Anna Karenina....................................................................................................................................................1

Leo Tolstoy..............................................................................................................................................1

Everything was in confusion in the Oblonskys' house. The wife had discovered that the husband was carrying

on an intrigue with a French girl, who had been a governess in their family, and she had announced to her

husband that she could not go on living in the same house with him. This position of affairs had now lasted

two days, and not only the husband and wife themselves, but all the members of their family and the

household, were painfully conscious of it. All the members of the family and the household felt that there was

no sense in their living together, and that even stray people brought together by chance in any inn had more in

common with one another than they, the members of the family and the household of the Oblonskys. The

wife did not leave her own apartments; the husband had not been home for two days. The children ran wild

all over the house; the English governess quarreled with the housekeeper, and wrote to a friend asking her to

look out for a new employ for her; the man cook had walked off the day before just at dinnertime; the

Two days after the quarrel, Prince Stepan Arkadyevich Oblonsky Stiva, as he was called in the fashionable

world woke up at his usual hour, that is, at eight o'clock in the morning, not in his wife's bedroom, but on

the leathercovered sofa in his study. He turned over his stout, wellcaredfor person on the springy sofa, as

though he would sink into a long sleep again; he vigorously embraced the pillow on its other side and buried

his face in it; but all at once he jumped up, sat up on the sofa, and opened his eyes.

"Yes, yes, how was it now?" he thought, going over his dream. "Yes, how was it? Yes! Alabin was giving a

dinner at Darmstadt; no, not Darmstadt, but something American. Yes, but then, Darmstadt was in America.

Yes, Alabin was giving a dinner on glass tables, and the tables sang, Il mio tesoro no, not Il mio tesoro, but

something better, and there were some sort of little decanters on the table, and, at the same time, these

Stepan Arkadyevich's eyes twinkled gaily, and he pondered with a smile. "Yes, it was jolly, very jolly. There

was a great deal more that was delightful, only there's no putting it into words, or even expressing it in one's

waking thoughts." And noticing a gleam of light peeping in beside one of the woolencloth curtains, he

cheerfully dropped his feet over the edge of the sofa and felt about with them for his slippers, a present on his

last birthday, worked for him by his wife on goldcolored morocco. And, as he used to do for the last nine

years, he stretched out his hand, without getting up, toward the place where his dressing gown always hung in

the bedroom. And thereupon he suddenly remembered that he was not sleeping in his wife's room, but in his

study, as well as the reason; the smile vanished from his face and he knit his brows.

"Ah, ah, ah! Oo!..." he muttered, recalling everything that had happened. And again every detail of his

quarrel with his wife was present to his imagination, all the hopelessness of his position, and, worst of all, his

"Yes, she won't forgive me, and she can't forgive me. And the most awful thing about it is that it's all my

fault all my fault, though I'm not to blame. That's the point of the whole tragedy," he reflected. "Oh, oh, oh!"

he kept repeating in despair, as he remembered the acutely painful sensations caused him by this quarrel.

Most unpleasant of all was the first minute when, on coming from the theater, goodhumored and

lighthearted, with a huge pear in his hand for his wife, he had not found his wife in the drawing room, to his

surprise, nor in the study, but saw her at last in her bedroom, clutching the unlucky letter that revealed

She, his Dolly, forever fussing and worrying over household details, and limited in her ideas, as he

considered, was sitting motionless with the letter in her hand, looking at him with an expression of horror,

And at this recollection, Stepan Arkadyevich, as is so often the case, was not so much annoyed at the fact

There happened to him at that instant that which happens to people when they are unexpectedly caught in

something very disgraceful. He did not succeed in adapting his face to the situation in which he was placed

toward his wife by the discovery of his fault. Instead of being hurt, denying, defending himself, begging

forgiveness; instead of remaining indifferent even anything would have been better than what he did do his

face utterly without his volition ("cerebral reflexes," mused Stepan Arkadyevich, who was fond of

This stupid smile he could not forgive himself. Catching sight of that smile Dolly shuddered as though from

physical pain, broke out with her characteristic heat into a flood of cruel words, and rushed out of the room.

"But what's to be done? What's to be done?" he kept saying to himself in despair and found no answer.

Stepan Arkadyevich was a truthful man in his relations with himself. He was incapable of selfdeception and

of persuading himself that he repented his conduct. He could not at this date repent the fact that he,

handsome, susceptible to love, a man of thirtyfour, was not in love with his wife, the mother of five living

and two dead children, and only a year younger than himself. All he repented was that he had not succeeded

better in hiding this from his wife. But he felt all the difficulty of his position and was sorry for his wife, his

children, and himself. Possibly he might have managed to conceal his sins better from his wife if he had

anticipated that the knowledge of them would have had such an effect upon her. He had never clearly

reflected on the subject, but he had vaguely conceived that his wife must long ago have suspected him of

being unfaithful to her, and had shut her eyes to the fact. He had even supposed that she, a wornout woman

no longer young or goodlooking, and in no way remarkable or uncommon merely a good mother ought

from a sense of fairness to take an indulgent view. It had turned out quite the other way.

"Oh, it's awful! Oh dear, oh dear! Awful!" Stepan Arkadyevich kept repeating to himself, and he could think

of nothing to be done. "And how well things were going up till now! How well we got on! She was contented

and happy in her children; I never interfered with her in anything; I let her manage the children and the house

just as she liked. True, it's bad her having been a governess in our house. That's bad! There's something

common, vulgar, in flirting with one's governess. But what a governess!" (He vividly recalled the roguish

black eyes of Mlle. Roland and her smile.) "But after all, while she was in the house, I kept myself in hand.

And the worst of it all is that she's already... It seems as if ill luck would have it so! Oh, oh! But what, what is

There was no solution, save that universal solution which life gives to all questions, even the most complex

and insolvable: One must live in the needs of the day that is, forget oneself. To forget himself in sleep was

impossible now, at least till nighttime; he could not go back now to the music sung by the decanter women;

"Then we shall see," Stepan Arkadyevich said to himself, and getting up he put on a gray dressing gown lined

with blue silk, tied the tassels in a knot, and, drawing a deep breath of air into his broad chest, he walked to

the window with his usual confident step, turning out his feet that carried his full frame so easily. He pulled

up the blind and rang the bell loudly. It was at once answered by the appearance of an old friend, his valet,

Matvei, carrying his clothes, his boots and a telegram. Matvei was followed by the barber with all the

"Are there any papers from the board?" asked Stepan Arkadyevich, taking the telegram and seating himself at

"On the table," replied Matvei, glancing with inquiring sympathy at his master; and, after a short pause, he

Stepan Arkadyevich made no reply, but merely glanced at Matvei in the looking glass. The glance, in which

their eyes met in the looking glass, made it clear that they understood one another. Stepan Arkadyevich's eyes

Matvei put his hands in his jacket pockets, thrust out one leg, and gazed silently, with a goodhumored, faint

"I told them to come on Sunday, and till then not to trouble you or themselves for nothing," he said. He had

Stepan Arkadyevich saw Matvei wanted to make a joke and attract attention to himself. Tearing open the

telegram, he read it through, guessing at the words, misspelled as they always are in telegrams, and his face

"Matvei, my sister Anna Arkadyevna will be here tomorrow," he said, checking for a minute the sleek, plump

"Thank God!" said Matvei, showing by this response that he, like his master, realized the significance of this

arrival: Anna Arkadyevna, the sister his master was so fond of, might bring about a reconciliation between

Stepan Arkadyevich could not answer, as the barber was at work on his upper lip, and he raised one finger.

"Yes, inform her. Here, take the telegram; give it to her, and then do what she tells you."

Stepan Arkadyevich was already washed and combed and ready to be dressed, when Matvei, stepping slowly

in his creaky boots, came back into the room with the telegram in his hand. The barber had gone.

"Darya Alexandrovna told me to inform you that she is going away. 'Let him' that is you 'do as he likes,'"

he said, laughing only with his eyes, and, putting his hands in his pockets, he watched his master with his

head on one side. Stepan Arkadyevich was silent a minute. Then a goodhumored and rather pitiful smile

"Do you think so? Who's there?" asked Stepan Arkadyevich, hearing the rustle of a woman's dress at the

"It's I," said a firm, pleasant feminine voice, and the stern, pockmarked face of Matriona Philimonovna, the

"Well, what's the matter, Matriosha?" queried Stepan Arkadyevich, meeting her in the doorway.

Although Stepan Arkadyevich was completely in the wrong as regards his wife, and was conscious of this

himself, almost everyone in the house (even the nurse, Darya Alexandrovna's chief ally) was on his side.

"Go to her, sir; own your fault again. Maybe God will aid you. She is suffering so, it's pitiful to see her; and

besides, everything in the house is topsyturvy. You must have pity, sir, on the children. Beg her forgiveness,

"Come, that'll do, you can go," said Stepan Arkadyevich, blushing suddenly. "Well, now, let's dress," he

Matvei was already holding up the shirt like a horse's collar, and, blowing off some invisible speck, he

When he was dressed, Stepan Arkadyevich sprinkled some scent on himself, pulled down his shirt cuffs,

distributed into his pockets his cigarettes, pocketbook, matches and watch, with its double chain and seals,

and, shaking out his handkerchief, feeling himself clean, fragrant, healthy and physically at ease, in spite of

his misfortune, he walked with a slight swing of each leg into the dining room, where coffee was already

waiting for him and, alongside of his cup, the letters and papers from the office.

He read the letters. One was very unpleasant, from a merchant who was buying a forest on his wife's

property. To sell this forest was absolutely essential; but at present, until he was reconciled with his wife, the

subject could not be discussed. The most unpleasant thing of all was that his pecuniary interests should in this

way enter into the question of his reconciliation with his wife. And the idea that he might be led on by his

interests, that he might seek a reconciliation with his wife on account of the sale of the forest that idea hurt

When he had finished his letters, Stepan Arkadyevich moved the office papers close to him, rapidly looked

through two cases, made a few notes with a big pencil, and, pushing away the papers, turned to his coffee.

Stepan Arkadyevich took in and read a liberal paper, not an extreme one, but one advocating the views held

by the majority. And in spite of the fact that science, art and politics had no special interest for him, he firmly

held those views on all these subjects which were held by the majority and by his paper, and he only changed

them when the majority changed them or, more strictly speaking, he did not change them, but they

Stepan Arkadyevich had not chosen his political opinions or his views these political opinions and views

had come to him of themselves just as he did not choose the shapes of his hat and coat, but simply accepted

those that were being worn. And for him, living in a certain society owing to the need, ordinarily developed

at years of discretion, for some degree of mental activity to have views was just as indispensable as to have

a hat. If there was a reason for his preferring liberal to conservative views, which were held also by many of

his circle, it arose not from his considering liberalism more rational, but from its being in closer accordance

with his manner of life. The liberal party said that in Russia everything was wrong, and indeed Stepan

Arkadyevich had many debts and was decidedly short of money. The liberal party said that marriage was an

institution quite out of date, and that it stood in need of reconstruction, and indeed family life afforded Stepan

Arkadyevich little gratification, and forced him into lying and hypocrisy, which were so repulsive to his

nature. The liberal party said, or rather allowed it to be understood, that religion was only a curb to keep in

check the barbarous classes of the people, and indeed Stepan Arkadyevich could not stand through even a

short service without his legs aching, and could never make out what was the object of all the terrible and

highflown language about another world when life might be so very amusing in this world. And with all this

Stepan Arkadyevich, who liked a merry joke, was fond of embarrassing some plain man by saying that if one

were to pride oneself on one's origin, one ought not to stop at Rurik and disown the founder of the line the

monkey. And so liberalism had become a habit of Stepan Arkadyevich, and he liked his newspaper, as he did

his cigar after dinner, for the slight fog it diffused in his brain. He read the leading article, which maintained

that it was quite senseless in our day to raise an outcry that radicalism was threatening to swallow up all

conservative elements, and that the government ought to take measures to crush the revolutionary hydra; that,

on the contrary, "in our opinion the danger lies not in that imaginary revolutionary hydra, but in the obstinacy

of traditionalism clogging progress," etc., etc. He read another article, too, a financial one, which alluded to

Bentham and Mill, and dropped some innuendoes reflecting on the ministry. With his characteristic

quickwittedness he caught the drift of each innuendo, divined whence it came, at whom and on what ground

it was aimed, and that afforded him, as it always did, a certain gratification. But today that gratification was

embittered by Matriona Philimonovna's advice and the unsatisfactory state of his household. He read, too,

that Count Beist was rumored to have left for Wiesbaden, and that one need have no more gray hair, and of

the sale of a light carriage, and of a young person seeking a situation; but these items of information did not

Having finished the paper, a second cup of coffee and a roll and butter, he got up, shaking the crumbs off his

waistcoat; and, squaring his broad chest, he smiled joyously; not because there was anything particularly

But this joyous smile at once recalled everything to him, and he grew thoughtful.

Two childish voices (Stepan Arkadyevich recognized the voices of Grisha, his youngest boy, and Tania, his

eldest girl) were heard outside the door. They were carrying something, and dropped it.

"I told you not to sit passengers on the roof," said the little girl in English; "there, pick them up!"

"Everything's in confusion," thought Stepan Arkadyevich; "there are the children running about by

themselves." And going to the door, he called them. They left off the box that represented a train, and came in

The little girl, her father's favorite, ran up boldly, embraced him and hung laughingly on his neck, enjoying as

she always did the wellknown smell of scent that came from his whiskers. At last the little girl kissed his

face, which was flushed from his stooping posture and beaming with tenderness, loosed her hands, and was

"How is mamma?" he asked, passing his hand over his daughter's smooth, soft little neck. "Good morning,"

He was conscious that he loved the boy less, and always tried to be fair; but the boy felt it, and did not smile

The little girl knew that there was a quarrel between her father and mother, and that her mother could not be

cheerful, and that her father must be aware of this, and that he was pretending when he asked about it so

lightly. And she blushed for her father. He at once perceived it, and blushed too.

"I don't know," she said. "She did not say we must do our lessons, but she said we were to go for a walk with

"Well, go, Tania, my darling. Oh, wait a minute, though," he said, still holding her and stroking her soft little

He took off the mantelpiece, where he had put it yesterday, a little box of sweets, and gave her two, picking

"Yes, yes." And still stroking her little shoulder, he kissed the nape of her neck, and let her go.

"The carriage is ready," said Matvei; "but there's someone to see you with a petition."

"One must let you drink your coffee in peace, at least," said Matvei, in the affectionately gruff tone with

The petitioner, the widow of a staff captain Kalinin, came with a request impossible and unreasonable; but

Stepan Arkadyevich, as he generally did, made her sit down, heard her to the end attentively without

interrupting her, and gave her detailed advice as to how and to whom to apply, and even wrote for her, easily

and clearly, in his large, sprawling calligraphic and legible hand, a little note to a personage who might be of

use to her. Having got rid of the staff captain's widow, Stepan Arkadyevich took his hat and stopped to

recollect whether he had forgotten anything. It appeared that he had forgotten nothing except what he wanted

"Ah, yes!" He bowed his head, and his handsome face assumed a melancholy expression. "To go, or not to

go?" he said to himself; and an inner voice told him he must not go, that nothing could come of it but falsity;

that to amend, to set right their relations was impossible, because it was impossible to make her attractive

again and able to inspire love, or to make him an old man, not susceptible to love. Except deceit and lying

"It must be some day, though: it can't go on like this," he said, trying to give himself courage. He set straight

his chest, took out a cigarette, lighted it, took two whiffs at it, flung it into a motherofpearl ash tray, and

with rapid steps walked through the drawing room and opened the other door into his wife's bedroom.

Darya Alexandrovna, in a dressing jacket, and with her now scanty hair (once luxuriant and beautiful)

fastened up with hairpins on the nape of her neck, with a sunken, thin face and large, startled eyes, which

looked prominent from the thinness of her face, was standing, among a litter of all sorts of things scattered all

over the room, before an open bureau, from which she was taking something. Hearing her husband's steps,

she stopped, looking toward the door, and trying in vain to give her features a severe and contemptuous

expression. She felt she was afraid of him, and afraid of the coming interview. She was just attempting to do

what she had attempted to do ten times already in these last three days to sort out the children's things and

her own, so as to take them to her mother's and again she could not bring herself to do this; but now again,

as each time before, she kept saying to herself, that things cannot go on like this, that she must undertake

something, punish him, put him to shame, avenge on him some little part at least of the suffering he had

caused her. She still continued to tell herself that she should leave him, but she was conscious that this was

impossible; it was impossible because she could not get out of the habit of regarding him as her husband and

of loving him. Besides this, she realized that if even here in her own house she could hardly manage to look

after her five children properly, they would be still worse off where she was going with all of them. As it was,

even in the course of these three days, the youngest was unwell from being given unwholesome soup, and the

others had almost gone without their dinner the day before. She was conscious that it was impossible to go

away; but, cheating herself, she went on all the same sorting out her things and pretending she was going.

Seeing her husband, she dropped her hands into the drawer of the bureau as though looking for something,

and only looked round at him when he had come quite up to her. But her face, to which she tried to give a

"Dolly!" he said in a subdued and timid voice. He had hunched up his shoulders and tried to look pitiful and

humble, but for all that he was radiant with freshness and health. In a rapid glance she scanned his figure,

beaming with freshness and health. "Yes, he is happy and content!" she thought; "while I... And that

disgusting good nature which everyone likes him for and praises I hate that good nature of his," she thought.

Her mouth stiffened, the muscles of the cheek trembled on the right side of her pale, nervous face.

"Go away, go away, go away!" she shrieked, without looking at him, as though this shriek were called up by

Stepan Arkadyevich could be calm when he thought of his wife, he could hope that everything would come

round, as Matvei expressed it, and had been able to go on reading his paper and drinking his coffee; but when

he saw her tortured, suffering face, heard the tone of her voice, submissive to fate and full of despair, his

breath was cut short and a lump came to this throat, and his eyes began to shine with tears.

"My God! What have I done? Dolly! For God's sake!... You know..." He could not go on; there was a sob in

"Dolly, what can I say?... One thing: forgive me... Remember, cannot nine years of our life atone for an

She dropped her eyes and listened, expecting what he would say, as if beseeching him in some way or other

"...instant of passion..." he said, and would have gone on, but at that word, as at a pang of physical pain, her

"Go away, go out of the room!" she shrieked still more shrilly, "and don't talk to me of your passions and

She tried to go out, but tottered, and clung to the back of a chair to support herself. His face relaxed, his lips

"Dolly!" he said, sobbing now. "For mercy's sake, think of the children; they are not to blame! I am to

blame punish me then, make me expiate my fault. Anything I can do, I am ready to do! I am to blame, no

She sat down. He listened to her hard, heavy breathing, and he was unutterably sorry for her. She made

"You remember the children, Stiva, to play with them; but I remember, and know that they go to ruin now,"

she said obviously one of the phrases she had more than once repeated to herself in the course of the last

She had called him "Stiva," and he glanced at her with gratitude and moved to take her hand, but she drew

"I remember the children, and for that reason I would do anything in the world to save them; but I don't

myself know the means. By taking them away from their father, or by leaving them with a vicious father

yes, a vicious father.... Tell me, after what... has happened, can we live together? Is that possible? Do tell

me is it possible?" she repeated, raising her voice. "After my husband, the father of my children, enters into

"But what's to be done? What's to be done?" he kept saying in a pitiful voice, not knowing what he was

"You are loathsome to me, repulsive!" she shrieked, getting more and more heated. "Your tears mean

nothing! You have never loved me; you have neither a heart nor a sense of honor! You are hateful to me,

disgusting, a stranger yes, a complete stranger!" With pain and wrath she uttered the word so terrible to

He looked at her, and the fury expressed in her face alarmed and amazed him. He did not understand that it

was his pity for her that exasperated her. She saw in him compassion for her, but not love. "No, she hates me.

At that moment in the next room a child began to cry; probably it had fallen down. Darya Alexandrovna

She seemed pulling herself together for a few seconds, as though she did not know where she was nor what

"Well, she loves my child," he thought, noticing the change of her face at the child's cry, "my child: how can

"If you follow me, I will call in the servants, and the children! Let them all know you are a scoundrel! I am

Stepan Arkadyevich sighed, mopped his face, and with a subdued tread walked out of the room. "Matvei says

everything will come round; but how? I don't see the least chance of it. Ah, ah, how horrible it is! And how

vulgarly she shouted," he said to himself, remembering her shrieks and the words "scoundrel" and

"mistress." "And very likely the maids were listening! Horribly vulgar, horribly." Stepan Arkadyevich stood a

few seconds alone, wiped his eyes, thrust out his chest and walked out of the room.

It was Friday, and in the dining room the watchmaker, a German, was winding up the clock. Stepan

Arkadyevich remembered his joke about this punctual, bald watchmaker, "that the German was wound up for

a whole lifetime himself, to wind up watches," and he smiled. Stepan Arkadyevich was fond of a nice joke.

"And maybe it will come round!" That's a good expression, 'come round,' he thought. "I must tell that."

"Matvei!" he shouted. "Arrange everything with Marya in the sitting room for Anna Arkadyevna," he said to

"It all depends. But here's for the housekeeping," he said, taking ten roubles from his pocketbook. "Will it be

"Enough or not enough, we must make it do," said Matvei, slamming the carriage door and going back to the

Darya Alexandrovna meanwhile having pacified the child, and knowing from the sound of the carriage that

he had gone off, went back to her bedroom. It was her only refuge from the household cares which crowded

upon her directly she went out from it. Even now, in the short time she had been in the nursery, the English

governess and Matriona Philimonovna had succeeded in putting several questions to her, which did not admit

of delay, and which only she could answer: "What were the children to put on for their walk? Should they

"Ah, let me alone, let me alone!" she said, and going back to her bedroom she sat down in the same place she

had occupied when talking to her husband, clasping tightly her thin hands, her rings slipping down on her

bony fingers, and fell to going over her recollections of the entire interview. "He has gone! But what has he

finally arrived at with her?" she thought. "Can it be he sees her? Why didn't I ask him! No, no, reconciliation

is impossible. Even if we remain in the same house, we are strangers strangers forever!" She repeated again

with special significance the word so dreadful to her. "And how I loved him! my God, how I loved him!...

How I loved him! And now don't I love him? Don't I love him more than before? The most horrible thing is,"

she began, but did not finish her thought, because Matriona Philimonovna put her head in at the door.

"Let us send for my brother," she said; "he can get a dinner anyway, or we shall have the children getting

"Very well, I will come directly and see about it. But did you send for some new milk?"

And Darya Alexandrovna plunged into the duties of the day, and drowned her grief in them for a time.

Stepan Arkadyevich had learned easily at school, thanks to his excellent abilities, but he had been idle and

mischievous, and therefore was one of the lowest in his class. But in spite of his habitually dissipated mode

of life, his inferior grade in the service, and his comparative youth, he occupied the honorable and lucrative

position of president of one of the government boards at Moscow. This post he had received through his sister

Anna's husband, Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin, who held one of the most important positions in the ministry

to which the Moscow office belonged. But if Karenin had not got his brotherinlaw this berth, then through

a hundred other personages brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles and aunts Stiva Oblonsky would have

received this post or some other like it, together with the salary of six thousand absolutely needful for him, as

his affairs, in spite of his wife's considerable property, were in a poor state.

Half Moscow and Peterburg were friends and relations of Stepan Arkadyevich. He was born in the midst of

those who had been, and had become, the powerful ones of this world. Onethird of the men in the

government, the older men, had been friends of his father's, and had known him in pinafores; another third

were his intimate chums, and the remainder were friendly acquaintances. Consequently the distributors of

earthly blessings in the shape of posts, rents, concessions and such, were all his friends, and could not

overlook one of their own set; and Oblonsky had no need to make any special exertion to get a lucrative post.

He had only not to refuse things, not to show jealousy, not to be quarrelsome or take offense, all of which

from his characteristic good nature he never did. It would have struck him as absurd if he had been told that

he would not get a position with the salary he required, especially as he expected nothing out of the way; he

only wanted what the men of his own age and standing did get, and he was no worse qualified for performing

Stepan Arkadyevich was not merely liked by all who knew him for his good humor, his bright disposition

and his unquestionable honesty; in him, in his handsome, radiant figure, his sparkling eyes, black hair and

eyebrows, and his white and pink complexion, there was something which produced a physical effect of

kindliness and good humor on the people who met him. "Aha! Stiva! Oblonsky! The man himself!" was

almost always said with a smile of delight on meeting him. Even though it happened at times that after a

conversation with him it seemed that nothing particularly delightful had happened, the next day, and the next,

After filling for two years the post of president of one of the government boards at Moscow, Stepan

Arkadyevich had won the respect, as well as the liking, of his fellow officials, subordinates and superiors, and

all who had had business with him. The principal qualities in Stepan Arkadyevich which had gained him this

universal respect in the service consisted, in the first place, of his extreme indulgence for others, founded on a

consciousness of his own shortcomings; secondly, of his perfect liberalism not the liberalism he read of in

the papers, but the liberalism that was in his blood, in virtue of which he treated all men perfectly equally and

exactly the same, whatever their fortune or rank might be; and thirdly the most important point of his

complete indifference to the business in which he was engaged, in consequence of which he was never

On reaching the offices of the board Stepan Arkadyevich, escorted by a deferential porter with a portfolio,

went into his little private room, put on his uniform, and went into the board room. The clerks and officials

all rose, greeting him with goodhumored deference. Stepan Arkadyevich moved quickly, as always, to his

place, shook hands with the members of the board, and sat down. He made a joke or two, and talked just as

much as was consistent with due decorum, and began work. No one knew better than Stepan Arkadyevich

how to hit on that exact limit of freedom, simplicity and official stiffness which is necessary for the agreeable

conduct of business. A secretary, with the goodhumored deference common to everyone in Stepan

Arkadyevich's office, came up with papers, and began to speak in the familiar and easy tone which had been

"We have succeeded in getting the information from the government department of Penza. Here, would you

"You've got it at last?" said Stepan Arkadyevich, laying his finger on the paper. "Now, gentlemen..."

"If they but knew," he thought, inclining his head with an important air and listening to the report, "what a

guilty little boy their president was half an hour ago!" And his eyes were laughing during the reading of the

report. Till two o'clock the sitting would go on without a break then there would be an interval and

It was not yet two, when the large glass doors of the board room suddenly opened and someone came in.

All the members of the board, sitting at the table, from below the portrait of the Czar and from behind the

mirror of justice, delighted at any distraction, looked round at the door; but the doorkeeper standing there at

When the case had been read through, Stepan Arkadyevich got up and stretched, and by way of tribute to the

liberalism of the times took out a cigarette, being in the board room, and went into his private room. Two of

his board fellows, the old veteran in the service, Nikitin, and the Kammerjunker Grinevich, went in with him.

"A pretty sharp fellow this Fomin must be," said Grinevich of one of the persons taking part in the case they

Stepan Arkadyevich frowned at Grinevich's words, giving him thereby to understand that it was improper to

"Some fellow, your excellency, sneaked in without permission directly my back was turned. He was asking

"Maybe he's gone into the passage, he was strolling here till now. That's he," said the doorkeeper, pointing to

a strongly built, broad shouldered man with a curly beard, who, without taking off his sheepskin cap, was

running lightly and rapidly up the worn steps of the stone staircase. One of the officials going down a lean

fellow with a portfolio stood out of his way, looked disapprovingly at the legs of the running man, and then

Stepan Arkadyevich was standing at the top of the stairs. His goodnaturedly beaming face above the

embroidered collar of his uniform beamed more than ever when he recognized the man coming up.

"Why, it's actually you, Levin, at last!" he said with a friendly mocking smile, gazing on the approaching

man. "How is it you have deigned to look me up in this den?" said Stepan Arkadyevich and, not content with

"I have just come, and very much wanted to see you," said Levin, looking about him shyly, and, at the same

"Well, let's go into my room," said Stepan Arkadyevich, who knew his friend's sensitive and irritable shyness,

Stepan Arkadyevich was on familiar terms with almost all his acquaintances, and called almost all of them by

their Christian names: old men of sixty, boys of twenty, actors, ministers, merchants and adjutant generals, so

that many of his intimate chums were to be found at the extreme ends of the social ladder, and would have

been very much surprised to learn that they had, through the medium of Oblonsky, something in common. He

was the familiar friend of everyone with whom he took a glass of champagne, and he took a glass of

champagne with everyone, and when in consequence he met any of his disreputable chums, as he used in joke

to call many of his friends, in the presence of his subordinates, he well knew how, with his characteristic tact,

to diminish any possible disagreeable impression. Levin was not a disreputable chum, but Oblonsky, with his

ready tact, felt that Levin fancied Oblonsky might not care to show his intimacy with him before

subordinates, and so Stepan Arkadyevich made haste to take him off into his room.

Levin was almost of the same age as Oblonsky; their intimacy did not rest merely on champagne. Levin had

been the friend and companion of his early youth. They were fond of one another in spite of the difference of

their characters and tastes, as friends are fond of one another who have been together in early youth. But in

spite of this, each of them as is often the way with men who have selected careers of different kinds

though in discussion he would even justify the other's career, in his heart despised it. It seemed to each of

them that the life he led himself was the only real life, and the life led by his friend was a mere phantasm.

Oblonsky could not restrain a slight mocking smile at the sight of Levin. How often he had seen him come up

to Moscow from the country where he was doing something, but what precisely Stepan Arkadyevich could

never quite make out, and indeed took no interest in the matter. Levin arrived in Moscow always excited and

in a hurry, rather ill at ease and irritated by his own want of ease, and for the most part with a perfectly new,

unexpected view of things. Stepan Arkadyevich laughed at this, and liked it. In the same way Levin in his

heart despised the town mode of life of his friend, and his official duties, which he laughed at and regarded as

trifling. But the difference was that Oblonsky, since he was doing the same as everyone did, laughed

assuredly and goodhumoredly, while Levin laughed without assuredness and sometimes angrily.

"We have long been expecting you," said Stepan Arkadyevich, going into his room and letting Levin's hand

go as though to show that here all danger was over. "I am very, very glad to see you," he went on. "Well,

Levin was silent, looking at the unfamiliar faces of Oblonsky's two companions, and especially at the elegant

Grinevich's hands with such long white fingers, such long yellow nails, curved at their end, and such huge

shining studs on the shirt cuff, that apparently these hands absorbed all his attention, and allowed him no

"Ah, to be sure, let me introduce you," he said. "My colleagues: Philip Ivanich Nikitin, Mikhail Stanislavich

Grinevich" and turning to Levin "a Zemstvo member, a modern Zemstvo man, a gymnast who lifts five

poods with one hand, a cattle breeder and sportsman, and my friend Constantin Dmitrievich Levin, the

"I have the honor of knowing your brother, Sergei Ivanovich," said Grinevich, holding out his slender hand

Levin frowned, shook hands coldly, and at once turned to Oblonsky. Though he had a great respect for his

halfbrother, an author well known to all Russia, he could not endure it when people treated him not as

"No, I am no longer a Zemstvo man. I have quarreled with them all, and don't go to the sessions any more,"

"It's a long story. I will tell you some time," said Levin but began telling him at once. "Well, to put it

shortly, I was convinced that nothing was really done by the Zemstvo councils, or ever could be," he began,

as though someone had just insulted him. "On one side it's a plaything; they play at being a parliament, and

I'm neither young enough nor old enough to find amusement in playthings; and on the other side" (he

stammered) "it's a means for the coterie of the district to feather their nests. Formerly they did this through

wardships and courts of justice, now they do it through the Zemstvo instead of taking the bribes, they take

the unearned salary," he said, as hotly as though one of those present had opposed his opinion.

"Aha! You're in a new phase again, I see a conservative," said Stepan Arkadyevich. "However, we can go

"Yes, later. But I had to see you," said Levin, looking with hatred at Grinevich's hand.

"But you used to say you'd never wear European dress again," he said, gazing on Levin's new suit, obviously

Levin suddenly blushed, not as grown men blush, slightly, without being themselves aware of it, but as boys

blush, feeling that they are ridiculous through their shyness, and consequently ashamed of it, and blushing

still more, almost to the point of tears. And it was so strange to see this sensible, manly face in such a childish

"Oh, where shall we meet? You know I want very much to talk to you," said Levin.

"I'll tell you what: let's go to Gurin's to lunch, and there we can talk. I am free till three."

"No," answered Levin, after an instant's thought, "I have another visit to make."

"Dine together? But I have nothing very particular just a word or two, a question; then a little chatting."

"Well, let's have your word or two right now and we'll talk it over in the course of the dinner."

His face suddenly assumed an expression of anger from the effort he was making to surmount his shyness.

Stepan Arkadyevich, who had long known that Levin was in love with his sisterinlaw, Kitty, gave a hardly

"You've said your word or two, but I can't answer in a few words, because... Excuse me for just a minute...."

A secretary came in, with respectful familiarity and the modest consciousness, characteristic of every

secretary, of superiority to his chief in the knowledge of affairs; he went up to Oblonsky with some papers,

and began, under pretense of asking a question, to explain some objection. Stepan Arkadyevich, without

"No, you do as I told you," he said, smoothing his remark with a smile, and with a brief explanation of his

view of the matter he moved away the papers, and said: "So do it that way, if you please, Zakhar Nikitich."

The secretary retired in confusion. During the consultation with the secretary Levin had completely recovered

from his embarrassment. He was standing with elbows on the back of a chair, and on his face was a look of

"What don't you understand?" said Oblonsky, smiling just as cheerfully, and picking up a cigarette. He

"I don't understand what you are doing," said Levin, shrugging his shoulders. "How can you be serious about

"Perhaps so," said Levin. "But all the same I admire your grandeur, and am proud to have such a great person

as a friend. You've not answered my question, though," he went on, with a desperate effort looking Oblonsky

"Oh, that's all very well. You wait a bit, and you'll come to this yourself. It's very nice for you to have three

thousand dessiatinas in the Karazinsky district, and such muscles, and the freshness of a girl of twelve; still

you'll be one of us one day. Yes, as to your question, there is no change, but it's a pity you've been away so

"Oh, nothing," responded Oblonsky. "We'll talk it over. But what's brought you up to town?"

"Oh, we'll talk about that, too, later on," said Levin, reddening again up to his ears.

"All right. I see," said Stepan Arkadyevich. "I should ask you to come to us, you know, but my wife's not

quite well. But I'll tell you what: if you want to see them, they're sure now to be at the Zoological Gardens

from four to five. Kitty skates. You drive along there, and I'll come and fetch you, and we'll go and dine

"Now mind, you'll forget I know you! or rush off home to the country!" Stepan Arkadyevich called out

And Levin went out of the room, recalling only when he was in the doorway that he had forgotten to take

"That gentleman must be a man of great energy," said Grinevich, when Levin had gone away.

"Yes, my dear sir," said Stepan Arkadyevich, nodding his head, "he's a lucky fellow! Three thousand

dessiatinas in the Karazinsky district; everything before him; and what youth and vigor! Not like some of us."

"Why, it goes hard with me, very bad," said Stepan Arkadyevich with a heavy sigh.

When Oblonsky asked Levin what had brought him to town, Levin blushed, and was furious with himself for

blushing, because he could not answer: "I have come to make your sisterinlaw a proposal," though that

The families of the Levins and the Shcherbatskys were old, noble Moscow families, and had always been on

intimate and friendly terms. This intimacy had grown still closer during Levin's student days. He had both

prepared for the university with the young Prince Shcherbatsky, the brother of Kitty and Dolly, and had

entered at the same time with him. In those days Levin was a frequent visitor at the house of the

Shcherbatskys, and he was in love with the Shcherbatsky household. Strange as it may appear, it was with the

household, the family that Constantin Levin was in love, especially with the feminine half of the household.

Levin did not remember his own mother, and his only sister was older than he was, so that it was in the

Shcherbatskys' house that he saw for the first time that inner life of an old, noble, cultured and honorable

family of which he had been deprived by the death of his father and mother. All the members of that family,

especially the feminine half, were pictured by him, as it were, wrapped about with a mysterious poetical veil,

and he not only perceived no defects whatever in them, but, under the poetical veil that shrouded them, he

assumed the existence of the loftiest sentiments and every possible perfection. Why it was the three young

ladies had one day to speak French, and the next English; why it was that at certain hours they played by

turns on the piano, the sounds of which were audible in their brother's room above, where the students used to

work; why they were visited by those professors of French literature, of music, of drawing, of dancing; why

at certain hours all the three young ladies, with Mademoiselle Linon, drove in the coach to the Tverskoy

boulevard, dressed in their satin cloaks, Dolly in a long one, Natalie in a halflong one, and Kitty in one so

short that her shapely legs in tightlydrawn red stockings were visible to all beholders; why it was they had

to walk about the Tverskoy boulevard escorted by a footman with a gold cockade in his hat all this and

much more that was done in their mysterious world he did not understand, but he was sure that everything

that was done there was very good, and he was in love precisely with the mystery of the proceedings.

In his student days he had all but been in love with the eldest, Dolly, but she was soon married to Oblonsky.

Then he began being in love with the second. He felt, as it were, that he had to be in love with one of the

sisters, only he could not quite make out which. But Natalie, too, had hardly made her appearance in the

world when she married the diplomat Lvov. Kitty was still a child when Levin left the university. Young

Shcherbatsky went into the navy, was drowned in the Baltic and Levin's visits to the Shcherbatskys, despite

his friendship with Oblonsky, became less frequent. But when early in the winter of this year Levin came to

Moscow, after a year in the country, and saw the Shcherbatskys, he realized which of the three sisters he was

One would have thought that nothing could be simpler than for him, a man of good family, rather rich than

poor, and thirtytwo years old, to make the young Princess Shcherbatskaia an offer of marriage; in all

likelihood he would at once have been looked upon as a good match. But Levin was in love, and so it seemed

to him that Kitty was so perfect in every respect, a creature so far above everything earthly, while he was a

creature so low and so earthly that it could not even be conceived that other people and she herself could

After spending two months in Moscow in a state of befuddlement, seeing Kitty almost every day in society,

into which he went so as to meet her, he abruptly decided that it could not be, and went back to the country.

Levin's conviction that it could not be was founded on the idea that in the eyes of her family he was a

disadvantageous and worthless match for the charming Kitty, and that Kitty herself could not love him. In her

family's eyes he had no ordinary, definite career and position in society, while his comrades by this time,

when he was thirtytwo, were already one a colonel, and another a professor, another director of a bank and

railways, or chairman of a board, like Oblonsky. But he (he knew very well how he must appear to others)

was a country gentleman, occupied in breeding cattle, shooting game and building barns; in other words, a

fellow of no ability, who had not turned out well, and who was doing just what, according to the ideas of the

The mysterious, enchanting Kitty herself could not love such an ugly person as he conceived himself to be,

and, above all, such an ordinary, in no way striking person. Moreover, his attitude to Kitty in the past the

attitude of a grownup person to a child, arising from his friendship with her brother seemed to him yet

another obstacle to love. An ugly, goodnatured man, as he considered himself, might, he supposed, be liked

as a friend; but to be loved with such a love as that with which he loved Kitty, one would need to be

He had heard that women often did care for ugly and ordinary men, but he did not believe it, for he judged by

himself, and he could not himself have loved any but beautiful, mysterious and exceptional women.

But, after spending two months alone in the country, he was convinced that this was not one of those passions

of which he had had experience in his early youth; that this feeling gave him not an instant's rest; that he

could not live without deciding the question as to whether she would or would not be his wife; that his

despair had arisen only from his own imaginings, and that he had no sort of proof that he would be rejected.

So he had now come to Moscow with a firm determination to make a proposal, and get married if he were

accepted. Or... he could not conceive what would become of him if he were rejected.

On arriving in Moscow by a morning train, Levin had put up at the house of his elder halfbrother,

Koznishev. After changing his clothes he went down to his brother's study, intending to talk to him at once

about the object of his visit, and to ask his advice; but his brother was not alone. With him there was a

wellknown professor of philosophy, who had come from Charkov expressly to clear up a difference that had

arisen between them on a very important philosophical question. The professor was carrying on a hot crusade

against materialists. Sergei Koznishev had been following this crusade with interest, and after reading the

professor's last article had written him a letter stating his objections. He accused the professor of making too

great concessions to the materialists. And the professor had promptly appeared to argue the matter out. The

point in discussion was the question then in vogue: Is there a line to be drawn between psychical and

Sergei Ivanovich met his brother with the smile of chilly friendliness he always had for everyone, and,

A little man in spectacles, with a narrow forehead, tore himself from the discussion for an instant to greet

Levin, and then went on talking without paying any further attention to him. Levin sat down to wait till the

professor should go, but he soon began to get interested in the subject under discussion.

Levin had come across the magazine articles about which they were disputing, and had read them, interested

in them as a development of the first principles of science, familiar to him when a natural science student at

the university. But he had never connected these scientific deductions as to the origin of man as an animal, as

to reflex action, biology and sociology, with those questions as to the meaning to himself of life and death,

As he listened to his brother's argument with the professor, he noticed that they connected these scientific

questions with those spiritual problems that at times they almost touched on the latter; but every time they

were close upon what seemed to him the chief point they promptly beat a hasty retreat, and plunged again

into a sea of subtle distinctions, reservations, quotations, allusions and appeals to authorities, and it was with

"I cannot admit it," said Sergei Ivanovich, with his habitual clearness and distinctness of expression, and

elegance of diction. "I cannot in any case agree with Keiss that my whole conception of the external world

has been derived from impressions. The most fundamental idea the idea of existence has not been received

by me through sensation; indeed, there is no special sense organ for the transmission of such an idea."

"Yes, but they Wurst, and Knaust, and Pripassov would answer that your consciousness of existence is

derived from the conjunction of all your sensations, that that consciousness of existence is the result of your

sensations. Wurst, indeed, says plainly that, assuming there are no sensations, it follows that there is no idea

But here it seemed again to Levin that, just as they were close upon the real point of the matter, they were

"According to that, if my senses are annihilated, if my body is dead, I can have no existence of any sort?" he

The professor, in annoyance, and, as it were, mental suffering at the interruption, looked round at the strange

inquirer, more like a hauler of a barge than a philosopher, and turned his eyes upon Sergei Ivanovich, as

though to ask: What's one to say to him? But Sergei Ivanovich, who had been talking with far less stress and

onesidedness than the professor, and who had sufficient breadth of mind to answer the professor, and at the

same time to comprehend the simple and natural point of view from which the question was put, smiled and

"We have not the requisite data," confirmed the professor, and he went back to his argument. "No," he said;

"I would point out the fact that if, as Pripassov directly asserts, sensation is based on impression, then we are

Levin knew that his elder brother took little interest in farming, and only put the question in deference to him,

Levin had meant to tell his brother of his determination to get married, and to ask his advice; he had indeed

firmly resolved to do so. But after seeing his brother, listening to his conversation with the professor, hearing

afterward the unconsciously patronizing tone in which his brother questioned him about agricultural matters

(their mother's property had not been divided, and Levin took charge of both their shares), Levin felt that he

could not for some reason broach to him his intention of marrying. He felt that his brother would not look on

"Well, how is your Zemstvo doing?" asked Sergei Ivanovich, who was greatly interested in Zemstvo

"No, I'm not a member now; I've resigned," answered Levin, "and I no longer attend the sessions."

Levin in selfdefense began to describe what took place at the sessions in his district.

"That's how it always is!" Sergei Ivanovich interrupted him. "We Russians are always like that. Perhaps it's

our strong point, really this faculty of seeing our own shortcomings; but we overdo it, we comfort ourselves

with irony, which we always have on the tip of our tongues. All I say is, give such rights as our Zemstvo

establishments to any other European people, and... Why, the Germans or the English would have worked

"But how can it be helped?" said Levin penitently. "It was my last trial. And I did try with all my soul. I can't.

"It's not that you're no good at it," said Sergei Ivanovich, "it is that you don't look at it as you should."

This brother Nikolai was the elder brother of Constantin Levin, and halfbrother of Sergei Ivanovich; a man

who was done for, who had dissipated the greater part of his fortune, was living in the strangest and lowest

"Here in Moscow? Where is he? Do you know?" Levin got up from his chair, as though on the point of

"I'm sorry I told you," said Sergei Ivanovich, shaking his head at his younger brother's excitement. "I sent to

find out where he is living, and sent him his I O U to Trubin, which I paid. This is the answer he sent me."

And Sergei Ivanovich took a note from under a paperweight and handed it to his brother.

Levin read in the queer, familiar handwriting: "I humbly beg you to leave me in peace. That's the only favor I

Levin read it, and without raising his head stood with the note in his hands opposite Sergei Ivanovich.

There was a struggle in his heart between the desire to forget his unhappy brother for the time, and the

"He obviously wants to offend me," pursued Sergei Ivanovich; "but he cannot offend me, and I should have

"Yes, yes," repeated Levin. "I understand and appreciate your attitude to him; but I shall go and see him."

"If you want to, do; but I shouldn't advise it," said Sergei Ivanovich. "As regards myself, I have no fear of

your doing so; he will not make you quarrel with me; but for your own sake, I should say you would do better

"Very likely I can't do any good, but I feel especially at such a moment but that's another thing I feel I

"Well, that's something I don't understand," said Sergei Ivanovich. "One thing I do understand," he added,

"it's a lesson in humility. I have come to look very differently and more indulgently on what is called infamy

After obtaining his brother's address from Sergei Ivanovich's footman, Levin was on the point of setting off at

once to see him, but on second thought he decided to put off his visit till the evening. The thing to do to set

his heart at rest was to accomplish what he had come to Moscow for. From his brother's Levin went to

Oblonsky's office, and on getting news of the Shcherbatskys from him, he drove to the place where he had

At four o'clock, conscious of his throbbing heart, Levin stepped out of a hired sleigh at the Zoological

Gardens and turned along the path to the frozen mounds and the skating ground, knowing that he would

certainly find her there, as he had seen the Shcherbatskys' carriage at the entrance.

It was a bright, frosty day. Rows of carriages, sleighs, drivers and gendarmes were standing in the approach.

Crowds of welldressed people, with hats bright in the sun, swarmed about the entrance and along the

wellswept paths between the little houses adorned with carving in the Russian style. The old curly birches of

the gardens, all their twigs laden with snow, looked as though freshly decked in sacred vestments.

He walked along the path toward the skating ground, and kept saying to himself "You mustn't be excited,

you must be calm. What's the matter with you? What do you want? Be still, foolish one," he conjured his

heart. And the more he tried to compose himself, the more breathless he found himself. An acquaintance met

him and called him by his name, but Levin did not even recognize him. He went toward the mounds, whence

came the clank of the chains of sleighs as they slipped down or were dragged up, the rumble of the sliding

sleighs and the sounds of merry voices. He walked on a few steps, and the skating ground lay open before

He knew she was there by the rapture and the terror that seized his heart. She was standing talking to a lady at

the opposite end of the ground. There was apparently nothing striking either in her dress or her attitude, but

for Levin she was as easy to find in that crowd as a rose among nettles. Everything was made bright by her.

She was the smile that shed light on all around her. "Is it possible I can go over there on the ice approach

her?" he thought. The place where she stood seemed to him a holy shrine, unapproachable, and there was one

moment when he was almost retreating, so overwhelmed was he with terror. He had to make an effort to

master himself, and to remind himself that people of all sorts were moving about her, and that he, too, might

have come there to skate. He descended, for a long while avoiding looking at her as at the sun, yet seeing her,

On that day of the week, and at that time of day, people of one set, all acquainted with one another, used to

meet on the ice. There were skillful skaters there, showing off their skill, and beginners clinging to chairs

with timid, awkward movements, and boys and elderly people skating with hygienic motives. They seemed to

Levin an elect band of blissful beings because they were here, near her. All the skaters, it seemed, with

perfect selfpossession, skated toward her, skated by her, even spoke to her, and were happy, quite apart

Nikolai Shcherbatsky, Kitty's cousin, in a short jacket and tight trousers, was sitting on a bench with his

"Ah, the first skater in Russia! Been here long? Firstrate ice do put your skates on."

"I haven't got my skates," Levin answered, marveling at this boldness and ease in her presence, and not for

one second losing sight of her, though he did not look at her. He felt as though the sun were coming near him.

She was in a corner, and turning out her slender feet in their high boots, she, with obvious timidity, skated

toward him. A boy in Russian dress, desperately waving his arms and bending down to the ground, overtook

her. She skated a little uncertainly; taking her hands out of the little muff that hung on a cord, she held them

ready for emergency, and looking toward Levin, whom she had recognized, she smiled at him and at her own

fears. When she had got round the turn, she got a start with one foot and skated straight up to Shcherbatsky.

Clutching at his arm, she nodded with a smile to Levin. She was more beautiful than he had imagined her.

When he thought of her, he could call up a vivid picture of her to himself, especially the charm of that little

fair head, so freely set on the shapely girlish shoulders, and so full of childish brightness and kindness. Her

childish countenance, together with the delicate beauty of her figure, made up that special charm of hers,

which he appreciated so well. But what always struck him in her as something unlooked for was the

expression of her eyes soft, serene and truthful; and, above all, her smile, which always transported Levin to

an enchanted world, where he felt moved and tender, as he remembered himself during certain rare days of

"Have you been here long?" she said, giving him her hand. "Thank you," she added, as he picked up the

"I? Not long ago... yesterday... I mean I arrived... today..." answered Levin, in his emotion not

comprehending her question immediately. "I meant to come and see you," he said; and then, recollecting

what his intention was in seeking her, he was promptly overcome with confusion, and blushed. "I didn't know

She looked at him attentively, as though wishing to make out the cause of his confusion.

"Your praise is worth having. The tradition is kept up here that you are the best of skaters," she said, with her

"Yes, I used to skate with passion once upon a time; I wanted to attain perfection."

"You do everything with passion, I think," she said smiling. "I should so like to see how you skate. Do put on

"It's a long while since we've seen you here, sir," said the attendant, supporting his foot, and screwing on the

heel of the skate. "Except you, there's none of the gentlemen firstrate skaters. Will that be all right?" said he,

"Oh, yes, yes; make haste, please," answered Levin, with difficulty restraining the smile of rapture which

would overspread his face. "Yes," he thought, "this is life, this is happiness! Together, she said; let us skate

together! Speak to her now? But that's just why I'm afraid to speak because I'm happy now, happy even

though only in hope.... And then?... But I must! I must! I must! Away, faintheartedness!"

Levin rose to his feet, took off his overcoat, and, gaining speed over the rough ice round the pavilion, came

out on the smooth ice and skated without effort, as it were, by, simple exercise of will, increasing and

slackening speed and turning his course. He approached her with timidity, but again her smile reassured him.

She gave him her hand, and they set off side by side, going faster and faster, and the more rapidly they moved

"With you I should soon learn; I somehow feel confidence in you," she said to him.

"And I have confidence in myself when you are leaning on me," he said, but was at once frightened at what

he had said, and blushed. And indeed, no sooner had he uttered these words, than all at once, like the sun

going behind a cloud, her face lost all its tenderness, and Levin detected the familiar change in her expression

"Is there anything troubling you? However, I've no right to ask such a question," he said hurriedly.

"Oh, why so?... No, I have nothing to trouble me," she responded coldly, and immediately added: "You

"What's wrong? I have offended her. Lord help me!" thought Levin, and he flew towards the old

Frenchwoman with the gray ringlets, who was sitting on a bench. Smiling and showing her false teeth, she

"Yes, you see we're growing up," she said to him, glancing toward Kitty, "and growing old. Tiny bear has

grown big now!" pursued the Frenchwoman, laughing, and she reminded him of his joke about the three

young ladies whom he had compared to the three bears in the English nursery tale. "Do you remember that's

He remembered absolutely nothing, but she had been laughing at the joke for ten years now and was fond of

"Now, go and skate, go and skate. Our Kitty has learned to skate nicely, hasn't she?"

When Levin darted up to Kitty her face was no longer stern; her eyes looked at him with the same sincerity

and tenderness, but Levin fancied that in her tenderness there was a certain note of deliberate composure.

And he felt depressed. After talking a little of her old governess and her peculiarities, she questioned him

"No, I'm not dull I am very busy," he said, feeling that she was making him submit to her composed tone,

which he would not have the strength to break through just as had been the case at the beginning of the

"I don't know," he answered, not thinking of what he was saying. The thought came into his mind that if he

were held in submission by her tone of quiet friendliness he would end by going back again without deciding

"I don't know. It depends upon you," he said, and was immediately horrorstricken at his own words.

Whether it was that she did not hear his words, or that she did not want to hear them, she made a sort of

stumble, twice struck out, and hurriedly skated away from him. She skated up to Mlle. Linon, said something

"My God! What have I done! Merciful God! Help me, guide me," said Levin, praying inwardly, and at the

same time, feeling a need of violent exercise, he skated about, describing concentric and eccentric circles.

At that moment one of the young men, the best of the skaters of the day, came out of the coffeehouse on his

skates, with a cigarette in his mouth. Taking a run he dashed down the steps on his skates, crashing and

leaping. He flew down, and without even changing the freeandeasy position of his hands, skated away

"Ah, that's a new trick!" said Levin, and he promptly ran up to the top to perform this new trick.

"Don't break your neck! This needs practice!" Nikolai Shcherbatsky shouted after him.

Levin went to the steps, took a run from above as best he could, and dashed down, preserving his balance in

this unwonted movement with his hands. On the last step he stumbled, but barely touching the ice with his

"What a fine, darling chap he is!" Kitty was thinking at that moment, as she came out of the pavilion with

Mlle. Linon and looked toward him with a smile of quiet kindness, as though he were a favorite brother.

"And can it be my fault, can I have done anything wrong? They talk of coquetry. I know it's not he that I

love; but still I am happy with him, and he's so nice. Only, why did he say that?..." she mused.

Catching sight of Kitty going away, and her mother meeting her at the steps, Levin, flushed from his rapid

exercise, stood still and pondered a minute. He took off his skates, and overtook the mother and daughter at

"Delighted to see you," said Princess Shcherbatskaia. "On Thursdays we are home, as always."

This stiffness hurt Kitty, and she could not resist the desire to smooth over her mother's coldness. She turned

At that moment Stepan Arkadyevich, his hat cocked on one side, with beaming face and eyes, strode into the

garden like a buoyant conqueror. But as he approached his motherinlaw, he responded to her inquiries

about Dolly's health with a mournful and guilty countenance. After a little subdued and dejected conversation

"Well, shall we set off?" he asked. "I've been thinking about you all this time, and I'm very, very glad you've

"Yes, come along," answered Levin in ecstasy, hearing unceasingly the sound of that voice saying, "Goodby

"Well, then, England it is," said Stepan Arkadyevich, selecting that restaurant because he owed more there

than at The Hermitage, and consequently considered it mean to avoid it. "Have you got a sleigh? That's fine

The friends hardly spoke all the way. Levin was wondering what that change in Kitty's expression had meant,

and alternately assuring himself that there was hope, and falling into despair, seeing clearly that his hopes

were insane, and yet all the while he felt himself quite another man, utterly unlike what he had been before

Stepan Arkadyevich was absorbed during the drive in composing the menu of the dinner.

When Levin went into the restaurant with Oblonsky, he could not help noticing a certain peculiarity of

expression, as it were, a restrained radiance, about the face and whole figure of Stepan Arkadyevich.

Oblonsky took off his overcoat, and with his hat over one ear walked into the dining room, giving directions

to the Tatar waiters, who were clustered about him in evening coats, and with napkins under their arms.

Bowing right and left to acquaintances who, here as everywhere, greeted him joyously, he went up to the bar,

took a little wineglass of vodka and a snack of fish, and said to the painted Frenchwoman decked in ribbons,

lace and ringlets, behind the desk, something so amusing that even that Frenchwoman was moved to genuine

laughter. Levin for his part refrained from taking any vodka only because he found most offensive this

Frenchwoman, all made up, it seemed, of false hair, poudre de riz and vinaigre de toilette. He made haste to

move away from her, as from a dirty place. His whole soul was filled with memories of Kitty, and there was a

"This way, Your Excellency, please. Your Excellency won't be disturbed here," said a particularly

pertinacious, whiteheaded old Tatar with immense hips and coattails gaping widely behind. "Walk in, your

Excellency," he said to Levin being attentive to his guest as well, by way of showing his respect to Stepan

Instantly flinging a fresh cloth over the round table under the bronze sconce, though it already had a

tablecloth on it, he pushed up velvet chairs and came to a standstill before Stepan Arkadyevich with a napkin

"If you prefer it, Your Excellency, a private room will be free directly: Prince Golitsin with a lady. Fresh

"How if we were to change our program, Levin?" he said, keeping his finger on the bill of fare. And his face

"Well, then, how if we were to begin with oysters, and so change the whole program? Eh?"

"It's all the same to me. I should like cabbage soup and porridge better than anything; but of course there's

"Porridge a la Russe, Your Honor would like?" said the Tatar, bending down to Levin, like a nurse speaking

"No, joking apart, whatever you choose is sure to be good. I've been skating, and I'm hungry. And don't

imagine," he added, detecting a look of dissatisfaction on Oblonsky's face, "that I shan't appreciate your

"I should hope so! After all, it's one of the pleasures of life," said Stepan Arkadyevich. "Well, then, my

friend, you give us two or better say three dozen oysters, clear soup with vegetables..."

"Printaniere," prompted the Tatar. But Stepan Arkadyevich apparently did not care to allow him the

"With vegetables in it, you know. Then turbot with thick sauce, then... roast beef; and mind it's good. Yes,

The Tatar, recollecting that it was Stepan Arkadyevich's way not to call the dishes by the names in the French

bill of fare, did not repeat them after him, but could not resist rehearsing the whole menu to himself according

to the bill: "Soupe printaniere, turbot sauce Beaumarchais, poulard a l'estragon, Macedoine de fruits..." and

then instantly, as though worked by springs, laying down one bound bill of fare, he took up another, the list

"What! to start with? You're right though, I dare say. Do you like the white seal?"

And the Tatar ran off with flying coattails, and in five minutes darted in with a dish of opened oysters in their

Stepan Arkadyevich crushed the starchy napkin, tucked it into his waistcoat, and, settling his arms

"Not bad," he said, detaching the jellied oysters from their pearly shells with a small silver fork, and

swallowing them one after another. "Not bad," he repeated, turning his dewy, brilliant eyes now upon Levin,

Levin ate the oysters too, though white bread and cheese pleased him better. But he was admiring Oblonsky.

Even the Tatar, uncorking the bottle and pouring the sparkling wine into the delicate funnelshaped glasses,

and adjusting his white cravat, kept on glancing at Stepan Arkadyevich with a perceptible smile of

"You don't care much for oysters, do you?" said Stepan Arkadyevich, emptying his wineglass, "or are you

He wanted Levin to be in good spirits. But it was not that Levin was not in good spirits, he was ill at ease.

With what he had in his soul, he felt hard and awkward in the restaurant, in the midst of private rooms where

men were dining with ladies, in all this fuss and bustle; the surroundings of bronzes, looking glasses, gas and

Tatars all of this was offensive to him. He was afraid of sullying what his soul was brimful of.

"I? Yes, I am worried; but besides that, all this bothers me," he said. "You can't conceive how queer it all

seems to a countryman like me, as queer as that gentleman's nails I saw at your office...."

"Yes, I saw how much interested you were in poor Grinevich's nails," said Stepan Arkadyevich, laughing.

"It's too much for me," responded Levin. "Do try, now, to put yourself in my place take the point of view of

a countryman. We in the country try to bring our hands into such a state as will be most convenient for

working with. So we cut our nails; sometimes we tuck up our sleeves. And here people purposely let their

nails grow as long as possible, and link on small saucers by way of studs, so that they can do nothing with

"Oh, yes, that's just a sign that he has no need to do coarse work. His work is with the mind...."

"Maybe. But still it's queer to me, just as at this moment it seems queer to me that we countryfolks try to

satiate ourselves as soon as we can, so as to be ready for work, while here are we trying to delay satiety as

"Why, of course," objected Stepan Arkadyevich. "But that's just the aim of culture to make everything a

Levin sighed. He remembered his brother Nikolai, and felt ashamed and pained, and he scowled; but

"Oh, I say, are you going tonight to our people the Shcherbatskys', I mean?" he said, his eyes sparkling

significantly as he pushed away the empty rough shells, and drew the cheese toward him.

"Yes, I shall certainly go," replied Levin; "though I fancied the Princess was not very warm in her invitation."

"What nonsense! That's her manner.... Come, boy, the soup!... That's her manner grande dame," said Stepan

Arkadyevich. "I'm coming, too, but I have to go to the Countess Bonin's rehearsal. Come, isn't it true that

you're a savage? How do you explain the sudden way in which you vanished from Moscow? The

Shcherbatskys were continually asking me about you, as though I ought to know. The only thing I know is

"Yes," said Levin, slowly and with emotion, "you're right. I am a savage. Only, my savageness is not in

"Oh, what a lucky fellow you are!" broke in Stepan Arkadyevich, looking into Levin's eyes.

"I can tell the gallant steeds," by some... I don't know what... 'paces'; I can tell youths 'by their faces,'"

"No; not over exactly, but the future is yours, and the present is mine, and the present well, it's only fair to

"Oh, things aren't right. But I don't want to talk of myself, besides I can't explain it all," said Stepan

Arkadyevich. "Well, why have you come to Moscow, then?... Hi! clear the table!" he called to the Tatar.

"Are you trying to surmise?" responded Levin, his eyes, gleaming in their depth, fixed on Stepan

"I am, but I can't be the first to talk about it. You can see by that whether I surmise right or wrong," said

"Well, and what have you to say to me?" said Levin in a quivering voice, feeling that all the muscles of his

Stepan Arkadyevich slowly emptied his glass of Chablis, never taking his eyes off Levin.

"I?" said Stepan Arkadyevich. "There's nothing I desire so much as that nothing! It would be the best thing

"But you're not making a mistake? You know what we're speaking of?" said Levin, piercing him with his

"No! Do you really think it's possible? No tell me all you think! Oh, but if... If refusal's in store for me!...

"Oh, well, anyway there's nothing awful in it for a girl. Every girl's proud of a proposal."

Stepan Arkadyevich smiled. He so well knew that feeling of Levin's, that for him all the girls in the world

were divided into two classes: one class all the girls in the world except her, and those girls with all sorts of

human failings, and very ordinary girls: the other class she alone, having no failings of any sort and higher

"Stay, take some sauce," he said, holding back Levin's hand, who was pushing the sauce away.

Levin obediently helped himself to sauce, but would not let Stepan Arkadyevich go on with his dinner.

"No, stop a minute, stop a minute," he said. "You must understand that it's a question of life and death for me.

I have never spoken to anyone of this. And there's no one to whom I could speak of it, except yourself. You

know we're utterly unlike each other, different in tastes, and views, and everything; but I know you're fond of

me and understand me, and that's why I like you awfully. But for God's sake, be quite straightforward with

"I tell you what I think," said Stepan Arkadyevich, smiling. "But I'll say more: my wife is a wonderful

woman..." Stepan Arkadyevich sighed, recalling his relations with his wife, and, after a moment's silence,

resumed "She has a gift of foreseeing things. She sees right through people; but that's not all; she knows

what will come to pass, especially in the way of marriages. She foretold, for instance, that Princess

Shahovskaia would marry Brenteln. No one would believe it, but it came to pass. And she's on your side."

"It's not only that she likes you she says that Kitty is certain to be your wife."

At these words Levin's face suddenly lighted up with a smile, a smile not far from touching tears.

"She says that!" cried out Levin. "I always said she was charming, your wife. There, that's enough said about

But Levin could not sit down. He walked with his firm tread twice up and down the little cage of a room,

blinked his eyelids that his tears might not fall, and only then sat down to the table.

"You must understand," said he, "it's not love. I've been in love, but it's not that. It's not my feeling, but a sort

of force outside me that has taken possession of me. I went away, you see, because I made up my mind that it

could never be you understand, like a happiness which is not of this earth; but I've struggled with myself,

"Ah, stop a minute! Ah, the thoughts that come crowding on one! The questions one must ask oneself! Listen.

You can't imagine what you've done for me by what you said. I'm so happy that I've become positively

hateful; I've forgotten everything. I heard today that my brother Nikolai... you know, he's here... I had

forgotten even him. It seems to me that he's happy too. It's a sort of madness. But one thing's awful.... Here,

you've been married, you know the feeling.... It's awful that we fully mature with a past... a past not of

love, but of sins... are brought all at once so near to a creature pure and innocent; it's loathsome, and that's

"Ah, still," said Levin, "'When, with loathing, I go o'er my life, I shudder and I curse and bitterly regret...'

"There's one comfort, like that of the prayer which I always liked: 'Forgive me not according to my deeds, but

"There's one other thing I ought to tell you. Do you know Vronsky?" Stepan Arkadyevich asked Levin.

"Give us another bottle," Stepan Arkadyevich directed the Tatar, who was filling up their glasses and

"Who's Vronsky?" said Levin, and his face was suddenly transformed from the look of childlike ecstasy

"Vronsky is one of the sons of Count Kirill Ivanovich Vronsky, and one of the finest specimens of the gilded

youth of Peterburg. I made his acquaintance in Tver, when I was there on official business, and he came there

for the levy of recruits. Fearfully rich, handsome, great connections, an aidedecamp, and with all that a

very fine goodnatured fellow. But he's more than simply a goodnatured fellow, as I've found out here he's

"Well, he turned up here soon after you'd gone, and, as I can see, he's over head and ears in love with Kitty,

"Excuse me, but I know nothing," said Levin, frowning gloomily. And immediately he recalled his brother

"You wait a bit wait a bit," said Stepan Arkadyevich, smiling and touching his hand. "I've told you what I

know, and I repeat that in this delicate and tender matter, as far as one can conjecture, I believe the chances

"But I would advise you to settle the thing as soon as possible," pursued Oblonsky, filling up his glass.

"No, thanks, I can't drink any more," said Levin, pushing away his glass. "I shall get drunk.... Come, tell me

how are you getting on?" he went on, obviously anxious to change the conversation.

"One word more: in any case I advise you to settle the question soon. Tonight I don't advise you to speak,"

said Stepan Arkadyevich. "Go round tomorrow morning, make a proposal in classic form, and God bless

"Oh, do you still think of coming to me for some shooting? Come next spring, do," said Levin.

Now his whole soul was full of remorse that he had begun this conversation with Stepan Arkadyevich. His

peculiar feeling was profaned by talk of the rivalry of some Peterburg officer, of the suppositions and the

"I'll come some day," he said. "Yes, my dear, women they're the pivot everything turns upon. Things are in

a bad way with me, very bad. And it's all through women. Tell me frankly, now," he pursued, picking up a

"I'll tell you. Suppose you're married; you love your wife, but are fascinated by another woman..."

"Excuse me, but I'm absolutely unable to comprehend how just as I can't comprehend how I could now, after

As he said this, Stepan Arkadyevich smiled subtly. Levin, too, could not help smiling.

"Yes, but joking apart," resumed Oblonsky, "you must understand that the woman, a sweet, gentle, loving

creature, poor and lonely, has sacrificed everything. Now, when the thing's done, don't you see, can one

possibly cast her off? Even supposing one parts from her, so as not to break up one's family life, still, can one

"Well, you must excuse me there. You know to me all women are divided into two classes.... Well, no... it

would be truer to say: there are women, and there are... I've never seen charming fallen beings, and I never

shall see them, but such creatures as that painted Frenchwoman at the counter with the ringlets are vermin to

"Ah, drop that! Christ would never have said those words if He had known how they would be abused. Of all

the Gospel those words are the only ones remembered. However, I'm not saying so much what I think, as

what I feel. I have a loathing for fallen women. You're afraid of spiders, and I of these vermin. Most likely

you've not made a study of spiders and don't know their character; and so it is with me."

"It's very well for you to talk like that; it's very much like that gentleman in Dickens who used to fling all

difficult questions over his right shoulder with his left hand. But denying the facts is no answer. What's to be

done you tell me that; what's to be done? Your wife gets older, while you're full of life. Before you've time

to look round, you feel that you can't love your wife with love, however much you may esteem her. And then

all at once love turns up and you're done for; you're done for," Stepan Arkadyevich said with weary despair.

"Oh, moralist! But you must understand, there are two women; one insists only on her rights, and those rights

are your love, which you can't give her; while the other sacrifices everything for you and asks for nothing.

"If you care for my profession of faith as regards that, I'll tell you that I don't believe there was any tragedy

about it. And this is why. To my mind, love... both sorts of love, which you remember Plato defines in his

Banquet, serve as the touchstone of men. Some men only understand one sort, and some only the other. And

those who only know the nonplatonic love talk in vain of tragedy. In such love there can be no sort of

tragedy. 'I'm much obliged for the gratification, my humble respects,' that's all the tragedy. And in platonic

love there can be no tragedy, because in that love all is clear and pure, because..."

At that instant Levin recollected his own sins and the inner conflict he had lived through. And he added

"But perhaps you are right. Very likely... I don't know I positively don't know."

"You see," said Stepan Arkadyevich, "you're very much all of a piece. That's your quality and your failing.

You have a character that's all of a piece, and you want the whole of life to be of a piece too but that's not

how it is. You despise public official work because you want the reality to be constantly corresponding with

the aim and that's not how it is. You want a man's work, too, always to have a defined aim, and love and

family life always to be undivided and that's not how it is. All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of

Levin sighed and made no reply. He was thinking of his own affairs, and was not listening to Oblonsky.

And suddenly both of them felt that though they were friends, though they had been dining together, and

drunk wine which should have drawn them closer, yet each was thinking only of his own affairs, and they had

nothing to do with one another. Oblonsky had more than once experienced this extreme sense of aloofness,

instead of intimacy, coming on after dinner, and he knew what to do in such cases.

"Let's have the check!" he called, and he went into the next room, where he promptly came across an

aidedecamp of his acquaintance and dropped into conversation with him about an actress and her

protector. And at once, in this conversation with the aidedecamp, Oblonsky had a sense of relaxation and

relief after his conversation with Levin, which always put him to too great a mental and spiritual strain.

When the Tatar appeared with a check of twentysix roubles and some kopecks, besides a tip for himself,

Levin, who would another time have been horrified, like anyone from the country, at his share of fourteen

roubles, did not notice it, paid, and set off homeward to dress and go to the Shcherbatskys', where his fate

The young princess Kitty Shcherbatskaia was eighteen. It was the first winter that she had been out in the

world. Her success in society had been greater than that of either of her elder sisters, and greater even than

her mother had anticipated. To say nothing of the young men who danced at the Moscow balls being almost

all in love with Kitty, two serious suitors had already, the first winter, made their appearance: Levin, and,

Levin's appearance at the beginning of the winter, his frequent visits, and evident love for Kitty, had led to

the first serious conversations between Kitty's parents as to her future, and to disputes between them. The

Prince was on Levin's side; he said he wished for nothing better for Kitty. The Princess for her part, going

round the question in the manner peculiar to women, maintained that Kitty was too young, that Levin had

done nothing to prove that he had serious intentions, that Kitty felt no great attraction to him, and there were

some other reasons too; but she did not state the principal point, which was that she looked for a better match

for her daughter, that Levin was not to her liking, and that she did not understand him. When Levin had

abruptly departed, the Princess was delighted, and said to her husband triumphantly: 'You see, I was right.'

When Vronsky appeared on the scene, she was still more delighted, confirmed in her opinion that Kitty was

In the mother's eyes there could be no comparison between Vronsky and Levin. The mother disliked in Levin

his strange and uncompromising opinions and his shyness in society, founded on his pride, as she supposed,

and his queer sort of life, as she considered it, absorbed in cattle and peasants. She did not very much like it

that he, who was in love with her daughter, had kept coming to the house for six weeks, as though he were

waiting for something, inspecting, as though he were afraid he might be doing them too great an honor by

making a proposal, and did not realize that a man who continually visits at a house where there is a young

unmarried girl, is bound to make his intentions clear. And suddenly, without doing so, he disappeared. "It's as

well he's not attractive enough for Kitty to have fallen in love with him," thought the mother.

Vronsky satisfied all the mother's desires. Very wealthy, clever, of aristocratic family, on the highroad to a

brilliant career in the army and at court, and a fascinating man. Nothing better could be wished for.

Vronsky openly flirted with Kitty at balls, danced with her, and came continually to the house; consequently

there could be no doubt of the seriousness of his intentions. But, in spite of that, the mother had spent the

Princess Shcherbatskaia had herself been married thirty years ago, her aunt arranging the match. The wooer,

about whom everything was well known beforehand, had come, looked at his intended, and been looked at.

The matchmaking aunt had ascertained and communicated their mutual impression. That impression had

been favorable. Afterward, on a day fixed beforehand, the expected proposal was made to her parents, and

accepted. All had passed very simply and easily. So it seemed, at least, to the Princess. But over her own

daughters she had felt how far from simple and easy is the business, apparently so commonplace, of marrying

off one's daughters. The panics that had been lived through, the thoughts that had been brooded over, the

money that had been wasted, and the disputes with her husband over marrying the two elder girls, Darya and

Natalya! Now, since the youngest began to come out in the world, the Princess was going through the same

terrors, the same doubts, and still more violent quarrels with her husband, than she had over the elder girls.

The old Prince, like all fathers indeed, was exceedingly scrupulous on the score of the honor and reputation

of his daughters; he was unreasonably jealous over his daughters, especially over Kitty, who was his favorite,

and at every turn he had scenes with the Princess for compromising her daughter. The Princess had grown

accustomed to this already with her other daughters, but now she felt that there was more ground for the

Prince's scrupulousness. She saw that of late years much was changed in the manners of society, that a

mother's duties had become still more difficult. She saw that girls of Kitty's age formed some sort of clubs,

went to some sort of lectures, mixed freely in men's society, drove about the streets alone; many of them did

not curtsy; and, what was the most important thing, all of them were firmly convinced that to choose their

husband was their own affair, and not their parents'. "Marriages aren't made nowadays as they used to be,"

was thought and said by all these young girls, and even by their elders. But just how marriages were made

nowadays, the Princess could not learn from anyone. The French fashion of the parents arranging their

children's future was not accepted; it was condemned. The English fashion of the complete independence of

girls was also not accepted, and not possible in Russian society. The Russian fashion of matchmaking was

considered unseemly; it was ridiculed by everyone even by the Princess herself. But how girls were to be

married, and how parents were to marry them, no one knew. Everyone with whom the Princess had chanced

to discuss the matter said the same thing: "Mercy on us, it's high time in our day to cast off all that

oldfashioned business. It's the young people have to marry, and not their parents; and so we ought to leave

the young people to arrange it as they choose." It was very easy for anyone to say who had no daughters, but

the Princess realized that, in the process of getting to know each other, her daughter might fall in love, and

fall in love with someone who did not care to marry her, or who was quite unfit to be her husband. And,

however much it was instilled into the Princess that in our times young people ought to arrange their lives for

themselves, she was unable to believe it, just as she would have been unable to believe that, at any time

whatever, loaded pistols were the most suitable playthings for children five years old. And so the Princess

Now she was afraid that Vronsky might confine himself to simply flirting with her daughter. She saw that her

daughter was in love with him, but tried to comfort herself with the thought that he was an honorable man,

and would not do this. But at the same time she knew how easy it is, with the freedom of manners of today, to

turn a girl's head, and how lightly men generally regard such a crime. The week before, Kitty had told her

mother of a conversation she had with Vronsky during a mazurka. This conversation had partly reassured the

Princess; yet her assurance could not be perfect. Vronsky had told Kitty that both he and his brother were so

used to obeying their mother that they never made up their minds to any important undertaking without

consulting her. "And, just now, I am impatiently awaiting my mother's coming from Peterburg, as a peculiar

Kitty had repeated this without attaching any significance to the words. But her mother saw them in a

different light. She knew that the old lady was expected from day to day, that she would be pleased at her

son's choice, and she felt it strange that he should not make his proposal through fear of vexing his mother.

However, she was so anxious for the marriage itself, and still more for relief from her fears, that she believed

it was so. Bitter as it was for the Princess to see the unhappiness of her eldest daughter, Dolly, on the point of

leaving her husband, her anxiety over the decision of her youngest daughter's fate engrossed all her feelings.

Today, with Levin's reappearance, a fresh source of anxiety arose. She was afraid that her daughter, who had

at one time, as she fancied, a feeling for Levin, might, from an extreme sense of honesty, refuse Vronsky, and

that Levin's arrival might generally complicate and delay the affair, now so near conclusion.

"Why, has he been here long?" the Princess asked about Levin, as they returned home.

"There's one thing I want to say..." began the Princess, and from her serious and alert face, Kitty guessed

"Mamma," she said, flushing hotly and turning quickly to her, "please, please don't say anything about that. I

She wished what her mother wished for, but the motives of her mother's wishes hurt her.

"Mamma, darling, for goodness' sake, don't talk about it. It's so horrible to talk about it."

"I won't," said her mother, seeing the tears in her daughter's eyes; "but one thing, my love; you promised me

"Never, mamma none," answered Kitty, flushing and looking her mother straight in the face; "but I have

nothing to tell you now, and I... I... If I wanted to, I don't know what to say or how... I don't know..."

"No, she could not tell an untruth with those eyes," thought the mother, smiling at her agitation and

happiness. The Princess smiled: so immense and so important seemed to the poor child everything that was

After dinner, and till the beginning of the evening, Kitty was experiencing a sensation akin to that of a young

man before a battle. Her heart throbbed violently, and her thoughts would not rest on anything.

She felt that this evening, when both these men would meet for the first time, would be a turning point in her

life. And she was continually picturing them to herself, at one moment each individually, and then both

together. When she mused on the past, she dwelt with pleasure, with tenderness, on the memories of her

relations with Levin. The memories of childhood and of Levin's friendship with her dead brother have a

special poetic charm to her relations with him. His love for her, of which she felt certain, was flattering and

delightful to her; and it was easy for her to think of Levin. In her memories of Vronsky there always entered a

certain element of awkwardness, though he was in the highest degree a fashionable and eventempered man,

as though there were some false note not in Vronsky, he was very simple and charming but in herself;

while with Levin she felt herself perfectly simple and clear. But, on the other hand, directly she thought of the

future with Vronsky, there arose before her a perspective of brilliant happiness; with Levin the future seemed

When she went upstairs to dress, and looked into the looking glass, she noticed with joy that it was one of her

good days, and that she was in complete possession of all her forces she needed this so for what lay before

At halfpast seven she had only just gone down into the drawing room, when the footman announced,

"Constantin Dmitrievich Levin." The Princess was still in her room, and the Prince had not come in. "So it is

to be," thought Kitty, and all the blood seemed to rush to her heart. She was horrified at her paleness, as she

At that moment she knew beyond doubt that he had come early on purpose to find her alone and to propose to

her. And only then for the first time the whole thing presented itself in a new, different aspect; only then she

realized that the question did not affect her only with whom she would be happy, and whom she loved but

that she would have that moment to wound a man whom she liked. And to wound him cruelly... Wherefore?

Because he, dear fellow, loved her, was in love with her. But there was no help for it; it must be so it would

"My God! shall I myself really have to say it to him?" she thought. "Can I tell him I don't love him? That will

be a lie. What am I to say to him? That I love someone else? No, that's impossible. I'm going away I'm

She had reached the door, when she heard his step. "No It's not honest. What have I to be afraid of? I have

done nothing wrong. What is to be, will be! I'll tell the truth. And with him one can't be ill at ease. Here he

is," she said to herself, seeing his powerful and timid figure, with his shining eyes fixed on her. She looked

straight into his face, as though imploring him to spare her, and gave him her hand.

"It's not time yet; I think I'm too early," he said glancing round the empty drawing room. When he saw that

his expectations were realized, that there was nothing to prevent him from speaking, his face became somber.

"But this was just what I wanted, to find you alone," he began, without sitting down, and not looking at her,

She talked on, not knowing what her lips were uttering, and not taking her supplicating and caressing eyes off

"I told you I did not know whether I should be here long... that it depended on you..."

She dropped her head lower and lower, not knowing herself what answer she should make to what was

"That it depended on you," he repeated. "I meant to say... I meant to say... I came for this... To have you be

my wife!" he blurted out, not knowing what he was saying, but feeling that the most terrible thing was said,

She was breathing heavily, without looking at him. She was feeling ecstasy. Her soul was flooded with

happiness. She had never anticipated that his utterance of love would produce such a powerful effect on her.

But it lasted only an instant. She remembered Vronsky. She lifted her clear, truthful eyes, and, seeing Levin's

A moment ago, and how close she had been to him, of what importance in his life! And how aloof and remote

"It could not have been otherwise," he said, without looking at her. He bowed, and was about to leave.

But at that very moment the Princess came in. There was a look of horror on her face when she beheld them

alone, and saw their disturbed faces. Levin bowed to her, and said nothing. Kitty neither spoke nor lifted her

eyes. "Thank God, she has refused him," thought the mother, and her face lighted up with the habitual smile

with which she greeted her guests on Thursdays. She sat down and began questioning Levin about his life in

the country. He sat down again, waiting for other visitors to arrive, in order to go off unnoticed.

Five minutes later there came in a friend of Kitty's, married the preceding winter Countess Nordstone.

She was a thin, sallow, sickly and nervous woman, with brilliant black eyes. She was fond of Kitty, and her

affection for her showed itself, as the affection of married women for girls always does, in the desire to make

a match for Kitty after her own ideal of married happiness; she wanted her to marry Vronsky. Levin she had

often met at the Shcherbatskys' early in the winter, and she had always disliked him. Her invariable and

"I do like it when he looks down at me from the height of his grandeur, or breaks off his wise conversation

with me because I'm a fool, or is condescending to me. I like that so to see him condescending! I am so glad

She was right, for Levin actually could not bear her, and despised her for what she was proud of and regarded

as a fine characteristic her nervousness, her refined contempt and indifference for everything coarse and

The Countess Nordstone and Levin had got into that mutual relation not infrequently seen in society, when

two persons, who remain externally on friendly terms, despise each other to such a degree that they cannot

"Ah, Constantin Dmitrievich! So you've come back to our corrupt Babylon," she said, giving him her tiny,

yellow hand and recalling what he had chanced to say early in the winter, that Moscow was a Babylon.

"Come, is Babylon reformed, or have you degenerated?" she added, glancing with a simper at Kitty.

"It's very flattering for me, Countess, that you remember my words so well," responded Levin, who had

succeeded in recovering his composure, and at once from habit dropped into his tone of joking hostility to the

"Oh, I should think so! I always note everything down. Well, Kitty, have you been skating again?..."

And she began talking to Kitty. Awkward as it was for Levin to withdraw now, it would still have been easier

for him to perpetrate this awkwardness than to remain all the evening and see Kitty, who glanced at him now

and then and avoided his eyes. He was on the point of getting up, when the Princess, noticing that he was

"Shall you be long in Moscow? You're busy with the Zemstvo, though, aren't you, and can't be away for

"No, Princess, I'm no longer a member of the board," he said. "I have come up for a few days."

"There's something the matter with him," thought Countess Nordstone, glancing at his stern, serious face. "He

isn't in his old argumentative mood. But I'll draw him out. I do love making a fool of him before Kitty, and

"Constantin Dmitrievich," she said to him, "do explain to me please, what does it mean you know all about

such things in our village of Kaluga all the peasants and all the women have drunk up all they possessed,

and now they can't pay us any rent. What's the meaning of that? You always praise the mouzhiks so."

"Excuse me, Countess, but I really know nothing about it, and can't tell you anything," he said, and looked

"That must be Vronsky," thought Levin, and, to be sure of it, glanced at Kitty. She had already had time to

look at Vronsky, and looked round at Levin. And, simply from the look in her eyes, that grew unconsciously

brighter, Levin knew that she loved this man knew it as surely as if she had told him in so many words. But

Now, whether for good or for ill, Levin could not choose but remain; he must find out what the man was like

There are people who, on meeting a successful rival, no matter in what, are at once disposed to turn their

backs on everything good in him, and to see only what is bad. There are people who, on the contrary, desire

above all to find in that successful rival the qualities by which he has worsted them, and seek with a

throbbing ache at heart only what is good. Levin belonged to the second class. But he had no difficulty in

finding what was good and attractive in Vronsky. It was apparent at the first glance. Vronsky was a squarely

built, dark man, not very tall, with a goodhumored, handsome and exceedingly calm and firm face.

Everything about his face and figure, from his shortcropped black hair and freshly shaven chin down to his

loosely fitting, brandnew uniform, was simple and at the same time elegant. Making way for the lady who

As he approached her, his beautiful eyes shone with an especially 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

Greeting and saying a few words to everyone, he sat down without once glancing at Levin, who had never

"Let me introduce you," said the Princess, indicating Levin. "Constantin Dmitrievich Levin, Count Alexei

"I believe I was to have dined with you this winter," he said, smiling his simple and open smile; "but you had

"Constantin Dmitrievich despises and hates the town, and us townspeople," said Countess Nordstone.

"My words must make a deep impression on you, since you remember them so well," said Levin, and,

suddenly becoming conscious that he had said just the same thing before, he reddened.

"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, yet affecting not to notice, Levin's tone.

"But I hope, Count, you would not consent to live in the country always," said Countess Nordstone.

"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 one's mind most vividly, and especially the country.

He talked on, addressing both Kitty and Levin, turning his serene, friendly eyes from one to the other, and

Noticing that Countess Nordstone wanted to say something, he stopped short without finishing what he had

The conversation did not flag for an instant, so that the old Princess, who always kept in reserve, in case a

subject should be lacking, two heavy guns the classical and professional education, and universal military

service had not to move out either of them, while Countess Nordstone had no chance of chaffing Levin.

Levin wanted to, and could not, take part in the general conversation; saying to himself every instant, "Now

The conversation fell upon table turning and spirits, and Countess Nordstone, who believed in spiritualism,

"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 Nordstone. "But you, Constantin Dmitrievich are you a

"My opinion," answered Levin, "is merely that this table turning proves that educated society so called is

no higher than the peasants. They believe in the evil eye, and in witchcraft and conjurations, while we..."

"Oh, no, Masha, Constantin Dmitrievich merely said he could not believe," 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 possibility 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, on the contrary, 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 of. No, I don't see why

"Why, because with electricity," Levin interrupted again, "every time you rub tar against wool, a certain

phenomenon is manifested; but in this case it does not happen every time, and so it follows it is not a natural

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 miracles as some sort of new

natural force is most futile. They boldly talk of spiritual force, and then try to subject it to material

"Why, I think you would be a firstrate medium," said Countess Nordstone, "there's something enthusiastic

"Do let us try table turning at once, please," said Vronsky. "Princess, will you allow it?

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 a suffering of which she was herself the cause. "If you can forgive

"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

"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

Kitty felt how grievous her father's cordiality 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, trying and failing to understand how and why anyone could be hostilely disposed toward him, and she

"Prince, let us have Constantin Dmitrievich," said Countess Nordstone, "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

Vronsky looked wonderingly at the Prince with his firm eyes, and, with a faint smile, began immediately

"I hope you will be there?" he said to Kitty. As soon as the old Prince turned away from him, Levin slipped

out unnoticed, and the last impression he carried away with him of that evening was the smiling, happy face

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 a proposal. She had no doubt that she had

acted rightly. But after she had gone to bed, she could not sleep for a long while. 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, firm face, his noble calmness, and the good nature so conspicuous toward

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 otherwise. Whether she felt remorse at having captivated

Levin, or at having refused him, she did not know. But her happiness was poisoned by doubts. "Lord, have

pity on us; Lord, have pity, Lord, have pity!" she said over to herself till she fell asleep.

Meanwhile there took place below, in the Prince's little study, one of the scenes so often repeated between the

"What? I'll tell you what!" shouted the Prince, brandishing his arms, and at once wrapping his squirrellined

dressing gown round him again. "That you've no pride, no dignity; that you're disgracing, ruining your

"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 proposal and Kitty's refusal, still she hinted to

her husband that she fancied things were practically settled with Vronsky, and would be definitely so as soon

as his mother arrived. And thereupon, at those words, the Prince had all at once flown into a passion, and

"What have you done? I'll tell you what. First of all, you're trying to allure 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 these whelps [so the Prince styled the youths of Moscow]; engage a piano

player, and let them dance and not as you did tonight: only the wooers, and doing your matching. It makes

me sick sick to see it and you've gone on till you've turned the poor lass's head. Levin's a thousand times

the better man. As for this Peterburg 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."

"I know if one were to listen to you," interrupted the Princess, "we should never marry off our daughter. If it's

"But do wait a minute. Do I wheedle them? I don't wheedle them in the least. A young man, and a very nice

"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 curtsy at each word. "And this is how we prepare wretchedness for

"I don't suppose; I know. For such things we have eyes; womenfolk haven't. I see a man who has serious

intentions, that's Levin: and I see a quail, like this cackler, who's only amusing himself."

"Well, well, we won't talk of it," the Princess stopped him, recollecting her unlucky Dolly.

And signing each other with the cross, the husband and wife parted with a kiss, feeling that each remained of

The Princess had at first been quite certain that that evening had settled Kitty's fortune, 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,

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 afterward, 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 Peterburg

army men. Although he did go more or less into Peterburg society, his love affairs had always hitherto been

In Moscow he had for the first time felt, after his luxurious and coarse life at Peterburg, 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 her 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 this 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

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

Marriage had never presented itself to him as a possibility. He not only disliked family life, but a family, and

especially a husband, in accordance with the views general in the bachelor world in which he lived, were

conceived as something alien, repellent, and, above all, ridiculous. But though Vronsky had not the least

suspicion of what the parents were saying, he felt on coming away from the Shcherbatskys' that the secret

spiritual bond which existed between him and Kitty had grown so much stronger that evening that some step

"What is so exquisite," he thought, as he returned from the Shcherbatskys', 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, yet 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

sweetly, 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

He passed in review the places he might go to. "Club? a game of bezique; champagne with Ignatov? No, I'm

not going. Chateau des Fleurs; there I shall find Oblonsky, songs, the cancan. No, I'm sick of it. That's why I

like the Shcherbatskys', because I'm growing better. I'll go home." He went straight to his room at Dussot's

Hotel, ordered supper, and then undressed, and as soon as his head touched the pillow, fell into a sound sleep.

Next day, at eleven o'clock in the morning, Vronsky drove to the station of the Peterburg railway to meet his

mother, and the first person he came across on the great flight of steps was Oblonsky, who was expecting his

"My mother," Vronsky responded, smiling, as everyone did who met Oblonsky. He shook hands with him,

"I was looking out for you till two o'clock last night. Where did you go from the Shcherbatskys'?"

"Home," answered Vronsky. "I must own I felt so well content yesterday after the Shcherbatskys' that I didn't

"'I can tell the gallant steeds' by some... I don't know what... 'paces'; I can tell youths 'by their faces,'"

Vronsky smiled with a look that seemed to say that he did not deny it, but he promptly changed the subject.

"I think I do. Or perhaps not... I really am not sure," Vronsky answered heedlessly, with a vague recollection

"But Alexei Alexandrovich, my celebrated brotherinlaw, you surely must know. All the world knows

"I know him by reputation and by sight. I know that he's clever, learned, religious somewhat... But you know

"Yes, he's a very remarkable man; rather a conservative, but a very nice man," observed Stepan Arkadyevich,

"Oh, well, so much the better for him," said Vronsky smiling. "Oh, you've come," he said, addressing a tall

Besides the charm Oblonsky had in general for everyone, Vronsky had felt of late specially drawn to him by

"Well, what do you say? Shall we give a supper on Sunday for the diva?" he said to him with a smile, taking

"Of course. I'm collecting subscriptions. Oh, did you make the acquaintance of my friend Levin?" asked

"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

The approach of the train was more and more evident by the preparatory bustle in the station, the rush of

porters, the movement of gendarmes and attendants, and crowding 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 Arkadyevich, who felt a great inclination to tell Vronsky of Levin's intentions in regard to

Kitty. "No, you haven't 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 charming. He has such a true, honest nature, and a heart of gold. But

yesterday there were special reasons," pursued Stepan Arkadyevich, 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

Vronsky stood still and asked directly: "How so? Do you mean he proposed to your bellesoeur yesterday?"

"Maybe," said Stepan Arkadyevich. "I fancied something of the sort yesterday. Yes, if he went away early,

and was out of humor too, such must be the case.... 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, setting his chest

straight 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 the Claras. If you don't succeed with them it only

proves that you've not enough cash, but in this case one's dignity is in the balance. But here's the train."

The engine had already whistled in the distance. A few instants later the platform began to shake, and, with

puffs of steam hanging low in the air from the frost, the engine rolled up, with the rod of the middle wheel

rhythmically moving up and down, and the bowed, muffled figure of the engine driver covered with

hoarfrost. Behind the tender, setting the platform more and more slowly and more powerfully shaking, came

the luggage van with a dog whining in it. At last the passenger carriages rolled in, quivering before coming to

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 young

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 straightened his

"Countess Vronskaia 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 upbringing, 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, the less in his heart he respected and loved her.

Vronsky followed the guard to the carriage, and at the door of the compartment he stopped short to make

With the habitual feeling 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 because she was very beautiful, not because of that 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 because of her 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 animation 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 her

Vronsky stepped into the carriage. His mother, a driedup old lady with black eyes and ringlets, screwed up

her eyes, scanning her son, and smiled slightly with her thin lips. Getting up from the seat and handing her

maid a handbag, she gave her little wrinkled hand to her son to kiss, and lifting his head from her hand,

"You had a good journey?" said her son, sitting down beside her, and involuntarily listening to a woman's

voice outside the door. He knew it was the voice of the lady he had met at the door.

"Goodby, Ivan Petrovich. And would you see if my brother is here, and send him to me?" said the lady in

"Well, have you found your brother?" said Countess Vronskaia, addressing the lady.

"Your brother is here," he said, standing up. "Excuse me, I did not know you, and, indeed, our acquaintance

"Oh, no," said she, "I should have known you because your mother and I have been talking, I think, of

nothing but you all the way." As she spoke she let the animation that would insist on coming out show itself

Madame Karenina, however, did not wait for her brother, but catching sight of him she stepped out with her

light, resolute step. And as soon as her brother had reached her, with a gesture that struck Vronsky by its

decision and its grace, she flung her left arm around his neck, drew him rapidly to her, and kissed him

warmly. Vronsky looked on, never taking his eyes from her, and smiled, he could not have said why. But

recollecting that his mother was waiting for him, he went back again into the carriage.

"She's very sweet, isn't she?" said the Countess of Madame Karenina. "Her husband put her with me, and I

was delighted to have her. We've been talking all the way. And so you, I hear... vous filez le parfait amour.

"I don't know what you are referring to, maman," he answered coldly. "Come, maman, let us go."

"Well, Countess, you have met your son, and I my brother," she said gaily. "And all my stories are exhausted;

"Oh, no," said the Countess, taking her hand. "I could go all around the world with you and never be dull.

You are one of those delightful women in whose company it's sweet either to be silent or to chat. Now please

Madame Karenina stood quite still, holding herself very erect, and her eyes were smiling.

"Anna Arkadyevna," the Countess said in explanation to her son, "has a little son eight years old, I believe,

and she has never been parted from him before, and she keeps fretting over leaving him."

"Yes, the Countess and I have been talking all the time, I of my son and she of hers," said Madame Karenina,

"I am afraid that you must have been dreadfully bored," he said, promptly catching the ball of coquetry she

had flung him. But apparently she did not care to pursue the conversation in that strain, and she turned to the

"Goodby, my love," answered the Countess. "Let me kiss your pretty face. I speak plainly, at my age, and I

Stereotyped as the phrase was, Madame Karenina obviously believed it and was delighted by it. She flushed,

bent down slightly, and put her cheek to the Countess's lips, drew herself up again, and, with the same smile

fluttering between her lips and her eyes, she gave her hand to Vronsky. He pressed the little hand she gave

him, and was delighted, as though at something special, by the energetic squeeze with which she freely and

vigorously shook his hand. She went out with the rapid step which bore her rather fully developed figure with

That was precisely what her son was thinking. His eyes followed her till her graceful figure was out of sight,

and then the smile remained on his face. He saw out of the window how she went up to her brother, put her

arm in his, and began telling him something animatedly obviously something that had nothing to do with

"Everything has been delightful. Alexandre has been very good, and Marie has grown very pretty. She's very

And she began telling him again of what interested her most the christening of her grandson, for which she

had been staying in Peterburg, and the special favor shown her elder son by the Czar.

"Here's Lavrentii," said Vronsky, looking out of the window; "now we can go, if you like."

The old butler who had traveled with the Countess came to the carriage to announce that everything was

The maid took a handbag and the lap dog, the butler and a porter the other baggage. Vronsky gave his mother

his arm; but just as they were getting out of the carriage several men ran suddenly by with panicstricken

faces. The stationmaster, too, ran by in his extraordinarily colored cap. Obviously something unusual had

"What?... What?... Where?... Flung himself!... Crushed!..." was heard among the crowd.

Stepan Arkadyevich, with his sister on his arm, turned back. They too looked scared, and stopped at the

The ladies got in, while Vronsky and Stepan Arkadyevich followed the crowd to find out details of the

A watchman, either drunk or too much muffled up in the bitter frost, had not heard the train moving back, and

Before Vronsky and Oblonsky came back the ladies heard the facts from the butler.

Oblonsky and Vronsky had both seen the mutilated corpse. Oblonsky was evidently distressed. He frowned

"Ah, how awful! Ah, Anna, if you had seen it! Ah, how awful!" he kept repeating.

"Ah, if you had seen it, Countess," said Stepan Arkadyevich. "And his wife was there.... It was awful to see

her!... She flung herself on the body. They say he was the only support of an immense family. How awful!"

"Couldn't one do anything for her?" said Madame Karenina in an agitated whisper.

When he came back a few minutes later, Stepan Arkadyevich was already in conversation with the Countess

about a new singer, while she was impatiently looking toward the door, waiting for her son.

They went out together. Vronsky was in front with his mother. Behind walked Madame Karenina with her

brother. Just as they were going out of the station the stationmaster overtook Vronsky.

"You gave my assistant two hundred roubles. Would you kindly explain for whose benefit you intend them?"

"For the widow," said Vronsky, shrugging his shoulders. "I should have thought there was no need to ask."

"You gave that?" cried Oblonsky behind, and, pressing his sister's hand, he added: "Most charming, most

When they went out the Vronskys' carriage had already driven away. People coming in were still talking of

"What a horrible death!" said a gentleman, passing by. "They say he was cut in two."

Madame Karenina seated herself in the carriage, and Stepan Arkadyevich saw with surprise that her lips were

"What nonsense!" said Stepan Arkadyevich. "You've come, that's the chief thing. You can't conceive how I'm

"Yes?" said Anna softly. "Come now, let us talk of you," she added, tossing her head, as though she would

physically shake off something superfluous oppressing her. "Let us talk of your affairs. I got your letter, and

On reaching home Oblonsky helped his sister out, sighed, pressed her hand, and set off to his office.

When Anna entered the tiny drawing room, she found Dolly sitting there with a whiteheaded plump little

boy, already resembling his father; she was listening to a lesson in French reading. As the boy read, he kept

twisting and trying to tear off a button that was nearly off his jacket. His mother had several times taken his

hand from it, but the plump little hand went back to the button again. His mother pulled the button off and put

"Keep your hands still, Grisha," she said, and she took up her work, a coverlet she had long been making. She

always set to work on it at depressed moments, and now she knitted at it nervously, twitching her fingers and

counting the stitches. Though she had sent word the day before to her husband that it was nothing to her

whether his sister came or not, she had made everything ready for her arrival, and was expecting her

Dolly was crushed by her sorrow, utterly swallowed up by it. Still she did not forget that Anna, her

sisterinlaw, was the wife of one of the most important personages in Peterburg, and was a Peterburg

grande dame. And, thanks to this circumstance, she did not carry out her threat to her husband that is to say,

she had not forgotten that her sisterinlaw was coming. "And, after all, Anna is in no wise to blame,"

thought Dolly. "I know nothing save the very best about her, and I have seen nothing but kindness and

affection from her toward myself." It was true that as far as she could recall her impressions at Peterburg at

the Karenins', she did not like their household itself; there was something artificial about the whole

arrangement of their family life. "But why should I not receive her? If only she doesn't take it into her head to

console me!" thought Dolly. "All consolations and exhortations and Christian forgiveness I have thought all

All these days Dolly had been alone with her children. She did not want to talk of her sorrow, but with that

She knew that in one way or another she would tell Anna everything, and she was alternately glad at the

thought of speaking freely, and angry at the necessity of speaking of her humiliation with her, his sister, and

She had been on the lookout for her, glancing at her watch every minute, and, as often happens, let slip that

Catching the sound of skirts and of light steps at the door, she looked round, and her careworn face

unconsciously expressed not gladness, but wonder. She got up and embraced her sisterinlaw.

"I am glad, too," said Dolly, faintly smiling, and trying by the expression of Anna's face to find out whether

she knew. "Most likely she knows," she thought, noticing the sympathy in Anna's face. "Well, come along,

I'll take you to your room," she went on, trying to defer as long as possible the time of explanation.

"Is this Grisha? Heavens, how he's grown!" said Anna; and kissing him, never taking her eyes off Dolly, she

She took off her shawl and her hat, and catching it in a lock of her black hair, which was a mass of curls, she

"I?... Yes," said Anna. "Merciful heavens, Tania! You're the same age as my Seriozha," she added,

addressing the little girl as she ran in. She took her in her arms and kissed her. "Delightful child, delightful!

She mentioned them, not only remembering the names, but the years, months, characters, illnesses of all the

After seeing the children, they sat down, alone now, in the drawing room, to coffee. Anna took the tray, and

Dolly looked coldly at Anna; she was waiting now for hypocritically sympathetic phrases, but Anna said

"Dolly, darling," she said, "I don't want to intercede for him, nor to try to comfort you that's impossible. But,

Under the thick lashes of her shining eyes tears suddenly glittered. She moved nearer to her sisterinlaw and

took her hand in her own, vigorous and little. Dolly did not shrink away, but her face did not lose its frigid

"To comfort me is impossible. Everything's lost after what has happened, everything's over!"

And directly she had said this, her face suddenly softened. Anna lifted the wasted, thin hand of Dolly, kissed

"But, Dolly, what's to be done, what's to be done? How is it best to act in this awful position that's what you

"All's over, and there's nothing more," said Dolly. "And the worst of it all is, you see, that I can't cast him off:

there are the children my hands are tied. And I can't live with him! It's a torture for me to see him."

"Dolly, darling, he has spoken to me, but I want to hear it from you: tell me all about it."

"Very well," she suddenly said. "But I will begin at the beginning. You know how I was married. With the

education maman gave us I was more than innocent I was foolish. I knew nothing. They say, I know, men

tell their wives of their former lives, but Stiva" she corrected herself "Stepan Arkadyevich told me nothing.

You'll hardly believe it, but till now I imagined that I was the only woman he had known. So I lived eight

years. You must understand that I was not only far from suspecting infidelity, but I regarded it as impossible,

and then try to imagine it with such conceptions to find out suddenly all the horror, all the loathsomeness...

You must try and understand me. To be fully convinced of one's happiness, and all at once..." continued

Dolly, holding back her sobs, "To get a letter... His letter to his mistress, a governess in my employ. No, it's

too awful!" She hastily pulled out her handkerchief and hid her face in it. "I can understand if it were

passion," she went on, after a brief silence, "but to deceive me deliberately, slyly... And with whom?... To go

"Oh, yes, I understand! I understand! Dolly, dearest, I do understand," said Anna, pressing her hand.

"And do you imagine he realizes all the awfulness of my position? Dolly resumed. "Not in the slightest! He's

"Oh, no!" Anna interposed quickly. "He's to be pitied, he's weighed down by remorse..."

"Is he capable of remorse?" Dolly interrupted, gazing intently into her sisterinlaw's face.

"Yes. I know him. I could not look at him without feeling sorry for him. We both know him. He's

goodnatured, but he's proud, and now he's so humiliated. What touched me most..." (And here Anna

guessed what would touch Dolly most.) "He's tortured by two things: that he's ashamed for the children's

sake, and that, loving you yes, yes, loving you beyond everything on earth," she hurriedly interrupted Dolly,

who would have rejoined "he has hurt you, pierced you to the heart. 'No, no, she cannot forgive me,' he

"Yes, I can see that his position is awful; it's worse for the guilty than the innocent," she said, "if he feels that

all the misery comes from his fault. But how am I to forgive him, how am I to be his wife again after her? For

me to live with him now would be torture, just because I love my past love for him..."

But as though of set design, each time she was softened she began to speak again of what exasperated her.

"She's young, you see, she's pretty," she went on. "Do you know, Anna, my youth and my beauty are gone,

taken by whom? By him and his children. I have worked for him, and all I had has gone in his service, and

now of course any fresh, vulgar creature has more charm for him. No doubt they talked of me together, or,

"And after that he will tell me... What! Am I to believe him? Never! No, everything is over, everything that

once constituted my comfort, the reward of my work and of my sufferings... Would you believe it? I was

teaching Grisha just now: once this was a joy to me, now it is a torture. What have I to strive and toil for?

Why to have children? What's so awful is that all at once my heart's turned, and instead of love and

tenderness, I have nothing but hatred for him; yes, hatred. I could kill him and..."

"Darling Dolly, I understand, but don't torture yourself You are so insulted, so excited, that you look at many

"What's to be done? Think for me, Anna, help me. I have thought over everything, and I see nothing."

Anna could not find anything, but her heart echoed instantly to each word, to each change of expression on

"One thing I would say," began Anna. "I am his sister, I know his character, that faculty of forgetting

everything, everything" (she waved her hand before her forehead), "that faculty for being completely carried

away, but for completely repenting, too. He cannot believe it, he cannot comprehend now, how he could have

"No; he understands, and understood!" Dolly broke in. "But I... You are forgetting me... Does that make it

"Wait a minute. When he told me, I will own I did not realize all the horror of your position. I saw nothing

but him, and that the family was broken up. I felt sorry for him, but after talking to you, I see it, as a woman,

quite differently. I see your agony, and I can't tell you how sorry I am for you! But, Dolly, darling, while I

fully realize your sufferings, there is one thing I don't know; I don't know... I don't know how much love

there is still in your heart for him. That you know whether there is enough for you to be able to forgive him.

"I know more of the world than you do," she said. I know how men like Stiva look at it. You speak of his

talking of you with her. That never happened. Such men are unfaithful, but their own home and wife are

sacred to them. Somehow or other these women are still looked on with contempt by them, and do not touch

on their feeling for their family. They draw a sort of line that can't be crossed between them and their

"Dolly, hush, darling. I saw Stiva when he was in love with you. I remember the time when he came to me

and cried, talking of you, and of what a poetry and loftiness you were for him, and I know that the longer he

has lived with you the loftier you have been in his eyes. You know we have sometimes laughed at him for

putting in at every word: "Dolly's a marvelous woman." have always been a divinity for him, and you are that

"I don't know, I can't judge... No, I can judge," said Anna, thinking a moment; and grasping the position in

her thought and weighing it in her inner balance, she added: "Yes, I can, I can, I can. Yes, I could forgive. I

could not be the same, no; but I could forgive, and forgive as though it had never been, never been at all...."

"Oh, of course," Dolly interposed quickly, as though saying what she had more than once thought, "else it

would not be forgiveness. If one forgives, it must be completely, completely. Come, let us go; I'll take you to

your room," she said, getting up, and on the way she embraced Anna. "My dear, how glad I am you came. It

The whole of that day Anna spent at home that is, at the Oblonskys', and received no one, though some of

her acquaintances had already heard of her arrival, and came to call the same day. Anna spent the whole

morning with Dolly and the children. She merely sent a brief note to her brother to tell him that he must not

Oblonsky did dine at home: the conversation was general, and his wife, speaking to him, addressed him as

"Stiva," as she had not done for some time past. In the relations of husband and wife the same estrangement

still remained, but there was no talk of separation, and Stepan Arkadyevich saw the possibility of explanation

Immediately after dinner Kitty came in. She knew Anna Arkadyevna, but only very slightly, and she came

now to her sister's with some trepidation, at the prospect of meeting this fashionable Peterburg lady, of whom

everyone spoke so highly. But she made a favorable impression on Anna Arkadyevna she perceived that at

once. Anna was unmistakably admiring her loveliness and her youth: before Kitty knew where she was she

found herself not merely under Anna's sway, but in love with her, as young girls do fall in love with older and

married women. Anna did not resemble a fashionable lady, or the mother of a boy eight years old. In the

elasticity of her movements, the freshness and the animation which persisted in her face and broke out in her

smile and her glance, she would rather have passed for a girl of twenty, had it not been for a serious and, at

times, a mournful look in her eyes, which struck and attracted Kitty. Kitty felt that Anna was perfectly simple

and was concealing nothing, but that she had another higher world of interests, complex and poetic, which

After dinner, when Dolly withdrew to her own room, Anna rose quickly and went up to her brother, who was

"Stiva," she said to him, winking gaily, making the sign of the cross over him, and glancing toward the door,

He tossed away his cigar, having understood her, and departed through the doorway.

When Stepan Arkadyevich had disappeared, she went back to the sofa where she had been sitting, surrounded

by the children. Either because the children saw that their mother was fond of this aunt, or that they

themselves sensed a special charm in her, the two elder ones, and the younger following their lead, as

children so often do, had clung about their new aunt since before dinner, and would not leave her side. And it

had become a sort of game among them to sit as close as possible to their aunt, to touch her, hold her little

"Come, come, as we were sitting before," said Anna Arkadyevna, sitting down in her place.

And again Grisha poked his little face under her arm, and nestled with his head on her gown, beaming with

"Next week and a splendid ball. One of those balls where one always enjoys oneself."

"Why, are there balls where one always enjoys oneself?" Anna said, with tender irony.

"It's strange, but there are. At the Bobrishchevs' one always enjoys oneself, and at the Nikitins' too, while at

"No, my dear, for me there are no balls now where one enjoys oneself," said Anna, and Kitty detected in her

eyes that peculiar world which was not revealed to her. "For me there are some which are less dull and

"In the first place it's never so; and secondly, if it were, what difference would it make to me?"

"I imagine it won't be possible to avoid going. Here, take it," she said to Tania, who was pulling the loosely

"Anyway, if I do go, I shall comfort myself with the thought that it's a pleasure to you.... Grisha, don't pull

my hair. It's untidy enough without that," she said, putting up a straying lock, which Grisha had been playing

"And why in lilac, precisely?" asked Anna, smiling. "Now, children, run along, run along. Do you hear? Miss

Hoole is calling you to tea," she said tearing the children from her, and sending them off to the dining room.

"I know why you press me to come to the ball. You expect a great deal of this ball, and you want everyone to

"Oh! What a happy time you are at," pursued Anna. "I remember, and I know this blue haze, like the mist on

the mountains in Switzerland. This mist, which covers everything in that blissful time when childhood is just

ending, and out of that vast circle, happy and gay, there is a path growing narrower and narrower, and it is

delightful and alarming to enter the ballroom, bright and splendid as it is.... Who has not been through it?"

Kitty smiled without speaking. "But how did she go through it? How I should like to know all her love

story!" thought Kitty, recalling the unromantic appearance of Alexei Alexandrovich, her husband.

"I know something. Stiva told me, and I congratulate you. I liked him so much," Anna continued. "I met

"Stiva blabbed about it all. And I should be so glad. I traveled yesterday with Vronsky's mother," she went

on; "and his mother talked without a pause of him; he's her favorite. I know mothers are partial, but..."

"Oh, a great deal! And although I know that he's her favorite, one can still see how chivalrous he is.... Well,

for instance, she told me that he had wanted to give up all his property to his brother; that he had done

something extraordinary when he was quite a child saved a woman from the water. He's a hero, in fact,"

said Anna, smiling and recollecting the two hundred roubles he had given at the station.

But she did not tell Kitty about the two hundred roubles. For some reason it was disagreeable to her to think

of it. She felt that there was something that had to do with her in it, and something that ought not to have

"She pressed me very much to go and see her," Anna went on; "and I shall be glad to go to see her tomorrow.

Stiva is staying a long while in Dolly's room, thank God," Anna added, changing the subject, and getting up,

"No, I'm first! No, I!" screamed the children, who had finished tea, running up to their Aunt Anna.

"All together," said Anna, and she ran laughing to meet them, and, embracing them, threw all the children,

Dolly came out of her room to the tea of the grownups. Stepan Arkadyevich did not come out. He must have

"I am afraid you'll be cold upstairs," observed Dolly, addressing Anna; "I want to move you downstairs, and

"Oh, please, don't trouble about me," answered Anna, looking intently into Dolly's face, trying to make out

"What's all this?" inquired Stepan Arkadyevich, coming out of his room and addressing his wife.

From his tone both Kitty and Anna at once gathered that a reconciliation had taken place.

"I want to move Anna downstairs, but we must hang up blinds. No one knows how to do it; I must see to it

"God knows whether they are fully reconciled," thought Anna, hearing her tone, cold and composed.

"Come, Dolly, why be always making difficulties," answered her husband. "There, I'll do it all, if you like..."

"I know how you do everything," answered Dolly. "You tell Matvei to do what can't be done, and go away

yourself, leaving him to make a muddle of everything," and her habitual, mocking smile curved the corners of

"Full, full reconciliation full," thought Anna, "thank God!" and rejoicing that she was the cause of it, she

"Not at all. Why do you always look down on me and Matvei?" said Stepan Arkadyevich, smiling hardly

The whole evening Dolly was, as always, a little mocking in her tone to her husband, while Stepan

Arkadyevich was happy and cheerful, yet not so as to seem as if, having been forgiven, he had forgotten his

At halfpast nine o'clock a particularly joyful and pleasant family conversation over the tea table at the

Oblonskys' was broken up by an apparently simple incident. But this simple incident for some reason struck

everyone as strange. Having begun talking about common acquaintances in Peterburg, Anna got up quickly.

"She is in my album," she said; "and, by the way, I'll show you my Seriozha," she added, with a mother's

Toward ten o'clock, when she usually said good night to her son, and often, before going to a ball put him to

bed herself, she felt depressed at being so far from him; and whatever she was talking about, she kept coming

back in thought to her curlyheaded Seriozha. She longed to look at his photograph and talk of him. Seizing

the first pretext, she got up, and with her light, resolute step went for her album. The stairs up to her room

"It's too early for me to be fetched, and for anyone else it's too late," observed Kitty.

"It's sure to be someone with papers for me," put in Stepan Arkadyevich. When Anna was passing the top of

the staircase, a servant was running up to announce the visitor, while the visitor himself was standing under a

lamp. Anna, glancing down, at once recognized Vronsky, and a strange feeling of pleasure and, at the same

time, of some dread, stirred in her heart. He stood there, without taking off his coat, and pulling something

out of his pocket. At the instant when she was just halfway up the stairs he raised his eyes, caught sight of

her, and the expression of his face changed to embarrassment and dismay. With a slight inclination of her

head she passed, hearing behind her Stepan Arkadyevich's loud voice calling him to come up, and the quiet,

When Anna returned with the album he was already gone, and Stepan Arkadyevich was telling them that he

had called to inquire about the dinner they were giving next day to a foreign celebrity.

"And nothing would induce him to come up. What a queer fellow he is!" added Stepan Arkadyevich.

Kitty blushed. She thought that she was the only person who knew why he had come, and why he would not

come up. "He has been at home," she thought, "and didn't find me, and thought I should be here, but he did

All of them looked at each other, saying nothing, and began to look at Anna's album.

There was nothing either exceptional or strange in a man's calling at halfpast nine on a friend to inquire

details of a proposed dinner party and not coming in, yet it seemed strange to all of them. And to Anna it

The ball was only just beginning as Kitty and her mother walked up the great staircase, flooded with light,

and lined with flowers and footmen in powder and red coats. From the rooms came a constant, steady noise,

like that of a hive aswarm; and as they were giving the final little touches to hair and dresses before a mirror

on the landing between potted trees, they heard, coming from the ballroom, the gently distinct notes of the

fiddles of the orchestra, beginning the first waltz. A little ancient in civilian dress, arranging his gray curls

before another mirror, and diffusing an odor of scent, stumbled against them on the stairs, and stood aside,

evidently admiring Kitty, whom he did not know. A beardless youth, one of those society youths whom the

old Prince Shcherbatsky called whelps, in an exceedingly open waistcoat, straightening his white tie as he

went, bowed to them and after running by, came back to ask Kitty for a quadrille. As the first quadrille had

already been given to Vronsky, she had to promise this youth the second. An officer, buttoning his glove,

Although her dress, her coiffure, and all the preparations for the ball had cost Kitty much trouble and

planning, at this moment she walked into the ballroom in the elaborate tulle dress over a pink slip as

unconcernedly and simply as though all the rosettes and lace, all the minute details of her attire, had not cost

her or her family a moment's attention, as though she had been born in this tulle and lace, with this towering

When, just before entering the ballroom, the old Princess tried to adjust a sash ribbon that had become

twisted, Kitty had drawn back a little. She felt that everything must be right of itself, and graceful, and that

Kitty had one of her good days. Her dress was not uncomfortable anywhere; her lace bertha did not droop

anywhere; her rosettes were neither crushed nor torn off; her pink slippers with high, curving heels did not

pinch, but gladdened her tiny feet; and the thick bandeaux of fair hair kept up on her head. All the three

buttons buttoned up without tearing on the long glove that covered her hand without concealing its lines. The

black velvet ribbon of her locket nestled with special tenderness round her neck. This velvet ribbon was a

darling; at home, regarding her neck in the looking glass, Kitty had felt that that velvet was speaking. About

all the rest there might be a doubt, but the velvet ribbon was a darling. Kitty smiled here too, at the ball, when

she glanced at it in the glass. Her bare shoulders and arms gave Kitty a sensation of chill marble a sensation

she particularly liked. Her eyes sparkled, and her rosy lips could not help but smile from the consciousness of

their own attractiveness. She had scarcely entered the ballroom and reached the tulleribbonlacecolored

throng of ladies, waiting to be asked to dance Kitty was never one of that throng when she was asked for a

waltz, and asked by the best partner, the first star in the hierarchy of the ballroom, a renowned conductor of

the dances and master of ceremonies, married man, handsome and well built, Iegorushka Korsunsky. He had

only just left the Countess Banina, with whom he had danced the first turn of the waltz, and, scanning his

demesne that is to say, a few couples who had started dancing he caught sight of Kitty entering, and flew

up to her with that peculiar, easy amble which is confined to conductors of the dances. Bowing and without

even asking her if she cared to dance, he put out his arm to encircle her slender waist. She looked round for

"How good of you to come in good time," he said to her, embracing her waist; "such a bad habit to be late."

Bending her left arm, she laid it on his shoulder, and her little feet in their pink slippers began swiftly, lightly,

"It's a rest to waltz with you," he said to her, as they fell into the first slow steps of the waltz. "It's charming

such lightness, precision." He said to her the same thing he said to almost all his partners whom he knew

She smiled at his praise, and continued to look about the room over his shoulder. She was not like a girl at her

first ball, for whom all faces in the ballroom melt into one vision of fairyland. And she was not a girl who had

gone the stale round of balls till every face in the ballroom was familiar and tiresome. But she was in the

middle stage between these two; she was excited, and at the same time she had sufficient selfpossession to

be able to observe. In the left corner of the ballroom she saw the very flower of society grouped together.

There impossibly naked was the beauty Liddy, Korsunsky's wife; there was the lady of the house; there

shone the bald pate of Krivin, always to be found wherever the best people were; in that direction gazed the

young men, not venturing to approach; there, too, she descried Stiva, and there she saw the charming figure

and head of Anna in a black velvet gown. And he was there. Kitty had not seen him since the evening she

refused Levin. With her farsighted eyes, knew him at once, and was even aware that he was looking at her.

And Korsunsky began waltzing with measured steps straight toward the group in the left corner, continually

saying, "Pardon, mesdames, pardon, pardon, mesdames," and steering his course through the sea of lace, tulle

and ribbon, and not disarranging a feather, he turned his partner sharply round, so that her slim ankles, in

light, transparent stockings, were exposed to view, and her train floated out in fan shape and covered Krivin's

knees. Korsunsky bowed, set straight his open shirt front, and gave her his arm to conduct her to Anna

Arkadyevna. Kitty, flushed, took her train from Krivin's knees, and, a little giddy, looked round, seeking

Anna. Anna was not in lilac, as Kitty had so urgently wished, but in a black, lowcut, velvet gown, showing

her full shoulders and bosom, that looked as though carved in old ivory, and her rounded arms, with tiny,

slender hands. The whole gown was trimmed with Venetian guipure. On her head, among her black hair her

own, with no false additions was a little wreath of pansies, and a similar one on the black ribbon of her sash,

among white lace. Her coiffure was not striking. All that was noticeable was the little willful tendrils of her

curly hair that persisted in escaping on the nape of her neck, and on her temples. Encircling her sculptured,

Kitty had been seeing Anna every day; she adored her, and had pictured her invariably in lilac. But now,

seeing her in black, she felt that she had not fully perceived her charm. She saw her now as someone quite

new and surprising to her. Now she understood that Anna could not have been in lilac, and that her charm

was precisely in that she always stood out against her attire, that her dress could never be noticeable on her.

And her black dress, with its sumptuous lace, was not noticeable on her; it was only the frame and all that

was seen was she simple, natural, elegant, and at the same time gay and animated.

She was standing, as always, very erect, and when Kitty drew near the group she was speaking to the master

"No, I won't cast a stone," she was saying, in answer to something, "though I can't understand it she went on,

shrugging her shoulders, and she turned at once with a soft smile of protection toward Kitty. With a cursory

feminine glance she scanned her attire, and made a movement of her head, hardly perceptible, but understood

by Kitty, signifying approval of her dress and her looks. "You came into the room dancing," she added.

"This is one of my most faithful supporters," said Korsunsky, bowing to Anna Arkadyevna, whom he had not

yet seen. "The Princess helps to make any ball festive and successful. Anna Arkadyevna, a waltz?" he said,

"Is there anyone we have not met? My wife and I are like white wolves everyone knows us," answered

"Well, since it's impossible tonight, let us start," she said, not noticing Vronsky's bow, and hastily put her

"What is she vexed with him about?" thought Kitty, discerning that Anna had intentionally not responded to

Vronsky's bow. Vronsky went up to Kitty, reminding her of the first quadrille, and expressing his regret at

not having seen her all this time. Kitty gazed in admiration at Anna waltzing, as she listened to him. She

expected him to ask her for a waltz, but he did not, and she glanced wonderingly at him. He flushed, and

hurriedly asked her to waltz, but he had barely put his arm round her slender waist and taken the first step

when the music suddenly stopped. Kitty looked into his face, which was so close to her own, and long

afterward for several years this look, full of love, to which he made no response, cut her to the heart with

"Pardon! Pardon! Waltz! Waltz!" shouted Korsunsky from the other side of the room, and, seizing the first

Vronsky and Kitty waltzed several times round the room. After the waltz Kitty went to her mother, and she

had hardly time to say a few words to Countess Nordstone when Vronsky came up again for the first

quadrille. During the quadrille nothing of any significance was said: there was disjointed talk between them

of the Korsunskys, husband and wife, whom he described very amusingly, as delightful children at forty, and

of the future popular theater; and only once did the conversation touch her to the quick when he asked her

whether Levin were here, and added that he liked him very much. But Kitty did not expect much from the

quadrille. She looked forward with a sinking heart to the mazurka. She fancied that the mazurka would decide

everything. The fact that he did not during the quadrille ask her for the mazurka did not trouble her. She felt

sure she would dance it with him, as she had done at former balls, and refused five young men, saying she

was engaged for the mazurka. The whole ball up to the last quadrille was for Kitty an enchanted vision of

delightful colors, sounds and motions. She only sat down when she felt too tired and begged for a rest. But as

she was dancing the last quadrille with one of the tiresome young men whom she could not refuse, she

chanced to be visavis with Vronsky and Anna. She had not been near Anna since the beginning of the

evening, and now she again suddenly saw her as quite new and surprising. She saw in her the signs of that

excitement of success she knew so well in herself; she saw that she was intoxicated with the delighted

admiration she was exciting. She knew that feeling and knew its signs, and saw them in Anna; saw the

quivering, flashing light in her eyes, and the smile of happiness and excitement unconsciously curving her

"Who is it?" she asked herself. "All or one?" And without keeping up her end of the conversation, the thread

of which the harassed young man she was dancing with lost and could not pick up again, she obeyed with

external liveliness the peremptory shouts of Korsunsky starting them all into the grand rond, and then into the

chaine, and at the same time she kept watch with a growing pang at her heart. "No, it's not admiration of the

crowd that has intoxicated her, but the adoration of one. And that one? Can it be he?" Every time he spoke to

Anna the joyous light flashed into her eyes, and the smile of happiness curved her red lips. She seemed to

make an effort to control herself, in order not to show these signs of delight, but they appeared on her face of

themselves. "But what of him?" Kitty looked at him and was horrified. What was pictured so clearly to Kitty

in the mirror of Anna's face she saw in him. What had become of his always calm, firm manner, and the

carelessly calm expression of his face? Now every time he turned to her he bent his head, as though he would

have fallen at her feet, and in his eyes there was nothing but humble submission and dread. "I would not

offend you," his eyes seemed to be saying each time, "but I want to save myself, and I don't know how." On

They were speaking of common acquaintances, keeping up the smallest of small talk, but to Kitty it seemed

that every word they said was determining their fate and hers. And strangely enough, although they were

actually talking of how absurd Ivan Ivanovich was with his French, and how the Eletsky girl might have

made a better match, these words were yet fraught with significance for them, and they sensed this as much

as Kitty did. The whole ball, the whole world, everything seemed screened by a fog within Kitty's soul.

Nothing but the stern discipline of her bringingup supported her and forced her to do what was expected of

her that is, to dance, to answer questions, to talk, even to smile. But before the mazurka, when they were

beginning to rearrange the chairs and a few couples moved out of the smaller rooms into the big room, a

moment of despair and horror came for Kitty. She had refused five partners, and now she was not dancing the

mazurka. She had not even a hope of being asked for it, because she was so successful in society that the idea

would never occur to anyone that she had remained disengaged till now. She would have to tell her mother

she felt ill and go home, yet she had not the strength to do this. She felt crushed.

She went to the farthest end of the second drawing room and sank into a low chair. Her light, transparent

skirts rose like a cloud about her slender waist; one bare, thin, soft, girlish arm, hanging listlessly, was lost in

the folds of her pink tunic; in the other she held her fan and with rapid, short strokes fanned her burning face.

Yet, while she looked like a butterfly clinging to a blade of grass, and just about to open its rainbow wings

"But perhaps I am wrong perhaps it was not so?" And again she recalled all she had seen.

"Kitty, what is it?" said Countess Nordstone, stepping noiselessly over the carpet toward her. "I don't

"He asked her for the mazurka in my presence," said Countess Nordstone, knowing Kitty would understand

who he and her were. "She said: 'Why, aren't you going to dance it with Princess Shcherbatskaia?'"

No one but she herself understood her position; no one knew that she had refused yesterday the man whom

Countess Nordstone found Korsunsky, with whom she was to dance the mazurka, and told him to ask Kitty.

Kitty danced in the first couple, and luckily for her she had not to talk because Korsunsky was all the time

running about, overseeing his demesne. Vronsky and Anna were sitting almost opposite her. She saw them

with her farsighted eyes, and saw them, too, close by when they met in the figures, and the more she saw of

them the more convinced was she that her unhappiness was consummated. She saw that they felt themselves

alone in this crowded room. And on Vronsky's face, always so firm and independent, she saw the look that

had struck her, of bewilderment and humble submissiveness, like the expression of an intelligent dog when it

Anna smiled and her smile was reflected by him. She grew thoughtful and he became serious. Some

supernatural force drew Kitty's eyes to Anna's face. She was charming in her simple black dress; charming

were her round arms with their bracelets; charming was her firm neck with its thread of pearls; charming the

straying curls of her loose hair; charming the graceful, light movements of her little feet and hands, charming

was that lovely face in its animation yet there was something terrible and cruel in her charm.

Kitty admired her more than ever, and more and more acute did her suffering grow. Kitty felt crushed, and

her face showed it. When Vronsky caught sight of her, coming upon her in the mazurka, he did not at once

In the middle of the mazurka, repeating a complicated figure, newly invented by Korsunsky, Anna came

forward into the center of the circle, chose two gentlemen, and summoned Kitty and another lady. Kitty

gazed at her in dismay as she went up. Anna looked at her with drooping eyelids, and smiled, pressing her

hand. But, noticing that Kitty only responded to her smile by a look of despair and amazement, she turned

"Yes, there is something uncanny, devilish and charming about her," said Kitty to herself.

Anna did not want to stay for supper, but the master of the house began urging her.

"Nonsense, Anna Arkadyevna," said Korsunsky placing her bare hand upon his coat sleeve. "I've such an idea

And he moved gradually on, trying to draw her along with him. Their host smiled approvingly.

"No, I'm not going to stay," answered Anna, smiling, but, in spite of her smile, both Korsunsky and the

"No; why, as it is, I have danced more at your ball in Moscow than I have all the winter in Peterburg," said

Anna, looking round at Vronsky, who stood near her. "I must rest a little before my journey."

"Yes, I suppose so," answered Anna, as though wondering at the boldness of his question; but the

irrepressible, quivering brilliance of her eyes and her smile set him on fire as she said it.

"Yes, there must be something disgusting, repulsive about me," reflected Levin, as he left the Shcherbatskys',

and set out on foot for his brother's lodgings. "And I don't get on with other people. Pride, they say. No, I

haven't even pride. If I had any pride, I should not have put myself in such a position." And he pictured to

himself Vronsky, happy, goodnatured, clever and calm certainly never placed in the awful position in

which he had been that evening. "Yes, she was bound to choose him. It must be so, and I cannot complain of

anyone or anything. I am myself to blame. What right had I to imagine she would care to join her life to

mine? Who am I, and what am I? A nobody, not wanted by anyone, nor of use to anybody." And he recalled

his brother Nikolai, and dwelt with pleasure on the thought of him. "Isn't he right in saying that everything in

the world is bad and vile? And are we fair in our judgment, present and past, of brother Nikolai? Of course,

from the point of view of Procophii, seeing him in a torn cloak and tipsy, he's a despicable person. But I

know him differently. I know his soul, and know that we are alike. And I, instead of going to seek him out,

went out to dinner, and then came here." Levin walked up to a lamppost, read his brother's address, which

was in his pocketbook, and called a cabby. All the long way to his brother's Levin vividly recalled all the

facts, familiar to him, of his brother Nikolai's life. He remembered how his brother, while at the university,

and for a year afterward, had, in spite of the jeers of his companions, lived like a monk, strictly observing all

religious rites, services and fasts, and avoiding every sort of pleasure especially women. And now,

afterward, he had all at once broken out: had associated with the most horrible people, and rushed into the

most senseless debauchery. He remembered later the scandal over a boy, whom he had taken from the

country to bring up, and, in a fit of rage, had so violently beaten that proceedings were brought against him

for personal injury. Then he remembered the scandal with a sharper, to whom he had lost money, and given a

promissory note, and against whom he had himself lodged a complaint, asserting that he had cheated him.

(This was the money Sergei Ivanovich had paid.) Then he remembered how he had spent a night in a police

station for disorderly conduct in the street. He remembered the shameful proceedings he had instituted

against his brother Sergei Ivanovich, accusing him of not having paid him, apparently, his share of his

mother's estate; and the last scandal, when he had gone to a Western province in an official capacity, and

there had got into trouble for assaulting a village elder.... It was all horribly vile, yet to Levin it appeared not

at all as vile as it inevitably would to those who did not know Nikolai, did not know all his story, did not

Levin remembered that when Nikolai had been in the devout stage, the period of fasts and monks and church

services, when he was seeking in religion a support and a curb for his passionate temperament, everyone, far

from encouraging him, had jeered at him and Levin had, too, with the others. They had teased him, calling

him Noah and Monk; yet, when he had broken out, no one had helped him, but had all turned away from him,

Levin felt that brother Nikolai, in spite of all the ugliness of his life, in his soul, in the very depths of his soul,

was no more in the wrong than the people who despised him. He was not to blame for having been born with

his unbridled character and some pressure upon his intellect. For he had always wanted to be good. "I will tell

him everything, without reserve, and I will make him speak without reserve, too, and I'll show him that I love

him, and therefore understand him," Levin resolved to himself, as, toward eleven o'clock, he reached the

The door of No. 12 was half open, and, together with a streak of light, there issued thick fumes of cheap, poor

tobacco, and the sound of a voice, unknown to Levin; but he knew at once that his brother was there: he

Konstantin Levin looked in at the door, and saw that the speaker was a young man with an immense shock of

hair, wearing a Russian coat, and that a pockmarked young woman in a woolen gown, without collar or

cuffs, was sitting on the sofa. His brother was not to be seen. Konstantin felt a sharp pang at his heart at the

thought of the strange company in which his brother spent his life. No one had heard him, and Konstantin,

taking off his galoshes, listened to what the gentleman in the Russian coat was saying. He was speaking of

"Well, the devil flay them, these privileged classes," his brother's voice responded, with a cough. "Masha! get

us some supper, and serve up some wine, if there's any left; or else send for some."

"Who's I?" Nikolai's voice said again, still more angrily. He could be heard getting up hurriedly, stumbling

against something, and Levin saw, facing him in the doorway, the big scared eyes, and the huge, gaunt,

stooping figure of his brother, so familiar, and yet astonishing in its oddity and sickliness.

He was even thinner than three years before, when Konstantin Levin had seen him last. He was wearing a

short coat, and his hands and big bones seemed huger than ever. His hair had grown thinner, the same straight

mustache hid his lips, the same eyes gazed strangely and naively at his visitor.

"Ah, Kostia!" he exclaimed suddenly, recognizing his brother, and his eyes lighted up with joy. But the same

second he looked round at the young man, and gave the nervous jerk of his head and neck that Konstantin

knew so well, as if his cravat were choking him; and a quite different expression wild, suffering and cruel

"I wrote to you and Sergei Ivanovich both that I don't know you, and don't want to know you. What is it you

He was not at all the same as Konstantin had been fancying him. The worst and most oppressive part of his

character, which made all relations with him so difficult, had been forgotten by Konstantin Levin when he

thought of him; and now, when he saw his face, and especially that nervous twitching of his head, he

"I didn't want to see you for anything," he answered timidly. "I've simply come to see you."

"Oh, so that's it?" he said. "Well, come in; sit down. Like some supper? Masha, bring supper for three. No,

stop a minute. Do you know who this is?" he said, addressing his brother, and indicating the gentleman in the

Russian coat: "This is Mr. Kritsky, a friend of my Kiev days a very remarkable man. He's persecuted by the

And he surveyed, as it was a habit of his, everyone in the room. Seeing that the woman standing in the

doorway was starting to go, he shouted to her. "Wait a minute, I said." And with that inability to express

himself, the incoherence that Konstantin knew so well, he began, with another look round at everyone, to tell

Kritsky's story to his brother: how he had been expelled from the university for starting a benevolent society

for the poor students, and classes on Sunday, and how he had afterward been a teacher in a rural school, and

had been driven out of that, too; and had afterward been on trial for something or other.

"You're of the Kiev University?" said Konstantin Levin to Kritsky, to break the awkward silence that

"And this woman," Nikolai Levin interrupted him, pointing to her, "is my lifemate, Marya Nikolaevna. I took

her out of a dive, and he jerked his neck as he said it. "But I love her and respect her, and anyone who wants

to know me," he added, raising his voice and knitting his brows, "is requested to love her and respect her.

She's precisely the same as a wife to me precisely. So now you know whom you've got to do with. And if

"Then, Masha, tell them to bring supper; three portions, and vodka and wine... No, wait a minute... No, it

"So you see," pursued Nikolai Levin, painfully wrinkling his forehead and twitching.

"Here, do you see?... He pointed to some sort of short iron bars, fastened together with twine, lying in a

corner of the room. "Do you see that? That's the beginning of a new enterprise we're going into. This

Konstantin scarcely heard him. He looked into his sickly, consumptive face, and he was more and more sorry

for him, and he could not force himself to listen to what his brother was telling him about the association. He

saw that this association was a mere anchor to save him from selfcontempt. Nikolai Levin went on talking:

"You know that capital oppresses the worker. Our workers, the mouzhiks, bear all the burden of labor, and

are so placed that, no matter how much they work, they can't escape from their position of beasts of burden.

All the profits of labor, on which they might improve their position, and gain leisure for themselves, and after

that education all the surplus values, are taken from them by the capitalists. And society is so constituted

that the harder they work, the greater the profit of the merchants and landowners, while they stay beasts of

burden to the end. And that state of things must be changed," he finished up, and looked questioningly at his

"Yes, of course," said Konstantin, looking at the patch of red that had come out on his brother's projecting

"And so we're founding a locksmiths' association, where all the production and profit, and the chief

"But why in a village? In the villages, I think, there is plenty of work as it is. Why a locksmiths' association in

"Why? Because the peasants are just as much slaves as they ever were, and that's why you and Sergei

Ivanovich don't like people to try and get them out of their slavery," said Nikolai Levin, exasperated by the

Konstantin Levin sighed, looking meanwhile about the cheerless and dirty room. This sigh seemed to

"I know Sergei Ivanovich's, and your, aristocratic views. I know that he applies all the power of his intellect

"Sergei Ivanovich? I'll tell you why!" Nikolai Levin shrieked suddenly at the name of Sergei Ivanovich. "I'll

tell you why... But what's the use of talking? There's only one thing... What did you come to me for? You

look down on all this; very well, then; but go away, in God's name go away!" he shrieked, getting up from

"I don't look down on it at all," said Konstantin Levin timidly. "I don't even dispute it."

At that instant Marya Nikolaevna came back. Nikolai Levin looked round angrily at her. She went quickly to

"I'm not well; I've grown irritable," said Nikolai Levin, getting calmer and breathing painfully; "and then you

talk to me of Sergei Ivanovich and his essay. It's such rubbish, such lying, such selfdeception! What can a

man write about justice who knows nothing of it? Have you read his essay?" he turned to Kritsky, sitting

down again at the table, and clearing a space for himself by pushing back some halfmade cigarettes.

"I haven't," Kritsky responded gloomily, obviously not desiring to enter into the conversation.

"Oh, if you please how did you know it would be wasting your time? That essay's too deep for many

people that is to say, it's over their heads. But it's different with me, I see through his ideas, and I know

"Won't you have supper? All right, goodby! Come round tomorrow with the locksmith."

"What do you want now?" he said, and went out to him in the passage. Left alone with Marya Nikolaevna,

"Yes, more than a year. His health has become very poor. He drinks a great deal," she said.

"Yes," she said, looking timidly toward the doorway, where Nikolai Levin had reappeared.

"What were you talking about?" he said, knitting his brows, and turning his scared eyes from one to the other.

"Oh, if you don't want to say, don't. Only it's no good your talking to her. She's a wench, and you're a

gentleman," he said, with a jerk of the neck. "You understand everything, I see, and have taken stock of

everything, and look with commiseration on my transgressions," he began again, raising his voice.

"Nikolai Dmitrich, Nikolai Dmitrich," whispered Marya Nikolaevna, again going up to him.

"Oh, very well, very well!... But where's the supper? Ah, here it is," he said, seeing a waiter with a tray.

"Here, set it here," he added angrily, and promptly seizing the vodka, he poured out a pony and drank it

greedily. "Like a drink?" he turned to his brother, and at once became betterhumored. "Well, enough of

Sergei Ivanovich. I'm glad to see you, anyway. After all's said and done, we're not strangers. Come, have a

drink. Tell me what you're doing," he went on, greedily munching a piece of bread, and pouring out another

"I live alone in the country, as I always have. I'm busy looking after the land," answered Konstantin,

watching with horror the greediness with which his brother ate and drank, and trying to conceal that he

"Why not? For me now, everything's at an end! I've made a mess of my life. But this I've said, and I say still,

that if my share had been given me when I needed it, my whole life would have been different."

"Do you know your little Vania's with me a clerk in the countinghouse at Pokrovskoe?"

"Yes, tell me what's going on at Pokrovskoe. Is the house still standing, and the birch trees, and our

schoolroom? And Philip the gardener is he living? How I remember the summerhouse and the sofa! Now

mind and don't alter anything in the house, but make haste and get married, and make everything as it used to

"Yes, but say what you like, you have to choose between me and him," he said, looking timidly into his

"If you want to hear my confession of faith on the subject, I tell you that in your quarrel with Sergei

Ivanovich I take neither side. You're both wrong. You're rather wrong outwardly, and he, rather inwardly."

Konstantin could not say that he valued it more because Nikolai was unhappy, and needed affection. But

Nikolai knew that this was just what he meant to say, and scowling he took to the vodka again.

"Enough, Nikolai Dmitrich!" said Marya Nikolaevna, stretching out her plump, bare arm toward the decanter.

Marya Nikolaevna smiled a sweet and goodhumored smile, which was at once reflected on Nikolai's face,

"And do you suppose she understands nothing?" said Nikolai. "She understands everything better than all of

"Were you never before in Moscow?" Konstantin said to her, for the sake of saying something.

"Only you mustn't be formal with her. It frightens her. No one ever spoke to her so but the justice of the

peace who tried her for trying to get out of a house of ill fame. My God, what senselessness there is in this

world!" he cried suddenly. "These new institutions, these justices of the peace, these Zemstvo what

Konstantin Levin listened to him, and that disbelief in the sense of all public institutions, which he shared

with him, and often expressed, was now distasteful to him, coming from his brother's lips.

"In the other world? Ah, I don't like that other world! I don't like it," he said, letting his scared wild eyes rest

on his brother's face. "Here one would think that to get out of all the baseness and the mess, one's own and

other people's, would be a good thing, and yet I'm afraid of death, awfully afraid of death." He shuddered.

"But do drink something. Would you like some champagne? Or shall we go somewhere? Let's go to the

gypsies! Do you know, I've gotten very fond of the gypsies, and of Russian songs."

His speech had begun to falter, and he skipped at random from one subject to another. Konstantin, with the

help of Masha, persuaded him not to go out anywhere, and got him to bed hopelessly drunk.

Masha promised to write to Konstantin in case of need, and to persuade Nikolai to go and stay with his

In the morning Konstantin Levin left Moscow, and toward evening he reached home. On the journey in the

train he talked to his fellow travelers about politics and the new railways, and, just as in Moscow, he was

overcome by a sense of confusion of ideas, by dissatisfaction with himself, and shame of something or other.

But when he got out at his own station, when he saw his oneeyed coachman Ignat, with the collar of his coat

turned up; when, in the dim light falling through the station windows, he saw his own carpeted sledge, his

own horses with their tails up, in their harness trimmed with rings and tassels; when the coachman Ignat, as

he put in his luggage, told him the village news that the contractor had arrived, and that Pava had calved he

felt that little by little the confusion was clearing up, and the shame and selfdissatisfaction were passing

away. He felt this at the mere sight of Ignat and the horses; but he began to see what had happened to him in

quite a different light, when he had put on the sheepskin coat brought for him, and, all muffled up, had taken

his seat in the sleigh and started off, pondering on the work that lay before him in the village, and staring at

the off horse, that had been formerly his saddle horse, overridden, but a spirited animal from the Don. He felt

himself, and did not want to be anyone else. All he wanted now was to be better than before. In the first

place, he resolved that from that day on he would give up hoping for the extraordinary happiness which the

marriage was to afford him, and consequently he would not disdain the present so. In the second place, he

would never again let himself give way to low passion, the memory of which had so tortured him when he

had been making up his mind to propose. Then, remembering his brother Nikolai, he resolved that he would

never allow himself to forget him, that he would watch him, and not lose sight of him, so as to be ready to

help should things go ill with him. And that would be soon, he felt. Then, too, his brother's talk of

communism, which he had treated so lightly at the time, now made him reflect. He considered an alteration in

economic conditions nonsense; yet he had always felt the injustice of his own abundance in comparison with

the poverty of the common folk, and he now determined that, in order to feel quite in the right, though he had

worked hard and lived by no means luxuriously before, he would now work still harder, and would allow

himself even less luxury. And all this seemed to him so easy a conquest over himself that he spent the whole

drive in most pleasant reveries. With a lively feeling of hope in a new, better life, he drove up to his house

The snow of the little quadrangle before the house was lit up by light falling from the windows in the room of

his old nurse, Agathya Mikhailovna, who performed the duties of housekeeper in his house. She was not yet

asleep. Kouzma, awakened by her, sleepy and barefooted, ran out onto the steps. A setter bitch, Laska, leaped

out too, almost upsetting Kouzma, and whining, rubbed against Levin's knees, jumping up and longing, yet

"I grew homesick, Agathya Mikhailovna. East or West, home is best," he answered, and went into his study.

The study was gradually lit up as the candle was brought in. The familiar details came out: the stag's horns;

the bookshelves; the plain stove with its warmhole, which had long wanted mending; his father's sofa, a

large table, and, on the table, an open book, a broken ash tray, a notebook with his handwriting. As he saw all

this, there came over him for an instant a doubt of the possibility of arranging the new life, of which he had

been dreaming on the road. All these traces of his life seemed to clutch him, and to say to him: "No, you're

not going to get away from us, and you're not going to be different but you're going to be the same as you've

always been: with doubts, everlasting dissatisfaction with yourself, vain efforts to amend, and lapses, and

everlasting expectation of a happiness which you won't get, and which isn't possible for you."

But it was his things that said this to him, while another voice in his heart was telling him that he must not

fall under the sway of the past, and that one can do anything with oneself. And hearing that voice, he went

into the corner where stood his two dumbbells, of one pood each, and began jerking and pushing them up,

trying to induce a state of wellbeing. There was a creak of steps at the door. He hastily put down the

The bailiff came in, and said that everything, thank God, was well, but also informed him that the buckwheat

in the new drying machine had been a little scorched. This piece of news irritated Levin. The new drying

machine had been constructed and partly invented by Levin. The bailiff had always been against this drying

machine, and now it was with suppressed triumph that he announced that the buckwheat had been scorched.

Levin was firmly convinced that if the buckwheat had been scorched it was only because precautions had not

been taken, for which he had hundreds of times given orders. He was annoyed, and reprimanded the bailiff.

But there had been an important and joyful event: Pava, his best cow, an expensive beast, bought at a show,

"Kouzma, give me my sheepskin coat. And you, do tell them to fetch a lantern I'm going to have a look at

The cowhouse for the more valuable cows was just behind the house. Walking across the yard, passing a

snowdrift by the lilac tree, he went into the cowhouse. There came a warm, steamy smell of dung when the

frozen door was opened, and the cows, astonished at the unfamiliar light of the lantern, stirred on their fresh

straw. He caught a glimpse of the broad, smooth, black and piebald back of a Dutch cow. Berkoot, the bull,

was lying down with his ring in his lip, and seemed about to get up, but thought better of it, and only gave

two snorts as they passed by him. Pava, the reddish beauty, huge as a hippopotamus, with her back turned to

Levin went into the stall, looked Pava over, and hefted the reddish and reddappled calf up on its unsteady,

spindly legs. Pava, uneasy, began lowing, but when Levin put the calf close to her she was soothed, and,

sighing heavily, began licking her with her rough tongue. The calf fumbling, poked its nose under its mother's

"Bring the light here, Fiodor bring the lantern here," said Levin, examining the heifer. "Like the dam!

though the color takes after the sire. A perfect beauty! Long, and broad in the haunch. Isn't she a beauty now,

Vassilii Fiodorovich?" he addressed the bailiff, quite forgiving him for the buckwheat under the influence of

"What bad blood could she take after? Semion the contractor came the day after you left. You must settle

with him, Konstantin Dmitrich," said the bailiff. "And I have already told you about the machine."

This matter alone was enough to bring Levin back to all the details of his estate, which was on a large scale,

and complicated. He went straight from the cowhouse to the countinghouse, and, after a short talk with the

bailiff and Semion the contractor, he went back to the house and straight upstairs to the drawing room.

The house was big and oldfashioned, and Levin, though he lived alone, heated and used the whole house.

He knew that this was stupid, he knew that it was even wrong, and contrary to his present new plans, but this

house was a whole world to Levin. It was the world in which his father and mother had lived and died. They

had lived just the life that to Levin seemed the ideal of perfection, and that he had dreamed of renewing with

Levin scarcely remembered his mother. His conception of her was for him a sacred memory, and his future

wife was bound to be, in his imagination, a repetition of that exquisite, holy ideal of a woman that his mother

He was so far from conceiving of love for woman apart from marriage that he positively pictured to himself

first the family, and only secondarily the woman who would give him a family. His ideas of marriage were,

consequently, quite unlike those of the great majority of his acquaintances, for whom getting married was

merely one of the many affairs of everyday life. For Levin it was the chief affair of life, on which its whole

When he had gone into the second drawing room, where he always had tea, and had settled himself in his

armchair with a book, and Agathya Mikhailovna had brought him tea, and with her usual, "Well, I'll stay a

while, my dear," had taken a chair at the window, he felt that, however strange it might be, he had not parted

from his daydreams, and that he could not live without them. Whether with her, or with another it was still

bound to be. He was reading his book, pondering on what he was reading, and pausing to listen to Agathya

Mikhailovna, who gossiped away without flagging, and yet, with all that, all sorts of pictures of his work and

a future family life rose disconnectedly before his imagination. He felt that in the depth of his soul something

He heard Agathya Mikhailovna talking of how Prokhor had forgotten his duty to God, and, with the money

Levin had given him to buy a horse, had been drinking without a letup, and had beaten his wife till he'd

halfkilled her. He listened, and read his book, and recalled the whole train of ideas suggested by his reading.

It was Tyndall's Treatise on Heat. He recalled his own criticisms of Tyndall for his selfcomplacency in the

cleverness of his experiments, and for his lack of philosophic insight. And suddenly there floated into his

mind the joyful thought: "In two years' time I shall have two Dutch cows in my herd; Pava herself will

perhaps still be alive; a dozen young daughters of Berkoot, and these three added for show it would be

marvelous!" He took up his book again. "Now well, electricity and heat are the same thing; but is it possible

to substitute one quantity for the other in an equation for the solution of any problem? No. Well, then what of

it? The connection between all the forces of nature is felt instinctively, anyway.... It'll be particularly pleasant

when Pava's daughter will be a reddappled cow like all the herd, to which the other three should be added!

Splendid! I'll go out with my wife and visitors to meet the herd.... My wife says, 'Kostia and I looked after

that heifer like a child.' 'How can it interest you so much?' says a visitor. 'Everything that interests him,

interests me.' But who will she be?" And he remembered what had happened at Moscow.... "Well, there's

nothing to be done.... It's not my fault. But now everything shall go on in a new way. It's nonsense to pretend

that life won't let one, that the past won't let one. One must struggle to live better far better...." He raised his

head, and sank into thought. Old Laska, who had not yet fully digested her delight at his return, and had run

out into the yard to bark, came back wagging her tail, and crept up to him, bringing in the scent of the fresh

"If she could but speak," said Agathya Mikhailovna. "Even though it's a dog... Yet she understands that her

"Do you suppose I don't see it, my dear? It's high time I should know the gentlefolk. Why, I've grown up

from a little thing with them. Never mind, sir, so long as one has health and a clear conscience."

Levin looked intently at her, surprised at how well she had fathomed his thoughts.

Laska kept poking her head under his hand. He stroked her, and she promptly curled up at his feet, laying her

head on a protruding handpaw. And in token of all now being well and satisfactory, she opened her mouth a

little, smacked her lips, and settling her sticky lips more comfortably about her old teeth, she sank into

"That's what I'll do," he said to himself; "that's what I'll do! Never mind.... All's well."

After the ball, early next morning, Anna Arkadyevna sent her husband a telegram that she was leaving

"No, I must go, I must go"; she explained the change in her plans to her sisterinlaw, in a tone that

suggested that she had to remember so many things that there was no enumerating them: "no, really, it had

Stepan Arkadyevich was not dining at home, but he promised to come and see his sister off at seven o'clock.

Kitty, too, did not come, sending a note that she had a headache. Dolly and Anna dined alone with the

children and the English governess. Whether it was because children are fickle, or because they have acute

senses, and they felt that Anna was quite different that day from what she had been when they had taken such

a fancy to her, that she was not now interested in them they had abruptly dropped their play with their aunt,

and their love for her, and were quite indifferent to her leaving. Anna was absorbed the whole morning in

preparations for her departure. She wrote notes to her Moscow acquaintances, jotted down her accounts, and

packed. Altogether Dolly fancied she was not in a placid state of mind, but in that worried mood which Dolly

knew so well in her own case, and which does not come without cause, and for the most part covers

dissatisfaction with oneself. After dinner, Anna went up to her room to dress, and Dolly followed her.

"I? Do you think so? I'm not queer, but I'm nasty. I am like that sometimes. I keep feeling as if I could cry.

It's very stupid, but it'll pass off," said Anna quickly, and she bent her flushed face over a tiny bag in which

she was packing a nightcap and some cambric handkerchiefs. Her eyes were particularly bright, and were

continually dimmed with tears. "In the same way I didn't want to leave Peterburg and now I don't want to go

"Don't say that, Dolly. I've done nothing, and could do nothing. I often wonder why people are all in league

to spoil me. What have I done, and what could I do? In your heart there was found love enough to forgive...."

If it had not been for you, God knows what would have happened! How happy you are, Anna!" said Dolly.

"I have!" said Anna suddenly, and, unexpectedly after her tears, a sly, mocking smile puckered her lips.

"Come, he's amusing, anyway, your skeleton, and not depressing," said Dolly, smiling.

"No, he is depressing. Do you know why I'm going today instead of tomorrow? This is a confession that

weighs on me; I want to make you its recipient," said Anna resolutely letting herself drop into an armchair,

And to her surprise Dolly saw that Anna was blushing up to her ears, up to the curly black ringlets on her

"Yes," Anna went on. "Do you know why Kitty didn't come to dinner? She's jealous of me. I have spoiled...

I've been the cause of that ball being a torture to her instead of a pleasure. But truly, truly, it's not my fault, or

only my fault a little bit," she said, daintily drawling the words "a little bit."

"Oh no, oh no! I'm not Stiva," she said, knitting her brows. "That's why I'm telling you, just because I do not

But at the very moment she was uttering the words, she felt that they were not true. She was not merely

doubting about herself she felt emotion at the thought of Vronsky, and was going away sooner than she had

"You can't imagine how absurdly it all came about. I only meant to be matchmaking, and all at once it turned

"But I should be in despair if there were anything serious in it on his side," Anna interrupted her. "And I'm

"All the same, Anna, to tell you the truth, I'm not very anxious for this marriage for Kitty. And it's better it

should come to nothing, if he, Vronsky, is capable of falling in love with you in a single day."

"Oh, heavens, that would be too silly!" said Anna, and again a deep flush of pleasure appeared on her face, as

she heard the idea that absorbed her put into words. "And so here I am, going away, having made an enemy

of Kitty, whom I liked so much! Ah, how sweet she is! But you'll make it right, Dolly? Eh?"

Dolly could scarcely suppress a smile. She loved Anna, but she was pleased to see that she, too, had her

"I did so want you all to care for me, as I do for you, and now I care for you more than ever," said Anna, with

At the very moment of starting Stepan Arkadyevich arrived, late, rosy and goodhumored, smelling of wine

Anna's emotionalism infected Dolly, and when she embraced her sisterinlaw for the last time, she

"Remember, Anna, what you've done for me I shall never forget. And remember that I love you, and shall

"Now, it's all over God be praised!" was the first thought that came to Anna Arkadyevna, when she had said

goodby for the last time to her brother, who had stood blocking up the entrance to the carriage till the third

bell rang. She sat down on her lounge beside Annushka, and looked about her in the twilight of the sleeping

carriage. "Thank God! tomorrow I shall see Seriozha and Alexei Alexandrovich, and my life, good and

Still in the same anxious frame of mind in which she had been all that day, Anna took a meticulous pleasure

in making herself comfortable for the journey. With her tiny, deft hands she opened and shut her little red

bag, took out a cushion, laid it on her knees, and, carefully wrapping up her feet, settled herself comfortably.

An invalid lady had already lain down to sleep. Two other ladies began talking to Anna, and a stout elderly

lady tucked up her feet, and made observations about the heating of the train. Anna answered the ladies in a

few words, but not foreseeing any entertainment from the conversation, she asked Annushka to get a small

lantern, hooked it on the arm of her seat, and took from her bag a paper knife and an English novel. At first

she could not get interested in her reading. The fuss and stir were disturbing; then, when the train had started,

she could not help listening to the noises; then the snow beating on the left window and sticking to the pane,

and the sight of the muffled guard passing by, covered with snow on one side, and the conversations about

the terrible blizzard raging outside, distracted her attention. And after that everything was the same and the

same: the same jouncing and rattling, the same snow lashing the window, the same rapid transitions from

steaming heat to cold, and back again to heat, the same flitting of the same faces in the halfmurk, and the

same voices; and then Anna began to read, and to grasp what she read. Annushka was already dozing, the red

bag on her lap, clutched by her broad hands, in gloves, of which one was torn. Anna Arkadyevna read and

grasped the sense, yet it was annoying to her to read that is, to follow the reflection of other people's lives.

She had too great a desire to live herself. If she read that the heroine of the novel were nursing a sick man,

she longed to move with noiseless steps about his sickroom; if she read of a member of Parliament delivering

a speech, she longed to deliver it; if she read of how Lady Mary had ridden after the hounds, and had

provoked her sisterinlaw, and had surprised everyone by her daring she, too, longed to be doing the same.

But there was no chance of doing anything; and, her little hands toying with the smooth paper knife, she

The hero of the novel was already beginning to attain his English happiness, a baronetcy, and an estate, and

Anna was feeling a desire to go with him to his estate, when she suddenly felt that he ought to feel ashamed,

and that she was ashamed of the same thing. But what was it he was ashamed of? "What have I to be

ashamed of?" she asked herself in injured surprise. She abandoned the book and sank against the back of her

chair, tightly gripping the paper knife in both hands. There was nothing to be ashamed of. She went over all

her Moscow recollections. All were fine, pleasant. She recalled the ball, recalled Vronsky and his enamored,

submissive face; she recalled all her conduct with him there was nothing shameful. Yet, with all that, at this

very point in her reminiscences, the feeling of shame was intensified, as though some inner voice, precisely

here, when she recalled Vronsky, were saying to her: "Warm, very warm hot!" "Well, what is it?" she said

to herself resolutely, shifting on her seat. "What does it mean? Am I afraid to look at this without blinking?

Well, what is it? Can it be that between me and this boyofficer there exist, or can exist, any other relations

than such as are common with every acquaintance?" She laughed contemptuously and took up her book

again; but now she was absolutely unable to make sense of what she read. She passed the paper knife over the

windowpane, then laid its smooth, cool surface to her cheek, and almost laughed aloud at the unreasoning joy

that all at once possessed her. She felt that her nerves, like strings, were being tautened more and more upon

some kind of tightening peg. She felt her eyes opening wider and wider, her fingers and toes twitching

nervously, something within stopping her breathing, while all images and sounds seemed in the swaying

halfmurk to strike her with extraordinary vividness. Moments of doubt were continually besetting her: was

the car going forward, or back, or was it standing absolutely still? Was it really Annushka at her side, or a

stranger? "What's that on the arm of the chair a fur cloak or some beast? And what am I myself: is it I, or

some other woman?" She was afraid of yielding to this trance but something was drawing her into it, and, at

will, she could yield to it or resist it. She got up to rouse herself, and slipped off her plaid and the cape of

warm dress. For a moment she regained her selfpossession, and realized that the thin peasant who had come

in wearing a long nankeen overcoat, with a button missing from it, was the fireman, that he was looking at the

thermometer, that the wind and snow had burst in after him through the door; but then everything grew

confused again.... That peasant with the long waist took to gnawing something within the wall; the little crone

started stretching her legs the whole length of the car and filled it with a black cloud; then there was a

dreadful screeching and banging, as though someone were being rent into pieces; then a red blaze blinded her

eyes, and, at last, everything was screened by a wall. Anna felt that she had plunged downward. Yet all this

was not terrible, but joyful. The voice of a man muffled up and covered with snow shouted something in her

very ear. She arose and came to, realizing that they had come to a station, and that this was the conductor.

She requested Annushka to hand her the cape she had taken off, and her shawl, put them on, and went toward

And she opened the door. The blizzard and the wind rushed to meet her and began to contend with her for the

door. And even this seemed joyful to her. She opened the door and stepped out. This seemed to be all that the

wind had been lying in wait for; it set up a gleeful whistle and was about to snatch her up and whirl her away,

but she clutched the cold doorpost and, holding on to her shawl, descended to the platform and the shelter of

the car. The wind had been mighty on the steps, but on the platform, in the lee of the train, there was a lull.

With enjoyment she drew deep breaths of the snowy, frosty air and, standing near the car, looked about the

The frightful storm raged and whistled between the wheels of the cars, along the posts, around the corner of

the station. The cars, posts, people everything in sight were covered with snow on one side, and were

getting more and more snowed under. For a moment there would come a lull in the storm, but then it would

again swoop down with such gusts that it seemed impossible to withstand it. Meanwhile some men or other

were dashing about, gaily talking to one another, making the boards of the platform creak and ceaselessly

opening and shutting the big doors. A stooping human shadow glided by at her feet, and she heard a hammer

tapping upon iron. "Let's have the telegram!" came an angry voice out of the stormy murk on the other side.

"This way! No. 28!" other voices were also shouting, and muffled figures scurried by, plastered with snow.

Two gentlemen passed by her, cigarettes glowing in their mouths. She drew in one more deep breath, and had

just taken her hand out of her muff to grasp the doorpost and enter the car, when still another man in a

military overcoat, quite close beside her, stepped between her and the flickering light of a lantern. She looked

round, and the same instant recognized Vronsky's face. Putting his hand to the peak of his cap, he bowed to

her and asked if there weren't anything she wanted, whether he could not be of some service to her? She

gazed rather long at him, without any answer, and, in spite of the shadow in which he was standing, she saw

(or fancied she saw) the expression both of his face and his eyes. It was again that expression of reverent

rapture which had affected her so yesterday. More than once she had told herself during the past few days,

and only just now, that Vronsky was for her only one of the hundreds of young men, forever exactly the

same, that one meets everywhere; that she would never permit herself even to think of him; yet now at the

first flush of meeting him, she was seized by an emotion of joyous pride. She had no need to ask why he was

here. She knew, as surely as if he had told her, that he was here only to be where she was.

"I didn't know you were going. And why are you going?" she said, letting fall the hand which had grasped the

"Why am I going?" he repeated, looking straight into her eyes. "You know that I am going to be where you

And at this very point, as though it had overcome all obstacles, the wind scattered the snow from the car

roofs, and began to flutter some sheet of iron it had torn off, while the lowpitched whistle of the engine set

up a roar in front, dismal and lamenting. All the awesomeness of the blizzard now seemed still more splendid

to her. He had uttered precisely what her soul yearned for, but which her reason dreaded. She made no

He had spoken courteously, deferentially, yet so firmly, so obdurately that, for long, she could find no

"What you say is wrong, and I beg of you, if you are a good man, to forget what you have said, even as I shall

"Not a single word of yours, nor a single gesture, shall I ever forget nor could I forget...."

"Enough, enough!" she cried, vainly attempting to give a stern expression to her face, which he was avidly

scrutinizing. Clutching at the cold doorpost, she clambered up the steps and quickly entered the corridor of

the car. But in this little corridor she paused, reviewing in her imagination all that had occurred. Without

recalling her own words or his, she realized instinctively that that conversation had brought them fearfully

closer; and she was both frightened and made happy thereby. After standing thus a few seconds, she went

into the car and sat down in her place. That tensed state which had tormented her at first was not only

renewed, but grew greater and reached such a pitch that she was afraid that, at any moment, something would

snap within her from the excessive tension. She did not sleep all night. But in that nervous tension, and in the

reveries that filled her imagination, there was nothing unpleasant or gloomy; on the contrary, there was

something joyous, glowing and exhilarating. Toward morning Anna dozed off as she sat, and when she

awoke it was already light, and the train was nearing Peterburg. At once thoughts of home, of her husband

and son, and the details of the day ahead, and days to follow, came thronging upon her.

At Peterburg, as soon as the train stopped and she got out, the first face that attracted her attention was that of

her husband. "Oh, my God! What has happened to his ears?" she thought looking at his frigid and imposing

figure, and especially the ears, that struck her so now, as they propped up the brim of his round hat. Catching

sight of her he went to meet her, pursing his lips into their habitual mocking smile, and fixing her with his

big, tired eyes. Some unpleasant sensation contracted her heart as she met his obdurate and tired glance, as

though she had expected to see him a different man. She was particularly struck by that feeling of

dissatisfaction with herself which she experienced on meeting him. This was an intimate, familiar feeling,

like that state of dissimulation which she experienced in her relations with her husband; but hitherto she had

"Yes, as you see, your tender spouse, as devoted as he was during the second year after marriage, was

consumed by the desire of seeing you," he said in his dilatory, highpitched voice, and in that tone which he

almost always used to her a tone of bantering at anyone who should speak thus in earnest.

Vronsky had not even attempted to fall asleep all that night. He sat in his armchair, his eyes fixed before him

or scanning the people who got in and out, and if he had indeed, on previous occasions, struck and aroused

people who did not know him by his air of unshakable calmness, he now seemed prouder and more

selfsufficient than ever. He regarded people as if they were things. A nervous young man, a clerk in a law

court, who had the seat opposite his, conceived a hatred for him because of this air. The young man asked

him for a light, and entered into conversation with him, and even jostled him, to make him feel that he was

not a thing, but a man. But Vronsky kept on regarding him as if he were a lamppost, and the young man

grimaced, feeling that he was losing his selfpossession under the oppressiveness of this refusal to recognize

Vronsky saw nothing and no one. He felt himself a king, not because he believed that he had made any

impression on Anna he did not yet believe that but because the impression she had made on him afforded

What would come of it all he did not know, or even think. He felt that all his forces, hitherto dissolute,

scattered, were centered on one thing, and bent with fearful energy toward one blissful goal. And therein lay

his happiness. He did but know that he had told her the truth, that he had come where she was, that all the

happiness of life, the sole meaning in life for him, now lay in seeing her and hearing her voice. And when he

got out of his car at Bologovo to get some seltzer water, and had caught sight of Anna, his very first word had

involuntarily told her his very thoughts. And he was glad he had told her, that she knew now, and was

thinking of it. He did not sleep all night. Back in his compartment, he incessantly kept ruminating upon every

posture in which he had seen her, every word she had uttered; and, in his imagination, making his heart

When he got out of the train at Peterburg, he felt after his sleepless night as lively and fresh as after a cold

bath. He paused near his car, waiting for her to emerge. "Once more," he said to himself, smiling

unconsciously, "once more I shall see her walk, her face; she may say something, turn her head, glance,

smile, perhaps." But before he caught sight of her, he saw her husband, whom the stationmaster was

deferentially escorting through the crowd. "Ah, yes. The husband." Only now, for the first time, did Vronsky

realize clearly the fact that there was someone attached to her a husband. He had known that she had a

husband, but had hardly believed in his existence, and only now, when he saw him, did he fully believe in

him, with his head, and shoulders, and his blacktrousered legs; especially when he saw this husband

Seeing Alexei Alexandrovich with his spickandspan Peterburg face and austerely selfconfident figure, in

his round hat, with his rather prominent spine, he believed in him, and was aware of a disagreeable sensation,

such as might be felt by a man who, tortured by thirst, finds, on reaching a spring, a dog, a sheep or a pig

therein that has not only drunk of it, but also muddied the water. Alexei Alexandrovich's manner of walking,

gyrating his whole pelvis and his flat feet, was especially offensive to Vronsky. He could recognize in no one

but himself an indubitable right to love her. But she was still the same, and the sight of her affected him the

same way, physically reviving him, stirring him, and filling his soul with happiness. He told his German

valet, who ran up to him from the second class, to take his things and go on, he himself went up to her. He

saw the first meeting between the husband and wife, and noted, with a lover's insight, the sign of the slight

embarrassment with which she spoke to her husband. "No, she does not love him, and cannot love him," he

At the very moment that he was approaching Anna Arkadyevna from the back, he noticed with joy that she

was conscious of his drawing near, and that she looked round; after which, seeing him, she turned again to

"Have you had a good night?" he said, bowing both to her and to her husband, and leaving it to Alexei

Alexandrovich to accept the bow on his own account, and to return it or not, as he might see fit.

Her face seemed tired, and lacking in that play of animation which usually hovered between her smile and her

eyes; but for a single instant, as she glanced at him, something flashed in her eyes, and although this flash

died away at once, he was made happy by that moment. She glanced at her husband, to find out whether he

knew Vronsky. Alexei Alexandrovich was regarding Vronsky with displeasure, absentmindedly trying to

recall who he was. Vronsky's calmness and selfconfidence had here run up, like a scythe against a stone, on

"Ah! We are acquainted, I believe," said Alexei Alexandrovich apathetically, proffering his hand. "You set

out with the mother and return with the son," he said to Anna, articulating distinctly, as though each word

were a coin of high value bestowed by him on his hearers. "You're back from leave, I suppose?" he said, and

without waiting for a reply, he addressed his wife in his bantering tone: "Well, were a great many tears shed

By addressing his wife thus he meant Vronsky to perceive that he wished to be left alone, and, turning

"Delighted," he said coldly. "We're at home Mondays." Then, dismissing Vronsky entirely, he said to his

wife: "I am rather lucky to have just half an hour to meet you, so that I can prove to you my fondness," he

"You lay too great a stress on your fondness for me to value it very much," she responded in the same

bantering tone, involuntarily listening to the sound of Vronsky's steps behind them. "But what have I to do

with that?" she said to herself, and began questioning her husband as to how Seriozha had got on without her.

"Oh, capitally! Mariette says he has been a very darling boy, and... I must disappoint you... But he has not

languished for you as your husband has. But once more merci, my dear, for bestowing a whole day upon me.

Our dear Samovar will be enraptured." (He called the Countess Lidia Ivanovna, well known in society, a

samovar, because she was bubbling over with excitement on any and every occasion.) "She has been asking

for you. And, d'you know, if I may venture to advise you, you ought to go to see her today. You know how

she takes everything to heart. Just now, with all her own cares, she's anxious about the reconciliation of the

The Countess Lidia Ivanovna was a friend of her husband's, and the center of that one of the coteries of the

Peterburg beau monde with which Anna was, through her husband, in the closest rapport.

"Yes, but she must have full details. Go to see her, if you're not too tired, my dear. Well, Kondratii will take

you in the carriage, while I go to my committee. Once more I shall not be alone at dinner," Alexei

Alexandrovich continued, but no longer in a jesting tone. "You wouldn't believe how I've grown used to

And, with a prolonged pressure of her hand, and a particular smile, he helped her into her carriage.

