Anna Karenina / Анна Каренина
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As he approached her, his beautiful eyes shone with a specially tender light, and with a faint, happy, and modestly triumphant smile (so it seemed to Levin), bowing carefully and respectfully over her, he held out his small broad hand to her.
Greeting and saying a few words to everyone, he sat down without once glancing at Levin, who had never taken his eyes off him.
“Let me introduce you,” said the princess, indicating Levin. “Konstantin Dmitrievitch Levin, Count Alexey Kirillovitch Vronsky.”
Vronsky got up and, looking cordially at Levin, shook hands with him.
“I believe I was to have dined with you this winter,” he said, smiling his simple and open smile; “but you had unexpectedly left for the country.”
“Konstantin Dmitrievitch despises and hates town and us townspeople,” said Countess Nordston.
“My words must make a deep impression on you, since you remember them so well,” said Levin, and, suddenly conscious that he had said just the same thing before, he reddened.
Vronsky looked at Levin and Countess Nordston, and smiled.
“Are you always in the country?” he inquired. “I should think it must be dull in the winter.”
“It's not dull if one has work to do; besides, one's not dull by oneself,” Levin replied abruptly.
“I am fond of the country,” said Vronsky, noticing, and affecting not to notice, Levin's tone.
“But I hope, count, you would not consent to live in the country always,” said Countess Nordston.
“I don't know; I have never tried for long. I experienced a queer feeling once,” he went on. “I never longed so for the country, Russian country, with bast shoes and peasants, as when I was spending a winter with my mother in Nice. Nice itself is dull enough, you know. And indeed, Naples and Sorrento are only pleasant for a short time. And it's just there that Russia comes back to me most vividly, and especially the country. It's as though…”
He talked on, addressing both Kitty and Levin, turning his serene, friendly eyes from one to the other, and saying obviously just what came into his head.
Noticing that Countess Nordston wanted to say something, he stopped short without finishing what he had begun, and listened attentively to her.
The conversation did not flag for an instant, so that the princess, who always kept in reserve, in case a subject should be lacking, two heavy guns – the relative advantages of classical and of modern education, and universal military service – had not to move out either of them, while Countess Nordston had not a chance of chaffing Levin.
Levin wanted to, and could not, take part in the general conversation; saying to himself every instant, “Now go,” he still did not go, as though waiting for something.
The conversation fell upon table-turning and spirits, and Countess Nordston, who believed in spiritualism, began to describe the marvels she had seen.
“Ah, countess, you really must take me, for pity's sake do take me to see them! I have never seen anything extraordinary, though I am always on the lookout for it everywhere,” said Vronsky, smiling.
“Very well, next Saturday,” answered Countess Nordston. “But you, Konstantin Dmitrievitch, do you believe in it?” she asked Levin.
“Why do you ask me? You know what I shall say.”
“But I want to hear your opinion.”
“My opinion,” answered Levin, “is only that this table-turning simply proves that educated society – so called – is no higher than the peasants. They believe in the evil eye, and in witchcraft and omens, while we…”
“Oh, then you don't believe in it?”
“I can't believe in it, countess.”
“But if I've seen it myself?”
“The peasant women too tell us they have seen goblins.”
“Then you think I tell a lie?”
And she laughed a mirthless laugh.
“Oh, no, Masha, Konstantin Dmitrievitch said he could not believe in it,” said Kitty, blushing for Levin, and Levin saw this, and, still more exasperated, would have answered, but Vronsky with his bright frank smile rushed to the support of the conversation, which was threatening to become disagreeable.
“You do not admit the conceivability at all?” he queried. “But why not? We admit the existence of electricity, of which we know nothing. Why should there not be some new force, still unknown to us, which…”
“When electricity was discovered,” Levin interrupted hurriedly, “it was only the phenomenon that was discovered, and it was unknown from what it proceeded and what were its effects, and ages passed before its applications were conceived. But the spiritualists have begun with tables writing for them, and spirits appearing to them, and have only later started saying that it is an unknown force.”
Vronsky listened attentively to Levin, as he always did listen, obviously interested in his words.
