Chapter 2

 

 

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‘WELL then, please call on the Bols,’ said Kitty to her husband when, at about eleven o’clock in the morning, he came to her room before going out. ‘I know you are dining at the club. Papa put your name down. But what are you going to do this morning?’

 

‘Only going to see Katavasov,’ answered Levin.

 

‘Why so early?’

 

‘He promised to introduce me to Metrov. I want to have a talk with him about my work. He is a celebrated Petersburg scholar,’ replied Levin.

 

‘Oh yes! It was his article you praised so? Well, and then?’ inquired Kitty.

 

‘Then I may call round at the Courts about my sister’s case.’

 

‘And the concert?’

 

‘Oh, what’s the good of my going alone?’

 

‘Oh yes, do go! They are giving those new pieces. . . . It used to interest you so. I should certainly go.’

 

‘Well, in any case I will come back before dinner,’ he said, glancing at his watch.

 

‘But put on a morning coat, so that you can call on the Countess Bol on the way.’

 

‘Is it absolutely necessary then?’

 

‘Yes, absolutely! He called on us. Why, where is the difficulty? You’ll call on your way, you’ll sit down, talk about the weather for five minutes, and then get up and go away.’

 

‘Well, will you believe it? I have got so out of the habit that it makes me feel ashamed. A stranger arrives, sits down, remains a while doing nothing, disturbs them, upsets himself, and goes away again.’

 

Kitty laughed.

 

‘But as a bachelor you used to pay calls?’ she said.

 

‘I did, but I always felt ashamed, and now I am so out of the habit of it that, seriously, I would rather go without dinner for two days than pay that call! It is so embarrassing! I feel the whole time that they will be offended and will say, “Why have you come when you have no business here?” ’

 

‘No, they won’t be offended. I will vouch for that!’ said Kitty, looking laughingly into his face. She took his hand. ‘Well, good-bye! . . . Please call on them!’

 

He was about to go after kissing her hand, when she stopped him.

 

‘Kostya, do you know I have only fifty roubles left?’

 

‘Well, what of that? I’ll call at the bank and get some. . . . How much?’ he asked, with a dissatisfied look familiar to her.

 

‘No, wait a moment.’ She held him by the hand. ‘Let’s talk it over, it bothers me. I don’t think I spend on anything superfluous and yet the money simply flies away! There is something we don’t do right.’

 

‘Not at all,’ he said, coughing and looking at her from under his brows.

 

She knew that cough. With him it was a sign of great displeasure, not with her but with himself. He was really dissatisfied, not because they had spent so much, but because he had been reminded of a matter which, well knowing that something was wrong, he wished to forget.

 

‘I have told Sokolov to sell the wheat and draw the money for the mill in advance. We shall have money in any case.’

 

‘Yes, but I’m afraid that in general too much . . .’

 

‘Not at all, not at all!’ he repeated. ‘Well, good-bye, darling!’

 

‘But, really, sometimes I am sorry I listened to Mama! How nice it would have been in the country! As it is I have worn you all out, and we are wasting money . . .’

 

‘Not at all, not at all! Not once since our marriage have I said to myself that things might have been better than they are. . . .’

 

‘Is that true?’ she said, looking into his eyes.

 

He had said it without thinking, to comfort her. But when he looked and saw those dear, truthful eyes questioningly fixed on him, he repeated the words from the bottom of his heart. ‘Decidedly I am forgetting her,’ he thought, remembering what was so soon awaiting them.

 

‘Will it be soon? How do you feel?’ he whispered, taking both her hands in his.

 

‘I have so often thought so, that now I have given up thinking.’

 

‘And you are not afraid?’

 

She smiled contemptuously.

 

‘Not an atom!’ she answered.

 

‘Well, should there be anything — I shall be at Katavasov’s.’

 

‘No, there won’t be anything: don’t imagine it. I shall go for a walk on the boulevard with Papa. We will call at Dolly’s. I’ll expect you before dinner. . . . Oh, yes! Do you know, Dolly’s situation is becoming quite impossible! She is deep in debt, and has no money. Mama and I were talking about it with Arseney’ (so she called her sister’s, the Princess Lvova’s, husband), ‘and we decided to set you and him at Stiva. It is quite impossible. We can’t speak to Papa about it. . . . But if you and he . . .’

 

‘But what can we do?’ said Levin.

 

‘Well, anyhow, you will see Arseney. Have a talk with him, and he will tell you what we decided.’

