Leo Tolstoy

by Anna Karenina (tr Richard Pevear, Larissa Volokhonsky) (Penguin Classics) (epub)

  Levin recalled how, during Nikolai’s period of piety, fasts, monks, church services, when he had sought help from religion as a bridle for his passionate nature, not only had no one supported him, but everyone, including Levin himself, had laughed at him. They had teased him, calling him ‘Noah’ and ‘the monk’; and when he broke loose, no one helped him, but they all turned away with horror and loathing.

  Levin felt that in his soul, in the very bottom of his soul, his brother Nikolai, despite the ugliness of his life, was not more in the wrong than those who despised him. He was not to blame for having been born with an irrepressible character and a mind somehow constrained. But he had always wanted to be good. ‘I’ll tell him everything, I’ll make him tell everything, and I’ll show him that I love him and therefore understand him,’ Levin decided to himself as he drove up, past ten o’clock, to the hotel indicated as the address.

  ‘Upstairs, numbers twelve and thirteen,’ the doorman replied to Levin’s inquiry.

  ‘Is he at home?’

  ‘Must be.’

  The door of No. 12 was half open, and through it, in a strip of light, came thick smoke from bad and weak tobacco and the sound of an unfamiliar voice. But Levin knew at once that his brother was there; he heard his little cough.

  As he walked in, the unfamiliar voice was saying:

  « all depends on how reasonably and conscientiously the affair is conducted.’

  Konstantin Levin looked through the door and saw that the speaker was a young man with an enormous shock of hair, wearing a quilted jacket, and that a young, slightly pockmarked woman in a woollen dress without cuffs or collar[35] was sitting on the sofa. His brother could not be seen. Konstantin’s heart was painfully wrung at the thought of his brother living among such alien people. No one heard him, and Konstantin, taking off his galoshes, was listening to what the gentleman in the quilted jacket was saying. He spoke about some sort of enterprise.

  ‘Well, devil take the privileged classes,’ his brother’s voice spoke, coughing. ‘Masha! Get us something for supper and serve some wine, if there’s any left, or else send for some.’

  The woman got up, stepped out from behind the partition, and saw Konstantin.

  ‘Some gentleman’s here, Nikolai Dmitrich,[36] she said.

  ‘Who does he want?’ Nikolai Levin’s voice said crossly.

  ‘It’s me,’ replied Konstantin Levin, stepping into the light.

  ‘Me who?’ Nikolai’s voice repeated still more crossly. He could be heard quickly getting up, snagging on something, and then Levin saw before him in the doorway the figure of his brother, so familiar and yet so striking in its wildness and sickliness, huge, thin, stoop–shouldered, with big, frightened eyes.

  He was still thinner than three years ago when Konstantin Levin had last seen him. He was wearing a short frock coat. His arms and broad bones seemed still more huge. His hair had become thinner, the same straight moustache hung over his lips, the same eyes gazed strangely and naively at the man coming in.

  ‘Ah, Kostya!’ he said suddenly, recognizing his brother, and his eyes lit up with joy. But in the same second he glanced at the young man and made the convulsive movement with his head and neck that Konstantin knew so well, as if his tie were too tight on him; and a quite different, wild, suffering and cruel expression settled on his emaciated face.

  ‘I wrote to both you and Sergei Ivanych that I don’t know and don’t wish to know you. What do you, what do the two of you want?’

  He was quite different from the way Konstantin had imagined him. The most difficult and worst part of his character, that which made communication with him so hard, had been forgotten by Konstantin Levin when he thought about him; and now, when he saw his face, and especially that convulsive turning of the head, he remembered it all.

  ‘I don’t want anything from you,’ he replied timidly. ‘I simply came to see you.’ Nikolai was apparently softened by his brother’s timidity. He twitched

  his lips.

  ‘Ah, just like that?’ he said. ‘Well, come in, sit down. Want some supper? Masha, bring three portions. No, wait. Do you know who this is?’ he said to his brother, pointing to the gentleman in the sleeveless jacket. ‘This is Mr Kritsky, my friend from way back in Kiev, a very remarkable man. He’s being sought by the police, of course, because he’s not a scoundrel.’

  And he looked round, as was his habit, at everyone in the room. Seeing the woman standing in the doorway make a movement as if to go, he shouted to her: ‘Wait, I said.’ And with that clumsiness in conversation that Konstantin knew so well, he again looked around at everybody and began telling his brother Kritsky’s story: how he had been expelled from the university for starting Sunday school[37] and a society to aid poor students, how he had then become a teacher in a people’s school, how he had been expelled from there as well, and how later he had been taken to court for something.

