Anna Karenina

L >> Leo Tolstoy >> Anna Karenina


"Surely you must be dull in the country in the winter, aren't
you?" she said.

"No, I'm not dull, I am very busy," he said, feeling that she was
holding him in check by her composed tone, which he would not
have the force to break through, just as it had been at the
beginning of the winter.

"Are you going to stay in town long?" Kitty questioned him.

"I don't know," he answered, not thinking of what he was saying.
The thought that if he were held in check by her tone of quiet
friendliness he would end by going back again without deciding
anything came into his mind, and he resolved to make a struggle
against it.

"How is it you don't know?"

"I don't know. It depends upon you," he said, and was
immediately horror-stricken at his own words.

Whether it was that she had heard his words, or that she did not
want to hear them, she made a sort of stumble, twice struck out,
and hurriedly skated away from him. She skated up to Mlle.
Linon, said something to her, and went towards the pavilion where
the ladies took off their skates.

"My God! what have I done! Merciful God! help me, guide me,"
said Levin, praying inwardly, and at the same time, feeling a
need of violent exercise, he skated about describing inner and
outer circles.

At that moment one of the young men, the best of the skaters of
the day, came out of the coffee-house in his skates, with a
cigarette in his mouth. Taking a run, he dashed down the steps
in his skates, crashing and bounding up and down. He flew down,
and without even changing the position of his hands, skated away
over the ice.

"Ah, that's a new trick!" said Levin, and he promptly ran up to
the top to do this new trick.

"Don't break your neck! it needs practice!" Nikolay Shtcherbatsky
shouted after him.

Levin went to the steps, took a run from above as best he could,
and dashed down, preserving his balance in this unwonted movement
with his hands. On the last step he stumbled, but barely
touching the ice with his hand, with a violent effort recovered
himself, and skated off, laughing.

"How splendid, how nice he is!" Kitty was thinking at that time,
as she came out of the pavilion with Mlle. Linon, and looked
towards him with a smile of quiet affection, as though he were a
favorite brother. "And can it be my fault, can I have done
anything wrong? They talk of flirtation. I know it's not he
that I love; but still I am happy with him, and he's so jolly.
Only, why did he say that?..." she mused.

Catching sight of Kitty going away, and her mother meeting her at
the steps, Levin, flushed from his rapid exercise, stood still
and pondered a minute. He took off his skates, and overtook the
mother and daughter at the entrance of the gardens.

"Delighted to see you," said Princess Shtcherbatskaya. "On
Thursdays we are home, as always."

"Today, then?"

"We shall be pleased to see you," the princess said stiffly.

This stiffness hurt Kitty, and she could not resist the desire to
smooth over her mother's coldness. She turned her head, and with
a smile said:

"Good-bye till this evening."

At that moment Stepan Arkadyevitch, his hat cocked on one side,
with beaming face and eyes, strode into the garden like a
conquering hero. But as he approached his mother-in-law, he
responded in a mournful and crestfallen tone to her inquiries
about Dolly's health. After a little subdued and dejected
conversation with his mother-in-law, he threw out his chest
again, and put his arm in Levin's.

"Well, shall we set off?" he asked. "I've been thinking about
you all this time, and I'm very, very glad you've come," he said,
looking him in the face with a significant air.

"Yes, come along," answered Levin in ecstasy, hearing unceasingly
the sound of that voice saying, "Good-bye till this evening," and
seeing the smile with which it was said.

"To the England or the Hermitage?"

"I don't mind which."

"All right, then, the England," said Stepan Arkadyevitch,
selecting that restaurant because he owed more there than at the
Hermitage, and consequently considered it mean to avoid it.
"Have you got a sledge? That's first-rate, for I sent my
carriage home."

The friends hardly spoke all the way. Levin was wondering what
that change in Kitty's expression had meant, and alternately
assuring himself that there was hope, and falling into despair,
seeing clearly that his hopes were insane, and yet all the while
he felt himself quite another man, utterly unlike what he had
been before her smile and those words, "Good-bye till this
evening."

Stepan Arkadyevitch was absorbed during the drive in composing
the menu of the dinner.

"You like turbot, don't you?" he said to Levin as they were
arriving.

"Eh?" responded Levin. "Turbot? Yes, I'm _awfully_ fond of
turbot."



