Stepan Arkadyevitch's
steps, distinguishing them from the distant stamping of horses, he heard the crunching
sound of a corner of a tussock torn away by the roots, and he could distinguish above
it the whir of a woodcock's wings. He could also hear, not far behind him, a strange splashing
in the water, but what it was he could not make out. Choosing a place for his feet, he
moved toward the dog.
"Goon."
Not a snipe, but a woodcock, flew up from under the dog's nose. Levin raised his gun,
but at the instant he aimed the same noise of splashing in the water grew louder and
nearer, and together with it Veslovsky's voice loudly shouting something. Levin saw that
he was aiming too far behind the woodcock, but still he fired.
Turning round to discover what made the noise. Levin saw that the horses attached to the
katki were no longer in the road, but were in the swamp.
Veslovsky, desirous of watching the shooting, had driven down to the swamp and had entangled
the horses.
"The devil take him," said Levin to himself, turning back to the entangled horses.
"Why did you drive in so far?" he asked dryly; and, summoning the coachman, he began to disengage
the horses.
Levin was vexed because they had caused him to miss his shot, but still more so because
neither StepanArkadyevitch nor Veslovsky would help him to unharness and get out the team;
but the reason for this was that they had not the slightest comprehension of the art
of harnessing.
Not vouchsafing Vasenka a single word in answer to his assurance that where he stood it was
perfectly dry, Levin silently worked with the coachman to unhitch the horses. But afterward,
warming up to the work, and noticing how zealously and assiduously Veslovsky dragged at the katki
by its side and even broke a part of it off, Levin blamed himself because, under the influence
of the feeling which he had had the evening before, he had been too cool toward Veslovsky,
and he tried by especial friendliness to atone for his curtness.
When everything was brought to order again and the teams were on the highway, Levin gave
orders to get the luncheon ready.
"Bon appetit, botuie conscience. Ce poulet va tombe fjusqiian fond de mes bottes," exclaimed
Vasenka, growing lively again, and employing a quaint French proverb, as he devoured his
second chicken. "Now our misfortunes are ended; now everything will go on famously.
Only as a punishment for my sin I must certainly sit on the driver's box. Isn't that so? Hey!
— No, no, I am a born Automedon. Just see how I will tool you along," he insisted, not
letting go the reins when Levin asked him to give up to the coachman. "No, I must atone
for my sin, and I like it immensely on the box."
And he drove.
Levin was somewhat afraid that he would tire out the horses, especially the chestnut on
the left, which he could not control; but reluctantly he gave in to his gayety, listened
to the love-songs which Veslovsky, sitting on the box, sang all the way, or to his stories
and personation of an Englishman driving a four-in-hand, and after they had enjoyed their
luncheon they reached the marshes of Gvozdevo in the gayest possible spirits.
CHAPTER X Vasenka drove the horses so furiously that
they reached the marshes too early and it was still hot. On reaching the important marsh,
the real goal of their journey, Levin could not help wondering how he might rid himself
of Vasenka and so get along without impediment. Stepan Arkadyevitch had evidently the same
desire, and Levin could read in his face that expression of anxiety which a genuine huntsman
always betrays before he goes out on the chase — he also detected a certain good-natured
slyness characteristic of him.
"How shall we go in? I can see the marsh is excellent, and there are the hawks," said
Stepan Arkadyevitch, pointing to two big birds circling over the tall grass. "Where hawks
are there is sure to be game!"
"Well, do you see, gentlemen?" said Levin, with a rather gloomy expression, pulling up
his boots and contemplating the caps on his fowling-piece. "Do you see that tall grass?"
He pointed to an islet shading into a black green in the midst of the wet meadow which,
already half mown, extended along the right bank of the river, "The marsh begins here
directly in front of you— where it is so green. From there it extends to the right
where those horses are going; there are the tussocks and you will find snipe there, and
so on around this high grass clear up to the alders and the mill itself.
That direction, you see where the ground is overflowed, that is the best place. I've killed
as many as seventeen woodcock there. We will separate with the two dogs in different directions,
and then we will meet at the mill."
"Well, who will go to the right, who to the left?" asked Stepan Arkadyevitch. "There is
more room to the right; you two go that way and I will take the left," said he, with pretended
indifference.
"Capital, we will shoot more than he does. Come on, come on, come on," cried Veslovsky.
Levin saw that he was in for it, so they started off together.
As soon as they struck into the marsh the dogs began to hunt round and darted off for
the swamp. Levin well knew what that careful and indeterminate manoeuver of Laska's meant;
he also knew the place, and he was on the lookout for a bevy of woodcock.
"Veslovsky, come in line, in line," he cried in a voice of anguish to his companion, who
insisted in falling behind. Since the accidental discharge of the weapon at the Kolpensky marsh.
Levin could not help taking an interest in the direction in which Veslovsky's gun-barrel
was pointing.
"Now, I won't bother you, don't worry about me!"
But Levin could not help worrying, and he remembered Kitty's words as she said good-by
to him: "Look out that you don't shoot one another."
Closer and closer ran the dogs, avoiding each other, each following her own scent; the expectation
of starting up a woodcock was so strong that the squeak of his heel as he lifted it out
of the mud seemed to Levin like the cry of the bird; he clutched and squeezed the butt
of his gun.
***! ***! A gun went off directly behind his ear.
It was Vasenka shooting at a flock of ducks which were splashing about in the swamp, and
alighted faraway from the huntsmen in an irregular line. Before Levin had a chance to glance
round, a woodcock drummed, — another, a third, and half a dozen more flew up one after
the other.
Stepan Arkadyevitch shot one at the very instant he was about beginning his zigzags, and the
woodcock fell in a heap in the swamp. Oblonsky took his time in aiming at another which was
flying low toward the high grass, and simultaneously with the flash the bird fell and it could
be seen skipping from the mown grass, flapping its white uninjured wing.
Levin was not so fortunate; he shot at too close range for the first woodcock, and missed;
he was about to follow after it, but just as it was rising again, another flew up from
almost under him and diverted his attention, causing him to miss again.
While they were reloading, still another woodcock flew up, and Veslovsky, who had got his gun
loaded first, fired two charges of small shot into the water.
Stepan Arkadyevitch picked up his woodcock, and looked at Levin with flashing eyes.
"And now let us separate," said he, and limping with his left leg, and holding his gun ready
cocked and whistling to his dog, he started off by himself. Levin and Veslovsky took the
other direction.
It always happened with Levin that when his first shots were unsuccessful, he grew excited,
lost his temper, and shot badly the rest of the day. So it was in the present instance.
The woodcock were abundant; they kept flying up from before the dogs, and from under the
huntsmen's feet, and Levin might have easily retrieved his fortunes; but the longer he
hunted, the more he disgraced himself before Veslovsky, who kept merrily firing recklessly,
never killing anything and never in the slightest degree abashed at his ill luck. Levin moved
forward hotly, growing more and more excited, and finally he came not to have much hope
of bringing down his game. Laska seemed to understand this state of things. She began
to follow the scent more lazily, and looked at the huntsmen with almost an air of doubt
and reproach. Shot followed shot. The gunpowder smoke hung round the sportsmen, but in the
great wide meshes of the hunting-bag lay only three light little woodcock. And of those
one was killed by Veslovsky, and one of them they both brought down.
Meantime on the other side of the swamp Stepan Arkadyevitch's shots were heard, not very
frequently, but, as it seemed to Levin, very significantly, and at almost each one he would
hear him cry: —
"Krak, Krak, apporte."
This still more excited Levin. The woodcock kept flying up into the air over the high
grass. The drumming on the ground and the cries of the birds in the air continued incessantly
on all sides, and the woodcock, which flew up before them and swept through the air,
kept settling down again in front of the huntsmen. Now instead of two hawks there were dozens
of them screaming over the marsh.
After they had shot over the larger half of the swamp, Levin and Veslovsky directed their
steps to a place where there were alternating strips of meadow-land, which the peasants
were accustomed to mow. Half of these strips had already been mown.
Although there was less hope of finding game where the grass was tall than where it had
been cut, Levin had agreed with Stepan Arkadyevitch to join him there, and so he proceeded with
his companion across the mown and unmown strips.
"Hi! sportsmen," cried a muzhik, who with several others were sitting around an unharnessed
cart. "Come and have a bite with us. We'll give you some wine."
Levin looked round.
"Come on, we've plenty," shouted a jolly bearded muzhik with a red face, displaying his white
teeth and holding up a green bottle which glittered in the sun.
"Qi Cest-ce qu'ils dissent?" asked Veslovsky.
"They invite us to drink some *** with them. They have probably just finished their meadows.
I'd go if I were you," said Levin, not without craftiness, for he hoped that Veslovsky would
be tempted by the *** and would go for it.
"Why should they treat us?"
"Oh, they are probably having a jollification. Really, you had better go. It will interest
you."
"Allans, c'est curieux."
"Go ahead, go, you will find the road to the mill," cried Levin; and, looking round, he
saw to his delight that Veslovsky, stooping over and dragging one leg after the other,
and carrying his musket on his outstretched arm, was making his way from the swamp toward
the peasants.
"You come too," cried the muzhik to Levin. "Don't be afeared, we'll give you a tart."
Levin felt a strong inclination to drink a glass of *** and to eat a piece of bread.
He was tired and could hardly lift his feet out of the bog, and for a moment he hesitated.
But the dog was pointing, and immediately all his weariness vanished, and he lightly
made his way over the marsh toward the dog. The woodcock flew from under his feet; he
fired and brought it down. The dog pointed again — pil! From in front
of the dog another arose. Levin blazed away. But the day was unfortunate; he missed, and
when he looked for the one he had killed, it was nowhere to be found. He searched all
through the tall grass, but Laska had no faith that her master had killed it, and when he
sent her to find it, she pretended to circle round but did not really search.
Even without Vasenka, on whom Levin had laid the blame for his bad luck, there was no improvement.
There also woodcock abounded, but Levin missed shot after shot.
The slanting rays of the sun were still hot; his clothes, wet through with perspiration,
stuck to his body; his left boot, full of water, was heavy and made a sucking noise;
over his face, begrimed with gunpowder, the perspiration ran in drops; there was a bitter
taste in his mouth; his nose was filled with the odor of smoke and of the bog; in his ears
rang the incessant cries of the woodcock; his gun-barrels were so hot that he could
not touch them; his heart beat with loud and rapid strokes, his hands trembled with excitement,
his weary legs kept stumbling and catching in the roots and tussocks: but still he kept
on shooting. At last, having made a disgraceful failure, he threw down his gun and cap.
"No, I must get my wits back," he said to himself; and, picking up his gun and cap,
he called Laska to heel, and quitted the swamp. As he came out on the dry ground he sat down
on a tussock, took off his boots and stockings, poured out the water, then he went back to
the swamp, took a long drink of the boggy-smelling water, soaked his hot gun-barrels, and washed
his face and hands. After he had cooled off, he again went down to the place where he would
find the woodcock, and he made up his mind not to lose his self-control again. He meant
to be calm, but it was the same as before. His finger would press the trigger before
he had taken fair aim at the bird. Indeed, it went from bad to worse.
He had only five birds in his game-bag when he quitted the marsh and went to the alder-wood
where he had agreed to meet Stepan Arkadyevitch.
Before he caught sight of Stepan Arkadyevitch he saw his dog Krak, all black with the marsh
slime, and with an air of triumph as he came leaping out from under the up-turned root
of an alder and began to snuff at Laska. Then appeared Stepan Arkadyevitch's stately figure
in the shade of the alders. He came along, still limping, but with flushed face, all
covered with perspiration and with his collar flung open.
"Well, how is it? Have you killed many?" he cried with a gay smile.
"How is it with you?" asked Levin. But there was no need of asking, because he could see
his overflowing game-bag.
"Oh, just a trifle." He had fourteen birds. "What a splendid marsh. Veslovsky must have
bothered you. Two can't hunt well with the same dog," said
Stepan Arkadyevitch, to soften the effect of his triumph.
CHAPTER XI When Levin and Stepan Arkadyevitch reached
the peasant's izba, where Levin always stopped when he was out hunting, Veslovsky was already
there. He was laughing his merrily contagious laugh, sitting in the middle of the hut and
clinging with both hands to a bench from which a soldier, the brother of their host, was
pulling him in his efforts to haul off his muddy boots.
"I have only just got here. lis ont charmants. Imagine it — they gave me plenty to eat
and drink. What bread, 't was marvelous. Delicieux. And
such *** I never tasted! And they utterly refused to take any payment. They kept saying:
'Drink it down,' or something like that."
"Why should they take money?" They regarded you as a guest. Do you suppose they had ***
to sell?" asked the soldier, who at last succeeded in pulling off the wet boot together with
the mud-stained stocking.
Notwithstanding the dirtiness of the izba, which the huntsmen and their dogs had tracked
all over with mud, notwithstanding the smell of bog and gunpowder with which it was filled,
and notwithstanding the absence of knives and forks, the three men drank their tea and
ate their luncheon with appetites such as only hunting produces. After they had washed
up and cleansed off the mud, they went to a hay-loft where the coachman had prepared
them beds.
Although it was already dark, not one of the huntsmen felt any inclination to go to sleep.
After they had indulged in various recollections and stories of shooting, of dogs, and of previous
expeditions, the conversation turned on a theme which interested them all. As it happened,
Vasenka kept going into raptures over the fascination of this their camp and the fragrance
of the hay, and the charm of the broken telyega — it seemed to him to be broken because
the front part was taken off — and about the hospitality of the muzhiks, who had given
him *** to drink, and about the dogs, which were lying each at his master's feet.
Then Obion sky gave an account of a charming meet which he had attended the summer before
at the place of a man named Malthus, who was a well-known railway magnate. Stepan Arkadyevitch
told what wonderful marshes and game preserves Malthus rented in the government of Tver,
what equipages, dog-carts, and wagonettes were provided for the sportsmen, and how a
great breakfast tent was carried to the marshes and pitched there.
"I can't comprehend you," exclaimed Levin, raising himself on his hay. "I should think
such people would be repulsive to you, I can understand that a breakfast with Lafitte might
be very delightful; but isn't such luxury revolting to you? All these people, like all
monopolists, acquire money in such a way that they gain the contempt of people; they scorn
this contempt and then use their ill-gotten gains to buy off this contempt!"
"You're perfectly right," assented Veslovsky. "Perfectly. Of course Oblonsky does this out
of bonhomie, but others say, "blonsky goes there.'" ....
"Not in the least," — Levin perceived that Oblonsky smiled as he said this. "I simply
consider that this man is no more dishonorable than any other of our rich merchants or nobles.
They all have got their money by hard work and by their brains."
"Yes, but what kind of hard work? Is it hard work to secure a concession and then farm
it out?"
"Of course it is hard work. Hard work in this sense, that if it were not for such men, then
we should have no railways."
"But it is not hard work such as the muzhik or the student has."
"Agreed, but it is work in this sense, that it is a form of activity which gives us results
— railways. But perhaps you argue that railways are useless."
"No; but that is another question. I am willing to acknowledge that they are useful. But all
gains that are disproportionate to the amount of labor expended are dishonorable."
"But who is to determine the suitability?"
"Property acquired by any dishonest way, by craft," said Levin, feeling that he could
not very well make the distinction between honorable and dishonorable. " For example,
the money made by stock-gambling," he went on to say, "that is bad, and so are the gains
made by fortunes acquired without labor, as it used to be with the speculators in monopolies;
only the form has been changed. Le rot est mort, vive le roi! We had only just done away
with brandy-farming when the railways and stock-gambling came in; it is all money acquired
without work."
"Yes, that may be very wise and ingenious reasoning.