  ‘You were at Kiev University?’ Konstantin Levin said to Kritsky, in order to break the awkward silence that ensued.

  ‘Yes, Kiev,’ Kritsky began crossly, scowling.

  ‘And this woman,’ Nikolai Levin interrupted him, pointing to her, ‘is my life’s companion, Marya Nikolaevna. I took her from a house’ – and his neck twitched as he said it. ‘But I love her and respect her, and I ask everyone who wants to know me,’ he added, raising his voice and frowning, ‘to love and respect her. She’s the same as my wife, the same. So there, you know who you’re dealing with. And if you think you’re lowering yourself, here’s your hat and there’s the door.’

  And again his eyes passed questioningly over them all.

  ‘Why should I be lowering myself? I don’t understand.’

  Then tell them to serve supper, Masha: three portions, some vodka and wine … No, wait… No, never mind … Go.’

  XXV

  ‘So you see,’ Nikolai Levin went on with effort, wrinkling his brow and twitching. It was obviously hard for him to think what to say and do. ‘You see …’ He pointed at some small iron bars tied with string in the corner of the room. ‘See that? That’s the beginning of a new business we’re undertaking. This business is a manufacturing association …’

  Konstantin was almost not listening. He peered into his brother’s sickly, consumptive face, felt more and more sorry for him, and was unable to make himself listen to what his brother was telling him about the association. He could see that this association was only an anchor saving him from despising himself. Nikolai Levin went on speaking:

  ‘You know that capital oppresses the worker – the workers in our country, the muzhiks, bear all the burden of labour, and their position is such that, however much they work, they can never get out of their brutish situation. All the profits earned by their work, with which they might improve their situation, give themselves some leisure and, consequently, education, all surplus earnings are taken from them by the capitalists. And society has developed so that the more they work, the more gain there will be for the merchants and landowners, and they will always remain working brutes. And this order must be changed,’ he concluded and looked inquiringly at his brother.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Konstantin, studying the red patches that had appeared below his brother’s prominent cheekbones.

  ‘And so we’re organizing a metal–working association, in which all production and profit and, above all, the tools of production, will be common property.’

  ‘Where will the association be located?’ asked Konstantin Levin.

  ‘In the village of Vozdryoma, Kazan province.’

  ‘Why in a village? I think there’s enough to do in the villages without that. Why have a metal–working association in a village?’

  ‘Because the muzhiks are just as much slaves now as they were before, and that’s why you and Sergei Ivanych don’t like it that we want to bring them out of this slavery,’ Nikolai Levin said, annoyed by the objection.

  Konstantin Levin sighed, at the same time looking around the dismal and d
irty room. This sigh seemed to annoy Nikolai still more.

  ‘I know the aristocratic views you and Sergei Ivanych have. I know Lat he employs all his mental powers to justify the existing evil.’

  ‘No why do you talk about Sergei Ivanych?’ said Levin, smiling.

  ‘Sergei Ivanych? Here’s why!’ Nikolai Levin cried out suddenly at the name of Sergei Ivanych. ‘Here’s why … But what’s there to talk about? Nothing but… Why did you come to see me? You despise all this, and that’s wonderful, so go, go with God!’ he shouted, getting up from his chair. ‘Go, go!’

  ‘I don’t despise it in the least,’ Konstantin Levin said timidly. ‘I’m not even arguing.’

  Just then Marya Nikolaevna came back. Nikolai Levin gave her an angry glance. She quickly went over to him and whispered something.

  ‘I’m not well, I’ve become irritable,’ Nikolai Levin said, calming down and breathing heavily, ‘and then you tell me about Sergei Ivanych and his article. It’s such nonsense, such lies, such self–deception. What can a man write about justice if he knows nothing of it? Have you read his article?’ he asked Kritsky, sitting down at the table again and pushing aside some half–filled cigarettes so as to clear a space.

  ‘No, I haven’t,’ Kritsky said glumly, obviously unwilling to enter the conversation.

  ‘Why not?’ Nikolai Levin now turned to Kritsky with irritation.

  ‘Because I don’t find it necessary to waste time on it.’

  ‘Excuse me, but how do you know you’d be wasting your time? The article is inaccessible to many – that is, it’s above them. But with me it’s a different matter, I can see through his thought, and I know why it’s weak.’