Chapter 10


When Levin went into the restaurant with Oblonsky, he could not
help noticing a certain peculiarity of expression, as it were, a
restrained radiance, about the face and whole figure of Stepan
Arkadyevitch. Oblonsky took off his overcoat, and with his hat
over one ear walked into the dining room, giving directions to
the Tatar waiters, who were clustered about him in evening coats,
bearing napkins. Bowing to right and left to the people he met,
and here as everywhere joyously greeting acquaintances, he went
up to the sideboard for a preliminary appetizer of fish and
vodka, and said to the painted Frenchwoman decked in ribbons,
lace, and ringlets, behind the counter, something so amusing that
even that Frenchwoman was moved to genuine laughter. Levin for
his part refrained from taking any vodka simply because he felt
such a loathing of that Frenchwoman, all made up, it seemed, of
false hair, _poudre de riz,_ and _vinaigre de toilette_. He made
haste to move away from her, as from a dirty place. His whole
soul was filled with memories of Kitty, and there was a smile of
triumph and happiness shining in his eyes.

"This way, your excellency, please. Your excellency won't be
disturbed here," said a particularly pertinacious, white-headed
old Tatar with immense hips and coat-tails gaping widely behind.
"Walk in, your excellency," he said to Levin; by way of showing
his respect to Stepan Arkadyevitch, being attentive to his guest
as well.

Instantly flinging a fresh cloth over the round table under the
bronze chandelier, though it already had a table cloth on it, he
pushed up velvet chairs, and came to a standstill before Stepan
Arkadyevitch with a napkin and a bill of fare in his hands,
awaiting his commands.

"If you prefer it, your excellency, a private room will be free
directly; Prince Golistin with a lady. Fresh oysters have come
in."

"Ah! oysters."

Stepan Arkadyevitch became thoughtful.

"How if we were to change our program, Levin?" he said, keeping
his finger on the bill of fare. And his face expressed serious
hesitation. "Are the oysters good? Mind now."

"They're Flensburg, your excellency. We've no Ostend."

"Flensburg will do, but are they fresh?"

"Only arrived yesterday."

"Well, then, how if we were to begin with oysters, and so change
the whole program? Eh?"

"It's all the same to me. I should like cabbage soup and
porridge better than anything; but of course there's nothing like
that here."

"_Porridge a la Russe,_ your honor would like?" said the Tatar,
bending down to Levin, like a nurse speaking to a child.

"No, joking apart, whatever you choose is sure to be good. I've
been skating, and I'm hungry. And don't imagine," he added,
detecting a look of dissatisfaction on Oblonsky's face, "that I
shan't appreciate your choice. I am fond of good things."

"I should hope so! After all, it's one of the pleasures of
life," said Stepan Arkadyevitch. "Well, then, my friend, you
give us two--or better say three--dozen oysters, clear soup
with vegetables..."

"Printaniere," prompted the Tatar. But Stepan Arkadyevitch
apparently did not care to allow him the satisfaction of giving
the French names of the dishes.

"With vegetables in it, you know. Then turbot with thick sauce,
then...roast beef; and mind it's good. Yes, and capons, perhaps,
and then sweets."

The Tatar, recollecting that it was Stepan Arkadyevitch's way not
to call the dishes by the names in the French bill of fare, did
not repeat them after him, but could not resist rehearsing the
whole menu to himself according to the bill:--"_Soupe
printaniere, turbot, sauce Beaumarchais, poulard a l'estragon,
macedoine de fruits_...etc.," and then instantly, as though worked
by springs, laying down one bound bill of fare, he took up
another, the list of wines, and submitted it to Stepan
Arkadyevitch.

"What shall we drink?"

"What you like, only not too much. Champagne," said Levin.

"What! to start with? You're right though, I dare say. Do you
like the white seal?"

"_Cachet blanc,_" prompted the Tatar.

"Very well, then, give us that brand with the oysters, and then
we'll see."

"Yes, sir. And what table wine?"

"You can give us Nuits. Oh, no, better the classic Chablis."

"Yes, sir. And _your_ cheese, your excellency?"

"Oh, yes, Parmesan. Or would you like another?"

"No, it's all the same to me," said Levin, unable to suppress a
smile.

And the Tatar ran off with flying coat-tails, and in five minutes
darted in with a dish of opened oysters on mother-of-pearl
shells, and a bottle between his fingers.

Stepan Arkadyevitch crushed the starchy napkin, tucked it into
his waistcoat, and settling his arms comfortably, started on the
oysters.

"Not bad," he said, stripping the oysters from the pearly shell
with a silver fork, and swallowing them one after another. "Not
bad," he repeated, turning his dewy, brilliant eyes from Levin to
the Tatar.

Levin ate the oysters indeed, though white bread and cheese would
have pleased him better. But he was admiring Oblonsky. Even the
Tatar, uncorking the bottle and pouring the sparkling wine into
the delicate glasses, glanced at Stepan Arkadyevitch, and settled
his white cravat with a perceptible smile of satisfaction.