The first person to meet Anna at home was her son. He dashed down the stairs to her, in spite of the

governess's call, and with frenzied rapture shrieked: "Mother! mother!" Running up to her, he hung on her

And her son, like her husband, aroused in Anna a feeling akin to disappointment. In her imagination he had

been better than he was in reality. She had to descend to reality to enjoy him as he was. But, even so, he was

charming, with his fair curls, his blue eyes and his chubby, graceful little legs in tightly pulledup stockings.

Anna experienced an almost physical delight in the sensation of his nearness, and his caresses; and a moral

reassurance, when she met his ingenuous, trusting and loving glance, and heard his naive questions. Anna

took out the presents Dolly's children had sent him, and told her son about Tania, a little girl in Moscow, and

Anna had scarcely drunk her coffee when the Countess Lidia Ivanovna was announced. The Countess Lidia

Ivanovna was a tall, fleshy woman, with an unwholesomely yellow complexion and beautiful, pensive black

eyes. Anna liked her, but today she seemed, for the first time, to see her with all her shortcomings.

"Well, my friend, were you the bearer of the olive branch?" asked Countess Lidia Ivanovna, the minute she

"Yes, it's all over, but it was not at all as serious as we thought," answered Anna. "My bellesoeur is, in

But Countess Lidia Ivanovna, who was interested in everything that did not concern her, had a habit of never

"Yes, there's plenty of sorrow and evil in the world and I am so fatigued today!"

"I'm beginning to weary of vainly breaking lances for the truth, and at times I'm altogether unstrung. The

affair with our Dear Sisters [this was a religiously patriotic, philanthropic institution] started off splendidly,

but it's impossible to do anything with such people," added Countess Lidia Ivanovna, with a mocking

submissiveness to fate. "They pounced on the idea, and mangled it, and afterward they thrash it out so pettily

and trivially. Two or three people, your husband among them, grasp all the significance of this affair but the

Pravdin was a wellknown PanSlavist abroad, and Countess Lidia Ivanovna told the gist of his letter.

Next the Countess spoke of other unpleasantnesses and intrigues against the work of the unification of the

churches, and departed in haste, since that day she had to attend the meeting of another society, and also a

"All this is as it has always been; but how is it I didn't notice it before?" Anna asked herself. "Or has she been

very much irritated today? It's really ludicrous: her object is to do good; she's a Christian; yet she's forever

angry, and forever having enemies and always enemies in the name of Christianity and doing good."

After Countess Lidia Ivanovna another friend came, the wife of a director of the Department, who told her all

the news of the town. At three o'clock she too went away, promising to come to dinner. Alexei

Alexandrovich was at the Ministry. Anna, left alone, spent the time till dinner in lending her presence to her

son's dinner (he dined apart from his parents), in putting her things in order, and in reading and answering the

The feeling of unreasoning shame, which she had felt during the journey, and her agitation, had completely

vanished. In the accustomed conditions of her life she again felt herself firm and irreproachable.

She recalled with wonder her state of mind only yesterday. "What was it? Nothing. Vronsky said something

silly, which it was easy to put an end to, and I answered just as I should have. To speak of it to my husband

would be unnecessary and impermissible. To speak of it would be to attach importance to that which has

none." She remembered how she had told her husband of what was almost declaration made her in Peterburg

by a young man, a subordinate of her husband's, and how Alexei Alexandrovich had answered that every

woman of the world was exposed to this sort of thing, but that he had the fullest confidence in her tact, and

would never permit himself to degrade her and himself by jealousy. "So then, there's no reason to say

Alexei Alexandrovich came back from the Ministry at four o'clock, but as often happened, had no chance to

drop in at her room. He went into his study to see the people waiting for him with petitions, and to sign

certain papers brought him by his head clerk. At dinnertime (there were always at least three people dining

with the Karenins) there arrived an old lady, a cousin of Alexei Alexandrovich; the director of the

Department and his wife; and a young man who had been recommended to Alexei Alexandrovich for a post.

Anna went into the drawing room to entertain these guests. Precisely at five o'clock, before the bronze Peter

the First clock had finished the fifth stroke, Alexei Alexandrovich made his entry, in white tie and evening

coat with two stars, as he had to go out directly after dinner. Every minute of Alexei Alexandrovich's life was

taken up and apportioned. And in order to accomplish all that each day held for him, he adhered to the

strictest orderliness. "Nor haste nor rest," was his device. He entered the dining hall, bowed to all, and

"Yes, my solitude is over. You wouldn't believe how uncomfortable [he laid stress on the word

At dinner he chatted with his wife about things at Moscow, and asked, with his mocking smile, about Stepan

Arkadyevich; but the conversation was for the most part general, dealing with the official and public news of

Peterburg. After dinner he spent half an hour with his guests, and, again with a smile, pressed his wife's hand,

withdrew, and drove off to the Council. Anna went that evening neither to the Princess Betsy Tverskaia, who,

hearing of her return, had invited her, nor to the theater, where she had a box for that evening. Her principal

reason for not going out was because the dress she had expected to wear was not ready. All in all, Anna was

exceedingly annoyed when she started to dress for the evening after the departure of her guests. Before her

departure for Moscow she, who was generally a mistress of the art of dressing well yet inexpensively, had

given her dressmaker three dresses to make over. The dresses were to be made over so that their old selves

would be unrecognizable, and they should have been ready three days ago. It turned out that two dresses were

nowhere near ready, while the other one had not been made over to Anna's liking. The dressmaker came to

explain, asserting that her way was best, and Anna had become so heated that she blushed at the recollection.

To regain her composure fully she went into the nursery and spent the whole evening with her son, putting

him to bed herself, making the sign of the cross over him, and tucking him in. She was glad she had not gone

out anywhere, and had spent the evening so well. She felt so lighthearted and calm, she saw so clearly that all

that had seemed to her so significant on her railway journey was merely one of the ordinary trivial incidents

of fashionable life, and that she had no cause to feel ashamed before anyone else or before herself. Anna sat

down near the fireplace with an English novel and waited for her husband. Exactly at halfpast nine she

"Yes, very much so," said she, and she began telling him everything from the beginning: her journey with

Countess Vronskaia, her arrival, the accident at the station. Then she described the pity she had felt, first for

"I do not suppose there is any excuse for such a man, even though he is your brother," said Alexei

Anna smiled. She knew that he said this precisely to show that family considerations could not prevent him

from expressing his sincere opinion. She knew this trait in her husband and liked it.

"I am glad everything has ended so well, and that you have returned," he went on. "Well, and what do they

Anna had heard nothing of this bill, and she felt consciencestricken that she could so readily forget what

"Here, on the other hand, this has created a great deal of talk," said he, with a selfsatisfied smile.

She saw that Alexei Alexandrovich wanted to tell her something that pleased him about it, and she brought

him by questions to telling it. With the same selfsatisfied smile he told her of the ovations he had received

"I was very, very happy. It shows that at last an intelligent and firm view of the matter is forming among us."

After his second cup of tea, with cream and bread, Alexei Alexandrovich got up, and went toward his study.

"Oh, no!" she answered, getting up after him and accompanying him across the room to his study. "What are

"Just now I'm reading Duc de Lille Poisie des enfers," he answered. "A most remarkable book."

Anna smiled, as people smile at the weaknesses of those they love, and, putting her hand in his, she kept him

company to the door of his study. She knew his habit, now become a necessity, of reading in the evening. She

knew, too, that in spite of his official duties, which engrossed almost all his time, he deemed it his duty to

keep up with everything of note that appeared in the intellectual sphere. She knew, too, that his actual interest

lay in books dealing with politics, philosophy and theology, that art was utterly foreign to his nature; but, in

spite of this or rather, in consequence of it Alexei Alexandrovich never missed anything which created a

sensation in the world of art, but made it his duty to read everything. She knew that in politics, in philosophy,

in theology, Alexei Alexandrovich was a doubter and a seeker; yet in matters of art and poetry and, above

all, of music, of which he was totally devoid of understanding he had the most definite and decided

opinions. He was fond of discoursing on Shakespeare, Raphael, Beethoven, on the significance of new

schools of poetry and music, all of which were classified by him with most obvious consistency.

"Well, God be with you," she said at the door of the study, where a shaded candle and a decanter of water

were already placed near his armchair. "As for me, I'm going to write to Moscow."

"Still, he's a good man; truthful, kindhearted, and remarkable in his own sphere," Anna said to herself, back

in her room, as though defending him before someone who accused him, saying that one could not love him.

Exactly at twelve, as Anna was still sitting at her desk finishing a letter to Dolly, she heard the sound of

measured, slippered steps, and Alexei Alexandrovich, washed and combed, a book under his arm, approached

"Come, come," said he, with a particular smile, and passed on into their bedroom.

"And what right had he to look at him like that?" reflected Anna, recalling how Vronsky had looked at Alexei

Having disrobed, she went into the bedroom; but her face had none of the animation which, during her stay at

Moscow, had fairly spurted from her eyes and her smile; on the contrary, now the fire seemed extinct in her,

Upon his departure from Peterburg Vronsky had left his large apartments on Morskaia to his friend and

Petritsky was a young lieutenant, not particularly wellconnected, and not merely not wealthy, but in debt all

around. Toward evening he was always drunk, and he had often found himself in the guardhouse because of

sorts of ludicrous and disgraceful scrapes, but he was a favorite both of his comrades and his superior

officers. At twelve o'clock, as Vronsky was driving up from the station to his quarters, he saw, near the

entrance of the house, a hired carriage familiar to him. Even as he rang he heard, beyond the door, masculine

laughter, the twitter of a feminine voice, and Petritsky's shout: "If that's one of the villains, don't let him in!"

Vronsky told the servant not to announce him, and slipped noiselessly into the first room. Baroness Shilton, a

friend of Petritsky's, with a rosy little face and flaxenfair, resplendent in a lilac satin gown, and filling the

whole room, like a canary, with her Parisian accents, sat at a round table, brewing coffee. Petritsky, in his

overcoat, and the cavalry captain Kamerovsky, in full uniform, probably just come from duty, were sitting

"Bravo! Vronsky!" shouted Petritsky, jumping up, scraping his chair. "Our host himself! Baroness, some

coffee for him out of the new coffeepot. There, we didn't expect you! I Hope you're satisfied with the

adornment of your study," he said, indicating the Baroness. "You know each other, of course?"

"I should say so!" said Vronsky, with a bright smile, squeezing the Baroness's little hand. "Why, we're old

"You've just returned after traveling," said the Baroness, "so I'll run along. Oh, I'll be off this minute, if I'm in

"You're home, wherever you are, Baroness," said Vronsky. "How do you do, Kamerovsky?" he added, coldly

"There, you can never say such charming things," said the Baroness, turning to Petritsky.

"After dinner there's no merit in them! Well, then, I'll give you some coffee; go wash and tidy up," said the

Baroness, sitting down again, and anxiously turning a gadget in the new coffee urn. "Pierre, give me the

coffee," she said, addressing Petritsky, whom she called Pierre, playing on his surname, making no secret of

"No, I won't spoil it! Well, and how is your wife?" said the Baroness suddenly, interrupting Vronsky's

conversation with his comrade. "We've been marrying you off here. Have you brought your wife along?"

And the Baroness, detaining Vronsky, began telling him, interspersing her story with many jokes, about her

"He persists in refusing to give me a divorce! Well, what am I to do?" (He was her husband.) "Now I want to

begin a suit against him. What would you advise? Kamerovsky, look after the coffee it's boiled out; you can

see I'm taken up with business! I want a lawsuit, because I must have my property. You can understand the

stupidity of his saying that I am unfaithful to him," she said contemptuously, "yet through it he wants to get

Vronsky heard with pleasure this lighthearted prattle of a pretty woman, said yes to everything, gave her

halfjoking counsel, and altogether dropped at once into the tone habitual to him in talking to such women.

In his Peterburg world all people were divided into two utterly opposed kinds. One, the lower, consisted of

vulgar, stupid and, above all, ridiculous people, who believe that one husband ought to live with the one wife

whom he has lawfully wedded; that a girl should be innocent, a woman modest, and a man manly,

selfcontrolled, and strong; that one ought to bring up one's children, earn one's bread and pay one's debts;

and various similar absurdities. Those people were of an oldfashioned and ridiculous kind. But there was

another kind of people real people, to which they all belonged, and here the chief thing was to be elegant,

magnanimous, daring, gay, and to abandon oneself without a blush to every passion, and to laugh at

For the first moment only, Vronsky was startled, after the impressions of a quite different world that he had

brought with him from Moscow; but immediately, as though he had thrust his feet into old slippers, he

The coffee was really never made, but spluttered over everyone and boiled away, doing just what was

required of it that is, providing cause for much noise and laughter, and spoiling a costly rug and the

"Well, goodby now or else you'll never get washed, and I shall have on my conscience the worst offense

any decent person can commit uncleanliness. So you would advise a knife at his throat?"

"Absolutely and in such a way that your little hand may not be far from his lips. He'll kiss it, and all will end

Kamerovsky got up too, and Vronsky, without waiting for him to go, shook hands and went off to his

dressing room. While he was washing, Petritsky briefly outlined to him his position, as far as it had changed

since Vronsky's departure from Peterburg. No money whatsoever. His father said he wouldn't give him any,

nor pay his debts. His tailor was trying to get him locked up, and another fellow, too, was threatening to do so

without fail. The colonel of his regiment had announced that if these scandals did not cease a resignation

would be inevitable. As for the Baroness, he was fed up with her, particularly because she was forever

wanting to give him money. But there was another girl he intended showing her to Vronsky a marvel,

exquisite, in the strict Oriental style, "genre of the slave Rebecca, you see." He had had a row, too, with

Berkoshev, and the latter intended sending seconds, but, of course, it would all come to nothing. Altogether

everything was going splendidly and was most jolly. And, without letting his comrade enter into further

details of his position, Petritsky proceeded to tell him all the interesting news. As he listened to Petritsky's

familiar stories, in the familiar setting of the rooms he had spent the last three years in, Vronsky felt the

delightful sensation of coming back to the insouciant and customary life of Peterburg.

"Impossible!" he cried, releasing the pedal of the wash basin in which he had been sousing his stalwart red

neck. "Impossible!" he cried, at the news that Laura had dropped Fertinghof and had tied up with Mileev.

"Oh, Buzulukov got into a scrape simply lovely!" cried Petritsky. "You know his passion for balls and he

never misses a single one at court. He went to a big ball in a new casque. Have you seen the new casques?

"The Grand Duchess passes by with some ambassador or other, and, as ill luck would have it, their talk veers

to the new casques. And so the Grand Duchess wanted to show the new casque to the ambassador.... Just then

they catch sight of our dear boy standing there." (Petritsky mimicked him, standing with his casque.) "The

Grand Duchess requested him to give her the casque he doesn't do so. What's up? Well, they all wink at

him, and nod and frown give it to her, do! He still doesn't. Just stands there, stockstill. You can picture it to

yourself!... Well, this... what's his name... tries to take the casque from him... He won't give it up!... This chap

tore it from him, and hands it to the Grand Duchess. "This is the new casque," says the Grand Duchess. She

turned the casque over, and just picture it! bang went a pear and candy out of it two pounds of candy!...

Vronsky rolled with laughter. And, long afterward, even when he was talking of other things, he would go off

into peals of his hearty laughter baring his strong, closely set teeth, whenever he thought of the casque.

Having learned all the news, Vronsky, with the assistance of his valet, got into his uniform, and went off to

report himself. He intended, afterward, to go to his brother and to Betsy, and to pay several visits, as an

entering wedge into that society where he might meet Madame Karenina. As always in Peterburg, he left

Toward the end of winter, in the house of the Shcherbatskys, a consultation was being held, which was to

determine the state of Kitty's health, and what was to be done to restore her failing strength. She had been ill,

and, as spring came on, she grew worse. The family doctor gave her codliver oil, then iron, then lunar

caustic; but since neither the first, nor the second, nor the third availed, and since his advice was to go abroad

before the beginning of the spring, a celebrated doctor was called in. The celebrated doctor, not yet old and a

very handsome man, demanded an examination of the patient. He maintained, with special satisfaction, it

seemed, that maiden modesty is merely a relic of barbarism, and that nothing could be more natural than for a

man who was not yet old to handle a young girl in the nude. He deemed this natural, because he did it every

day, and neither felt nor thought, as it seemed to him, anything evil as he did it and, consequently, he

considered girlish modesty not merely as a relic of barbarism, but, as well, an insult to himself.

It was necessary to submit, for, although all the doctors studied in the same school, all using the same

textbooks, and all learned in the same science, and though some people said this celebrated doctor was but a

poor doctor, in the Princess's household and circle it was for some reason held that this celebrated doctor

alone had some peculiar knowledge, and that he alone could save Kitty. After thorough examination and

tapping of the patient, distraught and dazed with shame, the celebrated doctor, having painstakingly washed

his hands, was standing in the drawing room talking to the Prince. The Prince frowned and coughed as he

listened to the doctor. As a man who had seen something of life, and neither a fool nor an invalid, he had no

faith in medicine, and at soul was wrought up with all this comedy, especially as he was probably the only

one who fully understood the cause of Kitty's illness. "You're barking up the wrong tree," he mentally applied

this phrase from the hunter's vocabulary to the celebrated doctor, as he listened to the latter's patter about the

symptoms of his daughter's complaint. The doctor, for his part, found difficulty in restraining the expression

of his contempt for this old grandee, as well as in condescending to the low level of his comprehension. He

perceived that it was useless to talk to the old man, and that the head of this house was the mother and she it

was before whom he intended to scatter his pearls. It was at this point that the Princess entered the drawing

room with the family doctor. The Prince retreated, doing his best not to betray how ridiculous he regarded the

whole comedy. The Princess was distraught, and did not know what to do. She felt herself at fault before

"Well, doctor, decide our fate," said the Princess. "Tell me everything." "Is there any hope?" was what she

had wanted to say, but her lips quivered, and she could not utter this question. "Well, doctor?"

"Immediately, Princess I will discuss the matter with my colleague, and then have the honor of laying my

When the doctors were left alone, the family doctor began timidly explaining his opinion, that there was an

incipient tubercular process, but... and so on. The celebrated doctor listened to him, and in the middle of the

"As you know, we cannot determine the incipience of the tubercular process; until the appearance of vomicae

there is nothing determinate. But we may suspect it. And there are indications: malnutrition, nervous

excitability, and so on. The question stands thus: if we suspect a tubercular process, what must we do to

"But then, you know, there are always moral, spiritual causes at the back of these cases," the family doctor

"Yes, that's to be taken for granted," retorted the celebrated doctor, again glancing at his watch. "Beg pardon

but is the Iauzsky bridge finished yet, or must one still make a detour?" he asked. "Ah! It is finished. Well, in

that case I can make it in twenty minutes. As we were saying, the question may be posited thus: the nutrition

must be maintained and the nerves improved. The one is bound with the other; one must work upon both

"I am a foe to trips abroad. And take notice: if there is any incipient tubercular process, which we cannot

know, a trip abroad will not help. We must have a remedy that would improve nutrition, and do no harm."

And the celebrated doctor expounded his plan of treatment with Soden waters, in designating which his main

"But in favor of foreign travel I would urge the change of habits, the removal from conditions which evoke

"Ah! Well, in that case, one might go; well, let them go; but those German charlatans may do harm.... Our

The celebrated doctor informed the Princess (prompted by a feeling of propriety) that he must see the patient

And the mother, followed by the doctor, went into the drawing room to Kitty. Wasted and blushing, with a

peculiar glitter in her eyes a consequence of the shame she had gone through, Kitty was standing in the

middle of the room. When the doctor came in she turned crimson, and her eyes filled with tears. All her

illness and its treatment seemed to her a thing so stupid even funny! Treatment seemed to her as funny as

reconstructing the pieces of a broken vase. It was her heart that was broken. Why, then, did they want to cure

her with pills and powders? But she could not hurt her mother all the more so since her mother considered

Smiling, he, sat down facing her, felt her pulse, and again started in with his tiresome questions. She

"You must pardon me, doctor but really, this will lead us nowhere. You ask me the same things, three times

"Sickly irritability," said he to the Princess, when Kitty had left the room. "However, I had finished...."

And the doctor scientifically defined to the Princess, as to an exceptionally clever woman, the condition of

the young Princess, and concluded by explaining the mode of drinking the unnecessary waters. When the

question of going abroad came up, the doctor was plunged into profound considerations, as though deciding a

weighty problem. Finally his decision was given: they might go abroad, but must put no faith in charlatans,

It seemed as though some cheerful influence had sprung up after the doctor's departure. The mother grew

more cheerful when she returned to her daughter, while Kitty too pretended to be more cheerful. She had

"Really, I'm quite well, maman. But if you want to go abroad, let's!" she said, and, trying to show that she

was interested in the proposed trip, she began talking of the preparations for the departure.

Right after the doctor Dolly arrived. She knew that the consultation was scheduled for that day, and, despite

the fact that she had only recently gotten up from her lyingin (she had had another little girl at the end of the

winter), despite her having enough trouble and cares of her own, she had left her breast baby and an ailing

"Well, what's what?" said she, entering into the drawing room, without taking off her hat. "You're all in good

An attempt was made to tell her what the doctor had said, but it proved that, even though the doctor had

talked coherently and long, it was utterly impossible to convey what he had said. The only point of interest

Dolly could not help sighing. Her dearest friend, her sister, was going away. And her life was far from gay.

Her relations with Stepan Arkadyevich after their reconciliation had become humiliating. The welding Anna

had made proved not at all solid, and family concord had broken down again at the same point. There was

nothing definite, but Stepan Arkadyevich was hardly ever at home; also, there was hardly ever any money,

and Dolly was constantly being tortured by suspicions of infidelities, and by now she drove them away from

her, dreading the agony of jealousy she had already experienced. The first explosion of jealousy, once lived

through, could never return, and even the discovery of infidelities could never affect her now as it had the

first time. Such a discovery now would only mean breaking up her family habits, and she permitted him to

deceive her, despising him and still more herself for this weakness. Besides this, the cares of her large

family were a constant torment to her: now the nursing of her breast baby did not go well; now the nurse

"Ah, maman, we have enough trouble of our own. Lili has taken ill, and I'm afraid it's scarlatina. I have come

here now to find out about Kitty, and then I shall shut myself up entirely, if God forbid it really be

The old Prince too had come in from his study after the doctor's departure, and, after offering his cheek to

"What have you decided are you going? Well, and what do you want to do with me?"

"Maman, why shouldn't father come with us?" said Kitty. "He'll feel better, and so will we."

The old Prince got up and stroked Kitty's hair. She lifted her head and looked at him with a forced smile. It

always seemed to her that he understood her better than anyone else in the family did, though he spoke but

little with her. Being the youngest, she was her father's favorite, and she fancied that his love for her gave

him insight. When now her gaze met his blue, kindly eyes, scrutinizing her intently, it seemed to her that he

saw right through her, and understood all the evil things that were at work within her. Reddening, she was

"These silly chignons! One can't as much as get near one's real daughter, but simply stroke the hair of defunct

females. Well Dolinka," he turned to his elder daughter, "what's your ace up to now?"

"Nothing, papa," answered Dolly, who knew that this referred to her husband. "He's always out; I hardly ever

"Oh, that's it!" said the Prince. "And so I'm to be getting ready, too? At your service," he said to his wife,

sitting down. "And as for you, Katia," he went on, addressing his younger daughter, "you must wake up one

fine day and say to yourself: Why, I'm quite well, and merry, and I'm going out again with papa for an early

What her father said seemed simple enough, yet at these words Kitty grew confused and upset, like a criminal

caught redhanded. "Yes, he knows all, he understands all, and in these words he's telling me that though I'm

ashamed, I must live through my shame." She could not pluck up spirit enough to make any answer. She

"See what comes of your jokes!" the Princess pounced on her husband. "You're always..." she launched into

The Prince listened to the Princess's reproaches rather a long while and kept silent, but his face grew more

"She's so much to be pitied, poor thing, so much to be pitied, yet you don't feel how it pains her to hear the

least hint as to the cause of it all. Ah! to be so mistaken in people!" said the Princess, and by the change in her

tone both Dolly and the Prince knew she meant Vronsky. "I don't know why there aren't laws against such

"Ah, I oughtn't to listen to you!" said the Prince glumly, getting up from his chair, as if to go, yet pausing in

the doorway. "There are laws, my dear, and since you've challenged me to it, I'll tell you who's to blame for it

all: you you, you alone. Laws against such young gallants have always existed, and still exist! Yes, if there

weren't anything that ought not to have been, I, old as I am, would have called him out to the barrier, this

The Prince, it seemed, had plenty more to say, but no sooner had the Princess caught his tone than she

subsided at once, and became penitent, as was always the case in serious matters.

"There, that's enough, that's enough! You feel badly too, I know. Nothing can be done about it! It's not so

very bad. God is merciful... thanks..." he said, without knowing himself what he was saying now, responding

to the moist kiss of the Princess that he felt on his hand. And the Prince went out of the room.

No sooner had Kitty gone out of the room, in tears, than Dolly, with her motherly, domestic habit, had

promptly perceived that here a woman's work lay before her, and got ready for it. She took off her hat, and,

morally speaking, tucked up her sleeves and got ready for action. While her mother was attacking her father,

she tried to restrain her mother, so far as daughterly reverence would allow. During the Prince's outburst she

was silent; she felt ashamed for her mother and tender toward her father for so quickly being kind again. But

when her father left, she made ready for what was most necessary to go to Kitty and compose her.

"I've intended long since to tell you something, maman: did you know that Levin meant to propose to Kitty

"No, she said nothing to me either of the one or the other; she's too proud. But I know it's all on account of

"Yes, but suppose she has refused Levin and she wouldn't have refused him if it hadn't been for the other, I

It was too frightful for the Princess to think how much at fault she was before her daughter, and she grew

"Oh, now I really understand nothing! Nowadays everybody thinks to live after his own way; a mother isn't

When she went into Kitty's little sanctum, a pretty, rosy little room, full of knickknacks in vieux saxe, as

youthful and rosy and gay as Kitty herself had been only two months ago, Dolly recalled how they had

together decorated the room the year before, with what gaiety and love. Her heart turned cold when she

beheld Kitty sitting on the low chair nearest the door, her eyes fixed immovably on a corner of the rug. Kitty

glanced at her sister, and the cold, rather austere expression of her face did not change.

"I'm going now, and shall entrench myself at home, and you won't be able to come to see me," said Darya

"Come, Kitty. Do you possibly think I cannot know? I know all. And, believe me, this is so insignificant...

"He's not worth your suffering on his account," pursued Darya Alexandrovna, coming straight to the point.

"Yes because he has disdained me," said Kitty, in a jarring voice. "Don't say anything! Please, don't say

"But whoever told you that? No one has said that. I'm certain he was in love with you, and remained in love

"Oh, the most awful thing of all for me are these condolences!" cried out Kitty, in a sudden fit of anger. She

turned round on her chair, turned red, and her fingers moved quickly, as she pinched the buckle of the belt

she held, now with one hand, now with the other. Dolly knew this trick her sister had of grasping something

in turn with each of her hands, when in excitement; she knew that, in a moment of excitement Kitty was

capable of forgetting herself and saying a great deal too much and much that was unpleasant, and Dolly

"What what is it you want to make me feel, eh?" said Kitty quickly. "That I've been in love with a man who

didn't even care to know me, and that I'm dying for love of him? And this is said to me by my own sister,

who imagines that... that... that she's sympathizing with me!... I don't want these condolences and

"I've nothing to despair over and be comforted about. I'm sufficiently proud never to allow myself to care for

"Why, I don't say anything of the kind... Only, tell me the truth," said Darya Alexandrovna, taking her by the

The mention of Levin seemed to deprive Kitty of the last vestige of selfcontrol. She leaped up from her

chair, and, flinging the buckle to the ground, gesticulating rapidly with her hands, she said:

"Why bring Levin in too? I can't understand what you want to torture me for? I've told you, and I repeat it

I have some pride, and never, never would I do what you're doing going back to a man who's deceived you,

who has come to love another woman. I can't understand this! You may but I can't do it!"

And, having said these words, she glanced at her sister, and seeing that Dolly sat silent, her head mournfully

bowed, Kitty, instead of leaving the room, as she had intended, sat down near the door, and, hiding her face

The silence lasted for two minutes. Dolly's thoughts were of herself. That humiliation of which she was

always conscious came back to her with special pain when her sister reminded her of it. She had not expected

such cruelty from her sister, and was resentful. But suddenly she heard the rustle of a skirt, and,

simultaneously, an outburst of smothered sobbing, and felt arms clasping her neck from below. Kitty was on

And the endearing face, covered with tears, hid itself in Darya Alexandrovna's skirt.

It was as if tears were the indispensable oil without which the machinery of mutual communion could not run

smoothly between the two sisters; the sisters, after their tears, discussed everything but that which engrossed

them; but, even in talking of outside matters, they understood one another. Kitty knew that what she had

uttered in anger about her husband's infidelity and her humiliating position had struck her poor sister to the

very depths of her heart, but she also knew that the latter had forgiven her. Dolly for her part had

comprehended all she had wanted to find out. She had become convinced that her surmises were correct; that

Kitty's misery, her incurable misery, was due precisely to the fact that Levin had proposed to her and she had

refused him, while Vronsky had deceived her, and that she stood ready to love Levin and to hate Vronsky.

"I have nothing to grieve over," she said, calming down, "but you could understand that everything has

become loathsome, hateful, coarse to me and I myself most of all. You can't imagine what loathsome

"Most, most loathsome and coarse: I couldn't tell you. This is not melancholy, nor boredom, but far worse. As

if everything of good that I had were gone out of sight, while only that which was most loathsome were left.

Well, how shall I put it to you?" she went on, seeing incomprehension in her sister's eyes. "Papa began saying

something to me just now... It seems to me he thinks all I need is to marry. If mamma takes me to a ball it

seems to me she takes me only to marry me off as fast as possible, and get me off her hands. I know this isn't

so, but I can't drive away such thoughts. These suitors so called I can't bear the sight of them. It seems to me

as if they're always taking stock of me. Formerly, to go anywhere in a ball dress was a downright joy to me; I

used to admire myself; now I feel ashamed, in at ease. Well, take any example you like... This doctor...

Kitty hesitated; she wanted to say further that ever since this change had taken place in her, Stepan

Arkadyevich had become unbearably repulsive to her, and that she could not see him without imagining the

"Well now, everything appears to me, in the coarsest, most loathsome aspect," she went on. "That is my

"Oh, yes, I'll come. I've had scarlatina, and I'll persuade maman to let me come."

Kitty insisted on having her way, and went to stay at her sister's and nursed the children all through the

scarlatina for it really proved to be scarlatina. The two sisters brought all the six children successfully

through it; Kitty's health, however, did not improve, and in Lent the Shcherbatskys went abroad.

There is really only one circle of Peterburg upper society: everyone knows everyone else, even visits each

other. But this great circle has subdivisions of its own. Anna Arkadyevna Karenina had friends and close ties

in three different circles. One circle was her husband's set of civil servants and officials, consisting of his

colleagues and subordinates, brought together in a most diversified and capricious manner, yet separated by

social conditions. Anna could now recall only with difficulty the feeling of almost pious reverence which she

had at first borne for these persons. Now she knew all of them, as people know one another in a provincial

town; she knew their habits and weaknesses, and where the shoe pinched each one of them. She knew their

attitudes toward one another and to the chief center; knew who backed whom, and how and wherewithal each

one maintained his position, and who agreed or disagreed with whom; but this circle of political, masculine

interests could not interest her, and, in spite of Countess Lidia Ivanovna's suggestions, she avoided it.

Another small circle, with which Anna was intimate, was the one by means of which Alexei Alexandrovich

had made his career. The center of this circle was the Countess Lidia Ivanovna. This was a circle of elderly,

homely, virtuous and pious women, and clever, learned and ambitious men. One of the clever people

belonging to this small circle had called it "the conscience of Peterburg society." Alexei Alexandrovich

appreciated this circle very much, and Anna, who knew so well how to get on with all, had in the early days

of her life in Peterburg found friends even in this circle. But now, upon her return from Moscow, this set had

become unbearable to her. It seemed to her that both she and all of them were dissimulating, and she

experienced such boredom and lack of ease in their society that she tried to visit the Countess Lidia Ivanovna

And, finally, the third circle with which Anna had ties was the really fashionable world the world of balls,

of dinners, of sumptuous dresses; the world that hung on to the court with one hand, in order not to sink to the

level of the demimonde, which the members of the fashionable world believed they despised yet the tastes

of both were not only similar, but precisely the same. Her connection with this circle was maintained through

Princess Betsy Tverskaia, her cousin's wife, who had an income of a hundred and twenty thousand roubles,

and who had taken a great liking to Anna ever since she first came out, looking after her and drawing her into

"When I'm old and shall have lost my looks, I'll be the same," Betsy used to say; "but for a young and pretty

Anna had at first avoided, as much as she could, Princess Tverskaia's world, because it necessitated

expenditures above her means and, besides, at soul she preferred the first circle; but after her trip to

Moscow, things fell out quite the other way. She avoided her moral friends, and went out into the fashionable

world. There she would meet Vronsky, and experienced an agitating joy at such meetings. Especially often

did she meet Vronsky at Betsy's, for Betsy was a Vronsky by birth, and his cousin. Vronsky went everywhere

where he might meet Anna, and, at every chance he had, spoke to her of his love. She offered him no

encouragement, yet every time she met him there was kindled in her soul that same feeling of animation

which had come upon her that day in the railway carriage when she had seen him for the first time. She felt

herself that her delight shone in her eyes and puckered her lips into a smile and she could not quench the

At first Anna had sincerely believed that she was displeased with him for daring to pursue her; but not long

after her return from Moscow, on arriving at a soiree where she had anticipated meeting him, yet not finding

him there, she realized clearly, from the feeling of sadness which overcame her, that she had been deceiving

herself, and that this pursuit was not merely not distasteful to her, but that it constituted all the interest of her

It was the second performance of a celebrated cantatrice, and all the fashionable world was in the theater.

Vronsky, seeing his cousin from his seat in the front row, did not wait till the entr'acte, but went to her box.

"Why didn't you come to dinner?" she said to him. "I marvel at this clairvoyance of lovers," she added with a

smile, so that no one but he could hear, "she wasn't there. But do come after the opera."

Vronsky looked inquiringly at her. She nodded. He thanked her by a smile, and sat down beside her.

"But how I remember your jeers!" continued Princess Betsy, who took special delight in following up the

progress of this passion. "What's become of all that? You're caught, my dear fellow."

"That's my one desire to be caught," answered Vronsky, with his calm, goodnatured smile. "If I complain

at all, it's only that I'm not caught enough, if the truth were told. I begin to lose hope."

"Why, whatever hope can you expect?" said Betsy, offended on behalf of her friend. "Entendons nous...." But

in her eyes flitted gleams of light, which proclaimed that she understood very well, even as much as he did,

"None whatever," said Vronsky, laughing and showing his closely set teeth. "Excuse me," he added, taking

the binoculars out of her hand, and proceeding to scrutinize, over her bare shoulder, the row of boxes

He was very well aware that he ran no risk of being ridiculous in the eyes of Betsy and all other fashionable

people. He was very well aware that in the eyes of these people the role of the hapless lover of a girl, or in

general, of any woman free to marry, might be ridiculous; but the role of a man pursuing a married woman,

and, regardless of everything, staking his life on drawing her into adultery that role has something beautiful

and majestic about it, and can never be ridiculous, and so it was with a proud and gay smile under his

"I must tell you about that. I was busy and with what, do you suppose? I'll give you a hundred guesses, a

thousand... you'd never guess. I've been reconciling a husband with a man who'd insulted his wife. Yes,

"You really must tell me about it," she said, getting up. "Come to me in the next entr'acte."

"Leaving Nilsson?" Betsy queried in horror, though she could not herself have distinguished Nilsson from

"'Blessed are the peacemakers;' 'they shall be saved'," said Betsy, recalling something of that sort she had

heard from somebody or other. "Very well, then, sit down, and tell me what it's all about."

"This is rather indiscreet, but it's so charming that one is awfully tempted to tell the story," said Vronsky,

"Possibly. They were driving on their way to dinner with a friend in the gayest of moods. And they catch

sight of a pretty woman in a hired sleigh, who overtakes them, looks back at them, and so it seemed to them,

at any rate nods to them and laughs. They, of course, follow her galloping at full speed. To their

amazement, the fair one alights at the entrance of the very house to which they were going. The fair one darts

upstairs to the top floor. All they got was a glimpse of rosebud lips under a short veil, and of exquisite little

"You tell this with such feeling that it seems to me you yourself must have been one of the two."

"But what did you tell me just now?... Well, the young men enter their comrade's apartment he was giving a

farewell dinner. There they certainly did take a drop too much, as is always the case at farewell dinners. And

at dinner they inquire who lives at the top in that house. No one knows; only their host's valet, in answer to

their inquiry whether any 'young ladies' are living on the top floor, answered that there were a great many of

them. After dinner the two young men go into their host's study, and write a letter to the fair unknown. They

composed a passionate epistle, really a declaration, and then carry the letter upstairs themselves, so as to

"They ring. A maidservant opens the door, they hand her the letter, and assure her that they're both so

enamored that they'll die on the spot at the door. The maid, stupefied, carries on the negotiations. Suddenly a

gentleman appears with side whiskers like country sausages, he is as red as a lobster and, informing them

that there is no one living in that flat except his wife, he sends them both packing."

"That's the most interesting part. This couple turned out to be a most happy one a government clerk and his

lady. The government clerk lodges a complaint, whereupon I become a mediator and what a mediator!... I

"Ah, do but listen.... We make fitting apologies: 'We are in despair; we entreat forgiveness for the unfortunate

misunderstanding.' The government clerk with the country sausages begins to melt, and he, too, desires to

express his sentiments, but no sooner does he begin to express them than he gets heated and says nasty

things, and again I'm obliged to trot out all my diplomatic talents. 'I agree that their action was bad, but I beg

of you to take into consideration the misunderstanding, and their youth; besides, the young men had just

come from their lunch. You understand. Their repentance is heartfelt and they beg you to forgive their

misbehavior.' The government clerk was softened once more. 'I consent, Count, and am ready to forgive but

you must understand that my wife my wife! a respectable woman is subjected to annoyances, and insults,

and impertinences by certain milksops, scou...' Yet, you understand, the milksop is present, and it is up to

me to make peace between them. Again I trot out all my diplomacy, and again, just as the matter is about to

be concluded, our friend the government clerk gets heated and turns red while his country sausages bristle up,

"Ah, you must hear this story!" said Betsy, laughing, to a lady who was entering the box. "He has made me

laugh so much... Well, bonne chance!" she added, giving Vronsky the one finger free from holding her fan,

and with a shrug of her shoulders letting down the bodice of her gown, that had worked up, so as to be

fittingly and fully nude as she moved forward, toward the footlights, into the lights of the gas, and within the

Vronsky drove to the French theater, where he really had to see the colonel of his regiment, who never

missed a single performance there; he wanted to talk over his peacemaking, which had been occupying and

amusing him for the last three days. Petritsky, whom he liked, was implicated in the affair, as well as another

fine fellow and excellent comrade, who had lately joined the regiment the young Prince Kedrov. But,

Both culprits were in Vronsky's squadron. The colonel of the regiment had received a call from the

government clerk, Venden, with a complaint against his officers, who had insulted his wife. His young wife,

as Venden told the story he had been married half a year had been at church with her mother, and,

suddenly feeling indisposed, due to her interesting condition, found that she could not remain standing and

drove home in the first sleigh with the mettlesome coachman she came across. It was then that the officers set

off in pursuit of her; she was alarmed, and, feeling still worse, ran home up the staircase. Venden himself, on

returning from his office, had heard a ring at their bell and voices, had stepped out, and seeing the intoxicated

officers with a letter, he had pushed them out. He was asking that the culprits be severely punished.

"You may say what you will," said the colonel to Vronsky, whom he had invited to come and see him.

"Petritsky is becoming impossible. Not a week goes by without some scrape. This clerk chap won't let

Vronsky saw all the thanklessness of the business, and that a duel was out of the question here; that

everything must be done to soften this government clerk, and hush the matter up. The colonel had called in

Vronsky precisely because he knew him to be an honorable and intelligent man, but, above all, one to whom

the honor of the regiment was dear. They talked it over, and decided that Petritsky and Kedrov must go with

Vronsky to this government clerk and apologize. The colonel and Vronsky were both fully aware that

Vronsky's name and insignia of aidedecamp were bound to go a long way toward softening the

government clerk. And these two influences proved in fact not without effect; though the result of the

On reaching the French theater, Vronsky retired to the foyer with the colonel, and reported to him his

success or lack of it. The colonel, thinking it all over, decided not to go on with the matter; but then, for his

own delectation, proceeded to question Vronsky about the details of his interview and for a long while could

not restrain his laughter as he listened to Vronsky's story of how the government clerk, after subsiding for a

while, would suddenly flare up again, as he recalled the details, and how Vronsky, at the last halfword of

conciliation, had skillfully maneuvered a retreat, shoving Petritsky out before him.

"It's a disgraceful scrape, but a killing one. Kedrov really can't fight this gentleman! So he was awfully

wrought up?" he asked again, laughing. "But what do you think of Claire today? She's a wonder!" he went on,

speaking of a new French actress. "No matter how often you see her, she's different each time. It's only the

Princess Betsy drove home from the theater without waiting for the end of the last act. She had just time

enough to go into her dressing room, sprinkle her long, pale face with powder, rub it off, set her dress to

rights, and order tea in the big drawing room, when one after another carriages drove up to her huge house on

the Bolshaia Morskaia. Her guests dismounted at the wide entrance, and the stout porter, who used to read

newspapers mornings behind the glass door, to the edification of the passersby, noiselessly opened the

Almost at the same instant that the hostess, with freshly arranged coiffure and freshened face, entered at one

door, her guests entered at the other, into the drawing room, a large room with dark walls, downy rugs and a

brightly lighted table, gleaming with the light of candles, the whiteness of napery, the silver of the samovar

The hostess sat down at the samovar and took off her gloves. Chairs were set with the aid of footmen, moving

almost imperceptibly about the room; the party settled itself, divided into two groups: one round the samovar

near the hostess, the other at the opposite end of the drawing room, round the handsome wife of an

ambassador, in black velvet, with sharply defined black eyebrows. In both groups conversation wavered, as it

always does, for the first few minutes, broken up by meetings, salutations, offers of tea, and, as it were,

"She's exceptionally fine as an actress; one can see she's studied Kaulbach," said a diplomatist in the circle of

"Oh, please, don't let us talk about Nilsson! No one can possibly say anything new about her," said a fat,

redfaced, flaxenheaded lady, without eyebrows and without chignon, wearing an old silk dress. This was

Princess Miaghkaia, noted for her simplicity and the roughness of her manners, and nicknamed enfant

terrible. Princess Miaghkaia was seated halfway between the two groups, and, listening to both, took part in

the conversation first of one and then of the other. "Three people have used that very phrase about Kaulbach

to me today, just as though they had conspired. And I don't know why that phrase should be so much to their

The conversation was cut short by this observation, and again a new subject had to be thought of.

"Do tell us something amusing, yet not spiteful," said the ambassador's wife, a great proficient in the art of

that elegant conversation called by the English small talk. She addressed the diplomatist, who was now at a

"That is said to be a difficult task only that which is spiteful is supposed to be amusing," he began with a

smile. "However, I'll make the attempt. Give me a theme. it's all a matter of the theme. If the theme be but

given, it's easy enough to embroider it. I often think that the celebrated conversationalists of the last century

would find it difficult to talk cleverly now. Everything clever has become such a bore...."

The conversation had begun amiably, but just because it was too amiable, it came to a stop again. They had to

"Don't you think there's something Louis Quinze about Tushkevich?" he said, glancing toward a handsome,

"Oh, yes! He's in the same style as the drawing room, and that's why it is he's so often here."

This conversation was kept up, since it depended on allusions to what could not be talked of in that room

Round the samovar and the hostess the conversation having, in the meanwhile, vacillated in precisely the

same way between the three inevitable topics the latest piece of public news, the theater, and censuring the

fellow creature had finally come to rest on the last topic that is, malicious gossip.

"Have you heard that even the Maltishcheva the mother, not the daughter has ordered a costume in diable

"I wonder that with her sense for after all she's no fool she doesn't see how funny she is."

Every one had something to say in censure or ridicule of the hapless Maltishcheva, and the conversation

The husband of Princess Betsy, a goodnatured corpulent man, an ardent collector of engravings, hearing that

his wife had visitors, had come into the drawing room before leaving for his club. Stepping noiselessly over

"Oh, how can you steal up on anyone like that! How you startled me!" she responded. "Please don't talk to me

about the opera; you know nothing about music. I'd rather come down to your own level, and discuss with

you your majolica and engravings. Come, now, what treasure have you been buying lately at the rag fair?"

"Yes, show me. I've been learning about them at those what's their names?... those bankers... They have

"Why, have you been at the Schutzburgs?" asked the hostess from behind the samovar.

"Yes, ma chere. They asked my husband and myself to dinner, and I was told that the sauce at that dinner cost

a thousand roubles," Princess Miaghkaia said, speaking loudly, conscious that all were listening; "and very

nasty sauce it was some green mess. We had to ask them, and I made a sauce for eightyfive kopecks, and

The effect produced by Princess Miaghkaia's speeches was always the same, and the secret of the effect she

produced lay in the fact that though she spoke not always appropriately, as now, she said homely truths, not

devoid of sense. In the society in which she lived such utterances had the same result as the most pungent wit.

Princess Miaghkaia could never see why it had that result, but she knew it had, and took advantage of it.

Since everyone had been listening while Princess Miaghkaia spoke, and the conversation around the

ambassador's wife had dropped, Princess Betsy tried to bring the whole party together, and she addressed the

"No, we're very comfortable here," the ambassador's wife responded with a smile, and went on with the

It was a most agreeable conversation. They were censuring the Karenins, husband and wife.

"Anna is quite changed since her stay in Moscow. There's something strange about her," said one of her

"The great change is that she has brought back with her the shadow of Alexei Vronsky," said the

"Well, what of it? There's a fable of Grimm's about a man without a shadow a man deprived of his shadow.

As a punishment for something or other. I never could understand just how this was a punishment. Yet a

"Yes, but women followed by a shadow usually come to a bad end," said Anna's friend.

"Bite your tongue!" said Princess Miaghkaia suddenly. "Karenina is a splendid woman. I don't like her

"Why don't you like her husband? He's such a remarkable man," said the ambassador's wife. "My husband

"And my husband tells me just the same, but I don't believe it," said Princess Miaghkaia. "If our husbands

didn't talk to us, we should see the facts as they are. Alexei Alexandrovich, to my thinking, is simply a fool. I

say it in a whisper.... But doesn't it really make everything clear? Before, when I was told to consider him

clever, I kept looking for his ability, and thought myself a fool for not seeing it; but directly I said, he's a fool,

"Not a bit. I'd no other way out of it. One of us two had to be the fool. And, as you know, one could never say

"No one is satisfied with his fortune, and everyone is satisfied with his wit," the diplomatist repeated the

"That's it that's just it," Princess Miaghkaia turned to him promptly. "But the point is that I won't abandon

Anna to your mercies. She's such a dear, so charming. How can she help it if they're all in love with her, and

"If we have no shadows following us, it does not prove that we've any right to blame her."

And, having duly disposed of Anna's friend, the Princess Miaghkaia got up, and, together with the

ambassador's wife, joined the group at the table, where the general conversation had to do with the king of

"About the Karenins. The Princess gave us a character sketch of Alexei Alexandrovich," said the

"Pity we didn't hear it!" said Princess Betsy, glancing toward the door. "Ah, here you are at last!" she said,

Vronsky was not merely acquainted with all the persons whom he was meeting here; he saw them all every

day; and so he came in with the quiet manner with which one enters a room full of people whom one had left

"Where do I come from?" he repeated the question of the ambassador's wife. "Well, there's no help for it I

must confess. From the opera bouffe. I do believe I've seen it a hundred times, and always with fresh

enjoyment. It's exquisite! I know it's disgraceful, but I go to sleep at the opera, yet I sit out the opera bouffe to

He mentioned a French actress, and was about to tell something about her; but the ambassador's wife, with

"And we should all go to see them if it were accepted as the correct thing, like the opera," chimed in Princess

Steps were heard at the door, and Princess Betsy, knowing it was Madame Karenina, glanced at Vronsky. He

was looking toward the door, and his face wore a strange new expression. Joyfully, intently, and at the same

time timidly, he gazed at the approaching figure, and slowly he rose to his feet. Anna walked into the drawing

room. Holding herself extremely erect, as always, looking straight before her, and moving with her swift,

resolute and light step, that distinguished her walk from that of other society women, she crossed the few

paces that separated her from her hostess, shook hands with her, smiled, and with the same smile looked

She acknowledged this only by a slight nod, flushed, and frowned. But immediately, while rapidly greeting

her acquaintances, and shaking the hands proffered to her, she addressed Princess Betsy:

"I have been at Countess Lidia's, and meant to have come here earlier, but I stayed on. Sir John was there. A

The conversation, interrupted by her coming in, flickered up again like the light of a lamp being blown out.

"Sir John! Yes, Sir John. I've seen him. He speaks well. Vlassieva is altogether in love with him."

"Of passion? What antediluvian notions you have! Whoever talks of passion nowadays?" said the

"What would you do? This silly old fashion is still far from dead," said Vronsky.

"So much the worse for those who keep up the fashion. The only happy marriages I know are marriages of

"Yes, but then, how often the happiness of these prudent marriages is scattered like dust, precisely because

that passion to which recognition has been denied appears on the scene," said Vronsky.

"But by marriages of prudence we mean those in which both parties have sown their wild oats already. That's

"I was in love in my young days with a church clerk," said the Princess Miaghkaia. "I don't know that it did

"No; I think all jokes aside that to know love, one must first make a fault, and then mend it," said Princess

"Just so," Betsy agreed; "one must make a mistake and rectify it. What do you think about it?" She turned to

Anna, who, with a barely perceptible resolute smile on her lips, was listening to the conversation.

"I think" said Anna, playing with the glove she had taken off, "I think... if there are as many minds as there

are heads, then surely there must be as many kinds of love as there are hearts."

Vronsky was gazing at Anna, and with a heart sinking was waiting for what she would say. He sighed as after

"Oh, I have had a letter from Moscow. They write me that Kitty Shcherbatskaia's very ill."

"On the contrary, it does very much. What is it, exactly, that they write you, if may know?" he asked.

"I often think men have no understanding of what is dishonorable, though they're forever talking of it," said

Anna, without answering him. "I've wanted to tell you something for a long while," she added, and, moving a

"I don't quite understand the significance of your words," he said, handing her the cup.

"Yes, I've wanted to tell you," she said, without looking at him. "Your action was wrong wrong, very

"Do you suppose I don't know that I've acted wrongly? But who was the cause of my doing so?"

"You know why," he answered, boldly and joyously, meeting her glance and without dropping his eyes.

"That merely proves you have no heart," she said. But her eyes said that she knew he had a heart, and that

"Remember that I have forbidden you to utter that word, that detestable word," said Anna, with a shudder.

But at once she felt that by that very word "forbidden" she had shown that she acknowledged certain rights

over him, and by that very fact was encouraging him to speak of love. "I have long meant to tell you this,"

she went on, looking resolutely into his eyes, and all aflame from the burning flush on her cheeks. "I've come

here purposely this evening, knowing I should meet you. I have come to tell you that this must end. I have

He saw she was saying what she was forcing herself to say, not what she wanted to say.

"If you love me, as you say," she whispered, "you will do this, so that I may be at peace."

"Don't you know that you're all my life to me? But I know no peace, and I can't give it to you; all of myself,

and love yes. I can't think of you and myself apart. You and I are one to me. And I see no possibility before

us of peace either for me or for you. I see a possibility of despair, of wretchedness.... Or else I see a

possibility of happiness and what a happiness!... Can it be impossible?" he added, his lips barely moving

She strained every effort of her mind to say what ought to be said. But instead of that she let her eyes rest on

"It's come!" he thought in ecstasy. "When I was beginning to despair, and it seemed there would be no end

"Then do this for me: never say such things to me, and let us be friends," she said in words; but her eyes

"Friends we shall never be that you know yourself. Whether we shall be the happiest or the most wretched

"For I ask but one thing: I ask for the right to hope, to suffer even as I am doing now. But if even that cannot

be, command me to disappear, and I disappear. You shall not see me if my presence is painful to you."

"Only don't change anything leave everything as it is," said he, in a shaky voice. "Here's your husband."

At that instant Alexei Alexandrovich did in fact walk into the room with his calm, ungainly gait.

Glancing at his wife and Vronsky, he went up to the lady of the house, and, sitting down for a cup of tea,

began talking in his unhasty, always audible voice, in his habitual tone of banter, as if he were teasing

"Your Rambouillet is in full conclave," he said looking round at all the party; "the graces and the muses."

But Princess Betsy could not endure that tone of his sneering, as she called it, using the English word, and

like a clever hostess she at once brought him around to a serious conversation on the subject of universal

conscription. Alexei Alexandrovich was immediately carried away by the subject, and began seriously

"This is getting indecorous," whispered one lady, with an expressive glance at Madame Karenina, her

But it was not only these ladies who watched them almost everyone in the room, even the Princess

Miaghkaia and Betsy herself, looked several times in the direction of the two who had withdrawn from the

general circle, as though they found it a hindrance. Alexei Alexandrovich was the only person who did not

once look in their direction, and was not diverted from the interesting discussion he had entered upon.

Noticing the disagreeable impression that was being made on everyone, Princess Betsy slipped someone else

"I'm always amazed at the clearness and precision of your husband's language," she said. "The most

"Oh, yes!" said Anna, radiant with a smile of happiness, and not understanding a word of what Betsy had

said. She crossed over to the big table and took part in the general conversation.

Alexei Alexandrovich, after staying half an hour, walked up to his wife and suggested that they go home

together. But she answered, without looking at him, that she was staying to supper. Alexei Alexandrovich

The fat old Tatar, Madame Karenina's coachman, in a glistening leather coat, was with difficulty bridling the

left of her pair of grays, chilled with the cold and rearing at the entrance. A footman stood by the carriage

door he had opened. The hall porter stood holding open the great door of the house. Anna Arkadyevna, with

her quick little hand, was unfastening the lace of her sleeve, caught in the hook of her fur cloak, and with bent

head was listening rapturously to the words Vronsky murmured as he saw her down to her carriage.

"You've said nothing, of course, and I ask nothing," he was saying; "but you know that friendship is not what

I want: that there's only one happiness in life for me that word you dislike so... yes, love!..."

"Love..." she repeated slowly, in an inner voice, and suddenly, at the very instant she unhooked the lace, she

added, "I don't like the word precisely because it means too much to me, far more than you can understand,"

She gave him her hand, and with her rapid, springy step she passed by the porter and vanished into the

Her glance, the touch of her hand, had seared him. He kissed the palm of his hand where she had touched it,

and went home, happy in the realization that he had got nearer to the attainment of his aims that evening than

Alexei Alexandrovich had seen nothing striking or improper in the fact that his wife was sitting with Vronsky

at a table apart, in eager conversation with him about something. But he noticed that to the rest of the party

this appeared as something striking and improper, and for that reason it seemed to him, too, to be improper.

On reaching home Alexei Alexandrovich went to his study, as he usually did, seated himself in his low chair,

opened a book on the Papacy at the place he had marked by inserting the paper knife, read till one o'clock,

just as he usually did. But from time to time he would rub his high forehead and shake his head, as though to

drive away something. At his usual time he got up and made his toilet for the night. Anna Arkadyevna had

not yet come in. With a book under his arm he went upstairs. But this evening, instead of his usual thoughts

and meditations upon official details, his thoughts were absorbed by his wife and something disagreeable

connected with her. Contrary to his usual habit, he did not get into bed, but fell to walking up and down the

rooms with his hands clasped behind his back. He could not go to bed, feeling that it was absolutely needful

When Alexei Alexandrovich had made up his mind that he must have a talk with his wife, it had seemed a

very easy and simple matter. But now, when he began to think over the question that had just presented itself,

Alexei Alexandrovich was not jealous. Jealousy, according to his notions, was an insult to one's wife, and one

ought to have confidence in one's wife. Why one ought to have that confidence that is to say, a complete

conviction that his young wife would always love him he did not ask himself. But he had never experienced

such a lack of confidence, because he had confidence in her, and told himself that he ought to have it. Now,

though his conviction that jealousy was a shameful feeling, and that one ought to feel confidence, had not

broken down, he still felt that he was standing face to face with something illogical and fatuous, and did not

know what ought to be done. Alexei Alexandrovich was standing face to face with life, with the possibility of

his wife's loving someone other than himself, and this seemed to him very fatuous and incomprehensible,

because it was of the very stuff of life. All his life Alexei Alexandrovich had lived and worked in official

spheres, having to do merely with the reflections of life. And every time he had stumbled against life itself he

had shrunk away from it. Now he experienced a feeling akin to that of a man who, while calmly crossing a

precipice by a bridge, should suddenly discover that the bridge is broken, and that there is a chasm below.

That chasm was life itself the bridge, that artificial life in which Alexei Alexandrovich had lived. For the

first time the question presented itself to him of the possibility of his wife's loving someone else, and he was

He did not undress, but walked up and down with his regular tread over the resounding parquet of the dining

room, where one lamp was burning; over the carpet of the dark drawing room, in which the light was

reflected merely on the big new portrait of himself hanging over the sofa; and across her boudoir, where two

candles burned, lighting up the portraits of her parents and feminine friends, and the pretty knickknacks of

her writing table, every one of which he knew so well. He walked across her boudoir to the bedroom door

At each turn in his walk, especially on the parquet of the welllit dining room, he halted and said to himself,

"Yes, this I must decide and put a stop to; I must express my view of it and my decision." And he turned back

again. "But just what shall I express? And what decision?" he would say to himself in the drawing room and

found no answer. "But, after all," he asked himself before turning into the boudoir," what has occurred?

Nothing. She was talking a long while with him. But what of that? Surely women in society can talk to whom

they please. And then, jealousy means debasing both her and myself," he soliloquized as he entered her

boudoir; but this dictum, which had always had such weight with him before, had now no weight and no

meaning whatsoever. And from the bedroom door he turned back again; but as he entered the dark drawing

room some inner voice told him that it was not so, and that if others had noticed, it meant that there was

something. And he said to himself again in the dining room: "Yes, I must decide and put a stop to it, and

express my views...." And again at the turn in the drawing room he asked himself: "Decide how?" And again

he asked inwardly: "What has occurred?" And answered: "Nothing," and recollected that jealousy was a

feeling insulting to his wife; but again in the drawing room he was convinced that something had happened.

His thoughts, like his body, were describing a complete circle, without alighting upon anything new. He

There, looking at her table, with the malachite blotting case lying at the top, and an unfinished letter, his

thoughts suddenly changed. He began to think of her, of what her thoughts and emotions must be. For the

first time he pictured vividly to himself her personal life, her ideas, her desires, and the thought that she could

and must have a separate life of her own seemed to him so appalling that he made haste to drive it away. It

was the chasm which he was afraid to peep into. To put himself in thought and feeling in another person's

place was a spiritual action foreign to Alexei Alexandrovich. He looked on this spiritual action as a harmful

"And the worst of it all," thought he, "is that just now, at the very moment when my great work is

approaching completion" (he was thinking of the project he was bringing forward at the time), "when I stand

in need of all my mental peace and all my energies just now this stupid worry has to come falling about my

ears. But what's to be done? I'm not one of those men who submit to uneasiness and worry without having the

"I must think this over, come to a decision, and put it out of my mind," he said aloud.

"The question of her feelings, of what has passed and may be passing in her soul that's not my affair; that's

the affair of her conscience, and falls under the head of religion," he said to himself, feeling consolation in the

sense that he had found to which division of regulating principles this new circumstance could be properly

"And so," Alexei Alexandrovich said to himself, "questions as to her feelings, and so on, are questions for her

conscience, with which I can have nothing to do. My duty is clearly defined. As the head of the family, I am a

person bound in duty to guide her, and, consequently, in part the person responsible; I am bound to point out

the danger I perceive, to warn her, even to use my authority. I ought to speak plainly to her."

And everything that he would say tonight to his wife took clear shape in Alexei Alexandrovich's head.

Thinking over what he would say, he somewhat regretted that he should have to use his time and mental

powers for domestic consumption, with so little to show for it, but, in spite of that, the form and consistency

of the speech before him shaped itself as clearly and distinctly in his head as a ministerial report. "I must

speak on, and express fully, the following points: first, an explanation of the value to be attached to public

opinion and to decorum; secondly, an explanation of the religious significance of marriage; thirdly, if need

be, a reference to the calamity possibly ensuing to our son; fourthly, a reference to the unhappiness likely to

result to herself." And, interlacing his fingers, the palms downward, Alexei Alexandrovich stretched his

This gesture, this bad habit the joining of his hands cracking his fingers, always soothed him, and gave

precision to his thoughts, so needful to him now. There was the sound of a carriage driving up to the front

A woman's step was heard mounting the stairs. Alexei Alexandrovich, ready for his speech, stood squeezing

Already, from the sound of light steps on the stairs, he was aware that she was close, and though he was

satisfied with his speech, he felt frightened because of the explanation confronting him.

Anna came in with her head bent, playing with the tassels of her hood. Her face was glowing with a vivid

glow; but this glow was not one of joyousness it recalled the fearful glow of a conflagration in the midst of

a dark night. On seeing her husband, Anna raised her head and smiled, as though she had just waked up.

"You're not in bed? What a miracle!" she said throwing off her hood and, without stopping, she went on into

the dressing room. "It's late, Alexei Alexandrovich," she said, from behind the door.

"With me?" she said, wonderingly. She came out from the door, and looked at him. "Why, what is it? What

about?" she asked, sitting down. "Well, let's talk, if it's so necessary. But it would be better to go to sleep."

Anna was saying whatever came to her tongue, and marveled, hearing herself, at her own capacity for lying.

How simple and natural were her words, and how likely that she was simply sleepy She felt herself clad in an

impenetrable armor of falsehood. She felt that some unseen force had come to her aid and was supporting

She looked at him so simply, so brightly, that anyone who did not know her as her husband knew her could

not have noticed anything unnatural, either in the sound or the sense of her words. But to him, knowing her,

knowing that whenever he went to bed five minutes later than usual, she noticed it, and asked him the

reason to him, knowing that every joy, every pleasure and pain that she felt she communicated to him at

once to him it meant a great deal to see now that she did not care to notice his state of mind, that she did not

care to say a word about herself. He saw that the inmost recesses of her soul, that had always hitherto lain

open before him, were now closed against him. More than that, he saw from her tone that she was not even

perturbed at that, but seemed to be saying straightforwardly to him: "Yes, it is closed now, which is as it

should be, and will be so in future." Now he experienced a feeling such as a man might have who, returning

home, finds his own house locked up. "But perhaps the key may yet be found," thought Alexei

"I want to warn you," he said in a low voice, "that through thoughtlessness and lack of caution you may cause

yourself to be talked about in society. Your too animated conversation this evening with Count Vronsky" (he

He talked and looked at her laughing eyes, which frightened him now with their impenetrable look, and, as he

"You're always like that," she answered as though completely misapprehending him, and of all he had said

only taking in the last phrase. "One time you don't like my being dull, and another time you don't like my

"Anna, is this you?" said Alexei Alexandrovich quietly, making an effort over himself, and restraining the

"But what is it all about?" she said, with such genuine and droll wonder. "What do you want of me?"

Alexei Alexandrovich paused, and rubbed his forehead and his eyes. He saw that instead of doing as he had

intended that is to say, warning his wife against a mistake in the eyes of the world he had unconsciously

become agitated over what was the affair of her conscience, and was struggling against some imaginary

"This is what I meant to say to you," he went on coldly and composedly, "and I beg you to hear me to the

end. I consider jealousy, as you know, a humiliating and degrading feeling, and I shall never allow myself to

be guided by it; but there are certain rules of decency which cannot be disregarded with impunity. This

evening it was not I who observed it but, judging by the impression made on the company, everyone

observed that your conduct and deportment were not altogether what one would desire."

"I positively don't understand," said Anna, shrugging her shoulders. "He doesn't care," she thought. "But

other people noticed it and that's what upsets him." "You're not well, Alexei Alexandrovich," she added,

and, getting up, was about to pass through the door; but he moved forward as though he would stop her.

His face was gloomy and forbidding, as Anna had never seen it before. She stopped, and bending her head

"Well, I'm listening what does follow?" she said, calmly and ironically; "and, indeed, I am listening even

She spoke, and marveled at the confident, calm and natural tone in which she spoke, and at the choice of the

"To enter into all the details of your feelings I have no right, and, besides, I regard that as useless and even

harmful," began Alexei Alexandrovich. "Rummaging in our souls, we often bring up something that might

have otherwise lain there unnoticed. Your feelings are an affair of your own conscience; but I am in duty

bound to you, to myself and to God, to point out to you your duties. Our life has been joined, not by man, but

by God. That union can only be severed by a crime, and a crime of that nature brings its own chastisement."

"I don't understand a word. And, oh dear! how sleepy I am, unluckily," she said, rapidly passing her hand

"Anna, for God's sake don't speak like that!" he said gently. "Perhaps I am mistaken, but believe me, that

which I am saying I say as much for myself as for you. I am your husband, and I love you."

For an instant her face fell, and the mocking gleam in her eyes died away; but the phrase "I love" threw her

into revolt again. She thought: "Love? Can he love? If he hadn't heard there was such a thing as love, he

"Alexei Alexandrovich, I really do not understand," she said. "Define what it is you consider..."

"Pardon, let me say all I have to say. I love you. But I am not speaking of myself; the most important persons

in this matter are our son and yourself. It may very well be, I repeat, that my words seem to you utterly

unnecessary and out of place; it may be that they are called forth by my mistaken impression. In that case, I

beg you to forgive me. But if you are conscious yourself of even the smallest foundation for them, then I beg

Alexei Alexandrovich was unconsciously saying something utterly unlike what he had prepared.

"I have nothing to say. And besides she said suddenly, with difficulty repressing a smile, "it's really time to

When she came into the bedroom, he was already in bed. His lips were sternly compressed, and his eyes

looked away from her. Anna got into her bed, and lay expecting every minute that he would begin to speak to

her again. She both feared his speaking and wished for it. But he was silent. She waited for a long while

without moving, and forgot about him. She thought of that other; she pictured him, and felt how her heart was

flooded with emotion and guilty delight at the thought of him. Suddenly she heard an even, tranquil snore.

For the first instant Alexei Alexandrovich seemed, as it were, appalled at his own snoring, and ceased; but

after a pause of one or two breaths, the snore sounded again, with a new tranquil rhythm.

"It's late, it's late," she whispered with a smile. A long while she lay, without moving, and with open eyes,

From that time a new life began for Alexei Alexandrovich and for his wife. Nothing special happened. Anna

went out into society, as she had always done, was particularly often at Princess Betsy's, and met Vronsky

everywhere. Alexei Alexandrovich saw this, but was powerless to do anything. All his efforts to draw her

into open discussion she confronted with a barrier which he could not penetrate, made up of a sort of amused

perplexity. Outwardly everything was the same, but their inner relations were completely changed. Alexei

Alexandrovich, a man of great power in the world of politics, felt himself helpless in this matter. Like an ox

with head bent submissively, he waited the fall of the poleax which he felt was lifted over him. Every time he

began to think about it, he felt that he must try once more; that by kindness, tenderness and persuasion there

was still hope of saving her, of bringing her back to herself, and every day he was on the verge of talking to

her. But every time he began he felt that the spirit of evil and deceit, which had taken possession of her, had

possession of him too, and he talked to her in a tone quite unlike that which he had meant to use.

Involuntarily he talked to her in his habitual tone of bantering at anyone who should say what he was saying.

That which to Vronsky had been for almost a whole year the one absorbing desire of his life, replacing all his

old desires; that which to Anna had been an impossible, terrible, and, for that very reason, a more entrancing

dream of happiness that desire had been fulfilled. He stood before her, pale, his lower jaw quivering, and

But the louder he spoke, the lower she cast down her once proud and gay, but now shamestricken head, and

she bowed down and sank from the sofa where she was sitting down on the floor, at his feet; she would have

She felt so sinful, so guilty, that nothing was left her but to humiliate herself and beg forgiveness, and as now

there was no one in her life but him, to him, too, she addressed her prayer for forgiveness. Looking at him,

she had a physical sense of her humiliation, and she could say nothing more. And he felt as a murderer must

feel when he beholds the body he has robbed of life. That body, robbed by him of life, was their love, the first

stage of their love. There was something awful and revolting in the memory of what had been bought at this

fearful price of shame. Shame at her spiritual nakedness crushed her and infected him. But in spite of all the

murderer's horror before the body of his victim, he must hack it to pieces, hide the body, must use what the

And as the murderer, with fury, and, as it were, with passion, falls on the body, and drags it, and hacks at it

so he covered her face and shoulders with kisses. She held his hand, and did not stir. Yes, these kisses that is

what has been bought by this shame. Yes, and this one hand, which will always be mine the hand of my

accomplice. She lifted up that hand and kissed it. He sank on his knees and tried to see her face; but she hid

it, and said nothing. At last, as though making an effort over herself, she got up and pushed him away. Her

"I can never forget what is my whole life. For one instant of this happiness..."

"Happiness!" she said with horror and loathing and her horror unconsciously infected him. "For God's sake,

"Not a word more," she repeated, and with a look of chill despair, incomprehensible to him, she parted from

him. She felt that at that moment she could not put into words the sense of shame, of rapture, and of horror at

this stepping into a new life, and she did not want to speak of it, to vulgarize this feeling by inappropriate

words. But later too, and the next day, and the day after, she still found no words in which she could express

the complexity of those feelings; indeed, she could not even find thoughts in which she could clearly think

She said to herself. "No, just now I can't think of it later on, when I am calmer." But this calm for thoughts

never came; every time the thought rose of what she had done and what would happen to her, and what she

But in her dreams, when she had no control over her thoughts, her position presented itself to her in all its

hideous nakedness. One dream haunted her almost every night. She dreamed that both were husbands at once,

that both were lavishing caresses on her. Alexei Alexandrovich was weeping, kissing her hands, and saying,

"How happy we are now!" And Alexei Vronsky was there too, and he, too, was her husband. And she was

marveling that it had once seemed impossible to her, was explaining to them, laughing, that this was ever so

much simpler, and that now both of them were happy and contented. But this dream weighed on her like a

In the early days, after his return from Moscow, whenever Levin shuddered and grew red, remembering the

disgrace of his rejection, he would say to himself: "This was just how I used to shudder and blush, thinking

everything utterly lost, when I was flunked in physics and did not get promoted; and this is also how I

thought myself utterly ruined after I had mismanaged that affair of my sister's with which I had been

entrusted. And yet, now that the years have passed, I recall it and wonder that it could distress me so much. It

will be the same thing with this trouble as well. Time will go by, and I shall not mind this either."

But three months had passed and he had not left off minding about it; and it was as painful for him to think of

it now as it had been during those first days. He could not be at peace because, after dreaming so long of

family life, and feeling himself so ripe for it, he was still not married, and was farther than ever from

marriage. He was painfully conscious himself, as were all about him, that at his years it is not good that man

should be alone. He remembered how before starting for Moscow he had once said to his cowherd Nicolai, a

simplehearted peasant, to whom he liked to talk: "Well, Nicolai! I mean to get married," and how Nicolai had

promptly answered, as of a matter on which there could be no possible doubt: "And high time too, Konstantin

Dmitrich." But marriage had now become farther off than ever. The place was taken, and whenever he tried

to imagine any of the girls he knew in that place, he felt that it was utterly impossible. Moreover, the

recollection of the rejection and the part he had played in the affair tortured him with shame. However often

he told himself that he was in no wise to blame in it, that recollection, like other similarly humiliating

recollections, made him wince and blush. There had been in his past, as in every man's, actions, recognized

by him as bad, for which his conscience ought to have tormented him; but the recollection of these evil

actions was far from causing him as much suffering as these trivial but humiliating recollections. These

wounds never healed. And with these recollections was now ranged his rejection and the sorry plight in

which he must have appeared to others that evening. Yet time and labor were doing their work. Bitter

recollections were more and more being covered up by the incidents inconspicuous ones, but important of

his country life. Every week he thought less often of Kitty. He was impatiently looking forward to the news

that she was married, or just going to be married, hoping that such news would, like having a tooth out,

Meanwhile spring came on, beautiful and kindly, without the delays and treacheries incident to spring one

of those rare springs in which plants, beasts and man rejoice alike. This lovely spring roused Levin still more,

and strengthened him in his resolution of renouncing all his past and building up his lonely life firmly and

independently. Though many of the plans with which he had returned to the country had not been carried out,

his most important resolution that of purity of life had nevertheless been kept by him. He was free from

that shame which had usually harassed him after a fall; and he could look everyone straight in the face. In

February he had received a letter from Marya Nikolaevna telling him that his brother Nikolai's health was

getting worse, but that he would not take advice, and in consequence of this letter Levin went to Moscow to

his brother's, and succeeded in persuading him to see a doctor and to go to a watering place abroad. He

succeeded so well in persuading his brother, and in lending him money for the journey without irritating him,

that he was satisfied with himself on that score. In addition to his farming, which called for special attention

in spring, in addition to reading Levin had begun that winter a work on agriculture, the plan of which turned

on taking into account the character of the laborer on the land as one of the unalterable data of the question,

like the climate and the soil, and consequently deducing all the principles of scientific culture, not simply

from the data of soil and climate, but from the data of soil, climate and a certain unalterable character of the

laborer. Thus, in spite of his solitude, or in consequence of his solitude, life was exceedingly full, save that,

on rare occasions, he suffered from an unsatisfied desire to communicate his stray ideas to someone besides

Agathya Mikhailovna. With her indeed he not infrequently fell into discussions upon physics, the theory of

agriculture, and, especially, philosophy: philosophy was Agathya Mikhailovna's favorite subject.

Spring was slow in unfolding. For the last few weeks of Lent it had been steadily fine and frosty weather. In

the daytime there was a thaw in the sun, but at night there were as many as seven degrees of frost. The snow

was so packed and frozen that loads could be carried along anywhere, regardless of roads. Easter came in

snow. Then all of a sudden, on Easter Monday, a warm wind sprang up, storm clouds swooped down, and for

three days and three nights the warm, tempestuous rain fell in torrents. On Thursday the wind dropped, and a

thick gray fog brooded over the land, as though screening the mysteries of the transformations that were

being wrought in nature. Behind the fog there was the flowing of water, the cracking and floating of ice, the

swift rush of turbid, foaming torrents; and on the following Monday, in the evening, the fog parted, the storm

clouds split up into little curling crests of cloud, the sky cleared, and the real spring had come. In the morning

the sun arose brilliant and quickly wore away the thin layer of ice that covered the water, and all the warm air

was quivering with the steam that rose up from the quickened earth. The old grass looked greener, and the

young grass thrust up its tiny blades; the buds of the guelderrose and of the currant, and the sticky birch

buds were swollen with sap, and an exploring bee was humming about the golden blossoms that studded the

willow. Larks trilled unseen above the velvety green fields and the icecovered stubble land; pewits wailed

over the lowlands and marshes, flooded by the pools; cranes and wild geese flew high across the sky uttering

their spring calls. The cattle, bald in patches where the new hair had not grown yet, lowed in the pastures;

bowlegged lambs frisked round their bleating dams, who were shedding their fleece; nimblefooted children

ran along the drying paths, covered with the prints of bare feet; there was a merry chatter of peasant women

over their linen at the pond, and the ring of axes in the yard, where the peasants were repairing plows and

Levin put on his big boots, and, for the first time, a cloth overcoat instead of his fur cloak, and went out to

look after his farm, stepping over streams of water that flashed in the sunshine and dazzled his eyes, and

Spring is the time of plans and projects. And, as he came out into the farmyard, Levin, like a tree in spring

that knows not what form will be taken by the young shoots and twigs imprisoned in its swelling buds, hardly

knew what undertakings he was going to launch upon now in the farmwork that was so dear to him. But he

felt that he was full of the most splendid plans and projects. First of all he went to the cattle. The cows had

been let out into their paddock, and their smooth sides were already glossy with their new, sleek, spring coats;

they basked in the sunshine and lowed to go to the meadow. Levin gazed admiringly at the cows he knew so

intimately to the minutest detail of their condition, and gave orders for them to be driven out into the

meadow, and the calves to be let into the paddock. The herdsman ran gaily to get ready for the meadow. The

cowherd girls, picking up their petticoats, ran splashing through the mud with bare legs, still white, not yet

brown from the sun, waving brushwood in their hands, chasing the calves that frolicked in the mirth of

After admiring the increase of that year, which were particularly fine the early calves were the size of a

peasant's cow, and Pava's daughter, at three months old, was as big as a yearling Levin gave orders for a

trough to be brought out and hay to be put in the racks. But it appeared that, since the paddock had not been

used during the winter, the racks made in the autumn were broken. He sent for the carpenter, who, according

to his orders, ought to have been at work at the threshing machine. But it appeared that the carpenter was

repairing the harrows, which ought to have been repaired before Lent. This was very annoying to Levin. It

was annoying to come upon that everlasting slovenliness in the farmwork against which he had been striving

with all his might for so many years. The racks, as he ascertained, being not wanted in winter, had been

carried to the cart horses' stable, and there broken, as they were of light construction, only meant for

foddering calves. Moreover, it was apparent also that the harrows and all the agricultural implements, which

he had directed to be looked over and repaired in the winter, for which very purpose he had hired three

carpenters, had not been put into repair, and the harrows were being repaired when they ought to have been

harrowing the field. Levin sent for his bailiff, but immediately went off himself to look for him. The bailiff,

beaming all over, like everything that day, in a sheepskin bordered with astrakhan, came out of the barn,

"Oh, I meant to tell you yesterday, the harrows want repairing. Here it's time they got to work in the fields."

"I ordered them to be got ready. What would you have with those people!" said the bailiff, with a wave of his

"It's not those people but this bailiff!" said Levin, getting angry. "Why, what do I keep you for?" he cried.

But, bethinking himself that this would not help matters, he stopped short in the middle of a sentence, and

merely sighed. "Well, what do you say? Can sowing begin?" he asked, after a pause.

"I've sent Vassilii and Mishka; they're sowing it. Only I don't know if they'll manage to get through; it's so

That they were only sowing the clover on six dessiatinas, not in all the twenty, was still more annoying to

him. Clover, as he knew, both from books and from his own experience, never did well except when it was

sown as early as possible, almost in the snow. And yet Levin could never get this done.

"There's no one to send. What would you do with such people? Three haven't turned up. And there's

"Five are making compote" (which meant compost), "and four are shifting the oats for fear of being touched,

Levin knew very well that "touching" meant that his English seed oats were already spoiled. Again they had

Levin made an angry gesture, and went into the granary to glance at the oats, and then to the stable. The oats

were not yet spoiled. But the laborers were carrying the oats in spades when they might simply let them slide

down into the lower granary; and arranging for this to be done, and taking two laborers from there for sowing

clover, Levin got over the vexation his bailiff had caused him. Indeed, it was such a lovely day that one could

"Ignat!" he called to the coachman, who, with his sleeves tucked up, was washing the carriage wheels,

While they were saddling his horse, Levin again called the bailiff, who was hanging about in sight, to make it

up with him, and began talking to him about the spring operations before them, and his plans for the farming.

The wagons were to begin carting manure earlier, so as to get all done before the early mowing. And the

plowing of the outlying land was to go on without a break, so as to let it lie black fallow and furrowed. And

The bailiff listened attentively, and obviously made an effort to approve of his employer's projects. But still

he had that look Levin knew so well that always irritated him, a look of hopelessness and despondency. That

Nothing mortified Levin so much as that tone. But it was the tone common to all the bailiffs he had ever had.

They had all taken that attitude to his plans, and so now he was not angered by it, but mortified, and felt all

the more roused to struggle against this apparently elemental force continually ranged against him, for which

"We positively must have fifteen laborers more. And they don't turn up. There were some here today asking

Levin was silent. Again he was brought face to face with that opposing force. He knew that however much

they tried, they could not hire more than forty thirtyseven perhaps or thirtyeight laborers for a

reasonable sum; some forty had been taken on, and there were no more. But still he could not help struggling

"I'll send, to be sure," said Vassilii Fiodorovich despondently. "But then there are the horses they're not

"We'll get some more. I know, of course," Levin added laughing, "you always want to do with as little and as

poor a quality as possible; but this year I'm not going to let you have things your own way. I'll see to

"Why, I don't think you take much rest as it is. It cheers us up to work under the master's eye...."

"So they're sowing clover behind the Birch Dale? I'll go and have a look at them," he said, mounting the little

And Levin rode through the slush of the farmyard to the gate and out into the open country, his good little

horse, after his long inactivity, ambling easily, snorting over the pools, and asking, as it were, for guidance.

If Levin had felt happy before in the cattle pens and farmyard, he felt happier yet in the open country.

Swaying rhythmically with the ambling paces of his good little cob, drinking in the warm yet fresh scent of

the snow and the air, as he rode through his forest over the crumbling, wasted snow, still left in parts, and

covered with dissolving tracks, he rejoiced over every tree, with the moss reviving on its bark and the buds

swelling on its shoots. When he came out of the forest, in the immense plain before him, his winter fields

stretched in an unbroken carpet of green, without one bare place or swamp, only spotted here and there in the

hollows with patches of melting snow. He was not put out of temper even by the sight of the peasants' horse

and colt trampling down his young grass (he told a peasant he met to drive them out), nor by the sarcastic and

stupid reply of the peasant Ipat, whom he met on the way, and asked, "Well, Ipat, shall we soon be sowing?"

"We must get the plowing done first, Konstantin Dmitrich," answered Ipat. The farther he rode, the happier

he became, and plans for the land rose to his mind each better than the last: to plant all his fields with hedges

along the southern borders, so that the snow should not lie under them; to divide them up into six fields of

tillage and three for pasture and hay; to build a cattle yard at the further end of the estate, and to dig a pond

and to construct movable pens for the cattle as a means of manuring the land. And then three hundred

dessiatinas of wheat, one hundred of potatoes, and one hundred and fifty of clover, and not a dessiatina

Absorbed in such dreams, carefully keeping his horse by the hedges so as not to trample his young winter

fields, he rode up to the laborers who had been sent to sow clover. A telega with the seed in it was standing,

not at the edge, but in the middle of the tillage, and the winter corn had been torn up by the wheels and

trampled by the horse. Both the laborers were sitting in the hedge, probably smoking a pipe, turn and turn

about. The earth in the telega, with which the seed was mixed, was not crushed to powder, but crusted

together or adhering in clods. Seeing the master, the laborer, Vassilii, went toward the telega, while Mishka

set to work sowing. This was not as it should be, but with the laborers Levin seldom lost his temper. When

"Yes, sir," answered Vassilii, and he took the horse's head. "What a sowing, Konstantin Dmitrich!" he said

ingratiatingly. "Firstrate. Only it's a work to get about! A fellow drags thirty pounds of earth at every step."

"Well, we crumble it up," answered Vassilii, taking up some seed and rolling the earth in his palms.

Vassilii was not to blame for their having fired up his telega with unsifted earth, but still it was annoying.

Levin had already, more than once, tried a way he knew for stifling his anger, and turning all that seemed

dark right again, and he tried that way now. He watched how Mishka strode along, swinging the huge clods

of earth that clung to each foot; and, getting off his horse, he took the sieve from Vassilii and started sowing

Vassilii pointed to the mark with his foot, and Levin went forward as best he could, scattering the seed on the

land. Walking was as difficult as on a bog, and by the time Levin had ended the row he was in a great heat,

"Well master, when summer's here, mind you don't scold me for this row," said Vassilii.

"Why, you'll see in the summertime. It'll look different. Look you where I sowed last spring. How I did work

at it I do my best, Konstantin Dmitrich, d'ye see, as I would for my own father. I don't like botchwork myself,

nor would I let another man do it. What's good for the master is good for us too. It does one's heart good,"

"Why, it's a spring such as even the old men don't remember the like of. I was up home; my father there has

sown wheat too, three osminas of it. He was saying you couldn't tell it from rye."

"Why, sir, it was you taught us, the year before last. You gave me two measures. We sold about one chetvert

"Well, mind you crumble up the clods," said Levin, going toward his horse, "and keep an eye on Mishka.

"Thank you, kindly. We are very well content, sir, with your treatment, as it is."

Levin got on his horse and rode toward the field where last year's clover was, and the one which was plowed

The crop of clover coming up in the stubble was magnificent. It had revived already, and stood up vividly

green through the broken stalks of last year's wheat. The horse sank in up to the pasterns, and he drew each

hoof with a sucking sound out of the halfthawed ground. Over the plowland the riding was utterly

impossible; the horse could only keep a foothold where there was ice, and in the thawing furrows he sank in

deep at each step. The plowland was in splendid condition; in a couple of days it would be fit for harrowing

and sowing. Everything was capital, everything was cheering. Levin rode back across the streams, hoping the

water would have gone down. And he did in fact get across, and startled two ducks. "There must be

W. here too," he thought, and just as he reached the turning homewards he met the forest keeper, who

Levin went home at a trot, so as to have time to eat his dinner and get his gun ready for the evening.

As he rode up to the house in the happiest frame of mind, Levin heard the bell ring at the side of the principal

"Yes, that's someone from the railway station," he thought, "just the time to be here from the Moscow train....

Who could it be? What if it's brother Nikolai? He did say: 'I may go to the waters, or I may come down to

you.'" He felt dismayed and vexed for the first minute that his brother Nikolai's presence should come to his

happy mood of spring. But he felt ashamed of the feeling, and at once he opened, as it were, the arms of his

soul, and with a softened feeling of joy and expectation, he now hoped with all his heart that it was his

brother. He spurred on his horse, and as he rode out from behind the acacias, he saw a hired troika from the

railway station, and a gentleman in a fur coat. It was not his brother. "Oh, if it were only some pleasant

"Ah," cried Levin joyfully, flinging up both his hands. "Here's a delightful visitor! Ah, how glad I am to see

"I shall find out for certain whether she's married, or when she's going to be married," he thought.

And on that delicious spring day he felt that the thought of her did not hurt him at all.

"Didn't expect me, did you?" said Stepan Arkadyevich, getting out of the sleigh, splashed with mud on the

bridge of his nose, on his cheek, and on his eyebrows, but radiant with health and good spirits. "I've come

primarily to see you," he said, embracing and kissing him, "secondly, to have some stand shooting, and

"Delightful! What a spring we're having! How ever did you get along in a sleigh?"

"In a wagon it would have been worse still, Konstantin Dmitrievich," answered the driver, who knew him.

"Well, I'm very, very glad to see you," said Levin, with a genuine smile of childlike delight.

Levin led his friend to the guest room, where Stepan Arkadyevich's things were also carried a bag, a gun in

a case, a satchel for cigars. Leaving him there to wash and change his clothes, Levin went off to the

countinghouse to speak about the plowing and the clover. Agathya Mikhailovna, always very anxious for the

"Do just as you like, only let it be as soon as possible," he said, and went to the bailiff.

When he came back, Stepan Arkadyevich, washed and combed, came out of his room with a beaming smile,

"Well, I am glad I managed to get away to you! Now I shall understand what the mysterious business is that

you are always absorbed in here. No, really, I envy you. What a house, how splendid it all is! So bright, so

cheerful!" said Stepan Arkadyevich, forgetting that it was not always spring and fine weather as on this day.

"And your old nurse is simply charming! A pretty maid in an apron might be even more agreeable, perhaps;

Stepan Arkadyevich imparted to him many interesting bits of news; especially interesting to Levin was the

news that his brother, Sergei Ivanovich, was intending to spend the summer with him in the country.

Not one word did Stepan Arkadyevich say in reference to Kitty and the Shcherbatskys; he merely gave him

greetings from his wife. Levin was grateful to him for his delicacy, and rejoiced exceedingly over his guest.

As always happened with him during his solitude, a mass of ideas and feelings had been accumulating within

him, which he could not communicate to those about him. And now he poured out upon Stepan Arkadyevich

his poetic joy over the spring, and his failures and plans for the land, and his thoughts and criticisms on the

books he had been reading, and the idea of his own book, the basis of which really was, though he was

unaware of it himself, a criticism of all the old books on agriculture. Stepan Arkadyevich, always charming,

understanding everything at the slightest reference, was particularly charming on this visit, and Levin noticed

in him a special tenderness, as it were, and a new tone of respect that flattered him.

The efforts of Agathya Mikhailovna and the cook to have the dinner particularly good, only ended in the two

famished friends attacking the preliminary course, eating a great deal of bread and butter, salt goose and

salted mushrooms, and in Levin's finally ordering the soup to be served without the accompaniment of little

patties, with which the cook had particularly meant to impress their visitor. But though Stepan Arkadyevich

was accustomed to very different dinners, he thought everything excellent: the herb brandy, and the bread,

and the butter, and, above all, the salt goose and the mushrooms, and the nettle soup, and the chicken in white

"Splendid, splendid!" he said, lighting a fat cigar after the roast. "I feel as if, coming to you, I had landed on a

peaceful shore after the noise and jolting of a steamer. And so you maintain that the laborer himself is an

element to be studied, and to regulate the choice of methods in agriculture. Of course, I'm an ignorant

outsider; but I should fancy theory and its application will have its influence on the laborer too."

"Yes, but wait a bit. I'm not talking of political economy I'm talking of the science of agriculture. It ought to

be like the natural sciences, and to observe given phenomena and the laborer in his economic,

"Oh, Agathya Fiodorovna," said Stepan Arkadyevich, kissing the tips of his plump fingers, "what salt goose,

what herb brandy!... What do you think, isn't it time to start, Kostia?" he added.

Levin looked out of the window at the sun sinking behind the bare treetops of the forest.

"Yes, it's time," he said. "Kouzma, get ready the wide droshky," and he ran downstairs.

Stepan Arkadyevich, going down, carefully took the canvas cover off his varnished gun case with his own

hands, and opening it, began to get ready his expensive, newfashioned gun. Kouzma, who already scented a

big tip, never left Stepan Arkadyevich's side, and put on him both his stockings and boots, a task which

"Kostia, give orders that if the merchant Riabinin comes I told him to come today he's to be shown in and

"To be sure I do. I have had to do business with him, 'positively and definitively.'"

Stepan Arkadyevich laughed. 'Positively and definitively' were the merchant's favorite words.

"Yes, it's wonderfully funny the way he talks. She knows where her master's going!" he added, patting Laska,

"I told them to bring the droshky round, though it's not far to go; or would you rather walk?"

"No, we'd better drive," said Stepan Arkadyevich, getting into the droshky. He sat down, tucked the

tigerstriped rug round him, and lighted a cigar. "How is it you don't smoke? A cigar is a sort of thing, not

exactly a pleasure, but the crown and outward sign of pleasure. Come, this is life! How splendid it is! This is

"No, you're a lucky man! You've got everything you like. You like horses and you have them; dogs you

"Perhaps because I rejoice in what I have, and don't fret for what I haven't," said Levin, thinking of Kitty.

Levin was grateful to Oblonsky, for noticing, with his neverfailing tact, that he dreaded conversation about

the Shcherbatskys, and so saying nothing about them. But now Levin was longing to find out about that

"Come, tell me how things are going with you," said Levin, bethinking himself that it was not good of him to

"You don't admit, I know, that one can be fond of new rolls when one has had one's ration of bread to your

mind it's a crime; but I don't count life as life without love," he said, taking Levin's question in his own way.

"What am I to do? I'm made that way. And really, one does so little harm to anyone, and gives oneself so

"Yes, my boy, there is! There, do you see, you know the type of Ossian's women... women, such as one sees

in dreams... Well, these women are sometimes to be met with in reality.... And these women are terrible.

Woman, don't you know, is such a subject that no matter how much you study it, it's always perfectly new."

"No. Some mathematician has said that enjoyment lies in the search for truth, not in the finding of it."

Levin listened in silence, and, in spite of all the efforts he made, he could not in the least enter into the

feelings of his friend and understand his sentiments and the charm of studying such women.

The place fixed on for the stand shooting was not far above a stream in a little aspen copse. On reaching the

copse, Levin got out of the droshky and led Oblonsky to a corner of a mossy, swampy glade, already quite

free from snow. He went back himself to a double birch tree on the other side, and, leaning his gun on the

fork of a dead lower branch, he took off his full overcoat, fastened his belt again, and worked his arms to see

Gray old Laska, who had followed them, sat down warily opposite him and pricked up her ears. The sun was

setting behind a thick forest, and in the glow of sunset the birch trees, dotted about in the aspen copse, stood

out clearly with their hanging twigs, and their buds swollen almost to bursting.

From the thickest parts of the copse, where the snow still remained, came the faint sound of narrow winding

streamlets of water running away. Tiny birds twittered, and now and then fluttered from tree to tree.

In the pauses of complete stillness there came the rustle of last year's leaves, stirred by the thawing of the

"Imagine! One can hear and see the grass growing!" Levin said to himself, noticing a wet, slatecolored

aspen leaf moving beside a blade of young grass. He stood, listened, and gazed sometimes down at the wet

mossy ground, sometimes at Laska listening all alert, sometimes at the sea of bare treetops that stretched on

the slope below him, sometimes at the darkening sky, covered with white streaks of cloud. A hawk flew high

over a forest far away with a slow sweep of its wings; another flew with exactly the same motion in the same

direction and vanished. The birds twittered more and more loudly and busily in the thicket. An owl hooted

not far off, and Laska, starting, stepped cautiously a few steps forward, and, putting her head on one side,

began to listen intently. Beyond the stream was heard the cuckoo. Twice she uttered her usual call, and then

"Imagine! The cuckoo already!" said Stepan Arkadyevich, coming out from behind a bush.

"Yes, I hear it," answered Levin, reluctantly breaking the stillness with his voice, which sounded disagreeable

Stepan Arkadyevich's figure again went behind the bush, and Levin saw nothing but the bright flash of a

"What's that cry?" asked Oblonsky, drawing Levin's attention to a prolonged cry, as though a colt were

"Oh, don't you know it? That's a buck hare. But enough talking! Listen here it comes!" almost shrieked

They heard a shrill whistle in the distance, and in the exact time, so well known to the sportsman, two

seconds later another, a third, and, after the third whistle, the hoarse, guttural cry could be heard.

Levin looked about him to right and to left, and there, just facing him against the dusky blue sky above the

confused mass of tender shoots of the aspens, he saw the flying bird. It was flying straight toward him; the

guttural cry, like the even tearing of some strong stuff, sounded close to his ear; the long beak and neck of the

bird could be seen, and at the very instant when Levin was taking aim, behind the bush where Oblonsky

stood, there was a flash of red lightning: the bird dropped like an arrow, and darted upward again. Again

came the red flash and the sound of a blow, and, fluttering its wings as though trying to keep up in the air, the

bird paused, stopped still an instant, and fell with a heavy splash to the slushy ground.

"Can I possibly have missed it?" shouted Stepan Arkadyevich, who could not see for the smoke.

"Here it is!" said Levin, pointing to Laska, who, with one ear pricked up, wagging the tip of her shaggy tail,

was coming slowly back, as though she would prolong the pleasure, and seemingly smiling, was bringing the

dead bird to her master. "Well, I'm glad you were successful," said Levin, who, at the same time, had a sense

"It was a bad shot from the right barrel," responded Stepan Arkadyevich, loading his gun. "Sh... Here it

The shrill whistles rapidly following one another were heard again. Two W.s, playing and chasing one

another, and only whistling, not crying, flew straight at the very heads of the sportsmen. There was the report

of four shots, and like swallows, the W.s turned swift somersaults in the air and vanished from sight.

The stand shooting was capital. Stepan Arkadyevich shot two more birds, and Levin two, of which one was

not found. It began to get dark. Venus, bright and silvery, shone with her soft light low down in the west,

behind the birch trees, and high up in the east twinkled the red fires of somber Arcturus. Over his head Levin

made out the stars of the Great Bear and lost them again. The W.s had ceased flying; but Levin

resolved to stay a little longer, till Venus, which he saw below a branch of birch, should be above it, and the

stars of the Great Bear should be perfectly plain. Venus had risen above the branch, and the chariot of the

Great Bear with its shaft was now all plainly visible against the dark blue sky, yet still he waited.

"Stiva!" said Levin unexpectedly; "how is it you don't tell me whether your sisterinlaw's married yet, or

Levin felt so resolute and serene that no answer he fancied could affect him. But he had never dreamed of the

"She's never thought of being married, and isn't thinking of it; but she's very ill, and the doctors have sent her

While they were speaking, Laska, with ears pricked up, was looking upward at the sky, and, reproachfully, at

"What a time they have chosen to gab," she was thinking. "There it comes.... Here it is yes, sure enough.

But at that very instant both suddenly heard a shrill whistle which, as it were, smote on their ears, and both

suddenly seized their guns and two flashes gleamed, and two bangs sounded at the very same instant. The

W. flying high above instantly folded its wings and fell into a thicket, bending down the delicate

"Splendid! Together!" cried Levin, and he ran with Laska into the thicket to look for the W..

"Oh, yes, what was it that was unpleasant?" he recollected. "Yes, Kitty's ill... Well, it can't be helped; I'm very

"She's found it! Isn't she a clever girl?" he said, taking the warm bird from Laska's mouth and packing it into

On the way home Levin asked all the details of Kitty's illness and of the Shcherbatskys' plans, and though he

would have been ashamed to admit it, he was pleased at what he heard. He was pleased that there was still

hope, and still more pleased that she, who had made him suffer, should be suffering so much. But when

Stepan Arkadyevich began to speak of the causes of Kitty's illness, and mentioned Vronsky's name, Levin cut

"I have no right whatever to know family matters, and, to tell the truth, no interest in them either."

Stepan Arkadyevich smiled a barely perceptible smile, catching the instantaneous change he knew so well in

"Yes, it's all settled. The price is magnificent thirtyeight thousand. Eight straightaway, and the rest in six

"Then you've as good as given away your forest for nothing," said Levin gloomily.

"How do you mean for nothing?" said Stepan Arkadyevich with a goodhumored smile, knowing that

"Because the forest is worth at least five hundred roubles the dessiatina," answered Levin.

"Oh, these farmers!" said Stepan Arkadyevich playfully. "Your tone of contempt for us poor townsfolk!... But

when it comes to business, we are better at it than anyone. I assure you I have reckoned it all out," he said,

"and the forest is fetching a very good price so much so that I'm afraid of this fellow's crying off, in fact.

You know it's not 'timber forest,'" said Stepan Arkadyevich, hoping by this distinction to convince Levin

completely of the unfairness of his doubts, "but for the most part firewood. And it won't run to more than

thirty sazhenes of wood per dessiatina, and he's paying me at the rate of two hundred roubles the dessiatina."

Levin smiled contemptuously. "I know," he thought, "that fashion not only in him, but in all city people, who,

after being twice in ten years in the country, pick up two or three phrases and use them in season and out of

season, firmly persuaded that they know all about it. 'Timber, run to thirty sazhenes the dessiatina.' He says

"I wouldn't attempt to teach you what you write about in your office," said he, "and if need arose, I should

come to you to ask about it. But you're so positive you know all the lore of the forest. It's difficult. Have you

"How count the trees?" said Stepan Arkadyevich, laughing, still trying to draw his friend out of his ill temper.

"Oh, well, the higher power of Riabinin can. Not a single merchant ever buys a forest without counting the

trees, unless they get it given them for nothing, as you're doing now. I know your forest. I go there every year

shooting, and your forest's worth five hundred a dessiatina paid down, while he's giving you two hundred by

"Come, don't let your imagination run away with you," said Stepan Arkadyevich piteously. "Why was it none

"Why, because he has an understanding with the merchants; he's bought them off. I've had to do with all of

them; I know them. They're not merchants, you know; they're speculators. He wouldn't look at a bargain that

gave him ten, fifteen per cent profit, but holds back to buy a rouble's worth for twenty kopecks."

At the steps there stood a trap tightly covered with iron and leather, with a sleek horse tightly harnessed with

broad collar straps. In the trap sat the chubby, tightly belted overseer who served Riabinin as coachman.

Riabinin himself was already in the house, and met the friends in the hall. Riabinin was a tall, thinnish,

middleaged man, with mustache and a projecting cleanshaven chin, and prominent muddylooking eyes.

He was dressed in a longskirted blue coat, with buttons below the waist at the back, and wore high boots

wrinkled over the ankles and straight over the calf, with big galoshes drawn over them. He mopped his face

with his handkerchief, and, wrapping himself in his coat, which sat extremely well as it was, he greeted them

with a smile, holding out his hand to Stepan Arkadyevich, as though he wanted to catch something.

"So, here you are," said Stepan Arkadyevich, giving him his hand. "That's capital."

"I did not venture to disregard Your Excellency's commands, though the road was extremely bad. I positively

covered the whole way at a walk, but I am here on time. Konstantin Dmitrich, my respects"; he turned to

Levin, trying to seize his hand too. But Levin, scowling, made as though he did not notice his hand, and took

out the W.s. "Your honors have been diverting yourselves with the chase? What kind of bird may it

be, pray?" added Riabinin, looking contemptuously at the W.s: "a great delicacy, I suppose." And he

shook his head disapprovingly, as though he had grave doubts whether this game were worth the candle.

"Would you like to go into my study?" Levin said in French to Stepan Arkadyevich, scowling morosely. "Go

"Quite so, wherever you please," said Riabinin with supercilious dignity, as though wishing to make it felt

that others might be in difficulties as to how to behave, but that he could never be in any difficulty about

On entering the study Riabinin looked about, as it was a habit of his, as though seeking a holy image, but,

when he had found it, he did not cross himself. He scanned the bookcases and bookshelves, and with the

same dubious air with which he had regarded the W.s, he smiled superciliously and shook his head

disapprovingly, as though by no means willing to allow that this game, either, were worth the candle.

"I don't mind if I do," said Riabinin, sitting down and leaning his elbows on the back of his armchair in a

position of the intensest discomfort to himself. "You must knock it down a bit, Prince. It would be a sin

otherwise. As for the money, it is ready definitively, to the last kopeck. As for money down, there'll be no

Levin, who had meanwhile been putting his gun away in the cupboard, was just going out of the door, but

"Why, you've got the forest for nothing as it is," he said. "He came to me too late, or I'd have fixed the price

"Konstantin Dmitrievich is very close," he said with a smile, turning to Stepan Arkadyevich; "there's

definitively no dealing with him. I was bargaining for some wheat of him, and a pretty price I offered too."

"Why should I give you what's mine for nothing? I didn't pick it up off the ground, nor did I steal it, either."

"Mercy on us! Nowadays there's positively no chance at all of stealing. With the definitively open courts, and

everything done in style, nowadays there's no question of stealing. We are just talking things over like

gentlemen. His Excellency's asking too much for the forest. I can't make both ends meet over it. I must ask

"But is the thing settled between you or isn't it? If it's settled, it's useless haggling; but if it isn't," said Levin,

The smile vanished at once from Riabinin's face. A hawklike, greedy, cruel expression was left upon it. With

rapid, bony fingers he unbuttoned his coat, revealing a large shirt, bronze waistcoat buttons, and a watch

"Here you are, the forest is mine," he said, crossing himself quickly, and holding out his hand. "Take the

money; it's my forest. That's Riabinin's way of doing business; he doesn't haggle over every copper," he

Levin went out of the room, slamming the door. Riabinin looked toward the door and shook his head with a

"It's all youthfulness definitively nothing but childishness. Why, I'm buying it, upon my honor, simply,

believe me, for the glory of it, that Riabinin, and no one else, should have bought the copse of Oblonsky. And

as to the profits, why, I must make what God gives. God's my witness. If you would kindly sign the title

Within an hour the merchant, carefully stroking his wrapper down, and hooking up his coat, with the

agreement in his pocket, seated himself in his tightly covered trap, and drove homeward.

"Ugh, these gentlefolk!" he said to the overseer. "They are all made alike! they're a fine lot!"

"That's so," responded the overseer, handing him the reins and buttoning the leather apron. "But can I

Stepan Arkadyevich went upstairs with his pocket bulging with notes which the merchant had paid him for

three months in advance. The business of the forest was over, the money in his pocket; their shooting had

been excellent, and Stepan Arkadyevich was in the happiest frame of mind, and therefore felt especially

anxious to dissipate the illhumor that had come upon Levin. He wanted to finish the day at supper as

Levin certainly was out of humor, and, in spite of all his desire to be affectionate and cordial to his charming

guest, he could not control his mood. The aftereffects of the intoxication of the news that Kitty was not

Kitty was not married, and was ill, and ill from love for a man who had slighted her. This offense, as it were,

rebounded upon him. Vronsky had slighted her, and she had slighted him, Levin. Consequently Vronsky had

the right to despise Levin, and therefore he was his enemy. But all this Levin did not think of. He vaguely felt

that there was something in it insulting to him, and he was not angry now at what had disturbed him, but he

fell foul of everything that presented itself. The stupid sale of the forest, the fraud practised upon Oblonsky

"Well, finished?" he said, meeting Stepan Arkadyevich upstairs. "Would you like supper?"

"Well, I wouldn't say no to it. What an appetite I get in the country! Wonderful! Why didn't you offer

"Still, how you do treat him!" said Oblonsky. "You didn't even shake hands with him. Why not shake hands

"Because I don't shake hands with a waiter, and a waiter's a hundred times better than he is."

"What a reactionist you are, really! What about the amalgamation of classes?" said Oblonsky.

"Really. I have never considered what I am. I am Konstantin Levin, and nothing else."

"And Konstantin Levin very much out of temper," said Stepan Arkadyevich, smiling.

"Yes, I am out of temper, and do you know why? Because excuse me of your stupid sale...."

Stepan Arkadyevich frowned goodhumoredly, like one who feels himself teased and attacked for no fault of

"Come, enough about that!" he said. "When did anybody ever sell anything without being told immediately

after the sale, 'It was worth much more'? But when one wants to sell, no one will give anything.... No, I see

"Maybe I have. And do you know why? You'll say again that I'm a reactionist, or some other terrible word;

but all the same it does annoy and anger me to see on all sides the impoverishing of the nobility to which I

belong, and, in spite of the amalgamation of classes, I'm glad to belong. And their impoverishment is not due

to living in luxury that would be nothing; living in good style that's the proper thing for noblemen: it's only

the nobles who know how to do it. Now, the peasants about us buy land, and I don't mind that. The gentleman

does nothing, while the peasant works and supplants the idle man. That's as it should be. And I welcome the

peasant. But I do mind seeing the process of impoverishment from a sort of I don't know what to call it

innocence. Here a Polish lessee bought for half its value a magnificent estate from a lady who lives in Nice.

And there a merchant leases land, worth ten roubles in rent the dessiatina, for one rouble. Here, for no kind of

"Of course, they must be counted. You didn't count them, but Riabinin did. Riabinin's children will have

"Well, you must excuse me, but there's something mean in this counting. We have our business and they have

theirs, and they must make their profit. Anyway, the thing's done, and there's an end of it. And here come

some fried eggs, my favorite dish. And Agathya Mikhailovna will give us that marvelous herb brandy...."

Stepan Arkadyevich sat down at the table and began jollying Agathya Mikhailovna, assuring her that it was

"Well, you praise it, at any rate," said Agathya Mikhailovna, "but Konstantin Dmitrievich, no matter what

Though Levin tried to control himself, he was gloomy and silent. He wanted to put one question to Stepan

Arkadyevich, but he could not bring himself to the point, and could not find the words or the moment in

which to put it. Stepan Arkadyevich had gone down to his room, undressed, again washed, and, attired in a

nightshirt with goffered frills, had got into bed, but Levin still lingered in his room, talking of various trifling

"How wonderfully they make the soap," he said gazing at a piece of soap he was unwrapping, which Agathya

Mikhailovna had placed in readiness for the guest, but a brand which Oblonsky did not use. "Just look why,

"Yes, everything's brought to such a pitch of perfection nowadays," said Stepan Arkadyevich, with a moist

and blissful yawn. "The theater, for instance, and the entertainments... Aaa!" he yawned. "The electric light

"Yes, the electric light," said Levin. "Yes. Oh, and where's Vronsky now?" he asked suddenly, laying down

"Vronsky?" said Stepan Arkadyevich, checking his yawn; "he's in Peterburg. He left soon after you did, and

hasn't been once in Moscow since. And, do you know, Kostia, I'll tell you the truth," he went on, leaning his

elbow on the table, and, with his hand, propping up his handsome ruddy face, in which his humid,

goodnatured, sleepy eyes shone like stars. "It's your own fault. You took fright at the sight of your rival.

But, as I told you at the time, I couldn't say which had the better chance. Why didn't you fight it out? I told

"Does he know, or doesn't he, that I did propose?" Levin wondered gazing at him. "Yes, there's something

humbugging, something diplomatic in his face." And, feeling he was blushing, he looked Stepan Arkadyevich

"If there was anything on her side at that time, it was nothing but a superficial attraction," pursued Oblonsky.

"His being such a perfect aristocrat, you know, and his future position in society, had an influence not with

Levin scowled. The humiliation of his rejection stung him to the heart, as though it were a fresh wound he

had only just received. But he was at home, and the walls of home are a support.

"Wait, wait," he began, interrupting Oblonsky. "You talk of his being an aristocrat. But allow me to ask what

it consists of, that aristocracy of Vronsky or of anybody else, beside which I can be looked down upon? You

consider Vronsky an aristocrat, but I don't. A man whose father crawled up from nothing at all by intrigue,

and whose mother God knows whom she wasn't mixed up with... No, excuse me, but I consider myself

aristocratic, and people like me, who can point back in the past to three or four honorable generations of their

family, of the highest degree of breeding (talent and intellect, of course, are another matter), and have never

curried favor with anyone, never depended on anyone for anything, like my father and my grandfather. And I

know many such. You think it mean of me to count the trees in my forest, while you make Riabinin a present

of thirty thousand; but you get from the government your liferent, and I don't know what, while I shall not,

and so I prize what's come to me from my ancestors, or has been won by hard work... We are aristocrats, and

not those who can only exist by favor of the powerful ones of this earth, and who can be bought for twenty

"Well, but whom are you attacking? I agree with you," said Stepan Arkadyevich, sincerely and genially;

though he was aware that in the class of those who could be bought for twenty kopecks Levin was reckoning

him as well. Levin's animation gave him genuine pleasure. "Whom are you attacking? A good deal of what

you say is not true about Vronsky, of course, but I won't talk about that. I tell you straight out, if I were you, I

"No; I don't know whether you know it or not, but I don't care. And I tell you I did propose, and was

rejected, and Katerina Alexandrovna is nothing now to me but a painful and humiliating reminiscence."

"But we won't talk about it. Please forgive me, if I've been nasty," said Levin. Now that he had opened his

heart, he became as he had been in the morning. "You're not angry with me, Stiva? Please don't be angry," he

"Of course not; not a bit nor is there any reason to be. I'm glad we've spoken openly. And, do you know,

stand shooting in the morning is usually good why not go? I might go, without sleeping, straight from

Although all Vronsky's inner life was absorbed in his passion, his external life unalterably and inevitably

followed along the old accustomed lines of his social and regimental ties and interests. The interests of his

regiment took an important place in Vronsky's life, both because he was fond of the regiment, and still more

because the regiment was fond of him. They were not only fond of Vronsky in his regiment, they respected

him too, and were proud of him; proud that this man, with his immense wealth, his brilliant education and

abilities, and the path open before him to every kind of success, distinction and ambition, had disregarded all

that, and of all the interests of life had the interests of his regiment and his comrades nearest to his heart.

Vronsky was aware of his comrades' view of him, and in addition to his liking for that sort of life, he felt

It need not be said that he did not speak of his love to any of his comrades, nor did he betray his secret even

in the wildest drinking bouts (though indeed he was never so drunk as to lose all control of himself). And he

closed the mouths of any of his thoughtless comrades who attempted to allude to his liaison. But, in spite of

that, his love was known to all the town; everyone guessed with more or less certainty at his relations with

Madame Karenina. The majority of the younger men envied him for just what was the most irksome factor in

his love the exalted position of Karenin, and the consequent transparency to society, of their liaison.

The greater number of the young women, who envied Anna and had long been weary of having her called

righteous, rejoiced at the fulfillment of their predictions, and were only waiting for a decisive turn in public

opinion to fall upon her with all the weight of their scorn. They were already making ready their handfuls of

mud to cast at her when the right moment arrived. The greater number of the middleaged people and certain

great personages were displeased at the prospect of the impending scandal in society.

Vronsky's mother, on hearing of his liaison, was at first pleased by it, because nothing to her mind gave such

a finishing touch to a brilliant young man as a liaison in the highest society; she was pleased, too, that

Madame Karenina, who had so taken her fancy, and had talked so much of her son, was, after all, just like all

the other pretty and decent women according to the Countess Vronskaia's ideas. But she had heard of late

that her son had refused a position offered him of great importance to his career, simply in order to remain in

the regiment, where could be constantly seeing Madame Karenina; she heard that great personages were

displeased with him on this account, and she changed her opinion. She was vexed, too, that from all she could

learn of this liaison it was not that brilliant, graceful, worldly liaison which she would have welcomed, but a

sort of Werther's desperate passion, so she was told, which might well lead him into follies. She had not seen

him since his abrupt departure from Moscow, and she sent her elder son to bid him to come to her.

This elder brother, too, was displeased with his younger brother. He did not distinguish what sort of love his

might be, big or little, passionate or passionless, pure or impure (he kept a ballet girl himself, though he was

the father of a family, so he was rather indulgent), but he knew that this love displeased those whom it was

Besides the service and society, Vronsky had another great interest horses; he was passionately fond of

That year races and a steeplechase had been arranged for the officers. Vronsky had put his name down,

bought a thoroughbred English mare, and in spite of his love, he was looking forward to the races with

These two passions did not interfere with one another. On the contrary, he needed occupation and distraction

quite apart from his love, so as to recruit and rest himself from the violent emotions that agitated him.

On the day of the races at Krasnoe Selo, Vronsky had come earlier than usual to eat beefsteak in the common

messroom of the regiment. He had no need to be strict with himself, as his weight was exactly the required

one; but still he had to avoid gaining flesh, and so he eschewed farinaceous and sweet dishes. He sat with his

coat unbuttoned over a white waistcoat, resting both elbows on the table, and, while waiting for the steak he

had ordered, was looking over a French novel that lay open on his plate. He was only looking at the book to

He was thinking of Anna's promise to see him today after the races. But he had not seen her for three days,

and as her husband had just returned from abroad, he did not know whether she would be able to meet him

today or not, and he did not know how to find out. He had had his last interview with her at his cousin Betsy's

summer villa. He visited the summer villa of the Karenins as rarely as possible. Now he wanted to go there,

"Of course I shall say Betsy has sent me to ask whether she's coming to the races. Of course, I'll go," he

decided, lifting his head from the book. And as he vividly pictured the happiness of seeing her, his face

"Send to my house, and tell them to have out the carriage and three horses as quickly as they can," he said to

the servant, who handed him the steak on a hot silver dish, and moving the dish up toward him, he began

From the adjoining billiard room came the sound of balls clicking, of talk and laughter. Two officers

appeared at the entrance door: one, a young fellow with a weak, delicate face, who had lately joined the

regiment from the Corps of Pages; the other, a plump, elderly officer, with a bracelet on his wrist, and little

Vronsky glanced at them, frowned, and looking down at his book as though he had not noticed them, he

"What? Fortifying yourself for your work?" said the plump officer, sitting down beside him.

"As you see," responded Vronsky, knitting his brows, wiping his mouth, and without looking at the officer.

"So you're not afraid of getting fat? said the latter, turning a chair round for the young officer.

"What?" said Vronsky angrily, making a wry face of disgust and showing his heavy teeth.

"Waiter, sherry!" said Vronsky, without replying, and moving the book to the other side of him, he went on

"You choose what we're to drink," he said, handing him the card, and looking at him.

"Rhine wine, please," said the young officer, stealing a timid glance at Vronsky, and trying to pull his

scarcely visible mustache. Seeing that Vronsky did not turn round, the young officer got up.

At that moment there walked into the room the tan and wellbuilt Captain Iashvin. Nodding with an air of

"Ah! Here he is!" he cried, bringing his big hand down heavily on his epaulet. Vronsky looked round angrily,

but his face lighted up immediately with his characteristic expression of calm and firm friendliness.

"That's it, Aliosha," said the captain, in his loud baritone. "Have a bite and drink one tiny glass."

"There go the inseparables," Iashvin dropped, glancing sarcastically at the two officers who were at that

instant leaving the room. And he bent his long legs, swathed in tight riding breeches, and sat down in the

chair, too low for him, so that his knees were cramped up in a sharp angle. "Why didn't you turn up at Theater

Iashvin, a gambler and a rake, a man not merely without any principles, but of immoral principles Iashvin

was Vronsky's greatest friend in the regiment. Vronsky liked him both for his exceptional physical strength,

which he showed for the most part by being able to drink like a fish and to do without sleep without being in

the slightest degree affected by it; and for his great strength of character, which he showed in his relations

with his comrades and superior officers, commanding both fear and respect, and also at cards, when he would

play for tens of thousands and, however much he might have drunk, always with such skill and decision that

he was reckoned the best player in the English Club. Vronsky respected and liked Iashvin particularly

because he felt Iashvin liked him, not for his name and his money, but for himself. And of all men he was the

only one with whom Vronsky would have liked to speak of his love. He felt that Iashvin, in spite of his

apparent contempt for every sort of feeling, was the only man who could, so he fancied, comprehend the

intense passion which now filled his whole life. Moreover, he felt certain that Iashvin, as it was, took no

delight in gossip and scandal, and interpreted his feeling rightly that is to say, knew and believed that this

passion was not a joke, not a pastime, but something more serious and important.

Vronsky had never spoken to him of his passion, but he was aware that he knew all about it, and that he put

"Ah! yes," he said, to the announcement that Vronsky had been at the Tverskys'; and, his black eyes shining,

he plucked at his left mustache, and began twisting it into his mouth a bad habit he had.

"Oh, then you can afford to lose over me," said Vronsky, laughing. (Iashvin had betted heavily on Vronsky in

And the conversation passed to forecasts of the coming race, the only thing Vronsky could think of just now.

"Come along, I've finished," said Vronsky, and getting up he went to the door. Iashvin got up too, stretching

"It's too early for me to dine, but I must have a drink. I'll come along directly. Hi, wine!" he shouted, in his

rich voice, that was so famous at drill, and set the windows shaking. "No, I don't need it!" he shouted again,

Vronsky was staying in a roomy, clean, Finnish hut, divided into two by a partition. Petritsky lived with him

"Get up, don't go on sleeping," said Iashvin, going behind the partition and giving Petritsky, who was lying

"Your brother's been here," he said to Vronsky. "He waked me up, the devil take him, and said he'd look in

again." And pulling up the rug he flung himself back on the pillow. "Oh do quit that, Iashvin!" he said,

getting furious with Iashvin, who was pulling the rug off him. "Quit that!" He turned over and opened his

eyes. "You'd better tell me what to drink; I've such a nasty taste in my mouth that..."

"Vodka's better than anything," boomed Iashvin. "Tereshchenko! Vodka for your master and cucumbers," he

"Vodka, do you think? Eh?" queried Petritsky, blinking and rubbing his eyes. "And you'll drink something?

All right then, we'll have a drink together! Vronsky, have a drink?" said Petritsky, getting up and wrapping

the tigerstriped bedcover round him. He went to the door of the partition wall, raised his hands, and

hummed in French: "'There was a king in Thuule.' Vronsky, will you have a drink?"

"Where are you off to?" asked Iashvin. "Oh, here is your troika," he added, seeing the carriage drive up.

"To the stables, and I've got to see Briansky, too, about the horses," said Vronsky.

Vronsky had as a fact promised to call at Briansky's, some ten verstas from Peterhof, and to bring him money

owing for some horses; and he hoped to have time to get that in too. But his comrades were at once aware

Petritsky, still humming, winked and made a pout with his lips, as though he would say: "Oh, yes, we know

"Mind you're not late!" was Iashvin's only comment; and, to change the conversation: "How's my roan? Is he

doing all right?" he inquired, looking out of the window at the shaft horse, which he had sold to Vronsky.

"Stop!" cried Petritsky to Vronsky, just as he was going out. "Your brother left a letter and a note for you.

"Where are they? That's just the question!" said Petritsky solemnly, sliding his forefinger upward along his

"No, I've forgotten, really. Or was it a dream? Wait a bit, wait a bit! But what's the use of getting in a rage? If

you'd drunk four bottles per man yesterday as I did, you'd forget where you were at. Wait a bit, I'll

"Wait a bit! This was how I was lying, and this was how he was standing. Yes yes yes... Here it is!" and

Vronsky took the letter and his brother's note. It was the letter he was expecting from his mother,

reproaching him for not having been to see her and the note was from his brother to say that he must have a

little talk with him. Vronsky knew that it was all about the same thing. "What business is it of theirs!" thought

Vronsky, and crumpling up the letters he thrust them between the buttons of his coat so as to read them

carefully on the road. In the porch of the hut he was met by two officers; one of his regiment and one of

"Here are my saviors!" cried Petritsky, seeing them come in. Before him stood the batman with vodka and

"Well, you did make it hot for us yesterday," said one of those who had come in; "you didn't let us get a wink

"Oh, didn't we make a pretty finish!" said Petritsky. "Volkov climbed onto the roof and began telling us how

sad he was. I said: 'Let's have music, the funeral march!' He fairly dropped asleep on the roof over the funeral

"Drink it up; you positively must drink the vodka, and then Seltzer water, and a lot of lemon," said Iashvin,

standing over Petritsky like a mother making a child take medicine, "and then a little champagne just a wee

"Come, there's some sense in that. Stop a bit, Vronsky. We'll all have a drink."

"Why, are you gaining weight? All right, then we must have it alone. Give us the Seltzer water and lemon."

"You'd better get your hair cut, it'll weigh you down especially at the bald place."

Vronsky was in fact beginning, prematurely, to get a little bald. He laughed gaily, showing his heavy teeth,

"To the stables!" he said, and was just pulling out the letters to read them through, but thought better of it,

and put off reading them so as not to distract his attention before looking at the mare. "Later on!..."

The temporary stable, a wooden booth, had been put up close to the racecourse, and there his mare was to

have been taken the previous day. He had not yet seen her there. During the last few days he had not ridden

her out for exercise himself, but had put her in the charge of the trainer, and so now he absolutely did not

know in what condition his mare had arrived yesterday or was in today. He had scarcely got out of his

carriage when his stableboy (groom), recognizing the carriage some way off, called the trainer. A

drylooking Englishman, in high boots and a short jacket, cleanshaven, except for a tuft below his chin,

came to meet him walking with the uncouth gait of a jockey, turning his elbows out and swaying from side to

"All right, sir," the Englishman's voice responded somewhere far down in his throat. "Better not go in," he

added, touching his hat. "I've put a muzzle on her, and the mare's fidgety. Better not go in, it'll excite the

"Come along, then," said the Englishman, frowning, and speaking with his mouth shut, and, with swinging

They went into the little yard in front of the shed. The stableboy on duty, spruce and smart in his holiday

attire, met them with a broom in his hand, and followed them. In the shed there were five horses in their

separate stalls, and Vronsky knew that his chief rival, Makhotin's Gladiator, a very tall chestnut horse, had

been brought there, and must be standing among them. Even more than his mare, Vronsky longed to see

Gladiator, whom he had never seen, but Vronsky knew that by the etiquette of the racecourse it was not

merely impossible for him to see the horse, but improper even to ask questions about him. just as he was

passing along the passage, the boy opened the door into the second horsebox on the left, and Vronsky caught

a glimpse of a big chestnut horse with white legs. He knew that this was Gladiator, but, with the feeling of a

man turning away from the sight of another man's open letter, he turned round and went into FrouFrou's

"The stall belonging to Mak... Mak... I never can say the name is here," said the Englishman over his

"FrouFrou's more nervous, while the other is more powerful," said Vronsky, smiling at the compliment to

Of pluck that is, energy and courage Vronsky did not merely feel that he had enough; what was of far

more importance, he was firmly convinced that no one in the world could have more of this pluck than he

"Oh, no," answered the Englishman. "Please, don't speak loud. The mare's fidgety," he added, nodding

toward the horse box, before which they were standing, and from which came the sound of restless stamping

He opened the door, and Vronsky went into the horse box, dimly lighted by one little window. In the horse

box stood a dark bay mare, with a muzzle on, shifting her feet on the fresh straw. Looking round him in the

twilight of the horse box, Vronsky unconsciously took in once more in a comprehensive glance all the points

of his favorite mare. FrouFrou was an animal of medium size, not altogether free from reproach, from a

breeder's point of view. She was smallboned all over; though her chest was extremely prominent in front, it

was narrow. Her hindquarters were a little drooping, and in her forelegs, and still more in her hind legs, there

was a noticeable curvature. The muscles of both hind legs and forelegs were not very thick; but across her

shoulders the mare was exceptionally broad, a peculiarity specially striking now that she was lean from

training. The bones of her legs below the knees looked no thicker than a finger from in front, but were

extraordinarily thick seen from the side. She looked altogether, except across the shoulders, apparently

pinched in at the sides and pressed out in depth. But she had in the highest degree the quality that makes all

defects forgotten: that quality was blood, the blood that tells, as the English expression has it. The muscles

stood up sharply under the network of sinews, covered with the delicate, mobile skin, soft as satin, and they

were hard as bone. Her cleancut head, with prominent, bright, spirited eyes, broadened out at the open

nostrils, that showed the red blood in the cartilage within. About all her figure, and especially her head, there

was a certain expression of energy, and, at the same time, of softness. She was one of those creatures which

seem devoid of speech only because the mechanism of their mouths does not allow of it.

To Vronsky, at any rate, it seemed that she understood all he felt at that moment as he looked at her.

Directly Vronsky went toward her, she drew in a deep breath, and, turning back her prominent eye tin the

white looked bloodshot, she started at the approaching figures from the opposite side, shaking her muzzle,

"Whoa, darling! Whoa!" said Vronsky, going up to the mare and speaking soothingly to her.

But the nearer he came, the more excited she grew. Only when he stood by her head she was suddenly

quieter, while the muscles quivered under her soft, delicate coat. Vronsky patted her strong neck, straightened

over her sharp withers a stray lock of her mane that had fallen on the other side, and moved his face near her

dilated nostrils, transparent as a bat's wing. She drew a loud breath and snorted out through her tense nostrils,

started, pricked up her sharp ear, and put out her strong, black lip toward Vronsky, as though she would nip

hold of his sleeve. But remembering the muzzle, she shook it and again began restlessly stamping her shapely

"Calm down, darling, calm down!" he said, patting her again over her hindquarters; and, with a glad sense

The mare's excitement had infected Vronsky. He felt that his heart was throbbing, and that he, too, like the

"Well, I rely on you, then," he said to the Englishman, "halfpast six on the ground."

"All right," said the Englishman. "Oh, where are you going, my lord?" he asked suddenly, using the title my

Vronsky in amazement raised his head, and stared, as he knew how to stare, not into the Englishman's eyes,

but at his forehead, astounded at the impertinence of his question. But realizing that in asking this the

Englishman had been looking at him not as an employer, but as a jockey, he answered:

"How often I'm asked that question today!" he said to himself, and he blushed, a thing which rarely happened

to him. The Englishman looked gravely at him; and, as though he, too, knew where Vronsky was going, he

"The great thing is to keep quiet before a race," said he; "don't get out of temper, or upset about anything."

"All right," answered Vronsky, smiling; and, jumping into his carriage, he told the man to drive to Peterhof.

Before he had driven many paces away, the dark clouds that had been threatening rain all day broke, and

"What a pity!" thought Vronsky, putting up the roof of the carriage. "It was muddy before, now it will be a

perfect swamp." As he sat in solitude in the closed carriage, he took out his mother's letter and his brother's

Yes, it was the same thing over and over again. Everyone his mother, his brother everyone thought fit to

interfere in the affairs of his heart. This interference aroused in him a feeling of angry hatred a feeling he

had rarely known before. "What business is it of theirs? Why does everybody feel called upon to concern

himself about me? And why do they worry me so? Just because they see that this is something they can't

understand. If it were a common, vulgar, worldly intrigue, they would have left me alone. They feel that this

is something different, that this is not a mere pastime, that this woman is dearer to me than life. And this is

incomprehensible, and that's why it annoys them. Whatever our destiny is or may be, we have made it

ourselves, and we do not complain of it," he said, in the word we linking himself with Anna. "No, they must

needs teach us how to live. They haven't an idea of what happiness is; they don't know that without our love

He was angry with all of them for their interference just because he felt in his soul that they, all these people,

were right. He felt that the love that bound him to Anna was not a momentary impulse, which would pass, as

worldly intrigues do pass, leaving no other traces in the life of either save pleasant or unpleasant memories.

He felt all the torture of his own position and hers, all the difficulty in store for them, conspicuous as they

were in the eye of all the world in concealing their love, in lying and deceiving; and in lying, deceiving,

feigning and continually thinking of others, when the passion that united them was so intense that they were

He vividly recalled all the constantly recurring instances of inevitable necessity for lying and deceit, which

were so against his natural bent. He recalled particularly vividly the shame he had more than once detected in

her at this necessity for lying and deceit. And he experienced the strange feeling that had sometimes come

upon him since his relations with Anna. This was a feeling of loathing for something whether for Alexei

Alexandrovich, or for himself, or for the whole world, he could not have said. But he always drove away this

strange feeling. Now, too, he shook it off and continued the thread of his thoughts.

"Yes, she was unhappy before, but proud and at peace; and now she cannot be at peace and feel secure in her

dignity, though she does not show it. Yes, we must put an end to it," he decided.

And for the first time the idea clearly presented itself that it was essential to put an end to this false position,

and the sooner the better. "Abandon everything must we she and I and hide ourselves somewhere alone

The shower did not last long, and by the time Vronsky arrived, his shaft horse trotting at full speed, and

dragging the off horses galloping through the mud with their reins hanging loose, the sun had peeped out

again, the roofs of the summer villas and the old lime trees in the gardens on both sides of the high street

sparkled with wet brilliance, and from the twigs came a pleasant drip, and, from the roofs, rushing streams of

water. He thought no more of shower spoiling the racecourse, but was now rejoicing because thanks to the

rain he would be sure to find her at home and alone, as he knew that Alexei Alexandrovich, who had lately

Hoping to find her alone, Vronsky alighted, as he always did, to avoid attracting attention, before crossing the

bridge, and walked to the house. He did not go up the steps to the street door, but went into the court.

"No, sir. The mistress is at home. But will you please go to the front door; there are servants there," the

And feeling satisfied that she was alone, and wanting to take her by surprise, since he had not promised to be

there today, and she would certainly not expect him to come before the races, he walked, holding his sword

and stepping cautiously over the sandy path, bordered with flowers, to the terrace that looked out upon the

garden. Vronsky forgot now all that he had thought on the way of the hardships and difficulties of his

position. He thought of nothing but that he would see her directly, not in imagination, but living, all of her, as

she was in reality. He was just going in, stepping on his whole foot so as not to make a noise, up the worn

steps of the terrace, when he suddenly remembered what he always forgot, and what caused the most

torturing side of his relations with her: her son, with his questioning, and, as he fancied, hostile eyes.

This boy was more often than anyone else a check upon their freedom. When he was present, both Vronsky

and Anna did not merely avoid speaking of anything that they could not have repeated before everyone; they

did not even allow themselves to refer by hints to anything the boy did not understand. They had made no

agreement about this, it had been settled of itself. They would have felt it as wounding themselves to deceive

the child. In his presence they talked like acquaintances. But, in spite of this caution, Vronsky often saw the

child's intent, bewildered glance fixed upon him, and a strange shyness, uncertainty at one time there was

friendliness, at another coldness and reserve, in the boy's manner to him, as though the child felt that between

this man and his mother there existed some important bond, the significance of which he could not

As a matter of fact the boy did feel that he could not understand this relation, and he tried painfully, yet was

unable, to make clear to himself what feeling he ought to have for this man. With a child's keen instinct for

every manifestation of feeling he saw distinctly that his father, his governess, his nurse all not merely

disliked Vronsky, but looked on him with horror and aversion, though they never said anything about him;

"What does it mean? Who is he? How ought I to love him? If I don't know, it's my fault; either I'm stupid or a

naughty boy," thought the child. And this was what caused his dubious, inquiring, sometimes hostile

expression, and the shyness and uncertainty which Vronsky found so irksome. This child's presence always

and infallibly called up in Vronsky that strange feeling of inexplicable loathing which he had experienced of

late. This child's presence called up both in Vronsky and in Anna a feeling akin to the feeling of a sailor who

sees by the compass that the direction in which he is swiftly moving is far from the right one, but that to

arrest his motion is not in his power, that every instant is carrying him farther and farther away, and that to

admit to himself his deviation from the right direction is tantamount to admitting his certain ruin.

This child, with his innocent outlook upon life, was the compass that showed them the point at which they

This time Seriozha was not at home, and she was completely alone. She was sitting on the terrace waiting for

the return of her son, who had gone out for a stroll and had been caught in the rain. She had sent out a

manservant and a maid to look for him, and was sitting here waiting for them. Dressed in a white gown,

deeply embroidered, she was sitting in a corner of the terrace behind some flowers, and did not hear him.

Bending her curly dark head, she pressed her forehead against a cool watering pot that stood on the parapet,

and both her lovely hands, with the rings he knew so well, clasped the pot. The beauty of her whole figure,

her head, her neck, her hands, struck Vronsky every time as something new and unexpected. He stood still,

gazing at her in ecstasy. But, directly he would have made a step to come nearer to her, she was aware of his

"What's the matter? Are you unwell," he said to her in French, going up to her. He would have run to her, but

remembering that there might be outsiders, he looked round toward the balcony door, and reddened, as he

"No, I'm quite well," she said, getting up and squeezing his outstretched hand tightly. "I did not expect...

"You startled me," she said. "I'm alone, and expecting Seriozha; he's out for a walk; they'll come from this

"Forgive me for coming, but I couldn't pass the day without seeing you," he went on, speaking French, as he

always did, to avoid using the stiff Russian plural form, so impossibly frigid between them, and the

"But you're ill or worried," he went on, without letting go her hands and bending over her. "What were you

She spoke the truth. If ever at any moment she had been asked what she was thinking of, she could have

answered truly: Of the same thing, of her happiness and her unhappiness. She was thinking, just when he

came upon her, of this: Why was it, she wondered, that to others, to Betsy for instance (she knew of her secret

connection with Tushkevich), all this was so easy, while to her it was such torture? Today this thought gained

special poignancy from certain other considerations. She asked him about the races. He answered her

questions, and, seeing that she was agitated, trying to calm her, he began telling her in the simplest tone the

"Shall I tell him, or not?" she thought, looking into his calm, affable eyes. "He is so happy, so absorbed in his

races that he won't understand as he should; he won't understand all the significance of this event to us."

"But you haven't told me what you were thinking of when I came in," he said, interrupting his narrative;

She did not answer, and, bending her head a little, she looked inquiringly at him from under her brows, her

eyes shining under their long lashes. Her hand shook as it played with a leaf she had picked. He saw it, and

his face expressed that utter subjection, that slavish devotion, which had done so much to win her.

"I see something has happened. Do you suppose I can be at peace, knowing you have a trouble I am not

"Yes, I shan't be able to forgive him if he does not realize all the significance of it. Better not tell; why put

him to the proof?" she thought, still staring at him in the same way, and feeling that her hand that held the

The leaf in her hand shook more violently, but she did not take her eyes off him, watching how he would take

it. He turned pale, would have said something, but stopped; he dropped her hand, and his head sank on his

breast. "Yes, he realizes all the significance of the fact," she thought, and gratefully she pressed his hand.

But she was mistaken in thinking he realized the significance of the news as she, a woman, realized it. On

hearing it, he felt come upon him with tenfold intensity that strange feeling of loathing of someone. But, at

the same time, he realized that the turning point he had been longing for had come now; that it was

impossible to go on concealing things from her husband, and it was inevitable in one way or another that they

should soon put an end to their unnatural position. But, besides that, her emotion physically affected him in

the same way. He looked at her with a look of submissive tenderness, kissed her hand, got up, and, in silence,

"Yes," he said, going up to her resolutely. "Neither you nor I have looked on our relations as a passing

amusement, and now our fate is sealed. It is absolutely necessary to put an end" he looked round as he

"But how, Alexei tell me how?" she said in melancholy mockery at the hopelessness of her own situation.

"There is a way out of every situation. We must take our stand," he said. "Anything's better than the situation

in which you're living. Of course, I see how you torture yourself over everything the world, and your son,

"Oh, not over my husband," she said, with a plain smile. "I don't know him, I don't think of him. He doesn't

"Oh, he doesn't even know," she said, and suddenly a hot flush came over her face; her cheeks, her brow, her

neck crimsoned, and tears of shame came into her eyes. "But let us not even talk of him."

Vronsky had several times already, though not so resolutely as now, tried to bring her to consider her

position, and every time he had been confronted by the same superficiality and frivolity with which she met

his appeal now. It was as though there were something in this which she could not or would not face, as

though directly she began to speak of this, she, the real Anna, retreated somehow into herself, and another

strange and unaccountable woman came out, whom he did not love and whom he feared, and who was in

"Whether he knows or not," said Vronsky, in his usual calm and firm tone, "whether he knows or not, has

"What's to be done, according to you?" she asked with the same frivolous irony. She who had so feared he

would take her condition too frivolously, was now vexed with him for deducing from it the necessity of

"Very well, let us suppose I do that," she said. "Do you know what the result of that would be? I can tell you

it all beforehand," and a wicked light gleamed in her eyes, that had been so tender a minute before. "'Eh, you

love another man, and have entered into a criminal liaison with him?'" (Mimicking her husband, she threw an

emphasis on the word "criminal," as Alexei Alexandrovich did.) "'I warned you of the results in the religious,

the civil, and the domestic aspects. You have not listened to me. Now I cannot let you disgrace my name'"

"and my son," she had meant to say, but about her son she could not jest "'disgrace my name, and' and

more in the same style," she added. "In general terms, he'll say in his official manner, and with all distinctness

and precision, that he cannot let me go, but will take all measures in his power to prevent scandal. And he

will calmly and punctiliously act in accordance with his words. That's what will happen. He's not a man, but a

machine and a spiteful machine when he's angry," she added, recalling Alexei Alexandrovich as she spoke,

with all the peculiarities of his figure and manner of speaking, and reckoning against him every defect she

could find in him, forgiving him nothing for the great wrong she herself was doing him.

"But, Anna," said Vronsky, in a soft and persuasive voice, trying to soothe her, "we absolutely must tell him,

"And why not run away? I don't see how we can keep on like this. And not for my sake I see that you

Vronsky could not understand how she, with her strong and truthful nature, could endure this state of deceit,

and not long to get out of it. But he did not suspect that the chief cause of it was the word son, which she

could not utter. When she thought of her son, and his future attitude to his mother, who had abandoned his

father, she felt such terror at what she had done that she no longer reasoned, but, being a woman, could only

try to comfort herself with lying assurances and words so that everything should remain as it always had

been, and that it was possible to forget the fearful question of how it would be with her son.

"I beg you, I entreat you," she said suddenly, taking his hand, and speaking in quite a different tone, sincere

"Never. Leave it to me. I know all the baseness, all the horror of my position; but it's not so easy to decide as

you think. Therefore leave it to me, and do what I say. Never speak to me of it. Do you promise me?... No,

"I promise everything, but I can't be at peace, especially after what you have told me I can't be at peace, when

"I?" she repeated. "Yes, I am worried sometimes; but that will pass, if you will never talk about this. When

"I know," she interrupted him, "how hard it is for your truthful nature to lie, and I grieve for you. I often

"I was just thinking the very same thing," he said; "how could you sacrifice everything for my sake? I can't

"I unhappy?" she said, coming closer to him, and looking at him with an ecstatic smile of love. "I am like a

hungry man who has been given food. He may be cold, and dressed in rags, and ashamed, but he is not

She could hear the sound of her son's voice coming toward them, and, glancing swiftly round the terrace, she

got up impulsively. Her eyes glowed with the fire he knew so well; with a rapid movement she raised her

lovely hands, covered with rings, took his head, looked into his face with a protracted gaze, and, putting up

her face with smiling, parted lips, swiftly kissed his mouth and both eyes, and thrust him away. She would

"Tonight, at one o'clock," she whispered, and, with a heavy sigh, she walked with her light, swift step to meet

Seriozha had been caught by the rain in the big garden, and he and his nurse had taken shelter in a bower.

"Well, au revoir," she said to Vronsky. "I must soon be getting ready for the races. Betsy promised to fetch

When Vronsky had looked at his watch on the Karenins' balcony, he had been so greatly agitated and lost in

his thoughts that, although he saw the hands on the face of his watch, he could not take in what time it was.

He came out onto the highroad and walked, picking his way carefully through the mud, to his carriage. He

was so completely absorbed in his feeling for Anna, that he did not even think what o'clock it was, and

whether he had time to go to Briansky's. He preserved, as often happens, only the external faculty of memory,

that points out each step one has to take, one after the other. He went up to his coachman, who was dozing on

the box in the shadow, already lengthening, of a thick lime tree; he admired the shifting clouds of midges

circling over the hot horses, and, waking the coachman, he jumped into the carriage, and told him to drive to

Briansky's. It was only after driving nearly seven verstas that he had sufficiently recovered himself to look at

There were several races set for that day: the Body Guards' race, then the officers' twoversta race, then the

fourversta race, and then the race for which he was entered. He could still be in right time for his race, but if

he went to Briansky's he could be only in full time, and he would arrive when the whole Court would be in

their places. That would be a pity. But he had promised Briansky to come, and so he decided to drive on,

He reached Briansky's, spent five minutes there, and galloped back. This rapid drive calmed him. All that was

painful in his relations with Anna, all the feeling of indefiniteness left by their conversation, had slipped out

of his mind. He was thinking now with pleasure and excitement of the race, of his being in time after all, and

now and then the thought of the happiness of this night's assignation flashed across his imagination like a

The excitement of the approaching race gained upon him more and more as he drove farther and farther into

the atmosphere of the races, overtaking carriages driving up from the summer villas or out of Peterburg.

There was no longer anyone at home at his quarters; all were at the races, and his valet was looking out for

him at the gate. While he was changing his clothes, his valet told him that the second race had begun already,

that a lot of gentlemen had been to ask for him, and a boy had twice run up from the stables.

Dressing without hurry (he never hurried himself, and never lost his selfpossession), Vronsky drove to the

sheds. From the sheds he could see a perfect sea of carriages, and people on foot, soldiers surrounding the

racecourse, and pavilions swarming with people. The second race was apparently going on, for just as he

went into the sheds he heard a bell ringing. Going toward the stable, he met the whitelegged chestnut,

Makhotin's Gladiator, being led to the racecourse in a blue and orange horsecloth, with what looked like huge

In the open horse box stood FrouFrou, saddled ready. They were just going to lead her out.

Vronsky once more took in at one glance the beautiful lines of his favorite mare, who was quivering all over,

and with an effort he tore himself from the sight of her, and went out of the stable. He went toward the

pavilions at the most favorable moment for escaping attention. The twoversta race was just finishing, and all

eyes were fixed on the cavalry guard in front and the light hussar behind, urging their horses on with a last

effort close to the winning post. From the center and outside of the ring all were crowding to the winning

post, and a group of soldiers and officers of the cavalry guards were shouting loudly their delight at the

expected triumph of their officer and comrade. Vronsky moved into the middle of the crowd unnoticed,

almost at the very moment when the bell rang at the finish of the race, and the tall, mudspattered cavalry

guard who came in first, leaning over the saddle, let go the reins of his panting gray stallion that looked dark

The stallion, stiffening out his legs, with an effort stopped his rapid course, and the officer of the cavalry

guards looked round him like a man waking up from a heavy sleep, and just managed to smile. A crowd of

Vronsky intentionally avoided that select crowd of upper world, which was moving and talking with discreet

freedom before the pavilions. He knew that Madame Karenina was there, and Betsy, and his brother's wife,

and he purposely did not go near them for fear of something distracting his attention. But he was continually

met and stopped by acquaintances, who told him about the previous races, and kept asking him why he was

At the time when the racers had to go to the pavilion to receive the prizes, and all attention was directed to

that point, Vronsky's elder brother, Alexandre, a colonel with the shoulder knot, came up to him. He was not

tall, though as broadly built as Alexei, and handsomer and rosier than he; he had a red nose, and an open,

Alexandre Vronsky, in spite of his dissolute life, and particularly his drunken habits, for which he was

Now, as he talked to his brother of a matter bound to be exceedingly disagreeable to him, knowing that the

eyes of many people might be fixed upon him, he kept a smiling countenance, as though he were jesting with

"I got it, and I really can't make out what you are worrying yourself about," said Alexei.

"I'm worrying myself because the remark has just been made to me that you weren't here, and that you were

"There are matters which only concern those directly interested in them, and the matter you are so worried

Alexei Vronsky's frowning face turned pale, and his prominent lower jaw quivered, which happened rarely

with him. Being a man of very warm heart, he was seldom angry; but when he was angry, and when his chin

quivered, then, as Alexandre Vronsky knew, he was dangerous. Alexandre Vronsky smiled gaily.

"I only wanted to give you mother's letter. Answer it and don't worry about anything just before the race.

Bonne chance," he added, smiling, and he moved away from him. But after him another friendly greeting

"So you won't recognize your friends! How are you, mon cher?" said Stepan Arkadyevich, as conspicuously

brilliant in the midst of all the Peterburg brilliance as he was in Moscow, his face rosy, and his whiskers sleek

and glossy. "I came up yesterday, and I'm delighted because I shall see your triumph. When shall we meet?"

"Come tomorrow to the messroom," said Vronsky, and squeezing him by the sleeve of his greatcoat, with

apologies, he moved away to the center of the racecourse, where the horses were being led for the great

The horses who had run in the last race were being led home, steaming and exhausted, by the stableboys, and

one after another the fresh horses for the coming race made their appearance, for the most part English racers,

wearing horsecloths and looking with their drawnup bellies like strange, huge birds. On the right FrouFrou

was led in, lean and beautiful, lifting up her elastic, rather long pasterns, as though moved by springs. Not far

from her they were taking the caparison off the lopcared Gladiator. The strong, exquisite, perfectly correct

lines of the stallion, with his superb hindquarters and excessively short pasterns almost over his hoofs,

attracted Vronsky's attention in spite of himself. He would have gone up to his mare, but he was again

"Oh, there's Karenin!" said the acquaintance with whom he was chatting. "He's looking for his wife, and she's

"No, I didn't," answered Vronsky, and without even glancing round toward the pavilion where his friend was

Vronsky had not had time to look at the saddle, about which he had to give some direction, when the entrants

were summoned to the pavilion to receive their numbers and places in the row at starting. Seventeen officers,

looking serious and severe, many with pale faces, met together in the pavilion and drew the numbers.

Feeling that, with the others riding in the race, he was the center upon which all eyes were fastened, Vronsky

walked up to his mare in that state of nervous tension in which he usually became dilatory and calm in his

movements. Cord, in honor of the races, had put on his best clothes, a black coat buttoned up, a stiffly

starched collar, which propped up his cheeks, a black bowler and Hessian boots. He was calm and dignified

as ever, and was with his own hands holding FrouFrou by both reins, standing straight in front of her.

FrouFrou was still trembling as though in a fever. Her eye, full of fire, glanced sideways at Vronsky.

Vronsky slipped his finger under the saddle girth. The mare glanced aslant at him, drew up her lip, and

twitched her ear. The Englishman puckered up his lips, intending to indicate a smile that anyone should

Vronsky looked round for the last time at his rivals. He knew that he would not see them during the race.

Two were already riding forward to the point from which they were to start. Galtsin, a friend of Vronsky's

and one of his more formidable rivals, was moving round a bay horse that would not let him mount. A little

hussar of the life guards in tight riding breeches rode off at a gallop, crouched up like a cat over the porridge,

in imitation of English jockeys. Prince Kuzovlev sat with a white face on his thoroughbred mare from the

Grabovsky stud, while an English groom led her by the bridle. Vronsky and all his comrades knew Kuzovlev

and his peculiarity of "weak nerves" and terrible vanity. They knew that he was afraid of everything afraid

of riding a line horse. But now, just because it was terrible, because people broke their necks, and there was a

doctor standing at each obstacle, and an ambulance with a cross on it, and a sister of mercy, he had made up

his mind to take part in the race. Their eyes met, and Vronsky gave him a friendly and encouraging nod. Only

"Don't be in a hurry," said Cord to Vronsky, "and remember one thing: don't hold her in at the fences, and

"If you can, lead the race; but don't lose heart till the last minute, even if you're behind."

Before the mare had time to move, Vronsky stepped with an agile, vigorous movement into the steeltoothed

stirrup, and lightly and firmly placed his compacted body on the creaking leather of the saddle. Getting his

right foot in the stirrup, he with habitual moving smoothed the double reins between his fingers, and Cord let

go. As though she did not know which foot to put first, FrouFrou started, dragging at the reins with her long

neck, and as though she were on springs, shaking her rider from side to side. Cord quickened his step,

following him. The excited mare, trying to deceive her rider, pulled at the reins, first on one side and then the

They were just reaching the dammedup stream on their way to the starting point. Several of the riders were

in front and several behind, when suddenly Vronsky heard the sound of a horse galloping in the behind him,

and he was overtaken by Makhotin on his whitelegged, lopeared Gladiator. Makhotin smiled, showing his

long teeth, but Vronsky looked at him angrily. He did not like him, and regarded him now as his most

formidable rival. He was angry with him for galloping past and exciting his mare. FrouFrou started into a

gallop, her left foot forward, made two bounds, and fretting at the tightened reins, passed into a jolting trot,

bumping her rider up and down. Cord, too, scowled, and followed Vronsky almost ambling.

There were seventeen officers in all riding in this race. The racecourse was a large fourversta ring in the

form of an ellipse in front of the pavilion. On this course nine obstacles had been arranged: the stream, a big

and solid barrier two arsheenes high, just before the pavilion, a dry ditch, a ditch full of water, a precipitous

slope, an Irish barricade (one of the most difficult obstacles, consisting of a mound fenced with brushwood,

beyond which was a ditch out of sight for the horses, so that the horse had to clear both obstacles or possibly

be killed); then two more ditches filled with water, and one dry one; and the end of the race was just facing

the pavilion. But the race began not in the ring, but a hundred arsheenes away from it, and in that part of the

course was the first obstacle, a dammedup stream, three arsheenes in breadth, which the racers could leap or

Three times they were ranged ready to start, but each time some horse thrust itself out of line, and they had to

begin again. The starter, Colonel Sestrin, was beginning to lose his temper, when at last, for the fourth time,

Every eye, every opera glass, was turned on the brightly colored group of riders at the moment they were in

"They're off! They're starting!" was heard on all sides after the hush of expectation.

And little groups and solitary figures among the public began running from place to place to get a better

view. In the very first minute the close group of horsemen spread out, and it could be seen that they were

approaching the stream in twos and threes and one behind another. To the spectators it seemed as though they

had all started simultaneously, but to the racers there were seconds of difference that had great value to them.

FrouFrou, excited and overnervous, had lost the first moment, and several horses had started before her, but

before reaching the stream, Vronsky, who was holding in the mare with all his force as she tugged at the

bridle, easily overtook three, and there were left in front of him Makhotin's chestnut Gladiator, whose

hindquarters were moving lightly and rhythmically up and down exactly in front of Vronsky, and, in front of

For the first instant Vronsky was not master either of himself or his mare. Up to the first obstacle, the stream,

Gladiator and Diana came up to it together and almost at the same instant; at a stroke they rose above the

stream and flew across to the other side; FrouFrou darted after them easily, as if flying; but at the very

moment when Vronsky felt himself in the air, he suddenly saw almost under his mare's hoofs Kuzovlev, who

was floundering with Diana on the further side of the stream. (Kuzovlev had let go the reins as he took the

leap, and the mare had fallen together with him over her head.) Those details Vronsky learned later; at the

moment all he saw was that just under him, where FrouFrou must alight, Diana's legs or head might be in

the way. But FrouFrou drew up her legs and back in the very act of leaping, like a falling cat, and, clearing

After crossing the stream Vronsky had complete control of his mare, and began holding her in, intending to

cross the great barrier behind Makhotin, and to try to overtake him in the clear ground of about two hundred

The great barrier stood just in front of the Imperial Pavilion. The Czar and the whole Court, and crowds of

people, were all gazing at them at him, and at Makhotin, a length ahead of him, as they drew near the

"devil," as the solid barrier was called. Vronsky was aware of those eyes fastened upon him from all sides,

but he saw nothing except the ears and neck of his own mare, the ground racing to meet him, and the back

and white legs of Gladiator beating time swiftly before him, and keeping always the same distance ahead.

Gladiator rose, with no sound of knocking against anything. With a wave of his short tail he disappeared from

At the same instant, under Vronsky's eyes, right before him flashed the palings of the barrier. Without the

slightest change in her action his mare flew over it; the palings vanished, and he heard only a crash behind

him. The mare, excited by Gladiator's keeping ahead, had risen too soon before the barrier, and grazed it with

one of her hind hoofs. But her pace never changed, and Vronsky, feeling a spatter of mud in his face, realized

that he was once more the same distance from Gladiator. Once more he perceived in front of him the same

back and short tail, and again the same swiftly moving white legs that got no further away.

At the very moment when Vronsky thought that now was the time to overtake Makhotin, FrouFrou herself,

understanding his thoughts, without any incitement on his part, gained considerably, and began getting

alongside of Makhotin on the most favorable side, close to the inner rope. Makhotin would not let her pass

that side. Vronsky had hardly formed the thought that he could perhaps pass on the outer side, when

FrouFrou shifted her pace and began overtaking him on the other side. FrouFrou's shoulder, beginning by

now to be dark with sweat, was even with Gladiator's back. For a few bounds they moved evenly. But before

the obstacle they were approaching, Vronsky began working at the reins, anxious to avoid having to take the

outer circle, and swiftly passed Makhotin just upon the declivity. He caught a glimpse of his mudstained

face as he flashed by. He even fancied that he smiled. Vronsky passed Makhotin, but he was immediately

aware of him close upon him, and he never ceased hearing just behind him the eventhudding hoofs and the

The next two obstacles, the watercourse and the barrier, were easily crossed, but Vronsky began to hear the

snorting and thud of Gladiator closer upon him. He urged on his mare, and to his delight felt that she easily

quickened her pace, and the thud of Gladiator's hoofs was again heard at the same distance away.

Vronsky was at the head of the race, just as he wanted to be and as Cord had advised, and now he felt sure of

being the winner. His excitement, his delight, and his tenderness for FrouFrou grew keener and keener. He

longed to look round, but he did not dare do this, and tried to be cool and not to urge on his mare, so as to

keep the same reserve of force in her as he felt that Gladiator still kept. There remained only one obstacle, the

most difficult; if he could cross it ahead of the others, he would come in first. He was flying toward the Irish

barricade; FrouFrou and he both together saw the barricade in the distance, and both the man and the mare

had a moment's hesitation. He saw the uncertainty in the mare's ears and lifted the whip, but at the same time

felt that his fears were groundless; the mare knew what was wanted. She quickened her pace and rose

rhythmically, just as he had fancied she would, and as she left the ground gave herself up to the force of her

rush, which carried her far beyond the ditch; and with the same rhythm, without effort, with the same leg

"Bravo, Vronsky!" he heard shouts from a knot of men he knew they were his friends and his regiment

comrades who were standing at the obstacle. He could not fail to recognize Iashvin's voice, though he did

"O my sweet!" he said inwardly to FrouFrou, as he listened for what was happening behind. "He's cleared

it!" he thought, catching the thud of Gladiator's hoofs behind him. There remained only the last ditch, filled

with water and two arsheenes wide. Vronsky did not even look at it, but anxious to come in a long way ahead

began sawing away at the reins, lifting the mare's head and letting it go in time with her paces. He felt that the

mare was at her very last reserve of strength; not her neck and shoulders merely were wet, but the sweat was

standing in drops on her mane, her head, her sharp ears, and her breath came in short, sharp gasps. But he

knew that she had strength left more than enough for the remaining two hundred sazhenes. It was only from

feeling himself nearer the ground and from the peculiar smoothness of his motion that Vronsky knew how

greatly the mare had quickened her pace. She flew over the ditch as though not noticing it. She flew over it

like a bird; but at the same instant Vronsky, to his horror, felt that failing to keep up with the mare's pace, he

had, he did not know how, made an abominable, unpardonable move in recovering his seat in the saddle. All

at once his position had shifted and he knew that something awful had happened. He could not yet make out

what had happened, when the white legs of a chestnut horse flashed by close to him, and Makhotin passed at

a swift gallop. Vronsky was touching the ground with one foot, and his mare was sinking on that foot. He just

had time to free his leg when she fell on one side, gasping painfully, and, making vain efforts to rise with her

delicate, soaking neck, she fluttered on the ground at his feet like a shot bird. The clumsy movement made by

Vronsky had broken her back. But that he only knew much later. At that moment he knew only that Makhotin

had flown swiftly by, while he stood staggering alone on the muddy, motionless ground, and FrouFrou lay

gasping before him, bending her head back and gazing at him with her exquisite eye. Still unable to realize

what had happened, Vronsky tugged at his mare's reins. Again she struggled all over like a fish, and, her

shoulders making the wings of the saddle crackle, she rose on her front legs; but unable to lift her back, she

quivered all over and again fell on her side. With his face hideous with passion, pale, his lower jaw trembling,

Vronsky kicked her with his heel in the stomach and again fell to tugging at the rein. She did not stir, but

thrusting her nose into the ground, she simply gazed at her master with her speaking eyes.

"Aaa!" groaned Vronsky, clutching at his head. "Ah! what have I done!" he cried. "The race lost! And my

fault! shameful, unpardonable! And the poor darling, ruined mare! Ah, what have I done!"

A crowd of men, a doctor and his assistant, the officers of his regiment, ran up to him. To his misery he felt

that he was whole and unhurt. The mare had broken her back, and it was decided to shoot her. Vronsky could

not answer questions, could not speak to anyone. He turned, and without picking up his fallen cap, walked

away from the racecourse, unconscious of where he was going. He felt utterly wretched. For the first time in

his life he knew the bitterest sort of misfortune, misfortune beyond remedy, and caused by his own fault.

Iashvin overtook him with his cap, and led him home, and half an hour later Vronsky had regained his

selfpossession. But the memory of that race remained for long in his heart, the cruelest and bitterest memory

The external relations of Alexei Alexandrovich and his wife had remained unchanged. The sole difference lay

in the fact that he was more busily occupied than ever. As in former years, at the beginning of the spring he

had gone to a foreign watering place for the sake of his health, being deranged every year with his strenuous

winter work. And just as always he returned in July and at once fell to his usual work with increased energy.

Just as always, too, his wife had moved for the summer to a villa out of town, while he remained in

From the date of their conversation after the party at Princess Tverskaia's he had never spoken again to Anna

of his suspicions and his jealousies, and that habitual tone of his of bantering mimicry was the most

convenient tone possible for his present attitude to his wife. He was a little colder to his wife. He simply

seemed to be slightly displeased with her for that first midnight conversation, which she had repelled. In his

attitude to her there was a shade of vexation, but nothing more. "You would not be open with me," he seemed

to say, mentally addressing her; "so much the worse for you. Now you may beg as you please, but I won't be

open with you. So much the worse for you!" he said mentally, like a man who, after vainly attempting to

extinguish a fire, should fly in a rage with his vain efforts and say, "Oh, very well then! You shall burn for

This man, so subtle and astute in official life, did not realize all the insanity of such an attitude to his wife. He

did not realize it, because it was too terrible to him to realize his actual position, and he shut down and locked

and sealed up in his heart that secret place where lay hid his feelings toward his family that is, his wife and

son. He who had been such a considerate father, had from the end of that winter become peculiarly frigid to

his son, and adopted to him just the same bantering tone as he used with his wife. "Aha, young man!" was the

Alexei Alexandrovich asserted, and believed, that he had never in any previous year had so much official

business as that year. But he was not aware that he sought work for himself that year, that this was one of the

means for keeping shut that secret place where lay hid his feelings toward his wife and son, and his thoughts

about them, which became more terrible the longer they lay there. If anyone had had the right to ask Alexei

Alexandrovich what he thought of his wife's behavior, the mild and peaceable Alexei Alexandrovich would

have made no answer, but he would have been greatly angered with any man who should question him on

that subject. It was precisely for this reason that there came into Alexei Alexandrovich's face a look of

haughtiness and severity whenever anyone inquired after his wife's health. Alexei Alexandrovich did not

want to think at all about his wife's behavior and feelings, and he actually succeeded in not thinking about

Alexei Alexandrovich's permanent summer villa was in Peterhof, and the Countess Lidia Ivanovna used to

spend the summer there, close to Anna, and constantly seeing her. That year Countess Lidia Ivanovna

declined to settle in Peterhof, did not call once at Anna Arkadyevna's, and had hinted to Alexei

Alexandrovich about the unsuitability of Anna's close intimacy with Betsy and Vronsky. Alexei

Alexandrovich had sternly cut her short, roundly declaring his wife to be above suspicion, and from that time

began to avoid Countess Lidia Ivanovna. He did not want to see, and did not see, that many people in society

cast dubious glances on his wife; he did not want to understand, and did not understand, why his wife had so

particularly insisted on staying at Tsarskoe, where Betsy was staying, and not far from the camp of Vronsky's

regiment. He did not allow himself to think about it, and he did not think about it; but, all the same, though he

never admitted it to himself, and had no proofs, nor even suspicious evidence, at the bottom of his heart he

knew beyond all doubt that he was a deceived husband, and he was profoundly miserable about it.

How often during those eight years of happy life with his wife had Alexei Alexandrovich looked at other

men's faithless wives and other deceived husbands and asked himself: "How can people descend to that?

How is it they don't put an end to such a hideous situation?" But now, when the misfortune had come upon

himself, he was so far from thinking of putting an end to the situation that he would not recognize it at all

Since his return from abroad Alexei Alexandrovich had been twice at their country villa. Once he dined there,

another time he spent the evening there with a party of friends, but he had not once stayed the night there, as

The day of the races had been a very busy day for Alexei Alexandrovich; but when sketching out the day in

the morning he made up his mind to go immediately after his early dinner, to their summer villa to see his

wife and from there to the races, which all the Court were to witness, and at which he was bound to be

present. He was going to see his wife, because he had determined to see her once a week to keep up

appearances. And besides, on that day, as it was the fifteenth, he had to give his wife some money for her

With his habitual control over his thoughts, though he thought all this about his wife, he did not let his

That morning was a very full one for Alexei Alexandrovich. The evening before, Countess Lidia Ivanovna

had sent him a pamphlet by a celebrated traveler in China, who was staying in Peterburg, and with it she

enclosed a note begging him to see the traveler himself, as he was an extremely interesting person from

various points of view, and likely to be useful. Alexei Alexandrovich had not had time to read the pamphlet

through in the evening, and finished it in the morning. Then people began arriving with petitions, and then

came the reports, interviews, appointments, dismissals, apportionment of rewards, pensions, payments,

papers the workday round, as Alexei Alexandrovich called it, that always took up so much time. Then there

was a private business of his own, a visit from the doctor, and from the steward who managed his property.

The steward did not take up much time. He simply gave Alexei Alexandrovich the money he needed, together

with a brief statement of the position of his affairs, which was not altogether satisfactory, as during that year,

owing to increased expenses, more had been paid out than usual, and there was a deficit. But the doctor, a

celebrated Peterburg doctor, who was an intimate acquaintance of Alexei Alexandrovich, had taken up a great

deal of time. Alexei Alexandrovich had not expected him that day, and was surprised at his visit, and still

more so when the doctor questioned him very carefully about his health, listened to his breathing, and tapped

at his liver. Alexei Alexandrovich did not know that his friend Lidia Ivanovna, noticing that he was not as

well as usual that year, had begged the doctor to go and examine him. "Do this for my sake," the Countess

The doctor was extremely dissatisfied with Alexei Alexandrovich. He found the liver considerably enlarged,

and the digestive powers weakened, while the course of mineral waters had been quite without effect. He

prescribed more physical exercise as far as possible, and as far as possible less mental strain, and above all no

worry in other words, just what was as much out of Alexei Alexandrovich's power as abstaining from

breathing. Then he withdrew, leaving in Alexei Alexandrovich an unpleasant sense that something was

As he was coming away, the doctor chanced to meet on the steps an acquaintance of his, Sludin, who was

head clerk in Alexei Alexandrovich's office. They had been comrades at the university, and, though they

rarely met, they thought highly of each other and were excellent friends, and hence there was no one to whom

"How glad I am you've been seeing him!" said Sludin. "He's not well, and I fancy... Well, what do you think

"I'll tell you," said the doctor, beckoning over Sludin's head to his coachman to bring the carriage round. "It's

just this," said the doctor, taking a finger of his kid glove in his white hands and pulling it, "if you don't strain

the strings, and then try to break them, you'll find it a difficult job; but strain a string to its very utmost, and

the mere weight of one finger on the strained string will snap it. And with his close assiduity, his

conscientious devotion to his work, he's strained to the utmost; and there's some outside burden weighing on

him, and that not a light one," concluded the doctor, raising his eyebrows significantly. "Will you be at the

races?" he added, as he came down to his carriage. "Yes, yes, to be sure; it does waste a lot of time," the

Directly after the doctor, who had taken up so much time, came the celebrated traveler, and Alexei

Alexandrovich, by means of the pamphlet he had only just finished reading, and his previous acquaintance

with the subject, impressed the traveler by the depth of his knowledge of the subject and the breadth and

At the same time with the traveler there was announced a provincial marshal of nobility on a visit to

Peterburg, with whom Alexei Alexandrovich had to have some conversation. After his departure, he had to

finish the daily routine of business with his head clerk, and then he still had to drive round to call on a certain

personage on a matter of grave and serious import. Alexei Alexandrovich hardly managed to be back by five

o'clock, his dinner hour, and, after dining with his head clerk, he invited him to drive with him to his summer

Though he did not acknowledge it to himself, Alexei Alexandrovich always tried nowadays to secure the

Anna was upstairs, standing before the looking glass, and, with Annushka's assistance, pinning the last ribbon

on her gown when she heard carriage wheels crunching the gravel at the entrance.

"It's too early for Betsy," she thought, and, glancing out of the window, she caught sight of the carriage and,

protruded from it, the black hat of Alexei Alexandrovich, and the ears that she knew so well. "How unlucky!

Can he be going to stay the night?" she wondered, and the thought of all that might come of such a chance

struck her as so awful and terrible that, without dwelling on it for a moment, she went down to meet him with

a bright and radiant face; and conscious of the presence of that spirit of falsehood and deceit in herself that

she had come to know of late, she abandoned herself to that spirit and began talking, hardly knowing what

"Ah, how lovely of you!" she said, giving her husband her hand, and with a smile greeting Sludin, who was

like one of the family. "You're staying the night, I hope?" was the first word the spirit of falsehood prompted

her to utter. "And now we'll go together. Only it's a pity I've promised Betsy. She's coming for me."

"Oh, I'm not going to separate the inseparables," he said in his usual bantering tone. "I'm going with Mikhail

Vassilyevich. Even the doctors order me to walk. I'll walk, and fancy myself at the springs again."

"Bring in tea, and tell Seriozha that Alexei Alexandrovich is here. Well, tell me, how have you been? Mikhail

Vassilyevich, you've not been to see me before. Look how lovely it is out on the terrace," she said, turning

She spoke very simply and naturally, but too much and too fast. She was the more aware of this from noticing

in the inquisitive look which Mikhail Vassilyevich turned on her that he was, as it were, keeping watch on

"Yes," he said; "the doctor's been with me today and wasted an hour of my time. I feel that some one of our

She questioned him about his health, and what he had been doing, and tried to persuade him to take a rest and

All this she said brightly, rapidly, and with a peculiar brilliance in her eyes. But Alexei Alexandrovich did

not now attach any special significance to this tone of hers. He heard only her words and gave them only the

direct sense they bore. And he answered simply, though jestingly. There was nothing remarkable in all this

conversation, but never after could Anna recall this brief scene without an agonizing pang of shame.

Seriozha came in, preceded by his governess. If Alexei Alexandrovich had allowed himself to observe he

would have noticed the timid and bewildered eyes with which Seriozha glanced first at his father and then at

"Ah, the young man! He's grown. Really, he's getting quite a man. How are you, young man?"

Seriozha had been shy of his father before, and now, ever since Alexei Alexandrovich had taken to calling

him "young man," and since that insolvable question had occurred to him as to whether Vronsky were friend

or foe, he avoided his father. He looked round toward his mother, as though seeking refuge. It was only with

his mother that he was at ease. Meanwhile, Alexei Alexandrovich was holding his son by the shoulder, while

he was speaking to the governess, and Seriozha was so miserably uncomfortable that Anna saw he was on the

Anna, who had flushed a little the instant her son had come in, noticing that Seriozha was uncomfortable, got

up hurriedly, took Alexei Alexandrovich's hand from her son's shoulder, and, kissing the boy, led him out

"It's time to start, though," said she, glancing at her watch. "How is it Betsy doesn't come?..."

"Yes," said Alexei Alexandrovich, and, getting up, he folded his hands and cracked his fingers. "I've come to

bring you some money, too for nightingales, we know, can't live on fairy tales," he said. "You want it, I

"No, I don't... Yes, I do," she said, without looking at him, and crimsoning to the roots of her hair. "But you'll

"Oh, yes!" answered Alexei Alexandrovich. "And here's the glory of Peterhof Princess Tverskaia," he

added, looking out of the window at the English harnessed carriage, with the tiny seats placed extremely

Princess Tverskaia did not get out of her carriage, but her liveryman, in spatterdashes, a cape and black high

"I'm going; goodby!" said Anna, and, kissing her son, she went up to Alexei Alexandrovich and held out her

"Well, au revoir, then! You'll come back for some tea that'll be delightful!" she said, and went out, radiant

and gay. But as soon as he was out of sight, she became aware of the spot on her hand that his lips had

When Alexei Alexandrovich reached the racecourse Anna was already sitting in the pavilion beside Betsy, in

that pavilion where the highest society had gathered. She caught sight of her husband in the distance. Two

men, her husband and her lover, were the two centers of her existence, and, unaided by her external senses,

she was aware of their proximity. She was aware of her husband approaching a long way off, and she could

not help following him in the surging crowd in the midst of which he was moving. She watched his progress

toward the pavilion, saw him now responding condescendingly to an ingratiating bow, now exchanging

friendly, nonchalant greetings with his equals, now assiduously trying to catch the eye of some great one of

this world, and taking off his big round hat that pressed down the tips of his ears. All these ways of his she

knew, and all were hateful to her. "Nothing but ambition, nothing but desire to get on that's all there is in his

soul," she thought; "as for his lofty ideals, love of culture, religion, they are only so many tools for getting

From his glances toward the ladies' pavilion (he was staring straight at her, but did not distinguish his wife in

the sea of muslin, ribbons, feathers, parasols and flowers) she saw that he was looking for her, but she

"Alexei Alexandrovich!" Princess Betsy called to him; "I'm sure you don't see your wife: here she is."