— Lie down, Krak," cried Stepan Arkadyevitch, addressing the dog, which was licking his
fur and tossing up the hay. Oblonsky was evidently convinced of the correctness of his theory,
and consequently argued calmly and dispassionately. "But you do not make the distinctions clear
between honest and dishonest work. Is it dishonest when I receive a higher salary than my head
clerk, although he understands the business better than I do?"
"I don't know."
"Well, I will tell you one thing: what you receive for your work on your estate is — let
us say — five thousand above your expenses; but this muzhik, our host, hard as he works,
does not get more than fifty rubles, and this disparity is just as dishonorable as that
I receive more than my head clerk or that Malthus receives more than a railway engineer.
On the contrary, it seems to me that the hostility shown by society to these men arises from
envy" ....
"No, that is unjust," said Veslovsky; "it cannot be envy, and there is something unfair
in this state of things."
"Excuse me," persisted Levin. "You say it is unfair for me to receive five thousand
while the muzhik gets only fifty; you're right. It is unfair. I feel it, but...."
"The distinction holds throughout. Why do we eat, drink, hunt, waste our time, while
he is forever and ever at work?" said Vasenka Veslovsky, who was evidently for the first
time in his life thinking clearly on this question, and therefore was willing to be
frank.
"Yes, you feel so, but you don't give your estate up to the muzhik," said Stepan Arkadyevitch,
not sorry of a chance to tease Levin.
Of late there had arisen between the two brothers-in-law a secretly hostile relationship; since they
had married sisters, a sort of rivalry existed between them as to which of them had the best
way of living, and now this hostility expressed itself by the conversation taking a personal
turn.
"I do not give it because no one demands this of me,
and even if I wanted to, I could not," replied Levin.
"Give it to this muzhik; he would not refuse it."
"But how could I give it to him? Should I come with him and sign the deed?"
"I don't know; but if you are convinced that you have not the right.... "
"I am not altogether convinced. On the contrary I feel that I have no right to give it away,
that I have certain obligations both to the land and to my family."
"No, excuse me; if you consider that this inequality is unjust, then why don't you do
so?"
"I do it, only in a negative way, in the sense that I do not try to increase the discrepancy
that exists between him and me."
"No, but that is a paradox, if you will allow me to say so."
"Yes, that is a sort of sophistical statement," averred Veslovsky. — "Ho! friend," he exclaimed,
addressing Khozain their host, who had just then come into the loft, making the door creak
on its hinges, "aren't you asleep yet?"
"No, how can one sleep? But I supposed you gentlemen were asleep — still, I heard talking.
I wanted to get a hook. — Will she bite?" he added, carefully slipping along in his
bare feet.
"But where do you sleep?"
"We are on night duty."
"Oh, what a night," exclaimed Veslovsky, catching a glimpse of the edge of the izba and the
unharnessed wagons in the faint light of the west through the now widely opened door. "Just
listen to those women's voices singing; it is not bad at all. Who is singing, friend?"
said he, addressing the muzhik.
"Oh, those are the girls from the farm, singing together."
"Come, let's go out and take a walk! We shall never go to sleep. Come on, Oblonsky."
"What's the use?" said Oblonsky, stretching, "it's more comfortable here."
"Well, then, I'll go alone," exclaimed Veslovsky, jumping up eagerly and putting on his shoes
and stockings. "Good-by — da svidanya — gentlemen. If there's any fun, I will come and call you.
You have given me good hunting and I won't forget you."
"He's a splendid young fellow," said Oblonsky, after Veslovsky had gone out and the muzhik
had shut the door again.
"Yes, he is," replied Levin, still continuing to think of what they had been talking about.
It seemed to him that he had clearly, to the best of his ability, uttered his thoughts
and feelings, and yet these men, who were by no means stupid or insincere, agreed in
declaring that he indulged in sophistries. This confused him.
"This is the way of it, my friend," said Oblonsky. "One of two things must be: either you must
agree that the present order of society is all right, and then stand up for your rights,
or confess that you enjoy unfair privileges, as I do, and get all the good out of them
that you can."
"No; if this was unfair, you could not get any enjoyment out of these advantages .... at
least I could not. With me the main thing would be to feel that
I was not to blame."
"After all, why should we not go out," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, evidently growing tired
of this discussion. "You see we are not going to sleep. Come on, let's go out."
Levin made no reply. What he had said in their conversation about his doing right only in
a negative sense occupied his mind. "Can one be right only in a negative way?" he asked
himself.
"How strong the odor of the fresh hay is," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, as he got up. "It
is impossible to go to sleep. Vasenka is hatching some scheme out there. Don't you hear them
laughing, and his voice." Won't you come? Come on."
"No, I am not going," said Levin.
"Is this also from principle?" asked Stepan Arkadyevitch, with a smile, as he groped round
in the darkness for his cap.
"No, not from principle, but why should I go?"
"Do you know you are laying up misfortune for yourself?" said Stepan Arkadyevitch, having
found his cap, and getting up.
"Why so?"
"Don't I see how you are giving in to your wife?
I heard how much importance you attached to the question whether she approved of your
going off for a couple of days' hunting. That is very well as an idyl, but it doesn't work
for a whole lifetime. A man ought to be independent; he has his own masculine interests.
A man must be manly," said Oblonsky, opening the door.
"What does that mean .... going and flirting with the farm girls?" asked Levin.
"Why not go, if there's fun in it? Ca ne tire pas d consequence. My wife would not be any
the worse off for it, and it affords me amusement. The main thing is the sanctity of the home.
There should not be any trouble at home. But there is no need of a man's tying his hands."
"Perhaps not," said Levin, dryly, and he turned over on his side. "To-morrow I must start
early and I shan't wake any one, and I shall start at daybreak."
"Messieurs, venez" called Vasenka, returning. "Charmante! I have discovered her! Channante!
A perfect Gretchen, and she and I have already scraped acquaintance. Truly she is mighty
pretty," he cried, with such an expression of satisfaction that any one would think that
she had been made for his especial benefit, and that he was satisfied with the work of
the one who had prepared her for him.
Levin pretended to be asleep, but Oblonsky, putting on his slippers and lighting a cigar,
left the barn and soon their voices died away.
It was long before Levin could go to sleep. He heard his horses munching their hay, then
the muzhik setting out with his eldest son to watch the animals in the pasture, then
the soldier going to bed on the other side of the loft with his nephew, the youngest
son of their host; he heard the little boy in a low voice telling his uncle his impressions
regarding the dogs, which to him seemed terrible and monstrous beasts; then the boy asking
what these dogs caught, and the soldier in a hoarse and sleepy voice telHng him that
the next day the huntsmen would go to the swamp and would fire off their guns; and then,
the boy still continuing to ply him with questions, the soldier hushed him up, saying, " Go to
sleep, Vaska, go to sleep, and you will see," and soon the man began to snore and all became
quiet. All that was heard was the neighing of the horses and the cries of the woodcock.
"Why is this simply revolting?" he asked himself. "Well, what's to be done?" It is not my fault."
And he began to think of the morrow.
"To-morrow I will start early in the morning, and I will take it on myself not to get excited.
I will bring down some woodcock. And there are plenty of snipe!
And when I get back, there'll be a letter from Kitty.
Yes, perhaps Stiva is right; I am not manly toward her; I am too much under my wife's
thumb But what is to be done about it? This also is revolting."
Through his dream he heard Veslovsky and Stepan Arkadyevitch gayly talking and laughing. For
an instant he opened his eyes. The moon had risen, and through the open doors he saw them
standing there in the bright moonlight, and talking. Stepan Arkadyevitch was saying something
about the freshness of a young girl, comparing her to a walnut just out of its shell, and
Veslovsky laughing his contagious laugh, made some reply, evidently repeating the words
spoken by some muzhik, "You'd better be going home."
Levin spoke through his dream, "Gentlemen, tomorrow morning at daybreak."
CHAPTER XII Waking at earliest dawn, Levin tried to wake
his companions. Vasenka, lying on his stomach, with one leg in a stocking, was sleeping so
soundly that it was impossible to get any reply from him. Oblonsky, only half awake,
refused to start out so early. And even Laska, sleeping curled up in a round ball at the
edge of the hay, got up reluctantly, and lazily stretched out and straightened her hind legs,
one after the other. Levin, putting on his boots, took his gun
and cautiously opening the creaking door of the shed, went outdoors.
The coachmen were sleeping near the wagons; the horses were dozing. Only one sheep was
drowsily eating with his nose in the trough. It was still gray in the yard.
"You are up early, aren't you, my dear," said the old peasant woman, the mistress of the
house, coming out from the izba, and addressing him in a friendly way, like an old acquaintance.
"Yes, I 'm going out shooting, auntie. Can I go this way to the swamp?"
"Directly behind the barns, follow the foot-path along by the hemp-field." Stepping cautiously
with her bare sunburnt feet, the old woman accompanied Levin as far as the fence back
of the barn. "Go straight on and you'll come to the swamp. Our boys went there last evening."
Laska ran merrily ahead along the foot-path. Levin followed her with swift, light steps,
constantly watching the 'sky. He had an idea that he would reach the swamp before the sun
would be up. But the sun did not loiter. The moon, which had been shining brightly when
he first came out, was now growing pallid like a lump of quicksilver. The morning star,
which before was most conspicuous, now almost defied detection; certain spots before almost
indistinguishable on the distant field, now were becoming plainly visible; these were
heaps of rye. The dew, though it could not be seen in the absence of the sunlight, was
so dense on the fragrant tall hemp from which the seed had already been gathered, that it
wet Levin's legs and blouse above his belt. In the transparent stillness of the morning
the slightest sounds were audible. A bee, humming like a bullet, whizzed by Levin's
ear. He looked around and discovered a second and yet a third. They were coming from the
hives and were flying over the hemp-field and disappearing in the direction of the swamp.
The foot-path led directly into the marsh, which could be detected by the mists rising
over it, here denser, there thinner, so that clumps of grass and cytisus bushes looked
like little islands emerging from them. Peasant boys and men, who had been on night duty,
were scattered about on the edge of the swamp and along the roadside, and all of them were
sleeping wrapped up in their kaftans. At a little distance from them three horses were
moving about unfastened. One of them carried clinking chains. Laska ran along by her master's
side, eager to dash ahead, and with her eyes on everything. After they had passed the sleeping
muzhiks and had reached the first swampy places. Levin examined the priming of his gun and
let the dog go.
One of the horses, a fat chestnut three-year-old, seeing Laska, shied, and, lifting his tail,
whinnied. The two other horses were also startled, and dashed through the water and galloped
out of the swamp. As they pulled their hoofs out of the soft, sticky mud, they made a noise
like smacking. Laska paused, looking with amused eyes at the horses, and seemed to ask
her master what she should do. Levin caressed her and gave a whistle as a signal that she
might begin her work. Laska, joyous and full of importance, darted on over the soil of
the marsh, which quaked under her weight.
As soon as she got fairly into the bog, Laska instantly distinguished amid all the well-known
odors of roots and swamp-grass and the mud and the droppings of the horses, the scent
of the bird perceptible through the whole place — the penetrating bird odor which
more than anything else excited her. Wherever there was moss or sage bushes this odor was
peculiarly strong, but it was impossible to make out in which direction it increased or
diminished in strength. In order to get her bearings, the dog had to bear to the lee of
the wind. Unconscious of any effort in moving her legs,
Laska in an eager gallop, yet so restrained that she was able to stop at a bound, if anything
of consequence presented itself, dashed toward the right away from the breeze which was now
beginning to blow freshly from the east. Snuffing the air with her widespread nostrils, she
suddenly became conscious that she was no longer following a trail, but was on the game
itself — not one bird alone, but many. Laska slackened her speed. The birds were there,
but she could not as yet determine exactly where. In order to find the exact spot, she
began another circle, when suddenly the voice of her master called her back.
"Here, Laska," he cried, directing her toward the other side. She paused as if to ask him
if she had not better keep on as she had begun. But he repeated his command in a stern voice,
sending her to a tussock covered place overflowed with water, where there could not possibly
be anything.
She heard him, and, pretending to obey him, so as to satisfy him, ran hastily over the
spot indicated, and then returned to the place which had attracted her before, and instantly
perceived them again. Now that he no longer bothered her she knew exactly what to do,
and without looking where she was going, stumbling over tussocks to her great indignation and
falling into the water, but quickly extricating herself with her strong, agile legs, she began
to circle round, so as to get her exact bearings.
The scent of the birds kept growing stronger and stronger, more and more distinct, and
suddenly it became perfectly evident to her that one of them was there, just behind a
certain tussock not five steps in front of her, and she stopped and trembled all over.
Her legs were so short that she could not see anything, but she knew by the scent that
the bird was sitting there not five steps distant from her. She pointed, growing each
instant more certain of her game and full of joy in the anticipation. Her tail stuck
straight out and only the end of it quivered. Her mouth was open slightly. Her ears were
cocked up. Indeed, one ear had been all the time pricked up as she ran, and she was panting
heavily, but cautiously, and looking round still more cautiously, rather with her eyes
than with her head, to see if her master was coming.
He was coming, leaping from tussock to tussock, and more slowly than usual it seemed to her;
his face bore the expression which she knew so well, and which was so terrible to her.
It seemed to her that he was coming slowly, and yet he was running!
Remarking Laska's peculiar method of search as she crouched down close to the ground and
took such long strides that her hind legs seemed to rake the ground, and noticing her
slightly opened mouth. Levin knew that she was on the track of snipe, and offering a
mental prayer to God that he might not miss especially his first shot, he followed the
dog. As he came up close to her he looked from his superior height and saw with his
eyes what she perceived only with her nose. In a nook between two tussocks not more than
six feet away from him a snipe was sitting. With head raised it was listening. Then, slightly
spreading and closing its wings and awkwardly wagging its tail, it hid behind its nook.
"At him, at him!" cried Levin, pushing Laska from behind.
"But I can't move," thought Laska. "Where shall I go? From here I smell 'em, but if
I stir I shan't find anything, or know what they are or where they are."
But Levin again pushed the dog with his knee, and in an excited whisper he cried again,
"At him, Lasotchka, at him!"
"Well, if he wants me to do it, I will, but I won't answer for the consequences now,"
she said to herself, and she darted forward with all her might between the tussocks! She
no longer went by scent, but only by her eyes and ears, and did not know what she was doing.
Ten paces from the first place a second snipe arose with a loud squawking and a characteristic
drumming of wings. Instantly the shot rang out and the bird fell heavily with its white
breast on the moist ground. Still another immediately flew up, not even roused by the
dog.
When Levin aimed at it it was already a long shot, but he brought it down. After flying
twenty feet or more the second snipe rose high into the air, then, spinning like a top,
fell heavily to the ground on a dry spot.
"That is the talk," thought Levin, thrusting the fat snipe, still warm, into his hunting-bag.
"Ha, Lasotchka, there's some sense in this, hey?"
When Levin, having reloaded, went still farther into the swamp, the sun was already up, though
it was as yet hidden behind masses of clouds. The moon, which had now lost all its brilliancy,
looked like a white cloud against the sky; not a star was to be seen. The swampy places,
which before had been silvered with the dew, were now yellow. The whole swamp was amber.
The blue of the grass changed into yellowish green. The marsh birds bustled about among
the bushes glittering with dew and casting long shadows along by the brook.
A hawk awoke and perched on a hayrick, turning his head from side to side, looking with displeasure
at the marsh. The jackdaws flew fieldward, and a barefooted urchin was already starting
to drive the horses up to an old man who had been spending the night there, and was now
crawling out from under his kaftan. The gunpowder smoke lay white as milk along the green grass.
One of the peasant children ran down to Levin.
"There were some ducks here last evening, uncle," he cried, and followed him at a distance.
And Levin experienced a feeling of the keenest satisfaction in killing three woodcock, one
after the other, while the boy was watching him and expressing his approbation.
CHAPTER XIII The superstition of hunters, that if the first
shot brings down bird or beast, the field will be good, was justified.
