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SEVENTY-SEVEN

 

 

Chapter 9

 

 

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‘THE Oblonsky carriage!’ shouted the hall-porter in a stern bass. The carriage drove up and they got in. Only for the first few moments, while they were leaving the courtyard of the club, did Levin retain that sense of club calm, pleasure, and undoubted decorum in his surroundings; but as soon as the carriage had passed out into the street and he felt it jolting on the uneven road, heard the angry shouts of an izvoshchik they met, saw in the ill-lit street the red signboards of a vodka dealer and of a small shop, that sense was dissipated, and he began to consider his actions and to ask himself whether he was doing right in going to see Anna. ‘What would Kitty say?’ But Oblonsky would not let him reflect, and as if guessing his doubts tried to dispel them.

 

‘How glad I am that you will make her acquaintance,’ said he. ‘Do you know, Dolly has long wished it: and Lvov called on her and goes to see her. Though she is my sister,’ Oblonsky continued, ‘I may safely say that she is a remarkable woman. Well, you’ll see! Her position is a very trying one, especially just now.’

 

‘Why especially just now?’

 

‘We are negotiating with her husband about a divorce. He agrees; but there are difficulties about their son, and the affair, which should have been ended long ago, has already been dragging on for three months. As soon as she gets the divorce she will marry Vronsky. How stupid that old ceremony is, walking round and round singing, “Rejoice, Isaiah!” — a ceremony in which nobody believes and which stands in the way of people’s happiness!’ interpolated Oblonsky. ‘Well, and then their position will be as definite as mine or yours.’

 

‘What is the difficulty?’ asked Levin.

 

‘Oh, that is a long and tiresome story! Everything is so indefinite in this country. But the point is that she has been living for several weeks in Moscow, where everybody knows her and him, awaiting the divorce, without going out anywhere or seeing any women except Dolly, because, you understand, she does not want people to come and see her as a charity. Even that fool Princess Barbara has left her, considering it improper! Well, you see, any woman in her position might fail to find resources in herself. But she . . . you’ll see how she has arranged her life, how quiet and dignified she is! . . . To the left, in the side-street opposite the church!’ shouted Oblonsky, leaning out of the carriage window. ‘Faugh! How hot!’ he said, throwing his already unfastened overcoat still wider open in spite of 12 degrees of frost [-12° on the Réaumur scale then used in Russia = -15°C or 5°F].

 

‘But she has a child; I suppose she is occupied with her?’ said Levin.

 

‘I think you see in every woman only a female, une couveuse [a broody hen]! necessarily occupied with children if at all!’ said Oblonsky. ‘No! I believe Anna is bringing her up splendidly, but one does not hear about her. Her occupations are, firstly, writing. I can see you smiling sarcastically, but you are wrong! She is writing a children’s book and does not speak of it to anyone, but she read it to me and I showed the manuscript to Vorkuyev. . . . You know, the publisher . . . he writes himself, I think. He is an expert, and says it is a remarkable work. But you think she is a woman author? Not at all! She is first of all a woman with a heart, you’ll see! She now has a little English girl, and a whole family she is interested in.’

 

‘Why, is it a philanthropic undertaking?’

 

‘There you are! At once looking out for something bad! It’s not philanthropy, it’s kind-heartedness. They had — I mean, Vronsky had an English trainer, a master in his own line, but a drunkard. He took completely to drink, got delirium tremens, and has deserted his family. She saw them, helped them, and became interested in them, and now the whole family is on her hands and she doesn’t do it patronizingly, just with money, but she herself coaches the boys in Russian for the High School, and she has taken the girl into the house. But you’ll see her.’

 

The carriage drove into the courtyard, and Oblonsky rang loudly at the front door, before which a sledge was standing.

 

Without asking the porter who opened the door whether Anna was in, Oblonsky entered the hall. Levin followed, more and more in doubt as to whether he was acting well or badly.

 

Glancing in the mirror, Levin saw that he was red in the face, but he was sure he was not tipsy, and he followed Oblonsky up the carpeted stairs. On the top landing a footman bowed to Oblonsky as to some one he knew well, and Oblonsky, asking who was with Anna Arkadyevna, received the answer that it was Mr. Vorkuyev.

 

‘Where are they?’

 

‘In the study.’

 

Passing through a small dining-room, panelled in dark wood, Oblonsky and Levin entered the study across the soft carpet. It was lit by a lamp with a large dark shade. Another reflector-lamp fixed to the wall illuminated a large full-length portrait of a woman, which attracted Levin’s involuntary attention. It was Anna’s portrait painted in Italy by Mikhaylov. While Oblonsky passed behind a screen of trellis-work — and the man’s voice that had been speaking became silent — Levin looked at the portrait, which in the bright illumination seemed to step out of its frame, and he could not tear himself away from it. He forgot where he was, and without listening to what was being said gazed fixedly at the wonderful portrait. It was not a picture, but a living and charming woman with curly black hair, bare shoulders and arms, and a dreamy half-smile on lips covered with elegant down, looking at him victoriously and tenderly with eyes that troubled him. The only thing that showed she was not alive was that she was more beautiful than a living woman could be.

