by Leo Tolstoy
Levin listened to his brother, understood decidedly nothing and did not want to understand. He was afraid only that his brother might ask him a question which would make it clear that he had heard nothing.
'So there, my good friend,' said Sergei Ivanovich, touching his shoulder.
'Yes, of course. Anyhow, I don't insist,' Levin replied with a childish, guilty smile. 'What was it I was arguing about?' he thought. 'Of course, I'm right, and he's right, and everything's splendid. Only I have to go to the office and give orders.' He stood up, stretching himself and smiling.
Sergei Ivanovich also smiled.
* Impulsive.
'You want to have a stroll, let's go together,' he said, not wanting to part from his brother, who simply exuded freshness and briskness. 'Let's go, and call in at the office if you need to.'
'Good heavens!' cried Levin, so loudly that he frightened Sergei Ivanovich.
'What? What's the matter?'
'How is Agafya Mikhailovna's arm?' said Levin, slapping his forehead. 'I forgot all about it.'
'Much better.'
'Well, I'll run over to see her all the same. I'll be back before you can put your hat on.' , And with a rattle-like clatter of his heels, he ran down the stairs.
VII
While Stepan Arkadyich, having taken almost all the money there was in the house, went to Petersburg to fulfil the most natural and necessary duty, known to all who serve in the government though incomprehensible to those who do not, and without which it is impossible to serve -that of reminding the ministry of himself - and, in going about the fulfilment of this duty, spent his time merrily and pleasantly at the races and in summer houses, Dolly moved with the children to their country estate in order to reduce expenses as much as possible. She moved to her dowry estate, Yergushovo, the same one where the wood had been sold in spring and which was about thirty-five miles from Levin's Pokrovskoe. In Yergushovo the big, old house had been torn down long ago, and the prince had refurbished and enlarged the wing. Some twenty years ago, when Dolly was still a child, the wing had been roomy and comfortable, though it stood, as all wings do, sideways to the front drive and the south. But this wing was now old and decayed. When Stepan Arkadyich had gone to sell the wood in the spring, Dolly had asked him to look it over and order the necessary repairs. Stepan Arkadyich, who, like all guilty husbands, was very solicitous of his wife's comfort, looked the house over himself and gave orders about everything he thought necessary. To his mind, there was a need to re-upholster all the furniture with cretonne, to hang curtains, to clean up the garden, make a little bridge by the pond and plant flowers; but he forgot many other necessary things, the lack of which later tormented Darya Alexandrovna.
Hard as Stepan Arkadyich tried to be a solicitous father and husband, he never could remember that he had a wife and children. He had a bachelor's tastes, and they alone guided him. On returning to Moscow, he proudly announced to his wife that everything was ready, that the house would be a little joy, and that he strongly advised her to go. For Stepan Arkadyich his wife's departure to the country was very agreeable in all respects: good for the children, less expensive, and freer for him. And Darya Alexandrovna considered a move to the country for the summer necessary for the children, especially for the little girl, who could not get over her scarlet fever, and also as a way of being rid of petty humiliations, paltry debts to the woodmonger, the fishmonger, the shoemaker, which tormented her. On top of that, the departure also pleased her because she dreamed of enticing her sister Kitty, who was to return from abroad in midsummer and for whom bathing had been prescribed, to join her there. Kitty had written to her from the spa that nothing could be more to her liking than to spend the summer with Dolly in Yergushovo, so filled with childhood memories for them both.
At first country life was very difficult for Dolly. She had lived in the country in childhood, and had been left with the impression that the country was salvation from all city troubles, that life there, though not elegant (Dolly was easily reconciled to that), was cheap and comfortable: everything was there, everything was cheap, everything could be had, and it was good for the children. But now, coming to the country as mistress, she saw that it was not at all what she had thought.
The day after their arrival there was torrential rain, and during the night there were leaks in the corridor and the children's room, so that the beds had to be moved to the living room. There was no cook in the household; of the nine cows, according to the dairymaid, some were with calf, some had dropped their first calf, some were too old, some were hard-uddered; there was not enough butter and milk even for the children. There were no eggs. No chicken could be found; they had to roast and boil old, purple, sinewy roosters. No woman could be found to wash the floors - everyone was in the potato fields. To go for a drive was impossible, because one of the horses was restive and pulled at the shaft. There was nowhere to bathe - the entire river bank was trampled by cattle and open to the road; it was even impossible to go for a walk, because cattle got into the garden through the broken fence, and there was one terrible bull who bellowed and therefore probably would also charge. There were no proper wardrobes. Such as there were would not close, or else opened whenever someone passed by. No pots or crocks; no tub for laundry, not even an ironing board in the maids' quarters.
At first, instead of peace and quiet, finding herself in what, for her, were terrible calamities, Darya Alexandrovna was in despair: she bustled about with all her strength, felt the hopelessness of her situation and constantly kept back the tears that welled up in her eyes. The manager, a former cavalry sergeant whom Stepan Arkadyich liked and had promoted from hall porter for his handsome and respectful appearance, took no share in Darya Alexandrovna's calamities, said respectfully: 'Impossible, ma'am, such nasty folk,' and did nothing to help.