“Yes, but the spiritualists say we don't know at present what this force is, but there is a force, and these are the conditions in which it acts. Let the scientific men find out what the force consists in. No, I don't see why there should not be a new force, if it…”
“Why, because with electricity,” Levin interrupted again, “every time you rub tar against wool, a recognized phenomenon is manifested, but in this case it does not happen every time, and so it follows it is not a natural phenomenon.”
Feeling probably that the conversation was taking a tone too serious for a drawing-room, Vronsky made no rejoinder, but by way of trying to change the conversation, he smiled brightly, and turned to the ladies.
“Do let us try at once, countess,” he said; but Levin would finish saying what he thought.
“I think,” he went on, “that this attempt of the spiritualists to explain their marvels as some sort of new natural force is most futile. They boldly talk of spiritual force, and then try to subject it to material experiment.”
Everyone was waiting for him to finish, and he felt it.
“And I think you would be a first-rate medium,” said Countess Nordston; “there's something enthusiastic in you.”
Levin opened his mouth, was about to say something, reddened, and said nothing.
“Do let us try table-turning at once, please,” said Vronsky. “Princess, will you allow it?”
And Vronsky stood up, looking for a little table.
Kitty got up to fetch a table, and as she passed, her eyes met Levin's. She felt for him with her whole heart, the more because she was pitying him for suffering of which she was herself the cause. “If you can forgive me, forgive me,” said her eyes, “I am so happy.”
“I hate them all, and you, and myself,” his eyes responded, and he took up his hat. But he was not destined to escape. Just as they were arranging themselves round the table, and Levin was on the point of retiring, the old prince came in, and after greeting the ladies, addressed Levin.
“Ah!” he began joyously. “Been here long, my boy? I didn't even know you were in town. Very glad to see you.” The old prince embraced Levin, and talking to him did not observe Vronsky, who had risen, and was serenely waiting till the prince should turn to him.
Kitty felt how distasteful her father's warmth was to Levin after what had happened. She saw, too, how coldly her father responded at last to Vronsky's bow, and how Vronsky looked with amiable perplexity at her father, as though trying and failing to understand how and why anyone could be hostilely disposed towards him, and she flushed.
“Prince, let us have Konstantin Dmitrievitch,” said Countess Nordston; “we want to try an experiment.”
“What experiment? Table-turning? Well, you must excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, but to my mind it is better fun to play the ring game,” said the old prince, looking at Vronsky, and guessing that it had been his suggestion. “There's some sense in that, anyway.”
Vronsky looked wonderingly at the prince with his resolute eyes, and, with a faint smile, began immediately talking to Countess Nordston of the great ball that was to come off next week.
“I hope you will be there?” he said to Kitty. As soon as the old prince turned away from him, Levin went out unnoticed, and the last impression he carried away with him of that evening was the smiling, happy face of Kitty answering Vronsky's inquiry about the ball.
Chapter XV
At the end of the evening Kitty told her mother of her conversation with Levin, and in spite of all the pity she felt for Levin, she was glad at the thought that she had received anoffer. She had no doubt that she had acted rightly. But after she had gone to bed, for a long while she could not sleep. One impression pursued her relentlessly. It was Levin's face, with his scowling brows, and his kind eyes looking out in dark dejection below them, as he stood listening to her father, and glancing at her and at Vronsky. And she felt so sorry for him that tears came into her eyes. But immediately she thought of the man for whom she had given him up. She vividly recalled his manly, resolute face, his noble self-possession, and the good nature conspicuous in everything towards everyone. She remembered the love for her of the man she loved, and once more all was gladness in her soul, and she lay on the pillow, smiling with happiness. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry; but what could I do? It's not my fault,” she said to herself; but an inner voice told her something else. Whether she felt remorse at having won Levin's love, or at having refused him, she did not know. But her happiness was poisoned by doubts. “Lord, have pity on us; Lord, have pity on us; Lord, have pity on us!” she repeated to herself, till she fell asleep.
Meanwhile there took place below, in the prince's little library, one of the scenes so often repeated between the parents on account of their favorite daughter.
“What? I'll tell you what!” shouted the prince, waving his arms, and at once wrapping his squirrel-lined dressing-gown round him again. “That you've no pride, no dignity; that you're disgracing, ruining your daughter by this vulgar, stupid matchmaking!”