"There's so much splendor here that one's eyes are dazzled," he said, and he went into the pavilion. He smiled

to his wife as a man should smile on meeting his wife after only just parting from her, and greeted the

princess and other acquaintances, giving to each what was due that is to say, jesting with the ladies and

dealing out friendly greetings among the men. Below, near the pavilion, was standing an adjutant general of

whom Alexei Alexandrovich had a high opinion, noted for his intelligence and culture. Alexei Alexandrovich

There was an interval between the races, and so nothing hindered conversation. The adjutant general

expressed his disapproval of races. Alexei Alexandrovich replied defending them. Anna heard his high,

measured tones, without losing one word, and every word struck her as false, and stabbed her ears with pain.

When the fourversta steeplechase was beginning, she bent forward and gazed with fixed eyes at Vronsky as

he went up to his horse and mounted, and at the same time she heard that loathsome, neverceasing voice of

her husband. She was in an agony of terror for Vronsky, but a still greater agony was the neverceasing, as it

seemed to her, stream of her husband's shrill voice with its familiar intonations.

"I'm a wicked woman, a lost woman," she thought; "but I don't like lying, I can't endure falsehood, while as

for him [her husband], falsehood is the breath of life to him. He knows all about it, he sees it all; what does he

care if he can talk so calmly? If he were to kill me, if he were to kill Vronsky, I might respect him. No, all he

wants is falsehood and propriety," Anna said to herself, not considering exactly what it was she wanted of her

husband, and how she would have liked to see him behave. She did not understand either that Alexei

Alexandrovich's peculiar loquacity that day, so exasperating to her, was merely the expression of his inward

distress and uneasiness. As a child that has been hurt hops about, putting all his muscles into movement to

drown the pain, in the same way Alexei Alexandrovich needed mental exercise to drown the thoughts of his

wife, that in her presence and in Vronsky's, and with the continual iteration of his name, would force

themselves on his attention. And it is as natural for a child to hop about, as it was natural for him to talk well

"Danger in the races to officers, to cavalrymen, is an essential element in the race. If England can point to the

most brilliant feats of cavalry in military history, it is simply owing to the fact that she has historically

developed this force both in beasts and in men. Sport has, in my opinion, a great value, and, as is always the

"It's not superficial," said Princess Tverskaia. "One of the officers, they say, has broken two ribs."

Alexei Alexandrovich smiled his smile, which uncovered his teeth, but revealed nothing more.

"We'll admit, Princess, that that's not superficial," he said, "but internal. But that's not the point," and he

turned again to the general with whom he talked seriously; "we mustn't forget that those who are taking part

in the race are military men, who have chosen that career, and one must allow that every calling has its

disagreeable side. It forms an integral part of the duties of an officer. Low sports, such as prize fighting or

Spanish bullfights, are a sign of barbarity. But specialized trials of skill are a sign of development."

"No, I shan't come another time; it's too upsetting," said Princess Betsy. "Isn't it, Anna?"

"It is upsetting, but one can't tear oneself away," said another lady. "If I'd been a Roman woman I should

Anna said nothing, and, keeping her opera glass up, gazed always at the same spot.

At that moment a tall general walked through the pavilion. Breaking off what he was saying, Alexei

Alexandrovich got up hurriedly, though with dignity, and bowed low to the general.

And though the answer meant nothing, the general looked as though he had heard a witty remark from a witty

"There are two aspects," Alexei Alexandrovich resumed: "those who take part and those who look on; and

love for such spectacles is an unmistakable proof of a low degree of development in the spectator, I admit,

"Any bets, Princess?" sounded Stepan Arkadyevich's voice from below, addressing Betsy. "Who's your

Alexei Alexandrovich paused while the others were talking near him, but he began again directly.

But at that moment the racers started, and all conversation ceased. Alexei Alexandrovich also fell silent, and

everyone stood up and turned toward the stream. Alexei Alexandrovich took no interest in the race, and so he

did not watch the racers, but fell listlessly to scanning the spectators with his weary eyes. His eyes rested

Her face was white and stern. She was obviously seeing nothing and no one but one man. Her hand had

convulsively clutched her fan, and she held her breath. He looked at her and hastily turned away, scrutinizing

"But here's this lady too, and others very much moved as well; it's very natural," Alexei Alexandrovich told

himself He tried not to look at her, but unconsciously his eyes were drawn to her. He examined that face

again, trying not to read what was so plainly written on it, and against his own will, with horror, read in it

The first fall Kuzovlev's, at the stream agitated everyone, but Alexei Alexandrovich saw distinctly on

Anna's pale, triumphant face that the man she was watching had not fallen. When, after Makhotin and

Vronsky had cleared the worst barrier, the next officer had been thrown straight on his head at it and fatally

injured, and a shudder of horror passed over the whole public, Alexei Alexandrovich saw that Anna did not

even notice it, and had some difficulty in realizing what they were saying around her. But more and more

often, and with greater persistence, he watched her. Anna, wholly engrossed as she was with the sight of

Vronsky racing, became aware of her husband's cold eyes fixed upon her from aside.

She glanced round for an instant, looked inquiringly at him, and with a slight frown turned away again.

"Ah, I don't care!" she seemed to say to him, and she did not once glance at him again.

The race was an unlucky one, and of the seventeen officers who rode in it more than half had been thrown

and hurt. Toward the end of the race everyone was in a state of agitation, which was intensified by the fact

Everyone was loudly expressing disapprobation, everyone was repeating a phrase someone had uttered: "The

lions and gladiators will be the next thing," and everyone was feeling horrified; so that when Vronsky fell to

the ground, and Anna moaned aloud, there was nothing very much out of the way in it. But afterward a

change came over Anna's face which really went beyond decorum. She utterly lost her head. She began

fluttering like a caged bird, at one moment wanting to get up and move away, and at the next turning to

But Betsy did not hear her. She was bending down, talking to a general who had come up to her.

"Let us go, if you like," he said in French, but Anna was listening to the general and did not notice her

"He's broken his leg too, so they say," the general was saying. "This surpasses everything."

Without answering her husband, Anna lifted her opera glass and gazed toward the place where Vronsky had

fallen; but it was so far off, and there was such a crowd of people about it, that she could make out nothing.

She put down the opera glass, and would have moved away, but at that moment an officer galloped up and

"Once more I offer you my arm if you want to be going," said Alexei Alexandrovich, reaching for her hand.

She saw now that from the place of Vronsky's accident an officer was running across the course toward the

pavilion. Betsy waved her handkerchief to him. The officer brought the news that the rider was not killed, but

On hearing this Anna sat down hurriedly, and hid her face in her fan. Alexei Alexandrovich saw that she was

weeping, and could not control her tears, nor even the sobs that were shaking her bosom. Alexei

"For the third time I offer you my arm," he said to her after a short interval, turning to her. Anna gazed at him

"No, Alexei Alexandrovich; I brought Anna and I promised to take her home," put in Betsy.

"Excuse me, Princess," he said smiling courteously, but looking her very firmly in the face, "but I see that

Anna looked about her in a frightened way, got up submissively, and laid her hand on her husband's arm.

As they left the pavilion, Alexei Alexandrovich, as always, talked to those he met, and Anna had, as always,

to talk and answer; but she was utterly beside herself, and moved hanging on her husband's arm, as though in

"Is he killed or not? Is it true? Will he come or not? Shall I see him today?" she was thinking.

She took her seat in her husband's carriage in silence, and in silence drove out of the press of carriages. In

spite of all he had seen, Alexei Alexandrovich still did not allow himself to consider his wife's real condition.

He merely saw the outward symptoms. He saw that she was behaving unbecomingly, and considered it his

duty to tell her so. But it was very difficult for him not to say more, to tell her nothing but that. He opened his

mouth to tell her she had behaved unbecomingly, but he could not help saying something utterly different.

"What an inclination we all have, though, for these cruel spectacles! he said. "I observe..."

"I am obliged to tell you that your behavior has been unbecoming today," he said to her, in French.

"In what way has my behavior been unbecoming?" she said aloud, turning her head swiftly and looking him

straight in the face, not with the bright expression that seemed covering something, but with a look of

determination, under which she concealed with difficulty the dismay she was feeling.

"I have already begged you so to conduct yourself in society that even malicious tongues can find nothing to

say against you. There was a time when I spoke of your inward attitude, but I am not speaking of that now.

Now I speak only of your external attitude. You have behaved improperly, and I would wish it not to occur

She did not hear half of what he was saying; she felt panicstricken before him, and was thinking whether it

was true that Vronsky was not killed. Was it of him they were speaking when they said the rider was unhurt,

but that the back of the horse had been broken? She merely smiled with a forced smile when he finished, and

made no reply, because she had not heard what he said. Alexei Alexandrovich had begun to speak boldly, but

as he realized plainly what he was speaking of, the dismay she was feeling infected him too. He saw the

"She is smiling at my suspicions. Yes, she will tell me directly what she told me before; that there is no

At that moment, when the revelation of everything was hanging over him, there was nothing he expected so

much as that she would answer mockingly, as before, that his suspicions were absurd and utterly groundless.

So terrible to him was what he knew that now he was ready to believe anything. But the expression of her

"No, you were not mistaken," she said slowly, looking desperately into his frigid face. "You were not

mistaken. I was in despair, nor could I help being in despair. I am listening to you, but I am thinking of him. I

love him, I am his mistress; I can't bear you; I'm afraid of you, and I hate you... You can do what you like to

And dropping back into the corner of the carriage, she broke into sobs, hiding her face in her hands. Alexei

Alexandrovich did not stir, and kept looking straight before him. But his whole face suddenly bore the

solemn rigidity of the dead, and his expression did not change during the whole time of the drive home. On

"Very well! But I expect a strict observance of the external forms of propriety till such time" his voice

He got out first and helped her to get out. Before the servants he pressed her hand, took his seat in the

Immediately afterward a footman came from Princess Betsy and brought Anna a note.

"I sent to Alexei to find out how he is, and he writes me he is quite well and unhurt, but in despair."

She glanced at her watch. She had still three hours to wait, and the memories of their last meeting set her

"My God, how light it is! It's dreadful, but I do love to see his face, and I do love this fantastic light.... My

In the little German watering place to which the Shcherbatskys had betaken themselves, as in all places

indeed where people are gathered together, the usual process, as it were, of the crystallization of society went

on, assigning to each member of that society a definite and unalterable place. Just as the particle of water in

frost, definitely and unalterably, takes the special form of the crystal of snow, so each new person that arrived

Furst Shcherbatsky, samt Gemahlin und Tochter, by the apartments they took, and from their name and from

the friends they made, were immediately crystallized into a definite place marked out for them.

There was visiting the watering place that year a real German Furstin, in consequence of which the

crystallizing process went on more vigorously than ever. Princess Shcherbatsky wished, above everything, to

present her daughter to this German Princess, and the day after their arrival she duly performed this rite. Kitty

made a low and graceful curtsy in the "very simple," that is to say, very elegant frock that had been ordered

for her from Paris. The German Princess said, "I hope the roses will soon come back to this pretty little face,"

and for the Shcherbatskyg certain definite lines of existence were at once laid down, from which there was no

departing. The Shcherbatskys made the acquaintance too of the family of an English lady, and of a German

Countess and her son, wounded in the last war, and of a learned Swede, and of M. Canut and his sister. Yet

inevitably the Shcherbatskys were thrown most into the society of a Moscow lady, Marya Eugenyevna

Rtishcheva and her daughter, whom Kitty disliked, because she had fallen ill, like herself, over a love affair;

and a Moscow colonel, whom Kitty had known from childhood, and had always seen in uniform and

epaulets, and who now, with his little eyes and his open neck and flowered cravat, was uncommonly

ridiculous and tedious, because there was no getting rid of him. When all this was so firmly established, Kitty

began to be very much bored, especially as the Prince went off to Carlsbad and she was left alone with her

mother. She took no interest in the people she knew, feeling that nothing fresh would come of them. Her

chief mental interest in the watering place consisted in watching and making theories about the people she did

not know. It was characteristic of Kitty that she always imagined everything in people in the most favorable

light possible, especially so in those she did not know. And now, as she made surmises as to who people

were, what were their relations to one another, and what they were like, Kitty endowed them with the most

Of these people the one that attracted her most was a Russian girl who had come to the watering place with

an invalid Russian lady, Madame Stahl, as everyone called her. Madame Stahl belonged to the highest

society, but she was so ill that she could not walk, and only on exceptionally fine days made her appearance

at the springs in an invalid carriage. But it was not so much from illhealth as from pride so Princess

Shcherbatskaia interpreted it that Madame Stahl had not made the acquaintance of anyone among the

Russians there. The Russian girl looked after Madame Stahl, and besides that, she was, as Kitty observed, on

friendly terms with all the invalids who were seriously ill and there were many of them at the springs and

was solicitous over them in the most natural way. This Russian girl was not, as Kitty gathered, related to

Madame Stahl, nor was she a paid attendant. Madame Stahl called her Varenka, and other people called her

"Mademoiselle Varenka." Apart from the interest Kitty took in this girl's relations with Madame Stahl and

with other unknown persons, Kitty, as often happened, felt an inexplicable attraction to Mademoiselle

Of Mademoiselle Varenka one would not say that she had passed her first youth, but she was, as it were, a

creature without youth; she might have been taken for nineteen or for thirty. If her features were criticized

separately, she was handsome rather that plain, in spite of the sickly hue of her face. Hers would have been a

good figure, too, if it had not been for her extreme thinness and the size of her head, which was too large for

her medium height. But she was not likely to be attractive to men. She was like a fine flower, already past its

bloom and without fragrance, though the petals were still unwithered. Moreover, she would have been

unattractive to men also from the lack of just what Kitty had too much of of the suppressed fire of vitality,

She always seemed absorbed in work, beyond a doubt, and so it seemed as if she could take no interest in

anything outside it. It was just this contrast with her own position that was for Kitty the great attraction of

Mademoiselle Varenka. Kitty felt that in her, in her manner of life, she would find an example of what she

was now so painfully seeking: interest in life, a dignity in life apart from the worldly relations of girls with

men, which so revolted Kitty, and appeared to her now as a shameful exhibition of goods in search of a

purchaser. The more attentively Kitty watched her unknown friend, the more convinced she was that this girl

was the perfect creature she fancied her, and the more eagerly she wished to make her acquaintance.

The two girls used to meet several times a day, and every time they met Kitty's eyes said: "Who are you?

What are you? Are you really the exquisite creature I imagine you to be? But for goodness' sake don't

suppose," her eyes added, "that I would force my acquaintance on you I simply admire you and like you." "I

like you too, and you're very, very sweet. And I should like you better still, if I had time," answered the eyes

of the unknown girl. Kitty saw, indeed, that she was always busy. Either she was taking the children of a

Russian family home from the springs, or fetching a shawl for a sick lady, and wrapping her up in it, or trying

Soon after the arrival of the Shcherbatskys there appeared in the morning crowd at the springs two persons

who attracted universal and unfavorable attention. These were a tall man with a stooping figure and huge

hands, in an old coat too short for him, with black, simple, and yet terrible eyes, and a pockmarked,

kindlooking woman, very badly and tastelessly dressed. Recognizing these persons as Russians, Kitty had

already in her imagination begun constructing a delightful and touching romance about them. But the

Princess, having ascertained from the Kurliste that this was Nikolai Levin and Marya Nikolaevna, explained

to Kitty what a bad man this Levin was, and all her fancies about these two people vanished. Not so much

from what her mother told her, as from the fact that it was Konstantin's brother, this pair suddenly seemed to

Kitty in the highest degree unpleasant. This Levin, with his continual twitching of his head, aroused in her

It seemed to her that his big, terrible eyes, which persistently pursued her, expressed a feeling of hatred and

It was a foul day; it had been raining all the morning, and the invalids, with their parasols, had flocked into

Kitty was walking there with her mother and the Moscow colonel, smart and jaunty in his European coat,

bought readymade at Frankfort. They were walking on one side of the arcade, trying to avoid Levin, who

was walking on the other side. Varenka, in her dark dress, in a black hat with a turndown brim, was walking

up and down the whole length of the arcade with a blind Frenchwoman, and, every time she met Kitty, they

"Mamma, couldn't I speak to her?" said Kitty, watching her unknown friend, and noticing that she was going

"Oh, if you want to so much, I'll find out about her first and make her acquaintance myself," answered her

mother. "What do you see in her out of the way? A companion, most probably. If you like, I'll make

acquaintance with Madame Stahl; I used to know her bellesoeur," added the Princess, lifting her head

Kitty knew that the Princess was offended because Madame Stahl had apparently avoided making her

"How wonderfully sweet she is!" she said, gazing at Varenka just as she handed a glass to the Frenchwoman.

"It's so funny to see your engouements," said the Princess. "No, we'd better go back," she added, noticing

Levin coming toward them with his companion and a German doctor, to whom he was talking very noisily

They turned to go back, when suddenly they heard, not merely noisy talk, but actual shouting. Levin,

stopping short, was shouting at the doctor, and the doctor, too, was excited. A crowd gathered about them.

The Princess and Kitty beat a hasty retreat, while the colonel joined the crowd to find out what was up.

"Scandalous and disgraceful!" answered the colonel. "The one thing to be dreaded is meeting Russians

abroad. That tall gentleman was abusing the doctor, flinging all sorts of insults at him because he wasn't

treating him quite as he liked, and he began waving his stick at him. It's simply scandalous!"

"Luckily at that point that miss... the one in the mushroom hat... intervened. She is a Russian lady, I think,"

"Yes, yes. She came to the rescue before anyone else; she took the man by the arm and led him away."

The next day, as she watched her unknown friend, Kitty noticed that Mademoiselle Varenka was already on

the same terms with Levin and his companion as with her other proteges. She went up to them, entered into

conversation with them, and served as interpreter for the woman, who could not speak any foreign language.

Kitty began to entreat her mother still more urgently to let her make acquaintance with Varenka. And,

disagreeable as it was to the Princess to seem to take the first step in wishing to make the acquaintance of

Madame Stahl, who thought fit to give herself airs, she made inquiries about Varenka, and, having

ascertained particulars about her tending to prove that there could he no harm, even if little good in the

Choosing a time when her daughter had gone to the spring, while Varenka had stopped outside the baker's,

"Allow me to make your acquaintance," she said, with her dignified smile. "My daughter has lost her heart to

"Yes, sa compagne called me, and I tried to pacify him; he's very ill, and was dissatisfied with the doctor. I'm

"Yes, I've heard you live at Mentone with your aunt I think Madame Stahl: I used to know her

"No, she's not my aunt. I call her maman, but I am not related to her; I was brought up by her," answered

This was so simply said, and so sweet was the truthful and candid expression of her face, that the Princess

At that instant Kitty came up from the spring beaming with delight because her mother had become

Kitty blushed with pleasure, and slowly, without speaking, squeezed her new friend's hand, which did not

respond to her pressure, but lay motionless in her hand. The hand did not respond to her pressure, but the face

of Mademoiselle Varenka glowed with a soft, glad, though rather mournful, smile, that showed large but

"Oh, no I'm not at all busy," answered Varenka, but at that moment she had to leave her new friends because

The particulars which the Princess had learned in regard to Varenka's past and her relations with Madame

Madame Stahl, of whom some people said that she had worried her husband out of his life, while others said

it was he who had made her wretched by his immoral behavior, had always been a woman of weak health and

enthusiastic temperament. When, after her separation from her husband, she gave birth to her only child, the

child had died almost immediately, and the family of Madame Stahl, knowing her sensibility and fearing the

news would kill her, had substituted another child, a baby born the same night and in the same house in

Peterburg, the daughter of the chief cook of the Imperial Household. This was Varenka. Madame Stahl

learned later on that Varenka was not her own child, but she went on bringing her up, especially as very soon

Madame Stahl had now been living without a break, more than ten years abroad, in the south, never leaving

her couch. And some people said that Madame Stahl had made her social position as a philanthropic, highly

religious woman; other people said she really was at heart the highly ethical being, living for nothing but the

good of her fellow creatures, which she represented herself to be. No one knew what her faith was Catholic,

Protestant, or Orthodox. But one fact was indubitable she was in amicable relations with the highest

Varenka lived with her all the while abroad, and everyone who knew Madame Stahl knew and liked

Having learned all these facts, the Princess found nothing to object to in her daughter's intimacy with

Varenka, more especially as Varenka's breeding and education were of the best she spoke French and

English extremely well and, what was of the most weight, brought a message from Madame Stahl

expressing her regret that she had been prevented by her illhealth from making the acquaintance of the

After getting to know Varenka, Kitty became more and more fascinated by her friend, and every day she

The Princess, hearing that Varenka had a good voice, asked her to come and sing to them in the evening.

"Kitty plays, and we have a piano; not a good one, it's true, but you will give us so much pleasure," said the

Princess with her affected smile, which Kitty disliked particularly just then, because she noticed that Varenka

had no inclination to sing. Varenka came, however, in the evening, and brought a roll of music with her. The

Varenka seemed quite unaffected by the presence of persons whom she did not know, and she went directly

to the piano. She could not accompany herself, but she could sing music at sight very well. Kitty, who played

"You have an extraordinary talent," the Princess said to her after Varenka had sung the first song excellently.

"Look," said the colonel, looking out of the window, "what an audience has collected to listen to you."

Kitty looked with pride at her friend. She was enchanted by her talent, and her voice, and her face, but most

of all by her manner, by Varenka's obviously thinking nothing of her singing and being quite unmoved by

their praise. She seemed only to be asking: "Am I to sing again, or is that enough?"

"If it had been I," thought Kitty, "how proud I should have been! How delighted I should have been to see

that crowd under the windows! But she's utterly unmoved by it. Her only motive is to avoid refusing and to

please maman. What is there about her? What is it gives her the power to look down on everything, to be

calm independently of everything? How I should like to know it, and to learn it from her!" thought Kitty,

gazing into her serene face. The Princess asked Varenka to sing again, and Varenka sang another song, also

smoothly, distinctly, and well, standing erect at the piano and beating time on it with her thin, darkskinned

The next song in the book was an Italian one. Kitty played the opening bars, and looked round at Varenka.

"Very well, the next one," she said hurriedly, turning over the pages, and at once feeling that there was

"No," answered Varenka with a smile, laying her hand on the music, "no, let's have that one." And she sang it

When she had finished, they all thanked her again, and went off to tea. Kitty and Varenka went out into the

"Am I right, that you have some reminiscences connected with that song?" said Kitty. "Don't tell me," she

"No, why not? I'll tell you," said Varenka simply, and, without waiting for a reply, she went on: "Yes, it

brings up memories, once painful ones. I cared for someone once, and I used to sing him that song."

"I cared for him, and he cared for me; but his mother was opposed, and he married another girl. He's living

now not far from us, and I see him sometimes. You didn't think I had a love story, too," she said, and there

was a faint gleam in her handsome face of that fire which Kitty felt must once have glowed all over her.

"I didn't think so? Why, if I were a man, I could never care for anyone else after knowing you. Only I can't

understand how he could, to please his mother, forget you and make you unhappy; he had no heart."

"Oh, no, he's a very good man, and I'm not unhappy; quite the contrary I'm very happy. Well, we shan't be

"How good you are! How good you are!" cried Kitty, and stopping her, she kissed her. "If I could only be

"Why should you be like anyone? You're lovely as you are," said Varenka, smiling her gentle, weary smile.

"No, I'm not lovely at all. Come, tell me... Stop a minute, let's sit down," said Kitty, making her sit down

again beside her. "Tell me, isn't it humiliating to think that a man has disdained your love, that he hasn't cared

"But he didn't disdain it; I believe he cared for me, but he was a dutiful son...."

"Yes, but if it hadn't been on account of his mother, if it had been his own doing?..." said Kitty, feeling she

was giving away her secret, and that her face, burning with the flush of shame, had betrayed her already.

"In that case he would have done wrong, and I should not have regretted him," answered Varenka, evidently

"But the humiliation," said Kitty, "the humiliation one can never forget never!" she said, remembering her

"Why, what's shameful about it?" she said. "You didn't tell a man who didn't care for you, that you loved him,

"Of course not; I never said a word, but he knew it. No, no, there are looks, there are ways; I can't forget it, if

"Why so? I don't understand. The whole point is whether you love him now or not," said Varenka, who called

"Oh! if everyone were as sensitive as you are!" said Varenka. "There isn't a girl who hasn't been through the

"Why, what is important?" said Kitty, looking into her face with inquisitive wonder.

"Oh, so much that's more important," answered Varenka, not knowing what to say. But at that instant they

heard the Princess's voice from the window. "Kitty, it's cold! Either get a shawl, or come indoors."

"It really is time to go in!" said Varenka, getting up. "I have to go on to Madame Berthe's; she asked me to."

Kitty held her by the hand, and with passionate curiosity and entreaty her eyes asked her: "What is it, what is

this of such importance, that gives you such tranquility? You know, tell me!" But Varenka did not even know

what Kitty's eyes were asking her. She merely thought that she had to go to see Madame Berthe too that

evening, and to make haste home in time for maman's tea at twelve o'clock. She went indoors, collected her

"Yes, how can you go alone at night like this?" chimed in the Princess. "Anyway, I'll send Parasha."

Kitty saw that Varenka could hardly restrain a smile at the idea that she needed an escort.

"No, I always go about alone and nothing ever happens to me," she said, taking her hat. And kissing Kitty

once more, without saying what was important, she stepped out courageously with the music under her arm

and vanished into the twilight of the summer night, bearing away with her her secret of what was important,

Kitty made the acquaintance of Madame Stahl too, and this acquaintance, together with her friendship with

Varenka, did not merely exercise a great influence on her it also comforted her in her mental distress. She

found this comfort through a completely new world being opened to her by means of this acquaintance, a

world having nothing in common with her past; an exalted, noble world, from the height of which she could

contemplate her past calmly. It was revealed to her that besides the instinctive life to which Kitty had given

herself up hitherto there was a spiritual life. This life was disclosed in religion, but a religion having nothing

in common with that one which Kitty had known from childhood, and which found expression in masses and

evening services at the Widow's Home, where one might meet one's friends; and in learning by heart Slavonic

texts with the priest. This was a lofty, mysterious religion connected with a whole series of noble thoughts

and feelings, which one could not merely believe because one was told to believe, but which one could love.

Kitty found all this out not from words. Madame Stahl talked to Kitty as to a charming child that one regards

with pleasure, as one regards the memory of one's youth, and only once she said in passing that in all human

sorrows nothing gives comfort but love and faith, and that in the sight of Christ's compassion for us no

sorrow is trifling and immediately talked of other things. But in every gesture of Madame Stahl, in every

word, in every heavenly as Kitty called it look; and, above all, in the whole story of her life, which she

heard from Varenka, Kitty recognized that something "that was important," of which, till then, she had

Yet, elevated as Madame Stahl's character was, touching as was her story, and exalted and moving as was her

speech, Kitty could not help detecting in her some traits which perplexed her. She noticed that, when

questioning her about her family, Madame Stahl had smiled contemptuously, which was not in accord with

Christian meekness. Kitty noticed, too, that when she had found a Catholic priest with her, Madame Stahl had

studiously kept her face in the shadow of the lamp shade and had smiled in a peculiar way. Trivial as these

two observations were, they perplexed her, and she had her doubts as to Madame Stahl. But on the other hand

Varenka, alone in the world, without friends or relations, with a melancholy disappointment in the past,

desiring nothing, regretting nothing, was just that perfection of which Kitty dared hardly dream. In Varenka

she realized that one has but to forget oneself and love others, and one will be calm, happy and good. And

that was what Kitty longed to be. Seeing now clearly what was most important, Kitty was not satisfied with

being enthusiastic over it; she at once gave herself up with her whole soul to the new life that was opening to

her. From Varenka's accounts of the doings of Madame Stahl and other people whom she mentioned, Kitty

had already constructed the plan of her own future life. She would, like Madame Stahl's niece, Aline, of

whom Varenka had talked to her a great deal, seek out those who were in trouble, wherever she might be

living, help them as far as she could, giving them the Gospel; she would read the Gospel to the sick, to the

criminals, to the dying. The idea of reading the Gospel to criminals, as Aline did, particularly fascinated

Kitty. But all these were secret dreams, of which Kitty did not talk either to her mother or to Varenka.

While awaiting the time for carrying out her plans on a large scale, however, Kitty, even then at the springs,

where there were so many people ill and unhappy, readily found a chance for practicing her new principles in

At first the Princess noticed nothing but that Kitty was much under the influence of her engouement, as she

called it, for Madame Stahl, and still more for Varenka. She saw that Kitty did not merely imitate Varenka in

her conduct, but unconsciously imitated her in her manner of walking, of talking, of blinking her eyes. But

later on the Princess noticed that, apart from this adoration, some kind of serious spiritual change was taking

The Princess saw that in the evenings Kitty read a French Testament that Madame Stahl had given her a

thing she had never done before; that she avoided society acquaintances and associated with the sick people

who were under Varenka's protection, and especially one poor family, that of a sick painter, Petrov. Kitty was

unmistakably proud of playing the part of a sister of mercy in that family. All this was well enough, and the

Princess had nothing to say against it, especially as Petrov's wife was a perfectly respectable woman, and that

the German Princess, noticing Kitty's devotion, praised her, calling her an angel of consolation. All this

would have been very well, if there had been no exaggeration. But the Princess saw that her daughter was

Her daughter made her no reply, but in her heart she thought that one could not talk about exaggeration where

Christianity was concerned. What exaggeration could there be in the practice of a doctrine wherein one was

bidden to turn the other cheek when one was smitten, and give one's shirt if one's coat were taken? But the

Princess disliked this exaggeration, and disliked even more the fact that she felt her daughter did not care to

show her all her heart. Kitty did in fact conceal her new views and feelings from her mother. She concealed

them not because she did not respect or did not love her mother, but simply because she was her mother. She

"How is it Anna Pavlovna's not been to see us for so long?" the Princess said one day, referring to Madame

"Well, you may go," answered the Princess, gazing at her daughter's embarrassed face and trying to guess the

That day Varenka came to dinner and told them that Anna Pavlovna had changed her mind and given up the

"Kitty, haven't you had some misunderstanding with the Petrovs?" said the Princess, when they were left

Kitty answered that nothing had happened between them, and that she could not tell why Anna Pavlovna

seemed displeased with her. Kitty answered perfectly truthfully. She did not know the reason Anna Pavlovna

had changed toward her, but she guessed it. She guessed at something which she could not tell her mother,

which she did not put into words to herself It was one of those things which one knows but which one can

never speak of even to oneself, so terrible and shameful would it be to be mistaken.

Again and again she went over in her memory all her relations with the family. She remembered the simple

delight expressed on the round, goodnatured face of Anna Pavlovna at their meetings; she remembered their

secret confabulations about the invalid, their plots to draw him away from the work which was forbidden

him, and to get him out of doors; the devotion of the youngest boy, who used to call her "my Kitty," and

would not go to bed without her. How lovely it all was! "Then she recalled the thin, terribly thin figure of

Petrov, with his long neck, in his brown coat, his scant, curly hair, his questioning blue eyes that were so

terrible to Kitty at first, and his painful attempts to seem hearty and lively in her presence. She recalled the

efforts she had made at first to overcome the repugnance she felt for him, as for all consumptive people, and

the pains it had cost her to think of things to say to him. She recalled the timid, softened look with which he

gazed at her, and the strange feeling of compassion and awkwardness, and later of a sense of her own

goodness, which she had felt at it. How lovely it all was! But all that was at first. Now, a few days ago,

everything was suddenly spoiled. Anna Pavlovna had met Kitty with affected cordiality, and had kept

Could that touching pleasure he showed when she came near be the cause of Anna Pavlovna's coolness?

"Yes," she mused, "there was something unnatural about Anna Pavlovna, and utterly unlike her good nature,

when she said angrily the day before yesterday: 'There, he will keep waiting for you; he wouldn't drink his

"Yes, perhaps, too, she didn't like it when I gave him the rug. It was all so simple, but he took it so

awkwardly, and was so long thanking me, that I felt awkward too. And then that portrait of me he did so well.

And most of all that look of confusion and tenderness! Yes, yes, that's it!" Kitty repeated to herself with

horror. "No, it can't be, it oughtn't to be! He's so much to be pitied!" she said to herself directly after.

Before the end of the water cure, Prince Shcherbatsky, who had gone on from Carlsbad to Baden and

Kissingen to Russian friends to get a breath of Russian atmosphere, as he said came back to his wife and

The views of the Prince and of the Princess on life abroad were completely opposed. The Princess thought

everything delightful, and in spite of her established position in Russian society, she tried abroad to be like a

European fashionable lady, which she was not for the simple reason that she was a typical Russian

gentlewoman; and so she was affected, which did not altogether suit her. The Prince, on the contrary, thought

everything foreign detestable, got sick of European life, kept to his Russian habits, and purposely tried to

The Prince returned thinner, with the skin hanging in loose bags on his cheeks, but in the most cheerful frame

of mind. His good humor was even greater when he saw Kitty completely recovered. The news of Kitty's

friendship with Madame Stahl and Varenka, and the reports the Princess gave him of some kind of change

she had noticed in Kitty, troubled the Prince and aroused his habitual feeling of jealousy of everything that

drew his daughter away from him, and a dread that his daughter might have got out of the reach of his

influence into regions inaccessible to him. But this unpleasant news was all drowned in the sea of kindliness

and good humor which was always within him, and more so than ever since his course of Carlsbad waters.

The day after his arrival the Prince, in his long overcoat, with his Russian wrinkles and baggy cheeks propped

up by a starched collar, set off with his daughter to the spring in the greatest good humor.

It was a lovely morning: the tidy, cheerful houses with their little gardens, the sight of the redfaced,

redarmed, beerdrinking German waitresses, working away merrily, and bright sun did one's heart good.

But the nearer they got to the springs the oftener they met sick people; and their appearance seemed more

pitiable than ever among the everyday conditions of prosperous German life. Kitty was no longer struck by

this contrast. The bright sun, the brilliant green of the foliage, the strains of the music were for her the natural

setting of all these familiar faces, with their changes to greater emaciation or to convalescence, for which she

watched. But to the Prince the brightness and gaiety of the June morning, and the sound of the orchestra

playing a gay waltz then in fashion, and above all, the appearance of the robust waitresses, seemed something

unseemly and monstrous, in conjunction with these slowly moving cadavers gathered together from all parts

In spite of his feeling of pride and, as it were, of the return of youth, when he walked with his favorite

daughter on his arm, he felt awkward, and almost ashamed of his vigorous step and his sturdy, stout and fat

"Present, present me to your new friends," he said to his daughter, squeezing her hand with his elbow. "I like

even your horrid Soden for making you so well again. Only it's melancholy, very melancholy here. Who's

Kitty mentioned the names of all the people they met, of some with whom she was acquainted, and some

with whom she was not. At the very entrance of the garden they met the blind lady, Madame Berthe, with her

guide, and the Prince was delighted to see the old Frenchwoman's face light up when she heard Kitty's voice.

She at once began talking to him with the exaggerated politeness of the French, applauding him for having

such a delightful daughter, extolling Kitty to the skies before her face, and calling her a treasure, a pearl and a

"Well, she's the second angel, then," said the Prince, smiling. "She calls Mademoiselle Varenka angel number

In the arcade they met Varenka herself. She was walking rapidly toward them, carrying an elegant red bag.

Varenka made simply and naturally as she did everything a movement between a bow and curtsy, and

immediately began talking to the Prince, without shyness, naturally, as she talked to everyone.

"Of course I know you; I know you very well," the Prince said to her with a smile, in which Kitty detected

with joy that her father liked her friend. "Where are you off to in such haste?"

"Maman's here," she said, turning to Kitty. "She has not slept all night, and the doctor advised her to go out.

Kitty saw that her father had meant to make fun of Varenka, but that he could not do it because he liked her.

"Come, so we shall see all your friends," he went on, "even Madame Stahl, if she deigns to recognize me."

"Why, did you know her, papa?" Kitty asked apprehensively, catching the gleam of irony that kindled in the

"I used to know her husband, and her too a little, before she'd joined the Pietists."

"What is a Pietist, papa?" asked Kitty, dismayed to find that what she prized so highly in Madame Stahl had a

"I don't quite know myself. I only know that she thanks God for everything, for every misfortune, and thanks

God too that her husband died. And that's rather droll, as they didn't get on together. Who's that? What a

piteous face!" he asked, noticing a sick man of medium height sitting on a bench, wearing a brown overcoat

and white trousers that fell in strange folds about his long, fleshless legs. This man lifted his straw hat,

showed his scanty curly hair and high forehead, painfully reddened by the pressure of the hat.

"That's Petrov, an artist," answered Kitty blushing. "And that's his wife," she added, indicating Anna

Pavlovna, who, as though on purpose, at the very instant they approached, walked away after a child that had

"Poor fellow! And what a fine face he has!" said the Prince. "Why don't you go up to him? He wanted to

"Well, let us go, then," said Kitty, turning round resolutely. "How are you feeling today?" she asked Petrov.

He staggered as he said this, and then repeated the motion, trying to make it seem as if it had been intentional.

"I meant to come, but Varenka said that Anna Pavlovna sent word you were not going."

"Not going!" said Petrov, blushing, and immediately beginning to cough, and his eyes sought his wife.

"Aneta! Aneta!" he said loudly, and the swollen veins stood out like cords on his thin white neck.

"So you sent word to the Princess that we weren't going!" he whispered to her angrily, losing his voice.

"Good morning, Princess," said Anna Pavlovna, with an assumed smile utterly unlike her former manner.

"Very glad to make your acquaintance," she said to the Prince. "You've long been expected, Prince."

"Why did you send word to the Princess that we weren't going?" the artist whispered hoarsely again, still

more angrily, obviously exasperated that his voice failed him so that he could not give his words the

"Yes, papa," answered Kitty. "And you must know they've three children, no servant, and scarcely any

means. He gets something from the Academy," she went on briskly, trying to drown the distress that queer

change in Anna Pavlovna's manner toward her had aroused in her. "Oh, here's Madame Stahl," said Kitty,

indicating an invalid carriage, where, propped on pillows, something in gray and blue was lying under a

sunshade. This was Madame Stahl. Behind her stood the gloomy, robust German workman who pushed the

carriage. Close by was standing a flaxenheaded Swedish Count, whom Kitty knew by name. Several

invalids were lingering near the low carriage, staring at the lady as though she were some curiosity.

The Prince walked up to her, and Kitty detected that disconcerting gleam of irony in his eyes. He walked up

to Madame Stahl, and addressed her with extreme courtesy and charm in that excellent French which so few

"I don't know if you remember me, but I must recall myself to thank you for your kindness to my daughter,"

"Prince Alexandre Shcherbatsky," said Madame Stahl, lifting upon him her heavenly eyes, in which Kitty

discerned a look of annoyance. "Delighted! I have taken a great fancy to your daughter."

"Yes; I'm used to it," said Madame Stahl, and she introduced the Prince to the Swedish Count.

"You are scarcely changed at all," the Prince said to her. "It's ten or eleven years since I had the honor of

"Yes; God sends the cross and sends the strength to bear it. Often one wonders what is the goal of this life?...

The other side!" she said angrily to Varenka, who had rearranged the rug over her feet not to her satisfaction.

"That is not for us to judge," said Madame Stahl, perceiving the shade of expression on the Prince's face. "So

you will send me that book, dear Count? I'm very grateful to you," she said to the young Swede.

"Ah!" cried the Prince, catching sight of the Moscow colonel standing near, and with a bow to Madame Stahl

"That's our aristocracy, Prince!" the Moscow colonel said with ironical intention. He cherished a grudge

"Did you know her before her illness, Prince that's to say, before she took to her bed?"

"She doesn't stand up because her legs are too short. She has a very bad figure."

"That's what wicked tongues say, my darling. And your Varenka is to endure still," he added. "Oh, these

"Oh, no, papa!" Kitty objected warmly. "Varenka worships her. And then she does so much good! Ask

"Perhaps so," said the Prince, squeezing her hand with his elbow; "but it's better when one does good so that

Kitty did not answer, not because she had nothing to say, but because she did not care to reveal her secret

thoughts even to her father. But, strange to say, although she had made up her mind so firmly not to be

influenced by her father's views, not to let him into her inmost sanctuary, she felt that the heavenly image of

Madame Stahl, which she had carried for a whole month in her heart, had vanished, never to return, just as

the fantastic figure made up of some clothes thrown down at random vanishes when one sees that it is only

some fallen garment. All that was left was a woman with short legs, who lay down because she had a bad

figure, and worried patient Varenka for not arranging her rug to her liking. And by no effort of her

The Prince communicated his good humor to his own family and his friends, and even to the German

On coming back with Kitty from the springs, the Prince, who had asked the colonel, and Marya Eugenyevna,

and Varenka all to come and have coffee with them, gave orders for a table and chairs to be taken into the

tiny garden under the chestnut tree, and lunch to be laid there. The landlord and the servants, too, grew

brisker under the influence of his good spirits. They knew his openhandedness; and half an hour later the

invalid doctor from Hamburg, who lived on the top floor, looked enviously out of his window at the merry

party of healthy Russians assembled under the chestnut tree. In the trembling circles of shadow cast by the

leaves, at a table covered with a white cloth, and set with coffeepot, bread, butter, cheese, and cold game, sat

the Princess in a high cap with lilac ribbons, distributing cups and sandwiches. At the other end sat the

Prince, eating heartily, and talking loudly and merrily. The Prince had spread out near him his purchases

carved boxes, and knickknacks, and paper knives of all sorts, of which he had bought a heap at every

watering place, and bestowed them upon everyone, including Lieschen, the servant girl, and the landlord,

with whom he jested in his comically bad German, assuring him that it was not the water had cured Kitty, but

his splendid cookery especially his plum soup. The Princess laughed at her husband for his Russian ways,

but she was more lively and goodhumored than she had been all the while she had been at the waters. The

colonel smiled, as he always did, at the Prince's jokes, but as far as regards Europe, of which he believed

himself to be making a careful study, he took the Princess's side. The goodhearted Marya Eugenyevna simply

roared with laughter at everything absurd the Prince said, and his jokes made Varenka helpless with feeble

Kitty was glad of all this, but she could not be lighthearted. She could not solve the problem her father had

unconsciously set her by his goodhumored view of her friends, and of the life that had so attracted her. To

this doubt there was joined the change in her relations with the Petrovs, which had been so conspicuously and

unpleasantly marked that morning. Everyone was goodhumored, but Kitty could not feel goodhumored,

and this increased her distress. She felt a feeling such as she had known in childhood, when she had been shut

"Well, but what did you buy this mass of things for? said the Princess, smiling, and handing her husband a

"One goes for a walk, one looks in a shop, and they ask you to buy. 'Erlaucht, Excellenz, Durchlaucht?'

"Of course it is. Such boredom, my dear, that one doesn't know what to do with oneself."

"How can you be bored, Prince? There's so much that's interesting now in Germany," said Marya

"But I know everything that's interesting: the plum soup I know and the pea sausages I know. I know

"No, you may say what you like, Prince there's the interest of their institutions," said the colonel.

"But what is there interesting? They're all as beaming with joy as brass halfpence; they've conquered

everybody. And why am I to be pleased at that? I haven't conquered anyone; only I have myself to take off

my own boots, and, besides, to expose them before the door; in the morning, get up and dress at once, and go

to the coffeeroom to drink bad tea! How different it is at home! You get up in no haste, you get cross,

grumble a little and come round again. You've time to think things over, and no hurry."

"Time, indeed! Why, there are times one would give a month of for half a rouble, and times you wouldn't

give half an hour of for any money. Isn't that so, Katenka? What is it? Why are you so depressed?"

"I must be going home," said Varenka, getting up, and again she broke out laughing. When she had

Kitty followed her. Even Varenka struck her as different. She was not inferior, but different from what she

"Oh, dear! It's a long while since I've laughed so much!" said Varenka, gathering up her parasol and her

"Maman meant to go and see the Petrovs. Won't you be there?" said Kitty, to try Varenka.

"Yes," answered Varenka. "They're getting ready to go away, so I promised to help them pack."

"Why not? Why not? Why not?" said Kitty, opening her eyes wide, and clutching at Varenka's parasol, so as

"Oh, nothing; your father has come, and, besides, they will feel awkward at your helping."

"No, tell me why you don't want me to be often at the Petrovs? You don't want me to why not?"

"Well, there's really nothing of any consequence; only that Mikhail Alexeievich" (that was the artist's name)

"had meant to leave earlier, and now he doesn't want to go away," said Varenka, smiling.

"Well, and for some reason Anna Pavlovna told him that he didn't want to go because you are here. Of

course, that was nonsense; but there was a dispute over it over you. You know how irritable these sick

Kitty, scowling more than ever, kept silent, and Varenka went on speaking alone, trying to soften or soothe

"And it serves me right! And it serves me right!" Kitty cried quickly, snatching the parasol out of Varenka's

Varenka felt inclined to smile, looking at her friend's childish fury, but she was afraid of wounding her.

"It serves me right, because it was all sham; because it was all done on purpose, and not from the heart. What

business had I to interfere with outsiders? And so it's come about that I'm the cause of a quarrel, and that I've

"Oh, it's so idiotic! So hateful! There was no need whatever for me... Nothing but sham!" she said, opening

"To seem better to people, to myself, to God; to deceive everyone. No! Now I won't descend to that. One

"I don't talk about you not about you at all. You're perfection. Yes, yes, I know you're all perfection; but

what am I to do if I'm bad? This would never have been if I weren't bad. So let me be what I am, but not to be

a sham. What have I to do with Anna Pavlovna? Let them go their way, and me go mine. I can't be

"Everything. I can't act except from the heart, and you act from principle. I simply liked you, but you most

Kitty, with a haughty air, without making peace with her friend, took the necklace in a little box from the

"What's the matter? Why are you so red?" her mother and father said to her with one voice.

"She's still here," she thought. "What am I to say to her? Oh, dear! What have I done, what have I said? Why

was I rude to her? What am I to do? What am I to say to her?" thought Kitty, and she stopped in the doorway.

Varenka in her hat and with the parasol in her hands was sitting at a table examining the parasol spring which

"Varenka, forgive me, do forgive me," whispered Kitty, going up to her. "I don't remember what I said. I..."

Peace was made. But with her father's coming all the world in which she had been living was transformed for

Kitty. She did not give up everything she had learned, but she became aware that she had deceived herself in

supposing she could be what she wanted to be. Her eyes were, it seemed, opened; she felt all the difficulty of

maintaining herself without hypocrisy and selfconceit on the pinnacle to which she had wished to mount.

Moreover, she became aware of all the dreariness of the world of sorrow, of sick and dying people, in which

she had been living. The efforts she had made to like it seemed to her intolerable, and she felt a longing to get

back quickly into the fresh air, to Russia, to Ergushovo, where, as she knew from letters, her sister Dolly had

But her affection for Varenka did not wane. Parting Kitty begged her to come to them in Russia.

"Well, then, I shall be married simply for that. Mind now, remember your promise," said Kitty.

The doctor's prediction was fulfilled. Kitty returned home, to Russia, cured. She was not as gay and

thoughtless as before, but she was serene. Her Moscow troubles had become a memory to her.

Sergei Ivanovich Koznishev wanted a rest from mental work, and instead of going abroad as he usually did,

he came toward the end of May to stay in the country with his brother. In his judgment the best sort of life

was a country life. He had come now to enjoy such a life at his brother's. Konstantin Levin was very glad to

have him, especially as he did not expect his brother Nikolai that summer. But in spite of his affection and

respect for Sergei Ivanovich, Konstantin Levin was uncomfortable with his brother in the country. It made

him uncomfortable, and it even annoyed him, to see his brother's attitude to the country. To Konstantin Levin

the country was the background of life that is of pleasures, endeavors, labor; to Sergei Ivanovich the country

meant on one hand rest from work, on the other a valuable antidote to laxness an antidote which he took

with satisfaction and a sense of its salutariness. To Konstantin Levin the country was good because it

afforded a field for labor, of the usefulness of which there could be no doubt; to Sergei Ivanovich the country

was particularly good, because there it was possible and fitting to do nothing. Moreover, Sergei Ivanovich's

attitude toward "the people" rather piqued Konstantin. Sergei Ivanovich used to say that he knew and liked

"the people," and he often talked to the peasants, which he knew how to do without affectation or

condescension, and from every such conversation he would deduce general conclusions in favor of "the

people" and in confirmation of his knowing them. Konstantin Levin did not like such an attitude toward "the

people." To Konstantin "the people" was simply the chief partner in the common labor, and in spite of all the

respect and the love, almost like that of kinship, he had for the peasant (sucked in probably, as he said

himself, with the milk of his peasant nurse), Konstantin as a fellow worker with them, while sometimes

enthusiastic over the vigor, gentleness, and justice of these men, was very often, when their common labors

called for other qualities, exasperated with the peasant for his carelessness, slovenliness, drunkenness and

lying. If he had been asked whether he liked or didn't like "the people," Konstantin Levin would have been

absolutely at a loss what to reply. He liked and did not like "the people," just as he liked and did not like men

in general. Of course, being a goodhearted man, he liked men more than he disliked them, and so too with

"the people." But like or dislike "the people" as something peculiar he could not, not only because he lived

with "the people," and all his interests were bound up with theirs, but also because he regarded himself as a

part of "the people," did not see any peculiar qualities or failings distinguishing himself from "the people,"

and could not contrast himself with them. Moreover, although he had lived so long in the closest relations

with the peasants, as farmer and arbitrator, and what was more, as adviser (the peasants trusted him, and for

forty verstas round they would come to ask his advice), he had no definite views of "the people," and would

have been as much at a loss to answer the question whether he knew "the people" as the question whether he

liked them. For him to say he knew "the people" would have been the same as to say he knew men. He was

continually watching and getting to know people of all sorts, and among them peasants, whom he regarded as

good and interesting people, and he was continually observing new points in them, altering his former views

With Sergei Ivanovich it was quite the contrary. Just as he liked and praised a country life in comparison with

the life he did not like, so too he liked "the people" in contradistinction to the class of men he did not like,

and so too he knew "the people" as something distinct from, and opposed to, men in general. In his

methodical brain there were distinctly formulated certain aspects of peasant life, deduced partly from that life

itself, but chiefly from contrast with other modes of life. He never changed his opinion of "the people" and

In the discussions that arose between the brothers on their views of "the people," Sergei Ivanovich always got

the better of his brother, precisely because Sergei Ivanovich had definite ideas about the peasant his

character, his qualities, and his tastes; Konstantin Levin had no definite and unalterable idea on the subject,

and so in their arguments Konstantin was readily convicted of contradicting himself.

In Sergei Ivanovich's eyes his younger brother was a capital fellow, with his heart in the right place (as he

expressed it in French), but with a mind which, though fairly quick, was too much influenced by the

impressions of the moment, and consequently filled with contradictions. With all the condescension of an

elder brother he sometimes explained to him the true import of things, but he derived little satisfaction from

Konstantin Levin regarded his brother as a man of immense intellect and culture, as generous in the highest

sense of the word, and possessed of a special faculty for working for the public good. But in the depths of his

heart, the older he became, and the more intimately he knew his brother, the more and more frequently the

thought struck him that this faculty of working for the public good, of which he felt himself utterly devoid,

was possibly not so much a quality as a lack of something not a lack of good, honest, noble desires and

tastes, but a lack of vital force, of what is called heart, of that impulse which drives a man to choose some one

out of the innumerable paths of life, and to care only for that one. The better he knew his brother, the more he

noticed that Sergei Ivanovich, and many other people who worked for the public welfare, were not led by any

impulse of the heart to care for the public good, but reasoned from intellectual considerations that it was a

right thing to take an interest in public affairs, and consequently took an interest in them. Levin was

confirmed in this conjecture by observing that his brother did not take questions affecting the public welfare

or the question of the immortality of the soul a bit more to heart than he did chess problems, or the ingenious

Besides this, Konstantin Levin was not at his ease with his brother, because in the country, especially in

summertime, Levin was continually busy with work on the land, and the long summer day was not long

enough for him to get through all he had to do, while Sergei Ivanovich was merely taking a holiday. But

though he was taking a holiday now that is to say, he was doing no writing he was so used to intellectual

activity that he liked to put into concise and eloquent shape the ideas that occurred to him, and liked to have

someone listen to him. His most usual and natural listener was his brother. And so, in spite of the friendliness

and directness of their relations, Konstantin felt an awkwardness in leaving him alone. Sergei Ivanovich liked

to stretch himself on the grass in the sun, and to lie so, basking and chatting lazily.

"You wouldn't believe," he would say to his brother, "what a pleasure this rural laziness is to me. Not an idea

But Konstantin Levin found it dull sitting and listening to him, especially when he knew that while he was

away manure would be carted into fields not plowed ready for it, and heaped up God knows how; and the

shares in the plows would not be screwed in, so that they would come off, and then his men would say the

new plows were a silly invention, and there was nothing like the old wooden plow, and so on.

"Come, you've done enough trudging about in the heat," Sergei Ivanovich would say to him.

"No, I must just run round to the countinghouse for a minute," Levin would answer, and would run off to the

Early in June Agathya Mikhailovna, the old nurse and housekeeper, in carrying to the cellar a jar of

mushrooms she had just pickled, happened to slip, fall and sprain her wrist. The district doctor, a talkative

young medico who had just finished his studies, came to see her. He examined the wrist, said it was not

luxated, bandaged it, and being asked to dinner evidently was delighted at a chance of talking to the

celebrated Sergei Ivanovich Koznishev, and to show his advanced views of things told him all the scandal of

the district, complaining of the poor state into which the Zemstvo affairs had fallen. Sergei Ivanovich listened

attentively, asked him questions, and, roused by a new listener, he talked fluently, uttered a few keen and

weighty observations, respectfully appreciated by the young doctor, and was soon in that animated frame of

mind his brother knew so well, which always, with him, followed a brilliant and animated conversation. After

the departure of the doctor, he wanted to go with a fishing rod to the river. Sergei Ivanovich was fond of

angling, and was, it seemed, proud of being able to care for such a stupid occupation.

Konstantin Levin, whose presence was needed in the plowland and the meadows, had come to take his

It was that time of the year, the turning point of summer, when the crops of the present year are a certainty,

when one begins to think of the sowing for next year, and the mowing is at hand; when the rye is all in ear,

though its ears are still light, not yet full, and it waves in graygreen billows in the wind; when the green

oats, with tufts of yellow grass scattered here and there among it, droop irregularly over the latesown fields;

when the early buckwheat is already out and hiding the ground; when the fallow lands, trodden hard as stone

by the cattle, are halfplowed over, with paths left untouched by the plow; when the odor from the dry

manure heaps carted into the fields mingles at sunset with the smell of meadowsweet, and on the lowlying

lands the preserved meadows are a thick sea of grass waiting for the mowing, with blackened heaps of sorrel

It was the time when there comes a brief pause in the toil of the fields before the beginning of the labors of

harvest every year recurring, every year claiming all the peasant's thews. The crop was a splendid one, and

The brothers had to drive through the woods to reach the meadows. Sergei Ivanovich was all the while

admiring the beauty of the woods, which were a tangled mass of leaves, pointing out to his brother now an

old lime tree on the point of flowering, dark on the shady side, and brightly spotted with yellow stipules, now

the young shoots of this year's saplings brilliant with emerald. Konstantin Levin did not like talking and

hearing about the beauty of nature. Words for him took away the beauty of what he saw. He assented to what

his brother said, but could not help thinking of other things. When they came out of the woods, all his

attention was engrossed by the view of the fallow land on the upland, in parts yellow with grass, in parts

trampled and checkered with furrows, in parts dotted with ridges of manure, and in parts even plowed. A

string of telegas was moving across it. Levin counted the telegas, and was pleased that all that were wanted

had been brought, and at the sight of the meadows his thoughts passed to the mowing. He always felt

something peculiar moving him to the quick at haymaking. On reaching the meadow Levin stopped the horse.

The morning dew was still lying on the thick undergrowth of the grass, and, that he might not get his feet wet,

Sergei Ivanovich asked his brother to drive him in the cabriolet up to the willow tree from which the perch

were caught. Sorry as Konstantin Levin was to crush down his mowing grass, he drove him into the meadow.

The high grass softly turned about the wheels and the horse's legs, leaving its seeds clinging to the wet axles

His brother seated himself under a bush, arranging his tackle, while Levin led the horse away, tied him up

and walked into the vast graygreen sea of grass unstirred by the wind. The silky grass with its ripe seeds

Crossing the meadow, Konstantin Levin came out on the road, and met an old man with a swollen eye,

"No, indeed, Konstantin Mitrich! All we can do to keep our own! This is the second new swarm that has

flown away.... Luckily the lads caught them. They were plowing your field. They unyoked the horses and

"Well, now! Our way's to wait till St. Peter's Day. But you always mow sooner. Well, to be sure, please God,

Sergei Ivanovich had caught nothing, but he was not bored, and seemed in the most cheerful frame of mind.

Levin saw that, stimulated by his conversation with the doctor, he wanted to talk. Levin, on the other hand,

would have liked to get home as soon as possible, to give orders about getting together the mowers for next

day, and to set at rest his doubts about the mowing, which greatly absorbed him.

"Why be in such a hurry? Let's stay a little. But how wet you are! Even though one catches nothing, it's fine.

That's the best thing about every part of sport, that one has to do with nature. How exquisite this steely water

is!" said Sergei Ivanovich. "These riverside banks always remind me of the riddle do you know it? 'The

"Do you know I've been thinking about you," said Sergei Ivanovich. "It's beyond everything what's being

done in the district, according to what this doctor tells me. He's a very intelligent fellow. And as I've told you

before, I tell you again: it's not right for you not to go to the meetings, and to keep out of the Zemstvo affairs

entirely. If decent people won't go into it, of course it's bound to go all wrong. We pay the money, and it all

goes in salaries, and there are no schools, nor district dressers, nor midwives, nor pharmacies nothing."

"Well, I did try, you know," Levin said gently and unwillingly. "I can't! And so there's no help for it."

"But why can't you? I must own I can't make it out. Indifference, incapacity I won't admit; surely it's not

He had hardly grasped what his brother was saying. Looking toward the plowland across the river, he made

out something black, but he could not distinguish whether it was a horse or the bailiff on horseback.

"Why is it you can do nothing? You made an attempt and didn't succeed, as you think, and you give in. How

"Ambition!" said Levin, stung to the quick by his brother's words; "I don't understand. If they'd told me at

college that other people understood the integral calculus, and I didn't, then ambition would have come in.

But in this case one wants first to be convinced that one has certain abilities for this sort of business, and

"What! Do you mean to say it's not of importance?" said Sergei Ivanovich, stung to the quick in his turn by

his brother's considering of no importance anything that interested him, and still more at his obviously paying

"I don't think it important; it does not take hold of me I can't help it," answered Levin, making out that what

he saw was the bailiff, and that the bailiff seemed to be letting the peasants go off the plowed land. They were

"Come, really though," said the elder brother, with a frown on his handsome, clever face, "there's a limit to

everything. It's very well to be original and genuine, and to dislike everything hypocritical I know all about

that; but really, what you're saying either has no meaning, or it has a very wrong meaning. How can you think

it a matter of no importance whether 'the people,' whom you love as you assert..."

"...die without help? The ignorant peasant women starve the children, and the people stagnate in darkness,

and are helpless in the hands of every village clerk, while you have at your disposal a means of helping them,

And Sergei Ivanovich put before him the dilemma: Either you are so undeveloped that you can't see all that

you can do, or you won't sacrifice your ease, your vanity, or whatever it is, to do it.

Konstantin Levin felt that there was no course open to him but to submit, or to confess to a lack of zeal for

"What! Is it impossible, if the money were properly laid out, to provide medical aid?"

"Impossible, as it seems to me.... For the four thousand square verstas of our district, what with our

undersnow waters, and the storms, and the work in the fields, I don't see how it is possible to provide medical

"Oh, well, that's unfair.... I can quote to you thousands of instances.... But the schools, at least?"

"What do you mean? Can there be two opinions of the advantage of education? If it's a good thing for you,

Konstantin Levin felt himself morally pinned against a wall, and so he became heated, and unconsciously

"Perhaps it may all be very good; but why should I worry myself about establishing dispensaries which I shall

never make use of, and schools to which I shall never send my children, to which even the peasants don't

want to send their children, and to which I've no very firm faith that they ought to send them?" said he.

Sergei Ivanovich was for a minute surprised at this unexpected view of the subject; but he promptly made a

He was silent for a little, drew out a hook, threw it in again, and turned to his brother smiling.

"Come, now.... In the first place, the dispensary is needed. We ourselves sent for the district doctor for

"That remains to be proved.... Next, the peasant who can read and write is as a workman of more use and

"No; you can ask anyone you like," Konstantin Levin answered with decision, "the man that can read and

write is much inferior as a workman. And mending the highroads is an impossibility; and as soon as they put

"Still, that's not the point," said Sergei Ivanovich, frowning. He disliked contradiction, and still more,

arguments that were continually skipping from one thing to another, introducing new and disconnected

points, so that there was no knowing to which to reply. "Let me say. Do you admit that education is a benefit

"Yes, I admit it," said Levin without thinking, and he was conscious immediately that he had said what he did

not think. He felt that if he admitted that, it would be proved that he had been talking meaningless rubbish.

How it would be proved he could not tell, but he knew that this would inevitably be logically proved to him,

"If you admit that it is a benefit," said Sergei Ivanovich, "then, as an honest man, you cannot help caring

"But I still do not admit this movement to be good," said Konstantin Levin, reddening.

"Well, supposing that is so," said Levin, though he did not suppose so at all, "supposing that is so, still I don't

"No; since we are talking, explain it to me from the philosophical point of view," said Levin.

"I can't see where philosophy comes in," said Sergei Ivanovich, in a tone, Levin fancied, as though he did not

"I'll tell you, then," he said with heat, "I imagine the mainspring of all our actions is, after all, selfinterest.

Now in the Zemstvo institutions I, as a nobleman, see nothing that could conduce to my prosperity. The roads

are not better and could not be better; my horses carry me well enough over bad ones. Doctors and

dispensaries are of no use to me. A justice of the peace is of no use to me I never appeal to him, and never

shall appeal to him. The schools are of no good to me, but positively harmful, as I told you. For me the

Zemstvo institutions simply mean the liability of paying eighteen kopecks for every dessiatina, of driving into

the town, sleeping with bedbugs, and listening to all sorts of idiocy and blather, and selfinterest offers me no

"Excuse me," Sergei Ivanovich interposed with a smile, "selfinterest did not induce us to work for the

"No!" Konstantin Levin broke in with still greater heat; "the emancipation of the serfs was a different matter.

There selfinterest did come in. One longed to throw off that yoke that crushed us all the decent people

among us. But to be a member of the Zemstvo and discuss how many street cleaners are needed, and how

sewers shall be constructed in the town in which I don't live to serve on a jury and try a peasant who has

stolen a flitch of bacon, and listen for six hours at a stretch to all sorts of jabber from the counsel for the

defense and the prosecution, and the president crossexamining my old simpleton Alioshka: 'Do you admit,

Konstantin Levin had warmed to his subject, and began mimicking the president and the halfwitted

"I simply mean to say that those rights that touch me... my interest, I shall always defend to the best of my

ability; that when raids were made on us students, and the police read our letters, I was ready to defend those

rights to the utmost, to defend my rights to education and freedom. I can understand compulsory military

service, which affects my children, my brothers, and myself I am ready to deliberate on what concerns me;

but deliberating on how to spend forty thousand roubles of Zemstvo's money, or judging the halfwitted

Konstantin Levin spoke as though the floodgates of his speech had burst open. Sergei Ivanovich smiled.

"But tomorrow it'll be your turn to be tried; would it have suited your tastes better to be tried in the old

"I'm not going to be tried. I shan't murder anybody, and I've no need of it. Well, I tell you what," he went on,

flying off again to a subject quite beside the point, "our district selfgovernment and all the rest of it it's just

like the birch saplings we stick in the ground, as we would do it on Trinity Day, to look like a copse which

has grown up of itself in Europe, and I can't gush over these birch saplings and believe in them."

Sergei Ivanovich merely shrugged his shoulders, as though to express his wonder how the birch saplings had

come into their argument at that point, though he did really understand at once what his brother meant.

But Konstantin Levin wanted to justify himself for the failing, of which he was conscious, of a lack of zeal

"I imagine," Konstantin said, "that no sort of activity is likely to be lasting if it is not founded on

selfinterest that's a universal principle, a philosophical principle," he said, repeating the word

"philosophical" with determination, as though wishing to show that he had as much right as anyone else to

Sergei Ivanovich smiled. "He too has a philosophy of his own at the service of his natural tendencies," he

"Come, you'd better let philosophy alone," he said. "The chief problem of the philosophy of all ages consists

precisely in finding that indispensable connection which exists between individual and social interests. But

that's not to the point; what is to the point is a correction I must make in your comparison. The birches are not

simply stuck in, but some are sown and some are planted, and one must deal carefully with them. It's only

those peoples that have an intuitive sense of what's of importance and significance in their institutions, and

know how to value them, who have a future before them it's only those peoples that one can truly call

And Sergei Ivanovich carried the subject into the regions of philosophical history where Konstantin Levin

"As for your dislike of it excuse my saying so that's simply our Russian sloth and old serfowners' ways,

Konstantin was silent. He felt himself vanquished on all sides, but he felt at the same time that what he

wanted to say was unintelligible to his brother. Only he could not make up his mind whether it was

unintelligible because he was not capable of expressing his meaning clearly, or because his brother would not

or could not understand him. But he did not pursue the speculation, and, without replying, he fell to musing

Sergei Ivanovich wound up the last line, unhitched the horse, and they drove off.

The personal matter that absorbed Levin during his conversation with his brother was this. Once, the year

previous, he had gone to look at the mowing, and being made very angry by the bailiff he had had recourse to

his favorite means for regaining his temper he had taken a scythe from a peasant and begun mowing.

He liked the work so much that he had several times tried his hand at mowing since. He had cut the whole of

the meadow in front of his house, and this year, ever since the early spring, he had cherished a plan for

mowing for whole days together with the peasants. Ever since his brother's arrival he had been in doubt as to

whether to mow or not. He was loath to leave his brother alone all day long, and he was afraid his brother

would laugh at him about it. But as he drove into the meadow, and recalled the sensations of mowing, he

came near deciding that he would go mowing. After the irritating discussion with his brother, he pondered

"I must have physical exercise, or my temper'll certainly be ruined," he thought, and he determined he would

go mowing, however awkward he might feel about it with his brother or the peasants.

Toward evening Konstantin Levin went to his countinghouse, gave directions as to the work to be done, and

sent about the village to summon the mowers for the morrow, to cut the hay in Kalinov meadow, the largest

"And send my scythe, please, to Tit, for him to set it, and bring it round tomorrow. I may do some mowing

"I'm awfully fond of it. I sometimes mow myself with the peasants, and tomorrow I want to try mowing the

"It's splendid as exercise, only you'll hardly be able to stand it," said Sergei Ivanovich, without a shade of

"I've tried it. It's hard work at first, but you get into it. I dare say I shall manage to keep it up...."

"Oh, so that's it! But tell me, how do the peasants look at it? I suppose they laugh in their sleeves at their

"No, I don't think so; but it's so delightful, and at the same time such hard work, that one has no time to think

"But how will you do about dining with them? To send you a bottle of Lafitte and roast turkey out there

Next morning Konstantin Levin got up earlier than usual, but he was detained giving directions on the farm,

and when he reached the mowing grass the mowers were already at their second swath.

From the uplands he could get a view of the shaded cut part of the meadow below, with the grayish swaths

and the black heaps of coats, taken off by the mowers at the place from which they had started cutting.

Gradually, as he rode toward the meadow, the peasants came into sight, some in coats, some in their shirts,

mowing, one behind another in a long string, each swinging his scythe in his own way. He counted fortytwo

They were mowing slowly over the uneven, lowlying parts of the meadow, where there had been an old

dam. Levin recognized some of his own men. Here was old Iermil in a very long white smock, bending

forward to swing a scythe; there was a young fellow, Vaska, who had been a coachman of Levin's, taking

every swath with a wide sweep. Here, too, was Tit, Levin's preceptor in the art of mowing, a thin little

peasant. He went on ahead, and cut his wide swath without bending, as though playing with his scythe.

Levin got off his mare, and fastening her up by the roadside went to meet Tit, who took a second scythe out

"It's ready, sir; it's like a razor it cuts of itself," said Tit, taking off his cap with a smile and giving him the

Levin took the scythe, and began trying it. As they finished their swaths, the mowers, hot and goodhumored,

came out into the road one after another, and smirking, greeted the master. They all stared at him, but no one

made any remark, till a tall old man, with a wrinkled, beardless face, wearing a short sheepskin jacket, came

"Look'ee now, master, once take hold of the rope, there's no letting go!" he said, and Levin heard smothered

"I'll try not to let it go," he said, taking his stand behind Tit, and waiting for the time to begin.

Tit made room, and Levin started behind him. The grass was short close to the road, and Levin, who had not

done any mowing for a long while, and was disconcerted by the eyes fastened upon him, cut badly for the

first moments, though he swung his scythe vigorously. Behind him he heard voices:

"It's not set right; handle's too high; see how he has to stoop to it," said one.

"Never mind, he'll get on all right," the old man resumed. "See, he's made a start.... You swing it too wide,

you'll tire yourself out.... The master, sure, does his best for himself! But see the grass missed out! For such

The grass became lusher, and Levin, listening without answering, followed Tit, trying to do the best he could.

They moved a hundred paces. Tit kept moving on, without stopping, nor showing the slightest weariness, but

Levin was already beginning to fear he would not be able to keep it up so tired was he.

He felt as he swung his scythe that he was at the very end of his strength, and was making up his mind to ask

Tit to stop. But at that very moment Tit stopped of his own accord, and, stooping down, picked up some

grass, rubbed his scythe, and began whetting it. Levin straightened himself, and drawing a deep breath looked

round. Behind him came a peasant, and he too was evidently tired, for he stopped at once without waiting to

mow up to Levin, and began whetting his scythe. Tit sharpened his scythe and Levin's, and they went on.

The next time it was just the same. Tit moved on with sweep after sweep of his scythe, without stopping or

showing signs of weariness. Levin followed him, trying not to get left behind, and he found it harder and

harder: the moment came when he felt he had no strength left, but at that very moment Tit stopped and

So they mowed the first row. And this long row seemed particularly hard work to Levin; but when the end

was reached, and Tit, shouldering his scythe, began with deliberate stride returning on the tracks left by his

heels in the cut grass, and Levin walked back in the same way over the space he had cut, in spite of the sweat

that ran in streams over his face and fell in drops down his nose, and drenched his back as though he had been

soaked in water, he felt very happy. What delighted him particularly was that now he knew he would be able

His pleasure was only disturbed by his swath not being well cut. "I will swing less with my arm and more

with my whole body," he thought, comparing Tit's swath, which looked as if it had been cut along a

The first swath, as Levin noticed, Tit had mowed especially quickly, probably wishing to put his master to

the test, and the swath happened to be a long one. The next swaths were easier, but still Levin had to strain

He thought of nothing, wished for nothing, save not to be left behind the peasants, and to do his work as well

as possible. He heard nothing save the swish of scythes, and saw before him Tit's upright figure mowing

away, the crescentshaped curve of the cut grass, the grass and flowers slowly and rhythmically falling

before the blade of his scythe, and ahead of him the end of the swath, where would come the rest.

Suddenly, in the midst of his toil, without understanding what it was or whence it came, he felt a pleasant

sensation of chill on his hot, moist shoulders. He glanced at the sky in the interval for whetting the scythes. A

heavy, lowering storm cloud had blown up, and big raindrops were falling. Some of the peasants went to their

coats and put them on; others just like Levin himself merely shrugged their shoulders, enjoying the

Another swath, and yet another swath followed long swaths and short swaths, with good grass and with

poor grass. Levin lost all sense of time, and could not have told whether it were late or early now. A change

began to come over his work, which gave him immense satisfaction. In the midst of his toil there were

moments during which he forgot what he was doing, and it all came easy to him, and at those same moments

his swath was almost as smooth and well cut as Tit's. But as soon as he recollected what he was doing, and

began trying to do better, he was at once conscious of all the difficulty of his task, and the swath was badly

On finishing yet another swath he would have gone back to the top of the meadow again to begin the next,

but Tit stopped, and going up to the old man said something in a low voice to him. They both looked at the

sun. "What are they talking about, and why doesn't he go back?" thought Levin, without guessing that the

peasants had been mowing no less than four hours without stopping, and that it was time for their lunch.

Levin gave his scythe to Tit, and, together with the peasants, who were crossing the long stretch of mown

grass, slightly sprinkled with rain, to get their bread from the heap of coats, he went toward his horse. Only

then did he suddenly awake to the fact that he had been wrong about the weather and that the rain was

"Not a bit of it, sir; mow in the rain, and you'll rake in fine weather!" said the old man.

Sergei Ivanovich was just getting up. When he had drunk his coffee, Levin rode back again to the mowing

After lunch Levin was not in the same place in the string of mowers as before, but stood between the old man

who had accosted him jocosely, and now invited him to be his neighbor, and a young peasant, who had only

The old man, holding himself erect, moved in front, with his feet turned out, taking long, regular strides, and

with a precise and regular action which seemed to cost him no more effort than swinging one's arms in

walking, as though it were in play, he laid down the high, even swath of grass. It was as though it were not he

Behind Levin came the lad Mishka. His comely, youthful face, with a twist of fresh grass bound round his

hair, was all working with effort; but whenever anyone looked at him he smiled. He would clearly have died

Levin kept between them. In the very heat of the day the mowing did not seem such hard work to him. The

perspiration with which he was drenched cooled him, while the sun, that burned his back, his head, and his

arms, bare to the elbow, gave a vigor and dogged energy to his labor; and more and more often now came

those moments of unconsciousness, when it was possible not to think of what one was doing. The scythe cut

of itself. These were happy moments. Still more delightful were the moments when they reached the stream

where the swaths ended, and the old man rubbed his scythe with the wet, thick grass, rinsed its blade in the

fresh water of the stream, ladled out a little in a whetstone case, and offered Levin a drink.

And truly Levin had never drunk any liquor as good as this warm water with green bits floating in it, and a

taste of rust from the tin whetstone case. And immediately after this came the delicious, slow saunter, with

his hand on the scythe, during which he could wipe away the streaming sweat, take deep breaths of air, and

look about at the long string of mowers, and at what was happening around in the forest and the field.

The longer Levin mowed, the oftener he felt the moments of unconsciousness in which it seemed that it was

not his hands which swung the scythe, but that the scythe was moving together with itself a body full of life

and consciousness of its own; and as though by magic, without thinking of it, the work turned out regular and

It was only hard work when he had to break off the motion, which had become unconscious, and to think;

when he had to mow round a hummock or an unweeded tuft of sorrel. The old man did this easily. When a

hummock came he changed his action, and at one time with the heel, and at another with the tip of his scythe,

clipped the hummock round both sides with short strokes. And while he did this he kept looking about and

watching what came into his view: at one moment he picked a wild berry and ate it or offered it to Levin,

then he flung away a twig with the blade of the scythe, then he looked at a quail's nest, from which the bird

flew just under the scythe, or caught a snake that crossed his path, and lifting it on the scythe as though on a

For both Levin and the young peasant behind him, such changes of position were difficult. Both of them,

repeating over and over again the same strained movement, were in a perfect frenzy of toil, and were

incapable of shifting their position and at the same time watching what was before them.

Levin did not notice how time was passing. If he had been asked how long he had been working he would

have said half an hour yet it was getting on to dinnertime. As they were walking back over the cut grass, the

old man called Levin's attention to the little girls and boys who were coming from different directions, hardly

visible through the long grass, and along the road toward the mowers, carrying sacks of bread that stretched

"Look'ee at the little doodlebugs crawling!" he said, pointing to them, and he shaded his eyes with his hand to

"Come, master, dinnertime!" he said decidedly. And on reaching the stream the mowers moved off across the

swaths toward their pile of coats, where the children who had brought their dinners were sitting waiting for

them. The peasants gathered those who came from afar under their telegas, those who lived near under a

All constraint with the master had disappeared long ago. The peasants got ready for dinner. Some washed, the

young lads bathed in the stream, others made a place comfortable for a rest, untied their sacks of bread, and

uncovered the pitchers of kvass. The old man crumbled up some bread in a cup, stirred it with the handle of a

spoon, poured water on it from his whetstone case, broke up some more bread, and having seasoned it with

The sop was so good that Levin gave up the idea of going home for dinner. He ate with the old man, and

talked to him about his family affairs, taking the keenest interest in them, and told him about his own affairs

and all the circumstances that could be of interest to the old man. He felt much nearer to him than to his

brother, and could not help smiling at the affection he felt for this man. When the old man got up again, said

his prayer, and lay down under a bush, putting some grass under his head for a pillow, Levin did the same,

and, in spite of the clinging flies that were so persistent in the sunshine, and the midges that tickled his hot

face and body, he fell asleep at once and only waked when the sun had passed to the other side of the bush

and reached him. The old man had been awake a long while, and was sitting up whetting the scythes of the

Levin looked about him and hardly recognized the place, everything was so changed. The immense stretch of

meadow had been mown and was sparkling with a peculiar fresh brilliance, with its lines of already

sweetsmelling grass in the slanting rays of the evening sun. And the bushes about the river, mowed around,

and the river itself, not visible before, now gleaming, like steel in its bends, and the moving, ascending

peasants, and the sharp wall of grass of the unmown part of the meadow, and the hawks hovering over the

stripped meadow all was perfectly new. Raising himself, Levin began considering how much had been cut

The work done was exceptionally great for fortytwo men. They had cut the whole of the big meadow, which

had, in the years of corvee, taken thirty scythes two days to mow. Only the corners remained to do, where the

swaths were short. But Levin felt a longing to get as much mowing done that day as possible, and was vexed

with the sun sinking so quickly in the sky. He felt no weariness; all he wanted was to get his work done more

"Could we cut the Mashkin Upland too? what do you think?" he said to the old man.

At the afternoon rest, when they were sitting down again, and those who smoked had lighted their pipes, the

"Why not cut it? Come on, Tit! We'll look sharp! We can eat at night. Come on!" voices cried out, and eating

"Get along, get along!" said the old man, hurrying after him and easily overtaking him, "I'll mow thee down,

And young and old mowed away, as though they were racing with one another. But however fast they

worked, they did not spoil the grass, and the swaths were laid just as neatly and exactly. The little piece left

uncut in the corner was mown in five minutes. The last of the mowers were just ending their swaths while the

foremost snatched up their coats onto their shoulders, and crossed the road toward the Mashkin Upland.

The sun was already sinking among the trees when they went with their jingling whetstone cases into the

wooded ravine of the Mashkin Upland. The grass was up to their waists in the middle of the hollow, lush,

tender, and feathery, spotted here and there among the trees with wild heartsease.

After a brief consultation whether to take the swaths lengthwise or diagonally Prokhor Iermilin, also a

doughty mower, a huge, blackhaired peasant, went on ahead. He went up to the top, turned back again and

started mowing, and they all proceeded to form in line behind him, going downhill through the hollow and

uphill right up to the edge of the forest. The sun sank behind the forest. The dew was falling by now; the

mowers were in the sun only on the hillside, but below, where a mist was rising, and on the opposite side,

The spicily fragrant grass cut with a succulent sound, was at once laid in high swaths. The mowers from all

sides, brought closer together in the short swath, kept urging one another on to the sound of jingling

whetstone cases, and clanging scythes, and the hiss of the whetstones sharpening them, and goodhumored

Levin still kept between the young peasant and the old man. The old man, who had put on his short sheepskin

jacket, was just as goodhumored, jocose, and free in his movements. Among the trees they were continually

cutting with their scythes the socalled "birch mushrooms," swollen fat in the succulent grass. But the old

man bent down every time he came across a mushroom, picked it up and put it in his bosom. "Another

Easy as it was to mow the wet, lush grass, it was hard work going up and down the steep sides of the ravine.

But this did not trouble the old man. Swinging his scythe just as ever, and moving his feet in their big, plaited

bast sandals, with firm short steps, he climbed slowly up the steep place, and though his breeches hanging out

below his smock, and his whole frame, trembled with effort, he did not miss one blade of grass or one

mushroom on his way, and kept making jokes with the peasants and Levin. Levin walked after him and often

thought he must fall, as he climbed with a scythe up a steep hillock, where it would have been hard work to

clamber even without the scythe. But he climbed up and did what he had to do. He felt as though some

The Mashkin Upland was mown, the last swaths finished, the peasants had put on their coats and were gaily

trudging home. Levin got on his horse, and, parting regretfully from the peasants, rode homeward. On the

hillside he looked back; he could not see them in the mist that had risen from the valley; he could only hear

their rough, goodhumored voices, their laughter, and the sound of clanking scythes.

Sergei Ivanovich had long ago finished dinner, and was drinking iced lemonade in his own room, looking

through the reviews and papers which he had just received by post, when Levin rushed into the room, talking

merrily, with his wet and matted hair sticking to his forehead, and his back and chest grimed and moist.

"We mowed the whole meadow! Oh, it is fine, wonderful! And how have you been getting on?" said Levin,

"Dear me! What you look like!" said Sergei Ivanovich, for the first moment looking round with some

dissatisfaction. "And the door do shut the door!" he cried. "You must have let in a dozen at least."

Sergei Ivanovich could not endure flies, and in his own room he never opened the window except at night,

"Not one, on my honor. But if I have, I'll catch them. You wouldn't believe what a pleasure mowing is! How

"Very well. But have you really been mowing the whole day? I expect you're as hungry as a wolf. Kouzma

"No, I don't feel hungry even. I had something to eat there. But I'll go and wash."

"Yes, go along, go along, and I'll come to you directly," said Sergei Ivanovich, shaking his head as he looked

at his brother. "Go along, make haste," he added smiling, and, gathering up his books, he prepared to go too.

He, too, felt suddenly goodhumored and disinclined to leave his brother's side. "But what did you do while

"Rain? Why, there was scarcely a drop. I'll come directly. So you had a good day too? That's firstrate." And

Five minutes later the brothers met in the dining room. Although it seemed to Levin that he was not hungry,

and he sat down to dinner simply so as not to hurt Kouzma's feelings, yet when he began to eat the dinner

"Oh, by the way, there's a letter for you," said he. "Kouzma, bring it from below, please. And mind you shut

The letter was from Oblonsky. Levin read it aloud. Oblonsky wrote to him from Peterburg: "I have had a

letter from Dolly; she's at Ergushovo, and everything seems going wrong there. Do ride over and see her,

please; help her with advice; you know all about it. She will be so glad to see you. She's quite alone, poor

"That's capital! I will certainly ride over to her," said Levin. "Or we'll go together. She's such a good woman,

"Thirty verstas. Or perhaps forty. But a capital road. It will be a capital drive."

The sight of his younger brother's appearance had immediately put him in a good humor.

"Well, you have an appetite!" he said, looking at his darkred, sunburned face and neck bent over the plate.

"Splendid! You can't imagine what an effective remedy it is for every sort of foolishness. I want to enrich

"Yes, it ought to be tried. I had meant to come to the mowing to look at you, but it was so unbearably hot that

I got no further than the forest. I sat there a little, and went on by the forest to the village, met your old nurse,

and sounded her as to the peasant's view of you. As far as I can make out, they don't approve of this. She said:

'It's not a gentleman's work.' Altogether, I fancy that in the people's ideas there are very clear and definite

notions of certain, as they call it, 'gentlemanly' lines of action. And they don't sanction the gentlefolk's

"Maybe so; but anyway, it's a pleasure such as I have never known in my life. And there's no harm in it, you

know. Is there?" answered Levin. "I can't help it if they don't like it. Though I do believe it's all right. Eh?"

"Quite satisfied. We cut the whole meadow. And I made friends with such a splendid old man there! You

"Well, so you're satisfied with your day. And so am I. First, I solved two chess problems, and one a very

pretty one a pawn opening. I'll show it to you. And then I thought over our conversation of yesterday."

"Eh! Our conversation of yesterday?" said Levin, blissfully dropping his eyelids and drawing deep breaths

after finishing his dinner, and absolutely incapable of recalling what their conversation of yesterday had been

"I think you are partly right. Our difference of opinion amounts to this: that you make the mainspring

selfinterest, while I contend that interest in the common weal is bound to exist in every man of a certain

degree of advancement. Possibly you are right too that action founded on material interest would be more

desirable. You are altogether, as the French say, too primesautiere a nature; you must have intense,

Levin listened to his brother and did not understand a single word, and did not want to understand. He was

only afraid his brother might ask him some question which would make it evident he had not heard.

"So that's what I think it is, my dear boy," said Sergei Ivanovich, touching him on the shoulder.

"Yes, of course. But, do you know? I won't stand up for my view," answered Levin, with a guilty, childlike

smile. "Whatever was it I was disputing about?" he wondered. "Of course, I'm right, and he's right, and it's all

firstrate. Only I must go round to the countinghouse and see to things." He got up, stretching and smiling.

"If you want to go out, let's go together," he said, disinclined to be parted from his brother, who seemed

positively breathing out freshness and energy. "Come, we'll go to the countinghouse, if you have to go there."

"Oh, heavens!" shouted Levin, so loudly that Sergei Ivanovich was quite frightened.

"How's Agathya Mikhailovna's hand?" said Levin, slapping himself on the head. "I'd positively forgotten

"Well, anyway, I'll run down to her. Before you've time to get your hat on, I'll be back."

Stepan Arkadyevich had gone to Peterburg to perform the most natural and essential official duty so

familiar to everyone in the government service, though incomprehensible to outsiders that duty but for

which one could hardly be in government service: of reminding the ministry of his existence; and having, for

the due performance of this rite, taken all the available cash from home, was gaily and agreeably spending his

days at the races and in the summer villas. Meanwhile Dolly and the children had moved into the country, to

cut down expenses as much as possible. She had gone to Ergushovo, the estate that had been her dowry, and

the one where in spring the forest had been sold. It was nearly fifty verstas from Levin's Pokrovskoe.

The big old house at Ergushovo had been pulled down long ago, and the old Prince had had the wing done up

and added to. Twenty years before, when Dolly was a child, the wing had been roomy and comfortable,

though, like all wings, it stood sideways to the entrance avenue, and to the south. But by now this wing was

old and dilapidated. When Stepan Arkadyevich had gone down in the spring to sell the forest, Dolly had

begged him to look over the house and order what repairs might be needed. Stepan Arkadyevich, like an

unfaithful husbands indeed, was very solicitous for his wife's comfort, and he had himself looked over the

house, and given instructions about everything that he considered necessary. What he considered necessary

was to cover all the furniture with new cretonne, to put up curtains, to weed the garden, to make a little bridge

on the pond, and to plant flowers. But he forgot many other essential matters, the want of which greatly

In spite of Stepan Arkadyevich's efforts to be an attentive father and husband, he never could keep in his

mind that he had a wife and children. He had bachelor tastes, and it was in accordance with them that he

shaped his life. On his return to Moscow he informed his wife with pride that everything was ready, that the

house would be a pretty toy, and that he most certainly advised her to go. His wife's staying away in the

country was very agreeable to Stepan Arkadyevich from every point of view: it did the children good, it

decreased expenses, and it left him more at liberty. Darya Alexandrovna regarded staying in the country for

the summer as essential for the children, especially for the little girl, who had not succeeded in regaining her

strength after the scarlatina, and also as a means of escaping the petty humiliations, the little bills owing to

the wood merchant, the fishmonger, the shoemaker, which made her miserable. Besides this, she was pleased

to go away to the country because she was dreaming of getting her sister Kitty to stay with her there. Kitty

was to be back from abroad in the middle of the summer, and bathing had been prescribed for her. Kitty

wrote that no prospect was so alluring as to spend the summer with Dolly at Ergushovo, full of childhood

The first days of her existence in the country were very hard for Dolly. She used to stay in the country as a

child, and the impression she had retained of it was that the country was a refuge from all the unpleasantness

of the town, that life there, though not luxurious Dolly could easily make up her mind to that was cheap

and comfortable; that there was plenty of everything, everything was cheap, everything could be got, and

children were happy. But now, coming to the country as the head of a family, she perceived that it was all

The day after their arrival there was a heavy fall of rain and in the night the water came through in the

corridor and in the nursery, so that the beds had to be carried into the drawing room. There was no

kitchenmaid to be found; of the nine cows, it appeared from the words of the cowherd woman that some were

about to calve, others had just calved, others were old, and others again harduddered; there was neither

butter nor milk enough even for the children. There were no eggs. They could get no fowls; old, purplish,

stringy roosters were all they had for roasting and boiling. Impossible to get women to scrub the floors all

were potato hoeing. Driving was out of the question, because one of the horses was restive, and bolted in the

shafts. There was no place where they could bathe; the whole of the riverbank was trampled by the cattle and

open to the road; even walks were impossible, for the cattle strayed into the garden through a gap in the

hedge, and there was one terrible bull, who bellowed, and therefore might be expected to gore somebody.

There were no proper cupboards for their clothes; what cupboards there were either would not close at all, or

flew open whenever anyone passed by them. There were no pots and kettles; there was no boiler in the

Finding instead of peace and rest all these, from her point of view, fearful calamities, Darya Alexandrovna

was at first in despair. She exerted herself to the utmost, felt the hopelessness of the position, and was every

instant suppressing the tears that started into her eyes. The bailiff, a retired quartermaster, whom Stepan

Arkadyevich had taken a fancy to and had appointed bailiff on account of his handsome and respectful

appearance as a hall porter, showed no sympathy for Darya Alexandrovna's woes. He would say respectfully,

"Nothing can be done, the peasants are such a wretched lot," and did nothing to help her.

The position seemed hopeless. But in the Oblonskys' household, as in all families indeed, there was one

inconspicuous but most valuable and useful person Matriona Philimonovna. She soothed her mistress,

assured her that everything would come round (it was her expression, and Matvei had borrowed it from her),

She had immediately made friends with the bailiff's wife, and on the very first day she drank tea with her and

the bailiff under the acacias, and reviewed all the circumstances of the position. Very soon Matriona

Philimonovna had established her club, so to say, under the acacias, and there it was, in this club, consisting

of the bailiff's wife, the village elder, and the countinghouse clerk, that the difficulties of existence were

gradually smoothed away, and in a week's time everything actually had come round. The roof was mended, a

kitchenmaid was found a crony of the village elder's hens were bought, the cows began giving milk, the

garden hedge was stopped up with stakes, the carpenter made a mangle, hooks were put in the cupboards, and

they ceased to fly open spontaneously and an ironing board covered with army cloth was placed across from

the arm of a chair to the chest of drawers, and there was a smell of flatirons in the maids' room.

"Just see, now, and you were quite in despair," said Matriona Philimonovna, pointing to the ironing board.

They even rigged up a bathing shed of straw hurdles. Lily began to bathe, and Darya Alexandrovna began to

realize, if only in part, her expectations, if not of a peaceful, at least of a comfortable, life in the country.

Peaceful with six children Darya Alexandrovna could not be. One would fall ill, another might easily become

so, a third would be without something necessary, a fourth would show symptoms of a bad disposition, and

so on. Rare indeed were the brief periods of peace. But these cares and anxieties were for Darya

Alexandrovna the sole happiness possible. Had it not been for them, she would have been left alone to brood

over her husband who did not love her. And besides, hard though it was for the mother to bear the dread of

illness, the illnesses themselves, and the grief of seeing signs of evil propensities in her children the children

themselves were even now repaying her in small joys for her pains. Those joys were so small that they passed

unnoticed, like gold in sand, and at bad moments she could see nothing but the pain, nothing but sand; but

Now, in the solitude of the country, she began to be more and more frequently aware of those joys. Often,

looking at them, she would make every possible effort to persuade herself that she was mistaken, that she as a

mother was partial to her children. All the same, she could not help saying to herself that she had charming

children, all six of them in different ways, but a set of children such as is not often to be met with and she

Toward the end of May, when everything had been more or less satisfactorily arranged, she received her

husband's answer to her complaints of the disorganized state of things in the country. He wrote begging her

forgiveness for not having thought of everything before, and promised to come down at the first chance. This

chance did not present itself, and till the beginning of June Darya Alexandrovna stayed alone in the country.

On the Sunday in St. Peter's week Darya Alexandrovna drove to mass to have all her children take the

sacrament. Darya Alexandrovna in her intimate, philosophical talks with her sister, her mother, and her

friends very often astonished them by the freedom of her views in regard to religion. She had a strange

religion, all her own, of the transmigration of souls, in which she had firm faith, troubling herself little about

the dogmas of the Church. But in her family she was strict in carrying out all that was required by the

Church and not merely in order to set an example, but with all her heart. The fact that the children had not

been at the sacrament for nearly a year worried her extremely, and with the full approval and sympathy of

Matriona Philimonovna she decided that this should take place now, in the summer.

For several days before Darya Alexandrovna was busily deliberating on how to dress all the children. Frocks

were made, or altered and washed, seams and flounces were let out, buttons were sewn on and ribbons got

ready. One dress, Tania's, which the English governess had undertaken, cost Darya Alexandrovna much loss

of temper. The English governess in altering it had made the seams in the wrong place, had taken up the

sleeves too much, and altogether spoiled the dress. It was so narrow on Tania's shoulders that it was quite

painful to look at her. But Matriona Philimonovna had the happy thought of putting in gussets, and adding a

little shouldercape. The dress was set right, but there was nearly a quarrel with the English governess. In the

morning, however, all was happily arranged, and about nine o'clock the time at which they had asked the

priest to wait for them for the mass the children in their new dresses stood with beaming faces on the step

In the carriage, instead of the restive Raven, they had harnessed, thanks to the representations of Matriona

Philimonovna, the bailiff's horse, Brownie, and Darya Alexandrovna, delayed by anxiety over her own attire,

Darya Alexandrovna had done her hair, and dressed with care and excitement. In the old days she had dressed

for her own sake, to look pretty and be admired; later on, as she got older, dress became more and more

distasteful to her; she saw that she was losing her good looks. But now she began to feel pleasure and interest

in dress again. Now she did not dress for her own sake, nor for the sake of her own beauty, but simply that, as

the mother of those exquisite creatures, she might not spoil the general effect. And looking at herself for the

last time in the looking glass she was satisfied with herself. She looked well. Not as well as she wished to

In the church there was no one but the peasants, the servants, and their womenfolk. But Darya Alexandrovna

saw, or fancied she saw, the sensation produced by her children and herself. The children were not only

beautiful to look at in their smart little dresses, but they were charming in the way they behaved. Aliosha, it is

true, did not stand quite correctly; he kept turning round, trying to look at his little jacket from behind; but all

the same he was wonderfully sweet. Tania behaved like a grownup person, and looked after the little ones.

And the smallest, Lily, was bewitching in her naive astonishment at everything, and it was difficult not to

smile when, after taking the sacrament, she said in English, "Please, some more."

On the way home the children felt that something solemn had happened, and were very sedate.

Everything went happily at home too; but at lunch Grisha began whistling, and, what was worse, was

disobedient to the English governess, and was forbidden to have any tart. Darya Alexandrovna would not

have let things go as far as the punishment on such a day had she been present; but she had to support the

English governess's authority, and she upheld her decision that Grisha should have no tart. This rather spoiled

Grisha cried, declaring that Nikolinka had whistled too, yet was not punished, and that he wasn't crying for

the tart he didn't care but at being unjustly treated. This was really too tragic, and Darya Alexandrovna

made up her mind to persuade the English governess to forgive Grisha, and she went to speak to her. But on

her way, as she passed the drawing room, she beheld a scene, filling her heart with such pleasure that the

The culprit was sitting at the window in the corner of the drawing room; beside him was standing Tania with

a plate. On the pretext of wanting to give some dinner to her dolls, she had asked the governess's permission

to take her share of tart to the nursery, and had taken it instead to her brother. While still weeping over the

injustice of his punishment, he was eating the tart, and kept saying through his sobs, "Eat yourself; let's eat it

Tania had at first been under the influence of her pity for Grisha, then of a sense of her noble action, and tears

On catching sight of their mother they were dismayed, but, looking into her face, they saw they were not

doing wrong. They burst out laughing, and, with their mouths full of tart, they began wiping their smiling lips

"Mercy! Your new white frock Tania! Grisha!" said their mother, trying to save the frock, but with tears in

The new frocks were taken off, and orders were given for the little girls to have their blouses put on, and the

boys their old jackets, and the wide droshky to be harnessed with Brownie, to the bailiff's annoyance, again

in the shafts to drive out for mushroom picking and bathing. A roar of delighted shrieks arose in the nursery,

They gathered a whole basketful of mushrooms; even Lily found a birch mushroom. It had always happened

before that Miss Hoole found them and pointed them out to her; but this time she found a big one quite by

herself, and there was a general scream of delight; "Lily has found a mushroom!"

Then they reached the river, put the horses under the birch trees, and went to the bathing place. The

coachman, Terentii, hitched the horses, who kept whisking away the horseflies, to a tree, and, treading down

the grass, lay down in the shade of a birch and smoked his shag, while the neverceasing shrieks of delight of

Though it was hard work to look after all the children and restrain their pranks, though it was difficult, too, to

keep one's head and not mix up all the stockings, little breeches, and shoes for the different legs, and to undo

and to do up again all the tapes and buttons, Darya Alexandrovna, who had always liked bathing herself, and

believed it to be very good for the children, enjoyed nothing so much as bathing with all the children. To go

over all those fat little legs, pulling on their stockings, to take in her arms and dip those little naked bodies,

and to hear their screams of delight and alarm, to see the breathless faces with wideopen, scared, and happy

When half the children had been dressed, some peasant women in holiday dress, out picking herbs, came up

to the bathing shed and stopped shyly. Matriona Philimonovna called one of them and handed her a sheet and

a shirt that had dropped into the water for her to dry them, and Darya Alexandrovna began to talk to the

women. At first they laughed behind their hands and did not understand her questions, but soon they grew

bolder and began to talk, winning Darya Alexandrovna's heart at once by the genuine admiration of the

"My, what a beauty! As white as sugar," said one, admiring Tanechka, and shaking her head, "but thin...."

"Lookee, they've been bathing him too," said another, pointing to the breast baby.

And the conversation became most interesting to Darya Alexandrovna. What sort of time did she have? What

Darya Alexandrovna felt disinclined to leave the peasant women, so interesting to her was their conversation,

so completely identical were all their interests. What pleased her most of all was that she saw clearly what all

the women admired more than anything was her having so many children, and such fine ones. The peasant

women even made Darya Alexandrovna laugh, and offended the English governess, because she was the

cause of the laughter she did not understand. One of the younger women kept staring at the Englishwoman,

who was dressing after all the rest, and when she put on her third petticoat she could not refrain from the

remark, "My, she keeps putting on and putting on, and she'll never have done!" she said, and they all went off

On the drive home, as Darya Alexandrovna, with all her children round her, their heads still wet from their

baths, and a kerchief tied over her own head, was getting near the house, the coachman said: "There's some

Darya Alexandrovna peeped out in front, and was delighted when she recognized in the gray hat and gray

coat the familiar figure of Levin walking to meet them. She was glad to see him at any time, but at this

moment she was specially glad he should see her in all her glory. No one was better able to appreciate her

Seeing her, he found himself face to face with one of the pictures of his daydream of family life.

"Glad to see me but you didn't let me know. My brother's staying with me. I got a note from Stiva that you

"Yes; he writes that you are here, and that he thinks you might allow me to be of use to you," said Levin, and

as he said it he became suddenly embarrassed, and, stopping abruptly, he walked on in silence by the

droshky, snapping off the buds of the lime trees and nibbling them. He was embarrassed through a sense that

Darya Alexandrovna would be annoyed by receiving from an outsider help that should by rights have come

from her own husband. Darya Alexandrovna certainly did not like this little way of Stepan Arkadyevich's of

foisting his domestic duties on others. And she was at once aware that Levin was aware of this. It was just for

this fineness of perception, for this delicacy, that Darya Alexandrovna liked Levin.

"I know, of course," said Levin, "that this simply means that you would like to see me, and I'm exceedingly

glad. Though I can fancy that, used to town housekeeping as you are, you must feel you are in the wilds here,

"Oh, no!" said Dolly. "At first things were rather uncomfortable, but now we've settled everything capitally

thanks to my old nurse," she said, indicating Matriona Philimonovna, who, seeing that they were speaking of

her, smiled brightly and cordially to Levin. She knew him, and knew that he would be a good match for her

The children knew Levin very little, and could not remember when they had seen him, but they experienced

in regard to him none of that strange feeling of shyness and hostility which children so often experience

toward hypocritical, grownup people, and for which they are so often and miserably punished. Hypocrisy in

anything whatever may deceive the cleverest and most penetrating man, but the least wideawake of children

recognizes it, and is revolted by it, however ingeniously it may be disguised. Whatever faults Levin had, there

was not a trace of hypocrisy in him, and so the children showed him the same friendliness that they saw in

their mother's face. On his invitation, the two elder ones at once jumped out to him and ran with him as

simply as they would have done with their nurse, or Miss Hoole, or their mother. Lily, too, began begging to

go to him, and her mother handed her over to him; he sat her on his shoulder and ran along with her.

"Don't be afraid, don't be afraid, Darya Alexandrovna!" he said, smiling goodhumoredly to the mother;

And, looking at his strong, agile, assiduously careful and extremely strained movements, the mother felt her

Here, in the country, with children, and with Darya Alexandrovna, with whom he was in sympathy, Levin

was in a mood not infrequent with him, of childlike lightheartedness that she particularly liked in him. As he

ran with the children, he taught them gymnastic feats, set Miss Hoole laughing with his queer English accent,

After dinner, Darya Alexandrovna, sitting alone with him on the balcony, began to speak of Kitty.

"Really," he said, flushing; and at once, to change the conversation, he said: "Then I'll send you two cows,

shall I? If you insist on a bill you shall pay me five roubles a month if you aren't ashamed."

"Oh, well, then, I'll have a look at your cows, and if you'll allow me, I'll give directions about their food.

And Levin, to turn the conversation, explained to Darya Alexandrovna the theory of cowkeeping, based on

the principle that the cow is simply a machine for the transformation of food into milk, and so on.

He talked of this, and passionately longed to hear more of Kitty, and, at the same time, was afraid of hearing

it. He dreaded the breaking up of the inward peace he had gained with such effort.

"Yes, but still all this has to be looked after, and who is there to look after it?" Darya Alexandrovna

She had by now got her household matters so satisfactorily arranged, thanks to Matriona Philimonovna, that

she was disinclined to make any change in them; besides, she had no faith in Levin's knowledge of farming.

General principles, as to the cow being a machine for the production of milk, she looked on with suspicion. It

seemed to her that such principles could only be a hindrance in farm management. It all seemed to her a far

simpler matter: all that was needed, as Matriona Philimonovna had explained, was to give Brindle and

Whitebreast more food and drink, and not to let the cook carry all the kitchen slops to the laundrymaid's cow.

That was clear. But general propositions as to feeding on meal and on grass were doubtful and obscure. And,

"Kitty writes to me that there's nothing she longs for so much as quiet and solitude," Dolly said after the

"Oh, I'm very glad!" said Levin, and Dolly fancied she saw something touching, helpless, in his face as he

"Let me ask you, Konstantin Dmitrievich," said Darya Alexandrovna, smiling her kindly and rather mocking

"Yes, you are. Why was it you did not come to see us or them when you were in Moscow?"

"Darya Alexandrovna," he said, blushing up to the roots of his hair, "I wonder really that with your kind heart

you don't feel this. How it is you feel no pity for me, if nothing else, when you know..."

"You know that I proposed and was refused," said Levin, and all the tenderness he had been feeling for Kitty

a minute before was replaced by a feeling of anger for the slight he had suffered.

"That's just where you are mistaken; I did not know it, though I had guessed it was so."

"All I knew was that something had happened that made her dreadfully miserable, and that she begged me

never to speak of it. And if she would not tell me, she would certainly not speak of it to anyone else. But what

"Do you know," said Darya Alexandrovna, "I am awfully, awfully sorry for her. You suffer only from

"Well, Darya Alexandrovna, you must excuse me," he said, getting up. "Goodby, Darya Alexandrovna, till

"No, wait a minute," she said, clutching him by the sleeve. "Wait a minute, sit down."

"Please, please, don't let us talk of this," he said, sitting down, and at the same time feeling rise up and stir

"If I did not like you," she said, and tears came into her eyes; "if I did not know you, as I do know you..."

The feeling that had seemed dead revived more and more, rose up and took possession of Levin's heart.

"Yes, I understand it all now," said Darya Alexandrovna. "You can't understand it; for you men, who are free

and make your own choice, it's always clear whom you love. But a girl's in a position of suspense, with all a

woman's or maiden's modesty, a girl who sees you men from afar, who takes everything on trust a girl may

"No, the heart does speak; but just consider: you men have views about a girl, you come to the house, you

make friends, you criticize, you wait to see if you have found what you love, and then, when you are sure you

"Anyway you propose, when your love is ripe, or when the balance has completely turned between the two

you are choosing from. But a girl is not asked. She is expected to make her choice, and yet she cannot

"Yes, to choose between me and Vronsky," thought Levin, and the dead thing that had come to life within

"Darya Alexandrovna," he said, "that's how one chooses a new dress, or some purchase or other not love.

The choice has been made, and so much the better.... And there can be no repetition."

"Ah, pride, pride!" said Darya Alexandrovna, as though despising him for the baseness of this feeling in

comparison with that other feeling which only women know. "At the time when you proposed to Kitty she

was just in a position in which she could not answer. She was in doubt. Doubt between you and Vronsky.

Him she was seeing every day, and you she had not seen for a long while. Supposing she had been older... I,

for instance, in her place, could have felt no doubt. I always disliked him, and my dislike proved to be

"Darya Alexandrovna," he said dryly, "I appreciate your confidence in me; I believe you are making a

mistake. But whether I am right or wrong, that pride you so despise makes any thought of Katerina

Alexandrovna out of the question for me; you understand utterly out of the question."

"I will only say one thing more: you know that I am speaking of my sister, whom I love as I love my own

children. I don't say she cared for you; all I meant to say is that her refusal at that moment proves nothing."

"I don't know!" said Levin, jumping up. "you only knew how you are hurting me. It's just as if a child of

yours were dead, and they were to say to you: He would have been like this and like that, and he might have

"How absurd you are!" said Darya Alexandrovna, looking with mournful tenderness at Levin's excitement.

"Yes, I see it all more and more clearly," she went on musingly. "So you won't come to see us, then, when

"No, I shan't come. Of course I won't avoid meeting Katerina Alexandrovna; but, as far as I can, I will try to

"You are very, very absurd," repeated Darya Alexandrovna, looking with tenderness into his face. "Very well

then, let it be as though we had not spoken of this. What have you come for, Tania?" she said in French to the

The little girl tried to say it in French, but could not remember the French for spade; the mother prompted

her, and then told her in French where to look for the spade. And this made a disagreeable impression on

Everything in Darya Alexandrovna's house and children struck him now as by no means so charming as a

"And why does she talk French with the children?" he thought. "How unnatural and false it is! And the

children feel it so: Learning French and unlearning sincerity," he thought to himself, unaware that Darya

Alexandrovna had thought all that over twenty times already, and yet, even at the cost of some loss of

After tea he went out into the hall to order his horses to be put in, and, when he came back, he found Darya

Alexandrovna greatly disturbed, with a troubled face, and tears in her eyes. While Levin had been outside, an

incident had occurred which had all at once shattered all the happiness she had been feeling that day, and her

pride in her children. Grisha and Tania had been fighting over a ball. Darya Alexandrovna, hearing a scream

in the nursery, ran in and saw a terrible sight. Tania was pulling Grisha's hair, while he, with a face hideous

with rage, was beating her with his fists wherever he could get at her. Something snapped in Darya

Alexandrovna's heart when she saw this. It was as if darkness had swooped down upon her life; she felt that

these children of hers, that she was so proud of, were not merely most ordinary, but positively bad, illbred

She could not talk or think of anything else, and she could not help speaking to Levin of her misery.

Levin saw she was unhappy and tried to comfort her, saying that it showed nothing bad, that all children

fight; but, even as he said it, he was thinking in his heart: "No, I won't be artificial and talk French with my

children; but my children won't be like that. All one has to do is not spoil children, not to distort their nature,

In the middle of July the elder of the village on Levin's sister's estate, about twenty verstas from Pokrovskoe,

came to Levin to report about the hay, and how things were going there. The chief source of income on his

sister's estate was from the water meadows. In former years the hay had been bought by the peasants for

twenty roubles the dessiatina. When Levin took over the management of the estate, he thought on examining

the grasslands that they were worth more, and he fixed the price at twentyfive roubles the dessiatina. The

peasants would not give that price, and, as Levin suspected, kept off other purchasers. Then Levin had driven

over himself, and arranged to have the grass cut, partly by hired labor, partly at a payment of a certain

proportion of the crop. The peasants of this village put every hindrance they could in the way of this new

arrangement, but it was carried out, and the first year the meadows had yielded a profit almost double. Two

years ago and the previous year the peasants had maintained the same opposition to the arrangement, and the

hay had been cut on the same system. This year the peasants were doing all the mowing for a third of the hay

crop, and the village elder had come now to announce that the hay had been cut, and that, fearing rain, he had

invited the countinghouse clerk over, had divided the crop in his presence, and had raked together eleven

stacks as the owner's share. From the vague answers to his question how much hay had been cut on the

principal meadow, from the hurry of the village elder who had made the division, without asking leave, from

the whole tone of the peasant, Levin perceived that there was something wrong in the division of the hay, and

Arriving by dinnertime at the village, and leaving his horse at the cottage of an old friend of his, the husband

of his brother's wet nurse, Levin went to see the old man in his beehouse, wanting to find out from him the

truth about the hay. Parmenich, a talkative, comely old man, gave Levin a very warm welcome, showed him

all he was doing, told him everything about his bees and the swarms of that year; but gave vague and

unwilling answers to Levin's inquiries about the mowing. This confirmed Levin still more in his suspicions.

He went to the hayfields and examined the stacks. The haystacks could not possibly contain fifty wagonloads

each, and to convict the peasants Levin ordered the wagons that had carried the hay to be brought up directly,

to lift one stack, and carry it into the barn. There turned out to be only thirtytwo loads in the stack. In spite

of the village elder's assertions about the compressibility of hay, and its having settled down in the stacks, and

his swearing that everything had been done in fear of God, Levin stuck to his point that the hay had been

divided without his orders, and that, therefore, he would not accept that hay as fifty loads to a stack. After a

prolonged dispute the matter was decided by the peasants taking, as their share, these eleven stacks,

reckoning them as fifty loads each, and apportioning the owner's share anew. The arguments and the division

of the haycocks lasted the whole afternoon. When the last of the hay had been divided, Levin, entrusting the

superintendence of the rest to the countinghouse clerk, sat down on a haycock marked off by a stake of

In front of him, in the bend of the river beyond the little marsh, moved a brightcolored line of peasant

women, merrily chattering with their ringing voices, and the scattered hay was being rapidly formed into gray

winding rows over the pale green aftermath. After the women came the men with pitchforks, and from the

gray rows there were growing up broad, high, soft haycocks. To the left telegas were rumbling over the

meadow that had been already cleared, and one after another the haycocks vanished, flung up in huge

forkfuls, and in their place there were rising heavy cartloads of fragrant hay hanging over the horses'

"What weather for haying! What hay it'll be!" said an old man, squatting down beside Levin. "It's tea, not hay

It's like scattering grain to the ducks, the way they pick it up!" he added, pointing to the growing haycocks.

"The last load, eh?" he shouted to a young peasant, who drove by, standing in the front of an empty telega

"The last, dad!" the lad shouted back, pulling in the horse, and, smiling, he looked round at a bright,

"Children, indeed! Why, for over a year he was innocent as a babe himself, and bashful too," answered the

old man. "What hay this is! It's tea indeed!" he repeated, wishing to change the subject.

Levin looked more attentively at Vanka Parmenov and his wife. They were loading a haycock onto the

wagon not far from him. Ivan Parmenov was standing on the wagon, taking, laying in place, and stamping

down the huge bundles of hay, which his pretty young wife deftly handed up to him, at first in armfuls, and

then on the pitchfork. The young wife worked easily, merrily, and deftly. The closepacked hay did not once

break away by her fork. First she tedded it, stuck the fork into it, then with a rapid, supple movement leaned

the whole weight of her body on it, and at once with a bend of her back under the red belt she drew herself

up, and arching her full bosom under the long white apron, with a deft turn swung the fork in her arms, and

flung the bundle of hay high onto the wagon. Ivan, obviously doing his best to save her every minute of

unnecessary labor, made haste, opening wide his arms to clutch the bundle and lay it in the wagon. As she

raked together what was left of the hay, the young wife shook off the bits of hay that had fallen on her neck,

and, arranging the red kerchief that was gone backward baring her white brow, not browned by the sun, she

crept under the wagon to tie up the load. Ivan directed her how to fasten the cord to the crosspiece, and at

something she said he laughed aloud. In the expressions of both faces was to be seen vigorous, young, freshly

The load was tied on. Ivan jumped down and took the quiet, sleek horse by the bridle. The young wife flung

the rake up on the load; with a bold step, swinging her arms, she went to join the women, who were forming a

ring for the haymakers' dance. Ivan drove off to the road and fell into line with the other loaded wagons. The

peasant women, with their rakes on their shoulders, gay with bright flowers, and chattering with ringing,

merry voices, walked behind the hay wagon. One wild untrained female voice broke into a song, and sang it

alone through a verse, and then the same verse was unanimously taken up and repeated by half a hundred

The women, all singing, began to come close to Levin, and he felt as though a storm were swooping down

upon him with a thunder of merriment. The storm swooped down, enveloped him and the haycock on which

he was lying, and the other haycocks, and wagonloads, and the whole meadow and distant fields all seemed

to be shaking and singing to the measures of this wild merry song, with its shouts and whistles and clapping.

Levin felt envious of this health and mirthfulness; he longed to take part in the expression of this joy of life.

But he could do nothing, and had to lie and look on and listen. When the peasants, with their singing, had

vanished out of sight and hearing, a weary feeling of despondency at his own isolation, his physical

Some of the very peasants who had been most active in wrangling with him over the hay, some whom he had

treated with contumely, and who had tried to cheat him those very peasants had greeted him

goodhumoredly, and evidently had not, were incapable of having, any feeling of rancor against him, any

regret, any recollection even of having tried to deceive him. All that was drowned in a sea of merry common

labor. God gave the day, God gave the strength. And the day and the strength were consecrated to labor, and

that labor was its own reward. For whom the labor? What would be its fruits? These were idle

Often Levin had admired this life, often he had a sense of envy of the men who led this life; but today, for the

first time, especially under the influence of what he had seen in the attitude of Ivan Parmenov to his young

wife, the idea presented itself definitely to his mind that it was in his power to exchange the dreary, artificial,

idle, and individualistic life he was leading for this laborious, pure, and generally delightful life.

The old man who had been sitting beside him had long ago gone home; the people had all gone their different

ways. Those who lived near had gone home, while those who came from afar were gathered into a group for

supper, and to spend the night in the meadow. Levin, unobserved by the peasants, still lay on the haycock,

and still looked on, and listened, and mused. The peasants who remained for the night in the meadow scarcely

slept all the short summer night. At first there was the sound of merry talk and general laughing over the

All the long day of toil had left no trace in them save lightness of heart. Before the early dawn all was

hushed. Nothing was to be heard but the night sounds of the frogs that never ceased in the marsh, and the

horses snorting in the mist that rose over the meadow before morning. Rousing himself, Levin got up from

"Well, what am I going to do? How am I to set about it?" he said to himself, trying to express to himself all

the thoughts and feelings he had passed through in this brief night. All the thoughts and feelings he had

passed through fell into three separate trains of thought. One was the renunciation of his old life, of his utterly

useless education. This renunciation gave him satisfaction, and was easy and simple. Another series of

thoughts and mental images related to the life he longed to live now. The simplicity, the purity, the sanity of

this life he felt clearly, and he was convinced he would find in it its content, its peace, and its dignity, of the

lack of which he was so miserably conscious. But a third series of ideas turned upon the question of how to

effect this transition from the old life to the new. And there nothing took clear shape for him. "A wife. Work

and the necessity of work. Leave Pokrovskoe? Buy land? Become a member of a peasant community? Marry

a peasant girl? How am I to set about it?" he asked himself again, and could not find an answer. "I haven't

slept all night, though, and I can't think it out clearly," he said to himself. "I'll work it out later. One thing's

certain this night has decided my fate. All my old dreams of home life were absurd, not the real thing," he

"How beautiful!" he thought, looking at the strange, as it were, motherofpearl shell of white fleecy

cloudlets resting right over his head in the middle of the sky. "How exquisite it all is in this exquisite night!

And when was there time for that cloud shell to form? Just now I looked at the sky, and there was nothing in

it only two white streaks. Yes, and so imperceptibly, too, my views of life changed!"

He went out of the meadow and walked along the highroad toward the village. A slight wind arose, and the

sky looked gray and sullen. The gloomy moment had come that usually precedes the dawn, the full triumph

Shrinking from the cold, Levin walked rapidly, looking at the ground. "What's that? Someone coming," he

thought, catching the tinkle of bells, and lifting his head. Forty paces from him a carriage and four with the

luggage on its top was driving toward him along the grassy highroad on which he was walking. The shaft

horses were tilted against the shafts by the ruts, but the dexterous driver sitting on the box held the shaft over

This was all Levin noticed, and without wondering who it could be, he gazed absently at the coach.

In the coach was an old lady dozing in one corner, and at the window, evidently only just awake, sat a young

girl holding in both hands the ribbons of a white cap. With a face full of light and thought, full of a subtle,

complex inner life, that was remote from Levin, she was gazing from the window at the glow of the sunrise.

At the very instant when this apparition was vanishing, the truthful eyes glanced at him. She recognized him,

He could not be mistaken. There were no other eyes like those in all the world. There was only one creature

in the world that could concentrate for him all the brightness and meaning of life. It was she. It was Kitty. He

comprehended that she was driving to Ergushovo from the railway station. And everything that had been

stirring Levin during this sleepless night, all the resolutions he had made, all vanished at once. He recalled

with horror his dreams of marrying a peasant girl. There only, in this carriage that had crossed over to the

other side of the road, and was rapidly disappearing there only could he find the solution of the riddle of his

She did not look out again. The sound of the carriage springs was no longer audible, the bells could scarcely

be heard. The barking of dogs showed the carriage had reached the village, and all that was left was the

empty fields all round, the village in front, and he himself isolated and apart from it all, wandering lonely

He glanced at the sky, expecting to find there the cloud shell he had been admiring and taking as the symbol

of the ideas and feelings of that night. There was nothing in the sky in the least like a shell. There, in the

remote heights above, a mysterious change had been accomplished. There was no trace of a shell, and there

was stretched over fully half the sky an even cover of tiny, and ever tinier, cloudlets. The sky had grown blue

and bright; and with the same softness, but with the same remoteness, it met his questioning gaze.

"No," he said to himself, "however good that life of simplicity and toil may be, I cannot go back to it. I love

None but those who were most intimate with Alexei Alexandrovich knew that, while on the surface the

coldest and most rational of men, he had one weakness quite opposed to the general trend of his character.

Alexei Alexandrovich could not hear or see a child or woman crying without being moved. The sight of tears

threw him into a state of nervous agitation, and he utterly lost all power of reflection. The head clerk of his

board and the secretary were aware of this, and used to warn women who came with petitions on no account

to give way to tears, if they did not want to ruin their chances. "He will get angry, and will not listen to you,"

they used to say. And, as a fact, in such cases the emotional disturbance set up in Alexei Alexandrovich by

the sight of tears found expression in hasty anger. "I can do nothing. Kindly leave the room!" he would

When, returning from the races, Anna had informed him of her relations with Vronsky, and immediately

afterward had burst into tears, hiding her face in her hands, Alexei Alexandrovich, for all the fury aroused in

him against her, was aware at the same time of a rush of that emotional disturbance always produced in him

by tears. Conscious of it, and conscious that any expression of his feelings at that minute would be out of

keeping with the situation, he tried to suppress every manifestation of life in himself, and so neither stirred

nor looked at her. This was what had caused that strange expression of deathlike rigidity in his face which

When they reached the house he helped her to get out of the carriage, and, making an effort to master himself,

took leave of her with his usual urbanity, and uttered that phrase that bound him to nothing; he said that

His wife's words, confirming his worst suspicions, had sent a cruel pang to the heart of Alexei

Alexandrovich. That pang was intensified by the strange feeling of physical pity for her engendered by her

tears. But when he was all alone in the carriage Alexei Alexandrovich, to his surprise and delight, felt

complete relief both from this pity and from the doubts and agonies of jealousy.

He experienced the sensations of a man who has had a tooth out after suffering long from toothache. After a

fearful agony and a sense of something huge, bigger than the head itself, being torn out of his jaw, the

sufferer, hardly able to believe in his own good luck, feels all at once that what has so long envenomed his

existence and enchained his attention, exists no longer, and that he can live and think again, and take an

interest in other things besides his tooth. This feeling Alexei Alexandrovich was experiencing. The agony had

been strange and terrible, but now it was over; he felt that he could live again and think of something other

"No honor, no heart, no religion; a corrupt woman. I always knew it and always saw it, though I tried to

deceive myself to spare her," he said to himself. And it actually seemed to him that he always had seen it: he

recalled incidents of their past life, in which he had never seen anything wrong before now these incidents

proved clearly that she had always been a corrupt woman. "I made a mistake in linking my life to hers; but

there was nothing wrong in my mistake, and so I cannot be unhappy. It's not I who am to blame," he told

himself, "but she. But I have nothing to do with her. She does not exist for me."

All that would befall her and her son, toward whom his sentiments were as much changed as toward her,

ceased to interest him. The only thing that interested him now was the question in what way he could best,

with most propriety and comfort for himself, and so with most justice, shake clear the mud with which she

had spattered him in her fall, and then proceed along his path of active, honorable, and useful existence.

"I cannot be made unhappy by the fact that a contemptible woman has committed a crime. I have only to find

the best way out of the difficult position in which she has placed me. And I shall find it," he said to himself,

frowning more and more. "I'm neither the first nor the last." And to say nothing of historical instances dating

from Menelaus, recently revived in the memory of all by La Belle Helene, a whole list of contemporary

examples of husbands with unfaithful wives in the highest society rose before Alexei Alexandrovich's

imagination. "Daryalov, Poltavsky, Prince Karibanov, Count Paskudin, Dram... Yes, even Dram... such an

honest, capable fellow... Semionov, Chagin, Sigonin," Alexei Alexandrovich remembered. "Admitting that a

certain quite irrational ridicule falls to the lot of these men, yet I never saw anything but a misfortune in it,

and always felt sympathy for it," Alexei Alexandrovich said to himself, though indeed this was not the fact,

and he had never felt sympathy for misfortunes of that kind, but the more often he had heard of instances of

unfaithful wives betraying their husbands, the more highly he had thought of himself. "It is a misfortune

which may befall anyone. And this misfortune has befallen me. The only thing to be done is to make the best

of the situation." And he began passing in review the methods of proceeding of men who had been in the

The duel had particularly fascinated the thoughts of Alexei Alexandrovich in his youth, just because he was

physically a fainthearted man, and was himself well aware of the fact. Alexei Alexandrovich could not

without horror contemplate the idea of a pistol aimed at himself, and never made use of any weapon in his

life. This horror had in his youth set him often pondering on dueling, and picturing himself in a position in

which he would have to expose his life to danger. Having attained success and an established position in the

world, he had long ago forgotten this feeling; but the habitual bent of feeling reasserted itself, and dread of

his own cowardice proved even now so strong that Alexei Alexandrovich spent a long while thinking over the

question of dueling in all its aspects, and hugging the idea of a duel, though he was fully aware beforehand

"There's no doubt our society is still so barbarous (it's not the same in England) that very many" and among

these were those whose opinion Alexei Alexandrovich particularly valued "look favorably on the duel; but

what result is attained by it? Suppose I call him out," Alexei Alexandrovich went on to himself, and vividly

picturing the night he would spend after the challenge, and the pistol aimed at him, he shuddered, and knew

that he never would do it "suppose I call him out. Suppose I am taught," he went on musing, "I am placed, I

press the trigger," he said to himself, closing his eyes, "and it turns out I have killed him," Alexei

Alexandrovich said to himself, and he shook his head as though to dispel such silly ideas. "What sense is

there in murdering a man in order to define one's relation to a guilty wife and son? I should still have to

decide what I ought to do with her. But what is more probable, and what would doubtlessly occur I should

be killed or wounded. I, the innocent person, should be the victim killed or wounded. It's even more

senseless. But, apart from that, a challenge to fight would be an act hardly honest on my side. Don't I know

beforehand that my friends would never allow me to fight a duel would never allow the life of a statesman,

needed by Russia, to be exposed to danger? What would come of it? It would come of it that, knowing

beforehand that the matter would never come to real danger, it would amount to my simply trying to gain a

certain sham reputation by such a challenge. That would be dishonest, that would be false, that would be

deceiving myself and others. A duel is quite impossible, and no one expects it of me. My aim is simply to

safeguard my reputation, which is essential for the uninterrupted pursuit of my public duties." Official duties,

which had always been of great consequence in Alexei Alexandrovich's eyes, seemed of special importance

Considering and rejecting the duel, Alexei Alexandrovich turned to divorce another solution selected by

several of the husbands he remembered. Passing in mental review all the instances he knew of divorces (there

were plenty of them in the very highest society with which he was very familiar), Alexei Alexandrovich

could not find a single example in which the object of divorce was that which he had in view. In all these

instances the husband had practically ceded or sold his unfaithful wife, and the very party who, being in fault,

had not the right to contract a marriage, had formed counterfeit, pseudomatrimonial ties with a new

husband. In his own case, Alexei Alexandrovich saw that a legal divorce, that is to say, one in which only the

guilty wife would be repudiated, was impossible of attainment. He saw that the complex conditions of the life

they led made the coarse proofs of his wife's guilt, required by the law, out of the question; he saw that a

certain refinement in that life would not admit of such proofs being brought forward, even if he had them, and

that to bring forward such proofs would damage him in the public estimation more than it would her.

An attempt at divorce could lead to nothing but a public scandal, which would be a perfect godsend to his

enemies for calumny and attacks on his high position in society. His chief object, to define the position with

the least amount of disturbance possible, would not be attained by divorce either. Moreover, in the event of

divorce, or even of an attempt to obtain a divorce, it was obvious that the wife broke off all relations with the

husband and threw in her lot with the lover. And, in spite of the complete, as he supposed, contempt and

indifference he now felt for his wife, at the bottom of his heart Alexei Alexandrovich still had one feeling left

in regard to her a disinclination to see her free to throw in her lot with Vronsky, so that her crime would be

to her advantage. The mere notion of this so exasperated Alexei Alexandrovich, that directly it rose to his

mind he groaned with inward agony, and got up and changed his place in the carriage, and for a long while

after he sat with scowling brows, wrapping his numbed and bony legs in the fleecy rug.

"Apart from formal divorce, one might still do as Karibanov, Paskudin, and that good fellow Dram did that

is, separate from one's wife," he went on thinking, when he had regained his composure. But this step too

presented the same drawback of public scandal as a divorce, and, what was more, a separation, quite as much

as a regular divorce, flung his wife into the arms of Vronsky. "No, it's out of the question, out of the

question!" he said aloud, twisting his rug about him again. "I cannot be unhappy, but neither she nor he ought

The feeling of jealousy, which had tortured him during the period of uncertainty, had passed away at the

instant when, with agony, the tooth had been extracted by his wife's words. But that feeling had been replaced

by another the desire, not merely that she should not triumph, but that she should get due punishment for her

crime. He did not acknowledge this feeling, but at the bottom of his heart he longed for her to suffer for

having destroyed his peace of mind, and having dishonored him. And once again going over the conditions

inseparable from a duel, a divorce, a separation, and once again rejecting them, Alexei Alexandrovich felt

convinced that there was only one solution to keep her with him, concealing what had happened from the

world, and using every measure in his power to break off the intrigue, and still more though this he did not

admit to himself to punish her. "I must communicate to her my decision; that, thinking over the terrible

position in which she has placed her family, all other solutions will be worse for both sides than an external

status quo, and that such I agree to retain, on the strict condition of obedience on her part to my wishes that

is to say, cessation of all intercourse with her lover." When this decision had been finally adopted, another

weighty consideration occurred to Alexei Alexandrovich in support of it. "By such a course only shall I be

acting in accordance with the dictates of religion," he told himself. "In adopting this course, I am not casting

off a guilty wife, but giving her a chance of amendment; and, indeed, difficult as the task will be to me, I

shall devote part of my energies to her reformation and salvation." Though Alexei Alexandrovich was

perfectly aware that he could not exert any moral influence over his wife, that such an attempt at reformation

could lead to nothing but falsity; though in passing through these difficult moments he had not once thought

of seeking guidance in religion; yet now, when his conclusion corresponded, as it seemed to him, with the

requirements of religion, this religious sanction to his decision gave him complete satisfaction, and to some

extent restored his peace of mind. He was pleased to think that, even in such an important crisis in life, no

one would be able to say that he had not acted in accordance with the principles of that religion whose banner

he had always held aloft amid the general coolness and indifference. As he pondered over subsequent

developments, Alexei Alexandrovich did not see, indeed, why his relations with his wife should not remain

practically the same as before. No doubt, she could never regain his esteem, but there was not, and there

could not be, any sort of reason why his existence should be troubled, and why he should suffer because she

was a bad and faithless wife. "Yes, time will pass time, which arranges all things; and the old relations will

be reestablished," Alexei Alexandrovich told himself; so far reestablished, that is, that I shall not be sensible

of a break in the continuity of my life. She is bound to be unhappy, but I am not to blame, and so I cannot be

As he neared Peterburg, Alexei Alexandrovich not only adhered entirely to his decision, but was even

composing in his head the letter he would write to his wife. Going into the hall Alexei Alexandrovich glanced

at the letters and papers brought from his Ministry and directed that they should be brought to him in his

"The horses can be taken out, and I will see no one," he said in answer to the porter, with a certain pleasure,

In his study Alexei Alexandrovich walked up and down twice, and stopped at an immense writing table, on

which six candles had already been lighted by the valet who had preceded him. He cracked his knuckles, and

sat down, sorting out his writing appurtenances. Putting his elbows on the table, he bent his head on one side,

thought a minute, and began to write, without pausing for a second. He wrote without using any form of

address to her, and wrote in French, making use of the plural "vous," which has not the same note of coldness

"At our last conversation, I notified you of my intention of communicating to you my decision in regard to

the subject of that conversation. Having carefully considered everything, I am writing now with the object of

fulfilling that promise. My decision is as follows. Whatever your conduct may have been, I do not consider

myself justified in breaking the ties in which we are bound by a Higher Power. The family cannot be broken

up by a whim, a caprice, or even by the sin of one of the partners in the marriage, and our life must go on as it

has done in the past. This is essential for me, for you, and for our son. I am fully persuaded that you have

repented, and do repent, of what has called forth the present letter, and that you will cooperate with me in

eradicating the cause of our estrangement, and forgetting the past. In the contrary event, you can conjecture

what awaits you and your son. All this I hope to discuss more in detail in a personal interview. As the season

is drawing to a close, I would beg you to return to Peterburg as quickly as possible not later than Tuesday.

All necessary preparations shall be made for your arrival here. I beg you to note that I attach particular

He read the letter through and felt pleased with it, and especially because he had remembered to enclose

money: there was not a harsh word, not a reproach in it, nor was there undue indulgence. Most of all, it was a

golden bridge for a return. Folding the letter and smoothing it with a massive ivory knife, and putting it in an

envelope with the money, he rang the bell with the gratification it always afforded him to use the

"Give this to a messenger to be delivered to Anna Arkadyevna tomorrow, at the summer villa," he said,

Alexei Alexandrovich ordered tea to be brought to the study, and playing with the massive paper knife, he

moved to his easy chair, near which there had been placed ready for him a lamp and the French work on les

tables Eugubines that he had begun. Over the easy chair there hung in a gold frame an oval portrait of Anna, a

fine painting by a celebrated artist. Alexei Alexandrovich glanced at it. The unfathomable eyes gazed

ironically and insolently at him, as they did that night of their last explanation. Insufferably insolent and

challenging was the effect in Alexei Alexandrovich's eyes of the black lace about the head, admirably

touched in by the painter, the black hair and handsome white hand the fourth finger of which was covered

with rings. After looking at the portrait for a minute, Alexei Alexandrovich shuddered so that his lips

quivered and produced "brrr," and turned away. He made haste to sit down in his easy chair and opened the

book. He tried to read, but he could not revive the very vivid interest he had felt before in Eugubine

inscriptions. He looked at the book and thought of something else. He thought not of his wife, but of a

complication that had arisen in his official life, which at the time constituted the chief interest of it. He felt

that he had penetrated more deeply than ever before into this intricate affair, and that he had originated a

leading idea he could say it without selfflattery calculated to clear up the whole business, to strengthen

him in his official career, to discomfit his enemies, and thereby to be of the greatest benefit to the State.

Directly the servant had set the tea and left the room, Alexei Alexandrovich got up and went to the writing

table. Moving into the middle of the table a portfolio of current papers, with a scarcely perceptible smile of

selfsatisfaction, he took a pencil from a rack and plunged into the perusal of a complex report relating to the

present complication. The complication was of this nature: Alexei Alexandrovich's characteristic quality as a

politician, that special individual qualification that every rising functionary possesses, the qualification that

with his unflagging ambition, his reserve, his honesty, and his selfconfidence had made his career, was his

contempt for red tape, his cutting down of correspondence, his direct contact, wherever possible, with the

living fact, and his economy. It happened that the famous Commission of the 2nd of June had set on foot an

inquiry into the irrigation of lands in the Zaraisky province, which fell under Alexei Alexandrovich's

department, and was a glaring example of fruitless expenditure and paper reforms. Alexei Alexandrovich was

aware of the truth of this. The irrigation of these lands in the Zaraisky province had been initiated by the

predecessor of Alexei Alexandrovich's predecessor. And vast sums of money had actually been spent, and

were still being spent, on this business, and utterly unproductively, and the whole business could obviously

lead to nothing whatever. Alexei Alexandrovich had perceived this at once on entering office, and would

have liked to lay hands on the business. But at first, when he did not yet feel secure in his position, he knew it

would affect too many interests, and would be imprudent; later on he had been engrossed in other questions,

and had simply forgotten this case. It went of itself, like all such cases, by the mere force of inertia. (Many

people gained their livelihood by this business, especially one highly conscientious and musical family: all

the daughters played on stringed instruments, and Alexei Alexandrovich knew the family and had stood

godfather to one of the elder daughters.) The raising of this question by a hostile Ministry was in Alexei

Alexandrovich's opinion a dishonorable proceeding, seeing that in every Ministry there were things similar

and worse, which no one inquired into, for wellknown reasons of official etiquette. However, now that the

gauntlet had been thrown down to him, he had boldly picked it up and demanded the appointment of a special

commission to investigate and verify the working of the Commission of Irrigation of the lands in the Zaraisky

province; but in compensation he gave no quarter to the enemy either. He demanded also the appointment of

another special commission to inquire into the question of the Native Tribes Organization. The question of

the Native Tribes had been brought up incidentally in the Committee of the 2nd of June, and had been

pressed forward actively by Alexei Alexandrovich, as one admitting of no delay on account of the deplorable

condition of the native tribes. In the Committee this question had been a ground of contention between

several Ministries. The Ministry hostile to Alexei Alexandrovich proved that the condition of the native tribes

was exceedingly flourishing, that the proposed reconstruction might be the ruin of their prosperity, and that if

there were anything wrong, it arose mainly from the failure on the part of Alexei Alexandrovich's Ministry to

carry out the measures prescribed by law. Now Alexei Alexandrovich intended to demand: First, that a new

commission should be formed which should be empowered to investigate the condition of the native tribes on

the spot; secondly, if it should appear that the condition of the native tribes actually was such as it appeared to

be from the official data in the hands of the Committee, that another new scientific commission should be

appointed to investigate the deplorable condition of the native tribes from the (a) political, (b)

administrative, (c) economic, (d) ethnographical, (e) material, and (f) religious points of view; thirdly, that

evidence should be required from the rival Ministry of the measures that had been taken during the last ten

years by that Ministry for averting the disastrous conditions in which the native tribes were now placed; and,

fourthly and finally, that that Ministry be asked to explain why it had, as appeared from the reports submitted

before the Committee, under Nos. 17,015 and 18,308, dated December 5, 1863, and June 7, 1864

respectively, acted in direct contravention of the intention of the basic and organic law, T... Statute 18, and

the note to Statute 36. A flush of eagerness suffused the face of Alexei Alexandrovich as he rapidly wrote out

a synopsis of these ideas for his own benefit. Having filled a sheet of paper, he got up, rang, and sent a note to

the head clerk to look up certain necessary facts for him. Getting up and walking about the room, he glanced

again at the portrait, frowned, and smiled contemptuously. After reading a little more of the book on

Eugubine inscriptions, and renewing his interest in it, Alexei Alexandrovich went to bed at eleven o'clock,

and recollecting as he lay in bed the incident with his wife, he saw it now in by no means so gloomy a light.

Though Anna had obstinately and with exasperation contradicted Vronsky when he told her their position

was impossible, and persuaded her to lay open everything to her husband at the bottom of her heart she

regarded her own position as false and dishonorable, and she longed with her whole soul to change it. On the

way home from the races she had told her husband the truth in a moment of excitement, and in spite of the

agony she had suffered in doing so, she was glad of it. After her husband had left her, she told herself that she

was glad, that now everything was made clear, and at least there would be no more lying and deception. It

seemed to her beyond doubt that her position was now made clear forever. It might be bad, this new position,

but it would be clear; there would be no indefiniteness or falsehood about it. The pain she had caused herself

and her husband in uttering those words would be rewarded now by everything being made clear, she

thought. That evening she saw Vronsky, but she did not tell him of what had passed between her and her

When she woke up next morning the first thing that rose to her mind was what she had said to her husband,

and those words seemed to her so awful that she could not conceive now how she could have brought herself

to utter those strange, coarse words, and could not imagine what would come of it. But the words were

spoken, and Alexei Alexandrovich had gone away without saying anything. "I saw Vronsky and did not tell

him. At the very instant he was going away I would have turned him back and told him, but I changed my

mind, because it was strange that I had not told him the first minute. Why was it I wanted to tell him and

didn't?" And in answer to this question a burning blush of shame spread over her face. She knew what had

kept her from it, she knew that she had been ashamed. Her position, which had seemed to her simplified the

night before, suddenly struck her now as not only not simple, but as absolutely hopeless. She felt terrified at

the disgrace, of which she had not even thought before. Directly she thought of what her husband would do,

the most terrible ideas came to her mind. She had a vision of being turned out of the house, of her shame

being proclaimed to all the world. She asked herself where she should go when she was turned out of the

When she thought of Vronsky, it seemed to her that he did not love her, that he was already beginning to be

tired of her, that she could not offer herself to him, and she felt bitter against him for it. It seemed to her that

the words that she had spoken to her husband, and had continually repeated in her imagination, she had said

to everyone, and everyone had heard them. She could not bring herself to look those of her own household in

the face. She could not bring herself to call her maid, and still less go downstairs and see her son and his

The maid, who had been listening at her door for a long while, came into her room of her own accord. Anna

glanced inquiringly into her face, and blushed with a scared look. The maid begged her pardon for coming in,

saying that she had fancied the bell rang. She brought her clothes and a note. The note was from Betsy. Betsy

reminded her that Liza Merkalova and Baroness Stoltz were coming to play croquet with her that morning

with their adorers, Kaluzhsky and old Stremov. "Come, if only as a study in characters. I shall expect you,"

"Nothing I need nothing," she said to Annushka, who was rearranging the bottles and brushes on the

dressing table. "You may go. I'll dress at once and come down. I need nothing, nothing."

Annushka went out, but Anna did not begin dressing, and sat in the same position, her head and hands

hanging listlessly, and every now and then she shivered all over, was apparently about to make some gesture,

utter some word, and sank back into lifelessness again. She repeated continually, "My God! my God!" But

neither "God" nor "my" had any meaning to her. The idea of seeking help in her difficulty in religion was as

remote from her as seeking help from Alexei Alexandrovich himself, although she had never had doubts of

the faith in which she had been brought up. She knew that the support of religion was possible only upon

condition of renouncing what made up for her the whole meaning of life. She was not simply miserable, she

began to feel alarm at the new spiritual condition, never experienced before, in which she found herself. She

felt as though everything were beginning to be double in her soul, just as objects sometimes appear double to

overtired eyes. She hardly knew at times what it was she feared, and what she hoped for. Whether she feared

or desired what had happened, or what was going to happen, and exactly what she longed for, she could not

"Ah, what am I doing!" she said to herself, feeling a sudden thrill of pain in both sides of her head. When she

came to herself, she saw that she was holding her hair in both hands, each side of her temples, and she was

"The coffee is ready, and mademoiselle and Seriozha are waiting," said Annushka, coming back again and

"Seriozha? What about Seriozha?" Anna asked, with sudden eagerness, recollecting her son's existence for

"Some peaches were lying on the table in the corner room. I think he ate one of them on the sly."

The recollection of her son suddenly roused Anna from the helpless condition in which she found herself. She

recalled the partly sincere, though greatly exaggerated, role of the mother living for her child, which she had

taken up of late years, and she felt with joy that in the plight in which she found herself she had a dominion

independent of any position she would be placed in by her relations to her husband or to Vronsky. This

dominion was her son. In whatever position she might be placed, she could not abandon her son. Her husband

might put her to shame and turn her out, Vronsky might grow cold to her and go on living his own life apart

(she thought of him again with bitterness and reproach); she could not leave her son. She had an aim in life.

And she must act; act to secure the position of her son, so that he might not be taken from her. Quickly

indeed, as quickly as possible, she must take action before he was taken from her. She must take her son and

go away. Here was the one thing she had to do now. She must be calm, and get out of this insufferable

position. The thought of immediate action binding her to her son, of going away somewhere with him, gave

She dressed quickly, went downstairs, and with resolute steps walked into the drawing room, where she

found, as usual, waiting for her, the coffee, Seriozha, and his governess. Seriozha, all in white, with his back

and head bent, was standing at a table under a looking glass, and with an expression of intense concentration

which she knew well, and in which he resembled his father, he was doing something to the flowers he

The governess had a particularly severe expression. Seriozha screamed shrilly, as he often did, "Ah,

mamma!" and stopped, hesitating whether to go to greet his mother and put down the flowers, or to finish

The governess, after saying good morning, began a long and detailed account of Seriozha's naughtiness, but

Anna did not hear her; she was considering whether she would take her with her or not. "No, I won't take

"Yes, it's very wrong," said Anna, and taking her son by the shoulder she looked at him, not severely, but

with a timid glance that bewildered and delighted the boy, and she kissed him. "Leave him to me," she said to

the astonished governess, and without letting go of her son, she sat down at the table, where coffee was set

"Mamma! I... I didn't..." he said, trying to make out from her expression what was in store for him in regard

"Seriozha," she said, as soon as the governess had left the room, "that was wrong, but you'll never do it again,

She felt that the tears were coming into her eyes. "Can I help loving him?" she said to herself, looking deeply

into his scared and at the same time delighted eyes. "And can he ever join his father in punishing me? Is it

possible he will not feel for me?" Tears were already flowing down her face, and to hide them she got up

After the thundershowers of the last few days, cold, bright weather had set in. The air was cold in the bright

She shivered, both from the cold and from the inward horror which had clutched her with fresh force in the

"Run along, run along to Mariette," she said to Seriozha, who had followed her out, and she began walking

up and down on the straw matting of the terrace. "Can it be that they won't forgive me, won't understand how

Standing still, and looking at the tops of the aspen trees waving in the wind, with their freshly washed,

brightly shining leaves in the cold sunshine, she knew that they would not forgive her, that everyone and

everything would be merciless to her now as was that sky, that green. And again she felt that everything was

doubling in her soul. "I mustn't, mustn't think," she said to herself. "I must get ready. To go where? When?

Whom to take with me? Yes to Moscow, by the evening train. Annushka and Seriozha, and only the most

necessary things. But first I must write to them both." She went quickly indoors into her boudoir, sat down at

"After what has happened I cannot remain any longer in your house. I am going away, and taking my son

with me. I don't know the law; and so I don't know with which of the parents the son should remain; but I

take him with me because I cannot live without him. Be generous, leave him to me."

Up to this point she wrote rapidly and naturally, but the appeal to his generosity, a quality she did not

recognize in him, and the necessity of winding up the letter with something touching, pulled her up.

She stopped again, finding no connection in her ideas. "No," she said to herself, "there's no need of anything,"

and tearing up the letter, she wrote it again, leaving out the allusion to generosity, and sealed it up.

Another letter had to be written to Vronsky. "I have told my husband," she wrote, and she sat a long while

unable to write more. It was so coarse, so unfeminine. "And what more am I to write him?" she said to

herself. Again a flush of shame spread over her face; she recalled his composure, and a feeling of anger

against him impelled her to tear the sheet with the phrase she had written into tiny bits. "No need of

anything," she said to herself, and closing her blotting case she went upstairs, told the governess and the

servants that she was going that day to Moscow, and at once set to work to pack up her things.

All the rooms of the summer villa were full of porters, gardeners, and footmen, going to and fro carrying out

things. Cupboards and chests were open; twice they had to run to a store for cord; pieces of newspaper were

cluttering the floor. Two trunks, some bags and strappedup plaids had been carried down into the hall. The

carriage and two hired cabs were waiting at the steps. Anna, forgetting her inward agitation in the work of

packing, was standing at a table in her boudoir, packing her traveling bag, when Annushka called her

attention to the clatter of some carriage driving up. Anna looked out of the window and saw Alexei

"Run and find out what it is," she said, and, with a calm sense of being prepared for anything, she sat down in

a low chair, folding her hands on her knees. A footman brought in a thick packet directed in Alexei

"Very well," she said, and as soon as he had left the room she tore open the letter with trembling fingers. A

packet of unfolded banknotes done up with a band fell out of it. She extricated the letter and began reading it

from the end. "Preparations shall be made for your arrival here... I attach particular significance to

compliance...." she read. She ran through it backward, read it all through, and once more read the letter all

through again, from the beginning. When she had finished, she felt that she was cold all over, and that a

In the morning she had regretted that she had spoken to her husband, and wished for nothing so much as that

those words might be unspoken. And here this letter regarded them as unspoken, and gave her what she had

wanted. But now this letter seemed to her more awful than anything she had been able to conceive.

"He's right!" she said. "Of course, he's always right; he's a Christian, he's generous! Yes, vile, base creature!

And no one understands it except me, and no one ever will; and I can't explain it. They say he's so religious,

so highprincipled, so upright, so clever; but they don't see what I've seen. They don't know how he has

crushed my life for eight years, crushed everything that was living in me he has not once even thought that

I'm a live woman who must have love. They don't know how at every step he's humiliated me, and been just

as pleased with himself. Haven't I striven striven with all my strength to find something to give meaning to

my life? Haven't I struggled to love him, to love my son when I could not love my husband? But the time

came when I knew that I couldn't cheat myself any longer, that I was alive, that I was not to blame, that God

has made me so that I must love and live. And now what does he do? If he'd killed me, if he'd killed him, I

"How was it I didn't guess what he would do? He's doing just what's natural to his mean character. He'll keep

himself in the right, while he'll drive me, in my ruin, still lower, still to worse ruin..."

"'You can conjecture what awaits you and your son,'" she recalled a part of his letter. "That's a threat to take

away my child, and most likely according to their stupid law he can. But I know very well why he says it. He

doesn't believe even in my love for my child, or he despises it (just as he always used to ridicule it). He

despises that feeling in me, but he knows that I won't abandon my child, that I can't abandon my child, that

there could be no life for me without my child, even with him whom I love; but that if I abandoned my child

and ran away from him, I should be acting like the most infamous, basest of women. He knows that, and

"Our life must go on as it has done in the past," she recalled another sentence in his letter. "That life was

miserable enough in the old days; it has been awful of late. What will it be now? And he knows all that; he

knows that I can't repent breathing, repent loving; he knows that it can lead to nothing but lying and deceit;

but he wants to go on torturing me. I know him; I know that he's at home and is happy in deceit, like a fish

swimming in the water. No, I won't give him that happiness. I'll break through the spider's web of lies in

which he wants to catch me, come what may. Anything's better than lying and deceit."

"No; I will break through it, I will break through it!" she cried, jumping up and keeping back her tears. And

she went to the writing table to write him another letter. But at the bottom of her heart she felt that she was

not strong enough to break through anything, that she was not strong enough to get out of her old position,

She sat down at the writing table, but instead of writing she clasped her hands on the table, and, laying her

head on them, burst into tears, with sobs and heaving breast, like a child crying. She was weeping because her

dream of her position being made clear and definite had been annihilated forever. She knew beforehand that

everything would go on in the old way, and far worse, indeed, than in the old way. She felt that her position

in the world she enjoyed, and which had seemed to her of so little consequence in the morning, was now

precious to her, that she would not have the strength to exchange it for the shameful position of a woman who

has abandoned husband and child to join her lover; that however much she might struggle, she could not be

stronger than herself. She would never know freedom in love, but would remain forever a guilty wife, with

the menace of detection hanging over her at every instant; deceiving her husband for the sake of a shameful

connection with a man living apart and away from her, whose life she could never share. She knew that this

was how it would be, and at the same time it was so awful that she could not even conceive what it would end

The sound of a footman's steps forced her to rouse herself, and, hiding her face from him, she pretended to be

"What can I write?" she thought. "What can I decide upon alone? What do I know? What do I want? What is

there I care for?" Again she felt that her soul was beginning to double. She was terrified again at this feeling,

and clutched at the first pretext for doing something which might divert her thoughts from herself. "I ought to

see Alexei" (so she called Vronsky in her thoughts); "no one but he can tell me what I ought to do. I'll go to

Betsy's, perhaps I shall see him there," she said to herself, completely forgetting that, when she had told him

the day before that she was not going to Princess Tverskaia's he had said that in that case he should not go

either. She went up to the table, wrote to her husband: "I have received your letter. A."; and, ringing the

"No; don't unpack till tomorrow, and let the carriage wait. I'm going to the Princess."

The croquet party to which the Princess Tverskaia had invited Anna was to consist of two ladies and their

adorers. These two ladies were the chief representatives of a select new Peterburg circle, nicknamed, in

imitation of some imitation, les sept merveilles du monde. These ladies belonged to a circle which, though of

the highest society, was utterly hostile to that in which Anna moved. Moreover, old Stremov, one of the most

influential people in Peterburg, and the admirer of Liza Merkalova, was Alexei Alexandrovich's enemy in the

political world. From all these considerations Anna had not meant to go, and the hints in Princess Tverskaia's

note referred to her refusal. But now Anna was eager to go, in the hope of seeing Vronsky.

At the very moment of her entry, Vronsky's footman, with his side whiskers combed out, and looking like a

Kammerjunker, went in too. He stopped at the door, and, taking off his cap, let her pass. Anna recognized

him, and only then recalled that Vronsky had told her the day before that he would not come. Most likely he

As she took off her outer garment in the hall, she heard the footman say, rolling his r's even like a

She longed to question him as to where his master was. She longed to turn back and send him a letter to come

and see her, or to go herself to see him. But none of the three courses was possible. Already she heard bells

ringing ahead of her to announce her arrival, and Princess Tverskaia's footman was standing at the open door

"The Princess is in the garden; she will be informed immediately. Would you be pleased to walk into the

The position of uncertainty, of indecision, was still the same as at home worse, in fact, since it was

impossible to take any step, impossible to see Vronsky, and she had to remain here among outsiders, in

company so uncongenial to her present mood. But she was wearing a dress that she knew suited her. She was

not alone; all around was that luxurious setting of idleness that she was used to, and she felt less wretched

than at home. She was not forced to think what she had to do. Everything would be done of itself. On meeting

Betsy coming toward her in a white gown that struck her by its elegance, Anna smiled to her just as she

always did. Princess Tverskaia was walking with Tushkevich and a young lady, a relation, who, to the great

joy of her parents in the provinces, was spending the summer with the fashionable Princess.

"I slept badly," answered Anna, looking intently at the footman who came to meet them, and, as she

"How glad I am you've come!" said Betsy. "I'm tired, and was just longing to have some tea before they

come. You might go," she turned to Tushkevich, "with Masha, and try the croquet ground over there, where

they've been clipping it. We shall have time to talk a little over tea, we'll have a cozy chat, eh?" she said in

"Yes, especially as I can't stay very long with you. I'm forced to go on to old Madame Vrede. I've been

promising to go for a century," said Anna, to whom lying, alien as it was to her nature, had become not

merely simple and natural in society, but a positive source of satisfaction. Why she said this, which she had

not thought of a second before, she could not have explained. She had said it simply from the reflection that

as Vronsky would not be here, she had better secure her own freedom, and try to see him somehow. But why

she had spoken of old Hoffraulein Vrede, whom she had to go and see, as she had to see many other people,

she could not have explained; and yet, as it afterward turned out, had she cudgeled her brains for the most

"No. I'm not going to let you go for anything," answered Betsy, looking intently into Anna's face. "Really, if I

were not fond of you, I should feel offended. One would think you were afraid my society would compromise

you. Tea in the small dining room, please," she said, half closing her eyes, as she always did when

"Alexei is playing us false," she said in French; "he writes that he can't come," she added, in a tone as simple

and natural as though it could never enter her head that Vronsky could mean anything more to Anna than a

game of croquet. Anna knew that Betsy knew everything, but, hearing how she spoke of Vronsky before her,

"Ah!" said Anna indifferently, as though not greatly interested in the matter; and she went on, smiling: "How

This playing with words, this hiding of a secret, had a great fascination for Anna, as, indeed, it has for all

women. And it was not the necessity of concealment, not the purpose for which the concealment was

"I can't be more catholic than the Pope," she said. "Stremov and Liza Merkalova why, they're the cream of

the cream of society. Besides, they're received everywhere, and I" she laid special stress on the I "have

"No; you don't care, perhaps, to meet Stremov? Let him and Alexei Alexandrovich tilt at each other in the

Committee that's no affair of ours. But, in society, he's the most amiable man I know, and an ardent croquet

player. You shall see. And, in spite of his absurd position as Liza's lovesick swain at his age, you ought to see

how he carries off the absurd position. He's very nice. Don't you know Sappho Stoltz? Oh, that's a new type

Betsy went on with all this chatter, yet, at the same time, from her goodhumored, shrewd glance, Anna felt

that she partly guessed her plight, and was hatching something for her benefit. They were in the little boudoir.

"I must write to Alexei, though," and Betsy sat down to the table, scribbled a few lines, and put the note in an

envelope. "I'm telling him to come to dinner. I've one lady extra to dinner with me, and no man to take her in.

Look what I've said will that persuade him? Excuse me, I must leave you for a minute. Would you seal it up,

please, and send it off? she said from the door; "I have to give some directions."

Without a moment's hesitation, Anna sat down to the table with Betsy's letter, and, without reading it, wrote

below: "It's essential for me to see you. Come to the Vrede garden. I shall be there at six o'clock." She sealed

At tea, which was brought them on a little tea table in the cool little drawing room, a cozy chat promised by

Princess Tverskaia before the arrival of her visitors really did come off between the two women. They

criticized the people they were expecting, and the conversation fell upon Liza Merkalova.

"You ought to like her. She raves about you. Yesterday she came up to me after the races and was in despair

at not finding you. She says you're a real heroine of romance, and that if she were a man she would do all

"But do tell me, please I never could make it out," said Anna, after being silent for some time, speaking in a

tone that showed she was not asking an idle question, but that what she was asking was of greater importance

to her than it should have been, "do tell me, please: what are her relations with Prince Kaluzhsky Mishka, as

"It's a new mode," she said. "They've all adopted that mode. They've flung their caps over the windmills. But

Betsy broke into unexpectedly mirthful and irrepressible laughter, a thing which rarely happened with her.

"You're encroaching on Princess Miaghkaia's special domain now. That's the question of an enfant terrible,"

and Betsy obviously tried to restrain herself, but could not, and went off into peals of that infectious laughter

peculiar to people who do not laugh often. "You'd better ask them," she brought out, between tears of

"No; you laugh," said Anna, laughing too, in spite of herself, "but I never could understand it. I can't

"The husband? Liza Merkalova's husband carries her shawl, and is always ready to be of use. But no one

cares to inquire about what is really going on. You know, in decent society one doesn't talk or think even of

"Will you be at Madame Rolandaky's fete?" asked Anna, to change the conversation.

"I don't think so," answered Betsy, and, without looking at her friend, she began filling the little transparent

cups with fragrant tea. Putting a cup before Anna, she took out a thin cigarette, and, fitting it into a silver

holder, she lighted it. "It's like this, you see: I'm in a fortunate position," she began, quite serious now, as she

took up her cup. "I understand you, and I understand Liza. Liza now is one of those naive natures that, like

children, don't know what's good and what's bad. Anyway, she didn't comprehend it when she was very

young. And now she's aware that the lack of comprehension suits her. Now, perhaps, she doesn't know on

purpose," said Betsy, with a subtle smile. "But, anyway, it suits her. The very same thing, don't you see, may

be looked at tragically, and turned into misery, or it may be looked at simply, and even humorously. Possibly

"How I should like to know other people just as I know myself!" said Anna, seriously and dreamily. "Am I

They heard the sound of steps and a man's voice, then a woman's voice and laughter, and immediately

thereafter there walked in the expected guests: Sappho Stoltz, and a young man beaming with excess of

health, the socalled Vaska. It was evident that ample supplies of beefsteak, truffles, and Burgundy were

profitable for his health. Vaska bowed to the two ladies, and glanced at them, but only for one second. He

walked after Sappho into the drawing room, and followed her about as though he were chained to her,

keeping his sparkling eyes fixed on her as though he wanted to eat her. Sappho Stoltz was a blonde beauty

with black eyes. She walked with smart little steps in highheeled shoes, and shook hands with the ladies

Anna had never met this new star of fashion, and was struck by her beauty, the exaggerated extreme to which

her dress was carried, and the boldness of her manners. On her head there was such an echafaudage of soft,

golden hair her own and false mixed that her head was equal in size to the elegantly rounded bust, of

which so much was exposed in front. The impulsive abruptness of her movements was such that at every step

the lines of her knees and the upper part of her legs were distinctly marked under her dress, and the question

involuntarily rose in one's mind where in the undulating, piledup mountain of material at the back the real

body of the woman, so small and slender, so naked in front, and so hidden behind and below, really came to

"Only fancy, we all but ran over two soldiers," she began telling them at once, using her eyes, smiling and

twitching away her train, which she at first threw too much to one side. "I drove here with Vaska... Ah, to be

sure, you don't know each other." And, mentioning his surname, she introduced the young man, and,

reddening, broke into a ringing laugh at her mistake that is, at her having called him Vaska before a

stranger. Vaska bowed once more to Anna, but he said nothing to her. He addressed Sappho: "You've lost

"Very well, very well. Oh, yes," she turned suddenly to Princess Betsy: "I am a nice person... I positively

The unexpected young visitor, whom Sappho had brought with her, and whom she had forgotten, was,

however, a personage of such consequence that, in spite of his youth, both the ladies rose on his entrance.

Soon after Prince Kaluzhsky arrived, and Liza Merkalova with Stremov. Liza Merkalova was a thin brunette,

with an Oriental, languid type of face, and charming as everyone used to say ineffable eyes. The tone of

her dark dress (Anna immediately observed and appreciated the fact) was in perfect harmony with her style of

But to Anna's taste Liza was far more attractive. Betsy had said to Anna that she had adopted the pose of an

unsophisticated child, but when Anna saw her she felt this was not the truth. She really was unsophisticated,

spoiled, yet a sweet and irresponsible woman. It is true that her tone was the same as Sappho's; that, like

Sappho, she had two men, one young and one old, tacked on to her, and devouring her with their eyes. But

there was something in her higher than her surroundings. There was in her the glow of the real diamond

among paste. This glow shone out in her charming, truly ineffable eyes. The weary, and at the same time

passionate, glance of those eyes, encircled by dark rings, impressed one by its perfect sincerity. Everyone

looking into those eyes fancied he knew her wholly, and, knowing her, could not but love her. At the sight of

"Ah, how glad I am to see you!" she said, going up to her. "Yesterday, at the races, I wanted just to get to

you, but you'd gone away. I did so want to see you, especially yesterday. Wasn't it awful?" she said, looking

"I'm not going," said Liza, smiling and settling herself close to Anna. "You won't go either, will you? Who

"There, how do you manage never to be bored by things? One has but to look at you, to be joyful. You're

"How can you be bored? Why, you live among the merriest people in Peterburg," said Anna.

"Possibly the people who are not of our set are even more bored; but we are not amused ourselves I

Sappho, smoking a cigarette, went off into the garden with the two young men. Betsy and Stremov remained

"You bored?" said Betsy. "Sappho says they enjoyed themselves tremendously at your house last night."

"Ah, how dreary it all was!" said Liza Merkalova. "We all drove back to my place after the races. And always

the same people, always the same. Always the same thing. We lounged about on sofas all the evening. What's

enjoyable about that? No; do tell me how you manage never to be bored?" she said, addressing Anna again.

"One has but to look at you and one sees a woman who may be happy or unhappy, but who isn't bored. Tell

Stremov was a man of fifty, partly gray, but still vigorous in appearance, very ugly, but with a characteristic

and intelligent face. Liza Merkalova was his wife's niece, and he spent all his leisure hours with her. On

meeting Anna Karenina, since he was Alexei Alexandrovich's enemy in the government, he tried, like a

shrewd man and a man of the world, to be particularly cordial with her, the wife of his enemy.

"Nothing," he put in with a subtle smile, "that's the very best way. I told you long ago," he said, turning to

Liza Merkalova, "that, in order not to be bored, you mustn't think you're going to be bored. Just as you

mustn't be afraid of not being able to fall asleep, if you're afraid of sleeplessness. That's precisely what Anna

"I should be very glad if I had said it, for it's not only clever but true," said Anna, smiling.

"No, do tell me why it is one can't go to sleep, and one can't help being bored?"

"What am I to work for when my work is of no use to anybody? And I can't, and won't, knowingly make a

"You're incorrigible," said Stremov, without looking at her, and he spoke again to Anna.

As he rarely met Anna, he could say nothing but banalities to her, but he said those banalities, when was she

returning to Peterburg, and how fond Countess Lidia Ivanovna was of her with an expression which

suggested that he longed with his whole soul to please her, and show his regard for her and even more than

Tushkevich came in, announcing that the party were awaiting the other players to begin croquet.

"No, don't go away, please don't," pleaded Liza Merkalova, hearing that Anna was going. Stremov joined in

"It's too violent a transition," he said, "to go from such company to old Madame Vrede. And, besides, you

will only give her a chance for talking scandal, while here you will arouse other feelings, of the finest and

Anna pondered for an instant in uncertainty. This shrewd man's flattering words, the naive, childlike affection

shown her by Liza Merkalova, and all the worldly atmosphere she was used to it was all so easy, while that

which was in store for her was so difficult, that she was for a minute in uncertainty: should she remain,

should she put off a little longer the painful moment of explanation? But, remembering what was in store for

her when she would be alone at home, if she did not come to some decision; remembering that gesture

terrible even in memory when she had clutched her hair in both hands, she said goodby and went away.

In spite of Vronsky's apparently frivolous life in society, he was a man who hated disorder. In early youth, in

the Corps of Pages, he had experienced the humiliation of a refusal, when he had tried, being in difficulties,

to borrow money, and since then he had never once put himself in the same position again.

In order to keep his affairs in some sort of order, he was wont, about five times a year (more or less

frequently, according to circumstances), to shut himself up alone and put all his affairs into definite shape.

On waking up late in the morning after the races, Vronsky put on a white linen coat, and, without shaving or

taking his bath, he distributed about the table money, bills, and letters, and set to work. Petritsky, who knew

he was illtempered on such occasions, on waking up and seeing his comrade at the writing table, quietly

Every man who knows to the minutest details all the complexity of the conditions surrounding him, cannot

help imagining that the complexity of these conditions, and the difficulty of making them clear, is something

exceptional and personal, peculiar to himself, and never supposes that others are surrounded by just as

complicated an array of personal affairs as he is. So indeed it seemed to Vronsky. And not without inward

pride, and not without reason, he thought that any other man would long ago have been in difficulties, and

would have been forced to some dishonorable course, if he had found himself in such a difficult position. But

Vronsky felt that now especially it was essential for him to clear up and define his position if he were to

What Vronsky attacked first, as being the easiest, was his pecuniary position. Writing out on note paper in his

minute handwriting all that he owed, he added up the amount and found that his debts amounted to seventeen

thousand and some odd hundreds, which he left out for the sake of clearness. Reckoning up his cash and the

balance in his bankbook, he found that he had left one thousand eight hundred roubles, and nothing coming in

before the New Year. Reckoning over again his list of debts, Vronsky copied it, dividing it into three classes.

In the first class he put the debts which he would have to pay at once, or for which he must in any case have

the money ready so that on demand for payment there would not be a moment's delay in paying. Such debts

amounted to about four thousand: one thousand five hundred for a horse, and two thousand five hundred as

surety for a young comrade, Venevsky, who had lost that sum to a cardsharper in Vronsky's presence.

Vronsky had wanted to pay the money at the time (he had that amount then), but Venevsky and Iashvin had

insisted that they would pay and not Vronsky, who had not played. So far, so good; but Vronsky knew that in

this dirty business, though his only share in it was undertaking by word of mouth to be surety for Venevsky,

it was absolutely necessary for him to have the two thousand five hundred roubles, so as to be able to fling it

at the cheat, and have no more words with him. And so, for this first and most important division, he must

have four thousand roubles. The second class eight thousand roubles consisted of less important debts.

These were principally accounts owing in connection with his race horses, to the purveyor of oats and hay,

the Englishman, the saddler, and so on. He would have to pay some two thousand roubles on these debts too,

in order to be quite free from anxiety. The last class of debts to shops, to hotels, to his tailor were such as

need not be considered. So that he needed at least six thousand roubles, and he only had one thousand eight

hundred for current expenses. For a man with one hundred thousand roubles of revenue, which was what

everyone fixed as Vronsky's income, such debts, one would suppose, could hardly be embarrassing; but the

fact was that he was far from having one hundred thousand. His father's immense property, which alone

yielded a yearly income of two hundred thousand, was left undivided between the brothers. At the time when

the elder brother, with a mass of debts, had married Princess Varia Chirkova, the daughter of a Dekabrist

without any fortune whatever, Alexei had given up to his elder brother almost the whole income from his

father's estate, reserving for himself only twentyfive thousand a year from it. Alexei had said at the time to

his brother that the sum would be sufficient for him until he married, which he would probably never do. And

his brother, who was in command of one of the most expensive regiments, and was only just married, could

not decline the gift. His mother, who had her own separate property, had allowed Alexei every year twenty

thousand in addition to the twentyfive thousand he had reserved, and Alexei had spent it all. Of late his

mother, incensed with him on account of his love affair and his leaving Moscow, had given up sending him

the money. And, in consequence of this, Vronsky, who had been in the habit of living on the scale of

fortyfive thousand a year, having only received twenty thousand that year, now found himself in difficulties.

To get out of these difficulties, he could not apply to his mother for money. Her last letter, which he had

received the day before, had particularly exasperated him by the hints it contained that she was quite ready to

help him to succeed in the world and in the army, but not to lead a life which scandalized all good society.

His mother's attempt to buy him stung him to the quick and made him feel colder than ever toward her. But

he could not draw back from the generous word when it was once uttered, even though he felt now, vaguely

foreseeing certain eventualities in his liaison with Madame Karenina, that his generous word had been spoken

thoughtlessly, and that, even though he were not married, he might need all the hundred thousand of income.

But it was impossible to draw back. He had only to recall his brother's wife, to remember how that sweet,

delightful Varia sought, at every convenient opportunity, to remind him that she remembered his generosity

and appreciated it, to grasp the impossibility of taking back his gift. It was as impossible as beating a woman,

or stealing, or lying. One thing only could and ought to be done, and Vronsky determined upon it without an

instant's hesitation: to borrow money from a moneylender, ten thousand roubles, a proceeding which

presented no difficulty; to cut down his expenses generally, and to sell his race horses. Resolving on this, he

promptly wrote a note to Rolandaky, who had more than once sent to him with offers to buy horses from him.

Then he sent for the Englishman and the moneylender, and divided what money he had according to the

accounts he intended to pay. Having finished this business, he wrote a cold and cutting answer to his mother.