The situation seemed hopeless. But there was in the Oblonsky house, as in all family houses, one inconspicuous but most important and useful person - Matryona Filimonovna. She calmed her mistress, assured her that everything would shape up (it was her phrase, and it was from her that Matvei had taken it), and, without haste or excitement, went into action herself.
She immediately got in with the steward's wife and on the first day had tea with her and the steward under the acacias and discussed everything. Soon there was a Matryona Filimonovna club established under the acacias, and here, through this club, which consisted of the steward's wife, the village headman and the clerk, the difficulties of life began gradually to be put right, and within a week everything indeed shaped up. The roof was repaired, a cook was found (a female crony of the headman's), chickens were bought, the cows began to produce milk, the garden was fenced with pickets, the carpenter made a washboard, the wardrobes were furnished with hooks and no longer opened at will, an ironing board, wrapped in military flannel, lay between a chair arm and a chest of drawers, and the maids' quarters began to smell of hot irons.
'Well, there! And you kept despairing,' said Matryona Filimonovna, pointing to the ironing board.
They even constructed a bathing house out of straw mats. Lily started bathing, and Darya Alexandrovna's expectations of a comfortable, if not calm, country life at least came partly true. With six children Darya Alexandrovna could not be calm. One got sick, another might get sick, a third lacked something, a fourth showed signs of bad character, and so on, and so on. Rarely, rarely would there be short periods of calm. But these troubles and anxieties were for Darya Alexandrovna the only possible happiness. Had it not been for them, she would have remained alone with her thoughts of her husband, who did not love her. But besides that, however painful the mother's fear of illnesses, the illnesses themselves, and the distress at seeing signs of bad inclinations in her children, the children themselves repaid her griefs with small joys. These joys were so small that they could not be seen, like gold in the sand, and in her bad moments she saw only griefs, only sand; but there were also good moments, when she saw only joys, only gold.
Now
, in her country solitude, she was more aware of these joys. Often, looking at them, she made every possible effort to convince herself that she was mistaken, that as a mother she was partial to her children; all the same, she could not but tell herself that she had lovely children, all six of them, each in a different way, but such as rarely happens - and she was happy in them and proud of them.
VIII
At the end of May, when everything was already more or less settled, she received her husband's reply to her complaints about country inconveniences. He wrote to her, asking forgiveness for not having thought of everything, and promised to come at the first opportunity. The opportunity did not present itself, and until the beginning of June Darya Alexandrovna lived alone in the country.
On Sunday during St Peter's, Darya Alexandrovna went to the liturgy and had all her children take communion. In her intimate, philosophical conversations with her sister, mother and friends, she very often surprised them with her freethinking in regard to religion. She had her own strange religion of metempsychosis, in which she firmly believed, caring little for the dogmas of the Church. But in the family she strictly fulfilled all the requirements of the Church - not only to set an example, but with all her heart - and the fact that the children had not received communion for more than a year[8] troubled her greatly. And so, with Matryona Filimonovna's full approval and sympathy, she decided to do it now, in the summer.
Darya Alexandrovna thought about how to dress the children several days ahead of time. Dresses were made, altered and washed, seams and ruffles were let out, buttons were sewn on and ribbons prepared. Only Tanya's dress, which the governess had undertaken to make, considerably soured Darya Alexandrovna's disposition. The governess, as she made the alterations, had taken tucks in the wrong places, cut the arm-holes too big, and all but ruined the dress. Tanya's shoulders were so tight it was painful to see. Matryona Filimonovna thought of putting in gussets and making a little pelerine. That improved things, but there was nearly a quarrel with the governess. In the morning, however, everything was settled, and by nine o'clock - the priest had been asked to wait till then with the liturgy - the dressed-up children, radiant with joy, stood before the carriage at the porch waiting for their mother.
In place of the restive Raven, through Matryona Filimonovna's patronage, the steward's Brownie was harnessed to the carriage, and Darya Alexandrovna, delayed by the cares of her toilette, came out in a white muslin dress to get in.
Darya Alexandrovna had done her hair and dressed with care and excitement. Once she used to dress for herself, to be beautiful and admired; then, the older she became, the more unpleasant it was for her to dress; she saw that she had lost her good looks. But now she again dressed with pleasure and excitement. Now she dressed not for herself, not for her own beauty, but so that, being the mother of these lovely things, she would not spoil the general impression. And taking a last look in the mirror, she remained satisfied with herself. She was pretty. Not as pretty as she had once wanted to be at a ball, but pretty enough for the purpose she now had in mind.