Tired and hungry, but delighted, Levin returned about ten o'clock, after a run of thirty versts,
having brought down nineteen snipe and woodcock and one duck, which, for want of room in his
game-bag, he hung at his belt. His companions had been long up; and after waiting till they
were famished, they had eaten breakfast.
"Hold on, hold on! I know there are nineteen," cried Levin, counting for the second time
his woodcock and snipe, with their bloodstained plumage, and their drooping heads all laid
one over the other, so different from what they were on the marsh.
The count was verified, and Stepan Arkadyevitch's envy was delightful to Levin.
It was also delightful to him, on returning to his lodging, to find there a messenger
who had just come from Kitty, bringing him a letter.
I am perfectly well and happy, and if you fear lest I shall not be sufficiently cared
for, you may be reassured. I have a new body-guard in the person of Marya Vlasyevna. [She was
a midwife, a new and very important personage in Levin's family.] She came over to see me.
She thinks I am wonderfully well, and we shall keep her till you get back. We are all well
and happy, and if you are enjoying yourself and the hunting is good you may stay another
day.
These two pleasures — his successful hunt and the letter from his wife — were so great,
that they effaced from Levin's mind two less agreeable incidents. The first was the fact
that his fast horse, who had apparently been overworked the evening before, refused to
eat and was out of sorts. The coachman said that she was used up.
"They abused her last evening, Konstantin Dmitritch," said he. "The idea! They drove
her ten versts at full speed!"
The second unpleasantness, which for the first moment put an end to his happy frame of mind,
but which afterward caused him no end of amusement, arose from the fact that not a thing was left
for him from all the abundant store of provisions which Kitty had put up for them, and which
it seemed ought to have lasted them a whole week. As he returned from his long and weary
***. Levin had indulged his imagination in certain tarts, so that when he entered
the izba he actually felt the taste of them in his mouth just as Laska scented the game,
and he immediately ordered Filipp to serve them to him. It then transpired that not only
the tarts, but all the cold chicken, had disappeared.
"There! talk of appetites," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, laughing and nodding at Vasenka Veslovsky;
"I cannot complain of mine, but this is marvelous."
"Well! what shall I do?" cried Levin, glowering at Veslovsky. "Filipp, give me some cold beef."
"Beef's all gone and the dogs have got the bones!" replied Filipp.
Levin was so irritated that he could not help exclaiming, "I should think you might have
left something for me!" and he felt like crying.
"Then cook me a woodcock," he said, with trembling voice, to Filipp, trying not to look at Vasenka,
"and bring me some milk."
But after he drank his milk he was mortified because he had shown his disappointment so
plainly and before a stranger, and he began to laugh at himself for his anger.
In the afternoon they went out into the fields again, and even Veslovsky shot several birds,
and at night they went home.
They were as gay on their return as they had been while going. Veslovsky now sang songs,
and now told of his adventures with the muzhiks who gave him his *** and bade him drink
it down quick. Then he related his nocturnal experiences with the nuts and the farm girl,
and the muzhik who asked him if he was married or not, and who, when he found that he was
not married, said to him: " Well, you 'd better not be running after other folks' women; first
of all go home and get a wife for yourself."
This advice greatly amused Veslovsky.
"Well, on the whole, I am awfully glad we went, aren't you, Levin?"
"Very glad," replied Levin, sincerely, and he was especially happy because he no longer
felt that animosity which he had felt at home toward Vasenka Veslovsky; but, on the other
hand, had conceived a genuine friendship for him.
CHAPTER XIV About ten o'clock the next morning, after
inspecting the farm, Levin knocked at the door of the room in which Vasenka had spent
the night.
"Entres" cried Veslovsky. "Excuse me, but I am just finishing my ablutions," he added,
with a smile, standing before Levin in his bare skin.
"Do not let me disturb you," said Levin, and he sat down by the window. "Did you sleep
well?"
"Like the dead. Is it a good day for hunting?"
"What do you drink, tea or coffee?"
"Neither; I always go down to breakfast; I am mortified at being so late. The ladies,
I suppose, are already up? Splendid time for a ride! You must show me your horses."
After walking around the garden, examining the stable, and performing a few gymnastic
exercises together on the parallel bars. Levin and his guest returned to the house and went
into the drawing-room,
"We had splendid sport and got so many new impressions," said Veslovsky, approaching
Kitty, who was sitting near the samovar. "What a pity that ladies are deprived of this pleasure!"
"Well, of course he must have something to say to the lady of the house," thought Levin.
Again he detected something peculiar in the smile and in the triumphant air with which
his guest behaved toward Kitty.
The princess, who was sitting on the other side of the table with Marya Vlasyevna and
Stepan Arkadyevitch, called Levin to her and began to broach her idea that they should
go to Moscow for Kitty's confinement, and explained to him how the rooms should be prepared
for her.
Just as all the preparations for his wedding had seemed distasteful to Levin because they
were so insignificant in comparison with the majesty of the event itself, so now even more
humiliating were all the preparations for the approaching confinement, the time of which
they were reckoning up on their fingers. He tried to shut his ears to all the talk about
the various kinds of swaddling-clothes for the unborn infant; he did his best to shut
his eyes to all the mysterious and numberless bands and triangular pieces of linen to which
Dolly seemed to attribute special importance and the like.
The event of the birth of a son — for he was firmly persuaded that it would be a son
— -seemed to him so extraordinary that he could not believe in its possibility, and
while on the one hand it promised him a happiness too enormous and therefore incredible, on
the other hand it seemed to him too mysterious to admit of trying to imagine what it meant,
and consequently all this preparation as if for something commonplace, for something in
the hands of men, seemed to him revolting and humiliating. The princess did not understand
his feelings, and she attributed his unwillingness to think and talk about this to indifference
and carelessness, and so she gave him no peace. She had just been charging Stepan Arkadyevitch
to look up a suite of rooms, and now she called Levin to her.
"Do as you think best, princess; I understand nothing about the matter," said he.
"But it must be decided just when you will go to Moscow."
"Truly I don't know; what I know is that millions of children are born away from Moscow, and
doctors ... and all that ...."
"Yes, but in that case ...."
"Let Kitty do as she pleases about it."
"It is impossible to speak with Kitty about it. Do you want me to frighten her?" Only
this spring Natali Golitsuin died in consequence of an unskilful accoucheur."
"I shall do as you wish," repeated Levin, angrily.
The princess began to say something more to him, but he was not listening. Though his
conversation with the princess upset him, he was not angered by what she said, but by
what he saw at the samovar.
"No; that can't go on," thought he, as he from time to time glanced over at Vasenka,
who was bending down to Kitty, with a flattering smile, and making some remark to her; and
he also noticed his wife's disturbed and blushing face.
There was something improper in Veslovsky's attitude, his smile, his eyes. So, too, Kitty's
action and appearance seemed to him unbecoming, and again the light flashed in his eyes. And
again, as happened two days before, he felt himself suddenly, without the least warning,
precipitated from the height of happiness, contentment, and dignity, into an abyss of
despair, hatred, and confusion. Again they seemed to him, each and all, his enemies.
"Do just as you please, princess," said he again, turning round.
"Heavy is the cap of Monomakh," said Stepan Arkadyevitch in jest, referring evidently,
not to Levin's conversation with the princess, but to the cause of Levin's agitated face,
which he had noticed. "How late you are, Dolly!"
All rose to greet Darya Aleksandrovna. Vasenka also arose, but only for a moment; and with
the lack of politeness characteristic of up-to-date young men toward ladies, scarcely bowing,
he resumed his conversation with some humorous remarks.
"Masha has been wearing me all out," said Dolly.
"She did not sleep well and she is terribly fretful to-day."
The conversation which Vasenka and Kitty were engaged in once more turned, as it had the
evening before, on Anna and whether love could hold outside the conventions of society This
conversation was disagreeable to Kitty, and it agitated her, not only by reason of the
topic and the tone in which it was carried on, but still more because she was already
conscious of the effect it would have on her husband. But she was too simple and innocent
to understand how to put an end to it, or even to hide the signs of agitation which
this young man's too pronounced attentions produced in her.
Whatever she did, she knew perfectly well would be remarked by her husband and would
be absolutely misinterpreted.
And indeed, when she asked Dolly what was the matter with Masha, and Vasenka, waiting
till this new subject of conversation, which was a bore to him, should be finished, stared
with an indifferent look at Dolly, this question struck Levin as an unnatural and obnoxious
kind of slyness.
"Well, are we going after mushrooms to-day?" asked Dolly.
"Oh, yes, do let us go, I should like to get some," said Kitty, and she blushed. For mere
politeness' sake she wanted to ask Vasenka if he would go with them, but she did not
do so.
"Where are you going, Kostia?" she asked, with a guilty air, as her husband, with deliberate
steps, went by her on his way out of the room.
This guilty confusion confirmed all his suspicions.
"A machinist came while I was away. I have not had a chance to see him yet," he answered,
without looking at her.
He had gone down-stairs, but had not yet left his library, before he heard Kitty's well-known
footsteps imprudently hurrying after him.
"What is it? We are busy," said he, curtly.
"Excuse me," said Kitty, addressing the German machinist; "I wish to say a few words to my
husband."
The mechanic was about to leave, but Levin stopped him: "Don't disturb yourself."
"I don't want to lose the three o'clock train," remarked the German.
Without answering him. Levin went out into the corridor with his wife.
"Well, what do you wish to say to me?" he asked in French.
He did not look at her face, and did not want to see how it quivered and what a look of
pathetic humiliation was in her eyes.
"I .... I wanted to say that it is impossible to live so; it is torture " .... murmured
she,
"There is some one there at the cupboard," he replied angrily. "Don't make a scene."
"Then let us go in here, then,"
Kitty wanted to go into the next room, but there the English governess was teaching Tania.
"Then let us go into the garden."
In the garden they ran across a muzhik who was weeding a path. And now no longer thinking
that the muzhik would see her tearful or his agitated face, not thinking that they were
in sight of people, as if running from some unhappiness, they went with swift steps straight
on, feeling that they must have a mutual explanation, and find some lonely spot where they could
talk, and free themselves from this misery that was oppressing them both.
"It is impossible to live so. It is torture. I suffer.
You suffer. Why is it?" she said, when at last they reached a bench standing by itself
in the corner of the linden alley.
"But tell me one thing: was not his manner indecent,
improper, horribly insulting?" he asked, standing in front of her in the same position, with
his fists doubled up on his chest, in which he had stood before her two days before.
"It was," said she, in a trembling voice; "but, Kostia, can't you see that I am not
to blame? All this morning I have been trying to act so that.... but oh, these men.... why
did he come? How happy we were!" she said, choking with the sobs that shook her whole
body.
The gardener saw with surprise that, though nothing was chasing them, and there was nothing
to run away from, and there was nothing especially attractive about the bench where they had
been sitting, yet still they went past him back to the house with peaceful, shining faces.
CHAPTER XV As soon as he had taken his wife to her room.
Levin went to seek Dolly. Darya Aleksandrovna also was in a state of great excitement. She
was pacing up and down her chamber, and scolding little Masha, who stood in a corner, crying.
"You shall stay all day in the corner, and eat dinner alone, and you shall not see one
of your dolls, and you shall have no new dress," she was saying, though she did not know why
she was punishing the child. "This is a naughty little girl," she said to Levin; "where does
she get this abominable disposition?"
"Why, what has she done?" asked Levin, rather indifferently, for he was annoyed to find
that he had come at the wrong time when he wished some advice regarding his own affairs.
"She and Grisha went into the raspberry bush, and there .... but I can't tell you what she
did. I'd a thousand times rather have Miss Elliot. This governess doesn't look after
anything .... she's a machine. Figurez vous, que la petite.
And Darya Aleksandrovna related Masha's misdeeds.
"There's nothing very bad in that. That doesn't signify a bad disposition. It is only a piece
of childish mischief," said Levin, soothingly.
"But what is the matter with you? You look troubled.
What has happened down-stairs?" asked Dolly, and by the tone of her questions Levin perceived
that it would be easy for him to say what he had in his mind to say.
"I haven't been down-stairs. I have been alone in the garden with Kitty. We have just had
a quarrel .... the second since.... Stiva came."
Dolly looked at him with her intelligent, penetrating eyes.
"Now tell me, with your hand on your heart," he said, "tell me, was the conduct, not of
Kitty, but of this young man, anything else than unpleasant, not unpleasant, but intolerable,
insulting even, to a husband?"
"What shall I say to you? — Stand, stand in the corner!" said she to Masha, who, noticing
the scarcely perceptible smile on her mother's face, started to go away. "Society would say
that he is only behaving as all young men behave. Il fait la coiir d'une j'eune ei jolie
femme, and her husband, as himself a gentleman of society, should be flattered by it."
"Yes, yes," said Levin, angrily; "but have you noticed it?"
"I noticed it, of course, and so did Stiva. Just after tea he said to me, 'Je crois que
Veslovsky fait tin petit brin de conr a Kitty.'"
"Well, that settles it. Now I am calm. I am going to send him away," said Levin.
"What! Are you out of your senses?" cried Dolly, alarmed. "What are you thinking about,
Kostia?" she went on with a laugh. — "You may go now to ***," she said to the child.
"No! If you like, I will speak to Stiva. He will get him to leave. He can say you are
expecting company. However, it is not our house."
"No, no! I will do it myself."
"You will quarrel." ....
"Not at all, I shall find it amusing," said he, with a happier light shining in his eyes.
"There, now, Dolly, forgive her; she won't do it again," he said,
pointing to the little culprit, who had not gone to ***, but was now standing irresolute
beside her mother, and looking askance at her with pleading eyes.
The mother looked at her. The little girl, sobbing, hid her face in her mother's lap,
and Dolly laid her thin hand tenderly on her head.
"Is there anything in common between us and that fellow?" thought Levin, and he went to
find Veslovsky.
As he passed through the hall he ordered the carriage to be made ready to go to the station.
"The springs were broken yesterday," the servant answered.
"Then bring the tarantas. Only be quick about it.
Where is the guest?"
"He went to his room."
Levin found Vasenka in the act of trying on his gaiters in preparation for a ride. He
had just taken his things out of his valise, and laid aside some new lovesongs.
Either there was something strange in Levin's expression, or Vasenka himself was conscious
that ce petit brin de coiir which he was making was rather out of place in this family; but
at all events, he felt as uncomfortable in Levin's presence as it is possible for an
elegant young man to feel.
"Do you ride in gaiters?" asked Levin.
"Yes; it's much neater," replied Vasenka, putting up one fat leg on a chair, and struggling
with the bottom button, and smiling with genuine good humor.
He was really a very good-hearted young fellow, and Levin felt sorry for him and conscience-stricken
for himself as his host when he saw the timidity in Vasenka's eyes.
On the table lay a fragment of a stick which they had broken off that morning while trying
to prop up the parallel bars for their gymnastic exercises. Levin took this fragment in his
hand and began to break off the ragged ends, not knowing how to commence.
"I wanted .... " He stopped for a moment; but suddenly remembering Kitty and all that
had taken place, he went on, looking him squarely in the eye. "I have had the horses put in
for you."
"What do you mean?" began Vasenka, in surprise. "Where are we going?"
"You are going to the railway station," said Levin, with a frown, breaking off the end
of the stick.
"Are you going away? Has anything happened?"
"I happen to be expecting company," Levin went on, breaking off pieces of his stick
more and more nervously with his strong fingers. "Or, no, I am not expecting any one, and nothing
has happened, but I beg you to go away. You may explain my lack in politeness as you please."
Vasenka drew himself up.
"I beg you to explain to me," said he, with dignity, comprehending at last.
"I cannot explain to you, and you will be wise not to question me," Levin said slowly,
trying to remain calm, and to check the tremulous motions of his face.
