The complete works of Count Tolstoy. Vol. 11

Translated from the Original Russian and edited by Leo Wiener

Assittant Professor of Slavic Languages at Harvard University

BOSTON £ DANA ESTES & COMPANY £ PUBLISHERS

ANNA KARÉNIN

1873 -1876

Parts VI., VII., and VIII.

ANNA KARÉNIN

“ Vengeance is mine, I will repay.”

PART THE SIXTH

I.

Darya Aleksandrovna and her children were passing the summer at Pokrovskoe, with her sister Kitty Levin. The house in her own estate had all fallen to pieces, and Levin and his wife persuaded her to stay during the summer with them. Stepan Arkàdevich only too readily approved of this arrangement. He said that he was sorry that his official duties prevented his passing the summer with his family in the country, which would have been the greatest happiness for him ; he remained in Moscow, and now and then came to see them for a day or two at a time. Besides the Obldnskis, with all the children and the governess, there was staying with the Levins during that summer the old princess, who considered it her duty to watch her inexperienced daughter who was in such a condition. In addition to these, Varenka, Kitty’s friend from abroad, was making good her promise, which was that she would come to see her when she was married, and was visiting her. All these were relatives and friends of Levin’s wife. And, although he liked them all, he was

a little sorry for his Levin world and order, which was submerged by this influx of the ” Shcherbätski element,” as he said to himself. Of his relatives he had with him that summer Sergyéy Ivanovich, but he was not a man of the Levin, but of the Koznyshév type, so that the Levin spirit was completely destroyed.

In Levin’s house, which had long been empty, there were now so many people that nearly all the rooms were occupied, and nearly every day the old princess had to count up all the persons present, as she seated herself at the table, and put the thirteenth grandchild at a separate little table. And Kitty, who attended carefully to her household, had no end of trouble about procuring chickens, turkeys, and ducks, of which, considering the summer appetites of the guests and children, a large number were consumed.

The whole family were sitting at the table. Dolly’s children were making plans with their governess and with Varenka about where they should go for mushrooms. Sergyéy Ivânovich, who among all the guests enjoyed a reputation for wit and learning, which almost amounted to a worship, surprised everybody by taking part in the conversation about the mushrooms.

” Take me along ! I am very fond of going out mushrooming,” he said, looking at Vérenka. ” I find that it is a very good occupation.”

” All right, we are very glad,” Varenka replied, blushing. Kitty exchanged significant glances with Dolly. The proposition of clever and learned Sergyéy Ivänovich to go mushrooming with Vdrenka confirmed certain of Kitty’s suspicions wliich had latterly interested her very much. She hastened to talk to her mother lest her glance be noticed. After dinner Sergyéy Ivdnovich sat down with his cup of coffee at the window in the drawingroom, continuing his interrupted conversation with his brother, and glancing at the door from which the children were to come, to start out for the mushrooms. Levin seated himself on the window-sill, near his brother.

Kitty was standing beside her husband, apparently waiting for the end of the conversation, which did not interest her, in order to say something to him.

” You have changed in many things since your marriage, and for the better,” said Sergyéy Ivanovich, smiling at Kitty, and evidently little interested in the subject of their conversation, ” but you have remained true to your passion for defending the most paradoxical themes.”

” Katya, it is not good for you to stand,” said her husband, moving up a chair for her, and looking significantly at her.

“Well, anyway, I have no time now,” added Sergyéy Ivanovich, upon noticing the children who were running out.

In front of all, running sidewise, at a gallop, in her tightly fitting stockings, and waving a little basket and Sergyéy Ivanovich’s hat, was Tanya, who was making straight for him.

She ran courageously up to Sergyéy Ivänovich, and with sparkling eyes, which so resembled her father’s beautiful eyes, handed him his hat and acted as though she wanted to put it on his head, softening her daring with a timid and gentle smile.

“Varenka is waiting,” she said, cautiously putting on his hat, having concluded from his smile that she might do so.

Varenka was standing at the door, wearing now a yellow chintz dress and having her head tied with a white kerchief.

” I am coming, I am coming, Varvara Andréevna,” said Sergyéy Ivânovich, finishing his coffee and putting his handkerchief and cigar-case away in his pockets.

” What a charming girl my Varenka is ! Eh ? ” Kitty said to her husband, the moment Sergyéy Ivanovich had got up. She said it in such a way that Sergyéy Ivänovich could hear her, which was her obvious intention. ” And how pretty she is, how nobly beautiful ! Vdrenka ! ” Kitty called out. ” Will you be in the mill forest ? We will go to see you.”

” You absolutely forget your condition, Kitty,” said the old princess, coming hurriedly through the door. ” You must not speak so loud.”

Hearing Kitty’s voice and her mother’s reproach, Varenka with light steps rushed up to Kitty. The rapidity of her motions, the colour which covered her animated face, — everything showed that something unusual was taking place in her. Kitty knew what that unusual thing was, and watched her attentively. She had called up Vdrenka for no other reason than that she might mentally bless her for the important event which, according to Kitty’s idea, was to be accomplished that very day, after dinner, in the woods.

” Varenka, I shall be very happy if a certain thing will happen,” she said in a whisper, kissing her.

” And will you go with us ? ” Varenka said to Levin, in confusion, making it appear that she had not heard what had been said.

« I will, but only as far as the threshing-floor, and there I will stay.”

” What do you want to do it for ? ” asked Kitty.

” I have to, to look at the new wagons and see what they are doing,” said Levin. ” And where will you be ? ”

“ On the terrace.”

II.

On the terrace all the feminine society was gathered. They were all fond of sitting there after dinner, but on that day they had some special work to do. In addition to the making of baby shirts and crocheting of swaddling-clothes, with which all were occupied, they were busy making preserves without the addition of water, which was a new method for Agafya Mikhaylovna. Kitty was trying to introduce this method which had been practised in her house. Agafya Mikhdylovna, to whom this matter had been entrusted before, and who assumed that what was done in the house of the Levins could not be bad, nevertheless put water into the wild and the cultivated strawberries, insisting that it was not possible to do it in any other way ; she was caught at it, and so now the raspberries were boiling in their presence, and Agafya Mikhdylovna was to be convinced that the preserves would come out all right without the water.

Agafya Mikhaylovna, with heated and chagrined face, dishevelled hair, and her lean arms bared above the elbow, was giving a circular motion to the flat pot on the fl replace and looking gloomily at the raspberries, hoping in the depth of her heart that they might thicken and keep from boiling. The princess, who felt that Agdfya Mikhaylovna’s anger was no doubt directed against her, as the chief adviser in the making of the preserves, tried to look as though she were busy at something else and was not interested in the raspberry preserves, and talked about other matters, but still kept stealthily an eye on the fire.

” I alwavs buy bargains in dresses for the girls.” said the princess, continuing the conversation on which they had started. ” Had you not better take off the scum, my dear ? ” she added, turning to Agäfya Mikhaylovna. ” You don’t have to do it yourself, and it is hot, too,” she stopped Kitty.

” I will do it,” said Dolly. She got up and began carefully to move the spoon over the frothing sugar, now and then striking it against a plate, in order to remove that which stuck fast to it. The plate was already filled with variegated, yellowish pink scum, with streaks of blood-red syrup. ” How they will lick it with their tea ! ” she was thinking of her children, recalling how she, as a child, used to wonder why the grown people did not eat the best part, — the scum.

” Stfva says that it is much better to give them money,” Dolly in the meantime continued the conversation, which so interested her, about what it was best to do in giving presents to the servants. ” But — “

” How can you give money ! ” the princess and Kitty exclaimed in one voice. ” They appreciate it.”

” Well, I, for example, last year bought for our Matréna Seménovna not poplin, but something of this kind,” said the princess.

” I remember, she wore it on your name-day.”

” Such a charming pattern, — so simple and so elegant. I would have made one for myself of the same, if she had not had it. Something like Värenka’s. So sweet, and so cheap.”

” Now, it seems it is all done,” said Dolly, dripping the syrup from the spoon.

“ If it comes in rings, it is done. Boil it a little while longer, Agdfya Mikhaylovna ! “

” These flies ! ” Agäfya Mikhaylovna said, angrily. ” It won’t be any better,” she added.

” Oh, how sweet it is, — don’t frighten it ! ” Kitty suddenly exclaimed, looking at a sparrow that had alighted on the balustrade and, turning over the pedicel of a raspberry, was nibbling at it.

” Yes, but you must get farther away from the fire,” said her mother.

” Apropos de Varenka,” Kitty said in French, in which language they were talking all the time, so that Agafya Mikhaylovna might not understand them. ” Do you know, mamma, I for some reason expect a decision to-day. You know what it is. How nice it would be ! ”

« I must say you are a great match-maker ! ” said Dolly. ” How carefully and cleverly she is bringing them together ! ”

” Really, mamma, what do you think ? ”

” What is there to think ? He ” (he was Sergyéy Ivänovich) “ could always make the best match in Russia ; he is not so young now, but still I know many girls would marry him even now — She is a very good girl, but he might — ”

” Really, you must understand, mamma, that nothing better could be imagined for either of them. In the first place, she is a dear ! ” said Kitty, bending a finger.

“He likes her pretty well, — that is evident,” Dolly confirmed her.

“ Then, he occupies such a position in society that he needs neither a fortune nor a social position from his wife. All he needs is a good, sweet, quiet wife.”

“ Yes, with her one may be quiet,” Dolly confirmed her.

” In the third place, she has to love him. And that is the case. That is, it would be so nice. I am waiting for them to come back from the woods, and everything to be decided. I shall see it at once by their eyes. It would make me so happy ! What do you think, Dolly ? ”

“Don’t get so agitated. There is no need of getting excited,” her mother said.

« But I am not, mamma. I think be will propose to her this very day.”

” Oh, it is so strange when a man proposes, and the manner in which he does it. There seems to be a barrier, and suddenly it gives way,” said Dolly, smiling pensively, and recalling her past with Stepdn Arkddevich.

” Mamma, how did papa propose to you ? ” Kitty suddenly asked.

” There was nothing especial ; it was all very simple,” the princess replied, but her face none the less brightened up at this recollection.

” Really, how did he ? You loved him before you were permitted to speak, did you not ? “

Kitty experienced a peculiar charm in being able to speak now with her mother as with an equal about these most important questions in the life of a woman.

“ Of course he loved me ; he used to come to see us in the country.”

” But how was it decided, mamma ? “

“ You evidently think that you have invented something new. It is always the same thing : it was decided with the eyes, with smiles — “

“ How well you have expressed it, mamma ! That’s it : with the eyes and with smiles,” Dolly confirmed her.

“ But what words did he use ? “

” What did Konstantin say to you ? “

” He wrote them with chalk. It was remarkable — How remote it now seems to me ! ” she said.

And the three women fell to musing about the same thing. Kitty was the first to break the silence. She recalled all that last winter before her marriage, and her infatuation for Vrdnski.

” There is one thing — that old infatuation of Varenka’s,” she said, thinking of it by a natural connection of ideas. ” I had intended to tell Sergyéy Ivanovich about it, — to prepare him for it. All men,” she added, ” are dreadfully jealous of our past.”

” Not all,” said Dolly. ” You are judging from your husband. He is still suffering from the thought of Vronski. Yes ? Am I right ? “

” Yes,” Kitty replied, pensively, smiling with her eyes.

” But what I cannot understand,” the princess retorted, to defend the maternal care she had taken of her daughter, “is what past of yours has been troubling him? That Vrdnski had been paying you attentions ? That happens to every girl.”

” But we are not talking about it,” Kitty said, blushing.

” Excuse me,” continued her mother, ” and then, you yourself did not let me talk to Vronski, — do you remember ? “

« Oh, mamma ! ” Kitty said, with an expression of suffering.

” Nowadays you can’t be held back — Your relations could never have gone farther than would have been proper ; I should have challenged him myself. Besides, my dear, it is not good for you to excite yourself. Please remember that, and calm yourself ! ”

” I am quite calm, mamma.”

” How fortunate that Anna happened to come then ! ” said Dolly, « and how unfortunate for her. Just exactly the opposite,” she added, startled at her thought. ” Anna was then so happy, and Kitty regarded herself as unhappy. How exactly the opposite it is ! I frequently think of her.”

” Think of better women ! She is a mean, contemptible woman, without a heart,” said her mother, who could not forget that Kitty had married Levin, and not Vrdnski. .

” What pleasure is there in talking about it ? ” Kitty said, with indignation. ” I am not thinking of it, and I do not want to think of it, I do not want to think of it,” she repeated, listening to the familiar footsteps of her husband on the staircase of the terrace.

” What is that about : ‘ I do not want to think of it ’ ? ” asked Levin, coming up on the terrace.

But nobody made any reply to him, and he did not repeat the question.

” I am sorry to have disturbed your feminine realm,” he said, casting a dissatisfied glance at everybody, and concluding that they had been talking about something which they would not have mentioned in his presence. Still, he smiled, and went up to Kitty.

” Well ? ” he asked her, looking at her with the same expression with which all talked to her now.

” Nothing, all right,” Kitty said, smiling, ” and how is it with you ? ”

” They are hauling three times as much as a cart will hold. Shall we go for the children ? I have ordered them to hitch up.”

” What, you want to take Kitty in the line carriage ? ” the mother said, reproachfully.

” We mean to drive at a slow pace, princess.”

Levin never called the princess ” mamma,” as all sons-in-law do, and that provoked the princess. But though Levin loved and respected the princess he could not bring himself to call her thus, without profaning his feeling for his dead mother.

” Come with us, mamma ! ” said Kitty.

” I do not want to look at your foolishness ! “

” Well, I will walk. That will do me good.” Kitty got up, walked over to her husband and took his hand.

” It will, but everything in measure,” said the princess.

“ Well, Agafya Mikhaylovna, are the preserves done? ” asked Levin, smiling at Agafya Mikhaylovna, and wishing to cheer her up. ” Is it good according to the new style ? ”

“ I suppose it is. According to our way it is overboiled.”

” It is better that way, Agdfya Mikhaylovna. It will not get soured. As it is, all of our ice is melted, and we have no place in which to keep it,” said Kitty, who at once understood her husband’s intention, and with the same feeling addressed the old woman. “ On the other hand, your pickling is so fine that mamma says she has never eaten the like,” she added, smiling, and adjusting Agafya Mikhaylovna’s kerchief.

Agafya Mikhaylovna looked angrily at Kitty.

” Don’t console me, lady ! It makes me happy enough to look at you with him,” she said, and the brusque expression ” with him ” touched Kitty.

” Go with us for mushrooms, — you will show us the places.”

Agafya Mikhaylovna smiled and shook her head, as much as to say, ” I should like to be angry with you, but I can’t.”

“Please follow my advice!” said the old princess. ” Put a piece of paper on the preserves, and moisten it with rum : it will not mould then, even without ice.”

III.

Kitty was exceedingly glad to be alone with her husband, because she had observed a shadow of grief on his face, which vividly reflected everything, at the moment when he had come up on the terrace and had asked what they had been talking about, without receiving any answer.

When they started out on foot, ahead of the rest, and got out of sight of the house on the beaten, dusty road, which was covered with rye ears and kernels, she leaned more heavily on his arm and pressed it close to herself. He had already forgotten the unpleasant impression of the moment and, being all alone with her, experienced, now that the thought of her pregnancy did not leave him for a moment, that new and joyous sensation of the proximity of a beloved woman, which was so entirely free from all sensuality. There was nothing to talk about, but he wanted to hear the sound of her voice, which now, with her pregnancy, had changed as much as her looks. In her voice, as in her looks, there was softness and seriousness, something like what is to be seen in people who are all the time concentrating their thoughts on one favourite subject.

” So you will not get tired ? Lean more against me,” he said.

” No, I am so glad to have a chance of being all alone with you, and I must confess, no matter how happy I am to have them with us, I regret our winter evenings alone.”

” That was good, but this is better. Both are better,” he said, pressing her arm.

“Do you know what we were talking about when you came in ? ”

” About the preserves.”

“Yes, about the preserves too; and then about how people propose.”

“ Ah ! ” said Levin, listening to the sound of her voice, rather than to the words which she was saying, thinking all the time about the road, which now passed through the forest, and avoiding the places where she might make a misstep.

“ And about Sergyéy Ivdnovich and Vdrenka. Have you noticed ? I wanted it so much ! ” she continued. “ What do you think about it ? ” And she gazed at his face.

“ I do not know what to think,” Levin replied, smiling. “ Sergyéy is in that respect very strange to me. I told you — “

“ Yes, that he was in love with the girl that died — ”

“ That was when I was a child ; I know by tradition. I remember how he was then. He was a remarkably nice man. But since then I have been observing him with women : he is amiable, and some of them he likes, but one feels that for him they are only people, and not women.”

“ Yes, but now with Varenka — It seems to me, there is something — ”

” Maybe there is — But you must know him — He is a peculiar, a remarkable man. He lives only a spiritual life. He is too pure and exalted.”

“ What ? Will this lower him ? “

“ No, but he has become so accustomed to living a spiritual life only that he cannot make his peace with reality, and Värenka is after all a reality.”

Levin had become used to expressing his thoughts boldly, without taking the trouble of clothing them in precise words; he knew that his wife would at such moments of love understand what he meant to convey from mere hints, and she actually did understand him.

” Yes, but there is not in her that reality that there is in me ; I understand that he would never have fallen in love with me. She is all spiritual — “

” Not at all, he loves you very much, and it gives me such pleasure to see that my family loves you — “

” Yes, he is good to me, but — “

” But it is not the way it was with Nikolây — you took a great liking to each other,” Levin finished her sentence. ” Why not say it ? ” he added. ” I sometimes reproach myself : it will end by my forgetting him. What a terrible and excellent man he was ! — So what were we talking about ? ” Levin said, after a moment’s silence.

« You think that he cannot fall in love,” Kitty said, interpreting it in her language.

” Not exactly that,” Levin said, smiling, ” but he does not have that weakness which is necessary — I always envy him, and even now, while I am so happy, I envy him.”

” Do you envy him because he cannot fall in love ? ”

” I envy him because he is better than I,” Levin said, smiling. ” He does not live for himself. His whole life is subservient to duty. And so he can be calm and satisfied.”

” And you ? ” Kitty said, with a sarcastic smile, full of love.

She would have been absolutely at a loss to explain the course of ideas which made her smile ; but her final conclusion was that her husband, who was so enthusiastic about his brother and humbled himself before him, was not sincere. Kitty knew that this insincerity was due to the love which he had for his brother, to his scruples about being too happy, and especially to a constant desire to be better, — and this she loved in him, and so smiled.

“ And you ? What are you dissatisfied with ? ” she asked him, with the same smile.

Her incredulity in his dissatisfaction with himself gave him pleasure, and he unconsciously provoked her to tell him the causes of her incredulity.

” I am happy, but dissatisfied with myself — ” he said.

” But how can you be dissatisfied if you are happy ? “

” That is, how shall I say it ? In my heart I do not wish for anything but that you should not stumble. Really, you must not make such leaps ! ” he interrupted his talk, to rebuke her for making too rapid a motion in her attempt to step over a branch which was lying in the road. ” But when I reflect on myself and compare myself with others, especially with my brother, I find that I am no good.”

” Why ? ” Kitty continued, with the same smile. ” Don’t you do for others ? Your out-farms, and your estate, and your book ? ”

“ No, I feel, especially now, that you are to blame,” he said, pressing her arm, ” for this being so. I am doing it just lightly. If I could love all that business as I love you — for I have been doing it of late as though it were a school task.”

“Well, what will you say about papa?” asked Kitty. ” So he, too, is no good because he has done nothing for the common good ? ”

” He ? No. But one has to have that simplicity, that clearness, that goodness, which your father has; have I them? I am not doing anything, and am tormented. You have done it all. When you did not exist, and there was not this,” he said, with a glance at her abdomen, which she understood, “ I used to put all my energy into work ; but now I cannot, and I feel ashamed ; I am simply doing a school task, — I pretend — ”

” Well, would you want this moment to change places with Sergyéy Ivanovich?” said Kitty. “Would you like to do that common good and love that school task, and nothing more ? “

” Of course not,” said Levin. “ However, I am so happy that I do not understand a thing. And you really think that he is going to propose to-day ? ” he added, after some silence.

” I both think and do not think. Only I want it badly. Wait ! ” she bent down and plucked an ox-eyed daisy at the edge of the path. ” Well, count it : he will propose, he will not,” she said, giving him the flower.

” He will, he will not,” said Levin, tearing off the narrow, white ray flowers.

” No, no ! ” Kitty stopped him, taking hold of his hand, having watched his fingers in excitement. ” You tore off two.”

” But this little one does not count,” he said, pulling off a short, stunted petal. ” And here the carriage has caught up with us.”

” Are you not tired, Kitty ? ” called out the princess.

” Not in the least.”

“ Get in, if the horses are gentle, and the carriage is driving at a slow pace.”

But it was not worth while getting in. They were not far now, and all went on foot.

IV.

Varenka, in her white kerchief over her black hair, surrounded by the children, and merrily occupied with them, and apparently agitated by the possibility of a declaration from a man whom she liked, was exceedingly attractive. Sergyéy Ivanovich was walking beside her, looking all the time admiringly at her. As he gazed at her, he recalled all the charming remarks which she had made and everything good he knew about her, and became more and more conscious of the fact that the sentiment which he was experiencing toward her was something especial, something which he had experienced a long time ago, only once, during his youth. The feeling of joy at being near to her, increasing all the time, reached such a point that, as he was throwing into her basket an immense boletus scaber on a thin stem with turned-up edges, which he had found, he looked into her eyes and, noticing a colour of joyous and frightened agitation, which flushed her face, himself became embarrassed and silently smiled at her a smile which said too much.

” If so,” he said to himself, “ I must consider it and make up my mind, and not abandon myself, like a boy, to the infatuation of the moment.”

” I will go to gather mushrooms separately from the rest, for my contribution is small,” he said. And he went alone away from the edge of the forest, where they were walking over the low, silk-like grass, between widely distant old birch-trees, into the middle of the forest where, between the white birch trunks could be seen the gray trunks of the aspens and the darkling hazel-bushes. Sergyéy Ivänovich walked about forty paces and went behind a prick-wood bush in full bloom, with its rose-coloured catkins ; there he stopped, knowing that he could not be seen. Around him everything was absolutely quiet. Only above the tops of the birches, under which he was standing, the flies buzzed incessantly, like a swarm of bees, and now and then the voices of the children were borne to him. Suddenly, Varenka’s contralto voice, calling Grisha, was heard not far away, at the edge of the forest, and a joyous smile appeared on Sergyéy Ivanovich’s face. Becoming conscious of this smile of his, he shook his head disapprovingly at his condition and, taking out a cigar, began to light it. For a long time he was unable to strike fire with the match, by rubbing it against the trunk of a birch-tree. The tender cuticle of the white bark stuck to the phosphorus, and the fire went out. Finally a match caught fire, and the fragrant smoke of the cigar, rising as a broad, quivering sheet, tended definitely forward and upward, above the bush and beneath the drooping’branches of the birch-tree. Watching the streak of smoke, Sergyéy Ivanovich moved on at a slow pace, meditating on his condition.

” And why not ? ” he thought. ” If it were an outburst or a passion, if I experienced only this attraction, — this mutual attraction (I may say mutual), and felt that it ran counter with the whole composition of my life — If 1 felt that, in abandoning myself to this attraction, I was untrue to my calling and sense of duty — but there is nothing of the kind. The one thing that I have to say against it is that when I lost Marie I said to myself that I should remain true to her memory. That is all I can say against this sentiment— That is important,” he said to himself, feeling at the same time that this reflection could have no importance for him personally, but at best only spoiled his poetical reputation in the eyes of other people. ” Outside of this, no matter how much I may seek, I shall not find anything to say against my sentiment. If I were to choose with my reason only, I could not find anything better ! “

No matter of how many women and girls of his acquaintance he thought, he could not recall a single one who to such a degree combined all, — that was it, — all qualities, which, upon calm reflection, he wished to see in a wife of his. She had all the charm and freshness of youth, but was not a child, and, if she loved him, she loved him consciously, as a woman ought to love : so much for one thing. Secondly : she was not only far from worldliness, but obviously despised society, and yet knew it and had all those manners of a woman of good society, without winch a life companion was unthinkable to Sergyéy Ivanovich. Thirdly : she was religious, — not unaccountably religious and good, like a child, and as Kitty was ; but her life was based on religious convictions. Even down to trifles he found in her everything that he wanted of a wife: she was poor and lonely, so that she would not bring along a crowd of relatives and their influence to her husband’s house, as was the case with Kitty, but would be for everything grateful to her husband, a thing which he had always desired for his future domestic life.

And this girl, who combined all these qualities, loved him. He was modest, but could not help seeing this. And he loved her. The one consideration against it was his age. But he came from a long-lived stock ; he did not have a single gray hair ; nobody gave him more than forty years, and he remembered that Varenka had said that only in Russia did people regard themselves as old at fifty, while in France a man of fifty years of age considered himself to be dans la force de l’âge, while a man of forty was un jeune homme. But what did the number of years mean, since he felt himself as young at heart

as he had been twenty years before ? Was it not youth that he was experiencing now as he stepped out to the edge of the forest on the other side and in the bright light of the slanting sun-rays saw Vdrenka’s graceful figure, in her yellow dress, carrying the basket and walking with light steps past the trunk of an old birch, and as the impression of Vdrenka’s form blended with the yellowing oat-field, which was bathed by the slanting rays, and which startled him by its beauty, and, beyond the field, with the far-off old forest, which was tinted with yellow, and which welded with the azure distance ? His heart was compressed with joy. A feeling of meekness of spirit took possession of him. He felt that he had made up his mind. Vdrenka, who had just stooped to pick up a mushroom, got up with a flexible motion and looked about her. Sergyéy Ivdnovich threw away his cigar and walked over to her with determined steps.

V.

“Varvara Andréevna, when I was very young I formed an ideal of a woman, whom I fell in love with, and whom I shall be happy to call my wife. I have lived a long life, and have now for the first time found in you what I have been looking for. I love you and offer you my hand.”

Sergyéy Ivanovich was saying that to himself when he was within ten paces of Varenka. She got down on her knees and, defending a mushroom from Grisha, was calling up little Mäsha.

” This way, this way ! Little ones ! Lots of them ! ” she said with her sweet chest tones.

When she saw Sergyéy Ivanovich approaching, she did not get up and did not change her position ; but everything told him that she was conscious of his approach, and was glad of it.

“Well, have you found anything ?” she asked, behind her white kerchief, turning to him her beautiful, softly smiling countenance.

” Not one,” said Sergyéy Ivanovich. “ And you ? ”

She made no reply, being busy with the children who were surrounding her.

” And that one, near the twig,” she indicated to little Masha a small russula which was cut across its flexible pink cap by a dry grass-blade, underneath which it was pushing its way up. Varenka rose, when Masha, breaking the russula into two white halves, picked it up. “This reminds me of my childhood,” she added, walking away from the children to Sergyéy Ivanovich.

They took several steps in silence. Varenka saw that he wanted to speak ; she divined what it would be about, and her heart was sinking from joy and terror. They got so far away that no one could bear them, but he still kept silence, and Varenka preferred not to say anything. After a silence it would have been easier for them to say what they wished than if they got to talking about the mushrooms ; but against her will, as though by accident, Varenka said :

” So you have not found anything to-day ? Indeed, in the middle of the forest there are never many to be found.”

Sergyéy Ivanovich heaved a sigh and said nothing. He was annoyed to hear her talk about mushrooms. He wanted to bring her back to her first words, which she had said about her childhood ; but, as though against his will, he, after some silence, repbed to her last words :

“ I have heard that the edules are generally found at the edge of the forest, though I cannot tell an edulis.”

A few minutes more passed and they had gone still farther away from the children and were all alone. Varenka’s heart beat so strongly that she could hear its palpitations and felt that she was blushing and growing pale and blushing again.

To be the wife of such a man as Koznyshév, after her position with Madame Shtal, presented itself to her as the acme of happiness. Besides, she was almost convinced that she was in love with him. She felt terribly. And whether he should say something or nothing, it would be terrible.

Now or never the declaration was to come ; Sergyéy Ivänovich felt that, too. Everything in the glance, the blush, and the drooping eyes of Vdrenka showed morbid animation. Sergyéy Ivanovich saw that and felt sorry for her. He even felt that not to say anything to her now would be an insult to her. He quickly repeated in his mind all the arguments in favour of his decision. He also repeated the words in which he wished to propose to her ; but, by some unexpected combination, which just then occurred to him, he suddenly asked :

“ What difference is there between an edulis and a scaber ? “

Varenka’s lips were trembling from agitation, when she replied :

” There is hardly any difference in the cap, but they differ as to their stems.”

And, the moment these words were uttered, both of them felt that the affair was settled, and that that which ought to have been said, would not be, and their agitation, which had reached the highest point, began to abate.

” The stem of a boletus scaber reminds me of the beard of a dark-complexioned man, which has not been shaved for two days,” Sergyéy Ivänovich said, calmly.

” Yes, that is so,” Varenka replied, smiling, and involuntarily the direction of their walk was changed. They began to approach the children. Varenka felt both pained and ashamed, but, at the same time, she experienced a feeling of relief.

When Sergyéy Ivénovich returned home and examined all his arguments, he found that he had not judged correctly. He could not be untrue to Marie’s memory.

” Softly, children, softly ! ” Levin called out to the children, almost in an angry voice, as he stood up before his wife, in order to defend her, when the crowd of children flew toward them with screams of joy.

After the children, Sergyéy Ivanovich, and Vàrenka came out of the woods. Kitty did not have to ask Varenka; she saw by the calm and somewhat abashed expressions of their faces that her plans had not been realized.

” Well ? ” her husband asked her, as they were returning home.

“ It does not work,” said Kitty, in smile and manner reminding one of her father, in a way which Levin had frequently observed in her with delight.

” Why does it not work ? “

” It is like this,” she said, taking her husband’s hand, drawing it up to her mouth, and touching it with her closed lips. ” As one kisses the bishop’s hand.”

” With whom does it not work ? ” he asked, laughing.

“ With both. It ought to be done like this — ”

” Peasants are coming ! ”

” No, they did not see it.”

VI.

During the children’s tea, the grown people were sitting on the veranda and talking as though nothing had happened, although all, especially Sergyéy Ivanovich and Varenka, knew very well that a very important, though negative, incident had taken place. Both of them experienced the same sensation, something like what a pupil feels after having failed in his examination, when he is left in the same class, or is entirely excluded from the institution. All persons present, feeling that something important had taken place, were talking ■with animation about extraneous matters. Levin and Kitty felt on that evening particularly happy and in love with each other. And their being happy in their love included a disagreeable reference to those who wanted the same and did not get it, — and so they felt ashamed.

” Remember what I say, Aleksandr will not come,” said the old princess.

Stepan Arkädevich was expected that evening, and the old prince had written that he, too, would probably come.

” And I know why,” continued the princess. ” He says that a young couple must be left alone.”

” Papa has abandoned us altogether. We have not seen him,” said Kitty. “ How can we be called a young couple ? We are old people now.”

” But if he does not come, I will bid you good-bye, my children,” the princess said, with a sad sigh.

” Don’t say that, mamma ! ” both daughters attacked her.

” Think how he must feel ! Now — “

And suddenly the voice of the old princess began to tremble. The daughters grew silent and exchanged glances. ” Mamma will always discover some doleful subject,” both said with that glance. They did not know that, no matter how happy the princess felt at her daughter’s, no matter how much she felt herself needed there, she had been feeling painfully sad for her own sake and for the sake of her husband, ever since they had got their last daughter married and the family nest had been deserted.

“ What is it, Agafya Mikhaylovna ? ” Kitty suddenly asked Agafya Mikhdylovna, who had stopped with a mysterious look and a significant expression on her face.

“ About the supper.”

” That is nice,” said Polly. ” Go and attend to it, and I will go with Grisha and have him recite his lesson. He has not done anything yet to-day.”

” I will attend to that lesson ! No, Polly, I will go,” said Levin, jumping up.

Grisha, who had already entered the gymnasium, had to review his lessons during the summer. Pärya Aleksandrovna, who had studied Latin together with her son in Moscow, had made it her rule, after her arrival at Levin’s, to go over with him, at least once a day, the most difficult lessons in arithmetic and in Latin. Levin had offered himself to teach him, but the mother, who had once been present at his lesson, and had observed that he was not teaching in the same manner in which the tutor had done it in Moscow, in embarrassment, and trying not to offend Levin, told him definitely that the lessons had to be prepared by the book, as the teacher had taught them, and that she had better attend to them herself. Levin was indignant at Stepan Arkadevich because, in his carelessness, he did not himself watch the instruction of his boy, but left it to his mother, who did not understand a thing about it, and at the teachers for teaching the children so badly; and he promised his sister-in-law that he would conduct the instruction as she wanted it. And he continued to work with Grisha, not according to his method, but according to the book, and so did it reluctantly and frequently forgot the time of his lesson. Even thus it had happened on that day.

” No, I will go, Polly, and you stay here,” he said. ” We shall do everything in the proper way, according to the book. But when Stiva comes, we will go out hunting, and then we shall have to miss the lessons.”

And Levin went away with Grisha.

Something similar Varenka said to Kitty. Even in the happy, well-managed house of the Levins, Varenka knew how to make herself useful.

” I will order the supper, and you stay here,” she said, getting up to go with Agafya Mikhaylovna.

” Yes, yes, no doubt they did not find any chicks. If so, take the — ” said Kitty.

” Agafya Mikhaylovna and I will fix it all,” and Varenka disappeared with her.

” What a sweet girl ! ” said the princess.

” Not sweet, mamma, but simply superb, such as it is hard to find nowadays.”

” So you are expecting Stepan Arkddevich to-night ? ” said Sergyéy Ivanovich, who evidently did not wish to have the conversation about Varenka continued. “It would be hard to find two brothers-in-law who resemble each other less,” he said, with a sarcastic smile. ” One is mercurial and lives only in society, like a fish in the water ; the other, our Konstantin, is lively, quick, sensitive to everything, but the moment he gets into society, his heart sinks in him, or he struggles senselessly, like a fish on the land.”

” Yes, he is very frivolous,” said the princess, turning to Sergyéy Ivänovich. ” I wanted to ask you to talk with him and tell him that she ” (she pointed to Kitty) ” cannot possibly stay here, but ought by all means to go to Moscow. He says he wants to send for a doctor — “

” Mamma, he will do everything, — he assents to everything,” said Kitty, with annoyance at her mother for invoking the aid of Sergyéy Ivanovich in this matter.

In the middle of their conversation the neighing of horses and the sound of wheels on the gravel was heard in the avenue of trees.

Dolly had not yet had time to get up to meet her husband, when down-stairs Levin jumped out of the window of the room in which Grisha had been studying, and took Grisha out through it.

” It is Stiva ! ” Levin called out below the balcony. ” We are through, Dolly, don’t be afraid ! ” he added, starting like a boy to run toward the carriage.

” Is, ea, id, ejus, ejus shouted Grisha, leaping down the avenue.

” And somebody else. No doubt papa ! ” Levin exclaimed, stopping at the entrance of the avenue. “ Kitty, don’t go down the steep staircase, but go around ! ”

But Levin was mistaken in his supposition that the other person in the carriage was the old prince. When he went up to it, he saw beside Stepan Arkadevich, not the prince, but a handsome, plump young man in a Scotch cap, with long ribbons behind. That was Vasenka Veslovski, a cousin of the Shcherbdtskis twice removed, — a brilliant young man of St. Petersburg and Moscow, ” a first-class fellow and an impassioned hunter,’’ as Stepan Arkadevich introduced him.

Not in the least embarrassed by the disappointment which he produced by having come in place of the old prince, Vesldvski exchanged merry greetings with Levin, reminding him of their former acquaintance, and, picking up Grisha, lifted him into the carriage, over the pointer, which Stepdn Arkadevich was bringing along with him.

Levin did not get into the carriage, but walked behind it. He was a little annoyed because the old prince, whom he loved more, the more he knew of him, had not come, and also because this Vasenka Veslovski, a stranger and a superfluous man, had arrived. He appeared the more a stranger and a superfluous man to him, when, upon reaching the porch, where the whole animated crowd of the grown people and of the children were gathered, he saw that Väsenka Veslovski was kissing Kitty’s hand in a peculiarly amiable and gallant manner.

“ Your wife and I are cousins, and old acquaintances,’’ Vasenka Vesldvski said, again giving Levin a firm pressure of his hand.

” Well, is there any game ? ’’ Stepän Arkadevich, who had hardly had time to exchange greetings with everybody, said to Levin. ” He and I have most cruel intentions — Why, mamma, they have not been in Moscow since then — Here, Tanya, is something for you ! — Get it out from the back of the carriage,’’ he kept talking in all directions. ” How much fresher you look, Dolly,” he said to his wife, once more kissing her hand, holding it in his own, and patting it with his other hand.

Levin, who but a minute ago had been in the happiest frame of mind, now looked gloomily at everybody, and it all displeased him.

” WTiom did he kiss yesterday with those lips ? ” he thought, looking at Stepan Arkädevich’s tenderness to his wife. He looked at Dolly, and she, too, displeased him now.

” She does not believe in his love. So what is she so happy about ? It is disgusting ! ” thought Levin.

He looked at the princess, who had been so dear to him a minute ago, and he disliked the manner in which she received that Vasenka Veslovski, with his ribbons, as though it were to her own house.

Even Sergyéy Ivanovich, who, too, had come out on the porch, appeared to him disagreeable by that feigned friendship with which he met Stepdn Arkadevich, though he knew full well that his brother did not like, nor respect, Obldnski.

And even Vdrenka was disgusting to him, seeing with what an aft of a sainte nitouche she made the acquaintance of that gentleman, whereas all she thought of was how to get married.

But more disgusting was Kitty, as she fell in with that tone of merriment, with which that gentleman regarded his arrival in the country as a holiday for himself and for everybody else ; she was especially disagreeable to him on account of the peculiar smile with which she replied to Vesldvski’s smiles.

Talking noisily, they all went into the house ; but the moment they all were seated, Levin turned around and left the room.

Kitty saw that something was the matter with her husband. She wanted to absent herself for a moment, in order to have a private chat with her husband, but he hurried away from her, saying that he had to go to the office. His farm affairs now seemed to him more important than they had been for a long time. ” Everything is a holiday for them,” he thought, ” but here affairs are by no means of a holiday character : they brook no delay, and without them one cannot live.”

VII.

Levin returned home only when he was sent for to come to supper. On the staircase stood Kitty and Agafya Mikhaylovna, consulting about the wine for the supper.

” But why are you making such a fuss ? Serve the usual wine ! ”

“No, Stfva does not drink it— Konstantin, wait a minute ! What is the matter with you ? ” said Kitty, hurrying after him, but he ruthlessly, without waiting for her, strutted with long steps into the dining-room, and immediately took part in the animated conversation, which was there carried on by Vâsenka Veslovski and Stepan Arkädevich.

“ Well, shall we go out hunting tomorrow ? ” asked Stepan Arkadevich.

” Please, let us go ! ” said Veslovski, seating himself sidewise on another chair, and tucking his fat leg under him.

