FOUR

 

 

Chapter 9

 

 

 

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AT four o’clock that afternoon Levin, conscious that his heart was beating rapidly, got out of the hired sledge at the Zoological Gardens and went down the path leading to the ice-hills and skating lake, sure of finding Kitty there, for he had noticed the Shcherbatskys’ carriage at the entrance.

 

It was a clear frosty day. Carriages, private sledges, sledges for hire, and mounted police stood at the entrance. Well-dressed people, their hats shining in the sunlight, crowded at the gates and thronged the clean-swept paths between little houses built with carved eaves in Russian style. The bushy birch trees in the Garden with all their branches weighed down by snow seemed attired in new festive garments. He walked along the path leading to the skating lake, and kept repeating to himself: ‘I must not be excited. I must be quiet! . . . What are you doing? What’s the matter? Be quiet, stupid!’ he said to his heart. But the more he tried to be calm, the more laboured grew his breath. He met an acquaintance who called to him, but Levin did not even notice who it was. He approached the ice-hills and heard the clanking of the chains by which the sledges were being pulled up, their clatter as they descended the hills, and the sound of merry voices. A few more steps brought him to the skating lake, and among all the skaters he at once recognized her. He knew she was there by the joy and terror that took possession of his heart. She stood talking to a lady at the other end of the lake. There seemed to be nothing striking in her dress or attitude, but it was as easy for Levin to recognize her in that crowd as to find a rose among nettles. Everything was lit up by her. She was the smile that brightened everything around.

 

‘Can I really step down on to the ice, and go up to her?’ he thought. The spot where she stood seemed to him an unapproachable sanctuary, and there was a moment when he nearly went away, he was so filled with awe. He had to make an effort and reason with himself that all sorts of people were passing near her and he himself might have come just to skate. He stepped down, avoiding any long look at her as one avoids long looks at the sun, but seeing her as one sees the sun, without looking.

 

On that day of the week and at that hour, people belonging to the same set and acquainted with one another, met on the ice. Among them were masters of the art of skating showing off their skill, and beginners with timid and awkward movements holding on to the backs of chairs fitted with runners; boys, and old men skating for hygienic reasons; and they all seemed to Levin to be fortune’s favourites because they were here near her. Yet skaters appeared quite calmly to gain on her, to catch her up, and even speak to her, and quite independently of her to amuse themselves enjoying the excellent ice and the fine weather.

 

Nicholas Shcherbatsky, Kitty’s cousin, in a short jacket, tight trousers, with skates on his feet, was sitting on a bench, and seeing Levin, called out to him.

 

‘Hullo you Russian champion skater! When did you come? The ice is splendid — put on your skates!’

 

‘I haven’t any skates,’ answered Levin, wondering at such boldness and freedom of manner in her presence, and not losing sight of her for a moment although not looking at her. He felt the sun approaching him. She was turning a corner, her little feet, shod in high boots, kept close together, and she was skating timidly toward him. A little boy dressed in a Russian costume, violently swinging his arms and stooping very low, was overtaking her.

 

She was not very firm on her feet. Having drawn her hands from the muff that hung by a cord from her neck, she held them out and looking at Levin, whom she had recognized, she smiled at him and at her fears. Having turned the corner, she pushed off with an elastic little foot, glided straight up to Shcherbatsky, and catching hold of him with her hand, nodded smilingly to Levin. She was more beautiful than he had imagined her.

 

When he thought about her he could vividly picture to himself her entire person, and especially the charm of her small, fair-haired head, so lightly poised on the shapely girlish shoulders, and the childlike brightness and kindness of her face. In that childlike look, combined with the slim beauty of her figure, lay her special charm; and this he thoroughly appreciated, but what always struck him afresh as unexpected was the expression of her eyes — mild, calm, and truthful, — and above all her smile, which carried him into a fairyland where he felt softened and filled with tenderness — as he remembered feeling on rare occasions in his early childhood.

