Chapter 5

 

 

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AT the Matinée Concert there were two very interesting items.

 

One was King Lear on the Heath, a fantasia, and the other was a quartet dedicated to the memory of Bach. Both pieces were new and in the new style, and Levin wished to form an opinion on them. When he had conducted his sister-in-law to her seat, he took his station behind a pillar, resolved to listen as attentively and as conscientiously as possible. He tried not to let his mind wander nor to let his impression of the music be marred by looking at the white-tied conductor’s arm-waving, which always so unpleasantly distracts one’s attention from the music; nor by the ladies with their bonnets, the ribbons of which were so carefully tied over their ears for the concert; nor by all those other persons who were either not interested in anything or were interested in all sorts of things other than music. He carefully avoided the musical experts and great talkers, and stood with lowered eyes gazing straight before him, listening.

 

But the longer he listened to the King Lear fantasia, the further he felt from the possibility of forming any definite opinion. The musical expression of some emotion seemed perpetually on the point of beginning, when it suddenly broke into fragments of the expression of other emotions or even into unrelated sounds which, elaborate though they were, were only connected by the whim of the composer. Even these fragments of musical expression, though some of them were good, were unpleasing because they were quite unexpected and unprepared for. Mirth, sadness, despair, tenderness, triumph came forth without any cause, like the thoughts of a madman. And, as in the mind of a madman, these emotions vanished just as unexpectedly.

 

Throughout the performance Levin felt like a deaf person watching a dance. He was quite perplexed when the music stopped and felt very tired as a result of strained attention quite unrewarded. From all sides came loud applause. Every one rose, began to walk about, and to talk. Wishing to clear up his own perplexity by hearing other people’s impressions, Levin went to look for the experts, and was pleased to find a celebrated one chatting with his own acquaintance, Pestsov.

 

‘Wonderful!’ Pestsov was saying in his deep bass. ‘How do you do, Constantine Dmitrich? . . . Especially shapely, plastic, and rich in colour, if one may say so, is the passage where you feel the approach of Cordelia, the woman, das ewige Weibliche [the eternal feminine], and she enters upon a struggle with fate.’

 

‘Why, what has Cordelia to do with it?’ Levin asked timidly, having quite forgotten that the fantasia presented King Lear on the heath.

 

‘Cordelia appears . . . here!’ said Pestsov, tapping with his fingers the glossy programme he was holding, and handing it to Levin.

 

Only then did Levin recollect the title of the fantasia, and hastened to read the Russian translation of a passage from Shakespeare, which was printed on the back.

 

‘You can’t follow without it,’ said Pestsov turning to Levin, as the man he had been talking to had gone away and he had no one else to talk to.

 

During the interval Levin and Pestsov began a discussion on the merits and defects of the Wagnerian tendency in music. Levin maintained that the mistake of Wagner and of all his followers lay in trying to make music enter the domain of another art, and that poetry commits the same error when it depicts the features of a face, which should be done by painting, and, as an example of this kind of error, he mentioned a sculptor who tried to chisel the shadows of poetic images arising round the pedestal of his statue of a poet. ‘The sculptor’s shadows so little resembled shadows that they even clung to a ladder,’ said Levin. He liked this phrase, but could not remember whether he had not used it before, and to Pestsov himself, and after saying it he grew embarrassed.

 

Pestsov argued that art was all one, and that it can only reach its highest manifestations by uniting all the different kinds of art.

 

Levin could not listen to the second part of the concert, for Pestsov, who stood beside him, talked all the while and found fault with the piece because of its unnecessary and sickly affectation of simplicity, comparing it with the simplicities of the pre-Raphaelite school of painting. On going out Levin met several other acquaintances, with whom he talked about politics, music, and mutual friends; among others he met Count Bol. He had quite forgotten his intended visit to him.

 

‘Well then, go at once,’ said the Princess Lvova, to whom he mentioned the matter. ‘Perhaps they won’t receive you, and then call for me at the meeting. You have time enough.’

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 6

 

 

 

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‘PERHAPS they don’t receive to-day?’ said Levin as he entered the hall of Countess Bol’s house.

 

‘They do; please walk in,’ said the hall-porter, determinedly helping him off with his overcoat.