"You don't care much for oysters, do you?" said Stepan
Arkadyevitch, emptying his wine glass, "or you're worried about
something. Eh?"

He wanted Levin to be in good spirits. But it was not that Levin
was not in good spirits; he was ill at ease. With what he had in
his soul, he felt sore and uncomfortable in the restaurant, in
the midst of private rooms where men were dining with ladies, in
all this fuss and bustle; the surroundings of bronzes, looking
glasses, gas, and waiters--all of it was offensive to him. He
was afraid of sullying what his soul was brimful of.

"I? Yes, I am; but besides, all this bothers me," he said. "You
can't conceive how queer it all seems to a country person like
me, as queer as that gentleman's nails I saw at your place..."

"Yes, I saw how much interested you were in poor Grinevitch's
nails," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, laughing.

"It's too much for me," responded Levin. "Do try, now, and put
yourself in my place, take the point of view of a country person.
We in the country try to bring our hands into such a state as
will be most convenient for working with. So we cut our nails;
sometimes we turn up our sleeves. And here people purposely let
their nails grow as long as they will, and link on small saucers
by way of studs, so that they can do nothing with their hands."

Stepan Arkadyevitch smiled gaily.

"Oh, yes, that's just a sign that he has no need to do coarse
work. His work is with the mind..."

"Maybe. But still it's queer to me, just as at this moment it
seems queer to me that we country folks try to get our meals over
as soon as we can, so as to be ready for our work, while here are
we trying to drag out our meal as long as possible, and with that
object eating oysters..."

"Why, of course," objected Stepan Arkadyevitch. "But that's just
the aim of civilization--to make everything a source of
enjoyment."

"Well, if that's its aim, I'd rather be a savage."

"And so you are a savage. All you Levins are savages."

Levin sighed. He remembered his brother Nikolay, and felt
ashamed and sore, and he scowled; but Oblonsky began speaking of
a subject which at once drew his attention.

"Oh, I say, are you going tonight to our people, the
Shtcherbatskys', I mean?" he said, his eyes sparkling
significantly as he pushed away the empty rough shells, and drew
the cheese towards him.

"Yes, I shall certainly go," replied Levin; "though I fancied the
princess was not very warm in her invitation."

"What nonsense! That's her manner.... Come, boy, the soup!....
That's her manner--_grande dame,_" said Stepan Arkadyevitch. "I'm
coming, too, but I have to go to the Countess Bonina's rehearsal.
Come, isn't it true that you're a savage? How do you explain the
sudden way in which you vanished from Moscow? The Shtcherbatskys
were continually asking me about you, as though I ought to know.
The only thing I know is that you always do what no one else
does."

"Yes," said Levin, slowly and with emotion, "you're right. I am
a savage. Only, my savageness is not in having gone away, but in
coming now. Now I have come..."

"Oh, what a lucky fellow you are!" broke in Stepan Arkadyevitch,
looking into Levin's eyes.

"Why?"

"I know a gallant steed by tokens sure,
And by his eyes I know a youth in love,"

declaimed Stepan Arkadyevitch. "Everything is before you."

"Why, is it over for you already?"

"No; not over exactly, but the future is yours, and the present
is mine, and the present--well, it's not all that it might be."

"How so?"

"Oh, things go wrong. But I don't want to talk of myself, and
besides I can't explain it all," said Stepan Arkadyevitch.
"Well, why have you come to Moscow, then?.... Hi! take away!" he
called to the Tatar.

"You guess?" responded Levin, his eyes like deep wells of light
fixed on Stepan Arkadyevitch.

"I guess, but I can't be the first to talk about it. You can see
by that whether I guess right or wrong," said Stepan
Arkadyevitch, gazing at Levin with a subtle smile.

"Well, and what have you to say to me?" said Levin in a quivering
voice, feeling that all the muscles of his face were quivering
too. "How do you look at the question?"

Stepan Arkadyevitch slowly emptied his glass of Chablis, never
taking his eyes off Levin.

"I?" said Stepan Arkadyevitch, "there's nothing I desire so much
as that--nothing! It would be the best thing that could be."

"But you're not making a mistake? You know what we're speaking
of?" said Levin, piercing him with his eyes. "You think it's
possible?"

"I think it's possible. Why not possible?"

"No! do you really think it's possible? No, tell me all you
think! Oh, but if...if refusal's in store for me!... Indeed I
feel sure..."

"Why should you think that?" said Stepan Arkadyevitch, smiling at
his excitement.