 

‘Have you been here long?’ she said, shaking hands with him. ‘Thank you,’ she added as he picked up the handkerchief she had dropped from her muff.

 

‘I? No, not long — since yesterday . . . I mean to-day . . .’ replied Levin, in his excitement not quite taking in her question. ‘I wanted to come and see you,’ he went on, and then, remembering the reason why he wanted to see her he became abashed, and blushed. ‘I did not know that you skated, and so well.’

 

She looked attentively at him as if wishing to understand his confusion.

 

‘Your praise is valuable. There is a tradition here that you are the best skater,’ she said, flicking off with a small black-gloved hand some hoar-frost crystals that had fallen on her muff.

 

‘Yes, I used to be passionately fond of skating. I wanted to be perfect at it.’

 

‘You seem to do everything passionately,’ she remarked with a smile. ‘I should so like to see you skate. Put on a pair and let us skate together.’

 

‘Skate together! Can it be possible?’ thought Levin looking at her.

 

‘I’ll go and put them on at once,’ he said, and went to hire some skates.

 

‘You’ve not looked us up for a long time, sir,’ said one of the attendants as, holding up Levin’s foot, he bored a hole in the heel of his boot. ‘Since you left we have had no gentleman who is such a master at it as you! Is that right?’ he added, pulling the strap tight.

 

‘Yes, that’s right, that’s right! Please be quick!’ answered Levin, trying to restrain the happy smile which appeared on his face. ‘Yes,’ he thought, ‘this is life — this is joy! She said, “Together: let us skate together”! Shall I tell her now? But that’s just why I’m afraid of speaking. Now I am happy, if only in my hopes — but then? . . . But I must . . . I must . . . I must . . . ! Away with this weakness!’

 

He stood up, took off his overcoat, and having given himself a start on the rough ice near the shelter, glided down to the smooth surface of the lake, increasing and diminishing his speed and shaping his course as if by volition only. He approached Kitty timidly, but her smile again tranquillized him.

 

She gave him her hand and they went on together, increasing their speed, and the faster they went the closer she pressed his hands.

 

‘I should learn quicker with you; for some reason I feel confidence in you,’ she said.

 

‘And I am confident of myself when you lean on me,’ he answered, and was immediately frightened of what he had said, and blushed. And in fact, as soon as he had uttered these words her face lost its kind expression — as when the sun hides behind a cloud — and Levin noticed that familiar play of her features which indicated an effort of mind: a wrinkle appeared on her smooth forehead.

 

‘Has anything unpleasant happened . . . ? But I have no right to ask,’ he said hurriedly.

 

‘Why? . . . No, nothing unpleasant has happened,’ she answered coldly, adding immediately: ‘You have not seen Mlle Linon?’

 

‘Not yet.’

 

‘Go to her then, she is so fond of you.’

 

‘What does she mean? I have hurt her. Help me, O Lord!’ thought Levin, hastening toward the old Frenchwoman with the grey curls, who sat on one of the benches. She welcomed Levin as an old friend, showing her set of false teeth in a smile.

 

‘Yes, you see we grow up,’ she said, indicating Kitty with a glance, ‘and grow old. “Tiny Bear” is grown up!’ continued the Frenchwoman, laughing and reminding him of his old joke when he called the three young ladies the Three Bears of the English fairy tale. ‘Do you remember when you used to call her so?’

 

He had not the faintest recollection of it, but she was fond of the joke and had laughed at it for the last ten years.

 

‘Well, go — go and skate! Our Kitty is beginning to skate nicely, isn’t she?’

 

When Levin returned to Kitty her face was no longer stern and her eyes had their former truthful, kindly look; but he thought there was an intentionally quiet manner in her affability and he felt sad. Having spoken about her old governess and her peculiarities, she asked him about his way of life.

 

‘Do you really manage not to feel dull in the country in winter?’ she said.

 

‘I don’t feel at all dull, I am very busy,’ he answered, conscious that she was subduing him to her quiet tone, from which — as had happened at the beginning of the winter — he would not be able to free himself.