“ I am very glad, — let us go ! Have you been hunting this year?” Levin said to Veslovski, fixedly watching his leg, but with a feigned politeness, which Kitty knew so well, and which so little agreed with him. “ I do not know whether we shall find any double-snipes, but there are plenty of woodcocks. Only we must leave early. Won’t you get tired ? Are you not tired, Stfva ? ”

” Am I tired ? I never get tired. Let us stay up all night ! Let us go out walking ! ”

” Really, let us stay up ! Superb ! ” Vesldvski assented.

“ Oh, we are convinced of your being able to stay up and keep others from sleeping,” Dolly said to her husband, with that faint irony which she now nearly always employed toward him. ” So far as I am concerned, it is time now to go to bed — I am going, — I shall not eat any supper.”

” No, stay, Dolly ! ” said Stepdn Arkddevich, walking over to her side of the large table, at which they were eating their supper. “ I will tell you a number of things.”

” I suppose you have nothing.”

” Do you know Veslôvski has called on Anna. lie is now going there again. They live within seventy versts of you. I, too, will go there, by all means. Veslôvski, come here ! “

Vasenka went up to the ladies and sat down beside Kitty.

” Oh, tell us, if you please, were you there ? How is she ? ” Darya Aleksandrovna turned to him.

Levin remained at the other end of the table and, though talking all the time with the princess and with Vdrenka, saw that between Stepdn Arkddevich, Dolly, Kitty, and Veslovski there was going on an animated and mysterious conversation. Not only that, — he saw in the face of his wife an expression of a serious feeling, as she, without taking her eyes off, was looking at the handsome face of Vdsenka, who was telling something iu an animated manner.

“ Everything is very nice with them,” Vdsenka was saying about Vronski and Anna. ” Of course, I do not take it upon myself to pass judgment, but in their house one feels as though one were in a family.”

“ What do they intend to do ? “

” I think they want to go to Moscow for the winter.”

” How nice it would be for us to meet there ! When are you going there ?” Stepdn Arkddevich asked Vdsenka.

“I shall pass the month of July with them.”

“ Will you go ? ” Stepdn Arkddevich turned to his wife.

” I have been wanting to, and I certainly will,” said Dolly. ” I am sorry for her, and I know her. She is a beautiful woman. I will go there by myself, when you leave, and thus I shall not embarrass anybody. It will be even better without you.”

” Very well,” said Stepan Arkddevich, ” and you, Kitty ? ”

” I ? Why should I go ? ” Kitty said, with a flushed face, looking back at her husband.

” Are you acquainted with Anna Arkadevna?” Veslovski asked her. ” She is a very attractive woman.”

” Yes,” she replied to Veslovski, blushing even more. She got up and went over to her husband.

« So you are going out to hunt tomorrow ? ” she said.

His jealousy of her had taken a big start in those few minutes, especially on account of the blush which had covered her cheeks, as she had been talking to Veslôvski. As he was now listening to her words, he comprehended them in his own way. Though later it seemed strange to him to think of it, just then it was clear to him that, in asking him whether he was going out to hunt, she was interested only to find out whether he was going to afford that pleasure to Vdsenka Veslovski, with whom she, according to his ideas, was already in love.

” Yes, I will,” he replied to her, in an unnatural voice, which was disgusting even to himself.

« You had better stay here tomorrow, for Dolly has not had a chance of seeing her husband ; you can go day after tomorrow,” said Kitty.

The meaning of Kitty’s words, as now translated by Levin, was as follows : ” Do not separate me from him ; I do not mind your going away, but let me enjoy the company of this charming young man ! ”

” Oh, if you want us to, we will stay tomorrow,” Levin replied, with peculiar amiability.

In the meantime Vasenka, who did not in the least suspect the suffering which his presence was causing, rose from the table soon after Kitty and followed her, watching her with a smiling, kindly glance.

Levin saw this glance. He grew pale and for a minute could not draw his breath. ” How dare a man look that way at my wife ! ” it boiled within him.

” So it is tomorrow ? Let us go by all means,” said Vdsenka, sitting down on a chair and bending his leg in his habitual fashion.

Levin’s jealousy went even farther. He already saw himself a deceived husband, whom his wife and her lover needed only to furnish them the comforts and the pleasures of life — But, in spite of it, he hospitably and amiably asked Vasenka about his hunts, his gun, and his boots, and consented to going on the next day.

Luckily for Levin, the old princess put an end to his sufferings by getting up herself and advising Kitty to retire. But here again Levin did not get along without new suffering. Bidding the hostess good night, Vasenka again wanted to kiss her hand, but Kitty, blushing, with naïve rudeness, for which she was later reprimanded by her mother, said, turning away her hand :

” That is not customary with us.”

In Levin’s eyes she was to blame for having permitted such relations, and still more guilty for having shown so awkwardly that she did not like them.

” Who wants to go to sleep ! ” said Stepdn Arkädevich, who, after the several glasses of wine imbibed at supper, had fallen into his exceedingly sweet and poetical mood. ” Look there, Kitty ! ” he said, pointing at the moon which was rising behind the lindens. ” How beautiful ! Vesldvski, this is the time for a serenade. You know he has a charming voice, — we have been singing together on the way up. He has brought with him some exquisite romances, — two new ones. He ought to sing with VKr-vara Andréevna.”

After all had scattered, Stepdn Arkädevich for a long time kept walking with Veslovski through the avenues, and their voices could be heard practising together a new romance.

Listening to these voices, Levin sat, with a scowl, in a chair in his wife’s sleeping-room and kept stubborn silence to all her questions what the matter with him was ; but when at last, she herself, smiling timidly, asked him, ” Is there something that has displeased you in Veslovski ? ” his fury broke loose in him, and he made a clean breast of everything ; what he was telling her offended him, and so irritated him even more.

He was standing before her with eyes glistening terribly beneath scowling brows, and pressing his powerful arms against his breast, as though straining all his muscles in order to hold himself back. The expression of his face would have been surly and even cruel, if it had not at the same time expressed suffering, which touched her. His cheeks quivered, and his voice faltered.

” Understand me that I am not jealous : that is a despicable word. I cannot be jealous and believe that — I cannot say what I feel, but it is terrible — I am not jealous, but I am insulted, humiliated by the thought that a person dare think, dare look at you with such eyes — “

” With what eyes ? ” asked Kitty, trying in all sincerity to recall all the words and gestures of the evening, and all their shades of meaning.

In the depth of her heart she found that there had been something when he had followed her to the other end of the table, but she did not dare to acknowledge that fact to herself, and much less did she have the courage to tell him so and thus to increase his suffering.

” What attraction can I have for a person, when I am such as I am now ? “

” Oh ! ” he exclaimed, grasping his head. ” You had better not say anything ! It means that if you were attractive — ”

“ But no, Konstantin, wait, and listen to me ! ” she said, looking at him with an expression of suffering and of compassion. ” What can you be thinking of ? I tell you there are no men for me, there are none ! Well, do you want me not to see anybody ? “

At the first moment this jealousy was offensive to her ; it annoyed her to hear that she was prohibited the least distraction, even of the most innocent character, but now she would gladly have sacrificed not only such trifles, but everything for his peace, in order to free him from the suffering which he was undergoing.

” You must understand the terror and comicalness of my situation,” he continued, in a desperate whisper, ” for he is in my house and has really done nothing improper except for that volubility of his and his way of tucking up his legs. He regards it as the best kind of manners, and so I have to be amiable to him.”

“ But, Konstantin, you exaggerate,” said Kitty, in the depth of her heart rejoicing at that power of that love for her, which was now expressed in his jealousy.

” Most terrible of all is the fact that you are just the same as ever, and now that you are such a holiness to me, and we are so happy, so uncommonly happy, and suddenly that scamp — No, not a scamp, — why should I call him names ? I have no business with him. But your happiness, and mine ? ”

” Do you know, I understand what has caused it all,” began Kitty.

« What ? What ? ”

“ I saw you looking at us as we were talking at supper.”

” Well, yes, yes ! ” Levin said, in fright.

She told him what they had been talking about. As she was telling him this, she was breathless with excitement. Levin kept silence, then gazed at her frightened face, and suddenly grasped his head.

” Kätya, I have worn you out ! Darling, forgive me ! It is madness ! Kätya, I am to blame for it all. How could I have allowed myself to be tormented so by such a trifle ? ”

” Really, I am sorry for you.”

” For me ? For me ? What am I ? A madman ! And what about you ? It is terrible to think that any stranger may destroy our happiness.”

” Of course that is offensive.”

“No, on the contrary, I will purposely invite him to stay the whole summer with us, and will lose myself in civilities,” said Levin, kissing her hand. “You shall see! Tomorrow — Yes, it is true, we shall go tomorrow.”

VIII.

On the following day, the ladies were still asleep, when the hunters’ vehicles, a line carriage and a cart, were already standing in front of the house, and Ldska, who had made up her mind early in the morning that they were going out to hunt, and who had whimpered and jumped about all she cared to, was sitting in the line carriage near the coachman, in agitation and disapprobation of the delay, looking at the door, from which the hunters were so late in coming. First came Vdsenka Vesldvski, in tall hunter’s boots, which reached up to the middle of his stout thigh, in a green blouse girded by a new pouch belt that smelled of the leather, and in his Scotch cap with the ribbons, and with a new English gun without strap or strap rings. Laska leaped toward him, greeted him, and, jumping up, asked him in her own way how soon it would be before they would be out, and, receiving no reply from him, returned to her post of waiting, and again lay motionless, twisting her head sidewise, and pricking one of her ears. Finally the door opened with a clatter, and out flew, circling and whirling in the air, Krak, Stepdn Arkddevich’s yellow, spotted pointer, and came Stepdn Arkddevich himself with a gun in his hands and a cigar in his mouth. ” Quiet, quiet, Krak ! ” he called out gently to the dog, who was throwing up his paws on his abdomen and chest, and clutching at the gamebag. Stepdn Arkddevich wore peasant leggings, a ragged pair of trousers, and a short overcoat. On his head he had a ruin of a hat, but the gun was of the latest design and a joy to look at, and his gamebag and pouch, though worn, were of the best make.

Vasenka Veslovski had never before known what real hunter’s dandyism was, — to be dressed in rags, and have the hunter’s appliances of the best quality. He now understood it as he looked at Stepan Arkddevich, who, in his tatters, beamed with his elegant, well-fed, merry figure of a gentleman, and he decided that he would by all means fix himself that way for his next chase.

” Well, and our host ? ” he asked.

” A young wife,” Stepdn Arkddevich said, smiling.

” Yes, and such a charming wife ! ”

” He was dressed. No doubt he has run back to her.”

Stepan Arkddevich guessed it rightly. Levin had run back to his wife, to ask her once more whether she had forgiven him his stupidity of the day before and to beg her, for Christ’s sake, to be as careful as possible. The main thing was to keep away as far as possible from the children, — they might push her. Besides, he had to get from her once more the confirmation of the fact that she was not angry with him for leaving her for two days, and again to ask her to be sure and send him a note in the morning by a rider, — to write him just two words, so that he might know that she was well.

It pained Kitty, as it always did, to be separated from her husband for two days ; but, when she saw his animated figure, which appeared uncommonly large in his hunter’s boots and white blouse, and a certain gleam of a hunter’s excitement, so incomprehensible to her, she rejoiced with him and forgot her grief and merrily bid him good-bye.

” Pardon me, gentlemen ! ” he said, running out on the porch. ” Have they put in the lunch ? Why did you put the chestnut one on the right ? Well, let it be. Ldska, stop, go and take your place ! “

“Put them with the heifers!” he turned to the cattletender, who was waiting at the porch to receive his orders about the steers. ” Excuse me, here comes another rascal.”

Levin jumped down from the carriage, in which he was already seated, and went up to the contractor, who was coming toward the porch with a measure in his hand.

” You did not go to the office yesterday, and now you are keeping me back. What is it ? “

“ Permit me to make another turn. Just to add three steps. We will strike it just right. It will be much more comfortable.”

” You had better listen to what I have to say,” Levin replied, angrily. ” I told you to put up the string-boards first, and then to cut out the steps. You can’t fix it now. Do as I tell you : make a new staircase ! “

The point was that in a wing which was going up the carpenter had ruined a staircase, having made it separately, without considering the elevation, so that the steps all turned out to be slanting when the staircase was put in place. Now the carpenter wanted to leave the staircase as it was and merely add three steps to them.

” It will be much better.”

” Where will it come out with those three additional steps ? “

” If you please, sir,” the carpenter said, -with a contemptuous smile, ” it will be just the thing. So to speak, it will be picked up from underneath,” he said, with a convincing gesture, “and it will go and go and get there.”

” But the three steps will add to the length, — so where will it all come to ? “

“ As it will be lifted from underneath, it will come out all right,” the carpenter said, stubbornly and convincingly.

” It will abut against the ceiling and against the wall.”

” Excuse me, sir. It will come up from below. It will go and go and get there.”

Levin took out the ramrod and began to draw the staircase in the dust.

“ Well, do you see ? “

” As you please,” said the carpenter, with beaming eyes, at last understanding the matter. ” Evidently I shall have to make a new staircase.”

“ That’s it : do as you are ordered,” called out Levin, seating himself in the carriage. ” Go ! Hold the dogs, Filipp ! “

Having left all his domestic and farm cares behind him, Levin now experienced such a strong sensation of the joy of life and of expectancy, that he did not feel like talking. Besides, he experienced that feeling of concentrated agitation, which is experienced by every hunter as he approaches the place of action. If any tiling interested him at all, it was the questions about whether they would find anything in the Kolpen swamp, about how La ska would show up in comparison with Krak, and about what luck in shooting he would have to-day. How he might avoid making a bad showing before a new man, and how he might prevent Obldnski from beating him in shooting, also passed through his mind.

Oblonski was experiencing a similar feeling and was himself incommunicative. Vasenka Vesldvski was the only one who never stopped talking. Now, listening to him, Levin felt ashamed of the injustice he had done him the night before. Vasenka was indeed a fine fellow, simple, good-natured, and jolly. If Levin had made his closer acquaintance when he was a bachelor, he would have become an intimate friend of his. What a little displeased Levin was his holiday relation to life and a certain nonchalance of elegance. It was as though he acknowledged bis high, unquestionable importance for having long nails, and a cap, and everything else corresponding to it; but that was excusable in consideration of his good nature and decency. Levin liked him for his good education, his superb pronunciation of French and English, and for being a man of his world.

Vasenka took quite a liking to the Don steppe horse, which was on the left side. He kept admiring it. ” What a joy it is to gallop through the steppe on a steppe horse. Eh ? Is it not so ? ” he said. He imagined something wild and poetical in that ride on a steppe horse, in which there was really nothing; but his naïveté, especially in conjunction with his handsome appearance, sweet smile, and grace of motions, was very attractive. Whether it was that his nature was sympathetic to Levin, or because Levin, to atone for the sin of the previous night, tried to find everything good in him, Levin was happy in his company.

When they had driven about three versts, Vesldvski suddenly thought of his cigars and his pocketbook, and could not tell whether he had lost them, or had left them on the table. The pocketbook contained 370 roubles, and so it could not be left that way.

“You know, Levin, I will ride back on this Don off horse. That will be fine. Eh ? ” he said, getting ready to mount it.

” No, why should you ?” replied Levin, who calculated that Vasenka weighed probably not less than two hundred pounds. ” I will send the coachman.”

The coachman rode back on the off horse, and Levin himself attended to the span that was left.

IX.

“Well, what is our route? Do tell us,” said Stepan Arkadevich.

« The plan is as follows : now we are going as far as Gvdzdevo. In Gvdzdevo, on this side of it, there is a double-snipe bog, and beyond Gvozdevo there are superb woodcock bogs, and there are snipes there too. Now it is hot, and we shall get there in the evening (twenty versts) and will hunt in the evening; we shall stay overnight, and tomorrow we will make the large bogs.”

” And is there nothing on the way ? “

« There is ; but we shall only lose time, and it is hot. There are two fine little places, but there is hardly anything there.”

Levin himself was anxious to go to those little places, but they were near to the house, and he could take them any time ; besides, there would not be enough there for three men to shoot. And so he was not frank, when he said that there was hardly anything there. As they reached a small bog, Levin wanted to drive on, but Stepan Arkadevich, with the look of an experienced hunter, immediately descried the swale, which was visible from the road.

« Had we not better stop here ? ” he said, pointing to the swamp.

” Levin, please ! How nice it is ! ” Vasenka Veslovski began to implore him, and Levin could not help but consent.

They had not yet had time to stop when the dogs,

racing against each other, were already making for the swamp.

” Krak ! Laska ! “

The dogs returned.

” It will be too small for three. I will stay here,” said Levin, hoping that they would not find anything but plovers, which rose at the approach of the dogs and, rolling in their flight, cried pitifully over the bog.

« Do come with us, Levin ! Let us go together,” Ves-Idvski called out to him.

“Really, it is too small. Laska, back! Laska! You do not need the two dogs, do you ? “

Levin remained at the line carriage, looking enviously at the hunters. There was nothing in that swamp but a hen and some plovers, of which Vasenka killed one.

” You see yourselves that I was not trying to save the swamp,” said Levin. “ It is only loss of time.”

“ It is fun all the same. Did you see it ? ” said Vasenka Veslovski, awkwardly climbing into the carriage, with his gun and the plover in his hands. “ How nicely I killed it! Don’t you think so? Well, how soon shall we get to the real place?”

The horses gave a sudden start, and Levin hit his head against the barrel of somebody’s gun, and a shot was heard. So it seemed to Levin, but the gun was discharged first. The trouble was that Vasenka Vesldvski, who was uncocking his gun, was pressing against one trigger and letting down the other cock. The shot went into the ground, doing no harm to any one. Stepan Arkadevich shook his head and laughed reproachfully at Veslovski. But Levin did not have the heart to reprimand him. In the first place, every rebuke would have appeared to be provoked by the danger which had just been passed, and by the bump, which had made its appearance on Levin’s brow ; secondly, Vesldvski was so naively chagrined at first, and later laughed so good-naturedly and fascinatingly at the general commotion, that he could not help laughing himself.

When they reached the second swamp, which was fairly large and would have taken much time, Levin tried to persuade them not to get out. But Vesldvski again implored him to let them go. This time again, as the swamp was narrow, Levin, as a hospitable host, stayed with the vehicles.

The moment they started out, Krak made for the knolls. Vasenka Vesldvski was the first to run after the dog. Before Stepan Arkadevich had come up, a snipe flew up, Veslovski missed it, and the snipe alighted in the un mowed field. Veslovski was allowed to fetch that snipe. Krak found it again, and Vesldvski killed it, and came back to the vehicles.

” You go now, and I will stay with the horses,” he said.

A hunter’s envy was now beginning to work in Levin. He turned the lines over to Veslovski, and went into the swamp.

Laska, who had been pitifully whining and complaining of the injustice, bore forward to the promising tufty place, which Levin was familiar with, and into which Krak had not yet gone.

” Why don’t you stop her ? ” shouted Stepan Arkadevich.

“She will not scare them up,” replied Levin, looking joyfully at the dog, and hastening after her.

The nearer Laska, in her search, came to the familiar knolls, the more and more serious did she get. A small swamp bird distracted her attention for but a moment. She made a circle in front of the knolls, began a second, and suddenly shivered and stopped stark-still.

“ Go, go, Stiva ! ” exclaimed Levin, feeling his heart beat more strongly, and suddenly it was as though a latch had been lifted in his strained ear, and all the sounds, having lost the proportion of distance, began to startle him in a disorderly, but distinct manner. He heard the tread of Stepan Arkädevich’s steps, taking them to be the distant tramp of horses, heard the gristly sound produced by the breaking of a comer of the rooty knolls on which he was stepping, mistaking this sound for the flight of a snipe. He also heard not far behind him a splashing in the water, of which he could not give himself any account.

Choosing a spot for his foot, he moved up toward the dog.

” Go ! “

It was not a snipe, but a woodcock, that the dog scared up. Levin raised his gun, but just as he was aiming that sound of splashing in the water was increased and came nearer, and to it was added the sound of Vesldvski’s voice shouting something in a strange and loud manner. Levin saw that he was aiming too far behind the woodcock, but nevertheless fired.

When he convinced himself that he had missed the bird, he turned back and saw that the horses with the carriage were no longer on the road, but in the swamp. Wishing to see the shooting, Veslovski had driven the horses into the swamp, from which he could not extricate them.

” What the devil brought him here ? ” Levin muttered, returning to the stalled vehicle. “Why did you drive here ?” he said dryly to Veslovski. Calling up the coachman, he began to take out the horses.

Levin was annoyed because he was being bothered, during his shooting, and because the horses were stalled, but more particularly, because neither Stepan Arkädevich nor Vesldvski, who had not the slightest idea about the harness, helped him to unhitch the horses and get them out. He did not reply to Vdsenka’s assurances that it was quite dry there, but kept working with the coachman to get the horses out. But later, when he warmed up to the work and saw with what zeal Veslovski was tugging at the wing of the vehicle, so that he even pulled it off, he reproached himself because, under the influence of his feeling of the day before, he was too cold to Veslovski, and so he tried to atone for his brusqueness by being unusually amiable to him. When everything was straightened out and the vehicles were brought back to the road, Levin ordered the lunch to be taken out.

” Bon appétit — bonne conscience ! Ce poulet va tomber jusqu’au fond de mes bottes,” Vesldvski, who had again cheered up, quoted the French saying, as he was finishing his second pullet. “ Now our calamities are over ; now everything will go well. Only, as a punishment for what I have done, I shall have to sit on the box. Am I right ? Eh ? No, no, I am Automedon. You will see how I shall drive you ! ” he said, without letting the lines out of his hands, when Levin asked him to turn them over to the coachman. “ No, I must expiate my guilt, and I am quite comfortable on the box.” And he drove on.

Levin was rather afraid that he would wear out the horses, especially the left chestnut, whom he did not know how to manage ; but he involuntarily submitted to his merriment, and listened to the romances which he, sitting on the box, kept singing all the way up, or to the stories and the mimic representations of how one must drive in English fashion, four-in-hand ; and after their breakfast they reached the Gvdzdevo bog in the happiest frame of mind.

X.

Vasenka had been driving the horses so fast that they came to the bog too early, when it was still hot.

As they came near to the considerable bog, the chief aim of their journey, Levin involuntarily was thinking of how to get rid of Vdsenka and walk off undisturbed. Stepdn Arkädevich evidently had the same desire, and on his face Levin saw the expression of anxiety, which a real hunter always has before the beginning of a chase, and of a certain good-natured cunning, which was characteristic of him.

« How are we going to walk ? The bog is fine, I see, and there are some hawks here,” said Stepdn Arkddevich, pointing to two large birds that were circling above the reeds. “Where there are hawks, there certainly is also some game.”

“Well, you see, gentlemen,” said Levin, pulling up his boots with a slightly gloomy expression on his face, and examining the caps on his gun. ” Do you see those reeds?” He pointed to a dark green island in an immense, wet, half-mowed meadow, on the right side of the river. “ The bog begins here, directly in front of us, — you see where it looks green. From here it goes to the right, where the horses are walking ; over there are the knolls, and snipes are there ; then around this reed island as far as that elder-tree and the mill. Over there where the water is standing, — that is the best place. There I once killed seventeen woodcocks. We shall scatter in various directions with the two dogs, and shall meet again at the mill.”

“Well, who goes to the right, and who to the left?” asked Stepan Arkâdevich. ” It is broader to the right, so you walk together, and I will go to the left,” he said, apparently without any thought.

“ Very well ! We shall get ahead of him. Well, come, come, come!” broke in Väsenka.

Levin could not help but give his assent, and they separated.

The moment they entered the bog, both dogs began to scent and made for the moor. Levin knew what that cautious and indefinite search of Laska’s meant ; he knew also the spot, and was expecting a flock of woodcocks.

“ Veslôvski, walk beside me, beside me!” he muttered, in trepidation, to his companion, who was splashing behind him, and the direction of whose gun, after the accidental discharge in the Kolpen swamp, instinctively interested Levin.

” No, I will not incommode you ! Don’t think of me ! “

But Levin involuntarily thought of Kitty’s words, as she had dismissed him, “ Look out and don’t shoot each other ! ” The dogs came nearer and nearer, passing each other, each of them on a separate scent ; the expectancy was so great that the smacking of the heel, as it pulled out of a boggy place, appeared to Levin as the cry of a woodcock, and he grasped his gun and pressed the butt against him.

“ Bang ! Bang ! ” it resounded above his very ears. Vasenka had fired at a flock of ducks that were circling over the bog, and that had made their appearance unpropitiously for the hunters. Before Levin had a chance to look around, a woodcock whirred in the air, a second, a third, and eight more rose from the ground.

Stepan Arkâdevich brought one down the very moment he was beginning on his zigzags, and the woodcock fell like a clump into the swamp. Obldnski leisurely trained his gun on a second, which was flying low toward the reeds, and, at the same time that the shot rang out, this woodcock, too, fell, and could be seen leaping out of the mowed reed-plot, flapping its unhurt wing, which was white at the lower surface.

Levin was not so fortunate : he aimed at the first woodcock at too close a range, and missed it ; he aimed at it again as it was beginning to rise in the air, but just then another flew out from under his feet and distracted his attention, and he missed again.

While they were loading their guns, another woodcock rose, and Veslovski, who had in the meantime loaded for the second time, fired two shots of small shot over the water. Stepan Arkadevich picked up his two woodcocks and looked at Levin with sparkling eyes.

” Now we shall separate,” said Stepan Arkadevich. Limping a little with his left leg and holding Ins gun in readiness and whistling to his dog, he went to one side. Levin and Veslovski went down the other side.

It was always the case with Levin that, if his first shots were not successful, he grew excited and angry, and shot badly all day long. It was so on that day. There turned up a large number of woodcocks. They kept rising all the time from under the dogs and from under the hunters’ feet, and Levin might have improved ; but, the more he shot, the more did he grow ashamed before Veslovski, who merrily fired in time and out of time, without killing anything, or getting on that account embarrassed. Levin was hasty, did not hold out, grew more and more excited, and reached such a point that he lost all hope of hitting anything. It looked as though Ldska understood that. She scented with less eagerness, and seemed to scan the hunters in perplexity and with reproach. Shot followed after shot. The powder smoke hovered above the hunters, but in the large, spacious net of the gamebag there were only three light little woodcocks. And of these one had been killed by Veslovski, and one in common with him. In the meantime, on the other side of the bog, were heard Stepàn Arkàdevich’s frequent and, as Levin thought, significant shots, after nearly each of which was heard, “ Krak, Krak, retrieve ! “

This agitated Levin still more. The woodcocks kept circling all the time above the reeds. The whirring on the ground and the croaking in the air could be heard incessantly on all sides ; the woodcocks that had been scared up and were flying about alighted in front of the hunters. Instead of two hawks, dozens of them were circling with screeches above the bog. Having tramped through the greater half of the bog, Levin and Veslovski came out at a spot where the peasant mowings, indicated in places by tramped down strips, and in others by mowed rows, abutted in long slips against the reeds. One-half of these slips were already mowed.

Though he could not hope to find as many birds on the unmowed plots as on the mowed ground, Levin had promised Stepan Arkadevich to meet him, and so he went with his companion over the mowed and the unmowed strips.

” Oh, there, hunters ! ” called out one of the peasants, who were sitting near an unhitched cart. ” Come and take your midday meal with us ! Drink some liquor ! “

Levin looked around.

” Come, never mind ! ” shouted a jolly bearded peasant with a red beard, displaying his white teeth in a grin, and lifting up a shining greenish bottle in the sun.

” Qu’cst-ce qu’ils disent ?” asked Vesldvski.

” They are inviting us to drink vodka with them. No doubt they have been dividing up the meadows. I should like to take a drink,” Levin said, not without some cunning, hoping that Vesldvski would be tempted by the vddka and would leave him.

” Why do they treat us ? “

“They are just having a good time. Truly, go to them, — it will be interesting for you.”

” Allons, c’est curieux’.’

” Go, go, you ^vill find the road to the mill.” Levin called out to him. He looked back and saw, to his delight, that Veslovski, bending over and stumbling with his tired feet and holding his gun in his outstretched hand, was making his way out of the swamp and toward the peasants.

“ You, too !” the peasant shouted to Levin. “Never mind ! Take a bite of our white loaf ! “

Levin wanted very much to drink some vodka and eat a piece of bread. He was weak with hunger and felt that he with difficulty pulled his tottering legs out of the bog, and for a moment he was in doubt. But his dog stopped. And immediately all his fatigue was gone, and he proceeded with ease through the bog. From under his feet rose a woodcock ; he fired his gun and killed it, — but the dog continued to stand still. ” Go ! ” Another rose from under the dog. Levin fired his gun. But it was an unlucky day ; he missed and, when he went to recover the dead woodcock, he could not find it. He crawled through all the reeds, but Làska did not believe him that he had killed a bird, and when he sent her to retrieve, she pretended to be searching, though she did not search at all.

Even without Vasenka, whom Levin had accused of his failure, matters did not mend. Here, too, were many woodcocks, but Levin missed one after another.

The slanting sunbeams were still hot; his garments, which were wet through and through from the perspiration, stuck to his body ; his left boot, which was full of water, was heavy and kept making a sucking sound ; the perspiration came down in drops over his face, which was smeared over with the powder sediment ; in his mouth there was a bitter taste, and in his nose the odour of gunpowder and of the stagnant pools, and in his ears the incessant smacking of the woodcocks ; the barrels could not be touched, so hot were they ; his heart palpitated in short, rapid beats ; his hands trembled from excitement, and his tired legs stumbled and were tripped up over the tufts and in the boggy places. Finally, after a shameful miss, he threw the gun and his hat down on the ground.

” Really, I must come to my senses ! ” he said to himself. He picked up his gun and his hat, called Läska up to his feet, and went out of the bog. When he reached dry land, he sat down on a mound, took off his boots, emptied the water from one of them, then walked back to the swamp, drank from it some water with a rusty taste, wet the heated barrels, and washed his face and hands. When he was refreshed, he once more moved up toward the place where a woodcock had alighted, with the firm determination of keeping cool.

He wanted to be calm, but it was still the same. His finger pressed the trigger before he sighted the bird. Everything went worse and worse.

He had only five birds in his gamebag, when he left the bog and went up to the elder grove where he was to meet Stepan Arkadevich.

Before seeing Stepan Arkàdevich himself, he espied his dog. Krak jumped out from under an upturned elder root. He was all black from the illsmelling swamp ooze, and he sniffed at Laska with the look of a victor. Behind Krak, in the shade of the elder, appeared Stepan Arkädevich’s stately figure. He was walking toward Levin, looking red, and perspiring, and with his collar all unbuttoned, limping a little as before.

“ Well ? You have been firing a lot ! ” he said, with a merry smile.

“ And you ? ” asked Levin. But there was no need of asking, for he saw a full gamebag.

” Not bad.”

He had fourteen birds.

“ A superb bog ! Vesldvski, no doubt, was in your way. It is not very convenient for two persons to hunt with one dog,” said Stepan Arkadevich to detract from his own triumph.

XI.

When Levin and Stepan Arkddevich arrived at the hut of the peasant, with whom Levin was in the habit of stopping, Vesldvski was already there. He was sitting in the middle of the hut, and, with both hands holding on to a bench, from which a soldier, the hostess’s brother, was pulling him down, while tugging at his ooze-covered boots, was laughing his infectious laughter.

« I have just come. Us ont été charmants. Just think of it! They have fed me and have given me something to drink. What superb bread! Délicieux ! And the vodka, — I have never drunk any that tasted better! And they would not take any money from me. They kept saying, ‘Make no accounts,’ or something like it.”

” Why should they take the money ? They were treating you, so to speak. You do not suppose that they are selling vodka ? ” said the soldier, having finally pulled off the wet boot with the blackened stocking.

In spite of the uncleanliness of the hut, which was soiled by the hunters’ boots and by the dirty dogs that were licking themselves clean ; in spite of the powder smoke with which they were permeated ; and in spite of the absence of knives and forks, the hunters drank tea and ate their supper with gusto such as one has only after a hunt. Having washed and cleaned themselves, they went into the cleanly swept hay-barn where the coachmen had prepared beds for the gentlemen.

Though it was getting dark, none of them felt like sleeping. After some wavering between reminiscences and stories about the shooting, the dogs, and former chases, — the conversation finally drifted to the theme in which all were interested. In response to Vasenka’s frequently repeated expressions of delight at the charm of this manner of passing the night, at the charm of the broken cart (it appeared broken to him because it was taken off its front wheels), at the good nature of the peasants, who had filled him with vodka, at the dogs, which were lying each at the feet of its master, Oblonski told about the joy of hunting on Mältus’s estate, where he had been the summer before. Mältus was a well-known railroad magnate. Stepän Arkadevich told of the bogs which this Mältus had bought up in the Government of Tver, of how they were preserved, of the carriages, — the dogcarts,— which had taken the hunters there, and of the lunch-tent which had been pitched near the very bog.

“ I cannot understand,” said Levin, raising himself on the hay, ” how it is these people do not disgust you. I understand that a lunch with Lafitte is very agreeable, but are you not disgusted with precisely that kind of luxury ? All these people, like our former monopolists, make money in such a manner that they earn the contempt of everybody, and pay no attention to this contempt, but later with their dishonest gains wipe out the former contempt.”

“Quite true!” broke in Väsenka Vesldvski. “Quite true ! Of course, Obldnski does it from ’bonhomie, but others say, ‘ Oblonski goes to see him ‘ — ”

“ Not at all,” Levin saw that Obldnski was smiling while saying this. “ I simply do not consider him more dishonest than any rich merchant or nobleman. All of them have earned their wealth by labour and cleverness.”

“ Yes, but by what labour ? Do you call it labour to get a concession and sell it to somebody else ? ”

“ Of course it is. It is labour because if it were not for him, or others like them, we should not have any railways.”

“But it is not the same kind of labour as that of a peasant or a scholar.”

“ Granted, but it still is labour in consideration of the fact that his activity gives results, — railways. But you find that the railways are useless.”

“ No, that is a different question ; I am willing to concede that they are useful. But every acquisition which is not proportionate to the labour employed is dishonest.”

“ But who will determine the proportion ? ”

“The acquisition by dishonest labour, by cunning,” said Levin, feeling that he was unable clearly to determine the line between what was honest and what dishonest. ” Like the acquisition of the banking-houses,” he continued. ” It is an evil, — this acquisition of enormous fortunes without labour, just as was the case with the monopolies, only the form is changed. Le roi est mort, vive le roi ! No sooner have the monopolies been abolished, than the railways and banks have made their appearance: it is again acquisition of wealth without labour.”

“ Yes, that may all be true and ingenious — Down, Krak ! ” Stepan Arkadevich shouted to his dog, who was scratching himself and turning over all the hay. He was evidently convinced of the justice of his theme, and so spoke calmly and leisurely. “But you have not determined the line between honest and dishonest labour. Is it dishonesty for me to receive a greater salary than my manager gets, though he knows the business better than I?”

“ I do not know.”

“ Well, then I will tell you : your getting for your labour in the farm, say, five thousand roubles of surplus, while our independent peasant gets no more than fifty, no matter how much he works, is just as dishonest as my getting more than my manager, and as Mdltus’s getting more than a ‘yardmaster. On the contrary, I see a certain inimical, unfounded sentiment in this relation of society to these men, and it seems to me that envy — “

“No, that is not so,” said Vesldvski. “There can be no envy in it, but there is something dirty in this whole matter.”

“Pardon me,” continued Levin, “you say that it is unjust for me to get five thousand, while a peasant gets only fifty : that is true. It is unjust, and I feel it, but — ”

“ That is really so. Why do we eat, drink, hunt, do nothing, while he is eternally working ? ” said Vasenka Veslovski, who evidently thought of it now for the first time, and so said it [quite sincerely.

“Yes, you feel it, but you do not give him your estate,” said Stepan Arkâdevich, as though on purpose, in order to tease Levin.

Of late a secret, hostile relation had established itself between the two brothers-in-law, as though, since their having married sisters, a rivalry had arisen between them as to who had arranged his life better, and now this hostility found its expression in the conversation which was beginning to assume a personal shade.

“ I am not giving it up because no one demands it of me ; and if even I wanted to give away, I could not do so,” replied Levin, “ and there is nobody to give it to.”

” Give it to that peasant, — he will not refuse it.”

“ Yes, but how shall I give it to him ? Shall I go and make out a bill of sale to him ? ”

“ I do not know ; but if you are convinced, you have no right — ”

“ I am not at all convinced. On the contrary, I feel that I have no right to give it away, and that I have duties to the land and to my family.”

“ Excuse me : if you regard this inequality as unjust, why do you not act accordingly ? ”

” I do, but only negatively, in the sense that I will not try to increase that difference of position, which exists between him and me.”

“ You must pardon me, but that is a paradox.”

“ It is rather a piece of sophistry,” Vesldvski confirmed him. “ Oh, landlord ! ” he said to the peasant who, making the door creak, entered the barn. “ Aren’t you asleep yet ? ”

” What sleep ! I was thinking that the gentlemen were sleeping, and there I heard them talk. I have to fetch a sickle from here. Won’t she bite ? ” he added, stepping carefully with his bare feet.

“ Where will you sleep ? ”

” We are going out to watch the horses.”

“ Oh, what a night ! ” said Veslovski, who was looking, through the large frame of the open door, at the edge of the hut and of the unhitched line carriage. “ Listen, some women are singing, and truly it is not bad. Who is singing there, landlord ? ”

“ The manorial girls, near by.”

” Come, let us take a walk ! We won’t fall asleep, anyway. Oblonski, come ! ”

” How nice it would be if I could remain lying and go at the same time,” Oblonski replied, stretching himself. “ It is fine to lie down.”

“Well, I will go by myself,” Veslovski said, getting up with a start, and putting on his boots. “ If it is jolly, I will come after you. You have treated me to venison and I will not forget you.”

” He is a fine fellow, — don’t you think so ? ” said Obldnski, after Veslovski had left and the peasant had shut the door after him.

“ Yes, a fine fellow,” replied Levin, continuing to think of the subject of their recent conversation. It seemed to him that he had expressed his ideas and feelings as clearly as possible, and yet both of them, intelligent and sincere men, said that he consoled himself with sophistry. That made him dejected.

” Yes, yes, my friend. One or the other : either you acknowledge that the present social order is just, and then you defend your rights, or else you acknowledge that you are enjoying unjust privileges, just as I am doing, and you enjoy them with pleasure.”

“ No, if it were unjust, you would not be able to enjoy those privileges, at least I would not be able to. For me it is most important to feel that I am not guilty.”

” Well, what do you think, had we not better go ? ” said Stepan Arkädevich, who evidently was getting tired of that mental strain. ” We shall not fall asleep anyway. Truly, let us go ! “

Levin made no reply. The remark which he had dropped during his conversation, which was that he acted justly only in a negative sense, interested him. ” Is it possible that one can be just only in a negative sense ? ” he asked himself.

” How strong the fresh hay smells ! ” said Stepän Arkädevich, raising himself a little. “I sha’n’t fall asleep at all. Vasenka is up to something there. Do you hear the laughter and his voice ? Had we not better go ? Come.”

” No, I will not go,” replied Levin.

” Are you doing this, too, from principle ? ” Stepan Arkädevich said, smiling and looking in the dark for his cap.