There was no one in the church except some muzhiks, the caretakers and their women. But Darya Alexandrovna saw, or it seemed to her that she saw, the admiration aroused by her children and herself. The children were not only beautiful in their fine clothes, but were also sweet in behaving so well. True, Alyosha did not want to stand quite properly; he kept turning and wanted to see his jacket from behind; but all the same he was remarkably sweet. Tanya stood like a big girl and looked after the little ones. But the smallest, Lily, was lovely with her naive surprise at everything, and it was hard not to smile when, after taking communion, she said in English: 'Please, some more.'
Returning home, the children felt that something solemn had taken place and were very quiet.
Everything went well at home, too; but at lunch Grisha started whistling and, what was worst of all, did not obey the governess and had to go without cake. Darya Alexandrovna, had she been there, would not have let it go as far as punishment on such a day, but she had to uphold the governess's orders, and she confirmed her decision that Grisha would not have any cake.
Grisha wept, saying that Nikolenka had also whistled but was not being punished, and that he was weeping not because of the cake - it made no difference to him - but because he had been unfairly dealt with. This was much too sad, and Darya Alexandrovna decided to talk with the governess and get her to forgive him. But, passing through the drawing room, she saw a scene that filled her heart with such joy that tears came to her eyes, and she herself forgave the culprit.
The punished boy was sitting at the corner window in the drawing room; next to him stood Tanya with a plate. Under the pretext of wishing to feed her dolls, she had asked the governess's permission to take her portion of cake to the nursery and had brought it to her brother instead. Continuing to weep about the unfairness of the punishment he was suffering, he ate the cake she had brought, saying between sobs: 'You eat it, too, we'll eat it together ... together.'
Tanya was affected first by pity for Grisha, then by the consciousness of her virtuous deed, and there were tears in her eyes, too; but she did not refuse and was eating her share.
Seeing their mother, they were frightened, but peering into her face, they understood that they were doing a good thing, laughed and, their mouths full of cake, began wiping their smiling lips with their hands, smearing tears and jam all over their beaming faces.
'Goodness! Your new white dress! Tanya! Grisha!' the mother said, trying to save the dress, but with tears in her eyes, smiling a blissful, rapturous smile.
The new clothes were taken off, the girls were told to put on blouses and the boys old jackets, and the order was given to harness up the break - again, to the steward's chagrin, with Brownie as the shaft-horse - to go gathering mushrooms and then to the bathing house. A sound of rapturous squealing arose in the nursery and never stopped till they left for the bathing house.
They gathered a whole basket of mushrooms, even Lily found a birch boletus. Before, it used to be Miss Hull who would find one and show her, but now she herself found a big, squishy boletus, and there was a general cry of delight: 'Lily found a squishy one!'
Then they drove to the river, left the horses under the birches and went to the bathing house. The coachman, Terenty, having tethered the horses to a tree, where they stood swishing away gadflies, lay down in the shade of the birches, flattening out the grass, and smoked tobacco, while from the bathing house there came to him the ceaseless merry squealing of the children.
Though it was a chore to look after all the children and stop their pranks, though it was hard to remember and not mix up all those stockings, drawers, shoes from different feet, and to untie, unbutton and retie so many tapes and buttons, Darya Alexandrovna, who had always loved bathing herself, and considered it good for the children, enjoyed nothing so much as this bathing with them all. To touch all those plump little legs, pulling stockings on them, to take in her arms and dip those naked little bodies and hear joyful or frightened shrieks; to see the breathless faces of those splashing little cherubs, with their wide, frightened and merry eyes, was a great pleasure for her.
When half the children were clothed again, some dressed-up peasant women, who had gone gathering angelica and milkwort, approached the bathing house and stopped timidly. Matryona Filimonovna called to one of them to give her a towel and a shirt that had dropped into the water so that she could wring them out, and Darya Alexandrovna struck up a conversation with the women. The women laughed behind their hands at first, but then became bolder and began to talk, winning Darya Alexandrovna over at once by the sincere admiration they showed for her children.
'See what a beauty, white as sugar,' said one, admiring Tanechka and wagging her head. 'But thin ...'
'Yes, she was ill.'
'You see, he must have been bathing, too,' another said about the baby.
'No, he's only three months old,' Darya Alexandrovna replied proudly.
> 'Just look at that!'
'And do you have children?'
'I've had four, there's two left, a boy and a girl. I weaned her before this past Lent.'
'And how old is she?'
'Over a year.'
'Why did you nurse her so long?'
'That's how we do it: three fasts .. .'[9]
And the conversation came to what interested Darya Alexandrovna most: how was the birth? what illnesses have they had? where is the husband? does he visit often?[10]
Darya Alexandrovna did not want to part from the women, so interesting was it for her to talk with them, so completely identical were their interests. What pleased Darya Alexandrovna most was that she could see clearly that all these women particularly admired how many children she had and how good they were. The women made Darya Alexandrovna laugh and offended the governess, who was the cause of this -for her incomprehensible - laughter. One of the young women was watching the governess, who got dressed last of all, and as she put on her third petticoat, could not help observing: 'See, she wraps and wraps and can't get done wrapping!' - and they all burst into laughter.