Leo Tolstoy

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

  Finally in the third month a critical article appeared in a serious journal. Sergei Ivanovich knew the author of the article. He had met him once at Golubtsov’s.

  The author was a very young and sickly feuilletonist, quite pert as a writer, but with extremely little education and timid in his personal relations.

  Despite his complete contempt for the author, Sergei Ivanovich set about with complete respect to read the article. The article was terrible.

  The feuilletonist had obviously understood the whole book deliberately in a way in which it could not possibly be understood. But he had selected his quotations so cleverly that for those who had not read the book (and obviously almost no one had read it) it was completely clear that the whole book was nothing but a collection of highflown words, which were also used inappropriately (this was indicated by question marks), and that the author of the book was a completely ignorant man. And it was all so witty that Sergei Ivanovich would not have minded displaying such wit himself. That was the terrible thing.

  Despite the complete conscientiousness with which Sergei Ivanovich tested the correctness of the reviewer’s arguments, he did not linger for a moment over the shortcomings and mistakes that were being ridiculed – it was too obvious that it had all been selected on purpose – but at once began involuntarily to recall in the smallest detail his meeting and conversation with the author of the article.

  ‘Did I offend him in some way?’ Sergei Ivanovich asked himself.

  And remembering that, when they had met, he had corrected the young man in the use of a word that showed his ignorance, he found the explanation of the article’s meaning.

  After this article came a dead silence, both printed and oral, about the book, and Sergei Ivanovich saw that his work of six years, elaborated with such love and effort, had gone by without leaving a trace.

  His situation was the more difficult because, once he finished the book, he no longer had the intellectual work that formerly had taken up the greater part of his time.

  Sergei Ivanovich was intelligent, educated, healthy, energetic and did not know where to apply his energy. Conversations in drawing rooms, conferences, meetings, committees, wherever one could talk, took up part of his time; but as an inveterate city–dweller, he did not allow himself to be totally consumed by talking, as his inexperienced brother did when he was in Moscow; he was still left with considerable leisure and mental force.

  Fortunately for him, at this most trying time of his book’s failure, the questions of racial minorities, American friends, famine in Samara, the Exposition, and spiritism came to be replaced by the Slavic question,[2] previously only smouldering in society, and Sergei Ivanovich, one of those who had previously raised this question, gave himself wholly to it.

  In the milieu to which Sergei Ivanovich belonged, nothing else was talked or written about at that time but the Slavic question and the Serbian war. All that an idle crowd usually does to kill time was now done for the benefit of the Slavs. Balls, concerts, dinners, speeches, ladies’ dresses, beer, taverns – all bore witness to a sympathy with the Slavs.

  With much of what was said and written on this subject Sergei Ivanovich did not agree in detail. He saw that the Slavic question had become one of those fashionable fads which, supplanting one another, always serve as a subject of concern for society; he also saw that there were many people who concerned themselves with it for vain, self–interested purposes. He recognized that the newspapers printed a great many useless and exaggerated things with one aim – to draw attention to themselves and out–shout the rest. He saw that in this general upsurge of society the ones who leaped to the forefront and shouted louder than the rest were all the failures and the aggrieved: commanders–in–chief without armies, ministers without ministries, journalists without journals, party chiefs without partisans. He saw that much here was frivolous and ridiculous; but he also saw and recognized the unquestionable, ever growing enthusiasm which united all classes of society, with which one could not but sympathize. The slaughter of co–religionists and brother Slavs awakened sympathy for the sufferers and indignation against the oppressors. And the heroism of the Serbs and Montenegrins, fighting for a great cause, generated in the whole nation a desire to help their brothers not in word now but in deed.

  But with that came another phenomenon that made Sergei Ivanovich rejoice: this was the manifestation of public opinion. Society definitely expressed its wish. The nation’s soul was given expression, as Sergei Ivanovich liked to put it. And the more involved he became in it, the more obvious it seemed to him that this was a cause that would attain vast proportions, that would mark an epoch.

  He devoted himself completely to the service of this great cause and forgot all about his book.

  His time was now wholly taken up, so that he was even unable to respond to all the letters and requests addressed to him.

  Having spent the entire spring and part of the summer working, it was only in the month of July that he decided to go to his brother’s in the country.

  He was going for a two–week rest in the very holy of holies of the people, the depths of the country, there to revel in the sight of that upsurge of popular spirit of which he and all the inhabitants of the capital and other cities were fully convinced. Katavasov, who had long wanted to fulfil his promise to visit Levin, went with him.

  II

  Sergei Ivanovich and Katavasov had only just driven up to the Kursk railway station, particularly alive with people that day, climbed out of the carriage, and looked round for the footman who was coming after them with the luggage, when the volunteers[3] arrived in four hired cabs. Ladies with bouquets met them and, accompanied by the crowd that poured after them, they went into the station.