” Not from principle, but why should I go?”

” You know you will have trouble yet,” said Stepän Arkädevich, having found his cap, and getting up.

” Why ? “

” Don’t I see how you are placing yourself before your wife ? I heard how it was a question of prime importance with you whether you could go away for two days on a hunt, or not. All that is very nice as an idyl, but it will not last for a lifetime. A man must be independent, — he has his male interests. A man must be manly,” said Oblonski, opening the door.

” That is, you mean, to go and court manorial girls ? ” asked Levin.

” Why not, if it is jolly ? Ça ne tire pas à conséquence. My wife will not be the worse for it. Above all, keep the sanctity of your house ! Let there be nothing in your house ! But don’t let your hands be tied ! ”

” Perhaps,’’ Levin said, dryly, turning around on his side. “Tomorrow we have to go early, and I will not wake anybody, but will start out at daybreak.”

” Mcsswurs, venez vite ! ” was heard the voice of Veslovski, who had returned. ” Charmante ! I have discovered her. Charmante ! A real Gretchen, and we are acquainted already. Really, she is exceedingly nice!” he was saying with an approving look, as though she were made so pretty for his especial benefit and he were satisfied with the one who had prepared her for him.

Levin pretended to be asleep, and Oblonski put on his slippers, lighted a cigar, and left the barn, and soon their voices died down entirely.

Levin could not sleep for a long time. He heard his horses chewing the hay, then the peasant and bis eldest son getting ready and going away to watch the horses ; then he heard the soldier lying down to sleep in another part of the barn with his nephew, the peasant’s young son ; he heard the boy in a thin voice communicating to his uncle his impression about the dogs, who appeared to him enormous and terrible; and the boy asking him whom these dogs were going to catch, and the soldier answering him in a hoarse and sleepy voice that on the morrow the hunters would take them to the swamp and would fire off their guns, and his saying later, in order to get rid of the boy’s questions, ” Sleep, Yaska, sleep, or look out ! ” Then he began to snort, and everything became quiet; all that could be heard was the neighing of the horses and the croaking of the woodcocks. “ Only negatively ? ” he thought. ” What of it ? It is not my fault.” And he began to think of the next day.

” I will go early in the morning, and I promise myself not to get excited. There is a mass of woodcocks here. And there are some snipes. When I come back I shall find a note from Kitty. Yes, Stiva is probably right: I am not manly with her, I have become too much of a woman — But what is to be done ? Again negatively ! ” Through his sleep he heard Stepdn Arkädevich’s and Veslovski’s conversation. He opened his eyes for a moment ; the moon had risen, and they stood talking at the open door, brightly illuminated by the moonlight. Stepan Arkadevich was saying something about the freshness of the girl, comparing her with a newly opened hazelnut, and Veslovski, laughing his infectious laugh, was repeating the words, which apparently a peasant had told him, ” Strive after yours as much as you can ! “

Levin muttered through his sleep :

” Gentlemen, tomorrow at daybreak ! ” and he fell asleep.

XII.

When Levin awoke at early dawn, he tried to wake his companions. Vasenka was lying on his belly and, stretching out one of his stockinged feet, slept so soundly that it was impossible to get any reply from him. Oblonski, half-asleep, declined to go so early. Even Laska, who, rolled up in a ring, was sleeping at the edge of the hay, got up reluctantly, and indolently, one after another, stretched and spread her hind legs. Levin put on his boots and took his gun, and, cautiously opening the squeaky barn door, went out into the open. The coachmen were sleeping near the vehicles ; the horses were drowsing. Only one of them was lazily eating oats, scattering them with its muzzle in the trough. The light was still gray.

” Why did you get up so early, my dear one ? ” the hostess, who came out of the hut, said to him in a friendly tone, as to a good, old acquaintance.

” To go out hunting, aunty. Can I get through here to the swamp ? “

“ By the back way, past our threshing-floors, dear man, and over the hemp slips ; there is a path there.”

Walking carefully with her sunburnt bare feet, the old woman accompanied Levin and threw back the gate at the threshing-floor.

” Through here you will stalk straight into the swamp. Our boys drove there last night.”

Laska ran merrily ahead on the path ; Levin followed her with rapid, light steps, looking all the time at the sky. He did not want the sun to get up before he reached the bog. But the sun was not tardy. The moon, which had been shining, as the sun was rising, now gleamed only like a piece of quicksilver ; the morning star, which one could not help seeing before, now had to be searched for ; what before were indefinite spots on the distant field now were clearly visible. Those were the rye-ricks. The dew in the tall fragrant hemp, from which the sterile stalks had been removed, was invisible in the dim light and drenched Levin’s feet and blouse above his belt. In the transparent stillness of the morning could be heard the minutest sounds. A bee flew past Levin’s ear, like the whistling of a bullet. He looked at it, and saw a second and a third. They were all flying out from a beekeeper’s yard, and over the hemp-field disappeared in the direction of the bog.

The path led directly to the swamp. The swamp could be told by the evaporations which rose from it more or less densely, so that the reeds and the willow bushes swayed in this mist like little islands. At the edge of the swamp and of the road were lying boys and peasants, who had been watching the herd at night, and were now at daybreak sleeping under their caftans. Near by three hobbled horses were walking around. One of these produced a grating sound with its iron fetters. Ldska walked beside her master, begging to be let go ahead, and looking around. After passing the sleeping peasants and reaching the first swampy spot, Levin examined the caps and let his dog go. One of the horses, a well-fed dun three-year-old colt, shied at the sight of the dog and, raising its tail, snorted. The other horses, too, were frightened and, splashing in the water with their hobbled feet, and producing a clapping sound with their hoofs as they pulled them out of the sticky clay, began to jump about in the swamp. Ldska stopped, looking sarcastically at the horses and interrogatively at Levin. Levin patted Laska and whistled as a sign that she might begin.

Laska ran merrily and anxiously over the bog, which sagged beneath her feet.

After running into the swamp, Léska immediately scented, amidst the familiar odours of roots, swamp plants, chalybeate water, and the strange odour of horse dung, the odour of those birds, those most strongly scented birds, which was disseminated throughout the place, and winch agitated her most. Here and there, among the moss and swamp sage, the scent was particularly strong, but it was not possible to determine in what direction it grew stronger, or weaker. To find the direction, it was necessary to go farther under the wind. Without feeling the motion of her feet, Laska in a strained gallop, so that at any leap she might stop, if the necessity for it should arise, ran to the right, away from the early breeze which was blowing from the east, and turned to the wind. Inhaling the air with her dilated nostrils, she felt at once that before her were not only the traces, but they themselves, and not merely one, but many. Laska checked the rapidity of her motion. They were there, but she could not yet decide where. To find that place, she began to circle, when suddenly her master’s voice diverted her attention. ” Laska, here ! ” he said, pointing to the other side. She stopped, asking him whether it would not be better to do what she was about. But he repeated the command in an angry voice, pointing to a tufty place under water, where there could not be anything. She obeyed him, pretending to be on the trail, in order to give him pleasure, ran through all the knolls, and returned to her former place, where she scented them again. Now that he was not disturbing her, she knew what to do and, without looking underfoot, and angrily stumbling over the high knolls and falling into the water, but immediately getting up again on her strong, flexible legs, she began the circle, which was to explain everything to her.

Their scent struck her more and more strongly, and more and more definitely, and it suddenly became clear to her that one of them was there, behind that knoll, within five steps of her, and she stopped stark-still. On her low legs she could see nothing ahead of her, but she knew by the scent that he was not more than five feet away. She stood there, scenting the bird more and more, and enjoying her expectation. Her strained tail was stretched out and shook only at its very end. Her mouth was feebly opened, her ears pricked. One of her ears had turned in a little while running, and she breathed heavily but cautiously, and more cautiously still looked back at her master, not so much with her head, as with her eyes. He, with his familiar face, but always terrible eyes, was stumbling over the knolls, walking with unusual slowness, as she thought, though in reality he was running fast.

When Levin observed that peculiar search of Ldska’s, during which she almost bent down to the ground and with her hind legs seemed to be making long strides, and slightly opened her mouth, he knew that she was scenting snipes, and so he inwardly prayed to have success, especially with the first bird, and ran up to her. “When he came in touch with her, he began to look ahead of him from his height, and saw with his eyes what she perceived with her nose. In a lane between the knolls, at the distance of one fathom, could be seen a snipe. It had its head turned and was listening. Then it barely opened and again folded its wings and, with an awkward twist of its back, disappeared around a corner.

“ Go, go ! ” exclaimed Levin, pushing Laska in her back.

” But I cannot go,” thought Laska. “ Where shall I go ? From here I scent them, but if I move ahead, I shall not make out where they are or what they are.” But he pushed her with his knee and kept saying in an agitated whisper, ” Go, Laska, go ! “

” Well, if he wants it, I will do so, but now I am no longer responsible for myself,” she thought, darting at the fastest gallop between the knolls. 8he no longer scented anything, and only saw and heard, without understanding a thing.

Within ten paces of the former spot, a snipe rose, with its deep craking and with the peculiar hollow sound of its wings. Immediately after the shot was fired, it flapped heavily with its white breast against the wet ground. Another, without waiting for the dog, rose behind Levin.

When Levin turned around for it, it-was a distance away. But the shot fetched it. The second snipe flew about twenty paces, rose straight up in the air and, rolling over and over, like a ball which is thrown up, fell heavily on a dry spot.

” This will be business ! ” thought Levin, putting into his gamebag the warm, fat double-snipes. ” Eh, Laska, will it be business ? “

When Levin reloaded his gun and moved on, the sun, though still invisible behind little clouds, had already risen. The moon had lost all its splendour and shone white in the sky, like a cloudlet; not one star could be seen now. ‘ The puddles, which before had looked silvery in the dew, now appeared golden. The chalybeate pools were of the colour of amber. The grass, bluish before, assumed a yellowish green hue. The swamp birds were bustling near the brook in the bushes which gleamed with their dew and cast long shadows. A hawk was awake, sitting on a rick, shaking its head from side to side, and looking discontentedly at the bog. The jackdaws were flying in the field, and a barefoot boy was already driving the horses up to the old man, who was getting up from underneath his caftan, and scratching himself. The smoke from the shots lay milk-white on the verdure of the grass.

One of the boys came running up to Levin.

” Uncle, there were ducks here yesterday ! ” he shouted to him, following him from a distance.

And it gave Levin double pleasure to kill one after another three woodcocks, in the presence of that boy.

XIII.

The hunter’s sign that if the first game has not been missed, the chase will be propitious, proved true.

Tired, hungry, happy, Levin at about ten o’clock in the morning, after having walked something like thirty versts, returned to his quarters, with nineteen small birds and one duck, which he stuck in his belt, as it could not be crammed into the gamebag. His companions had been up for a long time and, feeling hungry, had had their breakfast.

“Wait, wait, I know that there are nineteen,” said Levin, for the second time counting the woodcocks and snipes, which no longer had the same significance as when they first flew up, and which now were twisted and dried up, with clotted blood and heads turned sidewise.

The count was correct, and Stepan Arkädevich’s envy gave Levin pleasure. Another tiling that gave him pleasure was that upon returning to the quarters he found the messenger which Kitty had sent to him with a note.

“I am quite well and happy. If you are worried about me you may be even more at your ease than ever. I have a new body-guard, Marya Vläsevna” (that was the midwife, — a new, important person in Levin’s domestic life). “She came to see how I am. Found me quite well, and we have kept her until your return. All are happy and well, and don’t you hurry back, but, if the hunting is good, stay another day.”

These two joys, the successful hunt and the note from his wife, were so great that two small unpleasant

incidents, which occurred after the hunt, passed lightly for Levin. One of these was that, the chestnut off horse, which had evidently been overworked the day before, was not eating anything and looked gloomy. The coachman said that it was overstrained.

” The horse was driven too hard yesterday, Konstantin Dmitrievich,” he said. ” Why, we drove ten versts across fields ! “

The other unpleasantness, which at first impaired his happy frame of mind, but over which he later laughed a great deal, was that of all the provisions, of which, it had seemed, Kitty had given them a sufficiency to last for a whole week, nothing was left. As Levin was returning home weary and hungry, he dreamed so definitely about the patties, that, upon approaching the hut, he smelled them and tasted them in his mouth, just as Làska scented the game, and immediately ordered Filipp to give him some. It turned out that all the patties, and even all the chickens, were gone.

” What an appetite ! ” Stepdn Arkadevich said, smiling, pointing to Vâsenka Veslovski. ” I myself am not suffering from a lack of appetite, but his is marvellous — ”

“ What is to be done ? ” said Levin, looking gloomily at Veslovski. ” Filipp, let me have some beef ! “

“The beef has all been eaten up, and the bones were given to the dogs,” replied Filipp.

Levin was so annoyed that he said in anger :

“If they had only left me something!” and he felt like crying.

” Draw a few birds,” he said in a trembling voice to Filipp, trying not to look at Väsenka, ” and put on some nettles. And ask them to let me have some milk.”

Only after he had had his fill of milk did he become ashamed of having shown such temper to a stranger, and begin to laugh at his rage of hunger.

In the evening they went out again, and Vesldvski killed a number of birds, and in the night they returned home.

On the way back they were as jolly as they had been coming out. Vesldvski now sang, now joyfully recalled his experience with the peasants, who had treated him to vodka and had told him, ” Make no accounts,” and now spoke of the incident in the night with the hazelnuts and the manorial girls, and with the peasant, who asked him whether he was married, and, hearing that he was not, said, ” Don’t ogle other men’s wives, but try as hard as you can to get one of your own ! ” These words amused VeshSvski more than anything else.

“ I am, in general, exceedingly pleased with our journey. And you, Levin ? ”

” I am very well satisfied,” Levin said, sincerely. It gave him especial pleasure not to feel that enmity which he had experienced at home against Vdsenka Vesldvski, but, on the contrary, to be most amicably disposed to him.

XIV.

On the following day, at ten o’clock, Levin after having made the round of his farm, knocked at the door of the room in which Vasenka had been sleeping.

“Entrez” Veslovski called out to him. “ You will pardon me, — I have just finished my ablutions,” he said with a smile, standing before him in his underwear.

” Please, don’t feel embarrassed ! ” Levin seated himself at the window. ” Did you sleep well ? ”

” Like one dead. And what kind of a day is this for hunting ? ”

” What do you drink, tea or coffee ? ”

” Neither the one nor the other. I eat breakfast. I am really ashamed. The ladies, I suppose, are already up. It is nice to take a walk now. Show’ me your horses ! ”

After walking through the garden, visiting the stable, and even practising together on parallel bars, Levin returned home with his guest, and with him entered the drawingroom.

” We have had a fine hunt, and how many impressions ! ” said Vesldvski, walking over to Kitty, who was sitting at the samovdr. ” What a pity that ladies are deprived of that pleasure ! ”

“ Well, he has to talk to the lady of the house ! ” Levin said to himself. He thought again that there was something in the smile, in that victorious expression, with which the guest turned to Kitty —

The princess, who was sitting at the other end of the table with Mdrya Vlasevna and Stepan Arkddevich, called up Levin and began to talk with him about moving to Moscow for Kitty’s childbirth, and of preparing quarters there. Just as all the preparations for the wedding had been disagreeable to Levin, because by their pettiness they offended the grandeur of what was taking place, so he was now even more offended by the preparations for the coming childbirth, the time of which they seemed to be figuring out on their fingers. He had tried all the time not to listen to all that talk about the proper method of swaddling the future baby ; he had tried to turn away so as not to see those mysterious endless crocheted strips, those linen triangles, to which Dolly ascribed a special significance, and so forth. The occasion of the birth of a son (he was convinced that it would be a son), which he was promised, but in which he nevertheless could not believe, — it seemed so extraordinary, — presented itself to him, on the one hand, as such an enormous and, therefore, impossible happiness, and, on the other, as such a mysterious event that this imaginary knowledge of what would happen, and the consequent preparations, as for something usual and foreseen by people, appeared to him provoking and debasing.

But the princess did not understand his feelings and interpreted that reluctance of his to think and speak as levity and indifference, and so gave him no rest. She commissioned Stepân Arkadevich to find quarters, and now called up Levin.

” I know nothing, princess. Do as you please,” he said.

” It has to be decided when you will go to Moscow.”

” Really, I do not know. I know that millions of children are born without Moscow and without doctors — why — ”

« If so — ”

” No, as Kitty wants it.”

” We can’t speak to Kitty about it. Do you want me to frighten her ? This spring Natalya Golitsyn died as the result of having a poor accoucheur.”

« As you say, so will I do,” he said, gloomily.

The princess began to talk to him, but he was not listening to her. Though the conversation with the princess annoyed him, he became gloomy, not as the result of the conversation, but at what he saw at the samovar.

“ No, that won’t do,” he thought, looking now and then at Vdsenka, who was bending over to Kitty and talking to her with his pretty smile, and at Kitty herself, who was blushing and looked agitated.

There was something impure in Vdsenka’s pose, in his glance, in his smile. Levin even saw something impure in Kitty’s pose and glance. And again the light went out in his eyes. Again, as yesterday, he suddenly, without any transition, felt himself cast down from the height of happiness, peace, dignity, into the abyss of despair, malice, and humiliation. Again everybody and everything was loathsome to him.

” Do just as you please, princess,” he said again, looking around.

“ The cap of Monomachos weighs heavily on the head ! ” Stepan Arkâdevich said, jestingly, to him, apparently hinting not only at the conversation with the princess, but also at the cause of Levin’s agitation, which he had observed. ” How late you are to-day, Dolly ! ”

All rose to greet Darya Aleksandrovna. Vdsenka got up for but a moment and, with a lack of civility to the ladies, characteristic of the modern young men, barely bowed to her, and again continued his conversation and laughed at something.

« Mäsha has worn me out. She did not sleep well, and is dreadfully fussy to-day,” said Dolly.

The conversation which Väsenka had struck up with Kitty was running on the subject of the day before, on Anna and on whether love could stand higher than the conditions of society. To Kitty this conversation was disagreeable, and she was agitated both by its contents and by the tone in which it was carried on, and especially because she knew how it would affect her husband. But she was too simple and innocent to know how to put a stop to this talk, or even how to conceal the external pleasure which was afforded to her by the evident attention paid her by this young man. She wanted to put an end to the conversation, but she did not know what to do. No matter what she might do, she knew, would be noticed by her husband, and everything would get a bad interpretation. And indeed, when she asked Dolly what the matter was with Masha, and Vdsenka, waiting for this uninteresting conversation to come to an end, started to look with indifference at Dolly, that question appeared to Levin as an unnatural, contemptible ruse.

” Well, shall we go to-day after mushrooms ? ” asked Dolly.

” Let us go, please, and I will go with you,” said Kitty, with a blush. She wanted to be polite to Vasenka and ask him whether he would go too, but did not put that question. ” Where are you going, Konstantin ? ” she asked her husband with a guilty look, just as he was walking by her with determined steps. That guilty look confirmed all his suspicions.

” While I was away the machinist came, and I have not yet seen him,” he said, without looking at Vasenka.

He went down-stairs, but had not yet left the cabinet when he heard the familiar footsteps of his wife, who was walking with heedless rapidity toward him.

” What is it ? ” he said to her, dryly. ” We are busy.”

” Excuse me,” she turned to the German machinist, ” I have to say a few words to my husband.”

The German wanted to leave, but Levin said to him :

” Don’t trouble yourself ! ”

“ The train goes at three ? ” asked the German. “ I should not like to miss it.”

Levin made no reply to him, and himself went out with his wife.

” Well, what have you to tell me ? ” he said, in French.

He was not looking at her face and did not wish to see that she in her position was trembling with her whole face and had a pitiful, crushed appearance.

« I — I want to say that it is impossible to live thus, that it is a torture — ” she muttered.

” The people are in the buffet-room,” he said, angrily. ” Please make me no scenes ! ”

” Well, let us go there ! “

They were standing in a passage-room. Kitty wanted to go into the neighbouring room, but there the English governess was teaching Tdnya.

” Well, let us go into the garden !”

In the garden they met a peasant, who was cleaning a path. And, without thinking of the fact that the peasant saw her tearful and his agitated face, without thinking that they had the aspect of people who were escaping from some calamity, they walked ahead with rapid steps, feeling that they had to unburden their hearts and wake each other up, be left alone, and thus free themselves from the suffering which they were experiencing.

” It is impossible to live thus ! It is a torment that I am suffering, and that you are suffering. What for ? ” she said, when at last they had reached a lonely bench, at the corner of a linden avenue.

” Tell me this much : was there in his tone anything indecent, impure, debasingly terrible ? ” he said, standing before her with his fist on his breast, in the same posture that he had taken up that night before her.

” There was,” she said, with a trembling voice. ” But, Konstantin, don’t you see that I am not guilty ? I wanted to assume such a tone ever since morning, but those people — Why did he come ? How happy we were ! ” she said, choking with the sobs that convulsed her whole plump body.

The gardener saw, though nothing had been driving them and there was nothing to run away from, and though nothing particularly cheerful could have been found on the bench, — the gardener saw that they were returning home, past him, with pacified, beaming faces.

XV.

After taking his wife up-stairs, Levin went to Dolly’s apartments. Darya Aleksandrovna, for her part, was very much chagrined on that day. She was walking up and down in the room and talking angrily to the little girl who was standing in the corner and screaming.

” You will stand in the comer the whole day, and you will eat your dinner by yourself, and you won’t be allowed to see a single doll, and I will not make you a new dress,” she was saying, not knowing what other punishment to find for her.

“ Yes, she is a bad girl ! ” she turned to Levin. ” I wonder where she gets those nasty habits ? “

“ What has she done ? ” Levin asked, quite indifferently, for he wanted to consult her about his own affair, and was annoyed to have come at such an unpropitious time.

” She and Grisha went to pick raspberries and there — I cannot even tell you what she did there. You will be sorry for Miss Elliot a thousand times over. She does not look at anything, — a machine. Figurez-vous que la petite— “

And Darya Aleksandrovich told him of Masha’s crime.

” That does not prove anything ; those are not at all bad habits, — it is simply naughtiness,” Levin quieted her down.

” But you look out of sorts. What do you wish of me ? ” Dolly asked. ” What is going on there ? ”

And in the tone of that question Levin heard that it would be easy for him to tell her what it was his intention to say to her.

” I was not there : I was alone with Kitty in the garden. We have had the second quarrel since — Stiva has been here.”

Dolly looked at him with her intelligent, understanding eyes.

” Tell me, — your hand on your heart, — was there — not in Kitty, but in that gentleman, a tone which might be disagreeable, not disagreeable but terrible, insulting to a husband ? ”

” That is, how shall I tell you — Stand, stand in the comer!” she turned to Masha, who, observing a faint smile on her mother’s face, had turned around a little. ” The opinion of the world would be that he was behaving like all young men. Il fait la cour à une jeune et jolie femme, and a man of the world has only to be flattered by it.”

“ Yes, yes,” Levin said, gloomily, ” but did you notice it?”

“Not only I, but Stiva, too, has. He told me after tea: f Je crois que Veslovski fait un petit brin de cour à Kitty.’ “

“Very well, — now I am calm. I will drive him away,” said Levin.

” What are you saying ? Are you crazy ? ” Dolly exclaimed, in fright. ” Konstantin, come to your senses ! ” she said, laughing. “ Well, you may go to Fanny now,” she said to Masha. ” If you want me to, I will tell Stiva. He will take him away. We could say that you are expecting guests. He is altogether not in keeping with our house.”

” No, no, I will myself — ”

“ But you will only quarrel ? ”

“Not at all. It will be so much fun for me,” Levin said, with his eyes a-sparkle. “ Pardon her, Dolly ! She will not do it again,” he said about the small criminal, who was not going to Fanny and stood irresolutely opposite her mother, looking stealthily at her and waiting to catch her glance.

Her mother looked at her. The girl burst out into tears, and buried her face in her mother’s knees, and Dolly placed on her head her lean, tender hand.

« What have we, he and I, in common ? ” thought Levin, as he went away to find Vesldvski.

As he passed the antechamber, he ordered the carriage to be hitched to go to the station.

” A spring broke yesterday,” replied the lackey.

” Then hitch up the tarantas, but be quick. Where is the guest ? ”

« He has gone to his room.”

Levin found Vasenka just as he had taken out all his things from his portmanteau and, having spread out his romances, was putting on his gaiters, in order to go out riding.

Whether there was something peculiar in Levin’s face, or that Vasenka himself felt that ce petit brin de cour, which he had undertaken, was out of place in that family, he was a little embarrassed (so far as a man of the world can be embarrassed) at sight of Levin.

“Do you ride in gaiters ? ”

“ Yes, it is much cleaner that way,” said Vdsenka, as he placed his fat leg on a chair, hooked the lowest eyes and smiled a good-natured smile.

He was unquestionably a nice fellow, and Levin began to feel sorry for him and ashamed of liimself, the host, when he observed the timidity in Vdsenka’s face.

On the table was lying a piece of a cane, which they had that morning broken at their gymnastic exercises trying to raise the tightly fitting parallel bars. Levin took that broken piece into his hands and began to break off the split end of it, not knowing how to begin.

“ I wanted — ” He stopped, but suddenly, thinking of Kitty and of everything which had happened, he looked resolutely into his eyes, and said : “ I have ordered the horses to be hitched up for you.”

” What do you mean ? ” Vdsenka began, in surprise. “ Where are we to go ? “

” You will go to the railway,” Levin said, gloomily, chipping off the end of the cane.

” Are you going away, or has anything happened ? ”

“What has happened is that I am expecting guests,” said Levin, more and more rapidly breaking off the ends of the split cane with his powerful fingers. “ No, I am not expecting any guests, and nothing has happened, but I ask you to leave. You may explain to yourself my lack of civility as you please.”

Vasenka straightened himself up.

“ I ask you to explain to me — ” he said, with dignity, having finally comprehended.

“ I cannot explain to you,” Levin said, softly and slowly, trying to conceal the trembling of his jaw. “ And you had better not ask.”

And, as the split ends were all broken off, Levin took hold with his fingers of the solid ends, tore the cane in two, and carefully caught the falling end.

Evidently the sight of these arms in tension, of those muscles which he had that morning felt during their gymnastic exercises, and of the sparkling eyes, the quiet voice, and the trembling jaw, persuaded Vâsenka more than anything else. He shrugged his shoulders and, smiling contemptuously, made a bow.

“ May I not see Obldnski ? “

The shrug of the shoulders and the smile did not excite Levin. “ What else is there left for him to do ? ” he thought.

“ I will send him to you at once.”

” What nonsense is this ? ” said Stepan Arkddevich, when he had heard from his friend that he was being driven out of the house and had found Levin in the garden, where he was promenading, waiting for the departure of the guest. ” Mais cost ridicule ! What fly has stung you ? Mais c’est du dernier ridicule ! What of it if a young man ? — “

But the spot where the fly had stung Levin was evidently smarting still, for he grew once more pale when Stepan Arkädevich wanted to explain the cause to him, and he hastened to interrupt him.

” Please explain no causes to me ! I cannot do otherwise ! I feel very much ashamed before you and before him. But, I suppose, it will not be very painful for him to leave, while to my wife and to me his presence is objectionable.”

“ But it is an insult to him ‘ Et puis, e’est ridicule ! “

” It is both insulting and painful to me ! It is not at all my fault, and there is no reason why I should suffer.”

” Really, I did not expect that of you ! On peut être jaloux, niais à ce point, c’est du dernier ridicule ! ”

Levin quickly turned around and went away from him into the depth of the avenue, and continued to walk up and down all by himself. Soon he heard the rumble of the tarantas, and through the trees saw Vasenka sitting on some hay (unfortunately there was no seat in the tarantes) in his Scotch cap and leaping up with every jolt, as he passed down the avenue.

” What is that now ? ” thought Levin, when the lackey came running out of the house and stopped the tarantes. It was for the sake of the machinist, whom Levin had entirely forgotten. The machinist bowed to Vesldvski, said something to him, and then climbed into the tarantes, and both were driven off.

Stepän Arkddevich and the princess were provoked by Levin’s act. And he himself felt not only the ridicule most strongly, but also that he was terribly guilty and disgraced ; but, as he recalled what he and his wife had suffered, he asked himself what he would have done at another time, and he replied to himself that he would have acted in precisely the same way.

In spite of all that, at the end of that day all, with the exception of the princess, who did not forgive Levin for his deed, became exceedingly animated and happy, like children after their punishment, or like adults after an oppressive official reception, so that in the evening they talked, in the absence of the princess, of Vasenka’s expulsion as of a remote event. And Dolly, who had her father’s knack of telling funny stories, made Varenka roll with laughter when she told for the third or fourth time, always with new humourous additions, how she had just got ready to put on a new tie and was going to come out into the drawingroom, when she heard the rumble of a ramshackle cart. And who was in that cart? Väsenka himself, in his Scotch cap and with his romances, and with the gaiters, was sitting on some hay.

” If you had only ordered up the coach ! No, and then I heard, ‘ Wait ! ’ Well, I thought, they have taken pity on him. I looked out, and I saw that they put a fat German with him, and drove them off. And my tie was lost ! “

XVI.

Dârya Aleksandrovna carried out her intention and went to see Anna. She was very sorry to cause her sister chagrin and to do something unpleasant to her husband ; she saw how right the Levins were in not wishing to have anything to do with Vronski ; but she considered it her duty to visit Anna, and to show her that her feelings could not change, in spite of her altered condition.

Not to be dependent on the Levins in this journey of hers, Darya Aleksandrovna sent to the village to hire some horses ; but when Levin heard of that, he went to her and reprimanded her for it.

“ What makes you think that your journey will be disagreeable to me ? Even if it were disagreeable to me, it would be the more so because you do not take my horses,” he said. ” You did not tell me once that you had decided to go there. And hiring horses in the village is in the first place disagreeable for me, and, what is most important, they will undertake the job, but will not carry you there so far. I have horses. And if you do not want to vex me, take mine.”

Darya Aleksandrovna had to give her assent, and on the appointed day Levin had for his sister-in-law a four-horse team and relays, composed of work-horses and mounts,— it is true, not a fine-looking affair, but one by which she could be taken there in one day. Now that the horses were needed for the princess, who was going to leave them, and for the midwife, this was rather embarrassing for Levin, but his duty of hospitality demanded that he should not permit Darya Aleksandrovna to hire horses, while she was at his house, and besides, he knew that the twenty roubles, which they asked of her for this trip, were an important consideration to her; her financial affairs, which were in a very bad shape, were felt by the Levins as though they were their own.

Taking Levin’s advice, Darya Aleksandrovna started before daybreak. The road was good, the carriage comfortable, the horses ran briskly, and on the box sat, in addition to the coachman, not a lackey, but the clerk, who was sent by Levin for safety’s sake. Darya Aleksandrovna fell asleep and awoke only when they drove up to an inn, where the horses were to be changed.

She drank her tea at the house of that same rich peasant with whom Levin used to stop on his journeys to Sviyàzhski, and, after talking with the women about her children, and with the old man about Vronski, whom he praised very much, she proceeded on her journey at ten o’clock. At home her many cares of the children never gave her any time to think. But now, during the uninterrupted drive of four hours, all formerly arrested thoughts suddenly crowded into her head, and she thought about her whole life as she had never done before, and considered it from all its various sides. Her thoughts seemed strange to her. At first she thought of the children, who gave her much concern, though the princess and Kitty (she had more faith in her) had promised to look after them. “If only Masha would not get naughty again, and Grisha could keep away from the horse that would kick him, and Lily would not get her stomach out of order ! ” But soon the questions of the present gave way to questions of the near future. She began to think of how they would have to rent new apartments in Moscow that -winter, and get different furniture for the drawingroom, and have a fur coat made for the eldest daughter. Then there presented themselves to her

questions of a more remote future, — when she would have to make men and women of her children. ” It is not so bad with the girls,” she thought, ” but the boys ?

” Fortunately, I now work with Grisha, but that is only because I am free now, and do not bear any children. Stiva, of course, is not to be depended upon. With the aid of good people will I bring them up ; but if I bear children again — ” And the thought occurred to her how unjust it was that woman should be cursed to bring forth children in sorrow. ” It is not so bad to bear them, but what is painful is to carry them,” she thought, as she recalled her last pregnancy, and the death of that last child. And she recalled her conversation with the young woman at the inn. To the question whether she had any children, the pretty woman had merrily replied :

“ I had a girl, but God has delivered her, — I buried her during Lent.”

” Are you sorry you have lost her ? ” Därya Aleksandrovna had asked.

” Why should I be ? The old man has enough grandchildren as it is. They are only trouble. A person can’t work, or anything. It only binds you.”

That answer had appeared despicable to Darya Aleksandrovna, in spite of the good-natured gentleness of the young woman, but now she involuntarily recalled her words. In those cynical words there was a grain of truth.

“ Yes, altogether,” thought Ddrya Aleksandrovna, as she looked back at her whole life during the last fifteen years of marriage, “ the pregnancy, nausea, dulness of mind, indifference to everything, and, above all, homeliness. Even Kitty, young, pretty Kitty, looks worse, but I become positively homely when I am pregnant, — I know it. The childbirth,suffering, excruciating suffering, that last minute, — then the nursing, those sleepless nights, those terrible pains — “

Ddrya Aleksandrovna shuddered at the very thought of

. -the pain of the cracked nipples which she experienced with nearly every child. ” Then the sicknesses of the children, that eternal fright; then the education, the evil inclinations ” (she recalled little Mdsha’s transgression in the raspberry bush), ” their studies, the Latin, — all that is so incredible and hard. And, above all that, the deaths of these children.” And again there arose in her imagination her eternally oppressed maternal heart, the cruel recollection of the death of her last infant boy, who died of the croup, his funeral, the universal indifference in the presence of the little pink coffin, and her heartrending, lonely anguish before the pale little brow with the curling locks, and before the open, surprised little mouth, which could be seen in the coffin just as they covered it with the pink lid with the embroidered cross.

” And what is it all for ? What will come of it all ? The result will be that I, who have not a moment of peace, now pregnant, now nursing, eternally cross and fussy, myself worn out and wearing out others, loathsome to my husband, will live my life, and there will grow up unfortunate, badly brought up, beggarly children. And even now I do not know what we should have done, if we had not passed the summer with the Levins. Of course, Konstantin and Kitty show such delicacy of feeling that we do not notice it; but that cannot last. They will have children of their own, and they will not be able to aid us ; they are crowded as it is. Well ? Will papa, who has almost nothing left for himself, help us ? And so I cannot bring up my children myself, but only with the aid of others, with humiliation. Well, let us take the most favourable aspect : the children will not die, and I shall in some way manage to educate them. At best they will not be worthless. That is all which I can wish for. How many sufferings, how much labour for that ! My whole life is ruined ! ” She again thought of what the young woman had told her, and again she thought of it with loathing ; but she could not help admitting that in those words there was a grain of coarse truth.

” Is it far yet, Mikhäyla ? ” Darya Aleksandrovna asked the clerk, in order to divert her attention from the thoughts that frightened her.

” From this village, they say, it is seven versts.”

The carriage drove down the village street and over a small bridge. Across this bridge, talking melodiously and gaily, was walking a crowd of merry women, with bound sheaves on their backs. They stopped, gazing with curiosity at the carriage. All the faces that were turned toward her seemed to Darya Aleksandrovna to be sound, happy, and provoking with the joy of life. ” All live, all enjoy life,” she continued to think, after passing the women, as they drove up-hill and she once more began to sway pleasantly on the soft springs of the old vehicle, ” but I am like a prisoner let out from a world that is killing me with cares, and only now have had a moment’s chance to collect my thoughts. All live, — these women, and sister Natalie, and Varenka, and Anna, to whom I am travelling now,— only not I.

“And they attack Anna. For what? Really, am I better ? I have at least a husband whom I love. Not as I should like to love, but I love him, and Anna did not love hers. Where is her guilt ? She wants to live. God has put that into our souls. It is not improbable that I should have done the same. I do not know even now whether I did well to listen to her during that terrible time when she came to Moscow. I ought to have abandoned my husband then, and begun life anew. I might have loved and been loved in the right way. Is it better now ? I do not respect him. I need him,” she thought of her husband, ” and I endure him. Is that better ? At that time I might have pleased, — my beauty was still with me,” she continued to think, and she wanted to look into a mirror. She had a travelling mirror in her little bag, and she wanted to take it out; but, looking at the backs of the coachman and of the swaying clerk, she felt that she would be embarrassed, if one of them should turn around, and so she forbore to get the mirror out.

But even without looking into a mirror, she thought that it was not too late even now; and she recalled Sergyéy Ivanovich, who was exceedingly amiable to her, and Stfva’s friend, good Turdvtsyn, who had helped her look after her children during the scarlet fever, and who was in love with her. And there was another, a very young man, who, as her husband had told her, found that she was prettier than her sisters. And the most passionate and impossible romances presented themselves to her. ” Anna has acted nicely, and I will not reproach her for anything. She is happy, is making another man happy, and is not crushed, like myself, but is, no doubt, as fresh as ever, brilliant, open to everything,” thought Darya Aleksandrovna, and a cunning smile puckered her lips, especially because, thinking of Anna’s romance, she thought in parallel lines of her own romance of nearly the same character with an imaginary, collective man, who was in love with her. She, like Anna, made a full confession of it to her husband. And Stepan Arkadevich’s surprise and perplexity upon hearing that bit of news made her smile.

With these reveries she reached the turn in the highway which led to Vozdvizhenskoe.

XVII.

The coachman stopped the four-in-hand and looked to the right, at the rye-field, where near a cart some peasants were sitting. The clerk was on the point of leaping down, but changed his mind and shouted commandingly at a peasant, beckoning him to come up to him. The slight breeze, which was felt during the drive, died down when they stopped. The gadflies stuck to the sweaty horses that angrily switched them off. The metallic sound of the whetting of a scythe, which was borne from the direction of the cart, died down. One of the peasants got up and went up to the carriage.

” I declare, he is falling to pieces ! ” the clerk shouted angrily at the peasant, who was stepping slowly with his bare feet over the clods of the uneven, dry road. ” Are you coining, or not ? “

The curly-headed old man, whose hair was tied up with bast, with stooping neck, which was dark from perspiration, increased his gait, walked over to the carriage, and with his sunburnt hand took hold of the wing.

“ Vozdvizhenskoe, to the manor, to the count,” he repeated. ” Just drive up the hill ! turn to the left ‘ straight down the Prospect, — you’ll hit it. Whom do you want ? Himself ? “

“ Are they at home, dear man ? ” Darya Aleksandrovna said, indefinitely, not knowing how to ask even a peasant about Anna.

” I suppose they are,” said the peasant, moving his bare feet, and leaving in the dust a distinct trace of his sole with the five toes. ” I suppose they are,” he repeated, apparently wishing to strike up a conversation. ” Guests arrived yesterday, — a lot of guests — What do you want ? ” He turned to a lad that was calling him from the cart. ” That’s it ! They lately passed by here on horseback, to look at the mowing. Now they must be at home. And who are you ? ”

” We come from a distance,” said the coachman, climbing on the box. ” So it is not far ? “

” I tell you, it is right here. You just drive up — ” he said, moving his hand over the carriage-wing.

A young, sturdy, thick-set lad came up to them.

” Is there any work at harvesting ? ” he asked.

