Anna Karenina(page 3)

he went up to Oblonsky with some papers, and began,
under pretense of asking a question, to explain some
objection. Stepan Arkadyevitch, without hearing him out,
laid his hand genially on the secretary’s sleeve.
‘No, you do as I told you,’ he said, softening his words
with a smile, and with a brief explanation of his view of
the matter he turned away from the papers, and said: ‘So
do it that way, if you please, Zahar Nikititch.’
The secretary retired in confusion. During the
consultation with the secretary Levin had completely
recovered from his embarrassment. He was standing with
his elbows on the back of a chair, and on his face was a
look of ironical attention.
‘I don’t understand it, I don’t understand it,’ he said.
‘What don’t you understand?’ said Oblonsky, smiling as
brightly as ever, and picking up a cigarette. He expected
some queer outburst from Levin.
‘I don’t understand what you are doing,’ said Levin,
shrugging his shoulders. ‘How can you do it seriously?’
‘Why not?’
‘Why, because there’s nothing in it.’
‘You think so, but we’re overwhelmed with work.’
‘On paper. But, there, you’ve a gift for it,’ added
Levin.
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‘That’s to say, you think there’s a lack of something in
me?’
‘Perhaps so,’ said Levin. ‘But all the same I admire your
grandeur, and am proud that I’ve a friend in such a great
person. You’ve not answered my question, though,’ he
went on, with a desperate effort looking Oblonsky straight
in the face.
‘Oh, that’s all very well. You wait a bit, and you’ll
come to this yourself. It’s very nice for you to have over
six thousand acres in the Karazinsky district, and such
muscles, and the freshness of a girl of twelve; still you’ll be
one of us one day. Yes, as to your question, there is no
change, but it’s a pity you’ve been away so long.’
‘Oh, why so?’ Levin queried, panic-stricken.
‘Oh, nothing,’ responded Oblonsky. ‘We’ll talk it over.
But what’s brought you up to town?’
‘Oh, we’ll talk about that, too, later on,’ said Levin,
reddening again up to his ears.
‘All right. I see,’ said Stepan Arkadyevitch. ‘I should ask
you to come to us, you know, but my wife’s not quite the
thing. But I tell you what; if you want to see them,
they’re sure now to be at the Zoological Gardens from
four to five. Kitty skates. You drive along there, and I’ll
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come and fetch you, and we’ll go and dine somewhere
together.’
‘Capital. So good-bye till then.’
‘Now mind, you’ll forget, I know you, or rush off
home to the country!’ Stepan Arkadyevitch called out
laughing.
‘No, truly!’
And Levin went out of the room, only when he was in
the doorway remembering that he had forgotten to take
leave of Oblonsky’s colleagues.
‘That gentleman must be a man of great energy,’ said
Grinevitch, when Levin had gone away.
‘Yes, my dear boy,’ said Stepan Arkadyevitch, nodding
his head, ‘he’s a lucky fellow! Over six thousand acres in
the Karazinsky district; everything before him; and what
youth and vigor! Not like some of us.’
‘You have a great deal to complain of, haven’t you,
Stepan Arkadyevitch?’
‘Ah, yes, I’m in a poor way, a bad way,’ said Stepan
Arkadyevitch with a heavy sigh.
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Chapter 6
When Oblonsky asked Levin what had brought him to
town, Levin blushed, and was furious with himself for
blushing, because he could not answer, ‘I have come to
make your sister-in-law an offer,’ though that was
precisely what he had come for.
The families of the Levins and the Shtcherbatskys were
old, noble Moscow families, and had always been on
intimate and friendly terms. This intimacy had grown still
closer during Levin’s student days. He had both prepared
for the university with the young Prince Shtcherbatsky,
the brother of Kitty and Dolly, and had entered at the
same time with him. In those days Levin used often to be
in the Shtcherbatskys’ house, and he was in love with the
Shtcherbatsky household. Strange as it may appear, it was
with the household, the family, that Konstantin Levin was
in love, especially with the feminine half of the household.
Levin did not remember his own mother, and his only
sister was older than he was, so that it was in the
Shtcherbatskys’ house that he saw for the first time that
inner life of an old, noble, cultivated, and honorable
family of which he had been deprived by the death of his
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father and mother. All the members of that family,
especially the feminine half, were pictured by him, as it
were, wrapped about with a mysterious poetical veil, and
he not only perceived no defects whatever in them, but
under the poetical veil that shrouded them he assumed the
existence of the loftiest sentiments and every possible
perfection. Why it was the three young ladies had one day
to speak French, and the next English; why it was that at
certain hours they played by turns on the piano, the
sounds of which were audible in their brother’s room
above, where the students used to work; why they were
visited by those professors of French literature, of music,
of drawing, of dancing; why at certain hours all the three
young ladies, with Mademoiselle Linon, drove in the
coach to the Tversky boulevard, dressed in their satin
cloaks, Dolly in a long one, Natalia in a half-long one, and
Kitty in one so short that her shapely legs in tightly-drawn
red stockings were visible to all beholders; why it was they
had to walk about the Tversky boulevard escorted by a
footman with a gold cockade in his hat—all this and much
more that was done in their mysterious world he did not
understand, but he was sure that everything that was done
there was very good, and he was in love precisely with the
mystery of the proceedings.