 

‘I’m ready to agree with Arseney beforehand. Well, I’ll call on him then. . . . By the way, if I go to the concert, I’ll go with Nataly. Well, good-bye!’

 

At the porch Kuzma, an old servant of his bachelor days, who was now managing the household in town, stopped Levin.

 

‘Krasavchik’ (one of the pair of carriage horses brought from the country) ‘has been re-shod but still goes lame,’ said he. ‘What are your orders?’

 

On first coming to Moscow Levin had taken an interest in the horses they brought from the country. He wanted to arrange the matter as well and as cheaply as possible; but it turned out that their own horses cost them more than hired ones would have done, and they hired horses as well.

 

‘Send for the vet, maybe it’s a bruise.’

 

‘Yes, and what will Catherine Alexandrovna do?’ asked Kuzma.

 

Levin no longer thought it strange, as he had done when he first came to Moscow, that to go from the Vozdvizhenka Street to Sivtsev-Vrazhek it was necessary to harness a pair of strong horses to a heavy carriage to drive through the snowy slush a quarter of a verst, to keep the carriage waiting there for four hours, and to pay five roubles for it. Now all this seemed quite natural.

 

‘Hire a pair of horses, to be harnessed to our carriage.’

 

‘Yes, sir!’

 

And, thanks to the conditions of town life, having thus simply and easily solved a difficulty which in the country would have required much exertion and personal attention, Levin went out, called an izvoshchik, and drove to the Nikitskaya. On his way he thought no more about money, but considered how he could make the acquaintance of the Petersburg scholar, who was studying sociology, and how he would talk to him about his book.

 

Only during the very first days in Moscow had the unproductive but inevitable expenditure, so strange to country folk, yet demanded on all sides, startled Levin. Now he was used to it. In this respect the thing had happened to him which is said to happen to drunkards. ‘The first glass you drive in like a stake, the second flies like a crake, and after the third they fly like wee little birds.’ When he had changed the first hundred-rouble note to buy liveries for the footman and hall porter, he had involuntarily calculated that those useless liveries — which, however, were absolutely necessary, judging by the surprise of the old Princess and Kitty at his hint that one could do without liveries — would cost as much as the hire of two labourers for the summer months, that is, of one for about three hundred working days between Easter and Advent — and each a day of heavy labour from early morning till late in the evening. He parted with that hundred-rouble note not without a struggle. The next such note he changed to buy provisions for a family dinner, costing twenty-eight roubles; and though he remembered that twenty-eight roubles was the price of nine chetverts of oats mown, bound into sheaves, threshed, winnowed, sifted, and shovelled with sweat and groans, nevertheless it went more easily than the first. The notes he now changed no longer evoked such calculations, but flew away like wee birds. Whether the pleasure afforded by what it purchased corresponded to the labour expended in acquiring the money was a consideration long since lost sight of. His farming calculations that there is a price below which certain grain must not be sold were forgotten too. The rye — after he had so long held out for a certain price — was sold fifty kopeks a chetvert cheaper than had been offered him a month ago. Even the calculation that it would be impossible to live for a year at that rate of expenditure without running into debt — even that calculation had lost its meaning. The one thing needful was to have money in the bank, without asking whence it came, so as to be always sure of the wherewithal to get to-morrow’s beef. Till now he had always observed that rule; he had always had money in the bank. But now he had no money remaining there, and did not quite know where to get any. It was this that had upset him for a moment when Kitty reminded him about money; however, he had no time to think about it. While driving he thought of Katavasov and of making Metrov’s acquaintance.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 3

 

 

 

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DURING his stay in Moscow Levin had renewed his intimacy with his fellow-student of university days, now Professor Katavasov, whom he had not seen since his marriage. He liked Katavasov because of his clear and simple outlook on life. Levin thought Katavasov’s clear outlook resulted from the poverty of his nature, and Katavasov thought Levin’s inconsequential opinions resulted from a lack of mental discipline; but Katavasov’s clarity pleased Levin, and the abundance of Levin’s undisciplined thoughts pleased Katavasov, so they liked to meet and argue.

 

Levin had read some parts of his book to Katavasov, who liked it. Happening to meet Levin at a public lecture the previous day, Katavasov had told him that the celebrated Metrov, whose article had so pleased Levin, was in Moscow and was much interested in what Katavasov had told him of Levin’s work, that he would be at his house next day about eleven in the morning and would be very pleased to make Levin’s acquaintance.