 

‘Have you come for long?’ asked Kitty.

 

‘I don’t know,’ he answered, without thinking of what he was saying. The idea that if he accepted her tone of calm friendliness he would again go away without having settled anything occurred to him, and he determined to rebel.

 

‘You don’t know?’

 

‘I don’t. It all depends on you,’ he said, and was at once terrified at his own words.

 

Whether she had not heard his words or did not wish to hear them, anyhow, after slightly stumbling and striking her foot twice against the ice, she skated hurriedly away from him toward Mlle Linon, said something to her, and went toward the little house where the ladies took off their skates.

 

‘My God! What have I done? O Lord, help me and teach me!’ prayed Levin, and feeling at the same time a need of violent exercise, he got up speed and described inner and outer circles.

 

Just then a young man, the best of the new skaters, with a cigarette in his mouth and skates on, came out of the coffee-room and taking a run, descended the steps leading to the lake, clattering with his skates as he jumped from step to step. He then flew down the slope and glided along the ice without so much as changing the easy position of his arms.

 

‘Oh, that’s a new trick!’ said Levin, and at once ran up to try that new trick.

 

‘Don’t hurt yourself — it needs practice!’ Nicholas Shcherbatsky called out.

 

Levin went up the path as far back as he could to get up speed, and then slid downwards, balancing himself with his arms in this unaccustomed movement. He caught his foot on the last step, but, scarcely touching the ice with his hand, made a violent effort, regained his balance, and skated away laughing.

 

‘Good! Dear man!’ thought Kitty who at that moment was just coming out of the little house with Mlle Linon, looking at him with a smile of gentle tenderness as at a dear brother. ‘Can I really be guilty — have I really done anything wrong? They say it’s coquetting. . . . I know it’s not him I love, but still I feel happy with him, he is so charming! Only why did he say that?’ she thought.

 

When he saw Kitty who was going away, and her mother who had met her on the steps, Levin, flushed with the violent exercise, stood still and considered. He then took off his skates and overtook mother and daughter at the gates of the Gardens.

 

‘Very pleased to see you,’ said the Princess. ‘We are at home on Thursdays, as usual.’

 

‘And to-day is Thursday!’

 

‘We shall be glad to see you,’ said the Princess drily.

 

Kitty was sorry to hear that dry tone and could not resist the desire to counteract her mother’s coldness. She turned her head and said smilingly:

 

‘Au revoir!’

 

Just then Oblonsky, his hat tilted on one side, with radiant face and eyes, walked into the Gardens like a joyous conqueror. But on approaching his mother-in-law he answered her questions about Dolly’s health with a sorrowful and guilty air. After a few words with her in a subdued and mournful tone, he expanded his chest and took Levin’s arm.

 

‘Well, shall we go?’ he asked. ‘I kept thinking about you, and am very, very glad you’ve come,’ he went on, looking significantly into Levin’s eyes.

 

‘Yes, yes! Let’s go,’ answered the happy Levin, still hearing the voice saying: ‘Au revoir!’ and still seeing the smile with which it had been said.

 

‘The Angleterre, or the Hermitage?’

 

‘I don’t care.’

 

‘Well then, the Angleterre,’ said Oblonsky, choosing the Angleterre because he was deeper in debt to that restaurant than to the Hermitage, and therefore considered it wrong to avoid it. ‘Have you a sledge? . . . That’s a good thing, because I’ve sent my coachman home.’

 

The two friends were silent all the way. Levin was considering what the change in Kitty’s face meant; now persuading himself that there was hope, now in despair, seeing clearly that such hope was madness; but yet feeling an altogether different being from what he had been before her smile and the words ‘Au revoir!’

 

Oblonsky during the drive was composing the menu of their dinner.

 

‘You like turbot, don’t you?’ he asked, as they drove up to the restaurant.

 

‘What?’ said Levin. ‘Turbot? Oh yes, I am awfully fond of turbot!’