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In his student days he had all but been in love with the
eldest, Dolly, but she was soon married to Oblonsky.
Then he began being in love with the second. He felt, as
it were, that he had to be in love with one of the sisters,
only he could not quite make out which. But Natalia, too,
had hardly made her appearance in the world when she
married the diplomat Lvov. Kitty was still a child when
Levin left the university. Young Shtcherbatsky went into
the navy, was drowned in the Baltic, and Levin’s relations
with the Shtcherbatskys, in spite of his friendship with
Oblonsky, became less intimate. But when early in the
winter of this year Levin came to Moscow, after a year in
the country, and saw the Shtcherbatskys, he realized
which of the three sisters he was indeed destined to love.
One would have thought that nothing could be simpler
than for him, a man of good family, rather rich than poor,
and thirty-two years old, to make the young Princess
Shtcherbatskaya an offer of marriage; in all likelihood he
would at once have been looked upon as a good match.
But Levin was in love, and so it seemed to him that Kitty
was so perfect in every respect that she was a creature far
above everything earthly; and that he was a creature so
low and so earthly that it could not even be conceived
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that other people and she herself could regard him as
worthy of her.
After spending two months in Moscow in a state of
enchantment, seeing Kitty almost every day in society,
into which he went so as to meet her, he abruptly decided
that it could not be, and went back to the country.
Levin’s conviction that it could not be was founded on
the idea that in the eyes of her family he was a
disadvantageous and worthless match for the charming
Kitty, and that Kitty herself could not love him. In her
family’s eyes he had no ordinary, definite career and
position in society, while his contemporaries by this time,
when he was thirty-two, were already, one a colonel, and
another a professor, another director of a bank and
railways, or president of a board like Oblonsky. But he (he
knew very well how he must appear to others) was a
country gentleman, occupied in breeding cattle, shooting
game, and building barns; in other words, a fellow of no
ability, who had not turned out well, and who was doing
just what, according to the ideas of the world, is done by
people fit for nothing else.
The mysterious, enchanting Kitty herself could not
love such an ugly person as he conceived himself to be,
and, above all, such an ordinary, in no way striking
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person. Moreover, his attitude to Kitty in the past—the
attitude of a grown-up person to a child, arising from his
friendship with her brother—seemed to him yet another
obstacle to love. An ugly, good-natured man, as he
considered himself, might, he supposed, be liked as a
friend; but to be loved with such a love as that with which
he loved Kitty, one would need to be a handsome and,
still more, a distinguished man.
He had heard that women often did care for ugly and
ordinary men, but he did not believe it, for he judged by
himself, and he could not himself have loved any but
beautiful, mysterious, and exceptional women.
But after spending two months alone in the country, he
was convinced that this was not one of those passions of
which he had had experience in his early youth; that this
feeling gave him not an instant’s rest; that he could not
live without deciding the question, would she or would
she not be his wife, and that his despair had arisen only
from his own imaginings, that he had no sort of proof that
he would be rejected. And he had now come to Moscow
with a firm determination to make an offer, and get
married if he were accepted. Or...he could not conceive
what would become of him if he were rejected.
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Chapter 7
On arriving in Moscow by a morning train, Levin had
put up at the house of his elder half-brother, Koznishev.
After changing his clothes he went down to his brother’s
study, intending to talk to him at once about the object of
his visit, and to ask his advice; but his brother was not
alone. With him there was a well-known professor of
philosophy, who had come from Harkov expressly to clear
up a difference that had arisen between them on a very
important philosophical question. The professor was
carrying on a hot crusade against materialists. Sergey
Koznishev had been following this crusade with interest,
and after reading the professor’s last article, he had written
him a letter stating his objections. He accused the
professor of making too great concessions to the
materialists. And the professor had promptly appeared to
argue the matter out. The point in discussion was the
question then in vogue: Is there a line to be drawn
between psychological and physiological phenomena in
man? and if so, where?
Sergey Ivanovitch met his brother with the smile of
chilly friendliness he always had for everyone, and
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introducing him to the professor, went on with the
conversation.
A little man in spectacles, with a narrow forehead, tore
himself from the discussion for an instant to greet Levin,
and then went on talking without paying any further
attention to him. Levin sat down to wait till the professor
should go, but he soon began to get interested in the
subject under discussion.