  One of the ladies who had met the volunteers addressed Sergei Ivanovich as she came out of the waiting room.

  ‘You’ve also come to see them off?’ she asked in French.

  ‘No, Princess, I’m travelling myself. For a rest at my brother’s. Do you always see them off ?’ Sergei Ivanovich said with a barely perceptible smile.

  ‘One couldn’t possibly!’ replied the princess. ‘Is it true that we’ve already sent eight hundred men? Malvinsky didn’t believe me.’

  ‘More than eight hundred. If we count those who weren’t sent directly from Moscow, it’s over a thousand,’ said Sergei Ivanovich.

  ‘Well, there. Just what I said!’ the lady agreed joyfully. ‘And it’s true that nearly a million has been donated now?’

  ‘More, Princess.’

  ‘And how about today’s telegram? The Turks have been beaten again.’ ‘Yes, I read it,’ replied Sergei Ivanovich. They were speaking of the latest telegram confirming that for three days in a row the Turks had been beaten at all points and had fled, and that the decisive battle was expected the following day.

  ‘Ah, yes, you know, there’s a certain young man, a wonderful one, who wants to volunteer. I don’t know why they made difficulties. I know him and wanted to ask you please to write a note. He’s been sent from Countess Lydia Ivanovna.’

  Having asked what details the princess knew about the volunteering young man, Sergei Ivanovich went to the first–class waiting room, wrote a note to the person on whom it depended, and gave it to the princess.

  ‘You know, Count Vronsky, the famous one… is going on this train,’ said the princess, with a triumphant and meaningful smile, when he found her again and handed her the note.

  ‘I heard he was going but didn’t know when. On this train, is it?’

  ‘I saw him. He’s here. His mother is the only one seeing him off. All in all, it’s the best thing he could do.’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course.’

  While they were talking, the crowd poured past them towards the dining table. They also moved there and heard the loud voice of one gentleman who, with a glass in his hand, delivered a speech to the volunteers. ‘Serve for the faith, for humanity, for our brothers,’ the gentleman spoke, constantly raising his vo
ice. ‘Mother Moscow blesses you for a great deed. Zhivio!’* he concluded loudly and tearfully.

  Everyone shouted ‘Zhivio!’ and another new crowd poured into the room, all but knocking the princess off her feet.

  ‘Ah, Princess! How about all this!’ said Stepan Arkadyich, who suddenly appeared in the midst of the crowd, beaming with a joyful smile. ‘He put it so nicely, so warmly, didn’t he? Bravo! And Sergei Ivanych! Why don’t you say something for your part – a few words, you know, an encouragement. You do it so well,’ he added with a gentle, respectful and cautious smile, pushing Sergei Ivanovich lightly by the arm.

  ‘No, I’m just leaving.’

  ‘Where for?’

  ‘The country, my brother’s place,’ replied Sergei Ivanovich.

  ‘You’ll see my wife, then. I’ve written to her, but you’ll see her before;

  * ‘Viva’ in Serbian.

  please tell her you’ve seen me and it’s all right. She’ll understand. Anyhow, be so good as to tell her that I’ve been appointed a member of the commission of the United … Well, she’ll understand! You know, les petites misères de la vie humaine,’* he turned to the princess, as if in apology. ‘And Princess Miagky, not Liza but Bibish, is really sending a thousand guns and twelve nurses. Did I tell you?’

  ‘Yes, I heard that,’ Koznyshev said reluctantly.

  ‘It’s a pity you’re leaving,’ said Stepan Arkadyich. ‘Tomorrow we’re giving a dinner for two departing friends – Diemer–Bartniansky from Petersburg, and our own Veselovsky, Grisha. They’re both going. Veselovsky got married recently. A fine fellow! Right, Princess?’ he turned to the lady.

  The princess, without replying, looked at Koznyshev. But the fact that both Sergei Ivanovich and the princess seemed to want to be rid of him did not embarrass Stepan Arkadyich in the least. Smiling, he looked now at the feather in the princess’s hat, now all around him, as if trying to remember something. Seeing a lady passing by with a cup, he called her over and put a five–rouble note into it.

  ‘I can’t look calmly at those cups as long as I’ve got money,’ he said. ‘And how do you like today’s dispatch? Fine fellows, the Montenegrins!’

  ‘You don’t say so!’ he exclaimed, when the princess told him that Vronsky was going on this train. For a moment Stepan Arkadyich’s face showed sadness; but a minute later, when, springing at each step and smoothing his side–whiskers, he went into the room where Vronsky was, Stepan Arkadyich had already quite forgotten his desperate sobs over his sister’s body and saw Vronsky only as a hero and an old friend.

  ‘With all his shortcomings it’s impossible not to do him justice,’ said the princess to Sergei Ivanovich, as soon as Oblonsky left them. ‘His is precisely a fully Russian, Slavic nature! Only I’m afraid Vronsky won’t find it pleasant to see him. Whatever you say, that man’s fate moves me. Talk to him on the way,’ said the princess.

