by Leo Tolstoy
While they were saying this, Laska, her ears pricked up, kept glancing at the sky and then reproachfully at them.
'Found a fine time to talk!' she thought. 'And there's one coming ... There it is, all right. They'll miss it...' thought Laska.
But just then both men heard the piercing whistle, which seemed to lash at their ears, and they suddenly seized their guns and lightning flashed twice and two claps rang out simultaneously. The high-flying woodcock instantly folded its wings and fell into the thicket, bending the slender shoots.
'That's excellent! We shared one!' Levin cried out and ran into the thicket with Laska to look for the woodcock. 'Ah, yes, what was that unpleasant thing?' he recollected. 'Yes, Kitty's sick ... Nothing to be done, very sorry,' he thought.
'Ah, she's found it! Good girl,' he said, taking the warm bird out of Laska's mouth and putting it into the nearly full game bag. 'I've found it, Stiva!' he cried.
XVI
On the way home, Levin asked for all the details of Kitty's illness and the Shcherbatskys' plans, and though he would have been ashamed to admit it, what he learned was pleasing to him. Pleasing because there was still hope, and all the more pleasing because she, who had made him suffer so much, was suffering herself. But when Stepan Arkadyich began to speak of the causes of Kitty's illness and mentioned Vronsky's name, Levin interrupted him:
'I have no right to know family details and, to tell the truth, I'm also not interested.'
Stepan Arkadyich smiled barely perceptibly, catching one of those instantaneous changes so familiar to him in Levin's face, which became as gloomy as it had been cheerful a moment before.
'You've already quite settled with Ryabinin about the wood?' asked Levin.
'Yes, I have. An excellent price, thirty-eight thousand. Eight down and the rest over six years. I was busy with it for a long time. No one offered more.'
'That means you gave your wood away,' Levin said gloomily.
'Why is that?' Stepan Arkadyich asked with a good-natured smile, knowing that Levin would now find everything bad.
'Because that wood is worth at least two hundred roubles an acre,' Levin replied.
'Ah, these country squires!' Stepan Arkadyich said jokingly. 'This tone of scorn for us city people! ... Yet when it comes to business, we always do better. Believe me, I worked it all out,' he said, 'and the wood has been sold very profitably - I'm even afraid he'll go back on it. You see, it's mostly second growth,' said Stepan Arkadyich, wishing with the words 'second growth' to convince Levin completely of the unfairness of his doubts, 'fit only for stove wood. It won't stand you more than ten cord per acre, and he's giving me seventy-five roubles.'
Levin smiled scornfully. 'I know that manner,' he thought, 'not just his but all city people's, who come to the country twice in ten years, pick up two or three country words and use them rightly or wrongly, in the firm conviction that they know everything. "Second growth, stand you ten cord". He says the words but doesn't understand a thing himself.'
'I wouldn't teach you about what you write there in your office,' he said, 'and if necessary, I'd ask you. But you are so certain you understand this whole business of selling the wood. It's hard. Did you count the trees?'
'How can I count the trees?' Stepan Arkadyich said with a laugh, still wishing to get his friend out of his bad mood.' "To count the sands, the planets' rays, a lofty mind well may ..." '[22]
'Well, yes, and Ryabinin's lofty mind can. And no merchant will buy without counting, unless it's given away to him, as you're doing. I know your wood. I go hunting there every year, and your wood is worth two hundred roubles an acre outright, and he's giving you seventy-five in instalments. That means you've made him a gift of thirty thousand.'
'Come, don't get so carried away,' Stepan Arkadyich said pitifully. 'Why didn't anyone make an offer?'
'Because he's in with the other merchants; he paid them off. I've dealt with them all, I know them. They're not merchants, they're speculators. He wouldn't touch a deal where he'd make ten or fifteen per cent, he waits till he gets a rouble for twenty kopecks.'
'Come, now! You're out of sorts.'
'Not in the least,' Levin said gloomily, as they drove up to the house.