Then he took out of his notebook three notes of Anna's, read them again, burned them, and, remembering

Vronsky's life was particularly happy in that he had a code of principles, which defined with unfailing

certitude what he ought and what he ought not to do. This code of principles covered only a very small circle

of contingencies, but then the principles were never doubtful, and Vronsky, as he never went outside that

circle, had never had a moment's hesitation about doing what he ought to do. These principles laid down as

invariable rules: that one must pay a cardsharper, but need not pay a tailor; that one must never tell a lie to a

man, but one may to a woman; that one must never cheat anyone, but one may a husband; that one must

never pardon an insult, but one may give one and so on. These principles were possibly not reasonable and

not good, but they were of unfailing certainty, and, so long as he adhered to them, Vronsky felt that his heart

was at peace and he could hold his head up. But of late, in regard to his relations with Anna, Vronsky had

begun to feel that his code of principles did not fully cover all possible contingencies, and to foresee in the

His present relation to Anna and to her husband was to his mind clear and simple. It was clearly and precisely

She was an honorable woman who had bestowed her love upon him, and he loved her, and therefore she was

in his eyes a woman who had a right to the same respect, or even more, than a lawful wife. He would have

had his hand chopped off before he would have allowed himself by a word, by a hint, to humiliate her, or

His attitude toward society, too, was clear. Everyone might know, might suspect it, but no one might dare to

speak of it. If any did speak, he was ready to force all who might do so to be silent and to respect the

His attitude to the husband was the clearest of all. From the moment that Anna loved Vronsky, he had

regarded his own right over her as the one thing unassailable. Her husband was simply a superfluous and

tiresome person. No doubt he was in a pitiable position, but how could that be helped? The one thing the

husband had a right to was to demand satisfaction with a weapon in his hand, and Vronsky was prepared for

But of late new inner relations had arisen between her and him, which frightened Vronsky by their

indefiniteness. Only the day before she had told him that she was with child. And he felt that this fact, and

what she expected of him, called for something not fully defined in that code of principles by which he had

hitherto steered his course in life. And he had been indeed caught unawares, and, at the first moment when

she spoke to him of her position, his heart had prompted him to beg her to leave her husband. He had said

that, but now, thinking things over he saw clearly that it would be better to manage avoiding that; and at the

same time, as he told himself this, he was afraid whether such an avoidance were not wrong.

"If I told her to leave her husband, it would mean uniting her life with mine; am I prepared for that? How can

I take her away now, when I have no money? Supposing I could arrange... But how can I take her away while

I'm in the service? If I say it, I ought to be prepared to do it; that is, I ought to have the money and to retire

And he grew thoughtful. The question whether to retire from the service or not brought him to the other, and

perhaps the chief though hidden, interest of his life, of which none knew but he.

Ambition was the old dream of his youth and childhood, a dream which he did not confess even to himself,

though it was so strong that now this passion was even doing battle with his love. His first steps in the world

and in the service had been successful, but two years before he had made a great mistake. Anxious to show

his independence, and for the sake of advancement, he had refused a post that had been offered him, hoping

that this refusal would heighten his value; but it turned out that he had been too bold, and he was passed over.

And having, whether he liked or not, taken up for himself the position of an independent man, he carried it

off with great tact and good sense, behaving as though he bore no grudge against anyone, nor regarding

himself as injured in any way, and caring for nothing but to be left alone since he was enjoying himself. In

reality he had ceased to enjoy himself as long ago as the year before, when he had gone to Moscow. He felt

that this independent attitude of a man who might have done anything, but cared to do nothing, was already

beginning to pall, that many people were beginning to fancy that he was not really capable of anything but

being a straightforward, goodnatured fellow. His connection with Madame Karenina, by creating so much

sensation and attracting general attention, had given him a fresh distinction, which had soothed his gnawing

worm of ambition for a while; but a week ago that worm had been roused up again with fresh force. The

friend of his childhood, a man of the same set, of the same coterie, his comrade in the Corps of Pages,

Serpukhovskoy, who had left school with him, and had been his rival in class, in gymnastics, in their scrapes

and their dreams of glory, had come back a few days before from Central Asia, where he had gained two

As soon as he arrived in Peterburg, people began to talk about him as a newly risen star of the first

magnitude. A schoolfellow of Vronsky's and of the same age, he was a general and was expecting a

command which might have influence on the course of political events; while Vronsky, though he was

independent and brilliant, and beloved by a charming woman, was simply a cavalry captain who was readily

allowed to be as independent as ever he liked. "Of course, I don't envy Serpukhovskoy and never could envy

him; but his advancement shows me that one has only to watch one's opportunity, and the career of a man

like me may be very rapidly made. Three years ago he was in just the same position as I am. If I retire, I burn

my ships. If I remain in the army, I lose nothing. She said herself she did not wish to change her position.

And with her love I cannot feel envious of Serpukhovskoy." And, slowly twirling his mustaches, he got up

from the table and walked about the room. His eyes shone particularly brightly, and he felt in that firm, calm,

and happy frame of mind which always came after he had thoroughly faced his position. Everything was

straight and clear, just as after former days of striking balances. He shaved, took a cold bath, dressed, and

"I've come to fetch you. Your lessive lasted a good time today," said Petritsky. "Well, is it over?"

"It's over," answered Vronsky, smiling with his eyes only, and twirling the tips of his mustaches as

circumspectly as though after the perfect order into which his affairs had been brought any overbold or rapid

"You're always just as if you'd come out of a bath after it," said Petritsky. "I've come from Gritzka" (that was

"Yes; is that music at his place?" he said, listening to the familiar bass sounds of trumpets, of polkas and

Having once made up his mind that he was happy in his love, that he sacrificed his ambition to it at any rate,

having taken up this role Vronsky was incapable of feeling either envious of Serpukhovskoy, or vexed at

him for not having come to him first upon coming to the regiment. Serpukhovskoy was a good friend, and he

The colonel, Demin, had taken a large country house. The whole party was on the wide lower balcony. In the

courtyard the first objects that met Vronsky's eyes were a band of singers in short white linen jackets,

standing near a barrel of vodka, and the robust, goodhumored figure of the colonel surrounded by officers.

He had gone out as far as the first step of the balcony and was loudly shouting to drown out the band playing

an Offenbach quadrille, waving his arms and giving some orders to a few soldiers standing on one side. A

group of soldiers, a quartermaster, and several subalterns came up to the balcony with Vronsky. The colonel

returned to the table, went out again on the steps with a tumbler in his hand, and proposed the toast, "To the

health of our former comrade, the gallant general, Prince Serpukhovskoy. Hurrah!"

The colonel was followed by Serpukhovskoy, who came out on the steps smiling, with a glass in his hand.

"You always get younger, Bondarenko," he said to the rosycheeked, smartlooking sergeant standing just

It was three years since Vronsky had seen Serpukhovskoy. He looked more robust, had let his whiskers grow,

but was still the same graceful creature, whose face and figure were even more striking from their fineness

and nobility than their beauty. The only change Vronsky detected in him was that subdued, continual

beaming which settles on the faces of men who are successful and are sure of the recognition of their success

by everyone. Vronsky knew that radiant air, and immediately observed it in Serpukhovskoy.

As Serpukhovskoy came down the steps he saw Vronsky. A smile of pleasure lighted up his face. He tossed

his head upward and waved the glass in his hand, greeting Vronsky, and showing him by the gesture that he

could not come to him before kissing the sergeant who stood craning forward his lips ready to be kissed.

"Here he is!" shouted the colonel. "Iashvin told me you were in one of your gloomy tempers."

Serpukhovskoy kissed the moist, fresh lips of the brave sergeant, and, wiping his mouth with his

"You look after him," the colonel shouted to Iashvin, pointing to Vronsky; and he went down below to the

"Why weren't you at the races yesterday? I expected to see you there," said Vronsky, scrutinizing

"I did go, but late. I beg your pardon," he added, and turned to the adjutant: "Please have this distributed from

And he hurriedly took three notes for a hundred roubles each from his pocketbook, and blushed.

"Vronsky! Have a bite or a drink?" asked Iashvin. "Hi, something for the Count to eat! There drink that."

There was a great deal of drinking. They swung Serpukhovskoy and tossed him in the air. Then they did the

same to the colonel. Then, to the accompaniment of the band, the colonel himself danced with Petritsky. Then

the colonel, who began to show signs of weakening, sat down on a bench in the courtyard and began

demonstrating to Iashvin the superiority of Russia over Prussia, especially in cavalry attack, and there was a

lull in the revelry for a moment. Serpukhovskoy went into the house to the bathroom to wash his hands and

found Vronsky there Vronsky was sousing his head with water. He had taken off his coat and put his red

hairy neck under the tap, and was rubbing it and his head with his hands. When he had finished, Vronsky sat

down by Serpukhovskoy. They both sat down in the bathroom on a lounge, and a conversation began which

"I've always been hearing about you through my wife," said Serpukhovskoy. "I'm glad you've been seeing her

"She's friendly with Varia, and they're the only women in Peterburg I care about seeing," answered Vronsky,

smiling. He smiled because he foresaw the topic the conversation would turn to, and he was glad of it.

"Yes; and I heard news of you, but not only through your wife," said Vronsky, checking Serpukhovskoy's

hint by assuming a stern expression. "I was greatly delighted to hear of your success, but not a bit surprised. I

Serpukhovskoy smiled. Such an opinion of him was obviously agreeable to him, and he did not think it

"Well, I, on the contrary, expected less I'll own up frankly. But I'm glad, very glad. I'm ambitious that's my

"Perhaps you wouldn't confess to it if you hadn't been successful," said Vronsky.

"I don't suppose so," said Serpukhovskoy, smiling again. "I won't say life wouldn't be worth living without it,

but it would be dull. Of course I may be mistaken, but I fancy I have a certain capacity for the line I've

chosen, and that if there is to be power of any sort in my hands, it will be better than in the hands of a good

many people I know," said Serpukhovskoy, with beaming consciousness of success; "and so the nearer I get

"Perhaps that is true for you, but not for everyone. I used to think so too, but now I see and think life worth

"There it comes! there it comes!" said Serpukhovskoy laughing. "Ever since I heard about you, about your

refusal, I began... Of course, I approved of what you did. But there are ways of doing everything. And I think

your action was good in itself, but you didn't do it in quite the way you should have done."

"What's done can't be undone, and you know I never go back on what I've done. And, besides, I'm very well

"Very well off for the time. But you're not satisfied with that. I wouldn't say this to your brother. He's a

charming child, like our host here. There he goes!" he added, listening to the roar of a "hurrah!" "and he's

"By whom? By society, by Russia. Russia needs men, she needs a party, or else everything goes and will go

"No," said Serpukhovskoy, frowning with vexation at being suspected of such an absurdity. "Tout ca est une

blague. That has always been, and always will be. There are no communists. But intriguing people have to

invent a noxious, dangerous party. It's an old trick. No, what's wanted is a powerful party of independent

"But why so?" Vronsky mentioned a few men who were in power. "Why aren't they independent men?"

"Simply because they have not, or have not had from birth, an independent fortune, they've not had a name,

they weren't born close to the sun as we were. They can be bought either by money or by favor. And they

have to find a support for themselves in inventing a trend. And they bring forward some notion, some trend

that they don't believe in, that does harm; and the whole policy is really only a means to a house at the

expense of the crown and so much income. Cela n'est pas plus fin que ca, when you get a peep at their cards.

I may be inferior to them, more stupid perhaps, though I don't see why I should be inferior to them. But you

and I have one important, certain advantage over them, in being more difficult to buy. And such men are

Vronsky listened attentively, but he was not so much interested by the meaning of the words as by the

attitude of Serpukhovskoy, who was already contemplating a struggle with the existing powers, and already

had his likes and dislikes in that world, while his own interest in his service did not go beyond the interests of

his squadron. Vronsky felt, too, how powerful Serpukhovskoy might become through his unmistakable

faculty for thinking things out and for taking things in, through his intelligence and gift of eloquence, so

rarely met with in the world in which he moved. And, ashamed as he was of the feeling, he felt envious.

"Still I haven't the one thing of paramount importance for that," he answered; "I haven't the desire for power.

"You say perhaps," Serpukhovskoy went on, as though guessing his thoughts, "but I say for certain. And

that's what I wanted to see you for. Your action was just what it should have been. I see that, but you ought

not to persevere in it. I only ask you to give me carte blanche. I'm not going to offer you my protection....

Though, indeed, why shouldn't I protect you? you've protected me often enough! I should hope our

friendship rises above all that sort of thing. Yes," he said, smiling to him as tenderly as a woman, "give me

"But you must understand that I want nothing," said Vronsky, "except to leave things just as they were."

"You said, leave things just as they were. I understand what that means. But listen: we're the same age, you've

known a greater number of women perhaps than I have." Serpukhovskoy's smile and gestures told Vronsky

that he mustn't be afraid, that he would be tender and careful in touching the sore place. "But I'm married, and

believe me, in getting to know one's wife thoroughly, if one loves her, as someone has said, one gets to know

"We're coming directly!" Vronsky shouted to an officer, who looked into the room and called them to the

Vronsky was longing now to hear Serpukhovskoy to the end, and know what he would say to him.

"And here's my opinion for you. Women are the chief stumbling block in a man's career. It's hard to love a

woman and do anything. There's only one way of having love conveniently without its being a hindrance

that's marriage. Now, how am I to tell you what I mean?" said Serpukhovskoy, who liked similes. "Wait, wait

a minute! Yes, just as you can only carry a fardeau yet do something with your hands when the fardeau is tied

on your back and that's marriage. And that's what I felt when I was married. My hands were suddenly set

free. But if you drag that fardeau about with you without marriage, your hands will always be so full that you

can do nothing. Look at Mazankov, at Krupov. They've ruined their careers for the sake of women."

"What women!" said Vronsky, recalling the Frenchwoman and the actress with whom the two men he had

"The firmer the woman's footing in society, the worse it is. That's much the same as not merely carrying the

"You have never loved," Vronsky said softly, looking straight before him and thinking of Anna.

"Perhaps. But you remember what I've said to you. And another thing women are all more materialistic than

"Directly, directly!" he cried to a footman who came in. But the footman had not come to call them again, as

It was six o'clock already, and so, in order to be there quickly, and at the same time not to drive with his own

horses, known to everyone, Vronsky got into Iashvin's hackney coach and told the coachman to drive as

quickly as possible. It was a roomy, oldfashioned coach, with seats for four. He sat in one corner, stretched

A vague sense of the clearness to which his affairs had been brought, a vague recollection of the friendliness

and flattery of Serpukhovskoy, who had considered him a man who was needed, and, most of all, the

anticipation of the meeting before him all blended into a general, joyous sense of life. This feeling was so

strong that he could not help smiling. He dropped his legs, crossed one leg over the other knee, and, taking it

in his hand, felt the springy muscle of the calf, where it had been grazed the day before by his fall, and,

"I'm happy, very happy!" he said to himself. He had often before had this sense of physical joy in his own

body, but he had never felt so fond of himself, of his own body, as at that moment. He enjoyed the slight ache

in his strong leg, he enjoyed the muscular sensation of movement in his chest as he breathed. The bright, cold

August day, which had made Anna feel so hopeless, seemed to him keenly stimulating, and refreshed his face

and neck that still tingled from the cold water. The scent of brilliantine on his mustaches struck him as

particularly pleasant in the fresh air. Everything he saw from the carriage window, everything in that cold

pure air, in the pale light of the sunset, was as fresh, and gay, and strong as he was himself: the roofs of the

houses shining in the rays of the setting sun, the sharp outlines of fences and angles of buildings, the figures

of passersby and carriages that met him now and then, the motionless green of the trees and grass, the fields

with evenly drawn furrows of potatoes, and the slanting shadows that fell from the houses, and trees, and

bushes, and even from the rows of potatoes everything was bright like a pretty landscape freshly painted and

"Get on, get on!" he said to the driver, putting his head out of the window, and pulling a threerouble note

out of his pocket he handed it to the man as he looked round. The driver's hand fumbled with something at

the lamp, the whip cracked, and the coach rolled rapidly along the smooth highroad.

"I want nothing, nothing but this happiness," he thought, staring at the bone button of the bell in the space

between the windows, and picturing to himself Anna just as he had seen her last time. "And as I go on, I love

her more and more. Here's the garden of the Vrede's crown villa. Whereabouts will she be? Where? How?

Why did she fix on this place to meet me, and why does she write in Betsy's letter?" he thought, now for the

first time wondering at it. But there was now no time for wonder. He called to the driver to stop before

reaching the avenue, and opening the door, jumped out of the carriage as it was moving, and went up the

avenue that led to the house. There was no one in the avenue; but, looking round to the right, he caught sight

of her. Her face was hidden by a veil, but he drank in with glad eyes the special movement in walking,

peculiar to her alone, the slope of her shoulders, and the setting of her head, and at once a sort of electric

shock ran all over him. With fresh force he felt conscious of himself, from the springy movements of his legs

to the movements of his lungs as he breathed, and something set his lips twitching.

"You're not angry because I sent for you? I absolutely had to see you," she said; and the serious and set line

"Never mind," she said, laying her hand on his arm, "come along, I must talk to you."

He saw that something had happened, and that the interview would not be a joyous one. In her presence he

had no will of his own: without knowing the grounds of her distress, he already felt the same distress

"What is it? What?" he asked her, squeezing her hand with his elbow, and trying to read her thoughts in her

She walked on a few steps in silence, gathering up her courage; then suddenly she stopped.

"I did not tell you yesterday," she began, breathing quickly and painfully, "that coming home with Alexei

Alexandrovich I told him everything... told him I could not be his wife, that... and told him everything."

He heard her, unconsciously bending his whole figure down to her as though hoping in this way to soften the

hardness of her position for her. But directly she had said this he suddenly drew himself up, and a proud and

"Yes, yes, that's better, a thousand times better! I know how painful it was," he said. But she was not listening

to his words she was reading his thoughts from the expression of his face. She could not guess that that

arose from the first idea that presented itself to Vronsky that a duel was now inevitable. The idea of a duel

had never crossed her mind, and so she put a different interpretation on this passing expression of hardness.

When she got her husband's letter, she knew then at the bottom of her heart that everything would go on in

the old way, that she would not have the strength of will to forego her position, to abandon her son, and to

join her lover. The morning spent at Princess Tverskaia's had confirmed her still more in this. But this

interview was still of the utmost gravity for her. She hoped that this interview would transform her position,

and save her. If on hearing this news he were to say to her resolutely, passionately, without an instant's

wavering: "Throw up everything and come with me! she would give up her son and go away with him. But

this news had not produced on him the effect she had expected; he simply seemed resentful of some affront.

"It was not in the least painful for me. It happened of itself," she said irritably, "and see..." She pulled her

"I understand, I understand," he interrupted her, taking the letter, but not reading it, and trying to soothe her.

"The one thing I longed for, the one thing I prayed for, was to cut short this position, so as to devote my life

"Why do you tell me that?" she said. "Do you suppose I can doubt it? If I doubted..."

"Who's that coming?" said Vronsky suddenly, pointing to two ladies walking toward them. "Perhaps they

"Oh, I don't care!" she said. Her lips were quivering. And he fancied that her eyes looked with strange fury at

him from under her veil. "I tell you that's not the point I can't doubt that; but see what he writes me. Read

Again, just as at the first moment of hearing of her rupture with her husband, Vronsky, on reading the letter,

was unconsciously carried away by the natural sensation aroused in him by his own relation to the injured

husband. Now, while he held his letter in his hands, he could not help picturing the challenge, which he

would most likely find at home today or tomorrow, and the duel itself, in which, with the same cold and

haughty expression that his face was assuming at this moment, he would await the injured husband's shot,

after having himself fired into the air. And at that instant there flashed across his mind the thought of what

Serpukhovskoy had just said to him, and what he had himself been thinking in the morning that it was better

Having read the letter, he raised his eyes to her, and there was no firmness in them. She saw at once that he

had been thinking about it before by himself. She knew that whatever he might say to her, he would not say

all he thought. And she knew that her last hope had failed her. This was not what she had been looking for.

"Forgive me, but I rejoice at it," Vronsky interrupted. "For God's sake, let me finish!" he added, his eyes

imploring her to give him time to explain his words. "I rejoice, because things cannot, cannot possibly remain

"Why can't they?" Anna said, restraining her tears, and obviously attaching no sort of consequence to what he

Vronsky meant that after the duel inevitable, he thought things could not go on as before, but he said

"It can't go on. I hope that now you will leave him. I hope" he was confused, and reddened "that you will

"But my child!" she shrieked. "You see what he writes! I should have to leave him, and I can't and won't do

"But, for God's sake, which is better? To leave your child, or keep up this degrading situation?"

"You say degrading... Don't say that. These words have no meaning for me," she said in a shaking voice. She

did not want him now to say what was untrue. She had nothing left her but his love, and she wanted to love

him. "Don't you understand that from the day I loved you everything has changed for me? For me there is one

thing, and one thing only your love. If that's mine, I feel so exalted, so strong, that nothing can be degrading

to me. I am proud of my position, because... proud of being... proud..." She could not say what she was proud

of. Tears of shame and despair choked her utterance. She stood still and sobbed.

He felt, too, something swelling in his throat and twitching in his nose, and for the first time in his life he felt

on the point of weeping. He could not have said exactly what it was touched him so; he felt sorry for her, and

he felt he could not help her, and with that he knew that he was to blame for her wretchedness, and that he

"Isn't a divorce possible?" he said feebly. She shook her head, without answering. "Couldn't you take your

"Yes; but it all depends on him. Now I must go to him," she said shortly. Her presentiment that all would

Anna's carriage, which she had sent away, and ordered to come back to the little gate of the Vrede garden,

On Monday there was the usual session of the Commission of the 2nd of June. Alexei Alexandrovich walked

into the hall where the session was held, greeted the members and the president, as usual, and sat down in his

place, putting his hand on the papers laid ready before him. Among those papers lay the necessary evidence

and a rough outline of the speech he intended to make. But he did not really need these documents. He

remembered every point, and did not think it necessary to go over in his memory what he would say. He

knew that when the time came, and when he saw his enemy facing him, and studiously endeavoring to

assume an expression of indifference, his speech would flow of itself better than he could prepare it now. He

felt that the import of his speech was of such magnitude that every word of it would have weight. Meantime,

as he listened to the usual report, he had the most innocent and inoffensive air. No one, looking at his white

hands, with their swollen veins and long fingers, so softly stroking the edges of the white paper that lay

before him, and at the air of weariness with which his head drooped on one side, would have suspected that in

a few minutes a torrent of words would flow from his lips that would arouse a fearful storm, set the members

shouting and attacking one another, and force the president to call for order. When the report was over,

Alexei Alexandrovich announced in his subdued, delicate voice that he had several points to bring before the

meeting in regard to the organization of the native tribes. All attention was turned upon him. Alexei

Alexandrovich cleared his throat, and, without looking at his opponent, but selecting, as he always did while

he was delivering his speeches, the first person sitting opposite him, an inoffensive little old man, who never

had an opinion of any sort in the Commission, began to expound his views. When he reached the point about

the basic and organic law, his opponent jumped up and began to protest. Stremov, who was also a member of

the Commission, and was also stung to the quick, began defending himself, and an altogether stormy session

followed; but Alexei Alexandrovich triumphed, and his motion was carried, three new commissions were

appointed, and the next day, in a certain Peterburg circle, nothing else was talked of but this session. Alexei

Next morning, Tuesday, Alexei Alexandrovich, on awaking, recollected with pleasure his triumph of the

previous day, and he could not help smiling, though he tried to appear indifferent, when the head clerk,

anxious to flatter him, informed him of the rumors that had reached him concerning what had happened in the

Absorbed in business with the head clerk, Alexei Alexandrovich had completely forgotten that it was

Tuesday, the day fixed by him for the return of Anna Arkadyevna, and he was surprised and received a shock

Anna had arrived in Peterburg early in the morning; the carriage had been sent to meet her in accordance with

her telegram, and so Alexei Alexandrovich might have known of her arrival. But, when she arrived, he did

not meet her. She was told that he had not yet gone out, but was busy with the head clerk. She sent word to

her husband that she had come, went to her own room, and occupied herself in sorting out her things,

expecting he would come to her. But an hour passed; he did not come. She went into the dining room on the

pretext of giving some directions, and spoke loudly on purpose, expecting him to come out there; but he did

not come, though she heard him go to the door of his study as he parted from the head clerk. She knew that he

should before long go out to his office as usual, and she wanted to see him before that, so that their attitude to

She walked across the drawing room and went resolutely to him. When she went into his study he was in

official uniform, obviously ready to go out, sitting at a little table on which he rested his elbows, looking

dejectedly before him. She saw him before he saw her, and she knew that he was thinking of her.

On seeing her, he would have risen, but changed his mind, then his face flushed hotly a thing Anna had

never seen before, and he got up quickly and went to meet her, looking not at her eyes, but above them, at her

forehead and hair. He went up to her, took her by the hand, and asked her to sit down.

"I am very glad you have come," he said, sitting down beside her, and, obviously wishing to say something,

he stuttered. Several times he attempted to speak, but stopped. In spite of the fact, that in preparing herself for

meeting him, she had schooled herself to despise and accuse him, she did not know what to say to him, and

she felt pity for him. And so the silence lasted rather long: "Is Seriozha quite well?" he said, and, without

waiting for an answer, he added: "I shan't be dining at home today, and I must go out directly."

"Alexei Alexandrovich," she said, looking at him and without dropping her eyes under his persistent gaze at

her hair, "I'm a guilty woman, I'm a bad woman, yet I am the same as I was, as I told you then, and I have

"I haven't asked you about that," he said, all at once, resolutely and with hatred looking her straight in the

face; "that was as I had supposed." Under the influence of anger he apparently regained complete possession

of all his faculties. "But as I told you then, and have written to you," he said in a thin, shrill voice, "I repeat

now, that I am not bound to know this. I ignore it. Not all wives are so kind as you, to be in such a hurry to

communicate such agreeable news to their husbands." He laid special emphasis on the word "agreeable." "I

shall ignore it so long as the world knows nothing of it, so long as my name is not disgraced. And so I simply

inform you that our relations must be just as they have always been, and that only in the event of your

"But our relations cannot be the same as always," Anna began in a timid voice, looking at him with dismay.

When she saw once more those composed gestures, heard that shrill, childlike and sarcastic voice, her

aversion for him extinguished her pity for him, and she felt only afraid; but at all costs she wanted to make

"The manner of life you have chosen is reflected, I suppose, in your ideas. I have so much of both respect and

contempt I respect your past and despise your present that I was far from the interpretation you put on my

"Though indeed I fail to comprehend how, with the independence you show," he went on, getting hot,

"announcing your infidelity to your husband and seeing nothing reprehensible in it, apparently, you can see

anything reprehensible in performing a wife's duties in relation to your husband."

"I want never to meet that man here, and I want you to conduct yourself so that neither society, nor the

servants, could possibly reproach you.... I want you not to see him. That's not much, I think. And in return

you will enjoy all the privileges of a faithful wife without fulfilling her duties. That's all I have to say to you.

Now it's time for me to go. I'm not dining at home." He got up and moved toward the door.

The night spent by Levin on the haycock did not pass without an effect upon him. The way in which he had

been managing his land revolted him and lost all attraction for him. In spite of the magnificent harvest, never

had there been (or, at least, it had never seemed so to him) so many hindrances and so many quarrels between

him and the peasants as that year, and the origin of these failures and this hostility was now perfectly

comprehensible to him. The delight he had experienced in the work itself, and the consequent greater

intimacy with the peasants, the envy he felt of them, of their life, the desire to adopt that life, which had been

to him that night not a dream but an intention, the execution of which he had thought out in detail all this

had so transformed his view of the farming of the land as he had managed it, that he could not take his former

interest in it, and could not help seeing that unpleasant relation between him and the workpeople which was

the foundation of it all. The herd of improved cows such as Pava, the whole land plowed over and enriched,

the nine level fields surrounded with willow fences, the ninety dessiatinas heavily manured, drill plows, and

all the rest of it it was all splendid, if only the work had been done by himself, or by himself and his

comrades, by people in sympathy with him. But he saw clearly now (his work on a book of agriculture, in

which the chief element in husbandry was to have been the laborer, greatly assisted him in this) that the sort

of farming he was carrying on was nothing but a cruel and stubborn struggle between him and the laborers, in

which there was on one side his side a continual intense effort to change everything to a pattern he

considered better; on the other side, the natural order of things. And in this struggle he saw that, with

immense expenditure of force on his side, and with no effort or even intention on the other side, the sole

attainment was that the work did not go to the liking of either side, and that splendid tools, splendid cattle and

land were spoiled with no good to anyone. Worst of all, the energy expended on this work was not merely

wasted. He could not help feeling now, since the meaning of his system had become clear to him, that the aim

of his energy was a most unworthy one. In reality, what was the struggle about? He was struggling for every

groat (and he could not help it, for he had only to relax his efforts, and he would not have had the money to

pay his laborers' wages), while they were only struggling to be able to do their work easily and agreeably

that is to say, as they were used to doing it. It was for his interests that every laborer should work as hard as

possible, and that while doing so he should keep his wits about him, so as to try not to break the winnowing

machines, the horse rakes, the threshing machines, that he should attend to what he was doing. What the

laborer wanted was to work as pleasantly as possible, with rests, and, above all, carelessly and heedlessly,

without thinking. That summer Levin saw this at every step. He sent the men to mow some clover for hay,

picking out the worst patches where the clover was overgrown with grass and weeds and of no use for seed;

again and again they mowed his best dessiatinas of seed clover, justifying themselves by the pretext that the

bailiff had told them to, and trying to pacify him with the assurance that it would make splendid hay; but he

knew that it was because those dessiatinas were so much easier to mow. He sent out a hay machine for

pitching the hay it was broken at the first row because it was dull work for a peasant to sit on the seat in

front with the great wings waving above him. And he was told: "Don't trouble sure, the womenfolks will

pitch it quick enough." The plows were practically useless, because it never occurred to the laborer to raise

the colter when he turned the plow, and in forcing it round, he tortured the horse and spoiled the ground and

then begged Levin not to mind it. The horses were allowed to stray into the wheat because not a single

laborer wanted to be night watchman, and, in spite of orders to the contrary, the laborers insisted on taking

turns for night duty about the horses; and when Vanka, after working all day long, fell asleep, he would say,

Three of the best heifers were allowed to overeat themselves to death, by letting them into the clover

aftermath without care as to drenching them, and nothing would make the men believe that they had been

blown out by the clover, but they told Levin, by way of consolation, that one of his neighbors had lost a

hundred and twelve head of cattle in three days. All this happened, not because anyone felt ill will to Levin or

to his farming; on the contrary, he knew that they liked him, thinking him a simple gentleman (their highest

praise); but it happened simply because all they wanted was to work merrily and carelessly, and his interests

were not only remote and incomprehensible to them, but fatally opposed to their most just claims. Long

before, Levin had felt dissatisfaction with his own position in regard to the land. He saw that his boat leaked,

but he did not look for the leak, perhaps purposely deceiving himself. But now he could deceive himself no

longer. The farming of the land, as he was managing it, had become not merely unattractive but revolting to

To this now was joined the presence, only thirty verstas off, of Kitty Shcherbatskaia, whom he longed to see

and could not. Darya Alexandrovna Oblonskaia had invited him, when he was over there, to come; to come

with the object of renewing his proposal to her sister, who would, so she gave him to understand, accept it

now. Levin himself had felt on seeing Kitty Shcherbatskaia that he had never ceased to love her; but he could

not go over to the Oblonskys', knowing she was there. The fact that he had proposed to her, and that she had

refused him, had placed an insuperable barrier between her and him. "I can't ask her to be my wife merely

because she can't be the wife of the man she wanted to marry," he said to himself. The thought of this made

him cold and hostile to her. "I should not be able to speak to her without a feeling of reproach; I could not

look at her without resentment; and she will only hate me all the more, as she's bound to. And besides, how

can I now, after what Darya Alexandrovna told me, go to see them? Can I help showing that I know what she

told me? And I shall come to forgive her magnanimously, and take pity on her! And go through a

performance before her of forgiving, and deigning to bestow my love on her!... Why did Darya Alexandrovna

tell me that? I might have seen her by chance then everything would have happened of itself; but, as it is, it's

Darya Alexandrovna sent him a letter, asking him for a sidesaddle for Kitty's use. "I'm told you have a

This was more than he could stand. How could a woman of any intelligence, of any delicacy, put her sister in

such a humiliating position! He wrote ten notes, and tore them all up, and then sent the saddle without any

reply. To write that he would come was impossible, because he could not come; to write that he could not

come because something prevented him, or that he would be away, would be still worse. He sent the saddle

without any answer; and with a sense of having done something shameful, he handed over all the now

revolting business of the estate to his bailiff, and set off next day to a remote district to see his friend

Sviiazhsky, who had splendid marshes for double snipes in his neighborhood, and had lately written, asking

him to keep a longstanding promise to visit him. The snipe marsh, in the Surovsky district, had long

tempted Levin, but he had continually put off this visit on account of his work on the estate. Now he was glad

to get away from the neighborhood of the Shcherbatskys, and still more from his farmwork, especially on a

In the Surovsky district there was neither railway nor mail coach, and Levin drove there with his own horses

He stopped halfway at a welltodo peasant's to feed his horses. A bald, wellpreserved old man, with a

broad, red beard, grizzled on his cheeks, opened the gate, squeezing against the gatepost to let the troika pass.

Directing the coachman to a place under the shed in the big, clean, tidy new yard, with charred, wooden

plows in it, the old man asked Levin to come into the room. A cleanly dressed young housewife, with clogs

on her bare feet, was scrubbing the floor in the new outer room. She was frightened by the dog that ran in

after Levin, and uttered a shriek, but began laughing at her own fright at once when she was told the dog

would not hurt her. Pointing out to Levin with her bare arm the door into the room, she bent down again,

The room was a big one, with a tile stove, and a partition dividing it into two. Under the icons stood a table

painted in patterns, a bench and two chairs. Near the entrance was a dresser full of crockery. The shutters

were closed, there were few flies, and it was so clean that Levin was anxious that Laska, who had been

running along the road and bathing in puddles, should not muddy the floor, and ordered her to a place in the

corner by the door. After looking round the room, Levin went out in the back yard. The comely young

housewife in clogs, swinging the empty pails on the yoke, ran on before him to the well for water.

"Look sharp, my girl!" the old man shouted after her, goodhumoredly, and he walked up to Levin. "Well,

sir, are you going to Nikolai Ivanovich Sviiazhsky? He comes to us too," he began chatting, leaning his

elbows on the railing of the steps. In the middle of the old man's account of his acquaintance with Sviiazhsky,

the gates creaked again, and laborers came into the yard from the fields, with wooden plows and harrows.

The horses harnessed to the plows and harrows were sleek and fat. The laborers were obviously of the

household: two were young men in cottonprint shirts and caps, the two others were hired laborers in

Moving off from the steps, the old man went up to the horses and began unharnessing them.

"Plowing up the potatoes. We rent a bit of land too. Fedot, don't let out the gelding, but take it to the trough,

"Oh, father, about the plowshares I ordered has he brought them along?" asked the big, robust fellow,

"There... in the sledge," answered the old man, rolling up the reins he had taken off, and flinging them on the

The comely young housewife came into the outer room with the full pails dragging at her shoulders. More

women came on the scene from somewhere, young and handsome, middleaged, old and ugly, with children

The samovar was beginning to sing; the laborers and the family, having disposed of the horses, came in to

dinner. Levin, getting his provisions out of his carriage, invited the old man to take tea with him.

"Well, I have had some today already," said the old man, obviously accepting the invitation with pleasure.

Over their tea Levin heard all about the old man's farming. Ten years before the old man had rented a

hundred and twenty dessiatinas from the lady who owned them, and a year ago he had bought them and

rented another three hundred from a neighboring landowner. A small part of the land the worst part he let

out for rent, while some forty dessiatinas of arable land he cultivated himself, with his family and two hired

laborers. The old man complained that things were going badly. But Levin saw that he simply did so from a

feeling of propriety, and that his farm was in a flourishing condition. If it had been unsuccessful he would not

have bought land at a hundred and five roubles the dessiatina, he would not have married off his three sons

and a nephew, he would not have rebuilt twice after fires, and each time on a larger scale. In spite of the old

man's complaints, it was evident that he was proud, and justly proud, of his prosperity, proud of his sons, his

nephew, his sons' wives, his horses, and his cows, and especially of the fact that he was keeping all this

farming going. From his conversation with the old man, Levin realized he was not averse to new methods

either. He had planted a great many potatoes, and his potatoes, as Levin had seen driving past, were already

past flowering and beginning to ripen, whereas Levin's were only just coming into flower. He plowed the

ground for his potatoes with a modern plow borrowed from a neighboring landowner. He sowed wheat. The

trifling fact that, thinning out his rye, the old man used the rye he thinned out for his horses, struck Levin

especially. How many times had Levin seen this splendid fodder wasted, and tried to get it saved; but always

it had turned out to be impossible. This peasant had done so, and he could not say enough in praise of it as

"What have the wenches to do? They carry it out in bundles to the roadside, and the cart brings it away."

"Well, we landowners can't manage well with our laborers," said Levin, handing him a glass of tea.

"Thanks," said the old man, and he took the glass, but refused sugar, pointing to a bit he had left. "There's no

getting along with them," said he. "They're simple waste. Look at Sviiazhsky, for instance. We know what

the land's like firstrate; yet there's not much of a crop to boast of. It's not looked after enough that's all it

"We're all peasants together. We go into everything ourselves. If a man's no use, he can go, and we can

"Yes, yes, that's how it is, sir!" said the old man, getting up, and, crossing himself lingeringly, he thanked

When Levin went in the kitchen to call his coachman he saw the whole family of men at dinner. The women

were standing up waiting on them. The young, robust son was telling something funny, with his mouth full of

buckwheat porridge, and they were all laughing the woman in the clogs, who was pouring cabbage soup

Very probably the comely face of the young woman in the clogs had a good deal to do with the impression of

wellbeing this peasant household made upon Levin, but the impression was so strong that Levin could never

get rid of it. And all the way from the old peasant's to Sviiazhsky's he kept recalling this peasant farm as

Sviiazhsky was the marshal of his district. He was five years older than Levin, and had long been married.

His sisterinlaw, a young girl Levin liked very much, lived in his house; and Levin knew that Sviiazhsky

and his wife would have greatly liked to marry the girl to him. He knew this with certainty, as socalled

eligible young men always know it, though he could never have brought himself to speak of it to anyone; and

he also knew that, although he wanted to get married, and although by every token this very attractive girl

would make an excellent wife, he could no more have married her, even if he had not been in love with Kitty

Shcherbatskaia, than he could have flown up to the sky. And this knowledge poisoned the pleasure he had

On getting Sviiazhsky's letter with the invitation for shooting, Levin had immediately thought of this; but, in

spite of it, he had made up his mind that Sviiazhsky's having such views for him was simply his own

groundless supposition, and so he would go, notwithstanding. Besides, at the bottom of his heart, he had a

desire to try himself, to put himself to the test in regard to this girl. The Sviiazhskys' home life was

exceedingly pleasant, and Sviiazhsky himself, the best type of Zemstvo man that Levin knew, was very

Sviiazhsky was one of those people, always a source of wonder to Levin, whose convictions, very logical

though never original, go one way by themselves, while their life, exceedingly definite and firm in its course,

goes its way quite apart and almost always in direct contradiction to their convictions. Sviiazhsky was an

extremely advanced man. He despised the nobility, and believed the mass of the nobility to be secretly in

favor of serfdom, and only concealing their views out of cowardice. He regarded Russia as a ruined country,

rather after the style of Turkey, and the government of Russia as so bad that he never permitted himself to

criticize its doings seriously, and yet he was a functionary of that government, and a model marshal of

nobility, and when he drove about he always wore his cap with the cockade and red band. He considered

human life only tolerable abroad, and went abroad to stay at every opportunity, and at the same time he

carried on a complex and improved system of agriculture in Russia, and with extreme interest followed

everything and knew everything that was being done in Russia. He considered the Russian peasant as

occupying a stage of development intermediate between the ape and the man, and at the same time in the

days of Zemstvo election no one was readier to shake hands with the peasants and listen to their opinion. He

believed neither in God nor the devil, but was much concerned about the question of the improvement of the

clergy and the maintenance of their revenues, and took special trouble to keep up the church in his village.

On the woman question he was on the side of the extreme advocates of complete liberty for women, and

especially their right to labor. But he lived with his wife on such terms that their affectionate, childless home

life was the admiration of everyone, and arranged his wife's life so that she did nothing and could do nothing

but share her husband's preoccupations in spending their time as happily and as agreeably as possible.

If it had not been a characteristic of Levin to put the most favorable interpretation on people, Sviiazhsky's

character would have presented no doubt or difficulty to him: he would have said to himself, "a fool or a

knave," and everything would have seemed clear. But he could not say a fool, because Sviiazhsky was

unmistakably clever, and, moreover, a highly cultivated man, who was exceptionally modest over his culture.

There was not a subject he knew nothing of. But he did not display his knowledge except when he was

compelled to do so. Still less could Levin say that he was a knave, as Sviiazhsky was unmistakably an honest,

goodhearted, sensible man, who worked goodhumoredly, keenly, and perseveringly at his work, which was

held in high honor by everyone about him, and certainly he had never consciously done, and was indeed

Levin tried to understand him, and could not understand him, and looked at him and his life as at a living

Levin and he were very friendly, and so Levin used to venture to sound Sviiazhsky, to try to get at the very

foundation of his view of life; but it was always in vain. Every time Levin tried to penetrate beyond the outer

chambers of Sviiazhsky's mind, which were hospitably open to all, he noticed that Sviiazhsky was slightly

disconcerted; faint signs of alarm were visible in his eyes, as though he were afraid Levin would understand

Just now, since his disenchantment with farming, Levin was particularly glad to stay with Sviiazhsky. Apart

from the fact that the sight of this happy and affectionate couple, so pleased with themselves and everyone

else, and their wellordered home, had always a cheering effect on Levin, he felt a longing, now that he was

so dissatisfied with his own life, to get at that secret in Sviiazhsky which gave him such clarity, definiteness,

and good courage in life. Moreover, Levin knew that at Sviiazhsky's he would meet the landowners of the

neighborhood, and it was particularly interesting for him just now to hear and take part in those rural

conversations concerning crops, laborers' wages, and so on, which, Levin was aware, are conventionally

regarded as something very low, but which seemed to him just now to constitute the one subject of

importance. "It was not, perhaps, of importance in the days of serfdom, and it may not be of importance in

England. In both cases the conditions of agriculture are firmly established; but among us now, when

everything has been turned topsyturvy, and is only just taking shape, the question what form these

conditions will take is the one question of importance in Russia," thought Levin.

The shooting turned out to be poorer than Levin expected. The marsh was dry and there were no snipe at all.

He walked about the whole day and only brought back three birds, but to make up for that he brought back, as

he always did from shooting, an excellent appetite, excellent spirits, and that keen, intellectual mood which

with him always accompanied violent physical exertion. And while out shooting, when he seemed to be

thinking of nothing at all, the old man and his family would time and again come to mind, and the impression

of them seemed to claim not merely his attention, but the solution of some question connected with them.

In the evening, at tea, two landowners who had come about some business connected with a wardship were of

the party, and the interesting conversation Levin had been looking forward to sprang up.

Levin was sitting beside his hostess at the tea table, and was obliged to keep up a conversation with her and

her sister, who was sitting opposite him. Madame Sviiazhsky was a roundfaced, fairhaired, rather short

woman, all smiles and dimples. Levin tried through her to get at a solution of the weighty enigma her

husband presented to his mind; but he had not complete freedom of ideas, because he was in an agony of

embarrassment. This agony of embarrassment was due to the fact that the sisterinlaw was sitting opposite

to him, in a dress, specially put on, as he fancied, for his benefit, cut particularly open, in the shape of a

trapeze, at her white bosom. This quadrangular opening, in spite of the bosom's being very white, or just

because it was very white, deprived Levin of the full use of his faculties. He imagined, probably mistakenly,

that this lownecked bodice had been made on his account, and felt that he had no right to look at it, and tried

not to look at it; but he felt that he was to blame for the very fact of the lownecked bodice having been

made. It seemed to Levin that he had imposed upon someone, that he ought to explain something, but that to

explain it was impossible, and for that reason he was continually blushing, was ill at ease and awkward. His

awkwardness infected the pretty sisterinlaw too. But their hostess appeared not to observe this, and kept

"You say," she said, pursuing the subject that had been started, "that my husband cannot be interested in

what's Russian. It's quite the contrary; he is in cheerful spirits abroad, but never in such as he is here. Here he

feels in his proper place. He has so much to do, and he has the faculty of interesting himself in everything.

"You teach in it yourself?" asked Levin, trying to look above the open neck, but feeling that no matter where

"Yes; I used to teach in it myself, and do teach still, but we have a firstrate schoolmistress now. And we've

"No, thank you, I won't have any more tea," said Levin, and conscious of doing a rude thing, but incapable of

continuing the conversation, he got up, blushing. "I hear a very interesting conversation," he added, and

walked to the other end of the table, where Sviiazhsky was sitting with the two gentlemen of the

neighborhood. Sviiazhsky was sitting sideways, with one elbow on the table, and a cup in one hand, while

with the other hand he gathered up his beard, held it to his nose and let it drop again, as though he were

smelling it. His brilliant black eyes were looking directly at the excited country gentleman with gray

mustaches, and apparently he derived amusement from his remarks. The gentleman was complaining of the

peasants. It was evident to Levin that Sviiazhsky knew the answer to this gentleman's complaints, which

would at once demolish his whole contention, but that in his position he could not give utterance to this

The gentleman with the gray mustaches was obviously an inveterate adherent of serfdom and a devoted

agriculturist, who had lived all his life in the country. Levin saw proofs of this in his dress, in his

oldfashioned threadbare coat, obviously not his everyday attire, in his shrewd, deepset eyes, in his

coherent Russian, in the imperious tone that had become habitual from long use, and in the resolute gestures

of his large, beautiful sunburned hands, with a single old wedding ring on his fourth finger.

"If I'd only the heart to throw up what's been set going... such a lot of trouble wasted... I'd turn my back on

the whole business, sell out, go off like Nikolai Ivanovich... to hear La Belle Helene," said the landowner, a

"But, you see, you don't throw it up," said Nikolai Ivanovich Sviiazhsky, "so there must be something

"The only gain is that I live in my own house, neither bought nor hired. Besides, one keeps hoping the people

will learn sense. Though, instead of that, believe it or not, there is such drunkenness, such immorality!... They

keep making partition of their bits of land; there isn't a horse or a cow. The peasant's dying of hunger, but just

go and take him on as a laborer he'll do his best to do you a mischief, and then bring you up before the

"I lodge complaints? Not for anything in the world There's so much talk springs up that one is sorry ever to

have complained. At the works, for instance, they pocketed the advance money and made off. What did the

justice do? Why, acquitted them. Nothing keeps them in order but their own communal court and their village

elder. He'll flog them in the good old style! But for that there'd be nothing for it but to give it all up and run

Obviously the landowner was chaffing Sviiazhsky, who, far from resenting it, was apparently amused by it.

"But, you see, we manage our land without such extreme measures," said he, smiling: "Levin, and I, and this

"Yes, the thing's done at Mikhail Petrovich's, but ask him how it's done. Do you call that a rational system?"

"My system's very simple," said Mikhail Petrovich, "thank God. All my management rests on getting the

money ready for the autumn taxes.... The peasants come to me, 'Father, master, help us!' Well, the peasants

are all one's neighbors; one feels for them. So one advances them a third, but one says: 'Remember, lads, I

have helped you, and you must help me when I need it whether it's the sowing of the oats, or the hay

cutting, or the harvest'; and well, one agrees, so much for each taxpayer though there are dishonest ones

Levin, who had long been familiar with these patriarchal methods, exchanged glances with Sviiazhsky and

interrupted Mikhail Petrovich, turning again to the gentleman with the gray mustaches.

"Why, manage like Mikhail Petrovich, or let the land for half the crop or for rent to the peasants; one can do

that only that's just how the general prosperity of the country is being ruined. Where the land with serf labor

and good management gave a yield of nine to one, on the metayage system it yields three to one. Russia has

Sviiazhsky looked with smiling eyes at Levin, and even made a faint gesture of irony to him; but Levin did

not think the landowner's words absurd; he understood them better than he did Sviiazhsky. A great deal more

of what the landowner said to show in what way Russia was ruined by the emancipation struck him indeed as

very true, new to him, and quite incontestable. The landowner unmistakably spoke his own individual

thought a thing that rarely happens and a thought to which he had been brought not by a desire of finding

some exercise for an idle brain, but a thought which had grown up out of the conditions of his life, which he

had brooded over in the solitude of his village, and had considered in every aspect.

"The point is, don't you see, that progress of every sort is only made by the use of authority," he said,

evidently wishing to show he was not without culture. "Take the reforms of Peter, of Catherine, of Alexander.

Take European history. And progress in agriculture more than anything else the potato, for instance, that

was introduced among us by force. The wooden plow, too, wasn't always used. It was introduced in the days

of appanaged princes, perhaps, but it was probably brought in by force. Now, in our own day, we landowners

in the serf times used various improvements in our husbandry: drying machines and threshing machines, and

carting manure, and all the modern implements all these we brought into use by our authority, and the

peasants opposed it at first, and ended by imitating us. Now, by the abolition of serfdom, we have been

deprived of our authority; and so our husbandry, where it had been raised to a high level, is bound to sink to

"But why so? If it's rational, you'll be able to keep up the same system with hired labor," said Sviiazhsky.

"We've no power over them. With whom am I going to work the system, allow me to ask?"

"The laborers won't work well, and won't work with good implements. Our laborer can do nothing but get

drunk, like a swine, and then ruin everything you give him. He spoils the horses by watering unseasonably,

he cuts good harness, barters the tires of the wheels for drink, drops bits of iron into the threshing machine, so

as to break it. He loathes the sight of anything that's not after his fashion. And that's how the whole level of

husbandry has fallen. Lands gone out of cultivation, overgrown with weeds, or divided among the peasants,

and where millions of chetverts were raised you get a hundred thousand; the wealth of the country has

And he proceeded to unfold his own scheme of emancipation by means of which these drawbacks might have

This did not interest Levin, but, when he had finished, Levin went back to his first position, and, addressing

"It's perfectly true that the standard of culture is falling, and that with our present relations to the peasants

there is no possibility of farming on a rational system to yield a profit," said he.

"I don't believe it," Sviiazhsky replied quite seriously; "all I see is that we don't know how to cultivate the

land, and that our system of agriculture in the serf days was by no means too high, but too low. We have no

machines, no good stock, no efficient supervision; we don't even know how to keep accounts. Ask any

landowner; he won't be able to tell you which crop's profitable, and which isn't."

"Italian bookkeeping," said the landowner ironically. "You may keep your books as you like, but if they spoil

"Why do they spoil things? A poor threshing machine, or your Russian presser, they will break, but my steam

press they don't break. A wretched Russian nag they'll ruin, but keep good percherons or the Russian wagon

horses they won't ruin them. And so it is all round. We must raise our farming to a higher level."

"Oh, if one only had the means to do it, Nikolai Ivanovich! It's all very well for you; but for me, with a son to

keep at the university, lads to be educated at the high school how am I going to buy these percherons?"

"I don't agree that it's necessary or possible to raise the level of agriculture still higher," said Levin. "I devote

myself to it, and I have means, but I can do nothing. As to the banks, I don't know to whom they're any good.

For my part, anyway, whatever I've spent money on in the way of husbandry has been a loss: stock a loss,

"That's true enough," the gentleman with the gray mustaches chimed in, even laughing with satisfaction.

"And I'm not the only one," pursued Levin. "I mix with all the neighboring landowners, who are cultivating

their land on a rational system; they all, with rare exceptions, are doing so at a loss. Come, tell us how does

your land do does it pay?" said Levin, and at once in Sviiazhsky's eyes he detected that fleeting expression

of alarm which he had noticed whenever he had tried to penetrate beyond the outer chambers of Sviiazhsky's

Moreover, this question on Levin's part was not quite in good faith. Madame Sviiazhsky had just told him at

tea that they had that summer invited a German expert accountant from Moscow, who for a consideration of

five hundred roubles had investigated the management of their property, and found that it was costing them a

loss of three thousand odd roubles. She did not remember the precise sum, but it appeared that the German

The landowner smiled at the mention of the profits of Sviiazhsky's farming, obviously aware how much gain

"Possibly it does not pay," answered Sviiazhsky. "That merely proves that either I'm a bad manager, or that

"Oh, rent!" Levin cried with horror. "Rent there may be in Europe, where land has been improved by the

labor put into it; but with us all the land is deteriorating from the labor put into it in other words, they're

"Then we're outside the law; rent explains nothing for us, but simply muddles us. No, tell me how there can

"Will you have some curded milk? Masha, pass us some curded milk or raspberries." He turned to his wife.

And in the happiest frame of mind Sviiazhsky got up and walked off, apparently supposing the conversation

to have ended at the very point when to Levin it seemed that it was only just beginning.

Having lost his antagonist, Levin continued the conversation with the landowner, trying to prove to him that

all the difficulty arises from the fact that we don't find out the peculiarities and habits of our laborer; but the

landowner, like all men who think independently and in isolation, was slow in taking in any other person's

thought, and particularly partial to his own. He stuck to it that the Russian peasant is a swine and likes

swinishness, and that to get him out of his swinishness one must have authority, and there is none; one must

have the stick, and we have become so liberal that we have all of a sudden replaced the stick, that served us

for a thousand years, with lawyers and model prisons, where the worthless, stinking peasant is fed on good

"What makes you think," said Levin, trying to get back to the question, "that it's impossible to find some

"That never could be so with the Russian people; we've no authority," answered the landowner.

"How can new conditions be found?" said Sviiazhsky. Having eaten some curded milk and lighted a

cigarette, he came back to the discussion. "All possible relations to the labor force have been defined and

studied," he said. "The relic of barbarism, the primitive commune with a guarantee for all, will disappear of

itself; serfdom has been abolished there remains nothing but free labor, and its forms are fixed and ready

made, and must be adopted. Permanent hands, day laborers, farmers you can't get out of those forms."

"That's just what I meant," answered Levin. "Why shouldn't we seek them for ourselves?"

"Because it would be just like inventing afresh the means for constructing railways. They are ready,

"Oh, yes; we'll bury the world under our caps! We've found the secret Europe was seeking for! I've heard all

that; but, excuse me, do you know all that's been done in Europe on the question of the organization of

"That question is now absorbing the best minds in Europe. The SchulzeDelitsch movement.... And then, all

this enormous literature of the labor question, the most liberal Lassalle movement.... The Mulhausen

"No, you only say that; no doubt you know all about it as well as I do. I'm no professor of sociology, of

course, but it interested me, and really, if it interests you, you ought to study it."

The two neighbors had risen, and Sviiazhsky, once more checking Levin in his inconvenient habit of peeping

into what was beyond the outer chambers of his mind, went to see his guests out.

Levin was insufferably bored that evening with the ladies; he was stirred as he had never been before by the

idea that the dissatisfaction he was feeling with his system of managing his land was not an exceptional case,

but the general condition of things in Russia; that the evolving of some relation of the laborers to the soil

which they would work, as with the peasant he had met halfway to the Sviiazhskys', was not a dream, but a

problem which must be solved. And it seemed to him that the problem could be solved, and that he ought to

After saying good night to the ladies, and promising to stay the whole of the next day, so as to make an

expedition on horseback with them to see an interesting gap in the crown forest, Levin went, before going to

bed, into his host's study to get the books on the labor question that Sviiazhsky had offered him. Sviiazhsky's

study was a huge room, by bookcases and with two tables in it one a massive writing table, standing in the

middle of the room, and the other a round table, covered with recent numbers of reviews and journals in

different languages, ranged like the rays of a star round a lamp. On the writing table was a stand of drawers

"What are you looking at there?" he said to Levin, who was standing at the round table looking through the

reviews. "Oh, yes, there's a very interesting article here," said Sviiazhsky, pointing to the review Levin was

holding in his hand. "It appears," he went on, with eager interest, "that Friedrich was not, after all, the person

And, with his characteristic clearness, he summed up those new, very important, and interesting revelations.

Although Levin was engrossed at the moment by his ideas about the problem of the land, he wondered, as he

heard Sviiazhsky: "What is there inside of him? And why, why is he interested in the partition of Poland?"

When Sviiazhsky had finished, Levin could not help asking: "Well, and what then?" But there was nothing to

follow. It was simply interesting that such and such had been "proved." But Sviiazhsky did not explain, and

"Yes, but I was very much interested by your irritable neighbor," said Levin, sighing. "He's a clever fellow,

"Oh, get along with you! An inveterate supporter of serfdom at heart, like all of them!" said Sviiazhsky.

"I'll tell you what interests me very much," said Levin. "He's right that our system, that is to say, of rational

farming, doesn't answer; that the only thing that answers is the moneylender system, like that meeklooking

"Our own, of course. Besides, it's not true that it doesn't answer. It answers with Vassilchikov."

"But I really don't know what it is you are surprised at. The people are at such a low stage of material and

moral development, that obviously they're bound to oppose everything that's necessary to them. In Europe, a

rational system answers because the people are educated; it follows that we must educate the people that's

"To educate the people three things are needed: schools, and schools, and schools."

"But you said yourself the people are at such a low stage of material development: what help are schools for

"Do you know, you remind me of the story of the advice given to the sick man. You should try purgative

medicine. Taken it: worse. Try leeches. Tried them: worse. Well, then, there's nothing left but to pray to God.

Tried it: worse. That's just how it is with us. I say political economy; you say worse. I say socialism worse.

"Well, that's a thing I've never understood," Levin replied with heat. "In what way are schools going to help

the people to improve their material position? You say schools, education, will give them fresh wants. So

much the worse, since they won't be capable of satisfying them. And in what way a knowledge of addition

and subtraction and the catechism is going to improve their material condition, I never could make out. The

day before yesterday I met a peasant woman in the evening with a little baby, and asked her where she was

going. She said she was going to the wisewoman; her boy had screaming fits, so she was taking him to be

doctored. I asked, 'Why, how does the wisewoman cure screaming fits?' 'She puts the child on the hen roost

"Well, you're saying it yourself! What's wanted to prevent her taking her child to the hen roost to cure it of

"Oh, no!" said Levin with annoyance; "that method of doctoring I merely meant as a simile for doctoring the

people with schools. The people are poor and ignorant that we see as surely as the peasant woman sees the

baby has fits because it screams. But in what way this trouble of poverty and ignorance is to be cured by

schools is as incomprehensible as how the hen roost affects the screaming. What has to be cured is what

"Well, in that, at least, you're in agreement with Spencer, whom you dislike so much. He says, too, that

education may be the consequence of greater prosperity and comfort, of more frequent washing, as he says,

"Well, then, I'm very glad or the contrary, very sorry that I'm in agreement with Spencer; only I've known

it a long while. Schools can do no good; what will do good is an economic organization in which the people

"No; that screaming story is positively capital! Did you really hear it yourself?"

Levin saw that he was not to discover the connection between this man's life and his thoughts. Obviously he

did not care in the least what his reasoning led him to; all he wanted was the process of reasoning. And he did

not like it when the process of reasoning brought him into a blind alley. That was the only thing he disliked,

All the impressions of the day, beginning with the impression made by the old peasant, which served, as it

were, as the thorough bass of all the conceptions and ideas of the day, threw Levin into violent excitement.

This dear good Sviiazhsky, keeping a stock of ideas simply for public purposes, and obviously having some

other principles hidden from Levin, while with the crowd, whose name is legion, he guided public opinion by

ideas he did not share; that irascible country gentleman, perfectly correct in the conclusions that he had been

worried into by life, but wrong in his exasperation against a whole class, and that the best class in Russia; his

own dissatisfaction with the work he had been doing, and the vague hope of finding a remedy for all this all

was blended in a sense of inward turmoil, and the anticipation of some solution near at hand.

Left alone in the room assigned him, lying on a spring mattress, that yielded unexpectedly at every movement

of his arm or his leg, Levin did not fall asleep for a long while. Not one conversation with Sviiazhsky, though

he had said a great deal that was clever, had interested Levin; but the conclusions of the irascible landowner

required consideration. Levin could not help recalling every word he had said, and in imagination amending

"Yes, I ought to have said to him: You say that our husbandry does not answer because the peasant hates

improvements, and that they must be forced on him by authority. If no system of husbandry answered at all

without these improvements, you would be quite right. But the only system that does answer is when the

laborer is working in accordance with his habits, just as on the old peasant's land halfway here. Your and our

general dissatisfaction with the system shows that either we are to blame or the laborers. We have gone our

way the European way a long while, without asking ourselves about the qualities of our labor force. Let us

try to look upon the labor force not as an abstract force but as the Russian mouzhik with his instincts, and let

us arrange our system of agriculture in accordance with that. Imagine, I ought to have said to him, that you

have the same system as the old peasant has, that you have found means of making your laborers take an

interest in the success of the work, and have found the happy mean in the way of improvements which they

will admit, and you will, without exhausting the soil, get twice or three times the yield you got before. Divide

it in halves, give half as the share of labor, the surplus left you will be greater, and labor's share will be

greater too. And to do this one must lower the standard of husbandry and interest the laborers in its success.

This idea threw Levin into a great excitement. He did not sleep half the night, thinking over in detail the

putting of his idea into practice. He had not intended to go away next day, but he now determined to go home

early in the morning. Besides, the sisterinlaw with her lownecked bodice aroused in him a feeling akin to

shame and remorse for some utterly base action. Most important of all he must get back without delay: he

would have to make haste to put his new project to the peasants before the sowing of the winter wheat, so that

the sowing might be undertaken on a new basis. He had made up his mind to revolutionize his whole system.

The carrying out of Levin's plan presented many difficulties; but he struggled on, doing his utmost, and

attained a result which, though not what he desired, was enough to enable him, without selfdeception, to

believe that the attempt was worth the trouble. One of the chief difficulties was that the process of cultivating

the land was in full swing, that it was impossible to stop everything and begin it all again from the beginning,

When on the evening of his arrival home he informed the bailiff of his plans, the latter with visible pleasure

agreed with what he said, so long as he was pointing out that all that had been done up to that time was stupid

and useless. The bailiff said that he had said so a long while ago, but no heed had been paid him. But as for

the proposal made by Levin to take a part as shareholder with his laborers in each agricultural undertaking

at this the bailiff simply expressed a profound despondency, and offered no definite opinion, but began

immediately talking of the urgent necessity of carrying the remaining sheaves of rye the next day, and of

sending the men out for the second plowing, so that Levin felt that this was not the time for discussing it.

On beginning to talk to the peasants about it, and making a proposition to cede them the land on new terms,

he came into collision with the same great difficulty that they were so much absorbed by the current work of

the day that they had not time to consider the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed scheme.

The simplehearted Ivan, the cowherd, seemed to grasp Levin's proposal fully that he should with his family

take a share of the profits of the cattle yard and he was in complete sympathy with the plan. But when Levin

hinted at the future advantages, Ivan's face expressed alarm and regret that he could not hear all he had to say,

and he made haste to find himself some task that would admit of no delay: he either snatched up the fork to

Another difficulty lay in the invincible disbelief of the peasants that a landowner's object could be anything

else than a desire to squeeze all he could out of them. They were firmly convinced that his real aim (whatever

he might say to them) would always be in what he did not say to them. And they themselves, in giving their

opinion, said a great deal but never said what was their real object. Moreover (Levin felt that the irascible

landowner had been right) the peasants made their first and unalterable condition of any agreement

whatsoever that they should not be forced to any new methods of tillage of any kind, nor to use new

implements. They agreed that the modern plow plowed better, that the scarifier did the work more quickly,

but they found thousands of reasons that made it out of the question for them to use either of them; and

though he had accepted the conviction that he would have to lower the standard of cultivation, he felt sorry to

give up improved methods, the advantages of which were so obvious. But in spite of all these difficulties he

got his way, and by autumn the system was working, or at least so it seemed to him.

At first Levin had thought of giving up the whole farming of the land just as it was to the peasants, the

laborers, and the bailiff, on new conditions of partnership; but he was very soon convinced that this was

impossible, and determined to divide it up. The cattle yard, the garden, hayfields, and arable land, divided

into several parts, had to be made into separate lots. The simplehearted cowherd, Ivan, who, Levin fancied,

understood the matter better than any of them, collecting together a gang of workers to help him, principally

of his own family, became a partner in the cattle yard. A distant part of the estate, a tract of wasteland that

had lain fallow for eight years, was with the help of the clever carpenter, Fiodor Rezunov, taken by six

families of peasants on new conditions of partnership and the peasant Shuraev took the management of all the

vegetable gardens on the same terms. The remainder of the land was still worked on the old system, but these

three items were the first step to a new organization of the whole, and they completely engrossed Levin.

It is true that in the cattle yard things went no better than before, and Ivan strenuously opposed warm housing

for the cows and butter made of fresh cream, affirming that cows require less food if kept cold, and that butter

is more profitable made from sour cream, and he asked for wages just as under the old system, and took not

the slightest interest in the fact that the money he received was not wages but an advance out of his future

It is true that Fiodor Rezunov's company did not plow over the ground twice before sowing, as had been

agreed, justifying themselves on the plea that the time was too short. It is true that the peasants of the same

company, though they had agreed to work the land on new conditions, always spoke of the land, not as held

in partnership, but as rented for half the crop, and more than once the peasants and Rezunov himself said to

Levin: "If you would take a rent for the land, it would save you trouble, and we should be more free."

Moreover, the same peasants kept putting off, on various excuses, the building of a cattle yard and threshing

It is true that Shuraev would have liked to let out the kitchen gardens he had undertaken in small lots to the

peasants. He evidently quite misunderstood, and apparently intentionally misunderstood, the conditions upon

Often, too, talking to the peasants and explaining to them all the advantages of the plan, Levin felt that the

peasants heard nothing but the sound of his voice, and were firmly resolved, whatever he might say, not to let

themselves be taken in. He felt this especially when he talked to the cleverest of the peasants, Rezunov, and

detected that gleam in Rezunov's eyes which showed so plainly both ironical amusement at Levin, and the

firm conviction that, if anyone were to be taken in, it would not be he, Rezunov.

But in spite of all this Levin thought the system worked, and that by keeping accounts strictly, and insisting

on his own way, he would prove to them in the future the advantages of the arrangement, and then the system

These matters, together with the management of the land still left on his hands, and the indoor work over his

book, so engrossed Levin the whole summer that he scarcely ever went out shooting. At the end of August he

heard that the Oblonskys had gone away to Moscow from their servant, who brought back the sidesaddle.

He felt that in not answering Darya Alexandrovna's letter he had by his rudeness, of which he could not think

without a flush of shame, burned his ships, and that he would never go to see them again. He had been just as

rude with the Sviiazhskys, leaving them without saying goodby. But he would never go to see them again

either. He did not care about that now. The business of reorganizing the farming of his land absorbed him as

completely as though there would never be anything else in his life. He read the books lent him by

Sviiazhsky, and ordering from Moscow what he had not had, he read both the economic and socialistic books

on the subject, but, as he had anticipated, found nothing bearing on the scheme he had undertaken. In the

books on political economy in Mill, for instance whom he studied first with great ardor, hoping every

minute to find an answer to the questions that were engrossing him, he found laws deduced from the

condition of land culture in Europe; but he did not see why these laws, which did not apply in Russia, must

be general. He saw just the same thing in the socialistic books: either they were the beautiful but

impracticable fantasies which had fascinated him when he was a student, or they were attempts at improving,

at rectifying the economic position in which Europe was placed, with which the system of land tenure in

Russia had nothing in common. Political economy told him that the laws by which the wealth of Europe had

been developed, and was developing, were universal and unvarying. Socialism told him that development

along these lines leads to ruin. And neither of them gave an answer, or even a hint, in reply to the question as

to what he, Levin, and all the Russian peasants and landowners, were to do with their millions of hands and

millions of dessiatinas, to make them as productive as possible for the common weal.

Having once taken the subject up, he read conscientiously everything bearing on it, and intended in the

autumn to go abroad to study land systems on the spot, in order that he might not on this question be

confronted with what so often met him on various subjects. Often, just as he was beginning to understand the

idea in the mind of anyone he was talking to, and was beginning to explain his own, he would suddenly be

told: "But Kauffmann, but Jones, but Dubois, but Michelli? You haven't read them: do read, they've thrashed

He saw now distinctly that Kauffmann and Michelli had nothing to tell him. He knew what he wanted. He

saw that Russia had splendid land, splendid laborers, and that in certain cases, as at the peasant's on the way

to Sviiazhsky's, the produce raised by the laborers and the land is great in the majority of cases when capital

is applied in the European way the produce is small, and that this simply arises from the fact that the laborers

want to work and work well only in their own peculiar way, and that this antagonism is not incidental but

invariable, and has its roots in the national spirit. He thought that the Russian people whose task it was to

colonize and cultivate vast tracts of unoccupied land, consciously adhered, till all their land was occupied, to

the methods suitable to their purpose, and that their methods were by no means so bad as was generally

supposed. And he wanted to prove this theoretically in his book and practically on his land.

At the end of September the timber had been carted for building the cattle yard on the land that had been

allotted to the association of peasants, and the butter from the cows was sold and the profits divided. In

Practice the system worked capitally, or, at least, so it seemed to Levin. In order to work out the whole

subject theoretically and to complete his book, which, in Levin's daydreams, was not merely to effect a

revolution in political economy, but to annihilate that science entirely and to lay the foundation of a new

science of the relation of the people to the soil, all that was left to do was to make a tour abroad, and to study

on the spot all that had been done in the same direction, and to collect conclusive evidence that all that had

been done there was not what was wanted. Levin was only waiting for the delivery of his wheat to receive the

money for it and go abroad. But the rains began preventing the harvesting of the corn and potatoes left in the

fields, and putting a stop to all work, even to the delivery of the wheat. The mud was impassable along the

roads; two mills were carried away by the spate, and the weather got worse and worse.

On the 30th of September the sun came out in the morning, and, hoping for fine weather, Levin began

making final preparations for his journey. He gave orders for the wheat to be delivered, sent the bailiff to the

merchant to get the money owing him, and went out himself to give some final directions on the estate before

Having finished all his business, soaked through with the streams of water which kept running into his leather

coat and down his neck and his boot tops, but in the keenest and most confident temper, Levin turned

homeward in the evening. The weather had become worse than ever toward evening; the hail lashed the

drenched mare so cruelly that she went along sideways, shaking her head and ears; but Levin was all right

under his hood, and he looked cheerfully about him at the muddy streams running under the wheels, at the

drops hanging on every bare twig, at the whiteness of the patch of unmelted hailstones on the planks of the

bridge, at the thick layer of still succulent, fleshy leaves that lay heaped up about the stripped elm tree. In

spite of the gloominess of nature around him, he felt peculiarly eager. The talks he had been having with the

peasants in the farther village had shown that they were beginning to get used to their new position. The

innkeeper, an old man, to whose inn he had gone to get dry evidently approved of Levin's plan, and of his

"I have only to go on stubbornly toward my aim, and I shall attain my end," thought Levin; "and it's

something to work and take trouble for. This is not a matter of myself individually, the question of the public

welfare comes into it. The whole system of agriculture, the chief element in the condition of the people, must

be completely transformed. Instead of poverty general prosperity and content; instead of hostility harmony

and unity of interests. In short, a bloodless revolution, but a revolution of the greatest magnitude, beginning

in the little circle of our district, then the province, then Russia, and the whole world. Because a just idea

cannot but be fruitful. Yes, it's an aim worth working for. And the fact that it is I, Kostia Levin, who went to a

ball in a black tie, and was refused by the Shcherbatsky girl, and who is intrinsically such a pitiful, worthless

creature to himself that proves nothing; I feel sure Franklin felt just as worthless, and he too had no faith in

himself, thinking of himself as a whole. That means nothing. And he too, most likely, had an Agathya

The bailiff, who had been to the merchant, had come back and brought part of the money for the wheat. An

agreement had been made with the old innkeeper, and on the road the bailiff had learned that everywhere the

corn was still standing in the fields, so that his one hundred and sixty shocks that had not been carried were

After dinner Levin was sitting, as he usually did, in an easy chair with a book, and as he read he went on

thinking of the journey before him in connection with his book. Today all the significance of his book rose

before him with special distinctness, and whole periods ranged themselves in his mind in illustration of his

theories. "I must write that down," he thought. "That ought to form a brief introduction, which I thought

unnecessary before." He got up to go to his writing table, and Laska, lying at his feet, got up too, stretching

and looking at him as though to inquire where to go. But he had not time to write it down, for the overseers

After giving orders, that is to say, directions about the labors of the next day, and seeing all the peasants who

had business with him, Levin went back to his study and sat down to work. Laska lay under the table;

After writing for a little while, Levin suddenly thought with exceptional vividness of Kitty, her refusal, and

"What's the use of being downhearted?" said Agathya Mikhailovna. "Come, why do you stay on at home?

You ought to go to some warm springs, especially now that you're ready for the journey."

"Well, I am going away the day after tomorrow, Agathya Mikhailovna; I must finish my work."

"There, there, your work, you say! As if you hadn't done enough for the peasants! Why, as 'tis, they're saying,

'Your master will be getting some honor from the Czar for it.' Indeed, 'tis a strange thing: why need you

Agathya Mikhailovna knew every detail of Levin's plans for his land. Levin often put his views before her in

all their complexity, and not uncommonly he argued with her and did not agree with her comments. But on

"Of one's soul's salvation we all know and must think before all else," she said with a sigh. "Parfion

Denissich now, for all he was no scholar, died a death whose like may God grant to every one of us," she

said, referring to a servant who had died recently. "Took the sacrament and all."

"That's not what I mean," said he. "I mean that I'm acting for my own advantage. It's all the better for me if

"Well, whatever you do, if he's a lazy goodfornaught, everything'll be at sixes and sevens. If he has a

"All I say is," answered Agathya Mikhailovna, evidently not speaking at random, but in strict sequence of

Agathya Mikhailovna's allusion to the very subject he had only just been thinking about hurt and stung him.

Levin scowled, and without answering her, he sat down again to his work, repeating to himself all that he had

been thinking of the real significance of that work. Only at intervals he listened in the stillness to the click of

Agathya Mikhailovna's needles, and, recollecting what he did not want to remember, he would frown again.

At nine o'clock they heard the bell and the faint vibration of a carriage over the mud.

"Well, here's visitors come to us, and you won't be dull," said Agathya Mikhailovna, getting up and going to

the door. But Levin overtook her. His work was not going well now, and he was glad of a visitor, whoever it

Running halfway down the staircase, Levin caught a sound he knew, a familiar cough in the hall. But he

heard it indistinctly through the sound of his own footsteps, and hoped he was mistaken. Then he caught sight

of a long, bony, familiar figure, and now it seemed there was no possibility of mistake; and yet he still went

on hoping that this tall man taking off his fur cloak and coughing was not his brother Nikolai.

Levin loved his brother, but being with him was always a torture. Just now, when Levin, under the influence

of the thoughts that had come to him, and Agathya Mikhailovna's hint, was in a troubled and uncertain

humor, this meeting with his brother which he had to face seemed particularly difficult. Instead of a lively,

healthy visitor, some outsider who would, he hoped, cheer him up in his uncertain humor, he had to see his

brother, who knew him through and through, who would call forth all the thoughts nearest his heart, would

Angry with himself for so base a feeling, Levin ran into the hall; as soon as he had seen his brother close, this

feeling of selfish disappointment vanished instantly and was replaced by pity. Terrible as his brother Nikolai

had been before in his emaciation and sickliness, now he looked still more emaciated, still more wasted. He

He stood in the hall, jerking his long thin neck, and pulling the scarf off it, and smiled a strange and pitiful

smile. When he saw that smile, submissive and humble, Levin felt something clutching at his throat.

"You see, I've come to you," said Nikolai in a thick voice, never for one second taking his eyes off his

brother's face. "I've been meaning to a long while, but I've been constantly unwell. Now I'm ever so much

"Yes, yes!" answered Levin. And he felt still more frightened when, kissing him, he felt with his lips the

dryness of his brother's skin and saw close to him his big eyes, full of a strange light.

A few weeks before, Konstantin Levin had written to his brother that through the sale of the small part of the

property that had remained undivided, there was a sum of about two thousand roubles to come to him as his

Nikolai said that he had come now to take his money and, what was more important, to stay a while in the old

nest, to get in touch with the earth, so as to renew his strength like the heroes of old for the work that lay

before him. In spite of his exaggerated stoop, and the emaciation that was so striking from his height, his

His brother dressed with particular care a thing he never used to do combed his scanty, lank hair, and,

He was in the most affectionate and goodhumored mood, just as Levin often remembered him in childhood.

He even referred to Sergei Ivanovich without rancor. When he saw Agathya Mikhailovna, he joked with her

and asked after the old servants. The news of the death of Parfion Denissich made a painful impression on

"Of course he was quite old," he said, and changed the subject. "Well, I'll spend a month or two with you, and

then I'm off to Moscow. Do you know, Miaghkov has promised me a place there, and I'm going into the

service. Now I'm going to arrange my life quite differently," he went on. "You know I got rid of that woman."

"Oh, she was a horrid woman! She caused me all sorts of annoyances." But he did not say what the

annoyances were. He could not say that he had driven off Marya Nikolaevna because the tea was weak, and,

above all, because she would look after him as though he were an invalid. "Besides, I want to turn over a new

leaf completely now. I've done silly things, of course, like everyone else, but money's the last consideration; I

don't regret it. So long as there's health and my health, thank God, is quite restored."

Levin listened and racked his brains, but could think of nothing to say. Nikolai probably felt the same; he

began questioning his brother about his affairs; and Levin was glad to talk about himself, because then he

These two men were so akin, so near each other, that the slightest gesture, the tone of voice, told both more

Both of them now had only one thought the illness of Nikolai and the nearness of his death which stifled

all else. But neither of them dared speak of it, and so, whatever they said without uttering the one thought

that filled their minds was all falsehood. Never had Levin been so glad when the evening was over and it

was time to go to bed. Never with any outside person, never on any official visit, had he been so unnatural

and false as he was that evening. And the consciousness of this unnaturalness, and the remorse he felt at it,

made him even more unnatural. He wanted to weep over his dying, dearly loved brother, and he had to listen

As the house was damp, and only the one bedroom had been kept heated, Levin put his brother to sleep in his

His brother got into bed, and whether he slept or did not sleep, tossed about like a sick man, coughed, and

when he could not get his throat clear, mumbled something. Sometimes when his breathing was painful, he

said, "Oh, my God!" Sometimes when he was choking he muttered angrily, "Ah, the devil!" Levin could not

sleep for a long while, hearing him. His thoughts were of the most various kinds, but the end of all his

Death, the inevitable end of all, for the first time presented itself to him with irresistible force. And death,

which was here in this loved brother, groaning halfasleep and from habit calling without distinction on God

and the devil, was not so remote as it had hitherto seemed to him. It was in himself, too, that he felt this. If

not today, tomorrow; if not tomorrow, in thirty years wasn't it all the same? And what was this inevitable

death he did not know, had never thought about it, and, what was more, had not the power, had not the

"I work, I want to do something, but I had forgotten it must all end; I had forgotten death."

He sat on his bed in the darkness, crouched up, hugging his knees, and, holding his breath from the strain of

thought, he pondered. But the more intensely he thought, the clearer it became to him that it was indubitably

so, that, in reality, looking upon life, he had forgotten one little fact that death will come, and all ends; that

nothing was even worth beginning, and that there was no helping it anyway. Yes, it was awful, but it was so.

"But I am alive still. What's to be done now what's to be done?" he asked in despair. He lighted a candle, got

up cautiously, went to the looking glass, and began looking at his face and hair. Yes, there were gray hairs

about his temples. He opened his mouth. His back teeth were beginning to decay. He bared his muscular

arms. Yes, there was strength in them. But Nikolenka, who lay there breathing with what was left of his

lungs, had had a strong, healthy body too. And suddenly he recalled how they used to go to bed together as

children, and how they only waited till Fiodor Bogdanich was out of the room to fling pillows at each other

and laugh, laugh irrepressibly, so that even their awe of Fiodor Bogdanich could not check the effervescing,

overbrimming sense of life and happiness. "And now that warped, hollow chest... And I, not knowing what

"Kha! Kha! Damnation! Why do you keep fidgeting why don't you go to sleep?" his brother's voice

"I have had a good sleep, I'm not in a sweat now. Just see, feel my shirt there's no sweat, is there?"

Levin felt it, withdrew behind the partition, and put out the candle, but for a long while he could not sleep.

The question how to live had hardly begun to grow a little clearer to him, when a new, insolvable question

"Why, he's dying yes, he'll die in the spring; and how is one to help him? What can I say to him? What do I

Levin had long before made the observation that when one is uncomfortable with people from their being

excessively amenable and meek, one is apt very soon after to find things intolerable from their pretensions

and irritability. He felt that this was how it would be with his brother. And his brother Nikolai's gentleness

did not, in fact, last out for long. The very next morning he began to be irritable, and seemed doing his best to

Levin felt himself to blame, and could not set things right. He felt that if they had both not kept up

appearances, but had spoken, as it is called, from the heart that is to say, had said only just what they were

thinking and feeling they would simply have looked into each other's faces, and Konstantin could only have

said: "You're dying, you're dying," and Nikolai could only have answered: "I know I'm dying, but I'm afraid,

I'm afraid, I'm afraid!" And they could have said nothing more, if they had said only what was in their hearts.

But life like that was impossible, and so Konstantin tried to do what he had been trying to do all his life, and

never could learn to do, though, as far as he could observe, many people knew so well how to do it, and

without it there was no living at all. He tried to say what he was not thinking, but he felt continually that it

had a ring of falsehood, that his brother detected him in it, and was exasperated at it.

The third day Nikolai induced his brother to explain his plan to him again, and began not merely attacking it,

"You've simply borrowed an idea that's not your own, but you've distorted it, and are trying to apply it where

"But I tell you there's nothing in common. They deny the justice of property, of capital, of inheritance, while I

do not deny this chief stimulus." (Levin felt disgusted himself at using such expressions, but ever since he

had been engrossed by his work, he had unconsciously come more and more frequently to use nonRussian

"Which means, you've borrowed an idea, stripped it of all that gave it its force, and want to make believe that

"The other, at any rate," said Nikolai Levin, with an ironical smile, his eyes flashing malignantly, "has the

charm of what's one to call it? geometrical symmetry, of clearness, of definiteness. It may be a Utopia. If

one once allows the possibility of making all the past a tabula rasa no property, no family then labor would

"But I have, and I consider it's premature, but rational, and it has a future, just like Christianity in its first

"All that I maintain is that the labor force ought to be investigated from the point of view of natural science;

"But that's an utter waste of time. That force finds a certain form of activity of itself, according to the stage of

its development. There have been slaves first, everywhere; then metayers; and we have the metayage system,

Levin suddenly lost his temper at these words, because at the bottom of his heart he was afraid that it was

true true that he was trying to hold the balance even between communism and the familiar forms, and that

"I am trying to find means of working productively for myself and for the laborers. I want to organize..." he

"You don't want to organize anything; it's simply the same as you've been all your life you want to be

original, to pose as not simply exploiting the peasants, but with some idea in view."

"Oh, all right, that's what you think and let me alone!" answered Levin, feeling the muscles of his left cheek

"You've never had, and never have, convictions; all you want is to please your vanity."

"And I will let you alone! And it's high time I did, and go to the devil with you! And I'm very sorry I ever

In spite of all Levin's efforts to soothe his brother afterward, Nikolai would listen to nothing he said,

declaring that it was better to part, and Konstantin saw that it was simply a case of life being unbearable to

Nikolai was just getting ready to go, when Konstantin went in to him again and begged him, rather

"Ah, generosity!" said Nikolai, and he smiled. "If you want to be right, I can give you that satisfaction. You're

It was only just at parting that Nikolai kissed him, and said, looking with sudden strangeness and seriousness

These were the only words that had been spoken sincerely between them. Levin knew that those words

meant, "You see, and you know, that I'm in a bad way, and maybe we shall never see each other again."

Levin knew this, and the tears gushed from his eyes. He kissed his brother once more, but he could not speak,

Two days after his brother's departure, Levin too set off for his foreign tour. Happening to meet

Shcherbatsky, Kitty's cousin, in the railway train, Levin greatly astonished him by his depression.

"Not much? You come with me to Paris instead of to Mulhouse. You shall see how to be happy."

"Well, that's a good one!" said Shcherbatsky, laughing, "why, I'm only just getting ready to begin."

Levin said what he had genuinely been thinking of late. He saw nothing but death, or an approach to death in

everything. But his cherished scheme only engrossed him the more. Life had to be got through somehow, till

death did come. Darkness had fallen upon everything for him; but just because of this darkness he felt that the

one guiding clue in the darkness was his work, and he clutched it, and clung to it with all his strength.

The Karenins, husband and wife, continued living in the same house, met every day, but were complete

strangers to one another. Alexei Alexandrovich made it a rule to see his wife every day, so that the servants

might have no grounds for suppositions, but avoided dining at home. Vronsky was never at Alexei

Alexandrovich's house, but Anna saw him away from home, and her husband was aware of it.

The position was one of torture for all three; and not one of them would have been equal to enduring this

position for a single day, had it not been for the expectation that it would change, that it was merely a

temporary painful difficulty which would pass over. Alexei Alexandrovich hoped that this passion would

pass, as everything does pass, that everyone would forget about it, and his name would remain unsullied.

Anna, on whom the position depended, and for whom it was more poignant than for any other, endured it

because she not merely hoped, but firmly believed, that it would all very soon be settled and come right. She

had not the least idea what would settle the situation, but she firmly believed that something would now very

soon turn up. Vronsky unaccountably followed her lead, hoping too that something, independent of him,

In the middle of the winter Vronsky spent a very tiresome week. A foreign Prince, who had come on a visit to

Peterburg, was put under his charge, and he had to show him the sights worth seeing. Vronsky was of

distinguished appearance; he possessed, moreover, the art of behaving with respectful dignity, and was used

to having to do with such grand personages that was how he came to be put in charge of the Prince. But he

felt his duties to be very irksome. The Prince was anxious to miss nothing about which he would be asked at

home: Had he seen this and that in Russia? And on his own account he was anxious to enjoy to the utmost all

Russian forms of amusement. Vronsky was obliged to be his guide in satisfying both these inclinations. The

mornings they spent driving to look at places of interest: the evenings they passed enjoying the national

amusements. The prince enjoyed a health exceptional even among Princes. By gymnastics and careful

attention to his person he had brought himself to such a point that in spite of his excesses in pleasure he

looked as fresh as a big, glossy, green Dutch cucumber. The Prince had traveled a great deal, and considered

one of the chief advantages of modern facilities of communication the accessibility of the pleasures of all

nations. He had been in Spain, and there had indulged in serenades, and had made friends with a Spanish girl

who played the mandolin. In Switzerland he had killed chamois. In England he had galloped in a red coat

over hedges and killed two hundred pheasants on a bet. In Turkey he had got into a harem; in India he had

traveled on an elephant; and now, in Russia, he wished to taste all the peculiarly Russian forms of pleasure.

Vronsky, who was, as it were, chief master of the ceremonies to him, was at great pains to distribute all the

Russian amusements suggested by various persons to the Prince. They had race horses, and Russian pancakes

and bear hunts, and troikas, and gypsy choruses, and drinking orgies, with the Russian accompaniment of

broken crockery. And the Prince, with surprising ease, fell in with the Russian spirit; he smashed trays full of

crockery, sat with a gypsy girl on his knee, and seemed to be asking: What more? Or does the whole Russian

In reality, of all the Russian entertainments the Prince liked best French actresses, a ballet dancer, and

whiteseal champagne. Vronsky was used to Princes, but, either because he had himself changed of late, or

that he was in too close proximity to the Prince, that week seemed fearfully wearisome to him. The whole of

that week he experienced unceasingly a sensation such as a man might have who has been put in charge of a

dangerous madman, who is afraid of the madman, and, at the same time, from being with him, fears for his

own reason. Vronsky was continually conscious of the necessity of never for a second relaxing the tone of

stern official respectfulness, so that he might not himself be insulted. The Prince's manner of treating the very

people who, to Vronsky's surprise, were ready to descend to any depths to provide him with Russian

amusements, was contemptuous. His criticisms of Russian women, whom he wished to study, more than once

made Vronsky crimson with indignation. The chief reason why the Prince was so particularly disagreeable to

Vronsky was that he could not help seeing himself in him. And what he saw in this mirror did not gratify his

selfesteem. He was a very stupid and a very selfsatisfied and a very healthy and a very wellwashed man,

and nothing else. He was a gentleman, it was true, and Vronsky could not deny it. He was equable and not

cringing with his superiors, was free and ingratiating in his behavior with his equals, and was contemptuously

indulgent with his inferiors. Vronsky was himself the same, and regarded it as a great merit to be so. But to

this Prince he was an inferior, and his contemptuous and indulgent attitude to him revolted him.

Be that as it might, when, on the seventh day, he parted from the Prince, who was starting for Moscow, and

received his thanks, he was happy to be rid of his uncomfortable position and the unpleasant reflection of

himself. He said goodby to him at the station, on their return from a bear hunt, at which they had had a

When he got home, Vronsky found there a note from Anna. She wrote: "I am ill and unhappy. I cannot come

out, yet cannot go on longer without seeing you. Come in this evening. Alexei Alexandrovich goes to the

Council at seven and will be there till ten." After a minute's reflection on the strangeness of her bidding him

come straight to her, in spite of her husband's insisting on her not receiving him, he decided to go.

Vronsky had that winter got his promotion, was now a colonel, had left the regiment, and was living alone.

After having some lunch, he lay down on the sofa immediately, and in five minutes memories of the hideous

scenes he had witnessed during the last few days were jumbled and joined to a mental image of Anna and of

the peasant, one of the encompassing people, who had played an important part in the bear hunt, and Vronsky

fell asleep. He waked up in the dark, trembling with horror, and made haste to light a candle. "What was it?

What? What was the dreadful thing I dreamed? Yes, yes; the peasant bear hunter, I think; a little dirty man

with a disheveled beard was stooping down doing something, and all of a sudden he began saying some

strange words in French. Yes, there was nothing else in the dream," he said to himself. "But why was it so

awful?" He vividly recalled the peasant again and those incomprehensible French words the peasant had

It was halfpast eight already. He rang up his servant, dressed in haste, and went out on the steps, completely

forgetting the dream and only worried at being late. As he drove up to the Karenins' entrance he looked at his

watch and saw it was ten minutes to nine. A high, narrow carriage with a pair of grays was standing at the

entrance. He recognized Anna's carriage. "She is coming to me," thought Vronsky, "and better she should. I

don't like going into that house. But no matter; I can't hide myself," he thought, and with that manner peculiar

to him from childhood, as of a man who has nothing to be ashamed of, Vronsky got out of his sleigh and

went to the door. The door opened, and the hall porter with a rug on his arm called the carriage. Vronsky,

though he did not usually notice details, noticed at this moment the amazed expression with which the porter

glanced at him. In the very doorway Vronsky almost ran up against Alexei Alexandrovich. The gas jet threw

its full light on the bloodless, sunken face under the black hat, and on the white cravat, brilliant against the

beaver of the coat. Karenin's fixed, dull eyes were fastened upon Vronsky's face. Vronsky bowed, and Alexei

Alexandrovich, chewing his lips, lifted his hand to his hat and went on. Vronsky saw him get into the carriage

without looking back, receive the rug and the opera glasses through the window, and disappear. Vronsky

went into the hall. His brows were scowling, and his eyes gleamed with a proud and angry light in them.

"What a situation!" he thought. "If he would fight, would stand up for his honor, I could act, could express

my feelings; but this weakness or baseness... He puts me in the position of playing false, which I never meant

Vronsky's ideas had changed since the day of his conversation with Anna in the Vrede garden. Unconsciously

yielding to the weakness of Anna who had surrendered herself up to him utterly, and simply looked to him

to decide her fate, ready to submit to anything he had long ceased to think that their liaison might end as he

had thought then. His ambitious plans had retreated into the background again, and feeling that he had got out

of that circle of activity in which everything was definite, he had given himself up entirely to his passion, and

He was still in the hall when he caught the sound of her retreating footsteps. He realized she had been

expecting him, had listened for him, and was now going back to the drawing room.

"No," she cried, on seeing him, and at the first sound of her voice the tears came into her eyes. "No; if things

"What? I've been waiting in agony for an hour, two hours... No, I won't... I can't quarrel with you. Of course

She laid her two hands on his shoulders, and looked a long while at him with a profound, passionate, and, at

the same time, searching look. She was studying his face to make up for the time she had not seen him. She

was, every time she saw him, making the picture of him in her imagination (incomparably superior,

"You met him?" she asked, when they had sat down at the table in the lamplight. "You're punished, you see,

"He had been and come back, and was going out somewhere again. But that doesn't matter. Don't talk about

She knew every detail of his existence. He was going to say that he had been up all night and had dropped

asleep, but looking at her thrilled and rapturous face, he was ashamed. And he said he had had to report on

"Why so? Isn't it the life all of you all young men always lead?" she said, knitting her brows; and, taking

up the crochet work that was lying on the table, she began drawing the hook out of it, without looking at

"I gave that life up long ago," said he, wondering at the change in her face, and trying to divine its meaning.

"And I confess," he said, with a smile, showing his thick, white teeth, "this week I've been, as it were, looking

She held the work in her hands, but did not crochet, and looked at him with strange, shining, and hostile eyes.

"This morning Liza came to see me they're not afraid to call on me, in spite of the Countess Lidia

Ivanovna," she put in "and she told me about your Athenian evening. How loathsome!"

"How disgusting you are, you men! How is it you can't understand that a woman can never forget that," she

said, getting more and more angry, and so letting him see the cause of her irritation, "especially a woman who

cannot know your life? What do I know? What have I ever known?" she said. "Only what you tell me. And

"Anna, you hurt me. Don't you trust me? Haven't I told you that I haven't a thought I wouldn't lay bare to

"Yes, yes," she said, evidently trying to suppress her jealous thoughts. "But if only you knew how wretched I

But he could not at once recall what he had been going to say. These fits of jealousy, which of late had been

more and more frequent with her, horrified him, and however much he tried to disguise the fact, made him

feel cold to her, although he knew the cause of her jealousy was her love for him. How often he had told

himself that her love was happiness; and now she loved him as a woman can love when love has outweighed

for her all the good things of life and he was much further from happiness than when he had followed her

from Moscow. Then he had thought himself unhappy, but happiness was before him; now he felt that the best

happiness was already left behind. She was utterly unlike what she had been when he first saw her. Both

morally and physically she had changed for the worse. She had broadened out all over, and in her face at the

time when she was speaking of the actress there was an evil expression of hatred that distorted it. He looked

at her as a man looks at a faded flower he has gathered, with difficulty recognizing in it the beauty for which

he picked and ruined it. And in spite of this he felt that then, when his love was stronger, he could, if he had

greatly wished it, have torn that love out of his heart; but now when, as at this moment it seemed to him he

"Well, well, what was it you were going to say about the Prince? I have driven away the fiend, I have," she

added. The fiend was the name they had given her jealousy. "What did you begin to tell me about the Prince?

"Oh, it was intolerable!" he said, trying to pick up the thread of his interrupted thought. "He does not improve

on closer acquaintance. If you want him defined, here he is: a prime, wellfed animal, such as takes medals at

the cattle shows, and nothing more," he said, with a tone of vexation that interested her.

"It's an utterly different culture their culture. He's cultivated, one sees, simply to be able to despise culture,

"But don't you all care for these animal pleasures?" she said, and again he noticed a dark look in her eyes that

"I'm not defending him, it's nothing to me; but I imagine, if you had not cared for those pleasures yourself,

you might have got out of them. But it affords you satisfaction to gaze at Therese in the attire of Eve..."

"Again again the devil," Vronsky said, taking the hand she had laid on the table and kissing it.

"Yes; but I can't help it. You don't know what I have suffered waiting for you. I believe I'm not jealous. I'm

not jealous: I believe you when you're here, near me; but when you're away somewhere leading your life

She turned away from him, pulled the hook at last out of the crochet work, and rapidly with the help of her

forefinger, began working loop after loop of the wool that was dazzlingly white in the lamplight, while the

"How was it, then? Where did you meet Alexei Alexandrovich?" Her voice sounded in an unnatural and

She drew a long face, and halfclosing her eyes, quickly transformed her expression, folded her hands, and

Vronsky suddenly saw in her beautiful face the very expression with which Alexei Alexandrovich had bowed

to him. He smiled, while she laughed gaily, with that sweet, deep laugh, which was one of her greatest

"I don't understand him in the least," said Vronsky. "If after your avowal to him at your summer villa he had

broken with you, if he had challenged me... But this I can't understand. How can he put up with such a

"Except for him. Don't I know him the falsity in which he's utterly steeped?... Could one, with any feeling,

live as he is living with me? He understands nothing, and feels nothing. Could a man of any feeling live in

the same house with his unfaithful wife? Could he talk to her, call her 'my dear'?"

"He's not a man, not a human being he's a mannikin! No one knows him; but I know him. Oh, if I'd been in

his place, I'd long ago have killed, have torn to pieces a wife like me. I wouldn't have said, 'Anna, ma chere'!

He's not a man, he's a ministerial machine. He doesn't understand that I'm your wife, that he's outside, that

"You're unfair, very unfair, dearest," said Vronsky, trying to soothe her. "But never mind, don't let's talk of

him. Tell me what you've been doing. What is the matter? Why are you unwell, and what did the doctor say?"

She looked at him with mocking amusement. Evidently she had hit on other absurd and grotesque aspects in

The ironical light died away in her eyes, but a different smile, a consciousness of something, he did not know

"Soon, soon. You say that our position is miserable, that we must put an end to it. If you knew how terrible it

is to me what I would give to be able to love you freely and unafraid! I should not torture myself and torture

And at the thought of how it would come, she seemed so pitiable to herself that tears came into her eyes, and

she could not go on. She laid on his sleeve her hand, shining with its whiteness and its rings in the lamplight.

"It won't come as we suppose. I didn't mean to say this to you, but you've made me. Soon, soon, all will be

"You asked when? Soon. And I shan't live through it. Don't interrupt me!" and she made haste to speak. "I

know it; I know for certain. I shall die; and I'm very glad I shall die, and release myself and you."

Tears dropped from her eyes; he bent down over her hand and began kissing it, trying to hide his emotion,

"Yes, it's better so," she said, tightly gripping his hand. "That's the only way the only way left us."

"A dream?" repeated Vronsky, and instantly he recalled the peasant of his dream.

"Yes, a dream," she said. "It's a long while since I dreamed it. I dreamed that I ran into my bedroom, that I

had to get something there, to find out something; you know how it is in dreams," she said, her eyes wide

But she would not let him interrupt her. What she was saying was too important to her.

"And the something turned round, and I saw it was a peasant with a disheveled beard a little man, and

dreadful. I wanted to run away, but he bent down over a sack, and was fumbling there with his hands..."

She showed how he had moved his hands. There was terror in her face. And Vronsky, remembering his

"He was fumbling and kept talking quickly, quickly in French, and, you know, he burred: Il faut le battre, le

fer, le broyer, le petrir.... And in my horror I tried to wake up, and woke up... but woke up in the dream. And I

began asking myself what it meant. And Kornei said to me: 'In childbirth you'll die, ma'am, you'll die....' And

"What nonsense, what nonsense!" said Vronsky; but he felt himself that there was no conviction in his voice.

"But don't let's talk of it. Ring the bell, I'll have tea. And stay a little, now; it's not long I shall..."

But all at once she stopped. The expression of her face instantaneously changed. Horror and excitement were

suddenly replaced by a look of soft, solemn, blissful attention. He could not comprehend the meaning of the

Alexei Alexandrovich, after meeting Vronsky on his own steps, drove, as he had intended, to the Italian

opera. He sat through two acts there, and saw everyone he wanted to see. On returning home, he carefully

scrutinized the hatstand, and noticing that there was not a military overcoat there, he went, as usual, to his

own room. But, contrary to his usual habit, he did not go to bed; he walked up and down his study till three

o'clock in the morning. The feeling of furious anger with his wife, who would not observe the proprieties and

keep to the one stipulation he had laid on her not to receive her lover in her own house gave him no peace.

She had not complied with his request, and he was bound to punish her and carry out his threat obtain a

divorce and take away his son. He knew all the difficulties connected with this course, but he had said he

would do it, and now he must carry out his threat. Countess Lidia Ivanovna had hinted that this was the best

way out of his position, and of late the obtaining of divorces had been brought to such a pitch of perfection

that Alexei Alexandrovich saw a possibility of overcoming the formal difficulties. Misfortunes never come

singly, and the affairs of the reorganization of the native tribes, and of the irrigation of the lands of the

Zaraisky province, had brought such official worries upon Alexei Alexandrovich that he had been of late in a

He did not sleep the whole night, and his fury growing in a sort of vast, arithmetical progression, reached its

highest limits in the morning. He dressed in haste, and, as though carrying his cup full of wrath, and fearing

to spill any over, fearing to lose with his wrath the energy necessary for the interview with his wife, he went

Anna, who had thought she knew her husband so well, was amazed at his appearance when he went in to her.

His brow was lowering and his eyes stared darkly before him, avoiding her eyes; his mouth was tightly and

contemptuously shut. In his walk, in his gestures, in the sound of his voice there was a determination and

firmness such as his wife had never seen in him. He went into her room, and, without greeting her, walked

"They're not here," she said, shutting the drawer; but from that action he saw he had guessed right, and

roughly pushing away her hand, he quickly snatched a portfolio in which he knew she used to put her most

"Sit down! I have to speak to you," he said, putting the portfolio under his arm, and squeezing it so tightly

"I meant, I only..." she said, flushing hotly. This coarseness of his angered her, and gave her courage. "Surely

"An honest man and an honest woman may be insulted, but to tell a thief he's a thief is simply la constatation

"You call it cruelty for a husband to give his wife liberty, giving her the honorable protection of his name,

"It's worse that cruel it's base, if you want to know!" Anna cried, in a rush of hatred, and, getting up, she

"No!" he shrieked in his shrill voice, which pitched a note even higher than usual, and his big hands clutching

her by the arm so violently that red marks were left from the bracelet he was squeezing, he forcibly made her

sit down in her place. "Base! If you care to use that word, what is base is to forsake husband and child for a

She bowed her head. She did not say what she had said the evening before to her lover, that he was her

husband, and her husband was superfluous; she did not even think of that. She felt all the justice of his words,

"You cannot describe my position as worse than I feel it to be myself; but what are you saying all this for?"

"What am I saying it for? What for?" he went on, as angrily. "So that you may know that, since you have not

carried out my wishes in regard to observing outward decorum, I will take measures to put an end to this state

"Soon, very soon, it will end, anyway," she said; and again, at the thought of death near at hand and now

"It will end sooner than you and your lover have planned! If you must have the satisfaction of animal

"Alexei Alexandrovich! I won't say it's not generous, but it's not like a gentleman to strike anyone who's

"Yes, you only think of yourself! But the sufferings of a man who was your husband have no interest for you.

Alexei Alexandrovich was speaking so quickly that he began to stammer, and was utterly unable to articulate

the word "suffering". In the end he pronounced it "saffering". She wanted to laugh, and was immediately

ashamed that anything could amuse her at such a moment. And for the first time, for an instant, she felt for

him, put herself in his place, and was sorry for him. But what could she say or do? Her head sank, and she sat

silent. He too was silent for some time, and then began speaking in a frigid, less shrill voice, emphasizing

She glanced at him. "No; it was my fancy," she thought, recalling the expression of his face when he

stumbled over the word "suffering." "No; can a man with those dull eyes, with that selfsatisfied

"I have come to tell you that I am going tomorrow to Moscow, and shall not return again to this house, and

you will receive notice of what I decide through the lawyer into whose hands I shall entrust the task of getting

a divorce. My son is going to my sister's," said Alexei Alexandrovich, with an effort recalling what he had

"You take Seriozha to hurt me," she said, looking at him from under her brows. "You do not love him....

"Yes, I have lost even my affection for my son, because he is associated with the repulsion I feel for you. But

"Alexei Alexandrovich, leave me Seriozha!" she whispered once more. "I have nothing else to say. Leave

Alexei Alexandrovich flared up, and, snatching his hand from her, he went out of the room without a word.

The waiting room of the celebrated Peterburg lawyer was full when Alexei Alexandrovich entered it. Three

ladies an old lady, a young lady, and a merchant's wife, and three gentlemen one a German banker with a

ring on his finger, the second a merchant with a beard, and the third a wrathfullooking government clerk in

official uniform, with a cross on his neck had obviously been waiting a long while already. Two clerks were

writing at tables with scratching pens. The appurtenances of the writing tables, about which Alexei

Alexandrovich was himself very fastidious, were exceptionally good. He could not help observing this. One

of the clerks, without getting up, turned fretfully to Alexei Alexandrovich, halfclosing his eyes.

"He is engaged," the clerk responded severely, and he pointed with his pen at the persons waiting, and went

"Then I must trouble you to give him my card," Alexei Alexandrovich said with dignity, seeing the

The clerk took the card and, obviously not approving of what he read on it, went to the door.

Alexei Alexandrovich was in principle in favor of the publicity of legal proceedings, though for some higher

official considerations he disliked the application of the principle in Russia, and disapproved of it, as far as he

could disapprove of anything instituted by authority of the Emperor. His whole life had been spent in

administrative work, and consequently, when he did not approve of anything, his disapproval was softened by

the recognition of the inevitability of mistakes and the possibility of reform in every department. In the new

public law courts he disliked the restrictions laid on the lawyers conducting cases. But till then he had had

nothing to do with the law courts, and so had disapproved of their publicity simply in theory; now his

disapprobation was strengthened by the unpleasant impression made on him in the lawyer's waiting room.

"He will be out right away," said the clerk; and two minutes later there did actually appear in the doorway the

large figure of an old student of jurisprudence who had been consulting with the lawyer, and the lawyer

The lawyer was a little, squat, bald man, with a dark, reddish beard, lightcolored long eyebrows, and

beetling brow. He was attired as though for a wedding, from his cravat to his double watch chain and

patentleather shoes. His face was clever and rustic, but his dress was dandified and in bad taste.

"Pray walk in," said the lawyer, addressing Alexei Alexandrovich; and, gloomily ushering Karenin in before

him, he closed the door. "Won't you sit down?" He indicated an armchair at a writing table covered with

papers. He sat down himself, and, rubbing his little hands with short fingers covered with white hairs, he bent

his head on one side. But as soon as he was settled in this position a moth flew over the table. The lawyer,

with a swiftness that could never have been expected of him, opened his hands, caught the moth, and resumed

"Before beginning to speak of my business," said Alexei Alexandrovich, following the lawyer's movements

with wondering eyes, "I ought to observe that the matter about which I have to speak to you is to be a secret."

The lawyer's drooping reddish mustaches were stirred by a scarcely perceptible smile.

"I should not be a lawyer if I could not keep the secrets confided to me. But if you would like proof..."

Alexei Alexandrovich glanced at his face, and saw that the shrewd, gray eyes were laughing, and seemed to

"I know you and the good" again he caught a moth "work you are doing, like every Russian," said the

Alexei Alexandrovich sighed, plucking up his courage. But, having once made up his mind, he went on in his

shrill voice, without timidity or hesitation, accentuating a word here and there.

"I have the misfortune," Alexei Alexandrovich began, "to be a deceived husband, and I desire to break off all

relations with my wife by legal means that is, to be divorced; but do this so that my son may not remain

The lawyer's gray eyes tried not to laugh, but they were dancing with irrepressible glee, and Alexei

Alexandrovich saw that it was not simply the delight of a man who has just got a profitable job: there was

triumph and joy, there was a gleam like the malignant gleam he had seen in his wife's eyes.

"Yes, precisely; but I ought to warn you that I may be wasting your time and attention. I have come simply to

consult you as a preliminary step. I want a divorce, but the form which it may take is of great consequence to

me. It is very possible that if that form does not correspond with my requirements I may give up a legal

"Oh, that's always the case," said the lawyer, "and that's always for you to decide."

He let his eyes rest on Alexei Alexandrovich's feet, feeling that he might offend his client by the sight of his

irrepressible amusement. He looked at a moth that flew before his nose, and moved his hand, but did not

"Though in their general features our laws on this subject are known to me," pursued Alexei Alexandrovich,

"I should be glad to have an idea of the forms in which such things are done, in practice."

"You would be glad," the lawyer, without lifting his eyes, responded, adopting, with a certain satisfaction, the

tone of his client's remarks, "for me to lay before you all the methods by which you could secure what you

And on receiving an assenting nod from Alexei Alexandrovich, he went on, stealing a glance now and then at

"Divorce by our laws," he said, with a slight shade of disapprobation of our laws, "is possible, as you are

aware, in the following cases... To wait!" he called to a clerk who put his head in at the door, but he got up all

the same, said a few words to him, and sat down again. "In the following cases: physical defect in the married

parties, desertion without communication for five years," he said, crooking a short finger covered with hair,

"adultery" (this word he pronounced with obvious satisfaction), "subdivided as follows" (he continued to

crook his fat fingers, though the cases and their subdivisions could obviously not be classified together):

"physical defect of the husband or of the wife, adultery of the husband or of the wife." As by now all his

fingers were used up, he straightened them and went on: "This is the theoretical view; but I imagine you have

done me the honor to apply to me in order to learn its application in practice. And therefore, guided by

precedents, I must inform you that in practice cases of divorce may all be reduced to the following there's no

"They may be reduced to the following: adultery of one of the married parties, and the detection in the fact of

the guilty party by mutual agreement, and, failing such agreement, accidental detection. It must be admitted

that the latter case is rarely met with in practice," said the lawyer, and stealing a glance at Alexei

Alexandrovich he paused, as a man selling pistols, after enlarging on the advantages of each weapon, might

await his customer's choice. But Alexei Alexandrovich said nothing, and therefore the lawyer went on: "The

most usual and simple, the sensible course, I consider, is adultery by mutual consent. I should not permit

myself to express it so, speaking with a man of no education," he said, "but I imagine that to you this is

Alexei Alexandrovich was, however, so perturbed that he did not immediately comprehend all the

reasonableness of adultery by mutual consent, and his eyes expressed this uncertainty; but the lawyer

"People cannot go on living together here you have a fact. And if both are agreed about it, the details and

formalities become a matter of no importance. And at the same time this is the simplest and most certain

Alexei Alexandrovich understood fully now. But he had religious scruples, which hindered the execution of

"That is out of the question in the present case," he said. "Only one alternative is possible: involuntary

At the mention of letters the lawyer pursed up his lips, and gave utterance to a thin little compassionate and

"Kindly consider," he began, "cases of that kind are, as you are aware, under ecclesiastical jurisdiction; the

reverend fathers are fond of going into the minutest details in cases of that kind," he said, with a smile which

betrayed his sympathy with the taste of the reverend fathers. "Letters may, of course, be a partial

confirmation; but detection in the act there must be of the most direct kind that is, by eyewitnesses. In fact,

if you do me the honor to trust me with your confidence, you will do well to leave me the choice of the

"If it is so..." Alexei Alexandrovich began, suddenly turning white; but at that moment the lawyer rose and

"Tell her we don't haggle over fees!" he said, and returned to Alexei Alexandrovich.

On his way back he caught, unobserved, another moth. "Nice state my rep curtains will be in by the

"I will communicate my decision to you by letter," said Alexei Alexandrovich, getting up, and he clutched at

the table. After standing a moment in silence, he said: "From your words I may consequently conclude that a

"It may be obtained if you give me complete liberty of action," said the lawyer, without answering his

question. "When can I count on receiving word from you?" he asked moving toward the door, his eyes and

"In a week's time. You will be kind enough to communicate to me your answer as to whether you will

The lawyer bowed respectfully, let his client out of the door, and, left alone, gave himself up to his sense of

amusement. He felt so mirthful that, contrary to his rule, he made a reduction in his terms to the haggling

lady, and gave up catching moths, finally deciding that next winter he must have the furniture covered with

Alexei Alexandrovich had gained a brilliant victory at the sitting of the Commission of the 17th of August,

but in the sequel this victory cut the ground from under his feet. The new commission for the inquiry into the

condition of the native tribes on every aspect had been formed and despatched to its destination with an

unusual speed and energy, inspired by Alexei Alexandrovich. Within three months a report was presented.

The condition of the native tribes was investigated in its political, administrative, economic, ethnographic,

material, and religious aspects. To all these questions there were answers admirably stated, and answers

admitting no shade of doubt, since they were not a product of human thought, always liable to error, but were

all the product of official activity. The answers were all based on official data furnished by governors and

bishops, and founded on the reports of district magistrates and ecclesiastical superintendents, founded in their

turn on the reports of local authorities and parish priests; and so all of these answers were unhesitating and

certain. All such questions as, for instance, the cause of crop failures, why certain tribes adhered to their

ancient beliefs, and so on questions which, but for the convenient intervention of the official machine, are

not, and cannot be solved for ages received full, unhesitating solution. And this solution was in favor of

Alexei Alexandrovich's contention. But Stremov, who had felt stung to the quick at the last sitting, had, on

the reception of the commission's report, resorted to tactics which Alexei Alexandrovich had not anticipated.

Stremov, carrying with him several other members, went over to Alexei Alexandrovich's side, and, not

contenting himself with warmly defending the measure proposed by Karenin, proposed other measures, still

more extreme, in the same direction. These measures, still stronger than Alexei Alexandrovich's fundamental

idea, were passed by the commission, and then the aim of Stremov's tactics became apparent. Carried to an

extreme, the measures seemed at once to be so absurd that the highest authorities, and public opinion, and

intellectual ladies, and the newspapers, all at the same time fell foul of them, expressing their indignation

both with the measures and their nominal father, Alexei Alexandrovich. Stremov drew back, affecting to have

blindly followed Karenin, and to be astounded and distressed at what had been done. This meant the defeat of

Alexei Alexandrovich. But in spite of failing health, in spite of his domestic griefs, he did not give in. There

was a split in the Commission. Some members, with Stremov at their head, justified their mistake on the

ground that they had put faith in the commission of revision, instituted by Alexei Alexandrovich, and

maintained that the report of the commission was rubbish, and simply so much wastepaper. Alexei

Alexandrovich, with a following of those who saw the danger of so revolutionary an attitude to official

documents, persisted in upholding the statements obtained by the revising commission. In consequence of

this, in the higher spheres, and even in society, all was chaos, and although everyone was interested, no one

could tell whether the native tribes really were becoming impoverished and ruined, or whether they were in a

flourishing condition. The position of Alexei Alexandrovich, owing to this, and partly owing to the contempt

lavished on him for his wife's infidelity, became very precarious. And in this position he took an important

resolution. To the astonishment of the Commission, he announced that he should ask permission to go

himself to investigate the question on the spot. And having obtained permission, Alexei Alexandrovich

Alexei Alexandrovich's departure created a great stir, the more so as just before he started he officially

returned the posting fares allowed him for twelve horses to drive to his destination.

"I think it very noble," Betsy said about this to the Princess Miaghkaia. "Why take money for posting horses

But Princess Miaghkaia did not agree, and the Princess Tverskaia's opinion annoyed her indeed.

"It's all very well for you to talk," said she, "when you have I don't know how many millions; but I am very

glad when my husband goes on a revising tour in the summer. It's very good for him and pleasant traveling

about, and it's a settled arrangement for me to keep a carriage and hired coach on the money."

On his way to the remote provinces Alexei Alexandrovich stopped for three days at Moscow.

The day after his arrival he went to call on the governor general. At the crossroads by Gazetny Lane, where

there are always crowds of carriages and hired sleighs, Alexei Alexandrovich suddenly heard his name called

out in such a loud and cheerful voice that he could not help looking round. At the corner of the pavement, in a

short, stylish overcoat and a lowcrowned fashionable hat, jauntily askew, with a smile that showed a gleam

of white teeth and red lips, stood Stepan Arkadyevich, radiant, young, and beaming. He called him vigorously

and urgently, and insisted on his stopping. He had one arm on the window of a carriage that was stopping at

the corner, and out of the window were thrust the heads of a lady in a velvet hat, and two children. Stepan

Arkadyevich was smiling and beckoning to his brotherinlaw. The lady smiled a kindly smile too, and she

Alexei Alexandrovich did not want to see anyone in Moscow, and least of all his wife's brother. He raised his

hat and would have driven on, but Stepan Arkadyevich told his coachman to stop, and ran across the snow to

"Well, what a shame not to have let us know! Been here long? I was at Dussot's yesterday and saw 'Karenin'

on the visitors' list, but it never entered my head that it was you," said Stepan Arkadyevich, sticking his head

in at the window of the carriage, "or I should have looked you up. I am glad to see you!" he said, knocking

one foot against the other to shake the snow off. "What a shame you did not let us know!" he repeated.

Alexei Alexandrovich unfolded the rug in which his frozen feet were wrapped, and getting out of his carriage

"Why, Alexei Alexandrovich, what are you cutting us like this for?" said Dolly smiling.

"I was very busy. Delighted to see you!" he said in a tone clearly indicating that he was annoyed by it. "How

Alexei Alexandrovich mumbled something and would have gone on. But Stepan Arkadyevich stopped him.

"I tell you what we'll do tomorrow. Dolly, ask him to dinner. We'll ask Koznishev and Pestsov, so as to

"Yes, please, do come," said Dolly; "we will expect you at five or six o'clock, if you like. How is my darling

"She is quite well," Alexei Alexandrovich mumbled, frowning. "Delighted!" and he moved away toward his

Alexei Alexandrovich said something which Dolly could not catch in the noise of the moving carriages.

Alexei Alexandrovich got into his carriage, and buried himself in it so as neither to see nor to be seen.

"Queer fish!" said Stepan Arkadyevich to his wife, and, glancing at his watch, he made a motion of his hand

before his face, indicating a caress to his wife and children, and walked jauntily along the pavement.

"Never mind; you tell them I'll pay the bill!" and he vanished, nodding genially to an acquaintance who drove

The next day was Sunday. Stepan Arkadyevich went to the Grand Theater to a rehearsal of the ballet, and

gave Masha Chibisova, a pretty dancing girl who had been engaged through his protection, the coral necklace

he had promised her the evening before, and, behind the scenes, in the dim daylight of the theater, managed

to kiss her pretty little face, radiant over the present. Besides the gift of the necklace he wanted to arrange a

meeting with her after the ballet. After explaining that he could not come at the beginning of the ballet, he

promised he would come for the last act and take her to supper. From the theater Stepan Arkadyevich drove

to Okhotny Riad, selected himself the fish and asparagus for dinner, and by twelve o'clock was at Dussot's,

where he had to see three people, luckily all staying at the same hotel: Levin, who had recently come back

from abroad and was staying there; the new head of his board who had just been promoted to that position,

and had come on a tour of revision to Moscow; and his brotherinlaw, Karenin, whom he must see, so as to

Stepan Arkadyevich liked dining, but still better he liked to give a dinner, small, but very choice, both as

regards the food and drink and as regards the selection of guests. He particularly liked the program of that

day's dinner. There would be fresh perch, asparagus, and la piece de resistance firstrate, but quite plain,

roast beef, and wines to suit: so much for the eating and drinking. Kitty and Levin would be of the party, and,

so that this might not be obtrusively evident, there would be a girl cousin too, and young Shcherbatsky, and

la piece de resistance among the guests Sergei Koznishev and Alexei Alexandrovich. Sergei Ivanovich was

a Moscow man, and a philosopher; Alexei Alexandrovich a Peterburg man, and a practical politician. He was

asking, too, the wellknown eccentric enthusiast, Pestsov, a liberal, a great talker, a musician, a historian, and

the most delightfully youthful person of fifty, who would be a sauce or garnish for Koznishev and Karenin.

The second installment for the forest had been received from the merchant and was not yet exhausted; Dolly

had been very amiable and goodhumored of late, and the idea of the dinner pleased Stepan Arkadyevich

from every point of view. He was in the most lighthearted mood. There were two circumstances a little

unpleasant, but these two circumstances were drowned in the sea of goodhumored gaiety which flooded the

soul of Stepan Arkadyevich. These two circumstances were: first, that on meeting Alexei Alexandrovich the

day before in the street Stiva had noticed that the latter was cold and reserved with him, and putting together

the expression of Alexei Alexandrovich's face, and the fact that he had not come to see them, or let them

know of his arrival, with the rumors he had heard about Anna and Vronsky, Stepan Arkadyevich guessed that

That was one disagreeable thing. The other slightly disagreeable fact was that the new head of his board, like

all new heads, already had the reputation of a terrible person, who got up at six o'clock in the morning,

worked like a horse, and insisted on his subordinates working in the same way. Moreover, this new head had

the further reputation of being a bear in his manners, and was, according to all reports, a man of a class in all

respects the opposite of that to which his predecessor had belonged, and to which Stepan Arkadyevich had

hitherto belonged himself. On the previous day Stepan Arkadyevich had appeared at the office in a uniform,

and the new chief had been very affable and had talked to him as to an acquaintance. Consequently Stepan

Arkadyevich deemed it his duty to call upon him in his nonofficial dress. The thought that the new chief

might not give him a warm reception was the other unpleasant thing. But Stepan Arkadyevich instinctively

felt that everything would come round all right. "They're all human, all men, like us poor sinners; why be

"Good day, Vassilii," he said, walking into the corridor with his hat cocked on one side, and addressing a

footman he knew; "why, you've let your whiskers grow! Levin number seven, eh? Take me up, please. And

"Yes, sir," Vassilii responded, smiling. "You've not been to see us for a long while."

Levin was standing with a peasant from Tver in the middle of the room, measuring a fresh bearskin, when

"What! You killed him?" cried Stepan Arkadyevich. "Well done! A shebear? How are you, Arkhip!"

He shook hands with the peasant and sat down on a chair, without taking off his coat and hat.

"No, I haven't time; I've only looked in for just a second," answered Stepan Arkadyevich. He threw open his

fur coat, but afterward did take it off, and sat on for a whole hour, talking to Levin about hunting and the

most intimate subjects. "Come, tell me, please, what you did abroad. Where have you been?" said Stepan

"Oh, I stayed in Germany, in Prussia, in France, and in England not in the capitals, but in the manufacturing

"Not a bit: in Russia there can be no labor question. In Russia the question is that of the relation of the

working people to the land; though the question exists there too but there it's a matter of repairing what's

"Yes, yes!" he said. "It's very possible you're right. But I'm glad you're in good spirits, and are hunting bears,

and working, and interested. Shcherbatsky told me another story he met you: that you were in such a

"Well, what of it? I've not given up thinking of death," said Levin. "It's true that it's high time I was dead; and

that all this is nonsense. It's the truth I'm telling you. I do value my idea and my work awfully; but really, do

consider this: all this world of ours is nothing but a speck of mildew, which has grown up on a tiny planet.

And yet we think that something great is possible to us ideas, work! Grains of sand that's all they are."

"It is old; but, do you know, when you grasp this fully, then somehow everything becomes of no

consequence. When you understand that you will die tomorrow, if not today, and nothing will be left, then

everything is so unimportant! And I consider my idea very important, but it turns out really to be just as

unimportant, even if it were carried out, as outwitting that shebear. So one goes on living, amusing oneself

Stepan Arkadyevich smiled a subtle and affectionate smile as he listened to Levin.

"Well, of course! Here you've come round to my point. Do you remember you attacked me for seeking

"No; all the same, what's fine in life is..." Levin hesitated. "Oh! I don't know. All I know is that we shall soon

"And I know there's less charm in life, when one thinks of death but there's more peace."

"On the contrary, the finish is always the best. But I must be going," said Stepan Arkadyevich, getting up for

"Oh, no, stay a bit!" said Levin, detaining him. "Now, when shall we see each other again? I'm going

"I'm a fine fellow! Why, that's just what I came for! You simply must come to dinner with us today. Your

"You don't mean to say he's here?" said Levin, and he wanted to inquire about Kitty. He had heard at the

beginning of the winter that she was at Peterburg with her sister, the wife of the diplomat, and he did not

know whether she had come back or not; but he changed his mind and did not ask. "Whether she's coming or

And Stepan Arkadyevich got up and went down below to the new head of his department. Instinct had not

misled Stepan Arkadyevich. The terrible new head turned out to be an extremely amenable person, and

Stepan Arkadyevich lunched with him and stayed on, so that it was past three o'clock before he got to Alexei

Alexei Alexandrovich, on coming back from church service, had spent the whole morning indoors. He had

two pieces of business before him that morning; first, to receive and send on a deputation from the native

tribes which was on its way to Peterburg, and which was now at Moscow; secondly, to write the promised

letter to the lawyer. The deputation, though it had been summoned at Alexei Alexandrovich's instigation, was

not without its discomforting and even dangerous aspect, and he was glad he had found it in Moscow. The

members of this deputation had not the slightest conception of their duty and the part they were to play. They

naively believed that it was their business to lay before the Commission their needs and the actual condition

of things, and to ask assistance of the government, and utterly failed to grasp that some of their statements

and requests supported the contention of the enemy's side, and so spoiled the whole business. Alexei

Alexandrovich was busily engaged with them for a long while, drew up a program for them from which they

were not to depart, and on dismissing them wrote a letter to Peterburg for the guidance of the deputation. He

had his chief support in this affair in the Countess Lidia Ivanovna. She was a specialist in the matter of

deputations, and no one knew better than she how to puff, and put them in the way they should go. Having

completed this task, Alexei Alexandrovich wrote the letter to the lawyer. Without the slightest hesitation he

gave him permission to act as he might judge best. In the letter he enclosed three of Vronsky's notes to Anna,

Since Alexei Alexandrovich had left home with the intention of not returning to his family again, and since

he had been at the lawyer's and had spoken, though only to one man, of his intention, since, moreover, he had

translated the matter from the world of real life to the world of ink and paper, he had grown more and more

used to his own intention, and by now distinctly perceived the feasibility of its execution.

He was sealing the envelope to the lawyer, when he heard the loud tones of Stepan Arkadyevich's voice.

Stepan Arkadyevich was disputing with Alexei Alexandrovich's servant, and insisting on being announced.

"No matter," thought Alexei Alexandrovich, "so much the better. I will inform him at once of my position in

"Come in!" he said aloud, collecting his papers, and putting them under the blotting pad.

"There, you see, you're talking nonsense, and he is at home!" responded Stepan Arkadyevich's voice,

addressing the servant, who had refused to let him in, and, taking off his coat as he went, Oblonsky walked

into the room. "Well, I'm awfully glad I've found you! So I hope..." Stepan Arkadyevich began cheerfully.

"I cannot come," Alexei Alexandrovich said coldly, standing and not asking his visitor to sit down.

Alexei Alexandrovich had thought to pass at once into those frigid relations in which he ought to stand with

the brother of a wife against whom he was beginning a suit for divorce. But he had not taken into account the

"Why can't you? What do you mean?" he asked in perplexity, speaking in French. "Oh, but it's a promise.

"I want to tell you that I can't dine at your house, because the terms of relationship which have existed

"Because I am beginning an action for divorce against your sister, my wife. I ought to have..."

But, before Alexei Alexandrovich had time to finish his sentence, Stepan Arkadyevich was behaving not at

"No, Alexei Alexandrovich! What are you saying?" cried Oblonsky, and his suffering was apparent in his

Alexei Alexandrovich sat down, feeling that his words had not had the effect he anticipated, and that it would

be unavoidable for him to explain his position, and that, whatever explanations he might make, his relations

"I will say one thing, Alexei Alexandrovich. I know you for an excellent, upright man; I know Anna excuse

me, I can't change my opinion of her for a good, an excellent woman; and so you must excuse me if I cannot

"Pardon, I understand," interposed Stepan Arkadyevich. "But of course... One thing: you must not act in

"I am not acting in haste," Alexei Alexandrovich said coldly, "but one cannot ask advice of anyone in such a

"This is awful!" said Stepan Arkadyevich. "I would do one thing, Alexei Alexandrovich. I beseech you do

it!" he said. "No action has yet been taken, if I understand rightly. Before you take advice, see my wife, talk

to her. She loves Anna like a sister, she loves you, and she's a wonderful woman. For God's sake, talk to her!

Alexei Alexandrovich pondered, and Stepan Arkadyevich looked at him sympathetically, without interrupting

"I don't know. That was just why I have not been to see you. I imagine our relations must change."

"Why so? I don't see that. Allow me to believe that, apart from our connection, you have for me, at least in

part, the same friendly feeling I have always had for you... and sincere esteem," said Stepan Arkadyevich,

pressing his hand. "Even if your worst suppositions were correct, I don't and never would take on myself

to judge either side, and I see no reason why our relations should be affected. But now, do this, come and see

"Well, we look at the matter differently," said Alexei Alexandrovich coldly. "However, we won't discuss it."

"No; why shouldn't you come today to dine, anyway? My wife's expecting you. Please, do come. And, above

all, talk it over with her. She's a wonderful woman. For God's sake, on my knees, I implore you!"

And, anxious to change the conversation, he inquired about what interested them both the new head of

Stepan Arkadyevich's board, a man not yet old, who had suddenly been promoted to so high a position.

Alexei Alexandrovich had previously felt no liking for Count Anychkin, and had always differed from him in

his opinions. But now, from a feeling readily comprehensible to officials that hatred felt by one who has

suffered a defeat in the service for one who has received a promotion he could not endure him.

"Of course; he was at our sitting yesterday. He seems to know his work capitally, and to be very energetic."

"Yes, but what is his energy directed to?" said Alexei Alexandrovich. "Is he aiming at doing anything, or

simply doing again what's been done? It's the great misfortune of our government this paper administration,

"Really, I don't know what fault one could find with him. His policy I don't know, but one thing is certain

he's a very fine fellow," answered Stepan Arkadyevich. "I've just been seeing him, and he's really a fine

fellow. We lunched together, and I taught him how to make you know that drink wine and oranges. It's so

cooling. And it's a wonder he didn't know it. He liked it awfully. No, really, he's a fine fellow."

"Why, good heavens, it's four already, and I've still to go to Dolgovushin's! So please come round to dinner.

The way in which Alexei Alexandrovich saw his brotherinlaw out was very different from the manner in

"Believe me, I appreciate it, and I hope you won't regret it," answered Stepan Arkadyevich, smiling.

And, putting on his coat as he went, he patted the footman on the head with his coat sleeve, chuckled, and

"At five o'clock, and wear your frock coat, please," he shouted once more, returning at the door.

It was past five, and several guests had already arrived, before the host himself got home. He went in together

with Sergei Ivanovich Koznishev and with Pestsov, both of whom had reached the street door at the same

moment. These were the two leading representatives of the Moscow intellectuals, as Oblonsky had called

them. Both were men respected for their character and their intelligence. They respected each other, but were

in complete and hopeless disagreement upon almost every subject, not because they belonged to opposite

parties, but precisely because they were of the same party (their enemies refused to see any distinction

between their views); but, in that party, each had his own special shade of opinion. And since no difference is

less easily overcome than the difference of opinion about semiabstract questions, they never agreed on any

opinion, and, indeed, had long been accustomed to jeer without anger at each other's incorrigible aberrations.

They were just going in at the door, talking of the weather, when Stepan Arkadyevich overtook them. In the

drawing room there were already sitting Prince Alexander Dmitrievich Shcherbatsky, young Shcherbatsky,

Stepan Arkadyevich saw immediately that things were not going well in the drawing room without him.

Darya Alexandrovna, in her best gray silk gown, obviously worried about the children who were to have their

dinner by themselves in the nursery, and by her husband's absence, was not equal to the task of making the

party mix without him. All were sitting like so many priests' daughters on a visit (so the old Prince expressed

it), obviously wondering why they were there, and pumping up remarks simply to avoid being silent.

Turovtsin goodhearted man felt unmistakably like a fish out of water, and the smile with which his thick

lips greeted Stepan Arkadyevich said, as plainly as words: "Well, old boy, you have popped me down in a

learned set! A drinking party, and the Chateau des Fleurs, would be more in my line!" The old Prince sat in

silence, his bright little eyes watching Karenin with a sidelong look; and Stepan Arkadyevich saw that he had

already formed a sharp remark to sum up that politician of whom guests had been invited to partake, as

though he were a sturgeon. Kitty was looking at the door, calling up all her energies to keep her from

blushing at the entrance of Konstantin Levin. Young Shcherbatsky, who had not been introduced to Karenin,

was trying to look as though he were not in the least embarrassed by it. Karenin himself had followed the

Peterburg. etiquette for a dinner with ladies present and was wearing evening dress and a white tie. Stepan

Arkadyevich saw by his face that he had come simply to keep his promise, and was performing a

disagreeable duty in being present at this gathering. He was indeed the person chiefly responsible for the chill

On entering the drawing room Stepan Arkadyevich apologized, explaining that he had been detained by that

Prince who was always the scapegoat for all his absences and unpunctualities, and in one moment he had

made all the guests acquainted with each other, and, bringing together Alexei Alexandrovich and Sergei

Koznishev, had started them on a discussion of the Russification of Poland, into which they immediately

plunged with Pestsov. Slapping Turovtsin on the shoulder, he whispered something comic in his ear, and set

him down by his wife and the old Prince. Then he told Kitty she was looking very pretty that evening, and

presented Shcherbatsky to Karenin. In a moment he had so kneaded together the social dough that the

drawing room became very lively, and there was a merry buzz of voices. Konstantin Levin was the only

person who had not arrived. But this was so much the better, as, going into the dining room, Stepan

Arkadyevich found to his horror that the port and sherry had been procured from Depre, and not from Leve,

and, directing that the coachman should be sent off as speedily as possible to Leve's he started back to the

"Have you a lot of people? Who's here?" asked Levin, unable to help blushing, as he knocked the snow off

Stepan Arkadyevich, for all his liberal views, was well aware that to meet Karenin was sure to be felt a

flattering distinction, and so treated his best friends to this honor. But at that instant Konstantin Levin was not

in a condition to feel all the gratification of making such an acquaintance. He had not seen Kitty since that

memorable evening when he met Vronsky not counting, that is, the moment when he had had a glimpse of

her on the highroad. He had known at the bottom of his heart that he would see her here today. But, to keep

his thoughts free, he had tried to persuade himself that he did not know it. Now when he heard that she was

here, he was suddenly conscious of such delight, and at the same time of such dread, that his breath failed

"What is she like, what is she like? As she used to be, or as she was in the carriage? What if Darya

"Oh, please, introduce me to Karenin," he brought out with an effort, and with a desperately determined step

She was not the same as she used to be, nor was she as she had been in the carriage; she was quite different.

She was scared, shy, shamefaced, and because of all this, still more charming. She saw him the very instant

he walked into the room. She had been expecting him. She was delighted, and so confused at her own delight

that there was a moment, the moment when he went up to her sister and glanced again at her, when she, and

he, and Dolly, who saw it all, thought she would break down and begin to cry. She crimsoned, turned white,

crimsoned again, and grew faint, waiting with quivering lips for him to come to her. He went up to her,

bowed, and held out his hand without speaking. Except for the slight quiver of her lips and the moisture in

"How long it is since we've seen each other!" and, with desperate determination, with her cold hand squeezed

"You've not seen me, but I've seen you," said Levin, with a radiant smile of happiness. "I saw you when you

"You were driving to Ergushovo," said Levin, feeling as if he would sob with the rapture that was flooding

his heart. "And how dared I associate a thought of anything not innocent with this touching creature? And,

"Very glad to meet you again," said Alexei Alexandrovich coldly, shaking hands with Levin.

"We spent three hours together in the train," said Levin smiling, "but got out, just as in a masquerade, quite

"Oh, so that's it! Come along, please," said Stepan Arkadyevich, pointing in the direction of the dining room.

The men went into the dining room and went up to the table for hors d'oeuvres, laid with six sorts of vodka

and as many kinds of cheese, some with little silver spades and some without, caviar, herrings, preserves of

The men stood round the strongsmelling spirits and salt delicacies, and the discussion of the Russification of

Poland between Koznishev, Karenin and Pestsov, died down in anticipation of dinner.

Sergei Ivanovich was unequaled in his skill in winding up the most heated and serious argument by some

unexpected pinch of Attic salt that changed the disposition of his opponent. He did this now.

Alexei Alexandrovich had been maintaining that the Russification of Poland could only be accomplished as a

result of greater principles, which ought to be introduced by the Russian government.

Pestsov insisted that one country can absorb another only when it is the more densely populated.

Koznishev admitted both points, but with limitations. As they were going out of the drawing room to

"So, then, for the Russification of our foreign populations there is but one method to bring up as many

children as one can. My brother and I are terribly at fault, I see. You married men especially you, Stepan

Arkadyevich are the real patriots: what number have you reached?" he said, smiling genially at their host

"Oh, yes, that's the best method!" he said, munching cheese and filling the wineglass with a special sort of

"This cheese is not bad. Shall I give you some?" said the master of the house. "Why, have you been going in

for gymnastics again?" he asked Levin, pinching his muscle with his left hand. Levin smiled, bent his arm,

and under Stepan Arkadyevich's fingers the muscles swelled up like a sound cheese, hard as a knob of iron,

"I imagine great strength is needed for hunting bears," observed Alexei Alexandrovich, who had the mistiest

notions about the chase. He cut off and spread with cheese a wafer of bread fine as a spiderweb.

"Not at all. Quite the contrary a child can kill a bear," he said, with a slight bow moving aside for the ladies,

"You have killed a bear, I've been told!" said Kitty, trying assiduously to catch with her fork a perverse

mushroom that would slip away, and shaking the lace over her white arm. "Are there bears on your place?"

There was apparently nothing extraordinary in what she said, but what unutterable meaning there was for him

in every sound, in every turn of her lips, her eyes, her hand as she said it! There was entreaty for forgiveness,

and trust in him, and tenderness soft, timid tenderness and promise, and hope, and love for him, which he

"No, we've been hunting in the Tver province. It was coming back from there that I met your beaufrere in

the train, or your beaufrere's brotherinlaw," he said with a smile. "It was an amusing meeting."

And he began telling with droll good humor how, after not sleeping all night, he had, wearing a furlined,

"The conductor, forgetting the proverb, would have chucked me out on account of my attire; but thereupon I

began expressing my feelings in elevated language, and... you, too," he said, addressing Karenin and

forgetting his name, "at first would have ejected me on the ground of my coat, but afterward you took my

"The rights of passengers generally to choose their seats are too illdefined," said Alexei Alexandrovich,

"I saw you were in uncertainty about me," said Levin, smiling goodnaturedly, "but I made haste to plunge

Sergei Ivanovich, while he kept a conversation with their hostess, had one ear for his brother, and he glanced

askance at him. "What is the matter with him today? Why such a conquering hero?" he thought. He did not

know that Levin was feeling as though he had grown wings. Levin knew she was listening to his words and

that she was glad to listen to him. And this was the only thing that interested him. Not in that room only, but

in the whole world, there existed for him only himself, with enormously increased importance and dignity in

his own eyes, and she. He felt himself on a pinnacle that made him giddy, and far away down below were all

Quite without attracting notice, without glancing at them, as though there were no other places left, Stepan

The dinner was as choice as the china, of which Stepan Arkadyevich was a connoisseur. The soupe

MarieLouise was a splendid success; the tiny patties eaten with it melted in the mouth and were

irreproachable. The two footmen and Matvei, in white cravats, did their duty with the dishes and wines

unobtrusively, quietly, and dexterously. On the material side the dinner was a success; it was no less so on the

immaterial. The conversation, at times general and at times between individuals, never paused, and toward

the end the company was so lively that the men rose from the table without stopping speaking, and even

Pestsov liked threshing an argument out to the end, and was not satisfied with Sergei Ivanovich's words,

"I did not mean," he said over the soup, addressing Alexei Alexandrovich, "mere density of population alone,

"It seems to me," Alexei Alexandrovich said languidly, and with no haste, "that that's the same thing. In my

opinion, influence over another people is only possible to the people which has the higher development,

"But that's just the question," Pestsov broke in in his bass. He was always in a hurry to speak, and seemed

always to put his whole soul into whatever he was saying; "of what are we to make higher development

consist? The English, the French, the Germans which is at the highest stage of development? Which of them

will nationalize the other? We see the Rhine provinces have been turned French, yet the Germans are not at a

"I fancy that the greater influence is always on the side of true civilization," said Alexei Alexandrovich,

"But what are we to lay down as the outward signs of true civilization?" said Pestsov.

"I imagine such signs are generally very well known," said Alexei Alexandrovich.

"But are they fully known?" Sergei Ivanovich put in with a subtle smile. "It is the accepted view now that real

culture must be purely classical; but we see most intense disputes on each side of the question, and there is no

"You are for the classics, Sergei Ivanovich. Will you take red wine?" said Stepan Arkadyevich.

"I am not expressing my own opinion of either form of culture," Sergei Ivanovich said, holding out his glass

with a smile of condescension, as to a child. "I only say that both sides have strong arguments to support

them," he went on, addressing Alexei Alexandrovich. "My sympathies are classical from education, but in

this discussion I am personally unable to arrive at a conclusion. I see no distinct grounds for classical studies

"The natural sciences have just as great an educational value," put in Pestsov. "Take astronomy, take botany,

"I cannot quite agree with that," responded Alexei Alexandrovich. "It seems to me that one must admit that

the very process of studying the forms of language has a peculiarly favorable influence on intellectual

development. Moreover, it cannot be denied that the influence of the classical authors is in the highest degree

moral, while, unfortunately, with the study of the natural sciences are associated the false and noxious

Sergei Ivanovich would have said something, but Pestsov interrupted him in his rich bass. He began warmly

contesting the justice of this view. Sergei Ivanovich waited serenely to speak, obviously with a convincing

"But," said Sergei Ivanovich, smiling subtly, and addressing Karenin, "one must allow that to weigh all the

advantages and disadvantages of classical and scientific studies is a difficult task, and the question which

form of education was to be preferred would not have been so quickly and conclusively decided if there had

not been in favor of classical education, as you expressed it just now, its moral disons le mot antinihilist

"If it had not been for the distinctive property of antinihilistic influence on the side of classical studies, we

should have considered the subject more, have weighed the arguments on both sides," said Sergei Ivanovich

with a subtle smile, "we should have given elbowroom to both tendencies. But now we know that these little

pills of classical learning possess the medicinal property of antinihilism, and we boldly prescribe them to our

patients.... But what if they had no such medicinal property?" he added his pinch of Attic salt.

At Sergei Ivanovich's little pills everyone laughed; Turovtsin in especial roared loudly and jovially, glad at

last to have found something to laugh at all he ever looked for in listening to conversation.

Stepan Arkadyevich had not made a mistake in inviting Pestsov. With Pestsov intellectual conversation never

flagged for an instant. Directly Sergei Ivanovich had concluded the conversation with his jest, Pestsov

"I can't agree even," said he, "that the government had that aim. The government obviously is guided by

abstract considerations, and remains indifferent to the influence its measures may exercise. The education of

women, for instance, would naturally be regarded as likely to be harmful, but the government opens schools

And the conversation at once passed to the new subject of the education of women.

Alexei Alexandrovich expressed the idea that the education of women is apt to be confounded with the

emancipation of women, and that it is only so that it can be considered dangerous.

"I consider, on the contrary, that the two questions are inseparably connected together," said Pestsov; "it is a

vicious circle. Woman is deprived of rights from lack of education, and the lack of education results from the

absence of rights. We must not forget that the subjection of women is so complete, and dates from such

distant ages, that we are often unwilling to recognize the gulf that separates them from us," said he.

"You mentioned rights," said Sergei Ivanovich, waiting till Pestsov had finished, "meaning the right of sitting

on juries, of voting, of presiding at councils, the right of entering the civil service, of sitting in parliament...."

"But if women, as a rare exception, can occupy such positions, it seems to me you are wrong in using the

expression 'rights'. It would be more correct to say duties. Every man will agree that in doing the duty of a

juryman, a witness, a telegraph clerk, we feel we are performing duties. And, therefore, it would be correct to

say that women are seeking duties, and quite legitimately. And one can but sympathize with this desire to

"Quite so," Alexei Alexandrovich assented. "The question, I imagine, is simply whether they are fitted for

"They will most likely be perfectly fitted," said Stepan Arkadyevich, "when education has become general

"How about the proverb?" said the Prince, who had a long while been intent on the conversation, his mocking

little eyes twinkling. "I can say it before my daughters: her hair is long, but her wit is short...."

"Just what they thought of the Negroes before their emancipation!" said Pestsov angrily.

"What seems strange to me is that women should seek fresh duties," said Sergei Ivanovich, "while we see,

"Duties are bound up with rights power, money, honor; those are what women are seeking," said Pestsov.

"Just as though I should seek the right to be a wet nurse, and feel injured because women are paid for the

Turovtsin exploded in a loud roar of laughter, and Sergei Ivanovich regretted that he had not made this

"No, there was an Englishman who did suckle his baby on board ship," said the old Prince, feeling this

"There are as many such Englishmen as there would be women officials," said Sergei Ivanovich.

"Yes, but what is a girl to do who has no family?" put in Stepan Arkadyevich, thinking of Masha Chibisova,

whom he had had in his mind all along, in sympathizing with Pestsov and supporting him.

"If the story of such a girl were thoroughly sifted, you would find she had abandoned a family her own or a

sister's, where she might have found a woman's duties," Darya Alexandrovna broke in unexpectedly, in a tone

of exasperation, probably suspecting what sort of girl Stepan Arkadyevich had in mind.

"But we take our stand on principle, on the ideal," replied Pestsov in his sonorous bass. "Woman desires to

have the right to be independent, educated. She is oppressed, humiliated by the consciousness of her

"And I'm oppressed and humiliated that they won't engage me at the Foundling Asylum," the old Prince said

again, to the huge delight of Turovtsin, who in his mirth dropped his asparagus with the thick end in the

Everyone took part in the conversation except Kitty and Levin. At first, when they were talking of the

influence that one people has on another, there rose to Levin's mind what he had to say on the subject. But

these ideas, once of such importance in his eyes, seemed to come into his brain as in a dream, and had now

not the slightest interest for him. It even struck him as strange that they should be so eager to talk of what was

of no use to anyone. Kitty, too, one would have supposed, should have been interested in what they were

saying of the rights and education of women. How often she had mused on the subject, thinking of her friend

abroad, Varenka, of her painful state of dependence; how often she had wondered about herself as to what

would become of her if she did not marry, and how often she had argued with her sister about it! But now it

did not interest her at all. She and Levin had a conversation of their own, yet not a conversation, but a sort of

mysterious communication, which brought them every moment nearer, and stirred in both a sense of glad

At first Levin, in answer to Kitty's question how he could have seen her last year in the carriage, told her that

"It was very, very early in the morning. You were probably only just awake. Your maman was asleep in her

corner. It was an exquisite morning. I was walking along wondering who it could be in the fourinhand. It

was a splendid set of four horses with bells, and in a second you flashed by, and I saw you at the window

you were sitting, like this; holding the strings of your cap in both hands, and in awfully deep thought about

something," he said, smiling. "How I should like to know what you were thinking about then! Something

"Wasn't I dreadfully untidy?" she wondered, but seeing the smile of ecstasy these reminiscences called up,

she felt that the impression she had made had been very good. She blushed and laughed with delight:

"How nicely Turovtsin laughs!" said Levin, admiring his humid eyes and heaving chest.

"Oh, you're wrong! And you must give up thinking so directly!" said Kitty. "I used to have a very poor

opinion of him too, but he's an awfully fine and wonderfully goodhearted man. He has a heart of gold."

"We are great friends. I know him very well. Last winter, soon after... you came to see us," she said, with a

guilty and at the same time a confiding smile, "all Dolly's children had scarlatina, and he happened to come to

see her. And only fancy," she said in a whisper, "he felt so sorry for her that he stayed and began to help her

look after the children. Yes, and for three weeks he stopped with them, and looked after the children like a

"I am telling Konstantin Dmitrievich about Turovtsin and the scarlatina," she said, bending over to her sister.

"Yes, it was wonderful, noble!" said Dolly, glancing toward Turovtsin, who had become aware they were

talking of him, and smiling gently to him. Levin glanced once more at Turovtsin, and wondered how it was

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, and I'll never think ill of people again!" he said gaily, genuinely expressing what he felt

Connected with the conversation that had sprung up on the rights of women there were certain questions as to

the inequality of rights in marriage, improper to discuss before the ladies. Pestsov had several times during

dinner touched upon these questions, but Sergei Ivanovich and Stepan Arkadyevich carefully drew him off

When they rose from the table and the ladies had gone out, Pestsov did not follow them, but, addressing

Alexei Alexandrovich, began to expound the chief ground of inequality. The inequality in marriage, in his

opinion, lay in the fact that the infidelity of the wife and infidelity of the husband are punished unequally,

Stepan Arkadyevich went hurriedly up to Alexei Alexandrovich and offered him a cigar.

"No, I don't smoke," Alexei Alexandrovich answered calmly, and, as though purposely wishing to show that

"I imagine that such a view has a foundation in the very nature of things," he said, and would have gone on to

the drawing room. But at this point Turovtsin broke suddenly and unexpectedly into the conversation,

"You heard, perhaps, about Priachnikov?" said Turovtsin, warmed up by the champagne he had drunk, and

long waiting for an opportunity to break the silence that had weighed on him. "Vassia Priachnikov," he said,

with a goodnatured smile on his moist, red lips, addressing himself principally to the most important guest,

Alexei Alexandrovich, "they told me today he fought a duel with Kvitsky at Tver, and has killed him."

Just as it always seems that one bruises oneself on a sore place, so Stepan Arkadyevich felt now that the

conversation would by ill luck fall at any moment on Alexei Alexandrovich's sore spot. He would again have

got his brotherinlaw away, but Alexei Alexandrovich himself inquired, with curiosity:

"Ah!" said Alexei Alexandrovich indifferently, and, lifting his eyebrows, he went into the drawing room.

"How glad I am you have come," Dolly said with a frightened smile, meeting him in the outer drawing room.

Alexei Alexandrovich, with the same expression of indifference, due to his lifted eyebrows, sat down beside

"It's fortunate," said he, "especially as I meant to ask you to excuse me, and to be taking leave. I have to start

Darya Alexandrovna was firmly convinced of Anna's innocence, and she felt herself growing pale and her

lips quivering with anger at this frigid, unfeeling man, who was so calmly intending to ruin her innocent

"Alexei Alexandrovich," she said, with desperate resolution looking him in the face, "I asked you about

"She is, I believe, quite well, Darya Alexandrovna," replied Alexei Alexandrovich, without looking at her.

"Alexei Alexandrovich, forgive me, I have no right... But I love Anna as a sister, and esteem her; I beg, I

beseech you to tell me what is wrong between you? What fault do you find with her?"

"I presume that your husband has told you the grounds on which I consider it necessary to change my attitude

to Anna Arkadyevna?" he said, without looking her in the face, but eying with displeasure Shcherbatsky, who

"I don't believe it, I don't believe it I can't believe it!" Dolly said, clasping her bony hands before her with a

vigorous gesture. She rose quickly and laid her hand on Alexei Alexandrovich's sleeve. "We shall be

Dolly's agitation had an effect on Alexei Alexandrovich. He got up and submissively followed her to the

schoolroom. They sat down at a table covered with an oilcloth cut in slits by penknives.

"I don't I don't believe it!" Dolly said, trying to catch his glance, still avoiding her.

"One cannot disbelieve facts, Darya Alexandrovna," said he, with an emphasis on the word facts.

"But what has she done?" said Darya Alexandrovna. "What, precisely, has she done?"

"She has forsaken her duty, and deceived her husband. That's what she has done," said he.

"No, no, it can't be! No, for God's sake, you are mistaken," said Dolly, putting her hands to her temples and

Alexei Alexandrovich smiled coldly, with his lips alone, meaning to signify to her and himself the firmness

of his conviction; but this warm defense, though it could not shake him, reopened his wound. He began to

"It is extremely difficult to be mistaken when a wife herself informs her husband of the fact informs him

that eight years of her life, and a son, are all a mistake, and that she wants to begin life anew," he said angrily,

"Darya Alexandrovna," he said, now looking straight into Dolly's kindly, troubled face, and feeling that his

tongue was being loosened in spite of himself, "I would give a great deal for doubt to be still possible. When

I doubted, I was miserable, but it was better than now. When I doubted, I had hope; but now there is no hope,

and still I doubt everything. I am in such doubt of everything that I even hate my son, and sometimes do not

He had no need to say that. Darya Alexandrovna had seen that as soon as he glanced into her face; and she

felt sorry for him, and her faith in the innocence of her friend began to waver.

"Oh, this is awful, awful! But can it be true that you are resolved on a divorce?"

"Nothing else to do, nothing else to do..." she replied, with tears in her eyes. "Oh no, don't say there's nothing

"What is horrible in a misfortune of this kind is that one cannot, as in any other in loss, in death bear one's

trouble in peace, but that one must act," said he, as though guessing her thought. "One must get out of the

"I understand, I quite understand that," said Dolly, and her head sank. She was silent for a little, thinking of

herself, of her own grief in her family, and all at once, with an impulsive movement, she raised her head and

clasped her hands with an imploring gesture. "But wait a little! You are a Christian. Think of her! What will

"I have thought, Darya Alexandrovna I have thought a great deal," said Alexei Alexandrovich. His face

turned red in patches, and his dim eyes looked straight before him. Darya Alexandrovna at that moment pitied

him with all her heart. "That indeed was what I did when she herself made known to me my humiliation; I

left everything as of old. I gave her a chance to reform, I tried to save her. And with what result? She would

not regard the least request that she should observe decorum," he said, getting heated. "One may save

anyone who does not want to be ruined; but if the whole nature is so corrupt, so depraved, that ruin itself

"What can I do?" said Alexei Alexandrovich, raising his shoulders and his eyebrows. The recollection of his

wife's last act had so incensed him that he had become frigid, as at the beginning of the conversation. "I am

"No, wait a minute. You must not ruin her. Wait a little; I will tell you about myself. I was married, and my

husband deceived me; in anger and jealousy I would have thrown up everything, I would myself... But I came

to myself again; and who did it? Anna saved me. And here I am living on. The children are growing up, my

husband has come back to his family, and feels his fault, is growing purer, better, and I live on... I have

Alexei Alexandrovich heard her, but her words had no effect on him now. All the hatred of that day when he

had resolved on a divorce had sprung up again in his soul. He shook himself, and said in a shrill loud voice:

"Forgive I cannot, and do not wish to, and I regard it as wrong. I have done everything for this woman, and

she has trodden it all in the mud to which she is kin. I am not a spiteful man, I have never hated anyone, but I

hate her with my whole soul, and I cannot even forgive her, because I hate her too much for all the wrong she

Alexei Alexandrovich smiled contemptuously. That he knew long ago, but it could not be applied to his case.

"Love those that hate you, but to love those one hates is impossible. Forgive me for having troubled you.

Everyone has enough to bear in his own grief!" And, regaining his selfpossession, Alexei Alexandrovich

When they rose from the table, Levin would have liked to follow Kitty into the drawing room; but he was

afraid she might dislike this, as too obviously paying her attention. He remained in the little ring of men,

taking part in the general conversation, and, without looking at Kitty, he was aware of her movements, her

He did at once, and without the smallest effort, keep the promise he had made her always to think well of all

men, and to like everyone always. The conversation fell on the village commune, in which Pestsov saw a sort

of special principle, called by him the choral principle. Levin did not agree with Pestsov, nor with his brother,

who had a special attitude of his own, both admitting yet not admitting the significance of the Russian

commune. But he talked to them, simply trying to reconcile and soften their differences. He was not in the

least interested in what he said himself, and even less so in what they said; all he wanted was that they and

everyone should be happy and contented. He knew now the one thing of importance; and that one thing was

at first there, in the drawing room, and then began moving across, and came to a standstill at the door.

Without turning round he felt her eyes fixed on him, and her smile, and he could not help turning round. She

"I thought you were going toward the piano," said he, going up to her. "That's something I miss in the

"No; we only came to fetch you, and I thank you," she said, rewarding him with a smile that was like a gift,

"for coming. What do they want to argue for? No one ever convinces anyone, you know."

"Yes; that's true," said Levin; "it generally happens that one argues warmly simply because one can't make

Levin had often noticed in discussions between the most intelligent people that after enormous efforts, and an

enormous expenditure of logical subtleties and words, the disputants finally arrived at the realization that

what they had so long been struggling to prove to one another had long ago, from the beginning of the

argument, been known to both, but that they liked different things, and would not define what they liked for

fear of its being attacked. He had often had the experience of suddenly grasping in a discussion what it was

his opponent liked and at once liking it too, and immediately he found himself agreeing, and then all

arguments fell away as useless. Sometimes, too, he had experienced the opposite, expressing at last what he

liked himself, which he was devising arguments to defend, and, chancing to express it well and genuinely, he

had found his opponent at once agreeing and ceasing to dispute his position. He tried to say this.

She knit her brow, trying to understand. But directly he began to illustrate his meaning, she understood at

"I know: one must find out what he is arguing for, what is precious to him, then one can..."

She had completely guessed and expressed his badly expressed idea. Levin smiled joyfully; he was struck by

this transition from the confused, verbose discussion with Pestsov and his brother to this laconic, clear,

Shcherbatsky moved away from them, and Kitty, going up to a card table, sat down, and, taking up the chalk,

They began again on the subject that had been started at dinner the liberty and occupations of women. Levin

was of the opinion of Darya Alexandrovna that a girl who did not marry should find a woman's duties in a

family. He supported this view by the fact that no family can get on without women to help; that in every

"No," said Kitty, blushing, but looking at him all the more bravely with her truthful eyes; "a girl may be so

circumstanced that she cannot live in the family without humiliation, while she herself..."

And he saw all that Pestsov had been maintaining at dinner about the liberty of woman, simply from getting a

glimpse of the terror of an old maid's existence and its humiliation in Kitty's heart; and loving her, he felt that

A silence followed. She was still drawing with the chalk on the table. Her eyes were shining with a soft light.

Under the influence of her mood he felt in all his being a continually growing tension of happiness.

"Ah! I've scribbled all over the table!" she said, and, laying down the chalk, she made a movement as though

"What! Shall I be left alone without her?" he thought with horror, and he took the chalk. "Wait a minute," he

"Here," he said; and he wrote the initial letters, w, y, t, m: i, c, n, b, d, t, m, n, o, t. These letters meant, "When

you told me: it could never be, did that mean never, or then?" There seemed no likelihood that she could

make out this complicated sentence; but he looked at her as though his life depended on her understanding

She glanced at him seriously, then leaned her puckered brow on her hands and began to read. Once or twice

He quickly rubbed out what he had written, gave her the chalk, and stood up. She wrote, t, i, c, n, a, d.

Dolly was completely comforted in the depression caused by her conversation with Alexei Alexandrovich

when she caught sight of the two figures: Kitty with the chalk in her hand, with a shy and happy smile

looking upward at Levin, and his handsome figure bending over the table with glowing eyes fastened one

minute on the table and the next on her. He was suddenly radiant: he had understood. It meant, "Then I could

"Well, read this. I'll tell you what I should like should like so much!" She wrote the initial letters, i, y, c, f, a,

He snatched the chalk with nervous, trembling fingers, and breaking it, wrote the initial letters of the

following phrase, "I have nothing to forget and to forgive; I have never ceased to love you."

He sat down and wrote a long phrase. She understood it all, and without asking him, "Is it this?" took the

For a long while he could not understand what she had written, and often looked into her eyes. He was

stupefied with happiness. He could not supply the words she had meant; but in her charming eyes, beaming

with happiness, he saw all he needed to know. And he wrote three letters. But he had hardly finished writing

when she read them over her arm, and herself finished and wrote the answer, "Yes."

"You're playing secretaire?" said the old Prince. "But we must really be getting along if you want to be in

In their conversation everything had been said; it had been said that she loved him, and that she would tell her

When Kitty had gone and Levin was left alone, he felt such uneasiness without her and such an impatient

longing to get as quickly as possible to tomorrow morning, when he would see her again and be plighted to

her forever, that he felt afraid, as though of death, of those fourteen hours that he had to get through without

her. It was essential for him to be with someone to talk to, so as not to be left alone; to deceive time. Stepan

Arkadyevich would have been the companion most congenial to him, but he was going out, he said, to a

soiree in reality to the ballet. Levin only had time to tell him he was happy, and that he loved him, and

would never, never forget what he had done for him. The eyes and the smile of Stepan Arkadyevich showed

"Oh, so it's not time to die yet?" said Stepan Arkadyevich, pressing Levin's hand with emotion.

Darya Alexandrovna too, as she said goodby 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 goodby to them, but, not to be left alone, he attached himself to his brother.

"What for? Yes, come along," said Sergei Ivanovich, smiling. "What is the matter with you today?"

"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. Happiness is all that's the matter with me! Why is it you have

"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 lovely girl" were such simple, humble words, so out of harmony with his

"That you may do tomorrow, tomorrow and say no 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

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, fine, kindhearted person he

was. This was evident from his confusion and embarrassment in reading the minutes. Then the discussion

began. They were disputing about the reckoning off of certain sums and the laying of certain pipes, and

Sergei Ivanovich 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 afterward answered

him very viciously and delightfully. And then Sviiazhsky (he was there also) said something too, very

handsomely and nobly. Levin listened to them, and saw clearly that this reckoning off of sums and these

pipes were not anything real, and that they were not at all angry, but were all the finest, kindest people, and

everything was as happy and charming as possible among them. They did no harm to anyone, and were all

enjoying it. What struck Levin was that he could see through them all today, and from little, almost

imperceptible signs knew the soul of each, and saw distinctly that they were all good at heart. And they were

all extremely fond of Levin in particular that day. This was evident from the way they spoke to him, from the

Sviiazhsky 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 Sviiazhsky, what he had failed to find in him. He was a

"Most delighted," he said, and asked after his wife and sisterinlaw. And from a queer association of ideas,

because in his imagination the idea of Sviiazhsky's sisterinlaw was connected with marriage, it occurred to

him that there was no one to whom he could more suitably speak of his happiness, than to Sviiazhsky's wife

Sviiazhsky 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 Sviiazhsky was right, that the whole business was of little value, and he

saw the wonderful suavity and consideration with which Sviiazhsky avoided fully expressing his correct

view. The ladies of the Sviiazhsky household were particularly delightful. It seemed to Levin that they knew

all about it already, and sympathized with him, saying nothing merely out of delicacy. He stayed with them

one hour, two, three, talking of all sorts of subjects, but implied in it the only thing that filled his heart, and

did not observe that he was boring them dreadfully, and that it was long past their bedtime. Sviiazhsky went

with him into the hall, yawning and wondering at the strange humor 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, Iegor, whom Levin had not noticed before,

"What's to be done! It's part of our work, you see. In a gentleman's house it's easier; but then here one makes

It appeared that Iegor had a family three boys and a daughter, a seamstress, whom he wanted to marry to a

Levin, on hearing this, informed Iegor that, in his opinion, in marriage the great thing was love, and that with

Iegor 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.

And Levin saw that Iegor 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

But at that moment a ring was heard. Iegor departed, and Levin was left alone. He had eaten scarcely

anything at dinner, had refused tea and supper at Sviiazhsky'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 cold, but he was

oppressed by heat. He opened both the movable panes in his windows and sat down on the table opposite the

open panes. Over the snowcovered roofs could be seen a decorated cross, with chains, and above it the

rising triangle of Auriga, with the yellowish light of Capella. He gazed at the cross, then at the star, 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 of the

door. It was the gambler Miaskin, 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 six

o'clock there was a noise of people polishing the floors, and church bells ringing to some divine service, and

Levin felt that he was beginning to get frozen. He closed the pane, washed, dressed, and went out into the

The streets were still empty. Levin went to the house of the Shcherbatskys. The visitors' doors were closed

and everything was asleep. He walked back, went into his room again, and asked for coffee. The day servant,

not Iegor this time, brought it to him. Levin would have entered into conversation with him, but a bell rang

for the servant, and he went out. Levin tried to drink coffee and take a bite of a roll, but his mouth was quite

at a loss what to do with the roll. Levin, rejecting the roll, put on his coat and went out again for a walk. It

was nine o'clock when he reached the Shcherbatskys' steps the second time. In the house they were only just

up, and the cook came out to go marketing. He had to get through at least two hours more.

All that night and morning Levin lived perfectly unconsciously, and felt perfectly lifted out of the conditions

of material life. He had eaten nothing for a whole day, he had not slept for two nights, had spent several hours

undressed in the frozen air, and felt not only fresher and stronger than ever, but felt utterly independent of his

body; he moved without muscular effort, and felt as if he could do anything. He was convinced he could fly

upward or lift the corner of the house, if need be. He spent the remainder of the time in the street, incessantly

And what he saw then, he never saw again after. Especially the children going to school, the bluegray doves

fluttering down from the roofs to the pavement, and the little loaves covered with flour, set out by an unseen

hand, touched him. Those loaves, those doves, and those two boys were not of this earth. It all happened at

the same time: a boy ran toward a dove and glanced smiling at Levin; the dove, with a whir of her wings,

darted away, flashing in the sun, amid grains of snow that quivered in the air, while from a little window

there came a smell of freshbaked bread, and the loaves were set out. All of this together was so

extraordinarily resplendent that Levin laughed and cried with delight. Going a long way round by Gazetny

Lane and Kislovka, he went back again to the hotel, and, putting his watch before him, sat down to wait for

twelve o'clock. In the next room they were talking about some sort of machines, and swindling, and coughing

their morning coughs. They did not realize that the hand was near twelve. The hand reached it. Levin went

out on the steps. The sleigh drivers clearly knew all about it. They crowded round Levin with happy faces,

quarreling among themselves, and offering their services. Trying not to offend the other sleigh drivers, and

promising to drive with them too, Levin took one and told him to drive to the Shcherbatskys'. The sleigh

driver was splendid in a white shirt collar, sticking out over his overcoat and into his strong, fullblooded red

neck. The sleigh was high and comfortable, and altogether such a one as Levin never drove in after, and the

horse was a good one, and tried to gallop yet didn't seem to move. The driver knew the Shcherbatskys' house,

and drew up at the entrance, squaring his arms and saying a "Whoa!" especially indicative of respect for his

fare. The Shcherbatskys' hall porter certainly knew all about it. This was evident from the smile in his eyes

Not only did he know all about it, but he was unmistakably delighted and making efforts to conceal his joy.

Looking into his kindly old eyes, Levin realized even something new in his happiness.

"Pray walk in! Leave it here," said he, smiling, as Levin would have come back to take his hat. That meant

The footman, though a young man, and one of the new school of footmen a dandy was a very kindhearted,

The first person he saw was Mademoiselle Linon. She walked across the room, and her ringlets and her face

were beaming. He had barely spoken to her, when suddenly he heard the rustle of a skirt at the door, and

Mademoiselle Linon vanished from Levin's eyes, and a joyful terror came over him at the nearness of his

happiness. Mademoiselle Linon was in great haste, and, leaving him, went out at the other door. Directly she

had gone out, swift, swift light steps sounded on the parquet, and his bliss, his life, his own self what was

best in himself, what he had so long sought and longed for was quickly, so quickly approaching him. She

He saw nothing but her clear, truthful eyes, frightened by the same bliss of love that flooded his heart. Those

eyes were shining nearer and nearer, blinding him with their light of love. She stopped close to him, touching

She had done all she could she had run up to him and given herself up entirely, shy and happy. He put his

Her mother and father had consented without demur, and were happy in her happiness. She had been waiting

for him. She wanted to be the first to tell him her happiness and his. She had got ready to see him alone, and

had been delighted at the idea, and had been shy and ashamed, and did not know herself what she was to do.

She had heard his steps and voice, and had waited at the door for Mademoiselle Linon to go. Mademoiselle

Linon had gone away. Without thinking, without asking herself how and what, she had gone up to him, and

"Let us go to mamma!" she said, taking him by the hand. For a long while he could say nothing, not so much

because he was afraid of desecrating the loftiness of his emotion by a word, as that every time he tried to say

something, instead of words he felt that tears of happiness were welling up. He took her hand and kissed it.

"Can it be true?" he said at last in a choked voice. "I can't believe you love me, dear!"

Without letting go his hand, she went into the drawing room. The Princess, seeing them, breathed quickly,

and immediately began to cry, and then immediately began to laugh, and, with a vigorous step Levin had not

expected, ran up to him, and hugging his head, kissed him, wetting his cheeks with her tears.

"You've not been long settling things," said the old Prince, trying to seem unmoved; but Levin noticed that

his eyes were wet when he turned to him. "I've long always wished for this!" said the Prince, taking Levin

by the arm and drawing him toward himself. "Even when this little featherhead fancied..."

He embraced Kitty, kissed her face, her hand, her face again, and made the sign of the cross over her.

And there came over Levin a new feeling of love for this man, the old Prince, till then so little known to him,

The Princess was sitting in her armchair, silent and smiling; the Prince sat down beside her. Kitty stood by

The Princess was the first to put everything into words, and to translate all thoughts and feelings into

practical questions. And all felt equally strange and painful for the first minute.

"When is it to be? We must have the benediction and announcement. And when's the wedding to be? What

"Here he is," said the old Prince, pointing to Levin "he's the principal person in the matter."

"When?" said Levin blushing. "Tomorrow. If you ask me, I should say, the benediction today, and the

"Well, upon my word!" said the mother, smiling, delighted at this haste. "How about the trousseau?"

"Will there really be a trousseau and all that?" Levin thought with horror. "But can the trousseau and the

benediction and all that can it spoil my happiness? Nothing can spoil it!" He glanced at Kitty and noticed

that she was not in the least, not in the very least, disturbed by the idea of the trousseau. "Then it must be all

"Oh, I know nothing about it; I only said what I should like," he said apologetically.

"We'll talk it over, then. The benediction and announcement can take place now. That's very well."

The Princess went up to her husband, kissed him, and would have gone away, but he held her back, embraced

her, and tenderly, as a young lover, kissed her several times, smiling. The old people were obviously muddled

for a moment, and did not quite know whether it was they who were in love again or their daughter. When the

Prince and the Princess had gone, Levin went up to his betrothed and took her hand. He was selfpossessed

now and could speak, and he had a great deal he wanted to tell her. But he did not say at all what he had to

"How I knew it would be so! I never hoped for it; and yet in my heart I was always sure," he said. "I believe

"And I?" she said. "Even when..." She stopped and went on again, looking at him resolutely with her truthful

eyes, "Even when I thrust my happiness from me. I always loved you only, but I was carried away. I ought to

"Perhaps it was for the best. You will have to forgive me so much. I ought to tell you..."

This was one of the things he had meant to speak about. He had resolved from the first to tell her two things

that he was not chaste as she was, and that he was not a believer. It was agonizing, but he considered he ought

"Very well, later, but you must certainly tell me. I'm not afraid of anything. I want to know everything. Now

Their conversation was interrupted by Mademoiselle Linon, who with an affected but tender smile came to

congratulate her favorite pupil. Before she had gone, the servants came in with their congratulations. Then

relations arrived, and there began that state of blissful absurdity from which Levin did not emerge till the day

after his wedding. Levin was in a continual state of awkwardness and discomfort, but the intensity of his

happiness went on increasing all the while. He felt continually that a great deal was being expected of him

what, he did not know; and he did everything he was told, and it all gave him happiness. He had thought his

engagement would have nothing about it like others, that the ordinary conditions of engaged couples would

spoil his special happiness; but it ended in his doing exactly as other people did, and his happiness being only

increased thereby and becoming more and more special, more and more unlike anything that had ever

"Now we shall have sweetmeats to eat," said Mademoiselle Linon and Levin drove off to buy sweetmeats.

