Leo Tolstoy

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

  ‘I really don’t know. I know there are millions of children born without Moscow and doctors . .. why then …’

  ‘But if that’s …’

  ‘But no, it’s as Kitty wants.’

  ‘It’s impossible to discuss it with Kitty! Do you want me to frighten her? This spring Natalie Golitsyn died because of a bad doctor.’

  ‘I will do whatever you say,’ he said sullenly.

  The princess began telling him, but he was not listening to her. Though the conversation with the princess upset him, he became gloomy not because of that conversation, but because of what he saw by the samovar.

  ‘No, this is not possible,’ he thought, glancing again and again at Vasenka, who was leaning towards Kitty, talking to her with his handsome smile, and then at her, blushing and excited.

  There was something impure in Vasenka’s pose, in his glance, in his smile. Levin even saw something impure in Kitty’s pose and glance. And again everything went dark in his eyes. Again, as yesterday, suddenly, without the least transition, he felt himself thrown down from the height of happiness, peace, dignity, into an abyss of despair, anger and humiliation. Again everyone and everything became repulsive to him.

  ‘Do as you like, then, Princess,’ he said, turning round again.

  ‘Heavy is the hat of Monomakh!’[5] Stepan Arkadyich joked, obviously alluding not only to the conversation with the princess but to the cause of Levin’s agitation, which he had noticed. ‘How late you are today, Dolly!’

  Everyone rose to greet Darya Alexandrovna. Vasenka rose for a moment and, with that lack of courtesy peculiar to the new young men, bowed slightly and went on with his conversation, laughing at something.

  ‘Masha has worn me out. She slept poorly and has been very capricious all day,’ said Dolly.

  The conversation Vasenka had begun with Kitty was again on yesterday’s subject, on Anna and whether love can be above social conventions. Kitty found this conversation unpleasant. It upset her by its content and by the tone in which it was carried on, and especially by the effect she now knew it would have on her husband. But she was too simple and innocent to be able to stop the conversation or even to hide the external pleasure the young man’s obvious attention gave her. She wanted to stop it, but she did not know how. She knew that whatever she did would be noticed by her husband and interpreted in a bad sense. And indeed, when she asked Dolly what was the matter with Masha, and Vasenka, waiting for that discussion, which he found dull, to be over, began gazing indifferently at Dolly, the question seemed to Levin an unnatural, disgusting ruse.

  ‘What do you say, shall we go mushrooming today?’ asked Dolly.

  ‘Let’s go, please, and I’ll go, too,’ said Kitty, and blushed. She wanted, out of politeness, to ask Vasenka if he would go, but did not. ‘Where are you going, Kostya?’ she asked her husband, with a guilty look, as he walked past her with resolute strides. That guilty expression confirmed all his suspicions.

  ‘The mechanic came in my absence. I haven’t seen him yet,’ he said without looking at her.

  He went downstairs, but before he had time to leave his study, he heard the familiar steps of his wife, who was coming to him with incautious haste.

  ‘What is it?’ he said drily. ‘We’re busy.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ she turned to the German mechanic, T must say a few words to my husband.’

  The German was going to leave, but Levin said:

  ‘Don’t bother.’

  ‘The train’s at three?’ asked the German. T don’t want to be late.’

  Levin did not reply and stepped out of the room with his wife.

  ‘Well, what do you have to say to me?’ he said in French.

  He was not looking in her face and did not want to see that she, in her condition, stood with her face all trembling and looked pitiful and crushed.

  ‘I… I want to say that it’s impossible to live this way, that it’s torture …’ she said.

  ‘There are people in the pantry here,’ he said angrily, ‘kindly do not make a scene.’

  ‘Let’s go in here then!’

  They were standing in a passage. Kitty wanted to go into the next room, but the governess was giving Tanya a lesson there.

  ‘Then let’s go to the garden!’

  In the garden they came upon a muzhik who was weeding the path. And no longer considering that the muzhik might see her tear–stained and his troubled face, not considering that they had the look of people fleeing some disaster, they went on with quick steps, feeling that they had to say everything and reassure each other, to be alone together and rid themselves of the suffering they were both experiencing.

  ‘It’s impossible to live this way! It’s torture! I’m suffering, you’re suffering. Why?’ she said, when they finally reached a solitary bench at the corner of a linden alley.

  ‘But tell me yourself: was there something indecent, impure, humiliatingly terrible in his tone?’ he said, standing before her again, fists on his chest, in the same pose as the other night.

  ‘There was,’ she said in a trembling voice. ‘But don’t you see, Kostya, that it’s not my fault? All morning I wanted to set a certain tone, but these people… Why did he come? We were so happy!’ she said, choking with sobs that shook her whole filled–out body.