A little gig was already standing by the porch, tightly bound in iron and leather, with a sleek horse tightly harnessed in broad tugs. In the little gig, tightly filled with blood and tightly girdled, sat Ryabinin's clerk, who was also his driver. Ryabinin himself was in the house and met the friends in the front room. He was a tall, lean, middle-aged man, with a moustache, a jutting, clean-shaven chin and protruding, dull eyes. He was dressed in a long-skirted dark-blue frock coat with buttons below his rear and high boots wrinkled at the ankles and straight on the calves, over which he wore big galoshes. He wiped his face in a circular motion with a handkerchief and, straightening his frock coat, which sat well enough to begin with, greeted the entering men with a smile, holding his hand out to Stepan Arkadyich, as if trying to catch something.
'So you've come.' Stepan Arkadyich gave him his hand. 'Splendid.'
'I dared not disobey your highness's commands, though the road's much too bad. I positively walked all the way, but I got here in time. My respects, Konstantin Dmitrich.' He turned to Levin, trying to catch his hand as well. But Levin, frowning, pretended not to notice and began taking out the woodcock. 'Had a good time hunting? What bird might that be?' Ryabinin added, looking with scorn at the woodcock. 'Must have taste to it.' And he shook his head disapprovingly, as if doubting very much that the hide was worth the tanning.
'Want to go to my study?' Levin, frowning gloomily, said to Stepan Arkadyich in French. 'Go to my study, you can talk there.'
'That we can, or wherever you like, sir,' Ryabinin said with scornful dignity, as if wishing to make it felt that others might have difficulties in dealing with people, but for him there could never be any difficulties in anything.
Going into the study, Ryabinin looked around by habit, as if searching for an icon,[23] but when he found one, he did not cross himself. He looked over the bookcases and shelves and, with the same doubt as about the woodcock, smiled scornfully and shook his head disapprovingly, refusing to admit that this hide could be worth the tanning.
'Well, have you brought the money?' Oblonsky asked. 'Sit down.'
'The money won't hold us up. I've come to see you, to have a talk.'
'A talk about what? Do sit down.'
'That I will,' said Ryabinin, sitting down and leaning his elbow on the back of the chair in a most painful way for himself. 'You must come down a little, Prince. It's sinful otherwise. And the money's all ready, to the last kopeck. Money won't ever hold things up.'
Levin, who meanwhile had put his gun away in a cupboard, was going out of the door, but hearing the merchant's words, he stopped.
'You got the wood for nothing as it is,' he said. 'He was too late coming here, otherwise I'd have set the price.'
Ryabinin rose and with a smile silently looked up at Levin from below.
'Konstantin Dmitrich is ver-ry stingy,' he said with a smile, turning to Stepan Arkadyich, 'there's finally no dealing with him. I wanted to buy wheat, offered good money.'
'Why should I give you what's mine for nothing? I didn't steal it or find it lying around.'
'Good gracious, nowadays stealing's positively impossible. Everything nowadays is finally in the open courts, everything's noble today; there's no more of that stealing. We talked honest. He asked too much for the wood, it doesn't tally. I beg you to come down at least a little.'
'But have you concluded the deal or not? If you have, there's no point in bargaining. If you haven't,' said Levin, 'I'll buy the wood myself.'
The smile suddenly vanished from Ryabinin's face. A hawk-like, predatory and hard expression settled on it. With quick, bony fingers he undid his frock coat, revealing a shirt not tucked in, a brass-buttoned waistcoat and a watch chain, and quickly took out a fat old pocket-book.
'If you please, the
wood is mine,' he said, quickly crossing himself and holding out his hand. 'Take the money, the wood is mine. That's how Ryabinin buys, without counting pennies,' he went on, frowning and brandishing the pocket-book.
'I wouldn't be in a hurry if I were you,' said Levin.
'Gracious,' Oblonsky said in surprise, 'I've given him my word.'
Levin left the room, slamming the door. Ryabinin, looking at the door, shook his head with a smile.
'It's all on account of youth, nothing but childishness finally. I'm buying it, trust my honour, just for the glory alone, meaning that it was Ryabinin and nobody else who bought a grove from Oblonsky. And God grant it tallies up. Trust in God. If you please, sir. Write me out a receipt...'
