by Anna Karenina (tr Richard Pevear, Larissa Volokhonsky) (Penguin Classics) (epub)
‘Yes, he’s got to be brave and agile, especially if they stop all of a sudden or somebody falls down.’
‘Yes, that’s no joke,’ said Stepan Arkadyich, sadly studying those animated eyes, his mother’s, no longer those of a child, no longer wholly innocent. And though he had promised Alexei Alexandrovich not to speak of Anna, he could not help himself.
‘Do you remember your mother?’ he asked suddenly.
‘No, I don’t,’ Seryozha said quickly and, turning bright red, looked down. And the uncle could get nowhere with him anymore.
The Slav tutor found his charge on the stairway half an hour later and for a long time could not tell whether he was angry or crying.
‘You must have fallen and hurt yourself?’ said the tutor. ‘I told you it’s a dangerous game. The director must be informed.’
‘Even if I did hurt myself, nobody would have noticed. That’s for certain.’
‘What’s wrong, then?’
‘Let me be! Remember, don’t remember… What business is it of his? Why should I remember? Leave me alone!’ he said, not to the tutor now, but to the whole world.
XX
Stepan Arkadyich, as always, did not idle away his time in Petersburg. In Petersburg, besides the business of his sister’s divorce and the post, he had, as always, to refresh himself, as he put it, after the stuffiness of Moscow.
Moscow, in spite of its cafes chantants and omnibuses, was, after all, a stagnant swamp. That Stepan Arkadyich had always felt. Living in Moscow, especially around his family, he felt he was losing his spirits. When he lived in Moscow for a long time without leaving, he reached the point of worrying about his wife’s bad moods and reproaches, his children’s health and education, the petty concerns of his service; he even worried about having debts. But he needed only to go and stay for a while in Petersburg, in the circle to which he belonged, where people lived – precisely lived, and did not vegetate as in Moscow – and immediately all these thoughts vanished and melted away like wax before the face of fire.[21]
Wife?… Only that day he had been talking with Prince Chechensky. Prince Chechensky had a wife and family – grown–up boys serving as pages – and there was another illegitimate family, in which there were also children. Though the first family was good as well, Prince Chechensky felt happier in the second family. And he had brought his eldest son into the second family, and kept telling Stepan Arkadyich that he found it useful for the boy’s development. What would they have said to that in Moscow?
Children? In Petersburg children did not hinder their father’s life. Children were brought up in institutions, and there existed nothing like that wild idea spreading about Moscow – as with Lvov, for instance –that children should get all the luxuries of life and parents nothing but toil and care. Here they understood that a man is obliged to live for himself, as an educated person ought to live.
Service? Here the service was also not that persistent, unrewarded drudgery that it was in Moscow; here there was interest in it. An encounter, a favour, an apt word, an ability to act out various jokes –and a man’s career was suddenly made, as with Briantsev, whom Stepan Arkadyich had met yesterday and who was now a leading dignitary. Such service had some interest in it.
But the Petersburg view of money matters had an especially soothing effect on Stepan Arkadyich. Bartniansky, who had run through at least fifty thousand, judging by his train,* had spoken a remarkable word to him about it yesterday.
In a conversation before dinner, Stepan Arkadyich had said to Bartniansky:
‘It seems to me that you’re close to Mordvinsky; you might do me a favour and kindly put in a word for me. There’s a post I’d like to get. Member of the Agency …’
‘Well, I won’t remember it anyway … Only who wants to get into all these railway affairs with the Jews? … As you wish, but all the same it’s vile!’
Stepan Arkadyich did not tell him that it was a living matter; Bartniansky would not have understood it.
‘I need money, I have nothing to live on.’
* Style of life.
‘You do live, though?’
‘I live, but in debt.’
‘Really? How deep?’ Bartniansky said with sympathy.
‘Very deep – about twenty thousand.’
Bartniansky burst into merry laughter.
‘Oh, lucky man!’ he said. ‘I owe a million and a half and have nothing, and, as you see, I can still live.’
And Stepan Arkadyich could see that it was true not only in words but in reality. Zhivakhov had debts of three hundred thousand and not a kopeck to his name, and yet he lived, and how! The requiem had long been sung for Count Krivtsov, yet he kept two women. Petrovsky ran through five million and lived the same as ever, and was even a financial director and received a salary of twenty thousand. But, besides that, Petersburg had a physically pleasant effect on Stepan Arkadyich. It made him younger. In Moscow he sometimes looked at his grey hair, fell asleep after dinner, stretched, climbed the stairs slowly, breathing heavily, became bored in the company of young women, did not dance at balls. In Petersburg he always felt he had shaken off ten years.
He experienced in Petersburg the same thing that he had been told only yesterday by the sixty–year–old prince Pyotr Oblonsky, just returned from abroad.