"Well, I'm very glad," said Sviiazhsky. "I advise you to get the bouquets from Fomin's."

His brother recommended lending money to him, as he would have so many expenses, presents to give...

And at the confectioner's, and at Fomin's, and at Foulde's he saw that he was expected; that they were pleased

to see him, and prided themselves on his happiness, just as everyone did whom he had to do with during

those days. What was extraordinary was that everyone not only liked him, but even people previously

unsympathetic, cold, and callous, were enthusiastic over him, gave way to him in everything, treated his

feelings with tenderness and delicacy, and shared his conviction that he was the happiest man in the world

because his betrothed was beyond perfection. Kitty too felt the same thing. When Countess Nordstone

ventured to hint that she had hoped for something better, Kitty was so angry and proved so conclusively that

nothing in the world could be better than Levin, that Countess Nordstone had to admit it, and in Kitty's

The confession he had promised was the one painful incident of this time. He consulted the old Prince, and

with his sanction gave Kitty his diary, in which there was written the confession that tortured him. He had

written this diary at the time with a view to his future wife. Two things caused him anguish: his lack of purity

and his lack of faith. His confession of unbelief passed unnoticed. She was religious, had never doubted the

truths of religion, but his external unbelief did not affect her in the least. Through love she knew all his soul,

and in his soul she saw what she wanted, and that such a state of soul should be called unbelieving was to her

Levin, not without an inner struggle, handed her his diary. He knew that between him and her there could not

be, and should not be, any secrets, and so he had decided that so it must be. But he had not realized what an

effect it would have on her, he had not put himself in her place. It was only when the same evening he came

to their house before the theater, went into her room, and saw her tearstained, pitiful, sweet face, miserable

with the suffering he had caused and nothing could undo, that he felt the abyss that separated his shameful

"Take them, take these dreadful books!" she said, pushing away the notebooks lying before her on the table.

"Why did you give them me? No, it was better anyway," she added, touched by his despairing face. "But it's

But his happiness was so immense that this confession did not shatter it, it only added another shade to it. She

forgave him; but from that time, more than ever, he considered himself unworthy of her, morally bowed

down lower than ever before her, and prized more highly than ever his undeserved happiness.

Unconsciously going over in his memory the conversations that had taken place during and after dinner,

Alexei Alexandrovich returned to his solitary room. Darya Alexandrovna's words about forgiveness had

aroused in him nothing but annoyance. The applicability or nonapplicability of the Christian precept to his

own case was too difficult a question to be discussed lightly, and this question had long ago been answered

by Alexei Alexandrovich in the negative. Of all that had been said, what stuck most in his memory was the

phrase of stupid, goodnatured Turovtsin: "Acted like a man, he did! Called him out and shot him!"

Everyone had apparently shared this feeling, though from politeness they had not expressed it.

"But the matter is settled; it's useless thinking about it," Alexei Alexandrovich told himself. And thinking of

nothing but the journey before him, and the revision work he had to do, he went into his room and asked the

porter who escorted him where his man was; the porter said that the man had just gone out. Alexei

Alexandrovich ordered tea to be sent him, sat down to the table, and, taking the schedule, began considering

"Two telegrams," said his valet, coming into the room. "I beg your pardon, Your Excellency; I'd just stepped

Alexei Alexandrovich took the telegrams and opened them. The first telegram was the announcement of

Stremov's appointment to the very post Karenin had coveted. Alexei Alexandrovich flung the telegram down,

and, flushing, got up and began to pace up and down the room. "Quos vult perdere dementat," he said,

meaning by quos the persons responsible for this appointment. He was not so much annoyed at not receiving

the post, as at having been so conspicuously passed over; but it was incomprehensible, amazing to him that

they did not see that the wordy phrasemonger Stremov was the last man fit for it. How could they fail to see

"Something else in the same line," he said to himself bitterly, opening the second telegram. The telegram was

from his wife. Her name, written in blue pencil, "Anna," was the first thing that caught his eye. "I am dying; I

beg, I implore you to come. I shall die easier with your forgiveness," he read. He smiled contemptuously, and

flung down the telegram. That this was a trick and a fraud, of that he thought for the first minute there

"There is no deceit she would stick at. She was near her confinement. Perhaps it is the confinement. But what

can be their aim? To legitimize the child, to compromise me, and prevent a divorce," he thought. "But

something was said in it: I am dying..." He read the telegram again, and suddenly the plain meaning of what

was said in it struck him. "And if it is true?" he said to himself. "If it is true that in the moment of agony and

nearness to death she is genuinely penitent, and I, taking it for a trick, refuse to go? That would not only be

Alexei Alexandrovich decided that he would go to Peterburg and see his wife. If her illness was a trick, he

would say nothing and go away again. If she were really in danger, and wished to see him before her death,

he would forgive her if he found her alive, and pay her the last duties if he came too late.

With a sense of weariness and uncleanness from the night spent in the train, in the early fog of Peterburg,

Alexei Alexandrovich drove through the deserted Nevsky Prospect, and stared straight before him, without

thinking of what was awaiting him. He could not think about it, because in picturing what would happen, he

could not drive away the reflection that her death would at once remove all the difficulty of his position.

Bakers, closed shops, night cabmen, street sweepers sweeping the pavements flashed past his eyes, and he

watched it all, trying to smother the thought of what was awaiting him, and what he dared not hope for, and

yet was hoping for. He drove up to the steps. A hackney sleigh, and a coach with its coachman asleep, stood

at the entrance. As he went into the entry, Alexei Alexandrovich seemed to get out his resolution from the

remotest corner of his brain, and mastered it thoroughly. Its meaning ran: "If it's a trick, then calm contempt

The porter opened the door before Alexei Alexandrovich rang. The porter, Kapitonich, looked queer in an old

Alexei Alexandrovich stopped short and turned white. He felt distinctly now how intensely he had longed for

"Very ill," he answered. "There was a consultation yesterday, and the doctor's here now."

"Take my things," said Alexei Alexandrovich, and, feeling some relief at the news that there was still hope of

On the hatstand there was a military overcoat. Alexei Alexandrovich noticed it and asked:

In the drawing room there was no one; at the sound of his steps the midwife came out of Anna's boudoir, in a

She went up to Alexei Alexandrovich, and with the familiarity given by the approach of death took him by

"Thank God you've come! She keeps on talking about you, and nothing but you," she said.

Alexei Alexandrovich went into the boudoir. At her table, sitting sideways in a low chair, was Vronsky, his

face hidden in his hands, weeping. He jumped up at the doctor's voice, took his hands from his face, and saw

Alexei Alexandrovich. Seeing the husband, he was so overwhelmed that he sat down again, drawing his head

into his shoulders, as if he wanted to disappear; but he made an effort over himself, got up and said:

"She is dying. The doctors say there is no hope. I am entirely in your power, only let me be here... though I

Alexei Alexandrovich, seeing Vronsky's tears, felt a rush of that nervous emotion always produced in him by

the sight of other people's sufferings, and, turning away his face, he moved hurriedly to the door, without

hearing the rest of the words. From the bedroom came the sound of Anna's voice saying something. Her voice

was lively, animated, with exceedingly distinct intonations. Alexei Alexandrovich went into the bedroom,

and walked up to the bed. She was lying with her face turned toward him. Her cheeks were flushed crimson,

her eyes glittered, her little white hands thrust out from the cuffs of her dressing gown were playing with the

quilt, twisting it about. It seemed as though she were not only well and blooming, but in the happiest frame of

mind. She was talking rapidly, musically, and with exceptionally correct articulation and expressive

"Because Alexei I am speaking of Alexei Alexandrovich (what a strange and awful thing that both are

Alexeis, isn't it?) Alexei would not refuse me. I should forget, he would forgive... But why doesn't he come?

He's so good, he doesn't know himself how good he is. Ah, my God, what pangs! Give me some water,

quick! Oh, that will be bad for her my little girl! Oh, very well then, give her to a nurse. Yes, I agree, it's

better in fact. He'll be coming; it will hurt him to see her. Give her to the nurse."

"Anna Arkadyevna, he has come. Here he is!" said the midwife, trying to attract her attention to Alexei

"Oh, what nonsense!" Anna went on, not seeing her husband. "No, give her to me; give me my little one! He

has not come yet. You say he won't forgive me, because you don't know him. No one knows him. I'm the

only one, and it was hard for me even. I ought to know his eyes Seriozha has just such eyes and I can't bear

to see them because of it. Has Seriozha had his dinner? I know everyone will forget to do it. He would not

forget. Seriozha must be moved into the corner room, and Mariette must be asked to sleep with him."

All of a sudden she shrank back, and was silent; and in terror, as though expecting a blow, as though to

"No, no!" she began. "I am not afraid of him; I am afraid of death. Alexei, come here. I am in a hurry,

because I've no time, I haven't long left to live; the fever will begin directly and I shall understand nothing

Alexei Alexandrovich's wrinkled face wore an expression of suffering; he took her by the hand and tried to

say something, but he could not utter it; his lower lip quivered, but he still went on struggling with his

emotion, and only now and then glanced at her. And each time he glanced at her, he saw her eyes gazing at

him with such passionate and exultant tenderness as he had never yet seen in them.

"Wait a minute, you don't know... Stay a little, stay!..." She stopped, as though collecting her ideas. "Yes,"

she began, "yes, yes, yes! This is what I wanted to say. Don't be surprised at me. I'm still the same... But there

is another woman in me I'm afraid of her: she loved that man, and I tried to hate you, and could not forget

about her that used to be. That woman isn't myself. Now I'm my real self. I'm dying now, I know I shall die

ask him. Even now I feel see here, the weights on my feet, on my hands, on my fingers. My fingers see

how huge they are! But this will soon be all over... Only one thing I want: forgive me, forgive me quite. I'm

terrible, but my nurse would tell me the holy martyr what was her name? She was worse. And I'll go to

Rome; there's a wilderness, and there I shall be no trouble to anyone, only I'll take Seriozha and the little

one.... No, you can't forgive me! I know, it can't be forgiven! No, no, go away, you're too good!" She held his

The nervous agitation of Alexei Alexandrovich kept increasing, and had by now reached such a point that he

ceased to struggle with it. He suddenly felt that what he had regarded as nervous agitation was on the

contrary a blissful spiritual condition that gave him all at once a new happiness he had never known. He did

not think that the Christian law, which he had been all his life trying to follow, enjoined on him to forgive

and love his enemies; but a joyous feeling of love and forgiveness for his enemies filled his heart. He knelt

down, and laying his head in the curve of her arm, which burned him as with fire through the sleeve, he

sobbed like a little child. She put her arm around his head, which was beginning to grow bald, moved toward

"That is he. I knew him! Now, goodby, everyone, goodby!... They've come again; why don't they go

The doctor unloosed her hands, carefully laying her on the pillow, and covered her up to the shoulders. She

"Remember one thing, that I needed nothing but forgiveness, and I want nothing more.... Why doesn't he

come?" she said, turning to the door, toward Vronsky. "Do come, do come! Give him your hand."

Vronsky came to the side of the bed, and seeing Anna, again hid his face in his hands.

"Uncover your face look at him! He's a saint," she said. "Oh! uncover your face, do uncover it!" she said

Alexei Alexandrovich took Vronsky's hands and drew them away from his face, which was awful with the

Alexei Alexandrovich gave him his hand, not attempting to restrain the tears that streamed from his eyes.

"Thank God, thank God!" she said, "now everything is ready. Only to stretch my legs a little. There, that's

capital. How badly these flowers are done not a bit like a violet," she said, pointing to the hangings. "My

God, my God! when will it end? Give me some morphine. Doctor, give me some morphine! Oh, my God, my

The doctors said that it was puerperal fever, and that ninetynine chances in a hundred it would end in death.

The whole day long there was fever, delirium, and unconsciousness. At midnight the patient lay without

Vronsky had gone home, but in the morning he came to inquire, and Alexei Alexandrovich, meeting him in

the hall, said: "Better stay, she might ask for you," and himself led him to his wife's boudoir. Toward morning

there was a return again of excitement, rapid thought and talk, and again it ended in unconsciousness. On the

third day it was the same thing, and the doctors said there was hope. That day Alexei Alexandrovich went

into the boudoir where Vronsky was sitting, and, closing the door, sat down opposite him.

"Alexei Alexandrovich," said Vronsky, feeling that a statement of the situation was coming, "I can't speak, I

can't understand. Spare me! However hard it is for you, believe me, it is more terrible for me."

"I beg you to hear me out; it is necessary. I must explain my feelings, the feelings that have guided me, and

will guide me, so that you may not be in error regarding me. You know I had resolved on a divorce, and had

even begun to take proceedings. I won't conceal from you that in beginning this I was in uncertainty, I was in

misery; I will confess that I was pursued by a desire to revenge myself on you and on her. When I got the

telegram, I came here with the same feelings; I will say more I longed for her death. But..." He paused,

pondering whether to disclose or not to disclose his feelings. "But I saw her and forgave her. And the

happiness of forgiveness has revealed to me my duty. I forgive completely. I would offer the other cheek, I

would give my cloak if my coat be taken. I pray to God only not to take from me the bliss of forgiveness!"

Tears stood in his eyes, and the luminous, serene look in them impressed Vronsky.

"This is my position: you can trample me in the mud, make me the laughingstock of the world I will not

abandon her, and I will never utter a word of reproach to you," Alexei Alexandrovich went on. "My duty is

clearly marked for me; I ought to be with her, and I will be. If she wishes to see you, I will let you know, but

He got up, and sobs cut short his words. Vronsky too was getting up, and in a stooping, not yet erect posture,

looked up at him from under his brows. He did not understand Alexei Alexandrovich's feeling, but he felt that

After the conversation with Alexei Alexandrovich, Vronsky went out on the steps of the Karenins' house and

stood still, with difficulty remembering where he was, and where he ought to walk or drive. He felt disgraced,

humiliated, guilty, and deprived of all possibility of washing away his humiliation. He felt thrust out of the

beaten track along which he had so proudly and lightly walked till then. All the habits and rules of his life

that had seemed so firm, had turned out suddenly false and inapplicable. The betrayed husband, who had

figured till that time as a pitiful creature, an incidental and somewhat ludicrous obstacle to his happiness, had

suddenly been summoned by her herself, elevated to an aweinspiring pinnacle, and on the pinnacle that

husband had shown himself not malignant, not false, not ludicrous but kind and straightforward and grand.

Vronsky could not but feel this, and the roles were suddenly reversed. Vronsky felt the other's elevation and

his own abasement, the other's truth and his own falsehood. He felt that the husband was magnanimous even

in his sorrow, while he had been base and petty in his deceit. But this sense of his own humiliation before the

man he had unjustly despised made up only a small part of his misery. He felt unutterably wretched now, for

his passion for Anna, which had seemed to him of late to be growing cooler, now that he knew he had lost her

forever, was stronger than ever it had been. He had seen all of her in her illness, had come to know her very

soul, and it seemed to him that he had never loved her till then. And now, when he had learned to know her,

to love her as she should be loved, he had been humiliated before her, and had lost her forever, leaving with

her nothing of himself but a shameful memory. Most terrible of all had been his ludicrous, shameful position

when Alexei Alexandrovich had pulled his hands away from his humiliated face. He stood on the steps of the

On getting home, after three sleepless nights, Vronsky, without undressing, lay prone on the sofa, clasping

his hands and laying his head on them. His head was heavy. Images, memories, and ideas of the strangest

description followed one another with extraordinary rapidity and vividness. First it was the medicine he had

poured out for the patient and spilled out of the spoon; then the midwife's white hands; then the queer posture

"To sleep! To forget!" he said to himself with the serene confidence of a healthy man that if he is tired and

sleepy, he will go to sleep at once. And the same instant his head did begin to feel drowsy and he began to

drop off into forgetfulness. The waves of the sea of unconsciousness had begun to meet over his head, when

all at once it seemed as though a violent shock of electricity had passed over him. He started so that he leaped

up on the springs of the sofa, and leaning on his arms got on his knees in a fright. His eyes were wide open as

though he had never been asleep. The heaviness in his head and the flabbiness in his limbs that he had felt a

"You may trample me in the mud," he heard Alexei Alexandrovich's words and saw him standing before him,

and saw Anna's face with its burning flush and glittering eyes, gazing with love and tenderness not at him but

at Alexei Alexandrovich; he saw his own, as he fancied, foolish and ludicrous figure when Alexei

Alexandrovich had taken his hands away from his face. He stretched out his legs again and flung himself on

"To sleep! To sleep!" he repeated to himself. But with his eyes shut he saw more distinctly than ever Anna's

"This cannot, and will not be, and she wants to wipe it out of her memory. But I cannot live without it. How

can we be reconciled? How can we be reconciled?" he said aloud, and unconsciously began to repeat these

words. This repetition of words checked the rising of fresh images and memories, which he felt were

thronging in his brain. But repeating words did not check his imagination for long. Again, in extraordinarily

rapid succession, his best moments rose before his mind, and then his recent humiliation. "Take away his

hands," Anna's voice was saying. He takes away his hands and feels the shamestruck and idiotic expression

He was still lying down, trying to sleep, though he felt there was not the smallest hope of it, and kept

repeating stray words from some chain of thought, trying by this to check the rising flood of fresh images. He

listened, and heard words repeated in a strange, mad whisper: "You did not appreciate it, did not make

"What's this? Am I going out of my mind?" he said to himself "Perhaps. What makes men go out of their

minds what makes men shoot themselves?" he answered himself, and, opening his eyes, he saw with

wonder an embroidered cushion beside him, worked by Varia, his brother's wife. He touched the tassel of the

cushion, and tried to think of Varia, of when he had seen her last. But to think of anything extraneous was an

agonizing effort. "No, I must sleep!" He moved the cushion up, and pressed his head into it, but he had to

make an effort to keep his eyes shut. He jumped up and sat down. "That's all over for me," he said to himself.

"I must think what to do. What is left?" His mind rapidly ran through his life apart from his love of Anna.

"Ambition? Serpukhovskoy? Society? The Court?" He could not come to a pause anywhere. All of it had had

meaning before, but now there was no reality in it. He got up from the sofa, took off his coat, undid his belt,

and, uncovering his hairy chest to breathe more freely, walked up and down the room. "This is how people go

mad," he repeated, "and how they shoot themselves... to escape humiliation," he added slowly.

He went to the door and closed it, and then with fixed eyes and clenched teeth he went up to the table, took a

revolver, looked it about, turned it to a loaded barrel, and sank into thought. For two minutes, his head bent

forward with an expression of an intense effort of thought, he stood with the revolver in his hand, motionless,

thinking. "Of course," he said to himself, as though a logical, continuous, and clear chain of reasoning had

brought him to an indubitable conclusion. In reality this "of course," so convincing to him, was simply the

result of repeating exactly the same circle of memories and images through which he had already passed ten

times during the last hour. There were the same memories of happiness lost forever, the same conception of

the senselessness of everything to come in life, the same consciousness of humiliation. There was the same

"Of course," he repeated, when for the third time his thought passed again round the same spellbound circle

of memories and images, and, putting the revolver to the left side of his chest, and twitching vigorously with

his whole hand, as though squeezing it in his fist, he pulled the trigger. He did not hear the sound of the shot,

but a violent blow on his chest knocked him down. He tried to clutch at the edge of the table, dropped the

revolver, staggered, and sat down on the ground, looking about him in astonishment. He did not recognize his

room, as he looked up from the ground at the bent legs of the table, at the wastepaper basket, and the

tigerskin rug. The hurried, creaking steps of his servant coming through the drawing room brought him to his

senses. He made an effort at thought, and was aware that he was on the floor; and seeing blood on the

"Idiotic! Missed!" he said, fumbling after the revolver. The revolver was close beside him he was groping

farther off. Still groping for it, he stretched out to the other side, and not being strong enough to keep his

The elegant, whiskered manservant, who used to be continually complaining to his acquaintances of the

delicacy of his nerves, was so panicstricken on seeing his master lying on the floor that he left him losing

blood while he ran for assistance. An hour later Varia, his brother's wife, had arrived, and with the assistance

of three doctors, whom she had sent for in all directions, and who all appeared at the same moment, she got

The mistake made by Alexei Alexandrovich, when preparing to see his wife, in having overlooked the

possibility that her repentance might be sincere, and that he might forgive her, and she might not die this

mistake was two months after his return from Moscow brought home to him in all its significance. But the

mistake made by him had arisen not simply from his having overlooked that contingency, but also from the

fact that, until the day of his interview with his dying wife, he had not known his own heart. At his sick wife's

bedside he had for the first time in his life given way to that feeling of sympathetic suffering always roused in

him by the sufferings of others, and hitherto looked on by him with shame as a harmful weakness. And pity

for her, and remorse for having desired her death, and, most of all, the joy of forgiveness, made him at once

conscious, not simply of the relief of his own sufferings, but of a spiritual peace he had never experienced

before. He suddenly felt that the very thing that was the source of his sufferings had become the source of his

spiritual joy; that what had seemed insolvable while he was judging, blaming, and hating, had become clear

He forgave his wife and pitied her for her sufferings and her remorse. He forgave Vronsky, and pitied him,

especially after reports reached him of his despairing action. He felt more for his son than before. And he

blamed himself now for having taken too little interest in him. But for the little newborn baby he felt a quite

peculiar sentiment, not of pity only, but of tenderness. At first, from a feeling of compassion alone, he had

been interested in the delicate little creature, who was not his child, and who was neglected during her

mother's illness, and would certainly have died if he had not troubled about her; and he did not himself

observe how fond he became of her. He would go into the nursery several times a day, and sit there for a long

while, so that the nurse and wet nurses, who were at first afraid of him, got quite used to his presence.

Sometimes, for half an hour at a stretch, he would sit silently gazing at the saffronred, downy, wrinkled face

of the sleeping baby, watching the movements of the frowning brows, and the plump little hands with

clenched fingers, that rubbed the little eyes and bridge of the nose with the back of their palms. At such

moments particularly Alexei Alexandrovich had a sense of perfect peace and inward harmony, and saw

But, as time went on, he saw more and more distinctly that however natural the position now seemed to him,

he would not long be allowed to remain in it. He felt that besides the blessed spiritual force controlling his

soul, there was another, a brutal force, as powerful, or more powerful, which controlled his life, and that this

force would not allow him that humble peace he longed for. He felt that everyone was looking at him with

inquiring wonder, that he was not understood, and that something was expected of him. Above all, he felt the

When the softening effect of the near approach of death had passed away, Alexei Alexandrovich began to

notice that Anna was afraid of him, ill at ease with him, and could not look him straight in the face. She

seemed to be wanting, yet not daring, to tell him something; and, as though foreseeing that their present

Toward the end of February Anna's baby daughter, who had also been named Anna, happened to fall ill.

Alexei Alexandrovich was in the nursery in the morning, and leaving orders for the doctor to be sent for, he

went to his office. On finishing his work, he returned home at four. Going into the hall he saw a handsome

"Princess Elizaveta Fiodorovna Tverskaia," the footman answered, and it seemed to Alexei Alexandrovich

During all this difficult time Alexei Alexandrovich had noticed that his worldly acquaintances, especially

women, took a peculiar interest in him and his wife. He observed all these acquaintances with difficulty

concealing their mirth at something the same mirth that he had perceived in the lawyer's eyes, and, just now,

in the eyes of this footman. Everyone seemed, somehow, hugely delighted, as though just come from a

wedding. When they met him, they inquired with illdisguised enjoyment after his wife's health.

The presence of Princess Tverskaia was unpleasant to Alexei Alexandrovich from the memories associated

with her, and also because he disliked her, and he went straight to the nursery. In the day nursery Seriozha,

leaning on the table with his legs on a chair, was drawing and chatting away merrily. The English governess,

who had during Anna's illness replaced the French one, was sitting near the boy, knitting mignardise. She

Alexei Alexandrovich stroked his son's hair, answered the governess's inquiries about his wife, and asked

"But she is still in pain," said Alexei Alexandrovich, listening to the baby's screaming in the next room.

"It's just as it was at Countess Paul's, sir. They gave the baby medicine, and it turned out that the baby was

Alexei Alexandrovich pondered, and after standing still a few seconds he went in at the other door. The baby

was lying with its head thrown back, stiffening itself in the nurse's arms, and would not take the plump breast

offered it; and it never ceased screaming in spite of the double hushing of the wet nurse and the other nurse,

"Who's one to say it to? Anna Arkadyevna is still ill..." said the nurse discontentedly.

The nurse was an old servant of the family. And in her simple words there seemed to Alexei Alexandrovich

The baby screamed louder than ever, struggling and choking. The nurse, with a gesture of despair, went to it,

The smartly dressed and healthylooking nurse, frightened at the idea of losing her place, muttered

something to herself, and, covering her bosom, smiled contemptuously at the idea of doubts being cast on her

abundance of milk. In that smile, too, Alexei Alexandrovich saw a sneer at his position.

"Luckless child," said the nurse, hushing the baby, and still walking up and down with it.

Alexei Alexandrovich sat down, and with a despondent and suffering face watched the nurse walking to and

When the child at last was still, and had been put in a deep bed, and the nurse, after smoothing the little

pillow, had left her, Alexei Alexandrovich got up, and, walking awkwardly on tiptoe, approached the baby.

For a minute he was still, and with the same despondent face gazed at the baby; but all at once a smile that

moved his hair and the skin of his forehead, came out on his face, and he went as softly out of the room.

In the dining room he rang the bell, and told the servant who came in to send again for the doctor. He felt

vexed with his wife for not being anxious about this charming baby, and in this vexed humor he had no wish

to go to her; he had no wish, either, to see Princess Betsy. But his wife might wonder why he did not go to

her as usual; and so, overcoming his disinclination, he went toward her bedroom. As he walked over the soft

rug toward the door, he could not help overhearing a conversation he did not want to hear.

"If he hadn't been going away, I could have understood your refusal and his too. But your husband ought to

"It's not for my husband it's for myself I don't wish it. Don't say that!" answered Anna's excited voice.

"Yes, but you must care to say goodby to a man who has shot himself on your account...."

With a dismayed and guilty expression, Alexei Alexandrovich stopped and would have gone back

unobserved. But reflecting that this would be undignified, he turned back again, and, clearing his throat, he

Anna, in a gray dressing gown, with a crop of short clustering black curls on her round head, was sitting on a

settee. The animation died out of her face, as it always did, at the sight of her husband; she dropped her head

and looked round uneasily at Betsy. Betsy, dressed in the height of the latest fashion, in a hat that towered

over her head like a shade on a lamp, in a dovecolored dress with crude oblique stripes, slanting one way on

the bodice and the other way on the skirt, was sitting beside Anna, her tall flat figure held erect. Bowing her

"Ah!" she said, as though surprised. "I'm very glad you're at home. You never put in an appearance anywhere,

and I haven't seen you ever since Anna has been ill. I have heard all about it your anxiety. Yes, you're a

wonderful husband!" she said, with a significant and affable air, as though she were bestowing an order of

Alexei Alexandrovich bowed frigidly, and, kissing his wife's hand, asked how she was.

"But you've rather a feverish complexion," he said, laying stress on the word "feverish."

"We've been talking too much," said Betsy. "I feel it's selfishness on my part, and I am going away."

"No, wait a minute, please. I must tell you... no, I mean you," she turned to Alexei Alexandrovich, and her

neck and brow were suffused with crimson. "I won't and can't keep anything secret from you," she said.

"Betsy's been telling me that Count Vronsky wants to come here to say goodby before his departure for

Tashkend." She did not look at her husband, and was evidently in haste to have everything out, however hard

"You said, my dear, that it would depend on Alexei Alexandrovich," Betsy corrected her.

"Oh, no, I can't receive him; and what object would there be in..." She stopped suddenly, and glanced

inquiringly at her husband (he did not look at her). "In short, I don't wish it...."

Her first impulse was to jerk back her hand from the damp hand with big swollen veins that sought hers, but

"I am very grateful to you for your confidence, but..." he said, feeling with confusion and annoyance that

what he could decide easily and clearly by himself, he could not discuss before Princess Tverskaia, who to

him stood for the incarnation of that brute force which would inevitably control him in the life he led in the

eyes of the world, and hinder him from giving way to his feeling of love and forgiveness. He stopped short,

"Well, goodby, my darling," said Betsy, getting up. She kissed Anna, and went out. Alexei Alexandrovich

"Alexei Alexandrovich! I know you are a truly magnanimous man," said Betsy, stopping in the little drawing

room, and with special warmth shaking hands with him once more. "I am an outsider, but I love her so, and

respect you, that I venture to advise. Receive him. Alexei Vronsky is the soul of honor, and he is going away

"Thank you, Princess, for your sympathy and advice. But the question of whether my wife can or cannot see

He said this from habit, lifting his brows with dignity, and reflected immediately that whatever his words

might be, there could be no dignity in his position. And he saw this by the suppressed, malicious, and ironical

Alexei Alexandrovich took leave of Betsy in the drawing room, and went to his wife. She was lying down,

but hearing his steps she sat up hastily in her former attitude, and looked in a scared way at him. He saw she

"I am very grateful for your confidence in me." He repeated gently in Russian the phrase he had said in

Betsy's presence in French, and sat down beside her. When he spoke to her in Russian, using the Russian

"thou" of intimacy and affection, it was insufferably irritating to Anna. "And I am very grateful for your

decision. I, too, imagine that since he is going away, there is no sort of necessity for Count Vronsky to come

"But I've said so already, so why repeat it?" Anna suddenly interrupted him, with an irritation she could not

succeed in repressing. "No sort of necessity," she thought, "for a man to come and say goodby to the woman

he loves, for whom he was ready to ruin himself, and has ruined himself, and who cannot live without him.

No sort of necessity!" She compressed her lips, and dropped her burning eyes to his hands with their swollen

veins. They were slowly rubbing each other. "Let us never speak of it," she added more calmly.

"I have left this question to you to decide, and I am very glad to see..." Alexei Alexandrovich was beginning.

"That my wish coincides with your own," she finished quickly, exasperated at his talking so slowly while she

"Yes," he assented; "and Princess Tverskaia's interference in the most difficult private affairs is utterly

"I don't believe a word of what's said about her," said Anna quickly. "I know she really cares for me."

Alexei Alexandrovich sighed and said nothing. She played nervously with the tassel of her dressing gown,

glancing at him with that torturing sensation of physical repulsion for which she blamed herself, though she

could not control it. Her only desire now was to be rid of his repelling presence.

"Why didn't you let me nurse her, when I begged to? Anyway" (Alexei Alexandrovich knew what was meant

by that "anyway"), "she's a baby, and they're killing her." She rang the bell and ordered the baby to be

brought her. "I begged to nurse her, I wasn't allowed to, and now I'm blamed for it."

"Yes, you do blame me! My God! Why didn't I die!" And she broke into sobs. "Forgive me, I'm nervous, I'm

"No, it can't go on like this," Alexei Alexandrovich said to himself resolutely as he left his wife's room.

Never had the impossibility of his position in the world's eyes, and his wife's hatred of him, and, above all,

the might of that mysterious brutal force that guided his life against his spiritual inclinations and exacted

conformity with its decrees and a change in his present attitude to his wife never had it been presented to

him with such distinctness as on that day. He saw clearly that all the world and Anna expected something of

him, but what exactly he could not make out. He felt that this was rousing in his soul a feeling of anger

destructive of his peace of mind, and of all the good of his achievement. He believed that for Anna herself it

would be better to break off all relations with Vronsky; but if they all thought this out of the question, he was

even ready to allow these relations to be renewed, so long as the children were not disgraced, and he was not

deprived of them nor forced to change his position. Bad as this might be, it was at any rate better than a

rupture, which would put her in a hopeless and shameful position, and deprive him of everything he cared for.

But he felt helpless; he knew beforehand that everyone was against him, and that he would not be allowed to

do what seemed to him now so natural and right, but would be forced to do what was wrong, though to them

Before Betsy had time to walk out of the drawing room, she was met in the doorway by Stepan Arkadyevich,

who had just come from Ielisseev's, where a consignment of fresh oysters had been received.

"A meeting for one minute, for I'm going," said Betsy, smiling and putting on her glove.

"Don't put on your glove yet, Princess; let me kiss your hand. There's nothing I'm so thankful to the revival of

the old fashions for as kissing the hand." He kissed Betsy's hand. "When shall we see each other?"

"Oh, yes, I deserve a great deal, for I've become a most serious person. I not only manage my own domestic

"Oh, I'm so glad!" answered Betsy, at once understanding that he was speaking of Anna. And, going back

into the drawing room, they stood in a corner. "He's killing her," said Betsy in a whisper full of meaning. "It's

"I'm so glad you think so," said Stepan Arkadyevich, shaking his head with a serious and sympathetically

"The whole town's talking of it," she said. "It's an impossible situation. She pines and pines away. He doesn't

understand that she's one of those women who can't trifle with their feelings. One of two things: either let him

"That's what I've come for. At least not solely for that... I've been made a Kammerherr; of course, one has to

After accompanying Betsy to the outside hall, once more kissing her hand above the glove, at the point where

the pulse beats, and murmuring to her such unseemly nonsense that she did not know whether to laugh or to

Although he happened to be bubbling over with good spirits, Stepan Arkadyevich immediately and quite

naturally fell into the sympathetic, poetically emotional tone which harmonized with her mood. He asked her

"Very, very miserably. Today, and this morning, and all past days, and all the days to come," she said.

"I think you're giving way to pessimism. You must rouse yourself, you must look life in the face. I know it's

"I have heard it said that women love men even for their vices," Anna began suddenly, "but I hate him for his

virtues. I can't live with him. Do you understand? The sight of him has a physical effect in me I am beside

myself from it. I can't, I can't live with him. What am I to do? I have been unhappy, and used to think one

couldn't be unhappier, but the awful state of things I am going through now I could never have conceived.

Would you believe it, that, knowing he's a good man, a splendid man, that I'm not worth his little finger, I

still hate him. I hate him for his generosity. And there's nothing left for me but..."

"You are ill and overwrought," he said; "believe me, you're exaggerating dreadfully. There's nothing so

And Stepan Arkadyevich smiled. No one else in Stepan Arkadyevich's place, having to do with such despair,

would have ventured to smile (the smile would have seemed brutal); but in his smile there was so much of

sweetness and almost feminine tenderness that his smile did not wound, but softened and soothed. His gentle,

soothing words and smiles were as soothing and softening as almond oil. And Anna soon felt this.

"No, Stiva," she said, "I'm lost, lost! Worse than lost! I can't say yet that all is over; on the contrary, I feel that

it's not over. I'm an overstrained cord that must snap. But it's not ended yet... And it will have a fearful end."

"No matter, we must let the cord be loosened, little by little. There's no position from which there is no way

Again he knew from her terrified eyes that this one way of escape in her thought was death, and he would not

"Not at all," he said. "Listen to me. You can't see your own position as I can. Let me tell you candidly my

opinion." Again he smiled discreetly his almondoil smile. "I'll begin from the beginning. You married a man

twenty years older than yourself. You married him without love and not knowing what love was. It was a

"But, I repeat, it's an accomplished fact. Then you had, let us say, the misfortune to love a man not your

husband. That was a misfortune; but that, too, is an accomplished fact. And your husband knew it and

forgave it." He stopped at each sentence, waiting for her to object, but she made no answer. "That's that. Now

the question is: Can you go on living with your husband? Do you wish it? Does he wish it?"

"No, I didn't say so. I deny it. I don't know anything, I don't understand anything."

"You can't understand. I feel I'm lying head downward in a sort of pit, but I ought not to save myself. And I

"Never mind, we'll slip something under you and pull you out. I understand you: I understand that you can't

"But he sees this and knows it. And do you suppose it weighs on him any less than on you? You're wretched,

he's wretched, and what good can come of it? While divorce would solve the whole difficulty." With some

effort Stepan Arkadyevich brought out his central idea, and looked significantly at her.

She said nothing, and shook her cropped head in dissent. But from the look in her face, that suddenly

brightened into its former beauty, he saw that if she did not desire this, it was simply because it seemed to her

"I'm awfully sorry for you both! And how happy I should be if I could arrange things!" said Stepan

Arkadyevich, smiling more boldly. "Don't speak, don't say a word! God grant only that I may speak as I feel.

Stepan Arkadyevich, with the same somewhat solemn expression with which he used to take his presidential

chair at his board, walked into Alexei Alexandrovich's room. Alexei Alexandrovich was walking about his

room with his hands behind his back, thinking of just what Stepan Arkadyevich had been discussing with his

"I'm not interrupting you?" said Stepan Arkadyevich, on the sight of his brotherinlaw becoming suddenly

aware of a sense of embarrassment unusual with him. To conceal this embarrassment he took out a newly

purchased cigarette case that opened in a new way, and, sniffing the leather, took a cigarette out of it.

"Yes, I wished... I wanted... Yes, I wanted to talk to you," said Stepan Arkadyevich, with surprise aware of an

This feeling was so unexpected and so strange that he did not believe it was the voice of conscience telling

him that what he meant to do was wrong. Stepan Arkadyevich made an effort and struggled with the timidity

"I hope you believe in my love for my sister and my sincere affection and respect for you," he said,

Alexei Alexandrovich stood still and said nothing, but his face struck Stepan Arkadyevich by its expression

"I intended... I wanted to have a little talk with you about my sister and your mutual position," he said, still

Alexei Alexandrovich smiled mournfully, looked at his brotherinlaw, and, without answering, went up to

the table, took from it an unfinished letter, and handed it to his brotherinlaw.

"I think unceasingly of the same thing. And here is what I had begun writing, thinking I could say it better by

letter, and that my presence irritates her," he said, as he gave him the letter.

Stepan Arkadyevich took the letter, looked with incredulous surprise at the lusterless eyes fixed so

"I see that my presence is irksome to you. Painful as it is to me to believe it, I see that it is so, and cannot be

otherwise. I don't blame you, and God is my witness that on seeing you at the time of your illness I resolved

with my whole heart to forget all that had passed between us, and to begin a new life. I do not regret, and

shall never regret, what I have done; but I have desired one thing your good, the good of your soul and

now I see I have not attained that. Tell me yourself what will give you true happiness and peace to your soul.

I put myself entirely in your hands, and trust to your feeling of what is right."

Stepan Arkadyevich handed back the letter, and, with the same surprise, continued looking at his

brotherinlaw, not knowing what to say. This silence was so awkward for both of them that Stepan

Arkadyevich's lips began twitching nervously, while he still gazed without speaking at Karenin's face.

"Yes, yes..." said Stepan Arkadyevich, not able to answer for the tears that were choking him. "Yes, yes, I

"I am afraid she does not understand her own position. She is not a judge," said Stepan Arkadyevich,

recovering himself. "She is crushed, simply crushed by your generosity. If she were to read this letter, she

would be incapable of saying anything she would only hang her head lower than ever."

"Yes, but what's to be done in that case? How explain... how find out her wishes?"

"If you will allow me to give my opinion, I think that it lies with you to point out directly the steps you

"So you consider it must be ended?" Alexei Alexandrovich interrupted him. "But how?" he added, with a

gesture of his hands before his eyes, not usual with him. "I see no possible way out of it."

"There is some way of getting out of every situation," said Stepan Arkadyevich, standing up and becoming

more cheerful. "There was a time when you thought of breaking off... If you are convinced now that you

"Happiness may be variously understood. But suppose that I agree to everything, that I want nothing: what

"If you care to know my opinion," said Stepan Arkadyevich, with the same smile of softening, almondoil

tenderness with which he had been talking to Anna. His kindly smile was so winning that Alexei

Alexandrovich, feeling his own weakness and unconsciously swayed by it, was ready to believe what Stepan

Arkadyevich was saying. "She will never speak out about it. But one thing is possible, one thing she might

desire," he went on; "that is the cessation of your relations, and all memories associated with them. To my

thinking, in your situation the essential thing is the formation of a new attitude to one another. And that can

"Yes, I imagine that divorce... Yes, divorce," Stepan Arkadyevich repeated, reddening. "That is from every

point of view the most rational course for married people who find themselves in the situation you are in.

What can be done if married people find that life is impossible for them together? That may always happen."

"There's only one point to be considered: is either of the parties desirous of forming new ties? If not, it is very

Alexei Alexandrovich, scowling with emotion, muttered something to himself, and made no answer. All that

seemed so simple to Stepan Arkadyevich, Alexei Alexandrovich had thought over thousands of times. And,

so far from being simple, it all seemed to him utterly impossible: divorce, the details of which he knew by

this time, seemed to him now out of the question, because the sense of his own dignity and respect for

religion forbade his taking upon himself a fictitious charge of adultery, and still more, suffering his wife,

pardoned and beloved by him, to be caught in the fact and put to public shame. Divorce appeared to him

What would become of his son in case of a divorce? To leave him with his mother was out of the question.

The divorced mother would have her own illegitimate family, in which his status as a stepson, and his

education, would be probably bad. Keep him with him? He knew that would be an act of vengeance on his

part, and that he did not desire. But, apart from this, what more than all made divorce seem impossible to

Alexei Alexandrovich was that, by consenting to a divorce, he would be completely ruining Anna. The saying

of Darya Alexandrovna at Moscow, that in deciding on a divorce he was thinking of himself, and not

considering that by this he would be ruining her irrevocably, had sunk into his heart. And connecting this

saying with his forgiveness of her, with his devotion to the children, he understood it now in his own way. To

consent to a divorce, to give her her freedom, meant in his thoughts to take from himself the last tie that

bound him to life the children whom he loved; and to take from her the last prop that kept her on the path of

right, to thrust her down to her ruin. If she were divorced, he knew she would join her life to Vronsky's, and

their tie would be an illegitimate and criminal one, since a wife, by the interpretation of the ecclesiastical law,

could not marry while her husband was living. "She will join him, and in a year or two he will throw her

over, or she will form a new tie," thought Alexei Alexandrovich. "And I, by agreeing to an unlawful divorce,

shall be to blame for her ruin." He had thought it all over hundreds of times, and was convinced that a divorce

was not at all simple, as Stepan Arkadyevich had said, but was utterly impossible. He did not believe a single

word Stepan Arkadyevich said to him; to every word he had a thousand objections to make, but he listened to

him, feeling that his words were the expression of that mighty brutal force which controlled his life, and to

"The only question is on what terms you agree to give her a divorce. She does not want anything, does not

"My God, my God! What for?" thought Alexei Alexandrovich, remembering the details of divorce

proceedings in which the husband took the blame on himself, and with just the same gesture with which

"'And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloak

"Yes, yes!" he cried in a shrill voice. "I will take the disgrace on myself, I will give up even my son, but...

And, turning away so that his brotherinlaw could not see him, he sat down on a chair at the window. There

was bitterness, there was shame in his heart, but with bitterness and shame he felt joy and emotion at the

"Alexei Alexandrovich, believe me, she appreciates your magnanimity," he said. "But it seems it was the will

of God," he added, and as he said it felt how foolish a remark it was, and with difficulty repressed a smile at

"This is an unhappy fatality, and one must accept it as such. I accept the calamity as an accomplished fact,

When he went out of his brotherinlaw's room he was touched, but that did not prevent him from being glad

he had successfully brought the matter to a conclusion, for he felt certain Alexei Alexandrovich would not go

back on his words. To this satisfaction was added the fact that an idea had just struck him for a conundrum

turning on his successful achievement when the affair was over he would put it to his wife and most

intimate friends. He tried this conundrum in two or three different ways. "But I'll work it out better than that,"

Vronsky's wound had been a dangerous one, though it did not touch the heart, and for several days he

hovered between life and death. The first time he was able to speak, Varia, his brother's wife, was alone in the

"Varia," he said, looking sternly at her, "I shot myself by accident. And please never speak of it, and tell

Without answering his words, Varia bent over him, and with a delighted smile gazed into his face. His eyes

In silence, stiffening his broad jaws, he looked at her while she bandaged him up. When she had finished he

"I'm not delirious. Please manage that there may be no talk of my having shot myself on purpose."

"No one says so. Only I hope you won't shoot yourself by accident any more," she said, with a questioning

In spite of these words and this smile, which so frightened Varia, when the inflammation was over and he

began to recover, he felt that he was completely free from one part of his misery. By his action he had, as it

were, washed away the shame and humiliation he had felt before. He could now think calmly of Alexei

Alexandrovich. He recognized all his magnanimity, but he did not now feel himself humiliated by it. Besides,

he got back again into the beaten track of his life. He saw the possibility of looking men in the face again

without shame, and he could live in accordance with his own habits. One thing he could not pluck out of his

heart, though he never ceased struggling with it the regret, amounting to despair, at having lost her forever.

That, having expiated his sin against the husband, he was now bound to renounce her, and never in future to

stand between her with her repentance and her husband, he had firmly decided in his heart; but he could not

tear out of his heart his regret at the loss of her love; he could not erase from his memory those moments of

happiness which he had known with her and had so little prized at the time, and which haunted him with all

Serpukhovskoy had planned his appointment at Tashkend, and Vronsky agreed to the proposal without the

slightest hesitation. But the nearer the time of departure came, the bitterer was the sacrifice he was making to

His wound had healed, and he was driving about making preparations for his departure for Tashkend.

"To see her once, and then to bury myself, to die," he thought, and, as he was paying farewell visits, he

uttered this thought to Betsy. Charged with this commission, Betsy had gone to Anna, and brought him back

"So much the better," thought Vronsky, when he received the news. "It was a weakness which would have

Next day Betsy herself came to him in the morning, and announced that she had heard through Oblonsky, as a

positive fact, that Alexei Alexandrovich had agreed to a divorce, and that therefore Vronsky could see Anna.

Without even troubling himself to see Betsy out of his flat, forgetting all his resolutions, without asking when

he could see her or where her husband was, Vronsky drove straight to the Karenins'. He ran up the stairs,

seeing no one and nothing, and with a rapid step, almost breaking into a run, he went into her room. And

without considering, without noticing whether there was anyone in the room or not, he flung his arms round

Anna had been preparing herself for this meeting, had thought what she would say to him, but she did not

succeed in saying anything; his passion mastered her. She tried to calm him, to calm herself, but it was too

late. His feeling infected her. Her lips trembled so that for a long while she could say nothing.

"Yes, you have conquered me, and I am yours," she said at last, pressing his hands to her bosom.

"That's true," she said, getting whiter and whiter, and embracing his head. "Still, there is something terrible in

"It will all pass, it will all pass; we shall be so happy. Our love, if it only could be stronger, will be

strengthened by there being something terrible in it," he said, lifting his head and showing his strong teeth in

And she could not but respond with a smile not to his words, but to the love in his eyes. She took his hand

"I don't know you with this short hair. You've grown so pretty. A boy. But how pale you are!"

"Can it be possible we could be like husband and wife, alone, our own family?" she said, looking close into

"Stiva says that he has agreed to everything, but I can't accept his magnanimity," she said, looking dreamily

past Vronsky's face. "I don't want a divorce; it's all the same to me now. Only I don't know what he will

He could not conceive how at this moment of their meeting she could remember and think of her son, of

"Don't speak of that, don't think of it," he said, turning her hand in his, and trying to draw her attention to

"Oh, why didn't I die! It would have been better," she said, and, without sobbing, tears flowed down both her

To decline the flattering and dangerous appointment at Tashkend would have been, Vronsky had till then

considered, disgraceful and impossible. But now, without an instant's consideration, he declined it, and

observing dissatisfaction in the upper quarters at this step, he immediately retired from the army.

A month later Alexei Alexandrovich was left alone with his son in his house at Peterburg, while Anna had

gone abroad with Vronsky, without having obtained a divorce, and having absolutely declined all idea of one.

Princess Shcherbatskaia considered that it was out of the question for the wedding to take place before Lent,

just five weeks off, since not half the trousseau could possibly be ready by that time. But she could not but

agree with Levin that to fix it for after Lent would be putting it off too late, as an old aunt of Prince

Shcherbatsky's was seriously ill and might die, and then the mourning would delay the wedding still longer.

And therefore, deciding to divide the trousseau into two parts a larger and a smaller trousseau the Princess

consented to have the wedding before Lent. She determined that she would get the smaller part of the

trousseau all ready now, and the larger part should be sent on later, and she was much vexed with Levin

because he was incapable of giving her a serious answer to the question whether he agreed to this

arrangement or not. The arrangement was the more suitable as, immediately after the wedding, the newly

married couple were to go to the country, where the belongings of the larger trousseau would not be wanted.

Levin still continued in the same delirious condition, in which it seemed to him that he and his happiness

constituted the chief and sole aim of all existence, and that he need not now think or care about anything, that

everything was being done and would be done for him by others. He had not even plans and aims for the

future, he left its arrangement to others, knowing that everything would be delightful. His brother, Sergei

Ivanovich, and Stepan Arkadyevich, and the Princess, guided him in doing what he had to do. All he did was

to agree entirely with everything suggested to him. His brother raised money for him, the Princess advised

him to leave Moscow after the wedding. Stepan Arkadyevich advised him to go abroad. He agreed to

everything. "Do what you choose, if it amuses you, I'm happy, and my happiness can be no greater and no

less because of anything you do," he thought. When he told Kitty of Stepan Arkadyevich's advice that they

should go abroad, he was much surprised that she did not agree to this, and had some definite requirements of

her own in regard to their future. She knew Levin had work he loved in the country. She did not, as he saw,

understand this work she did not even care to understand it. But that did not prevent her from regarding it as

a matter of great importance. And therefore she knew their home would be in the country, and she wanted to

go not abroad where she was not going to live, but to the place where their home would be. This definitely

expressed purpose astonished Levin. But since he did not care either way, he immediately asked Stepan

Arkadyevich, as though it were his duty, to go down to the country and to arrange everything there to the best

"But, I say," Stepan Arkadyevich said to him one day after he had come back from the country, where he had

got everything ready for the young people's arrival, "have you a certificate of having been at confession?"

"My, my, my!" cried Levin. "Why, I believe it's nine years since I've taken the sacrament! I never thought of

"You're a pretty fellow!" said Stepan Arkadyevich laughing, "and you call me a Nihilist! But this won't do,

Stepan Arkadyevich arranged this also, and Levin had to prepare himself for the sacrament. To Levin, as to

any unbeliever who respects the beliefs of others, it was exceedingly disagreeable to be present at and to take

part in church ceremonies. At this moment, in his present softened state of feeling, sensitive to everything,

this inevitable act of hypocrisy was not merely painful to Levin, it seemed to him utterly impossible. Now, in

the heyday of his highest glory, his fullest flower, he would have to be a liar or a blasphemer. He felt

incapable of being either. But though he repeatedly plied Stepan Arkadyevich with questions as to the

possibility of obtaining a certificate without actually communicating, Stepan Arkadyevich maintained that it

"Besides, what is it to you two days? And he's an awfully fine, clever old fellow. He'll pull the tooth out for

Standing at the first mass, Levin attempted to revive in himself his youthful recollections of the intense

religious emotion he had passed through between the ages of sixteen and seventeen. But he was at once

convinced that it was utterly impossible to him. He attempted to look at it all as an empty custom, having no

sort of meaning, like the custom of paying calls; but he felt that he could not do that either. Levin found

himself, like the majority of his contemporaries, in the vaguest position in regard to religion. Believe he could

not, and at the same time he had no firm conviction that it was all wrong. And consequently, not being able to

believe in the significance of what he was doing, nor to regard it with indifference as an empty formality,

during the whole period of preparing for the sacrament he was conscious of a feeling of discomfort and

shame at doing what he did not himself understand, and what, as an inner voice told him, was therefore false

During the service he would first listen to the prayers, trying to attach some meaning to them not discordant

with his own views; then feeling that he could not understand and must condemn them, he tried not to listen

to them, but to attend to the thoughts, observations, and memories which floated through his brain with

He had stood through the mass, the evening service, and the midnight service, and the next day he got up

earlier than usual, and, without having tea, went at eight o'clock in the morning to the church for the morning

There was no one in church but a beggar soldier, two old women, and the churchmen. A young deacon,

whose long back showed in two distinct halves through his thin undercassock, met him, and, at once going to

a little table at the wall, read the exhortations. During the reading, especially at the frequent and rapid

repetition of the same words, "Lord, have mercy on us!" which sounded like "mercynuslor!" Levin felt that

his thought was shut and sealed up, and that it must not be touched or stirred now, or else confusion would be

the result; and so standing behind the deacon he went on thinking of his own affairs, neither listening nor

examining what was said. "It's wonderful what expression there is in her hand," he thought, remembering

how they had been sitting the day before at a corner table. They had nothing to talk about, as was almost

always the case at this time, and laying her hand on the table she kept opening and shutting it, and laughed

herself as she watched her action. He remembered how he had kissed her hand and then had examined the

lines on the pink palm. "Another 'mercynuslor!'" thought Levin, crossing himself, bowing, and looking at the

supple spring of the deacon's back bowing before him. "She took my hand then and examined the lines.

'You've got a splendid hand,' she said." And he looked at his own hand and the short hand of the deacon.

"Yes, now it will soon be over," he thought. "No, it seems to be starting up again," he thought, listening to the

prayers. "No, it's just ending: there he is bowing down to the ground. That's always at the end."

The deacon's hand in a plush cuff unobtrusively accepted a threerouble note, and the deacon said he would

put Levin's name down in the register, and, his new boots creaking jauntily over the flagstones of the empty

church, he went to the altar. A moment later he peeped out thence and beckoned to Levin. Thought, till then

locked up, began to stir in Levin's head, but he made haste to drive it away. "It will come right somehow," he

thought, and went toward the ambo. He went up the steps, and turning to the right, saw the priest. The priest,

a little ancient with a scanty grizzled beard and weary, goodnatured eyes, was standing at the lectern,

turning over the pages of a missal. With a slight bow to Levin he began immediately reading prayers in an

accustomed voice. When he had finished them he bowed down to the ground and turned, facing Levin.

"Christ is present here unseen, receiving your confession," he said, pointing to the crucifix. "Do you believe

in all the doctrines of the Holy Apostolic Church?" the priest went on, turning his eyes away from Levin's

"I have doubted I doubt everything," said Levin in a voice that jarred on himself, and he ceased speaking.

The priest waited a few seconds to see if he would not say more, and closing his eyes he said quickly, with a

"Doubt is natural to the weakness of mankind, but we must pray that God in His mercy will strengthen us.

What are your special sins?" he added, without the slightest interval, as though anxious not to waste time.

"My chief sin is doubt. I have doubts of everything, and for the most part I am in doubt."

"Doubt is natural to the weakness of mankind," the priest repeated the same words. "What do you doubt

"I doubt everything. I sometimes even have doubts of the existence of God," Levin could not help saying, and

he was horrified at the impropriety of what he was saying. But Levin's words did not, it seemed, make much

"What sort of doubt can there be of the existence of God?" he said hurriedly, with a barely perceptible smile.

"What doubt can you have of the Creator when you behold His creation?" the priest went on in the rapid

customary recitative. "Who has decked the heavenly firmament with its lights? Who has clothed the earth in

its beauty? How explain it without the Creator?" he said, looking inquiringly at Levin.

Levin felt that it would be improper to enter upon a metaphysical discussion with the priest, and so he said in

"You don't know! Then how can you doubt that God created all?" the priest said, with goodhumored

"I don't understand it at all," said Levin, blushing, and feeling that his words were stupid, and that they could

"Pray to God and beseech Him. Even the holy fathers had doubts, and prayed to God to strengthen their faith.

The devil has great power, and we must resist him. Pray to God, beseech Him. Pray to God," he repeated

"You, I hear, are about to marry the daughter of my parishioner and son in the spirit, Prince Shcherbatsky?"

"Yes," answered Levin, blushing for the priest. "What does he want to ask me about this at confession for?"

"You are about to enter into holy matrimony, and God may bless you with offspring. Are you? Well, what

sort of bringingup can you give your babes if you do not overcome the temptation of the devil, enticing you

to infidelity?" he said, with gentle reproachfulness. "If you love your child as a good father, you will not

desire only wealth, luxury, honor for your infant; you will be anxious for his salvation, his spiritual

enlightenment with the light of truth. Eh? What answer will you make him when the innocent babe asks you:

'Papa! Who made all that enchants me in this world the earth, the waters, the sun, the flowers, the grass?'

Can you say to him: 'I don't know?' You cannot but know, since the Lord God in His infinite mercy has

revealed it to us. Or your child will ask you: 'What awaits me in the life beyond the grave?' What will you say

to him when you know nothing? How will you answer him? Will you leave him to the allurements of the

world and the devil? That's not right," he said, and he stopped, putting his head on one side and looking at

Levin made no answer this time, not because he did not want to enter upon a discussion with the priest, but

because no one had ever asked him such questions and when his babes did ask him those questions, it would

"You are entering upon a time of life," pursued the priest, "when you must choose your path and keep to it.

Pray to God that He may in His mercy aid you and have mercy on you!" he concluded. "Our Lord and God,

Jesus Christ, in the abundance and riches of His lovingkindness, forgives this child..." and, finishing the

On getting home that day, Levin had a delightful sense of relief at the awkward position being over and

having been got through without his having to tell a lie. Apart from this, there remained a vague memory that

what the kind, fine old fellow had said had not been at all as stupid as he had fancied at first, and that there

"Of course, not now," thought Levin, "but at some later day." Levin felt more than ever now that there was

something not clear and not clean in his soul, and that, in regard to religion, he was in the same position

which he perceived so clearly and disliked in others, and for which he blamed his friend Sviiazhsky.

Levin spent that evening with his betrothed at Dolly's, and was in very high spirits. To explain to Stepan

Arkadyevich the state of excitement in which he found himself, he said that he was happy, like a dog being

trained to jump through a hoop, who, having at last caught the idea, and done what was required of him,

whines and wags its tail, and jumps up to the table and the window sills in its delight.

On the day of the wedding, according to the Russian custom (the Princess and Darya Alexandrovna insisted

on strictly keeping all the customs), Levin did not see his betrothed, and dined at his hotel with three bachelor

friends, casually brought together at his rooms. These were Sergei Ivanovich, Katavassov, a university friend,

now professor of natural science, whom Levin had met in the street and insisted on taking home with him,

and Chirikov, his best man, a Moscow justice of the peace, Levin's companion in his bear hunts. The dinner

was a very merry one: Sergei Ivanovich was in his happiest mood, and was much amused by Katavassov's

originality. Katavassov, feeling his originality was appreciated and understood, made the most of it. Chirikov

"See, now," said Katavassov, drawling his words from a habit acquired in the lecture room, "what a capable

fellow was our friend Konstantin Dmitrievich. I'm speaking of absent company he doesn't exist for us now.

At the time he left the university he was fond of science, took an interest in humanity; now onehalf of his

abilities is devoted to deceiving himself, and the other to justifying the deceit."

"A more determined enemy of matrimony than you I never saw," said Sergei Ivanovich.

"Oh, no, I'm not an enemy of matrimony. I'm in favor of division of labor. People who can do nothing else

ought to rear people, while the rest work for their happiness and enlightenment. That's how I look at it. To

"How happy I shall be when I hear that you're in love!" said Levin. "Please invite me to the wedding."

"Yes, with a cuttlefish! You know," Levin turned to his brother, "Mikhail Semionovich is writing a work on

"Now, make a muddle of it! It doesn't matter what about. And the fact is, I certainly do love cuttlefish."

"Arkhip was here today; he said there were no end of elk in Prudnoe, and two bears," said Chirikov.

"Ah, that's the truth," said Sergei Ivanovich. "And you may say goodby to bear hunting for the future your

Levin smiled. The picture of his wife not letting him go was so pleasant that he was ready to renounce forever

"Still, it's a pity they should get those two bears without you. Do you remember last time at Khapilovo? And

Levin had not the heart to disillusion him of the notion that there could be something delightful apart from

"There's some sense in this custom of saying goodby to bachelor life," said Sergei Ivanovich. "However

"And confess there is a feeling that you want to jump out of the window, like Gogol's bridegroom?"

"Of course there is, but he won't confess," said Katavassov, and he broke into loud laughter.

"Oh, well, the window's open.... Let's start off this instant to Tver! There's a big shebear; one can go right up

to the lair. Seriously, let's go by the five o'clock! And here let them do what they like," said Chirikov smiling.

"Well, now, on my honor," said Levin smiling, "I can't find in my heart that feeling of regret for my

"Yes, there's such a chaos in your heart just now that you can't find anything there," said Katavassov. "Wait a

"No; if so, I should have felt a little, apart from my feeling" (he could not say "love" before them) "and

happiness, a certain regret at losing my freedom.... On the contrary, I am glad at the very loss of my

"Awful! It's a hopeless case!" said Katavassov. "Well, let's drink to his recovery, or wish that a hundredth

part of his dreams may be realized and that would be happiness such as never has been seen on earth!"

When he was left alone, and recalled the conversation of these bachelor friends, Levin asked himself: Had he

in his heart that regret for his freedom of which they had spoken? He smiled at the question. "Freedom! What

is freedom for? Happiness is only in loving and wishing her wishes, thinking her thoughts; that is to say, not

"But do I know her thoughts, her wishes, her feelings?" some voice suddenly whispered to him. The smile

died away from his face, and he grew thoughtful. And suddenly a strange feeling came upon him. There came

"What if she does not love me? What if she's marrying me simply to be married? What if she doesn't see

herself what she's doing?" he asked himself. "She may come to her senses, and only when she is being

married realize that she does not and cannot love me." And strange, most evil thoughts of her began to come

to him. He was jealous of Vronsky, as he had been a year ago, as though the evening he had seen her with

He jumped up quickly. "No, this can't go on!" he said to himself in despair. "I'll go to her; I'll ask her; I'll say

for the last time: We are free, and hadn't we better stay so? Anything's better than endless misery, disgrace,

unfaithfulness!" With despair in his heart and bitter anger against all men, against himself, against her, he

He found her in one of the rear rooms. She was sitting on a chest and making some arrangements with her

maid, sorting over heaps of dresses of different colors, spread on the backs of chairs and on the floor.

"Ah!" she cried, seeing him, and beaming with delight. "Kostia! Konstantin Dmitrievich!" (These latter days

she used these names almost alternately.) "I didn't expect you! I'm going through my girlish wardrobe to see

"You can go, Duniasha, I'll call you presently," said Kitty. "Kostia, what's the matter?" she asked, definitely

adopting this familiar name as soon as the maid had gone out. She noticed his strange face, agitated and

"Kitty! I'm in torture. I can't be in torture alone," he said with despair in his voice, standing before her and

looking imploringly into her eyes. He saw already from her loving, truthful face, that nothing could come of

what he had meant to say, but yet he wanted her to reassure him herself. "I've come to say that there's still

"What I have said a thousand times over, and can't help thinking... that I'm not worthy of you. You couldn't

consent to marry me. Think a little. You've made a mistake. Think it over thoroughly. You can't love me...

if... Better say so," he said, without looking at her. "I shall be wretched. Let people say what they like;

"I don't understand," she answered, panicstricken; "you mean you want to give it up... that you don't want

"You're out of your mind!" she cried, turning crimson with vexation. But his face was so piteous that she

restrained her vexation, and flinging some clothes off an armchair, she sat down beside him. "What are you

"Oh! What have I done?" he cried, and kneeling before her, he fell to kissing her hands.

When the old Princess came into the room five minutes later, she found them completely reconciled. Kitty

had not simply assured him that she loved him, but had gone so far in answer to his question, what she

loved him for as to explain what for. She told him that she loved him because she understood him

completely, because she knew what he would like, and because everything he liked was good. And this

seemed to him perfectly clear. When the Princess came to them, they were sitting side by side on the chest,

sorting the dresses and disputing over Kitty's wanting to give Duniasha the brown dress she had been wearing

when Levin proposed to her, while he insisted that that dress must never be given away, but that Duniasha

"How is it you don't see? She's a brunette, and it won't suit her.... I've worked it all out."

Hearing why he had come, the Princess was halfhumorously, halfseriously angry with him, and sent him

home to dress and not to hinder Kitty's hairdressing, as Charles the coiffeur was just coming.

"As it is, she's been eating nothing lately and is losing her looks, and then you must come and upset her with

Levin, guilty and shamefaced, but pacified, went back to his hotel. His brother, Darya Alexandrovna, and

Stepan Arkadyevich, all in full dress, were waiting for him to bless him with an icon. There was no time to

lose. Darya Alexandrovna had to drive home again to fetch her curled and pomaded son, who was to carry the

icon in the bride's carriage. Then a carriage had to be sent for the best man, and another, that would take

Sergei Ivanovich away, would have to be sent back.... Altogether there were a great many most complicated

matters to be considered and arranged. One thing was unmistakable that there must be no delay, as it was

Nothing special happened at the ceremony of benediction with the icon. Stepan Arkadyevich stood in a

comically solemn pose beside his wife, took the icon, and, telling Levin to bow down to the ground, he

blessed him with his kindly, ironical smile, and kissed him three times; Darya Alexandrovna did the same,

and immediately was in a hurry to get off, and again plunged into the intricate question of the due order of the

"Come, I'll tell you how we'll manage: you drive in our carriage to fetch him, and Sergei Ivanovich, if he'll be

"We'll come on directly with him. Are your things sent off?" asked Stepan Arkadyevich.

"Yes," answered Levin, and he told Kouzma to lay out his clothes for him to dress.

A crowd of people, principally women, was thronging round the church lighted up for the wedding. Those

who had not succeeded in getting into the main entrance were crowding about the windows, pushing,

More than twenty carriages had already been drawn up in ranks along the street by the police. A police

officer, regardless of the frost, stood at the entrance, gorgeous in his uniform. More carriages were

continually driving up, and ladies wearing flowers and carrying their trains, and men taking off their kepis or

black hats, kept walking into the church. Inside the church both lusters were already lighted, and all the

candles before the icons. The golden nimbus on the red ground of the ikonostasis, and the gilt relief on the

icons and the silver of the lusters and candlesticks, and the floorflags, and the rugs, and the banners above in

the choir, and the steps of the ambo, and the old blackened books, and the cassocks and surplices all were

flooded with light. On the right side of the warm church, in the crowd of evening dresses and white ties, of

uniforms, and of silk, velvet, satin, hair and flowers, of bare shoulders and arms and long gloves, there was

discreet but lively conversation that echoed strangely in the high cupola. Every time there was heard the

creak of the opened door the conversation in the crowd died away, and everybody looked round expecting to

see the bride and bridegroom come in. But the door had opened more than ten times, and each time it was

either a belated guest or guests, who joined the circle of the invited on the right, or some spectator, who had

eluded or softened the police officer, and went to join the crowd of outsiders on the left. Both the guests and

At first they imagined that the bride and bridegroom would arrive immediately, and attached no importance at

all to their being late. Then they began to look more and more often toward the door, and to talk of whether

anything could have happened. Then the long delay began to be positively discomforting, and relations and

guests tried to look as if they were not thinking of the bridegroom at all, but were engrossed in conversation.

The protodeacon, as though to remind them of the value of his time, coughed impatiently, making the

windowpanes rattle in their frames. In the choir the bored choristers could be heard trying their voices and

blowing their noses. The priest was continually sending first the church clerk and then the deacon to find out

whether the bridegroom had not come, more and more often he went himself, in a lilac vestment and an

embroidered sash, to the side door, expecting to see the bridegroom. At last one of the ladies, glancing at her

watch, said, "It really is strange, though!" and all the guests became uneasy and began loudly expressing their

wonder and dissatisfaction. One of the bridegroom's best men went to find out what had happened. Kitty

meanwhile had long ago been quite ready, and, in her white dress and long veil and wreath of orange

blossoms, was standing in the drawing room of the Shcherbatskys' house with her sister, Madame Lvova,

who was her bridal mother. She was looking out of the window, and had been for over half an hour anxiously

Levin meanwhile, in his trousers, but without his coat and waistcoat, was walking to and fro in his room at

the hotel, continually putting his head out of door and looking up and down the corridor. But in the corridor

there was no sign of the person he was looking for and he came back in despair, and waving his hands

"Yes, it is stupid," Stepan Arkadyevich assented, smiling soothingly. "But don't worry, it'll be brought

"No, what is to be done!" said Levin, with smothered fury. "And these fool open waistcoats! Out of the

question!" he said, looking at the crumpled front of his shirt. "And what if the things have been taken on to

The point was that when Levin asked for his evening suit, Kouzma, his old servant, had brought him the coat,

Kouzma had not thought of leaving out a clean shirt, and on receiving instructions to pack up everything and

send it round to the Shcherbatskys' house, from which the young people were to set out the same evening, he

had done so, packing everything but the dress suit. The shirt worn since the morning was crumpled and out of

the question with the fashionable open waistcoat. It was a long way to send to the Shcherbatskys'. They sent

out to buy a shirt. The servant came back; everything was shut up it was Sunday. They sent to Stepan

Arkadyevich's and brought a shirt it was impossibly wide and short. They sent finally to the Shcherbatskys'

to unpack the things. The bridegroom was expected at the church while he was pacing up and down his room

like a wild beast in a cage, peeping out into the corridor, and with horror and despair recalling what absurd

Three minutes later Levin ran full speed into the corridor, without looking at his watch for fear of aggravating

"You won't help matters like that," said Stepan Arkadyevich with a smile, hurrying with more deliberation

"They've come!" "Here he is!" "Which one?" "Rather young, eh?" "Why, my dear soul, she looks more dead

than alive!" were the comments in the crowd, when Levin, meeting his bride in the entrance, walked with her

Stepan Arkadyevich told his wife the cause of the delay, and the guests were whispering it with smiles to one

Everyone said she had lost her looks dreadfully of late, and was not nearly as pretty on her wedding day as

usual; but Levin did not think so. He looked at her hair done up high, with the long white veil and white

flowers and the high, scalloped de Medici collar, that in such a maidenly fashion hid her long neck at the

sides and only showed it in front, and her strikingly slender figure, and it seemed to him that she looked

better than ever not because these flowers, this veil, this gown from Paris added anything to her beauty; but

because, in spite of the elaborate sumptuousness of her attire, the expression of her sweet face, of her eyes, of

What happened to me is so stupid I'm ashamed to speak of it!" he said, reddening, and he was obliged to turn

"This is a pretty story of yours about the shirt!" said Sergei Ivanovich, shaking his head and smiling.

"Now, Kostia, you have to decide," said Stepan Arkadyevich with an air of mock dismay, "a weighty

question. You are at this moment just in the humor to appreciate all its gravity. They ask me, are they to light

the candles that have been lighted before or candles that have never been lighted? It's a matter of ten roubles,"

he added, relaxing his lips into a smile. "I have decided, but I was afraid you might not agree."

"Oh, I'm very glad. The question's decided!" said Stepan Arkadyevich, smiling. "How silly men become,

though, in this situation," he said to Chirikov, when Levin, after looking absently at him, had moved back to

"Kitty, mind you're the first to step on the carpet," said Countess Nordstone, coming up. "You're a fine

"Are you cold? You're pale. Stop a minute, stoop down," said Kitty's sister, Madame Lvova, and with her

Dolly came up, tried to say something, but could not speak, cried, and then laughed naturally.

Meanwhile the officiating clergy had got into their vestments, and the priest and deacon came out to the

lectern, which stood in the porch of the church. The priest turned to Levin saying something. Levin did not

It was a long while before Levin could make out what was expected of him. For a long time they tried to set

him right and made him begin again because he kept taking Kitty by the wrong arm or with the wrong arm

till he understood at last that what he had to do was, without changing his position, to take her right hand in

his right hand. When at last he had taken the bride's hand in the correct way, the priest walked a few paces in

front of them and stopped at the lectern. The crowd of friends and relations moved after them, with a buzz of

talk and a rustle of trains. Someone stooped down and straightened out the bride's train. The church became

The little old priest in his calotte, with his long silverygray locks of hair parted behind his ears, was

fumbling with something at the lectern, putting out his little old hands from under the heavy silver vestment

Stepan Arkadyevich approached him cautiously, whispered something, and, giving a wink at Levin, walked

The priest lighted two candles, wreathed with flowers, and holding them sideways so that the wax dropped

slowly from them he turned, facing the bridal pair. The priest was the same old man who had confessed

Levin. He looked with weary and melancholy eyes at the bride and bridegroom, sighed, and, putting his right

hand out from under his vestment, blessed the bridegroom with it, and also, with a shade of solicitous

tenderness, laid his crossed fingers on the bowed head of Kitty. Then he gave them the candles, and, taking

"Can it be true?" thought Levin, and he looked round at his bride. Looking down at her he saw her face in

profile, and from the scarcely perceptible quiver of her lips and eyelashes he knew she was aware of his eyes

upon her. She did not look round, but the high scalloped collar, that reached her little pink ear, trembled

faintly. He saw that a sigh was held back in her throat, and the little hand in the long glove shook as it held

All the fuss of the shirt, of being late, all the talk of friends and relations, their annoyance, his ludicrous

The handsome, stately protodeacon wearing a silver robe, and his curly locks standing out at each side of his

head, stepped smartly forward, and lifting his stole on two fingers, stood opposite the priest.

"Blessed be the name of the Lord," the solemn syllables rang out slowly one after another, setting the air

"Blessed is the name of our God, from the beginning, as now, and forever and aye," the little old priest

answered in a submissive, piping voice, still fingering something at the lectern. And the full chorus of the

unseen choir rose up, filling the whole church, from the windows to the vaulted roof, with broad waves of

They prayed, as they always do, for peace from on high and for salvation, for the Holy Synod, and for the

Czar; they prayed, too, for the servants of God, Konstantin and Ekaterina, now plighting their troth.

"Vouchsafe to them love made perfect, peace, and help, O Lord, we beseech Thee," the whole church seemed

Levin heard the words, and they impressed him. "How did they guess that it is help, just help that one

wants?" he thought, recalling all his fears and doubts of late. "What do I know? what can I do in this fearful

When the deacon had finished the liturgical prayer, the priest turned to the bridal pair with his book: "Eternal

God, who joinest together in love them that were separate," he read in a gentle, piping voice, "who hast

ordained the union of holy wedlock that cannot be set asunder, Thou who didst bless Isaac and Rebecca and

their descendants, according to Thy Holy Covenant, bless Thou Thy servants, Konstantin and Ekaterina,

leading them in the path of all good works. For gracious and merciful art Thou, our Lord, and glory be to

Thee, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, now and forever and aye." "Amen!" the unseen choir sent

"'Joinest together in love them that were separate.' What deep meaning in those words, and how they

correspond with what one feels at this moment," thought Levin. "Is she feeling the same as I?"

And, looking round, he met her eyes. And from their expression he concluded that she was understanding it

just as he was. But this was a mistake; she almost completely missed the meaning of the words of the service;

she had not heard them, in fact. She could not listen to them and take them in, so strong was the one feeling

that filled her breast and grew stronger and stronger. That feeling was joy at the completion of the process

that for the last month and a half had been going on in her soul, and had during those six weeks been a joy

and a torture to her. On the day when in the drawing room of the house in the Arbat street she had gone up to

him in her brown dress, and had given herself to him without a word on that day, at that hour, there took

place in her heart a complete severance from all her old life, and a quite different, new, utterly strange life

had begun for her, while the old life was actually going on as before. Those six weeks had for her been a time

of the utmost bliss and the utmost misery. All her life, all her desires and hopes were concentrated on this one

man, still uncomprehended by her, to whom she was bound by a feeling of alternate attraction and repulsion,

even less comprehended than the man himself, and all the while she was going on living in the outward

conditions of her old life. Living the old life, she was horrified at herself, at her utter insurmountable

callousness to all her own past, to things, to habits, to the people she had loved, who loved her to her

mother, who was wounded by her indifference, to her kind, tender father, till then dearer than all the world.

At one moment she was horrified at this indifference, at another she rejoiced at what had brought her to this

indifference. She could not frame a thought, nor a wish, apart from life with this man; but this new life was

not yet, and she could not even picture it clearly to herself. There was only anticipation, the dread and joy of

the new and the unknown. And now behold anticipation and uncertainty and remorse at the abandonment of

the old life all this was ending, and the new was beginning. This new life could not but have terrors for her

by its obscurity; but, terrible or not, the change had been wrought six weeks before in her soul, and this was

Turning again to the lectern, the priest with some difficulty took Kitty's little ring, and, asking Levin for his

hand, put it on the first joint of his finger. "The servant of God, Konstantin, plights his troth to the servant of

God, Ekaterina." And putting his big ring on Kitty's touchingly weak, pink tiny finger, the priest said the

And the bridal pair tried several times to understand what they had to do, and each time made some mistake

and were corrected by the priest in a whisper. At last, having duly performed the ceremony, having made

with the rings the sign of the cross over them, the priest handed Kitty the big ring, and Levin the little one.

Again they were puzzled, and passed the rings from hand to hand, still without doing what was expected.

Dolly, Chirikov, and Stepan Arkadyevich stepped forward to set them right. There was an interval of

hesitation, whispering, and smiles; but the expression of solemn emotion on the faces of the betrothed pair

did not change: on the contrary, in their perplexity over their hands they looked more grave and deeply

moved than before, and the smile with which Stepan Arkadyevich whispered to them that now they would

each put on their own ring died away on his lips. He had a feeling that any smile would jar on them.

"Thou who didst from the beginning create male and female," the priest read after the exchange of rings,

"from Thee woman was given to man to be a helpmeet to him, and for the procreation of children. O Lord,

our God, who hast poured down the blessings of Thy Truth according to Thy Holy Covenant upon Thy

chosen servants, our fathers, from generation to generation, bless Thy servants Konstantin and Ekaterina, and

make their troth fast in faith, and union of hearts, and in truth, and in love...."

Levin felt more and more that all his ideas of marriage, all his dreams of how he would order his life, were

mere childishness, and that it was something he had not understood hitherto, and now understood less than

ever, though it was being performed upon him. The lump in his throat rose higher and higher; tears that

In the church there was all Moscow, all the friends and relations; and during the ceremony of plighting troth,

in the brilliantly lighted church, there was an incessant flow of discreetly subdued talk in the circle of gaily

dressed women and girls, and men in white ties, evening dress, and uniform. The talk was principally kept up

by the men, while the women were absorbed in watching every detail of the ceremony, which always touches

In the little group nearest the bride were her two sisters: Dolly, and the younger one, the selfpossessed

"Why is it Marie's in lilac? It's as bad as black at a wedding," said Madame Korsunskaia.

"With her complexion, it's her one salvation," responded Madame Drubetskaia. "I wonder why they had the

"So much prettier. I was married in the evening too...." answered Madame Korsunskaia, and she sighed,

remembering how charming she had been that day, and how absurdly in love her husband was, and how

"They say if anyone is best man more than ten times, he'll never be married. I wanted to be one for the tenth

time, but the post was taken," said Count Siniavin to the pretty Princess Charskaia, who had designs on him.

Princess Charskaia only answered with a smile. She looked at Kitty, thinking how and when she would stand

with Count Siniavin in Kitty's place, and how she would remind him then of his joke today.

Shcherbatsky told the old Hoffraulein, Madame Nikoleva, that he meant to put the crown on Kitty's chignon

"She ought not to have worn a chignon," answered Madame Nikoleva, who had long ago made up her mind

that if the elderly widower she was angling for married her, the wedding should be of the simplest. "I don't

Sergei Ivanovich was talking to Darya Dmitrievna, jestingly assuring her that the custom of going away after

the wedding was becoming common because newly married people always felt a little ashamed of

"Your brother may feel proud of himself. She's a marvel of sweetness. I believe you're envious."

"Oh, I've got over that, Darya Dmitrievna," he answered, and a melancholy and serious expression suddenly

"What a pity she's lost her looks so," Countess Nordstone said to Madame Lvova. "Still, he's not worth her

"Oh, I like him so not because he's my future beaufrere," answered Madame Lvova. "And how well he's

behaving! It's so difficult, too, to look well in such a position, not to be ridiculous. And he's not ridiculous,

"It will make no difference," said Madame Lvova, "we're all obedient wives; it's in our family."

Dolly stood beside them; she heard them, but she did not answer. She was deeply moved. The tears stood in

her eyes, and she could not have spoken without crying. She was rejoicing over Kitty and Levin; going back

in thought to her own wedding, she glanced at the radiant figure of Stepan Arkadyevich, forgot all the

present, and remembered only her own innocent love. She recalled not herself only, but all her women friends

and acquaintances. She thought of them on the one day of their triumph, when they had stood like Kitty under

the wedding crown, with love and hope and dread in their hearts, renouncing the past, and stepping forward

into the mysterious future. Among the brides that came back to her memory, she thought too of her darling

Anna, of whose proposed divorce she had just been hearing. And she had stood just as innocent, in orange

blossoms and bridal veil. And now? "It's terribly strange," she said to herself.

It was not merely the sisters, the women friends, and the female relations of the bride, who were following

every detail of the ceremony. Women who were quite strangers, mere spectators, were watching it excitedly,

holding their breath, in fear of losing a single movement or expression of the bride and bridegroom, and

angrily not answering, often not hearing, the remarks of the callous men, who kept making joking or

"Is that her sister in the white satin? Just listen how the deacon booms out, 'and obey!'"

"I'm told he's going to take her home to his country place at once. I asked the footman. Awfully rich, they

"I say, Marya Vassilyevna, you claimed those flyaway crinolines were not being worn. Just look at her in the

puce dress an ambassador's wife, they say she is see, how her skirt bounces!... So and so!"

"What a pretty dear the bride is like a lamb decked with flowers! Well, say what you will, we women feel

Such were the comments in the crowd of gazing women who had succeeded in slipping in at the church

When the ceremony of plighting troth was over, the sacristan spread before the lectern in the middle of the

church a piece of pink silken stuff, the choir sang a complicated and elaborate psalm, in which the bass and

tenor sang responses to one another, and the priest, turning round, pointed the bridal pair to the pink silk rug.

Though both had often heard a great deal about the saying that the one who steps first on the rug will be the

head of the house, neither Levin nor Kitty were capable of recollecting it, as they took the few steps toward it.

They did not hear the loud remarks and disputes that followed, some maintaining he had stepped on it first,

After the customary questions, whether they desired to enter upon matrimony, and whether they were pledged

to anyone else, and their answers, which sounded strange to themselves, a new ceremony began. Kitty

listened to the words of the prayer, trying to make out their meaning, but she could not. The feeling of

triumph and radiant happiness flooded her soul more and more as the ceremony went on, and deprived her of

They prayed: "Endow them with continence and fruitfulness, and vouchsafe that their hearts may rejoice

looking upon their sons and daughters." They alluded to God's creation of a wife from Adam's rib, "and for

this cause a man shall leave father and mother, and cleave unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh," and

that "this is a great mystery;" they prayed that God would make them fruitful and bless them, like Isaac and

Rebecca, Joseph, Moses and Zipporah, and that they might look upon their children's children. "That's all

splendid," thought Kitty, catching the words, "all that's just as it should be," and a smile of happiness,

unconsciously reflected in everyone who looked at her, beamed on her radiant face.

"Put it on completely!" voices were heard urging when, after the priest had put on their wedding crowns, and

Shcherbatsky, his hand shaking in its threebutton glove, was holding the crown high above her head.

Levin looked round at her, and was struck by the joyful radiance on her face, and unconsciously her feeling

They enjoyed hearing the Epistle read, and the roll of the protodeacon's voice at the last verse, awaited with

such impatience by the outside public. They enjoyed drinking out of the shallow cup of warm red wine and

water, and they were still more pleased when the priest, flinging back his stole and taking both their hands in

his, led them round the lectern to the accompaniment of bass voices chanting: "Isaiah rejoice!" Shcherbatsky

and Chirikov, supporting the crowns and stumbling over the bride's train, smiling too and seeming delighted

at something, were at one moment left behind, at the next treading on the bridal pair as the priest came to a

halt. The spark of joy kindled in Kitty seemed to have infected everyone in the church. It seemed to Levin

Taking the crowns off their heads the priest read the last prayer and congratulated the young couple. Levin

looked at Kitty, and he had never before seen her look as she did. She was charming with the new radiance of

happiness in her face. Levin longed to say something to her, but he did not know whether it was all over. The

priest got him out of his difficulty. He smiled his kindly smile and said gently, "Kiss your wife and you kiss

Levin kissed her smiling lips with timid care, gave her his arm, and, with a new strange sense of closeness,

walked out of the church. He did not believe, he could not believe, that it was true. It was only when their

wondering and timid eyes met that he believed in it, because he felt that they were one.

Vronsky and Anna had been traveling for three months together in Europe. They had visited Venice, Rome

and Naples, and had just arrived at a small Italian town where they meant to stay some time.

A handsome headwaiter, with thick pomaded hair parted from the neck upward, wearing an evening coat, a

broad white cambric shirt front, and a bunch of watch charms dangling above his small bay window, stood

with his hands in his pockets, looking contemptuously from under his eyelids, while he gave some frigid

reply to a gentleman who had stopped still. Catching the sound of footsteps coming from the other side of the

entry toward the staircase, the headwaiter turned round, and, seeing the Russian Count, who had taken their

best rooms, he took his hands out of his pockets deferentially, and with a bow informed him that a courier

had come, and that the business about the palazzo had been arranged. The steward was prepared to sign the

Vronsky took off his soft, widebrimmed hat and passed his handkerchief over his heated brow and hair,

which had grown half over his ears, and was brushed back covering the bald patch on his head. And, glancing

casually at the gentleman, who still stood there gazing intently at him, he would have gone on.

"This gentleman is a Russian, and was inquiring after you," said the headwaiter.

With mingled feelings of annoyance at never being able to get away from acquaintances anywhere, and

longing to find some sort of diversion from the monotony of his life, Vronsky looked once more at the

gentleman, who had retreated and stood still again, and at the same moment a light came into the eyes of

It really was Golenishchev, a comrade of Vronsky's in the Corps of Pages. In the Corps Golenishchev had

belonged to the liberal party; he left the Corps without entering the army, and had never taken office under

the government. Vronsky and he had gone completely different ways on leaving the Corps, and had only met

At that meeting Vronsky perceived that Golenishchev had taken up a sort of lofty intellectually liberal line,

and was consequently disposed to look down upon Vronsky's interests and calling in life. Hence Vronsky had

met him with the chilling and haughty manner he so well knew how to assume, the meaning of which was:

"You may like or dislike my ways of life, that's a matter of the most perfect indifference to me; you will have

to treat me with respect if you want to know me." Golenishchev had been contemptuously indifferent to the

tone taken by Vronsky. That meeting might have been expected to estrange them still more. But now they

beamed and exclaimed with delight on recognizing one another. Vronsky would never have expected to be so

pleased to see Golenishchev, but probably he was not himself aware how bored he was. He forgot the

disagreeable impression of their last meeting, and with a face of frank delight held out his hand to his old

comrade. The same expression of delight replaced the look of uneasiness on Golenishchev's face.

"How glad I am to meet you!" said Vronsky, showing his strong white teeth in a friendly smile.

And with the habit common among Russians, instead of saying in Russian what he wanted to keep from the

"Do you know Madame Karenina? We are traveling together. I am going to see her now," he said in French,

"Ah, I did not know" (though he did know), Golenishchev answered carelessly. "Have you been here long?"

"Three days," Vronsky answered, once more scrutinizing his friend's face intently.

"Yes, he's a decent fellow, and will look at the thing properly," Vronsky said to himself, catching the

significance of Golenishchev's face and the change of subject. "I can introduce him to Anna he looks at it

During the three months that Vronsky had spent abroad with Anna, he had always on meeting new people

asked himself how the new person would look at his relations with Anna, and for the most part, in men, he

had met with the "proper" way of looking at it. But if he had been asked, and those who looked at it

"properly" had been asked exactly how they did look at it, both he and they would have been greatly puzzled

In reality, those who in Vronsky's opinion had the "proper" view had no sort of view at all, but behaved in

general as wellbred persons do behave in regard to all the complex and insoluble problems with which life

is encompassed on all sides; they behaved with propriety, avoiding allusions and unpleasant questions. They

assumed an air of fully comprehending the import and force of the situation, of accepting and even approving

of it, but of considering it superfluous and uncalledfor to put all this into words.

Vronsky at once divined that Golenishchev was of this class, and therefore was doubly pleased to see him.

And, in fact, Golenishchev's manner to Madame Karenina, when he was taken to call on her, was all that

Vronsky could have desired. Obviously without the slightest effort he steered clear of all subjects which

He had never met Anna before, and was struck by her beauty, and, still more, by the naturalness with which

she accepted her position. She blushed when Vronsky brought in Golenishchev, and he was extremely

charmed by this childish blush overspreading her candid and handsome face. But what he liked particularly

was the way in which at once, as though on purpose, so that there might be no misunderstanding with an

outsider, she called Vronsky simply Alexei, and said they were moving into a house they had just taken

what was here called a palazzo. Golenishchev liked this direct and simple attitude to her own position.

Looking at Anna's manner of simplehearted, spirited gaiety, and knowing Alexei Alexandrovich and

Vronsky, Golenishchev fancied that he understood her perfectly. He fancied that he understood what she was

utterly unable to understand: how it was that, having made her husband wretched, having abandoned him and

her son and lost her good name, she yet felt full of spirits, gaiety, and happiness.

"It's in the guidebook," said Golenishchev, referring to the palazzo Vronsky had taken. "There's a firstrate

"I tell you what: it's a lovely day, let's go and have another look at it," said Vronsky, addressing Anna.

"I shall be very glad to; I'll go and put on my hat. Would you say it's hot?" she said, stopping short in the

doorway and looking inquiringly at Vronsky. And again a vivid flush overspread her face.

Vronsky saw from her eyes that she did not know on what terms he cared to be with Golenishchev, and so

And it seemed to her that she understood everything most of all, that he was pleased with her; and, smiling

The friends glanced at one another, and a look of hesitation came into both faces, as though Golenishchev,

unmistakably admiring her, would have liked to say something about her, and could not find the right thing to

"Well then," Vronsky began, to start a conversation of some sort, "so you're settled here? You're still at the

same work, then?" he went on, recalling that he had been told Golenishchev was writing something.

"Yes, I'm writing the second part of the Two Elements," said Golenishchev, coloring with pleasure at the

question "that is, to be exact, I am not writing it yet; I am preparing, collecting materials. It will be of far

wider scope, and will touch on almost all questions. We in Russia refuse to see that we are the heirs of

Vronsky at the first moment felt embarrassed at not even knowing of the first part of the Two Elements, of

which the author spoke as something well known. But as Golenishchev began to lay down his opinions and

Vronsky was able to follow them even without knowing the Two Elements, he listened to him with some

interest, for Golenishchev spoke well. But Vronsky was startled and annoyed by the nervous irascibility with

which Golenishchev talked of the subject that engrossed him. As he went on talking, his eyes glittered more

and more angrily; he was more and more hurried in his replies to imaginary opponents, and his face grew

more and more excited and worried. Remembering Golenishchev, a thin, lively, goodnatured and wellbred

boy, always at the head of the class, Vronsky could not make out the reason for his irritability, and he did not

like it. What he particularly disliked was that Golenishchev, a man belonging to a good set, should put

himself on a level with some scribbling fellows with whom he was irritated and angry. Was it worth it?

Vronsky disliked it, yet he felt that Golenishchev was unhappy, and was sorry for him. Unhappiness, almost

mental derangement, was visible on his mobile, rather handsome face, as, without even noticing Anna's

When Anna came in in her hat and cape, her lovely hand rapidly swinging her parasol, and stood beside him,

it was with a feeling of relief that Vronsky broke away from the plaintive eyes of Golenishchev which

fastened persistently upon him, and with a fresh rush of love looked at his charming companion, full of life

and happiness. Golenishchev recovered himself with an effort, and at first was dejected and gloomy, but

Anna, disposed as she was at that time to feel friendly with everyone, soon revived his spirits by her direct

and lively manner. After trying various subjects of conversation, she got him upon painting, of which he

talked very well, and she listened to him attentively. They walked to the house they had taken and looked

"I am very glad of one thing," said Anna to Golenishchev when they were on their way back, "Alexei will

have a capital atelier. You must certainly take that room," she said to Vronsky in Russian, using the

affectionately familiar form, as though she saw that Golenishchev would become intimate with them in their

"Yes, I used to study long ago, and now I have begun to do a little," said Vronsky, reddening.

"He has great talent," said Anna with a delighted smile. "I'm no judge, of course. But good judges have said

Anna, in that first period of her emancipation and rapid return to health, felt herself unpardonably happy and

full of the joy of life. The thought of her husband's unhappiness did not poison her happiness. On one side

that memory was too awful to be thought of. On the other side her husband's unhappiness had given her too

much happiness to be regretted. The memory of all that had happened after her illness: her reconciliation with

her husband, the rupture, the news of Vronsky's wound, his visit, the preparations for divorce, the departure

from her husband's house, the parting from her son all that seemed to her like a delirious dream, from which

she had waked up abroad, alone with Vronsky. The thought of the harm caused to her husband aroused in her

a feeling like repulsion, and akin to what a drowning man might feel who has shaken off another man

clinging to him. That man did drown. It was an evil action, of course, but it was the sole means of escape, and

One consolatory reflection upon her conduct had occurred to her at the first moment of the final rupture, and

when now she recalled all the past, she remembered that one reflection. "I have inevitably made that man

wretched," she thought; "but I don't want to profit by his misery. I, too, am suffering, and shall suffer; I am

losing what I prized above everything I am losing my good name and my son. I have done wrong, and so I

don't want happiness, I don't want a divorce, and shall suffer from my shame and the separation from my

child." But, however sincerely Anna had meant to suffer, she was not suffering. Shame there was none. With

the tact of which both had such a large share, they had succeeded in avoiding Russian ladies abroad, and so

had never placed themselves in a false position, and everywhere they had met people who pretended that they

perfectly understood their position, far better indeed than they did themselves. Separation from the son she

loved even that did not cause her anguish in these early days. The baby girl his child was so sweet, and

had so won Anna's heart, since she was all that was left her, that Anna rarely thought of her son.

The desire for life, waxing stronger with recovered health, was so intense, and the conditions of life were so

new and pleasant, that Anna felt unpardonably happy. The more she got to know Vronsky, the more she

loved him. She loved him for himself, and for his love for her. Her complete ownership of him was a

continual joy to her. His presence was always sweet to her. All the traits of his character, which she learned to

know better and better, were unutterably dear to her. His appearance, changed by his civilian dress, was as

fascinating to her as though she were some young girl in love. In everything he said, thought, and did, she

saw something particularly noble and elevated. Her adoration of him alarmed her indeed; she sought and

could not find in him anything not fine. She dared not show him her sense of her own insignificance beside

him. It seemed to her that, knowing this, he might sooner cease to love her; and she dreaded nothing now so

much as losing his love, though she had no grounds for fearing it. But she could not help being grateful to

him for his attitude to her, and showing that she appreciated it. He, who had in her opinion such a marked

aptitude for a political career, in which he would have been certain to play a leading part he had sacrificed

his ambition for her sake, and never betrayed the slightest regret. He was more lovingly respectful to her than

ever, and the constant care that she should not feel the awkwardness of her position never deserted him for a

single instant. He, so manly a man, never opposed her, had indeed, with her, no will of his own, and was

anxious, it seemed, for nothing but to anticipate her wishes. And she could not but appreciate this, even

though the very intensity of his solicitude for her, the atmosphere of care with which he surrounded her,

Vronsky, meanwhile, in spite of the complete realization of what he had so long desired, was not perfectly

happy. He soon felt that the realization of his desires gave him no more than a grain of sand out of the

mountain of happiness he had expected. It showed him the mistake men make in picturing to themselves

happiness as the realization of their desires. For a time after joining his life to hers, and putting on civilian

dress, he had felt all the delight of freedom in general, of which he had known nothing before, and of freedom

in his love and he was content, but not for long. He was soon aware that there was springing up in his heart

a desire for desires longing. Without conscious intention he began to clutch at every passing caprice, taking

it for a desire and an object. Sixteen hours of the day must be occupied in some way, since they were living

abroad in complete freedom, outside the conditions of social life which filled up time in Peterburg. As for the

amusements of bachelor existence, which had provided Vronsky with entertainment on previous tours abroad,

they could not be thought of, since the sole attempt of the sort had led to a sudden attack of depression in

Anna, quite out of proportion with the cause a late supper with bachelor friends. Relations with the society

of the place foreign and Russian were equally out of the question, owing to the irregularity of their

position. The inspection of objects of interest, apart from the fact that everything had been seen already, had

not for Vronsky, a Russian and a sensible man, the inexplicable significance Englishmen are able to attach to

And, just as the hungry animal eagerly clutches every object it can get, hoping to find nourishment in it,

Vronsky quite unconsciously clutched first at politics, then at new books, and then at pictures.

As he had, ever since he was a child, a taste for painting, and as, not knowing what to spend his money on, he

had begun collecting engravings, he came to a stop at painting, began to take interest in it, and concentrated

As he had a capacity for understanding art, and for true and tasteful imitation in the art of painting, he

supposed himself to have the real thing essential for an artist, and after hesitating for some time which style

of painting to select religious, historical, realistic, or genre painting he set to work to paint. He appreciated

all kinds, and could have felt inspired by any one of them; but he had no conception of the possibility of

knowing nothing at all of any school of painting, and of being inspired directly by what is within the soul,

without caring whether what is painted will belong to any recognized school. Since he knew nothing of this,

and drew his inspiration, not directly from life, but indirectly from life embodied in art, his inspiration came

very quickly and easily, and as quickly and easily came his success in painting something very similar to the

More than any other style he liked the French graceful and effective and in that style he began to paint

Anna's portrait in Italian costume, and the portrait seemed to him, and to everyone who saw it, extremely

The old neglected palazzo, with its lofty plastic plafonds and frescoes on the walls, with its floors of mosaic,

with its heavy yellow stuff curtains on the windows, with its vases on pedestals, and its open fireplaces, its

carved doors and gloomy reception rooms hung with pictures this palazzo did much, by its very appearance

after they had moved into it, to confirm in Vronsky the agreeable illusion that he was not so much a Russian

country gentleman, a retired officer of the life guards, as an enlightened amateur and patron of the arts,

himself a modest artist who had renounced the world, his connections, and his ambition for the sake of the

The pose chosen by Vronsky with their removal into the palazzo was completely successful, and having,

through Golenishchev, made the acquaintance of a few interesting people, for a time he was satisfied. He

painted studies from nature under the guidance of an Italian professor of painting, and studied medieval

Italian life. Medieval Italian life so fascinated Vronsky that even his hat, and a plaid flung over his shoulder,

"Here we live, and know nothing of what's going on," Vronsky said to Golenishchev, when the latter came to

see him one morning. "Have you seen Mikhailov's picture?" he said, handing him a Russian gazette he had

received that morning, and pointing to an article on a Russian artist, living in the very same town, and just

finishing a picture which had long been talked about, and had been bought beforehand. The article

reproached the government and the academy for letting so remarkable an artist be left without encouragement

"I've seen it," answered Golenishchev. "Of course, he's not without talent, but it's all in a wrong direction. It's

"Christ before Pilate. Christ is represented as a Jew with all the realism of the new school."

And the question of the subject of the picture having brought him to one of his favorite theories,

"I can't understand how they can fall into such a gross mistake. Christ always has His definite embodiment in

the art of the great masters. And therefore, if they want to depict, not God, but a revolutionist or a sage, let

them take from history a Socrates, a Franklin, a Charlotte Corday, but not Christ. They take the very figure

"And is it true that this Mikhailov is in such poverty?" asked Vronsky, thinking that, as a Russian Maecenas,

it was his duty to assist the artist regardless of whether the picture were good or bad.

"Hardly. He's a remarkable portrait painter. Have you ever seen his portrait of Madame Vassilkova? But I

believe he doesn't care about painting any more portraits, and so, likely as not, he may be in want. I maintain

"Why mine?" said Anna. "After yours I don't want another portrait. Better have one of Annie" (so she called

her baby girl). "Here she is," she added, looking out of the window at the handsome Italian nurse, who was

carrying the child out into the garden, and immediately glancing, unperceived, at Vronsky. The handsome

nurse, from whom Vronsky was painting a head for his picture, was the one hidden grief in Anna's life. He

painted with her as his model, admired her beauty and medievalism, and Anna dared not confess to herself

that she was afraid of becoming jealous of this nurse, and was for that reason particularly gracious and

Vronsky, too, glanced out of the window and into Anna's eyes, and, turning at once to Golenishchev, he said:

"I have met him. But he's a queer fish, and quite without breeding. You know, one of those savage new

people one is forever coming across nowadays; one of those freethinkers, you know, who are reared d'emblee

in theories of atheism, negation, and materialism. In former days," said Golenishchev, not observing, or not

willing to observe, that both Anna and Vronsky wanted to speak, "in former days the freethinker was a man

who had been brought up in ideas of religion, law, and morality, and only through conflict and struggle came

to free thought; but now there has sprung up a new type of native freethinker who grows up without even

having heard of principles of morality or of religion, of the existence of authorities, who grows up directly in

ideas of negation in everything, that is to say, a savage. Well, he's of that class. He's the son, it appears, of

some Moscow butler, and has never had any sort of bringingup. When he got into the academy and made

his reputation he tried, as he's no fool, to educate himself. And he turned to what seemed to him the very

source of culture the magazines. In old times, you see, a man who wanted to educate himself a Frenchman,

for instance would have set to work to study all the classics: theologians and tragedians and historians and

philosophers, and, you see, all the intellectual work that came in his way. But in our day he goes straight for

the literature of negation, very quickly assimilates all the extracts of the science of negation, and he's all set.

And that's not all twenty years ago he would have found in that literature traces of conflict with authorities,

with the creeds of the ages; he would have perceived from this conflict that there was something else; but

now he comes at once upon a literature in which the old creeds do not even furnish matter for discussion, but

it is stated baldly that there is nothing else; just evolution, natural selection, the struggle for existence and

"I tell you what," said Anna, who had for a long while been exchanging wary glances with Vronsky, and

knew that he was not in the least interested in the education of this artist, but was simply absorbed by the idea

of assisting him, and ordering a portrait of him; "I tell you what," she said, resolutely interrupting

Golenishchev recovered his selfpossession and readily agreed. But, as the artist lived in a remote ward of

An hour later Anna, with Golenishchev by her side and Vronsky on the front seat of the carriage, facing

them, drove up to an ugly new house in a remote ward. On learning from the porter's wife, who came out to

them, that Mikhailov saw visitors at his studio, but that at that moment he was in his lodging only a couple of

steps off, they sent her to him with their cards, asking permission to see his pictures.

The artist Mikhailov was, as always, at work when the cards of Count Vronsky and Golenishchev were

brought to him. In the morning he had been working in his studio at his big picture. On getting home he flew

into a rage with his wife for not having managed to put off the landlady, who had been asking for money.

"I've said it to you twenty times, don't enter into details. You're fool enough at all times, and when you start

explaining things in Italian you're a triple fool," he said after a long dispute.

"Leave me in peace, for God's sake!" Mikhailov shrieked, with tears in his voice, and, stopping his ears, he

went off into his working room, on the other side of a partition wall, and closed the door after him. "There's

no sense in her!" he said to himself, sat down to the table, and, opening a portfolio, he set to work at once

Never did he work with such fervor and success as when things went ill with him, and especially when he

quarreled with his wife. "Oh! damn them all!" he thought as he went on working. He was making a sketch for

the figure of a man in a violent rage. A sketch had been made before, but he was dissatisfied with it. "No, that

one was better.... Where is it?" He went back to his wife, and, scowling and not looking at her, asked his

eldest little girl: Where was that piece of paper he had given them? The paper with the discarded sketch on it

was found, but it was dirty, and spotted with candle grease. Still, he took the sketch, laid it on his table, and,

moving a little away, screwing up his eyes, he fell to gazing at it. All at once he smiled and gesticulated

"That's it! That's it!" he said, and, at once picking up the pencil, he began drawing rapidly. The spot of tallow

He had sketched this new pose, when all at once he recalled the face of a shopkeeper of whom he had bought

cigars, a vigorous face with a prominent chin, and he sketched this very face, this chin, on to the figure of the

man. He laughed aloud with delight. The figure from a lifeless imagined thing had become living, and such

that it could never be changed. That figure lived, and was clearly and unmistakably defined. The sketch might

be corrected in accordance with the requirements of the figure; the legs, indeed, could and must be put

differently, and the position of the left hand must be quite altered; the hair, too, might be thrown back. But in

making these corrections he was not altering the figure but simply getting rid of what concealed the figure.

He was, as it were, stripping off the veils which hindered it from being distinctly seen; each new feature only

brought out the whole figure in all its force and vigor, as it had suddenly come to him from the spot of tallow.

"Come, Sasha, don't be cross!" he said, smiling timidly and affectionately at her. "You were to blame. I was

to blame. I'll make it all right." And, having made peace with his wife, he put on an olivegreen overcoat

with a velvet collar and a hat, and went toward his studio. The successful figure he had already forgotten.

Now he was delighted and excited at the visit of these people of consequence, Russians, who had come in

Of his picture, the one that stood now on his easel, he had at the bottom of his heart one conviction that no

one had ever painted a picture like it. He did not believe that this picture was better than all the pictures of

Raphael, but he knew that what he tried to convey in that picture no one ever had conveyed. This he knew

positively, and had known a long while, ever since he had begun to paint it. But other people's criticisms,

whatever they might be, had yet immense consequence in his eyes, and they agitated him to the depths of his

soul. Any remark, the most insignificant, which showed that the critic saw even the tiniest part of what he

himself saw in the picture, agitated him to the depths of his soul. He always attributed to his judges a more

profound comprehension than he had himself, and always expected from them something he did not himself

see in the picture. And often in their criticisms he fancied that he found this.

He walked rapidly to the door of his studio, and in spite of his excitement he was struck by the soft light on

Anna's figure as she stood in the shade of the entrance listening to Golenishchev, who was eagerly telling her

something, while she evidently wanted to look round at the artist. He was himself unconscious how, as he

approached them, he seized on this impression and absorbed it, as he had the chin of the shopkeeper who had

sold him the cigars, and put it away somewhere to be brought out when he wanted it. The visitors, not

agreeably impressed beforehand by Golenishchev's account of the artist, were still less so by his personal

appearance. Thickset and of middle height, with nimble movements, with his brown hat, olivegreen coat

and narrow trousers though wide trousers had been a long while in fashion most of all, with the

ordinariness of his broad face, and the combined expression of timidity and anxiety to keep up his dignity,

"Please step in," he said, trying to look indifferent, and going into the passage he took a key out of his pocket

On entering the studio, Mikhailov once more scanned his visitors and noted down in his imagination

Vronsky's expression too, and especially his jaws. Although his artistic sense was unceasingly at work

collecting materials, although he felt a continually increasing excitement as the moment of criticizing his

work drew nearer, he rapidly and subtly formed, from imperceptible signs, a mental image of these three

persons. That fellow (Golenishchev) was a Russian living here. Mikhailov did not remember his surname nor

where he had met him, nor what he had said to him. He only remembered his face as he remembered all the

faces he had ever seen; but he remembered, too, that it was one of the faces laid by in his memory in the

immense class of the falsely consequential and poor in expression. The abundant hair and very open forehead

gave an appearance of consequence to the face, which had only one expression a petty, childish, peevish

expression, concentrated just above the bridge of the narrow nose. Vronsky and Madame Karenina must be,

Mikhailov supposed, distinguished and wealthy Russians, knowing nothing about art, like all those wealthy

Russians, but posing as amateurs and connoisseurs. "Most likely they've already looked at all the antiques,

and now they're making the round of the studios of the new people the German humbug, and the cracked

PreRaphaelite English fellow and have only come to me to make the point of view complete," he thought.

He was well acquainted with the way dilettanti have (the cleverer they were the worse he found them) of

looking at the works of contemporary artists with the sole object of being in a position to say that art is lost,

and the more one sees of the new men the more one sees how inimitable the works of the great old masters

have remained. He expected all this; he saw it all in their faces, he saw it in the careless indifference with

which they talked among themselves, stared at the lay figures and busts, and walked about in leisurely

fashion, waiting for him to uncover his picture. But in spite of this, while he was turning over his studies,

pulling up the blinds and taking off the sheet, he was in intense excitement, especially as, in spite of his

conviction that all distinguished and wealthy Russians were certain to be beasts and fools, he liked Vronsky,

"Here, if you please," he said, moving on one side with his nimble gait and pointing to his picture, "it's the

exhortation by Pilate. Matthew, chapter 27," he said, feeling his lips were beginning to tremble with emotion.

For the few seconds during which the visitors were gazing at the picture in silence, Mikhailov too gazed at it

with the indifferent eye of an outsider. For those few seconds he was sure in anticipation that a higher, juster

criticism would be uttered by them, by those very visitors whom he had been despising so a moment before.

He forgot all he had thought about his picture before, during the three years he had been painting it; he forgot

all its qualities, which had been absolutely certain to him he saw the picture with their indifferent, new,

outside eyes, and saw nothing good in it. He saw in the foreground Pilate's irritated face and the serene face

of Christ, and in the background the figures of Pilate's retinue and the face of John watching what was

happening. Every face that, with such exertion, such blunders and corrections had grown up within him with

its special character, every face that had given him such torments and such raptures, and all these faces so

many times transposed for the sake of the harmony of the whole, all the shades of color and tones that he had

attained with such labor all of this together seemed to him now, looking at it with their eyes, the merest

vulgarity, something that had been done a thousand times over. The face dearest to him, the face of Christ,

the center of the picture, which had given him such ecstasy as it unfolded itself to him, was utterly lost to him

when he glanced at the picture with their eyes. He saw a wellpainted (no, not even that he distinctly saw

now a mass of defects) repetition of those endless Christs of Titian, Raphael, Rubens, and the same soldiers

and Pilate. It was all common, poor, and stale, and badly painted weak and motley. They would be justified

in repeating hypocritically courteous speeches in the presence of the painter, and pitying him and laughing at

The silence (though it lasted no more than a minute) became too intolerable to him. To break it, and to show

"I think I've had the pleasure of meeting you," he said, looking uneasily first at Anna, then at Vronsky, in fear

"To be sure! We met at Rossi's; do you remember, at that soiree when that Italian lady recited the new

Rachel?" Golenishchev answered easily, removing his eyes without the slightest regret from the picture and

Noticing, however, that Mikhailov was expecting a criticism of the picture, he said:

"Your picture has got on a great deal since I saw it last time; and what strikes me particularly now, as it did

then, is the figure of Pilate. One so knows the man: a goodnatured, capital fellow, but an official through

All of Mikhailov's mobile face beamed at once; his eyes sparkled. He tried to say something, but he could not

speak for excitement, and pretended to be coughing. Low as was his opinion of Golenishchev's capacity for

understanding art, trifling as was the true remark upon the fidelity of the expression of Pilate as an official,

and offensive as might have seemed the utterance of so unimportant an observation while nothing was said of

more serious points, Mikhailov was in an ecstasy of delight at this observation. He had himself thought about

Pilate's figure just what Golenishchev had said. The fact that this reflection was but one of millions of

reflections, which, as Mikhailov knew for certain, would be true, did not diminish for him the significance of

Golenishchev's remark. His heart warmed to Golenishchev for this remark, and from a state of depression he

suddenly passed to ecstasy. At once the whole of his picture lived before him in all the indescribable

complexity of everything living. Mikhailov again tried to say that that was how he understood Pilate, but his

lips quivered intractably, and he could not pronounce the words. Vronsky and Anna too said something in

that subdued voice which (partly to avoid hurting the artist's feelings and partly to avoid giving loud utterance

to something silly so easily done when talking of art) people use at exhibitions of pictures. Mikhailov

fancied that the picture had made an impression on them too. He went up to them.

"How marvelous Christ's expression is!" said Anna. Of all she saw she liked that expression most of all, and

she felt that it was the center of the picture, and so praise of it would be pleasant to the artist. "One can see

This again was one of the million true reflections that could be found in his picture and in the figure of Christ.

She said that He was pitying Pilate. In Christ's expression there ought to be indeed an expression of pity,

since there is an expression of love, of unearthly peace, of preparedness for death, and a sense of the vanity of

words. Of course, there is the expression of an official in Pilate, and of pity in Christ, considering that one is

the incarnation of the fleshly, and the other of the spiritual, life. All this and much more flashed into

"Yes, and how that figure is done what atmosphere! One can walk round it," said Golenishchev,

unmistakably betraying by this remark that he did not approve of the meaning and idea of the figure.

"Yes, there's a wonderful mastery!" said Vronsky. "How those figures in the background stand out! There

you have technique," he said, addressing Golenishchev, alluding to a conversation between them about

In spite of the excited condition in which he was, the sentence about technique had sent a pang to Mikhailov's

heart, and looking angrily at Vronsky he suddenly scowled. He had often heard this word "technique," and

was utterly unable to understand what was meant by it. He knew that by this term was meant a mechanical

dexterity for painting or drawing, entirely apart from its subject. He had noticed often that even in actual

praise technique was opposed to essential quality, as though one could paint well something that was bad. He

knew that a great deal of attention and care was necessary in taking off the veils, to avoid injuring the

creation itself, and to take off all the veils; but there was no art of painting no technique of any sort about

it. If to a little child or to his cook were revealed what he saw, either would have been able to peel the veils

off what was seen. And the most experienced and adroit painter could not by mere mechanical faculty paint

anything if the lines of the subject were not revealed to him first. Besides, he saw that if it came to talking

about technique, it was impossible to praise him for it. In all he had painted he saw faults that hurt his eyes,

coming from want of care in taking off the veils faults he could not correct now without spoiling the whole.

And in almost all the figures and faces he saw, too, remnants of the veils not perfectly removed that spoiled

"One thing might be said, if you will allow me to make the remark..." observed Golenishchev.

"Oh, I shall be delighted, I beg of you to do so," said Mikhailov with a forced smile.

"That is, you make Him the mangod, and not the Godman. But I know that was what you meant to do."

"Yes; but in that case, if you will allow me to say what I think... Your picture is so fine that my observation

cannot detract from it, and, besides, it is only my personal opinion. With you it is different. Your very motive

is different. But let us take Ivanov. I imagine that if Christ is brought down to the level of an historical

character, it would have been better for Ivanov to select some other historical subject, fresh, untouched."

"If one looked one would find others. But the point is that art cannot suffer doubt and discussion. And before

the picture of Ivanov the question arises for the believer and the unbeliever alike, 'Is it God, or is it not God?'

"Why so? I think that, for educated people," said Mikhailov, "the question cannot exist."

Golenishchev did not agree with this, and confounded Mikhailov by his support of his first idea of the unity

Mikhailov was greatly perturbed, but he could say nothing in defense of his own idea.

Anna and Vronsky had long been exchanging glances, regretting their friend's flow of cleverness. At last

"Oh, how exquisite! What a lovely thing! A gem! How exquisite!" they cried with one voice.

"What is it they're so pleased with?" thought Mikhailov. He had positively forgotten that picture he had

painted three years ago. He had forgotten all the agonies and the ecstasies he had lived through with that

picture when, for several months, it had been the one thought haunting him day and night. He had forgotten,

as he always forgot, the pictures he had finished. He did not even like to look at it, and had only brought it

"How fine!" said Golenishchev, he too, with unmistakable sincerity, falling under the spell of the picture.

Two boys were angling in the shade of a willow tree. The elder had just dropped in the hook, and was

carefully pulling the float from behind a bush, entirely absorbed in what he was doing. The other, a little

younger, was lying in the grass leaning on his elbows, with his tangled, flaxen head in his hands, staring at

The enthusiasm over this picture stirred some of the old feeling for it in Mikhailov, but he feared and disliked

this waste of feeling for things past, and so, even though this praise was grateful to him, he tried to draw his

But Vronsky asked whether the picture was for sale? To Mikhailov at that moment, excited by visitors, it was

When the visitors had gone, Mikhailov sat down opposite the picture of Pilate and Christ, and in his mind

went over what had been said, and what, though not said, had been implied by those visitors. And, strange to

say, what had had such weight with him, while they were there and while he mentally put himself at their

point of view, suddenly lost all importance for him. He began to look at his picture with all his own full,

artist's vision, and was soon in that mood of conviction of the perfectibility, and so of the significance, of his

picture a conviction essential to the intensest fervor, excluding all other interests in which alone he could

Christ's foreshortened leg was not right, though. He took his palette and began to work. As he corrected the

leg he looked continually at the figure of John in the background, which his visitors had not even noticed, but

which he knew was beyond perfection. When he had finished the leg he wanted to touch that figure, but he

felt too much excited for that. He was equally unable to work when he was cold and when he was too much

affected and saw everything too clearly. There was only one stage in the transition from coldness to

inspiration, at which work was possible. Today he was too much agitated. He would have covered the picture,

but he stopped, holding the cloth in his hand, and, smiling blissfully, gazed a long while at the figure of John.

At last, tearing himself away with evident regret, he dropped the cloth, and, exhausted but happy, went home.

Vronsky, Anna, and Golenishchev, on their way home, were particularly lively and cheerful. They talked of

Mikhailov and his pictures. The word talent, by which they meant an inborn, almost physical, aptitude apart

from brain and heart, and in which they tried to find an expression for all the artist had gained from life,

recurred particularly often in their talk, as though it were necessary for them to sum up what they had no

conception of, though they wanted to talk of it. They said that there was no denying his talent, but that his

talent could not develop for want of education the common defect of our Russian artists. But the picture of

the boys had imprinted itself on their memories, and they were continually coming back to it. "What an

exquisite thing! How he has succeeded in it, and how simply! He doesn't even comprehend how good it is.

Mikhailov sold Vronsky his picture, and agreed to paint a portrait of Anna. On the day fixed he came and

From the fifth sitting the portrait impressed everyone, especially Vronsky, not only by its resemblance, but by

its characteristic beauty. It was strange how Mikhailov could have discovered precisely the beauty

characteristic of her. "One needs to know and love her as I have loved her to discover the very sweetest

expression of her soul," Vronsky thought, though it was only from this portrait that he had himself learned

this sweetest expression of her soul. But the expression was so true that he, and others too, fancied they had

"I have been struggling on for ever so long without doing anything," he said of his own portrait of her, "and

"That will come," was the consoling reassurance given him by Golenishchev, in whose view Vronsky had

both talent, and, what was most important, education, giving him an exalted outlook on art. Golenishchev's

faith in Vronsky's talent was propped up by his own need of Vronsky's sympathy and approval for his own

In another man's house, and especially in Vronsky's palazzo, Mikhailov was quite a different man from what

he was in his studio. He behaved with hostile deference, as though he were afraid of coming closer to people

he did not respect. He called Vronsky "Your Excellency," and, notwithstanding Anna's and Vronsky's

invitations, he would never stay to dinner, nor come except for the sittings. Anna was even more friendly to

him than to other people, and was very grateful for her portrait. Vronsky was more than courteous with him,

and was obviously interested to know the artist's opinion of his picture. Golenishchev never let slip an

opportunity of instilling sound ideas about art into Mikhailov. But Mikhailov remained equally chilly to all of

these people. Anna was aware from his eyes that he liked to look at her, but he avoided conversation with her.

Vronsky's talk about his painting he met with stubborn silence, and he was as stubbornly silent when he was

shown Vronsky's picture. He was unmistakably bored by Golenishchev's conversation, and he did not attempt

Altogether Mikhailov, with his reserved and disagreeable, and, apparently, hostile attitude, was quite disliked

by them as they got to know him better; and they were glad when the sittings were over, and they were left

Golenishchev was the first to give expression to an idea that had occurred to all of them which was that

"Not envious, let us say, since he has talent; but it annoys him that a wealthy man of the highest society, and

a Count, too (you know these fellows detest all that), can, without any particular trouble, do as well, if not

better, than he who has devoted all his life to it. And, more than all, it's a question of education, which he

Vronsky defended Mikhailov, but at the bottom of his heart he believed this, because in his view a man of a

Anna's portrait the same subject painted from nature both by him and by Mikhailov ought to have shown

Vronsky the difference between him and Mikhailov; but he did not see it. Only after Mikhailov's portrait was

painted did he leave off painting his own portrait of Anna, deciding that it was no longer needed. His picture

of medieval life he went on with. And he himself, and Golenishchev, and, still more, Anna, thought it very

good, because it was far more like the celebrated pictures they knew than Mikhailov's picture.

Mikhailov meanwhile, although Anna's portrait greatly fascinated him, was even more glad than they were

when the sittings were over, and he had no longer to listen to Golenishchev's disquisitions upon art, and could

forget about Vronsky's painting. He knew that Vronsky could not be prevented from amusing himself with

painting; he knew that he and all dilettanti had a perfect right to paint what they liked, but it was distasteful to

him. A man could not be prevented from making himself a big wax doll, and kissing it. But if the man were

to come with the doll and sit before a man in love, and begin caressing his doll as the lover caressed the

woman he loved, it would be distasteful to the lover. Just such a distasteful sensation was what Mikhailov felt

at the sight of Vronsky's painting: he felt it both ludicrous and irritating, both pitiable and offensive.

Vronsky's interest in painting and the Middle Ages did not last long. He had enough taste for painting to be

unable to finish his picture. The picture came to a standstill. He was vaguely aware that its defects,

inconspicuous at first, would be glaring if he were to go on with it. The same experience befell him as

Golenishchev, who felt that he had nothing to say, and continually deceived himself with the theory that his

idea was not yet mature, that he was working it out and collecting material. This exasperated and tortured

Golenishchev, but Vronsky was incapable of deceiving and torturing himself, and even more incapable of

exasperation. With his characteristic decision, without explanation or apology, he simply ceased work at

But, without this occupation, the life of Vronsky and of Anna, who wondered at his loss of interest in it,

struck them as intolerably tedious in an Italian town; the palazzo suddenly seemed so obtrusively old and

dirty, the spots on the curtains, the cracks in the floors, the broken plaster on the cornices, became so

disagreeably obvious, and the everlasting sameness of Golenishchev, and the Italian professor, and the

German traveler, became so wearisome, that they had to make some change. They resolved to go to Russia,

to the country. In Peterburg Vronsky intended to arrange a partition of the land with his brother, while Anna

meant to see her son. The summer they intended to spend on Vronsky's great family estate.

Levin had been married two months. He was happy, but not at all in the way he had expected to be. At every

step he found disenchantment in his former dreams, and new, unexpected enchantment. He was happy; but on

entering upon family life he saw at every step that it was utterly different from what he had imagined. At

every step he experienced what a man would experience who, after admiring the smooth, happy course of a

little boat on a lake, should get himself into that little boat. He saw that it was not all sitting still, and floating

smoothly; that one had to think too, not for an instant forgetting where one was floating; and that there was

water under one, and that one must row; and that his unaccustomed hands would be sore; and that it was only

As a bachelor, when he had watched other people's married life, had seen the petty cares, the squabbles, the

jealousy, he had only smiled contemptuously in his heart. In his future married life there could be, he was

convinced, nothing of that sort; even the external forms, indeed, he fancied, must be utterly unlike the life of

others in everything. And all of a sudden, instead of his life with his wife being made on an individual

pattern, it was, on the contrary, entirely made up of the pettiest details, which he had so despised before, but

which now, by no will of his own, had gained an extraordinary and indisputable importance. And Levin saw

that the organization of all these details was by no means so easy as he had fancied before. Although Levin

believed himself to have the most exact conceptions of domestic life, unconsciously, like all men, he pictured

domestic life only as enjoyment of love, with nothing to hinder and no petty cares to distract. He ought, as he

conceived the position, to do his work, and to find repose from it in the happiness of love. She ought to be

beloved, and nothing more. But, like all men, he forgot that she too would want work. And he was surprised

that she, his poetic, exquisite Kitty, could not merely in the first weeks, but even in the first days of their

married life, think, remember, and busy herself about tablecloths, and furniture, about mattresses for visitors,

about a tray, about the cook, and the dinner, and so on. While they were still engaged, he had been struck by

the definiteness with which she had declined the tour abroad and decided to go into the country, as though

she knew of something she wanted, and could still think of something outside her love. This had jarred upon

him then, and now her trivial cares and anxieties jarred upon him several times. But he saw that this was

essential for her. And, loving her as he did, though he did not understand the reason for them, and jeered at

these domestic pursuits, he could not help admiring them. He jeered at the way in which she arranged the

furniture they had brought from Moscow; rearranged their rooms; hung up curtains; prepared rooms for

visitors, and for Dolly; saw after an abode for her new maid; ordered dinner of the old cook; came into

collision with Agathya Mikhailovna, taking from her the charge of the stores. He saw how the old cook

smiled, admiring her, and listening to her inexperienced, impossible orders; how mournfully and tenderly

Agathya Mikhailovna shook her head over the young mistress's new arrangements in the pantry. He saw that

Kitty was extraordinarily sweet when, laughing and crying, she came to tell him that her maid, Masha, was

used to looking upon her as her young lady, and so no one obeyed her. It seemed to him sweet, but strange,

He did not know how great a sense of change she was experiencing; she, who at home had sometimes wanted

some pickled cabbage, or sweets, without the possibility of getting either, now could order what she liked,

buy pounds of sweets, spend as much money as she liked, and order any cakes she pleased.

She was dreaming with delight now of Dolly's coming to them with her children, especially because she

would order for the children their favorite cakes, and Dolly would appreciate all her new housekeeping. She

did not know herself why and wherefore, but the arranging of her house had an irresistible attraction for her.

Instinctively feeling the approach of spring, and knowing that there would be days of rough weather too, she

built her nest as best she could, and was in haste at the same time to build and to learn how to do it.

This care for domestic details in Kitty, so opposed to Levin's ideal of exalted happiness, was at first one of

the disenchantments; and this sweet care of her household, the aim of which he did not understand, but could

Another disenchantment and enchantment consisted of their quarrels. Levin could never have conceived that

between him and his wife any relations could arise other than tender, respectful and loving, and all at once, in

the very early days, they quarreled, so that she said he did not care for her, that he cared for no one but

This first quarrel arose from Levin's having gone out to a new grange and having been away half an hour too

long, because he had tried to get home by a short cut and had lost his way. He drove home thinking of

nothing but her, of her love, of his own happiness, and, the nearer he drew to home, the warmer was his

tenderness for her. He ran into the room with the same feeling, with an even stronger feeling, than he had had

when he reached the Shcherbatskys' house to propose. And suddenly he was met by a lowering expression he

But as soon as she opened her mouth, she burst into a stream of reproach, of senseless jealousy, of all that had

been torturing her during that halfhour which she had spent sitting motionless at the window. It was only

then, for the first time, that he clearly understood what he had not understood when he led her out of the

church after the wedding. He felt now that he was not simply close to her, but that he did not know where he

ended and she began. He felt this from the agonizing sensation of division that he experienced at that instant.

He was offended for the first instant, but the very same second he felt that he could not be offended by her,

that she was himself. He felt for the first moment as a man feels when, having suddenly received a violent

blow from behind, he turns round, angry and eager to avenge himself, to look for his antagonist, and finds

that it is he himself who has accidentally struck himself, that there is no one to be angry with, and that he

Never afterward did he feel it with such intensity, but this first time he could not for a long while get over it.

His natural feeling urged him to defend himself, to prove to her she was wrong; but to prove her wrong would

mean irritating her still more and making the rupture greater that was the cause of all his suffering. One

habitual feeling impelled him to get rid of the blame and to pass it on her; another feeling, even stronger,

impelled him as quickly as possible to smooth over the rupture without letting it grow greater. To remain

under such undeserved reproach was wretched, but to make her suffer by justifying himself was worse still.

Like a man halfawake in an agony of pain, he wanted to tear out, to fling away the seat of pain, and, coming

to his senses, he felt that the seat of pain was himself. He could do nothing but try to help the seat of pain

They made peace. She, recognizing that she was wrong, though she did not say so, became tenderer to him,

and they experienced new, redoubled happiness in their love. But that did not prevent such quarrels from

happening again, and exceedingly often too, on the most unexpected and trivial grounds. These quarrels

frequently arose from the fact that they did not yet know what was of importance to each, and that all this

early period they were both often in a bad temper. When one was in a good temper, and the other in a bad

temper, the peace was not broken; but when both happened to be in an illhumor, quarrels sprang up from

such incomprehensibly trifling causes that they could never remember afterward what they had quarreled

about. It is true that when they were both in a good temper their enjoyment of life was redoubled. But still

During all this early period they had a peculiarly vivid sense of tension, as it were, a tugging in opposite

directions of the chain by which they were bound. Altogether their honeymoon that is to say, the month

after their wedding from which, through tradition, Levin had expected so much, was not merely not a time

of sweetness, but remained in the memories of both as the bitterest and most humiliating period in their lives.

They both alike tried in later life to blot out from their memories all the monstrous, shameful incidents of that

morbid period, when both were rarely in a normal frame of mind, when both were rarely quite themselves.

It was only in the third month of their married life, after their return from Moscow, where they had been

They had just come back from Moscow, and were glad to be alone. He was sitting at the writing table in his

study, writing. She, wearing the dark lilac dress she had worn during the first days of their married life, and

put on again today a dress particularly remembered and loved by him was sitting on the sofa, the same

oldfashioned leather sofa which had always stood in the study in Levin's father's and grandfather's days. She

was sewing at broderie anglaise. He thought and wrote, never losing the happy consciousness of her presence.

His work, both on the land and on the book, in which the principles of the new land system were to be laid

down, had not been abandoned; but just as formerly his work and ideas had seemed to him petty and trivial in

comparison with the darkness that overspread all life, now they seemed as unimportant and petty in

comparison with the life that lay before him suffused with the brilliant light of happiness. He went on with

his work, but he felt now that the center of gravity of his attention had passed to something else, and that

consequently he looked at his work quite differently and more clearly. Formerly this work had been for him

an escape from life. Formerly he had felt that without this work his life would be too gloomy. Now this work

was necessary for him so that life might not be too uniformly bright. Taking up his manuscript, reading

through what he had written, he found with pleasure that the work was worth his working at. Many of his old

ideas seemed to him superfluous and extreme, but many blanks became distinct to him when he reviewed the

whole thing in his memory. He was writing now a new chapter on the causes of the present disadvantageous

condition of agriculture in Russia. He maintained that the poverty of Russia arises not merely from the

anomalous distribution of landed property and from misdirected reforms, but that what had contributed of late

years to this result was a civilization from without, abnormally grafted upon Russia especially facilities of

communication such as railways, leading to centralization in towns, the development of luxury, and the

consequent development of manufactures, credit, and its accompaniment of speculation all to the detriment

of agriculture. It seemed to him that in a normal development of wealth in a state all these phenomena would

arise only when a considerable amount of labor had been put into agriculture, when it had come under

regular, or at least definite, conditions; that the wealth of a country ought to increase proportionally, and

especially in such a way that other sources of wealth should not outstrip agriculture; that in harmony with a

certain stage of agriculture there should be means of communication corresponding to it, and that in our

unsettled condition of the land, railways, called into being by political and not by economic needs, were

premature, and, instead of promoting agriculture, as was expected of them, they were competing with

agriculture and promoting the development of manufactures and credit, and so arresting its progress; and that

just as the onesided and premature development of one organ in an animal would hinder its general

development, so in the general development of wealth in Russia, credit, facilities of communication,

manufacturing activity, indubitably necessary in Europe, where they had arisen in their proper time, had with

us only done harm, by throwing into the background the chief question, next in turn, of the organization of

While he was at his writing, she was thinking how unnaturally cordial her husband had been to young Prince

Charsky, who had, with great want of tact, flirted with her the day before they left Moscow. "He's jealous,"

she thought. "My God! How sweet and silly he is! He's jealous of me! If he only knew that all others are no

more to me than Piotr the cook!" she thought, looking at his head and red neck with a feeling of possession

strange to herself. "Though it's a pity to take him from his work (but he has plenty of time!), I must look at

his face; will he feel I'm looking at him? I wish he'd turn round.... I'll will him to!" and she opened her eyes

"Yes, they draw away all the sap and give a false resplendence," he muttered, stopped writing, and, feeling

"It's nothing; I wanted you to look round," she said, watching him, and trying to guess whether he was vexed

"How happy we are alone together! I am, that is," he said, going up to her with a radiant smile of happiness.

"I? I was thinking... No, no, go on writing; don't break off," she said, pursing up her lips, "and I must cut out

"No; tell me what was it?" he said, sitting down beside her and watching the circular motion of the tiny

"Oh! what was I thinking about? I was thinking about Moscow, about the nape of your neck."

"Why should I, of all people, have such happiness! It's unnatural. Too good," he said kissing her hand.

"I feel quite the opposite; the better things are, the more natural it seems to me."

"And you've got a little curl loose," he said, carefully turning her head round. "A little curl, oh yes. No, no,

Work did not progress further, and they darted apart from one another like culprits when Kouzma came in to

"Come quickly," she said to him as she went out of the study, "or else I shall read the letters without you."

Left alone, after putting his manuscripts together in the new portfolio bought by her, he washed his hands at

the new washstand with the new elegant fittings, which had all made their appearance with her. Levin smiled

at his own thoughts, and shook his head disapprovingly at those thoughts; a feeling akin to remorse fretted

him. There was something shameful, effeminate, Capuan, as he called it to himself, in his present mode of

life. "It's not right to go on like this," he thought. "It'll soon be three months, and I'm doing next to nothing.

Today, almost for the first time, I set to work seriously and what happened? I did nothing but begin and

throw it aside. I have almost given up even my ordinary pursuits. I scarcely walk or drive about at all to look

after things on my land. Either I am loath to leave her, or I see she's dull alone. And I used to think that,

before marriage, life was nothing much, somehow didn't count, but that after marriage life began in earnest.

And here almost three months have passed, and I have spent my time so idly and unprofitably. No, this won't

do; I must begin. Of course, it's not her fault. She's not to blame in any way. I ought to be firmer myself, to

maintain my masculine independence of action; or else I shall get into such ways, and she'll get used to them

But it is hard for anyone who is dissatisfied not to blame someone else, and especially the person nearest of

all to one, for the basis of one's dissatisfaction. And it vaguely came into Levin's mind that she herself was

not to blame (she could not be to blame for anything), but what was to blame was her education, too

superficial and frivolous. ("That fool Charsky: I know she wanted to stop him, but didn't know how to.")

"Yes, apart from her interest in the house (that she has), apart from dress and broderie anglaise, she has no

serious interests. No interest in my work, in the estate, in the peasants, nor in music, though she's rather good

at it, nor in reading. She does nothing, and is perfectly satisfied." Levin, in his heart, censured this, and did

not as yet understand that she was preparing for that period of activity which was to come for her when she

would at once be the wife of her husband and mistress of the house, and would bear, and nurse, and bring up

children. He knew not that she was instinctively aware of this, and preparing herself for this time of terrible

toil, did not reproach herself for the moments of carelessness and happiness in her love, which she was

When Levin went upstairs, his wife was sitting near the new silver samovar and the new tea service, and,

having settled old Agathya Mikhailovna at a little table with a full cup of tea, was reading a letter from Dolly,

"You see, your lady's settled me here, told me to sit a bit with her," said Agathya Mikhailovna, smiling

In these words of Agathya Mikhailovna Levin read the final act of the drama which had been enacted of late

between her and Kitty. He saw that, in spite of Agathya Mikhailovna's feelings being hurt by a new mistress

taking the reins of government out of her hands, Kitty had yet conquered her and made her love her.

"Here, I opened your letter too," said Kitty, handing him an illiterate letter. "It's from that woman, I think

your brother's..." she said. "I did not read it through. This is from my people and from Dolly. Fancy! Dolly

took Tania and Grisha to a children's ball at the Sarmatskys': Tania was a French marquise."

But Levin did not hear her. Flushing, he took the letter from Marya Nikolaevna, his brother's former mistress,

and began to read it. This was the second letter he had received from Marya Nikolaevna. In the first letter,

Marya Nikolaevna wrote that his brother had sent her packing for no fault of hers, and, with touching

simplicity, added that though she was in want again, she asked for nothing, and wished for nothing, but was

only tormented by the thought that Nikolai Dmitrievich would come to grief without her, owing to the weak

state of his health, and begged his brother to look after him. Now she wrote quite differently. She had found

Nikolai Dmitrievich, had again made it up with him in Moscow, and had moved with him to a provincial

town, where he had received a post in the government service. But, she wrote, he had quarreled with the head

official, and was on his way back to Moscow, only he had been taken so ill on the road that it was doubtful if

he would ever leave his bed again. "It's always of you he has talked, and, besides he has no more money left."

"Read this; Dolly writes about you," Kitty was beginning, with a smile; but she stopped suddenly, noticing

"She writes to me that Nikolai, my brother, is at death's door. I shall go to him."

Kitty's face changed at once. Thoughts of Tania as a marquise, of Dolly, all had vanished.

"What am I thinking of?" offended that he should seem to take her suggestion unwillingly and with vexation.

"And, at a moment of such gravity for me, she only thinks of her being dull by herself," thought Levin. And

Agathya Mikhailovna, seeing that it was coming to a quarrel, gently put down her cup and withdrew. Kitty

did not even notice her. The tone in which her husband had said the last words offended her, especially

"I tell you, that if you go, I shall come with you; I shall certainly come," she said hastily and wrathfully.

"Because it'll be going God knows where, by all sorts of roads and to all sorts of hotels.... You would be a

"I don't know and don't care to know who's there and what. I know that my husband's brother is dying, and

"Kitty! Don't get angry. But just think a little: this is a matter of such importance that I can't bear to think that

you should bring in a feeling of weakness, of dislike to being left alone. Come, you'll be dull alone, so go and

"There, you always ascribe base, vile motives to me," she said with tears of wrath and wounded pride. "I

didn't mean anything it wasn't weakness, it wasn't anything.... I feel that it's my duty to be with my husband

when he's in trouble, but you try on purpose to hurt me, you try on purpose not to understand...."

"No; this is awful! To be such a slave!" cried Levin, getting up, and unable to restrain his vexation any

"Then why did you marry? You could have been free. Why did you, if you regret it?" she said, getting up and

He began to speak, trying to find words not to dissuade but simply to soothe her. But she did not heed him,

and would not agree to anything. He bent down to her and took her hand, which resisted him. He kissed her

hand, kissed her hair, kissed her hand again still she was silent. But when he took her face in both his hands,

and said "Kitty!" she suddenly collected herself, still shed some tears, and they were reconciled.

It was decided that they should go together the next day. Levin told his wife that he believed she wanted to go

simply in order to be of use, agreed that Marya Nikolaevna's being with his brother did not make her going

improper, but he set off dissatisfied, at the bottom of his heart, both with her and with himself. He was

dissatisfied with her for being unable to make up her mind to let him go when it was necessary (and how

strange it was for him to think that he, so lately hardly daring to believe in such happiness as the possibility of

her loving him now was unhappy because she loved him too much!), and he was dissatisfied with himself

for not showing more strength of will. Even greater was the feeling of disagreement at the bottom of his heart

as to her not needing to consider the woman who was with his brother, and he thought with horror of all the

contingencies they might meet with. The mere idea of his wife, his Kitty, being in the same room with a

The hotel of the provincial town where Nikolai Levin was lying ill was one of those provincial hotels which

are constructed on the newest model of modern improvements, with the best intentions of cleanliness,

comfort, and even elegance, but, owing to the public that patronizes them, are with astounding rapidity

transformed into filthy taverns with a pretension of modern improvement and made by the very pretension

worse than the oldfashioned, honestly filthy hotels. This hotel had already reached that stage, and the soldier

in a filthy uniform smoking in the entry, supposed to stand for a hall porter, and the castiron, perforated,

somber and disagreeable staircase, and the free and easy waiter in a filthy dress coat, and the common dining

room with a dusty bouquet of wax flowers adorning the table, and filth, dust and disorder everywhere, and, at

the same time, the sort of modern, uptodate, selfcomplacent, railway uneasiness of this hotel, aroused a

most painful feeling in Levin after their fresh young life, especially because the impression of falsity made by

As is invariably the case, after they had been asked at what price they wanted rooms, it appeared that there

was not one decent room for them; one decent room had been taken by the inspector of railroads, another by a

lawyer from Moscow, a third by Princess Astafieva just arrived from the country. There remained only one

filthy room, next to which they promised that another should be empty by the evening. Feeling angry with his

wife because what he had expected had come to pass that at the moment of arrival, when his heart throbbed

with emotion and anxiety to know how his brother was getting on, he should have to be seeing after her,

instead of rushing straight to his brother Levin conducted her to the room assigned them.

He went out of the door without a word, and at once stumbled over Marya Nikolaevna, who had heard of his

arrival and had not dared to go in to see him. She was just the same as when he had seen her in Moscow; the

same woolen gown, and bare arms and neck, and the same goodnaturedly stupid, pockmarked face, only a

"Very bad. He can't get up. He has been expecting you all this while. He... Are you... with your wife?"

Levin did not for the first moment understand what confused her, but she immediately enlightened him.

"I'll go away. I'll go down to the kitchen," she brought out. "Nikolai Dmitrievich will be delighted. He heard

But, as soon as he moved, the door of his room opened and Kitty peeped out. Levin crimsoned both from

shame and anger at his wife, who had put herself and him in such a difficult position; but Marya Nikolaevna

crimsoned still more. She positively shrank together and flushed to the point of tears, and, clutching the ends

of her shawl in both hands, twisted them in her red fingers without knowing what to say and what to do.

For the first instant Levin saw an expression of eager curiosity in the eyes with which Kitty looked at this

"But one can't go on talking in the passage like this!" Levin said, looking angrily at a gentleman who walked

"Well then, come in," said Kitty, turning to Marya Nikolaevna, who had recovered herself but, noticing her

husband's face of dismay "or go on; go, and then come for me," she said, and went back into the room.

He had not in the least expected what he saw and felt in his brother's room. He had expected to find him in

the same state of selfdeception which he had heard was so frequent with the consumptive, and which had

struck him so much during his brother's visit in the autumn. He had expected to find the physical signs of the

approach of death more marked greater weakness, greater emaciation, but still almost the same condition of

things. He had expected himself to feel the same distress at the loss of the brother he loved and the same

horror in face of death as he had felt then, only in a greater degree. And he had prepared himself for this; but

In a little dirty room with the painted panels of its walls filthy with spittle; with conversation audible from the

next room through the thin partition, in a stifling atmosphere saturated with impurities, on a bedstead moved

away from the wall, there lay, covered with a quilt, a body. One arm of this body was above the quilt, and the

wrist, huge as a rake handle, was attached, inconceivably it seemed, to the thin, long bobbin smooth from the

beginning to the middle. The head lay sideways on the pillow. Levin could see the scanty locks wet with

"It cannot be that that fearful body was my brother Nikolai?" thought Levin. But he went closer, saw the face,

and doubt became impossible. In spite of the terrible change in the face, Levin had only to glance at those

eager eyes at his approach, only to catch the faint movement of the mouth under the sticky mustache, to

The glittering eyes looked sternly and reproachfully at the brother as he drew near. And immediately this

glance established a living relationship between living men. Levin immediately felt the reproach in the eyes

When Konstantin took him by the hand, Nikolai smiled. The smile was faint, scarcely perceptible, and in

"Yes... no," said Levin, hesitating over his words. "How was it you didn't let me know before that is, at the

He had to talk so as not to be silent, and he did not know what to say, especially as his brother made no reply,

and simply stared without dropping his eyes, and apparently penetrated to the inner meaning of each word.

Levin told his brother that his wife had come with him. Nikolai expressed pleasure, but said he was afraid of

frightening her by his condition. A silence followed. Suddenly Nikolai stirred, and began to say something.

Levin expected something of peculiar gravity and importance from the expression of his face, but Nikolai

began speaking of his health. He found fault with the doctor, regretting he had not a celebrated Moscow

Seizing the first moment of silence, Levin got up, anxious to escape, if only for an instant, from his agonizing

"Very well, and I'll tell Masha to tidy up here. It's dirty and stinking here, I expect. Masha! Clear up the

room," the sick man said with effort. "And when you've cleared up, you go away," he added, looking

Levin made no answer. Going out into the corridor, he stopped short. He had said he would fetch his wife,

but now, taking stock of the emotion he was feeling, he decided that, on the contrary, he would try to

persuade her not to go in to the sick man. "Why should she suffer as I am suffering?" he thought.

Kitty was silent for a few seconds, looking timidly and ruefully at her husband; then she went up and took

"Kostia! Take me to him; it will be easier for us to bear it together. Only take me, take me to him, please, and

go away," she said. "You must understand that for me to see you, and not to see him, is far more painful.

There I might be a help to you and to him. Please, let me!" she besought her husband, as though the happiness

Levin was obliged to agree, and, regaining his composure, and completely forgetting about Marya

Stepping lightly, and continually glancing at her husband, showing him a valorous and sympathetic face,

Kitty went into the sickroom, and, turning without haste, noiselessly closed the door. With inaudible steps she

went quickly to the sick man's bedside, and going up so that he would not have to turn his head, she

immediately clasped in her fresh young hand the skeleton of his huge hand, pressed it, and began speaking

with that soft eagerness, sympathetic and inoffensive, which is peculiar merely to women.

"We have met, though we were not acquainted, at Soden," she said. "You never thought I was to be your

"You would not have recognized me?" he said, with a smile which had become radiant at her entrance.

"Yes, I should. What a good thing you let us know! Not a day has passed that Kostia has not mentioned you,

Before she had finished speaking, there had come back into his face the stern, reproachful expression of the

"I am afraid you are not quite comfortable here," she said, turning away from his fixed stare, and looking

about the room. "We must ask about another room," she said to her husband, "so that we might be nearer."

Levin could not look calmly at his brother; he could not himself be natural and calm in his presence. When he

went in to the sick man, his eyes and his attention were unconsciously dimmed, and he did not see and did

not distinguish the details of his brother's position. He smelt the awful odor, saw the dirt, disorder, and

miserable condition, and heard the groans, and felt that nothing could be done to help. It never entered his

head to analyze the details of the sick man's situation, to consider how that body was lying under the quilt,

how those emaciated legs and thighs and spine were lying huddled up, and whether they could not be made

more comfortable, whether anything could not be done to make things, if not better, at least not so bad. It

made his blood run cold when he began to think of all these details. He was absolutely convinced that nothing

could be done to prolong his brother's life or to relieve his suffering. But a consciousness of Levin's regarding

all aid as out of the question was felt by the sick man, and exasperated him. And this made it still more

painful for Levin. To be in the sickroom was agony to him, not to be there was still worse. And he was

continually, on various pretexts, going out of the room, and coming in again, because he was unable to

But Kitty thought, and felt, and acted quite differently. On seeing the sick man she pitied him. And pity in her

womanly heart did not arouse at all that feeling of horror and loathing that it aroused in her husband, but a

desire to act, to find out all the details of his state, and to remedy them. And since she had not the slightest

doubt that it was her duty to help him, she had no doubt either that it was possible, and immediately set to

work. The very details, the mere thought of which reduced her husband to terror, immediately engaged her

attention. She sent for the doctor, sent to the chemist's, set the maid who had come with her and Marya

Nikolaevna to sweep and dust and scrub; she herself washed up something, washed out something else, laid

something under the quilt. Something was by her direction brought into the sickroom, something else was

carried out. She herself went several times to her room, regardless of the men she met in the corridor, got out

The waiter, who was busy with a party of engineers dining in the dining hall, came several times with an irate

countenance in answer to her summons, and could not avoid carrying out her orders, as she gave them with

such gracious insistence that there was no evading her. Levin did not approve of all this; he did not believe it

would be of any good to the patient. Above all, he was afraid the patient would be angry at it. But the sick

man, though he seemed to be indifferent about it, was not angry, but only abashed and on the whole seemed

interested in what she was doing with him. Coming back from the doctor to whom Kitty had sent him, Levin,

on opening the door, came upon the sick man at the instant when, by Kitty's direction, they were changing his

linen. The long white ridge of his spine, with the huge, prominent shoulder blades and jutting ribs and

vertebrae, was bare, and Marya Nikolaevna and the waiter were struggling with the sleeve of the nightshirt,

and could not get the long, limp arm into it. Kitty, hurriedly closing the door after Levin, did not look in that

But Kitty heard and saw he was ashamed and uncomfortable at being naked before her.

"I'm not looking, I'm not looking!" she said, putting the arm in. "Marya Nikolaevna, you come this side you

"Please, run over for me, there's a little bottle in my small bag," she said, turning to her husband, "you know,

in the side pocket; bring it, please, and meanwhile they'll finish clearing up here."

Returning with the bottle, Levin found the sick man settled comfortably and everything about him completely

changed. The heavy smell was replaced by the smell of aromatic vinegar, which Kitty with pouting lips and

puffedout, rosy cheeks was squirting through a small tube. There was no dust visible anywhere; a rug was

laid by the bedside. On the table stood medicine bottles and decanters tidily arranged, and the linen needed

was folded up there, and Kitty's broderie anglaise. On the other table by the patient's bed there were candles,

and drink, and powders. The sick man himself, washed and combed, lay in clean sheets on high raised

pillows, in a clean nightshirt with a white collar about his astoundingly thin neck, and, with a new expression

The doctor brought by Levin, and found by him at the club, was not the one who had been attending Nikolai

Levin, and whom he disliked. The new doctor took up a stethoscope and sounded the patient, shook his head,

prescribed medicine, and with extreme minuteness explained first how to take the medicine and then what

diet was to be adhered to. He advised eggs, raw or hardly cooked, and Seltzer water, with new milk at a

certain temperature. When the doctor had gone away the sick man said something to his brother, of which

Levin could distinguish only the last words: "Your Katia." By the expression with which he gazed at her,

"I'm much better already," he said. "Why, with you I should have got well long ago. How fine everything is!"

He took her hand and drew it toward his lips, but, as though afraid she would dislike it, he changed his mind,

let it go, and only stroked it. Kitty took his hand in both of hers and squeezed it.

No one could make out what he said but Kitty; she alone understood. She understood because she was all the

"On the other side," she said to her husband, "he always sleeps on that side. Turn him over it's so

disagreeable calling the servants. I'm not strong enough. Can you?" she said to Marya Nikolaevna.

Terrible as it was to Levin to put his arms round that terrible body, to take hold, under the quilt, of that of

which he preferred to know nothing, under his wife's influence he made his resolute face that she knew so

well, and, putting his arms into the bed took hold of the body, but in spite of his own strength, he was struck

by the strange heaviness of those powerless limbs. While he was turning him over, conscious of the huge

emaciated arm about his neck, Kitty swiftly and noiselessly turned the pillow, beat it up, and settled in it the

sick man's head, smoothing back his hair, which was sticking again to his moist brow.

The sick man kept his brother's hand in his own. Levin felt that he meant to do something with his hand and

was pulling it somewhere. Levin yielded with a sinking heart: yes, he drew it to his mouth and kissed it.

"Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." So Levin thought

Levin thought of the text, not because he considered himself "wise and prudent." He did not consider himself

wise and prudent, but he could not help knowing that he had more intellect than his wife and Agathya

Mikhailovna, and he could not help knowing that when he thought of death, he thought with all the force of

his intellect. He knew too that the brains of many great men, whose thoughts he had read, had brooded over

death and yet knew not a hundredth part of what his wife and Agathya Mikhailovna knew about it. Different

as those two women were, Agathya Mikhailovna and Katia, as his brother Nikolai had called her, and as

Levin particularly liked to call her now, they were quite alike in this. Both knew, without a shade of doubt,

what sort of thing life was, and what was death, and though neither of them could have answered, and would

not even have understood the questions that presented themselves to Levin, both had no doubt of the

significance of this event, and were precisely alike in their way of looking at it, which they shared with

millions of people. The proof that they knew for a certainty the nature of death lay in the fact that they knew

without a second of hesitation how to deal with the dying, and were not frightened by them. Levin, and other

men like him, though they could have said a great deal about death, obviously did not know this since they

were afraid of death, and were absolutely at a loss what to do when people were dying. If Levin had been

alone now with his brother Nikolai, he would have looked at him with terror, and with still greater terror

More than that, he did not know what to say, how to look, how to move. To talk of outside things seemed to

him shocking, impossible; to talk of death and depressing subjects also impossible. To be silent was also

impossible. "If I look at him he will think I am studying him, I am afraid of him; if I don't look at him, he'll

think I'm thinking of other things. If I walk on tiptoe, he will be vexed; to tread firmly, I'm ashamed." Kitty

evidently did not think of herself, and had no time to think about herself: she was thinking about him because

she knew something, and all went well. She even told him about herself and about her wedding, and smiled

and sympathized with him, and petted him, and talked of cases of recovery, and all went well; therefore, she

must know. The proof that her behavior and Agathya Mikhailovna's was not instinctive, animal, irrational,

lay in that apart from the physical treatment, the relief of suffering, both Agathya Mikhailovna and Kitty

required for the dying man something else more important than the physical treatment, and something which

had nothing in common with physical conditions. Agathya Mikhailovna, speaking of a man recently dead,

had said: "Well, thank God, he took the sacrament and received Extreme Unction; God grant each one of us

such a death." Katia, in just the same way, besides all her care about linen, bedsores, drink, found time the

very first day to persuade the sick man of the necessity of taking the sacrament and receiving Extreme

On getting back from the sickroom to their own two rooms for the night, Levin sat with hanging head, not

knowing what to do. To say nothing of supper, of preparing for bed, of considering what they were going to

do, he could not even talk to his wife; he was ashamed to. Kitty, on the contrary, was more active than usual.

She was even livelier than usual. She ordered supper to be brought, herself unpacked their things, and herself

helped to make the beds, and did not even forget to sprinkle them with Persian insecticide. She showed that

alertness, that swiftness of reflection which comes out in men before a battle, in conflict, in the dangerous and

decisive moments of life those moments when a man shows once and for all his value, and that all his past

Everything went rapidly in her hands, and before it was twelve o'clock all their things were arranged tidily

and orderly in such a way that the hotel rooms seemed like home, like her rooms: the beds were made,

Levin felt that it was unpardonable to eat, to sleep, to talk even now, and it seemed to him that every

movement he made was unseemly. She arranged the brushes, but she did it all so that there was nothing

They could neither of them eat, however, and for a long while they could not sleep, and did not even go to

"I am very glad I persuaded him to receive Extreme Unction tomorrow," she said, sitting in her dressing

jacket before her folding looking glass, combing her soft, fragrant hair with a smalltoothed comb. "I have

never seen it, but I know, mamma has told me, there are prayers said for recovery."

"Do you suppose he can possibly recover?" said Levin, watching a slender tress at the back of her round little

"I asked the doctor; he said he couldn't live more than three days. But can they be sure? I'm very glad,

anyway, that I persuaded him," she said, looking askance at her husband through her hair. "Anything is

possible," she added with that peculiar, rather sly expression that was always in her face when she spoke of

Since their conversation about religion during their engagement neither of them had ever started a discussion

of the subject, but she performed all the ceremonies of going to church, saying her prayers, and so on, always

with the unvarying conviction that this ought to be so. In spite of his assertion to the contrary, she was firmly

persuaded that he was as much a Christian as she, and indeed a far better one; and all that he said about it was

simply one of his absurd masculine freaks, just as he would say about her broderie anglaise that good people

"Yes, you see this woman, Marya Nikolaevna, did not know how to manage all this," said Levin. "And... I

must own I'm very, very glad you came. You are such purity that..." He took her hand and did not kiss it (to

kiss her hand in such closeness to death seemed to him improper); he merely squeezed it with a penitent air,

"It would have been miserable for you to be alone," she said, and lifting her hands which hid her cheeks,

flushing with pleasure, twisted her coil of hair on the nape of her neck and pinned it there. "No," she went on,

"What's so awful to me is that I can't but see him as he was when he was young. You would not believe how

"I can quite, quite believe it. How I feel that we might have been friends!" she said; and, distressed at what

"Yes, might have been," he said mournfully. "He's just one of those people of whom they say that they are

"But we have many days before us; we must go to bed," said Kitty, glancing at her tiny watch.

The next day the sick man received the sacrament and Extreme Unction. During the ceremony Nikolai Levin

prayed fervently. His great eyes fastened on the holy icon that was set out on a card table covered with a

colored napkin, expressed such passionate prayer and hope that it was awful to Levin to see it. Levin knew

that this passionate prayer and hope would only make him feel more bitterly the parting from the life he so

loved. Levin knew his brother and the workings of his intellect: he knew that his unbelief came not from life

being easier for him without faith, but had grown up because, step by step, the contemporary scientific

interpretation of natural phenomena crushed out the possibility of faith; and so he knew that his present return

was not a legitimate one, brought about by way of the same working of his intellect, but simply a temporary,

interested return to faith in a desperate hope of recovery. Levin knew too that Kitty had strengthened his hope

by accounts of the marvelous recoveries she had heard of Levin knew all this; and it was agonizingly painful

to him to behold the supplicating, hopeful eyes and the emaciated wrist, lifted with difficulty, making the sign

of the cross on the tense brow, and the prominent shoulders and hollow, gasping chest, which one could not

feel consistent with the life the sick man was praying for. During the sacrament Levin offered prayers, and

did what he, an unbeliever, had done a thousand times. He said, addressing God: "If Thou dost exist, make

this man recover" (of course this same thing has been repeated many times), "and Thou wilt save him and

After Extreme Unction the sick man became suddenly much better. He did not cough once in the course of an

hour, smiled, kissed Kitty's hand, thanking her with tears, and said he was comfortable, free from pain, and

that he felt strong and had an appetite. He even raised himself when his soup was brought, and asked for a

cutlet as well. Hopelessly ill as he was, obvious as it was at the first glance that he could not recover, Levin

and Kitty were for that hour both in the same state of excitement, happy, though fearful of being mistaken.

"Is he better?" "Yes, much." "It's wonderful." "There's nothing wonderful in it." "Anyway, he's better,"

This selfdeception was not of long duration. The sick man fell into a quiet sleep, but he was waked up half

an hour later by his cough. And all at once every hope vanished in those about him and in himself. The reality

of his suffering crushed all hopes in Levin and Kitty, and in the sick man himself, leaving no doubt, no

Without referring to what he had believed in half an hour before, as though ashamed even to recall it, he

asked for iodine to inhale in a bottle covered with perforated paper. Levin gave him the bottle, and the same

look of passionate hope with which he had taken the sacrament was now fastened on his brother, demanding

from him the confirmation of the doctor's words that inhaling iodine worked wonders.

"Isn't Katia here?" he gasped, looking round while Levin reluctantly assented to the doctor's words. "No

then I can say it.... It was for her sake I went through that farce. She's so sweet; but you and I can't deceive

ourselves. This is what I believe in," he said, and, squeezing the bottle in his bony hand, he began breathing

At eight o'clock in the evening Levin and his wife were drinking tea in their room, when Marya Nikolaevna

ran in to them breathlessly. She was pale, and her lips were quivering. "He is dying!" she whispered. "I'm

Both of them ran to him. He was sitting raised up, with one elbow on the bed, his long back bent, and his

"I feel I'm setting off," Nikolai said with difficulty, but with extreme distinctness, deliberately squeezing the

words out of himself. He did not raise his head, but simply turned his eyes upward, without their reaching his

"Because I'm setting off," he repeated, as though he had a liking for the phrase. "It's the end."

"I shall lie down soon enough," he pronounced slowly, "when I'm dead," he said sarcastically, wrathfully.

Levin laid his brother on his back, sat down beside him, and gazed at his face, holding his breath. The dying

man lay with closed eyes, but the muscles twitched from time to time on his forehead, as with one thinking

deeply and intensely. Levin involuntarily thought with him of what it was that was happening to him now,

but in spite of all his mental efforts to keep him company, he saw by the expression of that calm, stern face,

and by the playing muscle above his brow, that for the dying man there was growing clearer and clearer all

"Yes, yes, so," the dying man articulated slowly at intervals. "Wait a little." He was silent again. "Right!" he

pronounced all at once reassuringly, as though all were solved for him. "O Lord!" he murmured, and sighed

For a long while, a very long while, it seemed to Levin, the sick man lay motionless. But he was still alive,

and from time to time he sighed. Levin by now was exhausted from mental strain. He felt that with no mental

effort could he understand what it was that was right. He felt that he could not follow the dying man's

thinking. He could not even think of the problem of death itself, but, with no will of his own, thoughts kept

coming to him of what he had to do next closing the dead man's eyes, dressing him, ordering the coffin.

And, strange to say, he felt utterly cold, and was not conscious of sorrow nor of loss, less still of pity for his

brother. If he had any feeling for his brother at that moment, it was rather envy for the knowledge the dying

A long time more he sat over him so, continually expecting the end. But the end did not come. The door

opened and Kitty appeared. Levin got up to stop her. But at the moment he was getting up, he caught the

"Don't go away," said Nikolai and held out his hand. Levin gave him his, and angrily waved to his wife to go

With the dying man's hand in his hand, he sat for half an hour, an hour, another hour. He did not think of

death at all now. He wondered what Kitty was doing; who lived in the next room; whether the doctor lived in

a house of his own. He longed for food and for sleep. He cautiously drew away his hand and felt the feet. The

feet were cold, but the sick man was still breathing. Levin tried once more to move away on tiptoe, but the

The dawn came; the sick man's condition was unchanged. Levin stealthily withdrew his hand, and, without

looking at the dying man, went off to his own room and went to sleep. When he woke up, instead of news of

his brother's death which he expected, he learned that the sick man had returned to his earlier condition. He

had begun sitting up again, coughing, had begun eating again, talking again, and again had ceased to talk of

death, again had begun to express hope of his recovery, and had become more irritable and gloomier than

ever. No one, neither his brother nor Kitty, could soothe him. He was angry with everyone, and said nasty

things to everyone, reproached everyone for his sufferings, and insisted that they should get him a celebrated

doctor from Moscow. To all inquiries made of him as to how he felt, he made the same answer with an

expression of vindictive reproachfulness: "I'm suffering horribly, intolerably!" The sick man was suffering

more and more, especially from bedsores, which it was impossible now to remedy, and grew more and more

angry with everyone about him, blaming them for everything, and especially for not having brought him a

doctor from Moscow. Kitty tried in every possible way to relieve him, to soothe him; but it was all in vain,

and Levin saw that she herself was exhausted both physically and morally, though she would not admit it.

The sense of death, which had been evoked in all by his taking leave of life on the night when he had sent for

his brother, was broken up. Everyone knew that he must inevitably die soon, that he was halfdead already.

Everyone wished for nothing but that he should die as soon as possible, and everyone, concealing this, gave

him medicines, tried to find remedies and doctors, and deceived him, and themselves, and one another. All

this was falsehood, disgusting, irreverent deceit. And owing to the bent of his character, and because he loved

the dying man more than anyone else did, Levin was most painfully conscious of this deceit.

Levin, who had long been possessed by the idea of reconciling his brothers, at least in face of death, had

written to his brother, Sergei Ivanovich, and having received an answer from him, he read this letter to the

sick man. Sergei Ivanovich wrote that he could not come himself, and in touching terms he begged his

"No, not in the least!" Nikolai answered, vexed at the question. "Tell him to send me a doctor."

Three more days of agony followed; the sick man was still in the same condition. The sense of longing for his

death was felt by everyone now who saw him: by the waiters, and the hotelkeeper, and all the people staying

in the hotel, and the doctor, and Marya Nikolaevna, and Levin, and Kitty. The sick man alone did not express

this feeling, but on the contrary was furious at their not getting him doctors, and went on taking medicine and

talking of life. Only at rare moments, when the opium gave him an instant's relief from his neverceasing

pain, he would sometimes, halfasleep, utter what was ever more intense in his heart than in all the others:

His sufferings, steadily growing more intense, did their work and prepared him for death. There was no

position in which he was not in pain, there was not a minute in which he was unconscious of it, not a limb,

not a part of his body that did not ache and cause him agony. Even the memories, the impressions, the

thoughts of this body awakened in him now the same aversion as the body itself. The sight of other people,

their remarks, his own reminiscences everything was for him a source of agony. Those about him felt this,

and instinctively did not allow themselves to move freely, to talk, to express their wishes before him. All his

There was evidently coming over him that revulsion which would make him look upon death as the goal of

his desires, as happiness. Hitherto each individual desire, aroused by suffering or privation, such as hunger,

fatigue, thirst, had been satisfied by some bodily function giving pleasure. But now no physical craving or

suffering received relief, and the effort to relieve them only caused fresh suffering. And so all desires were

merged in one the desire to be rid of all his sufferings and their source, the body. But he had no words to

express this desire of deliverance, and so he did not speak of it, and from habit asked for the satisfaction of

desires which could not now be satisfied. "Turn me over on the other side," he would say, and immediately

after he would ask to be turned back again as before. "Give me some broth. Take away the broth. Talk of

something: why are you silent?" And directly they began to talk he would close his eyes, and would show

On the tenth day from their arrival in the town, Kitty was unwell. She suffered from headache and sickness,

The doctor opined that the indisposition arose from fatigue and excitement, and prescribed rest.

After dinner, however, Kitty got up and went as with her work to the sick man. He looked at her sternly when

she came in, and smiled contemptuously when she said she had been unwell. That day he was continually

"It will be over today, you will see," said Marya Nikolaevna. Though it was said in a whisper, the sick man,

whose hearing Levin had noticed was very keen, must have heard. Levin said "Hush!" to her, and looked

round at the sick man. Nikolai had heard; but these words produced no effect on him. His eyes had still the

"Why do you think so?" Levin asked her, when she had followed him into the corridor.

"Like this," she said, tugging at the folds of her woolen skirt. Levin noticed, indeed, that all that day the

Marya Nikolaevna's prediction came true. Toward night the sick man was not able to lift his hands, and could

only gaze before him with the same intensely concentrated expression in his eyes. Even when his brother or

Kitty bent over him, so that he could see them, he looked just the same. Kitty sent for the priest to read the

While the priest was reading it, the dying man did not show any sign of life; his eyes were closed. Levin,

Kitty and Marya Nikolaevna stood at the bedside. The priest had not quite finished reading the prayer when

the dying man stretched, sighed, and opened his eyes. The priest, on finishing the prayer, put the cross to the

cold forehead, then slowly returned it to the stand, and, after standing in silence for two minutes more, he

"He is gone," said the priest, and would have moved away; but suddenly there was a faint stir in the

mustaches of the dead man, that seemed glued together, and quite distinctly in the hush they heard from the

And a minute later the face brightened, a smile came out under the mustaches, and the women who had

The sight of his brother, and the nearness of death, revived in Levin that sense of horror in the face of the

insolvable enigma, together with the nearness and inevitability of death, that had come upon him that autumn

evening when his brother had come to him. This feeling was now even stronger than before; even less than

before did he feel capable of apprehending the meaning of death, and its inevitability rose up before him

more terrible than ever. But now, thanks to his wife's presence, that feeling did not reduce him to despair. In

spite of death, he felt the need of life and love. He felt that love saved him from despair, and that his love,

The one mystery of death, still unsolved, had scarcely passed before his eyes, when another mystery had

The doctor confirmed his former suppositions in regard to Kitty. Her indisposition consisted of pregnancy.

From the moment when Alexei Alexandrovich understood from his interviews with Betsy and with Stepan

Arkadyevich that all that was expected of him was to leave his wife in peace, without burdening her with his

presence, and that his wife herself desired this, he felt so distraught that he could come to no decision by

himself; he did not know himself what he wanted now, and, putting himself in the hands of those who were

so pleased to interest themselves in his affairs, he met everything with unqualified assent. It was only when

Anna had left his house, and the English governess sent to ask him whether she should dine with him or

separately, that for the first time he clearly comprehended his position, and was appalled by it.

Most difficult of all in this position was the fact that he could not in any way connect and reconcile his past

with the present. It was not the past when he had lived happily with his wife that troubled him. The transition

from that past to a knowledge of his wife's unfaithfulness he had already lived through miserably; that state

had been painful, but he could understand it. If his wife had then, on declaring to him her unfaithfulness, left

him, he would have been wounded, unhappy, but he would not have been in the hopeless position

incomprehensible to himself in which he felt himself now. He could not now reconcile his immediate past,

his tenderness, his love for his sick wife, and for the other man's child with what was now the case with the

fact that, seemingly in return for all this, he now found himself alone, put to shame, a laughingstock, needed

For the first two days after his wife's departure Alexei Alexandrovich received petitioners and his head clerk,

drove to the committee, and went down to dinner in the dining room as usual. Without giving himself a

reason for what he was doing, he strained every nerve of his being for those two days, simply to preserve an

appearance of composure, and even of indifference. Answering inquiries about the disposition of Anna

Arkadyevna's rooms and belongings, he had exercised immense selfcontrol to appear like a man in whose

eyes what had occurred was not unforeseen nor out of the ordinary course of events, and he attained his aim:

no one could have detected in him any signs of despair. But on the second day after her departure, when

Kornei gave him a bill from a fashionable draper's shop, which Anna had forgotten to pay, and announced

"Excuse me, Your Excellency, for venturing to trouble you. But if you direct us to apply to Her Excellency,

Alexei Alexandrovich pondered, as it seemed to the shopman, and all at once, turning round, he sat down to

the table. Burying his head in his hands, he sat for a long while in that position, made several attempts to

Kornei, perceiving his master's emotion, asked the shopman to call another time. Left alone, Alexei

Alexandrovich realized that he had not the strength to keep up the role of firmness and composure any longer.

He gave orders for the carriage that was awaiting him to be taken back, and for no one to be admitted, and he

He felt that he could not endure the weight of universal contempt and exasperation, which he had distinctly

seen in the faces of the shopman and of Kornei and of everyone, without exception, whom he had met during

these two days. He felt that he could not turn aside from himself the hatred of men, because that hatred did

not come from his being bad (in that case he could have tried to be better), but from his being shamefully and

repulsively unhappy. He knew that for this, for the very fact that his heart was torn with grief, they would be

merciless to him. He felt that men would crush him as dogs strangle a mangled dog, yelping with pain. He

knew that his sole means of security against people was to hide his wounds from them, and instinctively he

tried to do this for two days, but now he felt incapable of keeping up the unequal struggle.

His despair was even intensified by the consciousness that he was utterly alone in his sorrow. In all Peterburg

there was not a human being to whom he could express what he was feeling, who would feel for him, not as a

high official, not as a member of society, but simply as a suffering man; indeed, he had not such a one in the

Alexei Alexandrovich grew up an orphan. There were two brothers. They did not remember their father, and

their mother died when Alexei Alexandrovich was ten years old. The property was a small one. Their uncle,

Karenin, a government official of high standing, at one time a favorite of the late Czar, had brought them up.

On completing his high school and university courses with medals, Alexei Alexandrovich had, with his

uncle's aid, immediately started in a prominent position in the service, and from that time forward he had

devoted himself exclusively to political ambition. In the high school and the university, and afterward in the

service, Alexei Alexandrovich had never formed a close friendship with anyone. His brother had been the

person nearest to his heart, but he had a post in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and was always abroad,

While he was governor of a province, Anna's aunt, a wealthy provincial lady, had brought him middleaged

as he was, though young for a governor together with her niece, and had succeeded in putting him in such a

position that he had either to declare himself or to leave town. Alexei Alexandrovich hesitated a great while.

