by Anna Karenina (tr Richard Pevear, Larissa Volokhonsky) (Penguin Classics) (epub)
Stepan Arkadyich was not only liked by all who knew him for his kind, cheerful temper and unquestionable honesty, but there was in him, in his handsome, bright appearance, shining eyes, black brows and hair, the whiteness and ruddiness of his face, something that physically made an amiable and cheerful impression on the people he met. ‘Aha! Stiva! Oblonsky! Here he is!’ they would almost always say with a joyful smile on meeting him. And if it sometimes happened that talking with him produced no especially joyful effect, a day or two later they would all rejoice again in the same way when they met him.
Serving for the third year as head of one of the Moscow offices, Stepan Arkadyich had acquired the respect as well as the affection of his colleagues, subordinates, superiors, and all who had dealings with him. The main qualities that had earned him this universal respect in the service were, first, an extreme indulgence towards people, based on his awareness of his own shortcomings; second, a perfect liberalism, not the sort he read about in the newspapers, but the sort he had in his blood, which made him treat all people, whatever their rank or status, in a perfectly equal and identical way; and, third – most important – a perfect indifference to the business he was occupied with, owing to which he never got carried away and never made mistakes.
Arriving at his place of work, Stepan Arkadyich, accompanied by the respectful doorman, went with a portfolio into his small private office, put on his uniform, and entered the main office. The scriveners and clerks all rose, bowing cheerfully and respectfully. Stepan Arkadyich, hastily as always, went to his place, exchanged handshakes with the members and sat down. He joked and talked exactly as much as was proper and then got down to work. No one knew more surely than Stepan Arkadyich how to find the limits of freedom, simplicity and officialness necessary for getting work done in a pleasant way. The secretary, cheerful and respectful as was everyone in Stepan Arkadyich’s presence, approached with some papers and said in that familiarly liberal tone which had been introduced by Stepan Arkadyich:
‘We did after all obtain information from the Penza provincial office. Here, if you please …’
‘So you finally got it?’ said Stepan Arkadyich, marking the page with his finger. ‘Well, gentlemen …’ And the work began.
‘If they only knew,’ he thought, inclining his head gravely as he listened to the report, ‘what a guilty boy their chairman was half an hour ago!’ And his eyes were laughing as the report was read. The work had to go on without interruption till two o’clock, and then there would be a break for lunch.
It was not yet two when the big glass door of the office suddenly opened and someone came in. All the members, from under the imperial portrait and behind the zertsalo[8] turned towards the door, glad of the diversion; but the porter at once banished the intruder and closed the glass door behind him.
When the case had been read, Stepan Arkadyich stood up, stretched, and, giving the liberalism of the time its due, took out a cigarette while still in the room, then went into his private office. His two comrades, the veteran Nikitin and Grinevich, followed him out.
‘We’ll have time to finish after lunch,’ said Stepan Arkadyich.
‘That we will!’ said Nikitin.
‘And he must be a regular crook, this Fomin,’ Grinevich said of one of the people involved in the case they were considering.
Stepan Arkadyich winced at Grinevich’s words, thereby letting it be felt that it was inappropriate to form a premature judgement, and did not reply to him.
‘Who was it that came in?’ he asked the porter.
‘Some man, your excellency, slipped in the moment I turned my back. He asked for you. I said when the members leave, then …’
‘Where is he?’
‘Went out to the front hall most likely, and before that he kept pacing around here. That’s the one,’ the porter said, pointing to a strongly built, broad–shouldered man with a curly beard, who, without taking off his lamb–skin hat, was quickly and lightly running up the worn steps of the stone stairway. One skinny clerk going down with a portfolio paused, looked disapprovingly at the running man’s feet, and then glanced questioningly at Oblonsky.
Stepan Arkadyich stood at the top of the stairs. His face, beaming good–naturedly from behind the embroidered uniform collar, beamed still more when he recognized the man who was running up.
‘So it’s he! Levin, at last!’ he said with a friendly, mocking smile, looking Levin over as he approached. ‘How is it you don’t scorn to come looking for me in this den? said Stepan Arkadyich, not satisfied with a handshake, but kissing his friend. ‘Been here long?’ ‘I just arrived, and wanted very much to see you,’ Levin replied, looking around bashfully and at the same time crossly and uneasily.
‘Well, let’s go to my office,’ said Stepan Arkadyich, knowing his friend’s proud and irascible shyness; and, taking him by the arm, he drew him along, as if guiding him through dangers.
Stepan Arkadyich was on familiar terms with almost all his acquaintances: with old men of sixty and with boys of twenty, with actors, ministers, merchants and imperial adjutants, so that a great many of those who were his intimates occupied opposite ends of the social ladder and would have been very surprised to learn they had something in common through Oblonsky. He was on familiar terms with everyone with whom he drank champagne, and he drank champagne with everyone; therefore when, in the presence of his subordinates, he met his ‘disreputable familiars’, as he jokingly called many of his friends, he was able, with his peculiar tact, to lessen the unpleasantness of the impression for his subordinates. Levin was not a disreputable familiar, but Oblonsky sensed that Levin was thinking he might not want to show his closeness to him in front of his staff, and therefore hastened to take him to his office.