And as the chipped pieces of the stick were by this time all broken. Levin took the stick
in his fingers, split it in two, and picked up the part that fell to the floor.
Apparently the sight of those energetic hands, those very muscles which he had seen tested
that morning while they were doing their gymnastics, those flashing eyes, and the quivering face
and the subdued sound of his voice impressed Vasenka more than the spoken words. Shrugging
his shoulders and smiling disdainfully, he submitted.
"May I not see Oblonsky?"
The shrugging of the shoulders and the smile did not annoy Levin. "What else could he do?"
he asked himself.
"I will send him to you immediately."
"What sense is there in such conduct!" exclaimed Stepan Arkadyevitch, when he had learned from
his friend that he was to be driven from the house, and finding Levin in the garden, where
he was walking up and down waiting for his guest's departure. "Mais c'est ridiaile! To
be stung by such a fly as that! Mais c est dn derinier ridicule! What difference
does it make to you if a young man .... "
But the spot where the fly had stung Levin was evidently still sensitive, because he
turned pale again and cut short the explanations which Stepan Arkadyevitch tried to give.
"Please don't take the trouble to defend the young man; I can't help it. I am sorry both
for you and for him. But I imagine it won't be a great trial for him to go away, and my
wife and I both found his presence unpleasant."
"But it was insulting to him. Et puis c'est ridicule."
"Well, it was humiliating and extremely disagreeable to me. I am not to blame toward him, and there
is no reason why I should suffer for it."
"Well, I did not expect this of you. On pent itre jaloux, mais a ce point c est du dei'nier
ridiculed Levin quickly turned away, and entered the
thick shrubbery by the driveway, and continued to walk up and down the path.
Soon he heard the rumbling of the tarantas, and through the trees he saw Vasenka riding
up the road, sitting on the straw (for unfortunately the tarantas had no seat), the ribbons of
his Scotch cap streaming behind his head as he jolted along.
"What now?" thought Levin, as he saw a servant run from the house and stop the cart. It was
only to find a place for the machinist, whom Levin had entirely forgotten. The machinist,
with a low bow, said something to Veslovsky, and clambered into the tarantas, and they
drove off together.
Stepan Arkadyevitch and the old princess were indignant at Levin's conduct. And he himself
felt that he had been not only ridiculous in the highest degree, but even blameworthy
and disgraceful; but as he remembered all that he and his wife had suffered, he asked
himself how he should do another time in similar circumstances, and his answer was that he
should do exactly the same thing again.
In spite of all this, toward the end of the day, all of them, with the exception of the
old princess, who could not forgive Levin's behavior, became extraordinarily gay and lively,
just like children after a punishment or like grown people after a solemn official reception,
so that in the evening, in the absence of the old princess, they talked about the dismissal
of Vasenka as about something that had taken place long, long before. And Dolly, who had
inherited from her father the gift of telling a funny story, made Varenka laugh till she
cried, by telling her three and four times, and each
time with new amusing details, how she had just put on, in honor of their guest, some
new ribbons, and was just going into the drawing-room, when, at that very minute, the rattle of an
old tumble-down wagon drew her to the window. Who was in this old tumble-down wagon?
Vasenka himself! and his Scotch cap, his love-songs, his romantic airs, and his gaiters, seated
on the straw!
"If only a carriage had been given him! But no!
Then I hear a shout: 'Hold on!' Well,' I say to myself, 'they have taken pity on him;'
not in the least; I look and see a fat German, — and off they
go! and my ribbons were wasted."
CHAPTER XVI Darya Aleksandrovna carried out her plan of
going to see Anna. She was sorry to offend her sister, or to displease her sister's husband.
She realized that the Levins were right in not wishing to have anything to do with Vronsky;
but she considered it her duty to go to see Anna and prove to her that her feelings could
not change, in spite of the change in her position.
In order not to be dependent on the Levins, Darya Aleksandrovna sent to the village to
hire horses; but Levin, when he heard about it, went to her with his complaint: —
"Why do you think this journey would be disagreeable to me? And even if it were, it would be still
more unpleasant for me not to have you take my horses," said he. "You never told me that
you were really going; but to hire them from the village is disagreeable to me in the first
place, and chiefly because, though they undertake to get you there, they would not succeed.
I have horses. And if you don't wish to offend me, you will take mine."
Darya Aleksandrovna had to yield, and on the appointed day Levin had all ready for his
sister-in-law a team of four horses, and a relay, made up of working and saddle-horses;
a very far from handsome turnout, but capable of taking Darya Aleksandrovna to her destination
in one day.
Now that horses were needed to take the old princess out for her daily drive, and for
the midwife, it was a rather heavy burden for Levin; but, according to the law of hospitality,
he could not possibly think of allowing Darya Aleksandrovna to hire horses outside, and,
moreover, he knew that the twenty rubles which was asked for the hire of a team would be
a serious matter for her, for Darya Aleksandrovna's pecuniary affairs had got into a very wretched
condition, and caused the Levins as much anxiety as if they had been their own.
Darya Aleksandrovna, by Levin's advice, set out at early dawn. The weather was fine, the
calash was comfortable, the horses went merrily, and on the box, next the coachman, in place
of a footman, sat the bookkeeper, whom Levin had sent for the sake of greater security.
Darya Aleksandrovna dropped off to sleep, and did not wake up till they reached the
place where they had to change horses. It was at the same rich muzhik's house where
Levin had stopped on his way to Sviazhsky's. After she had taken tea, and talked awhile
with the women about their children and with the old man about Count Vronsky, for whom
he had great respect, Darya Aleksandrovna proceeded on her way about
ten o'clock.
At home on account of her maternal cares she never had much time to think. Consequently
now, during this four hours' journey, all the thoughts that had been so long restrained
suddenly began to throng through her brain, and she passed her whole life in review as
she had never before done and from every side. These thoughts were strange even to herself.
First she thought of her children, and began to worry over them, though her mother and
her sister — and it was the latter on whom she chiefly relied — had promised to look
after them. "If only Masha doesn't do some stupid thing, and if Grisha doesn't get kicked
by the horse, and if Lili doesn't have an attack of indigestion," she said to herself.
Then questions of the present moment began to mingle with questions of the immediate
future. She began to consider how she must make changes in her rooms when she returned
to Moscow, she must refurnish her drawing-room; her eldest daughter would need a shuba for
winter. Then came questions of a still more distant future. How should she best continue
the children's education?
"The girls can be easily managed," she said to herself, "but the boys." It is well that
I am able to look after Grisha, but it comes from the fact that I am free just now, with
no baby in prospect. Of course there's no dependence to be placed on Stiva. I shall
be able to bring them up with the assistance of excellent people; but if I have any more
babies ...."
And it occurred to her how unjust was the saying that the curse laid on woman lay in
the pangs of child-birth.
"Childbirth is nothing, but pregnancy is such misery," she said to herself, recalling the
last experience of the sort, and the death of the child. And the thought brought to mind
her talk with the young wife at the post-house. When asked if she had children, this peasant
woman had answered cheerfully: —
"I had one daughter, but God relieved me of her; she was buried in Lent.
"And you are very sad about her?"
"Why should I be? father has plenty of grandchildren, as it is, and she would have been only one
care more! You can't work or do anything; it hinders
everything."
This reply had seemed revolting to Darya Aleksandrovna, in spite of the young peasant-woman's appearance
of good nature, but now she could not help recalling what she had said. There was certainly
a grain of truth in those cynical words.
"Yes, and as a general thing," said Darya Aleksandrovna, as she looked back over the
fifteen years of her married life, pregnancy, nausea, dullness of spirits, indifference
to everything, and worst of all, ugliness. Kitty, our little, young, pretty Kitty, how
ugly even she has grown, and I know well what a fright I become when I am in that condition.
The birth-pains, the awful sufferings, and that last moment.... then the nursing of the
children, the sleepless nights, the agonies...."
Darya Aleksandrovna shuddered at the mere recollection of the agony which with almost
every one of her children she had suffered from broken breast.
Then the illnesses of the children, that panic of fear, then their education, their evil
disposition; she recalled little Masha's disobedience in going to the raspberry bush; the lessons,
Latin — everything that is so incomprehensible and hard. And, above all, the death of these
children.
And once more she went over the undying pangs that weighed down her maternal heart in the
cruel remembrance of the death of her youngest child, the nursing who died of the croup,
and his funeral, and the indifference of other people as they looked at the little pink coffin,
and her own heartrending grief, which none could share, as she looked for the last time
on the pallid brow with the clinging curls, and the surprised half-open mouth visible
for one instant ere they shut down the cover with its silver-gilt cross.
"And what is all this for? What will be the result of it all? That I never have a moment
of rest, spending my days now in bearing children, now in nursing them, forever irritable, complaining,
self-tormented, and tormenting others, repulsive to my husband. I shall live on, and my children
will grow up wretched, ill-educated, and poor. Even now, if I had not been able to spend
the summer with the Levins, I don't know how we should have got along. Of course Kostia
and Kitty are so considerate that we can't feel under obligations to them; but this cannot
go on so. They will be having children of their own, and then they will not be able
to help us any more; even now their expenses are very heavy.
What then? Papa, who has kept almost nothing for himself, won't be able to help us, will
he? One thing is perfectly certain, I cannot educate my children unaided; and, if I have
to have assistance, it will be humiliating. Well, let us suppose that we have good luck,
if no more of the children die and I can manage to educate them.
Under the most favorable circumstances they will at least turn out not to be bad. That
is all that I can hope for. And to bring about so much, how much suffering, how much trouble,
I must go through My whole life is spoiled!"
Again she recalled what the young peasant woman had said, and again it was odious to
her to remember it; but she could not help agreeing that there was a grain of coarse
truth in her words.
"Is it much farther, Mikhaila?" asked Darya Aleksandrovna of the bookkeeper, in order
to check these painful thoughts. "They say it is seven versts from this village."
The calash was rolling through the village street and across a little bridge. On the
bridge was passing a whole troop of peasant women talking, with loud and merry voices,
and carrying their sheaves on their backs. The women paused on the bridge and gazed inquisitively
at the calash. All the faces turned toward Darya Aleksandrovna seemed to her healthy
and cheerful, mocking her with the very joy of life.
"All are full of life, all of them enjoy themselves," said Darya Aleksandrovna, continuing to commune
with her own thoughts, as she passed by the peasant women and was carried swiftly up the
little hill, pleasantly rocking on the easy springs of the old calash, "while I, like
one let loose from a prison, am free for a moment from the life that is crushing me with
its cares. All other women know what it is to live, these peasant women and my sister
Natali and Varenka and Anna whom I am going to visit — every one but me.
"And they blame Anna. Why? Am I really any better than she." At least I have a husband
whom I love; not, to be sure, as I wish I loved him, but I love him in a way, and Anna
did not love hers. In what respect is she to blame? She desired to live. And God put
that desire into our hearts. Very possibly I might have done the same thing. And to this
day I am not certain whether I did well in taking her advice at that horrible time when
she came to visit me in Moscow. Then I ought to have left my husband and begun
my life all over again. If I had I might have loved and been loved.
And now are things any better? I cannot respect him, but I need him," she said to herself,
referring to her husband, "and so I endure him. Is that any better?
At that time I still had the power of pleasing, I had some beauty then," said Darya Aleksandrovna,
still pursuing her thoughts; and the desire to look at herself in a mirror came over her.
She had a small traveling mirror in her bag, and she wanted to take it out; but, as she
looked at the backs of the coachman and the swaying bookkeeper, she felt that she should
be ashamed of herself if either of them turned round and saw her, and so she did not take
out the mirror. Hut, even though she did not look at the mirror, she felt that even now
it was not too late: for she remembered Sergyei Ivanovitch, who was especially amiable to
her, and Stiva's friend, the good Turovtsuin, who had helped her take care of the children
during the time of the scarlatina, and had been in love with her. And then there was
still another, a very young man, who, as her husband used jestingly to remark, found her
prettier than all her sisters. And all sorts of passionate and impossible romances rose
before her imagination.
"Anna has done perfectly right, and I shall never think of reproaching her. She is happy,
she makes some one else happy, and she is not worn out as I am, but keeps all her freshness
and her mind open to all sorts of interests," said Darya Aleksandrovna, and a roguish smile
played over her lips because, as she passed Anna's romantic story in review, she imagined
herself simultaneously having almost the same experiences with a sort of collective representation
of all the men who had ever been in love with her. She, just like Anna, confessed everything
to her husband. And the amazement and perplexity which she imagined Stepan Arkadyevitch displayed
at this confession caused her to smile.
With such day-dreams she reached the side road that led from the highway to Vozdvizhenskoye.
CHAPTER XVII The coachman reined in his four horses, and
looked off to the right toward a field of rye where some muzhiks were sitting beside
their cart. The bookkeeper at first started to jump down, but afterward reconsidered,
and shouted, imperatively summoning a muzhik to the carriage. The breeze which had blown
while they were in motion died down, when they stopped; the horse-flies persisted in
sticking to the sweaty horses, which kept angrily shaking them off. The metallic sound
of whetting scythes, borne by the breeze across from the telyega, ceased. One of the peasants
got up and came over to the calash. "Say, hurry up," cried the bookkeeper, angrily,
to the muzhik, who, in his bare feet, came leisurely along the ruts of the dry and little-traveled
road, "come here."
The old man, whose curly hair was bound round with a piece of bast, and whose bent back
was black with perspiration, quickened his step, and came up to the calash, and took
hold of the rim with his sunburnt hand.
"Vozdvizhenskoye? the manor-house? to the count's?" he repeated; " why, all you have
to do's to drive on up the hill. First turn to the left. Then straight along the preshpekt
and that'll bring you there. Who do you want? The count himself?"
"Do you know whether they are at home, galubchik?" asked Darya Aleksandrovna, not mentioning
names, for she did not know how to ask for Anna even of a muzhik.
"Must be at home," said the muzhik, shuffling along in his bare feet and leaving in the
dust the tracks of his soles with their five toes. "They must be at home," he repeated,
evidently liking to talk. "This afternoon some new guests came. Guests, such quantities
of them! .... What do you want," he cried, addressing his comrade, who shouted something
from the cart, "They've all been out on horseback. We saw
them go by. They must be back by this time. But whose folks are you?"
"We have come from a long way," said the coachman, climbing upon the box. "So then, it is not
far."
"I tell you, you are almost there. If you drive on .... " said he, shifting his hand
on the rim of the calash.
His young comrade, healthy-looking and thick-set, also came up to the carriage.
"Do you need any help in getting in the harvest?" he asked.
"I don't know, galubchik."
"Well, you understand, you turn to the left and then you'll get there," said the muzhik,
evidently reluctant to part with the strangers and anxious to talk.
The coachman touched up his horses, but they had hardly started ere the muzhik cried: —
"Wait! he! hold on!" cried two voices together The coachman reined in again. "There they
come. There they are," cried the muzhik. "See what
a lot of them," and he pointed to four persons on horseback and two in a char a bancs who
were coming along the road.
They were Vronsky and his jockey, Veslovsky and Anna, on horseback, and the princess Varvara
with Sviazhsky in the char a bancs. They had been out to ride and to look at the operation
of some newly imported reaping-machines.
When the carriage stopped the riders were all walk ing their horses. In front Anna rode
with Veslovsky. Anna rode at an easy gait on a little stout
English cob with a cropped mane and docked tail. Her pretty head, with her dark ringlets
escaping from under a tall hat, her full shoulders, her slender waist in a tightly fitting amazonka,
and her whole easy, graceful horsemanship surprised Dolly. At first it seemed to her
unbecoming for Anna to be riding horseback. Darya Aleksandrovna connected the idea of
horseback riding for ladies with the idea of light, youthful coquetry, which seemed
to her did not accord well with Anna's position; but as she examined her more closely she immediately
became reconciled to her going on horseback. Notwithstanding all her elegance, everything
about her was so simple, easy, and appropriate in her pose and in her habit and in her motions,
that nothing could have been more natural.
