Anna Karenina(page 1)

Anna Karenina
2 of 1759
PART ONE
Anna Karenina
3 of 1759
Chapter 1
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is
unhappy in its own way.
Everything was in confusion in the Oblonskys’ house.
The wife had discovered that the husband was carrying on
an intrigue with a French girl, who had been a governess
in their family, and she had announced to her husband
that she could not go on living in the same house with
him. This position of affairs had now lasted three days, and
not only the husband and wife themselves, but all the
members of their family and household, were painfully
conscious of it. Every person in the house felt that there
was so sense in their living together, and that the stray
people brought together by chance in any inn had more in
common with one another than they, the members of the
family and household of the Oblonskys. The wife did not
leave her own room, the husband had not been at home
for three days. The children ran wild all over the house;
the English governess quarreled with the housekeeper, and
wrote to a friend asking her to look out for a new

situation for her; the man-cook had walked off the day
before just at dinner time; the kitchen-maid, and the
coachman had given warning.
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Anna Karenina
4 of 1759
Three days after the quarrel, Prince Stepan
Arkadyevitch Oblonsky—Stiva, as he was called in the
fashionable world— woke up at his usual hour, that is, at
eight o’clock in the morning, not in his wife’s bedroom,
but on the leather-covered sofa in his study. He turned
over his stout, well-cared-for person on the springy sofa,
as though he would sink into a long sleep again; he
vigorously embraced the pillow on the other side and
buried his face in it; but all at once he jumped up, sat up
on the sofa, and opened his eyes.
‘Yes, yes, how was it now?’ he thought, going over his
dream. ‘Now, how was it? To be sure! Alabin was giving a
dinner at Darmstadt; no, not Darmstadt, but something
American. Yes, but then, Darmstadt was in America. Yes,
Alabin was giving a dinner on glass tables, and the tables
sang, Il mio tesoro—not Il mio tesoro though, but
something better, and there were some sort of little
decanters on the table, and they were women, too,’ he
remembered.
Stepan Arkadyevitch’s eyes twinkled gaily, and he
pondered with a smile. ‘Yes, it was nice, very nice. There
was a great deal more that was delightful, only there’s no
putting it into words, or even expressing it in one’s
thoughts awake.’ And noticing a gleam of light peeping in
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5 of 1759
beside one of the serge curtains, he cheerfully dropped his
feet over the edge of the sofa, and felt about with them for
his slippers, a present on his last birthday, worked for him
by his wife on gold-colored morocco. And, as he had
done every day for the last nine years, he stretched out his
hand, without getting up, towards the place where his
dressing-gown always hung in his bedroom. And
thereupon he suddenly remembered that he was not
sleeping in his wife’s room, but in his study, and why: the
smile vanished from his face, he knitted his brows.
‘Ah, ah, ah! Oo!...’ he muttered, recalling everything
that had happened. And again every detail of his quarrel
with his wife was present to his imagination, all the
hopelessness of his position, and worst of all, his own fault.
‘Yes, she won’t forgive me, and she can’t forgive me.
And the most awful thing about it is that it’s all my fault—
all my fault, though I’m not to blame. That’s the point of
the whole situation,’ he reflected. ‘Oh, oh, oh!’ he kept
repeating in despair, as he remembered the acutely painful
sensations caused him by this quarrel.
Most unpleasant of all was the first minute when, on
coming, happy and good-humored, from the theater, with
a huge pear in his hand for his wife, he had not found his
wife in the drawing-room, to his surprise had not found
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6 of 1759
her in the study either, and saw her at last in her bedroom
with the unlucky letter that revealed everything in her
hand.
She, his Dolly, forever fussing and worrying over
household details, and limited in her ideas, as he
considered, was sitting perfectly still with the letter in her
hand, looking at him with an expression of horror,
despair, and indignation.
‘What’s this? this?’ she asked, pointing to the letter.
And at this recollection, Stepan Arkadyevitch, as is so
often the case, was not so much annoyed at the fact itself
as at the way in which he had met his wife’s words.
There happened to him at that instant what does
happen to people when they are unexpectedly caught in
something very disgraceful. He did not succeed in
adapting his face to the position in which he was placed
towards his wife by the discovery of his fault. Instead of
being hurt, denying, defending himself, begging
forgiveness, instead of remaining indifferent even—
anything would have been better than what he did do—
his face utterly involuntarily (reflex spinal action, reflected
Stepan Arkadyevitch, who was fond of physiology)—
utterly involuntarily assumed its habitual, good-humored,
and therefore idiotic smile.