An hour later the merchant, neatly closing his robe and fastening the hooks of his frock coat, the receipt in his pocket, got into his tightly bound little gig and drove home.
'Ah, these gentlemen!' he said to his clerk, 'all the same subject.'
'That's so,' the clerk replied, handing him the reins and fastening the leather apron. 'So it's congratulations, Mikhail Ignatyich?'
'Well, well...'
XVII
Stepan Arkadyich came upstairs, his pocket bulging with the bank notes that the merchant had given him for three months ahead. The business with the wood was concluded, the money was in his pocket, the fowling had been splendid, and Stepan Arkadyich was in the merriest spirits, and therefore he especially wanted to dispel the bad mood that had come over Levin. He wanted to end the day over supper as pleasantly as it had begun.
Indeed, Levin was out of sorts and, in spite of all his desire to be gentle and amiable with his dear guest, he could not master himself. The intoxication of the news that Kitty was not married had begun to affect him.
Kitty was unmarried and ill, ill from love for a man who had scorned her. This insult seemed to fall upon him. Vronsky had scorned her, and she had scorned him, Levin. Consequently, Vronsky had the right to despise Levin and was therefore his enemy. But Levin did not think all that. He vaguely felt that there was something insulting to him in it, and now was not angry at what had upset him but was finding fault with everything he came across. The stupid sale of the wood, the swindle Oblonsky had fallen for, which had taken place in his house, annoyed him.
'Well, so it's concluded?' he said, meeting Stepan Arkadyich upstairs. 'Want to have supper?'
'Yes, I won't refuse. What an appetite I have in the country, it's a wonder! Why didn't you offer Ryabinin a bite to eat?'
'Ah, devil take him!'
'How you treat him, though!' said Oblonsky. 'You didn't shake hands with him. Why not shake hands with him?'
'Because I don't shake hands with my footman, and my footman is a hundred times better.'
'What a reactionary you are, though! What about the merging of the classes?' said Oblonsky.
'Whoever likes merging is welcome to it. I find it disgusting.'
'I see, you're decidedly a reactionary.'
'Really, I've never thought about what I am. I'm Konstantin Levin, nothing more.'
'And a Konstantin Levin who is badly out of sorts,' said Stepan Arkadyich, smiling.
'Yes, I'm out of sorts, and do you know why? Because of - forgive me - your stupid sale ...'
Stepan Arkadyich winced good-naturedly, like a man hurt and upset without cause.
'Well, come now!' he said. 'When did it ever happen that somebody sold something without being told right after the sale: "It was worth a lot more"? But while it's for sale, no one offers ... No, I see you have a bone to pick with this unfortunate Ryabinin.'
'Maybe I do. And do you know why? You'll say again that I'm a reactionary, or some other dreadful word like that; but all the same it's vexing and upsetting for me to see on all sides this impoverishment of the nobility, to which I belong and, despite the merging of the classes, am glad to belong. And impoverishment not owing to luxury - that would be nothing. To live with largesse is a nobleman's business, which only noblemen know how to do. Now muzhiks are buying up the land around us. That doesn't upset me - the squire does nothing, the muzhik works and pushes out the idle man. It ought to be so. And I'm very glad for the muzhik. But it upsets me to see this impoverishment as a result of -I don't know what to call it - innocence. Here a Polish tenant buys a beautiful estate at half price from a lady who lives in Nice. Here land worth ten roubles an acre is leased to a merchant for one. Here you gave that cheat a gift of thirty thousand for no reason at all.'
'What, then? Count every tree?'
'Certainly count them. You didn't count them, but Ryabinin did. Ryabinin's children will have the means to live and be educated, and yours may not!'
'Well, excuse me, but there's something petty in this counting. We have our occupations, they have theirs, and they need profits. Well, anyhow, the deal's concluded, and there's an end to it. And here are the fried eggs, my favourite way of doing them. And Agafya Mikhailovna will give us that wonderful herb liqueur ...'