There were at the time as many reasons for the step as against it, and there was no overbalancing

consideration to outweigh his invariable rule of abstaining when in doubt. But Anna's aunt had through a

common acquaintance insinuated that he had already compromised the girl, and that he was in honor bound

to propose to her. He proposed, and concentrated on his betrothed and his wife all the feeling of which he was

The attachment he felt to Anna precluded in his heart every need of intimate relations with others. And now,

among all his acquaintances, he had not one friend. He had plenty of socalled connections, but no

friendships. Alexei Alexandrovich had plenty of people whom he could invite to dinner, to whose sympathy

he could appeal in any public affair he was concerned about, whose interest he could reckon upon for anyone

he wished to help, with whom he could candidly discuss other people's business and affairs of state. But his

relations with these people were confined to one clearly defined channel, and had a certain routine from

which it was impossible to depart. There was one man, a comrade of his at the university, with whom he had

become friendly later, and with whom he could have spoken of a personal sorrow; but this friend had a post

in the Department of Education in a remote part of Russia. Of the people in Peterburg the most intimate and

Mikhail Vassilievich Sludin, the head clerk, was a straightforward, intelligent, goodhearted and conscientious

man, and Alexei Alexandrovich was aware of his personal good will. But their five years of official work

together seemed to have put a barrier between them that cut off warmer relations.

After signing the papers brought him, Alexei Alexandrovich had sat for a long while in silence, glancing at

Mikhail Vassilievich, and several times he attempted to speak, but could not. He had already prepared the

phrase: "You have heard of my trouble?" But he ended by saying as usual: "So you'll get this ready for me?"

The other person was the doctor, who had also a kindly feeling for him; but there had long existed a silent

understanding between them that both were weighed down by work, and always in a hurry.

Of his women friends, foremost among them Countess Lidia Ivanovna, Alexei Alexandrovich never thought.

Alexei Alexandrovich had forgotten the Countess Lidia Ivanovna but she had not forgotten him. At the

bitterest moment of his lonely despair she came to him, and, without waiting to be announced, walked

straight into his study. She found him as he was sitting with his head in both hands.

"F'ai force la consigne," she said, walking in with rapid steps and breathing hard with excitement and rapid

exertion. "I have heard all! Alexei Alexandrovich! Dear friend!" she went on, warmly squeezing his hand in

Alexei Alexandrovich, frowning, got up, and, disengaging his hand, moved a chair up for her.

"Won't you sit down, Countess? I'm seeing no one because I'm unwell, Countess," he said, and his lips

"Dear friend!" repeated Countess Lidia Ivanovna, never taking her eyes off his, and suddenly her eyebrows

rose at the inner corners, describing a triangle on her forehead, her ugly yellow face becoming still uglier, but

Alexei Alexandrovich felt that she was sorry for him and was preparing to cry. And he too was softened; he

"Dear friend!" she said in a voice breaking with emotion. "You ought not to give way to grief. Your sorrow is

"I am crushed, I am annihilated, I am no longer a man!" said Alexei Alexandrovich, letting go her hand, but

still gazing into her brimming eyes. "My position is so awful because I can find nowhere, I cannot find within

"You will find support; seek it not in me, though I beseech you to believe in my friendship," she said, with a

sigh. "Our support is love, that love that He has vouchsafed us. His burden is light," she said, with the look of

ecstasy Alexei Alexandrovich knew so well. "He will be your support and your succor."

Although there was in these words a flavor of that sentimental emotion at her own lofty feelings, and that

new mystical fervor which had lately gained ground in Peterburg, and which seemed to Alexei

"It's not the loss of what I no longer have; it's not that!" pursued Alexei Alexandrovich. "I do not grieve for

that. But I cannot help feeling ashamed before other people for the position I am placed in. It is wrong, but I

"It was not you who performed that noble act of forgiveness, at which I was moved to ecstasy, and everyone

else too, but He, working within your heart," said Countess Lidia Ivanovna, raising her eyes rapturously, "and

Alexei Alexandrovich knit his brows, and, crooking his hands, he cracked his fingers.

"One must know all the details," he said in his high voice. "A man's strength has its limits, Countess, and I

have reached my limits. The whole day I have had to be making arrangements, arrangements about household

matters arising" (he emphasized the word arising) "from my new, solitary position. The servants, the

governess, the accounts.... These pinpricks have stabbed me to the heart, and I have not the strength to bear it.

At dinner... yesterday, I was almost getting up from the dinner table. I could not bear the way my son looked

at me. He did not ask me the meaning of it all, but he wanted to ask, and I could not bear the look in his eyes.

He was afraid to look at me, but that is not all..." Alexei Alexandrovich would have referred to the bill that

had been brought him, but his voice shook, and he stopped. That bill on blue paper, for a hat and ribbons, he

"I understand, dear friend," said Lidia Ivanovna. "I understand it all. Succor and comfort you will find not in

me, though I have come only to aid you, if I can. If I could take from off you all these petty, humiliating

cares... I understand that a woman's word, a woman's superintendence, is needed. You will intrust it to me?"

"Together we will take care of Seriozha. Practical affairs are not my strong point. But I will set to work. I will

"But, dear friend, do not give way to the feeling of which you spoke being ashamed of what is the

Christian's highest glory: he who humbles himself shall be exalted. And you cannot thank me. You must

thank Him, and pray to Him for succor. In Him alone we find peace, consolation, salvation, and love," she

said, and turning her eyes heavenward, she began praying, as Alexei Alexandrovich gathered from her

Alexei Alexandrovich listened to her now, and those expressions which had seemed to him, if not distasteful,

at least exaggerated, now seemed to him natural and consolatory. Alexei Alexandrovich had disliked this new

enthusiastic fervor. He was a believer, who was interested in religion primarily in its political aspect, and the

new doctrine which ventured upon several new interpretations, just because it paved the way to discussion

and analysis, was in principle disagreeable to him. He had hitherto taken up a cold and even antagonistic

attitude to this new doctrine, and with Countess Lidia Ivanovna, who had been carried away by it, he had

never argued, but by silence had assiduously parried her attempts to provoke him into argument. Now for the

"I am very, very grateful to you, both for your deeds and for your words," he said, when she had finished

"Now I will enter upon my duties," she said with a smile after a pause, as she wiped away the traces of tears.

"I am going to Seriozha. Only in the last extremity shall I apply to you." And she got up and went out.

Countess Lidia Ivanovna went into Seriozha's part of the house, and, dropping tears on the scared child's

Countess Lidia Ivanovna kept her promise. She did actually take upon herself the care of the organization and

management of Alexei Alexandrovich's household. But she had not overstated the case when saying that

practical affairs were not her strong point. All her arrangements had to be modified because they could not be

carried out, and they were modified by Kornei, Alexei Alexandrovich's valet, who, though no one was aware

of the fact, now managed Karenin's household, and quietly and discreetly reported to his master, while the

latter was dressing, all it was necessary for him to know. But Lidia Ivanovna's help was none the less real;

she gave Alexei Alexandrovich moral support in the consciousness of her love and respect for him, and still

more (as it was soothing to her to believe) by having almost turned him to Christianity that is, from an

indifferent and apathetic believer she had turned him into an ardent and steadfast adherent of the new

interpretation of Christian doctrine, which had been gaining ground of late in Peterburg. It was easy for

Alexei Alexandrovich to believe in this teaching. Alexei Alexandrovich, like Lidia Ivanovna indeed, and

others who shared their views, was completely devoid of profundity of imagination, that spiritual faculty in

virtue of which the ideas evoked by the imagination become so actual that they must needs be in harmony

with other ideas, and with reality itself. He saw nothing impossible and absurd in the idea that death, though

existing for unbelievers, did not exist for him, and that, as he was possessed of the most perfect faith, of the

measure of which he was himself the judge, there was therefore no sin in his soul, and he was experiencing

It is true that the erroneousness and shallowness of this conception of his faith was dimly perceptible to

Alexei Alexandrovich, and he knew that when, without the slightest idea that his forgiveness was the action

of a higher power, he had surrendered directly to the feeling of forgiveness, he had felt more happiness than

now, when he was thinking every instant that Christ was in his heart, and that in signing official papers he

was doing His will. But for Alexei Alexandrovich it was a necessity to think in that way; it was such a

necessity for him in his humiliation to have some elevated standpoint, however imaginary, from which,

looked down upon by all, he could look down on others, that he clung, as to his one salvation, to his delusion

The Countess Lidia Ivanovna had, as a very young and enthusiastic girl, been married to a wealthy man of

high rank, a very goodnatured, jovial, and extremely dissipated rake. One month after marriage her husband

abandoned her, and her enthusiastic protestations of affection he met with an irony and even hostility which

people, knowing the Count's good heart, and seeing no defects in the enthusiastic Lidia, were at a loss to

explain. Though they were divorced and lived apart, yet whenever the husband met the wife, he invariably

behaved to her with the same malignant irony, the cause of which was incomprehensible.

Countess Lidia Ivanovna had long given up being in love with her husband, but from that time she had never

given up being in love with someone. She was in love with several people at once, both men and women; she

had been in love with almost everyone who had been particularly distinguished in any way. She was in love

with all the new princes and princesses who married into the Imperial family; she had been in love with one

archbishop, one vicar, and one parish priest; she had been in love with one journalist, three Slavophils, with

Komissarov, with one minister, one doctor, one English missionary, and Karenin. All these passions,

constantly waning or growing more ardent, did not prevent her from keeping up the most extended and

complicated relations with the Court and fashionable society. But from the time that, after Karenin's trouble,

she had taken him under special protection, from the time that she had set to work in Karenin's household

looking after his welfare, she felt that all her other attachments were not the real thing, and that she was now

genuinely in love, and with no one but Karenin. The feeling she now experienced for him seemed to her

stronger than any of her former feelings. Analyzing her feeling, and comparing it with former passions, she

distinctly perceived that she would not have been in love with Komissarov if he had not saved the life of the

Czar; that she would not have been in love with RistichKudzhitsky if there had been no Slavonic question;

but that she loved Karenin for himself, for his lofty, uncomprehended soul, for the sweet to her high notes

of his voice, for his drawling intonation, his weary eyes, his character, and his soft white hands with their

swollen veins. She was not simply overjoyed at meeting him, but she sought in his face signs of the

impression she was making on him. She tried to please him, not by her words only, but in her whole person.

For his sake it was that she now lavished more care on her dress than before. She caught herself in reveries on

what might have been, if she had not been married and he had been free. She blushed with emotion when he

came into the room, she could not repress a smile of rapture when he said anything amiable to her.

For several days now Countess Lidia Ivanovna had been in a state of intense excitement. She had learned that

Anna and Vronsky were in Peterburg. Alexei Alexandrovich must be saved from seeing her, he must be

saved even from the torturing knowledge that that awful woman was in the same town with him, and that he

Lidia Ivanovna made inquiries through her friends as to what those shocking people, as she called Anna and

Vronsky, intended doing, and she endeavored so to guide every movement of her friend during those days

that he might not come across them. The young adjutant, a friend of Vronsky, through whom she obtained her

information, and who hoped through Countess Lidia Ivanovna to obtain a concession, told her that they had

finished their business and were going away next day. Lidia Ivanovna had already begun to calm down, when

the next morning a note was brought her, the handwriting of which she recognized with horror. It was the

handwriting of Anna Karenina. The envelope was of paper as thick as bast; on the oblong yellow paper there

It was some time before Countess Lidia Ivanovna could sit down to read the letter. Her excitement brought on

an attack of asthma, to which she was subject. When she had recovered her composure, she read the

"Madame la Comtesse The Christian feelings with which your heart is filled give me the, I feel,

unpardonable boldness to write to you. I am miserable at being separated from my son. I entreat permission

to see him once before my departure. Forgive me for recalling myself to your memory. I apply to you and not

to Alexei Alexandrovich, simply because I do not wish to cause that generous man to suffer in remembering

me. Knowing your friendship for him, I know you will understand me. Could you send Seriozha to me, or

should I come to the house at some fixed hour, or will you let me know when and where I could see him

away from home? I do not anticipate a refusal, knowing the magnanimity of him with whom it rests. You

cannot conceive the craving I have to see him, and so cannot conceive the gratitude your help will arouse in

Everything in this letter exasperated Countess Lidia Ivanovna: its contents, and the allusion to magnanimity,

"Say that there is no answer," said Countess Lidia Ivanovna, and immediately opening her blotting book, she

wrote to Alexei Alexandrovich that she hoped to see him at one o'clock at the levee.

"I must talk with you of a grave and painful subject. There we will arrange where to meet. Best of all at my

house, where I will order tea as you like it. Urgent. He lays the cross, but He gives the strength to bear it," she

Countess Lidia Ivanovna usually wrote some two or three letters a day to Alexei Alexandrovich. She enjoyed

that form of communication, which gave opportunity for a refinement and air of mystery not afforded by their

The levee was drawing to a close. People met as they were going away, and gossiped of the latest news, of

the newly bestowed honors, and the changes in the positions of the higher functionaries.

"If only Countess Marya Borissovna were Minister of War, and Princess Vatkovsky were Commander in

Chief," said a grayheaded, little old man in a goldembroidered uniform, addressing a tall, handsome maid

"You have an appointment already. You're over the Ecclesiastical Department. And your assistant's Karenin."

"No. Just look at him," said the little old man, pointing with his embroidered hat to Karenin in a Court

uniform, with the new red ribbon across his shoulders, standing in the doorway of the hall with an influential

member of the Imperial Council. "Pleased and happy as brass," he added, stopping to shake hands with a

"From overwork. He's always drawing up projects nowadays. He won't let a poor devil go nowadays till he's

"Looking older, did you say? Il fait des passions. I believe Countess Lidia Ivanovna's jealous now of his

"Well, not here in the palace, but in Peterburg. I met her yesterday with Alexei Vronsky, bras dessus, bras

"C'est un homme qui n'a pas..." the gentleman of the bedchamber was beginning, but he stopped to make

Thus people talked incessantly of Alexei Alexandrovich, finding fault with him and laughing at him, while

he, blocking up the way of the member of the Imperial Council he had captured, was explaining to him point

by point his new financial project, never interrupting his discourse for an instant for fear he should escape.

Almost at the same time that his wife left Alexei Alexandrovich there had come to him that bitterest moment

in the life of an official the moment when his upward career comes to a full stop. This full stop had arrived

and everyone perceived it, but Alexei Alexandrovich himself was not yet aware that his career was over.

Whether it was due to his feud with Stremov, or his misfortune with his wife, or simply that Alexei

Alexandrovich had reached his predestined limits, it had become evident to everyone in the course of that

year that his career was at an end. He still filled a position of consequence, he sat on many commissions and

committees, but he was a man whose day was over, and from whom nothing was expected. Whatever he said,

whatever he proposed, was heard as though it were something long familiar, and the very thing that was not

needed. But Alexei Alexandrovich was not aware of this, and, on the contrary, being cut off from direct

participation in governmental activity, he saw more clearly than ever the errors and defects in the action of

others, and thought it his duty to point out means for their correction. Shortly after his separation from his

wife, he began writing his first note on the new judicial procedure, the first of the endless series of notes he

Alexei Alexandrovich did not merely fail to observe his hopeless position in the official world, he was not

merely free from anxiety on this head he was positively more satisfied than ever with his own activity.

"He that is married careth for the things of the world, how he may please his wife; he that is unmarried careth

for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord," says the Apostle Paul, and Alexei

Alexandrovich, who was now guided in every action by Scripture, often recalled this text. It seemed to him

that ever since he had been left without a wife, he had, in these very projects of reform, been serving the Lord

The unmistakable impatience of the member of the Council trying to get away from him did not trouble

Alexei Alexandrovich; he gave up his exposition only when the member of the Council, seizing his chance

Left alone, Alexei Alexandrovich looked down, collecting his thoughts, then looked casually about him and

"And how strong they all are how sound physically," thought Alexei Alexandrovich, looking at the

powerfully built gentleman of the bedchamber with his wellgroomed, perfumed whiskers, and at the red

neck of the Prince, pinched by his tight uniform. He had to pass them on his way. "Truly is it said that all the

world is evil," he thought, with another sidelong glance at the calves of the gentleman of the bedchamber.

Moving forward deliberately, Alexei Alexandrovich bowed with his customary air of weariness and dignity

to the gentleman who had been talking about him, and, looking toward the door, his eyes sought Countess

"Ah! Alexei Alexandrovich!" said the little old man, with a malicious light in his eyes, at the moment when

Karenin had come up to them, and was nodding with a frigid gesture. "I haven't congratulated you yet," said

"Thank you," answered Alexei Alexandrovich. "What an exquisite day today," he added, laying emphasis in

That they laughed at him he was well aware, but he did not expect anything but hostility from them; he was

Catching sight of the yellow shoulders of Lidia Ivanovna jutting out above her corset, and her fine pensive

eyes summoning him to her, Alexei Alexandrovich smiled, revealing untarnished white teeth, and went

Lidia Ivanovna's dress had cost her great pains, as indeed all her dresses had done of late. Her aim in dress

was now quite the reverse of what she had pursued thirty years before. Then her desire had been to adorn

herself with something, and the more adorned the better. Now, on the contrary, she was perforce decked out

in a way so inconsistent with her age and her figure, that her one anxiety was to contrive that the contrast

between these adornments and her own exterior should not be too appalling. And as far as Alexei

Alexandrovich was concerned she succeeded, and was in his eyes attractive. For him she was the one island

not only of good will to him, but of love in the midst of the sea of hostility and jeering that surrounded him.

Passing through rows of ironical eyes, he was drawn as naturally to her loving glance as a plant to the sun.

Suppressing a smile of pleasure, he shrugged his shoulders, closing his eyes, as though to say that that could

not be a source of joy to him. Countess Lidia Ivanovna was very well aware that it was one of his chief

"I can't say I was quite pleased with him," said Alexei Alexandrovich, raising his eyebrows and opening his

eyes. "And Sitnikov is not satisfied with him." (Sitnikov was the tutor to whom Seriozha's secular education

had been intrusted.) "As I have mentioned to you, there's a sort of coldness in him toward the most important

questions which ought to touch the heart of every man and every child...." Alexei Alexandrovich began

expounding his views on the sole question that interested him outside the service the education of his son.

When Alexei Alexandrovich, with Lidia Ivanovna's help, had been brought back anew to life and activity, he

felt it his duty to undertake the education of the son left on his hands. Having never before taken any interest

in educational questions, Alexei Alexandrovich devoted some time to the theoretical study of the subject.

After reading several books on anthropology, education, and didactics, Alexei Alexandrovich drew up a plan

of education, and, engaging the best tutor in Peterburg to superintend it, he set to work, and the subject

"Yes but the heart! I see in him his father's heart, and with such a heart a child cannot go far wrong," said

"You're coming to me," said Countess Lidia Ivanovna, after a pause; "we have to speak of a subject painful

for you. I would give anything to have spared you certain memories, but others are not of the same mind. I

Alexei Alexandrovich shuddered at the allusion to his wife, but immediately his face assumed the deathlike

Countess Lidia Ivanovna looked at him ecstatically, and tears of rapture at the greatness of his soul came into

When Alexei Alexandrovich came into the Countess Lidia Ivanovna's snug little boudoir, decorated with old

china and hung with portraits, the lady herself had not yet made her appearance.

A cloth was laid on a round table, and on it stood a china tea service and a silver teakettle and spirit lamp.

Alexei Alexandrovich looked idly about at the endless familiar portraits which adorned the room, and, sitting

down to the table, he opened a New Testament lying upon it. The rustle of the Countess's silk skirt drew his

"Well, now, we can sit quietly," said Countess Lidia Ivanovna, slipping hurriedly with an agitated smile

After some words of preparation, Countess Lidia Ivanovna, breathing hard and flushing crimson, gave into

"I don't think I have the right to refuse her," he said, timidly lifting his eyes.

His face showed irresolution, and a seeking for counsel, support, and guidance, in a matter he did not

"No," Countess Lidia Ivanovna interrupted him; "there are limits to everything. I can understand immorality,"

she said, not quite truthfully, since she never could understand that which leads women to immorality; "but I

don't understand cruelty to whom? To you! How can she stay in the town where you are? No, the longer one

lives the more one learns. And I'm learning to understand your loftiness and her baseness."

"Who is to cast a stone?" said Alexei Alexandrovich, unmistakably pleased with the part he had to play. "I

have forgiven all, and so I cannot deprive her of what is exacted by love in her by her love for her son...."

"But is that love, my friend? Is it sincere? Admitting that you have forgiven that you forgive... have we the

right to work on the soul of that angel? He looks on her as dead. He prays for her, and beseeches God to have

Countess Lidia Ivanovna hid her face in her hands and was silent. She was praying.

"If you ask my advice," she said, having finished her prayer and uncovered her face, "I do not advise you to

do this. Do you suppose I don't see how you are suffering, how this has torn open your wounds? But

supposing that, as always, you don't think of yourself what can it lead to? To fresh suffering for you, to

torture for the child. If there were a trace of humanity left in her, she ought not to wish it herself. No, I have

no hesitation in saying I advise against it, and if you will intrust it to me, I will write to her."

And Alexei Alexandrovich consented, and Countess Lidia Ivanovna sent the following letter in French:

"Dear Madame To be reminded of you might result in your son's asking questions, which could not be

answered without implanting in the child's soul a spirit of censure toward what should be for him sacred, and

therefore I beg you to interpret your husband's refusal in the spirit of Christian love. I pray to Almighty God

This letter attained the secret object which Countess Lidia Ivanovna had concealed from herself. It wounded

For his part, Alexei Alexandrovich, on returning home from Lidia Ivanovna's, could not all that day

concentrate himself on his usual pursuits, and find that spiritual peace of one saved and believing which he

The thought of his wife, who had so greatly sinned against him, and toward whom he had been so saintly, as

Countess Lidia Ivanovna had so justly told him, ought not to have troubled him; but he was not easy; he

could not understand the book he was reading; he could not drive away harassing recollections of his

relations with her, of the mistake which, as it now seemed, he had made in regard to her. The memory of how

he had received her confession of infidelity on their way home from the races (especially his having insisted

only on the observance of external decorum, and not having sent a challenge) tortured him like a remorse. He

was tortured, too, by the thought of the letter he had written her; and, most of all, his forgiveness, which

nobody wanted, and his care of the other man's child, seared his heart with shame and remorse.

And just the same feeling of shame and remorse he felt now, as he reviewed all his past with her, recalling the

"But how have I been to blame?" he said to himself. And this question always excited another question in

him whether they felt differently, did their loving and marrying differently, these Vronskys and Oblonskys...

these gentlemen of the bedchamber, with their fine calves. And there passed before his mind a whole series of

these succulent, vigorous, selfconfident men, who always and everywhere drew his inquisitive attention in

spite of himself. He tried to dispel these thoughts, he tried to persuade himself that he was not living for this

transient life, but for the life of eternity, and that there was peace and love in his heart. But the fact that he

had in this transient, trivial life made, as it seemed to him, a few trivial mistakes, tortured him as though the

eternal salvation in which he believed had no existence. But this temptation did not last long, and soon there

was reestablished once more in Alexei Alexandrovich's soul the peace and the loftiness by virtue of which he

"Well, Kapitonich?" said Seriozha, coming back rosy and goodhumored from his walk the day before his

birthday, and giving his Russian plaited overcoat to the tall old hall porter, who smiled down at the little

person from the height of his long figure. "Well, has the bandaged official been here today? Did papa see

"He saw him. The minute the head clerk came out, I announced him," said the hall porter with a

"Seriozha!" said his Slavonic tutor, stopping in the doorway leading to the inner rooms. "Take it off

yourself." But Seriozha, though he heard the tutor's feeble voice, did not pay attention to it. He stood keeping

The bandaged official, who had already been seven times to ask some favor of Alexei Alexandrovich,

interested both Seriozha and the hall porter. Seriozha had come upon him in the hall, and had heard him

plaintively beg the hall porter to announce him, saying that he and his children had death staring them in the

Since then Seriozha, having met him a second time in the hall, took great interest in him.

"Come, sir," said the hall porter; then with a shake of his head he whispered: "Something from the Countess."

Seriozha understood at once that what the hall porter was speaking of was a present from Countess Lidia

"Nosomething else. Run along, run along, Vassilii Lukich is calling you," said the porter, hearing the tutor's

steps approaching, and, carefully taking away from his shoulder knot the little hand in the glove halfpulled

"Vassilii Lukich, I'm coming in one tiny minute!" answered Seriozha with gay and loving smile which always

Seriozha was too happy; everything was too delightful for him to be able to help sharing with his friend the

porter the family good fortune, of which he had heard from Lidia Ivanovna's niece during his walk in the

public gardens. This piece of good news seemed to him particularly important from its coming at the same

time with the joy of the bandaged official, and his own joy at toys having come for him. It seemed to

"Glad at the Czar's gracious favor? I should think so! It's a proof he's deserved it," said the porter sternly and

Seriozha fell to musing, gazing up at the face of the porter, which he had thoroughly studied in every detail,

especially at his chin, which hung down between the gray whiskers never seen by anyone but Seriozha, who

"When is she to come on weekdays? They've their lessons to learn, too. And you've your lesson, sir; run

On coming into the room Seriozha, instead of sitting down to his lessons, told his tutor of his supposition that

what had been brought him must be a toy railway. "What do you think?" he inquired.

But Vassilii Lukich was thinking of nothing but the necessity of learning the grammar lesson for the teacher,

"No, do just tell me, Vassilii Lukich," he asked suddenly, when he was seated at their worktable with the

book in his hands, "what is greater than the Alexandre Nevsky? You know papa's received the Alexandre

Vassilii Lukich replied that the Vladimir was greater than the Alexandre Nevsky.

"What you don't know?" And Seriozha, leaning on his elbows, sank into deep meditation.

His meditations were of the most complex and diverse character. He imagined his father's having been

suddenly presented with both the Vladimir and the Andrei today, and in consequence being much better

tempered at his lesson; and dreamed how, when he was grown up, he would himself receive all the orders,

and what might be invented higher than the Andrei. Directly any higher order were invented, he would win it.

The time passed in such meditations, and when the teacher came, the lesson about the adverbs of place and

time and manner of action was not ready, and the teacher was not only displeased, but hurt. This touched

Seriozha. He felt he was not to blame for not having learned the lesson; however much he tried, he was

utterly unable to do it. As long as the teacher was explaining to him, he believed him and seemed to

comprehend, but as soon as he was left alone, he was positively unable to recollect and to understand that the

short and familiar word "suddenly" is an adverb of manner of action. Still he was sorry that he had

"You'd much better be thinking about your work. Birthdays are of no importance to a rational being. It's a day

Seriozha looked intently at the teacher, at his scanty beard, at his spectacles, which had slipped down below

the ridge on his nose, and fell into so deep a reverie that he heard nothing of what the teacher was explaining

to him. He knew that the teacher did not think what he had said he felt it from the tone in which it was said.

"But why have they all agreed to speak, just in the same manner, always the dreariest and most useless stuff?

Why does he keep me off; why doesn't he love me?" he asked himself mournfully, and could not think of an

After the lesson with the teacher of grammar came his father's lesson. While waiting for his father, Seriozha

sat at the table playing with a penknife, and fell to musing. Among Seriozha's favorite occupations was

searching for his mother during his walks. He did not believe in death generally, and in her death in

particular, in spite of what Lidia Ivanovna had told him and his father had confirmed, and it was just because

of that, and after he had been told she was dead, that he had begun looking for her when out for a walk. Every

woman of full, graceful figure with dark hair was his mother. At the sight of such a woman such a feeling of

tenderness stirred within him that his breath failed him, and tears came into his eyes. And he was on tiptoe

with expectation that she would come up to him, would lift her veil. All her face would be visible, she would

smile, she would hug him, he would sniff her fragrance, feel the softness of her arms, and cry with happiness,

just as he had one evening lain on her lap while she tickled him, and he laughed and bit her white,

ringcovered fingers. Later, when he accidentally learned from his old nurse that his mother was not dead,

and his father and Lidia Ivanovna had explained to him that she was dead to him because she was wicked

(which he could not possibly believe, because he loved her), he went on seeking her and expecting her in the

same way. That day in the public gardens there had been a lady in a lilac veil, whom he had watched with a

throbbing heart, believing it to be her as she came toward them along the path. The lady had not come up to

them, but had disappeared somewhere. That day, more intensely than ever, Seriozha felt a rush of love for

her, and now, waiting for his father, he forgot everything, and cut all round the edge of the table with his

Seriozha jumped up and went up to his father, and, kissing his hand, looked at him intently, trying to discover

"Did you have a good walk?" said Alexei Alexandrovich, sitting down in his easy chair, pulling the volume

of the Old Testament to him and opening it. Although Alexei Alexandrovich had more than once told

Seriozha that every Christian ought to know Scripture history thoroughly, he often referred to the Bible

"Yes, it was very good indeed, papa," said Seriozha, sitting sideways on his chair and rocking it, which was

forbidden. "I saw Nadinka" (Nadinka was a niece of Lidia Ivanovna's who was being brought up in her

"First of all, don't rock your chair, please," said Alexei Alexandrovich. "And secondly, it's not the reward

that's precious, but the work itself. And I could have wished you had understood that. If you now are going to

work, to study, in order to win a reward, then the work will seem hard to you; but when you work" (Alexei

Alexandrovich, as he spoke, thought of how he had been sustained by a sense of duty through the wearisome

labor of the morning, consisting of signing one hundred and eighty papers), "loving your work, you will find

Seriozha's eyes hitherto shining with gaiety and tenderness, grew dull and dropped before his father's gaze.

This was the same longfamiliar tone his father always took with him, and Seriozha had learned by now to

fall in with it. His father always talked to him so Seriozha felt as though he were addressing some boy of

his own imagination, one of those boys who exist in books, utterly unlike himself. And Seriozha always tried,

The lesson consisted of learning by heart several verses out of the Evangel and the repetition of the beginning

of the Old Testament. The verses from the Evangel Seriozha knew fairly well, but at the moment when he

was saying them he became so absorbed in watching the sharply protruding, bony knobbiness of his father's

forehead, that he lost the thread, and he transposed the end of one verse and the beginning of another. It was

evident to Alexei Alexandrovich that he did not understand what he was saying, and this irritated him.

He frowned, and began explaining what Seriozha had heard many times before and never could remember,

because he understood it too well, just as that "suddenly" is an adverb of manner of action. Seriozha looked

with scared eyes at his father, and could think of nothing but whether his father would make him repeat what

he had said, as he sometimes did. And this thought so alarmed Seriozha that he now understood nothing. But

his father did not make him repeat it, and passed on to the lesson out of the Old Testament. Seriozha

recounted the events themselves well enough, but when he had to answer questions as to what certain events

prefigured, he knew nothing, though he had already been punished over this lesson. The passage at which he

was utterly unable to say anything, and began fidgeting and cutting the table and swinging his chair, was

where he had to tell of the patriarchs before the Flood. He did not know one of them, except Enoch, who had

been taken up alive to heaven. Last time he had remembered their names, but now he had forgotten them

utterly, chiefly because Enoch was the personage he liked best in the whole of the Old Testament, and

Enoch's translation to heaven was connected in his mind with a whole long train of thought, in which he

became absorbed now while he gazed with fascinated eyes at his father's watch chain and a halfunbuttoned

In death, of which they talked to him so often, Seriozha disbelieved entirely. He did not believe that those he

loved could die, above all that he himself would die. That was to him something utterly inconceivable and

impossible. But he had been told all men die; he had asked people, indeed, whom he trusted, and they, too,

had confirmed it; his old nurse, too, said the same, though reluctantly. But Enoch had not died, and so it

followed that everyone did not die. "And why cannot anyone else so serve God and be taken alive to

heaven?" thought Seriozha. Bad people that is, those Seriozha did not like might die, but the good might

"But you have said that already. This is bad. Seriozha, very bad. If you don't try to learn what is most

necessary of all for a Christian," said his father, getting up, "whatever can interest you? I am displeased with

you, and Piotr Ignatich" (this was the chief pedagogue) "is displeased with you.... I shall have to punish you."

His father and his teacher were both displeased with Seriozha, and he certainly did learn his lessons very

badly. But still it could not be said he was a stupid boy. On the contrary, he was far cleverer than the boys his

teacher held up as examples to Seriozha. In his father's opinion, he did not want to learn what he was taught.

In reality he could not learn that. He could not, because the claims of his own soul were more binding on him

that those claims his father and his teacher made upon him. Those claims were in opposition, and he was in

He was nine years old; he was a child; but he knew his own soul, it was precious to him; he guarded it as the

eyelid guards the eye, and without the key of love he let no one into his soul. His teachers complained that he

would not learn, while his soul was brimming over with thirst for knowledge. And he learned from

Kapitonich, from his nurse, from Nadinka, from Vassilii Lukich but not from his teachers. The spring his

father and his teachers reckoned upon to turn their mill wheels had long oozed at another place, and its waters

His father punished Seriozha by not letting him go to see Nadinka, Lidia Ivanovna's niece; but this

punishment turned out happily for Seriozha. Vassilii Lukich was in a good humor, and showed him how to

make windmills. The whole evening passed over this work and in dreaming how to make a windmill on

which he could turn himself clutching at the wings or tying himself on and whirling round. Of his mother

Seriozha did not think all the evening, but, when he had gone to bed, he suddenly remembered her, and

prayed in his own words that tomorrow his mother, in time for his birthday, might leave off hiding herself

"Vassilii Lukich, do you know what I prayed for tonight extra beside the regular things?"

"No. You'll never guess. A splendid thing but it's a secret. When it comes to pass I'll tell you. Can't you

"No, I can't guess. You tell me," said Vassilii Lukich with a smile, which was rare with him. "Come, lie

"Without the candle I can see better what I see and what I prayed for. There! I was almost telling the secret!"

When the candle was taken away, Seriozha heard his mother and felt her presence. She stood over him, and

her loving gaze caressed him. But then came windmills a penknife everything became confused, and he

On arriving in Peterburg, Vronsky and Anna stayed at one of the best hotels; Vronsky apart in a lower story,

Anna above with her child, its nurse, and her maid, in a large suite of four rooms.

On the day of his arrival Vronsky went to his brother's. There he found his mother, who had come from

Moscow on business. His mother and sisterinlaw greeted him as usual: they asked him about his stay

abroad, and talked of their common acquaintances, but did not let drop a single word in allusion to his

connection with Anna. His brother came next morning to see Vronsky, and of his own accord asked him

about her, and Alexei Vronsky told him directly that he looked upon his connection with Madame Karenina

as marriage; that he hoped to arrange a divorce, and then to marry her, and until then he considered her as

much a wife as any other wife, and he begged him to tell their mother and his wife so.

"If the world disapproves, I don't care," said Vronsky; "but if my relations want to be on terms of relationship

The elder brother, who had always a respect for his younger brother's judgment, could not well tell whether

he was right or not till the world had decided the question; for his part he had nothing against it, and with

Before his brother, as before everyone, Vronsky addressed Anna with a certain formality, treating her as he

might a very intimate friend, but it was understood that his brother knew their real relations, and they talked

In spite of all his social experience Vronsky was, in consequence of the new position in which he was placed,

laboring under a strange misapprehension. One would have thought he must have understood that society was

closed for him and Anna; but now some vague ideas had sprung up in his brain that this was only the case in

oldfashioned days, and that now, with the rapidity of modern progress (he had unconsciously become by

now a partisan of every sort of progress), the views of society had changed, and that the question of their

reception by society was far from decided. "Of course," he thought, "she would not be received at Court, but

One may sit for several hours at a stretch with one's legs crossed in the same position, if one knows that

there's nothing to prevent one's changing one's position; but if a man knows that he must remain sitting so

with crossed legs, then cramps come on, the legs begin to twitch and to strain toward the spot to which one

would like to draw them. This was what Vronsky was experiencing in regard to the world. Though at the

bottom of his heart he knew that the world was shut on them, he put it to the test whether the world had not

changed by now and would not receive them. But he very quickly perceived that though the world was open

for him personally, it was closed for Anna. Just as in the game of cat and mouse, the hands raised for him

One of the first ladies of Peterburg society whom Vronsky saw was his cousin Betsy.

"At last!" she greeted him joyfully. "And Anna? How glad I am! Where are you stopping? I can fancy after

your delightful travels you must find our poor Peterburg horrid. I can fancy your honeymoon in Rome. How

Vronsky noticed that Betsy's enthusiasm waned when she learned that no divorce had as yet taken place.

"People will cast a stone at me, I know," she said, "but I shall come and see Anna; yes, I shall certainly come.

And she did certainly come to see Anna the same day, but her tone was not at all the same as in former days.

She unmistakably prided herself on her courage, and wished Anna to appreciate the fidelity of her friendship.

"You've never told me when the divorce is to be? Supposing I'm ready to fling my cap over the mill, other

starchy people will give you the cold shoulder until you're married. And that's so simple nowadays. Ca se fait.

From Betsy's tone Vronsky might have grasped what he had to expect from the world; but he made another

effort in his own family. His mother he did not reckon upon. He knew that his mother, who had been so

enthusiastic over Anna at their first acquaintance, would have no mercy on her now for having ruined her

son's career. But he had more hope of Varia, his brother's wife. He fancied she would not cast a stone, and

would go simply and directly to see Anna, and would receive her in her own house.

The day after his arrival Vronsky went to her, and finding her alone, expressed his wishes directly.

"You know, Alexei," she said after hearing him, "how fond I am of you, and how ready I am to do anything

for you; but I have not spoken, because I knew I could be of no use to you and to Anna Arkadyevna," she

said, articulating the name "Anna Arkadyevna" with particular care. "Don't suppose, please, that I judge her.

Never! Perhaps in her place I should have done the same. I don't and can't enter into that," she said, glancing

timidly at his gloomy face. "But one must call things by their names. You want me to go and see her, to ask

her here, and to rehabilitate her in society; but do understand that I cannot do so. I have daughters growing

up, and I must live in the world for my husband's sake. Well, I'm ready to come and see Anna Arkadyevna

she will understand that I can't ask her here, or I should have to do so in such a way that she would not meet

people who look at things differently; that would offend her. I can't raise her..."

"Oh, I don't regard her as having fallen more than hundreds of women you do receive!" Vronsky interrupted

her still more gloomily, and he got up in silence, understanding that his sisterinlaw's decision was not to be

"Alexei! Don't be angry with me. Please understand that I'm not to blame," began Varia, looking at him with

"I'm not angry with you," he said still as gloomily; "but this is doubly painful to me. I'm sorry, too, that this

means breaking up our friendship if not breaking up, at least weakening it. You will understand that for me,

Vronsky knew that further efforts were useless, and that he had to spend these few days in Peterburg as

though in a strange town, avoiding every sort of relation with his own old circle in order not to be exposed to

the annoyances and humiliations which were so intolerable to him. One of the most unpleasant features of his

position in Peterburg was that Alexei Alexandrovich and his name seemed to meet him everywhere. He could

not begin to talk of anything without the conversation turning on Alexei Alexandrovich, he could not go

anywhere without risk of meeting him. So at least it seemed to Vronsky, just as it seems to a man with a sore

finger that he is continually, as though on purpose, grazing his sore finger against everything.

Their stay in Peterburg was the more painful to Vronsky because he perceived all the time a sort of new

mood he could not understand in Anna. At one time she would seem in love with him, and the next she would

become cold, irritable, and impenetrable. She was worrying over something, and keeping something back

from him, and did not seem to notice the humiliations which poisoned his existence, and which for her, with

One of Anna's objects in coming back to Russia had been to see her son. From the day she left Italy the

thought of seeing him had never ceased to agitate her. And, as she got nearer to Peterburg, the delight and

importance of this meeting grew ever greater in her imagination. She did not even put to herself the problem

of how to arrange it. It seemed to her natural and simple to see her son when she should be in the same town

with him. But on her arrival in Peterburg she was suddenly made distinctly aware of her present position in

society, and she grasped the fact that to arrange this meeting was no easy matter.

She had now been two days in Peterburg. The thought of her son never left her for a single instant, but she

had not yet seen him. To go straight to the house, where she might meet Alexei Alexandrovich that she felt

she had no right to do. She might be refused admittance and insulted. To write and so enter into relations with

her husband the thought of doing that made her miserable; she could only be at peace when she did not

think of her husband. To get a glimpse of her son out walking, finding out where and when he went out, was

not enough for her; she had so looked forward to this meeting, she had so much she must say to him, she so

longed to embrace him, to kiss him. Seriozha's old nurse might be a help to her and show her what to do. But

the nurse was not now living in Alexei Alexandrovich's house. In this uncertainty, and in efforts to find the

Hearing of the close intimacy between Alexei Alexandrovich and Countess Lidia Ivanovna, Anna decided on

the third day to write her a letter, which cost her great pains, and in which she intentionally said that

permission to see her son must depend on her husband's magnanimity. She knew that if the letter were shown

to her husband, he would keep up his role of magnanimity, and would not refuse her request.

The commissionaire who took the letter had brought her back the most cruel and unexpected answer that

there was no answer. She had never felt so humiliated as at the moment when, sending for commissionaire,

she heard from him the exact account of how he had waited, and how afterward he had been told there was no

answer. Anna felt humiliated, insulted, but she saw that from her point of view Countess Lidia Ivanovna was

right. Her suffering was the more poignant since she had to bear it in solitude. She could not and would not

share it with Vronsky. She knew that to him, although he was the primary cause of her distress, the question

of her seeing her son would seem a matter of very little consequence. She knew that he would never be

capable of understanding all the depth of her suffering, that for his cool tone at any allusion to it she would

begin to hate him. And she dreaded that more than anything in the world, and so she hid from him everything

Spending the whole day at home she considered ways of seeing her son, and had reached a decision to write

to her husband. She was just composing this letter when she was handed the letter from Lidia Ivanovna. The

Countess's silence had subdued and depressed her, but the letter, all that she read between the lines in it, so

exasperated her, this malice was so revolting beside her passionate, legitimate tenderness for her son, that she

"This coldness is simulation of feeling!" she said to herself. "They must needs insult me and torture the child,

and I am to submit to it! Not on any consideration! She is worse than I am. I don't lie, anyway." And she

decided on the spot that next day, Seriozha's birthday, she would go straight to her husband's house, bribe the

servants, deceive the people, but at any cost see her son and overturn the hideous deception with which they

She went to a toyshop, bought toys, and thought over a plan of action. She would go early in the morning at

eight o'clock, when Alexei Alexandrovich would be certain not to be up. She would have money in her hand

to give the hall porter and the footman, so that they should let her in, and, without raising her veil, she would

say that she had come from Seriozha's godfather to congratulate him, and that she had been charged to leave

the toys at his bedside. She had prepared everything but the words she should say to her son. Often she

The next day, at eight o'clock in the morning, Anna got out of a hired coach and rang at the front entrance of

"Run and see what's wanted. Some lady," said Kapitonich, who, not yet dressed, in his overcoat and galoshes,

had peeped out of the window and seen a lady in a veil standing close up to the door. His assistant, a lad

Anna did not know, had no sooner opened the door to her than she came in, and pulling a threerouble note

"Seriozha Sergei Alexeich," she said, and was going on. Scrutinizing the note, the porter's assistant stopped

Noticing the embarrassment of the unknown lady, Kapitonich went out to her, opened the second door for

Anna had not anticipated that the absolutely unchanged hall of the house where she had lived for nine years

would so greatly affect her. Memories sweet and painful rose one after another in her heart, and for a moment

As he took off the cloak, Kapitonich glanced at her face, recognized her, and made her a low bow in silence.

She tried to say something, but her voice refused to utter any sound; with a guilty and imploring glance at the

old man she went with light, swift steps up the stairs. Bent double, and his galoshes catching in the steps,

Anna still mounted the familiar staircase, not understanding what the old man was saying.

"This way, to the left, if you please. Excuse its not being tidy. He's in the former smoking room now," the

hall porter said, panting. "Excuse me, wait a little, Your Excellency; I'll just see," he said, and overtaking her,

he opened the high door and disappeared behind it. Anna stood still waiting. "He's only just awake," said the

And at the very instant the porter said this, Anna caught the sound of a childish yawn. From the sound of this

"Let me in; go away!" she said and went in through the high doorway. On the right of the door stood a bed,

and sitting up in the bed was the boy. His little body bent forward, his nightshirt unbuttoned, he was

stretching and still yawning. The instant his lips came together they curved into a blissfully sleepy smile, and

When she was parted from him, and all this latter time when she had been feeling a fresh rush of love for

him, she had pictured him as he was at four years old, when she had loved him most of all. Now he was not

even the same as when she had left him; he was farther than ever from the fouryearold baby, more grown

and thinner. How thin his face was, how short his hair was! What long hands! How he had changed since she

left him! But it was he with his head, his lips, his soft neck and broad little shoulders.

He raised himself again on his elbow, turned his tousled head from side to side, as though looking for

something, and opened his eyes. Quietly and inquiringly he looked for several seconds at his mother standing

motionless before him, then all at once he smiled a blissful smile, and shutting his eyes again, rolled not

"Seriozha! My darling boy!" she said, breathing hard and putting her arms around his plump little body.

"Mother!" he said, wriggling about in her arms so as to touch her hands with different parts of him.

Smiling sleepily still, with closed eyes, he flung his fat little arms round her shoulders, rolled toward her,

with the delicious sleepy warmth and fragrance that is only found in children, and began rubbing his face

"I knew," he said, opening his eyes. "It's my birthday today. I knew you'd come. I'll get up directly."

Anna looked at him hungrily; she saw how he had grown and changed in her absence. She knew, and did not

know, the bare legs so long now, that were thrust out below the quilt; she knew those shortcropped curls on

his neck in which she had so often kissed him. She touched all this and could say nothing; tears choked her.

"What are you crying for, mother?" he said, waking up completely. "Mother, what are you crying for?" he

"I?... I won't cry... I'm crying for joy. It's so long since I've seen you. I won't, I won't," she said, gulping down

her tears and turning away. "Come, it's time for you to dress now," she added, after a pause, and, never letting

go his hands, she sat down by his bedside on the chair, where his clothes were put ready for him.

"How do you dress without me? How..." she made an attempt to talk simply and cheerfully, but she could

"I don't have a cold bath papa didn't order it. And you've not seen Vassilii Lukich? He'll come in soon. Why,

"Mother, darling, sweet one!" he shouted, flinging himself on her again and hugging her. It was as if only

now, on seeing her smile, he fully grasped what had happened. "I don't want that on," he said, taking off her

hat. And, as it were, seeing her afresh without her hat, he fell to kissing her again.

"I knew, I knew!" he repeated his favorite phrase, and snatching the hand that was stroking his hair, he

Meanwhile Vassilii Lukich had not at first understood who this lady was, and had learned from their

conversation that it was no other person than the mother who had left her husband, and whom he had not

seen, as he had entered the house after her departure. He was in doubt whether to go in or not, or whether to

communicate with Alexei Alexandrovich. Reflecting finally that his duty was to get Seriozha up at the hour

fixed, and that it was therefore not his business to consider who was there, the mother or anyone else, but

But the embraces of the mother and child, the sound of their voices, and what they were saying, made him

change his mind. He shook his head, and with a sigh he closed the door. "I'll wait another ten minutes," he

Among the servants of the household there was intense excitement all this time. All had heard that their

mistress had come, and that Kapitonich had let her in, and that she was even now in the nursery, and

everyone knew that their master always went in person to the nursery at nine o'clock, and everyone fully

comprehended that it was impossible for the husband and wife to meet, and that they must prevent it. Kornei,

the valet, going down to the hall porter's room, asked who had let her in, and how it was he had done so, and

ascertaining that Kapitonich had admitted her and shown her up, he gave the old man a talkingto. The hall

porter was doggedly silent, but when Kornei told him he ought to be sent packing Kapitonich darted up to

"Oh yes, to be sure you'd not have let her in! After ten years' service, and never a word but of kindness, and

there you'd up and say, 'Be off, go along, get away with you!' Oh yes, you're a shrewd one at politics, I dare

say! You don't need to be taught how to swindle the master, and to filch raccoon fur coats!"

"Soldier!" said Kornei contemptuously, and he turned to the nurse who was coming in. "Here, what do you

think, Maria Efimovna: he let her in without a word to anyone," Kornei said addressing her. "Alexei

"A pretty business, a pretty business!" said the nurse, "You, Kornei Vassilyevich you'd best detain the

master some way or other, while I'll run and get her away somehow. A pretty business!"

When the nurse went into the nursery, Seriozha was telling his mother how he and Nadinka had had a fall in

tobogganing downhill, and had turned over three times. She was listening to the sound of his voice, watching

his face and the play of expression on it, touching his hand, but she did not follow what he was saying. She

must go, she must leave him this was the only thing she was thinking and feeling. She heard the steps of

Vassilii Lukich coming up to the door and coughing; she heard, too, the steps of the nurse as she came near;

"Mistress, darling!" began the nurse, going up to Anna and kissing her hands and shoulders. "God has

"Oh, nurse dear, I didn't know you were in the house," said Anna, rousing herself for a moment.

"I'm not living here I'm living with my daughter. I came for the birthday, Anna Arkadyevna, darling!"

Seriozha, with radiant eyes and smiles, holding his mother by one hand and his nurse by the other, pattered

on the rug with his chubby little bare feet. The tenderness shown by his beloved nurse to his mother threw

"Mother! She often comes to see me, and when she comes..." he was beginning, but he stopped, noticing that

the nurse was saying something in a whisper to his mother, and that in his mother's face there was a look of

She could not say goodby, but the expression on her face said it, and he understood. "Darling, darling

Kootik!" she used the name by which she had called him when he was little "you won't forget me? You..."

How often afterward she thought of words she might have said. But now she did not know what to say, and

could say nothing. But Seriozha knew all she wanted to say to him. He understood that she was unhappy and

loved him. He understood even what the nurse had whispered. He had caught the words "Always at nine

o'clock," and he knew that this was said of his father, and that his father and mother could not meet. That he

understood, but one thing he could not understand why there should be a look of dread and shame in her

face?... She was not at fault, but she was afraid of his father and ashamed of something. He would have liked

to put a question that would have set at rest this doubt, but he did not dare; he saw that she was miserable,

The mother held him away from her to see whether he was thinking, what he said to her, and in his frightened

face she read not only that he was speaking of his father, but, as it were, asking her what he ought to think

"Seriozha, my darling," she said, "love him; he's better and kinder than I am, and I have done him wrong.

"There's no one better than you!..." he cried in despair through his tears, and, clutching her by the shoulders,

he began squeezing her with all his force to him, his arms trembling with the strain.

"My sweet, my little one!" said Anna, and she cried as weakly and childishly as he.

At that moment the door opened; Vassilii Lukich came in. At the other door there was the sound of steps, and

Seriozha sank on the bed and sobbed, hiding his face in his hands. Anna removed his hands, once more

kissed his wet face, and with rapid steps went to the door. Alexei Alexandrovich walked in, meeting her.

Although she had just said he was better and kinder than she, in the rapid glance she flung at him, taking in

his whole figure in all its details, feelings of repulsion and hatred for him, and jealousy for her son, took

possession of her. With a swift gesture she put down her veil, and, quickening her pace, almost ran out of the

She had not time to undo, and so carried back with her, the parcel of toys she had chosen the day before in a

Intensely as Anna had longed to see her son, and long as she had been thinking of it and preparing herself for

it, she had not in the least expected that seeing him would affect her so deeply. On getting back to her lonely

rooms in the hotel she could not for a long while understand why she was there. "Yes, it's all over, and I am

again alone," she said to herself, and, without taking off her hat she sat down in a low chair by the hearth.

Fixing her eyes on a bronze clock standing on a table between the windows, she tried to think.

The French maid brought from abroad came in to suggest she should dress. She gazed at her wonderingly and

The Italian nurse, after taking the baby out in her best, came in with her, and brought her to Anna. The

plump, wellfed little baby, on seeing her mother, as she always did, held out her chubby little hands, and

with a smile on her toothless mouth, began, like a fish with a float, bobbing her fingers up and down the

starched folds of her embroidered pinafore, making them rustle. It was impossible not to smile, not to kiss the

baby, impossible not to hold out a finger for her to clutch, crowing and prancing all over; impossible not to

offer her a lip which she sucked into her little mouth by way of a kiss. And all this Anna did, and took her in

her arms and made her dance, and kissed her fresh little cheek and bare little elbows; but at the sight of this

child it was plainer than ever to her that the feeling she had for her could not be called love in comparison

with what she felt for Seriozha. Everything in this baby was charming, but for some reason all this did not go

deep to her heart. On her first child, though the child of an unloved father, had been concentrated all the love

that had never found satisfaction. Her baby girl had been born in the most painful circumstances and had not

had a hundredth part of the care and thought which had been concentrated on her first child. Besides, in the

little girl everything was still in the future, while Seriozha was by now almost a personality, and a personality

dearly loved. In him there was a conflict of thoughts, and of feelings; he understood her, he loved her, he

judged her, she thought, recalling his words and his eyes. And she was forever not physically only but

She gave the baby back to the nurse, let her go, and opened the locket in which there was Seriozha's portrait

when he was almost of the same age as the girl. She got up, and, taking off her hat, took up from a little table

an album in which there were photographs of her son at different ages. She wanted to compare them, and

began taking them out of the album. She took them all out except one, the latest and best photograph. In it he

was in a white smock, sitting astride a chair, with frowning eyes and smiling lips. It was his best, most

singular expression. With her little supple hands, her white, delicate fingers, that moved with a peculiar

intensity today, she pulled at a corner of the photograph, but the photograph had caught somewhere and she

could not get it out. There was no paper knife on the table, and, pulling out the photograph that was next to

her son's (it was a photograph of Vronsky taken at Rome in a round hat and with long hair), she used it to

push out her son's photograph. "Oh, here he is!" she said, glancing at the portrait of Vronsky, and she

suddenly recalled that he was the cause of her present misery. She had not once thought of him all the

morning. But now, coming all at once upon that manly, noble face, so familiar and so dear to her, she felt a

"But where is he? How is it he leaves me alone in my misery?" she thought all at once with a feeling of

reproach, forgetting she had herself kept from him everything concerning her son. She sent to ask him to

come to her immediately; with a throbbing heart she awaited him, rehearsing to herself the words in which

she would tell him all, and the expressions of love with which he would console her. The messenger returned

with the answer that he had a visitor with him, but that he would come immediately, and that he asked

whether she would let him bring with him Prince Iashvin, who had just arrived in Peterburg. "He's not

coming alone, and since dinner yesterday he has not seen me," she thought; "he's not coming so that I could

tell him everything, but coming with Iashvin." And all at once a strange idea came to her: What if he had

And going over the events of the last few days, it seemed to her that she saw in everything a confirmation of

this terrible idea: the fact that he had not dined at home yesterday, and the fact that he had insisted on their

taking separate sets of rooms at Peterburg, and that even now he was not coming to her alone, as though he

"But he ought to tell me so. I must know that it is so. If I knew it, then I'd know what I should do," she said to

herself, utterly unable to picture to herself the position she would be in if she were convinced of his not

caring for her. She thought he had ceased to love her, she felt close upon despair, and consequently she felt

exceptionally alert. She rang for her maid and went to her dressing room. As she dressed, she took more care

over her appearance than she had done all these days, as though he might, if he had grown cold to her, fall in

love with her again because she had dressed and arranged her hair in the way most becoming to her.

When she went into the drawing room it was not he, but Iashvin, who met her eyes. Vronsky was looking

through the photographs of her son, which she had forgotten on the table, and he made no haste to look round

"We have met already," she said, putting her little hand into the huge hand of Iashvin, whose bashfulness was

so queerly out of keeping with his immense frame and coarse face. "We met last year at the races. Give them

to me," she said, with a rapid movement snatching from Vronsky the photographs of her son, and glancing

significantly at him with flashing eyes. "Were the races good this year? Instead of them I saw the races in the

Corso in Rome. But you don't care for life abroad," she said with a cordial smile. "I know you and all your

"I'm awfully sorry for that, for my tastes are mostly bad," said Iashvin, gnawing at his left mustache.

Having talked a little while, and noticing that Vronsky glanced at the clock, Iashvin asked her whether she

would be staying much longer in Peterburg, and unbending his huge figure, reached after his cap.

"So then we shan't meet again?" said Iashvin getting up and turning to Vronsky. "Where do you have your

"Come and dine with me," said Anna resolutely, angry it seemed with herself for her embarrassment, but

flushing as she always did when she defined her position before a fresh person. "The dinner here is not good,

but at least you will see him. There is no one of his old friends in the regiment Alexei cares for as he does for

"Delighted," said Iashvin with a smile, from which Vronsky could see that he liked Anna very much.

"I'm late already," he answered. "Run along! I'll catch up in a moment," he called to Iashvin.

She took him by the hand, and without taking her eyes off him, gazed at him while she ransacked her mind

"Wait a minute, there's something I want to say to you," and taking his broad hand she pressed it on her neck.

"You did quite right," he said with a serene smile that showed his close teeth, and he kissed her hand.

"Alexei, you have not changed to me?" she said, pressing his hand in both of hers. "Alexei, I am miserable

"Soon, soon. You wouldn't believe how disagreeable our way of living here is to me too," he said, and he

When Vronsky returned home, Anna was not yet home. Soon after he had left, some lady, so they told him,

had come to see her, and she had gone out with her. That she had gone out without leaving word where she

was going, that she had not yet come back, and that all the morning she had been going about somewhere

without a word to him all this, together with the strange look of excitement in her face in the morning, and

the recollection of the hostile tone with which she had before Iashvin almost snatched her son's photographs

out of his hands, made him serious. He decided he absolutely must speak openly with her. And he waited for

her in her drawing room. But Anna did not return alone, but brought with her her old unmarried aunt,

Princess Oblonskaia. This was the lady who had come in the morning, and with whom Anna had gone out

shopping. Anna appeared not to notice Vronsky's worried and inquiring expression, and began a lively

account of her morning's shopping. He saw that there was something working within her; in her flashing

eyes, when they rested for a moment on him, there was an intense concentration, and in her words and

movements there was that nervous rapidity and grace which, during the early period of their intimacy, had so

The dinner was laid for four. All were gathered together and about to go into the little dining room when

Tushkevich made his appearance with a message from Princess Betsy. Princess Betsy begged her to excuse

her not having come to say goodby; she had been indisposed, but begged Anna to come to her between

halfpast six and halfpast eight o'clock. Vronsky glanced at Anna at the precise limit of time, so suggestive

of steps having been taken that she should meet no one; but Anna appeared not to notice it.

"Very sorry that I can't come just between halfpast six and nine," she said with a faint smile.

"I should be very, very grateful to you," said Anna. "But won't you dine with us?"

Vronsky gave a hardly perceptible shrug. He was at a complete loss to understand what Anna was about.

What had she brought the old Princess Oblonskaia home for, what had she made Tushkevich stay to dinner

for, and, most amazing of all, why was she sending him for a box? Could she possibly think in her position of

going to Patti's benefit, where all the circle of her acquaintances would be? He looked at her with serious

eyes, but she responded with that defiant, halfmirthful, halfdesperate look, the meaning of which he could

not comprehend. At dinner Anna was in aggressively high spirits she almost flirted both with Tushkevich

and with Iashvin. When they got up from dinner and Tushkevich had gone to get a box at the opera, Iashvin

went to smoke, and Vronsky went down with him to his own rooms. After sitting there for some time he ran

upstairs. Anna was already dressed in a lownecked gown of light silk and velvet that she had had made in

Paris, and with costly white lace on her head, framing her face, and particularly becoming, showing up her

"Why do you ask with such alarm?" she said, wounded again at his not looking at her. "Why shouldn't I go?"

"That's just what I say," she said, willfully refusing to see the irony of his tone, and quietly turning back her

"Anna, for God's sake! What is the matter with you?" he said, watching her exactly as once her husband had

"Why so? I'm not going alone. Princess Varvara has gone to dress she is going with me."

"But I don't care to know!" she almost shrieked. "I don't care to. Do I regret what I have done? No, no, no! If

it were all to do again from the beginning, it would be the same. For us, for you and for me, there is only one

thing that matters, whether we love each other. Other people we need not consider. Why are we living here

apart and not seeing each other? Why can't I go? I love you, and I don't care for anything," she said in

Russian, glancing at him with a peculiar, obscure for him, gleam in her eyes, "if you have not changed to

He looked at her. He saw all the beauty of her face and full dress, always so becoming to her. But now her

"My feeling cannot change, you know, but I beg you, I entreat you," he said again in French, with a note of

She did not hear his words, but she saw the coldness of his eyes, and answered with irritation:

"I don't understand. Iashvin n'est compromettant, and Princess Varvara is no worse than others. Oh, here she

Vronsky for the first time experienced a feeling of anger against Anna, almost a hatred for her intentional

refusal to understand her own position. This feeling was aggravated by his being unable to tell her plainly the

cause of his anger. If he had told her directly what he was thinking, he would have said: "In that dress, with a

Princess only too well known to everyone, to show yourself at the theater is equivalent not merely to

acknowledging your position as a fallen woman, but is flinging down a challenge to society that is to say,

He could not say that to her. "But how can she fail to see it, and what is going on within her?" he said to

himself He felt at the same time that his respect for her was diminished while his sense of her beauty was

He went back scowling to his rooms, and, sitting down beside Iashvin, who, with his long legs stretched out

on a chair, was drinking cognac and Seltzer water, he ordered a glass of the same for himself.

"You were talking of Lankovsky's Powerful. That's a fine horse, and I would advise you to buy him," said

Iashvin, glancing at his comrade's gloomy face. "His hindquarters aren't quite firstrate, but the legs and

Their conversation about horses interested him, but he did not for an instant forget Anna, and could not help

listening to the sound of steps in the corridor and looking at the clock on the chimney piece.

Iashvin, tipping another glass of cognac into the bubbling water, drank it and got up, buttoning his coat.

"Well, let's go," he said, faintly smiling under his mustache, and showing by this smile that he knew the cause

"Well, I must I promised to. Goodby then. If you do, come to the stalls; you can take Krassinsky's stall,"

"A wife is a care, but it's worse when she's not a wife," thought Iashvin, as he walked out of the hotel.

Vronsky, left alone, got up from his chair and began pacing up and down the room.

"And what's today? The fourth series.... Iegor and his wife are there, and my mother, most likely. Of course

all Peterburg's there. Now she's gone in, taken off her cloak and come into the glare. Tushkevich, Iashvin,

Princess Varvara," he pictured them to himself.... "What about me? Either that I'm frightened, or have given

up to Tushkevich the right to protect her? From every point of view stupid, stupid!... And why is she putting

With that gesture he knocked against the table, on which there was standing the Seltzer water and the

decanter of cognac, and almost upset it. He tried to catch it, let it slip, and angrily kicked the table over and

"If you care to be in my service," he said to the valet who came in, "you had better remember your duties.

The valet, conscious of his own innocence, would have defended himself, but, glancing at his master, he saw

from his face that the only thing to do was to be silent, and hurriedly threading his way in and out, dropped

down on the carpet and began gathering up the whole and broken glasses and bottles.

"That's not your duty; send the waiter to clear away, and get my dress coat out."

Vronsky arrived at the theater at halfpast eight The performance was in full swing. The little old boxkeeper,

recognizing Vronsky as he helped him off with his fur coat, called him "Your Excellency," and suggested he

should not take a check but should simply call Fiodor. In the brightly lighted corridor there was no one but

the box opener and two footmen with fur cloaks on their arms listening at the doors. Through the closed

doors came the sounds of the discreet staccato accompaniment of the orchestra, and a single female voice

rendering distinctly a musical phrase. The door opened to let the box opener slip through, and the phrase

drawing to the end reached Vronsky's hearing clearly. But the doors were closed again at once, and Vronsky

did not hear the end of the phrase and the cadence of the accompaniment, though he knew from the thunder

of applause that it was over. When he entered the hall, brilliantly lighted with chandeliers and gas jets, the

noise was still going on. On the stage the singer, bowing and smiling, flashing with bare shoulders and with

diamonds, was, with the help of the tenor who had given her his arm, gathering up the bouquets that were

clumsily flying over the footlights. Then she went up to a gentleman with glossy pomaded hair parted down

the middle, who was stretching across the footlights holding out something to her, and all the public in the

stalls as well as in the boxes was in excitement, craning forward, shouting and clapping. The conductor in his

high chair assisted in passing the offering, and straightened his white tie. Vronsky walked into the middle of

the stalls, and, standing still, began looking about him. That day less than ever was his attention turned upon

the familiar, habitual surroundings, the stage, the noise, all the familiar, uninteresting, particolored herd of

There were, as always, the same ladies of some sort with officers of some sort in the back of the boxes; the

same gaily dressed women God knows who and uniforms and black coats; the same dirty crowd in the

upper gallery, and among the crowd, in the boxes and in the front rows, were some forty of the real people,

men and women. And to those oases Vronsky at once directed his attention, and with them he entered at once

The act was over when he went in, and so he did not go straight to his brother's box, but going up to the first

row of stalls stopped at the footlights with Serpukhovskoy, who, standing with one knee, raised and his heel

on the footlights, caught sight of him in the distance and beckoned to him, smiling.

Vronsky had not yet seen Anna. He purposely avoided looking in her direction. But he knew by the direction

of people's eyes where she was. He looked round discreetly, but he was not seeking her; expecting the worst,

his eyes sought for Alexei Alexandrovich. To his relief Alexei Alexandrovich was not in the theater that

"How little of the military man there is left in you!" Serpukhovskoy was saying to him. "A diplomat, an artist,

"Yes, it was like going back home when I put on a dress coat," answered Vronsky, smiling and slowly taking

"Well, I'll own I envy you there. When I come back from abroad and put on this," he touched his shoulder

Serpukhovskoy had long given up all hope of Vronsky's career, but he liked him as before, and was now

Vronsky, listening with half an ear, moved his opera glasses from the stalls and scanned the boxes. Near a

lady in a turban and a bald old man, who seemed to blink angrily in the moving opera glasses, Vronsky

suddenly caught sight of Anna's head, proud, strikingly beautiful, and smiling in its frame of lace. She was in

the fifth box, twenty paces from him. She was sitting in front, and, slightly turning, was saying something to

Iashvin. The setting of her head on her handsome, broad shoulders, and the restrained excitement and

brilliance of her eyes and her whole face reminded him of her just as he had seen her at the ball in Moscow.

But he felt utterly different toward her beauty now. In his feeling for her now there was no element of

mystery, and so her beauty, though it attracted him even more intensely than before, gave him now a sense of

injury. She was not looking in his direction, but Vronsky felt that she had seen him already.

When Vronsky turned the opera glasses again in that direction, he noticed that Princess Varvara was

particularly red, and kept laughing unnaturally and looking round at the next box. Anna, folding her fan and

tapping it on the red velvet, was gazing away and did not see, and obviously did not wish to see, what was

taking place in the next box. Iashvin's face wore the expression which was common when he was losing at

cards. Scowling, he sucked the left tip of his mustache further and further into his mouth, and cast sidelong

In that box on the left were the Kartassovs. Vronsky knew them, and knew that Anna was acquainted with

them. Madame Kartassova, a thin little woman, was standing up in her box, and, her back turned upon Anna,

she was putting on a mantle that her husband was holding for her. Her face was pale and angry, and she was

talking excitedly. Kartassov, a fat, bald man, was continually looking round at Anna, while he attempted to

soothe his wife. When the wife had gone out, the husband lingered a long while, and tried to catch Anna's

eye, obviously anxious to bow to her. But Anna, with unmistakable intention, avoided noticing him, and

talked to Iashvin, whose cropped head was bent down to her. Kartassov went out without making his

Vronsky could not understand exactly what had passed between the Kartassovs and Anna, but he saw that

something humiliating for Anna had happened. He knew this both from what he had seen, and most of all

from the face of Anna, who, he could see, was taxing every nerve to carry through the part she had taken up.

And in maintaining this attitude of external composure she was completely successful. Anyone who did not

know her and her circle, who had not heard all the utterances of the women expressive of commiseration,

indignation and amazement, that she should show herself in society, and show herself so conspicuously with

her lace and her beauty, would have admired the serenity and loveliness of this woman without a suspicion

Knowing that something had happened, but not knowing precisely what, Vronsky felt a thrill of agonizing

anxiety, and hoping to find out something, he went toward his brother's box. Purposely choosing the way

round farthest from Anna's box, he jostled as he came out against the colonel of his old regiment, talking to

two acquaintances. Vronsky heard the name of Karenin, and noticed how the colonel hastened to address

"Ah, Vronsky! When are you coming to the regiment? We can't let you off without a supper. You're our one

"I can't stop, awfully sorry, another time," said Vronsky, and he ran upstairs toward his brother's box.

The old countess, Vronsky's mother, with her steelgray curls, was in his brother's box. Varia with the young

Leaving the Princess Sorokina with her mother, Varia held out her hand to her brotherinlaw, and began

immediately to speak of what interested him. She was more excited than he had ever seen her.

"I think it's mean and hateful, and Madame Kartassova had no right to do it. Madame Karenina..." she began.

"My husband told me.... She has insulted Madame Karenina. Her husband began talking to her across the

box, and Madame Kartassova made a scene. She said something aloud, they say, something insulting, and

"Count, your maman is asking for you," said the young Princess Sorokina, peeping out of the door of the box.

"I've been expecting you all the while," said his mother, smiling sarcastically. "You were nowhere to be

"Why aren't you going to faire la cour a Madame Karenina?" she went on, when Princess Sorokina had

"Maman, I have asked you not to say anything to me of that," he answered, scowling.

Vronsky made no reply, and saying a few words to Princess Sorokina, he went away. At the door he met his

"Ah, Alexei!" said his brother. "How disgusting! Idiot of a woman, nothing else.... I wanted to go straight to

Vronsky did not hear him. With rapid steps he went downstairs; he felt that he must do something, but he did

not know what. Anger with her for having put herself and him in such a false position, together with pity for

her suffering, filled his heart. He went down, and made straight for Anna's box. At her box stood Stremov,

"You came in late, I think, and have missed the best song," Anna said to Vronsky, glancing ironically, he

"Like Prince Iashvin," she said smiling, "who considers that Patti sings too loud. Thank you," she said, her

little hand in its long glove taking the playbill Vronsky picked up, and suddenly at that instant her lovely face

Noticing in the next act that her box was empty, Vronsky, rousing many an indignant "Hush!" in the silent

Anna was already at home. When Vronsky went up to her, she was in the same dress she had worn at the

theater. She was sitting in the first armchair against the wall, looking straight before her. She looked at him,

"You, you are to blame for everything!" she cried, with tears of despair and hatred in her voice, getting up.

"Unpleasant?" she cried. "Hideous! As long as I live I shall never forget it. She said it was a disgrace to sit

"I hate your calm. You ought not to have brought me to this. If you had loved me..."

"Oh, if you loved me, as I love, if you were tortured as I am..." she said, looking at him with an expression of

He was sorry for her, and angry notwithstanding. He assured her of his love because he saw that this was the

only means of soothing her, and he did not reproach her in words, but in his heart he reproached her.

And the asseverations of his love, which seemed to him so trivial that he was ashamed to utter them, she

drank in eagerly, and gradually became calmer. The next day, completely reconciled, they left for the

Darya Alexandrovna spent the summer with her children at Pokrovskoe, at her sister Kitty Levin's. The house

on her own estate was quite in ruins, and Levin and his wife had persuaded her to spend the summer with

them. Stepan Arkadyevich greatly approved of the arrangement. He said he was very sorry his official duties

prevented him from spending the summer in the country with his family, which would have been the greatest

happiness for him; and remaining in Moscow, he came down to the country from time to time for a day or

two. Besides the Oblonskys, with all their children and their governess, the old Princess, too, came to stay

that summer with the Levins, as she considered it her duty to watch over her inexperienced daughter in her

interesting condition. Moreover, Varenka, Kitty's friend abroad, kept her promise to come to Kitty when she

was married, and stayed with her friend. All of these were friends or relations of Levin's wife. And though he

liked them all, he rather regretted his own Levin world and ways, which was smothered by this influx of the

"Shcherbatsky element," as he called it to himself. Of his own relations there stayed with him only Sergei

Ivanovich, but he too was a man of the Koznishev and not the Levin stamp, so that the Levin spirit was

In the Levins' house, so long deserted, there were now so many people that almost all the rooms were

occupied, and almost every day it happened that the old Princess, sitting down to table, counted them all over,

and put the thirteenth grandson or granddaughter at a separate table. And Kitty, with her careful

housekeeping, had no little trouble to get all the chickens, turkeys and geese, of which so many were needed

The whole family were sitting at dinner. Dolly's children, with their governess and Varenka, were making

plans for going to look for mushrooms. Sergei Ivanovich, who was looked up to by all the party for his

intellect and learning, with a respect that almost amounted to awe, surprised everyone by joining in the

"Take me with you. I am very fond of picking mushrooms," he said, looking at Varenka; "I think it's a very

"Oh, we shall be delighted," answered Varenka coloring. Kitty exchanged meaning glances with Dolly. The

proposal of the learned and intellectual Sergei Ivanovich to go looking for mushrooms with Varenka

confirmed certain theories of Kitty's with which her mind had been very busy of late. She made haste to

address some remark to her mother, so that her look should not be noticed. After dinner Sergei Ivanovich sat

with his cup of coffee at the drawingroom window, and while he took part in a conversation he had begun

with his brother, he watched the door through which the children would start on the mushroompicking

Kitty stood beside her husband, evidently awaiting the end of a conversation that had no interest for her, in

"You have changed in many respects since your marriage, and for the better," said Sergei Ivanovich, smiling

to Kitty, and obviously little interested in the conversation, "but you have remained true to your passion for

"Katia, it's not good for you to stand," her husband said to her, drawing up a chair for her and looking

"Oh, and there's no time either," added Sergei Ivanovich, seeing the children running out.

At the head of them all Tania galloped sideways, in her tightly drawn stockings, and waving a basket and

Boldly running up to Sergei Ivanovich with smiling eyes, so like her father's fine eyes, she handed him his

hat and made as though she would put it on for him, softening her freedom by a shy and friendly smile.

"Varenka's waiting," she said, carefully putting his hat on, seeing from Sergei Ivanovich's smile that she

Varenka was standing at the door, dressed in a yellow print gown, with a white kerchief on her head.

"I'm coming, I'm coming, Varvara Andreevna," said Sergei Ivanovich, finishing his cup of coffee, and putting

"And how sweet my Varenka is! Eh?" said Kitty to her husband, as soon as Sergei Ivanovich rose. She spoke

so that Sergei Ivanovich could hear, and it was clear that she meant him to do so. "And how goodlooking

she is such a refined beauty! Varenka!" Kitty shouted. "Shall you be in the mill forest? We'll come out to

"You certainly forget your condition, Kitty," said the old Princess, hurriedly coming out at the door. "You

Varenka, hearing Kitty's voice and her mother's reprimand, went with light, rapid steps up to Kitty. The

rapidity of her movement, her flushed and eager face, everything betrayed that something out of the common

was going on in her. Kitty knew what this thing was and had been watching her intently. She called Varenka

at that moment merely in order mentally to give her a blessing for the important event which, as Kitty

"Varenka, I should be very happy if a certain something were to happen," she whispered as she kissed her.

"And are you coming with us?" Varenka said to Levin in confusion, pretending not to have heard what had

"I must go to have a look at the new wagons, and to make my calculations," said Levin; "and where will you

On the terrace were assembled all the ladies of the party. They always liked sitting there after dinner, and that

day they had work to do there too. Besides the sewing of baby's chemises and knitting of swaddles, with

which all of them were busy, that afternoon jam was being made on the terrace by a method new to Agathya

Mikhailovna, without the addition of water. Kitty had introduced this new method, which had been in use in

her home. Agathya Mikhailovna, to whom the task of jam making had always been intrusted, considering that

what had been done in the Levin household could not be amiss, had nevertheless put water with the

strawberries, maintaining that the jam could not be made without it. She had been caught in the act, and was

now making raspberry jam before everyone, and it was to be proved to her conclusively that jam could be

Agathya Mikhailovna, her face heated and angry, her hair untidy, and her thin arms bare to the elbows, was

swaying the preserving pan in a circular motion over the charcoal stove, looking darkly at the raspberries and

devoutly hoping they would stick and not cook properly. The Princess, conscious that Agathya Mikhailovna's

wrath must be chiefly directed against her, as the person responsible for the raspberry jam making, tried to

appear to be absorbed in other things and not interested in the raspberries, talking of other matters, but cast

"I always buy my maids' dresses myself, at the bargain sale," the Princess said, continuing the previous

conversation. "Isn't it time to skim it, my dear?" she added, addressing Agathya Mikhailovna. "There's not the

slightest need for you to do it, and it's hot for you," she said, stopping Kitty.

"I'll do it," said Dolly, and, getting up, she carefully passed the spoon over the frothing sugar, and from time

to time shook off the clinging jam from the spoon by knocking it on a plate that was covered with yellowred

scum and bloodcolored syrup. "How they'll lick this at teatime!" she thought of her children, remembering

how she herself as a child had wondered how it was the grownup people did not eat what was best of all

"Stiva says it's much better to give money," Dolly took up meanwhile the weighty subject under discussion

"Money's out of the question!" the Princess and Kitty exclaimed with one voice. "They appreciate a

"Well, last year, for instance, I bought our Matriona Semionovna, not a poplin, but something of that sort,"

"A charming pattern so simple and refined I should have liked it myself, if she hadn't had it. Something

"When it sets as it drops, it's ready. Cook it a little longer, Agathya Mikhailovna."

"The flies!" said Agathya Mikhailovna angrily. "It'll be just the same," she added.

"Ah! How sweet it is! Don't frighten it!" Kitty said suddenly, looking at a sparrow that had settled on the step

"A propos de Varenka," said Kitty, speaking in French, as they had been doing all the while, so that Agathya

Mikhailovna should not understand them, "you know, maman, I somehow expect things to be settled today.

"But what a famous matchmaker she is!" said Dolly. "How carefully and cleverly she throws them

"Why, what is one to think? He" ('he' meant Sergei Ivanovich) "might at any time have been one of the best

matches in Russia; now, of course, he's not quite a young man, still I know ever so many girls would be glad

"Oh, no, mamma, do understand why, for him and for her too, nothing better could be imagined. In the first

"Then he occupies such a position in society that he has no need to look for either fortune or position in his

"Thirdly, that she should love him. And so it is... that is, it would be so splendid!... I look forward to seeing

them coming out of the forest and everything settled. I shall see at once by their eyes. I should be so

"But don't excite yourself. It's not at all the thing for you to be excited," said her mother.

"Ah, that's so strange how and when a man proposes!... There is a sort of barrier, and all at once it's broken

down," said Dolly, smiling pensively and recalling her past with Stepan Arkadyevich.

"There was nothing out of the way it was very simple," answered the Princess, but her face beamed all over

"Oh, but how was it? You loved him, at any rate, before you were allowed to speak?"

Kitty felt a peculiar pleasure in being able now to talk to her mother on equal terms about those questions of

"You imagine, I dare say, that you invented something quite new? It's always just the same: it was settled by

"How well you said that, mamma! It's just by the eyes, by smiles that it's done," Dolly assented.

And the three women all fell to musing on the same thing. Kitty was the first to break the silence. She

remembered all that last winter before her marriage, and her passion for Vronsky.

"There's one thing... that old love affair of Varenka's," she said, a natural chain of ideas bringing her to this

point. "I should have liked to say something to Sergei Ivanovich, to prepare him. They're all all men, I

"Not all," said Dolly. "You judge by your own husband. It makes him miserable even now to remember

"But I really don't know," the mother put in in defense of her motherly care of her daughter, "what there was

in your past that could worry him? That Vronsky paid you attentions that happens to every girl."

"No, let me speak," her mother went on, "why, you yourself would not let me have a talk with Vronsky. Don't

"There's no keeping you young people in check nowadays.... Your friendship could not have gone beyond

what was suitable. I should myself have called upon him to explain himself. But, my darling, it's not right for

"How happy it was for Kitty that Anna came then," said Dolly, "and how unhappy for her. It turned out quite

the opposite," she said, struck by her own ideas. "Then Anna was so happy, and Kitty thought herself

"A fine person to think about! Horrid, repulsive woman no heart," said her mother, who could not forget

"What do you want to talk of it for?" Kitty said with annoyance. "I never think about it, and I don't want to

think of it.... And I don't want to think of it," she said, catching the sound of her husband's familiar step on the

"What's that you don't want to think about?" inquired Levin, coming onto the terrace.

"I'm sorry I've broken in on your feminine kingdom," he said, looking round on everyone discontentedly, and

perceiving that they had been talking of something which they would not talk about before him.

For a second he felt that he was sharing the feeling of Agathya Mikhailovna, vexation at their making jam

without water, and, on the whole, at the outside, Shcherbatsky authority. He smiled, however, and went up to

"Well, how are you?" he asked her, looking at her with the expression with which everyone looked at her

"The wagon held three times as much as the telega did. Well, are we going for the children? I've ordered the

"What! You want to take Kitty in the wide droshky?" her mother said reproachfully.

Levin never called the princess "maman" as men often do call their mothersinlaw, and the Princess

disliked his not doing so. But though he liked and respected the Princess, Levin could not call her so without

"Well, I'll walk then, I'm so well." Kitty got up and went to her husband and took his hand.

"Well, Agathya Mikhailovna, is the jam done?" said Levin, smiling to Agathya Mikhailovna, and trying to

"It'll be all the better, Agathya Mikhailovna, it won't turn sour, even though the ice in our icehouse has begun

to melt already, so that we've no cool place to store it," said Kitty, at once divining her husband's motive, and

addressing the old housekeeper with the same feeling; "but your pickles are so good, that mamma says she

never tasted any like them," she added, smiling, and putting her kerchief straight.

"You needn't try to console me, mistress. I need only to look at you with him, and I feel happy," she said, and

Agathya Mikhailovna smiled and shook her head, as though to say: "I would even like to be angry with you,

"Do it, please, according to my recipe," said the Princess; "put some paper over the jam, and moisten it with a

Kitty was particularly glad of a chance of being alone with her husband, for she had noticed the shade of

mortification that had passed over his face always so quick to reflect every feeling at the moment when he

had come onto the terrace and asked what they were talking of, and had got no answer.

When they had set off on foot ahead of the others, and had gotten out of sight of the house onto the beaten,

dusty road, sprinkled with ears of rye and with separate grains, she clung faster to his arm and pressed it

closer to her. He had quite forgotten the momentary unpleasant impression, and alone with her he felt, now

that the thought of her approaching motherhood was never for a moment absent from his mind, a new and

delicious bliss, quite pure from all alloy of sense, in being near to the woman he loved. There was no need of

speech, yet he longed to hear the sound of her voice, which, like her eyes, had changed since she had become

pregnant. In her voice, as in her eyes, there was that softness and gravity which is found in people continually

"No, I'm so glad of a chance of being alone with you, and I must own, though I'm happy with them, I sigh for

"That was good, but this is even better. Both are better," he said, squeezing her hand.

"Ah!" said Levin, listening more to the sound of her voice than to her words, and all the while paying

attention to the road, which passed now through the forest, and avoiding places where she might make a false

"And about Sergei Ivanovich and Varenka. You've noticed?... I'm very anxious for it," she went on. "What do

"I don't know what to think," Levin answered, smiling. "Sergei seems very strange to me in that way. I told

"That was when I was a child; I know about it from hearsay and tradition. I remember him then. He was

wonderfully sweet. But I've watched him since with women; he is friendly, some of them he likes, but one

"Perhaps there is.... But one has to know him.... He's a peculiar, wonderful person. He lives a spiritual life

"No, but he's so used to a spiritual life that he can't reconcile himself with actual fact, and Varenka is after all

Levin had grown used by now to uttering his thought boldly, without taking the trouble of clothing it in exact

language. He knew that his wife, in such moments of loving tenderness as now, would understand what he

"Yes, but there's not so much of that actual fact about her as about me. I can see that he would never have

"Oh, no, he is so fond of you, and I am always so glad when my people like you...."

"It's not as it was with poor Nikolenka.... You really cared for each other," Levin finished. "Why not speak of

him?" he added. "I sometimes blame myself for not doing so; it ends in one's forgetting. Ah, how terrible and

"You think he can't fall in love," said Kitty, translating into her own language.

"It's not so much that he can't fall in love," Levin said, smiling, "but he has not the weakness necessary.... I've

"I envy him for being better than me," said Levin. "He does not live for himself. His whole life is

She could never have explained the chain of thought that made her smile; but the last link in it was that her

husband, in exalting his brother and abasing himself, was not quite sincere. Kitty knew that this insincerity

came from his love for his brother, from his sense of shame at being too happy, and, above all, from his

Her disbelief in his selfdissatisfaction delighted him, and unconsciously he tried to draw her into giving

"Well, how shall I say?... In my heart I really care for nothing whatever but that you should not stumble see?

Oh, but really you mustn't skip about like that!" he cried, breaking off to scold her for too agile a movement

in stepping over a branch that lay in the path. "But when I think about myself, and compare myself with

"But in what way?" Kitty pursued with the same smile. "Don't you, too, work for others? What about your

"Oh, but I feel, and particularly just now it's your fault," he said, pressing her hand "that all that doesn't

count. I do it, in a way, halfheartedly. If I could care for all that as I care for you!... Instead of that, I do it in

"Well, what would you say about papa?" asked Kitty. "Is he a poor creature then, as he does nothing for the

"He? No! But then, one must have the simplicity, the straightforwardness, the goodness of your father: and I

haven't got that. I do nothing, and I fret about it. It's all your doing. Before you and this too," he added with

a glance toward her waist that she understood "I put all my energies into work; now I can't, and I'm

"Well, but would you like to change this minute with Sergei Ivanovich?" said Kitty. "Would you like to do

this work for the general good, and to love the task set you, as he does, and nothing else?"

"Of course not," said Levin. "But I'm so happy that I don't understand anything. So you think he'll propose to

"I think so, and I don't think so. Only, I'm awfully anxious for it. Here, wait a minute." She stooped down and

picked a wild daisy at the edge of the path. "Come, count: he will, he won't," she said, giving him the flower.

"No, no!" Kitty, snatching at his hand, stopped him. She had been watching his fingers with agitation. "You

"Oh, but see, this little one shan't count to make up," said Levin, tearing off a little halfgrown petal. "Here's

But it was not worthwhile to get in; they were quite near the place, and all walked on together.

Varenka, with her white kerchief on her black hair, surrounded by the children, gaily and goodhumoredly

looking after them, and at the same time visibly excited at the possibility of receiving a declaration from the

man she cared for, was very attractive. Sergei Ivanovich walked beside her, and never left off admiring her.

Looking at her, he recalled all the delightful things he had heard from her lips, all the good he knew about

her, and became more and more conscious that the feeling he had for her was something special that he had

felt long, long ago, and only once, in his early youth. The feeling of happiness in being near her continually

grew, and at last reached such a point that, as he put a huge, slenderstalked mushroom with rolled brims, in

her basket, he looked straight into her face, and noticing the flush of glad and alarmed excitement that

overspread her face, he was confused himself, and smiled to her in silence a smile that said too much.

"If so," he said to himself, "I ought to think it over and make up my mind, and not give way like a boy to the

"I'm going to pick by myself apart from all the rest, or else my efforts will make no show," he said, and he

left the edge of the forest where they were walking on low silky grass between old birch trees standing far

apart, and went more into the heart of the wood, where between the white birch trunks there were gray trunks

of aspen and dark bushes of hazel. Walking some forty paces away, Sergei Ivanovich, knowing he was out of

sight, stood still behind a bushy spindle tree in full flower with its rosyred catkins. It was perfectly still all

round him. Only overhead, in the birches under which he stood, the flies, like a swarm of bees, buzzed

unceasingly, and from time to time the children's voices floated across to him. All at once he heard, not far

from the edge of the wood, the sound of Varenka's contralto voice, calling Grisha, and a smile of delight

passed over Sergei Ivanovich's face. Conscious of this smile, he shook his head disapprovingly at his own

state and, taking out a cigar, he began lighting it. For a long while he could not get a match to light against

the trunk of a birch tree. The soft pellicle of the white bark stuck around the phosphorus, and the light went

out. At last one of the matches burned, and the fragrant cigar smoke, hovering uncertainly in flat, wide coils,

stretched away forward and upward over a bush under the overhanging branches of a birch tree. Watching the

streak of smoke, Sergei Ivanovich walked gently on, deliberating on his position.

"Why not?" he thought. "If it were only a flash in the pan, or a passion, if it were only this attraction this

mutual attraction (I can call it a mutual attraction), yet if I felt that it was in contradiction with the whole bent

of my life; if I felt that in giving way to this attraction I should be false to my vocation and my duty... But it's

not so. The only thing I can say against it is that, when I lost Marie, I said to myself that I would remain

faithful to her memory. That's the only thing I can say against my feeling.... That's a great thing," Sergei

Ivanovich said to himself, feeling at the same time that this consideration had not the slightest importance for

him personally, but would only perhaps detract from his romantic character in the eyes of others. "But apart

from that, however much I searched, I should never find anything to say against my feeling. If I were

choosing by considerations of intellect alone, I could not have found anything better."

However many women and girls he thought of whom he knew, he could not think of a girl who united to such

a degree all positively all the qualities he would wish to see in his wife. She had all the charm and

freshness of youth, but she was not a child; and if she loved him, she loved him consciously, as a woman

ought to love; that was one thing. Another point: she was not only far from being worldly, but had an

unmistakable distaste for worldly society, and at the same time she knew the world, and had all the ways of a

woman of the best society, which were absolutely essential to Sergei Ivanovich's conception of the woman

who was to share his life. Thirdly: she was religious, and not like a child, unconsciously religious and good,

as Kitty, for example, was, but her life was founded on religious principles. Even in trifling matters, Sergei

Ivanovich found in her all that he wanted in his wife: she was poor and alone in the world, so she would not

bring with her a mass of relations and their influence into her husband's house, as he saw now in Kitty's case.

She would owe everything to her husband, which was what he had always desired, too, for his future family

life. And this girl, who united all these qualities, loved him. He was a modest man, but he could not help

seeing it. And he loved her. There was one consideration against it his age. But he came of a longlived

family, he had not a single gray hair, no one would have taken him for forty, and he remembered Varenka's

saying that it was only in Russia that men of fifty thought themselves old, and that in France a man of fifty

considers himself dans la force de l'age, while a man of forty is un jeune homme. But what did the mere

reckoning of years matter when he felt as young in heart as he had been twenty years ago? Was it not youth

to feel as he felt now, when coming from the other side to the edge of the wood he saw in the glowing light of

the slanting sunbeams the graceful figure of Varenka in her yellow gown with her basket, walking lightly by

the trunk of an old birch tree, and when this impression of the sight of Varenka blended so harmoniously with

the beauty of the view, of the yellow oat field lying bathed in the slanting sunshine, and, beyond it, the distant

ancient forest, flecked with yellow and melting into the blue of the distance? His heart throbbed joyously. A

softened feeling came over him. He felt that he had made up his mind. Varenka, who had just crouched down

to pick a mushroom, rose with a supple movement and looked round. Flinging away the cigar, Sergei

"Varvara Andreevna, when I was very young, I set before myself the ideal of the woman I loved and should

be happy to call my wife. I have lived through a long life, and now for the first time I have met what I

Sergei Ivanovich was saying this to himself while he was ten paces from Varenka. Kneeling down, with her

hands over the mushrooms to guard them from Grisha, she was calling little Masha.

"Come here, little ones! There are so many!" she was saying in her sweet, deep voice.

Seeing Sergei Ivanovich approaching, she did not get up and did not change her position, but everything told

"Well, did you find some?" she asked from under the white kerchief, turning her handsome, gently smiling

"That one too, near the twig," she pointed out to little Masha a little fungus, split in half across its rosy cap by

the dry grass from under which it thrust itself. Varenka got up while Masha picked the fungus, breaking it

into two white halves. "This brings back my childhood," she added, moving apart from the children, to Sergei

They walked on for a few steps in silence. Varenka saw that he wanted to speak; she guessed of what, and felt

faint with joy and panic. They had walked so far away that no one could hear them now, but still he did not

begin. It would have been better for Varenka to be silent. After a silence it would have been easier for them to

say what they wanted to say, than after talking about mushrooms. But against her own will, as it were

"So you found nothing? In the middle of the wood there are always fewer, though."

Sergei Ivanovich sighed and made no answer. He was annoyed that she had spoken about the mushrooms. He

wanted to bring her back to the first words she had uttered about her childhood; but after a pause of some

length, as though against his own will, he made an observation in response to her last words.

"I have heard that the white edible fungi are found principally at the edge of the wood, though I can't tell

Some minutes more passed; they moved still farther away from the children, and were quite alone. Varenka's

heart throbbed so that she heard it beating, and felt that she was turning red, and pale, and red again.

To be the wife of a man like Koznishev, after her position with Madame Stahl, was to her imagination the

height of happiness. Besides, she was almost certain that she was in love with him. And this moment it would

have to be decided. She felt frightened. She dreaded both his speaking and his not speaking.

Now or never it must be said Sergei Ivanovich felt that too. Everything in the expression, the flushed cheeks

and the downcast eyes of Varenka betrayed a painful suspense. Sergei Ivanovich saw it, and felt sorry for her.

He felt even that to say nothing now would be a slight to her. Rapidly in his own mind he ran over all the

arguments in support of his decision. He even said over to himself the words in which he meant to put his

proposal, but instead of those words, some utterly unexpected reflection that occurred to him made him ask:

And as soon as these words were uttered, both he and she felt that it was over, that what was to have been

said would not be said; and their emotion, which up to then had been continually growing more intense,

"The birch mushroom's stalk suggests a dark man's chin after two days without shaving," said Sergei

"Yes, that's true," answered Varenka smiling, and unconsciously the direction of their walk changed. They

began to turn toward the children. Varenka felt both hurt and ashamed; at the same time she felt a sense of

When he had got home again, and went over the whole set of arguments, Sergei Ivanovich thought his

previous decision had been a mistaken one. He could not be false to the memory of Marie.

"Gently, children, gently!" Levin shouted quite angrily to the children, standing before his wife to protect her

Behind the children Sergei Ivanovich and Varenka walked out of the forest. Kitty had no need to ask

Varenka; she saw from the calm and somewhat crestfallen faces of both that her plans had not come off.

"No bites," said Kitty, her smile and manner of speaking recalling her father, a likeness Levin often noticed

"I'll show you," she said, taking her husband's hand, lifting it to her mouth, and just faintly brushing it with

During the time of the children's tea the grownups sat on the balcony and talked as though nothing had

happened though they all, especially Sergei Ivanovich and Varenka, were very well aware that there had

happened an event which, though negative, was of very great importance. They both had the same feeling,

rather like that of a schoolboy after an unlucky examination, which has left him in the same class or shut him

out of school forever. Everyone present, also feeling that something had happened, talked eagerly about

extraneous subjects. Levin and Kitty were particularly happy and conscious of their love that evening. And

their happiness in their love seemed to imply a disagreeable reference to those who would have liked to feel

That evening they were expecting Stepan Arkadyevich to come down by train, and the old Prince had written

"And I know why," the Princess went on; "he says that newly married couples ought to be left alone for a

"But papa has left us alone. We've never seen him," said Kitty. "Besides, we're not newly married! we're old

"Only if he doesn't come, I shall say goodby to you, children," said the Princess, sighing mournfully.

"What nonsense, mamma!" both the daughters fell upon her at once. "How do you suppose he is feeling?

And suddenly there was an unexpected quiver in the Princess's voice. Her daughters were silent, and looked

at one another. "Maman always finds something to be miserable about," they said in that glance. They did not

know that happy as the Princess was in her daughter's house, and useful as she felt herself to be there, she had

been extremely miserable, both on her own account and her husband's, ever since they had married off their

"What is it, Agathya Mikhailovna?" Kitty asked suddenly of Agathya Mikhailovna, who was standing with a

"Well, that's right," said Dolly; "you go and arrange about it, and I'll go and hear Grisha repeat his lesson, or

Grisha, who was by now at a high school, had to go over the lessons of the term in the summer holidays.

Darya Alexandrovna, who had been studying Latin with her son in Moscow before, had made it a rule on

coming to the Levins' to go over with him, at least once a day, the most difficult lessons of Latin and

arithmetic. Levin had offered to take her place, but the mother, having once overheard Levin's lesson, and

noticing that it was not given exactly as the teacher in Moscow had given it, said resolutely, though with

much embarrassment and anxiety not to mortify Levin, that they must keep strictly to the book as the teacher

had done, and that she had better undertake it again herself. Levin was amazed both at Stepan Arkadyevich,

who, by neglecting his duty, threw upon the mother the supervision of studies of which she had no

comprehension, and at the teachers for teaching the children so badly. But he promised his sisterinlaw to

give the lessons exactly as she wished. And he went on teaching Grisha, not in his own way, but by the book,

and so took little interest in it, and often forgot the hour of the lesson. So it had been today.

"No, I'm going, Dolly, you sit still," he said. "We'll do it all properly, according to the book. Only when Stiva

Varenka was saying the same thing to Kitty. Even in the happy, wellordered household of the Levins,

"I'll see to the supper, you sit still," she said, and got up to go to Agathya Mikhailovna.

"Not merely fine, maman; she's an exquisite girl; there's no one else like her."

"So you are expecting Stepan Arkadyevich today?" said Sergei Ivanovich, evidently not disposed to pursue

the conversation about Varenka. "It would be difficult to find two sonsinlaw more unlike than yours," he

said with a subtle smile. "One mobility itself, only living in society, like a fish in water; the other our Kostia,

lively, alert, quick in everything, but, as soon as he is in society, he either sinks into apathy, or struggles

"Yes, he's very heedless," said the Princess, addressing Sergei Ivanovich. "I've intended, indeed, to ask you to

tell him that it's out of the question for her" (she indicated Kitty) "to stay here; that she positively must come

"Maman, he'll do everything; he has agreed to everything," Kitty said, angry with her mother for appealing to

In the middle of their conversation they heard the snorting of horses and the sound of wheels on the gravel.

Dolly had not time to get up to go and meet her husband, when from the window of the room below, where

"It's Stiva!" Levin shouted from under the balcony. "We've finished, Dolly, don't be afraid!" he added, and

"And someone else too! Papa, of course!" cried Levin, stopping at the entrance of the avenue. "Kitty, don't

But Levin had been mistaken in taking the person sitting in the carriage for the old Prince. As he got nearer to

the carriage he saw beside Stepan Arkadyevich not the Prince, but a handsome, stout young man in a Scotch

cap, with long ends of ribbon behind. This was Vassenka Veslovsky, a distant cousin of the Shcherbatskys, a

brilliant young gentleman in Peterburg and Moscow society a capital fellow, and a keen sportsman," as

Not a whit abashed by the disappointment caused by his having come in place of the old Prince, Veslovsky

greeted Levin gaily, claiming acquaintance with him in the past, and snatching up Grisha into the carriage,

Levin did not get into the carriage, but walked behind. He was rather vexed at the nonarrival of the old

Prince, whom he liked more and more the more he saw him, and also the arrival of this Vassenka Veslovsky,

a quite alien and superfluous person. He seemed to him still more alien and superfluous when, on

approaching the steps where the whole party, children and grownups, were gathered together in much

animation, Levin saw Vassenka Veslovsky, with a particularly warm and gallant air, kissing Kitty's hand.

"Your wife and I are cousins and very old friends," said Vassenka Veslovsky, once more shaking Levin's

"Well, are there plenty of birds?" Stepan Arkadyevich said to Levin, hardly leaving time for everyone to

exchange greetings. "We've come with the most savage intentions. Why, maman, they've not been in Moscow

since! Look, Tania, here's something for you! Get it, please, it's in the carriage, behind!" he talked in all

directions. "How pretty you've grown, Dollenka," he said to his wife, once more kissing her hand, holding it

Levin, who a minute before had been in the happiest frame of mind, now looked darkly at everyone, and

"Who was it he kissed yesterday with these lips?" he thought, looking at Stepan Arkadyevich's tender

"She doesn't believe in his love. So what is she pleased about? Revolting!" thought Levin.

He looked at the Princess, who had been so dear to him a minute before, and he did not like the manner in

which she welcomed this Vassenka, with his ribbons, just as though she were in her own house.

Even Sergei Ivanovich, who had come out too on the steps, seemed to him unpleasant with the show of

cordiality with which he met Stepan Arkadyevich, though Levin knew that his brother neither liked nor

And Varenka even she seemed hateful, with her air sainte nitouche making the acquaintance of this

And more hateful than anyone was Kitty, for falling in with the tone of gaiety with which this gentleman

regarded his visit in the country, as though it were a holiday for himself and everyone else. And, more

unpleasant than everything else, was that peculiar smile with which she responded to his smile.

Noisily talking, they all went into the house; but as soon as they were all seated, Levin turned and went out.

Kitty saw something was wrong with her husband. She tried to seize a moment to speak to him alone, but he

made haste to get away from her, saying he was wanted at the countinghouse. It was long since his own work

on the estate had seemed to him so important as at that moment. "It's all holiday for them," he thought; "but

these are no holiday matters, they won't wait, and there's no living without them."

Levin came back to the house only when they sent to summon to supper. On the stairs were standing Kitty

"No, Stiva doesn't drink... Kostia, stop, what's the matter?" Kitty began, hurrying after him, but he strode

ruthlessly away to the dining room without waiting for her, and at once joined in the lively general

conversation which was being maintained there by Vassenka Veslovsky and Stepan Arkadyevich.

"Well, what do you say, are we going shooting tomorrow?" said Stepan Arkadyevich.

"Please, do let's go," said Veslovsky, moving to another chair, where he sat down sideways, with one fat leg

"I shall be delighted, we will go. And have you had any shooting yet this year?" said Levin to Veslovsky,

looking intently at his leg, but speaking with that forced amiability that Kitty knew so well in him, and that

was so out of keeping with him. "I can't answer for our finding double snipe, but there are plenty of

jacksnipe. Only we ought to start early. You're not tired? Aren't you tired, Stiva?"

"Me tired? I've never been tired yet. Suppose we stay up all night. Let's go for a walk!"

"Oh, we all know you can do without sleep, and keep other people up too," Dolly said to her husband, with

that faint note of irony in her voice which she almost always had now with her husband. "But to my thinking,

"No, do stay a little, Dollenka," said Stepan Arkadyevich, going round to her side behind the table where they

"Do you know Veslovsky has been at Anna's, and he's going to them again? You know they're hardly seventy

verstas from you, and I too must certainly go over there. Veslovsky, come here!"

"Ah, do tell me, please; you have visited her? How was she?" Darya Alexandrovna appealed to him.

Levin was left at the other end of the table, and though never pausing in his conversation with the Princess

and Varenka, he saw that there was an eager and mysterious conversation going on between Stepan

Arkadyevich, Dolly, Kitty, and Veslovsky. And that was not all. He saw on his wife's face an expression of

real feeling as she gazed with fixed eyes on the handsome face of Vassenka, who was telling them something

"It's exceedingly nice at their place," Veslovsky was telling them about Vronsky and Anna. "I can't, of

course, take it upon myself to judge, but in their house you feel the real feeling of home."

"How jolly it would be for us all to go over to them together! When are you going there?" Stepan

"I've been wanting to a long while; I shall certainly go," said Dolly. "I am sorry for her, and I know her. She's

a splendid woman. I will go alone, when you go back, and then I shall be in no one's way. And it will be

"I? Why should I go?" Kitty said, flushing all over, and she glanced round at her husband.

"Do you know Anna Arkadyevna, then?" Veslovsky asked her. "She's a very fascinating woman?"

"Yes," she answered Veslovsky, crimsoning still more. She got up and walked across to her husband.

His jealousy had in these few moments, especially at the flush that had overspread her cheeks while she was

talking to Veslovsky, gone far indeed. Now as he heard her words, he construed them in his own fashion.

Strange as it was to him afterward to recall it, it seemed to him at the moment clear that in asking whether he

was going shooting, all she cared to know was whether he would give that pleasure to Vassenka Veslovsky,

"Yes, I'm going," he answered her in an unnatural voice, disagreeable to himself.

"No, better spend the day here tomorrow, or Dolly won't see anything of her husband, and set off the day

The motive of Kitty's words was interpreted by Levin thus: "Don't separate me from him. I don't care about

"Oh, if you wish, we'll stay here tomorrow," Levin answered, with peculiar amiability.

Vassenka meanwhile, utterly unsuspecting the misery his presence had occasioned, got up from the table after

Levin saw that look. He turned white, and for a minute he could hardly breathe. "How dare he look at my

"Tomorrow, then? Do, please, let us go," said Vassenka, sitting down on a chair, and again crossing his leg as

Levin's jealousy went further still. Already he saw himself a deceived husband, looked upon by his wife and

her lover as simply necessary to provide them with the conveniences and pleasures of life.... But in spite of

that he made polite and hospitable inquiries of Vassenka about his shooting, his gun, and his boots, and

Happily for Levin, the old Princess cut short his agonies by getting up herself and advising Kitty to go to bed.

But even at this point Levin could not escape another agony. As he said good night to his hostess, Vassenka

would again have kissed her hand, but Kitty, reddening, drew back her hand and said with a naive bluntness,

In Levin's eyes she was to blame for having allowed such relations to arise, and still more to blame for

"Why, how can one want to go to bed!" said Stepan Arkadyevich, who, after drinking several glasses of wine

at supper, was now in his most charming and lyrical humor. "Look, Kitty," he said, pointing to the moon,

which had just risen behind the linden trees, "how exquisite! Veslovsky, this is the time for a serenade. You

know, he has a splendid voice; we practised songs together along the road. He has brought some lovely songs

When the party had broken up, Stepan Arkadyevich walked a long while about the avenue with Veslovsky;

Levin, hearing these voices, sat scowling in an easy chair in his wife's bedroom, and maintained an obstinate

silence when she asked him what was wrong. But when at last with a timid glance she hazarded the question:

"Was there perhaps something you disliked about Veslovsky?" it all burst out, and he told her all. He was

He stood facing her with his eyes glittering menacingly under his scowling brows, and he squeezed his strong

arms across his chest, as though he were straining every nerve to hold himself in. The expression of his face

would have been grim, and even cruel, if it had not at the same time had a look of suffering which touched

"You must understand that I'm not jealous, that's a nasty word. I can't be jealous, and believe that... I can't say

what I feel, but this is awful... I'm not jealous, but I'm wounded, humiliated that anybody dare think, that

"Eyes like what?" said Kitty, trying as conscientiously as possible to recall every word and gesture of that

At the very bottom of her heart she did think there had been something, precisely at the moment when he had

crossed over after her to the other end of the table; but she dared not own it even to herself, and would have

been even more unable to bring herself to say so to him, and so increase his suffering.

"Ah!" he cried, clutching at his head, "You shouldn't say that!... If you had been attractive, then..."

"Oh, no, Kostia, oh, wait a minute, oh, do listen!" she said, looking at him with an expression of pained

commiseration. "Why, what can you be thinking about! When for me there's no one in the world, no one, no

For the first minute she had been offended at his jealousy; she was angry that the slightest amusement, even

the most innocent, should be forbidden her; but now she would readily have sacrificed, not merely such

trifles, but everything, for his peace of mind, to save him from the agony he was suffering.

"You must understand the horror and comedy of my position," he went on in a desperate whisper; "that he's

in my house, that he's done nothing positively improper one can take exception only to his free and easy airs

and the way he tucks his legs in under him. He thinks it's the best possible form, and so I'm obliged to be civil

"But, Kostia, you're exaggerating," said Kitty, at the bottom of her heart rejoicing at the depth of his love for

"The most awful part of it all is that you're just as you always are, and especially now when to me you're

something sacred, and we're so happy, so particularly happy and all of a sudden a little wretch... He's not a

little wretch; why should I abuse him? I have nothing to do with him. But why should my, and your,

She told him what they had been talking about. And as she told him, she was breathless with emotion. Levin

was silent for a space, then he scanned her pale and distressed face, and suddenly he clutched at his head.

"Katia, I've been worrying you! Darling, forgive me! It's madness! Katia, I'm a criminal. And how could you

"For me? For me? How mad I am!... But why make you miserable? It's awful to think that any outsider can

"Oh, then I'll keep him here all the summer, and will overwhelm him with civility," said Levin, kissing her

Next day, before the ladies were up, the carriages for the shooting party, the droshky and a trap, were at the

door, and Laska, aware since early morning that they were going shooting, after much whining and darting to

and fro, had sat herself down in the droshky beside the coachman, and, disapproving of the delay, was

excitedly watching the door from which the sportsmen still did not issue. The first to come out was Vassenka

Veslovsky, in new high boots that reached halfway up his thick thighs, in a green blouse, with a new

cartridge belt, redolent of leather, and in his Scotch cap with ribbons, with a brandnew English gun without

a sling. Laska flew up to him, welcomed him, and, jumping up, asked him in her own way whether the others

were coming soon; but getting no answer from him, she returned to her post of observation and sank into

repose again, her head on one side, and one ear pricked up to listen. At last the door opened with a creak, and

Stepan Arkadyevich's spotandtan pointer Krak flew out, running round and round and turning over in the

air. Stepan Arkadyevich himself followed with a gun in his hand and a cigar in his mouth. "Soho, soho,

Krak!" he cried encouragingly to the dog, who put his paws up on his chest, catching at his gamebag. Stepan

Arkadyevich was dressed in brogues and puttees, in torn trousers and a short coat. On his head there was a

wreck of a hat of indefinite form, but his gun of a new patent was a perfect gem, and his gamebag and

Vassenka Veslovsky had had no notion before that it was truly chic for a sportsman to be in tatters, but to

have his shooting outfit of the best quality. He saw it now as he looked at Stepan Arkadyevich, radiant in his

rags, graceful, wellfed, and joyous, a typical Russian nobleman. And he made up his mind that next time he

Stepan Arkadyevich guessed right. Levin had run up again to his wife to ask her once more if she forgave

him for his idiocy yesterday, and, moreover, to beg her in Christ's name to be more careful. The great thing

was for her to keep away from the children they might any minute jostle against her. Then he had once more

to hear her declare that she was not angry with him for going away for two days, and to beg her to be sure to

send a note next morning by a servant on horseback, to write him, if it were but two words only, to let him

Kitty was distressed, as she always was, at parting for a couple of days from her husband, but when she saw

his eager figure, looking big and strong in his shooting boots and his white blouse, and a sort of sportsman

elation and excitement incomprehensible to her, she forgot her own chagrin for the sake of his pleasure, and

"Pardon, gentlemen!" he said, running out on the steps. "Have you put the lunch in? Why is the chestnut on

"Put them with the herd of heifers," he said to the herdsman who was waiting for him at the steps to ask him

what was to be done with the geld oxen. "Excuse me, here comes another villain."

Levin jumped out of the droshky, in which he had already taken his seat, to meet the carpenter, who came

"You didn't come to the countinghouse yesterday, and now you're detaining me. Well, what is it?"

"Would your honor let me make another turning? There's only three steps to add. And we make it just fit at

"You should have listened to me," Levin answered with annoyance. "I said: Put the lines and then fit in the

steps. Now there's no setting it right. Do as I told you, and make a new staircase."

The point was that in the wing that was being built the carpenter had spoiled the staircase, fitting it together

without calculating the space it was to fill, so that the steps were all sloping when it was put in place. Now

"Why, upon my word, sir," the carpenter said with a contemptuous smile. "It comes out right at the very spot.

It starts here," he said, with a persuasive gesture, "then it'll go up, and go up and come out."

"Why, to be sure, it'll go up, and come out," the carpenter said obstinately and convincingly.

"As your honor likes," said the carpenter, with a sudden gleam in his eyes, obviously understanding the thing

"Well, then, do it as you're told," Levin shouted, seating himself in the droshky. "Down! Hold the dogs,

Levin felt now at leaving behind all his family and household cares such an eager sense of joy in life and

expectation that he was not disposed to talk. Besides that, he had that feeling of concentrated excitement that

every sportsman experiences as he approaches the scene of action. If he had anything on his mind at that

moment, it was only the doubt whether they would start anything in the Kolpensky marsh, whether Laska

would show to advantage in comparison with Krak, and whether he would shoot well that day himself. Not to

disgrace himself before a new spectator not to be outdone by Oblonsky that too was a thought that crossed

Oblonsky was feeling the same, and he too was not talkative. Vassenka Veslovsky alone kept up a ceaseless

flow of cheerful chatter. As he listened to him now, Levin felt ashamed to think how unfair he had been to

him the day before. Vassenka was really a fine fellow, simple, goodhearted, and very goodhumored. If

Levin had met him before he was married, he would have made friends with him. Levin rather disliked his

holiday attitude to life and a sort of free and easy assumption of elegance. It was as though he assumed a high

degree of importance in himself that could not be disputed, because he had long nails and a stylish cap, and

everything else to correspond; but this could be forgiven for the sake of his good nature and good breeding.

Levin liked him for his good education, for speaking French and English with such an excellent accent, and

Vassenka was extremely delighted with the left outrigger, a horse of the Don steppes. He kept praising him

enthusiastically. "How fine it must be galloping over the steppes on a steppe horse! Eh? Isn't it?" he said. He

had imagined riding on a steppe horse as something wild and romantic, and it turned out nothing of the sort.

But his simplicity, particularly in conjunction with his good looks, his amiable smile, and the grace of his

movements, was very attractive. Either because his nature was sympathetic to Levin, or because Levin was

trying to atone for his sins of the previous evening by seeing nothing but what was good in him at any rate,

After they had driven three verstas from home, Veslovsky all at once felt for a cigar and his pocketbook, and

did not know whether he had lost them or left them on the table. In the pocketbook there were three hundred

"Do you know what, Levin, I'll gallop home on that outrigger. That will be splendid. Eh?" he said, preparing

"No, why should you?" answered Levin, calculating that Vassenka could hardly weigh less than six poods.

The coachman rode back on the outrigger, and Levin himself drove the remaining pair.

"Well, now, what's our plan of campaign? Tell us all about it," said Stepan Arkadyevich.

"Our plan is this. Now we're driving to Gvozdiov. In Gvozdiov there's a double snipe marsh on this side, and

beyond Gvozdiov come some magnificent jacksnipe marshes, where there are double snipe too. It's hot now,

and we'll get there it's twenty verstas toward evening, and have some evening shooting; we'll spend the

"Yes; but we'll save ourselves; besides, it's hot. There are two good little places, but I doubt there being

Levin would himself have liked to go into these little places, but they were near home; he could shoot them

over any time, and they were only little places there would hardly be room for three to shoot. And so, with

some insincerity, he said that he doubted there being anything to shoot. When they reached a little marsh

Levin would have driven by, but Stepan Arkadyevich, with the experienced eye of a sportsman, at once

"Levin, do, please! How delightful!" Vassenka Veslovsky began begging, and Levin could not but consent.

Before they had time to stop, the dogs had flown one before the other into the marsh.

"There won't be room for three. I'll stay here," said Levin, hoping they would find nothing but pewits, which

had been startled by the dogs, and, turning over in their flight, were plaintively wailing over the marsh.

"Really, there's no room. Laska, back, Laska! You won't want another dog, will you?"

Levin remained with the droshky, and looked enviously at the sportsmen. They walked across the marsh.

Except one moor hen and pewits, of which Vassenka killed one, there was nothing in the marsh.

"Come, you see now that it was not that I grudged the marsh," said Levin, "only it's wasting time."

"Oh, no, it was jolly all the same. Did you see us?" said Vassenka Veslovsky, clambering awkwardly into the

droshky with his gun and his pewit in his hands. "How splendidly I shot this bird! Didn't I? Well, shall we

The horses started off suddenly, Levin knocked his head against the stock of someone's gun, and there was

the report of a shot. The gun did actually go off first, but that was how it seemed to Levin. It appeared that

Vassenka Veslovsky making the cocks safe had pressed one trigger, and had held back the other cock. The

charge flew into the ground without doing harm to anyone. Stepan Arkadyevich shook his head and laughed

reprovingly at Veslovsky. But Levin had not the heart to reprove him. In the first place, any reproach would

have seemed to be called forth by the danger he had incurred and the bump that had come up on Levin's

forehead. And besides, Veslovsky was at first so naively distressed, and then laughed so goodhumoredly

and infectiously at their general dismay, that one could not but laugh with him.

When they reached the second marsh, which was fairly large, and would inevitably take some time to shoot

over, Levin tried to persuade them to pass it by. But Veslovsky again talked him over. Again, as the marsh

Krak made straight for hummocks; Vassenka Veslovsky was the first to run after the dog. Before Stepan

Arkadyevich had time to come up, a double snipe flew out. Veslovsky missed it and it flew into an unmown

meadow. This double snipe was left for Veslovsky to follow up. Krak found it again and pointed, and

Levin had begun to feel the pangs of a sportsman's envy. He handed the reins to Veslovsky and walked into

Laska, who had been plaintively whining and fretting against the injustice of her treatment, flew straight

ahead to an unfailing place, covered with mossy hummocks, that Levin knew well, and that Krak had not yet

"She won't scare them," answered Levin, sympathizing with his bitch's pleasure and hurrying after her.

As she came nearer and nearer to the familiar hummocks there was more and more earnestness in Laska's

exploration. A little marsh bird did not divert her attention for more than an instant. She made one circuit

round the hummocks, was beginning a second, and suddenly quivered with excitement and stood stockstill.

"Come, come, Stiva!" shouted Levin, feeling his heart beginning to beat more violently; and all of a sudden,

as though some sort of shutter had been drawn back from his straining ears, all sounds, confused but loud,

began to beat on his hearing, losing all sense of distance. He heard the steps of Stepan Arkadyevich,

mistaking them for the tramp of the horses in the distance; he heard the brittle sound of the tussock which

came off with its roots when he had trodden on a hummock, and he took this sound for the flight of a double

snipe. He heard too, not far behind him, a splashing in the water, which he could not explain to himself.

Not a double but a jacksnipe flew up from beside the dog. Levin had lifted his gun, but at the very instant

when he was taking aim, the sound of splashing grew louder, came closer, and was joined with the sound of

Veslovsky's voice, shouting something with strange loudness. Levin saw he had his gun pointed behind the

When he had made sure he had missed, Levin looked round and saw the horses and the droshky not on the

Veslovsky, eager to see the shooting, had driven into the marsh, and got the horses stuck in the mud.

"Damn the fellow!" Levin said to himself, as he went back to the carriage that had sunk in the mire. "What

did you drive in for?" he said to him dryly, and, calling the coachman he began pulling the horses out.

Levin was vexed both at being hindered from shooting and at his horses getting stuck in the mud, and still

more at the fact that neither Stepan Arkadyevich nor Veslovsky helped him and the coachman to unharness

the horses and get them out, since neither of them had the slightest notion of harnessing. Without answering a

syllable to Vassenka's protestations that it had been quite dry there, Levin worked in silence with the

coachman at extricating the horses. But then, as he got warm at the work and saw how assiduously Veslovsky

was tugging at the droshky by one of the splashboards, so that he broke it indeed, Levin blamed himself for

having under the influence of yesterday's feelings been too cold to Veslovsky, and tried to be particularly

genial so as to smooth over his chilliness. When everything had been put right, and the vehicles had been

"Bon appetit bonne conscience! Ce poulet va tomber jusqu'au fond de mes bottes," Vassenka, who had

recovered his spirits, quoted the French saying as he finished his second chicken. "Well, now our troubles are

over, now everything's going to go well. Only, to atone for my sins, I'm bound to sit on the box. That's so?

Eh? No, no! I'll be your Automedon. You shall see how I'll get you along," he answered, without letting go

the rein, when Levin begged him to let the coachman drive. "No, I must atone for my sins, and I'm very

Levin was a little afraid he would exhaust the horses, especially the left of them, the chestnut, whom he did

not know how to hold in; but unconsciously he fell under the influence of his gaiety and listened to the songs

he sang all the way on the box, or the descriptions and representations he gave of driving in the English

fashion, fourinhand; and it was in the very best of spirits that after lunch they drove to the Gvozdiov

Vassenka drove the horses so fast that they reached the marsh too early, while it was still hot.

As they drew near this more important marsh, the chief aim of their expedition, Levin could not help

considering how he could get rid of Vassenka and be free in his movements. Stepan Arkadyevich evidently

had the same desire, and on his face Levin saw the look of anxiety always present in a true sportsman when

beginning shooting, together with a certain goodhumored slyness peculiar to him.

"How shall we go? It's a splendid marsh, I see, and there are hawks," said Stepan Arkadyevich, pointing to

two great birds hovering over the sedge. "Where there are hawks, there is sure to be game."

"Now, gentlemen," said Levin, pulling up his boots and examining the lock of his gun with a somewhat

somber expression, "do you see that sedge?" He pointed to an oasis of blackish green in the huge halfmown

wet meadow that stretched along the right bank of the river. "The marsh begins here, straight in front of us,

do you see where it is greener? From here it runs to the right where the horses are; there are hummocks

there, and double snipe, and all round that sedge as far as that alder tree, and right up to the mill. Over there,

do you see, where the creek is? That's the best place. There I once shot seventeen jacksnipe. We'll separate

with the dogs and go in different directions, and then meet over there at the mill."

"Well, who'll go left, and who to the right?" asked Stepan Arkadyevich. "It's wider to the right; you two go

"Capital! We'll make the bigger bag! Yes, come along, come along!" Vassenka exclaimed.

As soon as they entered the marsh, the two dogs began hunting about together and made toward the

rustcolored spot. Levin knew Laska's method, wary and indefinite; he knew the place too, and expected a

"Veslovsky, walk beside me beside me!" he said in a faint voice to his companion splashing in the water

behind him. Levin could not help feeling an interest in the direction his gun was pointed, after that casual

But Levin could not help troubling, and recalled Kitty's words at parting: "Mind you don't shoot one another."

The dogs came nearer and nearer, passed each other, each pursuing its own scent. The expectation of snipe

was so intense that to Levin the smacking sound of his own heel, as he drew it up out of the rusty mire,

seemed to be the call of a snipe, and he clutched and pressed the butt of his gun.

Bang! bang! sounded almost in his ear. Vassenka had fired at a flock of ducks which was hovering over the

marsh and flying at that moment toward the sportsmen, far out of range. Before Levin had time to look round,

there was the whir of one snipe, another, a third, and some eight more rose one after another.

Stepan Arkadyevich hit one at the very moment when it was beginning its zigzag movements, and the snipe

fell as a clod into the quagmire. Oblonsky aimed deliberately at another, still flying low toward the sedge, and

together with the report of the shot, that snipe too fell, and it could be seen fluttering out where the sedge had

Levin was not so lucky: he aimed at his first bird too low, and missed; he aimed at it again, just as it was

rising, but at that instant another snipe flew up at his very feet, distracting him so that he missed again.

While they were reloading their guns, another snipe rose, and Veslovsky, who had had time to reload again,

sent two charges of small shot into the water. Stepan Arkadyevich picked up his snipe, and with sparkling

"Well, now let us separate," said Stepan Arkadyevich, and limping on his left foot, holding his gun in

readiness and whistling to his dog, he walked off in one direction. Levin and Veslovsky walked off in the

It always happened with Levin that when his first shots were a failure he got heated and out of temper, and

shot badly the whole day. So was it that day. The snipe showed themselves in numbers. They kept flying up

from just under the dogs, from under the sportsmen's legs, and Levin might have retrieved his ill luck. But the

more he shot, the more he felt disgraced in the eyes of Veslovsky, who kept popping away merrily and

indiscriminately, killing nothing, and not in the slightest abashed by his ill success. Levin, in feverish haste,

could not restrain himself, got more and more out of temper, and ended by shooting almost without a hope of

hitting. Laska, indeed, seemed to understand this. She began searching more listlessly, and gazed back at the

sportsmen with apparent perplexity or reproach in her eyes. Shots followed shots in rapid succession. The

smoke of the powder hung about the sportsmen, while in the great roomy net of the gamebag there were only

three light, small snipe. And of these one had been killed by Veslovsky alone, and one by both of them

together. Meanwhile, from the other side of the marsh, came the sound of Stepan Arkadyevich's shots, not

frequent, but, as Levin fancied, well directed, for almost after each they heard "Krak, Krak, apporte!"

This excited Levin still more. The snipe were floating continually in the air over the sedge. Their whirring

wings close to the earth, and their harsh cries high in the air, could be heard on all sides; the snipe that had

risen first and flown up into the air, settled again before the sportsmen. Instead of two hawks there were now

After walking through the larger half of the marsh, Levin and Veslovsky reached the place where the

peasants' mowing grass was divided into long strips reaching to the sedge, marked off in one place by the

trampled grass, in another by a path mown through it. Half of these strips had already been mown.

Though there was not so much hope of finding birds in the uncut part as the cut part, Levin had promised

Stepan Arkadyevich to meet him, and so he walked on with his companion through the cut and uncut patches.

"Hi, hunters!" shouted one of a group of peasants, sitting on an unharnessed telega: "Come and have some

"Come along, it's all right!" shouted a goodhumoredlooking bearded peasant with a red face, showing his

white teeth in a grin, and holding up a greenish bottle that flashed in the sunlight.

"They invite you to have some vodka. Most likely they've been dividing the meadow into lots. I should have

some," said Levin, not without some guile, hoping Veslovsky would be tempted by the vodka, and would go

"Oh, they're merrymaking. Really, you should join them. You would be interested."

"You go, you go, you'll find the way to the mill!" cried Levin, and looking round he perceived with

satisfaction that Veslovsky, bent and stumbling with weariness, holding his gun out at arm's length, was

Levin felt a strong inclination for a drink of vodka and a bite of bread. He was exhausted, and felt it a great

effort to drag his staggering legs out of the mire, and for a minute he hesitated. But Laska was pointing. And

immediately all his weariness vanished, and he walked lightly through the swamp toward the dog. A snipe

flew up at his feet; he fired and killed it. Laska still pointed. "Fetch it!" Another bird flew up close to the

dog. Levin fired. But it was an unlucky day for him; he missed it, and when he went to look for the one he

had shot, he could not find that either. He wandered all about the sedge, but Laska did not believe he had shot

it, and when he sent her to find it, she pretended to hunt for it, but did not really do so.

And in the absence of Vassenka, on whom Levin threw the blame of his failure, things went no better. There

The slanting rays of the sun were still hot; his clothes, soaked through with perspiration, stuck to his body;

his left boot full of water weighed heavily on his leg and squelched at every step; the sweat ran in drops down

his powdergrimed face, his mouth was full of a bitter taste, his nose of the smell of powder and stagnant

water, his ears were ringing with the incessant whir of the snipe; he could not touch the barrel of his gun, it

was so hot; his heart beat with short, rapid throbs; his hands shook with excitement, and his weary legs

stumbled and staggered over the hummocks and in the swamp, but still he walked on and still he shot. At last,

"No, I must control myself," he said to himself. Picking up his gun and his hat, he called Laska, and went out

of the swamp. When he got onto dry ground he sat down on a hummock, pulled off his boot and emptied it,

then walked to the marsh, drank some rusttasting water, moistened the burning hot barrel of his gun, and

washed his face and hands. Feeling refreshed, he went back to the spot where a snipe had settled, firmly

He tried to be calm, but it was the same again. His finger pressed the trigger before he had taken a good aim

He had only five birds in his gamebag when he walked out of the marsh toward the alders, where he was to

Before he caught sight of Stepan Arkadyevich he saw his dog. Krak, black all over with the stinking mire of

the marsh, darted out from behind the twisted root of an alder, and, with the air of a conqueror, sniffed Laska.

Behind Krak there came into view in the shade of the alder tree the shapely figure of Stepan Arkadyevich. He

came to meet him, red and perspiring, with unbuttoned neckband, still limping in the same way.

"How have you got on?" queried Levin. But there was no need to ask, for he had already seen the full

"A splendid marsh! I've no doubt Veslovsky got in your way. It's awkward too, shooting with one dog," said

When Levin and Stepan Arkadyevich reached the peasant's hut where Levin always used to stay, Veslovsky

was already there. He was sitting in the middle of the hut, clinging with both hands to the bench from which

he was being pulled by a soldier, the brother of the peasant's wife, who was helping him off with his miry

"I've only just come. Ils ont ete charmants. Just fancy they gave me drink, and fed me! Such bread it was

exquisite! Dilicieux! And the vodka I never tasted any better. And they would not take a penny for anything.

"What should they take anything for? They were entertaining you, to be sure. Do you suppose they keep

vodka for sale?" said the soldier, succeeding at last in pulling the soaked boot off, together with the blackened

In spite of the dirtiness of the hut, which was all muddied by their boots and the filthy dogs licking

themselves clean, and the smells of the marsh and the powder that filled the room, and the absence of knives

and forks, the party drank their tea and ate their supper with a relish only known to sportsmen. Washed and

clean, they went into a hay barn swept ready for them, where the coachmen had been making up beds for the

After wavering among reminiscences and anecdotes of guns, of dogs, and of former shooting parties, the

conversation rested on a topic that interested all of them. After Vassenka had several times over expressed his

appreciation of this delightful sleeping place among the fragrant hay, this delightful broken telega (he

supposed it to be broken because the shafts had been taken out), of the good nature of the peasants who had

treated him to vodka, of the dogs who lay at the feet of their respective masters, Oblonsky began telling them

of a delightful shooting party at Malthus's where he had stayed the previous summer. Malthus was a

wellknown capitalist, who had made his money by speculation in railway shares. Stepan Arkadyevich

described what snipe moors this Malthus had taken on lease in the Tver province, and how they were

preserved, and of the carriages and dogcarts in which the shooting party had been driven, and the luncheon

"I don't understand you," said Levin, sitting up in the hay; "how is it such people don't disgust you? I can

understand a lunch with Lafitte is all very pleasant, but don't you dislike just that very sumptuousness? All

these people, just like our tax farmers in the old days, get their money in a way that gains them the contempt

of everyone. They don't care for their contempt, and then they use their dishonest gains to buy off the

"Perfectly true!" chimed in Vassenka Veslovsky. "Perfectly! Oblonsky, of course, goes out of bonhomie, but

"Not a bit of it." Levin could hear that Oblonsky was smiling as he spoke. "I simply don't consider him more

dishonest than any other wealthy merchant or nobleman. They've all made their money alike by their work

"Oh, by what work? Do you call it work to get hold of concessions and speculate with them?"

"Of course it's work. Work in this sense, that if it were not for him and others like him, there would have been

"Granted, but it's work in the sense that his activity produces a result the railways. But of course you think

"No, that's another question; I am disposed to admit that they're useful. But all profit that is out of proportion

"Making profit by dishonest means, by trickery," said Levin, conscious that he could not draw a distinct line

between honesty and dishonesty. "Such as banking, for instance," he went on. "It's an evil the amassing of

huge fortunes without labor, just the same thing as with the tax farmers it's only the form that's changed. Le

roi est mort, vive le roi! No sooner were the tax farmers abolished than the railways came up, and banking

"Yes, that may all be very true and clever.... Lie down, Krak!" Stepan Arkadyevich called to his dog, who

was scratching and turning over all the hay. He was obviously convinced of the correctness of his position,

and so talked serenely and without haste. "But you have not drawn the line between honest and dishonest

work. That I receive a bigger salary than my chief clerk, though he knows more about the work than I do

"Well, but I can tell you: your receiving some five thousand, let's say, for your work on the land, while our

host, the peasant here, however hard he works, can never get more than fifty roubles, is just as dishonest as

my earning more than my chief clerk, and Malthus getting more than a railway expert. No, quite the contrary;

I see that society takes up a sort of antagonistic attitude to these people, which is utterly baseless, and I fancy

"No, that's unfair," said Veslovsky; "how could envy come in? There is something unclean about that sort of

"You say," Levin went on, "that it's unjust for me to receive five thousand, while the peasant has fifty

"It really is. Why is it we spend our time riding, drinking, shooting, doing nothing while they are forever at

work?" said Vassenka Veslovsky, obviously for the first time in his life reflecting on the question, and

"Yes, you feel it, but you don't give him your property," said Stepan Arkadyevich, intentionally, as it seemed,

There had arisen of late something like a secret antagonism between the two brothersinlaw; as though,

since they had married sisters, a kind of rivalry had sprung up between them as to which was ordering his life

best, and now this hostility showed itself in the conversation, as it began to take a personal note.

"I don't give it away, because no one demands that from me, and if I wanted to, I could not give it away,"

"I'm not at all convinced. On the contrary, I feel have no right to give it up, that I have duties both to the land

"No, excuse me, but if you consider this inequality is unjust, why is it you don't act accordingly?..."

"Well, I do act negatively on that idea, so far as not trying to increase the difference of position existing

"Yes, there's something of a sophistry about that," Veslovsky agreed. "Ah! Our host!" he said to the peasant

who came into the barn, opening the creaking door. "How is it you're not asleep yet?"

"No, how's one to sleep! I thought our gentlemen would be asleep, but I heard them chattering. I want to get a

hook from here. She won't bite?" he added, stepping cautiously with his bare feet.

"Ah, what a night!" said Veslovsky, looking out at the edge of the hut and the unharnessed droshky that could

be seen in the faint light of the evening glow in the great frame of the open doors. "But listen, there are

women's voices singing, and, on my word, not badly too! Who's that singing, my friend?"

"Let's go let's take a walk! We shan't go to sleep, you know. Oblonsky, come along!"

"If one could only do both, lie here and go," answered Oblonsky, stretching. "It's capital lying here."

"Well, I shall go by myself," said Veslovsky, getting up eagerly, and putting on his boots and stockings.

"Goodby, gentlemen. If it's fun, I'll fetch you. You've treated me to some good sport, and I won't forget

"He really is a capital fellow, isn't he?" said Stepan Arkadyevich when Veslovsky had gone out and the

"Yes, capital," answered Levin, still thinking of the subject of their conversation just before. It seemed to him

that he had clearly expressed his thoughts and feelings to the best of his capacity, and yet both of them,

straightforward men and not fools, had said with one voice that he was comforting himself with sophistries.

"It's just this, my dear boy. One must do one of two things: either admit that the existing order of society is

just, and then stick up for one's rights in it; or acknowledge that you are enjoying unjust privileges, as I do,

"No, if it were unjust, you could not enjoy these advantages and be satisfied at least I could not. The great

"What do you say why not go after all?" said Stepan Arkadyevich, evidently weary of the strain of thought.

Levin did not answer. What they had said in the conversation that he acted justly only in a negative sense

absorbed his thoughts. "Can it be that it's only possible to be just negatively?" he was asking himself.

"How strong the smell of the fresh hay is, though," said Stepan Arkadyevich, getting up. "There's not a

chance of sleeping. Vassenka has been getting up some fun there. Do you hear the laughter and his voice?

"Surely that's not a matter of principle too," said Stepan Arkadyevich, smiling, as he felt about in the dark for

"But do you know you are preparing trouble for yourself," said Stepan Arkadyevich, finding his cap and

"Do you suppose I don't see the line you've taken up with your wife? I heard how it's a question of the

greatest consequence, whether or not you're to be away for a couple of days' shooting. That's all very well as

an idyllic episode, but for your whole life that won't answer. A man must be independent; he has his

"Why not, if it amuses him? Ca ne tire pas a consequence. It won't do my wife any harm, and it'll amuse me.

The great thing is to respect the sanctity of the home. There should be nothing in the home. But don't tie your

"Perhaps so," said Levin dryly, and he turned on his side. "Tomorrow, early, I want to go shooting, and I

"Messieurs, venez vite!" they heard the voice of Veslovsky coming back. "Charmante! I've made such a

discovery. Charmante! A perfect Gretchen, and I've already made friends with her. Really, exceedingly

pretty," he declared in a tone of approval, as though she had been made pretty entirely on his account, and he

were expressing his satisfaction with the entertainment that had been provided for him.

Levin pretended to be asleep, while Oblonsky, putting on his slippers, and lighting a cigar, walked out of the

For a long while Levin could not get to sleep. He heard his horses munching hay, then he heard the peasant

and his elder boy getting ready, and then going off for the night watching, then he heard the soldier arranging

his bed on the other side of the barn, with his nephew, the younger son of their peasant host. He heard the boy

in his shrill little voice telling his uncle what he thought about the dogs, who seemed to him huge and terrible

creatures, and asking what the dogs were going to hunt next day, and the soldier in a husky, sleepy voice,

telling him the sportsmen were going in the morning to the marsh, and would shoot with their guns; and then,

to check the boy's questions, he said, "Go to sleep, Vaska; go to sleep or you'll catch it," and soon after he

began snoring himself, and everything was still. He could only hear the neigh of the horses, and the guttural

cry of a snipe. "Is it really only negative? he repeated to himself. "Well, what of it? It's not my fault." And he

"Tomorrow I'll go out early, and I'll make a point of keeping cool. There are lots of snipe; and there are

double snipe too. When I come back there'll be the note from Kitty. Yes, Stiva may be right, I'm not manly

with her, I'm tied to her apron strings.... Well, it can't be helped! Negative again...."

Half asleep, he heard the laughter and mirthful talk of Veslovsky and Stepan Arkadyevich. For an instant he

opened his eyes: the moon was up, and in the open doorway, brightly lighted up by the moonlight, they were

standing talking. Stepan Arkadyevich was saying something of the freshness of one girl, comparing her to a

freshly peeled nut, and Veslovsky with his infectious laugh was repeating some words, probably said to him

by a peasant: "Ah, you'd better get round your own wife!" Levin, half asleep, said:

Waking up at earliest dawn, Levin tried to wake his companions. Vassenka, lying on his stomach, with one

leg in a stocking thrust out, was sleeping so soundly that he could elicit no response. Oblonsky, half asleep,

declined to get up so early. Even Laska, who was asleep, curled up in the hay, got up unwillingly, and lazily

stretched out and straightened her hind legs one after the other. Getting on his boots, taking his gun, and

carefully opening the creaking door of the barn, Levin went out into the road. The coachmen were sleeping

near their carriages; the horses were dozing. Only one was lazily eating oats, scattering them in the manger

"Why are you up so early, my dear?" the old woman, their hostess, said, coming out of the hut and addressing

"Straight out at the back; by our threshing floor, my dear, and hemp patches; there's a little footpath."

Stepping carefully with her sunburned, bare feet, the old woman conducted Levin, and moved back the gate

"Straight ahead, and you'll come to the marsh. Our lads drove the horses there yesterday evening."

Laska ran eagerly forward along the little path. Levin followed her with a light, rapid step, continually

looking at the sky. He hoped the sun would not be up before he reached the marsh. But the sun did not delay.

The moon, which had been bright when he went out, by now shone only like a crescent of quicksilver. The

rosy flush of dawn, which one could not help seeing before, now had to be sought to be discerned at all. What

before had been undefined, vague blurs in the distant countryside, could now be distinctly seen. They were

sheaves of rye. The dew, not visible till the sun was up, wetted Levin's legs and his blouse above his belt in

the highgrowing, fragrant hemp patch, from which the male plants had already been gathered in. In the

transparent stillness of morning the smallest sounds were audible. A bee flew by Levin's ear with the

whizzing sound of a bullet. He looked carefully, and saw a second and a third. They were all flying from the

beehives behind the hedge, and they disappeared over the hemp patch in the direction of the marsh. The path

led straight to the marsh. The marsh could be recognized by the mist which rose from it, thicker in one place

and thinner in another, so that the sedge and willow bushes swayed like islands in this mist. At the edge of

the marsh and the road peasant boys and men, who had been herding for the night, were lying, and in the

dawn all were asleep under their coats. Not far from them were three hobbled horses. One of them clanked a

chain. Laska walked beside her master, pressing a little forward and looking round. Passing the sleeping

peasants and reaching the first reeds, Levin examined his percussion caps and unleashed his dog. One of the

horses, a sleek, darkbrown threeyearold, seeing the dog, started away, switched its tail and snorted. The

other horses too were frightened, and splashing through the water with their hobbled legs, and drawing their

hoofs out of the thick mud with a squelching sound, they bounded out of the marsh. Laska stopped, looking

ironically at the horses and inquiringly at Levin. Levin patted Laska, and whistled as a sign that she might

Running into the marsh among the familiar scents of roots, marsh plants, and dross, and the extraneous smell

of horse manure, Laska detected at once a smell that pervaded the whole marsh, the scent of that

strongsmelling bird that always excited her more than any other. Here and there among the moss and marsh

plants this scent was very strong, but it was impossible to determine in which direction it grew stronger or

fainter. To find the direction, she had to get farther away from the wind. Not feeling the motion of her legs,

Laska bounded with a still gallop, so that at each bound she could stop short, to the right, away from the wind

that blew from the east before sunrise, and turned facing the wind. Sniffing in the air with dilated nostrils, she

felt at once that not their traces only, but they themselves, were here before her not one, but many. Laska

slackened her speed. They were here, but where precisely she could not yet determine. To find the very spot,

she began to make a circle, when suddenly her master's voice drew her off. "Laska! Here!" he said, pointing

her to a different direction. She stopped, asking him if she had better not go on doing as she had begun. But

he repeated his command in an angry voice, pointing to a hummock spot covered with water, where there

could not be anything. She obeyed him, pretending she was searching so as to please him, went round it, and

went back to her former position, and was at once aware of the scent again. Now when he was not hindering

her, she knew what to do, and, without looking at what was under her feet, and to her vexation stumbling

over a hummock into the water, but righting herself with her strong, supple legs, she began making the circuit

which was to make all clear to her. The scent of them reached her, stronger and stronger, and more and more

defined, and all at once it became perfectly clear to her that one of them was here, behind this hummock, five

paces in front of her; she stopped, and her whole body was still and rigid. On her short legs she could see

nothing in front of her, but by the scent she knew it was sitting not more than five paces off. She stood still,

feeling more and more conscious of it, and enjoying it in anticipation. Her tail was stretched straight and

tense, and only wagged at the extreme tip. Her mouth was slightly open, her ears raised. One ear had been

turned wrong side out as she ran up, and she breathed heavily but warily, and still more warily she turned

around, but more with her eyes than her head, to her master. He was coming along with the face she knew so

well, though the eyes were always terrible to her. He stumbled over the hummocks as he came, and moved, as

she thought, extraordinarily slowly. She thought he came slowly, but he was running.

Noticing Laska's special attitude as she crouched on the ground, as it were, scratching big prints with her hind

paws, and with her mouth slightly open, Levin knew she was pointing at double snipe, and with an inward

prayer for luck, especially with the first bird, he ran up to her. Coming quite close up to her, he could from

his height look beyond her, and he saw with his eyes what she was seeing with her nose. In a space between

two little hummocks, at a couple of yards' distance, he could see a double snipe. Turning its head, it was

listening. Then lightly preening and folding its wings, it disappeared round a corner with a clumsy wag of its

"But I can't go," thought Laska. "Where am I to go? From here I feel them, but if I move forward I shall know

nothing of where they are, or who they are." But then he shoved her with his knee, and in an excited whisper

"Well, if that's what he wishes, I'll do it, but I can't answer for myself now," she thought, and darted forward

as fast as her legs would carry her between the hummocks. She scented nothing now; she could only see and

Ten paces from her former place a double snipe rose with a guttural cry and the peculiar convex sound of its

wings. And immediately after the shot it splashed heavily with its white breast on the wet mire. Another bird

When Levin turned toward it, it was already some way off. But his shot caught it. Flying twenty paces

farther, the second double snipe rose upward, and, whirling round like a ball, dropped heavily on a dry place.

"Come, this is going to be some good!" thought Levin, packing the warm and fat snipe into his gamebag.

When Levin, after reloading his gun, moved on, the sun had fully risen, though unseen behind clouds. The

moon had lost all of its luster, and was like a white cloud in the sky. Not a single star could be seen. The

soggy places, silvery with dew before, now shone like gold. The rusty pools were all like amber. The blue of

the grass had changed to yellow green. The marsh birds twittered and swarmed about the brook and upon the

bushes that glittered with dew and cast long shadows. A hawk woke up and settled on a haycock, turning its

head from side to side and looking discontentedly at the marsh. Crows were flying about the field, and a

barelegged boy was driving the horses to an old man, who had got up from under his long coat and was

combing his hair. The smoke from the gun was white as milk over the green of the grass.

"Uncle, there were ducks here yesterday!" he shouted to him, and he walked a little way off behind him.

And Levin was doubly pleased, in sight of the boy, who expressed his approval, at killing three jacksnipe,

The sportsman's saying, that if the first beast or the first bird is not missed, the shooting will be lucky, turned

At ten o'clock Levin, weary, hungry, and happy after a tramp of thirty verstas, returned to his night's lodging

with nineteen head of fine game and one duck, which he tied to his belt, as it would not go into the gamebag.

His companions had long been awake, and had had time to get hungry and have breakfast.

"Wait a bit, wait a bit, I know there are nineteen," said Levin, counting a second time over the double snipe

and jacksnipe, that looked so much less important now, bent and dry and bloodstained, with heads crookedly

The number was verified, and Stepan Arkadyevich's envy pleased Levin. He was pleased too on returning to

"I am perfectly well and happy. If you were uneasy about me, you can feel easier than ever. I've a new

bodyguard, Marya Vlassyevna." (This was the midwife, a new and important personage in Levin's domestic

life.) "She has come to have a look at me. She found me perfectly well, and we are holding her till you are

back. All are happy and well, and please, don't be in a hurry to come back, but, if the sport is good, stay

These two pleasures, his lucky shooting and the letter from his wife, were so great that two slightly

disagreeable incidents passed lightly over Levin. One was that the chestnut trace horse, who had been

unmistakably overworked on the previous day, was off his feed and out of sorts. The coachman said the horse

"Overdriven yesterday, Konstantin Dmitrievich!" he said. "Yes, indeed! Driving ten miles without any

The other unpleasant incident, which for the first minute destroyed his good humor, though later he laughed

at it a great deal, was to find that of all the provisions which Kitty had provided in such abundance, that one

would have thought there was enough for a week, nothing was left. On his way back, tired and hungry, from

shooting, Levin had so distinct a vision of meat pies that as he approached the hut he seemed to smell and

taste them, as Laska had smelt the game, and he immediately told Philip to give him some. It appeared that

"Well, this fellow's appetite!" said Stepan Arkadyevich, laughing and pointing at Vassenka Veslovsky. "I

"Well, it can't be helped," said Levin, looking gloomily at Veslovsky. "Well, Philip, give me some beef,

Levin was so hurt that he said, in a tone of vexation: "You might have left me something!" and he felt ready

"Then disembowel the game," he said in a shaking voice to Philip, trying not to look at Vassenka, "and cover

But when he had drunk some milk, he felt ashamed immediately at having shown his annoyance to a stranger,

In the evening they went shooting again, and Veslovsky, too, had several successful shots, and in the night

Their homeward journey was as lively as their drive out had been. Veslovsky sang songs and related with

enjoyment his adventures with the peasants, who had regaled him with vodka, and said to him, "Excuse our

homely ways," and his night's adventures with tug of war, and the servant girl, and the peasant, who had

asked him was he married and on learning that he was not, said to him: "Well, mind you don't run after other

men's wives you'd better get round your own." These words had particularly amused Veslovsky.

"I have, very much," Levin said quite sincerely. It was particularly delightful to him to have got rid of the

hostility he had been feeling toward Vassenka Veslovsky at home, and to feel instead the most friendly

Next day at ten o'clock Levin, who had already gone his rounds, knocked at the room where Vassenka had

"Entrez!" Veslovsky called to him. "Excuse me, I've only just finished my ablutions," he said, smiling,

"Neither. I'll wait till lunch. I'm really ashamed. I suppose the ladies are down? A walk now would be capital.

After walking about the garden, visiting the stable, and even doing some gymnastic exercises together on the

parallel bars, Levin returned to the house with his guest, and went with him into the drawing room.

"We had splendid shooting, and so many delightful experiences!" said Veslovsky, going up to Kitty, who was

"Well, I suppose he must say something to the lady of the house," Levin said to himself. Again he fancied

something in the smile, in the allconquering air with which their guest addressed Kitty...

The Princess, sitting on the other side of the table with Marya Vlassyevna and Stepan Arkadyevich, called

Levin to her side, and began to talk to him about moving to Moscow for Kitty's confinement, and getting

ready rooms for them. Just as Levin had disliked all the trivial preparations for his wedding, as derogatory to

the grandeur of the event, now he felt still more offensive the preparations for the approaching birth, the date

of which they reckoned, it seemed, on their fingers. He tried to turn a deaf ear to these discussions of the best

patterns of long clothes for the coming baby; tried to turn away and avoid seeing the mysterious, endless

strips of knitting, the triangles of linen, to which Dolly attached special importance, and so on. The birth of a

son (he was certain it would be a son) which was promised him, but which he still could not believe in so

marvelous it seemed presented itself to his mind, on one hand, as a happiness so immense, and therefore so

incredible; on the other, as an event so mysterious, that this assumption of a definite knowledge of what

would be, and consequent preparation for it, as for something ordinary that did happen to people, jarred on

But the Princess did not understand his feelings, and put down his reluctance to think and talk about it to

carelessness and indifference, and so she gave him no peace. She had commissioned Stepan Arkadyevich to

"I really don't know. I know millions of children are born away from Moscow, and doctors... Why..."

"We can't talk to Kitty about it! Do you want me to frighten her? Why, this spring Natalie Golitzina died

The Princess began talking to him, but he did not hear her. Though the conversation with the Princess had

indeed jarred upon him, he was gloomy not on account of that conversation, but from what he saw at the

"No, it's impossible," he thought, glancing now and then at Vassenka bending over Kitty, telling her

There was something unclean in Vassenka's attitude, in his eyes, in his smile. Levin even saw something

unclean in Kitty's attitude and look. And again the light died away in his eyes. Again, as before, all of a

sudden, without the slightest transition, he felt cast down from a pinnacle of happiness, peace, and dignity,

into an abyss of despair, rage, and humiliation. Again everything and everyone had become hateful to him.

"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown!" Stepan Arkadyevich said playfully, hinting, evidently, not simply

at the Princess's conversation, but at the cause of Levin's agitation, which he had noticed. "How late you are

Everyone got up to greet Darya Alexandrovna. Vassenka only rose for an instant, and, with the lack of

courtesy to ladies characteristic of the modern young man, he scarcely bowed, and resumed his conversation

"Masha has been almost the end of me. She did not sleep well, and is dreadfully capricious today," said

The conversation Vassenka had started with Kitty was running on the same lines as on the previous evening

discussing Anna, and whether love is to be put higher than worldly considerations. Kitty disliked the

conversation, and she was disturbed both by the subject and the tone in which it was conducted, and

especially by the knowledge of the effect it would have on her husband. But she was too simple and

unsophisticated to know how to cut short this conversation, or even to conceal the superficial pleasure

afforded her by the young man's very obvious admiration. She wanted to stop this conversation, but she did

not know what to do. Whatever she did, she knew it would be observed by her husband, and the worst

interpretation put on it. And, in fact, when she asked Dolly what was wrong with Masha, and Vassenka,

waiting till this uninteresting conversation was over, began to gaze indifferently at Dolly, the question struck

"By all means, please, and I shall come too," said Kitty, and she blushed. She wanted from politeness to ask

Vassenka whether he would come, and she did not ask him. "Where are you going, Kostia?" she asked her

husband with a guilty face, as he passed by her with a resolute step. This guilty air confirmed all his

"The mechanician came when I was away; I haven't seen him yet," he said, not looking at her.

He went downstairs, but before he had time to leave his study he heard his wife's familiar footsteps running

"I beg your pardon," she said to the German mechanician; "I want a few words with my husband."

He did not look her in the face, and did not care to see that she in her condition was trembling all over, and

"I... I want to say that we can't go on like this; that this is misery..." she said.

They were standing in the passage room. Kitty would have gone into the next room, but there the English

In the garden they came upon a peasant weeding the path. And no longer considering that the peasant could

see her tearstained and his agitated face, that they looked like people fleeing from some disaster, they went

on with rapid steps, feeling that they must speak out and clear up misunderstandings, must be alone together,

"We can't go on like this! It's misery! I am wretched; you are wretched. What for?" she said, when they had at

"But tell me one thing: was there in his tone anything unseemly, unclean, humiliatingly horrible?" he said,

standing before her again in the same position, with his clenched fists on his chest, as he had stood before her

"Yes," she said in a shaking voice; "but, Kostia, surely you see I'm not to blame? All the morning I've been

trying to take a tone... But such people... Why did he come? How happy we were!" she said, breathless with

Although nothing had been pursuing them, and there was nothing to run away from, and they could not

possibly have found anything very delightful on that garden seat, the gardener saw with astonishment that

After escorting his wife upstairs, Levin went to Dolly's part of the house. Darya Alexandrovna, for her part,

was also in great distress that day. She was walking about the room, talking angrily to a little girl, who stood

"And you shall stand all day in the corner, and have your dinner all alone, and not see one of your dolls, and I

"Oh, she is a disgusting child!" she turned to Levin. "Where does she get such wicked propensities?"

"Why, what has she done?" Levin said without much interest, for he had wanted to ask her advice, and so was

"Grisha and she went into the raspberries, and there... I can't tell you really what she did. It's a thousand pities

Miss Elliot's not with us. This one sees to nothing she's a machine.... Figurezvous que la petite?..."

"That proves nothing; it's not a question of evil propensities at all, it's simply mischief," Levin assured her.

"But you are upset about something? What have you come for?" asked Dolly. "What's going on there?"

And in the tone of her question Levin heard that it would be easy for him to say what he had meant to say.

"I've not been in there, I've been alone in the garden with Kitty. We've had a quarrel for the second time

"Come, tell me, honor bright, has there been... Not in Kitty, but in that gentleman's behavior, a tone which

"You mean, how shall I say... Stand there stand in the corner!" she said to Masha, who, detecting a faint

smile on her mother's face, had been turning round. "The opinion of the world would be that he is behaving

as young men do behave. Il fait le cour a une jeune et jolie femme, and a husband who's a man of the world

"Not only I, but Stiva noticed it. Just after breakfast he said to me: Je crois que Veslovsky fait un petit brin de

"Well, that's all right then; now I'm satisfied. I'll send him away," said Levin.

"What do you mean! Are you crazy?" Dolly cried in horror. "Nonsense, Kostia, only think!" she said,

laughing. "You can go now to Fanny," she said to Masha. "No, if you wish it, I'll speak to Stiva. He'll take

him away. He can say you're expecting visitors. Altogether he doesn't fit into the house."

"Not a bit. I shall so enjoy it," Levin said, his eyes flashing with real enjoyment. "Come, forgive her, Dolly,

she won't do it again," he said of the little sinner, who had not gone to Fanny, but was standing irresolutely

before her mother, waiting and looking up from under her brows to catch her mother's eye.

The mother glanced at her. The child broke into sobs, hid her face on her mother's lap, and Dolly laid her

"And what is there in common between us and him?" thought Levin, and he went off to look for Veslovsky.

As he passed through the hall he gave orders for the carriage to be got ready to drive to the station.

Levin came upon Vassenka at the moment when the latter, having unpacked his things from his trunk, and

Whether there was something exceptional in Levin's face, or that Vassenka was himself conscious that ce

petit brin de cour he was making was out of place in this family; he was somewhat (as much as a young man

"Yes, it's much cleaner," said Vassenka, putting his fat leg on a chair, fastening the bottom hook, and smiling

He was undoubtedly a goodnatured fellow, and Levin felt sorry for him and ashamed of himself, as his host,

On the table lay a piece of stick which they had broken together that morning at gymnastics, trying to raise up

the swollen bars. Levin took the fragment in his hands and began breaking off the split end of the stick, not

"I wanted..." He paused, but suddenly, remembering Kitty and everything that had happened, he said, looking

"For you to drive to the station," Levin said gloomily pinching off the end of the stick.

"It happens that I expect visitors," said Levin, his strong fingers more and more rapidly breaking off the ends

of the split stick. "And I'm not expecting visitors, and nothing has happened, but I beg you to go away. You

"I can't explain," Levin said softly and deliberately, trying to control the trembling of his jaw; "and you'd

And as the split ends were all broken off, Levin clutched the thick ends in his finger, split the stick in two,

Probably the sight of those tense hands, of the same muscles he had proved that morning at gymnastics, of

the glittering eyes, the soft voice, and quivering jaws, convinced Vassenka better than any words. He bowed,

The shrug and the smile did not irritate Levin. "What else was there for him to do?" he thought.

"What madness is this?" Stepan Arkadyevich said when, after hearing from his friend that he was being

turned out of the house, he found Levin in the garden, where he was walking about waiting for his guest's

departure. "Mais c'est ridicule! What flea has bitten you? Mais c'est du dernier ridicule! What did you think,

But the place where Levin had been bitten was evidently still sore, for he turned pale again, when Stepan

"Please don't go into it! I can't help it. I feel ashamed of the way I'm treating you and him. But it won't be, I

imagine, a great grief to him to go, and his presence was distasteful to me and to my wife."

"And to me it's both insulting and distressing! And I'm not in fault in any way, and there's no need for me to

"Well, this I didn't expect of you! On peut etre jaloux, mais a ce point c'est du dernier ridicule!"

Levin turned quickly, and walked away from him into the depths of the avenue, and he went on walking up

and down alone. Soon he heard the rumble of the tarantass, and saw from behind the trees how Vassenka,

sitting in the hay (unluckily there was no seat in the tarantass) in his Scotch cap, was driven along the avenue,

"What's this?" Levin thought, when a footman ran out of the house and stopped the tarantass. It was the

mechanician, whom Levin had totally forgotten. The mechanician, bowing low, said something to Veslovsky,

Stepan Arkadyevich and the Princess were much upset by Levin's action. And he himself felt not only in the

highest degree ridicule, but also utterly guilty and disgraced. But remembering what sufferings he and his

wife had been through, when he asked himself how he should act another time, he answered that he would do

In spite of all this, toward the end of that day, everyone, except the Princess, who could not pardon Levin's

action, became extraordinarily lively and goodhumored, like children after a punishment, or grownup

people after a dreary, ceremonious reception, so that by the evening Vassenka's dismissal was spoken of, in

the absence of the Princess, as though it were some remote event. And Dolly, who had inherited her father's

gift of humorous storytelling, made Varenka helpless with laughter as she related for the third and fourth

time, always with fresh humorous additions, how she had just put on her new ribands for the benefit of the

visitor, and, on going into the drawing room, had suddenly heard the rumble of the chariot. And who should

be in the chariot but Vassenka himself, with his Scotch cap, and his songs, and his gaiters, and all, sitting in

"If only you'd ordered out the carriage! But no! And then I hear: 'Stop!' Oh, I thought they've relented. I look

out and a fat German is being sat down by him, and they're driving away... And my new ribands all for

Darya Alexandrovna carried out her intention and went to see Anna. She was sorry to annoy her sister and to

do anything Levin disliked. She quite understood how right the Levins were in not wishing to have anything

to do with Vronsky. But she felt she must go and see Anna, and show her that her feelings could not be

That she might be independent of the Levins in this expedition, Darya Alexandrovna sent to the village to

"What makes you suppose that I dislike your going? But, even if did dislike it, I should still more dislike your

not taking my horses," he said. "You never told me that you were going definitely. Hiring horses in the

village is disagreeable to me, and, what's of more importance, they'll undertake the job and never get you

Darya Alexandrovna had to consent, and on the day fixed Levin had ready for his sisterinlaw a set of four

horses and relays, getting them together from the farm and saddle horses not at all a smartlooking set, but

capable of taking Darya Alexandrovna the whole distance in a single day. At that moment, when horses were

wanted for the Princess, who was going, and for the midwife, it was a difficult matter for Levin to make up

the number, but the duties of hospitality would not let him allow Darya Alexandrovna to hire horses when

staying in his house. Moreover, he was well aware that the twenty roubles that would be asked for the journey

were a serious matter for her; Darya Alexandrovna's pecuniary affairs, which were in a very unsatisfactory

Darya Alexandrovna, by Levin's advice, started before daybreak. The road was good, the carriage

comfortable, the horses trotted along merrily, and on the box, beside the coachman, sat the countinghouse

clerk, whom Levin was sending instead of a groom for greater security. Darya Alexandrovna dozed and

After drinking tea at the same welltodo peasant's with whom Levin had stayed on the way to Sviiazhsky's,

and chatting with the women about their children, and with the old man about Count Vronsky, whom the

latter praised very highly, Darya Alexandrovna, at ten o'clock, went on again. At home, looking after her

children, she had no time to think. So now, after this journey of four hours, all the thoughts she had

suppressed before rushed swarming into her brain, and she thought over all her life as she never had before,

and from the most different points of view. Her thoughts seemed strange even to herself. At first she thought

about the children, about whom she was uneasy, although the Princess and Kitty (she reckoned more upon

her) had promised to look after them. "If only Masha does not begin her naughty tricks, if Grisha isn't kicked

by a horse, and Lily's stomach isn't upset again!" But these questions of the present were succeeded by

questions of the immediate future. She began thinking how she had to get a new flat in Moscow for the

coming winter, to renew the drawingroom furniture, and to make her elder girl a cloak. Then questions of

the more remote future occurred to her: how she was to place her children in the world. "The girls are all

"It's all very fine for me to be teaching Grisha, but of course that's only because I am free myself now, I'm not

with child. Stiva, of course, there's no counting on. And with the help of goodnatured friends I can bring

them up; but if there's another baby coming?..." And the thought struck her how unjustly it was said, that the

curse laid on woman was that in sorrow she should bring forth children. "The birth itself, that's nothing; but

the months of carrying the child that's what's so intolerable," she thought, picturing to herself her last

pregnancy, and the death of the last baby. And she recalled the conversation she had just had with the young

woman at the inn. On being asked whether she had any children, the handsome young woman had answered

"Why grieve? The old man has grandchildren enough as it is. It was only a trouble. No working, nor nothing.

This answer had struck Darya Alexandrovna as revolting in spite of the goodnatured and pleasing face of

the young woman; but now she could not help recalling these words. In those cynical words there was indeed

"Yes, in general," thought Darya Alexandrovna, looking back over her whole existence during those fifteen

years of her married life, "pregnancy, sickness, mental incapacity, indifference to everything and, most of

all, hideousness. Kitty, young and pretty as she is, even Kitty has lost her looks; and I, when I'm with child,

become hideous, I know it. The birth, the agony, the hideous agonies, that last moment... Then the nursing,

Darya Alexandrovna shuddered at the mere recollection of the pain from sore breasts which she had suffered

with almost every child. "Then the children's illnesses, that everlasting apprehension; then bringing them up;

evil propensities" (she thought of little Masha's crime among the raspberries), "education, Latin it's all so

incomprehensible and difficult. And, on the top of it all, the death of these children." And there rose again

before her imagination the cruel memory that always tore her mother's heart, of the death of her last little

baby, who had died of croup; his funeral, the callous indifference of all at the little pink coffin, and her own

torn heart, and her lonely anguish at the sight of the pale little brow with the curls falling on temples, and the

open, wondering little mouth seen in the coffin at the moment when it was being covered with the little pink

"And all this what's it for? What is to come of it all? This: I'm wasting my life, never having a moment's

peace, either with child, or nursing a child, forever irritable, peevish, wretched myself and worrying others,

repulsive to my husband, while the children are growing up unhappy, badly educated and penniless. Even

now, if it weren't for spending the summer at the Levins', I don't know how we should be managing to live.

Of course Kostia and Kitty have so much tact that we don't feel it; but it can't go on. They'll have children,

they won't be able to keep us; it's a drag on them as it is. How is papa, who has hardly anything left for

himself, to help us? So that I can't even bring the children up by myself, and may find it hard with the help of

other people, at the cost of humiliation. Why, even if we suppose the greatest good luck, that the children

don't die, and I bring them up somehow. At the very best they'll simply be decent people. That's all I can hope

for. And to gain simply that what agonies, what toil!... One's whole life ruined!" Again she recalled what the

young peasant woman had said, and again she was revolted at the thought; but she could not help admitting

"Is it far now, Mikhaila?" Darya Alexandrovna asked the countinghouse clerk, to turn her mind from

The carriage drove along the village street and onto a bridge. On the bridge was a crowd of peasant women

with coils of ties for the sheaves on their shoulders, cheerfully chattering. They stood still on the bridge,

staring inquisitively at the carriage. All the faces turned to Darya Alexandrovna looked to her healthy and

happy, making her envious of their enjoyment of life. "They're all living, they're all enjoying life," Darya

Alexandrovna still mused when she had passed the peasant women and was driving uphill again at a trot,

seated comfortably on the soft springs of the old carriage, "while I, let out, as it were from prison, from the

world of worries that fret me to death, am only looking about me now for an instant. They all live; those

peasant women, and my sister Natalie, and Varenka, and Anna, whom I am going to see all, but not I."

"And they attack Anna. What for? Am I any better? I have, at any rate, a husband I love not as I should like

to love him still, I do love him; while Anna never loved hers. How is she to blame? She wants to live. God

has put that in our hearts. Very likely I should have done the same. Even to this day I don't feel sure I did

right in listening to her at that terrible time when she came to me in Moscow. I ought then to have cast off my

husband and have begun my life anew. I might have loved and have been loved in reality. And is it any better

as it is? I don't respect him. He's necessary to me," she thought about her husband, "and I put up with him. Is

that any better? At that time I could still have been admired, I had beauty left me still," Darya Alexandrovna

pursued her thoughts, and she would have liked to look at herself in the looking glass. She had a traveling

looking glass in her handbag, and she wanted to take it out; but looking at the backs of the coachman and the

swaying countinghouse clerk, she felt that she would be ashamed if either of them were to look round, and

But, without looking in the glass, she thought that even now it was not too late; and she thought of Sergei

Ivanovich, who was always particularly attentive to her, of Stiva's goodhearted friend, Turovtsin, who had

helped her nurse her children through the scarlatina, and was in love with her. And there was someone else,

quite a young man, who her husband had told her it as a joke thought her more beautiful than either of her

sisters. And the most passionate and impossible romances rose before Darya Alexandrovna's imagination.

"Anna did quite right, and certainly I shall never reproach her for it. She is happy, she makes another person

happy, and she's not broken down as I am, but most likely just as she always was, bright, clever, open to

every impression," thought Darya Alexandrovna and a sly smile curved her lips, for, as she pondered on

Anna's love affair, Darya Alexandrovna constructed on parallel lines an almost identical love affair for

herself, with an imaginary composite figure, the ideal man who was in love with her. She, like Anna,

confessed the whole affair to her husband. And the amazement and perplexity of Stepan Arkadyevich at this

In such daydreams she reached the turning of the highroad that led to Vozdivzhenskoe.

The coachman pulled up his four horses and looked round to the right, to a field of rye, where some peasants

were sitting near a telega. The countinghouse clerk was just going to jump down, but on second thought he

shouted peremptorily to the peasants instead, and beckoned to them to come up. The wind, that seemed to

blow as they drove, dropped when the carriage stood still; gadflies settled on the steaming horses that angrily

shook them off. The metallic clank of a whetstone against a scythe, that came to them from the telega, ceased.

"Well, you are slow!" the countinghouse clerk shouted angrily to the peasant who was stepping slowly with

A curlyheaded old man with a bit of bast tied round his hair, and his bent back dark with perspiration, came

toward the carriage, quickening his steps, and took hold of the mudguard with his sunburned hand.

"Vozdvizhenskoe the manor house? The Count's?" he repeated. "Go on to the end of this slope. Then turn to

the left. Straight along the avenue, and you'll come right upon it. But whom do you want? The Count

"Well, are they at home, my good man?" Darya Alexandrovna said vaguely, not knowing how to ask about

"At home for sure," said the peasant, shifting from one bare foot to the other, and leaving a distinct print of

five toes and a heel in the dust. "Sure to be at home," he repeated, evidently eager to talk. "Only yesterday

visitors arrived. There's a sight of visitors come. What do you want?" He turned round and called to a lad,

who was shouting something to him from the telega. "Oh! They all rode by here not long since, to look at a

"We've come a long way," said the coachman, climbing onto the box. "So it's not far?"

"I tell you, it's just here. As soon as you get out..." he said, keeping hold all the while of the mudguard of the

"So you keep to the left, and you'll come right on it," said the peasant, unmistakably loath to let the travelers

The coachman started the horses, but they were only just turning off when the peasant shouted: "Stop! Hi,

"They're coming! They're yonder!" shouted the peasant. "See what a turnout!" he said, pointing to four

They were Vronsky with a jockey, Veslovsky, and Anna on horseback, and Princess Varvara and Sviiazhsky

in the charabanc. They had gone out to look at the working of a new reaping machine.

When the carriage stopped, the party on horseback were coming at a walking pace. Anna was in front beside

Veslovsky. Anna was quietly walking her horse, a sturdy English cob with cropped mane and short tail;

Anna, with her beautiful head, her black hair straying loose under her high hat, her full shoulders, her slender

waist in her black riding habit, and all the ease and grace of her deportment, impressed Dolly.

For the first minute it seemed to her unsuitable for Anna to be on horseback. The conception of riding on

horseback for a lady was, in Darva Alexandrovna's mind, associated with ideas of youthful flirtation and

frivolity, which, in her opinion, was unbecoming in Anna's position. But when she had scrutinized her, seeing

her closer, she was at once reconciled to her riding. In spite of her elegance, everything was so simple, quiet

and dignified in the attitude, the dress and the movements of Anna, that nothing could have been more

By the side of Anna, on a hotlooking gray cavalry horse, was Vassenka Veslovsky in his Scotch cap with

floating ribbons, his stout legs stretched out in front, obviously pleased with his own appearance. Darya

Alexandrovna could not suppress a goodhumored smile as she recognized him. Behind rode Vronsky on a

dark bay mare, obviously heated from galloping. He was holding her in, pulling at the reins.

After him rode a little man in the dress of a jockey. Sviiazhsky and Princess Varvara in a new charabanc with

Anna's face suddenly beamed with a joyful smile at the instant when, in the little figure huddled in a corner of

the old carriage, she recognized Dolly. She uttered a cry, started in the saddle, and set her horse into a gallop.

On reaching the carriage she jumped off without assistance, and, holding up her riding habit, she ran up to

"I thought it was you and dared not think it. How delightful! You can't fancy how glad I am!" she said, at one

moment pressing her face against Dolly and kissing her, and at the next holding her off and examining her

with a smile. "Here's a delightful surprise, Alexei!" she said, looking round at Vronsky, who had dismounted,

"You wouldn't believe how glad we are to see you," he said, giving peculiar significance to the words, and

Vassenka Veslovsky, without getting off his horse, took off his cap and greeted the visitor by gleefully

"That's Princess Varvara," Anna said in reply to a glance of inquiry from Dolly as the charabanc drove up.

"Ah!" said Darya Alexandrovna, and unconsciously her face betrayed her dissatisfaction.