 

‘What a nuisance!’ thought Levin with a sigh, as he pulled off one glove and smoothed his hat. ‘What is the good of my going in? And what on earth am I to say to them?’

 

As he entered the first drawing-room he met in the doorway the Countess Bol, who with an anxious and stern expression was giving orders to a servant. When she saw Levin she smiled and asked him into the next room, a smaller drawing-room, whence came the sound of voices. In that room, seated in arm-chairs, were the Countess’s two daughters and a Moscow Colonel with whom Levin was acquainted. Levin went up to them, said ‘How-do-you-do,’ and sat down on a chair beside the sofa, holding his hat in his hand.

 

‘How is your wife? Have you been to the concert? We could not go. Mama had to attend the funeral.’

 

‘Yes, I have heard. . . . How sudden it was!’ said Levin.

 

The Countess came in and sat down on the sofa, and she too inquired about his wife and about the concert.

 

Levin answered, and repeated his remark about the suddenness of the Countess Apraxina’s death.

 

‘But she always was delicate.’

 

‘Were you at the opera last night?’

 

‘Yes, I was.’

 

‘Wasn’t Lucca splendid?’

 

‘Yes, splendid,’ he replied, and as he was quite indifferent to what they might think of him, he repeated what they had heard hundreds of times about the peculiarities of that singer’s talent. The Countess Bol pretended to be listening. When he had said enough and paused, the Colonel, who till then had kept silent, began also to talk about the opera and about the lighting of the opera-house. At length, having mentioned the folle journée [mad fête] that was being got up at Tyurin’s, he laughed, rose noisily, and went away. Levin rose too, but saw by the Countess’s face that it was not yet time for him to leave. He had to endure another minute or two, so he sat down again.

 

As, however, he kept on thinking how silly it was, he found nothing to speak about and remained silent.

 

‘You are not going to the public meeting? They say it will be very interesting,’ began the Countess.

 

‘No, but I promised my sister-in-law to call for her there,’ said Levin.

 

There was a pause, and the mother exchanged glances with her daughter.

 

‘Well, I expect it’s time now,’ thought Levin, and rose. The ladies shook hands with him and asked him to tell his wife mille choses from them [give her their love].

 

The hall-porter as he helped him on with his overcoat asked where he was staying, and at once entered his address in a large well-bound book.

 

‘Of course it’s all the same to me, but still it makes one ashamed, and it’s awfully stupid,’ thought Levin, comforting himself with the reflection that everybody does it; and he went on to the meeting of the committee, where he had to meet his sister-in-law in order to accompany her to his own home.

 

At the meeting of the committee there were a great many people and almost the whole of Society. Levin was in time to hear a summary which everybody said was very interesting. When that had been read the Society folk gathered into a group, and Levin met Sviyazhsky, who asked him to be sure and come that evening to a meeting of the Agricultural Society where an important report was to be read. He also met Oblonsky, who had just come from the races, and many other persons he knew. Levin again expressed, and heard, various opinions about the meeting, the new fantasia, and a trial. But probably as a result of the mental fatigue he was beginning to feel, he made a slip when talking of the trial, and he afterwards remembered that slip with vexation several times. Speaking of the punishment awaiting a foreigner, who was being tried in Russia, and of how unjust it would be to banish him from the country, Levin repeated what he had heard said the day before by a man he knew.

 

‘It seems to me that to send him abroad would be like punishing a pike by throwing it into the water,’ said Levin; and only afterwards remembered that that thought, apparently given out as his own, and which he had heard from his acquaintance, was taken from one of Krylov’s fables, and that his acquaintance had repeated it from a feuilleton.