Stepan Arkadyich sat down at the table and began joking with Agafya Mikhailovna, assuring her that he had not eaten such a dinner or supper for a long time.
'You praise it at least,' said Agafya Mikhailovna, 'but Konstantin Dmitrich, whatever you serve him, even a crust of bread, he just eats it and walks out.'
Hard as Levin tried to master himself, he was gloomy and silent. He had to ask Stepan Arkadyich one question, but he could not resolve to ask it and could not find either the form or the moment. Stepan Arkadyich had already gone to his room downstairs, undressed, washed again, put on his coffered nightshirt and got into bed, but Levin still lingered in his room, talking about various trifles, and could not bring himself to ask what he wanted to ask.
'How amazingly they make soap,' he said, examining and unwrapping a fragrant cake of soap that Agafya Mikhailovna had put out for the guest but that Oblonsky had not used. 'Just look, it's a work of art.'
'Yes, all sorts of improvements have been made in everything,' said Stepan Arkadyich, with a moist and blissful yawn. 'The theatres, for instance, and these amusement ... a-a-ah!' he yawned. 'Electric light everywhere ... a-a-ah!'[24]
'Yes, electric light,' said Levin. 'Yes. Well, and where is Vronsky now?' he said, suddenly putting down the soap.
'Vronsky?' asked Stepan Arkadyich, suppressing a yawn. 'He's in Petersburg. He left soon after you did and hasn't come to Moscow once since then. And you know, Kostya, I'll tell you the truth,' he continued, leaning his elbow on the table and resting on his hand his handsome, ruddy face, from which two unctuous, kindly and sleepy eyes shone like stars. 'It was your own fault. You got frightened by your rival. And as I told you then, I don't know which side had the greater chances. Why didn't you just push right through? I told you then that...' He yawned with his jaws only, not opening his mouth.
'Does he know I proposed, or doesn't he?' thought Levin, looking at him. 'Yes, there's something sly and diplomatic in his face,' and, feeling himself blushing, he silently looked straight into Stepan Arkadyich's eyes.
'If there was anything on her part then, it's that she was carried away by externals,' Oblonsky continued. 'That perfect aristocratism, you know, and the future position in society affected not her but her mother.'
Levin frowned. The offence of the refusal he had gone through burned his heart like a fresh, just-received wound. He was at home, and at home even the walls help.
'Wait, wait,' he began, interrupting Oblonsky. 'Aristocratism, you say. But allow me to ask, what makes up this aristocratism of Vronsky or whoever else it may be - such aristocratism that I can be scorned? You consider Vronsky an aristocrat, but I don't. A man whose father crept out of nothing by wiliness, whose mother, God knows who she didn't have liaisons with ... No, excuse me, but I consider myself an aristocrat and people like myself, who can point to three or four honest generations in their families' past, who had a high degree of education (talent and intelligence are another thing), and who never lowered themselves before anyone, never depended o
n anyone, as my father lived, and my grandfather. And I know many like that. You find it mean that I count the trees in the forest, while you give away thirty thousand to Ryabinin; but you'll have rent coming in and I don't know what else, while I won't, and so I value what I've inherited and worked for ... We're the aristocrats, and not someone who can only exist on hand-outs from the mighty of this world and can be bought for twenty kopecks.'
'But who are you attacking? I agree with you,' Stepan Arkadyich said sincerely and cheerfully, though he felt that Levin included him among those who could be bought for twenty kopecks. He sincerely liked Levin's animation. 'Who are you attacking? Though much of what you say about Vronsky is untrue, that's not what I'm talking about. I'll tell you straight out, if I were you I'd go with me to Moscow and ...' 'No, I don't know whether you're aware of it or not, and it makes no difference to me, but I'll tell you - I made a proposal and received a refusal, and for me Katerina Alexandrovna is now a painful and humiliating memory.'
'Why? That's nonsense!'
'Let's not talk about it. Forgive me, please, if I was rude to you,' said Levin. Now, having said everything, he became again the way he had been in the morning. 'You're not angry with me, Stiva? Please don't be angry,' he said and, smiling, took him by the hand.