 

‘I am so glad,’ he heard a voice saying near by, evidently addressing him, the voice of the very woman whom he had admired in the portrait. Anna had come out from behind the screen to meet him, and Levin saw in the dim light of the study the woman of the portrait, in a dark dress of different shades of blue, not in the same attitude, not with the same expression, but on the same height of beauty as that on which the artist had caught her in the portrait. In reality she was less brilliant, but there was something about her new and attractive which was not in the portrait.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 10

 

 

 

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SHE had risen to greet him, not concealing her pleasure at seeing him.

 

The tranquillity with which she extended to him her energetic little hand, introduced him to Vorkuyev, and, indicating a pretty red-haired child who sat in the same room doing needlework, spoke of her as her ward, showed the manners (familiar and pleasant to Levin) of a woman of good society, always self-possessed and natural.

 

‘I am very, very pleased,’ she repeated, and from her lips these simple words seemed to Levin to possess a peculiar meaning. ‘I have known and liked you, both for your friendship to Stiva and for your wife’s sake. . . . I only knew her for a very short time, but she left on me the impression of a lovely flower . . . just a flower! And she will soon be a mother!’

 

She spoke easily and without haste, occasionally turning her eyes from Levin to her brother. Levin felt that the impression he was creating was a good one and immediately became at ease and as natural and comfortable with her as if he had known her from childhood.

 

‘We came into Alexis’s room to have a smoke,’ she said in reply to Oblonsky’s question whether he might smoke; and glancing at Levin, instead of asking him whether he smoked, she drew a tortoiseshell cigar-case nearer and took from it a straw cigarette.

 

‘How are you to-day?’ asked her brother.

 

‘Pretty well. Nerves as usual!’

 

‘Isn’t it wonderfully good?’ said Oblonsky, noticing that Levin kept looking at the portrait.

 

‘I have never seen a better portrait.’

 

‘And it’s a wonderful likeness, isn’t it?’ asked Vorkuyev.

 

Levin glanced from the portrait to the original. A special brightness lit up Anna’s face when she felt his eyes on her. Levin flushed, and to hide his confusion was about to ask her if it was long since she had seen Dolly, but at that instant Anna herself began to speak.

 

‘We were just talking with Ivan Petrovich [Vorkuyev] about Vashchenko’s last pictures. Have you seen them?’

 

‘Yes, I have,’ replied Levin.

 

‘But excuse me, I interrupted you? You were going to say . . .’

 

Levin asked whether she had seen Dolly lately.

 

‘She was here yesterday. She is very angry with the High School because of Grisha. The Latin master, it seems, has been unjust to him.’

 

‘Yes, I have seen the pictures and did not like them very much,’ Levin said, returning to the subject she had started.

 

Levin did not now speak at all in the matter-of-fact way in which he had talked that morning. Every word of his conversation with her assumed a special importance. It was pleasant to speak to her and yet more pleasant to listen to her.

 

Anna not only talked naturally and cleverly, but cleverly and carelessly, not attributing any value to her own ideas, but attributing great value to those of her interlocutor.

 

The conversation touched on the new direction taken by art and the new illustrations of the Bible by a French artist. Vorkuyev accused the artist of realism pushed to coarseness. Levin said the French had carried conventionality in art further than anyone else, and therefore attributed special merit to a return to realism. In the fact that they had left off lying they perceived poetry.

 

Never had any clever thought uttered by Levin given him so much satisfaction as this. Anna’s face brightened all over when she suddenly appreciated the remark. She laughed.

 

‘I am laughing as one laughs on seeing a very striking likeness! What you have said quite characterizes present-day French art, painting and even literature: Zola, Daudet. But perhaps it is always like that — they form their conceptions from imaginary conventional figures, and when they have made every possible combination of these, they tire of the conventional figures and begin to devise more natural and correct ones.’

 

‘Yes, that’s it exactly,’ said Vorkuyev.

 

‘So you have been to the club?’ she said, addressing her brother.

 

‘What a woman!’ thought Levin, and, quite forgetting himself he gazed fixedly at her beautiful mobile face, which had now suddenly quite changed. Levin did not hear what she was speaking about while she leaned toward her brother but was struck by the change in her expression. After being so lovely in its tranquillity, her face suddenly expressed a strange curiosity, anger, and pride. But this lasted only a moment. She screwed up her eyes, as if she were remembering something.

 

‘However, that won’t interest anyone,’ she said; and turning to the little English girl, she added in English, ‘Please order tea in the drawing-room.’

 

The child rose and went out.