 

‘Decidedly you are improving — quite a pleasure to see it,’ said Katavasov as he welcomed Levin in the little drawing-room. ‘I heard the bell and thought “It’s impossible he can have come punctually.” . . . Well, what d’you think of the Montenegrins? They are born warriors!’

 

‘What’s happened?’ asked Levin.

 

Katavasov in a few words told him the latest news, and, taking him into the study, introduced Levin to a tall, sturdy, and very agreeable-looking man. It was Metrov. The conversation rested for a time on politics and on how the highest circles in Petersburg regarded the latest events. Metrov quoted words on the subject attributed to the Emperor and one of the Ministers, which he had from a reliable source. Katavasov, however, had heard with equal definiteness that the Emperor said something quite different. Levin tried to imagine a situation in which both utterances might have been made, and the subject was dropped.

 

‘He has written almost a book on the natural condition of the labourer in relation to the land,’ said Katavasov. ‘I am not a specialist, but as a naturalist I liked his not taking humanity as something outside zoological laws, but on the contrary regarding it as dependent on its surroundings, and searching in this dependence for the laws of its development.’

 

‘That is very interesting,’ said Metrov.

 

‘I really began to write a book on agriculture, but being occupied with the chief instrument in agriculture, the labourer,’ said Levin with a blush, ‘I involuntarily arrived at quite unexpected results.’

 

And Levin began carefully, as if feeling his way, to expound his views. He knew that Metrov had written an article running counter to the generally accepted teachings of political economy, but how far he could hope for his sympathy with his own novel views Levin did not know, and could not gather from the expression of the Professor’s quiet and intelligent face.

 

‘But in what do you perceive the peculiar quality of the Russian worker?’ asked Metrov. ‘In his zoological qualities, so to say, or in the conditions in which he is placed?’

 

Levin detected in this very question a thought with which he did not agree; but he continued to expound his view, which was that the Russian labourer’s view of the land is quite different from that of other nations. To illustrate this theory he hastened to add that, in his opinion, the Russian people’s view results from their consciousness of a vocation to populate the vast unoccupied tracts in the East.

 

‘It is easy to be led astray when drawing conclusions as to the general vocation of a people,’ said Metrov, interrupting Levin. ‘The condition of the labourer will always depend on his relation to land and capital.’

 

And without letting Levin finish explaining his idea, Metrov began expounding to him the peculiarity of his own teaching.

 

What that peculiarity consisted in Levin did not understand, because he did not even try to do so. He saw that Metrov, like the others, despite the article in which he refused the teachings of the economists, still regarded the position of the Russian labourer merely from the standpoint of capital, wages, and rent. Though he had to admit that in the Eastern and greater part of Russia rents were still nil, that wages — for nine-tenths of the eighty millions of the Russian population — represented only sustenance for themselves, and that capital did not yet exist except in the form of most primitive tools, yet he regarded every labourer merely from that one point of view, though on many points he disagreed with the economists and had his own theory of wages, which he explained to Levin.

 

Levin listened reluctantly and at first made objections. He wanted to interrupt Metrov and to state his own idea, which he considered would render a further statement of Metrov’s view superfluous. But afterwards, having convinced himself that they looked at the question so differently that they would never understand one another, he ceased making objections and merely listened. Though what Metrov was saying now no longer interested him at all, he felt some pleasure all the same in hearing him. His vanity was flattered by the fact that so learned a man should explain his opinions to him so willingly, so carefully, and with such faith in Levin’s knowledge of the subject that he sometimes by a mere hint indicated a whole aspect of the matter. Levin attributed this to his own worth, not knowing that Metrov, who had exhausted the matter with all his intimates, was particularly pleased to speak about it to any fresh person, and, in general, willingly spoke to everybody about the subject with which he was occupied and which was not yet clear to himself.

 

‘I’m afraid we shall be late,’ said Katavasov, glancing at the clock as soon as Metrov had finished his disquisition.

 

‘Yes, there is a meeting of the Society of Amateurs in honour of Svintich’s jubilee,’ Katavasov went on, in answer to Levin’s inquiry. ‘Peter Ivanovich’ (Metrov) ‘and I have arranged to go. I have promised to read a paper on his work on Zoology. Come with us, it will be very interesting.’

 

‘Yes! It is quite time,’ remarked Metrov. ‘Come with us, and then, if you care to, come home with me. I should very much like to hear your work.’

