Anna Karenina

L >> Leo Tolstoy >> Anna Karenina


"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.



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 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.

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 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 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.



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 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, 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.

"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.



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.

"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 self-government 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."

"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."

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..."

"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.



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 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 on the ice.
There were crack skaters there, showing off their skill, and
learners clinging to chairs with timid, awkward movements, boys,
and elderly people skating with hygienic motives. They seemed to
Levin an elect band of blissful beings because they were here,
near her. All the skaters, it seemed, with perfect
self-possession, skated towards her, skated by her, even spoke to
her, and were happy, quite apart from her, enjoying the capital
ice and the fine weather.

Nikolay Shtcherbatsky, Kitty's cousin, in a short jacket and
tight trousers, was sitting on a garden seat with his skates on.
Seeing Levin, he shouted to him:

"Ah, the first skater in Russia! Been here long? First-rate
ice--do put your skates on."

"I haven't got my skates," Levin answered, marveling at this
boldness and ease in her presence, and not for one second losing
sight of her, though he did not look at her. He felt as though
the sun were coming near him. She was in a corner, and turning
out her slender feet in their high boots with obvious timidity,
she skated towards him. A boy in Russian dress, desperately
waving his arms and bowed down to the ground, overtook her. She
skated a little uncertainly; taking her hands out of the little
muff that hung on a cord, she held them ready for emergency, and
looking towards Levin, whom she had recognized, she smiled at
him, and at her own fears. When she had got round the turn, she
gave herself a push off with one foot, and skated straight up to
Shtcherbatsky. Clutching at his arm, she nodded smiling to
Levin. She was more splendid than he had imagined her.

When he thought of her, he could call up a vivid picture of her
to himself, especially the charm of that little fair head, so
freely set on the shapely girlish shoulders, and so full of
childish brightness and good humor. The childishness of her
expression, together with the delicate beauty of her figure, made
up her special charm, and that he fully realized. But what
always struck him in her as something unlooked for, was the
expression of her eyes, soft, serene, and truthful, and above
all, her smile, which always transported Levin to an enchanted
world, where he felt himself softened and tender, as he
remembered himself in some days of his early childhood.

"Have you been here long?" she said, giving him her hand. "Thank
you," she added, as he picked up the handkerchief that had fallen
out of her muff.

"I? I've not long...yesterday...I mean today...I arrived,"
answered Levin, in his emotion not at once understanding her
question. "I was meaning to come and see you," he said; and
then, recollecting with what intention he was trying to see her,
he was promptly overcome with confusion and blushed.

"I didn't know you could skate, and skate so well."

She looked at him earnestly, as though wishing to make out the
cause of his confusion.

"Your praise is worth having. The tradition is kept up here that
you are the best of skaters," she said, with her little
black-gloved hand brushing a grain of hoarfrost off her muff.

"Yes, I used once to skate with passion; I wanted to reach
perfection."

"You do everything with passion, I think," she said smiling. "I
should so like to see how you skate. Put on skates, and let us
skate together."

"Skate together! Can that be possible?" thought Levin, gazing at
her.

"I'll put them on directly," he said.

And he went off to get skates.

"It's a long while since we've seen you here, sir," said the
attendant, supporting his foot, and screwing on the heel of the
skate. "Except you, there's none of the gentlemen first-rate
skaters. Will that be all right?" said he, tightening the strap.

"Oh, yes, yes; make haste, please," answered Levin, with
difficulty restraining the smile of rapture which would
overspread his face. "Yes," he thought, "this now is life, this
is happiness! _Together,_ she said; _let us skate together!_ Speak
to her now? But that's just why I'm afraid to speak--because I'm
happy now, happy in hope, anyway.... And then?.... But I must!
I must! I must! Away with weakness!"

Levin rose to his feet, took off his overcoat, and scurrying over
the rough ice round the hut, came out on the smooth ice and
skated without effort, as it were, by simple exercise of will,
increasing and slackening speed and turning his course. He
approached with timidity, but again her smile reassured him.

She gave him her hand, and they set off side by side, going
faster and faster, and the more rapidly they moved the more
tightly she grasped his hand.

"With you I should soon learn; I somehow feel confidence in you,"
she said to him.

"And I have confidence in myself when you are leaning on me," he
said, but was at once panic-stricken at what he had said, and
blushed. And indeed, no sooner had he uttered these words, when
all at once, like the sun going behind a cloud, her face lost all
its friendliness, and Levin detected the familiar change in her
expression that denoted the working of thought; a crease showed
on her smooth brow.

"Is there anything troubling you?--though I've no right to ask
such a question," he added hurriedly.

"Oh, why so?.... No, I have nothing to trouble me," she
responded coldly; and she added immediately: "You haven't seen
Mlle. Linon, have you?"

"Not yet."

"Go and speak to her, she likes you so much."

"What's wrong? I have offended her. Lord help me!" thought
Levin, and he flew towards the old Frenchwoman with the gray
ringlets, who was sitting on a bench. Smiling and showing her
false teeth, she greeted him as an old friend.

"Yes, you see we're growing up," she said to him, glancing
towards Kitty, "and growing old. _Tiny bear_ has grown big now!"
pursued the Frenchwoman, laughing, and she reminded him of his
joke about the three young ladies whom he had compared to the
three bears in the English nursery tale. "Do you remember that's
what you used to call them?"

He remembered absolutely nothing, but she had been laughing at
the joke for ten years now, and was fond of it.

"Now, go and skate, go and skate. Our Kitty has learned to skate
nicely, hasn't she?"

When Levin darted up to Kitty her face was no longer stern; her
eyes looked at him with the same sincerity and friendliness, but
Levin fancied that in her friendliness there was a certain note
of deliberate composure. And he felt depressed. After talking a
little of her old governess and her peculiarities, she questioned
him about his life.