 

‘Well, has she passed her examination?’ inquired Oblonsky.

 

‘Splendidly! She is a very capable girl, and has a sweet nature.’

 

‘You’ll finish by being fonder of her than of your own.’

 

‘How like a man! There is no more or less in love. I love my child with one kind of love and her with another.’

 

‘I was just saying to Anna Arkadyevna,’ remarked Vorkuyev, ‘that if she were to devote to the general business of educating Russian children a hundredth part of the energy she bestows on this English child, she would be doing a great and useful work.’

 

‘Yes, but, say what you like, I can’t do it. Count Alexis urged me very much.’ As she spoke the words ‘Count Alexis’ she turned a timidly petitioning glance toward Levin and he involuntarily replied with a respectful and confirmatory glance. ‘He urged me to take an interest in the village school. I went several times. They are very nice children, but I could not attach myself to the work. You mention energy. . . . Energy is based on love; and where is one to get the love? One can’t order it! I’ve become fond of this girl, you see, without knowing why.’

 

Again she glanced at Levin. And her smile and glance told him that she was speaking for him alone, valuing his opinion and knowing in advance that they would understand one another.

 

‘Yes, I quite understand,’ Levin replied. ‘It is impossible to put one’s heart into a school or an institution of that kind, and I think that is just why philanthropic establishments always give such poor results.’

 

After a pause she smiled and said, ‘Yes, yes, I never could do it. Je n’ai pas le cœur assez large [My heart is not big enough] to love a whole orphanage-full of unpleasant little girls. Cela ne m’a jamais réussi! [I never could succeed with that!] There are so many women who have created for themselves a social position in that way. And now especially,’ she went on with a sad, confiding expression, as though addressing her brother but evidently speaking to Levin, ‘now when I so need some occupation, I can’t do it!’ And with a sudden frown (Levin understood that she was frowning at herself for having spoken about herself) she changed the subject. ‘I have heard it said of you,’ said she to Levin, ‘that you are a bad citizen, and I have defended you as best I could.’

 

‘How did you defend me?’

 

‘That varied with the attacks. However, won’t you come and have some tea?’ She rose and took up a book bound in morocco leather.

 

‘Let me have it, Anna Arkadyevna,’ said Vorkuyev, pointing to the book. ‘It is well worth it.’

 

‘Oh no, it is so unfinished!’

 

‘I have told him about it,’ remarked Oblonsky to his sister, indicating Levin.

 

‘You should not have done so. My writings are something like those little baskets and carvings made in prisons, which Lisa Merkalova used to sell to me. She used to preside over the prison department of a Society,’ she added, turning to Levin. ‘And those unfortunate people achieved miracles of patience.’

 

And Levin perceived yet another feature in this woman whom he already liked so much. In addition to her intelligence, grace, and beauty, she also possessed sincerity. She did not wish to hide from him the hardships of her position. When she had finished speaking she sighed, and all at once her face assumed a stern expression and became rigid. With that expression her face seemed even more beautiful than before; but it was a novel look; it was outside the circle of expressions, radiating happiness and creating happiness, which the artist had caught when painting her portrait. Levin again looked at the portrait and at her figure as, arm-in-arm with her brother, she passed through the lofty doorway, and he felt a tenderness and pity for her which surprised him.

 

She asked Levin and Vorkuyev to pass on into the drawing-room, and herself remained behind to speak to her brother. ‘About the divorce? About Vronsky? About what he was doing at the club? About me?’ Levin wondered; and he was so excited about what she might be saying to Oblonsky that he hardly listened to what Vorkuyev was telling him about the merits of Anna’s story for children.

 

Over their tea they continued the same kind of pleasant and interesting talk. There was not a single moment when it was necessary to seek for a subject of conversation; on the contrary one felt that there was not time enough to say what one wanted to say, but willingly refrained in order to hear what she was saying. It seemed to Levin that all that was said, not only by her, but also by Vorkuyev and Oblonsky, assumed a special importance owing to her attention and remarks.

 

While following this interesting conversation Levin all the time continued to admire her: her beauty, her cleverness, her good education, together with her simplicity and sincerity. He listened and talked, and all the time thought of her, of her inner life, trying to guess her feelings. And he, who had formerly judged her so severely, now by some strange process of reasoning justified her and at the same time pitied her and feared that Vronsky did not fully understand her. Toward eleven, when Oblonsky rose to leave (Vorkuyev had already gone), Levin felt as if he had only just arrived. He got up regretfully.

 

‘Good-bye!’ she said, retaining his hand and gazing at him with a look that drew him to her. ‘I am very pleased que la glace est rompue [that the ice is broken].’ She let go his hand and screwed up her eyes.

 

‘Tell your wife that I am just as fond of her as ever, and that if she cannot forgive me my situation, I wish her never to forgive me. To forgive, she would have to live through what I have lived through, and may God preserve her from that!’