"It seems so to me sometimes. That will be awful for me, and for
her too."

"Oh, well, anyway there's nothing awful in it for a girl. Every
girl's proud of an offer."

"Yes, every girl, but not she."

Stepan Arkadyevitch smiled. He so well knew that feeling of
Levin's, that for him all the girls in the world were divided
into two classes: one class--all the girls in the world except
her, and those girls with all sorts of human weaknesses, and very
ordinary girls: the other class--she alone, having no weaknesses
of any sort and higher than all humanity.

"Stay, take some sauce," he said, holding back Levin's hand as it
pushed away the sauce.

Levin obediently helped himself to sauce, but would not let
Stepan Arkadyevitch go on with his dinner.

"No, stop a minute, stop a minute," he said. "You must
understand that it's a question of life and death for me. I have
never spoken to any one of this. And there's no one I could
speak of it to, except you. You know we're utterly unlike each
other, different tastes and views and everything; but I know
you're fond of me and understand me, and that's why I like you
awfully. But for God's sake, be quite straightforward with me."

"I tell you what I think," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, smiling.
"But I'll say more: my wife is a wonderful woman..." Stepan
Arkadyevitch sighed, remembering his position with his wife, and,
after a moment's silence, resumed--"She has a gift of foreseeing
things. She sees right through people; but that's not all; she
knows what will come to pass, especially in the way of marriages.
She foretold, for instance, that Princess Shahovskaya would marry
Brenteln. No one would believe it, but it came to pass. And
she's on your side."

"How do you mean?"

"It's not only that she likes you--she says that Kitty is
certain to be your wife."

At these words Levin's face suddenly lighted up with a smile, a
smile not far from tears of emotion.

"She says that!" cried Levin. "I always said she was exquisite,
your wife. There, that's enough, enough said about it," he said,
getting up from his seat.

"All right, but do sit down."

But Levin could not sit down. He walked with his firm tread
twice up and down the little cage of a room, blinked his eyelids
that his tears might not fall, and only then sat down to the
table.

"You must understand," said he, "it's not love. I've been in
love, but it's not that. It's not my feeling, but a sort of
force outside me has taken possession of me. I went away, you
see, because I made up my mind that it could never be, you
understand, as a happiness that does not come on earth; but I've
struggled with myself, I see there's no living without it. And
it must be settled."

"What did you go away for?"

"Ah, stop a minute! Ah, the thoughts that come crowding on one!
The questions one must ask oneself! Listen. You can't imagine
what you've done for me by what you said. I'm so happy that I've
become positively hateful; I've forgotten everything. I heard
today that my brother Nikolay...you know, he's here...I had even
forgotten him. It seems to me that he's happy too. It's a sort
of madness. But one thing's awful.... Here, you've been
married, you know the feeling...it's awful that we--old--with a
past... not of love, but of sins...are brought all at once so
near to a creature pure and innocent; it's loathsome, and that's
why one can't help feeling oneself unworthy."

"Oh, well, you've not many sins on your conscience."

"Alas! all the same," said Levin, "when with loathing I go over
my life, I shudder and curse and bitterly regret it.... Yes."

"What would you have? The world's made so," said Stepan
Arkadyevitch.

"The one comfort is like that prayer, which I always liked:
'Forgive me not according to my unworthiness, but according to
Thy lovingkindness.' That's the only way she can forgive me."



Chapter 11


Levin emptied his glass, and they were silent for a while.

"There's one other thing I ought to tell you. Do you know
Vronsky?" Stepan Arkadyevitch asked Levin.

"No, I don't. Why do you ask?"

"Give us another bottle," Stepan Arkadyevitch directed the Tatar,
who was filling up their glasses and fidgeting round them just
when he was not wanted.

"Why you ought to know Vronsky is that he's one of your rivals."

"Who's Vronsky?" said Levin, and his face was suddenly
transformed from the look of childlike ecstasy which Oblonsky had
just been admiring to an angry and unpleasant expression.

"Vronsky is one of the sons of Count Kirill Ivanovitch Vronsky,
and one of the finest specimens of the gilded youth of
Petersburg. I made his acquaintance in Tver when I was there on
official business, and he came there for the levy of recruits.
Fearfully rich, handsome, great connections, an aide-de-camp, and
with all that a very nice, good-natured fellow. But he's more
than simply a good-natured fellow, as I've found out here--he's
a cultivated man, too, and very intelligent; he's a man who'll
make his mark."

Levin scowled and was dumb.

"Well, he turned up here soon after you'd gone, and as I can see,
he's over head and ears in love with Kitty, and you know that her
mother..."