  Everyone fell silent. Kritsky slowly got up and took his hat.

  ‘You won’t have supper? Well, good–bye. Come tomorrow with a metal–worker.’

  As soon as Kritsky left, Nikolai Levin smiled and winked.

  ‘He’s also in a bad way,’ he said. ‘I do see …’

  But just then Kritsky called him from the door.

  ‘What does he want now?’ he said and went out to him in the corridor. Left alone with Marya Nikolaevna, Levin turned to her.

  Have you been with my brother long?’ he asked her.

  *t s the second year now. His health’s gone really bad. He drinks a ‘lot,’ she said.

  ‘Drinks, meaning what?’

  ‘He drinks vodka, and it’s bad for him.’

  Really a lot?’ Levin whispered.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, glancing timidly at the doorway, in which Nikolai Levin appeared.

  ‘What were you talking about?’ he said, frowning, his frightened eyes shifting from one to the other. ‘What was it?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Konstantin replied, embarrassed.

  ‘If you don’t want to say, then don’t. Only there’s no need for you to talk with her. She’s a slut and you’re a gentleman,’ he said, his neck twitching. ‘I see you’ve understood and appraised everything, and look upon my errors with regret,’ he began again, raising his voice.

  ‘Nikolai Dmitrich, Nikolai Dmitrich,’ Marya Nikolaevna whispered, going up to him.

  ‘Well, all right, all right! … And what about supper? Ah, here it is,’ he said, seeing a lackey with a tray. ‘Here, put it here,’ he said angrily, and at once took the vodka, poured a glass and drank it greedily. ‘Want a drink?’ he asked his brother, cheering up at once. ‘Well, enough about Sergei Ivanych. Anyhow, I’m glad to see you. Say what you like, we’re not strangers. Well, have a drink. Tell me, what are you up to?’ he went on, greedily chewing a piece of bread and pouring another glass. ‘How’s your life going?’

  ‘I live alone in the country, as I did before, busy with farming,’ Konstantin replied, looking with horror at the greediness with which his brother ate and drank, and trying not to let it show.

  ‘Why don’t you get married?’

  ‘Haven’t had a chance,’ Konstantin replied, blushing.

  ‘Why not? For me – it’s all over! I’ve spoiled my life. I’ve said and still say that if I’d been given my share when I needed it, my whole life would be different.’

  Konstantin Dmitrich hastened to redirect the conversation.

  ‘You know, your Vanyushka works in my office in Pokrovskoe?’ he said.

  Nikolai twitched his neck and fell to thinking.

  ‘So, tell me, how are things in Pokrovskoe? Is the house still standing, and the birches, and our schoolroom? And Filipp, the gardener, is he still alive? How I remember the gazebo and the bench! Watch out you don’t change anything in the house, but get married quickly and arrange it again just as it used to be. I’ll come to visit you then, if you have a nice wife.’

  ‘Come to visit me now,’ said Levin. ‘We’ll settle in so nicely!’

  ‘I’d come if I knew I wouldn’t find Sergei Ivanych there.’ ‘You won’t find him there. I live quite independently from him.’

  ‘Yes, but, say what you like, you’ve got to choose between me and him,’ he said, looking timidly into his brother’s eyes. This timidity touched Konstantin.

  ‘If you want my full confession in that regard, I’ll tell you that in your quarrel with Sergei Ivanych I don’t take either side. You’re both wrong. You are wrong more externally, and he more internally.’

  ‘Ah, ah! You’ve grasped that, you’ve grasped that?’ Nikolai cried joyfully.

  ‘But, if you wish to know, I personally value my friendship with you more, because . . . ’

  ‘Why, why?’

  Konstantin could not say that he valued it more because Nikolai was unhappy and in need of friendship. But Nikolai understood that he wanted to say precisely that and, frowning, resorted to his vodka again.

  ‘Enough, Nikolai Dmitrich!’ said Marya Nikolaevna, reaching out with her plump, bare arm for the decanter.

  ‘Let go! Don’t interfere! I’ll beat you!’ he cried.

  Marya Nikolaevna smiled her meek and kindly smile, which also infected Nikolai, and took away the vodka.

  ‘You think she doesn’t understand anything?’ Nikolai said. ‘She understands everything better than any of us. There’s something sweet and good in her, isn’t there?’

  ‘You’ve never been to Moscow before, miss?’ Konstantin said to her, so as to say something.