Levin was almost the same age as Oblonsky and was his familiar not only in the champagne line. Levin had been the comrade and friend of his early youth. They loved each other, in spite of the difference in their characters and tastes, as friends love each other who become close in early youth. But in spite of that, as often happens between people who have chosen different ways, each of them, while rationally justifying the other’s activity, despised it in his heart. To each of them it seemed that the life he led was the only real life, and the one his friend led was a mere illusion. Oblonsky could not repress a slightly mocking smile at the sight of Levin. So many times he had seen him come to Moscow from the country, where he did something or other, though Stepan Arkadyich could never understand precisely what, nor did it interest him. Levin always came to Moscow agitated, hurried, a little uneasy, and annoyed at this uneasiness, and most often with a completely new, unexpected view of things. Stepan Arkadyich laughed at this and loved it. In just the same way, at heart Levin despised both his friend’s city style of life and his job, which he regarded as trifling, and he laughed at it all. But the difference was that Oblonsky, while doing as everyone else did, laughed confidently and good–naturedly, whereas Levin laughed unconfidently and sometimes crossly.
‘We’ve long been expecting you,’ said Stepan Arkadyich, going into his office and releasing Levin’s arm, as if to show that the dangers were past. ‘I’m very, very glad to see you,’ he went on. ‘Well, how are you doing? When did you arrive?’
Levin was silent, glancing at the unfamiliar faces of Oblonsky’s two colleagues and especially at the elegant Grinevich’s hands, with such long white fingers, such long yellow nails curving at the tips, and such huge glittering cuff links on his sleeves, that these hands clearly absorbed all his attention and did not allow him any freedom of thought. Oblonsky noticed it at once and smiled.
‘Ah, yes, let me introduce you,’ he said. ‘My colleagues: Filipp Ivanych Nikitin, Mikhail Stanislavich Grinevich,’ and turning to Levin: ‘A zemstvo activist[10] a new zemstvo man, a gymnast, lifts a hundred and fifty pounds with one hand, a cattle–breeder and hunter, and my friend, Konstantin Dmitrich Levin, the brother of Sergei Ivanych Koznyshev.’
‘Very pleased,’ said the l
ittle old man.
‘I have the honour of knowing your brother, Sergei Ivanych,’ said Grinevich, proffering his slender hand with its long nails.
Levin frowned, shook the hand coldly, and turned at once to Oblonsky. Though he had great respect for his maternal half–brother, a writer known to all Russia, nevertheless he could not stand being addressed as the brother of the famous Koznyshev rather than as Konstantin Levin.
‘No, I’m no longer a zemstvo activist. I’ve quarrelled with them all and no longer go to the meetings,’ he said, addressing Oblonsky.
‘That was quick!’ Oblonsky said with a smile. ‘But how? why?’
‘A long story. I’ll tell you some day,’ said Levin, but he began telling it at once. ‘Well, to make it short, I became convinced that there is not and cannot be any zemstvo activity.’ He spoke as if someone had just offended him. ‘On the one hand, it’s just a plaything, they play at parliament, and I’m neither young enough nor old enough to amuse myself with playthings. And on the other …’ (he faltered) ‘hand, it’s a way for the district coterie to make a little money. Before there were custodies, courts, but now it’s the zemstvo . .. not in the form of bribes, but in the form of unearned salaries.’ He spoke as hotly as if someone there had argued against his opinion[11]
‘Oho! I see you’re in a new phase again, a conservative one,’ said Stepan Arkadyich. ‘However, of that later.’
‘Yes, later. But I had to see you,’ Levin said, looking with hatred at Grinevich’s hand.
Stepan Arkadyich smiled almost imperceptibly.
‘Didn’t you say you’d never put on European clothes again?’ he said, looking over his new clothes, obviously from a French tailor. ‘So! I see _ a new phase.’
Levin suddenly blushed, but not as grown–up people blush – slightly, unaware of it themselves – but as boys do, feeling that their bashfulness makes them ridiculous, becoming ashamed as a result, and blushing even more, almost to the point of tears. And it was so strange to see that intelligent, manly face in such a childish state that Oblonsky stopped looking at him.
‘So where shall we see each other? I need very, very much to have a talk with you,’ said Levin.
Oblonsky appeared to reflect.
‘I’ll tell you what: let’s go to Gourin’s for lunch and talk there. I’m free until three.’
‘No,’ Levin replied after a moment’s thought, ‘I still have to go somewhere.’
‘Well, all right, then let’s dine together.’
‘Dine? But I have nothing special to say or ask, just a couple of words, and we can have a chat later.’
‘Then tell me the couple of words now, and we can discuss things over dinner.’
‘The couple of words are these …’ said Levin. ‘Anyway, it’s nothing special.’
His face suddenly acquired an angry expression, which came from the effort to overcome his bashfulness.
‘What are the Shcherbatskys doing? The same as ever?’ he said.