Princess Varvara was her husband's aunt, and she had long known her, and did not respect her. She knew that

Princess Varvara had passed her whole life toadying to her rich relations, but that she should now be

sponging on Vronsky, a man who was nothing to her, mortified Dolly on account of her kinship with her

husband. Anna noticed Dolly's expression, and was disconcerted by it. She blushed, dropped her riding habit,

Darya Alexandrovna went up to the charabanc and coldly greeted Princess Varvara. Sviiazhsky, too, she

knew. He inquired how his queer friend with the young wife was, and running his eyes over the illmatched

horses and the carriage with its patched mudguards, proposed to the ladies that they should get into the

"And I'll get in this vehicle," he said. "The horse is quiet, and the Princess drives capitally."

"No, stay as you were," said Anna, coming up, "and we'll go in the carriage," and, taking Dolly's arm, she

Darya Alexandrovna's eyes were fairly dazzled by the elegant carriage of a pattern she had never seen before,

the splendid horses, and the elegant and gorgeous people surrounding her. But what struck her most of all

was the change that had taken place in Anna, whom she knew so well and loved. Any other woman, a less

close observer, not knowing Anna before, and particularly not having thought as Darya Alexandrovna had

been thinking on the road, would not have noticed anything special in Anna. But now Dolly was struck by

that temporary beauty, which is only found in women during the moments of love, and which she saw now in

Anna's face. Everything in her face, the clearly marked dimples in her cheeks and chin, the line of her lips,

the smile which, as it were, fluttered about her face, the brilliance of her eyes, the grace and rapidity of her

movements, the fullness of the notes of her voice, even the manner in which, with a sort of angry friendliness,

she answered Veslovsky when he asked permission to get on her cob, so as to teach it to gallop with the right

leg foremost it was all peculiarly fascinating, and it seemed as if Anna herself were aware of it, and

When both the women were seated in the carriage, a sudden embarrassment came over both of them. Anna

was disconcerted by the intent look of inquiry Dolly fixed upon her. Dolly was embarrassed because after

Sviiazhsky's phrase about "this vehicle," she could not help feeling ashamed of the dirty old carriage in which

Anna was sitting with her. The coachman Philip and the countinghouse clerk were experiencing the same

sensation. The countinghouse clerk, to conceal his confusion, busied himself settling the ladies, but Philip the

coachman became sullen, and was bracing himself not to be overawed in future by this external superiority.

He smiled ironically, looking at the raven horse, and was already deciding in his own mind that this smart

trotter in the charabanc was only good for promenade, and wouldn't do forty verstas straight off in the heat.

The peasants had all got up from the telega and were inquisitively and mirthfully staring at the meeting of the

"They're pleased, too; haven't seen each other for a long while," said the curlyheaded old man with the bast

"I say, Uncle Gherasim, if we could take that raven horse now, to cart the corn, that 'ud be quick work!"

"Lookee! Is that a woman in breeches?" said one of them, pointing to Vassenka Veslovsky sitting in a

"What chance of sleep today!" said the old man, with a sidelong look at the sun. "Midday's past, lookee! Get

Anna looked at Dolly's thin, careworn face, with its wrinkles filled with dust from the road, and she was on

the point of saying what she was thinking that is, that Dolly had grown thinner. But, conscious that she

herself had grown handsomer, and that Dolly's eyes were telling her so, she sighed and began to speak about

"You are looking at me," she said, "and wondering how I can be happy in my position? Well! It's shameful to

confess, but I... I'm inexcusably happy. Something magical has happened to me, like a dream, when you're

frightened, panicstricken, and all of a sudden you wake up and all the horrors are no more. I have waked up.

I have lived through the misery, the dread, and now for a long while past, especially since we've been here,

I've been so happy!..." she said, with a timid smile of inquiry looking at Dolly.

"How glad I am!" said Dolly smiling, involuntarily speaking more coldly than she wanted to. "I'm very glad

Darya Alexandrovna wanted to express her thoughts of the morning, but for some reason it seemed to her

"But of that we'll talk later. What's this what are all these buildings?" she asked, wanting to change the

conversation and pointing to the red and green roofs that came into view behind the green hedges of acacia

"I consider..." Darya Alexandrovna was beginning, but at that instant Vassenka Veslovsky, having brought

the cob to gallop with the right leg foremost, galloped past them, bumping heavily up and down in his short

jacket on the chamois leather of the sidesaddle. "He's doing it, Anna Arkadyevna!" he shouted. Anna did not

even glance at him; but again it seemed to Darya Alexandrovna out of place to enter upon such a long

"I don't think anything," she said, "but I always loved you, and if one loves anyone, one loves the whole

Anna, taking her eyes off her friend's face and dropping her eyelids (this was a new habit Dolly had not seen

in her before), pondered, trying to penetrate the full significance of the words. And obviously interpreting

"If you had any sins," she said, "they would all be forgiven you for your coming to see me, and these words."

And Dolly saw that the tears stood in her eyes. She pressed Anna's hand in silence.

"Well, what are these buildings? How many there are of them!" After a moment's silence she repeated her

"These are the servant's houses, stud farm, and stables," answered Anna. "And there the park begins. It had

all gone to ruin, but Alexei had everything renewed. He is very fond of this place, and, what I never expected,

he has become intensely interested in looking after it. But his is such a rich nature! Whatever he takes up, he

does splendidly. So far from being bored by it, he works with passionate interest. He with his temperament

as I know it he has become careful and businesslike, a firstrate manager, he positively reckons every penny

in his management of the land. But only in that. When it's a question of tens of thousands, he doesn't think of

money." She spoke with that gleefully sly smile with which women often talk of the secret characteristics

only known to them of those they love. "Do you see that big building? That's the new hospital. I believe it

will cost over a hundred thousand; that's his dada just now. And do you know how it all came about? The

peasants asked him for some meadowland, I think it was, at a cheaper rate, and he refused, and I accused him

of being miserly. Of course it was not really because of that, but because of everything together he began

this hospital to prove, do you see, that he was not miserly about money. C'est une petitesse, if you like, but I

love him all the more for it. And now you'll see the house in a moment. It was his grandfather's house, and he

"How beautiful!" said Dolly, looking with involuntary admiration at the handsome house with columns,

They drove into a courtyard strewn with gravel and bright with flowers, in which two laborers were at work

putting an edging of stones round the light mold of a flower bed, and drew up in a covered entry.

"Ah, they're here already!" said Anna, looking at the saddle horses, which were just being led away from the

steps. "It is a good horse, isn't it? It's my cob; my favorite. Lead him here and bring me some sugar. Where is

the Count?" she inquired of two smart footmen who darted out. "Ah, there he is!" she said, seeing Vronsky

"Where are you going to put the Princess?" said Vronsky in French, addressing Anna, and without waiting for

a reply, he once more greeted Darya Alexandrovna, and this time he kissed her hand. "I think the big balcony

"Oh, no, that's too far off! Better in the corner room, we shall see each other more. Come, let's go up," said

"Et vous oubliez votre devoir," she said to Veslovsky, who came out too on the steps.

"Pardon, j'en ai tout plein les poches," he answered, smiling, putting his fingers in his waistcoat pocket.

"Mais vous venez trop tard," she said, rubbing her handkerchief on her hand, which the horse had made wet

Anna turned to Dolly, "You can stay some time? For one day only? That's impossible!"

"I promised to be back, and the children..." said Dolly, feeling embarrassed both because she had to get her

bag out of the carriage, and because she knew her face must be covered with dust.

"No, Dolly, darling!... Well, we'll see. Come along, come along!" and Anna led Dolly to her room.

That room was not the smart guestchamber Vronsky had suggested, but the one which Anna had said Dolly

would surely excuse. And this room, for which excuse was needed, was more full of luxury than any in which

"Well, darling, how happy I am!" Anna said, sitting down in her riding habit for a moment beside Dolly.

"Tell me about all of you. Stiva I had only a glimpse of, and he cannot tell one about the children. How is my

"Yes, she's very tall," Darya Alexandrovna answered shortly, surprised herself that she should respond so

coolly about her children. "We are having a delightful stay at the Levins'," she added.

"Oh, if I had known," said Anna, "that you do not despise me!... You might have all come to us. Stiva's an old

friend and a great friend of Alexei's, you know," she added, and suddenly she blushed.

"But in my delight I'm talking nonsense. The one thing, darling, is that I am so glad to have you!" said Anna,

kissing her again. "You haven't told me yet how and what you think about me, and I keep wanting to know.

But I'm glad you will see me as I am. The chief thing I shouldn't like would be for people to imagine I want

to prove anything. I don't want to prove anything; I merely want to live, to do no one harm but myself. I have

the right to do that, haven't I? But it is a big subject, and we'll talk over everything properly later. Now I'll go

Left alone, Darya Alexandrovna, with a good housewife's eye, scanned her room. All she had seen in entering

the house and walking through it, and all she saw now in her room, gave her an impression of wealth and

sumptuousness and of that modern European luxury of which she had only read in English novels, but had

never seen in Russia and in the country. Everything was new, from the new French hangings on the walls to

the carpet which covered the whole floor. The bed had a spring mattress, and a special sort of bolster and

taffeta pillowcases on the small pillows. The marble washstand, the dressing table, the little sofa, the tables,

the bronze clock on the chimney piece, the window curtains and the portieres were all new and expensive.

The smart maid, who came in to offer her services, with her hair done up high, and a gown more fashionable

that Dolly's, was as new and expensive as the whole room. Darya Alexandrovna liked her neatness, her

deferential and obliging manners, but she felt ill at ease with her. She felt ashamed of her seeing the patched

dressing jacket that had unluckily been packed by mistake for her. She was ashamed of the very patches and

darned places of which she had been so proud at home. At home it had been so clear that for six dressing

jackets there would be needed twentyfour arsheenes of nainsook at sixtyfive kopecks the yard, which was

a matter of fifteen roubles, besides the cutting out and making, and these fifteen roubles had been saved. But

Darya Alexandrovna had a great sense of relief when Annushka, whom she had known for years, walked in.

The smart maid was sent for to go to her mistress, and Annushka remained with Darya Alexandrovna.

Annushka was obviously much pleased at that lady's arrival, and began to chatter away without a pause.

Dolly observed that she was longing to express her opinion in regard to her mistress's position, especially as

to the love and devotion of the Count to Anna Arkadyevna, but Dolly carefully interrupted her whenever she

"I grew up with Anna Arkadyevna; my lady's dearer to me than anything. Well, it's not for us to judge. And,

"Kindly order these things washed for me, please," Darya Alexandrovna cut her short.

"Certainly. We've two women kept specially for washing small things, but most of the linen's done by

machinery. The Count goes into everything himself. Ah, what a husband he would make!..."

Dolly was glad when Anna came in, and by her entrance put a stop to Annushka's gossip.

Anna had put on a very simple batiste gown. Dolly scrutinized that simple gown attentively. She knew what

Anna was not embarrassed now. She was perfectly composed and at ease. Dolly saw that she had now

completely recovered from the impression her arrival had made on her, and had assumed that superficial,

careless tone which, as it were, closed the door on that compartment in which her deeper feelings and

"Annie?" (This was what she called her little daughter Anna.) "Very well. She has got on wonderfully. Would

you like to see her? Come, I'll show her to you. We had a terrible bother," she began telling her, "over nurses.

We had an Italian wet nurse. A good creature, but so stupid! We wanted to get rid of her, but the baby is so

"But how have you managed?..." Dolly was beginning a question as to what name the little girl would have;

but noticing a sudden frown on Anna's face, she changed the drift of her question. "How did you manage?

"You didn't mean to ask that? You meant to ask about her surname. Yes? That worries Alexei. She has no

name that is, she's a Karenina," said Anna, dropping her eyelids till nothing could be seen but the eyelashes

meeting. "But we'll talk about all that later," her face suddenly brightening. "Come, I'll show her to you. Elle

In the nursery the luxury which had impressed Dolly in the whole house struck her still more. There were

little gocarts ordered from England, and appliances for learning to walk, and a sofa after the fashion of a

billiard table, purposely constructed for crawling, and swings, and baths, all of special pattern, and modern.

They were all English, solid, and of good make, and obviously very expensive. The room was large, and very

When they went in, the baby, with nothing on but her little smock, was sitting in a little elbowchair at the

table, having her dinner of broth, which she was spilling all over her little chest. The baby was being fed, and

the Russian nurserymaid was evidently sharing her meal. Neither the wet nurse nor the head nurse were there;

they were in the next room, from which came the sound of their conversation in the queer French which was

Hearing Anna's voice, a smart, tall English nurse with a disagreeable face and a dissolute expression walked

in at the door, hurriedly shaking her fair curls, and immediately began to defend herself though Anna had not

found fault with her. At every word Anna said the English nurse said hurriedly several times, "Yes, my lady."

The rosy baby with her black eyebrows and hair, her sturdy red little body with tight gooseflesh skin,

delighted Darya Alexandrovna in spite of the cross expression with which she stared at the stranger. She

positively envied the baby's healthy appearance. She was delighted, too, at the baby's crawling. Not one of

her own children had crawled like that. When the baby was put on the carpet and its little dress tucked up

behind, it was wonderfully charming. Looking round like some little wild animal at the grownup big people

with her bright black eyes, she smiled, unmistakably pleased at their admiring her, and, holding her legs

sideways, she pressed vigorously on her arms, and rapidly drew her whole back up after, and then made

But the whole atmosphere of the nursery, and especially the English nurse, Darya Alexandrovna did not like

at all. It was only on the supposition that no good nurse would have entered so irregular a household as

Anna's that Darya Alexandrovna could explain to herself how Anna with her insight into people could take

such an unprepossessing, indecorous woman as nurse to her child. Besides, from a few words that were

dropped, Darya Alexandrovna saw at once that Anna, the two nurses, and the child, had no existence in

common, and that the mother's visit was something exceptional. Anna wanted to get the baby her plaything,

Most amazing of all was the fact that on being asked how many teeth the baby had, Anna answered wrong,

"I sometimes feel sorry I'm, as it were, superfluous here," said Anna, going out of the nursery, and holding up

her skirt so as to escape the plaything standing near the doorway. "It was very different with my first child."

"Oh, no! By the way, do you know I saw Seriozha?" said Anna, screwing up her eyes, as though looking at

something far away. "But we'll talk about that later. You wouldn't believe it, I'm like a hungry beggar woman

when a full dinner is set before her, and she does not know what to begin on first. The full dinner is you, and

the talks I have before me with you, which I could never have with anyone else; and I don't know which

subject to begin upon first. Mais je ne vous ferai grace de rien. I must have everything out with you. Oh, I

ought to give you a sketch of the company you will meet with us," she began. "I'll begin with the ladies.

Princess Varvara you know her, and I know your opinion and Stiva's about her. Stiva says the whole aim of

her existence is to prove her superiority over Auntie Katerina Pavlovna: that's all true; but she's a

goodnatured woman, and I am so grateful to her. In Peterburg there was a moment when un chaperon was

absolutely essential for me. Then she turned up. But, really, she is goodnatured. She did a great deal to

alleviate my position. I see you don't understand all the difficulty of my position... there in Peterburg," she

added. "Here I'm perfectly at ease and happy. Well, of that later on, though. Then Sviiazhsky he's the

marshal of the district, and he's a very good sort of a man, but he wants to get something out of Alexei. You

understand, with his property, now that we are settled in the country, Alexei can exercise great influence.

Then there's Tushkevich you have seen him, you know Betsy's admirer. Now he's been thrown over, and

he's come to see us. As Alexei says, he's one of those people who are very pleasant if one accepts them for

what they try to appear to be, et puis, il est comme il faut, as Princess Varvara says. Then Veslovsky... you

know him. A very charming boy," she said, and a sly smile curved her lips. "What's this wild story about him

and the Levins? Veslovsky told Alexei about it, and we don't believe it. Il est tres gentil et naif," she said

again with the same smile. "Men need occupation, and Alexei needs a circle, so I value all these people. We

have to have the house lively and gay, so that Alexei may not long for any novelty. Then you'll see the

steward a German, a very good fellow, and he understands his work. Alexei has a very high opinion of him.

Then the doctor, a young man, not quite a Nihilist perhaps, but, you know, he eats with his knife... But a very

"Here's Dolly for you, Princess, you were so anxious to see her," said Anna, coming out with Darya

Alexandrovna on the stone terrace where Princess Varvara was sitting in the shade at an embroidery frame,

working at a cover for Count Alexei Kirillovich's easy chair. "She says she doesn't want anything before

dinner, but please order some lunch for her, and I'll go look for Alexei and bring them all in."

Princess Varvara gave Dolly a cordial and rather patronizing reception, and began at once explaining to her

that she was living with Anna because she had always cared more for her than her sister, that aunt that had

brought Anna up; and that now, when everyone had abandoned Anna, she thought it her duty to help her in

"Her husband will give her a divorce, and then I shall go back to my solitude; but now I can be of use, and I

am doing my duty, however difficult it may be for me not like some other people. And how sweet it is of

you, how right of you to have come! They live like the best of married couples; it's for God to judge them,

not for us. And didn't Biriuzovsky and Madame Avenieva... and Nikandrov himself, and Vassiliev with

Madame Mamonova, and Liza Neptunova... Did no one say anything about them? And it has ended by their

being received by everyone. And then, c'est un interieur si joli, si comme il faut. Toutafait a l'anglaise. On

se reunit le matin au breakfast, et puis on se separe. Everyone does as he pleases till dinnertime. Dinner at

seven o'clock. Stiva did very rightly to send you. He needs their support. You know that through his mother

and brother he can do everything. And then they do so much good. He didn't tell you about his hospital? Ce

Their conversation was interrupted by Anna, who had found the men of the party in the billiard room, and

returned with them to the terrace. There was still a long time before the dinner hour, it was exquisite weather,

and so several different methods of spending the next two hours were proposed. There were very many

methods of passing the time at Vozdvizhenskoe, and these were all unlike those in use at Pokrovskoe.

"Une partie de lawn tennis," Veslovsky proposed, with his handsome smile. "We'll be partners again, Anna

"No, it's too hot; better stroll about the garden and have a row in the boat show Darya Alexandrovna the

"I imagine that what Dolly would like best would be a stroll wouldn't you? And then the boat, perhaps," said

So it was decided. Veslovsky and Tushkevich went off to the bathing place, promising to get the boat ready

They walked along the path in two couples, Anna with Sviiazhsky, and Dolly with Vronsky. Dolly was a

little embarrassed and anxious in the new surroundings in which she found herself Abstractly, theoretically,

she did not merely justify she positively approved of Anna's conduct. As is indeed not infrequent with

women of unimpeachable virtue, weary of the monotony of virtuous existence, at a distance she not only

excused illicit love she positively envied it. Besides, she loved Anna with all her heart. But seeing Anna in

actual life among these strangers, with this fashionable tone that was so new to Darya Alexandrovna, she felt

ill at ease. What she disliked particularly was seeing Princess Varvara ready to overlook everything for the

As a general principle, abstractly, Dolly approved of Anna's action; but to see the man for whose sake her

action had been taken was disagreeable to her. Moreover, she had never liked Vronsky. She thought him very

proud, and saw nothing in him of which he could be proud except his wealth. But against her own will, here

in his own house, he imposed upon her more than ever, and she could not be at ease with him. She

experienced with him the same feeling she had had the maid about her dressing jacket. Just as with the maid

she had felt not exactly ashamed, but embarrassed at her darns, so she felt with him not exactly ashamed, but

Dolly was ill at ease, and tried to find a subject of conversation. Even though she supposed that, through his

pride, praise of his house and garden would be sure to be disagreeable to him, she did all the same tell him

"Oh, no!" he said, and his face beamed with pleasure. "If you could only have seen the court last spring!"

And he began, at first rather diffidently, but more and more carried away by the subject as he went on, to

draw her attention to the various details of the decoration of his house and garden. It was evident that, having

devoted a great deal of trouble to improve and beautify his home, Vronsky felt a need to show off the

improvements to a new person, and was genuinely delighted at Darya Alexandrovna's praise.

"If you would care to look at the hospital, and are not really tired, it's not far. Shall we go?" he said, glancing

into her face to convince himself that she was not bored. "Are you coming, Anna?" he turned to her.

"We will come, won't we?" she said, addressing Sviiazhsky. "Mais il ne faut pas laisser le pauvre Veslovsky

"Yes, this is a monument he is setting up here," said Anna, turning to Dolly with that sly smile of

"Oh, it's a work of real importance!" said Sviiazhsky. But to show he was not trying to ingratiate himself with

Vronsky, he promptly added some slightly critical remarks. "I wonder, though, Count," he said, "that while

you do so much for the health of the peasants, you take so little interest in the schools."

"C'est devenu tellement commun les ecoles," said Vronsky. "You understand it's not on that account, but it

just happens so, my interest has been diverted elsewhere. This way, then, to the hospital," he said to Darya

The ladies put up their parasols and turned into the side path. After going down several turnings, and going

through a little gate, Darya Alexandrovna saw standing on rising ground before her a large

pretentiouslooking red building, almost finished. The iron roof, which was not yet painted, shone with

dazzling brightness in the sunshine. Beside the finished building another had been begun, surrounded by

scaffolding. Workmen in aprons, standing on scaffolds, were laying bricks, pouring mortar out of vats, and

"How quickly work gets done with you!" said Sviiazhsky. "When I was here last time the roof was not on."

"By the autumn it will all be ready. Inside almost everything is done," said Anna.

"That's the house for the doctor and the dispensary," answered Vronsky; seeing the architect in a short jacket

Going round a hole where the workmen were slaking lime, he stood still with the architect and began talking

"The pediment looks still too low," he said to Anna, who had asked what was the matter.

"Yes, of course, it would have been much better, Anna Arkadyevna," said the architect, "but now it's too

"Yes, I take a great interest in it," Anna answered Sviiazhsky, who was expressing his surprise at her

knowledge of architecture. "This new building ought to have been in harmony with the hospital. It was an

Vronsky, having finished his talk with the architect, joined the ladies, and led them inside the hospital.

Although they were still at work on the cornices outside and were painting on the ground floor, upstairs

almost all the rooms were finished. Going up the broad castiron staircase to the landing, they walked into

the first large room. The walls were stuccoed to look like marble, the huge plateglass windows were already

in, only the parquet floor was not yet finished, and the carpenters, who were planing a block of it, left their

"This is the reception room," said Vronsky. "Here there will be a desk, a cupboard, and benches, and nothing

"This way; let us go in here. Don't go near the window," said Anna, trying the paint to see if it were dry.

From the reception room they went into the corridor. Here Vronsky showed them the mechanism for

ventilation on a novel system. Then he showed them marble baths, and beds with extraordinary springs. Then

he showed them the wards one after another, the storeroom, the linen room, then the heating stove of a new

pattern, then the trolleys, which would make no noise as they carried everything needed along the corridors,

and many other things. Sviiazhsky, as a connoisseur in the latest mechanical improvements, appreciated

everything fully. Dolly simply wondered at all as something she had not seen before, and, anxious to

understand it all, made minute inquiries about everything, which gave Vronsky apparent satisfaction.

"Yes, I imagine that this will be the solitary example of a properly fitted hospital in Russia," said Sviiazhsky.

"And won't you have a lyingin ward?" asked Dolly. "That's so much needed in the country. I have often..."

"This is not a lyingin home, but a hospital for the sick, and is intended for all diseases, except infectious

complaints," he said. "Ah! Look at this," and he rolled up to Darya Alexandrovna an invalid chair that had

just been ordered for convalescents. "Look!" He sat down in the chair and began moving it. "The patient can't

walk still too weak, perhaps, or something wrong with his legs, but he must have air, and he moves, rolls

Darya Alexandrovna was interested by everything. She liked everything very much, but most of all she liked

Vronsky himself, with his natural, simplehearted enthusiasm. "Yes, he's a very dear, good man," she thought

several times, not hearing what he said, but looking at him and penetrating into his expression, while she

mentally put herself in Anna's place. She liked him so much just now with his eager interest that she saw how

"No, I think the Princess is tired, and horses don't interest her," Vronsky said to Anna, who wanted to go on

to the stud farm, where Sviiazhsky wished to see the new stallion. "You go on, while I escort the Princess

home, and we'll have a little talk," he said. "If you would like that?" he added, turning to her.

"I know nothing about horses, and I shall be delighted to go back with you," answered Darya Alexandrovna,

She saw by Vronsky's face that he wanted something from her. She was not mistaken. As soon as they had

passed through the little gate back into the garden, he looked in the direction Anna had taken, and, having

"You guess that I have something I want to say to you," he said, looking at her with laughing eyes. "I am not

wrong in believing you to be a friend of Anna's." He took off his hat, and taking out his handkerchief, wiped

Darya Alexandrovna made no answer, and merely stared at him with dismay. When she was left alone with

him, she suddenly felt afraid; his laughing eyes and stern expression scared her.

The most diverse suppositions as to what he was about to say to her flashed into her brain. "He is going to

beg me to come to stay with them with the children, and I shall have to refuse; or to create a set that will

receive Anna in Moscow.... Or isn't it Vassenka Veslovsky and his relations with Anna? Or perhaps about

Kitty that he feels he was to blame?" All her conjectures were unpleasant, but she did not guess what he

"You have so much influence with Anna, she is so fond of you," he said; "do help me."

Darya Alexandrovna looked with timid inquiry into his energetic face, which under the linden trees was

continually being lighted up in patches by the sunshine, and then passing into complete shadow again. She

waited for him to say more, but he walked in silence beside her, scratching with his cane in the gravel.

"You have come to see us, you, the only woman of Anna's former friends I don't count Princess Varvara

but I know that you have done this not because you regard our position as normal, but because, understanding

all the difficulty of the position, you still love her and want to be a help to her. Have I understood you

"No," he broke in, and unconsciously, oblivious of the awkward position in which he was putting his

companion, he stopped abruptly, so that she had to stop short too. "No one feels more deeply and intensely

than I do all the difficulty of Anna's position; and that you may well understand, if you do me the honor of

supposing I have any heart. I am to blame for that position, and that is why I feel it."

"I understand," said Darya Alexandrovna, involuntarily admiring the sincerity and firmness with which he

said this. "But just because you feel yourself responsible, you exaggerate it, I am afraid," she said. "Her

"In the world it is hell!" he brought out quickly, frowning darkly. "You can't imagine moral sufferings greater

than what she went through in Peterburg during that fortnight.... And I beg you to believe it."

"So far and it may be so always you are happy and at peace. I see in Anna that she is happy, perfectly

happy she has had time to tell me so much already," said Darya Alexandrovna, smiling; and involuntarily,

as she said this, at the same moment a doubt entered her mind whether Anna really were happy.

"Yes, yes," he said, "I know that she has revived after all her sufferings; she is happy. She is happy in the

present. But I?... I am afraid of what is before us... I beg your pardon you would like to walk on?"

Darya Alexandrovna sat down on a garden seat in a corner of the avenue. He stood up, facing her.

"I see that she is happy," he repeated, and the doubt whether she were happy sank more deeply into Darya

Alexandrovna's mind. "But can it last? Whether we have acted rightly or wrongly is another question, but the

die is cast," he said, passing from Russian to French, "and we are bound together for life. We are united by all

the ties of love that we hold most sacred. We have a child, we may have other children. But the law and all

the conditions of our position are such that thousands of complications arise which she does not see at

present, and does not want to see, setting her heart at rest after all these sufferings and ordeals. And that one

can well understand. But I can't help seeing them. My daughter is by law not my daughter, but Karenin's. I

cannot bear this falsity!" he said, with a vigorous gesture of refusal, and he looked with gloomy inquiry

"One day a son may be born, my son, and he will be legally a Karenin; he will not be the heir of my name nor

of my property; and however happy we may be in our home life, and however many children we may have,

there will be no real tie between us. They will be Karenin's. You will understand the bitterness and horror of

this position! I have tried to speak of this to Anna. It irritates her. She does not understand, and to her I cannot

speak plainly of all this. Now look at another side. I am happy, happy in her love, but I must have occupation.

I have found occupation, and am proud of what I am doing, and consider it nobler than the pursuits of my

former companions at Court and in the army. And most certainly I would not change the work I am doing for

theirs. I am working here, settled in my own place, and I am happy and contented, and we need nothing more

to make us happy. I love my work here. Ce n'est pas un pisaller, on the contrary..."

Darya Alexandrovna noticed that at this point in his explanation he grew confused, and she did not quite

understand this digression, but she felt that having once begun to speak of matters near his heart, of which he

could not speak to Anna, he was now making a clean breast of everything, and that the question of his

pursuits in the country fell into the same compartment of his intimate meditations as the question of his

"Well, I will go on," he said, collecting himself. "The great thing is that as I work I want to have a conviction

that what I am doing will not die with me, that I shall have heirs to come after me and this I have not.

Conceive the position of a man who knows that his children, the children of the woman he loves, will not be

his, but will belong to someone who hates them and cares nothing about them! It is awful!

"Yes, that brings me to the object of my conversation," he said, calming himself with an effort. "Anna can, it

depends on her.... Even to petition the Czar for legitimization, a divorce is essential. And that depends on

Anna. Her husband agreed to a divorce at that time your husband had arranged it completely. And now, I

know, he would not refuse it. It is only a matter of writing to him. He said plainly at that time that if she

expressed the desire, he would not refuse. Of course," he said gloomily, "it is one of those Pharisaical

cruelties of which only such heartless men are capable. He knows what agony any recollection of him must

give her, and knowing her, he must have a letter from her. I can understand that it is agony to her. But the

matter is of such importance, that one must passer pardessus toutes ces finesses de sentiment. Il y va du

bonheur et de l'existence d'Anne et de ses enfants. I won't speak of myself, though it's hard for me, very

hard," he said, with an expression as though he were threatening someone for its being hard for him. "And so

it is, Princess, that I am shamelessly clutching at you as an anchor of salvation. Help me to persuade her to

"Yes, of course," Darya Alexandrovna said dreamily, as she vividly recalled her last interview with Alexei

"Use your influence with her, make her write. I don't like I'm almost unable to speak about this to her."

"Very well, I will talk to her. But how is it she does not think of it herself?" said Darya Alexandrovna, and for

some reason she suddenly at that point recalled Anna's strange new habit of halfclosing her eyes. And she

remembered that Anna drooped her eyelids just when the deeper questions of life were touched upon. "Just as

though she halfshut her eyes to her own life, so as not to see everything," thought Dolly. "Yes, indeed, for

my own sake and for hers, I will talk to her," Dolly said in reply to his expression of gratitude.

When Anna found Dolly at home before her, she looked intently in her eyes, as though questioning her about

"I believe it's dinnertime," she said. "We've not seen each other at all yet. I am reckoning on the evening.

Now I want to go and dress. I expect you do too; we all got splashed at the buildings."

Dolly went to her room and she felt amused. To change her dress was impossible, for she had already put on

her best dress. But in order to signify in some way her preparation for dinner, she asked the maid to brush her

"This is all I can do," she said with a smile to Anna, who came in to her in a third dress, again of extreme

"Yes, we are too prim here," she said, as it were apologizing for her finery. "Alexei is delighted at your visit,

as he rarely is at anything. He has completely lost his heart to you," she added. "You're not tired?"

There was no time for talking about anything before dinner. Going into the drawing room they found Princess

Varvara already there, and the gentlemen of the party in black frock coats. The architect wore a

swallowtailed coat. Vronsky presented the doctor and the steward to his guest. The architect he had already

A stout butler, resplendent with a smoothly shaven round chin and a starched white cravat, announced that

dinner was ready, and the ladies got up. Vronsky asked Sviiazhsky to take in Anna Arkadyevna, and himself

offered his arm to Dolly. Veslovsky was before Tushkevich in offering his arm to Princess Varvara, so that

The dinner, the dining room, the service, the waiting at table, the wine and the food, were not simply in

keeping with the general tone of modern luxury throughout the house, but seemed even more sumptuous and

modern. Darya Alexandrovna watched this luxury which was novel to her, and as a good housekeeper used to

managing a household though she never dreamed of adapting anything she saw to her own household, as it

was all in a style of luxury far above her own manner of living she could not help scrutinizing every detail,

and wondering how and by whom it was all done. Vassenka Veslovsky, her husband, and even Sviiazhsky,

and many other people she knew, would never have considered this question, and would have readily

believed what every wellbred host tries to make his guests feel, that is, that all that is wellordered in his

house has cost him, the host, no trouble whatever, but comes of itself. Darya Alexandrovna was well aware

that even porridge for the children's breakfast does not come of itself, and that therefore, where so

complicated and magnificent a style of luxury was maintained, someone must give earnest attention to its

organization. And from the glance with which Alexei Kirillovich scanned the table, from the way he nodded

to the butler, and offered Darya Alexandrovna her choice between cold soup and hot soup, she saw that it was

all organized and maintained by the care of the master of the house himself. It was evident that it all rested no

more upon Anna than upon Veslovsky. She, Sviiazhsky, the Princess, and Veslovsky, were equally guests,

Anna was the hostess only in conducting the conversation. The conversation was a difficult one for the lady

of the house at a small table with persons present, like the steward and the architect, belonging to a

completely different world, struggling not to be overawed by an elegance to which they were unaccustomed,

and unable to sustain a large share in the general conversation. But this difficult conversation Anna directed

with her usual tact and naturalness, and indeed she did so with actual enjoyment, as Darya Alexandrovna

The conversation began about the row Tushkevich and Veslovsky had taken alone together in the boat, and

Tushkevich began describing the last boat races in Peterburg at the Yacht Club. But Anna, seizing the first

"Nikolai Ivanich was struck," she said meaning Sviiazhsky, "at the progress the new building had made since

he was here last; but I am there every day, and every day I wonder at the rate at which it grows."

"It's firstrate working with His Excellency," said the architect with a smile (he was respectful and

composed, though with a sense of his own dignity). "It's a very different matter to have to do with the district

authorities. Where one would have to write out sheaves of papers, here I call upon the Count, and in three

The conversation passed to the misuse of political power in the United States, but Anna quickly brought it

"Have you ever seen a reaping machine?" she said, addressing Darya Alexandrovna. "We had just ridden

Anna took a knife and fork in her beautiful white hands, covered with rings, and began showing how the

machine worked. It was clear that she saw nothing would be understood from her explanation; but aware that

"More like little penknives," Veslovsky said playfully, never taking his eyes off her.

Anna gave a just perceptible smile, but made no answer. "Isn't it true, Karl Fedorich, that it's just like

"Oh, ja," answered the German. "Es ist ein ganz einfaches Ding," and he began to explain the construction of

"It's a pity it doesn't bind too. I saw one at the Vienna exhibition, which binds with a wire," said Sviiazhsky.

"Es kommt drauf an... Der Preis vom Draht muss ausgerechnet werden." And the German, roused from his

taciturnity, turned to Vronsky. "Das lasst sich ausrechnen, Erlaucht." The German was just feeling in the

pocket where were his pencil and the notebook he always wrote in, but recollecting that he was at a dinner,

and observing Vronsky's chilly glance, he checked himself. "Zu compliziert, macht zu viel pains," he

"Wunscht man gains, so hat man auch pains," said Vassenka Veslovsky, bantering the German. "J'adore

"We expected to find you in the fields, Vassilii Semionich," she said to the doctor, a sicklylooking man;

"What a pity!" said Anna, and having thus paid the dues of civility to her domestic circle, she turned to her

"It would be a hard task, though, to construct a machine from your description, Anna Arkadyevna,"

"Oh, no, why so?" said Anna with a smile that betrayed that she knew there was something charming in her

disquisitions upon the machine, that had been noticed by Sviiazhsky too. This new trait of girlish

"But Anna Arkadyevna's knowledge of architecture is marvelous," said Tushkevich.

"To be sure, I heard Anna Arkadyevna saying yesterday: 'by cramp' and 'plinths,'" said Veslovsky. "Have I

"There's nothing marvelous about it, when one sees and hears so much of it," said Anna. "But, I dare say, you

Darya Alexandrovna saw that Anna disliked the tone of playfulness that existed between her and Veslovsky,

Vronsky acted in this matter quite differently from Levin. He obviously attached no significance to

"Oh, some sort of paste.... No, putty," said Veslovsky, raising a general laugh.

The company at dinner, with the exception of the doctor, the architect, and the steward, who remained

plunged in gloomy silence, kept up a conversation that never paused, glancing off one subject, fastening on

another, and at times stinging one or the other of the company to the quick. Once Darya Alexandrovna felt

wounded to the quick, and got so hot that she positively flushed and wondered afterward whether she had

said anything extreme or unpleasant. Sviiazhsky began talking of Levin, describing his strange view that

"I have not the pleasure of knowing this M. Levin," Vronsky said, smiling, "but most likely he has never seen

the machines he condemns; or if he has seen and tried any, it must have been after a queer fashion, some

Russian imitation, not a machine from abroad. What sort of views can anyone have on such a subject?"

"I can't defend his opinions," Darya Alexandrovna said, flaring up; "but I can say that he's a highly cultivated

man, and if he were here he would know very well how to answer you, though I am not capable of doing so."

"I like him extremely, and we are great friends," Sviiazhsky said, smiling goodnaturedly. "Mais pardon, il

est un petit peu toque; he maintains, for instance, that zemstvoes and justices of the peace are all of no use,

"It's our Russian apathy," said Vronsky, pouring water from an iced decanter into a delicate glass on a high

stem; "we've no sense of the duties our privileges impose upon us, and so we refuse to recognize these

"I know no man more strict in the performance of his duties," said Darya Alexandrovna, irritated by

"For my part," pursued Vronsky, who was evidently for some reason or other keenly affected by this

conversation, "such as I am, I am, on the contrary, extremely grateful for the honor they have done me,

thanks to Nikolai Ivanich" (he indicated Sviiazhsky), "in electing me an honorary justice of the peace. I

consider that for me the duty of being present at the session, of judging some peasants' quarrel about a horse,

is as important as anything I can do. And I shall regard it as an honor if they elect me for the district council.

It's only in that way I can pay for the advantages I enjoy as a landowner. Unluckily they don't understand the

It was strange to Darya Alexandrovna to hear how serenely confident he was of being right at his own table.

She thought how Levin, who believed the opposite, was just as positive in his opinions at his own table. But

"So we can reckon upon you, Count, for the coming elections?" said Sviiazhsky. "But you must come a little

beforehand, so as to be on the spot by the eighth. If you would do me the honor to stop with me!"

"I rather agree with your beaufrere", said Anna, "though not quite on the same ground as he," she added

with a smile. "I'm afraid that we have too many of these public duties in these latter days. Just as in the old

days there were so many government functionaries that one had to call in a functionary for every single thing,

so now everyone's doing some sort of public duty. Alexei has been here now six months, and he's a member,

I do believe, of five or six different public bodies, a guardian, a justice of the peace, a member of the council,

a juryman, an equine something. Du train que cela va, his whole time will be wasted on it. And I'm afraid that

with such a multiplicity of these bodies, they'll end in being a mere form. How many are you a member of,

Anna spoke lightly, but irritation could be discerned in her tone. Darya Alexandrovna, watching Anna and

Vronsky attentively, detected it instantly. She noticed, too, that as she spoke Vronsky's face had immediately

taken a serious and obstinate expression. Noticing this, and that Princess Varvara at once made haste to

change the conversation by talking of Peterburg acquaintances, and remembering what Vronsky had without

apparent connection said in the garden of his work in the country, Dolly surmised that this question of public

activity was connected with some deep private disagreement between Anna and Vronsky.

The dinner, the wine, the dinner set, were all very good; but it was all like what Darya Alexandrovna had

seen at formal dinners and balls which of late years had become quite unfamiliar to her; it all had the same

impersonal and constrained character, and so on an ordinary day and in a little circle of friends it made a

After dinner they sat on the terrace; then they proceeded to play lawn tennis. The players, divided into two

parties, stood on opposite sides of a tightly drawn net with gilt poles, on the carefully leveled and rolled

croquet ground. Darya Alexandrovna made an attempt to play, but it was a long time before she could

understand the game, and by the time she did understand it she was so tired that she sat down with Princess

Varvara and simply looked on at the players. Her partner, Tushkevich, gave up playing too, but the others

kept the game up for a long time. Sviiazhsky and Vronsky both played very well and seriously. They kept a

sharp lookout on the balls served to them, and without loitering, they ran adroitly up to them, waited for the

rebound, and neatly and accurately returned them over the net. Veslovsky played worse than the others. He

was too eager, but he kept the players lively with his high spirits. His laughter and outcries never paused.

Like the other men of the party, with the ladies' permission, he took off his coat, and his solid, comely figure

in his white shirt sleeves, with his red perspiring face and his impulsive movements, made a picture that

When Darya Alexandrovna lay in bed that night, as soon as she closed her eyes, she saw Vassenka Veslovsky

During the game Darya Alexandrovna was not enjoying herself. She did not like the light tone of playfulness

that was kept up all the time between Vassenka Veslovsky and Anna, and the unnaturalness, altogether, of

grownup people, all alone without children, playing at a child's game. But to avoid breaking up the party

and to get through the time somehow, after a rest she joined the game again, and pretended to be enjoying it.

All that day it seemed to her as though she were acting in a theater with actors cleverer than she, and that her

She had come with the intention of staying two days, if all went well. But in the evening, during the game,

she made up her mind that she would go home next day. The maternal cares and worries, which she had so

hated on the way, now, after a day spent without them struck her in quite another light, and tempted her back

When, after evening tea and a row by night in the boat, Darya Alexandrovna went alone to her room, took off

her dress, and began arranging her thin hair for the night, she had a great sense of relief.

It was positively disagreeable to her to think that Anna would be coming to see her immediately. She longed

Dolly was just about to go to bed when Anna came in to see her, attired for the night.

In the course of the day Anna had several times begun to speak of matters near her heart, and every time after

a few words she had stopped: "Afterward, by ourselves, we'll talk about everything. I've got so much I want

Now they were by themselves, and Anna did not know what to talk about. She sat in the window looking at

Dolly, and going over in her own mind all the stores of intimate talk which had seemed so inexhaustible

beforehand, and she found nothing. At that moment it seemed to her that everything had been said already.

"Well, what of Kitty?" she said with a heavy sigh, looking penitently at Dolly. "Tell me the truth, Dolly: isn't

"Yes, yes," said Anna, turning away and looking out of the open window. "But I was not to blame. And who

is to blame? What's the meaning of being to blame? Could it have been otherwise? What do you think? Could

it possibly have happened otherwise than that you should become the wife of Stiva?"

"Yes, yes, but we've not finished about Kitty. Is she happy? He's a very fine man, they say."

"But tell me about yourself. We've a great deal to talk about. And I've had a talk with..." Dolly did not know

what to call him. She felt it awkward to call him either the Count or Alexei Kirillovich.

"With Alexei," said Anna, "I know what you talked about. But I wanted to ask you directly what you think of

"No, tell me all the same.... You see my life. But you mustn't forget that you're seeing us in the summer,

when you have come to us and we are not alone.... But we came here early in the spring, lived quite alone,

and shall be alone again, and I desire nothing better. But imagine me living alone without him, alone, and that

will be... I see by everything that it will often be repeated, that he will be half the time away from home," she

said, getting up and sitting down close by Dolly. "Of course," she interrupted Dolly, who would have

answered, "of course I won't try to keep him by force. I don't keep him indeed. The races are just coming, his

horses are running, he will go. I'm very glad. But think of me, fancy my position.... But what's the use of

"He spoke of what I want to speak about myself, and it's easy for me to be his advocate; of whether there is

not a possibility... whether you could not..." (Darya Alexandrovna hesitated) "correct, or improve your

position.... You know how I look at it... But all the same, if possible, you should get married...."

"Divorce, you mean?" said Anna. "Do you know, the only woman who came to see me in Peterburg was

Betsy Tverskaia? You know her, of course? Au fond, c'est la femme la plus dipravee qui existe. She had an

intrigue with Tushkevich, deceiving her husband in the basest way. And she told me that she did not care to

know me so long as my position was irregular. Don't imagine I would compare... I know you, darling. But I

"He said that he was unhappy on your account and his own. Perhaps you will say that it's egoism, but what a

legitimate and noble egoism. He wants first of all to legitimize his daughter, and to be your husband, to have

"What wife, what slave can be so utterly a slave as I, in my position?" she put in gloomily.

"Well, and the most legitimate desire he wishes that your children should have a name."

"I shall not, because I don't wish it." And, in spite of all her emotion, Anna smiled, as she caught the naive

"Impossible!" said Dolly, opening her eyes wide. For here this was one of those discoveries the consequences

and deductions from which are so immense that all that one feels for the first instant is that it is impossible to

This discovery, suddenly throwing light on all those families of one or two children, which had hitherto been

so incomprehensible to her, aroused so many ideas, reflections, and contradictory emotions, that she had

nothing to say, and simply gazed with wideopen eyes of wonder at Anna. This was the very thing she had

been dreaming of, but now learning that it was possible, she was horrified. She felt that it was too simple a

"Why so? Think I have a choice between two alternatives: either to be with child, that is an invalid, or to be

the friend and companion of my husband practically my husband," Anna said in a tone intentionally

"Yes, yes," said Darya Alexandrovna, hearing the very arguments she had used to herself, and not finding the

"For you, for other people," said Anna, as though divining her thoughts, "there may be reason to hesitate; but

for me... You must consider I am not his wife; he loves me as long as he loves me. And how am I to keep

With extraordinary rapidity, as happens during moments of excitement, ideas and memories rushed into

Darya Alexandrovna's head. "I," she thought, "did not keep my attraction for Stiva; he left me for others, and

the first woman for whom he betrayed me did not keep him by being always pretty and lively. He deserted

her and took another. And can Anna attract and keep Count Vronsky in that way? If that is what he looks for,

he will find dresses and manners still more attractive and charming. And, however white and beautiful her

bare arms are, however beautiful her full figure and her eager face under her black curls, he will find

something better still, just as my disgusting, pitiful, and charming husband does."

Dolly made no answer, she merely sighed. Anna noticed this sigh, indicating dissent, and she went on. In her

"Do you say that it's not right? But you must consider," she went on; "you forget my position. How can I

desire children? I'm not speaking of the suffering I'm not afraid of that. Think, only what are my children

to be? Illfated children, who will have to bear a stranger's name. For the very fact of their birth they will be

But Anna did not hear her. She longed to give utterance to all the arguments with which she had so many

"What is reason given me for, if I am not to use it to avoid bringing unhappy beings into the world!"

"I should always feel I had wronged these unhappy children," she said. "If there are none, at any rate they are

These were the very arguments Darya Alexandrovna had used in her own reflections; but she heard them now

without understanding them. "How can one wrong creatures that don't exist?" she thought. And all at once the

idea struck her. Could it possibly, under any circumstances, have been better for her favorite Grisha if he had

never existed? And this seemed to her so wild, so strange, that she shook her head to drive away this tangle of

"No, I don't know; it's not right," was all she said, with an expression of disgust on her face.

"Yes, but you mustn't forget what you are and what I am.... And besides that," added Anna, in spite of the

wealth of her arguments and the poverty of Dolly's objections, seeming still to admit that it was not right,

"don't forget the chief point, that I am not now in the same position as you. For you the question is: Do you

desire not to have any more children? While for me it is: Do I desire to have them? And that's a great

Darya Alexandrovna made no reply. She suddenly felt that she had got away from Anna so far, that there lay

between them a barrier of questions on which they could never agree, and about which it was better not to

"Then there is all the more reason for you to legalize your position, if possible," said Dolly.

"Yes, if possible," said Anna, speaking all at once in an utterly different tone, subdued and mournful.

"Surely you don't mean a divorce is impossible? I was told your husband had consented to it."

"Oh, we won't then," Darya Alexandrovna hastened to say, noticing the expression of suffering on Anna's

"I? Not at all! I'm very satisfied and happy. You see, je fais passions. Veslovsky..."

"Yes, to tell the truth, I don't like Veslovsky's tone," said Darya Alexandrovna, anxious to change the subject.

"Oh, that's nonsense! It amuses Alexei, and that's all; but he's a boy, and quite under control. You know, I

turn him as I please. It's just as it might be with your Grisha.... Dolly!" she suddenly changed the subject.

"You say I take too gloomy a view of things. You can't understand. It's too awful! I try not to take any view

"But what can I do? Nothing. You tell me to marry Alexei, and say I don't think about it. I don't think about

it!" she repeated, and a flush rose into her face. She got up, straightening her chest, and sighed heavily. With

her light step she began pacing up and down the room, stopping now and then. "I don't think of it? Not a day,

not an hour passes that I don't think of it, and blame myself for what I think... because thinking of that may

drive me mad. Drive me mad!" she repeated. "When I think of it, I can't sleep without morphine. But never

mind. Let us talk quietly. They tell me divorce. In the first place, he won't give me a divorce. He's under the

Darya Alexandrovna, sitting erect on a chair, turned her head following Anna with a face of sympathetic

"Suppose I make the attempt. What does it mean?" she said, evidently giving utterance to a thought, a

thousand times thought over and learned by heart. "It means that I, hating him, but still recognizing that I

have wronged him and I consider him magnanimous that I humiliate myself to write to him.... Well,

suppose I make the effort; I do it. Either I receive a humiliating refusal, or consent. Well, I have received his

consent, say..." Anna was at that moment at the farthest end of the room, and she stopped there, doing

something to the curtain at the window. "I receive his consent, but my... my son? They won't give him up to

me. He will grow up despising me, with his father, whom I've abandoned. Do you see, I love equally, I think,

She came out into the middle of the room and stood facing Dolly, with her arms pressed tightly across her

chest. In her white dressing gown her figure seemed more than usually grand and broad. She bent her head,

and with shining, wet eyes looked from under her brows at Dolly, a thin little pitiful figure in her patched

"It is only those two beings whom I love, and one excludes the other. I can't have them together, and that's the

only thing I want. And since I can't have that, I don't care about the rest. I don't care about anything

anything. And it will end one way or another, and so I can't, I don't like to talk of it. So don't blame me, don't

judge me for anything. You can't with your pure heart understand all that I'm suffering."

She went up, sat down beside Dolly, and, with a guilty look, peeped into her face and took her hand.

"What are you thinking? What are you thinking about me? Don't despise me. I don't deserve contempt. I'm

simply unhappy. If anyone is unhappy, I am," she uttered, and turning away, she burst into tears.

Left alone, Dolly said her prayers and went to bed. She had felt for Anna with all her heart while she was

speaking to her, but now she could not force herself to think of her. The memories of home and of her

children rose up in her imagination with a peculiar charm quite new to her, with a sort of new brilliance. That

world of her own seemed to her now so sweet and precious that she would not on any account spend an extra

day outside it, and she made up her mind that she would certainly go back the next day.

Anna meantime went back to her boudoir, took a wineglass, and dropped into it several drops of a medicine,

of which the principal ingredient was morphine. After drinking it off and sitting still a little while, she went

When she went into the bedroom, Vronsky looked intently at her. He was looking for traces of the

conversation which he knew, staying so long in Dolly's room, she must have had with her. But in her

expression of restrained excitement, and of a sort of reserve, he could find nothing but the beauty that always

bewitched him afresh though he was used to it, the consciousness of it, and the desire that it should affect

him. He did not want to ask her what they had been talking of, but he hoped that she would tell him

"Oh, I've known her a long while. She's very goodhearted, I suppose, mais excessivement terreaterre. Still,

Next morning, in spite of the protests of her hosts, Darya Alexandrovna prepared for her homeward journey.

Levin's coachman, in his by no means new coat and shabby hat, with his illmatched horses and his carriage

with the patched mudguards, drove with gloomy determination into the covered gravel approach.

Darya Alexandrovna disliked taking leave of Princess Varvara and the gentlemen of the party. After a day

spent together, both she and her hosts were distinctly aware that they did not get on together, and that it was

better for them not to meet. Only Anna was sad. She knew that now, after Dolly's departure, no one again

would stir up within her soul the feelings that had been roused by their conversation. It hurt her to stir up

these feelings, but yet she knew that that was the best part of her soul, and that that part of her soul would

As she drove out into the open country, Darya Alexandrovna had a delightful sense of relief, and she felt

tempted to ask the two men how they had liked being at Vronsky's, when suddenly the coachman, Philip,

"Rolling in wealth they may be, but three pots of oats was all they gave us. Everything cleared up till there

wasn't a grain left by cockcrow. What are three pots? A mere mouthful! And oats now you could get from

innkeepers for fortyfive kopecks. At our place, no fear, all comers may have as much as they can eat."

"The horses! There's no two opinions about them. And the food was good. But it seemed to me sort of dreary

there, Darya Alexandrovna. I don't know what you thought," he said, turning his handsome, goodnatured

On reaching home and finding everyone entirely safe and particularly charming, Darya Alexandrovna began

with great liveliness telling them about her arrival, her warm reception, about the luxury and good taste in

which the Vronskys lived, and about their recreations, and she would not allow a word to be said against

"One has to know Anna and Vronsky I have got to know him better now to see how fine they are, and how

touching," she said, speaking now with perfect sincerity, and forgetting the vague feeling of dissatisfaction

Vronsky and Anna spent the whole summer and part of the autumn in the country, living in just the same

condition, and still taking no steps to obtain a divorce. It was a decided thing between them that they should

not go away anywhere; but both felt, the longer they lived alone, especially in the autumn, and without guests

in the house, that they could not stand this existence, and that they would have to change it.

Their life was apparently such that nothing better could be desired. They had the fullest abundance of

everything; they had a child, and both had occupation. Anna devoted just as much care to her appearance

when they had no visitors, and she did a great deal of reading, both of novels and of what serious literature

was in fashion. She ordered all the books that were praised in the foreign papers and journals she received,

and read them with that concentrated attention which is only given to what is read in seclusion. Moreover,

every subject that was of interest to Vronsky, she studied in books and special journals, so that he often went

straight to her with questions relating to agriculture or architecture, sometimes even with questions relating to

horse breeding or sport. He was amazed at her knowledge, her memory, and at first was disposed to doubt it,

to ask for confirmation of her facts; and she would find what he asked for in some book, and show it to him.

The building of the hospital, too, interested her. She did not merely assist, but planned and suggested a great

deal herself. But her chief thought was still of herself how far she was dear to Vronsky, how far she could

make up to him for all he had given up. Vronsky appreciated this desire not only to please, but to serve him,

which had become the sole aim of her existence, but at the same time he wearied of the loving snares in

which she tried to hold him fast. As time went on, and he saw himself more and more often held fast in these

snares, he had an evergrowing desire, not so much to escape from them, as to try whether they hindered his

freedom. Had it not been for this growing desire to be free, not to have scenes every time he wanted to go to

the town to a session or a race, Vronsky would have been perfectly satisfied with his life. The role he had

taken up, the role of a wealthy landowner, one of that class which ought to be the very heart of the Russian

aristocracy, was entirely to his taste; and now, after spending six months in that role, he derived even greater

satisfaction from it. And his management of his estate, which occupied and absorbed him more and more,

was most successful. In spite of the immense sums which the hospital, the machinery, the cows ordered from

Switzerland, and many other things, cost him, he was convinced that he was not wasting but increasing his

substance. In all matters affecting income, the sales of timber, wheat, and wool, the letting of lands, Vronsky

was hard as a rock, and knew well how to keep up prices. In all operations on a large scale on this and his

other estates, he kept to the simplest methods involving no risk, and in trifling details he was careful and

exacting to an extreme degree. In spite of all the cunning and ingenuity of the German steward, who would

try to tempt him into purchases by making his original estimate always far larger than really required, and

then representing to Vronsky that he might get the thing cheaper, and so make a profit, Vronsky did not give

in. He listened to his steward, crossexamined him, and only agreed to his suggestions when the implement

to be ordered or constructed was the very newest, not yet known in Russia, and likely to excite wonder. Apart

from such exceptions, he resolved upon an increased outlay only where there was a surplus, and in making

such an outlay he went into the minutest details, and insisted on getting the very best for his money; so that

by the method on which he managed his affairs, it was clear that he was not wasting, but increasing his

In October there were the provincial nobility elections in the Kashinsky province, where were the estates of

These elections were attracting public attention from several circumstances connected with them, and also

from the people taking part in them. There had been a great deal of talk about these elections, and great

preparations were being made for them. Persons who never attended the elections were coming from

Before the elections Sviiazhsky, who often visited Vozdvizhenskoe, drove over to fetch Vronsky.

On the day before there had been almost a quarrel between Vronsky and Anna over this proposed expedition.

It was the very dullest autumn weather, which is so dreary in the country, and so, preparing himself for a

struggle, Vronsky, with a hard and cold expression, informed Anna of his departure as he had never spoken to

her before. But, to his surprise, Anna accepted the information with great composure, and merely asked when

he would be back. He looked intently at her, at a loss to explain this composure. She smiled at his look. He

knew that way she had of withdrawing into herself, and knew that it only happened when she had determined

upon something without letting him know her plans. He was afraid of this; but he was so anxious to avoid a

scene that he kept up appearances, and half sincerely believed in what he longed to believe in her

"I hope not," said Anna. "I got a box of books yesterday from Gautier's. No, I shan't be dull."

"She's trying to take that tone, and so much the better," he thought, "or else it would be the same thing over

And he set off for the elections without appealing to her for a candid explanation. It was the first time since

the beginning of their intimacy that he had parted from her without a full explanation. From one point of view

this troubled him, but on the other side he felt that it was better so. "At first there will be, as this time,

something undefined, kept back, and then she will get used to it. In any case I can give up anything for her,

In September Levin moved to Moscow for Kitty's confinement. He had spent a whole month in Moscow with

nothing to do, when Sergei Ivanovich, who had property in the Kashinsky province, and took great interest in

the question of the approaching elections, made ready to set off to the elections. He invited his brother, who

had a vote in the Selezniovsky district, to come with him. Levin had, moreover, to transact in Kashin some

extremely important business relating to the wardship, and to the receiving of certain redemption money for

Levin still hesitated, but Kitty, who saw that he was bored in Moscow, and urged him to go, on her own

authority ordered him the proper nobleman's uniform, costing eighty roubles. And this eighty roubles paid for

the uniform was the chief reason that finally decided Levin to go. He went to Kashin.

Levin had been five days in Kashin, visiting the assembly each day, and busily engaged about his sister's

business, which still dragged on. The district marshals of nobility were all occupied with the elections, and it

was impossible to get the simplest thing done that depended upon the court of wardship. The other matter, the

receipt of the sums due, was also met by difficulties. After long negotiations over the lifting of the

prohibition, the money was at last ready to be paid; but the notary, a most obliging person, could not hand

over the order, because it must have the signature of the president, and the president, though he had not given

over his duties to a deputy, was at the elections. All these worrying negotiations, this endless going from

place to place, and talking with pleasant and excellent people, who quite saw the unpleasantness of the

petitioner's position, but were powerless to assist him all these efforts that yielded no result, led to a feeling

of misery in Levin akin to the mortifying helplessness one experiences in dreams, when one tries to use

physical force. He felt this frequently as he talked to his exceedingly goodnatured solicitor. This solicitor

did, it seemed, everything possible, and strained every nerve to get him out of his difficulties. "I tell you what

you might try," he said more than once; "go to soandso and soandso," and the solicitor drew up a

regular plan for getting round the fatal point that hindered everything. But he would add immediately, "It'll

mean some delay, anyway, but you might try it." And Levin did try, and did go. Everyone was kind and civil,

but the point evaded seemed to crop up again in the end, and again to bar the way. What was particularly

trying, was that Levin could not make out with whom he was struggling, to whose interest it was that his

business should not be done. That no one seemed to know; the solicitor certainly did not know. If Levin

could have understood why, just as he saw why one can only approach the booking office of a railway station

in single file, it would not have been so vexatious and tiresome to him. But in the case of the hindrances that

But Levin had changed a good deal since his marriage; he was patient, and if he could not see why it was all

arranged like this, he told himself that he could not judge without knowing all about it, and that most likely it

In attending the elections, too, and taking part in them, he tried now not to judge, not to fall foul of them, but

to comprehend as fully as he could the question which was so earnestly and ardently absorbing honest and

excellent men whom he respected. Since his marriage there had been revealed to Levin so many new and

serious aspects of life which had previously, through his frivolous attitude to them, seemed of no importance,

that in the question of the elections, too, he assumed and tried to find some serious significance.

Sergei Ivanovich explained to him the meaning and object of the proposed radical change at the elections.

The marshal of the province in whose hands the law had placed the control of so many important public

functions the guardianship of wards (the very department which was giving Levin so much trouble just

now), the disposal of large sums subscribed by the nobility of the province, the high schools, for girls, for

boys, and military, and primary instruction on the new statute and finally, the Zemstvo the marshal of the

province, Snetkov, was a nobleman of the old school, dissipating an immense fortune, a goodhearted man,

honest after his own fashion, but utterly without any comprehension of the needs of modern days. He always

took, in every question, the side of the nobility; he was positively antagonistic to the spread of primary

education, and he succeeded in giving a purely party character to the Zemstvo which ought by rights to be of

such an immense importance. What was needed was to put in his place a fresh, capable, perfectly modern

man, of contemporary ideas, and to frame their policy so as to derive, from the rights conferred upon the

nobles (not as the nobility, but as an element of the Zemstvo), all the benefits of selfgovernment that could

possibly be derived from them. In the wealthy Kashinsky province, which always took the lead of other

provinces in everything, there was now such a preponderance of forces that this policy, once carried through

properly there, might serve as a model for other provinces for all Russia. And hence the whole question was

of the greatest importance. It was proposed to elect as marshal in place of Snetkov either Sviiazhsky, or,

better still, Neviedovsky, a former university professor, a man of remarkable intelligence, and a great friend

The meeting was opened by the governor, who made a speech to the nobles, urging them to elect the public

functionaries, not from regard for persons, but for the service and welfare of the native country, and hoping

that the honorable nobility of the Kashinsky province would, as at all former elections, hold their duty as

When he had finished his speech, the governor walked out of the hall, and the noblemen noisily and eagerly

some even enthusiastically followed him and thronged round him while he put on his fur coat and conversed

amicably with the marshal of the province. Levin, anxious to see into everything and not miss anything, also

stood there in the crowd, and heard the governor say: "Please, tell Marya Ivanovna my wife is very sorry she

could not visit the charity school." And thereupon the nobles in high good humor sorted out their fur coats

In the cathedral Levin, lifting his hand like the rest, and repeating the words of the dean, vowed with the most

awesome oaths to do all the governor had hoped they would do. Church services always affected Levin, and

as he uttered the words: "I kiss the cross," and glanced round at the crowd of young and old men repeating

On the second and third days there was business relating to the finances of the nobility, and the high school

for girls, of no importance whatever, as Sergei Ivanovich explained, and Levin, busy seeing after his own

affairs, did not attend the meetings. On the fourth day the auditing of the marshal's accounts took place at the

high table of the marshal of the province. And then there occurred the first skirmish between the new party

and the old. The committee which had been deputed to verify the accounts reported to the meeting that all

was in order. The marshal of the province got up, thanked the nobility for their confidence, and shed tears.

The nobles gave him a loud welcome and shook hands with him. But at that instant a nobleman of Sergei

Ivanovich's party said that he had heard that the committee had not verified the accounts, considering such a

verification an insult to the marshal of the province. One of the members of the committee incautiously

admitted this. Then a small gentleman, very younglooking but very venomous, began to say that it would

probably be agreeable to the marshal of the province to give an account of his expenditures of the public

moneys, and that the misplaced delicacy of the members of the committee was depriving him of this moral

satisfaction. Then the members of the committee tried to withdraw their admission, and Sergei Ivanovich

began to prove that they must logically admit either that they had verified the accounts or that they had not,

and he developed this dilemma in detail. Sergei Ivanovich was answered by the talker of the opposite party.

Then Sviiazhsky spoke, and then the venomous gentleman again. The discussion lasted a long time and ended

in nothing. Levin was surprised that they should dispute upon this subject so long, especially as, when he

asked Sergei Ivanovich whether he supposed that money had been misappropriated, Sergei Ivanovich

"Oh, no! He's an honest man. But those oldfashioned methods of paternal family arrangements in the

On the fifth day came the elections of the district marshals. It was rather a stormy day in several districts. In

the Selezniovsky district Sviiazhsky was elected unanimously without a ballot, and he gave a dinner that

The sixth day was fixed for the election of the marshal of the province. The rooms, large and small, were full

of nobleman in all sorts of uniforms. Many had come only for that day. Men who had not seen each other for

years, some from the Crimea, some from Peterburg, some from abroad, met in the rooms of the Hall of

Nobility. There was much discussion around the province table under the portrait of the Czar.

The nobles, both in the larger and in the smaller rooms, grouped themselves in camps, and from their hostile

and suspicious glances, from the silence that fell upon them when outsiders approached a group, and from the

way that some, whispering together, retreated to the farther corridor, it was evident that each side had secrets

from the other. In appearance the noblemen were sharply divided into two classes: the old and the new. The

old were for the most part either in the old uniform of the nobility, buttoned up closely, with spurs and hats,

or in their own special naval, cavalry, infantry uniforms, earned by their former service. The uniforms of the

older men were embroidered in the oldfashioned way with small puffs on their shoulders; they were

unmistakably tight and short in the waists, as though their wearers had grown out of them. The younger men

wore the uniform of the nobility with long waists and broad shoulders, unbuttoned over white waistcoats, or

uniforms with black collars and with the embroidered laurel leaves of justices of the peace. To the younger

But the division into young and old did not correspond with the division of parties. Some of the young men,

as Levin observed, belonged to the old party; and some of the very oldest noblemen, on the contrary, were

whispering with Sviiazhsky, and were evidently ardent partisans of the new party.

Levin stood in the smaller room, where they were smoking and taking light refreshments, close to his own

friends, and, listening to what they were saying, he vainly exerted all his intelligence trying to understand

what was said. Sergei Ivanovich was the center round which the others grouped themselves. He was listening

at that moment to Sviiazhsky and Khliustov, the marshal of another district, who belonged to their party.

Khliustov would not agree to go with his district to ask Snetkov to be a candidate, while Sviiazhsky was

persuading him to do so, and Sergei Ivanovich was approving of the plan. Levin could not make out why the

opposition had to ask the marshal to be a candidate when they wanted to supersede him.

Stepan Arkadyevich, who had just been drinking and taking some snack lunch, came up to them in his

uniform of a gentleman of the bedchamber, wiping his lips with a perfumed handkerchief of bordered batiste.

"We are placing our forces," he said, pulling out his side whiskers, "Sergei Ivanovich!"

"One district's enough, and Sviiazhsky's obviously of the opposition," he said, words evidently intelligible to

"Why, Kostia, you, it seems, get the taste for these affairs too!" he added, turning to Levin and drawing his

arm through his. Levin would have been glad indeed to get the taste for these affairs, but could not make out

what the point was, and retreating a few steps from the speakers, he explained to Stepan Arkadyevich his

inability to understand why the marshal of the province should be asked to be a candidate.

"O sancta simplicitas!" said Stepan Arkadyevich, and briefly and clearly he explained it to Levin.

If, as at previous elections, all the districts asked the marshal of the province to be a candidate, then he would

be elected without a ballot. That must not be. Now eight districts had agreed to call upon him: if two refused

to do so, Snetkov might decline the candidacy entirely; and then the old party might choose another of their

party, which would throw them completely out in their reckoning. But if only one district, Sviiazhsky's, did

not call upon him to be a candidate, Snetkov would let himself be balloted for. They were even, some of

them, going to vote for him, and purposely to let him get a good many votes, so that the enemy might be

thrown off the scent, and when a candidate of the other side was put up, they too might give him some votes.

Levin understood to some extent, but not fully, and would have put a few more questions, when suddenly

"What is it? Eh? Whom?... Proxy? Whose? What?... They won't pass him?... No proxy?... They won't let

Fliorov in?... Eh, because of the charge against him?... Why, at this rate, they won't admit anyone. It's a

swindle!... The law!" Levin heard exclamations on all sides, and he moved into the big room together with

the others, all hurrying somewhere and afraid of missing something. Squeezed by the crowding noblemen, he

drew near the high table where the marshal of the province, Sviiazhsky, and the other leaders, were hotly

Levin was standing rather far off. A nobleman breathing heavily and hoarsely at his side, and another whose

thick boots were creaking, prevented him from hearing distinctly. He could only hear the soft voice of the

marshal faintly, then the shrill voice of the venomous gentleman, and then the voice of Sviiazhsky. They

were disputing, as far as he could make out, as to the interpretation to be put on the act and the exact meaning

The crowd parted to make way for Sergei Ivanovich approaching the table. Sergei Ivanovich, waiting till the

venomous gentleman had finished speaking, said that he thought the best solution would be to refer to the act

itself, and asked the secretary to find the act. The act said that in case of difference of opinion, there must be a

Sergei Ivanovich read the act and began to explain its meaning, but at that point a tall, stout,

stoopshouldered landowner, with dyed mustache, in a tight uniform that made the back of his neck bulge up,

interrupted him. He went up to the table, and striking it with his finger ring, he shouted loudly:

Then several voices began to talk all at once, and the tall nobleman with the ring, getting more and more

exasperated, shouted more and more loudly. But it was impossible to make out what he said.

He was shouting for the very course Sergei Ivanovich had proposed; but it was evident that he hated him and

all his party, and this feeling of hatred spread through the whole party and roused in opposition to it the same

vindictiveness, though in a more seemly form, on the other side. Shouts were raised, and for a moment all

"A ballot! A ballot! Whoever is a nobleman understands! We shed our blood for our country!... The

confidence of the Monarch.... No checking of the accounts of the marshal he's not a cashier!... But that's not

the point.... Votes, please! What vileness!..." shouted furious and violent voices on all sides. Looks and faces

were even more violent and furious than their words. They expressed the most implacable hatred. Levin did

not in the least understand what it was all about, and he marveled at the passion with which it was disputed

whether or not the decision about Fliorov should be put to the vote. He forgot, as Sergei Ivanovich explained

to him afterward, this syllogism: that it was necessary for the public good to get rid of the marshal of the

province; that to get rid of the marshal it was necessary to have a majority of votes; that to get a majority of

votes it was necessary to secure Fliorov's right to vote; that to secure the recognition of Fliorov's right to vote

"And one vote may decide the whole question, and one must be serious and consecutive, if one wants to be of

use in public life," concluded Sergei Ivanovich. But Levin forgot all that, and it was painful to him to see all

these excellent persons, for whom he had respect, in such an unpleasant and vicious state of excitement. To

escape from this painful feeling he went away into the other room where there was nobody except the waiters

at the refreshment bar. Seeing the waiters busy washing up the crockery and setting in order their plates and

wineglasses, seeing their alert and vivacious faces, Levin felt an unexpected sense of relief, as though he had

come out of a stuffy room into the fresh air. He began walking up and down, looking with pleasure at the

waiters. He particularly liked the way one graywhiskered waiter, who showed his scorn for the other

younger ones, and was jeered at by them, was teaching them how to fold napkins properly. Levin was just

about to enter into conversation with the old waiter, when the secretary of the court of wardship, a little old

man whose speciality it was to know all the noblemen of the province by name and patronymic, drew him

"Please come, Konstantin Dmitrievich," he said, "your brother's looking for you. They are voting on the legal

Levin walked into the room, received a white ball, and followed his brother, Sergei Ivanovich, to the table

where Sviiazhsky was standing with a significant and ironical face, holding his beard in his fist and sniffing

at it. Sergei Ivanovich put his hand into the box, put the ball somewhere, and, making room for Levin,

stopped. Levin advanced, but utterly forgetting what he was to do, and much embarrassed, he turned to Sergei

Ivanovich with the question, "Where am I to put it?" He asked this softly, at a moment when there was

talking going on near, so that he had hoped his question would not be overheard. But the persons speaking

Several people smiled. Levin crimsoned, hurriedly thrust his hand under the cloth, and put the ball to the right

as it was in his right hand. Having put it in, he recollected that he ought to have thrust his left hand in too, and

so he thrust it in though too late, and, still more overcome with confusion, he beat a hasty retreat into the

"A hund'ed and twentysix fo' admission! Ninetyeight against!" sang out the voice of the secretary, who

could not pronounce the letter r. Then there was a laugh; a button and two hazelnuts were found in the box.

But the old party did not consider themselves conquered. Levin heard that they were asking Snetkov to be

candidate, and he saw that a crowd of noblemen was surrounding the marshal, who was saying something.

Levin went nearer. In reply Snetkov spoke of the trust the noblemen of the province had placed in him, the

affection they had shown him, which he did not deserve, as his only merit had been his attachment to the

nobility, to whom he had devoted twelve years of service. Several times he repeated the words: "I have

served to the best of my powers with truth and good faith; I value your goodness and thank you," and

suddenly he stopped short from the tears that choked him, and went out of the room. Whether these tears

came from a sense of the injustice being done him, from his love for the nobility, or from the strain of the

position he was placed in, feeling himself surrounded by enemies, his emotion infected the assembly, the

"Beg pardon excuse me, please," he said as to a stranger, but, recognizing Levin, he smiled timidly. It

seemed to Levin that he would have liked to say something, but could not speak for emotion. His face and his

whole figure in his uniform with the crosses, and white trousers striped with galloons, as he moved hurriedly

along, reminded Levin of some hunted beast who sees that he is in evil plight. This expression on the

marshal's face was particularly touching to Levin, because, only the day before, he had been at his house

about his guardianship business and had seen him in all his grandeur, a kindhearted, fatherly man. The big

house with the old family furniture; the rather slovenly, far from stylish, but respectful footmen

unmistakably old house serfs who had stuck to their master; the stout, goodnatured wife in a cap with lace

and a Turkish shawl, petting her pretty grandchild, her daughter's daughter; the young son, a sixthform high

school boy, coming home from school, and greeting his father by kissing his big hand; the genuine, cordial

words and gestures of the old man all this had the day before roused an instinctive feeling of respect and

sympathy in Levin. This old man was a touching and pathetic figure to Levin now, and he longed to say

"It's not likely," said the marshal, looking round with a scared expression. "I'm wornout, I'm old. If there are

The most solemn moment was at hand. They were to proceed immediately to the election. The leaders of both

The discussion upon Fliorov had given the new party not only Fliorov's vote, but had also gained time for

them, so that they could send to fetch three noblemen who had been rendered unable to take part in the

elections by the wiles of the other party. Two noble gentlemen, who had a weakness for strong drink, had

been made drunk by the partisans of Snetkov, and a third had been relieved of his uniform.

On learning this, the new party had made haste, during the dispute about Fliorov, to send some of their men

in a cab to clothe the stripped gentleman, and to bring along one of the intoxicated to the meeting.

"I've brought one after bringing him to by throwing water over him," said the landowner who had gone on

"No, he's firstrate. If only they don't give him any more here.... I've told the barman not to give him

The narrow room, in which they were smoking and taking refreshment, was full of noblemen. The excitement

grew more intense, and every face betrayed some uneasiness. The excitement was specially keen for the

leaders of each party, who knew every detail, and had reckoned up every vote. They were the generals

organizing the approaching battle. The rest, like the rank and file before an engagement, though they were

getting ready for the fight, sought for other distractions in the interval. Some were lunching, standing at the

bar, or sitting at the table; others were walking up and down the long room, smoking cigarettes, and talking

Levin did not care to eat, and he was not a smoker; he did not want to join his own friends that is Sergei

Ivanovich, Stepan Arkadyevich, Sviiazhsky, and the rest, because Vronsky in his equerry's uniform was

standing with them in eager conversation. Levin had seen him already at the meeting on the previous day, and

he had studiously avoided him, not caring to greet him. He went to the window and sat down, scanning the

groups, and listening to what was being said around him. He felt depressed, especially because everyone else

was, as he saw, eager, anxious, and interested, and he alone, with an old, toothless little man with mumbling

lips, wearing a naval uniform who sat beside him, had no interest in it, and nothing to do.

"He's such a blackguard! I have told him so, but it makes no difference. Only think of it! He couldn't collect it

in three years!" he heard vigorously uttered by a stoopshouldered, short country gentleman, who had

pomaded hair hanging over his embroidered collar, and new boots obviously put on for the occasion, with

heels that tapped energetically as he spoke. Casting a displeased glance at Levin, this gentleman sharply

"Yes, it's a dirty business, there's no denying," another puny landowner assented in a high voice.

Next, a whole crowd of country gentlemen, surrounding a stout general, hurriedly came near Levin. These

persons were unmistakably seeking a place where they could talk without being overheard.

"How dare he say I had his breeches stolen! Pawned them for drink, I expect. Damn the fellow Prince

"But excuse me! They take their stand on the act," was being said in another group; "the wife must be

"Oh, damn your acts! I speak from my heart. We're all gentlemen, aren't we? Have trust in us."

Another group was following a nobleman who was shouting something in a loud voice; it was one of the

"I always advised Marya Semionovna to let for a fair rent, for she can never save a profit," he heard a

pleasant voice say. The speaker was a country gentleman with white mustache, wearing the regimental

uniform of an old general staff officer. It was the very landowner Levin had met at Sviiazhsky's. He knew

"Very glad to see you! To be sure! I remember you very well. Last year at our district marshal's, Nikolai

"Oh, still just the same, always at a loss," the landowner answered with a resigned smile, but with an

expression of serenity and conviction that it must be thus. "And how do you come to be in our province?" he

asked. "Come to take part in our coup d'etat?" he said, confidently pronouncing the French words with a bad

"All Russia's here gentlemen of the bedchamber, and everything short of the ministry." He pointed to the

imposing figure of Stepan Arkadyevich in white trousers and his court uniform, walking by with a general.

"I ought to own that I don't very well understand the drift of the provincial elections," said Levin.

"Why, what is there to understand? There's no meaning in it at all. It's a decaying institution that goes on

running only by the force of inertia. Just look, the very uniforms tell you that it's an assembly of justices of

"From habit, nothing else. Then, too, one must keep up connections. It's a moral obligation of a sort. And

then, to tell the truth, there are one's own interests. My soninlaw wants to run as a permanent member;

they're not rich people, and he must be brought forward. These gentlemen, now what do they come for?" he

"New it may be, but nobility it isn't. They're landed proprietors but we're the landowners. As noblemen,

"That it may be, but still, it ought to be treated a little more respectfully. Snetkov, now... We may be of use,

or we may not, but we're the growth of a thousand years. If we're laying out a garden, planning one before the

house, you know, and there you've a tree that's stood for centuries in the very spot... Old and gnarled it may

be, and yet you don't cut down the old fellow to make room for the flowerbeds, but lay out your beds so as to

take advantage of the tree. You won't grow him again in a year," he said cautiously, and he immediately

"Yes, but you don't reckon your own work. Aren't you worth something too? I'll tell you my own case. Before

I took to seeing after the land, I had a salary of three thousand roubles from the service. Now I do more work

than I did in the service, and, like you, I get five per cent on the land, and thank God for that. But one's work

"Oh, well, one does it! What would you have? It's habit, and one knows it's as it should be. And what's more,"

the landowner went on, leaning on the window and chatting on, "my son, I must tell you, has no taste for it.

There's no doubt he'll be a savant. So there'll be no one to keep it up. And yet one does it. Here this year I've

"Yes, yes," said Levin, "that's perfectly true. I always feel there's no real balance of gain in my work on the

"But I tell you what," the landowner pursued; "a neighbor of mine, a merchant, was at my place. We walked

about the fields and the park. 'No,' said he, 'Stepan Vassilyevich everything's well looked after but your

garden's neglected.' But, as a fact, it's well kept up. 'To my thinking, I'd cut down the linden trees. Only do it

when they're running sap. Here's a thousand lindens, and each would make two good bundles of bast. And

nowadays that bast's worth something. And you'd cut down the lot of the linden shells.'"

"And with what he made he'd buy up livestock, or buy some land for a trifle, and let it out to the peasants,"

Levin added, smiling. He had evidently more than once come across those commercial calculations. "And

he'd make his fortune. But you and I must thank God if we keep what we've got and leave it to our children."

"Yes," Levin answered, with proud satisfaction. "Yes, all this is rather strange," he went on. "So we live on

without any reckoning, as though we were the vestals of antiquity, set to guard a sacred fire or something."

"There are some among us, too, like our friend Nikolai Ivanovich, or Count Vronsky, who's settled here

lately they try to set up an agronomic industry; but so far it leads to nothing but making away with capital."

"But why is it we don't do like the merchants? Why don't we cut down our parks for bast?" said Levin,

"Why, as you said, to guard the fire. Besides, that's not work for a nobleman. And our work as noblemen isn't

done here at the elections, but yonder, each in his own nook. There's a class instinct, too, of what one ought

and oughtn't to do. There are the peasants, too I wonder at them sometimes; any good peasant tries to take

all the land he can. However bad the land is, he'll work it. Without a reckoning too. At a simple loss."

"Just as we do," said Levin. "Very, very glad to have met you," he added, seeing Sviiazhsky approaching

"And here we've met for the first time since we met at your place," said the landowner to Sviiazhsky, "and

"Well, have you been attacking the new order of things?" said Sviiazhsky with a smile.

Sviiazhsky took Levin's arm, and went with him to his own friends. This time there was no avoiding

Vronsky. He was standing with Stepan Arkadyevich and Sergei Ivanovich, and looking straight at Levin as

"Delighted! I believe I've had the pleasure of meeting you... at Princess Shcherbatskaia's," he said, giving

"Yes, I quite remember our meeting," said Levin, and, blushing crimson, he turned away immediately, and

With a slight smile Vronsky went on talking to Sviiazhsky, obviously without the slightest inclination to

enter into conversation with Levin. But Levin, as he talked to his brother, was continually looking round at

Vronsky, trying to think of something to say to him to smooth over his rudeness.

"Certainly not I," said Sviiazhsky, looking confused, and turning an alarmed glance at the venomous

"I certainly shall not, under any circumstances," answered the venomous gentleman.

"Well, do you find it exciting too?" said Stepan Arkadyevich, winking at Vronsky. "It's something like a race.

"Yes, it is keenly exciting," said Vronsky. "And once taking the thing up, one's eager to see it through. It's a

A silence followed, during which Vronsky since he had to look at something looked at Levin, at his feet, at

his frock coat, then at his face, and noticing his gloomy eyes fixed upon him, he said, in order to say

"How is it that you, living constantly in the country, are not a justice of the peace? You are not in the uniform

"It's because I consider the justice of the peace a silly institution," morosely answered Levin, who had been

all the time looking for an opportunity to enter into conversation with Vronsky, so as to smooth over his

"It's a plaything," Levin cut him short. "We don't want justices of the peace. I've never had a single thing to

do with them during eight years. And what I have had, was decided wrongly by them. The justice of the

peace is over thirty miles from me. For a matter of two roubles or so, I should have to send a lawyer, who

And he related how a peasant had stolen some flour from the miller, and when the miller told him of it, had

lodged a complaint for slander. All this was utterly uncalledfor and stupid, and Levin felt it himself as he

"Oh, this is such an original fellow!" said Stepan Arkadyevich with his most soothing, almondoil smile.

"I can't understand," said Sergei Ivanovich, who had observed his brother's gaucherie, "I can't understand

how anyone can be so absolutely devoid of political tact. That's where we Russians are so deficient. The

marshal of the province is our opponent, and with him you're ami cochon, and you beg him to be candidate.

Count Vronsky, now... I'm not making a friend of him he's asked me to dinner, and I'm not going; but he's

one of our side why make an enemy of him? Then you ask Neviedovsky if he's going to run. That's not

"Oh, I don't understand it at all! And it's all such nonsense," Levin answered somberly.

"You say it's all such nonsense yet as soon as you have anything to do with it, you make a muddle."

The marshal of the province, though he was vaguely conscious in the air of some trap being prepared for him,

and though he had not been called upon by all to run, had nevertheless made up his mind to run for office. All

was silence in the room. The secretary announced in a loud voice that Mikhail Stepanovich Snetkov, captain

The district marshals walked carrying plates, on which were balls, from their tables to the province table, and

"Put it in the right side," whispered Stepan Arkadyevich, as Levin with his brother followed the marshal of

his district to the table. But Levin had forgotten by now the machination that had been explained to him, and

was afraid Stepan Arkadyevich might be mistaken in saying "the right side." Surely Snetkov was the enemy.

As he went up, he held the ball in his right hand, but thinking he was wrong, just at the box he changed to the

left hand, and undoubtedly put the ball to the left. An adept in the business, standing at the box and seeing by

the mere action of the elbow where each put his ball, scowled with annoyance. It was no good for him to use

Everything was still, and the counting of the balls was heard. Then a single voice rose and proclaimed the

The marshal had been voted for by a considerable majority. All was noise and eager movement toward the

"It's only just beginning," Sviiazhsky said, replying for Sergei Ivanovich with a smile. "Some other candidate

Levin had quite forgotten about that again. Now he could only remember that there was some sort of trickery

in it, but he was too bored to think what it was exactly. He felt depressed, and longed to get out of the crowd.

As no one was paying any attention to him, and no one apparently needed him, he quietly slipped away into

the little room where the refreshments were, and again had a great sense of comfort when he saw the waiters.

The little old waiter pressed him to have something, and Levin agreed. After eating a cutlet with beans and

talking to the waiters of their former masters, Levin, not wishing to go back to the hall, where it was all so

The galleries were full of fashionably dressed ladies, leaning over the balustrade and trying not to lose a

single word of what was being said below. With the ladies were sitting and standing smart lawyers, high

school teachers in spectacles, and officers. Everywhere they were talking of the election, and of how worried

the marshal was, and how splendid the discussions had been. In one group Levin heard his brother's praises.

"How glad I am I heard Koznishev! It's worth missing one's lunch. He's exquisite! So clear and distinct all

of it! There's not one of you in the law courts that speaks like that. The only one is Meidel, and he's very far

Finding a free place, Levin leaned over the balustrade and began looking and listening.

All the noblemen were sitting railed off behind barriers, according to their districts. In the middle of the room

"As a candidate for the marshalship of the nobility of the province we call upon staff captain Eugenii

Ivanovich Apukhtin!" A dead silence followed, and then a weak old voice was heard:

Again it began, and again came the "Declined." And so it went on for about an hour. Levin, with his elbows

on the balustrade, looked and listened. At first he wondered and wanted to know what it meant; then feeling

sure that he could not make it out he began to be bored. Then, recalling all the excitement and vindictiveness

he had seen on all the faces, he felt sad; he made up his mind to go, and went downstairs. As he passed

through the entry to the galleries he met a dejected high school boy walking up and down with tiredlooking

eyes. On the stairs he met a couple a lady running quickly on her high heels and the jaunty deputy

"I told you you weren't late," the deputy prosecutor was saying at the moment when Levin moved aside to let

Levin was on the stairs to the way out, and was just feeling in his waistcoat pocket for his overcoat check,

when the secretary overtook him. "This way, please, Konstantin Dmitrievich; they are voting."

The candidate who was being voted on was Neviedovsky, who had so stoutly denied all idea of candidacy.

Levin went up to the door of the room; it was locked. The secretary knocked, the door opened, and Levin was

After them the face of the marshal of the province was poked out. His face was dreadfullooking from

"Mercy on us!" And with a heavy sigh the marshal of the province walked with downcast head to the high

Neviedovsky had scored a higher majority, as they had planned, and he was the new marshal of the province.

Many people were amused, many were pleased and happy, many were in ecstasies, many were disgusted and

unhappy. The former marshal of the province was in a state of despair which he could not conceal. When

Neviedovsky went out of the room, the crowd thronged round him and followed him enthusiastically, just as

they had followed the governor on the first day, when he had opened the meetings, and just as they had

The newly elected marshal and many of the successful party dined that day with Vronsky.

Vronsky had come to the elections partly because he was bored in the country and wanted to show Anna his

right to independence, and also to repay Sviiazhsky by his support at the election for all the trouble he had

taken for Vronsky at the Zemstvo election, but chiefly for the strict performance of all those duties of a

nobleman and landowner which he had taken upon himself. But he had not in the least expected that the

election would interest him so, so keenly excite him, and that he would be so good at this kind of thing. He

was quite a new man in the circle of the nobility of the province, but his success was unmistakable, and he

was not wrong in supposing that he had already obtained a certain influence. This influence was due to his

wealth and aristocracy; the capital house in the town lent him by his old friend Shirkov, who had a post in the

department of finances and was director of a flourishing bank in Kashin; the excellent cook Vronsky had

brought from the country; and his friendship with the governor, who was a schoolfellow of Vronsky a

schoolfellow he had patronized and protected indeed. But what contributed more than all to his success was

his direct, equable manner with everyone, which very quickly made the majority of the noblemen reverse the

current opinion of his supposed haughtiness. He was himself conscious that, except for that mad gentleman

married to Kitty Shcherbatskaia, who had a propos de bottes poured out a stream of irrelevant absurdities

with such spiteful fury, every nobleman with whom he had made acquaintance had become his adherent. He

saw clearly, and other people recognized it, too, that he had done a great deal to secure the success of

Neviedovsky. And now at his own table, celebrating Neviedovsky's election, he was experiencing an

agreeable sense of triumph over the success of his candidate. The election itself had so fascinated him that, if

he could succeed in getting married during the next three years, he began to think of running for office

himself much as, after winning a race ridden by a jockey, he had longed to ride a race himself.

Today he was celebrating the success of his jockey. Vronsky sat at the head of the table, on his right hand sat

the young governor, a general of high rank. To all the rest he was the master of the province, who had

solemnly opened the elections with his speech, and aroused a feeling of respect and even of awe in many

people, as Vronsky saw; to Vronsky he was Katka Maslov that had been his nickname in the Pages' Corps

whom he felt to be shy and tried to put at ease. On the left hand sat Neviedovsky with his youthful, stubborn,

Sviiazhsky took his failure very lightheartedly. It was indeed no failure in his eyes, as he said himself,

turning, glass in hand, to Neviedovsky: they could not have found a better representative of the new

movement, which the nobility ought to follow. And so every honest person, as he said, was on the side of

Stepan Arkadyevich was glad, too, because he was having a good time, and because everyone was pleased.

The episodes of the elections served as a good occasion for a capital dinner. Sviiazhsky comically imitated

the tearful discourse of marshal, and observed, addressing Neviedovsky, that His Excellency would have to

select another, more complicated method of auditing accounts than tears. Another nobleman jocosely

described how footmen in stockings had been imported for the marshal's ball, and how now they would have

to be sent back unless the new marshal would give a ball with footmen in stockings.

Continually during dinner they said of Neviedovsky: "Our Marshal" and "Your Excellency."

This was said with the same pleasure with which a young wife is called "Madame" and by her husband's

name. Neviedovsky affected to be not merely indifferent but scornful of this appellation, but it was obvious

that he was highly delighted, and had to keep a curb on himself not to betray the triumph which was

In the course of dinner several telegrams were sent to people interested in the result of the election. And

Stepan Arkadyevich, who was in high spirits, sent Darya Alexandrovna a telegram: "Neviedovsky elected by

twenty votes. Congratulations. Tell people." He dictated it aloud, saying: "We must let them share our

rejoicing." Darya Alexandrovna, getting the message, simply sighed over the rouble wasted on it, and

understood that it was an afterdinner affair. She knew Stiva had a weakness after dining for faire jouer le

Everything, together with the excellent dinner and the wine, not from Russian merchants, but imported direct

from abroad, was extremely dignified, simple, and enjoyable. The party some twenty had been selected by

Sviiazhsky from among the more active new liberals, all of the same way of thinking, who were at the same

time clever and wellbred. They drank, also half in jest, to the health of the new marshal of the province, of

Vronsky was satisfied. He had never expected to find so pleasant a tone in the provinces.

Toward the end of dinner it was still more lively. The governor asked Vronsky to come to a concert for the

benefit of the brethren which his wife, who was anxious to make his acquaintance, had been getting up:

"There'll be a ball, and you'll see the belle of the province. Worth seeing, really."

"Not in my line," Vronsky answered. He liked that English phrase. But he smiled, and promised to come.

Before they rose from the table, when all of them were smoking, Vronsky's valet went up to him with a letter

"From Vozdvizhenskoe by special messenger," he said with a significant expression.

"Astonishing! How like he is to the deputy prosecutor Sventitsky," said one of the guests in French of the

The letter was from Anna. Before he read the letter, he knew its contents. Expecting the elections to be over

in five days, he had promised to be back on Friday. Today was Saturday, and he knew that the letter

contained reproaches for not being back at the time fixed. The letter he had sent the previous evening had

The letter was what he had expected, but the form of it was unexpected, and particularly disagreeable to him.

"Annie is very ill, the doctor says it may be inflammation of the lungs. I am losing my head all alone.

Princess Varvara is no help, but a hindrance. I expected you the day before yesterday, and yesterday, and now

I am sending to find out where you are and what you are doing. I wanted to come myself, but thought better

of it, knowing you would dislike it. Send some answer, that I may know what to do."

The child ill, yet she had thought of coming herself. Their daughter ill and this hostile tone.

The innocent festivities over the election, and this gloomy, burdensome love to which he had to return, struck

Vronsky by their contrast. But he had to go, and by the first train that night he set off home.

Before Vronsky's departure for the elections, Anna had reflected that the scenes constantly repeated between

them each time he left home might only make him cold to her instead of attaching him to her, and resolved to

do all she could to control herself so as to bear the parting with composure. But the cold, severe glance with

which he had looked at her when he came to tell her he was going had wounded her, and before he had

In solitude, later, thinking over that glance which had expressed his right to freedom, she came, as she always

did, to the same point the sense of her own humiliation. "He has the right to go away when and where he

chooses. Not simply to go away, but to leave me. He has every right, and I have none. But knowing that, he

ought not to do it. What has he done, though?... He looked at me with a cold, severe expression. Of course

that is something indefinable, impalpable, but it has never been so before, and that glance means a great

And though she felt sure that a coolness was beginning, there was nothing she could do; she could not in any

way alter her relations to him. Just as before, only by love and by charm could she keep him. And so, just as

before, only by occupation in the day, by morphine at night, could she stifle the fearful thought of what

would come if he ceased to love her. It is true there was still one means; not to keep him for that she wanted

nothing more than his love but to be nearer to him, to be in such a position that he would not leave her. That

means was divorce and marriage. And she began to long for that, and made up her mind to agree to it the first

Absorbed in such thoughts, she passed five days without him, the five days that he was to be absent.

Walks, conversation with Princess Varvara, visits to the hospital, and, most of all, reading reading of one

book after another filled up her time. But on the sixth day, when the coachman came back without him, and

she felt that now she was utterly incapable of stifling the thought of him and of what he was doing there just

at that time her little girl was taken ill. Anna began to look after her, but even that did not distract her mind,

especially as the illness was not serious. However hard she tried, she could not love this little child, and to

feign love was beyond her powers. Toward the evening of that day, still alone, Anna was in such a panic

about him that she decided to start for the town, but on second thought wrote him the contradictory letter that

Vronsky received, and, without reading it through, sent it off by a special messenger. The next morning she

received his letter and regretted her own. She dreaded a repetition of the severe look he had flung at her at

parting, especially when he would learn that the baby was not dangerously ill. But still, she was glad she had

written to him. By now Anna was admitting to herself that she was a burden to him, that he would relinquish

his freedom regretfully to return to her, and in spite of that she was glad he was coming. Let him weary of

her, but he would be here with her, so that she would see him, would know of every action he took.

She was sitting in the drawing room near a lamp, with a new volume of Taine, and, as she read, listening to

the sound of the wind outside, and every minute expecting the carriage to arrive. Several times she had

fancied she heard the sound of wheels, but she had been mistaken. At last she heard not the sound of wheels,

but the coachman's shout and the dull rumble in the covered entry. Even Princess Varvara, playing solitaire,

confirmed this, and Anna, flushing hotly, got up; but, instead of going down, as she had done twice before,

she stood still. She suddenly felt ashamed of her duplicity, but even more she dreaded how he might meet

her. All feeling of wounded pride had passed now; she was only afraid of the expression of his displeasure.

She remembered that her child had been perfectly well again for the last day. She felt positively vexed with

her for getting better from the very moment her letter was sent off. Then she thought of him, that he was

here all of him, with his hands, his eyes. She heard his voice. And forgetting everything, she ran joyfully to

"Well, how is Annie?" he said apprehensively from below, looking up to Anna as she ran down to him.

She took his hand in both of hers, and drew it to her waist, never taking her eyes off him.

"Well, I'm glad," he said, coldly scanning her, her hair, her dress, which he knew she had put on for him. All

was charming, but how many times it had charmed him! And the stern, stony expression that she so dreaded

"Well, I'm glad. And are you well?" he said, wiping his damp beard with his handkerchief and kissing her

"Never mind," she thought, "only let him be here, and so long as he's here he cannot, he dare not, cease to

The evening was spent happily and gaily in the presence of Princess Varvara, who complained to him that

"What am I to do? I couldn't sleep.... My thoughts prevented me. When he's here I never take it hardly

He told her about the election, and Anna knew how by adroit questions to bring him to what gave him most

pleasure his own success. She told him of everything that interested him at home; and all that she told him

But late in the evening, when they were alone, Anna, seeing that she had regained complete possession of

him, wanted to erase the painful impression of the glance he had given her for her letter. She said:

"Tell me frankly, you were vexed at getting my letter, and you didn't believe me?"

As soon as she had said it, she felt that however warm his feelings were to her, he had not forgiven her for

"Yes," he said, "the letter was so strange. First, Annie ill, and then you thought of coming yourself."

"Not for one moment. I'm only vexed, that's true, that you seem somehow unwilling to admit that there are

"I only meant to say that matters of real importance may turn up. Now, for instance, I shall have to go to

Moscow to arrange about the house.... Oh, Anna, why are you so irritable? Don't you know that I can't live

"If so," said Anna, her voice suddenly changing, "it means that you are sick of this life.... Yes, you will come

"If you go to Moscow, I will go too. I will not stay here. Either we must separate or else live together."

"We must get a divorce. I will write to him. I see I cannot go on like this.... But I will come with you to

"You talk as if you were threatening me. But I desire nothing so much as never to be parted from you," said

But as he said these words there gleamed in his eyes not merely a cold look, but the vindictive look of a man

"And, if things have come to such a pass, it's a calamity!" that glance told her. It was a moment's impression,

Anna wrote to her husband asking him about a divorce, and toward the end of November, taking leave of

Princess Varvara, who wanted to go to Peterburg, she went with Vronsky to Moscow. Expecting every day an

answer from Alexei Alexandrovich, and after that the divorce, they now established themselves together, like

The Levins had been two months in Moscow. The date had long passed on which, according to the most

trustworthy calculations of people learned in such matters, Kitty should have been confined. But she was still

about, and there was nothing to show that her time was any nearer than two months ago. The doctor, the

midwife, and Dolly and her mother, and most of all Levin, who could not think of the approaching event

without terror, began to be impatient and uneasy. Kitty was the only person who felt perfectly calm and

She was distinctly conscious now of the birth of a new feeling of love for the future child, for her to some

extent actually existing already, and she brooded blissfully over this feeling. He was not by now altogether a

part of herself, but sometimes lived his own life independently of her. Often this separate being gave her pain,

All the people she loved were with her, and all were so good to her, so attentively looking out for her, so

entirely pleasant was everything presented to her, that if she had not known and felt that it must all soon be

over, she could not have wished for a better and pleasanter life. The only thing that spoiled the charm of this

mode of life was that here her husband was not as she loved him to be, and as he was in the country.

She liked his serene, friendly, and hospitable manner in the country. In the town he seemed continually

uneasy and on his guard, as though he were afraid someone would be rude to him, and, still more, to her. At

home in the country, definitely knowing himself to be in his right place, he was never in haste to be off

elsewhere, was occupied all the time. Here in town he was in a continual hurry, as though afraid of missing

something, and yet he had nothing to do. And she felt pity for him. To others, she knew, he did not appear an

object of pity; on the contrary, when Kitty looked at him in society, as one sometimes looks at those one

loves, trying to see him as if he were a stranger, so as to catch the impression he must make on others, she

saw with a panic even of jealous fear that he was far indeed from being a pitiable figure, that he was very

attractive with his honesty, his rather oldfashioned, reserved courtesy to women, his powerful figure, and

striking, as she thought, and expressive face. But she saw him not from without, but from within; she saw that

here he was not himself; that was the only way she could define his condition to herself. Sometimes she

inwardly reproached him for his inability to live in the town; sometimes she recognized that it was really hard

What had he to do, indeed? He did not care for cards; he did not go to a club. Spending the time with jovial

gentlemen of Oblonsky's type she knew now what that meant... it meant drinking, and going somewhere

after drinking. She could not think without horror of where men went on such occasions. Was he to go into

society? But she knew he could only find satisfaction in that if he took pleasure in the society of young

women, and that she could not wish for. Should he stay at home with her, her mother, and her sisters? But

much as she liked and enjoyed their conversations forever on the same subjects "AlinesNadines," as the

old Prince called the sisters' talks she knew it must bore him. What was there left for him to do? To go on

writing his book? He had indeed attempted to do it; and at first he used to go to the library and make extracts

and look up references for his book, but, as he told her, the more he did nothing, the less time he had to do

anything. And besides, he complained that he had talked too much about his book here, and that consequently

One advantage in this town life was that quarrels hardly ever happened between them here in town. Whether

it was that their conditions, in town, were different, or that they had both become more careful and sensible in

that respect, they had no quarrels in Moscow from jealousy, which they had so dreaded when they moved

One event, an event of great importance to both from that point of view, did indeed happen which was

The old Princess Marya Borissovna, Kitty's godmother, who had always been very fond of her, had insisted

on seeing her. Kitty, though she did not go into society at all on account of her condition, went with her father

The only thing Kitty could reproach herself for at this meeting was that at the instant when she recognized in

his civilian dress the features once so familiar to her, her breath failed her, the blood rushed to her heart, and

a vivid blush she felt it overspread her face. But this lasted only a few seconds. Before her father, who

purposely began talking in a loud voice to Vronsky, had finished, she was perfectly ready to look at Vronsky,

to speak to him, if necessary, exactly as she spoke to Princess Marya Borissovna, and, more than that, to do

so in such a way that everything, to the faintest intonation and smile would have been approved by her

She said a few words to him, even smiled serenely at his joke about the elections, which he called "our

parliament." (She had to smile to show she saw the joke.) But she turned away immediately to Princess

Marya Borissovna, and did not once glance at him till he got up to go; then she looked at him, but evidently

She was grateful to her father for saying nothing to her about their meeting Vronsky, but she saw by his

special warmth to her after the visit, during their usual walk, that he was pleased with her. She was pleased

with herself. She had not expected she would have had the power, while keeping somewhere in the bottom of

her heart all the memories of her old feeling for Vronsky, not only to seem, but to be, perfectly indifferent

Levin flushed a great deal more than she when she told him she had met Vronsky at Princess Marya

Borissovna's. It was very hard for her to tell him this, but still harder to go on speaking of the details of the

"I am very sorry you weren't there," she said. "It wasn't so much the fact that you weren't in the room... I

couldn't have been so natural in your presence... I am blushing now much more much, much more," she

said, blushing till the tears came into her eyes. "But it's a pity you couldn't have looked through a peephole."

The truthful eyes told Levin that she was satisfied with herself, and, in spite of her blushing he was quickly

reassured and began questioning her, which was all she wanted. When he had heard everything, even to the

detail that for the first second she could not help flushing, but that afterward she was just as direct and as

much at her ease as with any chance acquaintance, Levin was quite happy again and said he was glad of it,

and would not now behave as stupidly as he had done at the election, but would try the first time he met

"It's so wretched to feel that there's any man who is almost your enemy, and whom it's painful to meet," said

"Do go then, please, and call on the Bols," Kitty said to her husband, when he came in to see her at eleven

o'clock before going out. "I know you are dining at the club; papa put down your name. But what are you

"He promised to introduce me to Metrov. I wanted to talk to him about my work. He's a distinguished savant

"Yes; wasn't it his article you were praising so? Well, and after that?" said Kitty.

"No? Do go; there are going to be some new things.... That used to interest you so. I should certainly go."

"Oh, absolutely! He has been to see us. Come, what is it? You go in, sit down, talk for five minutes of the

"Oh, you wouldn't believe it! I've got so out of the way of all this that it makes me feel positively ashamed.

It's such a horrible thing to do! A complete outsider walks in, sits down, stays on with nothing to do, wastes

"Yes, I did, but I always felt ashamed, and now I'm so unaccustomed to it that, by God, I'd sooner go two

days running without my dinner than pay this call! One's so ashamed! I feel all the while that they're annoyed,

"No, they won't. I'll answer for that," said Kitty, looking into his face with a laugh. She took his hand. "Well,

"Oh, all right, I'll go to the bank and get some. How much?" he said, with the expression of dissatisfaction

"No, wait a minute." She held his hand. "Let's talk about it, it worries me. I seem to spend nothing

unnecessarily, but money seems simply to fly away. We don't manage well, somehow."

That cough she knew well. It was a sign of intense dissatisfaction, not with her, but with himself. He certainly

was displeased, not at so much money being spent, but at being reminded of what he, knowing something

"I have told Sokolov to sell the wheat, and to borrow an advance on the mill. We shall have money enough in

"No, I'm really sorry sometimes that I listened to mamma. How nice it would have been in the country! As it

"Not at all, not at all. Not once since I've been married have I said that things could have been better than

He had said it without thinking, simply to console her. But when he glanced at her and saw those sweet

truthful eyes fastened questioningly on him, he repeated it with his whole heart. "I was positively forgetting

"I have so often thought so, that now I don't think about it, or know anything about it."

"No, nothing will happen, and don't think about it. I'm going for a walk on the boulevard with papa. We're

going to see Dolly. I shall expect you before dinner. Oh, yes! Do you know that Dolly's position is becoming

utterly impossible? She's in debt all round; she hasn't a penny. We were talking yesterday with mamma and

Arsenii" (this was her sister's husband, Lvov), "and we determined to send you with him to talk to Stiva. It's

"Oh, I agree to everything Arsenii thinks beforehand. I'll go and see him. By the way, if I do go to the

On the steps Levin was stopped by his old servant Kouzma, who had been with him before his marriage, and

"Little Adonis" (that was the left shaft horse brought up from the country) "has been shod anew, but she is

During the first part of their stay in Moscow, Levin had used his own horses brought up from the country. He

had tried to arrange this part of their expenses in the best and cheapest way possible; but it appeared that their

own horses came dearer than hired horses, and they still hired additional horses.

Levin was not by now struck as he had been at first by the fact that to get in Moscow from the Vozdvizhenka

to the SsivtzevVrazhek he had to have two powerful horses put into a heavy carriage, to take the carriage a

quarter of a versta through the snowy mush and to keep it standing there four hours, paying five roubles every

And so, simply and easily, thanks to the facilities of town life, Levin settled a question which, in the country,

would have called for so much personal trouble and exertion, and, going out on the steps, he called a sleigh,

sat down, and drove to the Nikitskaia. On the way he thought no more of money, but mused on the

introduction that awaited him to the Peterburg savant, a writer on sociology, and what he would say to him

Only during the first days of his stay in Moscow Levin had been struck by the expenditure, strange to one

living in the country, unproductive but inevitable, that was expected of him on every side. But by now he had

grown used to it. That had happened to him in this matter which is said to happen to drunkards the first glass

sticks in the throat, the second flies down like a hawk, but after the third they're like tiny little birds. When

Levin had changed his first hundredrouble note to pay for liveries for his footman and hall porter he could

not help reflecting that these liveries were of no use to anyone but they were indubitably necessary, to judge

by the amazement of the Princess and Kitty when he suggested that they might do without liveries that these

liveries would cost the wages of two laborers for the summer that is, would pay for about three hundred

working days from Easter to the fast of Advent, and each a day of hard work from early morning to late

evening and that hundredrouble note did stick in his throat. But the next note, changed to pay for providing

a dinner for their relations, that cost twentyeight roubles, though it did excite in Levin the reflection that

twentyeight roubles meant nine chetverts of oats, which men would with groans and sweat have reaped and

bound and threshed and winnowed and sifted and sown this next one he parted with more easily. And now

the notes he changed no longer aroused such reflections, and they flew off like little birds. Whether the labor

devoted to obtaining the money corresponded to the pleasure given by what was bought with it, was a

consideration he had long ago dismissed. His business calculation that there was a certain price below which

he could not sell certain grain was forgotten too. The rye, for the price of which he had so long held out, had

been sold for fifty kopecks a chetvert cheaper than it had been fetching a month ago. Even the consideration

that with such an expenditure he could not go on living for a year without debt, even that had no force. Only

one thing was essential: to have money in the bank, without inquiring where it came from, so as to know that

one had the wherewithal to buy meat for tomorrow. And this condition had hitherto been fulfilled; he had

always had the money in the bank. But now the money in the bank had gone, and he could not quite tell

where to get the next installment. And this it was which, at the moment when Kitty had mentioned money,

had disturbed him; but he had no time to think about it. He drove off, thinking of Katavassov and the meeting

Levin had on this visit to town seen a great deal of his old friend at the university, Professor Katavassov,

whom he had not seen since his marriage. He liked in Katavassov the clearness and simplicity of his

conception of life. Levin thought that the clearness of Katavassov's conception of life was due to the poverty

of his nature; Katavassov thought that the disconnectedness of Levin's ideas was due to his lack of

intellectual discipline; but Levin enjoyed Katavassov's clearness, and Katavassov enjoyed the abundance of

Levin had read to Katavassov some parts of his book, and he had liked them. On the previous day Katavassov

had met Levin at a public lecture and told him that the celebrated Metrov, whose article Levin had so much

liked, was in Moscow, that he had been much interested by what Katavassov had told him about Levin's

work, and that he was coming to see him tomorrow at eleven, and would be very glad to make Levin's

"You're positively a reformed character, my dear, I'm glad to see," said Katavassov, meeting Levin in the

little drawing room. "I heard the bell and thought: Impossible! It can't be he at the exact time!... Well, what

Katavassov in a few words told him the last piece of news from the war, and, going into his study, introduced

Levin to a short, thickset man of pleasant appearance. This was Metrov. The conversation touched for a brief

space on politics and on how recent events were looked at in the higher spheres in Peterburg. Metrov repeated

a saying that had reached him through a most trustworthy source, reported as having been uttered on this

subject by the Czar and one of the ministers. Katavassov had heard also on excellent authority that the Czar

had said something quite different. Levin tried to imagine circumstances in which both sayings might have

"Yes, here he's practically written a book on the natural conditions of the laborer in relation to the land," said

Katavassov; "I'm not a specialist, but I, as a student of natural science, was pleased at his not taking mankind

as something outside biological laws; but, on the contrary, perceiving his dependence on his surroundings,

"To tell the truth, I began to write a book on agriculture; but, studying the chief instrument of agriculture, the

laborer," said Levin, reddening, "I could not help coming to quite unexpected results."

And Levin began carefully, as though feeling his ground, to expound his views. He knew Metrov had written

an article against the generally accepted theory of political economy, but to what extent he could reckon on

his sympathy with his own new views he did not know and could not guess from the clever and serene face of

"But in what do you see the special characteristics of the Russian laborer?" said Metrov; "in his biological

Levin saw that there was an idea underlying this question with which he did not agree. But he went on

explaining his own idea that the Russian laborer has a quite special view of the land, different from that of

other people; and to support this proposition he made haste to add that in his opinion this attitude of the

Russian peasant was due to the consciousness of his vocation to settle vast unoccupied expanses in the East.

"One may easily be led into error in basing any conclusion on the general vocation of a people," said Metrov,

interrupting Levin. "The condition of the laborer will always depend on his relation to the land and to

And without letting Levin finish explaining his idea, Metrov began expounding to him the special point of his

In what the point of his theory lay, Levin did not understand, because he did not take the trouble to

understand. He saw that Metrov, like other people, in spite of his own article, in which he had attacked the

current theory of political economy, looked at the position of the Russian peasant simply from the point of

view of capital, wages, and rent. He would indeed have been obliged to admit that in the eastern much the

larger part of Russia rent was as yet nil, that for ninetenths of the eighty millions of the Russian peasants

wages took the form simply of food provided for themselves, and that capital does not so far exist except in

the form of the most primitive tools. Yet it was only from that point of view that he considered every laborer,

though in many points he differed from the economists and had his own theory of the wage fund, which he

Levin listened reluctantly, and at first made objections. He would have liked to interrupt Metrov, to explain

his own thought, which in his opinion would have rendered further exposition of Metrov's theories

superfluous. But later on, feeling convinced that they looked at the matter so differently, that they could never

understand one another, he did not even oppose his statements, but simply listened. Although what Metrov

was saying was by now utterly devoid of interest for him, he yet experienced a certain satisfaction in listening

to him. It flattered his vanity that such a learned man should explain his ideas to him so eagerly, with such

intensity and confidence in Levin's understanding of the subject, sometimes with a mere hint referring him to

a whole aspect of the subject. He put this down to his own credit, unaware that Metrov, who had already

discussed his theory over and over again with all his intimate friends, talked of it with special eagerness to

every new person, and in general was eager to talk to anyone of any subject that interested him, even if still

"We are late though," said Katavassov, looking at his watch directly Metrov had finished his discourse.

"Yes, there's a meeting of the Society of Amateurs today in commemoration of the fiftyyear jubilee of

Svintich," said Katavassov in answer to Levin's inquiry. "Piotr Ivanovich and I were going. I've promised to

deliver an address on his labors in zoology. Come along with us, it's very interesting."

"Yes, and it's really time to start," said Metrov. "Come with us, and from there, if you care to, come to my

"Oh, no! It's no good yet it's unfinished. But I shall be very glad to go to the meeting."

"I say, my dear, have you heard? He has handed in a minority report," Katavassov called from the other

The university question was a very important event that winter in Moscow. Three old professors in the

council had not accepted the opinion of the younger professors. The young ones had registered a separate

resolution. This resolution, in the judgment of some people, was monstrous, in the judgment of others it was

the simplest and most just thing to do, and the professors were split into two parties.

One party, to which Katavassov belonged, saw in the opposite party a scoundrelly betrayal and treachery,

while the opposite party saw in them childishness and lack of respect for the authorities. Levin, though he did

not belong to the university, had several times already during his stay in Moscow heard and talked about this

matter, and had his own opinion on the subject. He took part in the conversation that was continued in the

The meeting had already begun. Round the clothcovered table, at which Katavassov and Metrov seated

themselves, there were some halfdozen persons, and one of these was bending close over a manuscript,

reading something aloud. Levin sat down in one of the empty chairs that were standing round the table, and in

a whisper asked a student sitting near what was being read. The student, eying Levin with displeasure, said:

Though Levin was not interested in the biography, he could not help listening, and learned some new and

When the reader had finished, the chairman thanked him and read some verses of the poet Ment, sent him on

the jubilee, and said a few words by way of thanks to the poet. Then Katavassov in his loud, ringing voice

read his address on the scientific labors of the man whose jubilee was being kept.

When Katavassov had finished, Levin looked at his watch, saw it was past one, and thought that there would

not be time before the concert to read his paper to Metrov, and indeed, he did not now care to do so. During

the reading he had thought over their conversation. He saw distinctly now that though Metrov's ideas might

perhaps have value, his own ideas had a value too, and their ideas could only be made clear and lead to

something if each worked separately in his chosen path, and that nothing would be gained by communicating

these ideas. And having made up his mind to refuse Metrov's invitation, Levin went up to him at the end of

the meeting. Metrov introduced Levin to the chairman, with whom he was talking of the political news.

Metrov told the chairman what he had already told Levin, and Levin made the same remarks on his news that

he had already made that morning, but for the sake of variety he expressed also a new opinion which had only

just struck him. After that the conversation turned again on the university question. As Levin had already

heard it all, he made haste to tell Metrov that he was sorry he could not take advantage of his invitation, took

Lvov, the husband of Natalie, Kitty's sister, had spent all his life in the capitals and abroad, where he had

During the previous year he had left the diplomatic service, not owing to any "unpleasantness" (he never had

any "unpleasantness" with anyone), and was transferred to the Palace Department in Moscow, in order to

In spite of the striking contrast in their habits and views and the fact that Lvov was older than Levin, they had

seen a great deal of one another that winter, and had taken a great liking to each other.

Lvov, in a house coat with a belt and in chamois leather shoes, was sitting in an armchair, and with a

pincenez with blue lenses he was reading a book that stood on a reading desk, while in his beautiful hand he

His handsome, delicate, and still youthfullooking face, to which his curly, glistening silvery hair gave a still

"Capital! I intended to send to you. How's Kitty? Sit here, it's more comfortable." He got up and pushed up a

rocking chair. "Have you read the last circular in the Journal de St Petersbourg? I think it's excellent," he said

Levin told him what he had heard from Katavassov was being said in Peterburg, and, after talking a little

about politics, he told him of his interview with Metrov, and the learned society's meeting. To Lvov it was

"That's what I envy you, that you are able to mix in these interesting scientific circles," he said. And as he

talked, he passed as usual into French, which was easier for him. "It's true I haven't the time for it. My official

work and the children leave me no time; and then I'm not ashamed to own that my education has been too

"That I don't believe," said Levin with a smile, feeling, as he always did, touched at Lvov's low opinion of

himself, which was not in the least put on from a desire to seem or to be modest, but was absolutely sincere.

"Oh, yes, indeed! I feel now how badly educated I am. To educate my children I positively have to look up a

great deal, and, in fact, actually to study myself. For it's not enough to have teachers there must be someone

to look after them; just as on your land you want laborers and an overseer. See what I'm reading" he pointed

to Buslaev's Grammar on the desk "it's expected of Misha, and it's so difficult.... Come, explain to me....

Levin tried to explain to him that it couldn't be understood, but that it had to be taught; but Lvov would not

"On the contrary, you can't imagine how, when I look at you, I'm always learning the task that lies before

"All I know," said Levin, "is that I have never seen better broughtup children than yours, and I wouldn't

Lvov visibly tried to restrain the expression of his delight, but he was positively radiant with smiles.

"If only they're better than I! That's all I desire. You don't know yet all the work," he said, "with boys who've

"You'll catch up with all that. They're such clever children. The great thing is the education of character.

"You talk of the education of character. You can't imagine how difficult that is! You have hardly succeeded

in combating one tendency when others crop up, and the struggle begins again. If one had not a support in

religion you remember we talked about that no father could bring children up relying on his own strength

This subject, which always interested Levin, was cut short by the entrance of the beauty Natalya

"I didn't know you were here," she said, unmistakably feeling no regret, but a positive pleasure, in

interrupting this conversation on a topic she had heard so much of that she was by now weary of it. "Well,

how is Kitty? I am dining with you today. I tell you what, Arsenii," she turned to her husband, "you take the

And the husband and wife began to discuss their arrangements for the day. As the husband had to drive to

meet someone on official business, while the wife had to go to the concert and some public meeting of a

committee on the SouthEastern Question, there was a great deal to consider and settle. Levin had to take

part in their plans as one of themselves. It was settled that Levin should go with Natalie to the concert and the

meeting, and that from there they should send the carriage to the office for Arsenii and he should call for her

and take her to Kitty's; or that, if he had not finished his work, he should send the carriage back and Levin

"He's spoiling me," Lvov said to his wife: "he assures me that our children are splendid, when I know how

"Arsenii goes to extremes, I always say," said his wife. "If you look for perfection, you will never be

satisfied. And it's true, as papa says that when we were brought up there was one extreme we were kept in

the attic, while our parents lived in the best rooms; now it's just the other way the parents are in the

washhouse, while the children are in the best rooms. Parents now are not expected to live at all, but to exist

"Well, what if they like it better? Lvov said, with his beautiful smile, touching her hand. "Anyone who didn't

"No, extremes are not good in anything," Natalie said serenely, putting his paper knife straight in its proper

"Well, come here, you perfect children," Lvov said to the two handsome boys who came in, and, after bowing

to Levin, went up to their father, obviously wishing to ask him about something.

Levin would have liked to talk to them, to hear what they would say to their father, but Natalie began talking

to him, and then Lvov's colleague in the service, Makhotin, walked in, wearing his Court dress, to go with

him to meet someone, and a conversation was kept up without a break upon Herzegovina, Princess

Levin even forgot the commission intrusted to him. He recollected it as he was going into the hall.

"O, Kitty told me to talk to you about Oblonsky," he said, as Lvov was standing on the stairs, seeing his wife

"Yes, yes, maman wants us, les beauxfreres, to attack him," he said, blushing. "But why should I?"

"Well, then, I will attack him," said Madame Lvova, with a smile, standing in her round white dogskin opera

One was a fantasia, King Lear in the Heath; the other was a quartette dedicated to the memory of Bach. Both

were new and in the new style, and Levin was eager to form an opinion of them. After escorting his

sisterinlaw to her stall, he stood against a column and tried to listen as attentively and conscientiously as

possible. He tried not to let his attention be distracted, and not to spoil his impression by looking at the

conductor in a white tie, waving his arms, which always disturbed his enjoyment of music so much, or the

ladies in bonnets, the ribbons of which, since it was a concert, they had carefully tied over their ears, and all

these people either thinking of nothing at all, or thinking of all sorts of things except the music. He tried to

avoid meeting musical connoisseurs or talkative acquaintances, and stood looking at the floor straight before

But the more he listened to the fantasia of King Lear the further he felt from forming any definite opinion of

it. There was, as it were, a continual beginning, a preparation of the musical expression of some feeling, but it

fell to pieces again directly, breaking into new musical motifs, or simply nothing but the whims of the

composer exceedingly complex but disconnected sounds. And these fragmentary musical expressions,

though sometimes beautiful, were disagreeable, because they were utterly unexpected and not led up to by

anything. Gaiety and grief and despair and tenderness and triumph followed one another without any ground,

like the emotions of a madman. And those emotions, like a madman's, sprang up quite unexpectedly.

During the whole performance Levin felt like a deaf man watching people dancing, and was in a state of

complete bewilderment when the fantasia was over, and felt a great weariness from the fruitless strain on his

attention. Loud applause resounded on all sides. Everyone got up, moved about, and began talking. Anxious

to throw some light on his own perplexity from the impressions of others, Levin began to walk about, looking

for connoisseurs, and was glad to see a wellknown musical amateur in conversation with Pestsov, whom he

"Marvelous!" Pestsov was saying in his deep bass. "How are you, Konstantin Dmitrievich? Particularly

sculpturesque and plastic, so to say, and richly colored is that passage where you feel Cordelia's approach,

"You mean... What has Cordelia to do with it?" Levin asked timidly, forgetting that the fantasia was supposed

"Cordelia comes in... See here!" said Pestsov, tapping his finger on the satiny surface of the program he held

Only then Levin recollected the title of the fantasia, and made haste to read in the Russian translation the

"You can't follow it without that," said Pestsov, addressing Levin, as the person he had been speaking to had

In the entr'acte Levin and Pestsov fell into an argument upon the merits and defects of the music of the

Wagner school. Levin maintained that the mistake of Wagner and all his followers lay in their trying to take

music into the sphere of another art, just as poetry goes wrong when it tries to paint a face as the art of

painting ought to do, and as an instance of this mistake he cited the sculptor who carved in marble certain

poetic phantasms flitting round the figure of the poet on the pedestal. "These phantoms were so far from

being phantoms that they were positively clinging to the stairs," said Levin. The comparison pleased him, but

he could not remember whether he had not used the same phrase before, and to Pestsov, too, and as he said it

Pestsov maintained that art is one, and that it can attain its highest manifestations only by the conjunction of

The second piece that was performed Levin could not hear. Pestsov, who was standing beside him, was

talking to him almost all the time, condemning the music for its excessive affected assumption of simplicity,

and comparing it with the simplicity of the PreRaphaelites in painting. As he went out Levin met many

more acquaintances, with whom he talked of politics, of music, and of common acquaintances. Among others

"Well, go at once then," Madame Lvova said, when he told her; "perhaps they'll not be at home, and then you

"Perhaps they're not at home?" said Levin, as he went into the hall of Countess Bol's house.

"How annoying!" thought Levin with a sigh, taking off one glove and stroking his hat. "What did I come for?

As he passed through the first drawing room Levin met in the doorway Countess Bol, with a careworn and

severe face, giving some order to a servant. On seeing Levin she smiled, and asked him to come into the next

little drawing room where he heard voices. In this room there were sitting in armchairs the two daughters of

the Countess, and a Moscow colonel, whom Levin knew. Levin walked up, greeted them, and sat down

"How is your wife? Have you been at the concert? We couldn't go. Mamma had to be at the requiem."

The Countess came in, sat down on the sofa, and she too asked after his wife and inquired about the concert.

"Yes, very good," he said, and, as it was utterly of no consequence to him what they thought of him, he began

repeating what they had heard a hundred times about the characteristics of the singer's talent. Countess Bol

pretended to be listening. Then, when he had said enough and had paused, the colonel, who had been silent

till then, began to talk. The colonel too talked of the opera and illumination. At last, after speaking of the

proposed folle journee at Turin's, the colonel laughed, got up noisily, and went away. Levin too rose, but he

saw by the face of the Countess that it was not yet time for him to go. He must stay two minutes longer. He

But as he was thinking all the while how stupid it was, he could not find a subject for conversation, and sat

"You are not going to the public meeting? They say it will be very interesting," began the Countess.

A silence followed. The mother once more exchanged glances with one of the daughters.

"Well, now I think the time has come," thought Levin, and he got up. The ladies shook hands with him, and

The porter asked him, as he gave him his coat: "Where is Your Honor staying?" and immediately wrote down

"Of course I don't care, but still I feel ashamed and awfully stupid," thought Levin, consoling himself with the

reflection that everyone does it. He drove to the public meeting, where he was to find his sisterinlaw, so as

At the public meeting of the committee there were a great many people, and almost all the highest society.

Levin was in time for the report which, as everyone said, was very interesting. When the reading of the report

was over, people moved about, and Levin met Sviiazhsky, who invited him very pressingly to come that

evening to a meeting of the Society of Agriculture, where a celebrated report was to be delivered, and Stepan

Arkadyevich, who had only just come from the races, and many other acquaintances; and Levin heard and

uttered various criticisms on the meeting, on the new play, and on a public trial. But, probably from the

mental fatigue he was beginning to feel, he made a blunder in speaking of the trial, and this blunder he

recalled several times with vexation. Speaking of the sentence upon a foreigner who had been condemned in

Russia, and of how unfair it would be to punish him by exile abroad, Levin repeated what he had heard the

"I think sending him abroad is much the same as punishing a carp by putting it into the water," said Levin.

Then he recollected that this idea, which he had heard from an acquaintance and uttered as his own, came

from a fable of Krilov's, and that the acquaintance had picked it up from a newspaper article.

After driving home with his sisterinlaw, and finding Kitty in good spirits and quite well, Levin drove to the

Levin reached the club just at the right time. Members and visitors were driving up as he arrived. Levin had

not been at the club for a very long while not since he lived in Moscow, when he was leaving the university

and going into society. He remembered the club, the external details of its arrangement, but he had

completely forgotten the impression it had made on him in old days. But as soon as, driving into the wide

semicircular court and getting out of the cab, he mounted the steps, and the hall porter, adorned with a

crossbelt, noiselessly opened the door to him with a bow; as soon as he saw in the porter's room the cloaks

and galoshes of members who thought it less trouble to take them off downstairs; as soon as he heard the

mysterious ringing bell that preceded him as he ascended the lowstepped, carpeted staircase, and saw the

statue on the landing, and the third porter at the top doors, a familiar figure grown older, in the club livery,

opening the door without haste or delay, and scanning the visitors as they passed in Levin felt the old

impression of the club come back in a rush, an impression of repose, comfort, and propriety.

"Your hat, please," the porter said to Levin, who forgot the club rule of checking his hat in the porter's room.

"Long time since you've been here. The Prince put your name down yesterday. Prince Stepan Arkadyevich is

The porter not only knew Levin, but also all his connections and relationships, and so immediately mentioned

Passing through the outer hall, divided up by screens, and the room partitioned on the right, where a man sits

at the fruit buffet, Levin passed by a shuffling old man, and entered the dining room, full of noise and people.

He walked along the tables, almost all full, and scrutinized the visitors. He saw people of all sorts, old and

young; some he knew a little; some were intimate friends. There was not a single cross or worriedlooking

face. All seemed to have checked their cares and anxieties in the porter's room with their hats, and were all

deliberately getting ready to enjoy the material blessings of life. Sviiazhsky was here and Shcherbatsky,

"Ah! Why are you late?" the Prince said smiling, and giving him his hand over his own shoulder. "How's

Kitty?" he added, smoothing out the napkin he had tucked in at his waistcoat buttons.

"Ah, 'AlinesNadines' to be sure! There's no room with us. Go to that table, and make haste and take a seat,"

"Levin, this way!" a goodnatured voice shouted a little farther on. It was Turovtsin. He was sitting with a

young officer, and beside them were two chairs tipped over. Levin gladly went up to them. He had always

liked the goodhearted rake, Turovtsin he was associated in his mind with memories of his courtship and at

that moment, after the strain of intellectual conversation, the sight of Turovtsin's goodnatured face was

The young man, holding himself very erect, with eyes forever twinkling with enjoyment, was an officer from

"Have you only just come?" said Oblonsky, coming quickly toward them. "Good day. Had some vodka?

Levin got up and went with him to the big table spread with spirits and appetizers of the most varied kinds.

One would have thought that out of two dozen delicacies one might find something to one's taste, but Stepan

Arkadyevich asked for something special, and one of the liveried waiters standing by immediately brought

At once, while they were still at their soup, Gaghin was served with champagne, and told the waiter to fill

four glasses. Levin did not refuse the wine, and asked for a second bottle. He was very hungry, and ate and

drank with great enjoyment, and with still greater enjoyment took part in the lively and simple conversation

of his companions. Gaghin, dropping his voice, told the last good story from Peterburg, and the story, though

improper and stupid, was so ludicrous that Levin broke into roars of laughter so loud that those near looked

"That's in the same style as, 'that's a thing I can't endure!' You know the story?" said Stepan Arkadyevich.

"Ah, that's exquisite! Another bottle," he said to the waiter, and he began to relate his good story.

"Piotr Illyich Vinovsky invites you to drink with him," a little old waiter interrupted Stepan Arkadyevich,

bringing two delicate glasses of sparkling champagne, and addressing Stepan Arkadyevich and Levin. Stepan

Arkadyevich took the glass, and looking toward a bald man with red mustaches at the other end of the table,

Stepan Arkadyevich's anecdote too was very amusing. Levin told his story, and that too was successful. Then

they talked of horses, of the races, of what they had been doing that day, and of how smartly Vronsky's Atlas

"Ah! And here they are!" Stepan Arkadyevich said toward the end of dinner, leaning over the back of his

chair and holding out his hand to Vronsky, who came up with a tall colonel of the Guards. Vronsky's face too

beamed with the look of goodhumored enjoyment that was general in the club. He propped his elbow

playfully on Stepan Arkadyevich's shoulder, whispering something to him, and he held out his hand to Levin

"Very glad to meet you," he said. "I looked out for you at the election, but I was told you had gone away."

"Yes, I left the same day. We've just been talking of your horse. I congratulate you," said Levin. "It was run

"We've been celebrating his success," said the tall colonel. "It's his second Imperial prize. I wish I might have

"Well, why waste precious time? I'm going to the 'infernal regions,'" added the colonel, and he walked away.

"That's Iashvin," Vronsky said in answer to Turovtsin, and he sat down in the vacated seat beside them. He

drank the glass offered him, and ordered a bottle of wine. Under the influence of the club atmosphere or the

wine he had drunk, Levin chatted away to Vronsky of the best breeds of cattle, and was very glad not to feel

the slightest hostility to this man. He even told him, among other things, that he had heard from his wife that

"Ah, Princess Marya Borissovna she's exquisite!" said Stepan Arkadyevich, and he told an anecdote about

her which set them all laughing. Vronsky in particular laughed with such simplehearted amusement that

"Well, have we finished?" said Stepan Arkadyevich, getting up with a smile. "Let us go."

Getting up from the table, Levin walked with Gaghin through the lofty rooms to the billiard room, feeling his

arms swing as he walked with a peculiar lightness and ease. As he crossed the big room, he came upon his

"Well, how do you like our Temple of Indolence?" said the Prince, taking his arm. "Come along, come

"Yes, it's interesting for you. But its interest for me is quite different. You look at such little ancients, now,"

he said, pointing to a club member with bent back and pendulous lip, shuffling toward them in his soft boots,

"I see you don't know that name. That's our club designation. You know the game of rolling eggs: when one's

rolled a long while it becomes a shlupik. So it is with us; one goes on coming and coming to the club, and

ends by becoming a shlupik. Ah, you laugh! but we look out, for fear of dropping into it ourselves. You know

Prince Chechensky?" inquired the Prince; and Levin saw by his face that he was just going to relate

"You don't say so! Well, Prince Chechensky is a wellknown figure. No matter, though. He's always playing

billiards here. Only three years ago he was not a shlupik, and kept up his spirits, and even used to call other

people shlupiks. But one day he turns up, and our porter... You know Vassilii? Why, that fat one; he's famous

for his bons mots. And so Prince Chechensky asks him, 'Come, Vassilii who's here? Any shlupiks here yet?'

Talking and greeting the friends they met, Levin and the Prince walked through all the rooms: the great room

where tables had already been set, and the usual partners were playing for small stakes; the divan room,

where they were playing chess, and Sergei Ivanovich was sitting talking to somebody; the billiard room,

where, about the sofa in a recess, there was a lively party drinking champagne Gaghin was one of them.

They peeped into the "infernal regions," where a good many men were crowding round one table, at which

Iashvin was sitting. Trying not to make a noise, they walked into the dark reading room, where under the

shaded lamps there sat a young man with a wrathful countenance, turning over one journal after another, and

a bald general buried in a book. They went, too, into what the Prince called the intellectual room, where three

"Prince, please come, we're ready," said one of his card party, who had come to look for him, and the Prince

went off. Levin sat down and listened, but recalling all the conversation of the morning he felt all of a sudden

fearfully bored. He got up hurriedly, and went to look for Oblonsky and Turovtsin, with whom it had been so

Turovtsin was one of the circle drinking in the billiard room, and Stepan Arkadyevich was talking with

"It's not that she's dull; but this undefined, this unsettled position," Levin caught, and he was going to hurry

"Levin!" said Stepan Arkadyevich; and Levin noticed that his eyes were not full of tears exactly, but moist,

which always happened when he had been drinking, or when he was touched. Today it was due to both

causes. "Levin, don't go," he said, and he warmly squeezed his arm above the elbow, obviously not at all

"This is a true friend of mine almost my greatest friend," he said to Vronsky. "You also are still closer and

dearer to me. And I want you, and I know you ought, to be friends, and great friends, because you're both

"Well, there's nothing for us now but to kiss and be friends," Vronsky said, with goodnatured playfulness,

But in spite of Stepan Arkadyevich's desire, and their own desire, they had nothing to talk about, and both felt

"Do you know, he has never met Anna?" Stepan Arkadyevich said to Vronsky. "And I want above everything

"Really?" said Vronsky. "She will be very glad to see you. I should be going home at once," he added, "but

"Well, what do you say to pyramids? Levin, will you play? Capital!" said Stepan Arkadyevich. "Get the table

"It has been ready a long while," answered the marker, who had already set the balls in a triangle, and was

After the game Vronsky and Levin sat down at Gaghin's table, and at Stepan Arkadyevich's suggestion Levin

took a hand in the game. Vronsky sat down at the table, surrounded by friends, who were incessantly coming

up to him. Every now and then he went to the "infernal" to keep an eye on Iashvin. Levin was enjoying a

delightful sense of repose after the mental fatigue of the morning. He was glad that all hostility was at an end

"Well, let us go to Anna's, then. At once? Eh? She is at home. I promised her long ago to bring you. Where

"Oh, nowhere specially. I promised Sviiazhsky to go to the Society of Agriculture. By all means, let us go,"

"Very good; come along. Find out if my carriage is here," Stepan Arkadyevich said to the waiter.

Levin went up to the table, paid the forty roubles he had lost; paid his bill, the amount of which was in some

mysterious way ascertained by the little old waiter who stood at the counter, and, swinging his arms, he

"Oblonsky's carriage!" the porter shouted in an angry bass. The carriage drove up and both got in. It was only

for the first few moments, while the carriage was driving out of the clubhouse gates, that Levin was still

under the influence of the club atmosphere of repose, comfort, and unimpeachable good form. But as soon as

the carriage drove out into the street, and he felt it jolting over the uneven road, heard the angry shout of a

driver coming toward them, saw in the uncertain light the red blind of a tavern and the shops, this impression

was dissipated, and he began to think over his actions, and to wonder whether he was doing right in going to

see Anna. What would Kitty say? But Stepan Arkadyevich gave him no time for reflection, and, as though

"How glad I am," he said, "that you should know her! You know Dolly has long wished for it. And Lvov's

been to see her, and often goes. Though she is my sister," Stepan Arkadyevich pursued, "I don't hesitate to

say that she's a remarkable woman.... But you will see. Her position is very painful, especially now."

"We are carrying on negotiations with her husband about a divorce. And he's agreed; but there are difficulties

in regard to the son, and the business, which ought to have been arranged long ago, has been dragging on for

three months past. As soon as the divorce is over, she will marry Vronsky. How stupid these old ritual forms

are 'Isaiah, rejoice!' which no one believes in, and which only prevent people being comfortable!" Stepan

Arkadyevich put in. "Well, then their position will be as regular as mine, as yours."

"Oh, it's a long and tedious story The whole business is in such an indefinite state with us. But the point is,

she has been for three months in Moscow, where everyone knows her, waiting for the divorce; she goes out

nowhere, sees no woman except Dolly, because, do you understand, she doesn't care to have people come as

a favor. That fool Princess Varvara, even she has left her, considering this a breach of propriety. Well, you

see, in such a position any other woman would not have found resources in herself. But you'll see how she

has arranged her life how calm, how dignified she is. To the left, in the alley opposite the church!" shouted

Stepan Arkadyevich, leaning out of the window of the carriage. "Phew! How hot it is!" he said, in spite of

"I believe you picture every woman simply as a female, une couveuse," said Stepan Arkadyevich. "If she's

occupied, it must be with her children. No, she brings her up capitally, I believe, but one doesn't hear about

her. She's busy, in the first place, with what she writes. I see you're smiling ironically, but you're wrong. She's

writing a children's book, and doesn't talk about it to anyone, but she read it to me and I gave the manuscript

to Vorkuev... you know, the publisher.... And he's an author himself too, I fancy. He understands those things,

and he says it's a remarkable piece of work. But are you fancying she's a writing woman? Not a bit of it. She's

a woman with a heart, before everything, but you'll see. Now she has a little English girl with her, and a

"Why, you will look at everything in the worst light. It's not from philanthropy, it's from the heart. They that

is, Vronsky had a trainer, an Englishman, firstrate in his own line, but a drunkard. He's completely given

up to drink delirium tremens and the family were cast on the world. She saw them, helped them, got more

and more interested in them, and now the whole family is on her hands. But not by way of patronage, you

know, helping with money; she's herself preparing the boys in Russian for the high school, and she's taken the

The carriage drove into the courtyard, and Stepan Arkadyevich rang loudly at the entrance where a sleigh was

And, without asking the servant who opened the door whether the lady were at home, Stepan Arkadyevich

walked into the hall. Levin followed him, more and more doubtful whether he were doing right or wrong.

Looking at himself in the glass, Levin noticed that he was red in the face, but he felt certain he was not drunk,

and he followed Stepan Arkadyevich up the carpeted stairs. At the top Stepan Arkadyevich inquired of the

footman, who bowed to him as to an intimate friend, who was with Anna Arkadyevna, and received the

Passing through the dining room, a room not very large, with dark paneled walls, Stepan Arkadyevich and

Levin walked over the soft carpet to the halfdark study, lighted up by a single lamp with a big dark shade.

Another lamp with a reflector was hanging on the wall, lighting up a big fulllength portrait of a woman,

which Levin could not help looking at. It was the portrait of Anna, painted in Italy by Mikhailov. While

Stepan Arkadyevich went behind the treillage, and the man's voice which had been speaking paused, Levin

gazed at the portrait, which stood out from the frame in the brilliant light thrown on it, and he could not tear

himself away from it. He positively forgot where he was, and not even hearing what was said, he could not

take his eyes off the marvelous portrait. It was not a picture, but a living, charming woman, with black

curling hair, with bare arms and shoulders, with a pensive smile on the lips, covered with soft down;

triumphantly and softly she looked at him with eyes that baffled him. She was not living, only because she

"I am delighted." He heard suddenly near him a voice, unmistakably addressing him, the voice of the very

woman he had been admiring in the portrait. Anna had come from behind the treillage to meet him, and Levin

saw in the dim light of the study the very woman of the portrait, in a darkblue gown of changeable blue, not

in the same position nor with the same expression, but with the same perfection of beauty which the artist had

caught in the portrait. She was less dazzling in reality, but, on the other hand, there was something fresh and

She had risen to meet him, without concealing her pleasure at seeing him; and in the quiet ease with which

she held out her little and vigorous hand, introduced him to Vorkuev, and indicated a redhaired, pretty little

girl who was sitting at work, calling her her pupil, Levin recognized and liked the manners of a woman of the

"I am delighted, delighted," she repeated, and on her lips these simple words took for Levin's ears a special

significance. "I have known you and liked you for a long while, both from your friendship with Stiva and for

your wife's sake.... I knew her for a very short time, but she left on me the impression of an exquisite flower

She spoke easily and without haste, looking now and then from Levin to her brother, and Levin felt that the

impression he was making was good, and he felt immediately at home, at ease and happy with her, as though

"Ivan Petrovich and I settled in Alexei's study," she said in answer to Stepan Arkadyevich's question whether

he might smoke, "just so as to be able to smoke" and glancing at Levin, instead of asking whether he would

smoke, she pulled closer a tortoiseshell cigarette case and took a cornleaf cigarette.

"Yes, isn't it extraordinarily fine?" said Stepan Arkadyevich, noticing that Levin was glancing at the picture.

Levin looked from the portrait to the original. A peculiar brilliance lighted up Anna's face when she felt his

eyes on her. Levin flushed, and to cover his confusion would have asked whether she had seen Darya

"We were just talking, Ivan Petrovich and I, of Vashchenkov's last pictures. Have you seen them?"

"She was here yesterday. She was very indignant with the high school people on Grisha's account. The Latin

"Yes, I have seen his pictures. I didn't care for them very much," Levin went back to the subject she had

Levin talked now not at all with that purely businesslike attitude to the subject with which he had been

talking all the morning. Every word in his conversation with her had a special significance. And talking to her

Anna talked not merely naturally and cleverly, but cleverly and carelessly, attaching no value to her own

The conversation turned on the new movement in art, on the new illustrations of the Bible by a French artist.

Vorkuev attacked the artist for a realism carried to the point of coarseness. Levin said that the French had

carried conventionality further than anyone, and that consequently they see a great merit in the return to

Never had anything clever said by Levin given him so much pleasure as this remark. Anna's face lighted up at

"I laugh," she said, "as one laughs when one sees a very true portrait. What you said so perfectly hits off

French art now, painting and literature too, indeed Zola, Daudet. But perhaps it is always so, that men

form their conceptions from fictitious, conventional types, and then all the combinaisons made they are

tired of the fictitious figures and begin to invent more natural, true figures."

"Yes, yes, this a woman!" Levin thought, forgetting himself and staring persistently at her lovely, mobile

face, which at that moment was all at once completely transformed. Levin did not hear what she was talking

of as she leaned over to her brother, but he was struck by the change of her expression. Her face so

handsome a moment before in its repose suddenly wore a look of strange curiosity, anger, and pride. But

this lasted only an instant. She halfclosed her eyes, as though recollecting something.

"Oh, well, but that's of no interest to anyone," she said, and she turned to the English girl.

"There a man speaks. In love there's no such thing as more or less. I love my daughter with one love, and her

"I was just telling Anna Arkadyevna," said Vorkuev, "that if she were to put a hundredth part of the energy

she devotes to this English girl to the public question of the education of Russian children, she would be

"Yes, but I can't help it; I couldn't do it. Count Alexei Kirillovich urged me very much" (as she uttered the

words Count Alexei Kirillovich she glanced with appealing timidity at Levin, and he unconsciously

responded with a respectful and reassuring look), "he urged me to take up the school in the village. I visited it

several times. The children were very dear, but I could not feel drawn to the work. You speak of energy.

Energy rests upon love; and, come as it will, there's no forcing it. I took to this child I could not myself say

And she glanced again at Levin. And her smile and her glance all told him that it was to him only she was

addressing her words, valuing his good opinion, and at the same time sure beforehand that they understood

"I quite understand that," Levin answered. "It's impossible to give one's heart to a school or such institutions

in general, and I believe that that's just why philanthropic institutions always give such poor results."

She was silent for a while, then she smiled. "Yes, yes," she agreed; "I never could. Je n'ai pas le coeur assez

large to love a whole asylum of horrid little girls. Cela ne m'a jamais reussi. There are so many women who

have made themselves une position sociale in that way. And now more than ever," she said with a mournful,

confiding expression, ostensibly addressing her brother, but unmistakably intending her words only for

Levin, "now when I have such need of some occupation, I cannot." And suddenly frowning (Levin saw that

she was frowning at herself for talking about herself) she changed the subject. "I know about you," she said to

Levin; "that you're not a publicspirited citizen, and I have defended you to the best of my ability."

"Oh, according to the attacks made on you. But won't you have some tea?" She rose and took up a book

"Give it to me, Anna Arkadyevna," said Vorkuev, indicating the book. "It's well worth taking up."

"You shouldn't have. My writing is something after the fashion of those little baskets and carvings which

Liza Mertsalova used to sell me from the prisons. She had the direction of the prison department in that

society," she turned to Levin; "and they were miracles of patience, the work of those poor wretches."

And Levin saw a new trait in this woman, who attracted him so extraordinarily. Besides wit, grace, and

beauty, she had truth. She had no wish to hide from him all the bitterness of her position. As she said that she

sighed, and her face, suddenly assuming a hard expression, looked, as it were, turned to stone. With that

expression on her face she was more beautiful than ever; but the expression was new; it was utterly unlike

that expression, radiant with happiness and creating happiness, which had been caught by the painter in her

portrait. Levin looked more than once at the portrait and at her figure, as taking her brother's arm she walked

with him to the high doors, and he felt for her a tenderness and pity at which he wondered himself.

She asked Levin and Vorkuev to go into the drawing room, while she stayed behind to say a few words to her

brother. "About her divorce, about Vronsky, and what he's doing at the club, about me?" wondered Levin.

And he was so keenly interested by the question of what she was saying to Stepan Arkadyevich, that he

scarcely heard what Vorkuev was telling him of the qualities of the story for children Anna Arkadyevna had

At tea the same pleasant sort of talk, full of interesting matter, continued. There was not a single instant when

a subject for conversation was to seek; on the contrary, it was felt that one had hardly time to say what one

had to say, and eagerly held back to hear what the others were saying. And all that was said, not only by her,

but by Vorkuev and Stepan Arkadyevich all, so it seemed to Levin, gained peculiar significance from her

While he followed this interesting conversation, Levin was all the time admiring her her beauty, her

intelligence, her culture, and at the same time her directness and her cordiality. He listened and talked, and all

the while he was thinking of her inner life, trying to divine her feelings. And though he had judged her so

severely hitherto, now by some strange chain of reasoning he was justifying her and also was sorry for her,

and afraid that Vronsky did not fully understand her. At ten o'clock, when Stepan Arkadyevich got up to go

(Vorkuev had left earlier), it seemed to Levin that he had only just come. Regretfully Levin too rose.

"Goodby," she said, holding his hand and glancing into his face with a winning look. "I am very glad que la

"Tell your wife that I love her as before, and that if she cannot pardon me my position, then my wish for her

is that she may never pardon me. To pardon it, one must go through what I have gone through, and may God

"What a marvelous, sweet and unhappy woman!" he was thinking, as he stepped out into the frosty air with

"Well, didn't I tell you?" said Stepan Arkadyevich, seeing that Levin had been completely won over.

"Yes," said Levin pensively, "an extraordinary woman! It's not her cleverness, but she has such wonderful

"Now, please God everything will soon be settled. Well, well, don't be hard on people in future," said Stepan

Still thinking of Anna, of everything, even the simplest phrase in their conversation with her, and recalling

the minutest changes in her expression, entering more and more into her position, and feeling sympathy for

At home Kouzma told Levin that Katerina Alexandrovna was quite well, and that her sisters had just gone,

and he handed him two letters. Levin read them at once in the hall, that he might not overlook them later. One

was from Sokolov, his bailiff. Sokolov wrote that the wheat could not be sold, that the price was only five

and a half roubles, and that he did not know where he had to get the money. The other letter was from his

"Well, we must sell it at five and a half if we can't get more," Levin decided on the spot the first question

which had always before seemed such a weighty one, with extraordinary facility. "It's extraordinary how all

one's time is taken up here," he thought, considering the second letter. He felt himself to blame for not having

got done what his sister had asked him to do for her. "Today, again, I've not been to court, but today I've

certainly not had time." And resolving that he would not fail to do it next day, he went up to his wife. As he

went in, Levin mentally ran rapidly through the day he had spent. All the events of the day were

conversations: conversations he had heard and taken part in. All the conversations were upon subjects which,

if he had been alone in the country, he would never have taken up, but here they were very interesting. And

all these conversations were right enough, only in two places there was something not quite right. One was

what he had said about the carp, the other was something not quite the thing in the tender sympathy he was

Levin found his wife lowspirited and dull. The dinner of the three sisters had gone off very well, but then

they had waited and waited for him, all of them had felt dull, the sisters had departed, and she had been left

"Well, and what have you been doing?" she asked him, looking straight into his eyes, which shone with rather

a suspicious brightness. But that she might not prevent his telling her everything, she concealed her close

scrutiny of him, and with an approving smile listened to his account of how he had spent the evening.

"Well, I'm very glad I met Vronsky. I felt quite at ease and natural with him. You understand, I shall try not

to see him, but I'm glad that this awkwardness is all over," he said, and remembering that, by way of trying

not to see him, he had immediately gone to call on Anna, he blushed. "We talk about the peasants drinking; I

don't know who drinks most, the peasantry or our own class; the peasants do it on holidays, but..."

But Kitty took not the slightest interest in discussing the drinking habits of the peasants. She saw that he

And as he said this, Levin blushed even more, and his doubts as to whether he had done right in going to see

Kitty's eyes opened in a curious way and gleamed at Anna's name, but controlling herself with an effort, she

"I'm sure you won't be angry at my going. Stiva begged me to, and Dolly wished it," Levin went on.

"She is a very sweet, a very, very unhappy, good woman," he said, telling her about Anna, her occupations,

"Yes, of course, she is very much to be pitied," said Kitty, when he had finished. "Whom was your letter

Coming back, he found Kitty in the same easy chair. When he went up to her, she glanced at him and broke

"You're in love with that hateful woman; she has bewitched you! I saw it in your eyes. Yes, yes! What can it

all lead to? You were drinking at the club, drinking and gambling, and then you went... Where? No, we must

It was a long while before Levin could soothe his wife. At last he succeeded in calming her, only by

confessing that a feeling of pity, in conjunction with the wine he had drunk, had been too much for him; that

he had succumbed to Anna's artful influence, and that he would avoid her. One thing he did with more

sincerity confess to was that living so long in Moscow, a life of nothing but conversation, eating and

drinking, he was growing crazy. They talked till three o'clock in the morning. Only at three o'clock were they

After taking leave of her guests, Anna did not sit down, but began walking up and down the room. She had

unconsciously the whole evening done her utmost to arouse in Levin a feeling of love as of late she had

fallen into doing with all young men and she knew she had attained her aim, as far as was possible in one

evening, with a married and conscientious man. She liked him very much indeed, and, in spite of the striking

difference, from the masculine point of view, between Vronsky and Levin, as a woman she saw something

they had in common, which had made Kitty able to love both. Yet as soon as he was out of the room, she

One thought, and one only, pursued her in different forms, and refused to be shaken off. "If I have so much

effect on others, on this man, who loves his home and his wife, why is it he is so cold to me?... Not cold

exactly he loves me, I know that! But something new is drawing us apart now. Why wasn't he here all the

evening? He told Stiva to say he could not leave Iashvin, and must watch over his play. Is Iashvin a child?

But supposing it's true. He never tells a he. But there's something else in it if it's true. He is glad of an

opportunity of showing me that he has other duties; I know that, I submit to that. But why prove that to me?

He wants to show me that his love for me is not to interfere with his freedom. But I need no proofs I need

love. He ought to understand all the bitterness of this life for me here in Moscow. Is this life? I am not living,

but waiting for an event, which is continually put off and put off. No answer again! And Stiva says he cannot

go to Alexei Alexandrovich. And I can't write again. I can do nothing, can begin nothing, can alter nothing; I

hold myself in, I wait, inventing amusements for myself the English family, writing, reading but it's all

nothing but a sham, it's all the same as morphine. He ought to feel for me," she said, feeling tears of selfpity

She heard Vronsky's abrupt ring and hurriedly dried her tears not only dried her tears, but sat down by a

lamp and opened a book, affecting composure. She wanted to show him that she was displeased that he had

not come home as he had promised displeased only, and not on any account to let him see her distress, and,

least of all, her selfpity. She might pity herself, but he must not pity her. She did not want strife, she blamed

him for wanting to quarrel, but unconsciously put herself into an attitude of antagonism.

"Well, you've not been dull?" he said, eagerly and goodhumoredly, going up to her. "What a terrible passion

"No, I've not been dull; I've learned long ago not to be dull. Stiva has been here, and Levin."

"Yes, they meant to come and see you. Well, how did you like Levin?" he said, sitting down beside her.

"He was winning seventeen thousand. I got him away. He had really started home, but he went back again,

"Then what did you stay for?" she asked, suddenly lifting her eyes to him. The expression of her face was

cold and ungracious. "You told Stiva you were staying on to get Iashvin away. And you have left him there."

The same expression of cold readiness for the conflict appeared on his face too.

"In the first place, I did not ask him to give you any message; and secondly, I never tell lies. But the chief

point is, I wanted to stay, and I stayed," he said, frowning. "Anna, what is it for, why will you do this?" he

said after a moment's silence, bending over toward her; and he opened his hand, hoping she would lay hers in

She was glad of this appeal for tenderness. But some strange force of evil would not let her give herself up to

"Of course you wanted to stay, and you stayed. You do everything you want to. But what do you tell me that

for? With what object?" she said, getting more and more excited. "Does anyone contest your rights? But you

His hand closed, he turned away, and his face wore a still more obstinate expression.

"For you it's a matter of obstinacy," she said, watching him intently and suddenly finding the right word for

that expression that irritated her, "simply obstinacy. For you it's a question of whether you keep the upper

hand of me, while for me..." Again she felt sorry for herself, and she almost burst into tears. "If you knew

what it is for me! When I feel as I do now, that you are hostile yes, hostile to me if you knew what this

means for me! If you knew how I feel on the brink of calamity at this instant, how afraid I am of myself!"

"But what are you talking about?" he said, horrified at her expression of despair and again bending over her,

he took her hand and kissed it. "What is it for? Do I seek amusements outside our home? Don't I avoid the

"Come, tell me what I ought to do to give you peace of mind? I am ready to do anything to make you happy,"

he said, touched by her expression of despair; "what wouldn't I do to save you from distress of any sort, as

"It's nothing, nothing!" she said. "I don't know myself whether it's the solitary life, my nerves... Come, don't

let us talk of it. What about the race? You haven't told me!" she inquired, trying to conceal her triumph at the

He asked for supper, and began telling her about the races; but in his tone, in his eyes, which became more

and more cold, she saw that he did not forgive her for her victory, that the feeling of obstinacy with which she

had been struggling had asserted itself again in him. He was colder to her than before, as though he were

regretting his surrender. And she, remembering the words that had given her the victory, "how I feel on the

brink of calamity, how afraid I am of myself," saw that this weapon was a dangerous one, and that it could

not be used a second time. And she felt that beside the love that bound them together there had grown up

between them some evil spirit of strife, which she could not exorcise from his heart, and still less from her

There are no conditions to which a man cannot become used, especially if he sees that all around him are

living in the same way. Levin could not have believed three months before that he could have gone quietly to

sleep in the state in which he was that day that leading an aimless, irrational life, also living beyond his

means, after drinking to excess (he could not call what happened at the club anything else), forming

inappropriately friendly relations with a man with whom his wife had once been in love, and after a still more

inappropriate call upon a woman who could only be called a lost woman, after being fascinated by that

woman and causing his wife distress he could still go quietly to sleep. But under the influence of fatigue, a

At five o'clock the creak of a door opening waked him. He jumped up and looked round. Kitty was not in bed

beside him. But there was a light moving behind the screen, and he heard her steps.

"Nothing," she said, coming from behind the screen with a candle in her hand. "I felt unwell," she said,

"What? Has it begun?" he said in terror. "We ought to send..." and hurriedly he reached after his clothes.

"No, no," she said, smiling and holding his hand. "It's sure to be nothing. I was rather unwell, only a little. It's

And, getting into bed, she blew out the candle, lay down and was still. Though he thought her stillness

suspicious, as though she were holding her breath, and still more suspicious the expression of peculiar

tenderness and excitement with which, as she came from behind the screen, she had said "Nothing," he was

so sleepy that he fell asleep at once. Only later he remembered the stillness of her breathing, and understood

all that must have been passing in her sweet, precious heart while she lay beside him, not stirring, in

anticipation of the greatest event in a woman's life. At seven o'clock he was waked by the touch of her hand

on his shoulder, and a gentle whisper. She seemed struggling between regret at waking him, and the desire to

"Kostia, don't be frightened. It's all right. But I fancy... We ought to send for Lizaveta Petrovna."

The candle was lighted again. She was sitting up in bed, holding some knitting, which she had been busy

"Please, don't be frightened, it's all right. I'm not a bit afraid," she said, seeing his scared face, and she pressed

He hurriedly jumped up, hardly awake, and kept his eyes fixed on her, as he put on his dressing gown; then

he stopped, still looking at her. He had to go, but he could not tear himself away from her eyes. He thought he

loved her face, knew her expression, her eyes, but never had he seen it like this. How hateful and horrible he

seemed to himself, thinking of the distress he had caused her yesterday. Her flushed face, fringed with soft

Though there was so little that was artificial or pretended in Kitty's character in general, Levin was struck by

what was revealed now, when suddenly all disguises were thrown off and the very kernel of her soul shone in

her eyes. And in this simplicity and nakedness of her soul, she, the very woman he loved in her, was more

manifest than ever. She looked at him, smiling; but all at once her brows twitched, she threw up her head,

and, going quickly up to him, clutched his hand and pressed close up to him, breathing her hot breath upon

him. She was in pain and was, as it were, complaining to him of her suffering. And for the first minute, from

habit, it seemed to him that he was to blame. But in her eyes there was a tenderness that told him that she was

far from reproaching him, that she loved him for her sufferings. "If not I, who is to blame for it?" he thought

unconsciously, seeking someone responsible for this suffering for him to punish; but there was no one

responsible. She was suffering, complaining, and triumphing in her sufferings, and rejoicing in them, and

loving them. He saw that something sublime was being accomplished in her soul, but what? He could not

"I have sent to mamma. You go quickly to fetch Lizaveta Petrovna.... Kostia!... Never mind it's over."

And Levin saw with astonishment that she had taken up the knitting she had brought in in the night, and had

As Levin was going out of one door, he heard the maidservant come in at the other. He stood at the door and

heard Kitty giving exact directions to the maid, and beginning to help her move the bedstead.

He dressed, and while they were putting in his horse, as there were no hacks about as yet, he ran again up to

the bedroom, not on tiptoe, it seemed to him, but on wings. Two maidservants were carefully shifting

something about in the bedroom. Kitty was walking about knitting rapidly and giving directions.

"I'm going for the doctor. They have sent for Lizaveta Petrovna, but I'll go on there too. Isn't there anything

He had just gone into the drawing room, when suddenly a plaintive moan sounded from the bedroom,

smothered instantly. He stood still, and for a long while he could not understand.

"Yes, that is she," he said to himself, and, clutching at his head, he ran downstairs.

"Lord have mercy on us! Forgive us! Help us!" he repeated the words that for some reason came suddenly to

his lips. And he, an unbeliever, repeated these words not with his lips only. At that instant he knew that all his

doubts, even the impossibility of believing with his reason, of which he was aware in himself, did not in the

least hinder his turning to God. All of that now floated out of his soul like dust. To whom was he to turn if

The horse was not yet ready, but feeling a peculiar concentration of his physical forces and his intellect on

what he had to do, he, losing no minute, started off on foot without waiting for the horse, and told Kouzma to

At the corner he met a night hack driving hurriedly. In the little sleigh, wrapped in a velvet cloak, sat Lizaveta

Petrovna with a kerchief round her head. "Thank God! thank God!" he said, overjoyed to recognize her little

fair face which wore a peculiarly serious, even stern expression. Telling the driver not to stop, he ran along

"For two hours, then? Not more?" she inquired. "You should let Piotr Dmitrievich know, but don't hurry him.

"So you think that it will go well? Lord have mercy on us and help us!" Levin said, seeing his own horse

driving out of the gate. Jumping into the sleigh beside Kouzma, he told him to drive to the doctor's.

The doctor was not yet up, and the footman said that "he had been up late, and had given orders not to be

waked, but would get up soon." The footman was cleaning the lamp chimneys, and seemed very busy about

them. This concentration of the footman upon his lamps, and his indifference to what was passing in Levin, at

first astounded him, but immediately on considering the question he realized that no one knew or was bound

to know his feelings, and that it was all the more necessary to act calmly, sensibly, and resolutely to get

through this wall of indifference and attain his aim. "Don't be in a hurry or let anything slip," Levin said to

himself, feeling a greater and greater flow of physical energy and attention to all he had yet to do.

Having ascertained that the doctor was not getting up, Levin considered various plans, and decided on the

following one; that Kouzma should go for another doctor, while he himself should go to the chemist's for

opium, and if, when he came back, the doctor had not yet begun to get up, he would, either by tipping the

At the chemist's the lank pharmacist wafered a packet of powders for a coachman who stood waiting, and

refused him opium with the same callousness with which the doctor's footman had cleaned his lamp

chimneys. Trying not to get flustered or out of temper, Levin mentioned the names of the doctor and midwife,

and explaining what the opium was needed for, tried to persuade him. The assistant inquired in German

whether he should give it, and receiving an affirmative reply from behind the partition, he took out a bottle

and a funnel, deliberately poured the opium from a bigger bottle into a little one, stuck on a label, sealed it up,

in spite of Levin's request that he would not do so, and was about to wrap it up too. This was more than Levin

could stand; he took the bottle firmly out of his hands, and ran to the big glass doors. The doctor was not even

now getting up, and the footman, busy now in putting down the rugs, refused to wake him. Levin deliberately

took out a tenrouble note, and careful to speak slowly, though losing no time over the business, he handed

him the note, and explained that Piotr Dmitrievich (what a great and important personage he seemed to Levin

now, this Piotr Dmitrievich, who had been of so little consequence in his eyes before) had promised to come

at any time; that he would certainly not be angry! And that he must therefore wake him at once.

Levin could hear through the door the doctor coughing, moving about, washing, and saying something. Three

minutes passed; it seemed to Levin that more than an hour had gone by. He could not wait any longer.

"Piotr Dmitrievich, Piotr Dmitrievich?" he said in an imploring voice at the open door. "For God's sake,

"In a minute; in a minute!" answered a voice, and to his amazement heard that the doctor was smiling as he

Two minutes more passed while the doctor was putting on his boots, and two minutes more while the doctor

"Piotr Dmitrievich!" Levin was beginning again in a plaintive voice, just as the doctor came in, dressed and

ready. "These people have no conscience," thought Levin. "Combing his hair, while we're dying!"

"Good morning!" the doctor said to him, shaking hands, and, as it were, teasing him with his composure.

Trying to be as accurate as possible, Levin began to tell him every unnecessary detail of his wife's condition,

interrupting his account repeatedly with entreaties that the doctor would come with him at once.

"Oh, you needn't be in any hurry. You don't understand, you know. I'm certain I'm not wanted; still I've

promised, and, if you like, I'll come. But there's no hurry. Please sit down; won't you have some coffee?"

Levin stared at him with eyes that asked whether he was laughing at him; but the doctor had no notion of

"I know, I know," the doctor said, smiling; "I'm a married man myself; and at these moments we husbands

are very much to be pitied. I've a patient whose husband always takes refuge in the stables on such

"But what do you think, Piotr Dmitrievich? Do you suppose it will go all right?"

"So you'll come immediately?" said Levin, looking wrathfully at the servant who was bringing in the coffee.

"The Turks are really getting beaten, though. Did you read yesterday's telegrams?" said the doctor,

"No, I can't stand it!" said Levin, jumping up. "So you'll be with us in a quarter of an hour?"

When Levin got home, he drove up at the same time as the Princess, and they went up to the bedroom

together. The Princess had tears in her eyes, and her hands were shaking. Seeing Levin, she embraced him,

"Well, my dear Lizaveta Petrovna?" she queried, clasping the hand of the midwife, who came out to meet

"Everything is going on well," she said; "persuade her to lie down. She will feel easier that way."

From the moment when he had waked up and understood what was going on, Levin had prepared his mind to

bear resolutely what was before him, and without considering or anticipating anything, to avoid upsetting his

wife, and, on the contrary, to soothe her and keep up her courage. Without allowing himself even to think of

what was to come, of how it would end, judging from his inquiries as to the usual duration of these ordeals,

Levin had in his imagination braced himself to bear up and to keep a tight rein on his feelings for five hours,

and it had seemed to him he could do this. But when he came back from the doctor's and saw her sufferings

again, he fell to repeating more and more frequently: "Lord, have mercy on us, and succor us!" He sighed,

and flung his head up, and began to feel afraid he could not bear it, that he would burst into tears or run

But after that hour there passed another hour, two hours, three, the full five hours he had fixed as the furthest

limit of his sufferings, and the situation was still unchanged; and he was still bearing it because there was

nothing to be done but bear it every instant feeling that he had reached the utmost limits of his endurance,

But still the minutes passed by, and the hours, and still more hours, and his misery and horror grew and were

All the ordinary conditions of life, without which one can form no conception of anything, had ceased to exist

for Levin. He lost all sense of time. Minutes those minutes when she sent for him and he held her moist

hand, that would squeeze his hand with extraordinary violence and then push it away seemed to him hours,

and hours seemed to him minutes. He was surprised when Lizaveta Petrovna asked him to light a candle

behind a screen, and he found that it was five o'clock in the afternoon. If he had been told it was only ten

o'clock in the morning he would not have been surprised. Where he was all this time, he knew as little as the

time of anything. He saw her swollen face, sometimes bewildered and in agony, sometimes smiling and

trying to reassure him. He saw the old Princess too, flushed and overwrought, with her gray curls in disorder,

forcing herself to gulp down her tears, biting her lips; he saw Dolly too, and the doctor, smoking thick

cigarettes, and Lizaveta Petrovna with a firm, resolute, reassuring face, and the old Prince walking up and

down the hall with a frowning face. But why they came in and went out, where they were, he did not know.

The Princess was with the doctor in the bedroom, then in the study, where a table set for dinner suddenly

appeared; then she was not there, but Dolly was. Then Levin remembered he had been sent somewhere. Once

he had been sent to move a table and sofa. He had done this eagerly, thinking it had to be done for her sake,

and only later on he found it was his own bed he had been getting ready. Then he had been sent to the study

to ask the doctor something. The doctor had answered and then had said something about the irregularities in

the municipal council. Then he had been sent to the bedroom to help the old Princess move the holy image in

its silvergilt setting, and with the Princess's old waiting maid he had clambered on a shelf to reach it and had

broken the lampad, and the old servant had tried to reassure him about the lampad and about his wife, and he

carried the holy image in and set it at the head of Kitty's bed, carefully tucking the image in behind the

pillow. But where, when, and why all this had happened, he could not tell. He did not understand why the old

Princess took his hand, and looking compassionately at him, begged him not to worry himself, and Dolly

persuaded him to eat something and led him out of the room, and even the doctor looked seriously and with

All he knew and felt was that what was happening was what had happened nearly a year before in the hotel of

the country town at the deathbed of his brother Nikolai. But that had been grief this was joy. Yet that grief

and this joy were alike outside all the ordinary conditions of life; they were loopholes, as it were, in that

ordinary life, through which there came glimpses of something sublime. And in the contemplation of this

sublime something the soul was exalted to inconceivable heights of which it had before had no conception,

"Lord, have mercy on us, and succor us!" he repeated to himself incessantly, feeling, in spite of his long and,

as it seemed, complete alienation from religion, that he turned to God just as trustfully and simply as he had

All this time he had two distinct moods. One was away from her, with the doctor, who kept smoking one

thick cigarette after another and extinguishing them on the edge of a full ash tray; with Dolly, and with the

old Prince, where there was talk about dinner, about politics, about Maria Petrovna's illness, and where Levin

suddenly forgot for a minute what was happening, and felt as though he had waked up from sleep; the other

mood was in her presence, at her pillow, where his heart seemed breaking, and still did not break, from

sympathetic suffering, and he prayed to God without ceasing. And every time he was brought back from a

moment of oblivion by a scream reaching him from the bedroom, he fell into the same strange terror that had

come upon him the first minute. Every time he heard a shriek, he jumped up, ran to justify himself,

remembered on the way that he was not to blame, and he longed to defend her, to help her. But as he looked

at her, he saw again that help was impossible, and he was filled with terror and prayed: "Lord, have mercy on

us, and help us!" And as time went on, both these moods became more intense; the calmer he became away

from her, completely forgetting her, the more agonizing became both her sufferings and his feeling of

helplessness before them. He jumped up, would have liked to run away, but ran to her.

Sometimes, when again and again she called upon him, he blamed her; but seeing her submissive, smiling

face, and hearing the words "I am worrying you," he threw the blame on God; but thinking of God, at once he

He did not know whether it was late or early. The candles had all burned out. Dolly had just been in the study

and had suggested to the doctor that he should lie down. Levin sat listening to the doctor's stories of a quack

mesmerizer and looking at the ashes of his cigarette. There had been a period of repose, and he had sunk into

oblivion. He had completely forgotten what was going on now. He heard the doctor's chat and understood it.

