.
‘There’s one other thing I ought to tell you. Do you
know Vronsky?’ Stepan Arkadyevitch asked Levin.
‘No, I don’t. Why do you ask?’
‘Give us another bottle,’ Stepan Arkadyevitch directed
the Tatar, who was filling up their glasses and fidgeting
round them just when he was not wanted.
‘Why you ought to know Vronsky is that he’s one of
your rivals.’
‘Who’s Vronsky?’ said Levin, and his face was suddenly
transformed from the look of childlike ecstasy which
Oblonsky had just been admiring to an angry and
unpleasant expression.
‘Vronsky is one of the sons of Count Kirill Ivanovitch
Vronsky, and one of the finest specimens of the gilded
youth of Petersburg. 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 aide-de-camp, and with all that a very
nice, good-natured fellow. But he’s more than simply a
good-natured fellow, as I’ve found out here—he’s a
cultivated man, too, and very intelligent; he’s a man
who’ll make his mark.’
Levin scowled and was dumb.
‘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, and
you know that her mother..’
‘Excuse me, but I know nothing,’ said Levin, frowning
gloomily. And immediately he recollected his brother
Nikolay and how hateful he was to have been able to
forget him.
‘You wait a bit, wait a bit,’ said Stepan Arkadyevitch,
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 are in
your favor.’
Levin dropped back in his chair; his face was pale.
‘But I would advise you to settle the thing as soon as
may be,’ pursued Oblonsky, filling up his glass.
‘No, thanks, I can’t drink any more,’ said Levin,
pushing away his glass. ‘I shall be drunk.... Come, tell me
how are you getting on?’ he went on, obviously anxious
to change the conversation.
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‘One word more: in any case I advise you to settle the
question soon. Tonight I don’t advise you to speak,’ said
Stepan Arkadyevitch. ‘Go round tomorrow morning,
make an offer in due form, and God bless you..’
‘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 Arkadyevitch. A
feeling such as his was prefaced by talk of the rivalry of
some Petersburg officer, of the suppositions and the
counsels of Stepan Arkadyevitch.
Stepan Arkadyevitch smiled. He knew what was
passing in Levin’s soul.
‘I’ll come some day,’ he said. ‘But women, my boy,
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 cigar and
keeping one hand on his glass; ‘give me your advice.’
‘Why, what is it?’
‘I’ll tell you. Suppose you’re married, you love your
wife, but you’re 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
my dinner, go straight to a baker’s shop and steal a roll.’
Stepan Arkadyevitch’s eyes sparkled more than usual.
‘Why not? A roll will sometimes smell so good one
can’t resist it.’
‘Himmlisch ist’s, wenn ich bezwungen
Meine irdische Begier;
Aber doch wenn’s nich gelungen
Hatt’ ich auch recht huebsch Plaisir!’
As he said this, Stepan Arkadyevitch smiled subtly.
Levin, too, could not help smiling.
‘Yes, but joking apart,’ resumed Stepan Arkadyevitch,
‘you must understand that the woman is a sweet, gentle
loving creature, poor and lonely, and 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 help feeling for her, setting her on her feet, softening
her lot?’
‘Well, you must excuse me there. You know to me all
women are divided into two classes...at least no...truer to
say: there are women and there are...I’ve never seen
exquisite fallen beings, and I never shall see them, but such
creatures as that painted Frenchwoman at the counter with
the ringlets are vermin to my mind, and all fallen women
are the same.’
‘But the Magdalen?’
‘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. But to deny 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, done for,’ Stepan Arkadyevitch said with
weary despair.
Levin half smiled.
‘Yes, you’re done for,’ resumed Oblonsky. ‘But what’s
to be done?’
‘Don’t steal rolls.’
Stepan Arkadyevitch laughed outright.
‘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; and the other
sacrifices everything for you and asks for nothing. What
are you to do? How are you to act? There’s a fearful
tragedy in it.’
‘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 the
sorts of love, which you remember Plato defines in his
Banquet, served as the test of men. Some men only
understand one sort, and some only the other. And those
who only know the non-platonic love have no need to
talk 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
unexpectedly:
‘But perhaps you are right. Very likely...I don’t know, I
don’t know.’