Next to Anna, on a gray, fiery cavalry horse, rode Vasenka Veslovsky, thrusting his fat
legs forward, and evidently very well satisfied with himself. He still wore his Scotch cap
with its floating ribbons, and Darya Aleksandrovna could hardly restrain a smile of amusement
when she saw him.
Behind them rode Vronsky on a dark chestnut horse of purest blood, which was evidently
spoiling for a gallop. He was sawing on the reins to hold him back.
Behind them came a little man in a jockey's livery.
Sviazhsky and the princess in a new char d bancs, drawn by a plump raven-black trotter,
brought up the rear.
Anna's face, as she recognized Dolly in the little person curled up in a corner of the
old carriage, suddenly grew bright with a happy smile, and, uttering a cry of joy, she
put her cob to a gallop. Riding up to the calash, she leaped off the horse without any
one's aid, and, gathering up her skirts, ran to meet her.
"I thought so, and did not dare to think so! What pleasure! you can't imagine my joy,"
she said, pressing her face to Dolly's, kissing her, and then holding her off at arm's length
and looking at her with an affectionate smile. "What a pleasure, Aleksei," she said, glancing
at Vronsky, who had also dismounted, and was coming toward them, " what a piece of good
fortune!"
Vronsky came up, raising his tall gray hat. "You can't imagine what delight your visit
gives us," said he, in a tone which conveyed a peculiar satisfaction, and with a smile
which displayed his strong white teeth,
Vasenka, without dismounting from his horse, took off his beribboned cap, and waved it
gayly round his head, in honor of the guest.
"This is the Princess Varvara," began Anna, in reply to a questioning look of Dolly as
the char a bancs came up.
"Ah!" replied Darya Aleksandrovna, and her face showed involuntary annoyance.
The J'rincess Varvara was her husband's aunt, and she knew her of old, and did not esteem
her. She knew that she had lived all her life long in a humiliating dependence on rich relatives;
and the fact that she was living at Vronsky's, at the house of a stranger to her, insulted
her through her husband's family. Anna noticed the expression of Dolly's face, and was confused;
she blushed, and, dropping the train of her amazonka, she tripped over it.
Darya Aleksandrovna went over to the char d band when it had stopped and coolly greeted
the Princess Varvara. Sviazhsky was also an acquaintance. He asked after his friend Levin
and his young wife; then, casting a fleeting glance at the oddly matched horses and the
patched side of the old carriage, he proposed that the ladies should get into the char a
bancs.
"I will take this vehicle to go home in; the horse is quiet and the princess is an excellent
driver."
"Oh, no," interrupted Anna, coming up; "remain as you are. I will go home with Dolly in the
calash."
Darya Aleksandrovna's eyes were dazzled by the unexampled elegance of the carriage, and
the beauty of the horses, and the refined brilliancy of the company around her, but
more than all was she struck by the change that had taken place in her old friend, her
dearly beloved Anna.
Any other woman, less observant, and unacquainted with Anna in days gone by, and especially
any one who had not been under the sway of such thoughts as had occupied Darya Aleksandrovna
on the way, would not have noticed anything peculiar about Anna. But now Darya Aleksandrovna
was struck by the transient beauty characteristic of women when they are under the influence
of love, and which she detected now in Anna's face. Everything about her face was extraordinarily
fascinating: the well-defined dimples in her cheeks and chin, the curve of her lips, the
smile, which, as it were, flitted over her features, the gleam in her
eyes, the gracefulness and quickness of her movements, the richness in the tones of her
voice, even the manner with which she, with a sort of sternly affectionate manner, replied
to Veslovsky, who had asked permission to ride her cob so as to teach it to gallop by
a pressure of the leg. It seemed as if she herself was aware of this, and rejoiced in
it.
When the two ladies were seated together in the calash, they both suddenly felt a sense
of constraint. Anna was confused at the scrutinizingly questioning
look which Dolly fixed on her, and Dolly because she could not help feeling ashamed of the
dirty old calash in which Anna had taken her seat with her.
The coachman, Filipp, and the bookkeeper experienced the same feeling. The bookkeeper, in order
to hide his confusion, fidgeted about in helping the ladies to be comfortably seated; but Filipp,
the coachman, frowned and was loath to acknowledge any such superficial superiority.
He put on an ironical smile as he scrutinized the ravenblack trotter harnessed to the char
a bancs, and decided in his own mind that the black trotter might do very well for a
prominazhe, but that he could not show forty versts at a heat.
The muzhiks had left their telyega, and gayly and curiously were watching the meeting of
the friends, and making their observations.
"They seem tolerably glad; hain't seen each other for some time," remarked the curly-haired
old man.
"There, Uncle Gerasim, that black gelding would haul in the sheaves lively!"
"Glian'-ka, look! Is that a woman in trousers?" asked another, pointing at Veslovsky, sitting
on the sidesaddle.
"Nye, muzhik! see how easy he rides."
"Say, then, my children, we shan't get another nap, shall we?"
"No more sleep now," said the old man, squinting his eyes and glancing at the sun; "past noon!
Look! Now get your hooks and to work."
CHAPTER XVIII Anna looked at Dolly's tired, worn face, with
the wrinkles powdered with dust, and was on the point of saying that she looked thin;
but, realizing that she herself had grown more beautiful than ever, and that Dolly's
eyes told her so, she sighed, and began to talk about herself.
"You are studying me," she said. "You are wondering if I can be happy in my position
I Well, what can I say? It is shameful to confess it! but I .... I am unpardonably happy.
What has happened is Uke a piece of enchantment; like a dream where everything was terrible,
agonizing, and suddenly you wake up and realize that it was only a nightmare. I had been asleep,
I had suffered awful agonies, and now that is all long, long past. And how especially
happy I am now that we are together!" and she looked at Dolly with a timid, questioning
smile.
"How glad I am!" Darya Aleksandrovna answered, more coldly than she wished. "I am glad for
you; .... but why have you not written me?"
"Why? .... Because I did not dare to. You knew my position."
"Not dare to me! If you knew how I ...."
Dolly was about to tell her about the reflections she had had on the journey, but somehow it
did not seem to her to be the fitting place. "We will have our talk by and by," she added.
"What is that group of buildings, or little village rather?" she asked, wishing to change
the conversation, and pointing to some green and red roofs which appeared through the acacias
and lilac trees.
But Anna did not reply to her question. "No, no! how do you feel about my position.
"What do you think of it? tell me!" Anna went on.
"I think...." began Darya Aleksandrovna; but at this instant Vasenka Veslovsky, in his
short jacket, spurring the cob into a trot with his right leg and creaking terribly on
the leather side-saddle, went dashing by them.
"It goes, Anna Arkadyevna," he shouted.
Anna did not even look at him, but again it seemed to Darya Aleksandrovna that it was
impossible to begin on this long conversation in the carriage, and so she said less than
she thought.
"I do not think about it at all," said she. "I love you and always have loved you. And
when we love people so, we love them for what they are, not for what we wish they were."
Anna turned her eyes away from her friend's face, half closing them in order better to
take in the meaning of the words. This was a new habit, which Dolly had never seen in
her before. Apparently she interpreted her friend's answer as she wanted, and she looked
at Dolly.
"If you have any sins, they will all be blotted out by this visit and by your kind words,"
she said, and Dolly saw that her eyes were dimmed with tears. She silently took her hand.
"What are those buildings? What a lot of them!" said Dolly again, after a moment of silence.
"Those are the roofs of our buildings, — our barns and stables," replied Anna. "Here our
park begins. It was all neglected, but Aleksei has made it new again.
He is very fond of this kind of occupation, and to my great surprise he has developed
a passion for farming. Ah, his is a rich nature! Whatever he undertakes
he excels in. He not only does not get bored, but he is passionately interested in it. I
do not know how, but he is making a capital farmer, so economical, almost stingy — but
only in farm ways. For things of other sorts he will spend ten thousand rubles and never
give it a thought."
She said this with that joyously crafty characteristic smile of women when they speak of the men
they love, and the secret peculiarities which they alone know about.
"Do you see that large building? That is a new hospital. I think it will cost him more
than a hundred thousand. It is his hobby just now. Do you know what made him build it? The
peasants asked him to reduce the rent of some meadows, but he declined to do so, and I told
him he was stingy. Of course, it wasn't altogether that, but everything taken together, so he
began to build the hospital to prove my charge unjust; c'est tme petitesse, perhaps, but
I love him the better for it. Now in a moment you'll see the house. It was built by his
grandfather, and the outside hasn't been changed at all."
"How beautiful!" cried Dolly, with involuntary surprise at the sight of a stately house ornamented
with columns, and surrounded by a park filled with ancient trees of various shades of green.
"Isn't it beautiful? And the view from the second story is magnificent."
They came into the dvor, or court, paved with small stones and ornamented with flower-beds;
two workmen were at this moment surrounding a bed filled with loam with roughly trimmed
stones. They stopped under a covered entrance.
"Oh, they have already arrived," said Anna, as she saw the saddle-horses being led away.
"Isn't that horse a pretty creature? that cob; he's my favorite.
Bring him here and give him some sugar! Where is the count?" she asked of the two servants
in livery who came hurrying out to receive them. "Ah, here he is!" added she, perceiving
Vronsky with Veslovsky coming to meet them.
"Where shall we put the princess?" asked Vronsky of Anna, in French, and, without waiting for
an answer, once more greeted Darya Aleksandrovna, and this time he kissed her hand, — " in
the large balcony chamber, I suppose?"
"Oh, no, that is too far off. Better put her in the corner chamber. We shall see more of
each other. Come, come," said she, giving her favorite
horse some sugar which the lackey had brought.
"Et vous oubliez voire devoir," she added, turning to Veslovsky, who was already in the
porch.
"Pardon, j'en at tout plein les poches," he replied, smiling, and thrusting his fingers
into his waistcoat pocket.
"Mais vous venez trap ***," she repHed, wiping her hand, which the horse had mouthed in taking
the sugar.
Anna turned to Dolly, —
"You'll stay with us a long time," said she. "Only one day? That is impossible."
"That is what I promised, — and the children," answered the latter, ashamed at the wretched
appearance of her poor little traveling-bag and at the dust with which she felt herself
covered.
"No, Dolly, dushenka However, we'll talk of that by and by. Come up to your room." And
Anna conducted Dolly up-stairs.
The room was not the chamber of honor which Vronsky offered her, but one where she could
be nearer Anna; but even this room, though they felt it needful to apologize for it,
was furnished with a luxury such as she was not accustomed to, and which recalled the
most sumptuous hotels that she had seen abroad.
"Well, dushenka! how glad I am!" said Anna, seating herself for a moment in her riding-habit.
Tell me about your family. I saw Stiva just an instant, but he could not tell me anything
about the children. How is my darling Tania? She must be a great girl!"
"Yes, very large," answered Dolly, laconically, astonished that she answered so coolly about
her children. "We are all living charmingly with the Levins,"
she added.
"There! If I had known," said Anna, "that you wouldn't look down on me, .... you all
would have come here. Stiva is an old and good friend of Alekselt's," said Anna, blushing.
"Yes! but we are so well .... " began Dolly in confusion.
"Well! I am so happy, I talk nonsense; only, dushenka, I am so glad to see you," said Anna,
kissing her again. "But you would not tell me what you think about me; I want to know
all. But I am so glad that you see me just as I am. My only idea, you see, is to avoid
making people think that I am making any display. I don't want to make any display; I want simply
to live and not do any harm to any one but myself.
Am I not right about it? However, we'll talk of all this at our leisure. Now I 'm going
to change my dress; I will send you a waiting-maid."
CHAPTER XIX Darya Aleksandrovna, when left alone, examined
her chamber with the eyes of a genuine housekeeper. All that she saw as she went through the house,
and all that she saw in the room, impressed her by its richness and elegance; and this
new European luxury, which she had read about in English novels, she had never seen before
in Russia, — certainly not in the country. All was new, from the French tapestries to
the carpet which covered the whole room, the bed with its hair mattress, the marble toilet-table,
the bronzes on the mantel, the rugs, the curtains, — all was costly and new.
The smart waiting-maid who came to offer her services was dressed with much more style
than Dolly, and was as costly and new as the whole room. Darya Aleksandrovna liked her
good breeding, her dexterity, and her helpfulness; but she felt confused at taking out before
her her poor toilet articles from her bag, especially a mended night-dress, which she
had happened to put in by mistake from among her oldest ones. She was ashamed of the very
patches and mended places which gave her a sense of pride at home. It was clear that
for six nightgowns, it would take twenty-four arshins of nainsook at sixty-five kopeks,
amounting to more than fifteen rubles, besides the cost of the trimmings; and these fifteen
rubles were saved; but in the presence of this brilliant attendant she felt not so much
ashamed as awkward.
Darya Aleksandrovna felt great relief when her oldtime acquaintance, Annushka, came into
her room to take the place of the dashing chambermaid, who was needed by her mistress.
Annushka was evidently very glad at the arrival of her mistress's friend, and talked incessantly.
Dolly noticed that she was eager to express her opinion about her mistress's position,
and about the love and devotion which the count showed to Anna Arkadyevna; but she peremptorily
stopped her as soon as she began to talk on this topic.
"I grew up with Anna Arkadyevna, and love her more than the whole world. It's not for
us to judge her, and she seems to love ...."
"Please have these washed, if it is possible," said Darya Aleksandrovna, interrupting her.
"I will do so. We have two women especially for the laundry, but the washing is done all
by machinery. The count looks out for everything. He is such a husband ...."
Dolly was glad when Anna came in and put an end to the babbling Annushka's confidences.
Anna had put on a very simple batiste gown. Dolly noticed particularly this simple gown.
She knew what this simplicity meant, and how much money it represented.
"An old acquaintance," said Anna to Annushka.
Anna now was no longer confused. She was perfectly calm and self-possessed. Dolly saw that now
she was entirely free from the impression which her coming had at first produced, and
had assumed that superficial tone of indifference which, as it were, closed the door to the
expression of real thought and feelings.
"Well, and how is your little daughter?" asked Dolly.
"Ani?" — for so she called her daughter Anna — "very well. Her health is much better.
Should you like to see her? Come, and I'll show her to you. We have had great trouble
with her," she went on to relate. "We had an Italian for her nurse; good, but
so stupid; we wanted to send her back, but the little thing is so much attached to her,
we still keep her."
"But how have you done about...." began Dolly, wishing to ask about the child's name; but,
as she saw Anna's countenance grow suddenly dark, she changed the ending of the question.
"Have you weaned her?"
Anna understood.
"That is not what you were going to ask. You were thinking of the child's name, weren't
you? This torments Aleksei; she has no name; that is, she is a Karenin," and she closed
her eyes so that only the lashes were visible " However," she added, her face suddenly lighting
up again, " we will talk again about all that; come, and I'll show her to you. Elle est irh
gentille; she is already beginning to creep."
In the nursery there was the same sumptuousness as had struck Darya Aleksandrovna throughout
the rest of the house, only to an even higher degree. There were baby-coaches imported from
England, and instruments for teaching children to walk, and a peculiarly arranged divan like
a billiard table for creeping, bath-tubs, swings.
All were new, beautiful, solid, of English make, and evidently very costly. The room
was large, very high-studded, and light.
When they entered the little girl with only her shirt on was seated in an arm-chair by
the table, and was eating her broth and spilling it all over her ***. A Russian maid-servant
who assisted in the nursery was helping her, and at the same time was apparently herself
eating. Neither the Italian nurse nor the nursemaid was present; they were in the next
room, and could be heard talking together in a strange French jargon which was the only
means they had of communicating their ideas to each other.