Suddenly there came an unearthly shriek. The shriek was so awful that Levin did not even jump up, but,

holding his breath, gazed in terrified inquiry at the doctor. The doctor put his head on one side, listened, and

smiled approvingly. Everything was so extraordinary that nothing could strike Levin as strange. "I suppose it

must be so," he thought, and still sat where he was. Whose scream was this? He jumped up, ran on tiptoe to

the bedroom, edged round Lizaveta Petrovna and the Princess, and took up his position at Kitty's pillow. The

scream had subsided, but there was some change now. What it was he did not see and did not comprehend,

and he had no wish to see or comprehend. But he saw it by the face of Lizaveta Petrovna. Lizaveta Petrovna's

face was stern and pale, and still as resolute, though her jaws were twitching, and her eyes were fixed intently

on Kitty. Kitty's swollen and agonized face, a tress of hair clinging to her moist brow, was turned to him and

sought his eyes. Her lifted hands asked for his hands. Clutching his chill hands in her moist ones, she began

"Don't go, don't go! I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid!" she said rapidly. "Mamma, take my earrings. They bother

She spoke quickly, very quickly, and tried to smile. But suddenly her face was drawn she pushed him away.

"Oh, this is awful! I'm dying, I'm dying! Go away!" she shrieked, and again he heard that unearthly scream.

But they might say what they liked, he knew now that all was over. He stood in the next room, his head

leaning against the doorpost, and heard shrieks, howls, such as he had never heard before, and he knew that

what had been Kitty was uttering these shrieks. He had long ago ceased to wish for the child. By now he

loathed this child. He did not even pray for her life now all he longed for was the cessation of this awful

"Doctor! What is it? What is it? My God!" he said, snatching at the doctor's hand as he came up.

"It's the end," said the doctor. And the doctor's face was so grave as he said it that Levin took the end as

Beside himself, he ran into the bedroom. The first thing he saw was the face of Lizaveta Petrovna. It was

even more frowning and stern. Kitty's face he did not know. In the place where it had been was something

that was fearful in its strained distortion and in the sounds that came from it. He fell down with his head on

the wooden framework of the bed, feeling that his heart was bursting. The awful scream never paused, it

became still more awful, and as though it had reached the utmost limit of terror, suddenly it ceased. Levin

could not believe his ears, but there could be no doubt; the scream had ceased and he heard a subdued stir and

bustle, and hurried breathing, and her voice, gasping, alive, tender, and blissful, uttered softly: "It's over!"

He lifted his head. With her hands hanging exhausted on the quilt, looking extraordinarily lovely and serene,

And suddenly, from the mysterious and awful faraway world in which he had been living for the last

twentytwo hours, Levin felt himself all in an instant borne back to the old everyday world, though glorified

now by such a radiance of happiness that he could not bear it. The strained chords snapped; sobs and tears of

joy which he had never foreseen rose up with such violence that his whole body shook, and for long they

Falling on his knees before the bed, he held his wife's hand before his lips and kissed it, and the hand, with a

weak movement of the fingers, responded to his kiss. And meanwhile, there at the foot of the bed, in the deft

hands of Lizaveta Petrovna, like a flickering light in a lamp, lay the life of a human creature, which had never

existed before, and which would now with the same right, with the same importance to itself, live and create

"Alive! alive! And a boy too! Set your mind at rest!" Levin heard Lizaveta Petrovna saying, as she slapped

And in the midst of the silence there came in unmistakable reply to the mother's question, a voice quite unlike

the subdued voices speaking in the room. It was the bold, clamorous, selfassertive squall of the new human

If Levin had been told before that Kitty was dead, and that he had died with her, and that their children were

angels, and that God was standing before him, he would have been surprised at nothing. But now, coming

back to the world of reality, he had to make great mental efforts to take in that she was alive and well, and

that the creature squalling so desperately was his son. Kitty was alive, her agony was over. And he was

unutterably happy. That he understood; and he was completely happy in it. But the baby? Whence, why, who

was he?... He could not get used to the idea. It seemed to him something extraneous, superfluous, to which he

At ten o'clock the old Prince, Sergei Ivanovich, and Stepan Arkadyevich, were sitting at Levin's. Having

inquired after Kitty, they had dropped into conversation upon other subjects. Levin heard them, and

unconsciously, as they talked, going over the past, over what they had been up to that morning, he thought of

himself as he had been yesterday till that point. It was as though a hundred years had passed since then. He

felt himself exalted to unattainable heights, from which he studiously lowered himself so as not to wound the

people he was talking to. He talked, and was all the time thinking of his wife, of her present condition, of his

son, in whose existence he tried to school himself into believing. The whole world of woman, which had

taken for him since his marriage a new value he had never suspected before, was now so exalted that his

imagination could not embrace it. He heard them talk of yesterday's dinner at the club, and thought: "What is

happening with her now? Is she asleep? How is she? What is she thinking of? Is he crying my son Dmitrii?"

And in the middle of the conversation, in the middle of a sentence, he jumped up and went out of the room.

"Very well, in a minute," answered Levin, and without stopping, he went to her room.

She was not asleep, she was talking gently with her mother, making plans about the christening.

Carefully set to rights, with hair well brushed, in a smart little cap with some blue in it, her arms out on the

quilt, she was lying on her back. Meeting his eyes, her eyes drew him to her. Her face, bright before,

brightened still more as he drew near her. There was the same change in it from earthly to unearthly that is

seen in the face of the dead. But there it means farewell here it meant welcome. Again a rush of emotion,

such as he had felt at the moment of the child's birth, flooded his heart. She took his hand and asked him if he

"Give him to me," she said, hearing the baby's cry. "Give him to me, Lizaveta Petrovna, and he shall look at

"To be sure, his papa shall look at him," said Lizaveta Petrovna, getting up and bringing something red, and

queer and wriggling. "Wait a minute, we'll array ourselves first," and Lizaveta Petrovna laid the red wobbling

thing on the bed, began untrussing and trussing up the baby, lifting it up and turning it over with one finger

Levin, looking at the tiny, pitiful creature, made strenuous efforts to discover in his heart some traces of

fatherly feeling for it. He felt nothing toward it but disgust. But when it was undressed and he caught a

glimpse of wee, wee, little hands, little feet, saffroncolored, with little toes, too; and even with a little big

toe different from the rest, and when he saw Lizaveta Petrovna closing the wideopen little hands, as though

they were soft springs, and putting them into linen garments, such pity for the little creature came upon him,

When the baby had been arrayed and transformed into a solid doll, Lizaveta Petrovna dandled it as though

proud of her handiwork, and stood a little away so that Levin might see his son in all his glory.

Kitty looked sideways in the same direction, never taking her eyes off the baby. "Give him to me! Give him

"What are you thinking of, Katerina Alexandrovna, you mustn't move like that! Wait a minute. I'll give him

And Lizaveta Petrovna, with one hand supporting the wobbling head, lifted up on the other arm the strange,

limp, red creature, whose head was lost in its swaddling clothes. But it had a nose, too, and slanting eyes, and

Levin sighed with mortification. This splendid baby excited in him no feeling but disgust and compassion. It

"Come that's enough, that's enough!" said Lizaveta Petrovna, but Kitty would not let the baby go. He fell

"Look, now," said Kitty, turning the baby so that he could see it. The agedlooking little face suddenly

Smiling, hardly able to restrain his tears, Levin kissed his wife and went out of the dark room.

What he felt toward this little creature was utterly unlike what he had expected. There was nothing cheerful

and joyous in the feeling; on the contrary, it was a new torture of apprehension. It was the consciousness of a

new sphere of liability to pain. And this sense was so painful at first, the apprehension lest this helpless

creature should suffer was so intense, that it prevented him from noticing the strange thrill of senseless joy

The money for twothirds of the forest had all been spent already, and he had borrowed from the merchant in

advance at ten per cent discount almost all the remaining third. The merchant would not give more, especially

as Darya Alexandrovna, for the first time that winter insisting on her right to her own property, had refused to

sign the receipt for the payment of the last third of the forest. All his salary went on household expenses and

in payment of petty debts that could not be put off. There was positively no money.

This was unpleasant and awkward, and in Stepan Arkadyevich's opinion things could not go on like this. The

explanation of the position was, in his view, to be found in the fact that his salary was too small. The post he

filled had been unmistakably very good five years ago, but it was so no longer. Petrov, the bank director, had

twelve thousand; Sventitsky, a company director, had seventeen thousand; Mitin, who had founded a bank,

received fifty thousand. "Clearly I've been napping, and they've overlooked me," Stepan Arkadyevich thought

about himself. And he began keeping his eyes and ears open, and toward the end of the winter he had

discovered a very good berth and had formed a plan of attack upon it, at first from Moscow through aunts,

uncles, and friends, and then, when the matter was well advanced, in the spring, he went himself to Peterburg.

It was one of those berths (with incomes ranging from one thousand to fifty thousand roubles), of which there

are so many more nowadays than there were snug, bribable ones in the past. It was the post of secretary of the

committee of the amalgamated agency of the Southern Railways, and of certain banking companies. This

position, like all such appointments, called for such immense energy and such varied qualifications, that it

was difficult for them to be found united in any one man. And since a man combining all the qualifications

was not to be found, it was at least better that the post be filled by an honest than by a dishonest man. And

Stepan Arkadyevich was not merely an honest man, unemphatically, in the common acceptation of the word;

he was an honest man, emphatically, in that special sense which the word has in Moscow, when they talk of

an "honest" politician, an "honest" writer, an "honest" newspaper, an "honest" institution, an "honest"

tendency, meaning not simply that the man or the institution is not dishonest, but that they are capable on

occasion of stinging the authorities. Stepan Arkadyevich moved in those circles in Moscow in which that

expression had come into use, was regarded there as an honest man, and so had more right to this

The appointment yielded an income of from seven to ten thousand a year, and Oblonsky could fill it without

giving up his government position. It was in the hands of two ministers, one lady, and two Jews, and all these

people, though the way had been paved already with them, Stepan Arkadyevich had to see in Peterburg.

Besides this business, Stepan Arkadyevich had promised his sister Anna to obtain from Karenin a definite

answer on the question of divorce. And begging fifty roubles from Dolly, he set off for Peterburg.

Stepan Arkadyevich sat in Karenin's study listening to his report on the causes of the unsatisfactory position

of Russian finance, and only waiting for the moment when he would finish to speak about his own business

"Yes, that's very true," he said, when Alexei Alexandrovich took off the pincenez, without which he could

not read now, and looked inquiringly at his quondam brotherinlaw, "that's very true in particular cases, but

"Yes, but I lay down another principle, embracing the principle of freedom," said Alexei Alexandrovich, with

emphasis on the word "embracing", and he put on his pincenez again, so as to read the passage in which this

And turning over the beautifully written, widemargined manuscript, Alexei Alexandrovich read aloud the

"I don't advocate protection for the sake of private interest, but for the public weal and for the lower and

upper classes equally," he said, looking over his pincenez at Oblonsky. "But they cannot grasp that, they are

Stepan Arkadyevich knew that when Karenin began to talk of what they were doing and thinking, the persons

who would not accept his report and were the cause of everything wrong in Russia, that it was coming near

the end. And so now he eagerly abandoned the principle of free trade, and fully agreed. Alexei Alexandrovich

"Oh, by the way," said Stepan Arkadyevich, "I wanted to ask you, some time when you see Pomorsky, to

drop him a hint that I should be very glad to get that new appointment of member of the committee of the

amalgamated agency of the Southern Railways and banking companies." Stepan Arkadyevich was familiar by

now with the title of the post he coveted, and he brought it out rapidly without mistake.

Alexei Alexandrovich questioned him as to the duties of this new committee, and pondered. He was

considering whether the new committee would not be acting in some way contrary to the views he had been

advocating. But as the influence of the new committee was of a very complex nature, and his views were of

very wide application, he could not decide this straight off, and taking off his pincenez, he said:

"Of course, I can mention it to him; but what is your reason precisely for wishing to obtain the appointment?"

The high figure of the salary made him reflect that on that side Stepan Arkadyevich's proposed position ran

counter to the main tendency of his own projects of reform, which always leaned toward economy.

"I consider, and I have embodied my views in a note on the subject, that in our day these immense salaries

"But what's to be done?" said Stepan Arkadyevich. "Suppose a bank director gets ten thousand well, he's

worth it; or an engineer gets twenty thousand after all, it's a growing thing, you know!"

"I assume that a salary is the price paid for a commodity, and it ought to conform with the law of supply and

demand. If the salary is fixed without any regard for that law, as, for instance, when I see two engineers

leaving college together, both equally well trained and efficient, and one getting forty thousand while the

other is satisfied with two; or when I see lawyers and hussars, having no special qualifications, appointed

directors of banking companies with immense salaries, I conclude that the salary is not fixed in accordance

with the law of supply and demand, but simply through personal interest. And this is an abuse of great gravity

in itself, and one that reacts injuriously on the government service. I consider..."

"Yes; but you must agree that the new institution being started is of undoubted utility. After all, you know,

it's a growing thing! What they lay particular stress on is the thing being carried on honestly," said Stepan

But the Moscow significance of the word honest was lost on Alexei Alexandrovich.

"Well, you'll do me a great service, anyway," said Stepan Arkadyevich, "by putting in a word to Pomorsky

"Bolgarinov has fully assented, as far as he's concerned," said Stepan Arkadyevich, turning red. Stepan

Arkadyevich reddened at the mention of that name, because he had been that morning at the Jew

Stepan Arkadyevich believed most positively that the committee in which he was trying to get an

appointment was a new, genuine, and honest public body, but that morning when Bolgarinov had

intentionally, beyond a doubt kept him two hours waiting with other petitioners in his waiting room, he had

Whether he was uncomfortable because he, a descendant of Rurik, Prince Oblonsky, had been kept for two

hours waiting to see a Jew, or that for the first time in his fife he was not following the example of his

ancestors in serving the government, but was turning off into a new career at any rate he was very

uncomfortable. During those two hours in Bolgarinov's waiting room Stepan Arkadyevich, stepping jauntily

about the room, pulling his side whiskers, entering into conversation with the other petitioners, and inventing

a calembour dealing with his wait in the Jew's anteroom, assiduously concealed from others, and even from

But all the time he was uncomfortable and perturbed, he could not have said why whether because he could

not get his calembour just right, or from some other reason. When at last Bolgarinov had received him with

exaggerated politeness and unmistakable triumph at his humiliation, and had all but refused the favor asked

of him, Stepan Arkadyevich had made haste to forget it all as soon as possible. And now, at the mere

"Now there is something I want to talk about, and you know what it is... about Anna," Stepan Arkadyevich

As soon as Oblonsky uttered Anna's name, the face of Alexei Alexandrovich became completely

"What is it exactly that you want from me?" he said, moving in his chair and snapping his pincenez.

"A definite settlement, Alexei Alexandrovich some settlement of the situation. I'm appealing to you" ("not

as to an injured husband," Stepan Arkadyevich was going to say, but, afraid of wrecking his negotiation by

this, he changed the words) "not as to a statesman" (which did not sound apropos), "but simply as to a man,

"Yes, pity on her. If you had seen her as I have! I have been spending all the winter with her you would

"I had imagined," answered Alexei Alexandrovich in a higher, almost shrill voice, "that Anna Arkadyevna

"Oh, Alexei Alexandrovich, for God's sake, let's not indulge in recriminations! What is past is past, and you

"But I believe Anna Arkadyevna refuses a divorce, if I make it a condition to leave me my son. I replied in

that sense, and supposed that the matter was ended. I consider it at an end," shrieked Alexei Alexandrovich.

"But, for heaven's sake, don't get excited!" said Stepan Arkadyevich, touching his brotherinlaw's knee.

"The matter is not ended. If you will allow me to recapitulate, it was like this: when you parted, you were as

magnanimous as could possibly be; you were ready to give her everything freedom, even divorce. She

appreciated that. No, make no doubt. She did appreciate it to such a degree that, at the first moment, feeling

how she had wronged you, she did not consider and could not consider everything. She gave up everything.

"The life of Anna Arkadyevna can have no interest for me," Alexei Alexandrovich put in, raising his

"Allow me to disbelieve that," Stepan Arkadyevich replied gently. "Her position is intolerable for her, and of

no benefit to anyone whatever. She has deserved it, you will say. She knows that and asks you for nothing;

she says plainly that she dare not ask you. But I, all of us her relatives, all who love her beg you, entreat

"Excuse me, you seem to put me in the position of the guilty party," observed Alexei Alexandrovich.

"Oh, no, oh, no, not at all! Please understand me," said Stepan Arkadyevich again touching him this time his

hand as though feeling sure this physical contact would soften his brotherinlaw. "All I say is this: her

position is intolerable, and it might be alleviated by you, and you will lose nothing by it. I will arrange it all

"The promise was given before. And I had supposed that the question of my son had settled the matter.

Besides, I hoped that Anna Arkadyevna had enough magnanimity..." Alexei Alexandrovich articulated with

"She leaves it all to your magnanimity. She begs, she implores one thing of you to extricate her from the

impossible position in which she is placed. She does not ask for her son now. Alexei Alexandrovich, you are

a good man. Put yourself in her position for a minute. The question of divorce for her in her position is a

question of life and death. If you had not promised it once, she would have reconciled herself to her position,

she would have gone on living in the country. But you promised it, and she wrote to you, and moved to

Moscow. And here she's been for six months in Moscow, where every chance meeting cuts her to the heart,

every day expecting an answer. Why, it's like keeping a condemned criminal for six months with the rope

round his neck, promising him perhaps death, perhaps mercy. Have pity on her, and I will undertake to

"I am not talking about that, about that..." Alexei Alexandrovich interrupted with disgust. "But, perhaps, I

"I have never refused to do all that is possible, but I want time to consider how much of what I promised is

"No, Alexei Alexandrovich!" cried Oblonsky, jumping up. "I won't believe that! She's unhappy as only a

"As much of what I promised as is possible. Vous professez d'etre libre penseur. But I, as a believer, cannot,

"But in Christian societies and among us, as far as I'm aware, divorce is allowed," said Stepan Arkadyevich.

"Alexei Alexandrovich, you are not like yourself," said Oblonsky, after a brief pause. "Wasn't it you (and

didn't we all appreciate it in you?) who forgave everything, and, moved simply by Christian feeling, were

ready to make any sacrifice? You said yourself: if a man take thy cloak, give him thy coat also, and now..."

"I beg," said Alexei Alexandrovich shrilly, getting suddenly onto his feet, his face white and his jaws

"Oh, no! Oh, forgive me, forgive me if I have wounded you," said Stepan Arkadyevich, holding out his hand

with a smile of embarrassment; "but like a messenger I have simply performed the commission given me."

"I must think it over and seek for guidance. The day after tomorrow I will give you a final answer," he said,

"Who's Sergei Alexeevich?" Stepan Arkadyevich was about to ask, but he remembered immediately.

"Ah, Seriozha!" he said aloud. "'Sergei Alexeevich!' I thought it was the director of some department.

And he recalled the timid, piteous expression with which Anna had said to him at parting: "Anyway, you will

see him. Find out exactly where he is, who is looking after him. And Stiva... If it were possible! Could it be

possible?" Stepan Arkadyevich knew what was meant by that "if it were possible," if it were possible to

arrange the divorce so as to let her have her son.... Stepan Arkadyevich saw now that it was useless to dream

Alexei Alexandrovich reminded his brotherinlaw that they never spoke to the boy of his mother, and he

"He was very ill after that interview with his mother, which we had not foreseen," said Alexei Alexandrovich.

"Indeed, we feared for his life. But with rational treatment, and sea bathing in the summer, he regained his

strength, and now, by the doctor's advice, I have let him go to school. And certainly the companionship at

school has had a good effect on him, and he is perfectly well, and making good progress."

"What a fine fellow he's grown! And he's no longer Seriozha, but quite fullfledged Sergei Alexeevich!"

said Stepan Arkadyevich, smiling, as he looked at the handsome, broadshouldered lad in blue jacket and

long trousers, who walked in alertly and confidently. The boy looked healthy and goodhumored. He bowed

to his uncle as to a stranger, but, recognizing him, he blushed and turned hurriedly away from him, as though

offended and irritated at something. The boy went up to his father and handed him a note of the marks he had

"He's thinner and taller, and has grown from a child into a boy; I like that," said Stepan Arkadyevich. "Do

"Yes, mon oncle," he answered, glancing at his father, and again he looked downcast.

"Well, and how are you getting on?" he said, wanting to talk to him, and not knowing what to say.

The boy, blushing and making no answer, cautiously drew his hand away. As soon as Stepan Arkadyevich let

go his hand, he glanced doubtfully at his father, and, like a bird set free, he darted out of the room.

A year had passed since the last time Seriozha had seen his mother. Since then he had heard nothing more of

her. And in the course of that year he had gone to school, and made friends among his schoolfellows. The

dreams and memories of his mother, which had made him ill after seeing her, did not occupy his thoughts

now. When they came back to him, he studiously drove them away, regarding them as shameful and girlish,

below the dignity of a boy and a schoolboy. He knew that his father and mother were separated by some

quarrel, he knew that he had to remain with his father, and he tried to get used to that idea.

He disliked seeing his uncle, so like his mother, for it called up those memories which he was ashamed of. He

disliked it all the more as, from certain words he had caught as he waited at the study door, and still more

from the faces of his father and uncle, he had guessed that they must have been talking of his mother. And to

avoid condemning the father with whom he lived and on whom he was dependent, and, above all, to avoid

giving way to sentimentality, which he considered so degrading, Seriozha tried not to look at his uncle, who

had come to disturb his peace of mind, and not to think of what he recalled to him.

But when Stepan Arkadyevich, going out after him, saw him on the stairs, and, calling to him, asked him how

he spent his playtime at school, Seriozha talked more freely to him away from his father's presence.

"We have a railway now," he said in answer to his uncle's question. "It's like this, you see: two sit on a

bench they're the passengers; and one stands up straight on the bench. And all are harnessed to it by their

arms or by their belts, and they run through all the rooms the doors are left open beforehand. Well, and it's

"Yes, you want pluck for it, and cleverness too, especially when they stop all of a sudden, or someone falls

"Yes, that must be a serious matter," said Stepan Arkadyevich, watching with mournful interest the eager

eyes, like his mother's; not childish now no longer fully innocent. And though he had promised Alexei

"No, I don't," Seriozha said quickly. He blushed crimson, his eyes drooping. And his uncle could get nothing

His Slavic tutor found his pupil on the staircase half an hour later, and for a long while he could not make out

"What is it? I expect you hurt yourself when you fell down?" said the tutor. "I told you it was a dangerous

"Leave me alone! If I remember, or if I don't remember?... What business is it of his? Why should I

remember? Leave me in peace!" he said, addressing not his tutor, but the whole world.

Stepan Arkadyevich, as usual, did not waste his time in Peterburg. In Peterburg, besides business, his sister's

divorce, and his coveted appointment, he wanted, as he always did, to freshen himself up, as he said, after the

In spite of its cafes chantants and its omnibuses, Moscow was yet a stagnant bog. Stepan Arkadyevich always

felt it. After living for some time in Moscow, especially in close relations with his family, he was conscious

of a depression of spirits. After being a long time in Moscow without a change, he reached a point when he

positively began to be worrying himself over his wife's illhumor and reproaches, over his children's health

and education, and the petty details of his official work; even the fact of being in debt worried him. But he

had only to go and stay a little while in Peterburg, in the circle in which he moved there, where people lived

really lived instead of vegetating as in Moscow, and all such ideas vanished and melted away at once, like

A wife?... Only that day he had been talking to Prince Chechensky. Prince Chechensky had a wife and

family, grownup children in the Corps of Pages.... And he had another illegitimate family of children also.

Though the first family was very fine too, Prince Chechensky felt happier in his second family; and he used

to take his eldest son with him to his second family, and told Stepan Arkadyevich that he thought it good for

Children?... In Peterburg children did not prevent their parents from enjoying life. The children were brought

up in schools, and there was no trace of the wild idea that prevailed in Moscow, in Lvov's household, for

instance, that all the luxuries of life were for the children, while the parents have nothing but work and

anxiety. Here people understood that a man is in duty bound to live for himself, as every man of culture

Official duties?... Official work here was not the stiff, hopeless drudgery that it was in Moscow. Here there

was some interest in official life. A chance meeting, a service rendered, a happy phrase, a knack of facetious

mimicry, and a man's career might be made in a trice. So it had been with Briantsev, whom Stepan

Arkadyevich had met the previous day, and who was one of the highest functionaries in government now.

The Peterburg attitude on pecuniary matters had an especially soothing effect on Stepan Arkadyevich.

Bartniansky, who must spend at least fifty thousand to judge by the style he lived in, had made a remarkable

"You're friendly, I fancy, with Mordvinsky; you might do me a favor: say a word to him, please, for me.

"Oh, I shan't remember all that, if you tell it to me.... But what possesses you to have to do with railways and

Stepan Arkadyevich did not say to Bartniansky that it was a "growing thing" Bartniansky would not have

"Oh, lucky fellow!" said he. "My debts mount up to a million and a half, and I've nothing, and still I can live,

And Stepan Arkadyevich saw the correctness of this view not in words only but in actual fact. Zhivakhov

owed three hundred thousand, and hadn't a copper to bless himself with, and he lived, and in style too! Count

Krivtsov was considered a hopeless case by everyone, and yet he kept two mistresses. Petrovsky had run

through five millions, and still lived in just the same style, and was even a manager in the financial

department with a salary of twenty thousand. But besides this, Peterburg had physically an agreeable effect

on Stepan Arkadyevich. It made him younger. In Moscow he sometimes found a gray hair in his head,

dropped asleep after dinner, stretched, walked slowly upstairs, breathing heavily, was bored by the society of

young women, and did not dance at balls. In Peterburg he always felt ten years younger.

His experience in Peterburg was exactly what had been described to him on the previous day by Prince Piotr

"We don't know how to live here," said Piotr Oblonsky. "I spent the summer in Baden, and you wouldn't

believe it, I felt quite a young man. At a glimpse of a pretty woman, my thoughts... One dines and drinks a

glass of wine, and feels strong and ready for anything. I came home to Russia had to see my wife, and,

what's more, go to my country place; and there, you'd hardly believe it, in a fortnight I'd got into a dressing

gown and given up dressing for dinner. Needn't say I had no thoughts left for pretty women. I became quite

an old gentleman. There was nothing left for me but to think of my eternal salvation. I went off to Paris I

Stepan Arkadyevich felt exactly the difference that Piotr Oblonsky described. In Moscow he degenerated so

much that if he had had to be there for long together, he might in good earnest have come to considering his

Between Princess Betsy Tverskaia and Stepan Arkadyevich there had long existed rather curious relations.

Stepan Arkadyevich always flirted with her in jest, and used to say to her, also in jest, the most unseemly

things, knowing that nothing delighted her so much. The day after his conversation with Karenin, Stepan

Arkadyevich went to see her, and felt so youthful that in this jesting flirtation and nonsense he recklessly

went so far that he did not know how to extricate himself, as unluckily he was so far from being attracted by

her that he thought her positively disagreeable. What made it hard to change the conversation was the fact

that he was very attractive to her. So that he was considerably relieved at the arrival of Princess Miaghkaia,

"Ah, so you're here!" said she when she saw him. "Well, and what news of your poor sister? You needn't look

at me like that," she added. "Ever since they've all turned against her, all those who're a thousand times worse

than she, I've thought she did a very fine thing. I can't forgive Vronsky for not letting me know when she was

in Peterburg. I'd have gone to see her and gone about with her everywhere. Please give her my love. Come,

"Yes, her position is very difficult; she..." began Stepan Arkadyevich, in the simplicity of his heart accepting

as sterling coin Princess Miaghkaia's words: "Tell me about her." Princess Miaghkaia interrupted him

"She's done what they all do, except me only the others hide it. But she wouldn't be deceitful, and she did a

fine thing. And she did better still in throwing up that crazy brotherinlaw of yours. You must excuse me.

Everybody used to say he was so clever, so very clever; I was the only one that said he was a fool. Now that

he's so thick with Lidia Ivanovna and Landau, they all say he's crazy, and I should prefer not to agree with

"Oh, do please explain," said Stepan Arkadyevich; "what does it mean? Yesterday I was seeing him on my

sister's behalf, and I asked him to give me a final answer. He gave me no answer, and said he would think it

over. But this morning, instead of an answer, I received an invitation from Countess Lidia Ivanovna for this

"Ah, so that's it, that's it!" said Princess Miaghkaia gleefully, "they're going to ask Landau what he's to say."

"What! you don't know Jules Landau, le fameux Jules Landau, le clairvoyant? He's crazy too, but on him

your sister's fate depends. See what comes of living in the provinces you know nothing about anything.

Landau, do you see, was a commis in a shop in Paris, and he went to a doctor's; and in the doctor's waiting

room he fell asleep, and in his sleep he began giving advice to all the patients. And wonderful advice it was!

Then the wife of Iury Meledinsky you know, the invalid? heard of this Landau, and had him to see her

husband. And he cures her husband, though I can't say that I see he did him much good, for he's just as feeble

a creature as ever he was, but they believed in him, and took him along with them, and brought him to

Russia. Here there's been a general rush to him, and he's begun doctoring everyone. He cured Countess

"Yes, as her son. He's not Landau any more now, but Count Bezzubov. That's neither here nor there, though;

but Lidia I'm very fond of her, but she has a screw loose somewhere has lost her heart to this Landau now,

and nothing is settled now in her house or Alexei Alexandrovich's without him, and so your sister's fate is

After a capital dinner and a great deal of cognac drunk at Bartniansky's, Stepan Arkadyevich, only a little

"Who else is with the countess? A Frenchman?" Stepan Arkadyevich asked the hall porter, as he glanced at

the familiar overcoat of Alexei Alexandrovich and a queer, rather naivelooking overcoat with clasps.

"Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin and Count Bezzubov," the porter answered austerely.

"Princess Miaghkaia guessed right," thought Stepan Arkadyevich, as he went upstairs. "Curious! It would be

quite as well, though, to get on friendly terms with her. She has immense influence. If she would say a word

It was still quite light outofdoors, but in Countess Lidia Ivanovna's little drawing room the blinds were

At a round table under a lamp sat the Countess and Alexei Alexandrovich, talking softly. A short, thinnish

man, very pale and handsome, with feminine hips and knockkneed legs, with fine brilliant eyes and long

hair lying on the collar of his coat, was standing at the other end of the room gazing at the portraits on the

wall. After greeting the lady of the house and Alexei Alexandrovich, Stepan Arkadyevich could not resist

"Monsieur Landau!" the Countess addressed him with a suavity and circumspection that impressed Oblonsky.

Landau looked round hurriedly, came up, and, smiling, laid his moist, lifeless hand in Stepan Arkadyevich's

outstretched hand and immediately walked away, and fell to gazing at the portraits again. The Countess and

"I am very glad to see you, particularly today," said Countess Lidia Ivanovna, pointing out to Stepan

"I introduced you to him as Landau," she said in a soft voice, glancing at the Frenchman and again

immediately after at Alexei Alexandrovich, "but he is really Count Bezzubov, as you're probably aware. Only

"Yes, I heard so," answered Stepan Arkadyevich; "they say he completely cured Countess Bezzubova."

"She was here today, poor thing!" the Countess said, turning to Alexei Alexandrovich. "This separation is

"Yes, he's going to Paris. He heard a voice yesterday," said Countess Lidia Ivanovna, looking at Stepan

"Ah, a voice!" repeated Oblonsky, feeling that he must be as circumspect as he possibly could in this society,

where something peculiar was happening, or was about to happen, to which he had not the key.

A moment's silence followed, after which Countess Lidia Ivanovna, as though approaching the main topic of

"I've known you for a long while, and am very glad to make a closer acquaintance with you. Les amis de nos

amis sont nos amis. But to be a true friend, one must enter into the spiritual state of one's friend, and I fear

that you are not doing so in the case of Alexei Alexandrovich. You understand what I mean?" she said, lifting

"In part, Countess, I understand the position of Alexei Alexandrovich..." said Oblonsky. Having no clear idea

"The change is not in his external position," Countess Lidia Ivanovna said sternly, following with eyes of

love the figure of Alexei Alexandrovich as he got up and crossed over to Landau; "his heart is changed, a

new heart has been vouchsafed him, and I fear you don't fully apprehend the change that has taken place in

"Oh, well, in general outlines I can conceive the change. We have always been friendly, and now..." said

Stepan Arkadyevich, responding with a sympathetic glance to the expression of the Countess, and mentally

balancing the question with which of the two ministers she was more intimate, so as to know which to have

"The change that has taken place in him cannot lessen his love for his neighbors; on the contrary, that change

can only intensify love in his heart. But I am afraid you do not understand me. Won't you have some tea?"

she said, with her eyes indicating the footman, who was handing round tea on a tray.

"Yes, a misfortune which has proved the highest happiness, when his heart was made new, was filled to the

"I do believe I might ask her to speak to both of them," thought Stepan Arkadyevich.

"Oh, of course, Countess," he said; "but I imagine such changes are a matter so private that no one, even the

"Yes, undoubtedly so, but there is such a difference of convictions, and besides..." said Oblonsky with a soft

"Oh, no, of course; but..." and Stepan Arkadyevich paused in confusion. He understood at last that they were

"I fancy he will go into a trance immediately," said Alexei Alexandrovich in a whisper full of meaning, going

Stepan Arkadyevich looked round. Landau was sitting at the window, leaning on his elbow and the back of

his chair, his head drooping. Noticing that all eyes were turned on him, he raised his head and smiled a smile

"Don't take any notice," said Lidia Ivanovna, and she lightly moved a chair up for Alexei Alexandrovich. "I

have observed..." she was beginning, when a footman came into the room with a letter. Lidia Ivanovna

rapidly ran her eyes over the note, and, excusing herself, wrote an answer with extraordinary rapidity, handed

it to the man, and came back to the table. "I have observed," she went on, "that Moscow people, especially

"Oh, no, Countess, I thought Moscow people had the reputation of being the firmest in the faith," answered

"But as far as I can make out, you are unfortunately one of the indifferent ones," said Alexei Alexandrovich,

"I am not so much indifferent on that subject as I am waiting in suspense," said Stepan Arkadyevich, with his

most deprecating smile. "I hardly think that the time for such questions has come yet for me."

"We can never tell whether the time has come for us or not," said Alexei Alexandrovich sternly. "We ought

not to think whether we are ready or not ready. God's grace is not guided by human considerations:

sometimes it comes not to those who strive for it, and comes to those who are unprepared, like Saul."

"No, I believe it won't be just yet," said Lidia Ivanovna, who had been meanwhile watching the movements

"Oh, yes; I did not want to disturb you," said Lidia Ivanovna, gazing tenderly at him; "sit here with us."

"One has only not to close one's eyes to shut out the light," Alexei Alexandrovich went on.

"Ah, if you knew the happiness we know, feeling His presence ever in our hearts!" said Countess Lidia

"But a man may feel himself inapt sometimes to rise to that height," said Stepan Arkadyevich, conscious of

hypocrisy in admitting this religious height, but at the same time unable to bring himself to acknowledge his

freethinking views before a person who, by a single word to Pomorsky, might procure him the coveted

"That is, you mean that sin keeps him back?" said Lidia Ivanovna. "But that is a false idea. There is no sin for

believers, their sin has been atoned for. Pardon," she added, looking at the footman, who came in again with

another letter. She read it and gave a verbal answer: "Tomorrow at the Grand Duchess's, say. For the

"Yes, but faith without works is dead," said Stepan Arkadyevich, recalling the phrase from the catechism, and

"There you have it from the epistle of St. James," said Alexei Alexandrovich, addressing Lidia Ivanovna,

with a certain reproachfulness in his tone. It was unmistakably a subject they had discussed more than once

before. "What harm has been done by the false interpretation of that passage! Nothing holds men back from

belief like that misinterpretation. 'I have not works, so I cannot believe,' though all the while that's not what is

"Striving for God, saving the soul by fasting," said Countess Lidia Ivanovna, with disgusted contempt, "those

are the crude ideas of our monks.... Yet that is nowhere said. It is far simpler and easier," she added, looking

at Oblonsky with the same encouraging smile with which at Court she encouraged youthful maids of honor,

"We are saved by Christ who suffered for us. We are saved by faith," Alexei Alexandrovich chimed in, with a

"Vous comprenez l'anglais?" asked Lidia Ivanovna, and receiving a reply in the affirmative, she got up and

"I want to read him Safe and Happy, or Under the Wing," she said, looking inquiringly at Karenin. And

finding the book, and sitting down again in her place, she opened it. "It's very short. In it is described the way

by which faith can be reached, and the happiness, above all earthly bliss, with which it fills the soul. The

believer cannot be unhappy because he is not alone. But you will see." She was just settling herself to read

when the footman came in again. "Madame Borozdina? Tell her tomorrow, at two o'clock. Yes," she said,

marking the place in the book by inserting a finger, and gazing before her with her fine pensive eyes, "that is

how true faith acts. You know Marie Sanina? You know about her trouble? She lost her only child. She was

in despair. And what happened? She found this comforter, and she thanks God now for the death of her child.

"Oh, yes, that is most..." said Stepan Arkadyevich, glad they were going to read, and let him have a chance to

collect his faculties. "No, I see I'd better not ask her about anything today," he thought. "If only I can get out

"It will be dull for you," said Countess Lidia Ivanovna, addressing Landau; "you don't know English but it's

"Oh, I shall understand," said Landau, with the same smile, and he closed his eyes.

Alexei Alexandrovich and Lidia Ivanovna exchanged meaning glances, and the reading began.

Stepan Arkadyevich felt completely nonplused by the strange talk which he was hearing for the first time.

The complexity of Peterburg, as a rule, had a stimulating effect on him, rousing him out of his Moscow

stagnation. But he liked these complications, and understood them only in the circles he knew and was at

home in. In these unfamiliar surroundings he was puzzled and disconcerted, and could not get his bearings.

As he listened to Countess Lidia Ivanovna, aware of the beautiful, naive or perhaps knavish, he could not

decide which eyes of Landau fixed upon him, Stepan Arkadyevich began to be conscious of a peculiar

The most incongruous ideas were in confusion in his head. "Marie Sanina is glad her child's dead.... How

good a smoke would be now!... To be saved, one need only believe, and the monks don't know how the

thing's to be done, but Countess Lidia Ivanovna does know.... And why is my head so heavy? Is it the cognac,

or the fact of all this being so very queer? Anyway, I fancy I've done nothing unseemly so far. But, anyway, it

won't do to ask her now. They say they make one pray. I only hope they won't make me! That'll be too

imbecile. And what stuff it is she's reading! But she has a good accent. Landau Bezzubov what's he

Bezzubov for?" All at once Stepan Arkadyevich became aware that his lower jaw was uncontrollably forming

a yawn. He pulled his whiskers to cover the yawn, and shook himself together. But soon after he became

aware that he was dropping asleep and on the very point of snoring. He recovered himself at the very moment

Stepan Arkadyevich started with dismay, feeling guilty and caught. But he was reassured at once by seeing

that the words "he's asleep" asleep referred not to him, but to Landau. The Frenchman had fallen asleep as

well as Stepan Arkadyevich. But Stepan Arkadyevich's being asleep would have offended them, as he

thought (though even this, he thought, might not be so, as everything seemed so queer), while Landau's being

"Mon ami," said Lidia Ivanovna, carefully holding the folds of her silk gown so as not to rustle, and in her

excitement calling Karenin not Alexei Alexandrovich, but mon ami, "donnezlui la main. Vous voyez? Sh!"

The Frenchman was asleep, or pretending to be asleep, with his head on the back of his chair, and his moist

hand, as it lay on his knee, made faint movements, as though trying to catch something. Alexei

Alexandrovich got up, tried to move carefully, but stumbled against the table, drew up, and laid his hand in

the Frenchman's hand. Stepan Arkadyevich got up too, and opening his eyes wide, trying to wake himself up

if he was asleep, he looked first at one and then at the other. It was all real. Stepan Arkadyevich felt that his

"Que la personne qui est arrivee la derniere, celle qui demande, qu'elle sorte! Qu'elle sorte!" articulated the

"Vous m'excuserez, mais vous voyez... Revenez vers dix heures, encore mieux demain."

"C'est moi, n'estce pas?" And receiving an answer in the affirmative, Stepan Arkadyevich, forgetting the

favor he had meant to ask of Lidia Ivanovna, and forgetting his sister's affairs, caring for nothing, but filled

with the sole desire to escape as soon as possible, went out on tiptoe and ran out into the street as though

from a plaguestricken house. For a long while he chatted and joked with his driver, trying to recover his

At the French theater where he arrived for the last act, and afterward at the Tatar restaurant after his

champagne, Stepan Arkadyevich felt a little refreshed in the atmosphere he was used to. But still he felt quite

On getting home to Piotr Oblonsky's, where he was staying, Stepan Arkadyevich found a note from Betsy.

She wrote to him that she was very anxious to finish their interrupted conversation, and begged him to come

the next day. He had scarcely read this note, and frowned at its contents, when he heard below the ponderous

Stepan Arkadyevich went out to look. It was the rejuvenated Piotr Oblonsky. He was so drunk that he could

not walk upstairs; but he told them to set him on his legs when he saw Stepan Arkadyevich, and, clinging to

him, walked with him into his room, and there began telling him how he had spent the evening, and fell

Stepan Arkadyevich was in very low spirits, which happened rarely with him, and for a long while he could

not go to sleep. Everything he could recall to his mind, everything was disgusting; but, most disgusting of all,

as if it were something shameful, was the memory of the evening he had spent at Countess Lidia Ivanovna's.

Next day he received from Alexei Alexandrovich a final answer, refusing to grant Anna's divorce, and he

understood that his decision was based on what the Frenchman had said in his real or pretended trance.

In order to carry through any undertaking in family life, there must necessarily be either complete dissension

between the husband and wife, or loving agreement. When the relations of a couple are vacillating and

Many families remain for years in the same place, though both husband and wife are sick of it, simply

Both Vronsky and Anna felt life in Moscow insupportable in the heat and dust, when the spring sunshine was

followed by the glare of summer, and all the trees in the boulevards had long since been in full leaf, and the

leaves were covered with dust. But they did not go back to Vozdvizhenskoe, as they had arranged to do long

before; they went staying on in Moscow, though they both loathed it, because of late there had been no

The irritability that kept them apart had no external cause, and all efforts to come to an understanding

intensified it, instead of removing it. It was an inner irritation, grounded in her mind on the conviction that his

love had grown less; in his, on regret that he had put himself for her sake in a difficult position, which she,

instead of lightening, made still more difficult. Neither of them gave full utterance to his or her sense of

grievance, but they considered each other in the wrong, and tried on every pretext to prove this to one

In her eyes the whole of him, with all his habits, ideas, desires, with all his spiritual and physical

temperament, was one thing love for women, and that love, as she felt, ought to be entirely concentrated on

her alone. That love was less; consequently, as she reasoned, he must have transferred part of his love to

other women or to another woman and she was jealous. She was jealous not of any particular woman but of

the decrease of his love. Not having found an object for her jealousy, she was on the lookout for it. At the

slightest hint she transferred her jealousy from one object to another. At one time she was jealous of those

low women with whom he might so easily renew his old bachelor ties; then she was jealous of the society

women he might meet; then she was jealous of the imaginary girl whom he might want to marry, for whose

sake he would break with her. And this last form of jealousy tortured her most of all, especially as he had

unwarily told her, in a moment of frankness, that his mother knew him so little that she had had audacity to

And being jealous of him, Anna was indignant against him and found grounds for indignation in everything.

For everything that was difficult in her position she blamed him. The agonizing condition of suspense she had

passed at Moscow, the tardiness and indecision of Alexei Alexandrovich, her solitude she put it all down to

him. If he had loved her he would have seen all the bitterness of her position, and would have rescued her

from it. For her being in Moscow and not in the country, he was to blame too. He could not live buried in the

country as she would have liked to do. He must have society, and he had put her in this awful position, the

bitterness of which he would not see. And again, it was his fault that she was forever separated from her son.

Even the rare moments of tenderness that came from time to time did not soothe her; in his tenderness now

she saw a shade of complacency, of selfconfidence, which had not been of old and which exasperated her.

It was already dusk. Anna was alone, and waiting for him to come back from a bachelor dinner. She walked

up and down in his study (the room where the noise from the street was least heard), and thought over every

detail of their yesterday's quarrel. Going back from the wellremembered, offensive words of the quarrel to

what had been the ground of it, she arrived at last at its origin. For a long while she could hardly believe that

their dissension had arisen from a conversation so inoffensive, of so little moment to either. But so it actually

had been. It all arose from his laughing at the girls' high schools, declaring they were useless, while she

defended them. He had spoken slightingly of women's education in general, and had said that Hannah, Anna's

This had irritated Anna. She saw in this a contemptuous reference to her occupations. And she had bethought

her of a phrase to pay him back for the pain he had inflicted upon her, and had uttered it.

"I don't expect you to understand me, my feelings, as anyone who loved me might, but simple delicacy I did

And he had actually flushed with vexation, and had said something unpleasant. She could not recall her

answer, but at that point, with an unmistakable desire to wound her too, he had said:

"I feel no interest in your infatuation over this girl, that's true, because I see it's unnatural."

The cruelty with which he shattered the world she had built up for herself so laboriously to enable her to

endure her hard life, the injustice with which he had accused her of affectation, of artificiality, aroused her.

"I am very sorry that nothing but the coarse and material is comprehensible and natural to you," she had said,

When he had come in to her yesterday evening, they had not referred to the quarrel; both felt that the quarrel

Today he had not been at home all day, and she felt so lonely and wretched in being on bad terms with him

that she wanted to forget it all, to forgive him, and be reconciled with him; she wanted to throw the blame on

"I am myself to blame. I'm irritable, I'm insanely jealous. I will make it up with him, and we'll go away to the

"Unnatural!" She suddenly recalled the word that had stung her most of all, not so much the word itself as the

intent to wound her with which it was said. "I know what he meant; he meant unnatural, not loving my own

daughter to love another person's child. What does he know of love for children, of my love for Seriozha,

whom I've sacrificed for him? But that wish to wound me! No, he loves another woman, it can't be

And perceiving that, while trying to regain her peace of mind, she had gone round the same circle that she

had been round so often before, and had come back to her former state of exasperation, she was horrified at

herself. "Can it be impossible? Can I really take the blame on myself?" she said to herself, and began again

from the beginning. "He's truthful, he's honest, he loves me. I love him, and in a few days the divorce will

come. What more do I want? I want peace of mind and trust, and I will take the blame on myself. Yes, now

when he comes in, I will tell him I was wrong, though I was not wrong, and we will go away."

And to escape thinking any more, and being overcome by irritability, she rang and ordered the boxes to be

"Well, was it amusing?" she asked, coming out to meet him with a penitent and meek expression.

"Just as usual," he answered, seeing at a glance that she was in one of her good moods. He was used by now

to these transitions, and he was particularly glad to see it today, as he was in a specially good humor himself.

"What do I see? Come, that's good!" he said, pointing to the boxes in the passage.

"Yes, we must go. I went out for a drive, and it was so fine I longed to be in the country. There's nothing to

"It's the one thing I desire. I'll be back directly, and we'll talk it over; I only want to change my coat. Order

There was something mortifying in the way he had said "Come, that's good," as one says to a child when it

leaves off being naughty, and still more mortifying was the contrast between her penitent and his

selfconfident tone; and for one instant she felt the lust of strife rising up in her again, but making an effort

When he came in she told him, partly repeating phrases she had prepared beforehand, how she had spent the

"You know, it came to me almost like an inspiration," she said. "Why wait here for the divorce? Won't it be

just the same in the country? I can't wait any longer! I don't want to go on hoping, I don't want to hear

anything about the divorce. I have made up my mind it shall not have any more influence on my life. Do you

Vronsky mentioned the names of the guests. "The dinner was firstrate, and the boat race, and it was all

pleasant enough, but in Moscow they can never do anything without something ridicule. A lady of a sort

appeared on the scene, teacher of swimming to the Queen of Sweden, and gave us an exhibition of her skill."

"In an absurd red costume de natation; she was old and hideous too. So when shall we go?"

"What an absurd fancy! Why, did she swim in some special way, then?" said Anna, not answering.

"There was absolutely nothing in it. That's just what I say it was awfully stupid. Well, then, when do you

"When? Why, the sooner the better! By tomorrow we shan't be ready. The day after tomorrow."

"Yes.... Oh, no, wait a minute! The day after tomorrow's Sunday I have to be at maman's," said Vronsky,

embarrassed, because as soon as he uttered his mother's name he was aware of her intent, suspicious eyes.

His embarrassment confirmed her suspicion. She flushed hotly and drew away from him. It was now not the

Queen of Sweden's swimming mistress who filled Anna's imagination, but the young Princess Sorokina. She

"Well, no! The deeds and the money for the business I'm going there for I can't get by tomorrow," he

"What for?" said Vronsky, as though in amazement. "Why, there's no meaning in it!"

"There's no meaning in it to you, because you care nothing for me. You don't care to understand my life. The

one thing that I cared for here was Hannah. You say it's affectation. Why, you said yesterday that I don't love

my daughter, that I love this English girl, that it's unnatural. I should like to know what life there is for me

For an instant she had a clear vision of what she was doing, and was horrified at how she had fallen away

from her resolution. But even though she knew it was her own ruin, she could not restrain herself, could not

"How is it, though you boast of your straightforwardness, you don't tell the truth?"

"I never boast, and I never tell lies," he said slowly, restraining his rising anger. "It's a great pity if you can't

"Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be.... And if you don't love me any more,

"No, this is becoming unbearable!" cried Vronsky, getting up from his chair; and stopping short, facing her,

"What do you try my patience for?" looking as though he might have said much more, but was restraining

"What do you mean by that?" she cried, looking with terror at the undisguised hatred in his whole face, and

"I mean to say..." he was beginning, but he checked himself. "I must ask what it is you want of me?"

"What I can want? All I can want is that you should not desert me, as you think of doing," she said,

understanding all he had not uttered. "But that I don't want; that's secondary. I want love, and there is none.

"Stop! stoop!" said Vronsky, with no change in the gloomy lines of his brows, though he held her by the

hand. "What is it all about? I said that we must put off going for three days, and on that you told me I was

"Yes, and I repeat that the man who reproaches me with having sacrificed everything for me," she said,

recalling the words of a still earlier quarrel, "is worse than a dishonorable man he's a heartless man."

"He hates me, that's clear," she thought, and in silence, without looking round, she walked with faltering steps

out of the room. "He loves another woman, that's even clearer," she said to herself as she went into her own

room. "I want love, and there is none. So, then, all is at an end," she repeated the words she had said, "and it

"But how?" she asked herself, and she sat down in a low chair before the looking glass.

Thoughts of where she would go now, whether to the aunt who had brought her up, to Dolly, or simply alone,

abroad, and of what he was doing now alone in his study; whether this was the final quarrel, or whether

reconciliation were still possible; and of what all her old friends at Peterburg would say of her now; and of

how Alexei Alexandrovich would look at it, and many other ideas of what would happen now after the

rupture, came into her head; but she did not give herself up to them with all her heart. At the bottom of her

heart was some obscure idea that alone interested her, but she could not get clear sight of it. Thinking once

more of Alexei Alexandrovich, she recalled the time of her illness after her confinement, and the feeling

which never left her at that time. "Why didn't I die?" she recalled the words and the feeling of that time. And

all at once she knew what was in her soul. Yes, it was that idea which alone solved all. "Yes, to die!..."

"And the shame and disgrace of Alexei Alexandrovich and of Seriozha, and my awful shame death will be

the salvation of everything. To die! And he will feel remorse; will be sorry; will love me; he will suffer on

my account." With a fixed smile of commiseration for herself she sat down in the armchair, taking off and

putting on the rings on her left hand, vividly picturing from different sides his feelings after her death.

Approaching footsteps his steps distracted her attention. As though absorbed in the arrangement of her

"You know," she said, and at the same instant, unable to restrain herself any longer, she burst into sobs.

"Cast me off do!" she articulated between her sobs. "I'll go away tomorrow.... I'll do more than that. What

am I? A depraved woman! A stone round your neck. I don't want to make you wretched; I don't want to! I'll

Vronsky besought her to be calm, and declared that there was no trace of foundation for her jealousy; that he

had never ceased, and never would cease, to love her; that he loved her more than ever.

"Anna, why distress yourself and me so?" he said to her, kissing her hands. There was tenderness now in his

face, and she fancied she caught the sound of tears in his voice, and she felt them wet on her hand. And

instantly Anna's despairing jealousy changed to a despairing passion of tenderness. She put her arms round

Feeling that the reconciliation was complete, Anna set eagerly to work in the morning preparing for their

departure. Though it was not settled whether they should go on Monday or Tuesday, as they had each given

way to the other, Anna packed busily, feeling absolutely indifferent whether they went a day earlier or later.

She was standing in her room over an open box, taking things out of it, when he came in to see her earlier

"I'm going off at once to see maman; she can send me the money by Iegorov. And I shall be ready to go

Though she was in such a good mood, the mention of his visit to his mother's gave her a pang.

"No, I shan't be ready by then myself," she said; and at once reflected, "so then it was possible to arrange to

do as I wished." "No, do as you meant to do. Go into the dining room, I'm coming directly. It's only to turn

out those things that aren't wanted," she said, putting something more on the heap of frippery that lay in

"You wouldn't believe how distasteful these rooms have become to me," she said, sitting down beside him to

her coffee. "There's nothing more awful than these chambres garnies. There's no individuality in them, no

soul. These clocks, and curtains, and, worst of all, the wallpapers they're a nightmare. I think of

"I wanted to go to Wilson's to take some dresses to her. So it's really to be tomorrow?" she said in a cheerful

Vronsky's valet came in to ask him to sign a receipt for a telegram from Peterburg. There was nothing out of

the way in Vronsky's getting a telegram, but he said, as though anxious to conceal something from her, that

"I didn't want to show it to you, because Stiva has such a passion for telegraphing: why telegraph when

"Yes; but he says he has not been able to come at anything yet. He has promised a decisive answer in a day or

With trembling hands Anna took the telegram, and read what Vronsky had told her. At the end was added:

"I said yesterday that it's absolutely nothing to me when I get a divorce, or whether I never get it," she said,

flushing crimson. "There was not the slightest necessity to hide it from me." "So he may hide, and does

"Iashvin meant to come this morning with Voitov," said Vronsky; "I believe he's won from Pievtsov all and

"No," she said, further irritated by his so obviously showing by this change of subject that he knew she was

irritated, "why did you suppose that this news would affect me so, that you must even try to hide it? I said I

don't want to consider it, and I should have liked you to care as little about it as I do."

"Definiteness is not in the form, but in love," she said, more and more irritated, not by his words, but by the

"You want it for the children's sake, but you don't think of me?" she said, quite forgetting, or not having

The question of the possibility of having children had long been a subject of dispute and irritation to her. His

"Oh, I said: for your sake. Above all for your sake," he repeated, frowning as though in pain, "because I am

certain that the greater part of your irritability comes from the indefiniteness of the position."

"Yes, now he has laid aside all pretense, and all his cold hatred for me is apparent," she thought, not hearing

his words, but watching with terror the cold, cruel judge who, mocking her, looked out of his eyes.

"The cause isn't that," she said, "and, indeed, I don't see how the cause of my irritability, as you call it, can be

in my being completely in your power. What indefiniteness is there in the position? On the contrary."

"I am very sorry that you don't care to understand," he interrupted, obstinately anxious to give utterance to his

"On that score you can set your mind quite at rest," she said, and turning away from him, she began drinking

She lifted her cup, with her little finger held apart, and put it to her lips. After drinking a few sips she glanced

at him, and by his expression she saw clearly that he was repelled by her hand, and her gesture, and the sound

"I don't care in the least what your mother thinks, and what match she wants to make for you," she said,

"Yes, that's just what we are talking about. And let me tell you that a heartless woman, whether she's old or

not old, your mother or anyone else, is of no consequence to me, and I would not consent to know her."

"A woman whose heart does not tell her where her son's happiness and honor lie has no heart."

"I repeat my request that you will not speak disrespectfully of my mother, whom I respect," he said, raising

She did not answer. Looking intently at him, at his face, his hands, she recalled all the details of their

reconciliation the previous day, and his passionate caresses. "There, just such caresses he has lavished, and

"You don't love your mother. That's all talk, and talk, and talk!" she said, looking at him with hatred in her

"Must decide, and I have decided," she said, and she would have gone away, but at that moment Iashvin

Why, when there was a tempest in her soul, and she felt she was standing at a turning point in her life, which

might have fearful consequences why, at that minute, she had to keep up appearances before an outsider,

who sooner or later must know it all she did not know. But at once quelling the storm within her, she sat

"Oh, pretty fair; I fancy I shan't get it all, while I ought to go on Wednesday. And when are you off?" said

"But now it's quite decided," said Anna, looking Vronsky straight in the face with a look which told him not

"Don't you feel sorry for that unlucky Pievtsov?" she went on, talking to Iashvin.

"I've never asked myself the question, Anna Arkadyevna, whether I'm sorry for him or not. You see, all my

fortune's here" he touched his breast pocket "and just now I'm a wealthy man. But today I'm going to the

club, and I may come out a beggar. You see, whoever sits down to play with me wants to leave me without a

shirt to my back, and I wish the same to him. And so we fight it out, and that's the pleasure of it."

"Well, but suppose you were married," said Anna, "how would it be for your wife?"

"And Helsingfors?" said Vronsky, entering into the conversation and glancing at Anna's smiling face.

Meeting his eyes, Anna's face instantly took a coldly severe expression as though she were saying to him:

"Oh heavens! Ever so many times! But, you see, some men can play, but only so that they can always lay

down their cards when the hour of a rendezvous comes, while I can take up love, but only so as not to be

"No, I didn't mean that, but the real thing." She would have said Helsingfors, but would not repeat the word

Voitov, who was buying the horse, came in. Anna got up and went out of the room.

Before leaving the house, Vronsky went into her room. She would have pretended to be looking for

something on the table, but ashamed of making a pretense, she looked straight in his face with cold eyes.

"To get the guarantee for Gambetta I've sold him," he said, in a tone which said more clearly than words,

"I'm not to blame in any way," he thought. "If she will punish herself, tant pis pour elle." But as he was going

he fancied that she said something, and his heart suddenly ached with pity for her.

"Oh, nothing, tant pis then," he thought, feeling cold again, and he turned and went out. As he was going out

he caught a glimpse in the looking glass of her face, white, with quivering lips. He even wanted to stop and to

say some comforting word to her, but his legs carried him out of the room before he could think what to say.

The whole of that day he spent away from home, and when he came in late in the evening the maid told him

Never before had a day been passed in quarrel. Today was the first time. And this was not a quarrel. It was

the open acknowledgment of complete coldness. Was it possible to glance at her as he had glanced when he

came into the room for the guarantee? to look at her, see her heart was breaking with despair, and go out

without a word with that face of callous composure? He was not merely cold to her, he hated her because he

And remembering all the cruel words he had said, Anna supplied, too, the words that he had unmistakably

wished to say and could have said to her, and she grew more and more exasperated.

"I won't prevent you," he might say. "You can go where you like. You were unwilling to be divorced from

your husband, no doubt so that you might go back to him. Go back to him. If you want money, I'll give it to

All the most cruel words that a brutal man could say, he said to her in her imagination, and she could not

"But didn't he only yesterday swear he loved me, he, a truthful and sincere man? Haven't I despaired for

All that day, except for the visit to Wilson's, which occupied two hours, Anna spent in doubts whether

everything were over or whether there were still hope of reconciliation; whether she should go away at once

or see him once more. She was expecting him the whole day, and in the evening, as she went to her own

room, leaving a message for him that her head ached, she said to herself, "If he comes in spite of what the

maid says, it means that he loves me still. If not, it means that all is over, and then I will decide what I am to

In the evening she heard the rumbling of his carriage stop at the entrance, his ring, his steps, and his

conversation with the servant; he believed what was told him, did not care to find out more, and went to his

And death rose clearly and vividly before her mind as the sole means of bringing back love for her in his

heart, of punishing him and of gaining the victory in that strife which the evil spirit in possession of her heart

Now nothing mattered: going or not going to Vozdvizhenskoe, getting or not getting a divorce from her

When she poured herself out her usual dose of opium, and thought that she had only to drink off the whole

bottle to die, it seemed to her so simple and easy, that she began musing with enjoyment on how he would

suffer, and repent, and love her memory when it would be too late. She lay in bed with open eyes, by the light

of a single guttering candle, gazing at the carved cornice of the ceiling and at the shadow of the screen that

covered part of it, while she vividly pictured to herself how he would feel when she would be no more, when

she would be only a memory to him. "How could I say such cruel things to her?" he would say. "How could I

go out of the room without saying anything to her? But now she is no more. She has gone away from us

forever. She is..." Suddenly the shadow of the screen wavered, pounced on the whole cornice, the whole

ceiling; other shadows from the other side swooped to meet it; for an instant the shadows flitted back, but

then with fresh swiftness they darted forward, wavered, mingled, and all was darkness. "Death!" she thought.

And such horror came upon her that for a long while she could not realize where she was, and for a long

while her trembling hands could not find the matches and light another candle, instead of the one that had

burned down and gone out. "No, anything only to live! Why, I love him! Why, he loves me! This has been

before and will pass," she said, feeling that tears of joy at the return to life were trickling down her cheeks.

He was asleep there, and sleeping soundly. She went up to him, and holding the light above his face, she

gazed a long while at him. Now when he was asleep, she loved him so that at the sight of him she could not

keep back tears of tenderness. But she knew that if he waked up he would look at her with cold eyes,

convinced that he was right, and that before telling him of her love, she would have to prove to him that he

had been wrong in his treatment of her. Without waking him, she went back, and after a second dose of

opium she fell toward morning into a heavy, incomplete sleep, during which she never quite lost

In the morning she was waked by a horrible nightmare, which had recurred several times in her dreams, even

before her connection with Vronsky. A little old man with unkempt beard was doing something, stooping

over some iron, muttering meaningless French words, and she, as she always did in this nightmare (it was

what made the horror of it), felt that this peasant was taking no notice of her, but was doing something

"There was a quarrel. Just what has happened several times. I said I had a headache, and he did not come in

to see me. Tomorrow we're going away; I must see him and get ready for the journey," she said to herself.

And learning that he was in his study, she went down to him. As she passed through the drawing room she

heard a carriage stop at the entrance, and looking out of the window she saw the carriage, from which a

young girl in a lilac hat was leaning out, giving some direction to the footman who was ringing the bell. After

a parley in the hall, someone came upstairs, and Vronsky's steps could be heard passing the drawing room.

He went rapidly downstairs. Anna went again to the window. She saw him come out on the steps without his

hat and go up to the carriage. The young girl in the lilac hat handed him a parcel. Vronsky, smiling, said

The mists that had shrouded everything in her soul parted suddenly. The feelings of yesterday pierced the

sick heart with a fresh pang. She could not understand now how she could have lowered herself by spending

a whole day with him in his house. She went into his room to announce her determination.

"That was Madame Sorokina and her daughter. They came and brought me the money and the deeds from

maman. I couldn't get them yesterday. How is your head, better?" he said quietly, not wishing to see and to

She looked silently, intently at him, standing in the middle of the room. He glanced at her, frowned for a

moment, and went on reading a letter. She turned, and went deliberately out of the room. He still might have

turned her back, but she had reached the door, he was still silent, and the only sound audible was the rustling

"Oh, by the way," he said at the very moment she was in the doorway, "we're going tomorrow for certain,

Frightened by the desperate expression with which these words were uttered, he jumped up and would have

run after her, but on second thoughts he sat down and scowled, setting his teeth. This vulgar as he thought

it threat of something vague exasperated him. "I've tried everything," he thought; "the only thing left is not

to pay attention," and he began to get ready to drive into town, and again to his mother's, to get her signature

She heard the sound of his steps about the study and the dining room. At the drawing room he stood still. But

he did not turn in to see her; he merely gave an order that the horse should be given to Voitov if he came

while he was away. Then she heard the carriage brought round, the door opened, and he came out again. But

he went back into the porch again, and someone was running upstairs. It was the valet running up for his

forgotten gloves. She went to the window and saw him take the gloves without looking, and, touching the

coachman on the back, he said something to him. Then, without looking up at the window, he settled himself

in his usual attitude in the carriage, with his legs crossed, and, drawing on his gloves, he vanished round the

"He has gone! It is the end!" Anna said to herself, standing at the window; and in answer to this question the

impression of the darkness when the candle had flickered out and of her fearful dream, mingling into one,

"No, that cannot be!" she cried, and crossing the room she rang the bell. She was afraid now of being alone,

"His Honor left word that if you cared to drive out, the carriage would be back immediately."

"Very good. Wait a minute. I'll write a note at once. Send Mikhail with the note to the stables. Make haste."

She was afraid of being left alone now; she followed the servant out of the room, and went to the nursery.

"Why, this isn't it this isn't he! Where are his blue eyes, his sweet, shy smile?" was her first thought when

she saw her chubby, rosy little girl, with her black, curly hair, instead of Seriozha, whom in the tangle of her

ideas she had expected to see in the nursery. The little girl sitting at the table was obstinately and violently

battering on it with a cork, and staring aimlessly at her mother with her pitchblack eyes. Answering the

English nurse that she was quite well, and that she was going to the country tomorrow, Anna sat down by the

little girl and began spinning the cork to show her. But the child's loud, ringing laugh, and the motion of her

eyebrows, recalled Vronsky so vividly that she got up hurriedly, restraining her sobs, and went away. "Can it

be all over? No, it cannot be!" she thought. "He will come back. But how can he explain that smile, that

excitement after he had been talking to her? But even if he doesn't explain, I will believe. If I don't believe,

She looked at her watch. Twenty minutes had passed. "By now he has received the note and is coming back.

Not long, ten minutes more.... But what if he doesn't come? No, that cannot be. He mustn't see me with

tearstained eyes. I'll go and wash. Yes, yes; did I do my hair or not?" she asked herself. And she could not

remember. She felt her head with her hand. "Yes, my hair has been done, but when I did it I can't in the least

remember." She could not believe the evidence of her hand, and went up to the pier glass to see whether she

really had done her hair. She certainly had, but she could not think when she had done it. "Who's that?" she

thought, looking in the looking glass at the swollen face with strangely glittering eyes, that looked in a scared

way at her. "Why, it's I!" she suddenly understood, and, looking round, she seemed all at once to feel his

kisses on her, and twitched her shoulders, shuddering. Then she lifted her hand to her lips and kissed it.

"What is it? Why, I'm going out of my mind!" And she went into her bedroom, where Annushka was tidying

"Annushka," she said, coming to a standstill before her, and she stared at the maid, not knowing what to say

"You meant to go and see Darya Alexandrovna," said the maid, as though she understood.

"Fifteen minutes there, fifteen minutes back. He's coming, he'll be here soon." She took out her watch and

looked at it. "But how could he go away, leaving me in such a state? How can he live, without making it up

with me?" She went to the window and began looking into the street. Judging by the time, he might be back

now. But her calculations might be wrong, and she began once more to recall when he had started and to

At the moment when she had moved away to the big clock to compare it with her watch, someone drove up.

Glancing out of the window, she saw his carriage. But no one came upstairs, and voices could be heard

below. It was the messenger who had come back in the carriage. She went down to him.

"We didn't catch the Count. The Count had driven off on the NizhnyNovgorod line."

"What do you say? What!..." she said to the rosy, goodhumored Mikhail, as he handed her back her note.

"Go with this note to Countess Vronsky's place in the country do you know where it is? And bring an

"And I what am I going to do?" she thought. "Yes, I'm going to Dolly's that's best, or else I shall go out of

After sending off the telegram, she went to dress. When she was dressed and in her hat, she glanced again

into the eyes of the plump, comfortablelooking Annushka. There was unmistakable sympathy in those

"Annushka, dear, what am I to do?" said Anna, sobbing and sinking helplessly into a chair.

"Why fret yourself so, Anna Arkadyevna? Why, there's nothing out of the way. You drive out a little, and it'll

"Yes, I'm going," said Anna, rousing herself and getting up. "And if there's a telegram while I'm away, send it

"Yes, I mustn't think; I must do something, drive somewhere, and, most of all, get out of this house," she said,

feeling with terror the strange turmoil going on in her own heart, and she made haste to go out, and get into

It was bright and sunny. A fine rain had been falling all the morning, and now it had not long cleared up. The

iron roofs, the flags of the sidewalks, the cobbles of the pavements, the wheels and leather, the brass and the

tinplate of the carriages all glistened brightly in the May sunshine. It was three o'clock, and the very liveliest

As she sat in a corner of the comfortable carriage that hardly swayed on its supple springs, while the grays

trotted swiftly, in the midst of the unceasing rattle of wheels and the changing impressions in the pure air,

Anna ran over the events of the last days, and she saw her position quite differently from what it had seemed

at home. Now the thought of death seemed no longer so terrible and so clear to her, and death itself no longer

seemed so inevitable. Now she blamed herself for the humiliation to which she had lowered herself. "I entreat

him to forgive me. I have given in to him. I have owned myself in fault. What for? Can't I live without him?"

And leaving unanswered the question how she was going to live without him, she fell to reading the signs on

the shops. "Office and warehouse. Dental surgeon. Yes, I'll tell Dolly all about it. She doesn't like Vronsky. I

shall be sick and ashamed, but I'll tell her everything. She loves me, and I'll follow her advice. I won't give in

to him; I won't let him train me as he pleases. Filippov, 'Kalaches.' They say he sends his dough to Peterburg.

The Moscow water is so good for it. And the wells at Mitishchy, and the pancakes." And she remembered

how, long, long ago, when she was a girl of seventeen, she had gone with her aunt to Troitsa. "By horses at

that time. Was that really me, with red hands? How much of that which seemed to me then splendid and out

of reach has become worthless, while what I had then has gone out of my reach forever! Could I ever have

believed then that I could come to such humiliation? How proud and satisfied he will be when he gets my

note! But I will show him.... How horrid that paint smells! Why is it they're always painting and building?

Modes et robes!" she read. A man bowed to her. It was Annushka's husband. "Our parasites," she

remembered how Vronsky had said that. "Our? Why our? What's so awful is that one can't tear up the past by

its roots. One can't tear it out, but one can hide one's memory of it. And I'll hide it." And then she thought of

her past with Alexei Alexandrovich, of how she had blotted it out of her memory. "Dolly will think I'm

leaving my second husband, and so I certainly must be in the wrong. As if I cared to be right! I can't help it!"

she said, and she wanted to cry. But at once she fell to wondering what those two girls could be smiling

about. "Love, most likely. They don't know how dreary it is, how low.... The boulevard and the children.

Three boys running, playing at horses. Seriozha! And I'm losing everything and not getting him back. Yes,

I'm losing everything, if he doesn't return. Perhaps he was late for the train and has come back by now.

Longing for humiliation again!" she said to herself. "No, I'll go to Dolly, and say straight out to her: I'm

unhappy, I deserve this, I'm to blame, but still I'm unhappy, help me. These horses, this carriage how

Thinking over the words in which she would tell Dolly, and intentionally working her heart up to great

"Kitty! Kitty, whom Vronsky was in love with!" thought Anna. "The girl he thinks of with love. He's sorry he

didn't marry her. But me he thinks of with hatred, and is sorry he had anything to do with me."

The sisters were having a consultation about nursing when Anna called. Dolly went down alone to see the

"Well, so you've not gone away yet? I meant to have come to you," she said; "I had a letter from Stiva today."

"He writes that he can't make out quite what Alexei Alexandrovich wants, but he won't go away without a

"Yes it's Kitty," said Dolly, embarrassed. "She stayed in the nursery. She has been very ill."

"I'll get it directly. But he doesn't refuse; on the contrary, Stiva has hopes," said Dolly, stopping in the

"What's this? Does Kitty consider it degrading to meet me?" thought Anna when she was alone. "Perhaps

she's right, too. But it's not for her, the girl who was in love with Vronsky, it's not for her to show me that,

even if it is true. I know that in my position I can't be received by any decent woman. I knew that from the

first moment I sacrificed everything to him. And this is my reward! Oh, how I hate him! And what did I come

here for? I'm worse here, more miserable." She heard from the next room the sisters' voices in consultation.

"And what am I going to say to Dolly now? Amuse Kitty by the sight of my wretchedness, submit to her

patronizing? No; and besides, Dolly wouldn't understand. And it would be no good my telling her. It would

only be interesting to see Kitty, to show her how I despise everyone and everything, how nothing matters to

"Oh, why so? On the contrary, I have hopes," said Dolly, looking inquisitively at Anna. She had never seen

her in such a strangely irritable condition. "When are you going away?" she asked.

"Why does Kitty shrink from me?" she said, looking at the door and flushing red.

"Oh, what nonsense! She's nursing, and things aren't going right with her, and I've been advising her.... She's

delighted. She'll be here in a minute," said Dolly awkwardly, not clever at lying. "Yes, here she is."

Hearing that Anna had called, Kitty had wanted not to appear, but Dolly persuaded her. Rallying her forces,

Kitty had been thrown into confusion by the inward conflict between her antagonism to this bad woman and

her desire to be kind to her. But as soon as she saw Anna's lovely and attractive face, all feeling of

"I should not have been surprised if you had not cared to meet me. I'm used to everything. You have been ill?

Kitty felt that Anna was looking at her with hostile eyes. She ascribed this hostility to the awkward position

in which Anna, who had once patronized her, must feel with her now, and she felt sorry for her.

They talked of Kitty's illness, of the baby, of Stiva, but it was obvious that nothing interested Anna.

"Yes, I am very glad to have seen you," she said with a smile. "I have heard so much of you from everyone,

even from your husband. He came to see me, and I liked him very much," she said, unmistakably with

"Goodby, then, Dolly." And kissing Dolly and shaking hands with Kitty, Anna went out hurriedly.

"She's just the same and just as charming! She's very lovely!" said Kitty, when she was alone with her sister.

"Yes, there's something unusual about her today," said Dolly. "When I went with her into the hall, I fancied

Anna got into the carriage again in an even worse frame of mind than when she set out from home. To her

previous tortures was added now that sense of mortification and of being an outcast, which she had felt so

"How they looked at me as something dreadful, incomprehensible, and curious! What can he be telling the

other with such warmth?" she thought, staring at two men who walked by. "Can one ever tell anyone what

one is feeling? I meant to tell Dolly, and it's a good thing I didn't tell her. How pleased she would have been

at my misery! She would have concealed it, but her chief feeling would have been delight at my being

punished for the happiness she envied me for. Kitty she would have been even more pleased. How I can see

through her! She knows I was more than usually kind to her husband. And she's jealous and hates me. And

she despises me. In her eyes I'm an immoral woman. If I were an immoral woman I could have made her

husband fall in love with me.... If I'd cared to. And, indeed, I did care to. There's someone who's pleased with

himself," she thought, as she saw a fat, rubicund gentleman coming toward her. He took her for an

acquaintance, and lifted his glossy hat above his bald, glossy head, and then perceived his mistake. "He

thought he knew me. Well, he knows me as well as anyone in the world knows me. I don't know myself. I

know my appetites, as the French say. They want that hokeypokey, that they do know for certain," she

thought, looking at two boys stopping an icecream seller, who took a barrel off his head and began wiping

his perspiring face with a towel. "We all want what is sweet and tastes good. If there are no sweetmeats, then

a hokeypokey will do. And Kitty's the same if not Vronsky, then Levin. And she envies me. And hates me.

And we all hate each other. I Kitty Kitty me. Yes, that's the truth. Tiutkin, coiffeur.... Je me fais coiffer par

Tiutkin.... I'll tell him that when he comes," she thought and smiled. But the same instant she remembered

that she had no one now to tell anything amusing to. "And there's nothing amusing, nothing mirthful, really.

It's all hateful. Vesper bells and how carefully that merchant crosses himself! As if he were afraid of

missing something. Why these churches, and these bells, and this humbug? Simply to conceal that we all hate

each other like these cabdrivers, who are abusing each other so angrily. Iashvin says, 'He wants to strip me of

She was plunged in these thoughts, which so engrossed her that she left off thinking of her own position,

when the carriage drew up at the steps of her house. It was only when she saw the porter running out to meet

"I'll see this minute," answered the porter, and, glancing into his room, he took out and gave her the thin

square envelope of a telegram. "I can't come before ten o'clock. Vronsky," she read.

"Then, since it's so, I know what I must do," she said, and feeling a vague fury and craving for revenge rising

up within her, she ran upstairs. "I'll go to him myself. Before going away forever, I'll tell him all. Never have

I hated anyone as I hate that man!" she thought. Seeing his hat on the rack, she shuddered with aversion. She

did not consider that this telegram was an answer to her telegram and that he had not yet received her note.

She pictured him to herself as talking calmly to his mother and Princess Sorokina, and rejoicing at her

sufferings. "Yes, I must go quickly," she said, not knowing yet where she was going. She longed to get away

as quickly as possible from the feelings she had gone through in that awful house. The servants, the walls, the

things in that house all aroused repulsion and hatred in her and lay like a weight upon her.

"Yes, I must go to the railway station, and if he's not there, then go there and catch him." Anna looked at the

railway timetable in the newspapers. An evening train went at two minutes past eight. "Yes, I shall be in

time." She gave orders for the other horses to be put in the carriage, and packed in a traveling bag the things

Among the plans that came into her head she vaguely determined that after what would happen at the station

or at the Countess's house, she would go as far as the first town on the NizhnyNovgorod railway and stop

Dinner was on the table; she went up, but the smell of the bread and cheese was enough to make her feel that

all food was disgusting. She ordered the carriage and went out. The house threw a shadow now right across

the street, but it was a bright evening and still warm in the sunshine. Annushka, who came down with her

things, and Piotr, who put the things in the carriage, and the coachman, evidently out of humor, were all

Piotr jumped on the box, and putting his arms akimbo, told the coachman to drive to the station.

"Here it is again! Again I understand it all!" Anna said to herself, as soon as the carriage had started and

swaying lightly, rumbled over the small cobbles of the paved road, and again one impression followed

"Yes; what was the last thing I thought of so clearly?" she tried to recall. "Tiutkin, coiffeur? No, not that.

Yes, of what Iashvin says, the struggle for existence and hatred is all that holds men together. No, it's a

useless journey you're making," she said, mentally addressing a party in a coach and four, evidently going for

an excursion into the country. "And the dog you're taking with you will be no help to you. You can't get away

from yourselves." Turning her eyes in the direction Piotr had turned to look, she saw a factory hand almost

deaddrunk, with hanging head, being led away by a policeman. "Come, he's found a quicker way," she

thought. "Count Vronsky and I did not find that happiness either, though we expected so much from it." And

now for the first time Anna turned that glaring light in which she was seeing everything on her relations with

him, which she had hitherto avoided thinking about. "What was it he sought in me? Not love so much as the

satisfaction of vanity." She remembered his words, the expression of his face, that recalled a submissive

setter dog, in the early days of their connection. And everything now confirmed this. "Yes, there was the

triumph of vanity in him. Of course there was love too, but the chief element was the pride of success. He

boasted of me. Now that's over. There's nothing to be proud of. Not to be proud of, but to be ashamed of. He

has taken from me all he could, and now I am no use to him. He is weary of me and is trying not to be

dishonorable in his behavior to me. He let that out yesterday he wants divorce and marriage so as to burn his

ships. He loves me, but how? The zest is gone, as the English say. That fellow wants everyone to admire him

and is very much pleased with himself," she thought, looking at a redfaced clerk, riding on a ridingschool

horse. "Yes, there's not the same zest about me for him now. If I go away from him, at the bottom of his heart

This was not mere supposition, she saw it distinctly in the piercing light which revealed to her now the

"My love keeps growing more passionate and egoistic, while his is waning and waning, and that's why we're

drifting apart." She went on musing. "And there's no help for it. He is everything for me, and I want him more

and more to give himself up to me entirely. And he wants more and more to get away from me. Precisely: we

went to meet one another up to the time of our liaison, and since then we have been irresistibly drifting in

different directions. And there's no altering that. He tells me I'm insanely jealous, and I have told myself that I

am insanely jealous; but it's not true. I'm not jealous, but I'm unsatisfied. But..." she opened her lips, and

shifted her place in the carriage in the excitement, aroused by the thought that suddenly struck her. "If I could

be anything but a mistress, passionately caring for nothing but his caresses; but I can't, and I don't care to be

anything else. And by that desire I rouse aversion in him, and he rouses fury in me, and it cannot be different.

Don't I know that he wouldn't deceive me, that he has no schemes about Princess Sorokina, that he's not in

love with Kitty, that he won't desert me! I know all that, but it makes it no better for me. If without loving

me, from duty, he'll be good and kind to me, without what I want that's a thousand times worse than

unkindness! That's hell! And that's just how it is. For a long while now he hasn't loved me. And where love

ends, hate begins. I don't know these streets at all. Hills, apparently, and still houses, and houses.... And in the

houses always people and people.... How many of them no end, and all hating each other! Come, let me try

and think what I want to make me happy. Well? Suppose I am divorced, and Alexei Alexandrovich lets me

have Seriozha, and I marry Vronsky." Thinking of Alexei Alexandrovich, she at once pictured him with

extraordinary vividness as though he were alive before her, with his mild, lifeless, dull eyes, the blue veins on

his white hands, his intonations, and the cracking of his fingers, and remembering the feeling which had

existed between them, and which was also called love, she shuddered with loathing. "Well, I'm divorced, and

become Vronsky's wife. Well, will Kitty cease looking at me as she looked at me today? No. And will

Seriozha leave off asking and wondering about my two husbands? And is there any new feeling I can awaken

between Vronsky and me? Is there possible, if not happiness, some sort of ease from misery? No, no!" she

answered now without the slightest hesitation. "Impossible! We are drawn apart by life, and I make his

unhappiness, and he mine, and there's no altering him or me. Every attempt has been made, the screw has

come unscrewed. Oh, a beggar woman with a baby. She thinks I'm sorry for her. Aren't we all flung into the

world only to hate each other, and so to torture ourselves and each other? Schoolboys coming laughing

Seriozha?" she thought. "I thought, too, that I loved him, and used to be touched by my own tenderness. But I

have lived without him, I gave him up for another love, and did not regret the exchange till that love was

satisfied." And with loathing she thought of what she meant by that love. And the clearness with which she

saw life now, her own and all men's was a pleasure to her. "It's so with me and Piotr, and Fiodor the

coachman, and that merchant, and all the people living along the Volga, where those placards invite one to

go, and everywhere and always," she thought when she had driven under the lowpitched roof of the

She had utterly forgotten where and why she was going, and only by a great effort she understood the

"Yes," she said, handing him her purse, and, taking a little red bag in her hand, she got out of the carriage.

Making her way through the crowd to the firstclass waiting room, she gradually recollected all the details of

her position, and the plans between which she was hesitating. And again at the old sore places, hope and then

despair scraped the wounds of her tortured, fearfully throbbing heart. As she sat on the starshaped sofa

waiting for the train, she gazed with aversion at the people coming and going (they were all hateful to her),

and thought how she would arrive at the station, would write him a note, and what she would write to him,

and how he was at this moment complaining to his mother of his position, not understanding her sufferings,

and how she would go into the room, and what she would say to him. Then she thought that life might still be

happy, and how miserably she loved and hated him, and how fearfully her heart was beating.

A bell rang, some young men, ugly and impudent, and at the same time careful of the impression they were

making, hurried by. Piotr, too, crossed the room in his livery and spatterdashes with his dull, brutish face, and

came up to her to take her to the train. The noisy young men were quiet as she passed them on the platform,

and one whispered something about her to another something vile, no doubt. She stepped up on the high

step, and sat down in a carriage by herself on a dirty spring seat that had once been white. Her bag lay beside

her, shaken up and down by the springiness of the seat. With a foolish smile Piotr raised his hat, with its

gallooned band, at the window, in token of farewell; an impudent conductor slammed the door and the latch.

A grotesquelooking lady wearing a bustle (Anna mentally undressed the woman, and was appalled at her

"Even the child's hideous and affected," thought Anna. To avoid seeing anyone, she got up quickly and seated

herself at the opposite window of the empty carriage. A misshapenlooking peasant covered with dirt, in a

cap from which his tangled hair stuck out all around, passed by that window, stooping down to the carriage

wheels. "There's something familiar about that hideous peasant," thought Anna. And remembering her dream,

she moved away to the opposite door, shaking with terror. The conductor opened the door and let in a man

Anna made no answer. The conductor and her two fellow passengers did not notice under her veil her

panicstricken face. She went back to her corner and sat down. The couple seated themselves on the opposite

side, and intently but surreptitiously scrutinized her clothes. Both husband and wife seemed repulsive to

Anna. The husband asked if she would allow him to smoke, obviously not with a view to smoking, but to

getting into conversation with her. Receiving her assent, he said to his wife in French something about caring

less to smoke than to talk. They made inane and affected remarks to one another, entirely for her benefit.

Anna saw clearly that they were sick of each other, and hated each other. And no one could have helped

A second bell sounded, and was followed by moving of luggage, noise, shouting and laughter. It was so clear

to Anna that there was nothing for anyone to be glad of, that this laughter irritated her agonizingly, and she

would have liked to stop up her ears not to hear it. At last the third bell rang, there was a whistle and a hiss of

steam, and a clank of chains, and the man in her carriage crossed himself. "It would be interesting to ask him

what meaning he attaches to that," thought Anna, looking angrily at him. She looked past the lady out of the

window at the people who seemed whirling by, as they ran beside the train or stood on the platform. The

train, jerking at regular intervals at the junctions of the rails, rolled by the platform, past a stone wall, a signal

box, past other trains; the wheels, moving more smoothly and evenly, resounded with a slight clang on the

rails. The window was lighted up by the bright evening sun, and a slight breeze fluttered the curtain. Anna

forgot her fellow passengers, and to the light swaying of the train she fell to thinking again, as she breathed

"Yes, what did I stop at? That I couldn't find a condition in which life would not be a misery, that we are all

created to be miserable, and that we all know it, and all invent means of deceiving each other. And when one

"That's why reason is given to man, to escape from what worries him," said the lady in French, lisping

"To escape from what worries him," repeated Anna. And glancing at the redcheeked husband and the thin

wife, she saw that the sickly wife considered herself misunderstood, and the husband deceived her and

encouraged her in that idea of herself. Anna seemed to see all their history and all the crannies of their souls,

turning a light upon them, as it were. But there was nothing interesting in them, and she pursued her thought.

"Yes, I'm very much worried, and that's why reason was given me, to escape; so then, one must escape: why

not put out the light when there's nothing more to look at, when it's sickening to look at it all? But how? Why

did the conductor run along the footboard, why are they shrieking, those young men in that train? Why are

they talking, why are they laughing? It's all falsehood, all lying, all humbug, all cruelty!..."

When the train came into the station, Anna got out into the crowd of passengers, and moving apart from them

as if they were lepers, she stood on the platform, trying to think what she had come here for, and what she

meant to do. Everything that had seemed to her possible before was now so difficult to consider, especially in

this noisy crowd of hideous people who would not leave her alone. At one moment porters ran up to her

proffering their services, then young men clacking their heels on the planks of the platform and talking

loudly, stared at her, then people meeting her dodged past on the wrong side. Remembering that she had

meant to go on farther if there was no answer, she stopped a porter and asked if her coachman were not here

"Count Vronsky? They sent up here from the Vronskys just this minute, to meet Princess Sorokina and her

Just as she was talking to the porter, the coachman Mikhail, red and cheerful in his smart blue coat and chain,

evidently proud of having so successfully performed his commission, came up to her and gave her a letter.

"I am very sorry your note did not reach me. I will be home at ten," Vronsky had written carelessly.

"Very good, you can go home now," she said softly, addressing Mikhail. She spoke softly because the

rapidity of her heart's beating hindered her breathing. "No, I won't let Thee make me miserable," she thought

menacingly, addressing not him, not herself, but the power that made her suffer, and she walked along the

Two maidservants walking along the platform turned their heads, staring at her and making some remarks

about her dress. "Real," they said of the lace she was wearing. The young men would not leave her in peace.

Again they passed by, peering into her face, and with a laugh shouting something in an unnatural voice. The

stationmaster coming up asked her whether she was going by the train. A boy selling kvass never took his

eyes off her. "My God! Where am I to go?" she thought, going farther and farther along the platform. At the

end she stopped. Some ladies and children, who had come to meet a gentleman in spectacles, paused in their

loud laughter and talking, and stared at her as she reached them. She quickened her pace and walked away

from them to the edge of the platform. A goods train was coming in. The platform began to sway, and she

And all at once she thought of the man crushed by the train the day she had first met Vronsky, and she knew

what she had to do. With a rapid, light step she went down the steps that led from the platform to the rails and

stopped quite near the approaching train. She looked at the lower part of the carriages, at the screws and

chains, and the tall castiron wheel of the first carriage slowly moving up, and tried to measure the middle

between the front and back wheels, and the very minute when that middle point would be opposite her.

"There," she said to herself, looking into the shadow of the carriage, at the sand and coal dust which covered

the sleepers "there, in the very middle, and I will punish him and escape from everyone and from myself."

She tried to fling herself below the wheels of the first car as it reached her; but the red bag which she tried to

drop out of her hand delayed her, and she was too late; she missed the middle of the car. She had to wait for

the next one. A feeling such as she had known when about to take the first plunge in bathing came upon her,

and she crossed herself. That familiar gesture of crossing brought back into her soul a whole series of girlish

and childish memories, and suddenly the darkness that had covered everything for her was torn apart, and life

rose up before her for an instant with all its bright past joys. But she did not take her eyes from the wheels of

the second car. And exactly at the moment when the space between the wheels came opposite her, she

dropped the red bag, and drawing her head back into her shoulders, fell on her hands under the car, and

lightly, as though she would rise again at once, dropped onto her knees. And at the same instant she was

terrorstricken at what she was doing. "Where am I? What am I doing? What for?" She tried to get up, to

drop backward; but something huge and merciless struck her on the head and drew along on her back. "Lord,

forgive me all!" she said, feeling it impossible to struggle. A peasant, muttering something, was working at

the iron. And the candle by which she had been reading the book filled with troubles, falsehoods, sorrow, and

evil, flared up more brightly than ever before, lighted up for her all that had been in darkness, sputtered,

Almost two months had passed. The hot summer was half over, but Sergei Ivanovich was only just preparing

Sergei Ivanovich's life had not been uneventful during this time. A year ago he had finished his book, the

fruit of six years' labor. An Inquiry Concerning the Principles and Forms of Government in Europe and

Russia. Several sections of this book and its introduction had appeared in periodical publications, and other

parts had been read by Sergei Ivanovich to persons of his circle, so that the leading ideas of the work could

not be entirely novel to the public. But still, Sergei Ivanovich had expected that on its appearance his book

would be sure to make a serious impression on society, and if it did not cause a revolution in social science it

After the most conscientious revision the book had last year been published, and had been distributed among

Though he asked no one about it, reluctantly and with feigned indifference answered his friends' inquiries as

to how the book was going, and did not even inquire of the booksellers how the book was selling, Sergei

Ivanovich was all on the alert, with strained attention, watching for the first impression his book would make

But a week passed, a second, a third, and in society no impression whatever could be detected. Those of his

friends, who were specialists and savants, occasionally unmistakably from politeness alluded to it. The rest

of his acquaintances, not interested in a book on a learned subject, did not talk of it at all. And society

generally just now especially absorbed in other things was absolutely indifferent. In the press, too, for a

Sergei Ivanovich had calculated to a nicety the time necessary for writing a review, but a month passed, and a

Only in the Northern Beetle, in a comic article on the singer Drabanti, who had lost his voice, there was a

contemptuous allusion to Koznishev's book, suggesting that the book had been long ago seen through by

At last, in the third month, a critical article appeared in a serious review. Sergei Ivanovich knew the author of

The author of the article was a young man, an invalid, very bold as a writer, but extremely deficient in

In spite of his absolute contempt for the author, it was with complete respect that Sergei Ivanovich set about

The critic had undoubtedly put an interpretation upon the book which could not possibly be put on it. But he

had selected quotations so adroitly that for people who had not read the book (and obviously scarcely anyone

had read it) it seemed absolutely clear that the whole book was nothing but a medley of highflown phrases,

not even as suggested by marks of interrogation used appropriately, and that the author of the book was a

person absolutely without knowledge of the subject. And all this was so wittily done that Sergei Ivanovich

In spite of the scrupulous conscientiousness with which Sergei Ivanovich verified the correctness of the

critic's arguments, he did not for a minute stop to ponder over the faults and mistakes which were ridiculed;

but unconsciously he began immediately trying to recall every detail of his meeting and conversation with the

And remembering that when they met he had corrected the young man about something he had said that

betrayed ignorance, Sergei Ivanovich found the explanation for the trend of the article.

This article was followed by a deadly silence about the book both in the press and in conversation, and Sergei

Ivanovich saw that his six years' task, toiled at with such love and labor, had gone, leaving no trace.

Sergei Ivanovich's position was still more difficult from the fact that, since he had finished his book, he had

had more literary work to do, such as had hitherto occupied the greater part of his time.

Sergei Ivanovich was clever, cultivated healthy and energetic, and he did not know what use to make of his

energy. Conversations in drawing rooms, in meetings, assemblies, and committees everywhere where talk

was possible took up part of his time. But being used for years to town life, he did not waste all his energies

in talk, as his less experienced younger brother did, when he was in Moscow. He had a great deal of leisure

Fortunately for him, at this period so difficult for him because of the failure of his book, the various public

questions of the dissenting sects, of the American Friends, of the Samara famine, of exhibition, and of

spiritualism, were definitely replaced in public interest by the Slavonic question, which had hitherto rather

languidly interested society, and Sergei Ivanovich, who had been one of the first to raise this subject, threw

In the circle to which Sergei Ivanovich belonged, nothing was talked of or written about just now but the

Servian war. Everything that the idle crowd usually does to kill time was done now for the benefit of the

Slavonic peoples. Balls, concerts, dinners, speeches, ladies' dresses, beer, taverns everything testified to

From much of what was spoken and written on the subject, Sergei Ivanovich differed on various points. He

saw that the Slavonic question had become one of those fashionable distractions which succeed one another

in providing society with an object and an occupation. He saw, too, that a great many people were taking up

the subject from motives of selfinterest and selfadvertisement. He recognized that the newspapers

published a great deal that was superfluous and exaggerated, with the sole aim of attracting attention and

talking one another down. He saw that in this general movement those who thrust themselves most forward

and shouted the loudest were men who had failed and were smarting under a sense of injury generals

without armies, ministers not in the ministry, journalists not on any paper, party leaders without followers. He

saw that there was a great deal in it that was frivolous and absurd. But he saw and recognized an

unmistakable growing enthusiasm, uniting all classes, with which it was impossible not to sympathize. The

massacre of men who were fellow Christians, and of the same Slavonic race, excited sympathy for the

sufferers and indignation against the oppressors. And the heroism of the Servians and Montenegrins

struggling for a great cause begot in the whole people a longing to help their brothers not in word but in deed.

But in this there was another aspect that made Sergei Ivanovich rejoice. That was the manifestation of public

opinion. The public had definitely expressed its desire. The soul of the people had, as Sergei Ivanovich said,

found expression. And the more he worked in this cause, the more incontestable it seemed to him that it was a

He threw himself heart and soul into the service of this great cause, and forgot to think about his book.

His whole time now was engrossed by it, so that he could scarcely manage to answer all the letters and

He worked the whole spring and part of the summer, and it was only in July that he prepared to go away to

He was going both to rest for a fortnight, and in the very heart of the people, in the farthest wilds of the

country, to enjoy the sight of that uplifting of the spirit of the people, of which, like all residents in the capital

and big towns, he was fully persuaded. Katavassov had long intended to carry out his promise to stay with

Sergei Ivanovich and Katavassov had just reached the station of the Kursk line, which was particularly busy

and full of people that day, when, looking round for the groom who was following with their things, they saw

a party of volunteers driving up in four cabs. Ladies met them with bouquets of flowers, and, followed by the

One of the ladies who had met the volunteers, came out of the hall and addressed Sergei Ivanovich.

"No, I'm going away myself, Princess. To my brother's for a holiday. Do you always see them off?" said

"Oh, that would be impossible!" answered the Princess. "Is it true that eight hundred have been sent from us

"More than eight hundred. If you reckon those who have been sent not directly from Moscow, over a

"There! That's just what I said!" exclaimed the lady joyously. "And it's true too, I suppose, that about a

"Yes, so I saw," answered Sergei Ivanovich. They were speaking of the last telegram stating that the Turks

had been for three days in succession beaten at all points and put to flight, and that tomorrow a decisive

"Ah, by the way, a splendid young fellow has asked leave to go, and they've made some difficulty I don't

know why. I meant to ask you; I know him; please write a note about his case. He's being sent by Countess

Sergei Ivanovich asked for all the details the Princess knew about the young man, and, going into the

firstclass waiting room, wrote a note to the person on whom the granting of leave of absence depended, and

"You know Count Vronsky, the notorious one... is going by this train?" said the Princess with a smile full of

"I've seen him. He's here: there's only his mother seeing him off. It's the best thing, anyway, that he could

While they were talking the crowd streamed by them toward the dining table. They went forward too, and

heard a gentleman with a glass in his hand delivering a loud discourse to the volunteers. "In the service of

religion, humanity, and our brethren," the gentleman said, his voice growing louder and louder; "to this great

cause mother Moscow dedicates you with her blessing. Jivio!" he concluded, concluded, loudly and tearfully.

Everyone shouted Jivio! and a fresh crowd dashed into the hall, almost carrying the Princess off her feet.

"Ah, Princess! That was something like!" said Stepan Arkadyevich, suddenly appearing in the midst of the

crowd and beaming upon them with a delighted smile. "Capitally, warmly said, wasn't it? Bravo! And Sergei

Ivanovich! Why, you ought to have said something just a few words, you know, to encourage them; you do

that so well," he added with a soft, respectful, and discreet smile, moving Sergei Ivanovich forward a little by

"Then you'll see my wife. I've written to her, but you'll see her first. Please tell her that they've seen me and

that it's 'all right,' as the English say. She'll understand. Oh, and be so good as to tell her I'm appointed

member of the committee.... But she'll understand! You know, les petites misires de la vie humaine," he said,

as it were apologizing to the Princess. "And Princess Miaghkaia not Liza, but Bibish is sending a thousand

"It's a pity you're going away," said Stepan Arkadyevich. "Tomorrow we're giving a dinner to two who are

setting off DimerBiartniansky from Peterburg and our Veslovsky, Grisha. They're both going. Veslovsky's

only lately married. There's a fine fellow for you! Eh, Princess?" he turned to the lady.

The Princess looked at Koznishev without replying. But the fact that Sergei Ivanovich and the Princess

seemed anxious to get rid of him did not in the least disconcert Stepan Arkadyevich. Smiling, he stared at the

feather in the Princess's hat, and then about him as though he were going to pick something up. Seeing a lady

approaching with a collection box, he beckoned her up and put in a fiverouble note.

"I can never see these collection boxes unmoved while I've money in my pocket," he said. "And how about

"You don't say so!" he cried, when the Princess told him that Vronsky was going by this train. For an instant

Stepan Arkadyevich's face looked sad, but a minute later, when, stroking his whiskers and swinging as he

walked, he went into the hall where Vronsky was, he had completely forgotten his own despairing sobs over

"With all his faults one can't refuse to do him justice," said the Princess to Sergei Ivanovich, as soon as

Stepan Arkadyevich had left them. "What a typically Russian, Slav nature! Only, I'm afraid it won't be

pleasant for Vronsky to see him. Say what you will, I'm touched by that man's fate. Do talk to him a little on

"I never liked him. But this atones for a great deal. He's not merely going himself he's taking a squadron at

"Here he is!" said the Princess, indicating Vronsky, who, with his mother on his arm walked by, wearing a

long overcoat and widebrimmed black hat. Oblonsky was walking beside him, talking eagerly of something.

Vronsky was frowning and looking straight before him, as though he did not hear what Stepan Arkadyevich

Probably on Oblonsky's pointing them out, he looked round in the direction where the Princess and Sergei

Ivanovich were standing, and, without speaking, lifted his hat. His face, aged and worn by suffering, looked

Going onto the platform, Vronsky left his mother and disappeared into a compartment.

On the platform there rang out "God save the Czar," then shouts of "Hurrah!" and "Jivio!" One of the

volunteers, a tall, very young man with a hollow chest, was particularly conspicuous, bowing and waving his

felt hat and a nosegay over his head. Then two officers emerged, bowing too, and a stout man with a big

Having said goodby to the Princess, Sergei Ivanovich was joined by Katavassov; together they got into a

At Czaritsino station the train was met by a chorus of young men singing "Hail to Thee!" Again the

volunteers bowed and poked their heads out, but Sergei Ivanovich paid no attention to them. He had had so

much to do with the volunteers that the type was familiar to him and did not interest him. Katavassov, whose

scientific work had prevented his having a chance of observing them hitherto, was very much interested in

Sergei Ivanovich advised him to go into the second class and talk to them himself. At the next station

At the first stop he moved into the second class and made the acquaintance of the volunteers. They were

sitting in a corner of the carriage, talking loudly and obviously aware that the attention of the passengers, and

of Katavassov, as he got in, was concentrated upon them. More loudly than all talked the tall, hollowchested

young man. He was unmistakably tipsy, and was relating some story that had occurred at his school. Facing

him sat a middleaged officer in the Austrian military jacket of the Guards' uniform. He was listening with a

smile to the hollowchested youth, and occasionally pulling him up. The third, in an artillery uniform, was

Entering into conversation with the youth, Katavassov learned that he was a wealthy Moscow merchant who

had run through a large fortune before he was twoandtwenty. Katavassov did not like him, because he was

unmanly and effeminate and sickly. He was obviously convinced, especially now after drinking, that he was

The second, the retired officer, made an unpleasant impression too upon Katavassov. He was, it seemed, a

man who had tried everything. He had been on a railway, had been a land steward, and had started factories,

and he talked, quite without necessity, of everything, and used learned expressions quite inappropriately.

The third, the artilleryman, on the contrary, struck Katavassov very favorably. He was a quiet, modest fellow,

unmistakably impressed by the knowledge of the officer and the heroic selfsacrifice of the merchant, and

saying nothing about himself. When Katavassov asked him what had impelled him to go to Servia, he

"Oh, I wasn't long in the artillery; maybe they'll put me into the infantry or the cavalry."

"Into the infantry, when they need artillery more than anything?" said Katavassov, fancying from the

"I wasn't long in the artillery; I'm a junker, in reserve," he said, and he began to explain how he had failed in

All of this together made a disagreeable impression on Katavassov, and when the volunteers got out at a

station for a drink, Katavassov would have liked to compare his unfavorable impression in conversation with

someone. There was an old man in the carriage, wearing a military overcoat, who had been listening all the

while to Katavassov's conversation with the volunteers. When they were left alone, Katavassov addressed

"What different positions they come from, all those fellows who are going off there," Katavassov said

vaguely, not wishing to express his own opinion, and at the same time anxious to find out the old man's

The old man was an officer who had served in two campaigns. He knew what makes a soldier, and, judging

by the appearance and the talk of those persons, by the swagger with which they had recourse to the bottle on

the journey, he considered them poor soldiers. Moreover, he lived in a district town, and he was longing to

tell how one soldier had volunteered from his town, a drunkard and a thief whom no one would employ as a

laborer. But knowing by experience that in the present condition of the public temper it was dangerous to

express an opinion opposed to the general one, and especially to criticize the volunteers unfavorably, he too

"Well, men are wanted there," he said, laughing with his eyes. And they fell to talking of the last war news,

and each concealed from the other his perplexity as to the engagement expected next day, since the Turks had

been beaten, according to the latest news, all along the line. And so they parted, neither giving expression to

Katavassov went back to his own carriage, and with reluctant hypocrisy reported to Sergei Ivanovich his

observations of the volunteers, from which it would appear that they were capital fellows.

At a big station at a town the volunteers were again greeted with shouts and singing, again men and women

with collection boxes appeared, and provincial ladies brought bouquets to the volunteers and followed them

into the refreshment room; but all this was on a much smaller and feebler scale than in Moscow.

While the train was stopping at the provincial town, Sergei Ivanovich did not go to the refreshment room, but

The first time he passed Vronsky's compartment he noticed that the curtain was drawn over the window; but

as he passed it the second time he saw the old Countess at the window. She beckoned to Koznishev.

"Yes, so I heard," said Sergei Ivanovich, standing at her window and peeping in. "What a noble act on his

"Ah, what I have been through! But do get in.... Ah, what I have been through!" she repeated, when Sergei

Ivanovich had got in and sat down beside her. "You can't conceive it! For six weeks he did not speak to

anyone, and would not touch food except when I implored him. And not for one minute could we leave him

alone. We took away everything he could have used against himself. We lived on the ground floor, but there

was no reckoning on anything. You know, of course, that he had shot himself once already on her account,"

she said, and the old lady's brows contracted at the recollection. "Yes, hers was the fitting end for such a

"It's not for us to judge, Countess," said Sergei Ivanovich sighing; "but I can understand that it has been very

"Ah, don't speak of it! I was staying on my estate, and he was with me. A note was brought him. He wrote an

answer and sent it off. We hadn't an idea that she was close by at the station. In the evening I had only just

gone to my room, when my Mary told me a lady had thrown herself under the train. Something seemed to

strike me at once. I knew it was she. The first thing I said was that he was not to be told. But they'd told him

already. His coachman was there and saw it all. When I ran into his room, he was beside himself it was

frightful to see him. He didn't say a word, but galloped off there. I don't know to this day what happened

there, but he was brought back at death's door. I shouldn't have known him. Prostration complete, the doctor

said. And that was followed almost by madness. Oh, why talk of it!" said the Countess with a wave of her

hand. "It was an awful time! No, say what you will, she was a bad woman. Why, what is the meaning of such

desperate passions? It was all to show herself something out of the ordinary. Well, and that she did do. She

"He has taken her daughter. Aliosha was ready to agree to anything at first. Now it worries him terribly that

he should have given his own child away to another man. But he can't take back his word. Karenin came to

the funeral. But we tried to prevent his meeting Aliosha. For him, for her husband, it was easier, anyway. She

had set him free. But my poor son was utterly given up to her. He had thrown up everything, his career, me,

and even then she had no mercy on him, but of set purpose she made his ruin complete. No, say what you

will, her very death was the death of a vile woman, of no religious feeling. God forgive me, but I can't help

"It was a blessing from Providence for us this Servian war. I'm old, and I don't understand the rights and

wrongs of it, but it's come as a providential blessing to him. Of course for me, as his mother, it's terrible; and

what's worse, they say, ce n'est pas tres bien vu a Petersbourg. But it can't be helped! It was the one thing that

could rouse him. Iashvin a friend of his he had lost all he had at cards and he was going to Servia. He came

to see him and persuaded him to go. Now it's an interest for him. Do please talk to him a little. I want to

distract his mind. He's so lowspirited. And, as bad luck would have it, he has toothache too. But he'll be

delighted to see you. Please do talk to him; he's walking up and down on that side."

Sergei Ivanovich said he would be very glad to, and crossed over to the other side of the station.

In the slanting evening shadows cast by the baggage piled up on the platform, Vronsky in his long overcoat

and slouch hat, with his hands in his pockets, strode up and down, like a wild beast in a cage, turning sharply

every twenty paces. Sergei Ivanovich fancied, as he approached him, that Vronsky saw him but was

pretending not to see. This did not affect Sergei Ivanovich in the slightest. He was above all personal

At that moment Sergei Ivanovich looked upon Vronsky as a man taking an important part in a great cause,

and Koznishev thought it his duty to encourage him and express his approval. He went up to him.

Vronsky stood still, looked intently at him, recognized him, and going a few steps forward to meet him,

"Possibly you didn't wish to see me," said Sergei Ivanovich, "but couldn't I be of use to you?"

"There's no one I should less dislike seeing than you," said Vronsky. "Forgive me. There's nothing in life for

"I quite understand, and I merely meant to offer you my services," said Sergei Ivanovich, scanning Vronsky's

face, full of unmistakable suffering. "Wouldn't it be of use to you to have a letter to Ristich, to Milan?"

"Oh, no!" Vronsky said, seeming to understand him with difficulty. "If you don't mind, let's walk on. It's so

stuffy among the cars. A letter? No, thank you; to meet death one needs no letters of introduction. The Turks

take..." he said, with a smile that was merely of the lips. His eyes still kept their look of angry suffering.

"Yes; but you might find it easier to get into relations, which are after all essential, with anyone prepared to

see you. But that's as you like. I was very glad to hear of your intention. There have been so many attacks

"My use as a man," said Vronsky, "is that life's worth nothing to me. And that I've enough bodily energy to

cut my way into their ranks, and to trample on them or fall I know that. I'm glad there's something to give

my life for, for it's not simply useless but loathsome to me. Anyone's welcome to it." And his jaw twitched

impatiently from the incessant nagging toothache, that prevented him from even speaking with a natural

"You will become another man, I predict," said Sergei Ivanovich, feeling touched. "To deliver one's brethren

from bondage is an aim worth death and life. God grant you success outwardly and inwardly peace," he

"Yes, as a weapon I may be of some use. But as a man, I'm a wreck," he jerked out.

He could hardly speak for the throbbing ache in his strong tooth, his mouth being filled up with saliva. He

was silent, and his eyes rested on the wheels of the tender, slowly and smoothly rolling along the rails.

And all at once a different pain, not an ache, but an inner trouble, that set his whole being in anguish, made

him for an instant forget his toothache. As he glanced at the tender and the rails, under the influence of the

conversation with a friend he had not met since his misfortune, he suddenly recalled her that is, what was

left of her when he had run like one distraught into the barrack of the railway station: on the table,

shamelessly sprawling out among strangers, the bloodstained body so lately full of life; the head unhurt

dropping back with its weight of hair, and the curling tresses about the temples, and the exquisite face, with

red, halfopened mouth, the strange, fixed expression, piteous on the lips and awful in the still open eyes,

that seemed to utter that fearful phrase that he would be sorry for it which she had said when they were

And he tried to think of her as she was when he met her the first time, at a railway station too, mysterious,

exquisite, loving, seeking and giving happiness, and not cruelly revengeful as he remembered her at that last

moment. He tried to recall his best moments with her, but those moments were poisoned forever. He could

only think of her as triumphant, successful in her menace of a wholly useless remorse, never to be effaced.

Passing twice up and down beside the baggage in silence and regaining his selfpossession, he addressed

"You have had no telegrams since yesterday's? Yes, driven back for a third time, but a decisive engagement

And after talking a little more of the proclaiming of Milan as King, and the immense effect this might have,

Sergei Ivanovich had not telegraphed to his brother to send to meet him, as he did not know when he should

be able to leave Moscow. Levin was not at home when Katavassov and Sergei Ivanovich, in a wagonette

hired at the station, drove up to the steps of the Pokrovskoe house, as black as Negroes from the dust of the

road. Kitty, sitting on the balcony with her father and sister, recognized her brotherinlaw, and ran down to

"What a shame not to have let us know," she said, giving her hand to Sergei Ivanovich, and putting her

"We drove here capitally, and have not put you out," answered Sergei Ivanovich. "I'm so dirty. I'm afraid to

touch you. I've been so busy, I didn't know when I should be able to tear myself away. And so you're still as

ever enjoying your peaceful, quiet happiness," he said, smiling, "out of the reach of the current in your

peaceful backwater. Here's our friend Fiodor Vassilievich, successful in getting here at last."

"But I'm not a Negro; I shall look like a human being when I wash," said Katavassov in his jesting fashion,

"Kostia will be delighted. He has gone to his grange. It's time he should be home."

"Busy as ever with his farming. It really is a peaceful backwater," said Katavassov; "while we in town think

of nothing but the Servian war. Well, how does our friend look at it? He's sure not to think like other people."

"Oh, I don't know, he's like everybody else," Kitty answered, a little embarrassed, looking round at Sergei

Ivanovich. "I'll send to fetch him. Papa's staying with us. He's only just come home from abroad."

And making arrangements to send for Levin and for the guests to wash, one in his room and the other in what

had been Dolly's, and giving orders for their luncheon, Kitty ran out on the balcony, enjoying the freedom

and rapidity of movement, of which she had been deprived during the months of her pregnancy.

"No, papa, he's very nice, and Kostia's very fond of him," Kitty said, with a deprecating smile, noticing the

"You go to them, darling," said Kitty to her sister, "and entertain them. They saw Stiva at the station; he was

quite well. And I must run to Mitia. As ill luck would have it, I haven't fed him since tea. He's awake now,

and sure to be screaming." And, feeling a rush of milk, she hurried to the nursery.

This was not a mere guess; her connection with the child was still so close that she could gauge by the flow

She knew he was crying before she reached the nursery. And he was indeed crying. She heard him and

hastened. But the faster she went the louder he screamed. It was a fine healthy scream, hungry and impatient.

"Has he been screaming long, nurse very long?" said Kitty, hurriedly seating herself on a chair, and

preparing to give the baby the breast. "But give me him quickly. Oh, nurse, how tiresome you are! There, tie

"But you can't manage so, ma'am," said Agathya Mikhailovna, who was almost always to be found in the

nursery. "He must be put straight. Aoo! Aoo!" she chanted over him, paying no attention to the mother.

The nurse brought the baby to his mother. Agathya Mikhailovna followed him with a face melting with

"He knows me, he knows me. In God's faith, Katerina Alexandrovna, ma'am, he recognized me!" Agathya

Their impatience hindered things for a while. The baby could not get hold of the breast right, and was furious.

At last, after despairing, breathless screaming, and vain sucking, things went right, and mother and child felt

"But poor darling, he's all in perspiration!" said Kitty in a whisper, touching the baby. "What makes you think

he knows you?" she added, with a sidelong glance at the baby's eyes, that peered roguishly, as she fancied,

from under his cap, at his rhythmically puffing cheeks, and the little redpalmed hand he was waving.

"Impossible! If he knew anyone, he would have known me," said Kitty, in response to Agathya Mikhailovna's

She smiled because, though she said he could not know her, in her heart she was sure that he knew not merely

Agathya Mikhailovna, but that he knew and understood everything, and knew and understood a great deal too

that no one else knew, and that she, his mother, had learned and come to understand only through him. To

Agathya Mikhailovna, to the nurse, to his grandfather, to his father even, Mitia was a living being, requiring

only material care, but for his mother he had long been a moral being, with whom there had been a whole

"When he wakes up, please God, you shall see for yourself. Then when I do like this, he simply beams on me,

"Well, well; then we shall see," whispered Kitty. "But now go away, he's going to sleep."

Agathya Mikhailovna went out on tiptoe; the nurse let down the blind, chased flies out from under the muslin

canopy of the crib, and a hornet struggling on the window frame, and sat down waving a faded branch of

"Yes, yes, sh sh sh" was all Kitty answered, rocking a little, and tenderly squeezing the plump little arm,

with rolls of fat at the wrist, which Mitia still waved feebly as he opened and shut his eyes. That hand worried

Kitty; she longed to kiss the little hand, but was afraid to for fear of waking the baby. At last the little hand

ceased waving, and the eyes closed. Only from time to time, as he went on sucking, the baby raised his long,

curly eyelashes and peeped at his mother with humid eyes, that looked black in the twilight. The nurse had

left off fanning, and was dozing. From above came the peals of the old Prince's voice, and the chuckle of

"They have got into talk, without me," thought Kitty, "but still it's vexing that Kostia's out. He's sure to have

gone to the beehouse again. Though, it's a pity he's there so often, still I'm glad. It distracts his mind. He's

become altogether happier and better now than in the spring. He used to be so gloomy and worried that I felt

She knew what worried her husband. It was his unbelief. Although, if she had been asked whether she

supposed that in the future life, if he did not believe, he would be damned, she would have had to admit that

he would be damned, his unbelief did not cause her unhappiness. And she, confessing that for an unbeliever

there can be no salvation, and loving her husband's soul more than anything in the world, thought with a

"What does he keep reading philosophy of some sort for all this year?" she wondered. "If it's all written in

those books, he can understand them. If it's all wrong, why does he read them? He says himself that he would

like to believe. Then why is it he doesn't believe? Surely from his thinking so much? And he thinks so much

from being solitary. He's always alone, alone. He can't talk about it all to us. I fancy he'll be glad of these

visitors, especially Katavassov. He likes discussions with them," she thought, and passed instantly to the

consideration of where it would be more convenient to put Katavassov, to sleep alone or to share Sergei

Ivanovich's room. And then an idea suddenly struck her, which made her shudder and even disturb Mitia,

who glanced severely at her. "I do believe the laundress hasn't sent the washing yet, and all the guests' sheets

are in use. If I don't see to it, Agathya Mikhailovna will give Sergei Ivanovich the used sheets," and at the

"Yes, I will arrange it," she decided, and going back to her former thoughts, she remembered that some

spiritual question of importance had been interrupted, and she began to recall what. "Yes, Kostia, an

"Well, an unbeliever then! Better let him always be one than like Madame Stahl, or what I tried to be in those

And a recent instance of his goodness rose vividly to her mind. A fortnight ago a penitent letter had come

from Stepan Arkadyevich to Dolly. He besought her to save his honor, to sell her estate to pay his debts.

Dolly was in despair, she detested her husband, despised him, pitied him, resolved on a separation, resolved

to refuse, but ended by agreeing to sell part of her property. After that, with an irrepressible smile of

tenderness, Kitty recalled her husband's shamefaced embarrassment, his repeated awkward efforts to

approach the subject, and how at last, having thought of the one means of helping Dolly without wounding

her pride, he had suggested to Kitty what had not occurred to her before that she should give up her share

"He an unbeliever indeed! With his heart, his dread of offending anyone, even a child! Everything for others,

nothing for himself. Sergei Ivanovich simply considers it as Kostia's duty to be his bailiff. And it's the same

with his sister. Now Dolly and her children are under his guardianship; all these peasants who come to him

"Yes, only be like your father only like him," she said, handing Mitia over to the nurse, and putting her lips

Ever since, by his beloved brother's deathbed, Levin had first glanced into the questions of life and death in

the light of these new convictions, as he called them, which had during the period from his twentieth to his

thirtyfourth year imperceptibly replaced his childish and youthful beliefs he had been stricken with horror,

not so much of death, as of life, without any knowledge of whence, and why, and how, and what it was. The

physical organization, its decay, the Indestructibility of matter, the law of the conservation of energy,

evolution, were the words which usurped the place of his old belief. These words and the ideas associated

with them were very well for intellectual purposes. But for life they yielded nothing, and Levin felt suddenly

like a man who has changed his warm fur cloak for a muslin garment, and going for the first time into the

frost is immediately convinced, not by reason, but by his whole nature, that he is as good as naked, and that

From that moment, though he did not distinctly face it, and still went on living as before, Levin had never lost

He vaguely felt, too, that what he called his new convictions were not merely lack of knowledge, but that

they were part of a whole order of ideas, in which no knowledge of what he needed was possible.

At first, marriage, with the new joys and duties bound up with it, had completely crowded out these thoughts.

But of late, while he was staying in Moscow after his wife's confinement, with nothing to do, the question

that clamored for solution had more and more often, more and more insistently, haunted Levin's mind.

The question was summed up for him thus: "If I do not accept the answers Christianity gives to the problems

of my life, what answers do I accept?" And in the whole arsenal of his convictions, so far from finding any

satisfactory answers, he was utterly unable to find anything at all like an answer.

Instinctively, unconsciously, with every book, with every conversation, with every man he met, he was on the

What puzzled and distracted him above everything was that the majority of men of his age and circle had,

like him, exchanged their old beliefs for the same new convictions, and yet saw nothing to lament in this, and

were perfectly satisfied and serene. So that, apart from the principal question, Levin was tortured by other

questions too: were these people sincere? or were they playing a part? or was it that they understood the

answers science gave to these problems in some different, clearer sense than he did? And he assiduously

studied both these men's opinions and the books which treated of these scientific explanations.

One fact he had found out since these questions had engrossed his mind that he had been quite wrong in

supposing, from the recollections of the university circle of his young days, that religion had outlived its day,

and that it was now practically nonexistent. All the people nearest to him who were good in their lives were

believers. The old Prince, and Lvov, whom he liked so much, and Sergei Ivanovich; and all the women

believed; and his wife believed as simply as he had believed in his earliest childhood; and ninetynine

hundredths of the Russian people, all the people for whose life he felt the deepest respect, believed.

Another fact of which he became convinced, after reading many books, was that the men who shared his

views had no other construction to put on them, and that they gave no explanation of the questions which he

felt he could not live without answering, but simply ignored their existence and attempted to explain other

questions of no possible interest to him, such as the evolution of organisms, the mechanistic theory of the

Moreover, during his wife's confinement, something had happened that seemed extraordinary to him. He, an

unbeliever, had fallen into praying, and at the moment he prayed, he believed. But that moment had passed,

and he could not make his state of mind at that moment fit into the rest of his life.

He could not admit that at that moment he knew the truth, and that now he was wrong; for as soon as he

began thinking calmly about it, it all fell to pieces. He could not admit that he was mistaken then, for his

spiritual condition then was precious to him, and to admit that it was a proof of weakness would have been to

desecrate those moments. He was miserably divided against himself, and strained all his spiritual forces to the

These doubts fretted and harassed him, growing weaker or stronger from time to time, but never leaving him.

He read and thought, and the more he read and the more he thought, the further he felt from the aim he was

Of late in Moscow and in the country, since he had become convinced that he would find no solution in the

materialists, he had read and reread thoroughly Plato, Spinoza, Kant, Schelling, Hegel, and Schopenhauer

Their ideas seemed to him fruitful when he was reading or was himself seeking arguments to refute other

theories, especially those of the materialists; but as soon as he began to read or sought for himself a solution

of problems, the same thing always happened. As long as he followed the fixed definition of vague words

such as spirit, will, freedom, substance, purposely letting himself go into the snare of words the philosophers,

or he himself, set for him, he seemed to comprehend something. But he had only to forget the artificial train

of reasoning, and to turn from life itself to what had satisfied him while thinking in accordance with the fixed

definitions, and all this artificial edifice fell to pieces at once like a house of cards, and it became clear that

the edifice had been built up out of those transposed words, apart from a something in life that was more

At one time, reading Schopenhauer, he put in place of his will the word love, and for a couple of days this

new philosophy consoled him, till he removed away from it. But then, when he turned from life itself to

glance at it again, it fell away too, and proved to be the same muslin garment with no warmth in it.

His brother Sergei Ivanovich advised him to read the theological works of Khomiakov. Levin read the second

volume of Khomiakov's works, and in spite of the elegant, epigrammatic, polemic style which at first repelled

him, he was impressed by the doctrine of the church he found in them. He was struck at first by the idea that

the apprehension of divine truths had not been vouchsafed to man, but to a corporation of men bound together

by love to Church. What delighted him was the thought how much easier it was to believe in a still existing

living Church, embracing all the beliefs of men, and having God at its head, and therefore holy and infallible,

and from it to accept the faith in God, in the creation, the fall, the redemption, than to begin with God, a

mysterious, faraway God, the creation, etc. But afterward, on reading a Catholic writer's history of the

Church, and then a Greek orthodox writer's history of the Church, and seeing that the two Churches, in their

very conception infallible, each deny the authority of the other, Khomiakov's doctrine of the Church lost all

its charm for him, and this edifice crumbled into dust like the philosophers' edifices.

"Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life's impossible; and that I can't know, and so I can't live,"

"In infinite time, in infinite matter, in infinite space, is formed a bubble organism, and that bubble lasts a

It was an agonizing error, but it was the sole logical result of ages of human thought in that direction.

This was the ultimate belief on which all the systems elaborated by human thought, in almost all their

ramifications, rested. It was the prevalent conviction, and of all other explanations Levin had unconsciously,

not knowing when or how, chosen it, as the clearest at any rate, and made it his own.

But it was not merely a falsehood, it was the cruel jeer of some wicked power, some evil, hateful power, to

He must escape from this power. And the means of escape every man had in his own hands. He had but to cut

And Levin, a happy father and a man in perfect health, was several times so near suicide that he hid the cord,

lest he be tempted to hang himself, and was afraid to go out with his gun, for fear of shooting himself.

When Levin thought what he was and what he was living for, he could find no answer to the questions and

was reduced to despair; but when he left off questioning himself about it, it seemed as though he knew both

what he was and what he was living for, acting and living resolutely and without hesitation; even in these

latter days he was far more decided and unhesitating in life than he had ever been.

When he went back to the country at the beginning of June, he went back also to his usual pursuits. His

agriculture, his relations with the peasants and the neighbors, the care of his household, the management of

his sister's and brother's property, of which he had the direction, his relations with his wife and kindred, the

care of his child, and the new beekeeping hobby he had taken up that spring, filled all his time.

These things occupied him now, not because he justified them to himself by any sort of general principles, as

he had done in former days; on the contrary, disappointed by the failure of his former efforts for the general

welfare, and too much occupied with his own thought and the mass of business with which he was burdened

from all sides, he had completely given up thinking of the general good, and he busied himself with all this

work simply because it seemed to him that he must do what he was doing that he could not do otherwise.

In former days almost from childhood, and increasingly up to full manhood when he had tried to do

anything that would be good for all, for humanity, for Russia, for the whole village, he had noticed that the

idea of it had been pleasant, but the work itself had always been incoherent, that then he had never had a full

conviction of its absolute necessity, and that the work that had begun by seeming so great, had grown less and

less, till it vanished into nothing. But now, since his marriage, when he had begun to confine himself more

and more to living for himself, though he experienced no delight at all at the thought of the work he was

doing, he felt a complete conviction of its necessity, saw that it succeeded far better than in old days, and that

Now, involuntarily it seemed, he cut more and more deeply into the soil like a plough, so that he could not be

To live the same family life as his father and forefathers that is, in the same condition of culture and to

bring up his children in the same, was incontestably necessary. It was as necessary as dining when one was

hungry; and to do this, just as it was necessary to cook dinner, it was necessary to keep the mechanism of

agriculture at Pokrovskoe going so as to yield an income. Just as incontestably as it was necessary to repay a

debt was it necessary to keep the patrimonial estate in such a condition that his son, when he received it as a

heritage, would say "Thank you" to his father as Levin had said "Thank you" to the grandfather for all he had

built and planted. And to do this it was necessary to look after the land himself, not to let it, and to breed

It was impossible not to look after the affairs of Sergei Ivanovich, of his sister, of all the peasants who came

to him for advice and were accustomed to do so as impossible as to fling down a child one is carrying in

one's arms. It was necessary to look after the comfort of his sisterinlaw and her children, and of his wife

and baby, and it was impossible not to spend with them at least a short time each day.

And all this, together with shooting and his new beekeeping, filled up the whole of Levin's life, which had no

But besides knowing thoroughly what he had to do, Levin knew in just the same way how he had to do it all,

He knew he must hire laborers as cheaply as possible; but to hire men under bond, paying them in advance at

less than the current rate of wages, was what he must not do, even though it was very profitable. Selling straw

to the peasants in times of scarcity of provender was what he might do, even though he felt sorry for them;

but the tavern and the pothouse must be put down, though they were a source of income. Felling timber must

be punished as severely as possible, but he could not exact forfeits for cattle being driven into his fields; and

though it annoyed the keeper and made the peasants not afraid to graze their cattle on his land, he could not

To Piotr, who was paying a moneylender ten per cent a month, he must lend a sum of money to set him free;

but he could not let off peasants who did not pay their rent, nor let them fall into arrears. It was impossible to

overlook the bailiff's not having mown the meadows and letting the hay spoil; and it was equally impossible

to mow eighty dessiatinas where a young copse had been planted. It was impossible to excuse a laborer who

had gone home in the busy season because his father was dying, however sorry he might feel for him, and he

must subtract from his pay those costly months of idleness, but it was impossible not to allow monthly rations

Levin knew also that when he got home he must first of all go to his wife, who was unwell, and that the

peasants who had been waiting for three hours to see him could wait a little longer. He knew too that,

regardless of all the pleasure he felt in taking a swarm, he must forego that pleasure, and leave the old man to

see to the bees alone, while he talked to the peasants who had come after him to the beehouse.

Whether he were acting rightly or wrongly he did not know, and far from trying to prove which it was

Reasoning had brought him to doubt, and prevented him from seeing what he ought to do and what he ought

not. When he did not think, but simply lived, he was continually aware of the presence of an infallible judge

in his soul, determining which of two possible courses of action was the better and which was the worse; and

So he lived, not knowing and not seeing any chance of knowing what he was and what he was living for, and

harassed at this lack of knowledge to such a point that he was afraid of suicide, and yet firmly laying down

The day on which Sergei Ivanovich came to Pokrovskoe was one of Levin's most painful days.

It was the very busiest working time, when all the peasantry show an extraordinary intensity of selfsacrifice

in labor, such as is not to be found in any other conditions of life and would be highly esteemed if the men

who showed these qualities themselves thought highly of them, and if it were not repeated every year, and if

To reap and bind and cart off the rye and oats; to mow the meadows, turn over the fallows, thresh the seed

and sow the winter corn all this seems so simple and ordinary; but to succeed in getting through it all

everyone in the village, from the old man to the young child, must toil incessantly for three or four weeks,

three times as hard as usual, living on kvass, onions, and black bread, threshing and carrying the sheaves at

night, and not giving more than two or three hours in the twentyfour to sleep. And every year this is done all

Having lived the greater part of his life in the country and in the closest relations with the peasants, Levin

always felt in this busy time that he was infected by this general quickening of energy in the people.

In the early morning he rode over to the first sowing of the rye, and to the oats, which were being carried to

the stacks, and, returning home at the time his wife and sisterinlaw were getting up, he drank coffee with

them and walked to the grange, where a new threshing machine was to be set working to get ready the seed.

All this day Levin, while talking with the bailiff and the peasants, and, at home, with his wife, and Dolly, and

her children, and his fatherinlaw, kept on thinking of one thing, and one thing only that which at this time

engrossed him most outside of the cares of his estate; and in everything he sought a relation to his

He was standing in the cool threshing barn, still fragrant with the leaves of the hazel branches interlaced on

the freshly peeled aspen beams of the new thatch roof. He gazed through the open door in which the dry bitter

chaff dust swirled and played; at the grass of the threshing floor in the sunlight and the fresh straw that had

been brought in from the barn; then at the specklyheaded, whitebreasted swallows that flew chirping in

under the roof and, fluttering their wings, settled in the crevices of the doorway; then at the peasants bustling

"Why is all this being done?" he thought. "Why am I standing here, making them work? What are they all so

busy for, trying to show their zeal before me? For what reason is old Matriona, my old friend, toiling? (I

doctored her, when the beam fell on her in the fire)," he thought, looking at a thin old woman who was raking

up the grain, moving painfully with her bare, sunblackened feet over the uneven, rough floor. "Then she

recovered, but today or tomorrow or in ten years she won't; they'll bury her, and nothing will be left either of

her or of that dashing woman in the red skirt, who with that skillful, gentle action is shaking the ears out of

their husks. They'll bury her, as well as this piebald gelding, and very soon too," he thought, gazing at the

heavily moving, panting horse that kept walking up the treadwheel that turned under him. "And they will

bury her, and Fiodor the thresher with his curly beard full of chaff, and his shirt torn on his white shoulders

they will bury him. He's untying the sheaves, and giving orders, and shouting to the women, and quickly

setting straight the strap on the moving wheel. And what's more, it's not them alone they'll bury me too, and

He thought this, and at the same time looked at his watch to reckon how much they threshed in an hour. He

"It'll soon be one, and they're only beginning the third sheaf," thought Levin. He went up to the man who was

feeding the machine, and shouting over the roar of the machine, he told him to feed it more slowly.

"You put in too much at a time, Fiodor. Do you see it gets choked, that's why it isn't getting on. Do it

Fiodor, black with the dust that clung to his moist face, shouted something in response, but still went on

Levin, going up to the machine, moved Fiodor aside, and began feeding the machine himself.

Working on till the peasants' dinner hour, which was not long in coming, he went out of the barn with Fiodor

and fell into talk with him, stopping beside a neat yellow sheaf of rye laid on the threshing floor for seed.

Fiodor came from a village at some distance from the one in which Levin had once allotted land to his

Levin talked to Fiodor about this land and asked whether Platon, a welltodo peasant of good character

"It's a high rent; it wouldn't pay Platon, Konstantin Dmitrich," answered the peasant, picking the ears off his

"Mitukha!" (So the peasant called the innkeeper in a tone of contempt.) "You may be sure he'll make it pay,

Konstantin Dmitrich! He'll get his share, however he has to squeeze to get it! He's no mercy on a peasant. But

Uncle Fokanich" (so he called the old peasant Platon) "do you suppose he'd flay the skin off a man? Where

"Oh, well, of course, folks are different. One man lives for his own wants and nothing else, like Mitukha,

thinking only of filling his belly; but Fokanich is a righteous old man. He lives for his soul. He does not

"How does he think of God? How does he live for his soul?" Levin almost shouted.

"Why, to be sure, in truth, in God's way. Folks are different. Take you, now you wouldn't wrong a man..."

"Yes, yes goodby!" said Levin, breathless with excitement, and turning round he took his stick and walked

quickly away toward home. At the peasant's words that Fokanich lived for his soul, in truth, in God's way,

undefined but significant ideas seemed to burst forth, as though they had been locked up, and, all of them

striving toward one goal, they thronged whirling through his head, blinding him with their light.

Levin strode along the highroad, absorbed not so much in his thoughts (he could not yet disentangle them), as

The words uttered by the peasant had acted on his soul like an electric shock, suddenly transforming and

combining into a single whole the whole swarm of disjointed, impotent, separate thoughts that incessantly

occupied his mind. These thoughts had unconsciously been in his mind even when he was talking about the

He was aware of something new in his soul, and joyfully tested this new thing, not yet knowing what it was.

"Not living for his own wants, but for God? For what God? And could one say anything more senseless than

what he said? He said that one must not live for one's own wants, that is, that one must not live for what we

understand, what we are attracted by, what we desire but must live for something incomprehensible, for

God, whom no one can understand nor even define. What of it? Didn't I understand those senseless words of

Fiodor's? And understanding them, did I doubt their truth? Did I think them stupid, obscure, inexact?

"No, I understood him, and exactly as he understands the words. I understood them more fully and clearly

than I understand anything in life, and never in my life have I doubted nor can I doubt about them. And not

only I, but everyone, the whole world, understands nothing fully but this, and about this only they have no

"Fiodor says that Kirillov, the innkeeper, lives for his belly. That's comprehensible and rational. All of us as

rational beings can't do anything else but live for our belly. And all of a sudden the same Fiodor says that one

mustn't live for one's belly, but must live for truth, for God, and, at a hint, I understand him! And I and

millions of men, men who lived ages ago and men living now peasants, the poor in spirit and the sages, who

have thought and written about it, in their obscure words saying the same thing we are all agreed about this

one thing: what we must live for and what is good. I and all men have only one firm, incontestable, clear

knowledge, and that knowledge cannot be explained by reason it is outside it, and has no causes, and can

"If goodness has causes, it is not goodness; if it has effects a reward it is not goodness either. So goodness

"And I sought miracles, complained that I did not see a miracle which would convince me. And here is a

miracle, the sole miracle possible, continually existing, surrounding me on all sides, and I never noticed it!

"Can I have found the solution of it all? Can my sufferings be over?" thought Levin, striding along the dusty

road, not noticing the heat nor his weariness, and experiencing a sense of relief from prolonged suffering.

This feeling was so delicious that it seemed to him incredible. He was breathless with emotion and incapable

of going farther; he turned off the road into the forest and lay down in the shade of an aspen on the uncut

grass. He took his hat off his hot head and lay propped on his elbow in the lush, feathery, woodland grass.

"Yes, I must make it clear to myself and understand," he thought, looking intently at the untrampled grass

before him, and following the movements of a green beetle, advancing along a blade of couch grass and

lifting up in its progress a leaf of goatweed. "Everything from beginning?" he asked himself, bending aside

the leaf of goatweed out of the beetle's way and twisting another blade of grass above for the beetle to cross

"Of old I used to say that in my body, that in the body of this grass and of this beetle (there, she didn't care for

the grass, she's opened her wings and flown away), there was going on a transformation of matter in

accordance with physical, chemical, and physiological laws. And in all of us, as well as in the aspens and

clouds and nebulae, there was a process of evolution. Evolution from what? Into what? Eternal evolution

and struggle... As though there could be any sort of tendency and struggle in the eternal! And I was

astonished that in spite of utmost effort of thought in this direction I could not discover the meaning of life,

the meaning of my impulses and yearnings. And the meaning of my impulses is so clear within me, that I was

living according to them all the time, and I was astonished and rejoiced, when the peasant expressed it to me:

"I have discovered nothing. I have only found out what I knew. I understand the force that in the past gave

me life, and now too gives me life. I have been set free from falsity, I have found the Master."

And he briefly went through, mentally, the whole course of his ideas during the last two years, the beginning

of which was the clear confronting of death at the sight of his dear brother hopelessly ill.

Then, for the first time, grasping that for every man, and himself too, there was nothing in store but suffering,

death and eternal oblivion, he had made up his mind that life was impossible like that, and that he must either

interpret life so that it would not present itself to him as the evil jest of some devil, or else shoot himself.

But he had not done either, but had gone on living, thinking, and feeling, and had even at that very time

married, and had had many joys, and had been happy, when he was not thinking of the meaning of his life.

What did this mean? It meant that he had been living rightly, but thinking wrongly.

He had lived (without being aware of it) on those spiritual truths that he had sucked in with his mother's milk,

but he had thought, not merely without recognition of these truths, but studiously ignoring them.

Now it was clear to him that he could live only by virtue of the beliefs in which he had been brought up.

"What should I have been, and how should I have spent my life, if I had not had these beliefs, if I had not

known that I must live for God and not for my own wants? I should have robbed and lied and killed. Nothing

of what makes the chief happiness of my life would have existed for me." And with the utmost stretch of

imagination he could not conceive the brutal creature he would have been himself, if he had not known what

"I looked for an answer to my question. And thought could not give an answer to my question it is

incommensurable with my question. The answer has been given me by life itself, in my knowledge of what is

right and what is wrong. And that knowledge I did not arrive at in any way, it was given to me as to all men,

"Where could I have got it? Could I have arrived through reason at knowing that I must love my neighbor and

not oppress him? I was told that in my childhood, and I believed it gladly, for they told me what was already

in my soul. But who discovered it? Not reason. Reason discovered the struggle for existence, and the law that

requires us to oppress all who hinder the satisfaction of our desires. That is the deduction of reason. But

loving one's neighbor reason could never discover, because that is unreasonable.

"Yes, pride," he said to himself, turning over on his abdomen and beginning to tie a noose of blades of grass,

"And not merely pride of intellect, but dullness of intellect. And most of all, its knavishness; yes, the

knavishness of intellect. The cheating knavishness of intellect that's it," he repeated.

And Levin remembered a scene he had lately witnessed between Dolly and her children. The children, left to

themselves, had begun cooking raspberries over the candles and squirting milk into each other's mouths with

a syringe. Their mother, catching them at these pranks, began reminding them in Levin's presence of the

trouble their mischief gave to the grownup people, and that this trouble was all for their sake, and that if

they smashed the cups they would have nothing to drink their tea out of, and that if they wasted the milk, they

And Levin had been struck by the passive, weary incredulity with which the children heard what their mother

said to them. They were simply annoyed that their amusing play had been interrupted, and did not believe a

word of what their mother was saying. They could not believe it indeed, for they could not take in the

immensity of all they habitually enjoyed, and so could not conceive that what they were destroying was the

"That all comes of itself," they thought, "and there's nothing interesting or important about it, because it has

always been so, and always will be so. And it's all always the same. We've no need to think about that, it's all

ready; but we want to invent something of our own, and new. So we thought of putting raspberries in a cup,

and cooking them over a candle, and squirting milk straight into each other's mouths. That's fun, and

"Isn't it just the same that we do, that I did, searching by the aid of reason for the significance of the forces of

"And don't all the theories of philosophy do the same, trying by the path of thought, which is strange and not

natural to man, to bring him to a knowledge of what he has known long ago, and knows so certainly that he

could not live at all without it? Isn't it distinctly to be seen in the development of each philosopher's theory,

that he knows what is the chief significance of life beforehand, just as positively as the peasant Fiodor, and

not a bit more clearly than he, and is simply trying by a dubious intellectual path to come back to what

"Now then, leave the children to themselves to get things alone and make their crockery, get the milk from

the cows, and so on. Would they be naughty then? Why, they'd die of hunger! Well, then, leave us with our

passions and thoughts, without any idea of the one God, of the Creator, or without any idea of what is right,

"We destroy them only because we're spiritually provided for. Exactly like the children!

"Whence have I that joyful knowledge, shared with the peasant, that alone gives peace to my soul? Whence

"Brought up with an idea of God, a Christian, my whole life filled with the spiritual blessings Christianity has

given me, full of them, and living on these blessings, like the children I did not understand them, and

destroy that is, try to destroy what I live by. And as soon as an important moment of life comes, like the

children when they are cold and hungry, I turn to Him, and even less than the children when their mother's

scold them for their childish mischief, do I feel that my childish efforts at wanton madness are reckoned

"Yes, what I know, I know not by reason but it has been given to me, revealed to me, and I know it with my

"The Church? The Church!" Levin repeated to himself. He turned over on the other side, and, leaning on his

elbow, fell to gazing into the distance at a herd of cattle crossing over to the river.

"But can I believe in all the Church teaches?" he thought, putting himself to the test, and thinking of

everything that could destroy his present peace of mind. Intentionally he recalled all those doctrines of the

Church which had always seemed most strange and had always been a stumbling block to him. The Creation?

But how did I explain existence? By existence? By nothing? The devil and sin. But how do I explain evil?...

"But I know nothing, nothing, and I can know nothing but what has been told to me and all men."

And it seemed to him now that there was not a single article of faith of the Church which could destroy the

Under every article of faith of the Church could be put the faith in the service of truth instead of one's wants.

And each doctrine did not simply leave that faith unshaken each doctrine seemed essential to complete that

great miracle, continually manifest upon earth, that made it possible for each man, and millions of different

sorts of men wise men and imbeciles, old men and children all men, peasants, Lvov, Kitty, beggars and

kings, to understand perfectly the same one thing, and to build up thereby that life of the soul which alone is

Lying on his back, he gazed up now into the high, cloudless sky. "Do I not know that that is infinite space,

and that it is not a round arch? But, however I screw up my eyes and strain my sight, I cannot see it as not

round and not bounded, and, in spite of my knowing about infinite space, I am incontestably right when I see

Levin ceased thinking, and only, as it were, listened to mysterious voices that seemed talking joyfully and

"Can this be faith?" he thought, afraid to believe in his happiness. "My God, I thank Thee!" he said, gulping

down his sobs, and with both hands brushing away the tears that filled his eyes.

Levin looked before him and saw a herd of cattle, then he caught sight of his wagonette with Black in the

shafts, and the coachman, who, driving up to the herd, said something to the herdsman. Then he heard the

rattle of the wheels and the snort of the sleek horse close by him. But he was so buried in his thoughts that he

He only thought of that when the coachman had driven quite up to him and shouted to him.

As though just roused out of sleep, for a long while Levin could not collect his faculties. He stared at the

sleek horse flecked with lather between his haunches and on his neck, where the harness rubbed, stared at

Ivan the coachman, sitting beside him, and remembered that he was expecting his brother, thought that his

wife was most likely uneasy at his long absence, and tried to guess who was the visitor who had come with

his brother. And his brother and his wife and the unknown guest seemed to him now quite different from

"With my brother there will be none of that aloofness there always used to be between us, there will be no

disputes; with Kitty there shall never be quarrels; with the visitor, whoever he may be, I will be friendly and

Pulling the stiff rein and holding in the good horse that snorted with impatience and begged to be let go,

Levin looked round at Ivan sitting beside him, not knowing what to do with his unoccupied hands,

continually pressing down his shirt as it puffed out, and he tried to find something to start a conversation

about with him. He would have said that Ivan had pulled the saddle girth up too high, but that was like blame,

"Your Honor must keep to the right and mind that stump," said the coachman, pulling the rein Levin held.

"Please don't touch anything and don't teach me!" said Levin, angered by this interference. Now, as always,

interference made him angry, and he felt sorrowfully at once how mistaken had been his supposition that his

He was not a quarter of a versta from home when he saw Grisha and Tania running to meet him.

"Uncle Kostia! Mamma's coming, and grandfather, and Sergei Ivanovich, and someone else," they said,

"An awfully terrible person! And he does like this with his arms," said Tania, getting up in the wagonette and

"Old or young?" asked Levin, laughing, reminded of someone, he did not know whom, by Tania's

As soon as he turned, at a bend in the road, and saw the party coming, Levin recognized Katavassov in a

Katavassov was very fond of discussing metaphysics, having derived his notions from natural science writers

who had never studied metaphysics, and in Moscow Levin had had many arguments with him of late.

And one of these arguments, in which Katavassov had obviously considered that he came off victorious, was

"No, whatever I do, I won't argue and give utterance to my ideas lightly," he thought.

Getting out of the wagonette and greeting his brother and Katavassov, Levin asked about his wife.

"She has taken Mitia to Kolok" (a copse near the house). "She meant to have him out there because it's so hot

indoors," said Dolly. Levin had always advised his wife not to take the baby to the wood, thinking it unsafe,

"She rushes about from place to place with him," said the Prince, smiling. "I advised her to try putting him in

"She meant to come to the apiary. She thought you would be there. We are going there," said Dolly.

"Well, and what are you doing?" said Sergei Ivanovich, falling back from the rest and walking beside him.

"Oh, nothing special. Busy as usual with the land," answered Levin. "Well, and what about you? Come for

At these words the brothers' eyes met, and Levin, in spite of the desire he always had, stronger than ever just

now, to be on affectionate and still more open terms with his brother, felt an awkwardness in looking at him.

Casting over the subjects of conversation that would be pleasant to Sergei Ivanovich, and would keep him off

the subject of the Servian war and the Slavonic question, at which he had hinted by alluding to what he had to

"No one is interested in that now, and I least of all," he said. "Just look, Darya Alexandrovna, we shall have a

shower," he added, pointing with a sunshade at the white rain clouds that showed above the aspen treetops.

And these words were enough to reestablish again between the brothers that tone hardly hostile, but chilly

"I've been intending to a long while. Now we shall have some discussion we'll see to that. Have you been

"I mean that I'm fully convinced that the solution of the problems that interest me I shall never find in him

But Katavassov's serene and goodhumored expression suddenly struck him, and he felt such tenderness for

his own happy mood, which he was unmistakably disturbing by this conversation, that he remembered his

"But we'll talk later on," he added. "If we're going to the apiary, it's this way, along this little path," he said,

Going along the narrow path to a little uncut meadow covered on one side with thick clumps of brilliant

heartsease, among which stood up here and there tall, dark green tufts of hellebore, Levin settled his guests in

the dense, cool shade of the young aspens on a bench and some stumps purposely put there for visitors to the

apiary who might be afraid of the bees, and he went off himself to the hut to get bread, cucumbers, and fresh

Trying to make his movements as deliberate as possible, and listening to the bees that buzzed more and more

frequently past him, he walked along the little path to the hut. In the very entry one bee hummed angrily,

caught in his beard, but he carefully extricated it. Going into the shady outer room, he took down from the

wall his veil, that hung on a peg, and putting it on, and thrusting his hands into his pockets, he went into the

fencedin bee garden, where there stood in the midst of a closely mown space in regular rows, fastened with

bast on posts, all the hives he knew so well, the old stocks, each with its own history, and along the fences the

younger swarms hived that year. In front of the openings of the hives, it made his eyes giddy to watch the

bees and drones whirling round and round about the same spot, while among them the worker bees flew in

and out with spoils, or in search of them, always in the same direction, into the wood, to the flowering linden

His ears were filled with the incessant hum in various notes now the busy hum of the worker bee flying

quickly off, then the blaring of the lazy drone, and the excited buzz of the bees on guard, protecting their

property from the enemy and preparing to sting. On the farther side of the fence the old beekeeper was

shaving a hoop for a tub, and he did not see Levin. Levin stood still in the midst of the apiary and did not call

He was glad of a chance to be alone to recover from the influence of ordinary actual life, which had already

He thought that he had already had time to lose his temper with Ivan, to show coolness to his brother, and to

"Can it have been only a momentary mood, and will it pass and leave no trace?" he thought.

But the same instant, going back to his mood, he felt with delight that something new and important had

happened to him. Real life had only for a time overcast the spiritual peace he had found, but it was still

Just as the bees, whirling round him, now menacing him and distracting his attention, prevented him from

enjoying complete physical peace, forced him to restrain his movements to avoid them, so had the petty cares

that had swarmed about him from the moment he got into the trap, restricted his spiritual freedom; but that

lasted only so long as he was among them. Just as his bodily strength was still unaffected, in spite of the bees,

"Do you know, Kostia, with whom Sergei Ivanovich traveled on his way here?" said Dolly, doling out

"And not alone; he's taking a squadron out with him at his own expense," said Katavassov.

"That's the right thing for him," said Levin. "Are volunteers still going out then?" he added, glancing at

Sergei Ivanovich did not answer. He was carefully, with a blunt knife, getting a live bee covered with sticky

"I should think so! You should have seen what was going on at the station yesterday!" said Katavassov, biting

"Well, what is one to make of it? In Christ's name, do explain to me, Sergei Ivanovich, where are all those

volunteers going, whom are they fighting with," asked the old Prince, unmistakably taking up a conversation

"With the Turks," Sergei Ivanovich answered, smiling serenely, as he extricated the bee, dark with honey and

"But who has declared war on the Turks? Ivan Ivanovich Ragozov and Countess Lidia Ivanovna, assisted by

"No one has declared war, but people sympathize with their neighbors' suffering, and are eager to help them,"

"But the Prince is not speaking of help," said Levin, coming to the assistance of his fatherinlaw, "but of

war. The Prince says that private persons cannot take part in war without the permission of the government."

"Kostia, mind, that's a bee! Really, they'll sting us!" said Dolly, waving away a wasp.

"Well now, well what's your own theory?" Katavassov said to Levin with a smile, distinctly challenging him

"Oh, my theory's this: war is on one side such a beastly, cruel and awful thing, that no one man, not to speak

of a Christian, can individually take upon himself the responsibility of beginning wars; that can only be done

by a government, which is called upon to do this, and is driven inevitably into war. On the other hand, both

political science and common sense teach us that in matters of state, and especially in the matter of war,

Sergei Ivanovich and Katavassov had their replies ready, and both began speaking at the same time.

"But the point is, my dear fellow, that there may be cases when the government does not carry out the will of

But evidently Sergei Ivanovich did not approve of this answer. His brows contracted at Katavassov's words,

"You don't put the matter in its true light. There is no question here of a declaration of war, but simply the

expression of a human Christian feeling. Our brothers, one with us in religion and in race, are being

massacred. Even supposing they were not our brothers, nor fellow Christians, but simply children, women,

old people, feeling is aroused and Russians go eagerly to help in stopping these atrocities. Fancy, if you were

going along the street and saw drunken men beating a woman or a child I imagine you would not stop to

inquire whether war had been declared on the men, but would throw yourself on them, and protect the

"I don't know. If I saw that, I might give way to my impulse of the moment, but I can't say beforehand. And

such a momentary impulse there is not, and there cannot be, in the case of the oppression of the Slavonic

"Possibly for you there is not; but for others there is," said Sergei Ivanovich, frowning with displeasure.

"There are traditions still extant among our people about orthodox men, suffering under the yoke of the

'impious Hagarites.' The people have heard of the sufferings of their brethren, and have spoken."

"Perhaps so," said Levin evasively; "but I don't see it. I'm one of the people myself, and I don't feel it."

"Here am I, too," said the old Prince. "I've been staying abroad and reading the papers, and I must own, up to

the time of the Bulgarian atrocities, I couldn't make out why it was all the Russians were all of a sudden so

fond of their Slavonic brethren, while I didn't feel the slightest affection for them. I was very much upset,

thought I was a monster, or that it was the influence of Carlsbad on me. But since I have been here, my

mind's been set at rest. I see that there are people besides me who're only interested in Russia, and not in their

"Personal opinions mean nothing in such a case," said Sergei Ivanovich; "it's not a matter of personal

"But excuse me, I don't see that. The people don't know anything about it, if you come to that," said the old

"Oh, papa!... How can you say that? And last Sunday in church?..." said Dolly, listening to the conversation.

"Please give me a towel," she said to the old man, who was looking at the children with a smile. "Why, it's

"But what was it in church on Sunday? The priest had been told to read that. He read it. They didn't

understand a word of it, sighed as they do at every sermon," pursued the old Prince. "Then they were told that

there was to be a collection for a pious object in church; well, they pulled out their coppers and gave them,

"The people cannot help knowing; the sense of their own destinies is always in the people, and at such

moments as the present that sense finds utterance," said Sergei Ivanovich with conviction, glancing at the old

The handsome old man, with black grizzled beard and thick silvery hair, stood motionless, holding a cup of

honey, looking down from the height of his tall figure with friendly serenity at the gentlefolk, obviously

"That's so, no doubt," he said, with a significant shake of his head at Sergei Ivanovich's words.

"Here, then, ask him. He knows nothing about it and thinks nothing," said Levin. "Have you heard about the

war, Mikhailich?" he said, turning to him. "What they read in the church? What do you think about it? Ought

"What should we think? Alexander Nikolaevich our Emperor has thought for us; he thinks for us indeed in all

things. It's clearer for him to see. Shall I bring a bit more bread? Give the little lad some more?" he said,

addressing Darya Alexandrovna and pointing to Grisha, who was finishing his crust.

"I don't need to ask," said Sergei Ivanovich, "we have seen and are seeing hundreds and hundreds of people

who give up everything to serve a just cause, come from every part of Russia, and directly and clearly express

their thought and aim. They bring their coppers, or go themselves and say directly what's what. What does it

"It means, to my thinking," said Levin, who was beginning to get warm, "that among eighty millions of

people there can always be found not hundreds, as now, but tens of thousands of people who have lost caste,

ne'erdowells, who are always ready to go anywhere to Pugachiov's bands, to Khiva, to Servia..."

"I tell you that it's not a case of hundreds or of ne'erdowells, but the best representatives of the people!"

said Sergei Ivanovich, with as much irritation as if he were defending the last penny of his fortune. "And

what of the subscriptions? In this case it is a whole people directly expressing their will."

"That word 'people' is so vague," said Levin. "Parish clerks, schoolmasters, and one in a thousand of the

peasants, maybe, know what it's all about. The rest of the eighty millions, like Mikhailich, far from

expressing their will, haven't the faintest idea what there is for them to express their will about. What right

Sergei Ivanovich, being practiced in dialectics, did not reply, but at once turned the conversation to another

"Oh, if you want to learn the spirit of the people by arithmetical computation, of course it's very difficult to

arrive at it. And voting has not been introduced among us, and cannot be introduced, for it does not express

the will of the people; but there are other ways of reaching that. It is felt in the air, it is felt by the heart. I

won't speak of those deep currents which are astir in the still ocean of the people, and which are evident to

every unprejudiced man let us look at society in the narrow sense. All the most diverse sections of the

intelligent people, hostile before, are merged in one. Every division is at an end, all the public organs say the

same thing over and over again, all feel the mighty torrent that has overtaken them and is carrying them in

"Yes, all the newspapers do say the same thing," said the Prince. "That's true. But so it is the same thing that

"Frogs or no frogs, I'm not the publisher of newspapers and I don't want to defend them; but I am speaking of

the unanimity in the intellectual world," said Sergei Ivanovich, addressing his brother. Levin would have

"Well, about that unanimity, that's another thing, one may say," said the Prince. "There's my soninlaw,

Stepan Arkadyevich you know him. He's got a place now on the committee of a commission and something

or other, I don't remember. Only there's nothing to do in it why, Dolly, it's no secret and a salary of eight

thousand! You try asking him whether his post is of any use he'll prove to you that it's most necessary. And

he's a truthful man, too, but one can't help but believe in the utility of eight thousand roubles."

"Yes he asked me to give a message to Darya Alexandrovna about the post," said Sergei Ivanovich

"So it is with the unanimity of the press. That's been explained to me: as soon as there's war their incomes are

doubled. How can they help believing in the destinies of the people and the Slavonic races and all that sort

"I don't care for many of the papers, but that's unjust," said Sergei Ivanovich.

"I would only make one condition," pursued the old Prince. "Alphonse Karr said a capital thing before the

war with Prussia: 'You consider war to be inevitable? Very good. Let everyone who advocates war be

enrolled in a special regiment of advance guards, for the vanguard of every assault, of every attack, to lead

"A nice lot the editors would make!" said Katavassov, with a loud roar, as he pictured the editors he knew in

"Oh, if they ran away, then we'd have grapeshot or Cossacks with whips behind them," said the Prince.

"But that's a joke, and a poor one too, if you'll excuse me saying so, Prince," said Sergei Ivanovich.

"I don't see that it was a joke, that... Levin was beginning, but Sergei Ivanovich interrupted him.

"Every member of society is called upon to do his own special work," said he. "And men of thought are doing

their work when they express public opinion. And the singlehearted and full expression of public opinion is

the service of the press, and a phenomenon to rejoice us at the same time. Twenty years ago we should have

been silent, but now we have heard the voice of the Russian people, which is ready to rise as one man and

ready to sacrifice itself for its oppressed brethren; that is a great step and a proof of strength."

"But it's not only making a sacrifice, but killing Turks," said Levin timidly. "The people make sacrifices and

are ready to make sacrifices for their soul, but not for murder," he added, instinctively connecting the

"For their soul? That, you understand, is a most puzzling expression for a student of the natural sciences.

"No, by God, I haven't the faintest idea!" said Katavassov with a loud roar of laughter.

"'I bring not peace, but a sword,' says Christ," Sergei Ivanovich rejoined for his part, quoting as simply as

though it were the easiest thing to understand the very passage that had always puzzled Levin most.

"That's so, no doubt," the old man repeated again. He was standing near them and responded to a chance

"Ah, my dear fellow, you're defeated, utterly defeated!" cried Katavassov goodhumoredly.

Levin reddened with vexation, not at being defeated, but at having failed to control himself and being drawn

"No, I can't argue with them," he thought; "they wear impenetrable armor, while I'm naked."

He saw that it was impossible to convince his brother and Katavassov, and he saw even less possibility of

himself agreeing with them. What they advocated was the very pride of intellect that had almost been his

ruin. He could not admit that some dozens of men, among them his brother, had the right, on the ground of

what they were told by some hundreds of glib volunteers swarming to the capital, to say that they and the

newspapers were expressing the will and feeling of the people, and a feeling which was expressed in

vengeance and murder. He could not admit this, because he neither saw the expression of such feelings in the

people among whom he was living, nor found them in himself (and he could not but consider himself one of

the persons making up the Russian people), and most of all because he, like the people, did not know and

could not know what is for the general good, though he knew beyond a doubt that this general good could be

attained only by the strict observance of that law of right and wrong which has been revealed to every man,

and therefore he could not wish for war or advocate war for any general objects whatever. He said as

Mikhailich did and the people, who had expressed their feeling in the traditional invitations to the Variaghi:

"Be princes and rule over us. Gladly we promise complete submission. All the labor, all humiliations, all

sacrifices we take upon ourselves; but we will not judge and decide." And now, according to Sergei

Ivanovich's account, the people had foregone this privilege they had bought at such a costly price.

He wanted to say, too, that if public opinion were an infallible guide, then why were not revolutions and the

commune as lawful as the movement in favor of the Slavonic peoples? But these were merely thoughts that

could settle nothing. One thing could be seen beyond doubt that at the actual moment the discussion was

irritating Sergei Ivanovich, and so it was wrong to continue it. And Levin ceased speaking and then called the

attention of his guests to the fact that the storm clouds were gathering, and that they had better be going home

The old Prince and Sergei Ivanovich got into the wagonette and drove off; the rest of the party hastened

But the storm clouds, turning white and then black, moved down so quickly that they had to quicken their

pace to get home before the rain. The foremost clouds, lowering and black as sootladen smoke, rushed with

extraordinary swiftness over the sky. They were still two hundred paces from home and a gust of wind had

The children ran ahead with frightened and gleeful shrieks. Darya Alexandrovna, struggling painfully with

her skirts clinging round her legs, was not walking, but running, her eyes fixed on the children. The men of

the party, holding their hats on, strode with long steps beside her. They were just at the steps when a big drop

fell splashing on the edge of the iron guttering. The children and their elders after them ran into the shelter of

"Katerina Alexandrovna?" Levin asked of Agathya Mikhailovna, who met them with shawls and plaids in the

In that brief interval of time the storm clouds had moved on, covering the sun so completely that it was dark

as an eclipse. Stubbornly, as though insisting on its rights, the wind stopped Levin, and tearing the leaves and

flowers off the linden trees and stripping the white birch branches into strange unseemly nakedness, it twisted

everything to one side acacias, flowers, burdocks, long grass, and tall treetops. The peasant girls working in

the garden ran shrieking into shelter in the servants' quarters. The streaming rain had already flung its white

veil over all the distant forest and half the fields close by, and was rapidly swooping down upon the copse.

Holding his head bent down before him, and struggling with the wind that strove to tear the wraps away from

him, Levin was moving up to the copse and had just caught sight of something white behind the oak tree,

when there was a sudden flash, the whole earth seemed on fire, and the vault of heaven seemed crashing

overhead. Opening his blinded eyes, Levin gazed through the thick veil of rain that separated him now from

the copse, and to his horror the first thing he saw was the green crest of the familiar oak tree in the middle of

the copse uncannily changing its position. "Can it have been struck?" Levin hardly had time to think when,

moving more and more rapidly, the oak tree vanished behind the other trees, and he heard the crash of the

The flash of lightning, the crash of thunder, and the instantaneous chill that ran through him were all merged

And though he thought at once how senseless was his prayer that they should not have been killed by the oak

which had fallen now, he repeated it, knowing that he could do nothing better than utter this senseless prayer.

They were at the other end of the copse under an old linden tree; they were calling him. Two figures in dark

dresses (they had been light summer dresses when they started out) were standing bending over something. It

was Kitty with the nurse. The rain was already ceasing, and it was beginning to get light when Levin reached

them. The nurse was not wet on the lower part of her dress, but Kitty was drenched through, and her soaked

clothes clung to her. Though the rain was over, they still stood in the same position in which they had been

standing when the storm broke. Both stood bending over a perambulator with a green umbrella.

"Alive? Unhurt? Thank God!" he said, splashing with his soaked boots through the standing water and

Kitty's rosy wet face was turned toward him, and she smiled timidly under her shapeless sopping hat.

"Aren't you ashamed of yourself? I can't think how you can be so reckless!" he said angrily to his wife.

"It wasn't my fault, really. We were just intending to go, when he made such a todo that we had to change

They gathered up the baby's wet belongings; the nurse picked up the baby and carried it. Levin walked beside

his wife, and, penitent for having been angry, he squeezed her hand when the nurse was not looking.

During the whole of that day, in the extremely varied conversations in which he took part, only as it were

with the top layer of his mind, in spite of the disappointment of not finding the change he expected in

himself, Levin had been all the while joyfully conscious of the fullness of his heart.

After the rain it was too wet to go for a walk; besides, the storm clouds still hung about the horizon, and

gathered here and there, black and thundery, on the rim of the sky. The whole party spent the rest of the day

No more discussions sprang up; on the contrary, after dinner everyone was in the most amiable frame of

At first Katavassov amused the ladies by his original jokes, which always pleased people on their first

acquaintance with him. Then Sergei Ivanovich induced him to tell them about the very interesting

observations he had made on the difference between the female and male common houseflies in their

characters and even physiognomies, and their frame of life. Sergei Ivanovich, too, was in good spirits, and at

tea his brother drew him on to explain his views of the future of the Eastern question, and he spoke so simply

Kitty was the only one who did not hear it all she was summoned to give Mitia his bath.

A few minutes after Kitty had left the room she sent for Levin to come to the nursery.

Leaving his tea, and regretfully interrupting the interesting conversation, and at the same time uneasily

wondering why he had been sent for, as this only happened on important occasions, Levin went to the

Although he had been much interested by Sergei Ivanovich's views of the new epoch in history that would be

created by the emancipation of forty millions of men of Slavonic race acting with Russia a conception quite

new to him and although he was disturbed by uneasy wonder at being sent for by Kitty, as soon as he came

out of the drawing room and was alone, his mind reverted at once to the thoughts of the morning. And all the

theories of the significance of the Slav element in the history of the world seemed to him so trivial compared

with what was passing in his own soul, that he instantly forgot it all and dropped back into the same frame of

He did not, as he had done at other times recall the whole train of thought that was not necessary for him.

He fell back at once into the feeling which had guided him, which was connected with those thoughts, and he

found that feeling in his soul even stronger and more definite than before. He did not, as he had had to do

with previous attempts to find comforting arguments, need to revive a whole chain of thought to find the

feeling. Now, on the contrary, the feeling of joy and peace was keener than ever, and thought could not keep

He walked across the terrace and looked at two stars that had come out in the darkening sky, and suddenly he

remembered. "Yes, looking at the sky, I thought that the dome that I see is not a deception, and then I did not

think over something to the last I shirked facing something," he mused. "But whatever it was, there can be

Just as he was going into the nursery he remembered what it was he had shirked facing. It was that if the chief

proof of the Divinity was His revelation of what is right, how is it this revelation is confined to the Christian

Church alone? What relation to this revelation have the beliefs of the Buddhists, Mohammedans, who

It seemed to him that he had an answer to this question; but he had not time to formulate it to himself before

Kitty was standing, with her sleeves tucked up, over the baby in the bath. Hearing her husband's footstep, she

turned toward him, summoning him to her with her smile. With one hand she was supporting the fat baby that

lay floating and sprawling on its back, while with the other she squeezed the sponge over him.

"Come, look, look!" she said, when her husband came up to her. "Agathya Mikhailovna's right. He knows

Mitia had on that day given unmistakable, incontestable signs of recognizing all his friends.

As soon as Levin approached the bath, the experiment was tried, and it was completely successful. The cook,

sent for with this object, bent over the baby. He frowned and shook his head disapprovingly. Kitty bent down

to him, he gave her a beaming smile, propped his little hands on the sponge and chirruped, making such a

queer little contented sound with his lips that Kitty and the nurse were not alone in their admiration Levin,

The baby was taken out of the bath, drenched with water, wrapped in towels, dried, and, after a piercing

"Well, I am glad you are beginning to love him," said Kitty to her husband, when she had settled herself

comfortably in her usual place, with the baby at her breast. "I am so glad! It had begun to distress me. You

"Not disappointed in him, but in my own feeling; I had expected more. I had expected a rush of new

delightful emotion to come as a surprise. And then instead of that disgust, pity..."

She listened attentively, looking at him over the baby, while she put back on her slender fingers the rings she

"And most of all, at there being far more apprehension and pity than pleasure. Today, after that fright during

"Were you very much frightened?" she said. "So was I, too, but I feel it more now that it's over. I'm going to

look at the oak. How charming Katavassov is! And what a happy day we've had altogether. And you're so

amiable with Sergei Ivanovich, when you care to be... Well, go back to them. It's always so hot and steamy

Going out of the nursery and being again alone, Levin went back at once to the thought, in which there was

Instead of going into the drawing room, where he heard voices, he stopped on the terrace, and, leaning his

It was quite dark now, and in the south, where he was looking, there were no clouds. The storm had drifted on

to the opposite side of the sky, and there were flashes of lightning and distant thunder from that quarter.

Levin listened to the monotonous drip from the linden trees in the garden, and looked at the triangle of stars

he knew so well, and the Milky Way with its branches, that ran through its midst. At each flash of lightning

the Milky Way, and even the bright stars, vanished, but as soon as the lightning died away, they reappeared in

"Well, what is it that perplexes me?" Levin said to himself, feeling beforehand that the solution of his

"Yes, the one unmistakable, incontestable manifestation of the Divinity is the law of right and wrong, which

has come into the world by revelation, and which I feel within myself, and in the recognition of which I not

so much make myself but, willynilly, am made, one with other men in one body of believers, which is

called the Church. Well, but the Jews, the Mohammedans, the Confucians, the Buddhists what of them?" he

put to himself the question he had feared to face. "Can these hundreds of millions of men be deprived of that

highest blessing without which life has no meaning?" He pondered a moment, but immediately corrected

himself. "But what am I questioning?" he said to himself. "I am questioning the relation to Divinity of all the

different religions of all mankind. I am questioning the universal manifestation of God to all the world with

all these nebulae. What am I about? To me individually, to my heart has been revealed a knowledge beyond

all doubt, and unattainable by reason, and here I am obstinately trying to express that knowledge in reason

"Don't I know that the stars don't move?" he asked himself, gazing at the bright planet which had shifted its

position up to the topmost twig of a birch tree. "But looking at the movements of the stars, I can't picture to

"And could the astronomers have understood and calculated anything, if they had taken into account all the

complicated and varied motions of the earth? All the marvelous conclusions they have reached about the

distances, weights, revolutions, and perturbations of the heavenly bodies, are only founded on the apparent

motions of the heavenly bodies round the stationary earth, on that very motion I see before me now, which

has been so for millions of men during long ages has been and always will be alike, and can always be

verified. And just as the conclusions of the astronomers would have been vain and uncertain if not founded

on observations of the visible heavens, in relation to a single meridian and a single horizon, so would my

conclusions be vain and uncertain if not founded on that conception of right, which has been and will always

be alike for all men, which has been revealed to me by Christianity, and which can always be verified in my

soul. The question of other religions and their relations to Divinity I have no right to decide, and no

"Oh, you haven't gone in then?" he heard Kitty's voice suddenly, as she came by the same way to the drawing

room. "What is it? You're not worried about anything?" she said, looking intently at his face in the starlight.

But she could not have seen his face if a flash of lightning had not hidden the stars and revealed it. In that

flash she saw his face distinctly, and seeing him calm and happy, she smiled at him.

"She understands," he thought; "she knows what I'm thinking about. Shall I tell her or not? Yes, I'll tell her."

"Kostia! Do something for me," she said; "go into the corner room and see if they've made it all ready for

Sergei Ivanovich. I can't very well. See if they've put the new washstand in it."

"No, I'd better not speak of it," he thought, when she had gone in before him. "It is a secret for me alone, of

"This new feeling has not changed me, has not made me happy and enlightened all of a sudden, as I had

dreamed, just like the feeling for my child. There was no surprise in this either. Whether it is faith or not I

don't know what it is but this feeling has come just as imperceptibly through suffering, and has taken firm

"I shall go on in the same way, losing my temper with Ivan the coachman, falling into angry discussions,

expressing my opinions tactlessly; there will be still the same wall between the holy of holies of my soul and

other people, even my wife; I shall still go on scolding her for my own fright and being remorseful for it; I

shall still be as unable to understand with my reason why I pray, and I shall still go on praying; but my life

now, my whole life apart from anything that can happen to me, every minute of it is no more meaningless, as

it was before, but it has the positive meaning of goodness, which I have the power to put into it."