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7 of 1759
This idiotic smile he could not forgive himself.
Catching sight of that smile, Dolly shuddered as though at
physical pain, broke out with her characteristic heat into a
flood of cruel words, and rushed out of the room. Since
then she had refused to see her husband.
‘It’s that idiotic smile that’s to blame for it all,’ thought
Stepan Arkadyevitch.
‘But what’s to be done? What’s to be done?’ he said to
himself in despair, and found no answer.
Anna Karenina
8 of 1759
Chapter 2
Stepan Arkadyevitch was a truthful man in his relations
with himself. He was incapable of deceiving himself and
persuading himself that he repented of his conduct. He
could not at this date repent of the fact that he, a
handsome, susceptible man of thirty-four, was not in love
with his wife, the mother of five living and two dead
children, and only a year younger than himself. All he
repented of was that he had not succeeded better in hiding
it from his wife. But he felt all the difficulty of his position
and was sorry for his wife, his children, and himself.
Possibly he might have managed to conceal his sins better
from his wife if he had anticipated that the knowledge of
them would have had such an effect on her. He had never
clearly thought out the subject, but he had vaguely
conceived that his wife must long ago have suspected him
of being unfaithful to her, and shut her eyes to the fact.
He had even supposed that she, a worn-out woman no
longer young or good-looking, and in no way remarkable
or interesting, merely a good mother, ought from a sense
of fairness to take an indulgent view. It had turned out
quite the other way.
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9 of 1759
‘Oh, it’s awful! oh dear, oh dear! awful!’ Stepan
Arkadyevitch kept repeating to himself, and he could
think of nothing to be done. ‘And how well things were
going up till now! how well we got on! She was
contented and happy in her children; I never interfered
with her in anything; I let her manage the children and
the house just as she liked. It’s true it’s bad HER having
been a governess in our house. That’s bad! There’s
something common, vulgar, in flirting with one’s
governess. But what a governess!’ (He vividly recalled the
roguish black eyes of Mlle. Roland and her smile.) ‘But
after all, while she was in the house, I kept myself in hand.
And the worst of it all is that she’s already...it seems as if
ill-luck would have it so! Oh, oh! But what, what is to be
done?’
There was no solution, but that universal solution
which life gives to all questions, even the most complex
and insoluble. That answer is: one must live in the needs
of the day—that is, forget oneself. To forget himself in
sleep was impossible now, at least till nighttime; he could
not go back now to the music sung by the decanterwomen;
so he must forget himself in the dream of daily
life.
Anna Karenina
10 of 1759
‘Then we shall see,’ Stepan Arkadyevitch said to
himself, and getting up he put on a gray dressing-gown
lined with blue silk, tied the tassels in a knot, and, drawing
a deep breath of air into his broad, bare chest, he walked
to the window with his usual confident step, turning out
his feet that carried his full frame so easily. He pulled up
the blind and rang the bell loudly. It was at once answered
by the appearance of an old friend, his valet, Matvey,
carrying his clothes, his boots, and a telegram. Matvey was
followed by the barber with all the necessaries for shaving.
‘Are there any papers form the office?’ asked Stepan
Arkadyevitch, taking the telegram and seating himself at
the looking-glass.
‘On the table,’ replied Matvey, glancing with inquiring
sympathy at his master; and, after a short pause, he added
with a sly smile, ‘They’ve sent from the carriage-jobbers.’
Stepan Arkadyevitch made no reply, he merely glanced
at Matvey in the looking-glass. In the glance, in which
their eyes met in the looking-glass, it was clear that they
understood one another. Stepan Arkadyevitch’s eyes
asked: ‘Why do you tell me that? don’t you know?’
Matvey put his hands in his jacket pockets, thrust out
one leg, and gazed silently, good-humoredly, with a faint
smile, at his master.
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11 of 1759
‘I told them to come on Sunday, and till then not to
trouble you or themselves for nothing,’ he said. He had
obviously prepared the sentence beforehand.
Stepan Arkadyevitch saw Matvey wanted to make a
joke and attract attention to himself. Tearing open the
telegram, he read it through, guessing at the words,
misspelt as they always are in telegrams, and his face
brightened.