 

Having conducted his sister-in-law to his house, where he found Kitty cheerful and quite all right, Levin went off to the club.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 7

 

 

 

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LEVIN arrived at the club in good time. Members and visitors were driving up as he got there. He had long not been there — not since the days when after leaving the university he had lived in Moscow and gone out into Society. He remembered the club and the external details of its rooms, but had quite forgotten the impression it then made upon him. But as soon as he entered the semi-circular courtyard, got out of his sledge and entered the porch, where he was met by a hall-porter with a shoulder-belt who noiselessly opened the door and bowed to him; as soon as he saw in the hall the coats and goloshes of those of the members who realized that it was easier to take off their goloshes downstairs than to go up in them; and as soon as he heard the mysterious ring of the bell that announced his ascent; and while mounting the shallow steps of the carpeted stairs perceived the statue on the landing, and saw upstairs the third hall-porter in club livery — whom he recognized, though the man had aged — who opened the door for him without haste or delay, gazing at the new arrival — directly he saw all this, Levin was enveloped in the old familiar atmosphere of the place, an atmosphere of repose, ease, and propriety.

 

‘Let me have your hat, sir,’ said the porter to Levin, who had forgotten the club rule that hats must be left at the entrance. ‘It’s a long time since you were here! The Prince entered your name yesterday. Prince Oblonsky is not here yet.’

 

This hall-porter not only knew Levin but knew all his connections and relatives as well, and at once mentioned some of his intimate friends.

 

Passing first through a room in which were several screens, and then a room on the right in which was a partition and a fruit-stall, Levin, having overtaken and passed an old man who was walking slowly, entered the noisy and crowded dining-room.

 

He passed among the tables, which were nearly all occupied, surveying the guests. Here and there he came across all sorts of people he knew: old and young, some whom he only just knew and some with whom he was intimate. There was not one angry or anxious face among them. All seemed to have left their cares and anxieties behind them in the hall with their hats, and to be preparing to enjoy the material blessings of life at their leisure. Sviyazhsky and Shcherbatsky, Nevedovsky and the old Prince, Vronsky and Koznyshev, all were there.

 

‘Why are you so late?’ asked the old Prince with a smile, holding out his hand over his shoulder. ‘How is Kitty?’ he added, smoothing the table-napkin, which he had tucked in behind a button of his waistcoat.

 

‘She’s all right: they are all three dining together.’

 

‘Ah! Alines-Nadines! Well, there’s no room at our table. Go to that table, and be quick and secure a seat,’ said the old Prince, and turning away he carefully took a plate of fish soup that was handed to him.

 

‘Levin! Here!’ shouted some one a little farther off in a kindly voice. It was Turovtsin. He sat beside a young military man, and two chairs were tilted against their table. Levin joined them with pleasure. He always liked that good-natured spendthrift Turovtsin; with him was associated the memory of his proposal to Kitty; but to-day, after all those strained intellectual conversations, Turovtsin’s good-natured face was particularly welcome.

 

‘These are for you and Oblonsky. He will be here in a minute.’

 

The military man, with merry, ever-laughing eyes, who held himself very erect, was Gagin, from Petersburg. Turovtsin introduced him.

 

‘Oblonsky is always late.’

 

‘Ah, here he is!’

 

‘Have you just come?’ asked Oblonsky, hastening toward them. ‘How do you do? Had any vodka? Well then, come!’

 

Levin rose and went with him to a large table on which stood various kinds of vodka and a very varied assortment of hors d’œuvres. It might have been thought that from a score of different hors d’œuvres it would be possible to select one to any taste, but Oblonsky ordered something special, and one of the liveried footmen brought it at once. They drank a glass of vodka each and returned to their table.

 

While they were still at their soup Gagin ordered a bottle of champagne and had four glasses filled. Levin did not refuse the proffered wine, and ordered another bottle. He was hungry, and ate and drank with great pleasure, and with still greater pleasure took part in the simple merry talk of his companions. Gagin, lowering his voice, related a new Petersburg anecdote which, though it was indecent and stupid, was so funny that Levin burst into loud laughter and people turned to look at him.

 

‘That’s in the style of the story, “That’s just what I can’t bear”; do you know it?’ asked Oblonsky. ‘Oh, it’s delightful! Bring another bottle! . . .’ he called to the waiter, and immediately began telling the story.

 

‘With Peter Ilyich Vinovsky’s compliments,’ interrupted an old waiter, bringing two delicate glasses of still sparkling champagne on a tray, and addressing Oblonsky and Levin. Oblonsky took a glass, and exchanging a look with a bald, red-haired man with a moustache who sat at the other end of their table, smilingly nodded to him.

 

‘Who is that?’ inquired Levin.