” I do not know, my dear.”

” As I say, you turn to the left, and you will hit it,” said the peasant, who evidently was reluctant to dismiss the travellers, and wanted to have a chat.

The coachman started, but he had just turned in when a peasant called out :

” Wait ! Oh, dear man ! ”

“ Wait ! ” two voices cried out.

The coachman stopped.

« They are coming themselves ! There they are ! ” shouted a peasant. ” See them fly ! ” he said, pointing to four riders and two people in a wagonette, who were coming down the road.

Those were Vronski with his jockey, Veslovski, and Anna on horseback, and Princess Varvara with Sviyézhski in the wagonette. They were out for pleasure, and to take a look at the newly arrived reaping-machines.

When the carriage stopped, the riders slowed down to a walk. In front rode Anna with Veslovski. Anna was riding at a calm walk on a short-legged stout English cob with closely cropped mane and short tail. Her beautiful head with the black hair peeping out beneath her tall hat,

her full shoulders, her slender waist in a black riding-habit, and her whole calm, graceful posture startled Dolly.

At first it seemed improper to her that Anna should be on horseback. With the idea of a lady’s horseback riding there was connected in Darya’s mind a representation of light, youthful coquetry, which, in her opinion, ill comported with Anna’s position ; but, when she saw her at close range, she at once made her peace with horseback riding. In spite of the elegance, everything was so simple, quiet, and dignified in Anna’s posture, attire, and motions that nothing could be more natural.

Beside Anna, on a gray mettled cavalry horse, rode Vdsenka Veslovski, in his Scotch cap, with the fluttering ribbons, stretching out his fat legs and apparently admiring himself, and Darya Aleksandrovna could not repress a merry smile, when she recognized him. Behind them rode Vronski. Under him was a chestnut thoroughbred, which had evidently become heated during the gallop. He was working the reins, trying to check the horse.

Behind him rode a little man in jockey attire. Sviyazhsk! and the princess, in a bran-new wagonette, drawn by a large black trotter, were catching up with the riders. Anna’s face, at the moment when she recognized Dolly in the small figure that was pressed into the corner of the old carriage, suddenly was lighted up with a smile of joy. She shouted, quivered in her saddle, and sent the horse forward at a gallop. When she reached the carriage, she jumped down unaided and, holding up her habit, ran up toward Dolly.

“ I thought so, and did not dare to think it. “What joy ! You can’t imagine my joy !” she said, now pressing her face against Dolly and kissing her, and now standing back and examining her with a smile.

“ What joy, Aleksyéy ! ” she said, looking back at Vrdnski, who had dismounted and was coming up toward them.

Vrdnski doffed his tall gray hat and went up to Dolly.

” You can’t imagine how happy we are at your arrival,’’ he said, giving a special significance to the words uttered by him, and in a smile disclosing his strong white teeth.

Vasenka Veslovski, without getting down from his horse, took off his cap and greeted the guest, joyously making his ribbons flutter above his head.

” This is Princess Varvara,” Anna replied to Dolly’s questioning glance, when the wagonette rode up to them.

” Ah ! ” said Darya Aleksandrovna, and her face involuntarily expressed dissatisfaction.

Princess Varvara was her husband’s aunt, and she had known her for a long time, and had no use for her. She knew that Princess Varvara had passed all her life as a hanger-on at the houses of rich relatives; but her living now at the house of Vronski, who was a stranger to her, offended her for the sake of her husband’s relatives. Anna observed the expression of Dolly’s face and became embarrassed, blushed, dropped the riding-habit, and stumbled on it.

Darya Aleksandrovna walked over to the wagonette, which had stopped, and coldly greeted Princess Varvara. She also knew Sviyàzhski. He asked how his odd friend was getting along with his young wife, and, casting a cursory glance at the badly matched horses and at the carriage with the patched wings, offered the ladies the wagonette to ride in.

” And I will ride in that vehicle,” he said. ” The horse is gentle, and the princess drives well.”

” No, stay where you are,” said Anna, coming up, ” and we shall ride in the carriage,” and, taking Dolly’s arm, she led her away.

Darya Aleksandrovna’s eyes stared at that elegant carriage, which she had never seen before, at those handsome horses, and at those elegant, beaming faces which surrounded her. But most of all was she startled by the change which had taken place in her beloved friend Anna. Another, a less observing woman, who had not known Anna, and especially one who had not thought the thoughts which Darya Aleksandrovna had revolved in her mind on her way up, would not have noticed anything especial in Anna. But now Dolly was struck by that temporary beauty, which is to be found in women only during moments of love, and which she now discovered in Anna’s face.

Everything in her face, — the definiteness of the dimples on her cheeks and chin, the position of her lips, the smile which seemed to Hit about her face, the sparkle of her eyes, the grace and rapidity of her motions, the fullness of the sounds of her voice, even the manner with which she gave an angry and yet kind answer to Veslovski, who asked her permission to ride her cob, in order to teach him to gallop from his right leg, — everything was exceedingly attractive in her ; and it seemed as though she herself knew it and rejoiced in it.

When both women were seated in the carriage, they suddenly became both of them embarrassed. Anna was embarrassed by that scrutinizing and inquisitive glance with which Dolly was looking at her. Dolly again felt ill at ease because, after Sviyazhski’s words about the ” vehicle,” she suddenly was ashamed of the dirty old carriage, in which Anna had taken a seat beside her. Coachman Filipp and the clerk experienced the same sensation. To conceal his own embarrassment, the clerk bustled about, helping the ladies to get in, while Filipp, the coachman, grew gloomy and prepared himself in advance not to submit to their external superiority. He smiled an ironical smile, as he glanced at the black trotter, and decided in his mind that the black horse in the wagonette was good only for ” proniinagc ” and would not make forty versts in the heat with nothing but the harness on.

The peasants had all risen from the cart and were looking with curiosity and merriment at the guest, making their remarks.

” They are glad, — have not seen each other for a long time,” said the curly-headed peasant, with the bast knot.

“Uncle Gerasim, if the black stallion hauled the sheaves it would be a lively job ! ”

” Look there ! Is that one in the trousers a woman ? ” said one of them, pointing at Vdsenka Veslovski, who was getting into the lady’s saddle.

” No, a man. See how nimbly he jumped up ‘ “

” Well, boys, are we not going to sleep? “

“ Sleep to-day ! ” said the old man, looking sidewise at the sun. “ Noon has passed, you see ‘ Take the sickles and start I “

XVIII.

Anna was looking at Dolly’s thin, emaciated face, with the dust lodged in the wrinkles, and was on the point of saying what she was thinking of, namely, that Dolly looked thinner; but, recalling that she herself looked better and that Dolly’s glance told her so, she heaved a sigh and began to talk about herself.

” You are looking at me,” she said, ” and wondering whether I can be happy in my new situation. Well, what shall I say ? I am ashamed to confess it ; but I — I am unpardonably happy. Something magical has happened to me, something like a dream, when you feel terribly and you shiver, and suddenly you awake and discover that there are none of those terrors. I have awakened. I have lived through agonizing, terrible times, but now I have been happy for a long time, especially since we have come down here ! ” she said, looking at Dolly with a timid, questioning smile.

“ How glad I am! ” Dolly said, smiling, but speaking involuntarily in a colder tone than she had intended to use. ” I am very glad for your sake. Why did you not write to me ? “

” Why ? Because I did not dare to — you are forgetting my situation — “

” To me ? Did not dare to ? If you knew how I — I consider — “

Ddrya Aleksandrovna wanted to tell her her thoughts of the morning, but for some reason that seemed out of place to her then.

” Well, we shall speak of it later. What are all these buildings ? ” she asked, wishing to change the subject, and pointing to red and green roofs which could be seen beyond the verdure of living hedges of acacias and lilacs. “ Looks like a town.”

But Anna made no reply to her.

” No, no ! How do you consider my situation ? What do you think about it, what ? ” she asked.

” I assume — ” began Ddrya Aleksandrovna, but just then Väsenka Vesldvski, having started the cob with a gallop from the right foot, flopping heavily in his short jacket against the chamois leather of the lady’s saddle, galloped past them. ” He goes, Anna Arkàdevna ! ” he shouted. Anna did not even look at him ; and again it appeared to Därya Aleksandrovna that the carriage was not a proper place to start that long conversation in, and so she abbreviated her thought.

“ I consider nothing,” she said, ” but I have always loved you, and when I love, I love the whole person, such as he or she is, and not as I want that person to be.”

Anna turned her eyes away from her friend’s face and half-closed them (that was a new habit, which Dolly had , not observed in her before), and fell to musing, trying to grasp the full significance of those words. And, apparently understanding them as she wished, she glanced at Dolly.

“ If you had any sins,” she said, ” you would be .pardoned for your visit and for these words of yours.”

And Dolly saw that the tears stood in her eyes. She silently pressed Anna’s hand.

” But what are these buildings ? What a mass of them!” she repeated her question after a moment’s silence.

” Those are the houses of the servants, the plant, the stables,” replied Anna. “ And there begins the park. All that had been neglected, but Aleksyéy has renovated it all He is very fond of this estate and, what I had never expected of him, he is passionately carried away by the farming. Oh, he is such a rich nature ! No matter what he undertakes, he does excellently. He not only does not feel any ennui, but he works with zeal. According to my knowledge of him, he has become a calculating, fine master, and he is even stingy as regards his estate. But only on the estate. Where tens of thousands are at stake, he does not consider them,” she said, with that joyous and shrewd smile with which women frequently speak of the secret qualities of a beloved man, which they themselves have discovered. ” Do you see that large structure ? It is a new hospital. I think it will cost more than one hundred thousand roubles. That is now his dada. And do you know how that came about ? The peasants asked him to let them have the meadows, I think, at a lower price, but he refused them, and I accused him of stinginess. Of course, not on account of that alone, but on account of everything taken together, he began that hospital, in order to prove, you see, that he is not stingy. If you wish, e’est une petitesse ; but I love him even more for that. Now you will soon see the house. It was his grandfather’s, and nothing has been changed in it on the outside.”

” How beautiful ! ” said Dolly, looking with involuntary amazement at the beautiful columnated house, which stood out from the motley verdure of the old trees of the garden.

“ Is it not nice ? And from up-stairs in the house the view is superb.”

They drove into the yard, which was paved with gravel and adorned with flower beds, and in winch two workmen were bordering the loosened black earth of the shrubbery beds with rough porous stones, and stopped in the covered driveway.

“ Oh, they are already here ! ” said Anna, looking at the mounts, which were just being taken away from the porch. ” Isn’t that a nice horse? It is a cob. My favourite. Bring it here, and give it a piece of sugar. Where is the count ? ” she asked two dressed-up lackeys, who had rushed out. ” Oh, there he is ! ” she said, seeing Vrdnski, who was coming out with Vesldvski to meet them.

” Where are you going to locate the princess ? ” Vronski said in French, turning to Anna, and, without waiting for an answer, he once more exchanged greetings with Ddrya Aleksandrovna, and now kissed her hand. ” I suppose in the large balcony room ? “

” Oh, no, that is too far ! It will be better in the corner room, — we shall be able to see more of each other. Come now!” said Anna, who was giving her favourite horse the sugar which the lackey had brought out.

” Et vous oubliez votre devoir,” she said to Vesldvski, who, too, had come out on the porch.

” Pardon, j’en ai tout plein les poches,” he replied, smiling, putting his fingers down into the pocket of his jacket.

” Mais vous venez trop tard” she said, wiping off with her handkerchief her hand which the horse, in taking the sugar, had wet.

Anna turned to Dolly :

” Have you come for any length of time ? For one day ? That is impossible ! ”

” I promised so, and the children — ” said Dolly, feeling embarrassed, both because she had to take her little bag out of the carriage, and because she knew that her face was very dusty.

” No, Dolly, darling ! Well, we shall see. Come, come ! ” and Anna led Dolly into her room.

That room was not the gala one, which Vrdnski had proposed, but one of which Anna said that Dolly would excuse her for it. And this room, which demanded an apology, was filled with luxury, such as Dolly had never seen at home, and which reminded her of the best hotels abroad.

” Darling, how happy I am ! ” said Anna, seating herself for a moment in her riding-gown near Dolly. ” Tell me about your family ! Stiva I saw in passing. But he does not know how to tell about the children. How is my favourite Tanya ? A big girl, I suppose ? “

” Yes, very big,” Darya Aleksandrovna replied, curtly, herself surprised to be talking so coldly about her children. “We are having a nice time with the Levins,” she added.

“Now, if I could know,” said Anna,*“that you do not despise me — You could all of you come to stay with us. Stiva is a dear old friend of Aleksyéy’s,” she added, with a sudden blush.

“Yes, but we are so well — ” Dolly replied, in confusion.

« That is so, I am speaking foolishly from so much joy. Darling, how happy I am to have you here ! ” said Anna, kissing her again. “ You have not yet told me what you think of me, and I want to know everything. I am glad you will see me as I am. Above all, I do not want it to appear that I am trying to prove anything. I do not want to prove anything, but simply want to live : not to do anybody any harm but myself. I have a right to do so, have I not ? However, that is a long story, and we shall have time to talk about everything. Now I must go to change my clothes, and to you I will send a girl.”

XIX.

When Ddrya Aleksandrovna was left alone, she surveyed her room with the eye of a housekeeper. Everything which she had seen in driving up to the house and walking through it, and winch she now saw in her room, produced on her the impression of abundance and dandyism, and of that new European luxury, of which she had read in English novels, but which she had never seen in Bussia, and in the country. Everything was new, beginning with the new French wall-paper, and ending with the carpet, which covered the whole room. The bed had springs and a mattress, with a separate headpiece and Persian silk slips on small pillows. The marble washstand, the toilet, the couch, the tables, the bronze clock on the mantelpiece, the curtains, and the portières, — everything was expensive and new.

The foppish maid, who came to offer her services, was dressed and had her hair fixed more fashionably than Dolly, and was as new and as expensive as the whole room. Darya Aleksandrovna was pleased with her politeness, neatness, and obliging ways, but she did not feel at ease with her ; she was ashamed before her on account of the patched sack which she, to her misfortune, had taken along with her. She was ashamed of those very patches and darned places, of which she was so proud at home. At home it was clear that for six sacks she needed twenty-four arshins of nainsook at sixty-five kopeks, which was more than fifteen roubles, besides the findings and the work, and these fifteen roubles had to be accounted for. But before the chambermaid she was not so much ashamed as ill at ease.

Darya Aleksandrovna felt great relief when Annushka, whom she knew, entered the room. The foppish chambermaid was called to the mistress, and Annushka remained with Darya Aleksandrovna.

Annushka was evidently very happy to see the lady, and talked incessantly. Dolly saw that she wanted to express her opinion about the position of her mistress, especially about the count’s love and devotion to Anna Arkädevna, but Dolly stopped her carefully every time she began to speak of it.

” I have grown up with Anna Arkâdevna, and she is dearer to me than anything. Well, it is not for us to judge. And to love like that — “

” So, please, if you can, get it washed,” Darya Aleksandrovna interrupted her.

“Yes, madam. Two women are especially employed to do the washing in the house, and it is all done by machinery. The count attends to everything himself. What a man — “

Dolly was glad when Anna came in to her room and by her arrival put a stop to Annushka’s chattering.

Anna had put on a very simple batiste gown. Dolly carefully examined that simple gown. She knew what that simplicity meant, and at what price it was obtained.

” An old acquaintance,” Anna said, in reference to Annushka.

Anna was no longer embarrassed. She was quite at her ease and calm. Dolly saw that she had completely recovered from the impression which her arrival had produced on her, and assumed that superficial, indifferent tone, when it seemed as though the door were locked that led to the apartment where her feelings and intimate thoughts were contained.

“Well, and how is your daughter?” asked Dolly.

“ Annie ? ” (Thus she called her daughter Anna.) ” She is well. She has improved so much. Do you want to see her ? Come, I will show her to you. We had such a lot of trouble,” she began to tell her, “ with the nurses. We had an Italian wet-nurse. She was good, but so stupid ! We wanted to send her away, but the child is so used to her that we have been keeping her.”

“ And how have you arranged it ? ” Dolly began, meaning to ask what name the girl would bear ; but, observing Anna’s frowning face, she changed the meaning of the question. ” How have you arranged it ? Have you weaned her already ? ’’

But Anna understood her.

“ You did not mean to ask that ? You wanted to know about her name. Am I not right ? That troubles Aleksyéy. She has no name, that is, she is a Karénin,’’ said Anna, closing her eyes so much that only the meeting lashes could be seen. ” However,” with suddenly beaming face she proceeded, ” we shall speak of it later. Come, I will show her to you. Elle est très gentille. She is creeping already.-”

In the nursery, the luxury, which had startled Därya Aleksandrovna in the rest of the house, startled her even more. Here were little carts imported from England, and walking-stools, and a sofa for creeping, specially made in the shape of a billiard-table, and swings, and special new kinds of bathtubs. All these things were of English make, substantial and of good quality, and obviously very expensive. The room was large, high-studded, and light.

When they entered, the little girl was sitting in nothing but her shirt in a chair at the table and eating soup, which she had spilled over her whole chest. The child was being fed by a Russian girl, who was serving in the nursery, and who apparently was herself eating at the same time. Neither the wet-nurse nor the nurse were present ; they were in the adjoining room, and from there proceeded their conversation in a strange French language, in which alone they were able to make themselves mutually understood.

On hearing Anna’s voice, a dressed-up, tall Englishwoman, with a disagreeable face and clouded expression, entered the room, rapidly shaking her blond locks, and immediately began to justify herself, though Anna did not accuse her of anything. To each word of Anna’s the Englishwoman hurriedly repeated several times, ” Yes, my lady ! ”

The black-browed, black-haired, ruddy little girl, with a strong, red little body encased in a chicken skin, in spite of the stern expression with which she looked at the new face, pleased Darya Aleksandrovna very much ; she even envied her healthy looks. Another thing which pleased her much was her manner of creeping. Not one of her own children had ever crawled that way. The little girl was exceedingly sweet when she was put down on the carpet and had her dress tucked up behind. She looked at the grown people like a little animal with her sinning black eyes, apparently happy to be admired, smiling, and holding her legs sidewise, and leaned energetically on her arms, and rapidly pulled up her little back, and again put forward her little hands.

But the general spirit of the nursery, especially of the Englishwoman, displeased Darya Aleksandrovna very much. Only by considering that no good girl would enter the service of so irregular a family as was Anna’s, could Darya Aleksandrovna explain to herself how Anna, with her knowledge of people, could have taken for her child such an unsympathetic, disrespectable English girl. Besides, from a few words, Darya Aleksandrovna understood at once that the wet-nurse, the nurse, and the child did not get along well, and that a visit from the mother was an unusual affair. Anna wanted to find the toys for the girl, but did not know where they were.

But most remarkable of all was the fact that in replying to her question how many teeth she had, Anna made a mistake, as she knew nothing of the last two that had come.

” It is at times hard for me, but I am like a superfluous person here,” said Anna, as she left the nursery and raised her train, in order to escape the toys that were standing at the door. ” It was different with my first.”

” I thought it would be the opposite,” Darya Aleksandrovna said, timidly.

” Oh, no ! You know, I saw him, Serézha,” Anna said, closing her eyes, as though looking far into the distance. ” However, we shall talk later about that. Would you believe it, I am like a hungry person, before whom a full dinner is suddenly placed, and who does not know which to take first. The full dinner is you and the talks which I want to have with you, which I have not been able to have with any one ; I do not know what to talk about first. Mais je ne vous ferai grâce de rien. I have to make a clean breast of it.

” Yes, I must give you a sketch of the company which you will find here,” she began. ” I will begin with the ladies. Princess Varvara. You know her, and I know your opinion and that of Stlva about her. Stfva says that the whole aim of her life consists in proving her superiority over Aunt Katerina Pavlovna ; that is true, but she is good, and I am grateful to her. In St. Petersburg there was a moment when I needed a chaperon. She turned up. Really, she is good. She did much to make my situation more bearable. I see that you do not understand the whole gravity of my situation — there in St. Petersburg,” she added. “Here I am quite at ease and happy. Well, of that later. I must count them all up. Then Sviyäzhski, — he is a marshal and a very nice kind of a man, but he wants something of Aleksyéy. You understand, with his fortune, now that we have settled in the country, Aleksyéy can have much influence. Then Tushkévich, — you have seen him, — he was with Betsy. Now he has been given up, and so he has come to see us. He is one of those men, Aleksyéy says, who are very agreeable, if they are taken for what they want to appear, et puis, il est comme il faut, as Princess Vârvara says. Then Veslévski — you know him. A very’ dear boy,” she said, and a roguish smile puckered her lips. “ What kind of a wild story is that about Levin ? Veslévski was telling Aleksyéy, but we did not believe him. Il est très gentil et naïf,” she said, again with the same kind of a smile. ” Men need diversion, and Aleksyéy needs an audience, and so I esteem all that company. It has to be lively and jolly in our house, so that Aleksyéy should not wish for anything new. Then you will see the manager. A German, a very good man, who knows his business. Then the doctor, a young man, not exactly a nihilist, but he eats with his knife — a very good doctor. Then the architect — Une petite cour.”

XX.

” So here is Dolly, princess, — you wanted so much to see her,” said Anna, walking down with Darya Aleksandrovna to the large stone terrace, where in the shade Princess Vàrvara was sitting at an embroidery-frame, working on a chair for Count Aleksyéy Kirillovich. ” She says that she does not want anything before dinner, but you order up a lunch, and I will go and find Aleksyéy, and will bring them all up.”

Princess Värvara received Dolly kindly, and with some condescension, and immediately proceeded to explain to her that she had settled in Anna’s house because she had always loved her better than had her sister, Katerina Pavlovna, the woman who had brought up Anna, and that now that everybody had abandoned Anna, she considered it her duty to help her in that transitional, most difficult period.

” When her husband gives her a divorce I will return to my solitude, but just now I can be useful, and am doing my duty, no matter how hard it is for me to do so, — not the way others are acting. And how nice of you, how well you have done, to have come ! They live together like the best of married people ; God will judge them, and not we. And how about Biryuzovski and Avéneva ? — And Nikändrov himself, and Vasilev with Mamonova, and Liza Neptunov— Nobody said anything against them. And it finally ended by their being accepted by everybody. And then, c’est un intérieur si joli, si comme il faut. Tout a fait à V anglaise. On se réunit au matin au breakfast et puis on se sépare. All do what they please until dinner. Dinner is at seven. Stfva did very well to send you. He ought to stick to them. You know, through his mother and his brother he can do anything. And then, they do much good. Has he not told you about his hospital? Ce sera admirable, — everything is from Paris.”

Their conversation was interrupted by Anna, who had found the company of men in the billiard-room and was returning with them to the terrace. To dinner much time was left and the weather was good, and so several means for passing the remaining two hours were proposed. There were many ways for passing the time at Vozdvfzhenskoe, none of which were those in use at Pokrdvskoe.

” Une partie de lawn tennis,” Veslovski proposed, smiling his pretty smile. ” We shall again be together, Anna Arkâdevna.”

” No, it is warm. It will be better to walk to the garden and go out rowing and show Darya Aleksandrovna the shores,” proposed Vronski.

” I agree to anything,” said Sviyâzhski.

” I think Dolly will be more pleased to take a walk, — am I not right ? And then we can take the boat,” said Anna.

They went down the path in two pairs, — Anna with Sviyâzhski, and Dolly with Vronski. Dolly was somewhat embarrassed and ill at ease in the entirely new surroundings in which she now found herself. In the abstract, theoretically, she not only justified, but even approved, Anna’s act. As is frequently the case with blamelessly moral women, who become tired of the monotony of a moral life, she from a distance not only excused the sinful love, but even envied her. Besides, she loved Anna with all her heart. But in reality, when she saw her among those strange people, with their bon ton, which was so new to Darya Aleksdndrovna, she felt ill at ease. Most disagreeable it was for her to see Princess Vârvara, who pardoned them everything for the comforts which she was enjoying. Thus, in the abstract, Dolly approved Anna’s deed, but it was unpleasant for her to see the man for whom that deed was done. Besides, she had never liked Vronski. She regarded him as very proud and saw nothing in him to be proud of except his wealth. But, against her will, he here, in his house, impressed her more than ever, and she could not be free with him. She experienced with him a feeling that was akin to what she had felt toward the chambermaid on account of her sack. As she had been not so much ashamed as ill at ease before the chambermaid on account of the patches, so in his presence she was more ill at ease than ashamed on account of herself.

Dolly felt herself embarrassed and was trying to find a subject for conversation. Though she thought that with his pride he would be displeased to hear praises of his house and garden, she, being unable to find anything else to say, nevertheless remarked that she liked his house very much.

” Yes, it is a very beautiful structure and in a good old style,” he said.

” I like very much the courtyard in front of the veranda. Has it always been so ? “

” Oh, no ! ” he said, and his face shone with enjoyment. “ If you had seen that yard this spring ! “

And he began, at first cautiously, and then becoming more and more enthusiastic, to turn her attention to various details of the adornments of the house and the garden. It was evident that, having devoted much labour to the improvement and beautification of his estate, Vrdnski felt the necessity of praising it to a new person, and that he was sincerely glad to hear Darya Aleksândrovna’s praises.

” If you wish to take a look at the hospital and are not tired, it is not far from here. Let us go ! ” he said, looking into her face to convince himself that that did not annoy her.

“ Will you go, Anna ? ” he turned to her.

“ We will, won’t we ? ” she turned to Sviyâzhski. “ Mais il ne faut pas laisser le pauvre Vesldvski et Tushkévich se morfondre là, dans le bateau. We must send word to them.”

” Yes, that is a monument which he will leave here,” said Anna, turning to Dolly with the same cunning, knowing smile with which she had before spoken of the hospital.

” Oh, a capital affair ! ” said Sviyâzhski. But, not to appear to be humouring Vronski, he immediately added a slightly condemnatory remark.

” However, count, I wonder how it is that you, who have done so much in a sanitary way for the people, are so indifferent to the schools.”

” C’est devenu tellement comun, les écoles,” said Vrdnski. ” You must understand that it was not that, — I simply became infatuated. This way we go to the hospital,” he turned to Darya Aleksandrovna, pointing to a side exit from the avenue.

The ladies opened their parasols and went out on the side path. After making several turns and passing through a gate, Darya Aleksandrovna saw in front of her, on an elevation, a large, handsome, quaintly shaped structure, which was nearly completed. The still unpainted sheet iron roof gleamed blindingly in the bright sun. Near the finished building another was being erected ; it was surrounded by timbers, and the workmen in aprons on the scaffolding were laying bricks, pouring the mortar out of buckets, and levelling it with levels.

” How fast your work is proceeding said Sviyâzhski. ” When I was here the last time, the roof was not yet up.”

” Toward autumn all will be done. Inside it is nearly all fixed,” said Anna.

” What is that new building ? “

“ Quarters for the doctor and the apothecary,” replied Vrdnski. He saw the architect, in a short overcoat, walking over toward him, and so he excused himself from the ladies and went up to meet him.

He made a circuit about the lime-hole, where the workmen were getting their mortar, and stopped with the architect, talking with him in a heated manner.

” The gable is coming out lower,” he replied to Anna, who asked him what the trouble was.

” I said that the foundation ought to have been raised,” said Anna.

” Of course, it would have been better, Anna Arkâdevna,” said the architect, ” but it is too late now.”

” Yes, I am very much interested in it,” Anna replied to Sviyâzhski, who was expressing his surprise at her knowledge of architecture. “The new building has to correspond to the hospital. But it was thought of later and was begun without any plan.”

After finishing his conversation with the architect, Vronski joined the ladies and took them inside the hospital.

Though on the outside they were still working on the cornices and in the lower story they were painting, in the upper story nearly everything was done. They ascended a broad iron staircase to a landing, from which they entered the first large room. The walls were plastered in imitation of marble ; the large single windows were all in ; only the parquetry was not yet finished, and the carpenters, who were planing a square, which they were holding up, left their work in order to take off the twine by which their hair was held in place, and greet the company.

” This is the waitingroom,” said Vrdnski. ” Here will be a desk, a table, a safe, and nothing else.”

“ This way ! Let us go here ! Don’t go up to the window ! ” Anna said, touching the paint, to see whether it was dry. ” Aleksyéy, the paint is dry already,” she added.

From the waitingroom they went into a corridor. Here Vronski showed them the new system of ventilation. Then he showed them the marble bathtubs and the beds with unusual springs. Then he showed them, one after another, the sickrooms, the storeroom, the laundry-closet, then the new-fashioned stoves, then the noiseless wheelbarrows for transporting the necessary things along the corridor, and many more things. Sviydzhski appreciated all these things as a man who was acquainted with all new improvements. Dolly was simply amazed at what she had never seen before and, wishing to understand it all, asked about these things in detail, which afforded Vronski manifest pleasure.

“Yés, I think it will be the only absolutely perfect hospital in Russia,” said Sviydzhski.

” And will you not have a lying-in department ? ” asked Dolly. ” That is so necessary in the country. I have often — ”

In spite of his politeness, Vrdnski interrupted her.

“ This is not a lying-in establishment, but a hospital, and is intended for all kinds of diseases except the infectious,” he said. “ Just look at this ! ” and he rolled a lately imported invalid chair up to Darya Aleksandrovna. ” Look at it ! ” He seated himself in the chair and began to move it. ” He can’t walk, — he is too feeble, or he has some disease in his legs, and needs fresh air, — and so he sits down and rolls himself — “

Darya Aleksandrovna was interested in everything. She liked everything, but most of all she liked Vrdnski himself with that natural, naïve infatuation of his. ” Yes, he is a very dear and good man,” she occasionally thought, without listening to him, but looking at him and scanning his expression and mentally transferring herself into Anna. She liked him so very much now with his animation that she understood how Anna could have fallen in love with him.

XXL

“ No, I think the princess is tired, and the horses do not interest her,” Vrdnski said to Anna, who had proposed that they go to the stud, where Sviyàzhski wanted to see a new stallion. “Go yourselves, and I will take the princess home, and we shall talk together,” he said, “ if it pleases you,” he turned to her.

“ I do not understand anything about horses, and I shall be very glad,” said Darya Aleksandrovna, with some surprise.

She saw by Vrdnski’s face that he wanted something from her. She was not mistaken. The moment they entered the garden through the gate, he looked in the direction where Anna had gone, and, having convinced himself that she could neither hear nor see them, he began :

“ You guessed rightly that I wanted to talk with you,” he said, looking at her with laughing eyes. “I am not mistaken in thinking that you are Anna’s friend.” He took off his hat and, drawing out his handkerchief, wiped off his baldening head.

Därya Aleksandrovna made no reply, and only looked at him in fright. When she was left alone with him, she suddenly felt terribly : his laughing eyes and the stern expression of his face frightened her.

Most varied suppositions of what he was getting ready to say flashed through her head : “ He will beg me to come over to his estate with the children, and I shall have to refuse him; or he will want me to form in Moscow a circle for Anna — Or is it going to be about Vdsenka Vesldvski and his relations to Anna? And maybe about Kitty, to say that he felt guilty?” She foresaw only something disagreeable, but did not guess what he really wanted to tell her.

” You have such influence on Anna, — she loves you so much,” he said. ” Help me ! ”

Darya Aleksandrovna looked questioningly and timidly at his energetic face, which now appeared altogether, and now in spots, in the sunlight which penetrated through the shade of the lindens, and now was again cast into the shade. She was waiting for what he was still going to say ; but he, catching his cane in the gravel, kept walking silently beside her.

” If you have come to see us, you, the only woman of all of Anna’s former friends, — I do not count Princess Varvara, — I understand that you did not do so because you regard our position as normal, but because, comprehending all the gravity of this situation, you love her still and wish to aid her. Do I understand you right ? ” he asked, glancing at her.

” Oh, yes ! ” replied Darya Aleksandrovna, folding her parasol, ” but — ”

“No,” he interrupted her, and, forgetting that he was thus placing his interlocutor in an awkward position, he instinctively stopped, so that she, too, was compelled to stop. ” No one feels more than I the whole gravity of Anna’s situation. And that is natural, if you will do me the honour of regarding me as a man with a heart. I am the cause of that situation, and so I feel it.”

“ I understand,” said Ddrya Aleksandrovna, involuntarily admiring him for having said it so frankly and so firmly. ” Her position in society is a hard one, I understand.”

« In society it is a hell ! ” he muttered rapidly, with a gloomy scowl “It is impossible to imagine any worse moral sufferings than those which she experienced during two weeks in St. Petersburg — and I beg you to believe it.”

“ Yes, but here, so long as neither Anna — nor you feel any need of society — ”

“ Society ! ” he said, with contempt. ” What need can I have of society ? ”

“ Until then — and that may be for ever — you are happy and at rest. I see by Anna that she is happy, quite happy, — she has already informed me so,” said Darya Aleksandrovna, smiling; and, saying this, she involuntarily came to doubt whether Anna was really happy.

But Vrdnski did not seem to doubt it.

“Yes, yes,” he said. “I know that she has revived after all her suffering; she is happy. She is happy in the present. But I ? I am afraid of what awaits us — Excuse me, you wish to go ? ”

“ No, never mind.”

“ Well, then let us sit down here ! ”

Darya Aleksandrovna sat down on a garden bench, at the corner of the avenue. He stopped in front of her.

” I see that she is happy,” he repeated, and the doubt of her being happy struck Därya Aleksandrovna more powerfully still ” But can it last that way ? Whether we have acted rightly or wrongly is another question ; the die has been cast,” he said, passing from the Russian language to the French, ” and we are united for life. We are united by the most sacred ties of love. We have a child, and we may have more children. But the law and all the conditions of our situation are such that there arise thousands of complications, which she now, while resting her soul from all her sufferings and trials, does not see and does not wish to see. And that is natural But I cannot help seeing them. My daughter is by law not mine, but Karénin’s. I do not want this deception ! ” he said, with an energetic gesture of negation, looking gloomily and questiouingly at Darya Aleksandrovna.

She made no reply and only glanced at him. He continued :

“ Tomorrow a son of mine is born, and he is by law a Karénin, — he is not the heir of my name, nor of my fortune, and no matter how happy we may be in the family, and how many children we may have, there is no connection between me and them. They are Karénins. Consider the burdensomeness and terror of this situation ! I tried to talk to Anna about it. That irritates her. She does not comprehend it, and I cannot tell her everything. Now let us look at it from another side. I am happy in her love, but I must have some occupation. I have found it and am proud of it, and regard it as more distinguished than the occupations of my former companions at court and in the service. And, no doubt, I shall never exchange this business for theirs. I work here, sitting in one spot, and I am happy and satisfied, and we need nothing else for our happiness. Cela riest pas un pis-aller ; on the contrary — “

Darya Aleksandrovna observed that at that point of his explanation he was getting mixed, and she could not exactly make out his new departure, but she felt that, having once begun to speak of his intimate relations, of which he could not speak with Anna, he was now making a clean breast of everything, and the question of his activity in the country was in the same division of intimate thoughts as the question of his relations to Anna.

” And thus I shall continue,” he said, as though awakening. ” The main thing is that, working, I must have the conviction that what I am doing will not die with me, that I shall have heirs, — and that I have not. Imagine the position of a man who knows in advance that his own children from a beloved wife will not be his, but somebody else’s, who hates them and does not want to know them. That is terrible ! ”

He grew silent, being apparently in great agitation.

“Yes, of course, I understand it. But what can Anna do ? ” asked Darya Aleksandrovna.

” Yes, that brings me to the aim of my talk,” he said, with difficulty regaining his composure. ” Anna can help it, — that depends on her — Even to ask the emperor to legitimize one’s children, it is necessary first to have a divorce. And that depends on Anna. Her husband was prepared to give it, — your husband had it all arranged. And even now, I know, he would not refuse it. All she would have to do would be to write to him. He then said openly that, if she expressed a wish, he would not refuse it. Of course,” he said, gloomily, “ that is one of those pharisaical cruelties of which only heartless men are capable. He knows what torment every memory of him is causing her, and, knowing this, he demands a letter from her. I can understand that it is painful for her. But the causes are so weighty that it is necessary to passer par dessus toutes ces finesses de sentiment. U y va du bonheur et de ïexistence d’Anne et de ses enfants. I am not speaking for myself, though it is hard, very hard for me,” he said with an expression which menaced some one because it was hard for him. “So, princess, I am without scruples holding on to you, as to an anchor of safety. Help me to persuade her to write to him and demand a divorce ! “

“ Yes, of course,” Darya Aleksandrovna said, pensively, recalling her last meeting with Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich. ” Yes, of course,” she repeated, resolutely, thinking of Anna.

“Use your influence with her, and make her write! I do not want, and am almost unable, to speak to her about it.”

“ Very well, I will speak with her. But how is it she

does not herself think of it ? ” said Darya Aleksandrovna, for some reason suddenly thinking of Anna’s strange and new habit of half-closing her eyes. And she recalled that Anna did so every time when the intimate sides of life were under discussion. ” It is as though she closed her eyes against her own life, so as not to see the whole of it,” thought Dolly. ” By all means. For my own sake and for hers will I speak to her,” replied Darya Aleksandrovna, in response to his expressions of gratitude.

They rose and went to the house.

XXII.

Meeting Dolly on her way back, Anna looked fixedly into her eyes, as though asking her what the conversation was about which she had had with Vronski, but did not ask her anything with words.

” I think it is time for dinner,” she said. ” We have not yet had a chance of seeing each other. I am counting on the evening. We have all of us soiled ourselves in the buildings.”

Dolly went to her room, and she felt droll. She had nothing to put on, for she already wore her best garment ; but, in some way to indicate her preparation for dinner, she asked the chambermaid to clean her dress, changed the gloves and the tie, and put a piece of lace on her head.

” This is all I have been able to do,” she said smilingly to Anna, who came out to meet her in a third, again a very simple gown.

” Yes, we are here very affected,” she said, as though to excuse herself for her splendour. ” Aleksyéy is more satisfied with your visit than he ever is with anything. He is positively in love with you,” she added. ” And are you not tired ? ”

Until dinner there was no time to think of anything. -When they entered the drawingroom, they found there Princess Varvara and the gentlemen in black coats. The architect wore a dress coat. Vrdnski introduced the doctor and the manager to the guest. He had introduced the architect to her before, in the hospital.

A fat majordomo, with his beaming round shaven face and starched white necktie, announced that dinner was served, and the ladies got up. Vronski asked Sviyäzhski to offer his arm to Anna Arkadevna, and himself went up to Dolly. Vesldvski had got ahead of Tushkévich in offering his arm to Princess Varvara, so that Tushkévich went alone, with the manager and the doctor.

The dinner, the dining-room, the dishes, the servants, the wine, and the food, not only corresponded to the general tone of the new luxury of the house, but seemed to be even more luxurious and new than anything else. Darya Aleksandrovna watched all that new luxury, and, as a housekeeper, — though she did not hope to apply any of the things she saw to her own house, as all that luxury was above her manner of life, — she involuntarily entered into all the details and asked herself who did what, and how it was done. Vasenka Vesldvski, her husband, and even Sviyäzhski, and many other people whom she knew, never thought of it and took on faith what every decent host tries to make his guests feel, that everything which is so well arranged in his house has cost him, the host, no labour, but is taking place of its own accord. But Darya Aleksandrovna knew that of its own accord not even the porridge would be made in the morning for the children, and that, therefore, somebody’s close attention must have been employed in so complex and beautiful an arrangement. And from the glance of Aleksyéy Kirillovich, as he scanned the table and made a sign with his head to the majordomo, and as he offered Därya Aleksandrovna the choice between cold beet soup and bouillon, she understood that everything was done and was sustained by the cares of the host himself. On Anna it evidently did not depend any more than it did on Vesldvski. She, Sviyäzhski, the princess, and Vesldvski were all alike guests, who cheerfully made use of what had been prepared for them.