Levin had come across the magazine articles about
which they were disputing, and had read them, interested
in them as a development of the first principles of science,
familiar to him as a natural science student at the
university. But he had never connected these scientific
deductions as to the origin of man as an animal, as to
reflex action, biology, and sociology, with those questions
as to the meaning of life and death to himself, which had
of late been more and more often in his mind.
As he listened to his brother’s argument with the
professor, he noticed that they connected these scientific
questions with those spiritual problems, that at times they
almost touched on the latter; but every time they were
close upon what seemed to him the chief point, they
promptly beat a hasty retreat, and plunged again into a sea
of subtle distinctions, reservations, quotations, allusions,
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and appeals to authorities, and it was with difficulty that he
understood what they were talking about.
‘I cannot admit it,’ said Sergey Ivanovitch, with his
habitual clearness, precision of expression, and elegance of
phrase. ‘I cannot in any case agree with Keiss that my
whole conception of the external world has been derived
from perceptions. The most fundamental idea, the idea of
existence, has not been received by me through sensation;
indeed, there is no special sense-organ for the transmission
of such an idea.’
‘Yes, but they—Wurt, and Knaust, and Pripasov—
would answer that your consciousness of existence is
derived from the conjunction of all your sensations, that
that consciousness of existence is the result of your
sensations. Wurt, indeed, says plainly that, assuming there
are no sensations, it follows that there is no idea of
existence.’
‘I maintain the contrary,’ began Sergey Ivanovitch.
But here it seemed to Levin that just as they were close
upon the real point of the matter, they were again
retreating, and he made up his mind to put a question to
the professor.
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‘According to that, if my senses are annihilated, if my
body is dead, I can have no existence of any sort?’ he
queried.
The professor, in annoyance, and, as it were, mental
suffering at the interruption, looked round at the strange
inquirer, more like a bargeman than a philosopher, and
turned his eyes upon Sergey Ivanovitch, as though to ask:
What’s one to say to him? But Sergey Ivanovitch, who
had been talking with far less heat and one-sidedness than
the professor, and who had sufficient breadth of mind to
answer the professor, and at the same time to comprehend
the simple and natural point of view from which the
question was put, smiled and said:
‘That question we have no right to answer as yet.’
‘We have not the requisite data,’ chimed in the
professor, and he went back to his argument. ‘No,’ he
said; ‘I would point out the fact that if, as Pripasov directly
asserts, perception is based on sensation, then we are
bound to distinguish sharply between these two
conceptions.’
Levin listened no more, and simply waited for the
professor to go.
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Chapter 8
When the professor had gone, Sergey Ivanovitch
turned to his brother.
‘Delighted that you’ve come. For some time, is it?
How’s your farming getting on?’
Levin knew that his elder brother took little interest in
farming, and only put the question in deference to him,
and so he only told him about the sale of his wheat and
money matters.
Levin had meant to tell his brother of his determination
to get married, and to ask his advice; he had indeed firmly
resolved to do so. But after seeing his brother, listening to
his conversation with the professor, hearing afterwards the
unconsciously patronizing tone in which his brother
questioned him about agricultural matters (their mother’s
property had not been divided, and Levin took charge of
both their shares), Levin felt that he could not for some
reason begin to talk to him of his intention of marrying.
He felt that his brother would not look at it as he would
have wished him to.
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‘Well, how is your district council doing?’ asked Sergey
Ivanovitch, who was greatly interested in these local
boards and attached great importance to them.
‘I really don’t know.’
‘What! Why, surely you’re a member of the board?’
‘No, I’m not a member now; I’ve resigned,’ answered
Levin, ‘and I no longer attend the meetings.’
‘What a pity!’ commented Sergey Ivanovitch,
frowning.
Levin in self-defense began to describe what took place
in the meetings in his district.
‘That’s how it always is!’ Sergey Ivanovitch interrupted
him. ‘We Russians are always like that. Perhaps it’s our
strong point, really, the faculty of seeing our own
shortcomings; but we overdo it, we comfort ourselves
with irony which we always have on the tip of our
tongues. All I say is, give such rights as our local selfgovernment
to any other European people—why, the
Germans or the English would have worked their way to
freedom from them, while we simply turn them into
ridicule.’
‘But how can it be helped?’ said Levin penitently. ‘It
was my last effort. And I did try with all my soul. I can’t.
I’m no good at it.’
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‘It’s not that you’re no good at it,’ said Sergey
Ivanovitch; ‘it is that you don’t look at it as you should.’
‘Perhaps not,’ Levin answered dejectedly.
‘Oh! do you know brother Nikolay’s turned up again?’