 

‘You once met him at my house, do you remember? A nice fellow!’

 

Levin followed Oblonsky’s example and took the glass.

 

Oblonsky’s anecdote was very amusing too. Then Levin told one, which also was appreciated. Then they talked about horses, about that day’s races, and how gallantly Vronsky’s Atlasny had won the first prize. Levin hardly noticed how the dinner passed.

 

‘Ah, here they are!’ said Oblonsky, just as they were finishing, leaning back in his chair and stretching out his hand to Vronsky, who was approaching with a tall Colonel of the Guards. Vronsky’s face too was lit up by the general pleasant good-humour of the club. Gaily leaning his arm on Oblonsky’s shoulder, he whispered something to him, and with the same merry smile held out a hand to Levin.

 

‘Very glad to meet you,’ he said. ‘I looked for you that day at the elections, but was told you had already left.’

 

‘Yes, I left that same day. We were just speaking about your horse. I congratulate you!’ said Levin. ‘That was quick running!’

 

‘Oh yes; you keep racehorses too?’

 

‘No; my father did, and I remember them and know something about them.’

 

‘Where did you dine?’ asked Oblonsky.

 

‘At the second table, behind the pillars.’

 

‘He has been congratulated!’ remarked the Colonel. ‘It’s the second time he’s won the Imperial prize. If only I had the luck at cards that he has with horses. . . . But why waste the golden moments? I’m off to the “infernal regions”,’ added he, and walked away.

 

‘That’s Yashvin,’ said Vronsky in reply to Turovtsin’s question, as he took a vacant chair beside them. He drank a glass of champagne they offered him, and ordered another bottle. Whether influenced by the club or by the wine he had drunk, Levin chatted with Vronsky about the best breeds of cattle, and was very pleased to find that he had not the least animosity toward the man. He even told Vronsky among other things that he had heard from his wife that she had met him at the Princess Mary Borisovna’s.

 

‘Oh, the Princess Mary Borisovna! Isn’t she charming?’ cried Oblonsky, and related an anecdote about her which made them all laugh. Vronsky especially burst into such good-natured laughter that Levin felt quite reconciled to him.

 

‘Well, have you finished?’ asked Oblonsky, rising and smiling. ‘Let’s go!’

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 8

 

 

 

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ON leaving the table Levin, feeling that as he went his arms swung with unusual regularity and ease, passed with Gagin through the lofty apartments to the billiard-room. When they had traversed the Large Hall he met his father-in-law.

 

‘Well, and how do you like our Temple of Idleness?’ said the Prince, giving him his arm. ‘Come, let’s walk about a little.’

 

‘Yes, a walk is just what I want, and to have a look round. It interests me.’

 

‘Yes, it interests you, but my interest is different to yours. You look at those old men,’ said the Prince, indicating a round-shouldered member with a hanging nether lip, hardly able to shuffle along in his soft boots, who met and passed them, ‘and you imagine they were born shlyupiks?’

 

‘Shlyupiks! What’s that?’

 

‘You see, you don’t even know the word! It is a club term. You know the game of egg-rolling? Well, an egg that has been rolled very often becomes a shlyupik [a hard-boiled egg that has been repeatedly cracked till it has become soft and useless for the game]. And so it is with ourselves: we keep coming and coming to the club until we turn into shlyupiks. There! Now you’re laughing, but we are already thinking of how we shall become shlyupiks. . . ! You know Prince Chechensky?’ asked the Prince, and Levin saw by his face that he was going to say something droll.

 

‘No, I don’t.’

 

‘You don’t? What, the well-known Prince Chechensky? Well, never mind! He is always playing billiards, you know. Three years ago he was not yet among the shlyupiks and he showed a bold front, calling others shlyupiks. Well, one day he arrives, and our hall-porter . . . You know Vasily? . . . Oh yes, that fat one; he is a great wit. Well, Prince Chechensky asks him: “I say, Vasily, who is here? Any of the shlyupiks?” And Vasily replies: “Well, yes: you’re the third one!” Yes, my lad! That’s how it is!’