Anna was the hostess only in so far as she gave direction to the conversation. And this conversation, which is so difficult for a hostess presiding at a small table, in the presence of such persons as the manager and the architect, persons belonging to an entirely different world, who tried not to appear timid before so much luxury, and who were unable to take any considerable part in the general conversation, — this difficult conversation Anna carried on with her customary tact, naturalness, and even pleasure, as Därya Aleksändrovna observed.

The conversation turned on Tushkévich’s and Vesldvski’s boating, and here Tushkévich began to tell about the last races of the St. Petersburg Yachting Club. But Anna, waiting for an interruption, immediately turned to the architect, in order to draw him out from his silence.

” Nikoläy Ivänych was surprised,” she said about Sviyäzhski, “to see how quickly the new building has grown up since he was here the last time; but I am there every day, and I marvel how quickly it is rising.”

“ It is a pleasure to work with his Serenity,” the architect said, with a smile (he was, with the consciousness of his dignity, a respectful, quiet man). “ It is different from having to do with the Government officials. Where they would write up a ream of paper, I report to the count and talk with him about the matter, and all is done in three words.”

” American methods,” Sviyäzhski said, smiling.

“ Yes, there the buildings go up in a rational manner — ” The conversation passed over to the abuse of power in the United States, but Anna immediately changed it to another theme, in order to draw the manager out of his silence.

” Have you ever seen a reaping-machine ? ” she turned to Därya Aleksändrovna. ” We had been out to see one when you came. I saw it myself for the first time.”

“ How do they work ? ” asked Dolly.

” Exactly like scissors. There is a board and a mass of small scissors, — like this.”

Anna took a small knife and a fork into her beautiful, white, ring-bedecked hands, and began to illustrate. She evidently saw that nothing could be made out from her explanation ; but, knowing that she talked pleasantly and that her hands were beautiful, she continued her explanation.

” More like a penknife,” Veslovski said, jestingly, without taking his eyes off her.

Anna gave a faint smile, but made no reply. “Ami not right, Karl Fédorych, in saying that it works like scissors ? ” she turned to the manager.

” 0 ja,” replied the German. ” Es ist ein ganz einfaches Ding,” and he began to explain the construction of the machine.

“What a pity it does not bind. I saw one at the Vienna Exposition that bound with wire,” said Sviyézhski. “ Those would be more profitable.”

“ Es kommt drauf an — Der Preis rom Draht muss ausgerechnet werden.” And the German, who had been drawn out from his silence, turned to Vronski. (( Das lässt sich ausrechnen, Erlaucht.” The German put his hand to his pocket, where he had a pencil in a memorandum book, in which he made all kinds of calculations, but, recalling that he was at dinner, and noticing Vrdnski’s cold glance, he restrained himself. “ Zu complicirt, macht zu riel trouble,” he concluded.

“ Wünscht man was double, so hat man auch trouble,” said Vasenka Vesldvski, making fun of the German. “ J’adore Vallemand” he turned with the same smile to Anna.

“ Cessez,” she said to him, half in jest and half in earnest.

“We had hoped to find you in the field, Vasili Semé-nych. ” She turned to the doctor, a sickly man. “ Were you there ? ”

” I was, but I volatilized,” the doctor replied, with gloomy jocularity.

“ Then you must have had a fine constitutional.”

“A superb one.”

” Well, and how is the health of the old woman ? I hope it is not the typhus ? “

“ No, not the typhus, but she is by no means in prime shape.”

“ What a pity ! ” said Anna, and, having thus paid her tribute of politeness to the inmates of the house, she now turned to her company.

“ Still, according to your description it would be hard to build a machine, Anna Arkädevna,” Sviydzhski said, jestingly.

“ Why not ? ” said Anna, with a smile, which said that she knew that in her talk about the construction of the machine there was something sweet, which even Sviyäzhski had noticed. This new feature of youthful coquetry struck Dolly as disagreeable.

“But on the other hand, in architecture Anna Arkadevna’s knowledge is remarkable,” said Tushkévich.

“Why, I heard Anna Arkädevna last night talking about joggles and panels,” said Veslovski. “ Am I right ? ”

“ There is nothing remarkable about that, when you see and hear so much,” said Anna. “ You, no doubt, do not know even what a house is made of.”

Darya Aleksandrovna saw that Anna was dissatisfied with that tone of playfulness which existed between her and Veslovski, but that she involuntarily fell into it herself.

Vrdnski acted here quite differently from Levin. He evidently did not ascribe any importance to Veslovski’s babbling, and, on the contrary, encouraged these jests.

“ Yes, tell us, Vesldvski, how are the stones set ? “

” Of course, by means of cement.”

” Bravo ! And what is cement ? ”

” Something Eke paste — no, Eke putty,” said Vesldvski, calling forth general laughter.

The conversation of the diners, with the exception of the doctor, the architect, and the manager, who were merged in gloomy silence, never abated, now gliding, now hitching, and now touching some one to the quick. One time Darya Aleksandrovna was touched to the quick, and she grew so excited that she even blushed, and then only wondered whether she had not said something unnecessary or disagreeable. Sviydzhski was talking of Levin, mentioning his strange opinions about machinery being harmful to Russian farming.

” I have not the pleasure of knowing that Mr. Levin,” Vronski said, smiling, “but evidently he has never seen the machines which he condemns. And if he has seen and tried one, it may have been some home-made Russian, and not an imported one. What views can there be about them ? “

“ Why, Turkish views,” Vesldvski said, with a smile, turning to Anna.

“ I cannot defend his opinions,” Darya Aleksandrovna said, in excitement, ” but I can say that he is a very cultured gentleman, and if he were here, he would know how to answer you ; but I cannot.”

” I love him very much, and we are great friends,” Sviydzhski said, with a good-natured smile. ” Mais pardon, il est un petit peu toqué ; for example, he affirms that the County Council and the justices of the peace, — that all that is unnecessary, and does not wish to take part in anything.”

“That is our Russian indifference,” said Vrdnski, pouring some water from the ice-decanter into a goblet, ” not to feel the duties which our privileges impose upon us, and therefore to deny these duties.”

” I do not know a man who is more strict in the performance of his duties,” said Ddrya Aleksdndrovna, irritated by that tone of superiority, in which Vrdnski spoke.

“I, on the contrary,” continued Vronski, who was evidently for some reason touched to the quick by this conversation, ” I, on the contrary, such as I am, am very much obliged for the honour which has been done me, thanks to Nikoldy Ivdnych ” (lie pointed to Sviydzhski) ” by electing me an honourable justice of the peace. I consider that for me the duty of attending sessions, of deliberating on a peasant’s affair about his horse, is as important as anything which I may do. And I will regard it as an honour when I am chosen a member of the Council. Only in that manner am I able to return payment for the advantages which I enjoy as a landowner. Unfortunately, people do not understand the importance which the large landowners ought to have in the country.”

It seemed strange to Ddrya Aleksdndrovna to see him so calm in his righteousness at his own table. She recalled that Levin, who was of the opposite opinions, was just as determined in his own judgments at his table. But she loved Levin, and so was on his side.

“ So we may rely on you, count, at the next session ? ” asked Sviydzhski. “But you will have to start earlier, so as to get there by the 8th. If you did me the honour to visit me ! “

“ But I somewhat agree with your brother-in-law,” said Anna. “ Only not in the same way as he,” she added, with a smile. ” I am afraid that of late there have been too many of these public duties in our country. As formerly there used to be so many officials, that for every case there was a special official, so now there are public men. Aleksyéy has been here these six months, and he is already a member of, I think, five or six different public establishments, — a curator, a judge, a member of the Council, a juryman, an equerry, or something like that. Du train que cela va, the whole time will go on such matters. And I am afraid that with such a multiplicity of affairs, it is mere form. Nikoläy Ivanych, of how many organizations are you a member ? ” she turned to Sviyazhski. ” I believe of more than twenty ? “

Anna was speaking in jest, but in her voice could be heard irritation. Dàrya Aleksandrovna, who carefully watched both Vrdnski and Anna, immediately noticed that. She observed also that Vronski’s face during that conversation immediately assumed a serious and stubborn expression. Considering that, and the fact that Princess Värvara immediately, to change the subject, hastened to talk about St. Petersburg acquaintances, and recalling what Vrdnski had inappropriately said in the garden about his activity, Dolly understood that with this question about public activity was connected a certain intimate quarrel between Anna and Vronski.

The dinner, the wines, the service, all that was very nice, but all that was like what Ddrya Aleksdndrovna had seen at dinners of state and at balls, to which she was no longer used, and had the same character of impersonality and straining ; and so, on a common day and in a small circle, all that produced a disagreeable impression upon her.

After the dinner they sat on the terrace. Then they began to play lawn-tennis. The players, dividing into two parties, took up their positions on a carefully levelled and rolled ” croquet ground,” on either side of a net with gilt posts. Dàrya Aleksandrovna tried to play, but for a long time could not make out the game, and when she did, she was so tired that she sat down beside Princess Värvara and merely looked on. Her partner, Tushkevich, too, gave up the game ; but the rest continued to play for a long time. Sviyézhski and Vrdnski played very well and very seriously. They kept a sharp eye on the ball thrown to them, without undue haste or dallying nimbly ran up to it, waited for the rebound, and, striking the ball with the racket with precision and accuracy, sent it over the net. Vesldvski was playing worse than the rest. He was too excited, but with his merriment he cheered up the players. His laughter and shouts never abated. With the permission of the ladies, he, like the other gentlemen, had taken off his coat, and his large, handsome figure, in the white shirt-sleeves, with his ruddy, perspiring face and his excited motions, made a deep impression.

When Darya Aleksdndrovna that night went to bed and closed her eyes, she saw Väsenka Veslovski flying about the ” croquet ground.”

During the game itself Dérya Aleksandrovna did not feel happy. She did not like the jocular relation between Vàsenka Veslovski and Anna, which lasted all that time, and that general unnaturalness of the adults when they, without children, were playing a childish game. But, not to spoil their fun and in order to pass the time in some way, she, after a rest, again joined the game and pretended to be amused. All that day it appeared to her that she was playing theatre with better actors than she was, and that her poor play was spoiling the whole business.

She had come with the intention of staying two days if she felt happy there. But in the evening, during the game, she decided to leave on the following day. Those painful maternal cares, which she had so loathed on her way up, now, after a day passed without them, appeared to her in a different light and attracted her.

When, after the evening tea and a boat-ride at night, Darya Aleksandrovna returned alone to her room, took off her garments, and began to fix her thin hair for the night, she felt a great relief.

It even displeased her to think that Anna would soon come to her. She wanted to be left alone with her thoughts.

XXIII.

Dolly was on the point of lying down, when Anna in night attire came in.

During the day Anna had several times begun to talk about intimate affairs, and each time, after saying a few words, she had stopped. “ Later, when we shall be alone, we shall talk of it. I have so much to tell you,” she had said.

Now they were alone, and Anna did not know what to talk about. She sat at the window, looking at Dolly and rummaging through her mind for that store of intimate conversations, which had seemed inexhaustible to her, and could not find anything. It seemed to her at that moment that everything had been said.

” Well, how is Kitty ? ” she said, heaving a deep sigh and looking guiltily at Dolly. ” Tell me the truth, Dolly, is she not angry with me ? “

” Angry ? No,” Därya Aleksandrovna said, smiling.

” Does she not hate and despise me ? “

« Oh, no ! But you know such a thing is never forgiven.”

” Yes, yes,” Anna said, turning away and looking through the open window. ” But it was not my fault. Whose fault is it ? And what is the fault ? Could it have been otherwise ? Well, what do you think ? Could it have been that you should not be Stiva’s wife ? “

” Really, I do not know. But tell me — “

“ Yes, yes, but we have not yet finished about Kitty. Is she happy ? They say he is a fine man.”

” It is not enough to say that he is a fine man. I do not know a better.”

“ Oh, how glad I am ! I am very glad ! It is not enough to say that he is a fine man,” she repeated.

Dolly smiled.

“ But tell me about yourself. I have much to talk about with you. I talked with — ” Dolly did not know what to call him. She felt awkward to call him count, or Aleksyéy Kirillovich.

“ With 2kleksyéy,” said Anna. “ I know that you have been talking together. But I wanted to ask you straight out what you think of me, of my life ? ”

” How shall I say it at once ? Really, I do not know.”

” Still, do tell me ! You see my life. But you must not forget that you see us in the summer, when you have arrived and we are not alone — We came here early in the spring and lived here all alone, and shall live alone, and I do not wish for anything better. But, think of it, I live alone, alone, and that will be — I see by everything that that will be frequently repeated, that he will be half the time away from the house,” she said, rising and seating herself nearer to Dolly.

“ Of course,” she interrupted Dolly, who wanted to answer her, ” of course, I will not retain him by force. I am not holding him. There are races to-day, — his horses are racing, and he is going there. I am very glad of it ; but think of me, imagine my situation— What is the use of speaking of it ? ” She smiled. ” So what was it he spoke to you about ? ”

” He talked with me about what I myself wanted to mention to you, and so it is easy for me to be his attorney : I wanted to talk to you about the possibility of ” — Därya Aleksandrovna hesitated — ” improving your situation — You know how I look upon it — But still, if possible, you ought to marry him — ”

” That is the divorce ? ” said Anna. ” Do you know the only woman who came to see me in St. Petersburg was Betsy Tverskdy. You know her, don’t you ? Au fond c’est la femme, la plus depraves qui existe. She had a liaison with Tushkévich, deceiving her husband in the basest manner possible. And she told me that she did not want to know me so long as my life was irregular. Don’t imagine that I am making any comparisons — I know you, my dear. But I accidentally thought of it — Well, so what did he say ? ” she repeated.

“ He said that he was suffering for your sake and for his own. You will, perhaps, say that it is egotism, but it is such legitimate and noble egotism ! In the first place, he wants to legitimize his daughter and be your husband, — to have a right upon you.”

“ What wife can be such a slave as I am in my situation ? ” she interrupted her, gloomily.

“ The main thing which he wants — is — is that you should not suffer.”

” That is impossible ! Well ? ”

“ Well, and the most legitimate desire of his is that your children should have a name.”

” What children ? ” Anna said, without looking at Dolly, and half-closing her eyes.

” He may rest calm on that point, — I will not have

“ Annie and the future ones — ” any more children.”

“ How can you say that there will be none ? ”

” There will be none because I do not want any.”

And, in spite of all her agitation, Anna smiled as she noticed the naïve expression of curiosity, surprise, and

terror on Dolly’s face.

“ My doctor told me after my illness

99

“ Impossible ! ” Dolly said, opening her eyes wide. To her that was one of those discoveries, the results and conclusions from which are so enormous that at the first moment one only feels that it is impossible to grasp it all, but that one will have to think of it ever so much.

This discovery, which suddenly explained to her all those incomprehensible families, in which there were only one or two children, evoked in her so many thoughts, reflections, and contradictory feelings, that she was unable to say anything, and only looked at Anna with eyes wide open. That was precisely what she had been dreaming about, but now that she discovered that it was possible, she was terrified. She felt that it was too simple a solution of too complicated a problem.”

“A’csrf ce pas immoral?” was all she said, after a moment’s silence.

“Why? Remember, I have the choice between two things : either to be pregnant, that is sickly, or to be the friend and companion of my husband, — he is as much as a husband to me,” Anna said purposely in a superficial and light tone of voice.

” Well, yes, yes,” said Darya Aleksandrovna, hearing the same arguments which she had adduced to herself, and no longer seeing in them their former persuasiveness.

“For you, for others,” said Anna, as though divining her thoughts, ” there may be some doubt ; but for me — You must understand that I am not a wife ; he loves me so long as he loves me. Well, how can I keep his love ? By this.”

She extended her white hands in front of her abdomen.

With extraordinary rapidity, as happens in moments of agitation, thoughts and recollections crowded in Darya Aleksandrovna’s head. ” I did not attract Stiva,” she thought, “ he went away from me to others, and that first one, for whom he deceived me, did not keep him by being pretty and cheerful He abandoned her and took up another. And will Anna really attract and keep Vrdnski in that manner? If he is looking for that kind of thing, he will find even more attractive and jolly manners and toilets. And, no matter how white and how beautiful her bared arms may be, how beautiful her full figure and her excited face encased by that black hair, he will find fairer ones, just as my despicable, pitiable, dear husband looks for them and finds them.”

Dolly made no reply and only heaved a sigh. Anna noticed that sigh, which was expressive of disapproval, and continued. She had in store other arguments, such powerful arguments that it would not be possible to gainsay them.

“You say that it is not good. But consider it!” she continued. ” You are forgetting my position. How can I wish for children ? I am not talking about the suffering, — I am not afraid of it. Think who my children will be! Unfortunate children who will bear a stranger’s name. By force of their biith alone will they be placed under the necessity of being ashamed of their mother and father.”

” It is for this that the divorce is necessary.”

But Anna was not listening to her. She wanted to finish all those arguments which she had so frequently employed to persuade herself.

« What is my reason given me for if not to refuse to bring into the world unfortunate beings ? “

She glanced at Dolly, but, without waiting for an answer, continued :

” I should always feel guilty toward those unfortunate children,” she said. ” So long as they do not exist, they are at least not unfortunate, and if they should be it would all be my own fault.”

Those were the very arguments which Ddrya Aleksandrovna had been using to herself ; but now she heard and did not understand them. “ How can one be guilty toward creatures that do not yet exist?” she thought. And suddenly the thought came to her: in what way could her favourite Grisha have been better off if he had never existed ? And that appeared so wild and so strange to her that she kept shaking her head, in order to dispel that tangle of insane thoughts which were circling around in her head.

“ No, I do not know, it is not good,” was all she said, with an expression of loathing in her face.

” Yes, but you must not forget what you are, and what lam — Besides,” added Anna, who, in spite of the wealth of her arguments and the slimness of Dolly’s arguments, seemed to admit that something was wrong, “you must not forget the main thing, which is that I am not now in the same position that you are in. For you there may be a question whether you do not wish to have more children, while for me it is whether I wish to have them. And that is a great difference. You understand that I cannot have such a desire in my condition.”

Darya Aleksandrovna made no reply. She suddenly felt that she was already so far removed from Anna that between them existed questions on which they would never agree, and of which it was best not to talk at all.

XXIV.

” So much the more is it necessary for you to improve your situation, if it is possible to do so,” said Dolly.

” Yes, if it is possible,” 2\nna suddenly said, with an entirely different, calm, and sad voice.

” Is a divorce not possible ? I was told that your husband is willing.”

“ Dolly ! I do not want to talk about that.”

” Well, we sha’n’t,” Därya Aleksandrovna hastened to say, as she noticed an expression of suffering on Anna’s face. “ But I see you look so very gloomy.”

“I ? Not in the least. I am very happy and satisfied. You saw, je fais des passions. Vesldvski — “

” Yes, to tell you the truth, I did not like Vesldvski’s tone,” said Darya Aleksandrovna, wishing to change the subject.

” Oh, that’s nothing ! It tickles Aleksyéy and does no more; but he is a boy and entirely in my hands; you understand, I manage him as I please. He is just like your Grisha — Dolly ! ” she suddenly changed the subject, “you say that I look gloomy. You can’t understand it. It is too terrible. I try not to look at all.”

“ But it seems to me that is necessary. You ought to do everything that can be done.”

” But what can be done ? Nothing. You say I should marry Aleksyéy, and that I am not thinking of it. I am not thinking of it ! ” she repeated, and a colour appeared on her face. She got up, straightened out her chest, heaved a deep sigh, and began to pace up and down the room with her light gait, stopping now and then. ” Do I not think ? Not a day, not an hour passes without my thinking and without my upbraiding myself for what I am thinking — because thinking of it can drive one mad. Drive one mad,” she repeated. ” When I think of it, I cannot fall asleep without the use of morphine. Very well, let us speak calmly of it. They talk about the divorce. In the first place, he will not give it to me. He is now under the influence of Countess Lidiya Ivänovna.”

Darya Aleksandrovna, straightening herself up in the chair and turning her head, watched Anna with an expression of suffering and of compassion on her face, as she continued to walk up and down.

” You must try,” she said, in a soft voice.

” Very well, I try. What does it mean ? ” she said, giving expression to a thought which she had evidently thought more than once and had learned by heart. ” It means that I who hate him, but still acknowledge myself to be guilty toward him, — and I consider him magnanimous, — that I must humble ‘myself to write to him. Suppose, I make an effort, and I write to him. I shall either get an insulting reply or his consent. Very well, I have his consent — ” Anna was at that time in a remote corner of the room, and she stopped there, doing something to the window curtain. “I get his consent, and my so— son ? They will not give him to me. He will grow up, despising me, in the house of his father, whom I have abandoned. You must understand that I love Serézha and Aleksyéy equally well, I think, and either of them more than myself.”

She walked to the middle of the room and stopped in front of Dolly, compressing her breast with her hands. In her white dressing-gown her figure appeared uncommonly large and broad. She bent her head and looked furtively with her sparkling, humid eyes at small, sparse Dolly, who was all a-tremble from agitation, and who looked pitiable in her darned sack and nightcap.

” Only these two beings do I love, and one excludes the other. I cannot combine them, and that is precisely what I need. And if I don’t have that, everything else is a matter of indifference. None of it makes any difference. It will end in some way, and so I am not able, I do not like to speak of it. So do not reproach me, do not judge me at all. You with all your purity cannot understand what I am suffering.”

She walked over to her, seated herself beside her, and, gazing into her face with a guilty expression, took her hand.

“ What do you think ? What do you think of me ? Do not despise me ! I do not deserve to be despised. I am really unhappy. If anybody is unhappy, it is I,” she muttered and, turning away from her, burst out into tears.

“When Dolly was left alone, she said her prayers and went to bed. She had pitied Anna with all her soul, so long as she had been speaking; but now she could not force herself to think of her. The memories of her house and of her children now arose in her imagination with a peculiar, new charm, as it were, surrounded by a new halo. That world of hers suddenly appeared so dear and sweet to her, that she did not wish on any account to pass a day more than was necessary outside of it, and decided that she would by all means leave on the morrow.

In the meantime Anna, having returned to her cabinet, took a wine-glass, poured into it a few drops of a medicine, an important part of which was formed by morphine, and, drinking it and having sat a little while motionless, in a calm and cheerful mood went to her sleeping-room.

When she entered it, Vrdnski scanned her carefully. He wanted to see the traces of the conversation which, he knew, she must have had with Dolly, in whose room she had remained so long. But in her expression, which was excited and yet reserved, and which seemed to be concealing something, he did not find anything but beauty, which, though it was familiar to him, still continued to charm him, and her consciousness and desire to affect him by means of her beauty. He did not want to ask her what they had been talking about, but hoped that she would say something herself. AH she said was :

” I am glad that you are pleased with Dolly. Yes ? ”

” But I have known her for a long time. She is very good, I think, mais excessivement terre-à-terre. Still, I am really glad to see her.”

He took Anna’s hand and looked interrogatively into her eyes.

She, interpreting this glance differently, smiled at him.

On the following morning, Ddrya Aleksandrovna, in spite of the requests of the hosts, got ready to leave. Levin’s coachman, in his old caftan and undriver-like hat, directing the ill-matched horses, in a vehicle with patched wings, gloomily and resolutely drove into the covered, sand-strewn driveway.

The leave-taking from Princess Varvara and the men was distasteful to Darya Aleksandrovna. After her day’s stay, both she and the hosts came to see that they did not fit together well, and that it was better for them to separate. Anna was the only one who felt sad. She knew that now, with Dolly’s departure, no one would stir in her soul the feelings that had arisen during their meeting. It was painful for her to have those feelings evoked ; but she, nevertheless, knew that that was the best part of her soul and that that part of her soul was becoming rapidly weed-grown in the life which she was leading.

On reaching the fields again, Darya Aleksandrovna experienced an agreeable sensation of relief, and she felt like asking the men how they had liked it at Vrdnski’s, when Coachman Filipp suddenly began to speak himself.

« They are rich, oh, so rich, but they gave us only three measures of oats. They had picked them clean by cockcrow. What is three measures ? Just a bite. Nowadays oats are at forty-five kopeks at the innkeeper’s. With us, the horses of the guests get as much as they will eat.”

” A stingy master,” affirmed the clerk.

” Well, and did you like their horses ? ” asked Dolly.

” The horses are great. And the food is fine. But somehow I felt lonely there, Darya Aleksandrovna, — I do not know how it was with you,” he said, turning to her his handsome, kindly face.

” I, too. Well, shall we get back by evening ? “

“We must.”

When she came back home and found everything in excellent condition and particularly charming, she told them with great animation about her journey, about the good reception which she had had, about the luxury and the good taste of the lives of the Vrdnskis, and about their amusements, and did not allow anybody to say a word against them.

” One must know Anna and VnSnski, — I have learned now more than ever about him, — in order to understand how sweet and how touching it all is,” she said, quite sincerely, forgetting entirely the undefinable feeling of dissatisfaction and embarrassment which she had experienced there.

XXV.

Vrônski and Anna passed the whole of the summer and part of the autumn in the country, still continuing under the same conditions and taking no measures whatsoever for securing the divorce. They decided not to go anywhere ; but both of them felt, the longer they remained alone, especially in the fall, when there were no guests, that they would not endure that life, and that it was necessary to change it.

Their life, it seemed, was such that no better could have been wished for : there was an ample sufficiency of everything, there was health, and the child, and both had enough to do. Anna looked after herself as much, even when the guests had left, and busied herself very much with reading, — of novels and of serious books, such as were the fashion. She sent for all books that were praised in the foreign papers and periodicals, which she received, and read them with that attention which one has only in solitude. Besides, all the subjects with which Vrdnski occupied himself she studied from books and special periodicals, so that frequently he turned to her with questions in agronomy, architecture, and even in matters of the stud and of sports. He was amazed at her knowledge and memory, and first, doubting, demanded confirmations ; and she found in the books what he asked her about, and showed the passages to him.

The organization of the hospital, too, interested her. She not only helped along, but even arranged and invented many things herself. But her chief care still remained she herself — herself, in so far as she was dear to Vrdnski and in so far as she could take the place of everything which he had left. Vrdnski appreciated that desire of hers, — now the only aim of her life, — not only to please, but to serve him, but at the same time felt annoyed at the love-nets in which she tried to enmesh him. The more time went on, the more he saw himself caught in those nets, the more he wanted not so much to get out of them as to try whether they did not interfere with his freedom. If it had not been for that ever increasing desire to be free, and for the scenes which they had every time when he had to go to town to attend the sessions or the races, Vrdnski would have been quite contented with his life.

The rôle which he had chosen, the role of a rich landowner, such as the pith of the Russian aristocracy ought to consist of, not only was completely to his liking, but now, after he had lived thus half a year, afforded him an ever growing pleasure. And bis affairs, drawing him in more and more, proceeded excellently. In spite of the great sums which he had expended on the hospitals, the machines, the imported Swiss cows, and many other things, he was convinced that he was not lavishing his fortune, but increasing it. Where he was concerned in returns, in the sale of timber, grain, and wool, in the letting of land, Vronski was as firm as a flint, and knew how to hold his price. In matters of the farming, both in that estate and in his other possessions, he stuck to the simplest, least risky methods, and was in the highest degree saving and calculating in farm details. He did not surrender himself to the cunning and the glibness of the German, who wanted to draw him into purchases and who presented all the calculations in such a light that at first it appeared that more was needed, but who after reflection showed that the same could be done with less money and yet bring immediate returns. He listened to his manager, and asked him for details and agreed with him only when the importations or the new structures were to be something entirely new in Russia, which would call forth admiration. Besides, he agreed to heavy expenditures only when there was a surplus of capital, and, in incurring these expenses, he looked after all the details and insisted on having the best for his money. Thus it was evident, from the manner in which he conducted his affairs, that he was not squandering, but increasing his fortune.

In October were to be held the elections of the gentry in the Government of Käshin, where were located the estates belonging to Vronski, Sviyäzhski, Koznyshév, Obldnski, and a small part of Levin’s farms.

These elections attracted public attention for many other reasons, as well as on account of the persons that were to take part in them. Much was said about them, and great preparations were made for them. Many inhabitants from Moscow, St. Petersburg, and from abroad, who never voted, came to attend these elections.

Vrénski had long ago promised Sviyäzhski that he would be there.

Before the elections, Sviyäzhski, who frequently called at Vozdvizhenskoe, came after Vrdnski.

On the day preceding that departure the proposed journey had almost led to a quarrel between Anna and Vronski. It was the gloomiest part of the fall, which is so oppressive in the country, and so Vronski, preparing himself for the struggle, informed Anna of his intended journey with a stern, cold expression, such as he had never before employed toward her. But, to his surprise, she received that information very calmly, and only asked when he would be back. He looked attentively at her, unable to understand her calm. She smiled at his glance. He knew that ability of hers to recede into herself, and he knew that that happened only when she had decided on something for herself, without communicating her plans to him. He was afraid of that ; but he was so anxious to avoid a scene that he made it appear as though he actually believed — and he partly believed sincerely — in her good sense.

” I hope that you will not be lonely.”

” I hope so,” said Anna. ” I received yesterday a box of books from Gauthier. No, I shall not be lonely.”

” She wants to assume that tone, — so much the better,” he thought, ” for it is always the same.”

And, without having provoked her to a sincere explanation, he went away to the elections. That was the first time since their liaison that he had left her without having had a full explanation with her. On the one hand it disquieted him ; on the other, he found that it was well so. ” At first, as now, there will be something indistinct and concealed, but later she will get used to it. In any case, I can give up everything to her but my manly independence,” he thought.

XXVI.

In September Levin moved to Moscow on account of Kitty’s childbirth. He had already passed a month without any work in Moscow, when Sergyéy Ivanovich, who had an estate in the Government of Kashin, and who took great interest in the forthcoming elections, was getting ready to attend them. He invited his brother to go with him. Levin had a vote in Seleznévski County and, besides, had some important business in the Government of Käshin in matters of the trusteeship of his sister, who was living abroad, and had to receive certain sums for the sale of land.

Levin was still undecided, but Kitty, who saw that he was getting tired of Moscow and advised him to go, without his knowledge ordered the tailor to make for him a uniform of the gentry, costing eighty roubles. And these eighty roubles paid out for the uniform were the chief cause that incited Levin to go. He went to Kashin.

Levin had now been in Kashin six days, attending the assembly each day and looking after his sister’s affair, which it was hard to get settled. All the marshals were busy with the elections, and it was impossible to get anything done in that very simple matter which depended on the trusteeship. The other matter, his receiving the sums, also met with difficulties. After a lot of trouble about removing an injunction, the money was ready to be paid over; but the notary, a most obliging man, could not turn over the receipt, because it demanded the signature of the marshal, and the marshal, who had not laid down his office, was attending the sessions. All this trouble, this walking from one place to another, these conversations with very good, kindly men, who fully comprehended the unpleasant situation of the petitioner, but who were unable to aid him, all that strain, which gave no results, produced in Levin a painful sensation, akin to that provoking helplessness which one experiences in sleep, when one wants to apply force. This he frequently experienced when talking with his good-natured attorney. This attorney, it seemed, was doing his utmost and straining all his mental powers to get Levin out of the difficulty. ” Try this,” he said more than once, ” and go to such and such a place,” and the attorney made a whole plan to obviate the fatal principle which seemed to be in the way of everything ; but he immediately added, ” They will, all the same, delay matters ; still, try it ! ” And Levin tried, walked, drove out. All were good and kind, but it turned out that what had been evaded suddenly grew out at the end and once more barred the way. What was most provoking was that Levin was absolutely unable to understand with whom he was struggling and who was to be the gainer from retarding his affair. Nobody seemed to know that, not even the attorney. If Levin could have understood it as he understood why at the railway it is impossible to get at the ticket-office otherwise than by standing in a row, he would not have felt so annoyed and provoked ; but no one was able to explain to him why the obstacles which he met with in attending to his business existed.

But Levin had changed much since his marriage. He was patient, and if he did not understand why it was all arranged that way, he said to himself that, as he did not know everything, he was unable to pass judgment, and that, in all probability, it had to be that way, and so he tried not to get indignant.

Similarly, while attending the elections and taking part in them, he tried to pass no judgment and not to dispute, but, as much as possible, to comprehend the matter in which the honest and good people whom he respected were engaged with so much seriousness and infatuation. Since his marriage Levin had discovered so many new and serious sides of life, which formerly, on account of his frivolous relation to them, had seemed insignificant to him, that even in the matter of the elections he assumed and tried to find a serious meaning.

Sergyéy Ivanovich explained to him the meaning and significance of the revolution which was contemplated at these elections. The marshal of the Government, in whose hands, according to the law, were so many important public affairs, — the trusteeship (the same from which Levin was suffering just then), and enormous sums of the gentry, and the male, the female, and the military gymnasia, and the popular education in conformity with the new law, and finally the County Council, — Government Marshal Snétkov was a man of the old type of the gentry, who had squandered an enormous fortune, a good man, honest in his way, but one who absolutely failed to understand the requirements of the time. He in everything and always took the part of the gentry, directly counteracted the dissemination of popular education, and gave a class character to the County Council, which was to have such an enormous importance. It became necessary to put in his place a new, contemporary, active man, one who was a modem, and to conduct matters in such a way as to derive all the advantages of self-government, which it was possible to get only out of the privileges granted to the gentry not as such, but as an element of the County Council. In the rich Government of Kashin, which in everything led the other Governments, there had now gathered such forces that if the matter was conducted properly, it might serve as a model for the other Governments, — for the whole of Russia. Consequently, the whole affair was of prime importance. In the place of Snétkov it was proposed to elect Sviyazhski, or, better still, Nevyeddvski, an ex-professor, a remarkably clever man and a great friend of Sergyéy Ivanovich.

The meeting was opened by the governor, who made a speech to the gentry, in which he enjoined them to elect the officers, not through favouritism, but according to their deserts and for the country’s good, and expressed his hope that the Kashin noble gentry would, as in former elections, do their duty and justify the high confidence placed in them by the monarch.

Having finished his speech, the governor left the hall, and the gentry, noisily and with animation, and some of them even with enthusiasm, followed him and surrounded him while he was putting on his fur coat and talking amicably with the Government marshal. Levin, who wanted to get to the bottom of everything and not to lose a thing, was standing in the crowd, and he heard the governor say, ” Please inform Marya Ivanovna that my wife is very sorry, that she is going to the asylum.” And after that the gentry merrily picked out their fur coats, and all went to the cathedral.

In the cathedral Levin, with the rest, raised his hand and repeated the words of the protopope, swearing the most terrible oaths to perform everything which the governor expected them to do. The church service always affected Levin, and when he pronounced the words, ” I kiss the cross,” and looked back at the crowd of those young and old men, who were saying the same, he felt touched.

On the second and the third day they discussed certain sums of the gentry and the female gymnasium, which, as Sergyéy Ivànovich explained, were of no importance, and so Levin, who was busy with his affairs, did not follow them. On the fourth day, the Government sums were audited at the Government table. And here the old and the new party came for the first time into conflict. The commission, which was entrusted with the auditing of the sums, reported to the assembly that the sums were all correct. The Government marshal got up to thank the gentry for the trust placed in him, and tears appeared in his eyes. The gentry received him with loud acclamations and pressed his hand. But just then a nobleman of the party of Sergyéy Ivänovich said that he had heard that the commission had not examined the sums at all, as they regarded such an examination as an insult to the Government marshal. One of the members of the commission carelessly confirmed this statement. Then a small, apparently very young, but exceedingly sarcastic gentleman began to speak, saying that, no doubt, the Government marshal would be pleased to give an account of the sums, and that the superfluous delicacy of the members of the commission was depriving him of that moral satisfaction. Then the members of the commission retracted their statement, and Sergyéy Ivanovich began to prove logically that those sums had to be regarded as either audited by them, or as not audited, and developed that dilemma in detail. Sergyéy Ivanovich was answered by a talker from the opposite party. Then Sviyazhski spoke, and again the sarcastic gentleman. The discussions went on for a long time and ended in nothing. Levin was surprised to hear them debate the matter for so long a time, especially because, when he asked Sergyéy Ivanovich whether he assumed that the sums had been squandered, he replied :

Oh, no ! He is an honest man. But it was necessary to shake up that antiquated, paternal, family management of the affairs of the gentry.”

On the fifth day the elections of the county marshals took place. In Seleznévski County Sviyazhski was elected without balloting by a unanimous vote, and on that day he gave a dinner.

XXVII.

The Government elections were set for the sixth day. The large and small halls were full of the gentry in various uniforms. Many came especially for that day. Acquaintances, who had not seen each other for a long time, from the Crimea, from St. Petersburg, from abroad, met in the halls. Debates were going on at the Government table, beneath the portrait of the emperor.

The gentry grouped themselves in the large and the small halls according to camps, and, from the hostility and suspiciousness of the glances, from the abatement of the conversation at the approach of strangers, from the fact that some, whispering to one another, walked away to distant corridors, it was evident that each side had secrets from the other. It was apparent that the gentry were divided into two classes : into the old and the new. The old wore for the most part old, buttoned gentry uniforms, with swords and hats, or their especial ex-uniforms of the navy, cavalry, or infantry. The uniforms of the old gentry were made in ancient fashion with little puffs on their shoulders ; they were obviously too small, too short at the waist, and tight, as though the persons wearing them had outgrown them. But the young ones wore unbuttoned gentry uniforms with long waists and broad at the shoulders, with white waistcoats, or uniforms with black collars and laurels, — the embroidery of the Ministry of Justice. To the young party belonged also the court uniforms, which adorned the crowd.

But the division into the old and young did not coincide with the division into parties. A few of the young men, according to Levin’s observation, belonged to the old party, and, on the other hand, some of the very oldest noblemen were whispering with Sviyazhski, and evidently were ardent adherents of the new party.

Levin was standing in a small hall, where the men were smoking and lunching, near a group of his own people, listening to what they were saying, and vainly straining all his mental powers in order to understand what was being said. Sergyéy Ivanovich was the centre around which the others grouped themselves. He was now listening to Sviyazhski and to Khlyustov, the marshal of another county, who belonged to their party. Khlyustov did not consent to going with his county to ask Snétkov to offer himself as a candidate, and Sviyazhski persuaded him to do so, and Sergyéy Ivänovich approved that plan. Levin did not understand why the hostile party was to ask the marshal, who was to be outvoted, to offer himself as a candidate.

Stepan Arkddevich, who had just had luncheon and something to drink, was wiping his mouth with a perfumed batiste bordered handkerchief, as he walked over to them in his uniform of a gentleman of the chamber.

“We are occupying a position,” he said, spreading both his side-whiskers, ” Sergyéy Ivanovich ! ”

And, as he listened to the conversation, he assented to Sviyézhski’s view.