"Excuse me, but I know nothing," said Levin, frowning gloomily.
And immediately he recollected his brother Nikolay and how
hateful he was to have been able to forget him.

"You wait a bit, wait a bit," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, smiling
and touching his hand. "I've told you what I know, and I repeat
that in this delicate and tender matter, as far as one can
conjecture, I believe the chances are in your favor."

Levin dropped back in his chair; his face was pale.

"But I would advise you to settle the thing as soon as may be,"
pursued Oblonsky, filling up his glass.

"No, thanks, I can't drink any more," said Levin, pushing away
his glass. "I shall be drunk.... Come, tell me how are you
getting on?" he went on, obviously anxious to change the
conversation.

"One word more: in any case I advise you to settle the question
soon. Tonight I don't advise you to speak," said Stepan
Arkadyevitch. "Go round tomorrow morning, make an offer in due
form, and God bless you..."

"Oh, do you still think of coming to me for some shooting? Come
next spring, do," said Levin.

Now his whole soul was full of remorse that he had begun this
conversation with Stepan Arkadyevitch. A feeling such as his was
profaned by talk of the rivalry of some Petersburg officer, of
the suppositions and the counsels of Stepan Arkadyevitch.

Stepan Arkadyevitch smiled. He knew what was passing in Levin's
soul.

"I'll come some day," he said. "But women, my boy, they're the
pivot everything turns upon. Things are in a bad way with me,
very bad. And it's all through women. Tell me frankly now," he
pursued, picking up a cigar and keeping one hand on his glass;
"give me your advice."

"Why, what is it?"

"I'll tell you. Suppose you're married, you love your wife, but
you're fascinated by another woman..."

"Excuse me, but I'm absolutely unable to comprehend how...just as
I can't comprehend how I could now, after my dinner, go straight
to a baker's shop and steal a roll."

Stepan Arkadyevitch's eyes sparkled more than usual.

"Why not? A roll will sometimes smell so good one can't resist
it."

"Himmlisch ist's, wenn ich bezwungen
Meine irdische Begier;
Aber doch wenn's nich gelungen
Hatt' ich auch recht huebsch Plaisir!"

As he said this, Stepan Arkadyevitch smiled subtly. Levin, too,
could not help smiling.

"Yes, but joking apart," resumed Stepan Arkadyevitch, "you must
understand that the woman is a sweet, gentle loving creature,
poor and lonely, and has sacrificed everything. Now, when the
thing's done, don't you see, can one possibly cast her off? Even
supposing one parts from her, so as not to break up one's family
life, still, can one help feeling for her, setting her on her
feet, softening her lot?"

"Well, you must excuse me there. You know to me all women are
divided into two classes...at least no...truer to say: there are
women and there are...I've never seen exquisite fallen beings,
and I never shall see them, but such creatures as that painted
Frenchwoman at the counter with the ringlets are vermin to my
mind, and all fallen women are the same."

"But the Magdalen?"

"Ah, drop that! Christ would never have said those words if He
had known how they would be abused. Of all the Gospel those
words are the only ones remembered. However, I'm not saying so
much what I think, as what I feel. I have a loathing for fallen
women. You're afraid of spiders, and I of these vermin. Most
likely you've not made a study of spiders and don't know their
character; and so it is with me."

"It's very well for you to talk like that; it's very much like
that gentleman in Dickens who used to fling all difficult
questions over his right shoulder. But to deny the facts is no
answer. What's to be done--you tell me that, what's to be done?
Your wife gets older, while you're full of life. Before you've
time to look round, you feel that you can't love your wife with
love, however much you may esteem her. And then all at once love
turns up, and you're done for, done for," Stepan Arkadyevitch
said with weary despair.

Levin half smiled.

"Yes, you're done for," resumed Oblonsky. "But what's to be
done?"

"Don't steal rolls."

Stepan Arkadyevitch laughed outright.

"Oh, moralist! But you must understand, there are two women; one
insists only on her rights, and those rights are your love, which
you can't give her; and the other sacrifices everything for you
and asks for nothing. What are you to do? How are you to act?
There's a fearful tragedy in it."

"If you care for my profession of faith as regards that, I'll
tell you that I don't believe there was any tragedy about it.
And this is why. To my mind, love...both the sorts of love,
which you remember Plato defines in his Banquet, served as the
test of men. Some men only understand one sort, and some only
the other. And those who only know the non-platonic love have no
need to talk of tragedy. In such love there can be no sort of
tragedy. 'I'm much obliged for the gratification, my humble
respects'--that's all the tragedy. And in platonic love there
can be no tragedy, because in that love all is clear and pure,
because..."