 

‘Oh no, it is still so unfinished! But I shall be pleased to go to the meeting.’

 

‘And have you heard? I gave in a separate report,’ Katavasov called out from the next room, where he was changing his coat.

 

They began a conversation about a controversy in the university, which was one of the most important events in Moscow that winter. The three old professors on the Council had not accepted the opinion of the younger ones; the younger ones presented a separate resolution. This resolution was, in the opinion of some people, a dreadful one, while according to others it was very simple and just. The professors were divided into two camps.

 

The side to which Katavasov belonged accused their opponents of mean treachery and deception; while the others imputed youthfulness and disrespect for authority. Levin, though he did not belong to the university, had since his arrival in Moscow more than once heard and conversed about this affair, and had formed his own opinion on the subject; and he took part in the conversation which was continued in the street until they all three arrived at the old university buildings.

 

The meeting had already begun. At the table covered with a cloth at which Katavasov and Metrov took their seats six men were sitting, and one of them, with his head bent close over a manuscript, was reading something. Levin took one of the vacant chairs which were standing round the table, and in a whisper asked a student who was sitting there what was being read. With a displeased look at Levin the student replied: ‘The biography!’

 

Though the biography of the scientist did not interest Levin, he listened involuntarily and learned a few interesting facts about the celebrated man’s life.

 

When the reader had finished, the chairman thanked him and read aloud some verses for the jubilee sent by the poet Ment, adding a few words of thanks to the poet. Then Katavasov, in his loud strident voice, read his paper on the scientific work of the man whose jubilee it was.

 

When Katavasov had finished, Levin looked at his watch, saw that it was getting on for two, and thought that there would be no time to read his manuscript to Metrov before the concert, and besides, he no longer felt inclined to do so. During the readings he had also been thinking about the talk they had had. It was now clear to him that though Metrov’s views might perhaps be of importance, his own ideas were of importance too, and these views could be formulated and lead to results only if each of them worked separately along the lines he had selected, but communicating them to one another could not lead to any result. Making up his mind to decline Metrov’s invitation, therefore, Levin approached him as soon as the meeting ended. Metrov introduced him to the chairman, with whom he was discussing the political news. In this connection Metrov told the chairman the same thing that he had already told Levin, and Levin made the same remarks as he had made in the morning, but for the sake of diversity expressed also a new view of his own — which had but just entered his head. After that they began talking about the university question. As Levin had already heard all that, he hastened to tell Metrov that he regretted he was unable to accept his invitation, shook hands, and drove off to the Lvovs’.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 4

 

 

 

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LVOV, who was married to Kitty’s sister Nataly, had passed all his life in the capitals and abroad, where he had been educated and where he had been in the diplomatic service.

 

The year before, he had quitted the diplomatic service, not because of any unpleasantness (he never had unpleasantness with anyone), but had exchanged into the Moscow Court Ministry in order to be able to give his boys the best education.

 

Despite very acute differences in their habits and opinions, and the fact that Lvov was older than Levin, they became very intimate and attached to one another that winter.

 

Levin found Lvov at home, and entered unannounced.

 

Wearing an indoor jacket with a belt, morocco leather shoes, and with a pince-nez of blue glass on his nose, Lvov sat in an easy-chair reading a book lying on a lectern before him, and carefully held at a distance in his shapely hand a cigar half-turned to ashes.

 

His handsome, refined, and still young-looking face, to which the curly, glossy, silver hair gave a still more well-bred appearance, lit up with a smile when he saw Levin.

 

‘Good! And I was just going to send to you. Well, and how is Kitty? Take this chair, it’s more comfortable.’ He rose and pushed forward a rocking-chair. ‘Have you read the last circular in the Journal de St Pétersbourg? I think it splendid,’ said he with a slightly French accent.

 

Levin told him what he had heard from Katavasov of what was said in Petersburg, and, after some talk on politics, Levin recounted how he had made Metrov’s acquaintance and had gone to the meeting. This interested Lvov very much.

 

‘There now! I envy you for having the entrance to that interesting scientific world,’ he said, and having started talking he changed, as he usually did, into French, which he spoke more easily. ‘It’s true I have no time to spare, my work and occupation with the children deprive me of that; besides, I am not ashamed to confess that my education was far too insufficient.’