Stepan Arkadyich, who had known for a long time that Levin was in love with his sister–in–law Kitty, smiled almost imperceptibly and his eyes shone merrily.
‘A couple of words, you said, but I can’t answer in a couple of words, because … Excuse me a moment…’
The secretary came in with familiar deference and a certain modest awareness, common to all secretaries, of his superiority to his chief in the knowledge of business, approached Oblonsky with some papers and, in the guise of a question, began explaining some difficulty. Stepan Arkadyich, without listening to the end, placed his hand benignly on the secretary’s sleeve.
‘No, just do as I told you,’ he said, softening the remark with a smile, and after briefly explaining the matter as he understood it, he pushed the papers aside, saying: ‘Do it that way, please, Zakhar Nikitich.’
The abashed secretary withdrew. Levin, who during this conference with the secretary had recovered completely from his embarrassment, stood with both elbows resting on the chair back, a look of mocking attention on his face.
‘I don’t understand, I don’t understand,’ he said.
‘What don’t you understand?’ said Oblonsky, with the same cheerful smile, taking out a cigarette. He expected some strange escapade from Levin.
‘I don’t understand what you do,’ Levin said with a shrug. ‘How can you do it seriously?’
‘Why not?’
‘Why, because there’s nothing to do.’
‘That’s what you think, but we’re buried in work.’
‘Paperwork. Ah, well, you do have a gift for that,’ Levin added.
‘That is, you think I’m lacking in something?’
‘Maybe so,’ said Levin. ‘But all the same I admire your grandeur and am proud that my friend is such a great man. However, you didn’t answer my question,’ he added, with a desperate effort to look straight into Oblonsky’s eyes.
‘Well, all right, all right. Wait a while, and you’ll come round to the same thing. It’s all right so long as you’ve got eight thousand acres in the Karazin district, and those muscles, and the freshness of a twelve–year–old girl – but you’ll join us some day. Yes, as for what you asked about: nothing’s changed, but it’s too bad you haven’t been there for so long.’
‘Why?’ Levin asked timorously.
‘No, nothing,’ Oblonsky replied. ‘We’ll talk. But why in fact did you come?’
‘Oh, we’ll talk about that later as well,’ Levin said, again blushing to the ears.
‘Well, all right. Understood,’ said Stepan Arkadyich. ‘You see, I’d invite you to our place, but my wife is not quite well. You know what: if you want to see them, they’ll certainly be in the Zoological Garden today from four to five. Kitty goes skating there. Go there yourself, and I’ll join you, and we’ll dine together somewhere.’
‘Excellent. See you later, then.’
‘Watch out, I know you, don’t forget or suddenly leave for the country!’ Stepan Arkadyich called out with a laugh.
‘Certainly not.’
And, remembering only at the door that he had forgotten to take leave of Oblonsky’s colleagues, Levin walked out of the office.
‘Must be a very energetic gentleman,’ said Grinevich, after Levin left.
‘Yes, old man,’ Stepan Arkadyich said, nodding, ‘there’s a lucky one! Eight thousand acres in the Karazin district, everything to look forward to, and so much freshness! Not like our sort.’
‘What do you have to complain about, Stepan Arkadyich?’
‘Oh, it’s bad, awful,’ Stepan Arkadyich said with a heavy sigh.
VI
When Oblonsky had asked Levin why in fact he had come, Levin had blushed and became angry with himself for blushing, because he could not answer: ‘I’ve come to propose to your sister–in–law,’ though he had come only for that.
The houses of Levin and Shcherbatsky were old noble Moscow houses and had always been in close and friendly relations with each other. This connection had strengthened still more during Levin’s student days. He had prepared for and entered the university together with the young prince Shcherbatsky, brother of Dolly and Kitty. In those days Levin had frequented the Shcherbatskys’ house and had fallen in love with the family. Strange as it might seem, Konstantin Levin was in love precisely with the house, the family, especially the female side of it. He did not remember his own mother, and his only sister was older than he, so that in the Shcherbatskys’ house he saw for the first time the milieu of an old, noble, educated and honourable family, of which he had been deprived by the death of his father and mother. All the members of this family, especially the female side, seemed to him covered by some mysterious poetic veil, and he not only saw no defects in them, but surmised, behind the cover of this poetic veil, the loftiest feelings and every possible perfection. Why these three young ladies had to speak French and English on alternate days; why at certain hours they took turns playing the piano, the sounds of which were heard in their brother’s rooms
upstairs, where the students worked; why all these teachers of French literature, music, drawing and dancing came there; why at certain hours all three young ladies, with Mlle Linon, went in a carriage to Tverskoy Boulevard in their fur–lined satin coats – Dolly in a long one, Natalie in a three–quarter one, and Kitty in a quite short one, so that her shapely legs in tight–fitting red stockings were in full view; why they had to stroll along Tverskoy Boulevard accompanied by a footman with a gold cockade on his hat – all this and much more that went on in their mysterious world he did not understand; but he knew that everything that went on there was beautiful, and he was in love precisely with the mysteriousness of it all.