“But, really, for mercy's sake, prince, what have I done?” said the princess, almost crying.
She, pleased and happy after her conversation with her daughter, had gone to the prince to say good-night as usual, and though she had no intention of telling him of Levin's offer and Kitty's refusal, still she hinted to her husband that she fancied things were practically settled with Vronsky, and that he would declare himself so soon as his mother arrived. And thereupon, at those words, the prince had all at once flown into a passion, and began to use unseemly language.
“What have you done? I'll tell you what. First of all, you're trying to catch an eligible gentleman, and all Moscow will be talking of it, and with good reason. If you have evening parties, invite everyone, don't pick out the possible suitors. Invite all the young bucks. Engage a piano player, and let them dance, and not as you do things nowadays, hunting up good matches. It makes me sick, sick to see it, and you've gone on till you've turned the poor wench's head. Levin's a thousand times the better man. As for this little Petersburg swell, they're turned out by machinery, all on one pattern, and all precious rubbish. But if he were a prince of the blood, my daughter need not run after anyone.”
“But what have I done?”
“Why, you've…” The prince was crying wrathfully.
“I know if one were to listen to you,” interrupted the princess, “we should never marry our daughter. If it's to be so, we'd better go into the country.”
“Well, and we had better.”
“But do wait a minute. Do I try and catch them? I don't try to catch them in the least. A young man, and a very nice one, has fallen in love with her, and she, I fancy…”
“Oh, yes, you fancy! And how if she really is in love, and he's no more thinking of marriage than I am!.. Oh, that I should live to see it! Ah! spiritualism! Ah! Nice! Ah! the ball!” And the prince, imagining that he was mimicking his wife, made a mincing curtsey at each word. “And this is how we're preparing wretchedness for Kitty; and she's really got the notion into her head…”
“But what makes you suppose so?”
“I don't suppose; I know. We have eyes for such things, though women-folk haven't. I see a man who has serious intentions, that's Levin: and I see a peacock, like this feather-head, who's only amusing himself.”
“Oh, well, when once you get an idea into your head!..”
“Well, you'll remember my words, but too late, just as with Dolly.”
“Well, well, we won't talk of it,” the princess stopped him, recollecting her unlucky Dolly.
“By all means, and good-night!”
And signing each other with the cross, the husband and wife parted with a kiss, feeling that they each remained of their own opinion.
The princess had at first been quite certain that that evening had settled Kitty's future, and that there could be no doubt of Vronsky's intentions, but her husband's words had disturbed her. And returning to her own room, in terror before the unknown future, she, too, like Kitty, repeated several times in her heart, “Lord, have pity; Lord, have pity; Lord, have pity.”
Chapter XVI
Vronsky had never had a real home life. His mother had been in her youth a brilliant society woman, who had had during her married life, and still more afterwards, many love affairs notorious in the whole fashionable world. His father he scarcely remembered, and he had been educated in the Corps of Pages.
Leaving the school very young as a brilliant officer, he had at once got into the circle of wealthy Petersburg army men. Although he did go more or less into Petersburg society, his love affairs had always hitherto been outside it.
In Moscow he had for the first time felt, after his luxurious and coarse life at Petersburg, all the charm of intimacy with a sweet and innocent girl of his own rank, who cared for him. It never even entered his head that there could be any harm in his relations with Kitty. At balls he danced principally with her. He was a constant visitor at their house. He talked to her as people commonly do talk in society – all sorts of nonsense, but nonsense to which he could not help attaching a special meaning in her case. Although he said nothing to her that he could not have said before everybody, he felt that she was becoming more and more dependent upon him, and the more he felt this, the better he liked it, and the tenderer was his feeling for her. He did not know that his mode of behavior in relation to Kitty had a definite character, that it is courting young girls with no intention of marriage, and that such courting is one of the evil actions common among brilliant young men such as he was. It seemed to him that he was the first who had discovered this pleasure, and he was enjoying his discovery.
If he could have heard what her parents were saying that evening, if he could have put himself at the point of view of the family and have heard that Kitty would be unhappy if he did not marry her, he would have been greatly astonished, and would not have believed it. He could not believe that what gave such great and delicate pleasure to him, and above all to her, could be wrong. Still less could he have believed that he ought to marry.