 

‘I don’t think so,’ said Levin with a smile, feeling, as usual, touched by the other’s low opinion of himself, which was not in the least affected from desire to appear, or even to be, modest, but was quite sincere.

 

‘Oh, yes! I now feel how little educated I am! Even for the children’s lessons I often have to refresh my memory, or even simply to learn things. For it is not enough to have masters, one must have a supervisor as well, just as you have both labourers and an overseer on your estate. I was just reading,’ and he showed Levin Buslaev’s Grammar which lay on the lectern. ‘They expect Misha to know this, and it is so difficult. . . . Will you explain this to me? He says here . . .’

 

Levin tried to explain that it was impossible to understand it and that it must just be learnt by heart; but Lvov did not agree with him.

 

‘Yes! You laugh at it!’

 

‘On the contrary! You have no idea how, when I see you, I am always learning what awaits me — the education of my children.’

 

‘Oh, come! You’ve nothing to learn from me!’ said Lvov.

 

‘All I know is that I never saw better brought up children than yours,’ said Levin, ‘and do not wish for better children.’

 

Lvov evidently tried to restrain the expression of his delight, but a radiant smile lit up his face.

 

‘If only they turn out better than I! That is all I desire. You do not yet know all the difficulties one has with boys who, like mine, have been neglected through our life abroad,’ said he.

 

‘They’ll catch it all up. They are such gifted children! The chief thing is the moral training. That is what I learn by watching your children.’

 

‘You talk of moral training! You can’t imagine how difficult that is! You have hardly mastered one fault when another crops up and there is a fresh struggle. One must have the support of religion — you remember our talk about that? . . . No father relying on his own strength, without that support, could educate a child.’

 

This conversation, on a topic that always interested Levin, was cut short by the entrance of the beautiful Nataly Alexandrovna, who came in dressed to go out.

 

‘Oh, I didn’t know you were here,’ she said, evidently not at all sorry but rather pleased at having interrupted a conversation which she had heard long ago, and of which she was weary. ‘And how is Kitty? I am dining with you to-day. Look here, Arseney,’ she said, turning to her husband, ‘you will take the carriage . . .’

 

And husband and wife began discussing what they would do that day. As the husband had to go and meet some one officially, and the wife was going to the concert and then to a public meeting of the South-Eastern Committee, there was much to decide and arrange. Levin, as one of the family, had to take part in the deliberations. It was settled that Levin would drive with Nataly to the concert and to the public meeting, and from there they would send the carriage to the office to fetch Arseney, who would call for his wife and take her on to Kitty’s, or if he was detained by business he would send the carriage back, and Levin would accompany her.

 

‘He spoils me, you know,’ said Lvov to his wife, indicating Levin. ‘He assures me that our children are splendid, though I see so much that is bad in them.’

 

‘Arseney goes to extremes, as I always tell him,’ said his wife. ‘If you look for perfection, you will never be satisfied. What Papa says is perfectly true; when we were brought up they went to one extreme, and kept us children in the attics while our parents lived on the first floor; but now it’s just the reverse — the lumber room for the parents and the first floor for the children! Nowadays parents are hardly allowed to live, and everything is for the children.’

 

‘Why not, if that is pleasanter?’ said Lvov with his handsome smile, touching her hand. ‘Those who don’t know you would think you were not a mother but a stepmother!’

 

‘No, extremes are not right in any case,’ said Nataly quietly, putting his paper-knife in its right place on the table.

 

‘Ah! Come here, you perfect children!’ said Lvov to two little boys, who, after bowing to Levin, approached their father, evidently wishing to ask him something.

 

Levin wanted to talk to them and hear what they would say to their father, but Nataly spoke to him, and then Makhotin, a fellow official of Lvov’s, came in Court uniform to fetch Lvov to meet some one; and an unending conversation began about Herzegovina, the Princess Korzinskaya, the Duma, and the Countess Apraxina’s sudden death.

 

Levin had forgotten the commission he had been charged with and only remembered it when on his way to the anteroom.

 

‘Oh, Kitty wished me to have a talk with you about Oblonsky,’ he said, when Lvov paused on the stairs as he was seeing his wife and Levin down.

 

‘Yes, yes. Maman wishes us, les beaux-frères [the brothers-in-law], to come down on him,’ said Lvov, blushing. ‘But why should I?’

 

‘Well then, I will be down on him!’ said his wife smiling, as she stood in her white fur-lined cloak waiting for them to finish their talk. ‘Come, let us go!’