  ‘Yes, maybe, if I have the chance.’

  ‘I never liked him. But this redeems a lot. He’s not only going himself, but he’s equipping a squadron at his own expense.’

  ‘Yes, I heard.’

  The bell rang. Everyone crowded towards the door.

  ‘There he is!’ said the princess, pointing to Vronsky, in a long coat

  * The little miseries of human life.

  and wide–brimmed black hat, walking arm in arm with his mother. Oblonsky was walking beside him, saying something animatedly.

  Vronsky, frowning, was looking straight ahead of him, as if not hearing what Stepan Arkadyich was saying.

  Probably at Oblonsky’s indication, he glanced over to where the princess and Sergei Ivanovich were standing and silently raised his hat. His face, aged and full of suffering, seemed made of stone.

  Going out on the platform, Vronsky silently let his mother pass and disappeared into the carriage.

  From the platform came ‘God Save the Tsar,’ then shouts of ‘Hurrah!’ and ‘Zhivio!’ One of the volunteers, a tall and very young man with a sunken chest, bowed especially conspicuously, waving a felt hat and a bouquet over his head. From behind him, also bowing, peeped two officers and an older man with a big beard and a greasy peaked cap.

  III

  Having taken leave of the princess, Sergei Ivanovich and Katavasov, who now rejoined him, got into the packed carriage together, and the train started.

  At the Tsaritsyn station[4] the train was met by a harmonious choir of young people singing ‘Glory Be’. Again the volunteers bowed and stuck their heads out the windows, but Sergei Ivanovich paid no attention to them; he had dealt with the volunteers so much that he knew their general type and it did not interest him. But Katavasov, busy with his learned occupations, had had no chance to observe the volunteers, was very interested in them and questioned Sergei Ivanovich about them.

  Sergei Ivanovich advised him to go to second class and talk with them himself. At the next station Katavasov followed that advice.

  At the first stop he went to second class and made the acquaintance of the volunteers. They were sitting apart in a corner of the carriage, talking loudly, obviously aware that the attention of the passengers and of the entering Katavasov was turned on them. The loudest talker of all was the young man with the sunken chest. He was obviously drunk and was recounting some episode that had happened at his school. Opposite him sat an officer, no longer young, wearing an Austrian military jacket from the uniform of the guards. He listened, smiling, to the narrator and kept interrupting him. The third, in an artillery uniform, sat on a suitcase next to them. The fourth was asleep.

  Getting into conversation with the young man, Katavasov learned that he was a wealthy Moscow merchant who had squandered a large fortune before he was twenty–two. Katavasov disliked him for being pampered, spoiled, and of weak health; he was obviously convinced, especially now, after drinking, that he was performing a heroic deed, and he boasted in a most disagreeable manner.

  The second, the retired officer, also made an unpleasant impression on Katavasov. One could see that this was a man who had tried everything. He had worked for the railway, and as a steward, and had started his own factory, and talked about it all using learned words needlessly and inappropriately.

  The third, the artilleryman, on the contrary, Katavasov liked very much. He was a modest, quiet man, who obviously admired the knowledge of the retired guardsman and the heroic self–sacrifice of the merchant and did not say anything about himself. When Katavasov asked him what had moved him to go to Serbia, he replied modestly:

  ‘Why, everybody’s going. We must help the Serbs. It’s a pity.’

  ‘Yes, they’re especially short of you artillerymen,’ said Katavasov.

  ‘I didn’t serve long in the artillery. Maybe they’ll send me to the infantry or the cavalry.’

  ‘Why the infantry when artillerymen are needed most of all?’ said Katavasov, calculating from the artilleryman’s age that he must be of significant rank.

  ‘I didn’t serve long in the artillery, I retired as a cadet,’ he said, and began to explain why he had not passed the examination.

  All this together made an unpleasant impression on Katavasov, and when the volunteers got out at the station to have a drink, he wanted to talk with someone and share his unfavourable impression. One passenger, a little old man in a military overcoat, had been listening all the while to his conversation with the volunteers. Left alone with him, Katavasov addressed him.

  ‘What a variety of situations among all the men going there,’ Katavasov said vaguely, wishing to voice his opinion and at the same time to find out what the old man’s opinion was.

  The old man was a soldier who had done two campaigns. He knew what it was to be a soldier, and from the look and talk of these gentlemen, from the dashing way they applied themselves to the flask as they went, he considered them poor soldiers. Besides, he lived in a provincial town and wanted to tell how a discharged soldier in his town had volunteered, a drunkard and a thief whom no one would even hire as a wo
rker. But knowing from experience that, in the present mood of society, it was dangerous to express an opinion contrary to the general one, and particularly to denounce the volunteers, he also searched out Katavasov.