 

Chatting and exchanging greetings with acquaintances they chanced to meet, Levin and the Prince passed through all the rooms: the large one, in which card-tables were already arranged and habitual partners were playing for small stakes; the sofa-room, where they were playing chess and where Koznyshev sat talking to some one; the billiard-room, where by a sofa in a recess a merry party, which included Gagin, were drinking champagne. They looked in at the ‘infernal regions’ too, where round a table, at which Yashvin had already taken his seat, crowded a number of backers.

 

Taking care not to make a noise they entered the dim reading-room, where, under shaded lamps, a young man with an angry countenance sat turning over one newspaper after another, and a bald General was engrossed in what he was reading. They also went into the room which the Prince termed ‘the wise room’. There three gentlemen were arguing about the latest political news.

 

‘Will you come, Prince? Everything is ready,’ said one of his habitual partners, finding him there, and the Prince went away. Levin sat down for a while and listened, but remembering all the conversations he had that day heard, he suddenly felt terribly bored. He rose hastily and went to look for Oblonsky and Turovtsin, with whom he had felt merry.

 

Turovtsin, with a tankard of something to drink, was sitting on the high sofa in the billiard-room, and Oblonsky was talking to Vronsky by the door in the far corner.

 

‘She is not exactly dull, but that indefinite, unsettled position . . .’ Levin overheard, and was hastening away when Oblonsky called him.

 

‘Levin!’ said he; and Levin noticed that though in Oblonsky’s eyes there were not actually tears, they were moist, as they always were when he had been drinking or when he felt touched. To-day it was both.

 

‘Levin, don’t go,’ he said, holding him tightly by the elbow, evidently not wishing to let him go on any account.

 

‘This is my true, almost my best friend,’ he said to Vronsky. ‘You too are even more near and dear to me; and I want you to be friends, and I know that you will be friendly and intimate because you are both good fellows.’

 

‘Well, then there’s nothing for it but to kiss and be friends!’ said Vronsky, good-naturedly jesting and holding out his hand.

 

He quickly grasped Levin’s outstretched hand and pressed it.

 

‘I am very, very glad,’ said Levin, pressing Vronsky’s hand.

 

‘Waiter! Bring a bottle of champagne,’ said Oblonsky.

 

‘And I am glad too,’ said Vronsky.

 

But in spite of Oblonsky’s wish and theirs they had nothing to say to one another, and both knew it.

 

‘You know, he is not acquainted with Anna,’ said Oblonsky to Vronsky. ‘And I particularly wish to take him to see her. Let’s go, Levin.’

 

‘Really?’ said Vronsky. ‘She will be very glad. I would go home at once, but I am anxious about Yashvin and want to stay here till he has finished.’

 

‘Oh, is he in a bad way?’

 

‘He keeps on losing and I alone can restrain him.’

 

‘Then what do you say to pyramids? Levin, will you play? Oh, capital,’ said Oblonsky. ‘Place the balls for pyramids,’ he added, turning to the billiard-marker.

 

‘They have been ready a long time,’ replied the marker, who had already placed the balls in a triangle and was rolling the red ball about to pass the time.

 

‘Well, come along!’

 

After the game Vronsky and Levin joined Gagin at his table, and at Oblonsky’s invitation Levin began betting on aces. Vronsky sat beside the table, surrounded by friends who were continually coming to him, or else went to the ‘infernal regions’ to see what Yashvin was up to. Levin experienced an agreeable sense of relief from the mental weariness of the morning. He was glad the hostility between Vronsky and himself was ended, and the impression of tranquillity, decorum, and pleasure did not leave him.

 

When they had finished their play Oblonsky took Levin’s arm.

 

‘Well then, let us go to Anna’s. Now, at once! She will be at home. I promised her long ago to bring you. Where were you going to-night?’

 

‘Nowhere in particular. I had promised Sviyazhsky to go to the Agricultural Society’s meeting, but I’ll come with you if you like,’ replied Levin.

 

‘Capital! Let’s go! . . . Find out whether my carriage has come,’ said Oblonsky to a footman.

 

Levin went to the table, paid the forty roubles he had lost betting on the aces, paid the club bill to an old footman who stood by the door and who seemed in some miraculous way to know what it came to, and, swinging his arms in a peculiar way, passed through the whole suite of rooms to the exit.