‘Here we don’t know how to live,’ Pyotr Oblonsky had said. ‘Would you believe, I spent the summer in Baden. Well, really, I felt myself quite a young man. I’d see a young woman, and thoughts … You dine, drink a little – strength, vigour. I came to Russia – had to see my wife, and also the estate – well, you wouldn’t believe it, two weeks later I got into my dressing gown, stopped changing for dinner. No more thinking about young lovelies! Turned into a real old man. Only thing left was saving my soul. Went to Paris – rallied again.’
Stepan Arkadyich felt exactly the same difference as Pyotr Oblonsky. In Moscow he went so much to seed that, in fact, if he lived there long enough, he would, for all he knew, reach the point of saving his soul; in Petersburg he felt himself a decent human being again.
Between Princess Betsy Tverskoy and Stepan Arkadyich there existed long–standing and quite strange relations. Stepan Arkadyich had always jokingly paid court to her and told her, also jokingly, the most indecent things, knowing that that was what she liked most. The day after his talk with Karenin, Stepan Arkadyich, calling on her, felt so young that he inadvertently went too far in this jocular courtship and bantering, and did not know how to get out of it, for, unfortunately, he not only did not like her but found her repulsive. They fell into this tone because she liked him very much. So that he was very glad of the arrival of Princess Miagky, which put a timely end to their tête–à–tête.
‘Ah, you’re here, too,’ she said when she saw him. ‘Well, how is your poor sister? Don’t look at me like that,’ she added. ‘Though everybody’s fallen upon her, when they’re all a thousand times worse than she is, I find that she acted very beautifully. I can’t forgive Vronsky for not letting me know when she was in Petersburg. I’d have called on her and gone everywhere with her. Please send her my love. Well, tell me about her.’
‘Yes, her situation is difficult, she …’ Stepan Arkadyich began, in the simplicity of his soul, taking her words at face value when Princess Miagky said, ‘Tell me about your sister.’ Princess Miagky interrupted him at once, as was her habit, and began talking herself.
‘She did no more than what everybody, except me, does but keeps hidden. She didn’t want to deceive and she did splendidly. And she did better still by abandoning that half–witted brother–in–law of yours. You must excuse me. Everybody kept saying he’s intelligent, he’s intelligent, and I alone said he was stupid. Now that he’s got himself associated with Lydia and Landau, everybody says he’s half–witted, and I’d be glad to disagree with them all, but this time I can’t.’
‘But explain to me, please,’ said Stepan Arkadyich, ‘what is the meaning of this? Yesterday I went to see him on my
sister’s business and asked for a decisive answer. He gave me no answer and said he would think, and this morning, instead of an answer, I received an invitation to come to Countess Lydia Ivanovna’s this evening.’
‘Well, so there!’ Princess Miagky said joyfully. ‘They’re going to ask Landau what he says.’
‘Landau? Why? What is Landau?’
‘You mean you don’t know Jules Landau, le fameux Jules Landau, le clairvoyant? He’s half–witted, too, but your sister’s fate depends on him. That’s what happens when you live in the provinces: you don’t know anything. You see, Landau was a commis* in a shop in Paris, and he went to the doctor. In the doctor’s office he fell asleep and in sleep started giving all the patients advice. Remarkable advice, too. Then Yuri Meledinsky’s wife – he’s ill, you know? – found out about this Landau and brought him to her husband. He’s been treating her husband. Hasn’t done him any good, in my opinion, because he’s still as paralysed as ever, but they believe in him and take him everywhere. And they brought him to Russia. Here everybody fell upon him and he started treating everybody. He cured Countess Bezzubov, and she likes him so much that she’s adopted him.’
‘Adopted him?’
‘Yes, adopted him. He’s no longer Landau, he’s Count Bezzubov. But that’s not the point, it’s that Lydia –I love her very much, but she’s off her head – naturally fell upon this Landau, and now neither she nor Alexei Alexandrovich can decide anything without him, and so your sister’s fate is now in the hands of this Landau, alias Count Bezzubov.’[22]
XXI
After an excellent dinner and a great quantity of cognac, drunk at Bartniansky’s, Stepan Arkadyich, only a little later than the appointed time, entered Countess Lydia Ivanovna’s house.
‘Who else is with the countess? The Frenchman?’ Stepan Arkadyich asked the hall porter, looking at the familiar overcoat of Alexei Alexandrovich and a strange, naive overcoat with clasps.
‘Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin and Count Bezzubov,’ the porter replied sternly.
‘Princess Miagky guessed right,’ thought Stepan Arkadyich, going up the stairs. ‘Strange! However, it would be nice to get friendly with her. She has enormous influence. If she’d put in a word for me with Pomorsky, it would be a sure thing.’
It was still broad daylight outside, but in Countess Lydia’s small drawing room the blinds were already drawn and the lamps lit.