 

‘Certainly, yes, I will tell her . . .’ said Levin, blushing.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 11

 

 

 

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‘WHAT a wonderful, sweet, pathetic woman!’ he thought as he and Oblonsky went out into the frosty air.

 

‘Well? Didn’t I tell you?’ said Oblonsky, who saw that Levin had been entirely vanquished.

 

‘Yes,’ responded Levin pensively, ‘an extraordinary woman! Not on account of her intellect, but her wonderful sincerity. . . . I am dreadfully sorry for her.’

 

‘God willing, everything will now soon be settled! Well, another time, don’t judge in advance,’ said Oblonsky, opening the door of his carriage. ‘Good-bye! We are not going the same way.’

 

Without ceasing to think of Anna and of all the words — simple in the extreme — which they had interchanged, recalling every detail of the expressions of her face, entering more and more into her situation and feeling more and more sorry for her, Levin reached home.

 

At home he heard from Kuzma that Kitty was well and that her sisters had not long been gone, and he was given two letters. These he read in the ante-room, so as not to let them divert his attention later on. One was from his steward, Sokolov, who wrote that the wheat could not be sold, because only five-and-a-half roubles a chetvert was bid, and added that there was no other source from which to get money. The other letter was from his sister, who reproached him for not having settled her business yet.

 

‘Well, we’ll sell it at five-and-a-half, if they won’t give more.’ Levin promptly settled the first matter with great ease, though it had previously appeared to him so difficult. ‘It’s surprising how all one’s time gets taken up here,’ he thought with reference to the second letter. He felt himself to blame because he had not yet done what his sister asked of him. ‘To-day again I did not go to the Court, but to-day I really had no time.’ And resolving that he would attend to it next day without fail, he went to his wife. On his way he ran over in his mind the whole of the past day. All the events had consisted of conversations: conversations to which he had listened or in which he had taken part. All these conversations were about matters he would never have occupied himself with had he been in the country, but here they were very interesting. All of them had been good, and only two things were not quite pleasant. One was what he had said about the pike, and the other was that there was something not quite right about his tender pity for Anna.

 

Levin found his wife sad and depressed. The three sisters’ dinner-party would have gone off very well, except that he did not come in as they expected and they all became dull. Then the sisters left, and she remained alone.

 

‘Well, and what have you been doing?’ she asked, looking him in the eyes, which had a suspicious glitter in them. But, not to hinder his relating everything, she masked her observation and listened with an appreciative smile while he told her how he had spent the evening.

 

‘I was very pleased to meet Vronsky. I felt quite at ease and quite natural with him. You see, I shall now try to avoid meeting him again, but the constraint will no longer exist . . .’ said he, and remembering that whilst ‘trying to avoid meeting him again’ he had gone straight to Anna’s, he blushed. ‘There now! We say the people drink, but I don’t know who drinks most — the common people or our own class! The common people drink on holidays, but . . .’

 

But Kitty was not interested in the question of how the people drink; she had seen his blush and wanted to know the reason.

 

‘Well, and where did you go then?’

 

‘Stiva particularly begged me to call on Anna Arkadyevna.’

 

On saying this Levin blushed still more, and his doubts as to whether he had done right or wrong in going to see Anna were finally solved. He now knew that he should not have gone there.

 

Kitty’s eyes opened in a peculiar manner and flashed at the mention of Anna’s name, but making an effort she hid her agitation and so deceived him.

 

‘Ah!’ was all she said.

 

‘I am sure you won’t be angry with me for going. Stiva asked me to, and Dolly wished it,’ continued Levin.

 

‘Oh no!’ she said, but he saw by her eyes the effort she made to control herself and it boded him no good.

 

‘She is very charming, very, very much to be pitied, and a good woman,’ he said, telling her about Anna and her occupations and the message she had sent.

 

‘Yes, of course she is much to be pitied,’ said Kitty when he had finished. ‘From whom were your letters?’

 

He told her, and misled by her quiet manner went to undress.

 

When he returned he found Kitty still sitting in the chair where he had left her. When he drew near she looked at him and burst into sobs.

 

‘What is it? What is it?’ he asked, well aware what it was.

 

‘You have fallen in love with that horrid woman! She has bewitched you! I saw it in your eyes. Yes, yes! What can come of it? You were at the club drinking and drinking, and gambling, and then you went . . . to whom? No, let’s go away! . . . I will leave to-morrow!’

 

It was long before Levin could pacify his wife. At last he managed it, but only by acknowledging that a sense of pity, after the wine he had drunk, had misled him, that he had yielded to Anna’s artful influence, and he would avoid her in future. One thing that he sincerely confessed was that, living so long in Moscow with nothing but talk and food and drink, he was going silly. They talked till three in the morning, and only then were they sufficiently reconciled to fall asleep.