‘Matvey, my sister Anna Arkadyevna will be here
tomorrow,’ he said, checking for a minute the sleek,
plump hand of the barber, cutting a pink path through his
long, curly whiskers.
‘Thank God!’ said Matvey, showing by this response
that he, like his master, realized the significance of this
arrival—that is, that Anna Arkadyevna, the sister he was so
fond of, might bring about a reconciliation between
husband and wife.
‘Alone, or with her husband?’ inquired Matvey.
Stepan Arkadyevitch could not answer, as the barber
was at work on his upper lip, and he raised one finger.
Matvey nodded at the looking-glass.
‘Alone. Is the room to be got ready upstairs?’
‘Inform Darya Alexandrovna: where she orders.’
Anna Karenina
12 of 1759
‘Darya Alexandrovna?’ Matvey repeated, as though in
doubt.
‘Yes, inform her. Here, take the telegram; give it to
her, and then do what she tells you.’
‘You want to try it on,’ Matvey understood, but he
only said, ‘Yes sir.’
Stepan Arkadyevitch was already washed and combed
and ready to be dressed, when Matvey, stepping
deliberately in his creaky boots, came back into the room
with the telegram in his hand. The barber had gone.
‘Darya Alexandrovna told me to inform you that she is
going away. Let him do—that is you—as he likes,’ he said,
laughing only with his eyes, and putting his hands in his
pockets, he watched his master with his head on one side.
Stepan Arkadyevitch was silent a minute. Then a goodhumored
and rather pitiful smile showed itself on his
handsome face.
‘Eh, Matvey?’ he said, shaking his head.
‘It’s all right, sir; she will come round,’ said Matvey.
‘Come round?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Do you think so? Who’s there?’ asked Stepan
Arkadyevitch, hearing the rustle of a woman’s dress at the
door.
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13 of 1759
‘It’s I,’ said a firm, pleasant, woman’s voice, and the
stern, pockmarked face of Matrona Philimonovna, the
nurse, was thrust in at the doorway.
‘Well, what is it, Matrona?’ queried Stepan
Arkadyevitch, going up to her at the door.
Although Stepan Arkadyevitch was completely in the
wrong as regards his wife, and was conscious of this
himself, almost every one in the house (even the nurse,
Darya Alexandrovna’s chief ally) was on his side.
‘Well, what now?’ he asked disconsolately.
‘Go to her, sir; own your fault again. Maybe God will
aid you. She is suffering so, it’s sad to hee her; and besides,
everything in the house is topsy-turvy. You must have
pity, sir, on the children. Beg her forgiveness, sir. There’s
no help for it! One must take the consequences..’
‘But she won’t see me.’
‘You do your part. God is merciful; pray to God, sir,
pray to God.’
‘Come, that’ll do, you can go,’ said Stepan
Arkadyevitch, blushing suddenly. ‘Well now, do dress
me.’ He turned to Matvey and threw off his dressinggown
decisively.
Matvey was already holding up the shirt like a horse’s
collar, and, blowing off some invisible speck, he slipped it
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14 of 1759
with obvious pleasure over the well-groomed body of his
master.
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15 of 1759
Chapter 3
When he was dressed, Stepan Arkadyevitch sprinkled
some scent on himself, pulled down his shirt-cuffs,
distributed into his pockets his cigarettes, pocketbook,
matches, and watch with its double chain and seals, and
shaking out his handkerchief, feeling himself clean,
fragrant, healthy, and physically at ease, in spite of his
unhappiness, he walked with a slight swing on each leg
into the dining-room, where coffee was already waiting
for him, and beside the coffee, letters and papers from the
office.
He read the letters. One was very unpleasant, from a
merchant who was buying a forest on his wife’s property.
To sell this forest was absolutely essential; but at present,
until he was reconciled with his wife, the subject could
not be discussed. The most unpleasant thing of all was that
his pecuniary interests should in this way enter into the
question of his reconciliation with his wife. And the idea
that he might be let on by his interests, that he might seek
a reconciliation with his wife on account of the sale of the
forest—that idea hurt him.
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Anna Karenina
16 of 1759
When he had finished his letters, Stepan Arkadyevitch
moved the office-papers close to him, rapidly looked
through two pieces of business, made a few notes with a
big pencil, and pushing away the papers, turned to his
coffee. As he sipped his coffee, he opened a still damp
morning paper, and began reading it.