« If, as in former elections, all the counties should ask the Government marshal, he would be elected by all the white balls. That ought not to be. Now eight counties have agreed to ask him ; but if two refuse to ask, Snétkov may refuse to be balloted upon. And then the old party may select another of their own, as their calculation will be disturbed. But if only one, Sviyäzhski’s county, will not ask, Snétkov will be balloted upon. He will even be elected, and they will purposely give him a plurality, so that the opposite party will lose their calculation, and when we put up a candidate of our own, they will themselves give him a plurality.”

Levin understood, but not entirely, and was on the point of putting several questions, when suddenly all began to speak, to make a noise, and to move into the large hall.

” What is it ? What? Whom?— Confidence? In whom ? What ? — They deny it ? — Not the confidence. — Flérov is not admitted. What of it if he is under trial?— In that way nobody will be admitted.— That is base ! — The law ! ” was what Levin heard on all sides. He started for the large hall with the rest, who were hurrying to some place and were afraid lest they should lose something, and, pushed by the gentry, he got so far as the Government table, where the Government marshal, Sviyàzhski, and the other bosses were disputing something in a heated manner.

XXVIII.

Levin was standing a distance off. A nobleman near him, who was breathing heavily, with a hoarse sound, and another, the thick soles of whose boots were creaking, made it impossible for him to hear distinctly. He heard from a distance the soft voice of the marshal, then the squeaky voice of the sarcastic gentleman, and finally Sviyâzhski’s voice. They were debating, so far as he could tell, the meaning of the law and the meaning of the words : ” Who is under trial.”

The crowd moved back to make a path for Sergyéy Ivénovich, who was coming up. Waiting for the sarcastic gentleman to finish his speech, Sergyéy Ivanovich said that the safest thing would be to refer to the article of the law, and so he asked the secretary to find it. In that article it said that, in case of disagreement, a vote ought to be taken.

Sergyéy Ivanovich read the article and began to explain the meaning of it ; but just then a tall, fat, stooping landed proprietor, with dyed moustache, wearing a tightly fitting uniform with a collar which stuck into the nape of his neck, interrupted him. He went up to the table and, striking it with his ring, called out in a loud voice :

« Vote ! With ballots ! Don’t talk ! With ballots ! “

Then suddenly a number of voices began to talk, and the tall nobleman with the ring, getting more and more enraged, cried louder and louder. But it was impossible to make out what he was saying.

He repeated what Sergyéy Ivanovich had proposed.

But, apparently, he hated him and his whole party, and this feeling of hatred was communicated to the whole party and called forth the opposition of a similar, though more decent, rage from the other side. There rose noises, and for a minute everything was mixed, so that the Government marshal had to ask them to preserve order.

” Vote, vote ! He who is a nobleman understands — We spill our blood — The confidence of the monarch — Not to count the marshal, he is not a clerk— That is another matter— Please, the ballots! Baseness!” the enraged, unearthly yells were heard on all sides. The glances and faces were even more enraged and unearthly than the talking. They expressed undying hatred. Levin absolutely failed to understand what it was all about, and marvelled at the passion with which the question was debated whether they were to ballot on the opinion about Flérov, or not. He did not know the syllogism, which Sergyéy Ivdnovich explained to him later, that for the common good, the Government marshal had to be deposed ; that for the deposition of the Government marshal, a majority of votes was needed ; that to get a majority of votes Flérov had to get the right to vote ; and that to declare him entitled to a vote, it was necessary to explain the meaning of the law.

” One vote may decide the whole matter, and one has to be serious and consistent if one wants to serve the common good,” concluded Sergyéy Ivdnovich.

But Levin did not know this, and it pained him to see those good men whom he respected in such a disagreeable, malicious temper. To free himself from that oppressive feeling, he, without waiting for the end of the debates, went to a hall where there was nobody but the lackeys at the buffet. On seeing the lackeys busy wiping the dishes and placing the plates and wine-glasses, and seeing their calm, animated faces, Levin experienced an unexpected sensation of relief, as though he had gone from an illsmelling room into the fresh air. He began to walk to and fro, looking in delight at the waiters. It gave him pleasure to watch an old lackeywith gray side-whiskers, who, expressing contempt for the younger ones that were making fun of him, taught them the proper way of folding napkins. Levin was just getting ready to enter into a conversation with the old lackey, when the secretary of the gentry trusteeship, an old man, whose specialty was to know all the gentry of the Government by name and patronymic, distracted his attention.

” If you please, Konstantin Dmitrievich,” he said to him, ” your brother is looking for you. The opinion is being voted upon.”

Levin went into the hall, received a white ball, and, following his brother, Sergyéy Ivanovich, went up to the table, where stood Sviyàzhski, with a significant and ironical face, taking his whole beard into his fist, and smelling at it. Sergyéy Ivanovich put his hand into the box, put in his ball, and stepped aside, to give place to Levin. Levin came up, but, forgetting entirely what it was all about, and becoming embarrassed, he turned to Sergyéy Ivanovich with the question where he should put it. He asked it in a soft voice, just as they were talking near him, hoping that his question would not be heard. But those who spoke grew silent, and his improper question was heard. Sergyéy Ivanovich frowned.

” That is a matter of personal conviction,” he said, sternly.

A few men smiled. Levin blushed, hurriedly stuck his hand under the cloth and put the ball on the right, as it happened to be in his right hand. After putting it in, he recalled that he ought to have stuck his left hand in also, and so he did, but it was too late, and, getting even more confused, he hurried away to the last rows.

” One hundred and six for and ninety-eight against ! ” resounded the voice of the secretary, who did not pronounce his r’s. Then laughter was heard : in the box a button and two nuts had been found. The nobleman was admitted, and the new party was victorious.

But the old party did not consider itself vanquished. Levin heard them ask Snétkov to be a candidate, and he saw a crowd of the gentry J surrounding the Government marshal, who was saying something. Levin walked up to them. In reply to the gentry, Snétkov spoke of the confidence of the gentry, of their love for him, of which he was not worthy, because his deserts consisted merely in his devotion to the gentry, to whom he had given twelve years of service. He several times repeated the words, ” I served to the best of my ability, in faith and truth, I appreciate and thank you,” and suddenly stopped on account of the tears that choked him, and left the hall. Whether these words were due to the consciousness of their injustice toward him, or to his love of the gentry, or to the strained situation in which he now was, being surrounded by enemies,— the agitation was communicated to the crowd, the majority of the gentry felt touched, and Levin was overcome with a tender feeling for Snétkov.

At the door, the Government marshal stumbled against Levin.

” I beg your pardon, excuse me,” he said, as though to a stranger ; but, upon recognizing Levin, he smiled timidly. It seemed to Levin that he wanted to say something, but was unable to do so from agitation. The expression of his face and whole figure, in his uniform, crosses, and white gallooned trousers, as he was walking rapidly, reminded Levin of a baited beast which sees that things are in a bad shape. This expression on the face of the marshal appeared exceedingly touching to Levin, because he had been at his house only the night before, in matters of the trusteeship, and had seen him there in all the grandeur of a good man who is the head of a family. The large house with the old family furniture; the unfoppish, slightly dirty, but respectful old lackeys, evidently old serfs who had not yet changed masters ; the fat, good-natured wife in laced cap and Turkish shawl, who was caressing her grandchild, her daughter’s daughter ; his son, a gymnasiast of the sixth form, who had arrived from the gymnasium and, greeting his father, kissed his large hand ; the impressive, kindly remarks and gestures of the host, — all that had on the previous evening evoked in Levin involuntary respect and sympathy. Levin now felt for, and pitied, that old man, and he wanted to say something agreeable to him.

” So you are again our marshal,” he said.

” Hardly,” the marshal replied, looking around in fright. ” I am tired — I am old. There are those who are younger and worthier than I : let them serve ! “

And the marshal disappeared through a side door.

The most solemn moment arrived. They were about to begin voting. The bosses of either party counted the white and black balls on their fingers.

The debates about Flérov gave the new party not only the one vote of Flérov’s, but also a gain of time, so that they could send for three noblemen who, by the ruses of the old party, had been deprived of the possibility of attending the elections. Two of the noblemen, who had a weakness for wine, had been filled up by Snétkov’s henchmen, and from the third they had carried off his uniform.

When the new party heard of it, they managed, during the debate about Flérov, to send their men in a cab, in order to find a uniform for the one, and to fetch one of the drunken men to the assembly.

” I brought one, I sobered him up by pouring water over him,” the landed proprietor, who had brought him, said to Sviyazhski. ” He is fit enough.”

” Is he not too drunk,— won’t he fall down?” said Sviyazhski, shaking his head.

“No, he walks about like a good fellow. If only they will not fill him up here — I told the butler under no condition to give him anything.”

XXIX.

The narrow hall in which they smoked and ate was full of the gentry. The agitation kept growing, and unrest was to be seen on all the faces. Most excited were the bosses, who knew all the details and the count of all the balls. They were the managers of the present battle. The rest, like the rank and file before a battle, were indeed preparing for the fray, but in the meantime looked for diversion. They ate lunches standing, or sitting at the table ; others smoked cigarettes and walked up and down the long room and talked with friends whom they had not seen for a long time.

Levin did not feel like eating, and he did not smoke ; he did not wish to be with his own people, that is, with Sergyéy Ivanovich, Stepän Arkädevich, Sviyäzhski, and others, because they were engaged in an animated conversation with Vrdnski, who wore his equerry’s uniform. Levin had seen him at the elections the day before, and had carefully avoided him, as he did not want to meet him. He went up to a window and sat down to watch the groups and to listen to what was being said all around him. He felt sad, especially because everybody, as he saw, was animated, anxious, and busy, and only he and an old, old toothless man in a navy uniform, with mumbling lips, who was sitting near him, had no interest and no business.

” He is such a rascal ! I told him so, but no. Of course ! He could not collect it in three years,” said energetically a stooping, undersized landed proprietor with pomatum-dressed hair which lay over the embroidered collar of his uniform, clattering with the heels of his new boots, which he had evidently put on for the elections. And the proprietor, casting a dissatisfied glance at Levin, turned around sharply.

” Yes, it is not a clean job, I must say,” muttered a low-statured proprietor in a thin voice.

After these, a whole crowd of proprietors, who had been surrounding a fat general, hurriedly moved up toward Levin. They were evidently looking for a spot where they might talk over matters undisturbed.

” How dare he say that I stole his pants ! He has, no doubt, spent them in drinks. Damn him with his princely title! He dare not open his mouth, — that is nasty ! “

” Lut, please ! They fall back on the article of the law,” they were saying in another group, ” the wife has to be inscribed as belonging to the gentry.”

” The devil I care for that article ! I am telling the truth. That’s what we are the noble gentry for ! Have faith ! “

” Your Excellency, let us go ‘ Fine champagne — ”

” I have always advised Mdrya Seménovna to let the estate, because she will not recover the expenses,” said, in a pleasant voice, a proprietor with a gray moustache wearing a colonel’s uniform of an old general-staff. It was the same proprietor whom Levin had met at Sviyazhski’s. He immediately recognized him. The proprietor, too, cast a glance at him, and they exchanged greetings.

” Very glad to see you. Of course, I remember very well. Last year, at the house of Nikolay Ivänovich, the marshal.”

” Well, and how does your farm go ? ” asked Levin.

” At a loss, as ever,” replied the proprietor, with an humble smile, but with an expression of calm and conviction that it had to be so. He stopped near Levin. ” How (lid you get into our Government ? ” he asked. “ Did you come to take part in our coup d’etat ? ” He spoke with firmness, but pronounced the French words badly. ” The whole of Russia has congregated here : there are gentlemen of the chamber and almost ministers.” He pointed to the representative figure of Stepdn Arkadevich, who, in lus white pantaloons and uniform of a gentleman of the chamber, was walking with a general.

” I must confess to you that I understand very little of the meaning of the elections of the gentry,” said Levin.

The proprietor glanced at him.

” What is there to understand ? There is no meaning. It is a fallen institution which continues its motion only by force of inertia. See, even the uniforms tell you : this is a gathering of justices of the peace, of life members, and so forth, and not of the gentry.”

” Why, then, do you attend it ? ” asked Levin.

” From habit, that’s all. Then, it is necessary to keep up connections. To a certain extent, a moral obligation. And, then, to tell the truth, I have some interests of my own. My brother-in-law wants to be voted in as a life member ; he is not a wealthy man, and I have to see him through it. Why do these gentlemen attend it ? ” he said, pointing to the sarcastic gentleman, who was talking at the Government table.

” That is the new generation of the gentry.”

« Newr it is ; but not the gentry. They are landowners, and we are proprietors. As the gentry, they are laying hands upon themselves.”

” But you say yourself that it is an obsolete institution.”

” Obsolete it is, to be sure, still, it would not do any hurt to treat it with more respect. Take, for example, Snétkov — Whether we are good, or not, we have been growing for a thousand years. You know, it is as though you had to lay out a garden in front of your house, to level up, and in that place were growing a century old tree, — it may be all twisted and old, but you will not cut it down for the sake of the flower-beds, but will so lay out the beds as to make use of the tree. You can’t grow it in a year,” he said, cautiously, and immediately changed his subject. “Well, and how does your farm go?”

“ Not well. About five per cent.”

“ Yes, but you do not count yourself in. You are yourself worth something. I will tell you about myself. So long as I did not farm, I received three thousand in the service. Now I work more than in the service, and like you get five per cent., God willing. But my own labours go for nothing.”

“ Why, then, do you do it ? If there is a direct loss ? ”

“ I just do it ! What do you wish ? It is habit, and you know that it has to be. I will tell you more,” continued the proprietor, leaning against the window, and becoming talkative. ” My son has no liking for the farm. He will evidently be a scholar. So there will be nobody to carry it on, and still I do it. This year I have set out an orchard.”

” Yes, yes,” said Levin, ” that is quite true. I always feel that there is no real profit in my farming, and yet I work— I feel, as it were, a certain duty toward the land.”

” Let me tell you,” continued the proprietor, ” a neighbour of mine, a merchant, came to see me. We took a walk over the estate and through the garden. ‘Yes,’ says he, ‘ Stepan Vasilevich, everything is in order here, but your garden is neglected.’ But I had it in order. ‘ In my opinion these lindens ought to be cut down, and that must be done when they are in the sap : there are a thousand of them, and each will make two good bark pieces. Bark is high now, and you could get a lot of linden timber.’ ”

“ And for that money he would buy cattle or he would buy land for a mere nothing, and would let it out to the peasants,” Levin finished, with a smile, having apparently himself more than once come across such calculations. “And he will make himself a fortune ; but you and I will be thankful to God if we can keep what we have and leave it to our children.”

“ I heard you were married,” said the proprietor.

” Yes,” Levin replied, with proud pleasure. ” Yes, it is rather strange,” he continued. ” So we live without any profit, as though we were ordered, like the Vestals of old, to watch a certain fire.”

The proprietor smiled under his white moustache.

” There are some among us, — take our friend Nikoläy Ivanovich, or Count Vrdnski, who has settled among us, — who want to introduce an agronomic industry; but that will nowadays lead to nothing, except wasting capital.”

” But why do we not do like the merchants ? Why do we not cut down our gardens for the sake of the bark ? ” said Levin, returning to the thought which had startled him.

” Why, as you said, to watch the fire. But that is not an affair for the gentry. The work of the gentry is not done here, at the elections, but there, in our nooks. We have our class instinct, which tells us what we may do and what not. Even the peasants, as I look at them now and then, do so : a good peasant will try to get hold of as much land as he can. Let the land be ever so poor, he ploughs it. There is no profit in it, either. It’s all a loss.”

” Even so we do,” said Levin. ” Very, very glad to have met you,” he added, observing Sviyäzhski, who was coming up toward him.

“ We have just met for the first time since we became acquainted at your house,” said the proprietor, ” and we have had a chat together.”

“Well, have you been condemning the new order?” Sviyäzhski asked, with a smile.

« Naturally we have.”

« We have eased our consciences.”

XXX.

SviYÂznsKI took Levin’s arm, and went with him toward their friends.

Now it was impossible to avoid Vronski. He was standing with Stepän Arkadevich and Sergyéy Ivänovich, and looking straight at Levin as he approached.

” Very glad to see you. I think I had the pleasure of meeting you — at the house of Princess Shcherbatski,” he said, giving Levin his hand.

” Yes, I remember our meeting very well,” said Levin ; and, blushing purple, he at once turned aside and began to talk with his brother.

Smiling slightly, Vronski continued to talk with Sviyäzhski, apparently having no desire to enter into a conversation with Levin ; but Levin, while speaking with his brother, kept looking around at Vronski, wondering what to say in order to make him forget his rudeness.

” What is it now ? ” asked Levin, looking at Sviydzhski and at Vronski.

” All about Snétkov. He has either to decline or accept,” replied Sviyazhski.

” Has he accepted, or not ? “

” The trouble is that he has done neither the one, nor the other,” said Vronski.

” If he declines it, who will be the candidate ? ” asked Levin, looking at Vrdnski.

” Wlioever wants it,” said Sviydzhski.

” Will you ? ” asked Levin.

” Anybody but I,” said Sviyazhski, in embarrassment, and casting a frightened glance upon the sarcastic gentleman, who was standing near with Sergyéy Ivanovich.

“Who, then? Nevyeddvski ?” asked Levin, feeling that he was mixed up.

But that was worse still. Nevyedovski and Sviyazhski were the two candidates.

” I under no condition,” replied the sarcastic gentleman.

That was Nevyedovski himself. Sviyazhski introduced him to Levin.

” What, are you getting excited, too ? ” asked Stepan Arkadevich, winking to Vronski. ” It is something like the races. One can bet on it.”

” Yes, that excites one,” said Vrénski. ” And, having once taken up the matter, one feels like earning it out. It is a struggle!” he said, frowning, and pressing his jaws together.

“What a business man Sviyazhski is! Everything is so clear with him.”

” Oh, yes,” Vronski replied, absently.

There ensued a silence, during which time Vronski — since it was necessary to look at something — glanced at Levin, at his feet, at his uniform, then at his face, and, upon noticing his gloomy eyes directed at him, he remarked, in order to say something :

” How is it that you, who are a constant dweller in the country, are not a justice of the peace? You are not wearing the uniform of a justice of the peace.”

” Because I consider the office of the justice of the peace as a stupid institution,” gloomily replied Levin, who had all the time been waiting for a chance to talk with Vronski, in order to smooth over his rudeness when first they met.

” I do not think so ; on the contrary,” said Vronski, in calm surprise.

” It is a toy,” Levin interrupted him. ” We need no justices of the peace. In eight years I have not had a single case. Yes, there was something, but it was decided topsyturvy. We have a justice of the peace within forty miles of me. In a case which is worth two roubles I have to send an attorney, who costs me fifteen.”

And he told Vronski how a peasant had stolen some flour of the miller and how he had sued the miller for slander, when he had told Levin about it. All that was irrelevant and stupid, and Levin himself felt it.

” Oh, he is such an original ! ” said Stepàn Arkàdevich, with his sweetest almond smile. ” However, let us go ! I think they are voting.”

And they scattered.

” I cannot understand,” said Sergyéy Ivanovich, who had noticed his brother’s awkward sally, ” I cannot understand how one can be so entirely devoid of political tact. That is what we Russians do not have. The Government marshal is our adversary, and you are with him ami cochon and ask him to be a candidate. And Count Vrdnski — I will not make a friend of him ; he invited me to dinner, — I will not call on him, but he is on our side, so why make an enemy of him ? Then you ask Nevyeddvski whether he will be a candidate. That is not proper.”

” Oh, I do not understand a thing ! All that is nonsense,” Levin replied, dejectedly.

“You say it is all nonsense, but when you busy yourself with it you get all mixed up.”

Levin grew silent, and both entered the large hall

The Government marshal, in spite of seeing that there was treason in the air and that not all asked him to be a candidate, nevertheless decided to offer himself to be voted on. Everything in the hall died down ; the secretary proclaimed in stentorian voice that Captain of the Horse Guards Mikhail Stepanovich Snétkov was to be voted on.

The county marshals walked with the plates, in which were the balls, from their own tables to the Government table, and the elections began.

“ Put it on the right,” Stepän Arkàdevich whispered to Levin as he went with his brother back of the marshal to the table. But Levin now forgot the calculation, as it had been explained to him, and was afraid that Stepan Arkàdevich might have made a mistake when he said, ” On the right ! ” Snétkov was an adversary, he thought. As he walked over to the box, he was holding the ball in his right hand, but, thinking that he had made a mistake, he in front of it transferred the ball to his left hand and apparently deposited it on the left. An expert, who was standing near the box, and who could tell by the mere motion of the elbow where a ball would be deposited, involuntarily frowned. He had nothing to practise his perspicacity on.

Everything was hushed, and only the counting of the balls could be heard. Then a single voice announced the number of ayes and noes.

The marshal was elected by a considerable plurality. All became noisy and rushed headlong toward the door. Snétkov entered, and the gentry surrounded him, in order to congratulate him.

” Well, is it all over now ? ” Levin asked Sergyéy Ivànovich.

” It is only beginning,” Sviyàzhski smilingly said for Sergyéy Ivànovich. ” The candidate for marshal may get a larger number of balls.”

Levin had again forgotten all about it. All he remembered was that there was some kind of a fine point in it, but he was too tired to think what it was. He began to feel a pining and wanted to get out of the crowd.

As nobody paid any attention to him, and he, it seemed, was not wanted by anybody, he slowly directed his steps to the small room, where refreshments were served, and again felt relief when he saw the lackeys. The old lackey offered him something to eat, and Levin accepted it. After eating a cutlet with string beans and talking with the lackey about former masters, Levin, who did uot wish to return to the hall, where he felt ill at ease, went up to the gallery, to take a stroll there.

The galleries were full of dressed-up ladies who were bending over the balustrade and trying not to lose a single word of what was being said below. Near the ladies stood and sat elegant lawyers, teachers of the gymnasium in glasses, and officers. Everywhere they talked about the elections, and about how the marshal was worn out, and about bow fine the debates were; in one group Levin heard his brother praised. A lady was saying to a lawyer :

” How glad I am to have heard Koznyshdv ! It is worth while going without a meal ! Superb ! How clearly and distinctly he talks ! In your court nobody talks that way. Mâydel is the only one, but he is far from being as eloquent.”

Having found an unoccupied place at the balustrade, Levin bent over it and began to look and to listen.

All the gentry were sitting behind small partitions, in their respective counties. In the middle of the hall stood a man in a uniform, and he proclaimed in a loud voice :

” Staff-Captain Evgéni Ivanovich Apukhtin is to be voted on as a candidate for Government marshal of nobility ! “

There ensued a dead silence, and there was heard a feeble, old man’s voice :

“ Declines! “

” Councillor of Court Teter Petrdvich Bol to be voted on,” the voice began once more.

” Declines ! ” was heard a youthful, squeaky voice.

Again the same, and again, ” Declines.” Thus it lasted for about an hour. Levin, leaning against the balustrade, was looking on and listening. At first he was surprised and wanted to understand what it all meant ; later, when he made up his mind that he could not grasp it, he began to feel tired. Then, recalling all the agitation and malice which he had seen on all the faces, he began to feel sad : he decided to leave, and so went down-stairs. As he walked through the vestibule of the gallery, he met a gloomy gymnasiast with bloodshot eyes, who was walking to and fro. On the staircase he met two persons, a lady, who was running rapidly on her heels, and a light-footed associate prosecuting attorney.

” I told you that you would not be too late,” said the prosecuting attorney, just as Levin stepped aside to let the lady pass.

Levin was already on the staircase which led out to the street, and was taking the check for his fur coat out of his vest pocket, when the secretary caught him.

” Please, Konstantin Dmitrievich, they are voting.”

The candidate who was now up was Nevyeddvski, who had so definitely declined before.

Levin went to the door of the hall: it was locked. The secretary knocked at it; the door was opened, and two flushed landed proprietors darted toward Levin.

” It is more than I can stand,” said one of the flushed proprietors.

After the proprietor dashed the Government marshal. His face was terrible from fright and exhaustion.

” I told you not to let anybody out ! ” he shouted to the doorkeeper.

“ I was letting somebody in, your Excellency ! ”

” 0 Lord! ” and, heaving a deep sigh, the Government marshal, shambling past in his white pantaloons, and lowering his head, went into the middle of the room and up to the large table.

Nevyeddvski received a majority, as had been expected, and he was the Government marshal. Many were merry, many were satisfied and happy, many delighted, and many dissatisfied and unhappy. The Government marshal was in despair, which he was unable to conceal. When Nevye—

dévski left the hall, a crowd surrounded him and followed him with expressions of ecstasy, just as on the first day it had followed the governor, who had opened the elections, and just as it had followed Snétkov, when he was elected.

XXXI.

The newly elected marshal and many of the triumphant party of the new men that day dined with Vronski.

Vrénski had arrived at the elections because he had felt lonely in the country and wanted to assert his liberty before Anna, and in order to repay Sviydzhski by supporting him at the elections for all the trouble he had taken for Vrénski at the elections of the County Council, and, most of all, in order to perform strictly all the duties of his position as a landowner and nobleman, which he had chosen for himself. He had not at all expected that this matter of the elections would interest him so much, would so absorb his attention, and that he would be able to do the work so well. He was an entirely new man in the circle of the gentry, but apparently had success and was not mistaken in supposing that he had already gained influence among the gentry. What aided him to exercise that influence were his wealth and nobility, his excellent quarters in the city, which had been turned over to him by an old acquaintance of his, Shfrkov, who attended to some financial matters and had established a flourishing bank at Kashin ; Vronski’s excellent cook, whom he had brought with him from the country ; his friendship with the governor, who was a comrade and a protégé of his ; but most of all his simple, equable relations with everybody, which soon compelled the majority of the gentry to change their opinion about his supposed haughtiness. He felt himself that outside of that mad gentleman, who had married Kitty Shcherbatski and who à propos de bottes

had with insane malice told him a mass of irrelevant nonsense, every member of the gentry with whom he became acquainted became his advocate. He saw clearly that others acknowledged the fact and that he had done very much for Nevyedbvski’s success. And now, at his table, while celebrating Nevyedbvski’s election, he experienced the pleasant sensation of triumph for his chosen man. The elections themselves fascinated him so much that he decided in three years, after he should be married, to allow himself to be voted on, — just as, after winning a prize through his jockey, he had had a desire to race himself.

Now was being celebrated the prize of the jockey. Vrbnski was sitting at the head of the table ; on his right sat the young governor, a general of the suite. For everybody else he was the host of the Government, who had solemnly opened the elections and who had made a speech and had evoked respect and awe in many persons, as Vronski had observed ; for Vronski he was Méslov Kätka, — that had been his nickname in the Corps of Pages, — who felt embarrassed in his presence, and whom Vrbnski wanted to mettre à son aise. On his left sat Nevyedbvski with his youthful, imperturbable, sarcastic face. With him Vrbnski was simple and considerate.

Sviyäzhski accepted his defeat merrily. It was not even a defeat for him, for he himself said, turning with a glass to Nevyedbvski, that it was impossible to find a better representative of the new direction, which the gentry ought to follow. And so, everything that was honest, as he said, stood on the side of the success of the day and triumphed for him.

Stepan Arkadevich, too, was happy because he was having a jolly time and because everybody was satisfied. Sviyäzhski comically repeated the tearful speech of the marshal, and observed, turning to Nevyedbvski, that his Excellency would have to choose another, a more complicated auditing of the sums than tears. Another droll nobleman said that lackeys in stockings had been sent for to serve at the Government’s marshal, and that now they would have to be sent back if the new Government marshal did not give a ball with lackeys in stockings.

Turning to Nevyedbvski, everybody at the dinner addressed him as ” Our Government Marshal” and “Your Excellency.”

That was said with the same pleasure with which a young woman is addressed as “ Madame ” and by her husband’s name. Nevyedbvski acted as though he were indifferent, and even despised being called so, but it was evident that he was happy and only held himself in check in order not to give expression to his delight, which did not comport with that new, liberal milieu, in which he happened to be.

At dinner several telegrams were written to people who were interested in the progress of the elections. And Stepan Arkadevich, who was in an exceedingly happy frame of mind, sent to Darya Aleksandrovna a telegram of the following contents : ” Nevyedbvski elected by twenty balls. Congratulate. Inform them.” He dictated it in a loud voice, remarking, ” I must give them the pleasure.” But Darya Aleksandrovna, on receiving the telegram, only sighed for the rouble which he had spent on it, and at once understood that that had happened toward the close of the dinner. She knew that Stiva had the weakness at the end of dinners to “faire jouer le télégraphe.”

Everything, together with the superb dinner and the wines, not from Russian wine-cellars, but of foreign bottling, was exceedingly noble, simple, and jolly. The circle of twenty men had been selected by Sviyäzhski from among the liberal, new partisans, and were, at the same time, clever and decent men. Toasts were drunk — these, too, were semi-jocular — for the new Government marshal, and for the governor, and for the director of the bank, and for ” our charming host.”

Vrdnski was satisfied. He had not at all expected such an agreeable tone in the province.

At the end of the dinner it grew jollier still. The governor asked Vrdnski to attend the concert which his wife, who wished to make his acquaintance, had arranged for the benefit of the ” brotherhood.”

” There will be a ball there, and you will see our beauty. Really, she is remarkable.”

“Not in my line,” replied Vrdnski, who was fond of that English expression ; but he smiled and promised to be there.

Just before leaving the table, when all began to smoke, Vrdnski’s valet walked over to him with a letter on a tray.

” From Vozdvizhenskoe, by courier,” he said, with a significant expression.

“ He remarkably resembles Associate Prosecuting Attorney Sven titski,” one of the guests said in French about the valet, while Vronski, frowning, was reading the letter.

The letter was from Anna. Even before reading it he knew its contents. Having assumed that the elections would be over in five days, he had promised to be back on Friday. Now it was Saturday, and he knew that the letter would contain reproaches for not having come back on time. The letter which he had sent her the night before had apparently not yet reached her.

The contents of the letter were precisely what he had expected them to be, but the form was unexpected and especially disagreeable to him : ” Annie is very ill. The doctor says that it may be inflammation. I, being alone, am losing my head. Princess Varvara is not a help, but a hindrance. I expected you back two days ago and yesterday, and now I send to find out where you are and what you are doing. I wanted to go myself, but changed my mind, knowing that that would displease you. Send some kind of an answer that I may know what to do.”

The child was ill, and she wanted to leave. The daughter was ill, and that hostile tone !

This innocent merriment of the elections, and that gloomy, oppressive love, to which Vrdnski had to return, struck him by their contrast. But it was necessary to go, and so he left for home that very night, by the first train.

XXXII.

Before Vronski’s departure for the elections, Anna reflected that those scenes which were repeated every time when he went away could only cool him off, instead of attaching him to her, and decided to make every effort over herself in order to bear the separation from him calmly. But that cold, stern glance, which he cast upon her when he came to inform her of his departure, offended her, and he had hardly left when all her calm was annihilated.

When she later, in her solitude, thought about that glance, with which he expressed his right to freedom, she arrived, as always, at the consciousness of her humiliation. ” He has a right to leave when and where he pleases, — and not only to depart, but also to leave me. He has all the rights, and I have none. But, knowing this, he ought not to have done it. But what was it that he did ? He looked at me with a cold, stern expression. Of course, it is indefinable, intangible, but that did not happen before, and that look means a great deal,” she thought. ” That look proves that he is beginning to cool off.”

And although she was convinced that the alienation was beginning, she could do nothing, — could in no way change her relations to him. Just as formerly, she could retain him only by her love and attractiveness. And, again as formerly, by occupations in the daytime and morphine at night, could she drown those terrible thoughts of what would happen if he ceased loving her. It is true, there was one means, and that was, not to retain him, — for that she wanted nothing but his love, — but to get closer to him, to be in such a condition that he should not abandon her. That means was the divorce and marriage. And she began to wish for it, and she decided that she would consent to it the first time he or Stfva talked of it.

In such thoughts she passed without him five days, those during which he was to have been away from her.

Walks, conversations with Princess Varvara, visits to the patients, and chiefly reading, the reading of one book after another, occupied all her time. But on the sixth day, when the coachman returned without him, she felt that she was in no way able to suppress her thoughts of him and of what he was doing there. Just then her daughter grew ill. Anna began to tend on her, but even that did not divert her attention, the more so since the sickness was not dangerous. No matter how much she tried, she could not love the girl, and she was unable to feign love. On the evening of that day, when she was left alone, she experienced such terror on his account that she decided to journey to the city, but, upon reflecting carefully, wrote that contradictory letter which Vronski had received, and, without re-reading it, sent it by a special messenger. On the next morning she received his letter, and regretted her own. She waited in dread for the repetition of that stern glance which he had cast upon her at the leave-taking, — especially when he should hear that the girl was not dangerously ill. Still, she was glad that she had written to him. Anna now acknowledged to herself that he was getting tired of her, that he regretfully gave up his freedom, in order to return to her, and yet she was glad that he would come. Let him be vexed, but he would be with her, and she would see him and would know every motion of his.

She was sitting in the drawingroom, beneath a lamp, with Taine’s new book, and reading, listening to the sounds of the wind outside, and waiting at any moment for the arrival of the carriage. Several times it seemed to her that she heard the sound of wheels, but she was mistaken ; finally, not only the sound of wheels was heard, but also the call of the coachman and a dull sound in the covered driveway. Even Princess Värvara, who was playing a solitaire, confirmed it, and Anna, blushing, rose, but, instead of going down-stairs, as she had done twice before, she stopped. She suddenly felt ashamed of her deception, and still more terrified about receiving him. The feeling of offence had already passed ; she was only afraid of the expression of his dissatisfaction. She recalled that her daughter had not been ill for two days. She was even annoyed at her for having become well just as she had sent that letter. Then she recalled that he was there, all of him, with his hands, his eyes. She heard his voice. And, forgetting every thing, she ran away to meet him.

” How is Annie ? ” he timidly asked from down-stairs, looking at Anna, who was running toward him.

He was sitting on a chair, and the lackey was pulling off his warm boot.

“ All right, she is better.”

“ And you ? ” he said, shaking himself.

She took his hand into both of hers and drew him up to her bosom, without taking her eyes off him.

“ Well, I am very glad,” he said, coldly examining her, her coiffure, her attire, which he knew she had put on for his sake.

All that pleased him, but it had pleased him so often ! And that stern, stone-like expression, of which she had been so afraid, was arrested on his face.

“ Well, I am very glad. And you, are you well ? ” he said, wiping his wet beard with his handkerchief, and kissing her hand.

” It makes no difference,” she thought, ” so long as he is here, and if he is here he cannot help but love me, he dare not do otherwise.”

The evening passed happily and cheerfully in the presence of Princess Varvara, who complained to him that Anna in his absence had been taking morphine.

” What could I do ? I was unable to sleep — My thoughts would not let me. When he is here I never take it, — hardly ever.”

He told about the elections, and Anna knew how to draw him out with her questions to tell about what gave him pleasure, about his success. She told him everything which interested him at home. And all her news was very cheering.

But late in the evening, when they were left alone, Anna, seeing that she had taken full possession of him, wanted to’wipe out the heavy impression produced by the letter. She said :

” Confess : you were sorry to get my letter, and you did not believe me ! ”

The moment she had said it, she understood that, no matter how lovingly inclined he was toward her, he had not forgiven her that.

“Yes,” he said. “Your letter was so strange. Annie was sick, and you wanted to come to me.”

” That was all true.”

” I do not doubt it.”

“ Yes, you do. I see you are dissatisfied.”

“Not for a moment. I am dissatisfied, it is true, because you will not acknowledge, it seems, that there are duties — ”

“ Duties to attend a concert — “

“ But let us not speak of it ! ” he said.

“ Why not speak of it ? ”

” All I want to say is, that there may be unavoidable business. For example, I shall have to go to Moscow on account of the house — Oh, Anna, why are you so irritable ? Do you not know that I cannot live without you ? “

” Ik 80,” Anna said, in a suddenly altered voice, ” you are getting tired of this life — Yes, you will come for a day and you will leave, just as men do — “

“Anna, that is cruel. I am prepared to give all my life — “

Dut she was not listening to him.

“ If you go to Moscow, I will, too. I will not stay here. Either we separate, or we live together.”

” You know that that is my sole desire. But for that — “

” We need a divorce ? I will write to him. I see I cannot live this way— But I will go with you to Moscow.”

” You act as though you threatened me. There is nothing I wish so much as never to be separated from you,” Vronski said, with a smile.

And not only a cold glance, but even an evil glance of a persecuted and enraged man sparkled in his eyes, as he said those words.

She saw that glance and correctly interpreted its meaning.

” If so, it is a misfortune ! ” that glance said. It was a momentary impression, but she never forgot it.

Anna wrote a letter to her husband, asking for a divorce, and toward the end of November, parting from Princess Varvara, who had to go to St. Petersburg, moved with Vrdnski to Moscow. Waiting each day for an answer from Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich, and for the ensuing divorce, they now settled together like a married couple.

PART THE SEVENTH

I.

It was now the third month that the Levins had been staying in Moscow. The time had long ago passed when, according to the most definite calculations of the people who knew something about these matters, Kitty was to have borne a child; but she was still carrying it, and there was no indication that the time was nearer now than it had been two months earlier. The doctor, and the midwife, and Dolly, and the mother, and especially Levin, who could not think of the approaching event “without terror, began to experience impatience and unrest ; Kitty was the only one who felt completely at ease and happy.

She was now clearly conscious of the germination of a new feeling of love for the future, for her already present, child, and with joy listened to that feeling. The child was no longer entirely a part of her, but occasionally lived its own, independent life. Frequently that pained her, but, at the same time, she felt like laughing at the strange, new joy.

All those whom she loved were with her, and all were so good to her and tended on her so carefully, and only the agreeable sides of everything so constantly presented themselves to her, that, if she did not know and did not feel that it must soon come to an end, she would not have wished for a better and pleasanter life. The one thing that spoiled the charm of that life was that her husband was not such as she had loved him and as he had been in the country.

She had loved his calm, gentle, hospitable tone in the country. In the city, on the contrary, he seemed to be restless and on his guard, as though he were afraid that some one might offend him or, what was worse, her. There, in the country, he knew that he was in his place and so was in no hurry and was never without some occupation. Here, in the city, he was always in a hurry, as though afraid that he might miss something, and yet he had nothing to do. And so she was sorry for him. To others, she knew, he did not appear so wretched ; on the contrary, whenever Kitty looked at him in society, as one sometimes looks at a beloved person, trying to see him as others see him, in order to determine the impression which he produced on others, she saw, even with terror for her jealousy, that he was far from being miserable and that he appeared very attractive by his decency, his somewhat old-fashioned, bashful politeness to women, his powerful figure, and his individual, as she thought, and expressive face. But she saw him not from without, but from within ; she saw that he was not himself in the city ; otherwise she could not explain his condition to herself. Now and then she rebuked him in her heart for his inability to live in the city ; but at times she admitted that it was indeed hard for him so to arrange his life there as to be satisfied with it.