At a round table under a lamp the countess and Alexei Alexandrovich sat talking about something in low voices. A short, lean man with womanish hips and knock–kneed legs, very pale, handsome, with beautiful, shining eyes and long hair falling over the collar of his frock coat, stood at the other end, studying the portraits on the wall. Having greeted the hostess and Alexei Alexandrovich, Stepan Arkadyich involuntarily looked again at the unknown man.
‘Monsieur Landau!’ The countess addressed the man with a softness and carefulness that struck Oblonsky. And she introduced them.
Landau hastily turned, approached and, smiling, placed his inert, sweaty hand into the extended hand of Stepan Arkadyich and immediately went back and began looking at the portraits. The countess and Alexei Alexandrovich exchanged meaningful looks.
‘I’m very glad to see you, especially today,’ said Countess Lydia Ivanovna, pointing Stepan Arkadyich to the place next to Karenin.
‘I introduced him to you as Landau,’ she said in a low voice, glancing at the Frenchman and then at once at Alexei Alexandrovich, ‘but in fact he is Count Bezzubov, as you probably know. Only he doesn’t like the title.’
‘Yes, I’ve heard,’ Stepan Arkadyich replied. ‘They say he cured Countess Bezzubov completely.’
‘She called on me today. She’s so pitiful!’ The countess turned to Alexei Alexandrovich. ‘This parting is terrible for her. Such a blow!’
‘And he’s definitely leaving?’ asked Alexei Alexandrovich.
‘Yes, he’s leaving for Paris. He heard a voice yesterday,’ said Countess Lydia Ivanovna, looking at Stepan Arkadyich.
‘Ah, a voice!’ Oblonsky repeated, feeling that he had to be as careful as possible in this company where something special had taken place, or was about to take place, to which he did not yet have the key.
A momentary silence followed, after which Countess Lydia Ivanovna, as if approaching the main subject of conversation, said to Oblonsky with a subtle smile:
‘I’ve known you for a long time and am very glad to get to know you more closely. Les amis de nos amis sont nos amis.* But to be someone’s friend, one has to penetrate the friend’s state of soul, and I’m afraid you have not done so with regard to Alexei Alexandrovich. You understand what I am talking about,’ she said, raising her beautiful, pensive eyes.
‘In part, Countess, I understand that Alexei Alexandrovich’s position …’ Oblonsky said, not understanding very well what the matter was and therefore wishing to speak in general.
‘The change is not in his external position,’ Countess Lydia Ivanovna said sternly, at the same time following Alexei Alexandrovich with amorous eyes as he got up and went over to Landau. ‘His heart has changed, a new heart has been given him, and I’m afraid you haven’t quite perceived the change that has taken place in him.’
* The friends of our friends are our friends.
‘That is, in general terms I can picture the change to myself. We’ve always been friends, and now…’ Stepan Arkadyich said, responding to the countess’s gaze with a tender gaze of his own and trying to make out which of the two ministers she was closer to, so as to know which one to ask her about.
‘The change that has taken place in him cannot weaken his feelings of love for his neighbours; on the contrary, the change that has taken place in him can only increase his love. But I’m afraid you don’t understand me. Would you like some tea?’ she said, indicating with her eyes the servant who was offering tea on a tray.
‘Not entirely, Countess. Of course, his misfortune …’
‘Yes, a misfortune that turned into the greatest good fortune, when his heart became new, fulfilled in Him,’ she said, gazing amorously at Stepan Arkadyich.
‘I think I could ask her to put in a word with both of them,’ thought Stepan Arkadyich.
‘Oh, of course, Countess,’ he said, ‘but I think these changes are so intimate that no one, not even the closest person, likes to speak of them.’
‘On the contrary! We must speak and help one another.’
‘Yes, no doubt, but there are such differences of conviction, and besides …’ Oblonsky said with a soft smile.
‘There can be no difference in matters of sacred truth.’
‘Ah, yes, of course, but…’ And, embarrassed, Stepan Arkadyich became silent. He realized that they had got on to religion.
‘I think he’s about to fall asleep,’ Alexei Alexandrovich said in a meaningful whisper, coming up to Lydia Ivanovna.
Stepan Arkadyich turned. Landau was sitting by the window, leaning on the back and armrest of his chair, his head bowed. Noticing the eyes directed at him, he raised his head and smiled a childishly naive smile.
‘Don’t pay any attention,’ said Lydia Ivanovna, and with a light movement she pushed a chair towards Alexei Alexandrovich. ‘I’ve noticed . ..’ she was beginning to say something when a footman came in with a letter. Lydia Ivanovna quickly scanned the note and, apologizing, wrote an extremely quick reply, handed it over and returned to the table. ‘I’ve noticed,’ she continued the conversation she had begun, ‘that Muscovites, the men especially, are quite indifferent to religion.’