The English maid, a tall, sprucely dressed woman with a disagreeable face and an untrustworthy
expression, came into the doorway shaking her light brown curls as soon as she heard
Anna's voice, and immediately began to offer her excuses, although Anna had not chidden
her. At every word Anna spoke the English maid would several times repeat the phrase,
"Yes, my lady."
The dark-browed, dark-haired, rosy little girl, with her strong, pretty little form,
very much pleased Darya Aleksandrovna in spite of the unfriendly look with which she gazed
at the stranger; her healthy appearance also pleased her, and her way of creeping. Not
one of her own children had learned so early to creep. This little girl, when she was put
down on the carpet and her dress was tucked up behind, was wonderfully beautiful. With
her brilliant black eyes she gazed up at her elders like a pretty little animal, evidently
delighting in the fact that they admired her, and she smiled; and, putting out her legs
sidewise, she energetically crept about now going swiftly backward, and again darting
forward, and clutching things with her little fingers.
But the whole atmosphere of the nursery, and especially the English maid, struck Darya
Aleksandrovna very unpleasantly. Only by the supposition that no respectable person would
consent to serve in a household as irregular as Anna's, could she understand how Anna,
with her knowledge of people, could be willing to put up with such an unsympathetic, vulgar
maid.
Darya Aleksandrovna, after a few words, observed that Anna, the nurse, the maid, and the child
were not much wonted to each other, and that the mother was almost a stranger in this part
of the house. She wanted to find a plaything for the little girl and did not know where
it was kept. Strangest of all, in answering the question how many teeth the child had,
she made a mistake, and did not know anything about the last two.
"It is always a grief to me that I am so useless here," said Anna, as they went out, holding
up the train of her dress so that it should not catch on any of the toys by the door.
"It was not so with my oldest."
"I thought, on the contrary ...." began Dolly, timidly.
"Oh, no! You know that I have seen Serozha again," said she, half shutting her eyes and
looking fixedly before her, as if she sought for something far away.
"However, we'll talk about that by and by. You can't believe — but I am like a person
dying of starvation, who finds a banquet before her, and does not know what to begin with.
You and the talk I am going to have with you are this banquet for me. With whom could I
speak openly if not with you? I don't know what topic to take up first. Mais je ne voiis
ferai grace de rien} I must tell you all.
"Well, I want to give you a sketch now of the people you will meet here," she began.
"First, the Princess Varvara. You know her, and I know your opinion and I shall not spare
Stiva's in regard to her. Stiva says her whole aim in life consists in proving her preeminence
over Aunt Katerina Pavlovna. That is all true of her; but she is good, I assure you, and
I am so grateful to her. At Petersburg there was a time when 7m chaperon was indispensable.
Then she came along just in time. It is really true; she is good. She made my position much
easier. I see you don't know how difficult my position was .... there in Petersburg!"
she added. " Here I am very comfortable and happy. But about this afterward.
But I must tell you about our guests. Then there's Sviazhsky; he is the marshal of the
district, and a very clever man, and he needed Aleksei for something. You see, with his fortune,
now, as we live in the country, Aleksei can wield a wide influence. Then Tushkievitch;
you have met him; he was at Betsy's; but they sent him off, and he came to visit us. As
Aleksei says, he is one of those very agreeable men, if one takes him just as he wishes to
appear, et puis il est comme il fait, as the Princess Varvara says. And then Veslovsky
.... you know him. A very good young fellow," she said, and a mischievous smile curled her
lips. "How about that absurd story he told of Levin? Veslovsky told Aleksei, and we don't
believe it. Il est tre gentil et naif," she added, with the same smile. "I have to entertain
all these people, because men need amusement, and Aleksei needs society; and we have to
make it lively and gay, so that Aleksei won't want something new. We also have with us the
superintendent. He is a German, a very good man, who understands
his business; Aleksei has great esteem for him. Then there's the doctor, a young man
who is not exactly a Nihilist, but, you know, he eats with his knife, but a very good doctor.
Then the architect, — une petite cour"
CHAPTER XX "Well, princess, here we have Dolly, whom
you wished so much to see," said Anna, as she and Darya Aleksandrovna came out on the
great stone terrace where the Princess Varvara was sitting in the shade, with her embroidery
frame in front of her, making a chair cover for Count Aleksei Kirillovitch. "She says
that she does not want anything before dinner, but supposing you order luncheon brought in,
while I go and find the gentlemen."
The Princess Varvara gave Dolly a gracious and somewhat condescending reception, and
immediately began to explain that she had come to live with Anna because she loved her
more than her sister, Katerina Pavlovna, — that was the aunt that had superintended Anna's
education, — and because, now when all were abandoning Anna, she considered it her duty
to help her at this trying period of transition.
"Her husband is going to grant her a divorce, and then I shall go back to my solitude; but,
however painful it may be, I shall stay here for the present, and not imitate the example
of others. And how kind you are; how good of you to make this visit! They live exactly
like the very best married people. Let God judge them;
it is not for us. It was just so with Biriuzovsky and Madame Avenyef, and then Vasiliyef and
Madame Mamonov, and Liza Neptunova. You see no one says anything about them, and in the
end they will be received. And then c'est un inte'rieur si joli, si comme il faut. Tont-a-fait
a I'anglaise. On se reunit le matin au breakfeast et puis on se separe. Every one does just
as he pleases till dinner-time. They dine at seven.
Stiva did very wisely to send you; he would better keep on good terms with them. You know
the count has great influence through his mother and his brother.
And then they do so much good. Has he told you about his hospital? a sera admirable!
Everything from Paris."
This conversation was interrupted by Anna, who returned to the terrace, followed by the
gentlemen, whom she had found in the billiard-room.
Considerable time still remained before dinner, the weather was beautiful, and so various
propositions were made for their amusement during the two hours before them.
There was every facility for diversion there at Vozdvizhenskoye and many of them were very
different from what they had at Pokrovskoye.
"Une partie de lawn tennis," proposed Veslovsky, with his gay, contagious smile. "I'll take
one side with you again, Anna Arkadyevna."
"No, it is hot; suppose we go into the park, and take Darya Aleksandrovna out in the boat
to show her the landscape," said Vronsky.
"I am agreeable to anything," said Sviazhsky.
"I think Dolly would like to do that better than anything else," said Anna. "So then the
boat-ride it is."
That having been decided, Veslovsky and Tushkievitch went to the landing, agreeing to get the boat
ready, and the two couples took the path to the park;
Anna walked with Sviazhsky, and Dolly with Vronsky.
Dolly was somewhat confused and embarrassed by this absolutely novel environment in which
she found herself. Abstractly, theoretically, she not only justified, but even approved,
of Anna's conduct. Like the majority of irreproachably virtuous women, wearying often of the monotony
of a virtuous life, Dolly from a distance excused illicit love, and even envied it a
little. Moreover, she loved Anna with all her heart.
But in reality, finding her among these strangers, with their fashionable ways, which were quite
novel to her, she was thoroughly ill at ease. Especially odious to her was it to see the
Princess Varvara forgiving everything, because she could thereby share in her niece's luxury.
Abstractly and on general principles Dolly excused
Anna's conduct, but the sight of the man for whom she had taken this step was unpleasant
to her. Moreover, Vronsky was not congenial to her at any time;
she thought him very haughty, and could see no reason except his wealth to justify his
haughtiness. But in spite of all her will-power, there in his own establishment he more than
ever impressed her with a sense of his importance and she could not feel at ease with him; she
felt just as she had felt when the maid took the nightgown from her valise. Just as before
the maid she had felt, not exactly ashamed, but awkward, on account of the patches, so
now with Vronsky she felt all the time, not exactly ashamed, but uncomfortable.
Dolly felt confused and cast about in her mind for something to talk about.
Although she felt sure that he with his pride might be displeased if she praised his house
and park, nevertheless, finding no other topic of conversation, she remarked that she liked
his house very much.
"Yes, it is a very handsome building, and in good old style," replied the count.
"I liked the court in front of the steps; was it always so."
"Oh, no!" said he, and his face shone with satisfaction. "If you had only seen it in
the spring!"
And at first coldly, but warming as he went on, he pointed out to Dolly the many improvements
he had made in the house and park. It was evident that Vronsky, having consecrated much
labor to the improvement and beautification of his establishment, really felt the need
of appreciation from some new person, and that he was not a little gratified at Darya
Aleksandrovna's praise.
"If you would like to look into the hospital and are not tired, we might go that way. It
is not far. Come, let us go! Shall we, Anna?"
"Yes— shall we not?" she said, turning to Svi- azhsky; "mats il ne faut pas laisser
le pauvre Veslovsky et Tushkievitch se morfondre la dans le bateau! (But we must not leave
these gentlemen to wait in vain for us in the boat.); we must send word to them. Yes,
this is a monument which he will leave here," said she to Dolly, with the same shrewd knowing
smile on her face as when she first spoke of the hospital.
"Oh, capital work!" said Sviazhsky; and then, not to seem assenting from mere politeness,
he added: —
"I am surprised, count, that you, who are doing so much for the peasants' sanitary advantage,
are so indifferent to schools."
"C'est devenu tellentent commun, les icoles" replied Vronsky. "You must know I do this
to amuse myself. This is the way to the hospital," said he,
addressing Darya Aleksandrovna, pointing to a side-path which led from the avenue. The
ladies put up their sunshades and walked along the side-path.
After making a few turns and passing through a wicket-gate, Darya Aleksandrovna saw before
her on rising ground a large red building of complicated architecture not completely
finished. The iron roof, not as yet painted, glittered in the sun. Near the hospital itself
there was another building going up, in the midst of the woods, and workmen in aprons
stood on scaffoldings laying the bricks, taking mortar from buckets and smoothing it with
trowels.
"How rapidly the work is going on," remarked Sviazhsky. "The last time I was here the roof
was not in position."
"It will be ready by autumn, for the inside is already nearly finished," said Anna.
"And what is this other new building?"
"A house for the doctor, and a pharmacy," replied Vronsky; and, seeing the architect,
in a short overcoat, approaching, he excused himself to the ladies, and went to meet him.
Going round the mortar-pit, from which the workmen were getting home, he joined the architect
and began to talk angrily with him.
"The pediment will be much too low," he replied to Anna, who asked him what the discussion
was about.
"I said that the foundation ought to be raised," said Anna.
"Yes! Of course, it would have been better, Anna Arkadyevna," said the architect; "yes,
it was amistake."
"Yes, indeed! I am very much interested in this," said Anna, in reply to Sviazhsky, who
expressed his surprise that the architect spoke to her as he did.
"The new building must correspond with the hospital.
But this was thought of afterward, and begun without any plan."
Having concluded his talk with the architect, Vronsky joined the ladies and conducted them
into the hospital. Though on the outside they were already placing
the cornices and were painting the lower part of the building, on the upper floors almost
everything was done. They went up by a broad cast-iron staircase
to the second story, and entered the first great room. The walls were stuccoed for marble,
the great glass windows were already in place; only the parquetry floor was as yet to be
finished, and the carpenters, engaged in planing the squares, left off their work, and, removing
the tapes which bound their hair, greeted the visitors.
"This is the reception-room," said Vronsky. "In this there will be not much besides the
desk, a table, and a cupboard."
"Here, come this way. Don't go near the window," said Anna, touching the paint to see if it
was dry. "Aleksei, the paint is beginning to dry."
From the reception-room they went into the corridor.
Here Vronsky explained the new system of ventilation; then he showed them the marble bath-rooms
and the beds with extra spring mattresses. Then he showed them one after the other the
wards, the laundry, then the heating apparatus, then the noiseless barrows for wheeling articles
along the corridors, and many other contrivances, Dolly was simply amazed at the sight of so
many novelties, and, wishing to understand it thoroughly, she asked a great many questions,
which Vronsky answered with the greatest alacrity.
"Yes, I think this hospital will be the only one of the kind in Russia," remarked Sviazhsky.
"Shall you not have a lying-in department?" asked Dolly. "That is so necessary in this
country. I have often thought ...."
In spite of his politeness, Vronsky interrupted her.
"This is not an obstetrical institution, but a hospital, and is meant for all except infectious
diseases," said he. "And now look at this," and he showed Darya
Aleksandrovna a newly imported chair designed for convalescents. "Will you look at it, please?"
He sat down in the chair and began to move it along. "He can't walk.... or he is still
weak, or he has a lame leg, but still he must have the air, and so he goes out and enjoys
himself!"
Darya Aleksandrovna was interested in everything; everything pleased her very much, but, more
than all, Vronsky himself pleased her with his natural nai've enthusiasm.
"Yes, he is certainly a good, lovable man," she thought, not listening to what he said,
but looking at him and trying to penetrate his expression, and then momentarily looking
at Anna. He pleased her so much with his animation that she understood how it was that Anna came
to love him.
CHAPTER XXI "No; the princess must be tired, and the horses
will not interest her," said Vronsky to Anna, who had proposed to show Dolly the stable,
where there was a new stallion that Sviazhsky wished to see. "You go there, and I will escort
the princess back to the house. And, if you please," added he to Dolly, " we will talk
a little on the way, if that will be agreeable."
"I know nothing about horses, so I shall very willingly go with you," said Darya Aleksandrovna.
She saw by Vronsky's face that he wanted something of her, nor was she mistaken. As soon as they
had passed through the wicket-gate again into the park, he looked in the direction where
Anna was gone, and, having convinced himself that they were out of her sight and hearing,
he began: —
"You have guessed that I wanted to have a talk with you," said he, looking at her with
his smiling eyes, "I am not mistaken in believing that you are Anna's friend, am I?"
He took off his hat, and, taking out his handkerchief wiped his head, which was growing bald.
Darya Aleksandrovna made no reply, and only gazed at him in alarm. Now that she was entirely
alone with him, she suddenly felt terror-stricken; his smiling eyes and the stern expression
of his face frightened her.
The most diverse suppositions as to what he might be wanting to talk with her about chased
one another through her mind.
"Can it be that he is going to ask me to come with my children and make them a visit, and
I shall be obliged to decline? or is it that he wants me to find society for Anna when
she comes to Moscow? .... Or is he going to speak of Vasenka Veslovsky and his relations
to Anna." Or can it be about Kitty, and that he wants to confess that he was to blame toward
her?"
She thought over everything that might be disagreeable, but never suspected what he
really wanted to talk with her about.
"You have such an influence over Anna, she is so fond of you," said he, "help me."
Darya Aleksandrovna looked timidly and questioningly into Vronsky's energetic face, which, as they
passed under the linden trees, was now lighted up by the flecking sunbeams and then again
darkened by the shadows, and she waited for him to proceed; but he, catching his cane
in the paving-stones, walked in silence by her side.
"Of all Anna's friends, you are the only one who has come to see her — I do not count
the Princess Varvara — I know very well it is not because you approve of our position;
it is because you love Anna, and, knowing the cruelty of her position, want to help
her. Am I right?"
"Yes," said Darya Aleksandrovna, shutting up her sunshade, "but .... "
"No," he interrupted, and he involuntarily stopped and obliged her to stop also, though
he had no intention of putting his companion into an awkward situation.
"No one feels more strongly and completely the cruelty of Anna's position than I do.
And you will realize this if you will do me the honor to believe that I am not heartless.
I am the cause of her being in this position, and therefore I feel it."
"I understand," said Darya Aleksandrovna, involuntarily admiring him for the honest
and straightforward way in which he said this. "But for the very reason that you feel yourself
the cause I fear you are inclined to exaggerate," said she. "Her position in society is difficult,
I admit."
"In society it is hell!" said he, frowning gloomily; "you can't conceive moral tortures
worse than those which Anna endured at Petersburg during the fortnight we were there; and I
beg you to believe...."
"Yes, but here?.... And so far neither she nor you feel the need of a society life."
"Society! why should I need it?" exclaimed Vronsky, scornfully.
