Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910). Anna Karenin.
The Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction. 1917.
Chapter XIV
W
‘Oh, so it’s not time to die yet?’ said Stepan Arkadyevitch, pressing Levin’s hand with emotion
‘N-n-no!’ said Levin.
Darya Alexandrovna too, as she said good-bye to him, gave him a sort of congratulation, saying, ‘How glad I am you have met Kitty again! One must value old friends.’ Levin did not like these words of Darya Alexandrovna’s. She could not understand how lofty and beyond her it all was, and she ought not to have dared to allude to it. Levin said good-bye to them, but, not to be left alone, he attached himself to his brother.
‘Where are you going?’
‘I’m going to a meeting.’
‘Well, I’ll come with you. Can I?’
‘What for? Yes, come along,’ said Sergey Ivanovitch, smiling. ‘What is the matter with you to-day?’
‘With me? Happiness is the matter with me!’ said Levin, letting down the window of the carriage they were driving in. ‘You don’t mind?—it’s so stifling. It’s happiness is the matter with me! Why is it you have never married?’
Sergey Ivanovitch smiled.
“I am very glad, she seems a nice gi…’ Sergey Ivanovitch was beginning.
“Don’t say it! don’t say it!’ shouted Levin, clutching at the collar of his fur coat with both hands, and muffling him up in it. ‘She’s a nice girl’ were such simple, humble words, so out of harmony with his feeling.
Sergey Ivanovitch laughed outright a merry laugh, which was rare with him.
“Well, anyway, I may say that I’m very glad of it.’
“That you may do to-morrow, to-morrow and nothing more! Nothing, nothing, silence,’ said Levin, and muffling him once more in his fur coat, he added: ‘I do like you so! Well, is it possible for me to be present at the meeting?’
‘Of course it is.’
‘What is your discussion about to-day?’ asked Levin, never ceasing smiling.
They arrived at the meeting. Levin heard the secretary hesitatingly read the minutes which he obviously did not himself understand; but Levin saw from this secretary’s face what a good, nice, kind-hearted person he was. This was evident from his confusion and embarrassment in reading the minutes. Then the discussion began. They were disputing about the misappropriation of certain sums and the laying of certain pipes, and Sergey Ivanovitch was very cutting to two members, and said something at great length with an air of triumph; and another member, scribbling something on a bit of paper, began timidly at first, but afterwards answered him very viciously and delightfully. And them Sviazhsky (he was there too) said something too, very hamdsomely and nobly. Levin listened to them, and saw clearly that these missing sums and these pipes were not anything real, and that they were not at all angry, but were all the nicest, kindest people, and everything was as happy and charming as possible among them. They did no harm to any one, and were all enjoying it. What struck Levin was that he could see through them all to-day, and from little, almost imperceptible signs knew the soul of each, and saw distinctly that they were all good at heart. And Levin himself in particular they were all extremely fond of that day.
That was evident from the way they spoke to him, from the friendly, affectionate way even those he did not know looked at him.
‘Well, did you like it?’ Sergey Ivanovitch asked him.
‘Very much. I never supposed it was so interesting! Capital! Splendid!’
Sviazhsky went up to Levin and invited him to come round to tea with him. Levin was utterly at a loss to comprehend or recall what it was he had disliked in Sviazhsky, what he had failed to find in him. He was a clever and wonderfully good-hearted man.
‘Most delighted,’ he said, and asked after his wife and sister-in-law. And from a queer association of ideas, because in his imagination the idea of Sviazhsky’s sister-in-law was connected with marriage, it occurred to him that there was no one to whom he could more suitably speak of his happiness, and he was very glad to go and see them.
Sviazhsky questioned him about his improvements on his estate, presupposing, as he always did, that there was no possibility of doing anything not done already in Europe, and now this did not in the least annoy Levin. On the contrary, he felt that Sviazhsky was right, that the whole business was of little value, and he saw the wonderful softness and consideration with which Sviazhsky avoided fully expressing his correct view. The ladies of the Sviazhsky household were particularly delightful. It seemed to Levin that they knew all about it already and sympathised with him, saying nothing merely from delicacy. He stayed with them one hour, two, three, talking of all sorts of subjects but the one thing that filled his heart, and did not observe that he was boring them dreadfully, and that it was long past their bedtime.
Sviazhsky went with him into the hall, yawning and wondering at the strange humour his friend was in. It was past one o’clock. Levin went back to his hotel, and was dismayed at the thought that all alone now with his impatience he had ten hours still left to get through. The servant, whose turn it was to be up all night, lighted his candles, and would have gone away, but Levin stopped him. This servant, Yegor, whom Levin had noticed before, struck him as a very intelligent, excellent, and, above all, good-hearted man.
‘Well, Yegor, it’s hard work not sleeping, isn’t it?’
‘One’s got to put up with it! It’s part of our work, you see. In a gentleman’s house it’s easier; but then here one makes more.’
It appeared that Yegor had a family, three boys and a daughter, a sempstress, whom he wanted to marry to a cashier in a saddler’s shop.
Levin, on hearing this, informed Yegor that, in his opinion, in marriage the great thing was love, and that with love one would always be happy, for happiness rests only on oneself.
Yegor listened attentively, and obviously quite took in Levin’s idea, but by way of assent to it he enunciated, greatly to Levin’s surprise, the observation that when he had lived with good masters he had always been satisfied with his masters, and now was perfectly satisfied with his employer though he was a Frenchman.
‘Wonderfully good-hearted fellow!’ thought Levin.
‘Well, but you yourself, Yegor, when you got married, did you love your wife?’
‘Ay! and why not?’ responded Yegor.
And Levin saw that Yegor too was in an excited state and intending to express all his most heartfelt emotions.
‘My life, too, has been a wonderful one. From a child up…’ he was beginning with flashing eyes, apparently catching Levin’s enthusiasm, just as people catch yawning.
But at that moment a ring was heard. Yegor departed, and Levin was left alone. He had eaten scarcely anything at dinner, had refused tea and supper at Sviazhsky’s, but he was incapable of thinking of supper. He had not slept the previous night, but was incapable of thinking of sleep either. His room was cool, but he was oppressed by heat. He opened both the movable panes in his window and sat down to the table opposite the open panes. Over the snow-covered roofs could be seen a decorated cross with chains, and above it the rising triangle of Charles’s Wain with the yellowish light of Capella. He gazed at the cross, then at the stars, drank in the fresh freezing air that flowed evenly into the room, and followed as though in a dream the images and memories that rose in his imagination. At four o’clock he heard steps in the passage and peeped out at the door. It was the gambler Myaskin, whom he knew, coming from the club. He walked gloomily, frowning and coughing. ‘Poor, unlucky fellow!’ thought Levin, and tears came into his eyes from love and pity for this man. He would have talked with him, and tried to comfort him, but remembering that he had nothing but his shirt on, he changed his mind and sat down again at the open pane to bathe in the cold air and gaze at the exquisite lines of the cross, silent, but full of meaning for him, and the mounting lurid yellow star. At seven o’clock there was a noise of people polishing the floors, and bells ringing in some servants’ department, and Levin felt that he was beginning to get frozen. He closed the pane, washed, dressed, and went out into the street.