Marriage had never presented itself to him as a possibility. He not only disliked family life, but a family, and especially a husband was, in accordance with the views general in the bachelor world in which he lived, conceived as something alien, repellant, and, above all, ridiculous.
But though Vronsky had not the least suspicion what the parents were saying, he felt on coming away from the Shtcherbatskys' that the secret spiritual bond which existed between him and Kitty had grown so much stronger that evening that some step must be taken. But what step could and ought to be taken he could not imagine.
“What is so exquisite,” he thought, as he returned from the Shtcherbatskys', carrying away with him, as he always did, a delicious feeling of purity and freshness, arising partly from the fact that he had not been smoking for a whole evening, and with it a new feeling of tenderness at her love for him – “what is so exquisite is that not a word has been said by me or by her, but we understand each other so well in this unseen language of looks and tones, that this evening more clearly than ever she told me she loves me. And how secretly, simply, and most of all, how trustfully! I feel myself better, purer. I feel that I have a heart, and that there is a great deal of good in me. Those sweet, loving eyes! When she said: 'Indeed I do…'
“Well, what then? Oh, nothing. It's good for me, and good for her.” And he began wondering where to finish the evening.
He passed in review of the places he might go to. “Club? a game of bezique, champagne with Ignatov? No, I'm not going.Château des Fleurs; there I shall find Oblonsky, songs, the cancan. No, I'm sick of it. That's why I like the Shtcherbatskys', that I'm growing better. I'll go home.” He went straight to his room at Dussots' Hotel, ordered supper, and then undressed, and as soon as his head touched the pillow, fell into a sound sleep.
Chapter XVII
Next day at eleven o'clock in the morning Vronsky drove to the station of the Petersburg railway to meet his mother, and the first person he came across on the great flight of steps was Oblonsky, who was expecting his sister by the same train.
“Ah! your excellency!” cried Oblonsky, “whom are you meeting?”
“My mother,” Vronsky responded, smiling, as everyone did who met Oblonsky. He shook hands with him, and together they ascended the steps. “She is to be here from Petersburg today.”
“I was looking out for you till two o'clock last night. Where did you go after the Shtcherbatskys'?”
“Home,” answered Vronsky. “I must own I felt so well content yesterday after the Shtcherbatskys' that I didn't care to go anywhere.”
“I know a gallant steed by tokens sure,
And by his eyes I know a youth in love,”
declaimed Stepan Arkadyevitch, just as he had done before to Levin.
Vronsky smiled with a look that seemed to say that he did not deny it, but he promptly changed the subject.
“And whom are you meeting?” he asked.
“I? I've come to meet a pretty woman,” said Oblonsky.
“You don't say so!”
“Honi soit qui mal y pense! My sister Anna.”
“Ah! that's Madame Karenina,” said Vronsky.
“You know her, no doubt?”
“I think I do. Or perhaps not… I really am not sure,” Vronsky answered heedlessly, with a vague recollection of something stiff and tedious evoked by the name Karenina.
“But Alexey Alexandrovitch, my celebrated brother-in-law, you surely must know. All the world knows him.”
“I know him by reputation and by sight. I know that he's clever, learned, religious somewhat… But you know that's not…not in my line,” said Vronsky in English.
“Yes, he's a very remarkable man; rather a conservative, but a splendid man,” observed Stepan Arkadyevitch, “a splendid man.”
“Oh, well, so much the better for him,” said Vronsky smiling. “Oh, you've come,” he said, addressing a tall old footman of his mother's, standing at the door; “come here.”
Besides the charm Oblonsky had in general for everyone, Vronsky had felt of late specially drawn to him by the fact that in his imagination he was associated with Kitty.
“Well, what do you say? Shall we give a supper on Sunday for thediva?” he said to him with a smile, taking his arm.
“Of course. I'm collecting subscriptions. Oh, did you make the acquaintance of my friend Levin?” asked Stepan Arkadyevitch.
“Yes; but he left rather early.”
“He's a capital fellow,” pursued Oblonsky. “Isn't he?”