Really, what was he to do ? He did not like to play cards. To the club he did not go. To have anything to do with jolly men, such as Oblonski, — she had come to know what that meant, — it meant to drink and go somewhere after their potations. She could not think without terror whither men went under such circumstances. To go into society ? But she knew that for that it was necessary to derive pleasure from the company of young women, and that she did not wish. To sit at home, with her, her mother, and her sisters ? No matter how agreeable and jolly it, was to hear eternally the same conversations,— “The Alins, the Nddins,” as the old prince called these conversations between the sisters, — she knew that he was bored by them. What, then, was there left for him to do ? To continue writing his book ? He had tried to do so, and had gone to the library to make extracts and look up references for his book ; but, as he was telling her, the more he did nothing, the less time did he have on hand. Besides, be complained to her that he had been talking too much about his book in Moscow, and that, consequently, all his thoughts had got mixed, and he had lost all interest in it.

The only advantage from the city life was that they never had any quarrels. Either because the conditions of the city were different, or because they had both become more careful and sensible in that respect, they had no quarrels in Moscow through jealousy, of which they had been so afraid when they came to the city.

In this respect there had even happened a very important event for both of them, — Kitty’s meeting with Vrdnski.

An old princess, Märya Borisovna, Kitty’s godmother, who had always been fond of her, wanted to see her by all means. Kitty, who, on account of her condition, did not go anywhere, drove with her father to the venerable old lady and there met Vronski.

All Kitty could reproach herself for at this meeting was that for a moment, when she recognized the familiar form in the civilian clothes, her breath stopped, the blood rushed to her heart, and a bright colour, she felt it, covered her face. But that lasted only for a few seconds. Her father, who purposely began to speak to Vrdnski in a loud tone, had not yet finished his sentence, when she was already prepared to look at Vrdnski, to speak with him, if necessary, just as she spoke with Princess Mdrya Borisovna, and, above all, to act in such a way that her very least intonations and smiles should be approved by her husband, whose invisible presence she seemed to feel over herself at that moment.

She exchanged a few words with him, even calmly smiled at his joke about the elections, which he called ” our parliament.” (It was necessary to smile, in order to show that she had appreciated the joke.) But she immediately turned to Princess Marya Borisovna, and did not once look at him, until he at last got up to take his leave ; then she looked at him, but apparently only because it was impolite not to look at a man when he was bowing.

She was grateful to her father for saying nothing about her meeting with Vrdnski ; but she saw by his peculiar tenderness after the visit, during their customary walk, that he was satisfied with her. She, too, was satisfied with herself. She had not at all expected that she would have the strength to hold back somewhere in her soul all the recollections of her former feeling for Vrdnski, and not only to appear, but actually to be, absolutely indifferent and calm.

Levin blushed a great deal more than she had done when she told him that she had met Vrdnski at Princess Mdrya Borisovna’s. It was very hard for her to tell him that, and harder still to continue talking about the details of their meeting, as he did not ask any questions, but only continued to look at her with a knit brow.

“ I am very sorry you were not there,” she said. ” Not because you were not there in the room — I should not have been so natural in your presence — I am blushing now a great deal more, a great, great deal more,” she said, blushing until the tears came. ” But that you could not have looked through a drink.”

Iler truthful eyes told Levin that she was satisfied with herself, and, although she blushed, he immediately quieted down and began to ask her precisely what she wanted him to ask. When he had found out everything, down to the detail that she could not help blushing the first second, and that later she had been as much at ease with him as with any chance acquaintance, Levin cheered up entirely and said that he was very glad of it and that he would not again act so stupidly as at the elections, but that he would try at the first meeting with Vronski to be as friendly with him as possible.

” It is so painful to think that there is a man, almost an enemy of yours, whom it is so hard to meet,” said Levin. ” I am very, very glad.”

” So please call on the Bols,” Kitty said to her husband, when he came in to see her at eleven o’clock, previous to leaving the house. ” I know that you are going to dine at the club, — papa has registered you there. And what are you going to do in the morning ? ”

” I will just step in to see Katavasov,” replied Levin.

” Why so early ? ”

“ He has promised to introduce me to Métrov. I want to talk with him about my work ; he is a famous St. Petersburg scholar,” said Levin.

“Yes, was it not his article that you have praised so much ? Well, and then ? ” asked Kitty.

“ Then, maybe, I will go to the court-house, to look after my sister’s affairs.”

” And to the concert ? ” she asked.

” I do not want to go by myself ! ”

” Do go ! They are giving those new things — That has interested you so much ! I would go by all means.”

” Well, in any case I shall look in before dinner,” he said, looking at his watch.

“ Put on your Prince Albert, so that you can call at once on Countess Bol.”

” Is it absolutely necessary ? ”

” Oh, certainly ! He called on us. Do take the trouble ! You will call, and sit down, and talk five minutes about the weather, and get up, and leave.”

“ Really, you can’t understand how much out of practice I am : it makes me feel ashamed. How stupid ! A stranger comes, sits down, stays there without any business, disturbs them, gets himself excited, and then leaves.”

Kitty laughed.

” But you used to make calls when you were a bachelor ? ” she said.

” I used to, but I always felt ill at ease, and now I am so much out of practice that, God knows, I should prefer to go two days without dinner than make this visit. It is so awkward ! It seems to me that they will be offended and will say, ‘ What makes you come to us if you have no business ? ’ “

” No, they will not be offended. I promise you that,” said Kitty, looking laughingly at his face. She took his hand. ” Well, good-bye— Go there, if you please !”

He was on the point of leaving, having kissed his wife’s hand, when she stopped him.

” Konstantin, do you know, all I have left now is fifty roubles.”

“Well, I will stop at the bank and get some. How much ? ” he said, with an expression of dissatisfaction, with which she was so familiar.

“ No, wait ! ” She held his hand. “ Let us have a talk ! That makes me feel uneasy. It seems to me I am not spending any money uselessly, and yet it melts away. There is something we are not doing right.”

“ Not at all,” he said, clearing his throat and looking furtively at her.

She knew what that clearing of the throat meant. It was a sign of his strong dissatisfaction, not with her, but with himself. He was really discontented, not because much money had been spent, but because he was reminded of something which he wished to forget, knowing that there was something wrong about it.

“ I ordered Sokolov to sell the wheat and to take an advance payment for the mill. There will be money in any case.”

” Yes, but I am afraid that it is altogether too much — “

“ Not at all, not at all,” he repeated. “ Well, good-bye, my darling ! “

” Really, I sometimes am sorry that I listened to mamma. How nice it would be in the country ! For I have only worn you all out, and we waste money — “

” Not at all, not at all. Not even once since my marriage has anything happened to make me say that it would have been better otherwise than it actually is.”

” Really ? ” she said, looking into his eyes.

He had said that without any thought, only to comfort her. But when he looked at her and saw that those truthful, sweet eyes were directed at him with a questioning glance, he repeated the same with all his heart.

” I am positively forgetting her,” he thought. And he thought of what awaited them soon.

” Will it be soon ? How do you feci ? ” he whispered, taking both her hands.

” I have expected it so often, that now I do not think and I do not know.”

” Does it not frighten you ? ”

She smiled disdainfully.

” Not a particle,” she said.

” If anything should happen, I shall be at Katavasov’s.”

“ No, nothing will happen, and don’t think of it ! I will drive out with father to the boulevard. We shall stop at Dolly’s. I shall expect you before dinner. Oh, yes ! Do you know, Dolly’s situation is getting absolutely impossible. She is deep in debt, and there is no money. Mamma, Arséni ” (thus they called the husband of her sister Natalie), “and I talked of it yesterday, and we decided to put both of you against Stiva. It is absolutely impossible. We can’t talk with papa about it — But if you and he — ”

“ What can we do ? ” asked Levin.

“ All the same you will see Arséni, — so talk with him : he will tell you what we have decided upon.”

“ I agree in advance with Arséni. I will call on him. By the way, if I am to go to the concert, I will go straight from Natalie’s. Well, good-bye ! “

On the porch, his old servant, Kuzma, who had been with him during his bachelor days, stopped him.

” Beauty ” (that was the left shaft-horse, which had been brought up from the country) ” has been shod, but he is still limping,” he said. ” What is your pleasure about him ? “

During the first of his stay in Moscow, Levin had been interested in the horses, which had been brought up from the country. He wanted to arrange that part as well and as cheaply as possible; but it turned out that his own horses were more expensive than the cabs, and cabs were being used all the time.

” Send for the veterinary ! Maybe he is footsore.”

“ And what about Katerina Aleksandrovna ? ” asked Kuzma.

Levin was no longer startled, as he had been during the first of his stay in Moscow, that in order to go from the Vozdvizhenka to the Sivtsev Vrazhok it was necessary to hitch a span of strong horses to a heavy carriage, to take that carriage the distance of a quarter of a verst through slushy snow, and to stand there waiting for four hours, paying five roubles for that. Now it seemed quite natural to him.

“ Tell the cabman to bring a span for our carriage,” he said.

” Yes, sir.”

And having, thanks to the city conditions, so simply and so easily solved a difficulty, which in the country would have demanded so much personal labour and attention, Levin went out on the porch and, calling up a cab, took his seat in it and had himself driven to Nikitskaya Street. On his way he no longer thought of his money matters, but of how he would make the acquaintance of the St. Petersburg scholar whose specialty was sociology, and would speak with him about his book.

Only during the first part of his stay at Moscow had Levin been struck by those unproductive, but unavoidable expenses, which seemed so strange to a country dweller, and which were demanded of him on all sides. Now he was used to them. In this respect there happened with him what, they say, generally happens with drunkards : ” The first glass they balk on ; the second flies like a falcon, and after the third — like tiny birds.” When Levin changed the first one hundredrouble bill to purchase liveries for the lackey and the porter, he involuntarily reflected that these useless liveries,— that were unavoidable, to judge from the way the princess and Kitty were surprised at the suggestion that they could get along without the liveries,— that these liveries would cost as much as two summer labourers, that is, about three hundred workdays, from Easter to Shrovetide, of hard labour from early in the morning until late into the night, — and that hundredrouble bill he still balked on. But the next one, which was changed for the purpose of buying provisions for a dinner given his relatives, which cost twentyeight roubles, indeed caused Levin to calculate that twentyeight roubles represented nine chétverts of oats, which, sweating and groaning, had been mowed, bound, threshed, winnowed, sifted, and put into sacks, — this next hundredrouble bill, nevertheless, went easier. But the bills which he changed now no longer called forth any such considerations, and went like tiny birds. The consideration whether the labour spent on the acquisition of money corresponded to the pleasure caused by what was purchased for it, had been lost long ago. So, too, he forgot the farm rule that the rye ought not to be sold under a certain price. The rye, the price of which he had been holding up for so long a time, was sold at fifty kopeks a chétvert less than what it had been sold for two months before. Even the consideration that with such expenses it would be impossible to live through the year without making debts had lost its significance. All that was wanted was to have money in the bank, without asking where it came from, so that one might know that there would be enough to buy beef with for the morrow. And so far that consideration had been observed by him : he had always had some money in the bank. Just then the money in the bank was all gone, and he did not know exactly where to get some more. It was that which had put him out for a moment when Kitty had spoken of the money; but he had no time to think of it. As he was driving, he was thinking of Katavasov and of his meeting Métrov.

IIL

During this last stay Levin again cultivated the acquaintance of his university comrade, Professor Katavasov, whom he had not seen since his marriage. Katavasov pleased him on account of the clearness and simplicity of his world philosophy. Levin thought that the clearness of Katavasov’s philosophy was due to the paltriness of his nature, while Katavasov thought that the inconsistency of Levin’s thought was due to the insufficient training of his mind ; but Katavasov’s clearness was agreeable to Levin, and the abundance of Levin’s undisciplined ideas was agreeable to Katavasov, and they were fond of meeting and debating.

Levin read to Katavasov several passages from his book, and Katavasov liked them. Having met Levin the day before at a public lecture, he had told him that the famous Métrov, whose article had so pleased Levin, was in Moscow, and that Métrov was interested in what he had told him about Levin’s book, and that Métrov would be at his house on the next morning, at eleven o’clock, when he would be happy to meet him.

” You are positively improving, my dear. Glad to see you,” said Katavasov, meeting him in the small drawingroom. ” I heard the bell, and I thought, ‘ Impossible, it cannot be that he should come on time ’ — Well, what about the Montenegrins ? Fighters by nature.”

“ What is it ? ” asked Levin.

Katavasov gave him the latest news in a few words, and, entering the cabinet, introduced him to a mediumsized, solidly built man of pleasant appearance. That was Métrov. The conversation for awhile turned on politics and on how the higher spheres in St. Petersburg were looking at the late events. Métrov communicated to them the words said upon that occasion by the emperor and by one of the ministers, which information he had received from a trustworthy source. Levin was trying to imagine the situation when those words might have been uttered, and the conversation on that subject came to an end.

“ Yes, he has written almost a whole book on the natural conditions of the farm labourer in relation to the soil,” said Katavasov. ” I am not a specialist, but, as a naturalist, I was interested to see that he does not take humanity as standing outside the operation of zoological laws, but that, on the contrary, be sees its relations to its surroundings and in these relations looks for the laws of development.”

” That is very interesting,” said Métrov.

“In reality 1 began by writing a book on the science of agriculture, but involuntarily, as I was interested in the chief tool of agriculture, the farm labourer,” said Levin, blushing, “ I arrived at quite unexpected results.”

And Levin began cautiously, as though feeling his ground, to expound his views. He knew that Métrov had written an article against the universally accepted doctrine of political economy, but he did not know to what degree he might expect sympathy from him toward his new views, nor could he guess it from the intelligent, calm face of the scholar.

” But wherein do you see the peculiar properties of the Russian farm labourer ? ” asked Métrov, “ in his zoological properties, so to speak, or in those conditions in which he is ? *

Levin saw that in the very question was expressed an idea with which he did not agree ; but he continued to expound his theory, which was that the Russian farm

labourer had a peculiar view of the soil, which was quite different from that held by the other nations. And, in order to prove his proposition, he hastened to add that in his opinion this view of the Russian nation was due to its consciousness of being called to settle enormous, unoccupied stretches in the East.

” It is easy to be led into error by making conclusions as to the general destiny of a nation,” said Métrov, interrupting Levin. “ The condition of the labourer will always depend on his relation to the soil and to capital.”

And, without allowing Levin to finish his thought, Métrov began to expound to him the peculiarity of his own doctrine.

What the peculiarity of his doctrine consisted in, Levin did not understand, for he did not even trouble himself to understand it: he saw that Métrov, like the rest, in spite of his article in which he overthrew the doctrine of the economists, still looked upon the condition of the Russian labourer from the standpoint of capital, wage, and interest. Though he had to acknowledge that in the eastern, the most considerable, part of Russia interest was zero, that the wages of nine-tenths of the eighty millions of the Russian population were expressed merely by earning their food, and that capital existed only in the shape of the most primitive tools ; yet he looked at every labourer from that standpoint only, though in many things he did not agree with the economists, and had a new theory of wage-earning, which he expounded to Levin.

Levin listened reluctantly and at first retorted to him. He wanted to interrupt Métrov, in order to express his idea, which in his opinion would have made all farther exposition superfluous. But, having later convinced himself that they differed so widely in their views that they would never understand each other, he no longer contradicted him, but only listened. Though he was no longer interested in what Métrov was saying, he none the less experienced a certain pleasure in listening to him. His egoism was flattered because such a learned man so readily and with such attention and confidence in Levin’s comprehension of the matter expressed his ideas to him, now and then merely hinting at a whole side of the question. He ascribed it to his own worth, not knowing that Métrov, who had talked about it with all his near friends, took especial delight in speaking on that subject to every new man, and that he in general was very fond of talking to everybody about any matter which interested him, but which had not yet become clear to himself.

” However, we shall be late,” said Katavasov, looking at his watch the moment Métrov had finished his exposition.

” We have to-day a meeting in the Society of Friends in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of Svintich,” Kataväsov said, in response to Levin’s question. ” Peter Ivanovich and I intended to go there. I promised to read a lecture on his zoological labours. Come with us ! It will be very interesting.”

“ That is so, it is time to go,” said Métrov. ” Come with us, and from there, if you are so minded, you might go to my house. I should like to hear you read your book.”

“ Why, no. It’s just beginning, — not yet finished. But I shall be glad to attend the meeting.”

” Well, sir, have you heard ? I have made a separate report,” said Katavasov, who was putting on his dress coat in the adjoining room.

And they began to talk about a university question.

This university question had been a very important event in Moscow during that winter. Three old professors in the council did not accept the opinion of the younger men ; the younger men made a separate report. The opinion expressed in this report was, in the opinion of one class of men, something terrible, and in the opinion of others, very simple and just, and the professors were divided into two parties.

One party, to which Katavasov belonged, saw in the action of the others nothing but base denunciation and deceit ; the others regarded the affair as a piece of youthful impudence and disrespect to the authorities. Though Levm did not belong to the university, he had, during his stay in Moscow, several times heard and talked about that subject, and had his own opinion about the matter ; he took part in the conversation, which was continued in the street, until all three reached the university building.

The meeting had already begun. At the cloth-covered table, where Katavasov and Métrov took up their seats, sat six men, and one of them was reading something, bending close over his manuscript. Levin seated himself on one of the unoccupied chairs which were standing around the table, and in a whisper asked a student, who was sitting near him, what they were reading. The student cast a dissatisfied glance at Levin and said :

” Biography.”

Though Levin was not interested in the biography of the learned man, he involuntarily listened and found out a few interesting facts and something new about the life of the famous scholar.

When the reader finished, the chairman thanked him and read the poem which the poet Ment had written for this anniversary and a few words in which he thanked the poet. Then Katavasov in his loud, screeching voice read his note about the learned labours of the scholar whose anniversary was being commemorated.

When Katavasov got through, Levin looked at his watch and saw that it was nearly two, and he thought that he would not have time to read his work to Métrov, and, besides, he did not feel now like doing it. During the reading he had also been thinking of their conversation. It was now clear to him that, although Métrov’s ideas might have some significance, they could be cleared up and brought into order only by individual work in the chosen field of each, and that nothing could come from an exchange of ideas. Having decided to decline Métrov’s invitation, Levin at the end of the meeting went up to him. Métrov introduced Levin to the chairman, with whom he had been speaking about the political news. Métrov then told the chairman the same thing that he had told Levin before, and Levin made the same remarks that he had already made in the morning, but for variety’s sake also expressed his new opinion, which had just wandered into his head. After that they again started on the university question. As Levin had heard it all before, he hastened to tell Métrov that he was sorry that he was not able to accept his invitation, bowed to them, and went away to Lvov’s.

IV.

Lvov, who was married to Natalie, Kitty’s sister, had passed all his life in the capitals and abroad, where he had been educated and had served as a diplomatist.

The year before he had left his diplomatic career, not on account of some unpleasantness (he had never had any with anybody), and entered the service of the Palace Department, in order to give the best education possible to his two boys.

In spite of the sharp contrast in habits and views, and in spite of the fact that Lvov was older than Levin, they had become well acquainted with each other during that winter and were fond of one another.

Lvov was at home, and Levin entered his room without being announced to him.

Lvov, in a belted house-coat and chamois-leather shoes, was sitting in a chair and through his blue eyeglasses reading a book which was standing on a desk, and in his beautiful hand holding carefully aside a cigar which was half-turned to ashes.

His handsome, thin, still youthful face, to which the curly, shining, silvery hair gave a still greater expression of thorough breeding, brightened with a smile, when he saw Levin.

” Superb ! I wanted to send for you. How is Kitty ? Sit down here, — it is more comfortable — ” He rose and moved up a rocker. ” Have you read the last circular of the Journal de St. Petersburg ? I find it beautiful,” he said, with a slightly French accent.

Levin told him what he had heard from Kataväsov about what they were talking in St. Petersburg, and, after chatting on politics, told him of his acquaintance with Métrov and about going to the meeting. That interested Lvov very much.

“ I envy you for being admitted to that interesting learned world,” he said. And, becoming more animated, he at once passed over to the French language, in which he felt more at ease. ” Of course, I have not the time for that. My service and my occupation with my children deprive me of it; besides, I am not ashamed to admit that my education has been neglected.”

« I do not think so,” said Levin, with a smile. He was, as always, touched at his humble opinion of himself, which was not at all feigned, in order to appear or be modest, but quite sincere.

“ Certainly ! I feel now how little I am educated. In order to educate my children I have to refresh my memory and simply learn anew. For it is not enough to have teachers, — there has to be also a supervisor, just as on your farm there have to be labourers and superintendents. Here I have been reading, — he pointed to Buslaev’s Russian Grammar, which was lying on the desk, — they demand it of Misha, and it is so hard — Explain this to me ! It says here — ”

Levin wanted to explain to him that that could not be understood, but had just to be learned ; but Lvov did not agree with him.

” You are making fun of it ! ”

” On the contrary, you can’t imagine how, looking at you, I learn that which I shall soon need, — the education of children.”

” Well, there is nothing to learn,” said Lvov.

“All I know,” said Levin, “is that I have not seen better brought up children and that I wish no better ones for myself.”

Lvov evidently wanted to repress an expression of joy, but nevertheless beamed with a smile.

” All I wish is for them to be better than I am. You do not know all the difficulty,” he began, ” which I have had with my boys, who were spoiled by that life abroad.”

” You will easily mend that. They are such capable children. The chief thing is their moral education : that is what I learn from watching your children.”

” You talk of the moral education. You can’t imagine how difficult that is ! You have just succeeded in vanquishing one side, when other sides arise, and there is again a struggle. If we had no support in religion,— you remember, we have been talking about that, — no father would be able to bring up his children with his unaided strength.”

This conversation, which always interested Levin, was interrupted by the entrance of beautiful Natalya Aleksandrovna, who was dressed for driving out.

“ 1 did not know that you were here,” she said, apparently having no compunction, and even rejoicing, at having interrupted that eternal, boring conversation.

” How is Kitty ? I am dining at your house to-day. Listen, Arséni,” she turned to her husband, ” you will take the carriage — “

And between husband and wife began a discussion of how they would pass the day. As the husband had to go out to meet somebody connected with the service, and his wife was to attend the concert and a public meeting of the Southeastern Committee, they had many things to determine and to think about. Levin, as a near friend of the house, was to take part in these plans. It was decided that Levin should go with Natalie to the concert and to the public meeting, and from there they would send the carriage to the office for Arséni, and he would call for her to take her to Kitty ; or, if he should not be through with business, he would send the carriage and Levin would go with her.

” He is spoiling me,” Lvov said to his wife ; ” he assures me that our children are beautiful, whereas I know that they have many bad qualities.”

” Arséni goes to extremes, — I always have said so,” said his wife. ” If you are looking for perfection, you will never be satisfied. Papa is right when he says that when we were being educated there was an extreme : we were kept in the entresol, and the parents lived in the bel-étage; now it is the other way: the parents are put down in the storeroom, and the children are kept in the bel-étage. Parents do not have to live nowadays, except for their children.”

“But if that is more agreeable?” said Lvov, smiling his pretty smile, and touching her hand. “ Any one who did not know you would think that you are not a mother, but a stepmother.”

“ No, extremes are not good in any case,” calmly said Natalie, putting his paper-knife in a definite place on the table.

“ Come here, perfect children ! ” Lvov said to the handsome boys that were entering. They bowed to Levin and walked over to their father, evidently wishing to ask him for something.

Levin wanted to talk with them and to hear what they were going to say to their father, but Natalie began to talk with him, and there entered Lvov’s comrade in the service, Makhotin, in court uniform, in order to go out with him to meet somebody, and there began an incessant conversation about Herzegovina, about Princess Korzinski, about the city council, and about the sudden death of Princess Apraksin.

Levin had entirely forgotten the commission. He thought of it only in the antechamber, on his way out.

“ Oh, Kitty has given me a commission to talk to you

about something concerning Obldnski,” he said, when Lvov stopped on the staircase, seeing off his wife and Levin.

“Yes, yes, mamma wants us, the brothers-in-law, to attack him,” he said, blushing. “ But then, why should I do it ? “

” Then I will attack him,” Natalie, dressed in her white dog cloak, said, with a smile, after they got through talking. ” Come now, let us go ! “

V.

At the matinée two interesting pieces were presented.

One was a fantasia, ” King Lear in the Wilderness,” the other a quartette devoted to Bach’s memory. Both things were new, and in the new style, and Levin wanted to form his own opinion about them. After taking his sister-in-law to her chair, he stopped at a column and made up his mind to listen as attentively and faithfully as possible. He tried not to have his attention diverted and not to have his impression spoiled by looking either at the swaying of the arms of the white-tied director of the orchestra, which always so disagreeably distracts the musical attention, or at the ladies in their bonnets, who carefully wrap their ears with ribbons for the concert, or at all those persons who are not occupied with anything or are occupied with the most varied of interests, only not with music. He tried to avoid meeting connoisseurs of music and talkers, and stood looking down before him and listening.

But the more he listened to the fantasia of ” King Lear,” the more remote did he feel himself from the possibility of forming any definite opinion. There eternally began, as though accumulating, a musical expression of feeling, but it soon crumbled into bits of new beginnings of musical feeling, and at times simply into exceedingly complicated sounds, which were connected in no other way than by the arbitrary will of the composer. But even the very bits of these musical expressions, though good at times, were disagreeable because they were quite

unexpected and the hearer was unprepared for them. Mirth, and sadness, and despair, and tenderness, and triumph, appeared without the least right to do so, like the feelings of a madman. And just as suddenly as in the case of the madman did these feelings pass away again.

Levin experienced, during the whole time of the performance, a sensation which was akin to what a deaf person experiences when looking at dancers. He was quite perplexed when the piece was over and felt very much fatigued from the strained, unrewarded attention. On all sides was heard loud applause. All got up and began to walk and to talk. Wishing to explain his perplexity from the impression it had produced on others, Levin went away to find some connoisseurs, and was glad to see one of the famous musical critics, who was talking with his acquaintance, Pestsov.

“ Wonderful ! ” Pestsov said, in his deep bass. ” Good day, Konstantin Dmitrievich. Particularly picturesque and sculptural, so to speak, and rich in colour is the passage where you feel the approach of Cordelia, where woman, das Ewigweibliche, enters into a conflict with fate. Don’t you think so ? “

” But what has Cordelia to do with it ? ” Levin asked, timidly, having entirely forgotten that the fantasia represented King Lear in the wilderness.

” There appears Cordelia — here it is ! ” said Pestsdv, striking his fingers against the atlas programme, which he was holding in his hand, and giving it to Levin.

It was only then that Levin recalled the title of the fantasia and hastened to read the Bussian translation of Shakespeare’s poetry, which was printed on the back of the programme.

” Without the programme you cannot follow it,” said Pestsdv, turning to Levin, as his interlocutor had left, and he had no one to talk to.

During the recess a discussion was started between Levin and Pestsov as to the good qualities and the defects of the Wagnerian tendency in music. Levin was trying to prove that the mistake of Wagner and of all of his followers lay in the fact that their music wanted to pass over into the sphere of a foreign art ; and that poetry made the same mistake when it described the features, which painting ought to do, and, as an example of such a blunder, he adduced the sculptor who took it into his head to chisel out of marble poetical shadows of pictures rising on the pedestal about the figure of the poet. ” These shadows are so little shadows in the case of the sculptor that they even cling to the staircase,” said Levin. He was fond of that phrase, but he did not remember whether he had not uttered it before, and that too in the presence of Pestsov, and so, saying this, he became embarrassed.

Pestsov, on the contrary, tried to prove that art was one, and that it could attain its highest manifestations only in the combination of the various kinds.

The second number of the concert Levin was unable to hear. Pestsov, who had stopped near him, kept talking to him almost all the time, condemning the piece for its superfluous, insipid, puffed-up simplicity, and comparing it with the simplicity of the Pre-Raphaelites in painting. As Levin was leaving, he met a number of other acquaintances, with whom he talked about politics, and music, and common acquaintances ; among others he met Count Bol, on whom he had entirely forgotten to call.

” Well, go now ! ” said Natalie, whom be told about it, ” maybe you will not be received. Then you will go with me to the meeting. You will have time.”

VL

“ Maybe they are not receiving ? ” said Levin, entering the vestibule of the house of Countess Bol.

“ They are, if you please ! ” said the porter, resolutely taking off his fur coat.

“How annoying,” thought Levin, sighing, and taking off one glove and smoothing out his hat. ” What am I going for ? What shall I talk to them about ? “

Passing through the first drawingroom, Levin at the door met Countess Bol, who with an anxious and stern face was grid ng some orders to a servant. When she saw Levin, she smiled and asked him to come to the adjoining, smaller drawingroom, where voices were heard. There two of the countess’s daughters and a Moscow colonel, whom Levin knew, were sitting on chairs. Levin walked over to them, exchanged greetings, and sat down near the sofa, holding his hat on his knee.

” How is your wife’s health ? Were you at the concert ? We could not go. Mamma had to attend a mass for the dead.”

” Yes, I heard — What a sudden death ! ” said Levin.

The countess came, seated herself on the sofa, and also asked him about his wife and about the concert.

Levin replied and repeated his remark about the suddenness of Princess Apraksin’s death.

“ Still she was always of feeble health.”

” Were you at the opera last night ? ”

” Yes, I was.”

” Lucca was very fine.”

” Yes, very fine,” he said. As it did not make any difference to him what might be thought of him, he began to repeat what he had heard a hundred times about the peculiarities of the singer’s talents. Countess Bol pretended that she was listening. Then, after he had said enough and stopped, the colonel, who had been silent until then, began to talk. The colonel, too, said something about the opera and about the illumination. Finally, after saying something about the proposed folle journée at Turin’s, theicolonel laughed,, made a stir, got up, and went away. Levin got up, too, but he saw by the countess’s face that it was not yet time for him to go. Two minutes more he ought to give them. He sat down.

But, as he was thinking all the time how stupid it was, he could not find a subject for conversation, and so kept silent.

” Are you not going to the public meeting ? They say it is interesting,” began the countess.

” I promised my sister-in-law to call for her,” said Levin.

There ensued a silence. Mother and daughter exchanged glances.

“ I think it is time now,” thought Levin ; and he got up. The ladies pressed his hand and asked him to tell mille choses to his wife.

Handing him his overcoat, the porter asked, ” Where are you pleased to live ? ” and immediately wrote the answer down into a large, well-bound book.

” Of course, it is all the same to me, but it is, none the less, a shame and terribly stupid,” thought Levin, consoling himself by the reflection that everybody did the same. He went to the public meeting of the committee, where he was to find his sister-in-law, in order to drive home with her.

In the public meeting of the committee there were many people and nearly all society. Levin came in time for the résumé, which, as everybody said, was very interesting. When the reading of the résumé was over, society people came together, and Levin met Sviyäzhski, who invited him by all means to come in the evening to the Society of Agriculture, where a famous report would be read, and Stepan Arkädevich, who had just returned from the races, and many other acquaintances, and talked and listened to various opinions in regard to the meeting, the latest play, and a case at law. But, evidently on account of his wearied attention, which he was beginning to experience, he made a blunder when he spoke of the case at law, and of that mistake he frequently thought later on. Speaking of the punishment which was to be meted out to a foreigner, who was being tried in Russia, and of how unjust it would be to send him out of the country, Levin repeated what he had heard an acquaintance of his say the day before.

« I think that to send him out of the country is the same as punishing the pike by letting it into the water,” said Levin. Only later he recalled that the thought which he had heard from an acquaintance and had given out as his own was from Krylov’s fable, and that his acquaintance had repeated it from a feuilleton in a paper.

After taking his sister-in-law home and finding Kitty well and happy, Levin went to the club.

VII.

Levin came to the club just in time. Guests and members arrived with him. Levin had not been in the club for a long time ; he had not been there since, after leaving the university, he had lived in Moscow and had gone into society. He remembered the club, the external details of its arrangement, but had forgotten the impressions which he used to experience before, whenever he had gone to the club. But the moment he drove into the spacious semicircular yard and, leaving the sleigh, ascended the porch, and the porter, in sash, meeting him, noiselessly opened the door and bowed ; the moment he saw in the porter’s room the galoshes and fur coats of the members, who considered it easier to take their galoshes off down-stairs than to take them up ; the moment he heard the mysterious sound of a bell, that preceded him, and, on ascending the steep, carpet-covered staircase, saw the statue at the landing, and at the upper door the third, aged porter, whom he used to know, in his club livery, leisurely and yet without hesitation opening the door and examining the guest, —- Levin was overcome by his former impression of the club, — an impression of rest, contentment, and decency.

” Please, your hat ! ” the porter said to Levin, who had forgotten the club rule, which was that the hats were to be left in the porter’s room. ” You have not been here for a long time. The prince registered you yesterday. Prince Stepän Arkädevich has not yet arrived.”

The porter knew not only Levin, but also all his connections and his family, and immediately mentioned to him the names of those he was well acquainted with.

Levin walked through the first passage hall with its screens and with its partitioned room on the right, where sat the fruit dealer, and, getting past an old man who was walking slowly, entered the dining-room, which was noisy with people.

He went by the tables, which were nearly all of them occupied, and scanned the guests. Here and there he met a great variety of old and young men, some of them mere acquaintances, others friends of his. There was not a single angry or troubled face. All seemed to have left their cares and worries with their hats in the porter’s room, and were getting leisurely ready to enjoy the material pleasures of life. Here were also Sviyazhski, and Shcherbatski, and Nevyeddvski, and the old prince, and Vrdnski, and Sergyéy Ivanovich.

“ Ah ! You are late ! ” the prince said, smiling, and giving him his hand over his shoulder. ” How is Kitty ? ” he added, adjusting his napkin, which he had stuck between two buttons of his waistcoat.

” All right, she is well ; all three of them are dining at home.”

” Ah, the Alins, the Nadins. Well, there is no seat here with us. Go to that other table and reserve a seat at once,” said the prince. Turning around, he cautiously received a plate of burbot soup.

“ Levin, this way ! ” a good-natured voice shouted a little distance off. It was Turdvtsyn. He was sitting with a young military man, and near them were two upturned chairs. Levin gladly went up to them. He had always been fond of good-natured carouser Turdvtsyn, — with him was connected the memory of his explanation with Kitty, — and on that evening, after all the strained and clever conversations, the good-natured figure of Turovtsyn was particularly agreeable to him.

” That is for you and for Obldnski. He will be here in a minute.”

The military man, who was keeping himself unusually erect, with merry, ever laughing eyes, was a St. Petersburgian, Gagin by name. Turdvtsyn introduced them to one another.

” Oblonski is eternally late.”

” Ah, there he is ! ”

“ Did you just get here ? ” Obldnski asked, walking rapidly toward them. ” Good evening. Have you had some vddka? Well, let us go!”

Levin got up and went with him to the large table, on winch stood all kinds of brandies and appetizers. It would seem that out of a score of appetizers it would not have been difficult to choose one suitable to the taste, but Stepän Arkadevich asked for an especial one, and a liveried lackey, who was standing there, at once brought him what he demanded. They drank a wine-glass each, and returned to the table.

While they were yet at the fish soup, Gägin ordered champagne, which be told the waiter to pour into four glasses. Levin did not refuse the wine offered him, and himself ordered a second bottle. He was hungry, and ate and drank with much zest, and with even greater enjoyment took part in the merry and simple conversation of his company. Gagin, lowering his voice, told a new St. Petersburg anecdote, and this anecdote, though indecent and stupid, was so funny that Levin laughed out loud so that the neighbours looked around at him.

” That is something like ‘ I cannot bear that ! ‘ Do you know it ? ” asked Stepan Arkädevich. “ Oh, it is charming ! Another bottle ! ” he said to the waiter ; and he began to tell the story.

” Peter Ilich Vindvski begs you to accept this,” an old lackey interrupted Stepan Arkadevich, bringing up two thin glasses of effervescing champagne, and turning to Stepän Arkadevich and to Levin. Stepan Arkddevich took the glass, and exchanging glances with a bald-headed, red-haired, bearded man at the other end of the table, nodded his head to him, with a smile.

” Who is it ? ” asked Levin.

” You saw him once at my house, do you remember ? A good fellow.”

Levin did the same as Stepän Arkädevich and took the glass.

Stepan Arkädevich’s anecdote was also funny. Levin told his own anecdote, which, too, found favour. Then they began to talk about horses, about the races of the day, and about how nicely Vrdnski’s Atlas had won the first prize. Levin did not notice how the dinner passed.

” Ah, there they are ! ” Stepan Arkadevich said, at the end of the dinner, bending over the back of his chair and extending his hand to Vronski, who was walking toward him with a tall colonel of the Guards. On Vrdnski’s countenance was beaming the same good-natured merriment of the club. He bent gaily over Stepan Arkädevich’s shoulder, whispering something to him, and with the same merry smile gave his hand to Levin.

” Very glad to meet you,” he said. ” I was looking for you at the elections, but I was told that you had left.”

” Yes, I left the same day. We have just been talking about your horse. I congratulate you,” said Levin. “ That was a good record.”

« Yes. But you have horses yourself.”

« No, my father had horses ; but I remember all about them.”

” Where have you been dining ? ” Stepän Arkadevich asked him.

” We are at the second table, behind the columns.”

“They have been congratulating him,” said the tall colonel. ” The second imperial prize ; if I only had such luck at cards as he has with his horses !

“ What is the use of losing time now ? I am going to the infernal region,” said the colonel, leaving the table.

“That is Yashvin,” Vronski replied to Turdvtsyn, sitting down near them on a chair just vacated. He drank a glass offered to him, and ordered . a bottle. Either under the influence of the club impression, or of the wine consumed, Levin got into conversation with Vronski about the best breed of cattle, and was very glad to observe that he did not experience any hostility toward that man. He even told him, among other things, that he had heard from his wife about her meeting with him at Princess Marya Borisovna’s.

“Ah, Princess Marya Borisovna, — now this one is fine ! ” said Stepan Arkadevich. And he told an anecdote about her, which amused everybody. Vronski in particular laughed so good-naturedly that Levin felt himself fully reconciled to him.

“ Well, are you through ? ” said Stepan Arkadevich, getting up, and smiling. “ Let us go ! ”

VIII.

Leaving the table, Levin felt that his arms were swaying easily and regularly during his walk. He went with Gägin across the high-studded rooms to the billiard-room. In the large hall he fell in with his father-in-law.

” Well ? How do you like our temple of idleness ? ” said the prince, taking his arm. ” Come, let us take a walk ! “

” I was just going myself to take a look at it. It is interesting.”

” Yes, it is interesting for you. But my interest is of a different sort. You are looking at these old men,” he said, pointing to a stooping member with pendent lip, who, with difficulty shambling along in his soft boots, was coming toward them and passed them, “ and you think that they were all bom such slumps.”

” What do you mean by slumps ? “

” You do not know the name. It is our club term. You know, when they roll eggs, and there are a lot of them rolled, they call it a slump. And so it is with us fellows : we keep coming to the club until we become slumps. Yes, you are laughing, while we are just waiting to become slumps. Do you know Prince Chechénski ? ” asked the prince, and Levin saw by his face that he was going to tell him something funny.

“ No, I do not.”