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 10

 

 

 

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WHEN they entered the restaurant Levin could not help noticing something peculiar in his friend’s expression, a kind of suppressed radiance in his face and whole figure. Oblonsky took off his overcoat, and with his hat on one side walked into the dining-room, giving his orders to the Tartar waiters, in their swallow-tail coats, with napkins under their arms, who attached themselves to him. Bowing right and left to his acquaintances who, here as elsewhere, greeted him joyfully, he passed on to the buffet, drank a glass of vodka and ate a bit of fish as hors d’œuvre, and said something to the painted Frenchwoman, bedecked with ribbons and lace, who sat at a little counter — something that made even this Frenchwoman burst into frank laughter.

 

Levin did not take any vodka, simply because that Frenchwoman — made up, as it seemed to him, of false hair, powder, and toilet vinegar — was offensive to him. He moved away from her as from some dirty place. His whole soul was filled with Kitty’s image, and his eyes shone with a smile of triumph and happiness.

 

‘This way, please your Excellency! This way — no one will disturb your Excellency here,’ said a specially officious waiter, an old white-headed Tartar, so wide in the hips that the tails of his coat separated behind.

 

‘If you please, your Excellency,’ he said, turning to Levin and as a mark of respect to Oblonsky paying attention to his guest. In a moment he had spread a fresh cloth on a round table already covered with a cloth beneath a bronze chandelier, moved two velvet chairs to the table, and stood with a napkin and menu awaiting the order.

 

‘If your Excellency would like a private room, one will be vacant in a few moments. Prince Golitzin is there with a lady. We’ve some fresh oysters in, sir.’

 

‘Ah — oysters!’ Oblonsky paused and considered.

 

‘Shall we change our plan, Levin?’ he said, with his finger on the bill of fare and his face expressing serious perplexity. ‘But are the oysters really good? Now be careful . . .’

 

‘Real Flensburg, your Excellency! We’ve no Ostend ones.’

 

‘They may be Flensburg, but are they fresh?’

 

‘They only arrived yesterday.’

 

‘Well then, shall we begin with oysters and change the plan of our dinner, eh?’

 

‘I don’t mind. I like buckwheat porridge and cabbage-soup best, but they don’t have those things here.’

 

‘Would you like Buckwheat à la Russe?’ said the Tartar, stooping over Levin like a nurse over a child.

 

‘No — joking apart, whatever you choose will suit me, I’ve been skating and I’m hungry! Don’t think that I do not appreciate your choice,’ he added, noticing a dissatisfied look on Oblonsky’s face. ‘I shall be glad of a good dinner.’

 

‘I should think so! Say what you like, it is one of the pleasures of life!’ said Oblonsky. ‘Well then, my good fellow, bring us two — or that will be too little, . . . three dozen oysters, and vegetable soup . . .’

 

‘Printanier,’ chimed in the waiter.

 

But Oblonsky evidently did not wish to give him the pleasure of calling the dishes by their French names.

 

‘. . . vegetable, you know. Then turbot with thick sauce; then . . . roast beef (and mind it’s good!); and then capon, shall we say? Yes. And stewed fruit.’

 

The waiter, remembering Oblonsky’s way of calling the items on the French menu by their Russian names, did not repeat the words after him, but afterwards allowed himself the pleasure of repeating the whole of the order according to the menu: ‘Potage printanier, turbot, sauce Beaumarchais, poularde à l’estragon, macédoine de fruits . . .’ and immediately, as if moved by springs, he put down the bill of fare in one cardboard cover, and seizing another containing the wine-list held it out to Oblonsky.

 

‘What shall we have to drink?’

 

‘Whatever you like, only not too much . . . Champagne!’ said Levin.

 

‘What, to begin with? However, why not? You like the white seal?’

 

‘Cachet blanc,’ chimed in the waiter.

 

‘Yes, bring us that with the oysters, and then we’ll see.’

 

‘Yes, sir, and what sort of table wine?’

 

‘Nuit . . . no, let’s have the classic Chablis.’