“I don't know why it is,” responded Vronsky, “in all Moscow people – present company of course excepted,” he put in jestingly, “there's something uncompromising. They are all on the defensive, lose their tempers, as though they all want to make one feel something…”
“Yes, that's true, it is so,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, laughing good-humoredly.
“Will the train soon be in?” Vronsky asked a railway official.
“The train's signaled,” answered the man.
The approach of the train was more and more evident by the preparatory bustle in the station, the rush of porters, the movement of policemen and attendants, and people meeting the train. Through the frosty vapor could be seen workmen in short sheepskins and soft felt boots crossing the rails of the curving line. The hiss of the boiler could be heard on the distant rails, and the rumble of something heavy.
“No,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, who felt a great inclination to tell Vronsky of Levin's intentions in regard to Kitty. “No, you've not got a true impression of Levin. He's a very nervous man, and is sometimes out of humor, it's true, but then he is often very nice. He's such a true, honest nature, and a heart of gold. But yesterday there were special reasons,” pursued Stepan Arkadyevitch, with a meaning smile, totally oblivious of the genuine sympathy he had felt the day before for his friend, and feeling the same sympathy now, only for Vronsky. “Yes, there were reasons why he could not help being either particularly happy or particularly unhappy.”
Vronsky stood still and asked directly: “How so? Do you mean he made yourbelle-sœur an offer yesterday?”
“Maybe,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch. “I fancied something of the sort yesterday. Yes, if he went away early, and was out of humor too, it must mean it… He's been so long in love, and I'm very sorry for him.”
“So that's it! I should imagine, though, she might reckon on a better match,” said Vronsky, drawing himself up and walking about again, “though I don't know him, of course,” he added. “Yes, that is a hateful position! That's why most fellows prefer to have to do with Klaras. If you don't succeed with them it only proves that you've not enough cash, but in this case one's dignity's at stake. But here's the train.”
The engine had already whistled in the distance. A few instants later the platform was quivering, and with puffs of steam hanging low in the air from the frost, the engine rolled up, with the lever of the middle wheel rhythmically moving up and down, and the stooping figure of the engine-driver covered with frost. Behind the tender, setting the platform more and more slowly swaying, came the luggage van with a dog whining in it. At last the passenger carriages rolled in, oscillating before coming to a standstill.
A smart guard jumped out, giving a whistle, and after him one by one the impatient passengers began to get down: an officer of the guards, holding himself erect, and looking severely about him; a nimble little merchant with a satchel, smiling gaily; a peasant with a sack over his shoulder.
Vronsky, standing beside Oblonsky, watched the carriages and the passengers, totally oblivious of his mother. What he had just heard about Kitty excited and delighted him. Unconsciously he arched his chest, and his eyes flashed. He felt himself a conqueror.
“Countess Vronskaya is in that compartment,” said the smart guard, going up to Vronsky.
The guard's words roused him, and forced him to think of his mother and his approaching meeting with her. He did not in his heart respect his mother, and without acknowledging it to himself, he did not love her, though in accordance with the ideas of the set in which he lived, and with his own education, he could not have conceived of any behavior to his mother not in the highest degree respectful and obedient, and the more externally obedient and respectful his behavior, the less in his heart he respected and loved her.
Chapter XVIII
Vronsky followed the guard to the carriage, and at the door of the compartment he stopped short to make room for a lady who was getting out.
With the insight of a man of the world, from one glance at this lady's appearance Vronsky classified her as belonging to the best society. He begged pardon, and was getting into the carriage, but felt he must glance at her once more; not that she was very beautiful, not on account of the elegance and modest grace which were apparent in her whole figure, but because in the expression of her charming face, as she passed close by him, there was something peculiarly caressing and soft. As he looked round, she too turned her head. Her shining gray eyes, that looked dark from the thick lashes, rested with friendly attention on his face, as though she were recognizing him, and then promptly turned away to the passing crowd, as though seeking someone. In that brief look Vronsky had time to notice the suppressed eagerness which played over her face, and flitted between the brilliant eyes and the faint smile that curved her red lips. It was as though her nature were so brimming over with something that against her will it showed itself now in the flash of her eyes, and now in her smile. Deliberately she shrouded the light in her eyes, but it shone against her will in the faintly perceptible smile.