  The gardener saw with surprise that, though no one had chased them and there had been nothing to flee from, and though they could not have found anything especially joyful on that bench – they returned home past him with calmed, radiant faces.

  XV

  After taking his wife upstairs, Levin went to Dolly’s side of the house. Darya Alexandrovna, for her part, was very upset that day. She was pacing the room and saying angrily to the girl who stood in the corner howling:

  ‘And you’ll stand in the corner all day, and have dinner alone, and won’t see a single doll, and I won’t make you a new dress,’ she said, not knowing how else to punish her.

  ‘No, she’s a nasty little girl!’ She turned to Levin. ‘Where did she get these vile inclinations?’

  ‘But what did she do?’ Levin said rather indifferently. He had wanted to consult her about his own affairs and was therefore vexed that he had come at the wrong moment.

  ‘She and Grisha went into the raspberry bushes, and there … I can’t even tell you what she did there. Such nasty things. I’m a thousand times sorry Miss Elliot’s not here. This woman doesn’t look after anything, she’s a machine … Figurez–vous, que la petite . . .’*

  And Darya Alexandrovna related Masha’s crime.

  ‘That doesn’t prove anything. It’s not vile inclinations, it’s simply a prank,’ Levin comforted her.

  ‘But you’re upset about something? Why did you come?’ asked Dolly. ‘What’s going on there?’

  And in the tone of this question Levin heard that it would be easy for him to say what he meant to say.

  ‘I wasn’t there, I was alone in the garden with Kitty. It’s the second time we’ve quarrelled since … Stiva arrived.’

  Dolly looked at him with intelligent, understanding eyes.

  ‘Well, tell me, hand on heart, wasn’t there … not in Kitty, but in that gentleman, a tone that could be unpleasant – not unpleasant but terrible, insulting for a husband?’

  ‘That is, how shall I put it to you … Stay, stay in the corner,’ she said to Masha, who, seeing a barely noticeable smile on her mother’s lips, had begun to stir. ‘Society’s view would be that he’s behaving as all young men behave. Il fait la cour à une jeune et jolie femme,* and a worldly husband should be flattered by it.’

  * Imagine, the little girl . . .

  * He’s courting a young and pretty woman.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Levin said gloomily, ‘but you did notice?’

  ‘Not only I, but Stiva noticed. He told me just after tea: "Je crois que Veslovsky fait un petit brin de cour à Kitty." ’*

  ‘Well, splendid, now I’m at peace. I shall throw him out,’ said Levin.

>   ‘What, have you lost your mind?’ Dolly cried in horror. ‘No, Kostya, come to your senses!’ she said, laughing. ‘Well, you can go to Fanny now,’ she said to Masha. ‘No, if you want, I’ll tell Stiva. He’ll take him away. He can say you’re expecting guests. Generally, he doesn’t fit in with us.’

  ‘No, no, I’ll do it myself.’

  ‘But you’re going to quarrel?…’

  ‘Not at all. It will be great fun for me,’ said Levin, his eyes indeed sparkling merrily. ‘Well, forgive her, Dolly! She won’t do it again,’ he said, referring to the little criminal, who would not go to Fanny and stood hesitantly before her mother, looking expectantly from under her brows and seeking her eyes.

  The mother looked at her. The girl burst into sobs, buried her face in her mother’s lap, and Dolly placed her thin hand tenderly on her head.

  ‘And what do we and he have in common?’ thought Levin, and he went to look for Veslovsky.

  Passing through the front hall, he ordered the carriage harnessed to go to the station.

  ‘A spring broke yesterday,’ the footman replied.

  ‘The tarantass, then, but quickly. Where’s the guest?’

  ‘The gentleman has gone to his room.’

  Levin found Vasenka at a moment when, having taken his things from the suitcase and laid out the new song music, he was trying on his leggings for horseback riding.

  Either there was something special in Levin’s face, or Vasenka himself sensed that the petit brin de cour he had started was out of place in this family, but he was somewhat embarrassed (as much as a worldly man could be) by Levin’s entrance.

  ‘You wear leggings when you ride?’

  ‘Yes, it’s much cleaner,’ said Vasenka, putting his fat leg on a chair, fastening the lower hook, and smiling cheerfully and good–naturedly.

  He was undoubtedly a nice fellow, and Levin felt sorry for him and ashamed for himself, the master of the house, when he noticed the timidity in Vasenka’s eyes.

  * I believe Veslovsky’s courting Kitty a bit.

  On the table lay a piece of a stick they had broken that morning during gymnastics, when they had tried to raise the jammed bars. Levin took the piece in his hands and started breaking off the splintered end, not knowing how to begin.