‘It’s this, don’t you see,’ said Stepan Arkadyevitch,
‘you’re very much all of a piece. That’s your strong point
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 invariably
corresponding all the while 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 life is made up of light and
shadow.’
Levin sighed and made no reply. He was thinking of
his own affairs, and did not hear Oblonsky.
And suddenly both of them felt that though they were
friends, though they had been dining and drinking
together, 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.
‘Bill!’ he called, and he went into the next room where
he promptly came across and aide-de-camp of his
acquaintance and dropped into conversation with him
about an actress and her protector. And at once in the
conversation with the aide-de-camp Oblonsky had a sense
of relaxation and relief after the conversation with Levin,
which always put him to too great a mental and spiritual
strain.
When the Tatar appeared with a bill for twenty-six
roubles and odd kopecks, besides a tip for himself, Levin,
who would another time have been horrified, like any one
from the country, at his share of fourteen roubles, did not
notice it, paid, and set off homewards to dress and go to
the Shtcherbatskys’ there to decide his fate.
Chapter 12
The young Princess Kitty Shtcherbatskaya 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 this first winter
made their appearance: Levin, and immediately after his
departure, Count Vronsky.
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 other side issues; but she did not state the
principal point, which was that she looked for a better
match for her daughter, and that Levin was not to her
liking, and 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 to
make not simply a good, but a brilliant match.
In the mother’s eyes there could be no comparison
between Vronsky and Levin. She disliked in Levin his
strange and uncompromising opinions and his shyness in
society, founded, as she supposed, on his pride 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 an offer, 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
whole of that winter in a state of terrible anxiety and
agitation.
Princess Shtcherbatskaya had herself been married thirty
years ago, her aunt arranging the match. Her husband,
about whom everything was well known before hand, had
come, looked at his future bride, and been looked at. The
match-making aunt had ascertained and communicated
their mutual impression. That impression had been
favorable. Afterwards, on a day fixed beforehand, the
expected offer 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 Natalia! Now, since the youngest had
come out, she 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 punctilious on the
score of the honor and reputation of his daughters. He was
irrationally jealous over his daughters, especially over
Kitty, who was his favorite. 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 touchiness. 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 curtsey, and,
what was the most important thing, all the girls were
firmly convinced that to choose their husbands 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 how
marriages were made now, the princess could not learn
from any one. 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
by the offices if intermediate persons was for some
reason considered unseemly; it was ridiculed by every one,
and 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 old-fashioned
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 that 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, the most suitable playthings for
children five years old ought to be loaded pistols. And so
the princess was more uneasy over Kitty than she had been
over her elder sisters.
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; but
perfectly at ease she could not be. 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 arrival from
Petersburg, as peculiarly fortunate,’ he told her.
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
offer through fear of vexing his mother. However, she was
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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 extreme sense of
honor, refuse Vronsky, and that Levin’s arrival might
generally complicate and delay the affair so near being
concluded.
‘Why, has be been here long?’ the princess asked about
Levin, as they returned home.
‘He came today, mamma.’
‘There’s one thing I want to say...’ began the princess,
and from her serious and alert face, Kitty guessed what it
would be.
‘Mamma,’ she said, flushing hotly and turning quickly
to her, ‘please, please don’t say anything about that. I
know, I know all about it.’
She wished for what her mother wished for, but the
motives of her mother’s wishes wounded her.
‘I only want to say that to raise hopes..’
‘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 you would have no secrets from me. You won’t?’
‘Never, mamma, none,’ answered Kitty, flushing a
little, and looking her mother straight in the face, ‘but
there’s no use in my telling you anything, 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 that what was taking place
just now in her soul seemed to the poor child so immense
and so important.
Chapter 13
After dinner, and till the beginning of the evening,
Kitty was feeling a sensation akin to the sensation of a
young man before a battle. Her heat throbbed violently,
and her thoughts would not rest on anything.
She felt that this evening, when they would both 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 separately, 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 gave 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
pleasant 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 wellbred
and at ease, as though there were some false note—
not in Vronsky, he was very simple and nice, but in
herself, while with Levin she felt 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 misty.
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 her:
she was conscious of external composure and free grace in
her movements.