This brother Nikolay was the elder brother of
Konstantin Levin, and half-brother of Sergey Ivanovitch; a
man utterly ruined, who had dissipated the greater part of
his fortune, was living in the strangest and lowest
company, and had quarreled with his brothers.
‘What did you say?’ Levin cried with horror. ‘How do
you know?’
‘Prokofy saw him in the street.’
‘Here in Moscow? Where is he? Do you know?’ Levin
got up from his chair, as though on the point of starting
off at once.
‘I am sorry I told you,’ said Sergey Ivanovitch, shaking
his head at his younger brother’s excitement. ‘I sent to
find out where he is living, and sent him his IOU to
Trubin, which I paid. This is the answer he sent me.’
And Sergey Ivanovitch took a note from under a
paper-weight and handed it to his brother.
Levin read in the queer, familiar handwriting: ‘I
humbly beg you to leave me in peace. That’s the only
favor I ask of my gracious brothers.—Nikolay Levin.’
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Levin read it, and without raising his head stood with
the note in his hands opposite Sergey Ivanovitch.
There was a struggle in his heart between the desire to
forget his unhappy brother for the time, and the
consciousness that it would be base to do so.
‘He obviously wants to offend me,’ pursued Sergey
Ivanovitch; ‘but he cannot offend me, and I should have
wished with all my heart to assist him, but I know it’s
impossible to do that.’
‘Yes, yes,’ repeated Levin. ‘I understand and appreciate
your attitude to him; but I shall go and see him.’
‘If you want to, do; but I shouldn’t advise it,’ said
Sergey Ivanovitch. ‘As regards myself, I have no fear of
your doing so; he will not make you quarrel with me; but
for your own sake, I should say you would do better not
to go. You can’t do him any good; still, do as you please.’
‘Very likely I can’t do any good, but I feel—especially
at such a moment—but that’s another thing—I feel I
could not be at peace.’
‘Well, that I don’t understand,’ said Sergey Ivanovitch.
‘One thing I do understand,’ he added; ‘it’s a lesson in
humility. I have come to look very differently and more
charitably on what is called infamous since brother
Nikolay has become what he is...you know what he did..’
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‘Oh, it’s awful, awful!’ repeated Levin.
After obtaining his brother’s address from Sergey
Ivanovitch’s footman, Levin was on the point of setting off
at once to see him, but on second thought he decided to
put off his visit till the evening. The first thing to do to set
his heart at rest was to accomplish what he had come to
Moscow for. From his brother’s Levin went to Oblonsky’s
office, and on getting news of the Shtcherbatskys from
him, he drove to the place where he had been told he
might find Kitty.
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Chapter 9
At four o’clock, conscious of his throbbing heart, Levin
stepped out of a hired sledge at the Zoological Gardens,
and turned along the path to the frozen mounds and the
skating ground, knowing that he would certainly find her
there, as he had seen the Shtcherbatskys’ carriage at the
entrance.
It was a bright, frosty day. Rows of carriages, sledges,
drivers, and policemen were standing in the approach.
Crowds of well-dressed people, with hats bright in the
sun, swarmed about the entrance and along the well-swept
little paths between the little houses adorned with carving
in the Russian style. The old curly birches of the gardens,
all their twigs laden with snow, looked as though freshly
decked in sacred vestments.
He walked along the path towards the skating-ground,
and kept saying to himself—‘You mustn’t be excited, you
must be calm. What’s the matter with you? What do you
want? Be quiet, stupid,’ he conjured his heart. And the
more he tried to compose himself, the more breathless he
found himself. An acquaintance met him and called him
by his name, but Levin did not even recognize him. He
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went towards the mounds, whence came the clank of the
chains of sledges as they slipped down or were dragged up,
the rumble of the sliding sledges, and the sounds of merry
voices. He walked on a few steps, and the skating-ground
lay open before his eyes, and at once, amidst all the skaters,
he knew her.
He knew she was there by the rapture and the terror
that seized on his heart. She was standing talking to a lady
at the opposite end of the ground. There was apparently
nothing striking either in her dress or her attitude. But for
Levin she was as easy to find in that crowd as a rose
among nettles. Everything was made bright by her. She
was the smile that shed light on all round her. ‘Is it
possible I can go over there on the ice, go up to her?’ he
thought. The place where she stood seemed to him a holy
shrine, unapproachable, and there was one moment when
he was almost retreating, so overwhelmed was he with
terror. He had to make an effort to master himself, and to
remind himself that people of all sorts were moving about
her, and that he too might come there to skate. He walked
down, for a long while avoiding looking at her as at the
sun, but seeing her, as one does the sun, without looking.
On that day of the week and at that time of day people
of one set, all acquainted with one another, used to meet
Anna Karenina