 

‘Yes sir. And your special cheese?’

 

‘Well, yes — parmesan. Or do you prefer some other kind?’

 

‘No, I really don’t care,’ said Levin, unable to restrain a smile.

 

The Tartar darted off, his coat-tails flying; and five minutes later rushed in again, with a dish of opened oysters in pearly shells and a bottle between his fingers.

 

Oblonsky crumpled his starched napkin and pushed a corner of it inside his waistcoat, then, with his arms comfortably on the table, attacked the oysters.

 

‘Not bad,’ he said, pulling the quivering oysters out of their pearly shells with a silver fork, and swallowing one after another. ‘Not bad,’ he repeated, lifting his moist and glittering eyes now to Levin, now to the Tartar.

 

Levin could eat oysters, though he preferred bread and cheese. But it gave him more pleasure to watch Oblonsky. Even the Tartar, who having drawn the cork and poured the sparkling wine into the thin wide glasses was straightening his white tie, glanced with a smile of evident pleasure at Oblonsky.

 

‘You don’t care much for oysters?’ said Oblonsky, emptying his champagne glass — ‘or perhaps you’re thinking of something else. Eh?’

 

He wanted Levin to be in good spirits. But Levin, if not exactly in bad spirits, felt constrained. The feelings that filled his heart made him ill at ease and uncomfortable in this restaurant with its private rooms where men took women to dine. Everything seemed offensive: these bronzes, mirrors, gaslights and Tartar waiters. He was afraid of soiling that which filled his soul.

 

‘I? Yes, I am preoccupied — and besides, all this makes me feel constrained,’ he said. ‘You can’t imagine how strange it all seems to me who live in the country, — like the nails of that gentleman I saw at your place.’

 

‘Yes, I noticed that poor Grinevich’s nails interested you greatly,’ said Oblonsky.

 

‘I can’t help it,’ replied Levin. ‘Put yourself in my place — look at it from a country fellow’s point of view! We try to get our hands into a state convenient to work with, and for that purpose we cut our nails and sometimes roll up our sleeves. But here people purposely let their nails grow until they begin to curl, and have little saucers for studs to make it quite impossible for them to use their hands!’

 

Oblonsky smiled merrily.

 

‘Yes, it is a sign that rough work is unnecessary to him. He works with his mind . . .’

 

‘Possibly; but still it seems to me strange that while we country people try to get over our meals as quickly as we can, so as to be able to get on with our work, here you and I try to make our meal last as long as possible, and therefore eat oysters.’

 

‘Well, of course,’ said Oblonsky. ‘The aim of civilization is to enable us to get enjoyment out of everything.’

 

‘Well, if that is its aim, I’d rather be a savage.’

 

‘You are a savage as it is. All you Levins are savages.’

 

Levin sighed. He remembered his brother Nicholas and frowned, feeling ashamed and distressed; but Oblonsky started a subject which at once distracted his thoughts.

 

‘Well, are you going to see our people to-night? The Shcherbatskys, I mean,’ he said, pushing away the rough and now empty oyster shells and drawing the cheese toward him, while his eyes glittered significantly.

 

‘Yes, certainly I shall go. Though the Princess appeared to ask me rather unwillingly.’

 

‘Not a bit of it! What humbug! It’s just her manner . . . Come, bring us that soup, my good fellow! . . . It’s her grande dame manner,’ said Oblonsky. ‘I shall come too, but I must first go to a musical rehearsal at the Countess Bonin’s. What a strange fellow you are, though! How do you explain your sudden departure from Moscow? The Shcherbatskys asked me again and again, just as if I ought to know all about you. Yet all I know is that you never do things as anyone else does!’

 

‘Yes,’ said Levin slowly and with agitation. ‘You are right, I am a savage. Only my savagery lies not in having gone away then, but rather in having come back now. I have now come . . .’

 

‘Oh, what a lucky fellow you are!’ interrupted Oblonsky, looking straight into his eyes.

 

‘Why?’