  ‘I wanted …’ He fell silent, but suddenly, remembering Kitty and all that had taken place, he said, looking him resolutely in the eye: ‘I’ve ordered the horses to be harnessed for you.’

  ‘How’s that?’ Vasenka began in surprise. ‘To go where?’

  ‘You are going to the station,’ Levin said darkly, splintering the end of the stick.

  ‘Are you leaving, or has something happened?’

  ‘It happens that I am expecting guests,’ said Levin breaking off the splintered ends of the stick more and more quickly with his strong fingers. ‘No, I am not expecting guests, and nothing has happened, but I am asking you to leave. You may explain my discourtesy in any way you like.’

  Vasenka drew himself up.

  ‘I ask you to explain to me …’ he said with dignity, having understood at last.

  ‘I cannot explain to you,’ Levin spoke softly and slowly, trying to hide the quivering of his jaw. ‘And it is better that you not ask.’

  And as the splintered ends were all broken off, Levin took the thick ends in his fingers, snapped the stick in two and carefully caught one end as it fell.

  Probably it was the sight of those nervously tensed arms, those same muscles that he had felt that morning during the gymnastics, and the shining eyes, the soft voice and quivering jaw, that convinced Vasenka more than any words. He shrugged his shoulders and bowed with a contemptuous smile.

  ‘May I see Oblonsky?’

  The shrug of the shoulders and the smile did not annoy Levin. ‘What else can he do?’ he thought.

  ‘I’ll send him to you presently.’

  ‘What is this senselessness?’ said Stepan Arkadyich, on learning from his friend that he was being chased out of the house, and finding Levin in the garden, where he was strolling, waiting for his guest’s departure. ‘Mais c’est ridicule!* What fly has bitten you? Mais c’est du dernier

  * But this is ridiculous! ridicule!* What are you imagining to yourself, if a young man …’

  But the place where the fly had bitten Levin was evidently still sore, because he turned pale again when Stepan Arkadyich wanted to explain the reason and hastily interrupted him:

  ‘Please, don’t explain any reasons! I could not do otherwise! I am very ashamed before you and before him. But for him I don’t think it will be a great misfortune to leave, while for me and my wife his presence is disagreeable.’

  ‘But it’s insulting to him! Et puis c’est ridicule!’

  ‘And for me it’s both insulting and painful! And I’m not at fault in anything, and there’s no need for me to suffer!’

  ‘Well, I never expected this from you! On peut être jaloux, mais à ce point, c’est du dernier ridicule!’*

  Levin turned quickly, walked away from him into the depths of the alley and went on pacing back and forth alone. Soon he heard the clatter of the tarantass and through the trees saw Vasenka, sitting on some hay (as luck would have it there was no seat on the tarantass), in his Scotch cap, bobbing with the bumps as they rolled down the drive.

  ‘What’s this now?’ thought Levin, when a footman ran out of the house and stopped the tarantass. It was the mechanic, whom Levin had completely forgotten. The mechanic bowed and said something to Veslovsky; then he got into the tarantass and they drove off together.

  Stepan Arkadyich and the princess were indignant at Levin’s act. And he himself felt that he was not only ridicule in the highest degree, but also guilty and disgraced all round; but, recalling what he and his wife had suffered through, he asked himself how he would act another time and replied that he would do exactly the same thing.

  Despite all that, towards the end of the day everybody except the princess, who could not forgive Levin this act, became extremely animated and merry, like children after being punished or grown–ups after a difficult official reception, and that evening, in the princess’s absence, Vasenka’s banishment was talked about like a long–past event. And Dolly, who had inherited her father’s gift for comic storytelling, made Varenka roll with laughter when she told for the third or fourth time, always with new humorous additions, how she had been about to put on some new ribbons for the guest and come out to the drawing room,

  * But this is the height of ridiculousness!

  * One can be jealous, but to such an extent, it’s the height of ridiculousness! when she suddenly heard the noise of the old rattletrap. And who was in the old rattletrap but Vasenka himself, with his Scotch cap, and his romances, and his leggings, sitting on the hay.

  ‘You might at least have had the carriage harnessed! But no, and then I hear: "Wait!" Well, I think, they’ve taken pity on him. I look, and they put the fat German in with him and drive off … And my ribbons all went for naught! …’

  XVI

  Darya Alexandrovna carried out her intention and went to see Anna. She was very sorry to upset her sister and cause her husband unpleasantness; she understood how right the Levins were in not wishing to have any connections with Vronsky; but she considered it her duty to visit Anna and show her that her feelings could not change, despite the change in Anna’s situation.