Stepan Arkadyevitch took in and read a liberal paper,
not an extreme one, but one advocating the views held by
the majority. And in spite of the fact that science, art, and
politics had no special interest for him, he firmly held
those views on all these subjects which were held by the
majority and by his paper, and he only changed them
when the majority changed them—or, more strictly
speaking, he did not change them, but they imperceptibly
changed of themselves within him.
Stepan Arkadyevitch had not chosen his political
opinions or his views; these political opinions and views
had come to him of themselves, just as he did not choose
the shapes of his hat and coat, but simply took those that
were being worn. And for him, living in a certain
society—owing to the need, ordinarily developed at years
of discretion, for some degree of mental activity—to have
views was just as indispensable as to have a hat. If there
was a reason for his preferring liberal to conservative
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17 of 1759
views, which were held also by many of his circle, it arose
not from his considering liberalism more rational, but
from its being in closer accordance with his manner of life.
The liberal party said that in Russia everything is wrong,
and certainly Stepan Arkadyevitch had many debts and
was decidedly short of money. The liberal party said that
marriage is an institution quite out of date, and that it
needs reconstruction; and family life certainly afforded
Stepan Arkadyevitch little gratification, and forced him
into lying and hypocrisy, which was so repulsive to his
nature. The liberal party said, or rather allowed it to be
understood, that religion is only a curb to keep in check
the barbarous classes of the people; and Stepan
Arkadyevitch could not get through even a short service
without his legs aching from standing up, and could never
make out what was the object of all the terrible and highflown
language about another world when life might be so
very amusing in this world. And with all this, Stepan
Arkadyevitch, who liked a joke, was fond of puzzling a
plain man by saying that if he prided himself on his origin,
he ought not to stop at Rurik and disown the first founder
of his family—the monkey. And so Liberalism had
become a habit of Stepan Arkadyevitch’s, and he liked his
newspaper, as he did his cigar after dinner, for the slight
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18 of 1759
fog it diffused in his brain. He read the leading article, in
which it was maintained that it was quite senseless in our
day to raise an outcry that radicalism was threatening to
swallow up all conservative elements, and that the
government ought to take measures to crush the
revolutionary hydra; that, on the contrary, ‘in our opinion
the danger lies not in that fantastic revolutionary hydra,
but in the obstinacy of traditionalism clogging progress,’
etc., etc. He read another article, too, a financial one,
which alluded to Bentham and Mill, and dropped some
innuendoes reflecting on the ministry. With his
characteristic quickwittedness he caught the drift of each
innuendo, divined whence it came, at whom and on what
ground it was aimed, and that afforded him, as it always
did, a certain satisfaction. But today that satisfaction was
embittered by Matrona Philimonovna’s advice and the
unsatisfactory state of the household. He read, too, that
Count Beist was rumored to have left for Wiesbaden, and
that one need have no more gray hair, and of the sale of a
light carriage, and of a young person seeking a situation;
but these items of information did not give him, as usual, a
quiet, ironical gratification. Having finished the paper, a
second cup of coffee and a roll and butter, he got up,
shaking the crumbs of the roll off his waistcoat; and,
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19 of 1759
squaring his broad chest, he smiled joyously: not because
there was anything particularly agreeable in his mind—the
joyous smile was evoked by a good digestion.
But this joyous smile at once recalled everything to
him, and he grew thoughtful.
Two childish voices (Stepan Arkadyevitch recognized
the voices of Grisha, his youngest boy, and Tanya, his
eldest girl) were heard outside the door. They were
carrying something, and dropped it.
‘I told you not to sit passengers on the roof,’ said the
little girl in English; ‘there, pick them up!’
‘Everything’s in confusion,’ thought Stepan
Arkadyevitch; ‘there are the children running about by
themselves.’ And going to the door, he called them. They
threw down the box, that represented a train, and came in
to their father.
The little girl, her father’s favorite, ran up boldly,
embraced him, and hung laughingly on his neck, enjoying
as she always did the smell of scent that came from his
whiskers. At last the little girl kissed his face, which was
flushed from his stooping posture and beaming with
tenderness, loosed her hands, and was about to run away
again; but her father held her back.
Anna Karenina