"Up to the present time, and perhaps it will be so always, you are calm and happy. I see
in Anna that she is happy, perfectly happy, and she has already told me that she is,"
said Darya Aleksandrovna, smiling.
And while she spoke the doubt arose in her mind: "Is Anna really happy?"
But Vronsky, it seemed, had no doubt on that score: —
"Yes, yes, I know that she has revived after all her sufferings. She is happy .... she
is happy now. But I?" said Vronskv. " I am afraid of what the future has in store for
us .... excuse me, do you want to go?"
"No, it is immaterial."
"Well, then, let us sit down here."
Darya Aleksandrovna sat down on a garden bench in a nook of the walk. He was standing in
front of her.
"I see that she seems happy," he repeated; and the doubt whether Anna was happy again
rose in Darya Aleksandrovna's mind more strongly than ever. "But will it last? Whether we did
right or wrong is a hard question; but the die is cast," he said, changing from Russian
to French, "and we are joined for life; we are joined by the ties of love. We have one
child, and we may have others. But the law and all the conditions of our state are such
that there are a thousand complications, which Anna, now that she is resting after her afflictions
and sufferings, does not see and will not see.
It is natural; but I cannot help seeing. My daughter, according to the law, is not my
daughter, but Karenin's, and I do not like this falsehood," said he, with an energetic
gesture of repulsion, and looking at Darya Aleksandrovna with a gloomy, questioning face.
She did not reply, but simply looked at him. He continued: —
"To-morrow a son may be born — my son — and by law he would be a Karenin, and could, inherit
neither my name nor my property, and, however happy we were here at home, and however many
children we had, there would be no legal connection between me and them.
They would be Karenins. You understand the cruelty, the horror, of this state of things?
I try to explain this to Anna. It irritates her — she will not understand me, and I
cannot tell her all. Now look at the other side.
I am happy in her love, but I must have occupation. I have taken up my present enterprise, and
I am proud of it, and consider it far more beneficial than the occupations of my former
comrades at the court and in the service. And certainly I would not change my occupation
for theirs. I work here, on my own place, and I am happy and contented, and we need
nothing more for our happiness. I love my activity, cela n est pas un pis alter; far
from it."
Darya Aleksandrovna noticed that at this point of his explanation he became entangled, and
she did not understand very well his sudden pause, but she felt that, having fairly begun
to speak of his intimate affairs concerning which he could not talk with Anna, he would
now make a full breast of it, and that the question of his activities in the country
belonged to the same category as his relations to Anna.
"And so I keep on," said he, growing more cheerful again, "The chief thing is that when
one works one must have the persuasion that what one has done will not die with him, that
he will have heirs .... but I have none Conceive the feelings of a man who knows
that his children and those of the wife he worships
do not belong to him; that they belong to a man who hates them, and would never recognize
them. Isn't it horrible?"
He was silent and deeply moved.
"Yes, of course," said Darya Aleksandrovna; "I understand this. But what can Anna do?"
"Well, that brings me to the purpose of this talk," said the count, controlling himself
with effort. "Anna can get a divorce. It depends on her. If we are to petition the emperor
to legitimize the children, a divorce is essential. But that depends on Anna. Her husband consented
to that, and your husband had it all arranged some time ago, and I know that he now would
not refuse; all it requires is for Anna to write to him. He said up and down that he
would consent, if Anna would apply for it. Of course," he added, frowning, "this condition
is one of those Pharisaic cruelties of which only heartless people are capable. He knows
what torture all remembrance of him has for her, and so he exacts this letter from her.
I understand that it is painful to her. But the reasons are so imperative that she must
passer pardessus toutes ces finesses de sentiment. II va du bonheur et de V existence d'Anna
et de ces enfants. I don't speak about myself, though it is painful,
very painful, to me," said he, with a wrathful expression against whoever was responsible
for this state of things.
"And this is why I make bold to apply to you, princess, as to a very anchor of salvation.
Help me to persuade Anna of the need of getting a divorce."
"Why, of course I will," said Darya Aleksandrovna, gravely, for she vividly recalled her last
meeting with Aleksel Aleksandrovitch. "Of course I will," she repeated resolutely, as
she thought of Anna.
"Exert your influence on her and induce her to write the letter. I do not wish, and indeed
I find it almost impossible, to talk with her about this."
"Very well, I will speak to her. But why does she not think of it herself?" asked Darya
Aleksandrovna, suddenly remembering Anna's strange new trick of half-closing her eyes.
And then it occurred to her that Anna did this especially when any reference was made
to the more intimate side of her life.
"She seems to try to shut her eyes to her whole life,
as if to put it out of her mind," said Darya Aleksandrovna to herself " Yes, I will speak
to her, certainly; both for your sake and for hers," repeated Dolly, in response to
Vronsky's grateful look.
And they got up and went to the house.
CHAPTER XXII Finding Dolly already returned, Anna looked
scrutinizingly into her eyes, as if she would read there a reply to her wonder what she
and Vronsky had been talking about, but she asked no questions.
"Dinner is nearly ready, and we have hardly seen each other. I count on this evening;
but now I must go and change my gown. I suppose you'd like to do the same. One gets so soiled
after such a walk."
Dolly went to her room, and felt ridiculous. She had no change to make, since she had worn
her best gown; but, in order to make some change in her toilette, in honor of dinner,
she asked the maid to brush the dust off, she changed her cuffs and put on a fresh ribbon,
and put some lace in her hair. "It is all I could do," she said laughingly,
to Anna, who came to her, dressed in a third but very simple costume.
"Well! we are very formal here," said Anna, in apology for her elegant attire. "Aleksei
is so glad that you came. I believe he has fallen in love with you," she added. "I hope
you are not tired."
Before dinner there was no time for any talk. When they entered the drawing-room, they found
the Princess Varvara and the gentlemen all in evening dress. The architect was the only
one that wore a frock-coat. Vronsky presented the doctor and the superintendent
to his guest. She had already met the architect at the hospital.
A portly butler, wearing a stiffly starched white cravat, and with his smooth round face
shining, came and announced that dinner was served, and the ladies stood up. Vronsky asked
Sviazhsky to escort Anna Arkadyevna into the dining-room, and he himself offered his arm
to Darya Aleksandrovna. Veslovsky was quicker than Tushkievitch in handing in the Princess
Varvara, so that Tushkievitch went with the doctor and the superintendent.
The dinner, the service, the plate, the wine, and the dishes served, not only corresponded
to the general tone of new luxury appertaining to the household, but seemed even more luxurious
and elegant. Darya Aleksandrovna took note of this splendor, which was quite new to her,
and, as the mistress of an establishment of her own, she could not help making a mental
inventory of the details, and wondering how and by whom it was all done;
and yet she had no dream of introducing anything like it into her own home, which was conducted
on a scale of far greater simplicity.
Vasenka Veslovsky, her own husband, and even Sviazhsky and many more men whom she knew,
had never carried out anything like this, and every one of them believed in the dictum
that the master of a wellregulated household always desires to make his guests imagine
that the elegance and comfort surrounding them are not any trouble to him, but come
about spon taneously.
Darya Aleksandrovna knew that even such a simple matter as providing kasha for her children's
breakfast does not go of itself, and that all the more in such an elegant and complicated
establishment there had to be some one in full and complete charge. And by the glances
with which Aleksei Kirillovitch took in the details of the table, and by the nods which
he gave toward the butler and by the way in which he offered Darya Aleksandrovna the choice
between botvinya and soup, she understood that everything was done under the direct
superintendence of the master of the house. Anna had nothing more to do with it than Veslovsky
had. She and Sviazhsky, the princess and Veslovsky, were only guests, gayly and thoughtlessly
taking advantage of what was done for them.
Anna was khozya'ika, or mistress of the household, only in the management of the conversation;
and this conversation was very difficult at a small table among guests belonging to such
different spheres of life as the superintendent and the architect, who were trying not to
be dazzled by such unwonted splendor, and who were unused to taking part in a general
conversation; but Anna went through with her task with her usual tact and simplicity, and
even with pleasure, as Darya Aleksandrovna noticed.
The conversation turned first on the way in which Tushkievitch and Veslovsky had gone
down alone to the boat, and Tushkievitch began to speak of the recent yacht-race under the
auspices of the Petersburg yachtclub. But Anna, taking advantage of the first pause,
quickly turned to the architect, in order to bring him out of his silence.
"Nikolai' Ivanuitch was surprised," said she, referring to Sviazhsky, "to see how the new
building had grown since he was here last. But I myself am here every day, and every
day I am surprised myself to see how fast it progresses.
"It is good to work with his excellency," said the architect, smiling He had a sense
of the dignity of his calling, and was a very worthy and self-possessed gentleman " You
don't do such work under government patronage. When they would write reams of paper, I simply
lay the plan before the count, we talk it over, and three words decide it."
"American ways," suggested Sviazhsky, smiling. "Yes! buildings there are raised rationally."
....
The conversation then went off on the abuse of power in the United States; but Anna immediately
started him on a third theme, in order to bring out the superintendent from his silence.
"Have you ever seen the steam reaping-machines?" she asked of Darya Aleksandrovna. "We had
just been to see ours when we met you. I never saw one before."
"How do they work?" asked Dolly.
"Just like scissors. A plank and a quantity of little knives. Like this!"
Anna took a knife and fork into her beautiful white hands covered with rings, and tried
to show her. She apparently saw that she did not make herself very clear, but, knowing
that she spoke pleasantly and that her, hands were beautiful, she continued her explanations,
"Better say pen-knives!" said Veslovsky, with an attempt at a pun, and not taking his eyes
from her.
Anna smiled almost imperceptibly, but made no reply to his remark.
"Am I not right, Karl, that they are like scissors?" she said, appealing to the director.
Oh, ja " [Oh, yes], replied the German. " Es ist ein ganz einf aches Ding" [It is a very
simple thing], and he began to explain the construction of the machine.
"It is too bad that it does not bind the sheaves. I saw one at the Vienna Exposition; it bound
them with wire," said Sviazhsky. "That kind would be much more convenient." Es kommt drauf
an Der Preis von Draht muss Nozhnitsui, scissors ; nozhitchki, little knives. It is a very
simple thing. And the German, aroused from his silence, turned for confirmation to Vronsky
— "Das Idsst sick ausrechnen, Erlaiichty The German put his hand into his pocket, where
he kept a pencil and notebook, in which he had an exact statement, but, suddenly remembering
that he was at the dinner-table, and noticing Vronsky's cold eyes fastened on him, he controlled
himself.
"Zii complicirta inacht zu viel Klopofs," he said in conclusion.
"WiiJischt mail Dochots, so what man audi Klopots," said Vasenka Veslovsky, making sport
of the German. "J'adore l'allemand," he said, with a peculiar
smile, turning to Anna.
"Cesses!" said she, with affected sternness.
"We expected to find you on the field," said she to the doctor, who was somewhat infirm.
"Were you there?"
"I was there, but I evaporated," replied the doctor, with a melancholy attempt at a jest.
"It must have been a beautiful motion."
"Magnificent."
"Well, and how did you find your old woman? I hope it isn't the typhus."
"Whether it is typhus or not I can't tell yet, but ...."
"How sorry I am," said Anna; and, having thus shown her politeness to the dependents, she
turned again to her friends.
"At any rate, it would be pretty hard to reconstruct a machine by following your description, Anna
Arkady evna," said Sviazhsky,
"No, why so?" said Anna, with a smile which intimated that she knew there was something
charming in her description of the construction of the reaping-machines, and that even Sviazhsky
had noticed it. This new trait of youthful coquetry struck Dolly unpleasantly.
"Still, in architecture Anna Arkadyevna's knowledge is very remarkable," said Tushkievitch.
"Well, yesterday evening I heard Anna Arkadyevna making some wise remark about plinths," said
Veslovsky. "Would you find me doing that?"
"There is nothing remarkable in that, when one keeps one's eyes and ears open," said
Anna. "But don't you know what houses are built of?"
Darya Aleksandrovna perceived that Anna was not pleased with this tone of badinage which
she and Veslovsky kept up, but that she fell into it involuntarily.
In this respect Vronsky behaved exactly the opposite to Levin. He evidently attributed
not the least importance to Veslovsky's nonsense, but, on the contrary, encouraged this jesting.
"Well, tell us, Veslovsky, what they use to fasten stones together."
"Cement, of course."
"Bravo! And what is cement made of?"
"Well, it is something like gruel No, a sort of mastic," said Veslovsky, amid general laughter.
The conversation among the guests, with the exception of the doctor, the superintendent,
and the architect, who generally kept silence, went on without cessation, now growing light,
now dragging a little, and now touching to the quick.
Once Darya Aleksandrovna was touched to the quick, and felt so provoked that she grew
red in the face, and afterward she wondered if she made any improper or unpleasant remark.
Sviazhsky spoke of Levin and told of some of his strange opinions in regard to machines
being injurious to Russian agriculture.
"I have not the pleasure of knowing this Mr. Levin; probably he has never seen the machines
he criticizes. But if he has seen and tried, they must have
been Russian ones, and not the foreign make. What can be his views?"
"Turkish views," said Veslovsky, smiling at Anna.
"I cannot defend his opinions," said Dolly, reddening; "but Levin is a thoroughly intelligent
man, and if he were here he would know what answer to make you, but I can't."
"Oh, I am very fond of him, and we are excellent friends," said Sviazhsky, smiling good-naturedly;
"mais pardon, il est un petit peu toque. For example, he considers that zemstvo and the
justices of the peace — everything — entirely useless — will have nothing to do with them."
"It's our Russian indifference!" exclaimed Vronsky, filling his goblet with ice-water
from a carafe. "Not to feel the obligations which our privileges impose on us and so ignore
them."
"I don't know any one who is more strict in the fulfilment of his duties," said Dolly,
irritated by Vronsky's superior tone.
"I, on the contrary," continued Vronsky, evidently somewhat piqued by this conversation, — "I,
on the contrary, am very grateful, as you see, for the honor which has been done me,
thanks to Nikolaf Ivanovitch" — he referred to Sviazhsky — "in my appointment as honorary
justice of the peace. I consider that for me the duty of going to the sessions of the
court, of judging the affairs of a muzhik, are as important as anything that I could
do. And I shall consider it an honor if you elect me a member of the town-council. This
is the only way that I can repay society for the privileges I enjoy as a landed proprietor.
Unfortunately the influence which the large landed proprietors ought to wield is not fully
appreciated."
Vronsky's calm assurance that he was in the right seemed very strange to Darya Aleksandrovna.
She knew that Levin, whose opinions were diametrically opposite, was equally firm on his side; but
she loved Levin, and so she was on his side.
"So we can depend on you at the next election, can we?" said Sviazhsky. "But we ought to
leave earlier, so as to get there by the 8th. Will you do me the honor to go with me, count?"
"I pretty much agree with your deau frhr," said Anna, "though for different reasons,"
she added, with a smile. "I am afraid that nowadays we are getting to have too many of
these public duties, just as in old times there were so many chinovniks that there was
a chinovnik for everything; so now every one is becoming a public functionary. Aleksel
has been here six months, and is already a member of five or six different public commissions
— wardenship, judge, town councilman, juryman — I don't know what else. Dii train que
cela va all his time will be spent on it. And I am afraid if these things are multiplied
so, that it will be only a matter of form. You have ever so many offices, Nikolai Ivanuitch,
have you not? at least twenty, haven't you?" she asked, turning toward Sviazhsky.
Anna spoke jestingly, but in her tone there was a shade of irritation. Darya Aleksandrovna,
who was watching Anna and Vronsky attentively, immediately noticed it. She saw also that
the count's face assumed a resolute and obstinate expression, and that the Princess Varvara
made haste to talk about some Petersburg acquaintances, so as to change the subject; and, remembering
what Vronsky had told her in the garden about his pleasure in activity, she felt certain
that this conversation about public activities had something to do with a secret quarrel
between Vronsky and Anna.
The dinner, the wines, the service, were luxurious, but everything seemed to Darya Aleksandrovna
formal and impersonal, like the state dinners and balls that she had seen, and on an ordinary
day and in a small circle it made a disagreeable impression on her.
After dinner they sat down on the terrace. Then they began to play lawn-tennis. The players,
dividing into two sides, took their places on the carefully rolled and smoothly shaven
croquet-ground, on which the net was stretched between gilded posts. Darya Aleksandrovna
was invited to play, but it took a long time before she learned how, and when she got an
idea of the game she felt so tired that she went and sat down by the Princess Varvara
and only watched the players. Her partner, Tushkievitch, also ceased playing,
but the others continued the game a long time. Sviazhsky and Vronsky both played very well
and earnestly. They followed the tennis-ball with quick eyes as it was sent from one side
to the other, not wasting their energies, and not getting confused, skilfully running
to meet it, waiting till it should bound, and with good aim and perfect accuracy catching
it on the racket and sending it over the net.
Veslovsky played worse than the others. He got too much excited, but nevertheless by
his gayety he kept up the spirits of the other players. His jests and shouts never ceased.
Like the other men, by the advice of the ladies he took off his coat and played, and his tall,
well-shaped figure in his shirt-sleeves, and his ruddy, warm face, and his violent motions
made a pleasant picture to remember.
When Darya Aleksandrovna that night lay down in her bed, as soon as she closed her eyes
she saw Vasenka Veslovsky dancing about on the croquet-ground.
But while they were playing, Darya Aleksandrovna did not feel happy. She was displeased with
the frivolity which Vasenka Veslovsky and Anna still kept up while they were playing;
nor did such a childish game played by grown men and women by themselves, without children,
seem natural or sensible. But lest she should destroy the pleasure of the others and so
as to pass away the time, she rested a little while and then took part in another game and
made believe that she was gay. All that day it seemed to her as if she were acting in
a comedy with better actors than herself, and that her bad acting spoiled the whole
piece. She had come intending to stay for two days if they urged her. But in the evening,
during the game of tennis, she made up her mind to go home the next day. Those very same
maternal cares which she had so hated as she thought them over during her journey, now,
after two days' absence, presented themselves in another light and began to attract her.
When, after tea and after a moonlight row in the boat, she went alone to her room, took
off her gown, and began to put up her thin hair foi the night, she felt a great sense
of relief.
It was even unpleasant to think that Anna would soon be in to see her. She would have
preferred to be alone with her thoughts.
CHAPTER XXIII Dolly was just feeling ready to go to bed
when Anna came in, in her night costume.
All that day Anna had more than once been on the point of speaking intimately, but each
time, after saying a few words, she had put it off, saying, "By and by; when we are alone,
we will talk. I must tell you everything."
Now they were alone and Anna did not know what to talk about. She sat by the window
looking at Dolly, and casting over in her mind that inexhaustible store of topics which
she wished to talk about, and yet she could not find one to begin with. It seemed to her
as if she had already told all that was in her heart to tell.
"Well, what about Kitty?" asked Anna, sighing deeply, and looking guiltily at Dolly. "Tell
me the truth, Dolly; is she angry with me?"
"Angry? No," answered Dolly, smiling.
"Doesn't she hate .... doesn't she despise me?"
"Oh, no; but you know this is one of the things people don't forgive."
"Yes, yes," said Anna, turning away and looking out of the open window. "But I was not to
blame! And who is to blame?" and what is there blameworthy about it? Could it have been otherwise?
Now tell me? How do you think? Could you have helped being
Stiva's wife?"
"Truly, I don't know; but you must tell me .... "
"Yes, yes! But finish telling me about Kitty. Is she happy? They say her husband is an excellent
man."
"That's too little to say, that he's excellent; I don't know a better man."
"Oh, how glad I am! I am very glad. "Little to say, that he's an excellent man," she repeated.
Dolly smiled.
"But now tell me about yourself," said Dolly. "I want a long talk with you. I have talked
with ...."
She did not know what to call Vronsky — it was awkward to call him either count or Alekself
Kirillovitch.
"With Aleksei," said Anna. "Yes; I know that you talked with him. But I wanted to ask you
frankly what you think of me.... of my life."
"How can I tell you at such short notice? I don't know what to say."
"No; you must tell me You see my life. But you must not forget that you see us in summer
with people, and we are not alone ....but we came in the early spring, we lived entirely
alone, and we shall live alone again. I ask for nothing better than living alone with
him. But when I imagine that I may live alone without him, absolutely alone, and this would
be .... I don't see why this may not be frequently repeated, that he may spend half of his time
away from home," she said, and, getting up, she sat down close by Dolly.
"Oh, of course," she said quickly, interrupting Dolly, who was about to speak, " of course,
I cannot keep him by force.... I don't keep him. To-day there's a race; his horses race;
he goes. I am very glad! But you think of me; imagine my situation .... what is to be
said about it?" She smiled. "But what did he talk with you about?"
"He spoke about a matter which I myself wanted to talk over with you; and it is easy for
me to be an advocate of it, — about this: whether it is not possible or essential to"
— Darya Aleksandrovna hesitated — "to improve, make your position legal .... you
know how I look at .... but anyhow, if possible, a marriage must take place."
"You mean divorce?" said Anna. " Do you know, the only woman who came to see me in Petersburg
was Betsy Tverskaya! Perhaps you know her. A u fond cest la femme la plus depravh qui
existe. She had a liaison with this Tushkievitch, deceiving her husband in the most outrageous
way .... but she told me that she did not wish to know me, because my position was illegal!
Don't think that I compare .... I know you, dear heart. But I could not help remembering
it. Well, what did he say to you?"
"He said that he suffered both for you and for himself; maybe you will say that it is
egoism, but what an honorable and noble egoism! He wishes to make his daughter legitimate,
and to be your husband and with a husband's rights."
"What wife, what slave, could be more of a slave than I, in my position?" she interrupted
angrily.
"The main reason that he wishes it is that you may not suffer."
"This is impossible. Well?"
"Well, to make your children legitimate, to give them a name."
"What children."" said Anna, not looking at Dolly, but half-closing her eyes.
"Ani, and those that may come to you."
"Oh, he can be easy; I shall not have any more."....
"How can you say that you won't have any more?"....
"Because I will not have any more; " and, in spite of her emotion, Anna smiled at the
naive expression of astonishment, of curiosity, and horror depicted on Dolly's face. "After
my illness the doctor told me...."
"It is impossible," exclaimed Dolly, looking at Anna with wide-opened eyes. For her this
was one of those discoveries, the consequences and deductions of which are so monstrous that
at the first instant it touches only the feeling, that it is impossible to grasp it, but that
it rouses momentous trains of thought.
This discovery, which explained for her how happened all these hitherto inexplicable families
of one or at most two children, stirred up so many thoughts, considerations, and contradictory
feelings that she could not say a word, and only gazed with wide-open eyes of amazement
at Anna. It was the very thing of which she had dreamed, but now that she knew it was
possible she was horror-struck. She felt that it was a quite too simple solution of a too
complicated question.
"N'est ce pas immorali" she asked, after a moment's silence.
"Why? Remember that I must choose between two things: either being pregnant, that is
to say, sick, or being the friend, the companion, of my husband; for so I consider him. If that
is a doubtful fact to you, it is not so to me," said Anna, in an intentionally superficial
and frivolous tone.
"Yes, yes, but...." exclaimed Darya Aleksandrovna, hearing the very same arguments which she
had brought up to herself, and no longer finding in them their former weight.
"For you, for other women," proceeded Anna, apparr ently divining her thoughts, "there
may be some doubt about this; but for me, just think! I am not his wife; he will love
me just as long as he loves me; and how, by what means, am I to keep his love? It is by
this." And she put out her white arms in front of
her beautiful body.
With extraordinary rapidity, as always happens in moments of emotion, all sorts of thoughts
and ideas went rushing through Darya Aleksandrovna's mind.
"I have not tried," she reasoned, "to attract Stiva to myself; he deserted me for some one
else, and the first woman for whom he sacrificed me did not retain him by being always pretty
and gay. He threw her over and took another. And will Anna be able to fascinate and retain
Count Vronsky? If that is what attracts him, then he will be able to find women who dress
even better and are more fascinating and merry-hearted. And however white, however beautiful, her
bare arms, however beautiful her rounded form, and her animated face framed in her black
hair, he will be able to find still better, more attractive women, just as my abominable,
wretched, and beloved husband has done."
Dolly made no reply, and only sighed. Anna remarked this sigh, which signified dissent,
and she proceeded. She had in reserve still more arguments, still stronger, and impossible
to answer.
"You say that this is immoral. But this requires to be reasoned out," she went on saying. "You
forget my position. How can I desire children? I don't say anything about the suffering,
I am not afraid of that. But think what my children will be! Unfortunate beings, who
will have to bear a name which is not theirs, — by their very birth compelled to blush
for their father and mother."
"Well, this is the very reason why a divorce is necessary."
But Anna did not hear her. She wanted to produce the same arguments by which she had so many
times persuaded herself.
"Why was the gift of reason bestowed on me, if I cannot employ it in preventing the birth
of more unhappy beings?"
She looked at Dolly, but without waiting for any answer she went on: —
"I should always feel my guilt toward these unhappy children. If they do not exist, they
will not know misery; but if they exist and suffer, then I am to blame."
These were the same arguments as Darya Aleksandrovna had used to herself, but now she listened
and did not understand them. She said to herself: —
"How can one be culpable with regard to non-existent existences?" And suddenly the thought came,
"Could it have been possibly any better if my darling Grisha had never existed?" and
it struck so unpleasantly, so strangely, that she shook her head to chase away the cloud
of maddening thoughts that came into her mind.
"No, I do not know; I believe it wrong," she said, with an expression of disgust.
"But you must not forget that you and I .... and moreover," added Anna, notwithstanding the
wealth of her own arguments and the poverty of poor Dolly's, seeming somehow to recognize
that this thing was immoral after all, — "you must not forget the main thing, that I am
not now in the same position as you are. For you the question is, Do you wish to have more
children? but for me, Do I desire them? This is the principal difference. You must know
that I cannot desire them in my position."
Darya Aleksandrovna was silent. She suddenly became aware that such an abyss separated
her from Anna that between them certain questions existed on which they could never agree, and
which had best not be discussed.
CHAPTER XXIV "That shows all the more necessity for legalizing
your position, if possible."
"Yes, if possible," answered Anna, in an entirely different tone, calm and sweet.
"Is a divorce entirely impossible? They tell me your husband has consented."
"Dolly, I do not wish to talk about this."
"Well, we will not," Darya Aleksandrovna hastened to say, noticing the expression of suffering
on Anna's face. "Only it seems to me that you look too much on the dark side."
"I?" Not at all; I am very happy and contented. You saw, Je fais des passions with Veslovsky
"Yes! To tell the truth, Veslovsky's manner displeases me very much," said Darya Aleksandrovna,
.... "
willing enough to change the conversation.
"Oh! there's nothing! It tickles Aleksei, and that's all there is of it. But he is a
mere boy and entirely in my hands. You understand, I do as I please with him; just as you do
with your Grisha Dolly!" — she suddenly changed the subject — "you say that I look
on the dark side. You can't understand. This is too terrible; I try not to look at all!"
"You are wrong; you ought to do what is necessary."
"But what is necessary? You say I must marry Aleksei, and that I don't think about that.
I do not think about that!" she exclaimed, and the color flew over her face. She got
up, straightened herself, and began walking up and down the room with her graceful gait,
stopping now and then. "Not think about that! There is not a day or an hour when I do not
think of it, and blame myself for thinking of it; — because the thought of it will
make me mad — will make me mad," she repeated. "When I think of it, I cannot go to sleep
without morphine. But very good! let us speak calmly.
You talk about divorce, but in the first place Jie would not consent; he is now under the
Countess Lidya's influence."
Darya Aleksandrovna, reclining in her easy-chair with a sympathetic and sorrowful face, watched
Anna as she walked up and down. She shook her head.
"We must try," said she.
"Suppose I should try. What does it mean?" she asked, evidently expressing a thought
which she had gone over in her own mind a thousand times and had learned by heart. "It
means that I, who hate him, and who have nevertheless confessed my guilt to him — I believe in
his magnanimity — that I humiliate myself to write him Well! suppose I make the effort;
suppose I do it. I shall receive either an insulting answer or his consent. Good, I get
his consent .... " Anna at this time was in the farthest end of the room and stopped there
to arrange a window-curtain. " I get his consent .... but my s-son? You see he will not give
him to me I No, he will grow up despising me, living with his father, whom I have left.
Just think, I love these two almost equally, both more than myself; these two, Serozha
and Aleksei."
She advanced to the middle of the room and stood in front of Dolly, pressing her hands
to her breast. In her white peignoir she seemed wonderfully tall and large.
She bent her head, and, looking out of her moist, shining eyes on the little, homely,
lean Dolly, sitting there in her darned nightgown and nightcap, all a-tremble with emotion,
went on. "These two only I love, and the one excludes
the other. I cannot bring them together, and yet this is the one thing I want. If this
were not so, it would be all the same, — all, all the same. It will end in .some way; but
I cannot, I will not, talk about this. So do not despise me, do not judge me. You in
your purity could never imagine what I suffer!"
She sat down beside Dolly and, with a guilty expression in her eyes, took her hand.
"What do you think? What do you think of me? Do not despise me! I do not deserve that;
I am miserably unhappy. If there is any one unhappy, it is I .... " said she, and, turning
away, she began to weep.
After Anna left her, Dolly said her prayers and went to bed. She pitied Anna with all
her soul while she was talking with her; but now she could not bring herself to think of
her. Memories of home and her children arose in her imagination with new and wonderful
joy. So dear and precious seemed this little world
to her that she decided that nothing would tempt her to stay longer away from them, and
that she would leave the next day.
Anna, meantime, returning to her dressing-room, took a glass, and poured into it several drops
of a mixture containing chiefly morphine, and, having swallowed it,
she sat a little while motionless, then went with a calm and joyous heart to her bedroom.
When she went into her sleeping-room, Vronsky looked scrutinizingly into her face. He was
trying to discover some trace of the talk which he knew by the length of her stay in
Dolly's room she must have had with her. But in her expression, which betrayed a certain
repressed excitement, as if she were trying to conceal something, he found nothing except
the beauty to which he was so accustomed, and which always intoxicated him, and the
consciousness of it and the desire that it might still have its usual effect on him.
He did not like to ask her what they had been talking about, but hoped that she herself
would tell him. But she only said: —
"I am glad you like Dolly; you do, don't you?"
"Yes! I've known her for a long time. She's a very good woman, mais cxcessivcment terre
a ten'e. But still I am well pleased at her visit."
He gave Anna another questioning look, and took her hand; but she understood his look
in another way, and smiled.
The next morning, in spite of repeated urging from her hosts, Darya Aleksandrovna prepared
to go away. Levin's coachman, in his old kaftan and a
sort of postilion's cap, put the unmatched horses into the old carriage with its shabby
harness, and, looking stern and resolute, drove up the sanded driveway to the covered
portico.
Darya Aleksandrovna took a cold farewell of the Princess Varvara and the gentlemen. The
day that they had passed together made them all see clearly that they had no interests
in common, and that they were better apart. Anna only was sad. She knew that no one would
waken again in her the feelings which Dolly had aroused in her soul. To have these feelings
aroused was painful to her, but still she knew that they represented all the better
side of her nature, and that soon all vestige of such feelings would be stifled by the life
that she was leading.
As soon as she got fairly away from the house, Darya Aleksandrovna experienced a pleasant
feeling of relief, and she was about to ask her men how they liked the Vronskys, when
done toward Snetkof when he was elected.