“ How is that ? Well, the well-known Prince Chechénski. It makes no difference. He always plays billiards. Three years ago he was not yet a slump, and he braced himself and called others slumps. Once he came, and our porter — you know him, Vasili ? Well, that fat one. He is very witty. So Prince Chechénski asked him, ‘Well, Vasili, who is there ? Any of the slumps ? ‘ And he replied, ‘ You are the third ! ‘ Yes, sir, so he did ! “

Talking and exchanging greetings with acquaintances whom they met, Levin and the prince walked through all the rooms, — the large one, where already stood the tables and the usual partners were playing a small game; the divan-room, where men were playing chess, and where was sitting Sergyéy Ivanovich, talking with somebody ; the billiard-room, where at the bend of the room, near the sofa, drinking champagne, was assembled a jolly crowd which Gagin had joined ; they also took a peep into the infernal region, where at a table, at which Yashvin was already seated, there were crowded a number of adherents. Trying not to make any noise, they also entered the dark reading-room, where under the shaded lamps sat one young man with an angry face, fingering one periodical after another, and a bald-headed general, who was buried in his reading. They also entered the room which the prince called the intellectual room. There three gentlemen were talking heatedly about the last bit of political news.

“ Prince, if you please, it is ready,” said one of his partners, who found him here, and the prince went away. Levin sat down and listened for awhile, but, suddenly recalling all the conversations of the morning, began to feel dreadfully bored. He got up hurriedly and went to find Oblonski and Turdvtsyn, with whom it was jolly.

Turovtsyn was sitting with a mug of something to drink on a high sofa in the billiard-room, and Stepan Arkädevich and Vronski were discussing something at the door, in a distant corner of the room.

“ She does not exactly feel lonely, but that indefiniteness, that indeterminateness of her position — ” was what Levin heard, and he wanted to walk off ; but Stepan Arkädevich called him up.

” Levin ! ” said Stepan Arkädevich, and Levin saw that his eyes were, not tearful, but humid, as was always the case with him, whenever he had drunk wine, or felt sentimental. Just now both were true. ” Levin, don’t go away ! ” he said, giving a firm pressure to his elbow, evidently intent on not letting him slip away.

” This is my sincere, almost my best friend,” he said to Vrdnski. ” You, too, are even nearer and dearer to me. And I know and wish that you could be close friends, because you are both of you excellent men.”

” Well, all there is left for us to do is to kiss,” Vrdnski said, with a good-natured jest, giving him his hand.

He quickly grasped the hand offered to him, and gave it a firm pressure.

” I am very, very glad,” said Levin, pressing his hand.

“ Waiter, a bottle of champagne,” said Stepan Arkadevich.

” I, too, am very glad,” said Vronski.

But, in spite of Stepan Arkadevich’s desire, and of their own mutual desire, they had nothing to talk about, and both felt it.

“ Do you know, he is not acquainted with Anna,” Ste-pän Arkädevich said to Vronski. ” I want by all means to take him to her. Let us go, Levin ! “

“Really?” said Vronski. “She will be very glad. I would go home at once,” he added, “ but Ydshvin makes me uneasy, and 1 want to stay here until he gets through.”

“ Why, is it bad ? ”

” He is losing all the time, and I am the only one who can hold him back.”

“ Well, shall we have a game at pyramids ? Levin, will you play? Very well,” said Stepan Arkädevich. ” Place the pyramids,” he turned to the marker.

” It has long been in place,” replied the marker, who had already put the balls in the triangle and for a pastime was rolling a red ball.

“ Well, let us begin ! “

After the game, Vronski and Levin seated themselves at the table with Gdgin, and Levin began, upon Stepan Arkadevich’s insistence, to bet on aces. VnSnski was sitting at the table, surrounded by acquaintances that kept coming up to him, or went down to the infernal region to see how Yashvin was getting along. Levin was experiencing a pleasant relief from the mental fatigue of the morning. He was happy because the enmity against Vronski had come to an end, and the impression of calm, decency, and pleasure never abandoned him.

When the game was over, Stepän Arkädevich took Levin’s arm.

“ Let us go to Anna’s ! Now ! Eb ! She is at home. I have promised her to bring you. Where were you going in the evening ? ”

“ Nowhere in particular. I promised Sviyäzhski to go to the Society of Agriculture. Very well, let us go ! ” said Levin.

“Excellent, let us go! Find out whether my sleigh has come,” Stepan Arkädevich turned to a lackey.

Levin went up to the table, paid the forty roubles which he had lost, then paid his club bill to the old lackey, who was standing at the door post, and who in some mysterious manner knew precisely how much it was, and, swaying his hands in a peculiar way, crossed all the balls on his way out.

IX.

« Oblônski’s sleigh ! ” The porter called out in an angry bass. The sleigh drove up, and both seated themselves. Only at first, so long as the sleigh had not yet left the club gate, did Levin experience the impression of the club rest and enjoyment and the indubitable decency of everything surrounding him ; but the moment the sleigh got out into the street, and he felt the jolts on the uneven road, heard the angry call of a cabman whom they met, and saw in the dim illumination the red signs of a saloon and of a small shop, this impression was destroyed, and he began to reflect on his acts, and asked himself whether he was doing well to go to see Anna. What would Kitty say ? But Stepan Arkadevich did not give him a chance to meditate, and, as though divining his doubts, tried to dispel them.

” How glad I am that you will meet her ! You know Dolly has been wishing that for a long time. Lvov has been calling on her. Though she is my sister,” continued Stepdn Arkddevich, “ I can say boldly that she is a remarkable woman. You will see for yourself. Her position is a very hard one, especially now.”

” Why especially now ? “

” We are having palavers with her husband about the divorce. He is willing, but there is a hitch concerning her son, and the matter, which ought to have been ended long ago, has been going on for three months. The moment there is a divorce, she will marry Vronski. How stupid it is, that old custom of circling around, Rejoice Isaiah, winch nobody believes in, and which is in the way of people’s happiness ! ” Stepan Arkadevich interposed. ” Well, then their position will be defined, like mine and yours.”

” What is the difficulty about ? ” asked Levin.

” Oh, it is a long and tiresome story ! Everything is so undetermined with us. The point is that she has been living for three months in Moscow, where everybody knows him and her, waiting for the divorce ; she does not go out, and she sees no women, except Dolly, because, you see, she does not want people to come to see her for charity’s sake ; that stupid Princess Varvara has left her, considering it indecent. Now, any other woman in such a situation would not be able to find any resources in herself. But she, — you will see for yourself how she has arranged her life, and how calm and dignified she is. To the left in the lane, opposite the church! ” Stepan Arkadevich shouted to the coachman, bending out of the sleigh window. ” Pshaw, how hot it is ! ” he said, throwing wider open his unbuttoned fur coat, in spite of the twelve degrees Réaumur.

” She has a daughter, so she is, no doubt, busy with her ? ” said Levin.

” You, it seems, think of every woman only as of a female, une couveuse,” said Stepan Arkadevich. ” Busy, so it must necessarily be with the children ! No, she is bringing her up beautifully, I think, but you won’t hear about her. She is busy, in the first place, writing. I see, you are smiling ironically, but hold on. She is writing a book for children ; she does not tell everybody about it, but she has read it to me, and I have given the manuscript to Vorkuev — you know that publisher — he is himself a •writer, I think. He knows what is what, and he says that it is a remarkable book. But you think that it is a bluestocking? Not at all. She is first and foremost a woman with a heart, you will see. She now has an English girl and a whole family, which takes up her time.”

“ What is it, something philanthropic ? “

” You want to see something bad in everything. Not philanthropic, but from the heart. They had, that is, Vronski had, an English trainer, a great hand at his business, but a drunkard. He has drunk himself into a delirium tremens and has abandoned his family. She saw them, helped them, took an interest in them, and has now the whole family on her hands ; she does not treat them as if she were above them, giving them money only ; she is herself training the boys in Russian, for the gymnasium, and has taken the girl to her house. You will see for yourself ! ”

The sleigh drove into the yard and Stepan Arkadevich gave a loud ring of the bell at the entrance, near which the sleigh was standing.

And, without asking the servant who opened the door whether she was at home, Stepan Arkddevich entered the vestibule. Levin followed him, doubting more and more whether what he was doing was good.

Looking into the mirror, Levin saw that he was red ; but he was convinced that he was not intoxicated, and walked over the carpeted staircase behind Stepan Arkadevich. Up-stairs Stepan Arkadevich asked the lackey, who bowed to him as to a close friend of the house, who was with Anna Arkädevna, and heard from him that it was Vorkuev.

” Where are they ? ”

” In the cabinet.”

Crossing a small dining-room with dark-stained wood walls, Stepdn Arkadevich went over a soft carpet into the semiobscure cabinet, which was lighted up by one lamp with a large dark shade. Another, a refractor lamp, was burning on the wall, illuminating a full-sized portrait of a woman, to which Levin involuntarily directed his attention. It was Anna’s portrait, made in Italy by Mikhdylov. While Stepan Arkadevich walked behind the screen, and the male voice, which had been speaking, broke off, Levin continued to look at the portrait, which, in the brilliant illumination, stood out of the frame, and could not tear himself away from it. He forgot even where he was and, without hearing what was being said, did not take his eyes away from the remarkable picture. It was not a portrait, but a living, charming woman, with flowing black hair, bared shoulders and arms, and a pensive smile on the lips, which were covered by a soft down, looking victoriously and gently at him with her eyes that bewildered him. She was not alive only because she was more beautiful than a living woman could be.

” I am very glad,” he suddenly heard near him a voice, which was evidently addressing itself to him, — the voice of that very woman whom he was admiring in the portrait. Anna came out from behind the screen to meet him, and Levin saw in the semiobscurity of the cabinet the very woman of the portrait, in a dark, striped blue gown, not in the same position, nor with the same expression, but on the same height of beauty on which she had been caught by the artist in the portrait. She was less brilliant in reality, but then in her living form there was something new and attractive which was not in the portrait.

X.

She had got up to meet him, without concealing her joy at seeing him. And in that calm with which she extended to him her small, energetic hand, introduced him to Vorkuev, and pointed to the auburn-haired, pretty girl, who was sitting there at some work, and whom she called her protégée, Levin saw the familiar and agreeable manners of a grand society lady, always calm and natural.

” Very, very glad to see you,” she repeated, and in her mouth these words for some reason assumed a special significance for Levin. ” I have known and liked you for Ö J

a long time, both on account of your friendship with Stiva, and for your wife’s sake— I have seen but little of her, but she left on me the impression of a charming Hower, that’s it, of a flower. And she will soon be a mother ! “

She was talking freely and leisurely, now and then transferring her glance from Levin to her brother, and Levin felt that the impression produced by him was a good one, and immediately felt easy, simple, and agreeable in her company, as though he had known her from childhood.

” Ivan Petrévich and I have taken up seats in Aleksyéy’s cabinet,” she said, answering Stepén Arkàdevich’s question whether he could smoke, ” for the very purpose that we might smoke,” and, looking at Levin, she moved up toward herself a turtle cigar-case, instead of asking him whether he smoked, and took out a pachitos.

” How is your health to-night ? ” asked her brother.

« So so. The nerves are as usual.”

” Is it not uncommonly fine ? ” said Stepan Arkadevich, noticing that Levin was gazing at the portrait.

“ I have never seen a better portrait.”

« And a remarkable likeness, don’t you think so ? ” said Vorkuev.

Levin looked from the portrait to the original. An especial gleam lighted up Anna’s face while she felt his glance upon her. Levin blushed and, to conceal his embarrassment, wanted to ask her how long it was since she had seen Därya Aleksandrovna last ; but just then Anna began to speak :

” Ivdn Petrovich and I have just been talking about Vashchénkov’s last pictures. Have you seen them?”

“ Yes, I have,” said Levin.

” But, pardon me, I interrupted you. You wanted to say — ”

Levin asked her how long it was since she had seen Dolly.

” She was here yesterday. She is very angry with the gymnasium on account of Grisha. The Latin teacher, it seems, has not been just to him.”

“ Yes, I have seen the pictures. I did not like them very much,” Levin returned to the conversation which she had begun.

Levin was no longer talking with the same artisanlike relation to things, with which he had spoken in the morning. Every word in his conversation with her assumed a special significance. It was agreeable to talk to her, and more agreeable still to listen to her.

Anna spoke not only naturally and cleverly, but cleverly and carelessly, ascribing no value to her thoughts, and giving great value to the thoughts of her interlocutor.

The conversation turned on the new tendency in art, on the new illustration of the Bible by a French artist. Vorkuev accused the artist of realism which had been carried to the point of coarseness. Levin said that the French had carried convention in art to the farthest point possible, and so saw a special merit in the return to realism. They saw poetry in the fact that they did not lie.

Never before had a clever utterance by Levin given him so much pleasure as this one. Anna’s face suddenly beamed when she suddenly appreciated the idea. She began to laugh.

“ I am laughing,” she said, ” as one laughs seeing an excellent likeness. What you say fully characterizes French art at the present time, both their painting and their literature : Zola, Daudet. But probably it was always true that the conceptions are constructed from imaginary conventional figures, and later all the combinations are made, the imaginary figures cloy them, and they begin to invent more natural, more just figures.”

” That is quite true ! ” said Vorkuev.

” So you have been to the club ? ” she turned to her brother.

” Yes, yes, there is a woman ! ” thought Levin, quite oblivious, and looking stubbornly at her beautiful, mobile face, which now was suddenly completely changed. Levin did not hear what she was talking about, as she was bending over her brother, but he was surprised at the change of her expression. Her countenance, so beautiful before in her repose, suddenly expressed strange curiosity, anger, and pride. But that lasted only a minute. She half-closed her eyes, as though recalling something.

” Well, that does not interest anybody,” and, turning to the English girl, she said :

” Please order the tea in the drawingroom ! “

The girl rose and went out.

” Well, has she passed her examination ? ” asked Stepan Arkddevich.

” Beautifully. A very capable girl, and a sweet disposition.”

“ You will end by loving her more than your own child.”

” There you hear a man talking. In love there is no more and no less. I love my daughter with one love, and her with another.”

” I have been telling Anna Arkadevna,” said Vorkuev, ” that if she put one-hundredth part of the energy which she is spending on that English girl on the common cause of the education of Bussian children, she would be doing a great and useful work.”

” Say what you please, but I could not. Count Aleksyéy Kirillovich encouraged me very much ” (pronouncing the words ” Count Aleksyéy Kirillovich ” she looked imploringly and timidly at Levin, and he involuntarily answered her with a respectful, affirmative glance) — ” encouraged me to busy myself with the school in the country. I went there several times. They were very sweet, but I could not get myself interested in the matter. You talk of energy. Energy is based on love, and love is not to be purchased, not to be commanded. Now, I have come to love this girl, and I do not know myself why.”

And she again cast a glance at Levin. And her smile and glance, — everything told him that she addressed her words to him only, esteeming his opinion, and at the same time knowing in advance that they understood each other.

” I understand that fully,” replied Levin. ” It is impossible to put your heart in the schools and, in general, in similar institutions, and I think that that is the reason why those philanthropic establishments always give such poor results.”

She kept silence, then smiled.

” Yes, yes,” she affirmed. ” I never could. Je ri ai pas le cœur assez large to fall in love with a whole asylum of homely little girls. Cela ne tria jamais réxtssi. There are so many women who have made a position sociale for

themselves out of it. Especially now,” she said, with a melancholy, trustful expression, externally addressing her brother, but apparently having only Levin in mind. ” And just now that I need some kind of an occupation, I am unable to do so.” And, suddenly frowning (Levin understood that she was frowning at herself for talking about herself), she changed the subject. ” I know about you,” she said to Levin, ” that you are not a good citizen, and I have defended you the best I knew how.”

” How did you defend me ? ”

” According to the attacks. However, would you not like to have some tea ? “

She rose and took into her hand a morocco-bound book.

“Give it to me, Anna Arkadevna ! ” said Vorkuev, pointing to the book. ” It deserves it.”

“ Oh, no ! It is so unfinished.”

” I told him,” Stepän Arkädevich turned to his sister, pointing to Levin.

“ Why did you do it ? My writing is something like those baskets and that carving which Liza Mertsdlov sold me from the prisons. She had charge of the prisons in that society,” she turned to Levin. “ And those unfortunates were doing marvels of patience.”

And Levin saw a new feature in that woman who was pleasing him so very much. In addition to intellect, grace, and beauty, she possessed truthfulness. She did not wish to conceal from him the whole gravity of her situation. Saying this, she sighed, and her face, suddenly assuming a stern expression, looked as though it were petrified. With such an expression on her countenance she was even more beautiful than ever; but that expression was new : she was outside that circle of expressions which beamed with happiness and engendered happiness, and which had been caught in the portrait by the artist. Levin once more glanced at the portrait, and at her figure, as she, taking her brother’s arm, was walking with him through the high doorway, and felt for her tenderness and pity, which were surprising to him.

She asked Levin and Vorkuev to go to the drawingroom, and herself remained behind to have a talk with her brother. ” About the divorce, about Vrdnski, about what is going on in the club, about myself ? ” thought Levin. And he was so much agitated by the question of what she was talking about with Stepân Arkddevich that he almost did not hear what Vorkuev was telling him about the good points in the novel for children, which Anna Arkadevna had written.

At tea the same pleasant, pithy conversation was continued. Not only was there not a moment when it became necessary to hunt for a subject for conversation, but, on the contrary, all felt that they did not get time enough to say everything they wanted to, and that they gladly restrained themselves, in order to listen to what another was saying. And everything they said, not only she herself, but also Vorkuev and Stepän Arkädevich, everything seemed to Levin, thanks to her attention and remarks, to receive a special significance.

While following the interesting conversation, Levin kept admiring her, — her beauty, her culture, and at the same time her simplicity and full-heartedness. He listened, talked, and all the time thought of her, of her internal life, trying to divine her sentiments. And though formerly he had severely criticized her, he now, by a strange procession of ideas, justified her and pitied her and was afraid that Vronski did not fully understand her. At eleven o’clock, when Stepan Arkädevich got up in order to leave (Vorkuev had left before), it appeared to Levin that he had just arrived. Levin got up, too, though regretfully.

” Good-bye ! ” she said, holding him back by his hand and looking into his eyes with an attractive glance. ” I am very glad que la glace est rompue.”

She let his hand go and half-closed her eyes.

” Tell your wife that I love her as much as ever, and that if she cannot forgive me my situation, I wish her never to forgive me. To forgive it is necessary to pass through what I have passed, and God forfend that she should !

(( j3y all means, yes, I will tell her — ” Levin said, blushing—

XI.

« What a remarkable, sweet, and pitiable woman ! ” he thought, coming out with Stepan Arkddevich into the frosty air.

” Well, I told you so,” Stepan Arkadevich said to Levin, seeing that he was vanquished.

” Yes,” Levin replied, pensively, ” an unusual woman ! Not only clever, but also a woman of much heart. I am exceedingly sorry for her.”

” Now, God willing, everything will soon be settled. Next time don’t prejudge ! ” said Stepan Arkadevich, opening the door of the sleigh. ” Good night, we are not going the same way.”

Thinking all the time of Anna and of all those very simple conversations which they had held, and recalling all the details of her facial expression on that occasion, and entering more and more into her situation, and feeling pity for her, Levin reached home.

At his house Kuzma informed him that Katerina Aleksandrovna was well and that her sisters had just left, and handed him two letters. Not to have his attention diverted, Levin read them in the antechamber. One was from Sokolov, the clerk. Sokol6v wrote that it was impossible to sell the wheat, as they were giving only five and a half roubles, and that he did not know where to get more money. The other letter was from his sister. She reprimanded him for not having yet settled her affair.

” Well, we shall sell it at five and a half, if they will not give us any more,” Levin at once decided the first question with extraordinary ease, though before it had appeared so very difficult to him. ” It is remarkable how all my time is taken up here,” he thought about the second letter. He felt himself guilty toward his sister for having failed to do what she had been asking him about. ” Again to-day I did not go to court, but to-day I really had no time.” And, making up his mind that he would do it on the next day, he went to his wife. On his way to her, he quickly passed in review his whole day. All the events of the day consisted in conversations, — conversations which he had heard, and those in which he had taken part. These conversations all had turned on subjects which, if he were in the country, he would not be interested in, but in which he was interested here. And they had all been good talks ; only on two occasions had it not been quite pleasant. The one was when he had said something about the pike, and the other was when there had been something wrong in the tender pity which he felt for Anna.

Levin found his wife dejected and lonesome. The dinner of the three sisters would have been a jolly affair, but then they waited and waited for him, and all were bored, and the sisters went home, and she was left alone.

” Well, what have you been doing ? ” she asked, looking into his eyes, which had a peculiar suspicious sparkle in them. But, not to disturb him in his recital, she concealed her suspicion and with an approving smile listened to his story of how he had passed the evening.

” Well, I was very glad to have met Vronski. I felt quite at ease with him. You understand, I will now try never to see him again, but this awkwardness should stop,” he said, and, recalling that he, trying never to see him again, had been to see Anna, he blushed. ” Here, we say that the common people drink ; I do not know who drinks more, the common people or our class ; the people drink on a holiday, but — ”

But Kitty was not interested in the reflection on how the people drank. She saw him blush, and she wanted to know why.

” And where were you then ? “

” Stfva asked me so much to go with him to Anna Arkàdevna.”

And saying this, Levin blushed more than ever, and his doubts whether he had done right or wrong going to Anna were definitely settled. Now he knew that he ought not to have done so.

Kitty’s eyes were dilated in a peculiar way and sparkled at the mention of Anna’s name, but, making an effort over herself, she concealed her agitation and deceived him.

“ Ah ! ” was all she said.

” I am sure you will not be angry with me because I went to see her. Stfva asked me to, and Dolly has been wishing it,” continued Levin.

” Oh, no,” she said, but in her eyes he saw the effort she was making, which portended nothing good.

” She is a very sweet, a very, very pitiable, good woman,” he said, talking about Anna and her occupations, and about what she had told him to communicate to her.

” Yes, of course, she is to be pitied very much,” said Kitty, when he was through. ” From whom did you get a letter ?”

He told her and, believing her calm tone, went to get undressed.

On returning, he found Kitty in the same chair. When he walked over to her, she glanced at him and burst out into tears.

“What? What is it?” he asked, knowing full well what it was.

” You have fallen in love with that bad woman, — she

has charmed you. I saw it iu your eyes. Yes, yes ! What will come of it all ? You drauk and drank in the club, and you played, and then you went — to whom ? Let us go away from here — I will leave tomorrow ! “

For a long time Levin was unable to pacify his wife. Finally he calmed her, only after confessing that the feeling of pity in conjunction with the wine had knocked him off his feet so that he succumbed to Anna’s cunning influence, and that he would avoid her. There was one thing of which he made a frank confession, and that was that, living so long in Moscow with nothing but talking, eating, and drinking, he had lost his senses. They talked until three o’clock in the morning. Only then did they make up sufficiently to be able to fall asleep.

XII.

After seeing her guests off, Anna did not sit down, but kept walking to and fro in the room. Though she had unconsciously been doing everything possible during that evening to evoke in Levin a feeling of love for herself (just as she had of late been doing in respect to all young men) ; and though she knew that she had succeeded so far as was possible with a married man in the period of one evening ; and though she had taken a liking for him (in spite of the sharp contrast, from the standpoint of a man, between Vronski and Levin, she, as a woman, saw in them the same general traits, for which Kitty also had fallen in love with both Vronski and Levin), she stopped thinking of him the moment he left the room.

One, and only one, thought pursued her obtrusively in all its aspects : “If I thus affect others, even this loving married man, why is he so cold to me ? No, he is not exactly’cold, for he loves me, — I know that. But there is something new that separates us. Why has he kept away the whole evening? He sent word by Stiva that he could not leave Yäshvin, and had to watch his game. Is Yashvin such a child ? But let us suppose that it is true. He never tells an untruth. But in this truth there is something else. He is glad to have an opportunity to show me that he has other obligations. I know him, and I agree with him. But why prove it to me ? He wants to prove to me that his love of me ought not to interfere with his freedom. But I need no proofs, — I need love. He ought to comprehend all the gravity of my position

here in Moscow. Do I live ? I do not : I am only waiting for the solution, which is being put off more and more. Again there is no answer ! And Stiva says that he cannot go to see Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich. I cannot write him again. I cannot do a thing, can begin nothing, change nothing ; I am holding myself back and waiting, inventing all kinds of pastimes, — the English family, writing, reading, — but that is all only a deception, that is only that morphine. He ought to pity me,” she said, feeling that tears of pity for herself were coming to her eyes.

She heard Vronski’s impetuous ringing of the bell and hurriedly dried her tears; she not only dried her tears, but also seated herself at the lamp and opened a book, pretending that she was calm. She had to show him that she was dissatisfied with him for not having come back as he had promised, — only that she was dissatisfied, — but in no way to betray her sorrow to him and, above all, her pity for herself. She could pity herself, but he had no right to pity her. She did not wish for any struggle, rebuked him for desiring it, but involuntarily put herself in the attitude for a struggle.

” Well, did you not feel lonely ? ” he said, with animation and merriment, walking over to her. “What a terrible passion gaming is ! ”

” No, I did not feel lonely, and have long ago learned not to feel lonely. Stfva and Levin were here.”

” Yes, they said they would go to see you. Well, how did you like Levin ? ” he said, seating himself near her.

” Very much. They have just left. What has Ydshvin been doing ? ”

” He had been winning, — seventeen thousand. I called him out, and he went away with me ; then he returned, and now he is losing.”

“ So why did you stay there ? ” she asked, suddenly raising her eyes up to him. The expression of her countenance was cold and inimical. ” You told Stiva that you would stay in order to take Yashvin away, and yet you have left him.”

The same cold readiness for the strife was expressed on his countenance.

” In the first place, I did not ask him to tell you anything; in the second, I never tell an untruth. And, above everything else, I wanted to stay, and so I stayed,” he said, frowning. ” Anna, why, why ? ” he said after a minute of silence, bending over toward her and opening his hand, in the hope that she would place hers in it.

She was glad to see that appeal for her tenderness. But a strange power of evil did not permit her to abandon herself to her instinct, as though the conditions of the strife did not allow her to submit.

” Of course, you wanted to stay, and so you did. You do everything you want. But why do you tell me so ? For what purpose ? ” she said, getting more and more excited. “ Does anybody dispute your rights ? You want to be right, and you may be.”

His hand closed up; he leaned back, and his face assumed an even more stubborn expression than before.

“ For you it is a matter of stubbornness,” she said, looking fixedly at him and suddenly finding a name for that expression on his face, which so irritated her, ” that’s it, stubbornness. For you the question is whether you will be the victor in respect to me, while for me — ” Again she felt pity for herself, and she almost burst out weeping. ” If you only knew what it is for me ! When I feel as I do now, that you treat me hostilely, yes, hostilely, — if you only knew what that means to me! If you only knew how close to a calamity I am at such moments, how afraid, how afraid I am of myself!” And she turned aside, concealing her sobs.

” What is it all about ?” he said, terrified at her expression of despair, and again leaning over and taking her hand and kissing it. ” What for ? Am I looking for diversions outside the house ? Do I not avoid the company of women ? “

” Of course ! ” she said.

“ Tell me, what shall I do to make you satisfied ? I am prepared to do anything to make you happy,” he said, touched by that despair. “ What would I not do to free you from any grief, such as you are experiencing now, Anna !”

” Nothing, nothing ! ” she said. ” I do not know myself : whether it is the lonely life, the nerves— Well, let us not talk of it ! You have not told me yet about the races,” she said, trying to conceal the triumph of victor)’, which was none the less on her side.

He asked for supper and began to tell her the details of the races ; but in his tone, in his glances, which grew more and more cold, she saw that he did not forgive her that victory, and that the feeling of stubbornness, against which she had been struggling, had again established itself in him. He was colder to her than before, as though he regretted his having surrendered to her. And she, recalling the words that had given her the victory, namely, ” I am close to a terrible calamity and I am afraid of myself,” she saw that the weapon was dangerous and that she would not be able to employ it again. And she felt that, side by side with their love, which united them, there had established itself a spirit of strife, which she was unable to expel either from his or still less, from her own heart.

XIII.

There are no conditions such that a man cannot get used to them, especially when he sees that all those around him live in the same manner. Levin would not have believed three months before that he would have been able calmly to fall asleep under the conditions in which he now was ; that, living an aimless, disorderly life, and at that above his means, after a bout of drunkenness (he could not call by any other name that which had taken place at the club), after the unwarranted amicable relations with a man with whom his wife had once been in love, and after the still more unwarranted visit on a woman, who could not be called otherwise than lost, and after his infatuation for that woman and his grieving his wife, — that under these conditions he would be able to fall calmly asleep. But, under the influence of fatigue, of a sleepless night, and of the wine consumed, he slept soundly and calmly.

At five o’clock the creak of a door awakened him. He jumped up and looked about him. Kitty was not in the bed beside him. But behind the partition there was a light in motion, and he heard her steps.

” What ? What is it ? ” he muttered, half-asleep. “ Kitty, what is it ? “

” Nothing,” she said, coming out from behind the partition, with a candle in her hand. ” I did not feel well,” she said, smiling a peculiarly sweet and significant smile.

” What is it ? Has it begun ? Has it ? ” he muttered, in fright. “ I must send for them,” he said, beginning to dress himself in a hurry.

« No, no,” she said, smiling, and holding him back with her hand. ” No doubt it is all right. I just felt a little sick. But it has passed.”

And she went up to the bed, put out the light, lay down, and grew calm. Though the quiet of what to him seemed to be a repressed breathing, and more than anything, the expression of peculiar tenderness and excitement, with which she, coming out from behind the partition, had said, ” Nothing,” were suspicious to him, he was so sleepy that he at once fell asleep. Only later he recalled the quiet of her breathing and comprehended everything which had been going on in her dear, sweet soul, as she lay near him without stirring, in expectancy of the greatest event in the life of a woman. At seven o’clock he was awakened by the touch of her hand on his shoulder and by a soft whisper. She seemed to be struggling between pity of waking him and the desire of speaking to him.

” Konstantin, don’t get frightened ! It is nothing. But I think — We must send for Lizavéta Petrovna.”

The candle was again lighted. She sat up on the bed and held in her hand the knitting on which she had been working for the last few days.

” Please do not get frightened, — it is nothing. I am not in the least afraid,” she said, upon noticing his frightened face. She pressed his hand to her breast and then to her lips.

He jumped up in a hurry, oblivious of himself and without taking his eyes off her, put on his morning-gown, and stopped, all the time looking at her. He had to go, but was unable to tear himself away from her glance. Had he not loved her face, and known her expression, her glance ? Still, he had never seen her such. How base and terrible he appeared to himself, as he recalled the grief which he had caused her the evening before, and how base before her, such as she now was ! Her ruddy

face, surrounded by the soft hair that protruded from her nightcap, was beaming with joy and determination.

No matter how little unnaturalness and conventionality there was in Kitty’s character, Levin was nevertheless struck by what now was revealed to him, when suddenly all the coverings were taken off, and the very pith of her soul beamed in her eyes. And in that simplicity and bareness, she, the one he loved, was even more in evidence. She looked at him with a smile ; but suddenly her brows twitched, she raised her head, and, walking rapidly over to him, took his hand, and pressed close to him, wafting upon him her hot breath. She was suffering and seemed to be complaining to. him for her suffering. And, as was his wont, he at the first moment thought that it was all his fault. But in her glance there was tenderness, which said that she was far from reproaching him, and loved him for her suffering. ” If it is not my fault, whose is it?” he involuntarily thought, trying to find the guilty one, in order to punish him ; but there was no guilty person. She was suffering, complaining, and triumphing in this suffering, and glad of it, and loving it. He saw that in her soul something beautiful was taking place, but what it was he could not comprehend. It was above his comprehension.

” I have sent word to mamma. And you go as quickly as you can for Lizavéta Petrôvna — Konstantin ! — It’s all right, it has passed.”

She went away from him and rang the bell.

” Go now ! Pdsha is coming. I am all right.”

And Levin saw in surprise that she took up the knitting, which she had brought in the night, and began to work at it.

Just as Levin was passing through one door, he heard the girl coming in through the other. He stopped at the door and heard Kitty giving detailed orders to the girl and helping her to move the bed.

He dressed himself and, while the horses were being hitched, as there were not yet any cabs in the street, ran into the sleeping-room, running not on tiptoe, but on little wings, as he thought. Two girls were busily changing things around in the sleeping-room. Kitty was walking about and knitting.

“I am going at once for the doctor. A carriage has gone for Lizavéta Petrovna, but I will look in there myself. Is there anything you need ? Yes, shall I go for Dolly ?”

She looked at him, apparently not hearing what he was saying.

“ Yes, yes, go ! ” she said, rapidly, frowning and waving her hand at him.

He had already reached the drawingroom, when a pitiful groan, which broke off at once, was heard in the sleeping-room. He stopped and for a long time could not understand what it was.

” Yes, it is she,” he said to himself ; and, clasping his head, he ran down-stairs.

” O Lord, have mercy upon me! Forgive me! Aid me ! ” he repeated the words which suddenly came to his lips. And he, an unbelieving man, repeated these words not with his lips alone. Now, at this minute, he knew that not only his doubts, but even his inability to believe through reason, of which he was conscious in himself, did not in the least interfere with his addressing himself to God. All that was now scattered from his soul like dust. To whom was he to address himself if not to Him in whose hands he felt himself to be, his soul, and his love ?

The horse was not yet hitched, but, feeling in himself a great strain of his physical powers and of attention to what was before him to do, he did not wait for his horse, but started out on foot, ordering Kuzmä to catch up with him.

At the corner of the street he met a night sleigh hurrying somewhere. In the small sleigh sat Lizavéta Petrovna, dressed in a velvet cloak, and with her head wrapped in a kerchief. ” Thank God, thank God ! ” he muttered; delighted to see her small, light-complexioned face, which now had a peculiar, serious, even stern expression. He did not tell the driver to stop, but ran back beside the sleigh.

” Two hours, you say ? No more ? ” she asked. ” You will find Peter Dmitrievich, only don’t hurry him ! Get some opium at the apothecary’s ! “

” 80 you think that it will come out all right? God have mercy upon me, and aid me! ’’ muttered Levin, seeing his sleigh, which was coming out through the gate. He leaped into it, beside Kuzmé, and ordered him to drive to the doctor’s.

XIV.

The doctor was not yet up, and the lackey said that he had gone to bed late and had ordered them not to wake him, but that he would get up soon. The lackey was cleaning lamp-chimneys, and seemed to be very busy ■with them. This preoccupation of the lackey with the chimneys and his indifference for what was taking place at Levin’s house at first startled him, but upon reflection he saw that no one could know, or was obliged to know, his sentiments, and that, therefore, it was necessary to act calmly, cautiously, and resolutely, in order to break through that wall of indifference and attain his end. ” Don’t hurry, and forget nothing ! ” Levin said to himself, feeling more and more the accession of his physical powers and of his attention to what he had to do.

On hearing that the doctor was not yet up, Levin considered several plans, and finally dwelt on the following : he would send Kuzmd with a note to another doctor, and himself would go to an apothecary’s for the opium, and if, on returning, the doctor should not yet be up, he would bribe the lackey or, if he did not consent, would by force wake the doctor, cost what it might.

At the apothecary’s a lean-looking assistant was, with the same indifference with which the lackey had been cleaning the lamp-chimneys, pasting a wafer on some pills for a coachman, who was waiting, and refused to let Levin have the opium. Trying not to be in a hurry and not to get excited, and giving the names of the doctor and of the midwife, and explaining to him what the opium was wanted for, Levin endeavoured to persuade him. The assistant asked in German whether he might dispense it and, having received the permission from behind the partition, he took down a small bottle and a funnel, slowly poured the opium from the larger into the smaller bottle, pasted on a label, sealed the bottle, in spite of Levin’s entreaties not to do all that, and was on the point of wrapping it up. That was more than Levin could stand ; he resolutely tore the bottle out of his hands and ran out through the large glass door.

The doctor was not yet up, and the lackey, now busy putting down a carpet, declined to wake him. Levin leisurely took out a ten-rouble bill and, speaking slowly, but yet not losing any time, gave him the money and explained to him that Peter Dmitrievich (how great and important insignificant Peter Dmitrievich now appeared to Levin !) had promised to come at any time, and that he would certainly not get angry, and so begged him to wake him at once.

The lackey consented, walked up-stairs, and asked Levin to the waitingroom.

Levin could hear the doctor coughing, walking, washing himself, and saying something in the adjoining room. Three minutes passed ; Levin thought that more than an hour had elapsed. He could not wait any longer.

” Peter Dmitrievich, Peter Dmitrievich ! ” he exclaimed, with a voice of entreaty, through the opened door. ” For God’s sake, forgive me ! Receive me just as you are. It has been more than two hours.”

” Directly, directly ! ” replied the voice, and Levin was amazed to hear the doctor saying that with a smile.

” For one minute.”

“ Directly.”

Two more minutes passed, while the doctor was putting on his boots, and two minutes more, while he was putting on his clothes and combing his hair.

” Peter Dmitrievich ! ” Levin began once more, in a pitiful voice, but just then the doctor came out, all dressed and his hair combed. ” These people have no conscience,” thought Levin. ” To comb his hair, while we are perishing ! ”

” Good morning ! ” the doctor said, giving him his hand, and as though teasing him with his composure. ” Don’t be in a hurry ! Well, sir ? “

Trying to be as exact as possible, Levin began to tell him all kinds of unnecessary details about his wife’s condition, constantly interrupting his recital by entreaties that the doctor should go with him at once.

“ Don’t be in such a hurry ! You do not know about it. No doubt I am not needed, but I have promised, and so I suppose I shall have to go. But there is no hurry. Be seated if you please ! Would you not like a cup of coffee ? ”

Levin looked at him, asking with his glance whether he was making fun of him. But the doctor did not have in his mind making fun of him.

” I know, sir, I know,” the doctor said, smiling, ” I am myself a father of a family ; but you men are at such moments the most miserable of beings. I have a patient, whose husband upon such occasions runs away to the stable.”

” But what do you think, Peter Dmitrievich ? Do you think that it will all come out all right ? ”

” All the data are for a favourable issue.”

” So you will come at once ? ” said Levin, looking resentfully at the servant, who was bringing in coffee.

“In an hour, or less.”

” No, for God’s sake ! “

“ Well, let me drink some coffee ! ”

The doctor began to drink his coffee. Both were silent.

” I must say the Turks are getting badly beaten. Have you read yesterday’s telegram ? ” asked the doctor, munching at a roll.

“No, I can’t !” said Levin, leaping up. “ So you will be there in fifteen minutes ! ”

” In half an hour.”

” Your word of honour ? “

When Levin returned home, he met the princess, who had arrived at the same time with him, and they went together to the door of the sleeping-room. The princess had tears in her eyes, and her hands were trembling. When she saw Levin, she embraced him and burst out weeping.

” Well, dear Lizavéta Petrdvna,” she said, grasping the hand of Lizavéta Petrévna, who came out to them with a beaming and anxious countenance.

” It is going all right,” she said. ” Persuade her to lie down ! It will be better.”

Ever since Levin had got up and had come to understand how matters stood, he had prepared himself to bear everything which might come, without any reflection, without any anticipations, by tightly shutting up all his thoughts and feelings, and without making his wife nervous. Without allowing himself to think of what would happen and how it would all end, and judging from answers to his inquiries how long it might last, Levin in his imagination prepared himself to suffer and to hold his heart in his hands for about five hours, and that seemed possible to him. But, when he returned from the doctor and saw her sufferings once more, he kept repeating more and more often, ” 0 Lord, forgive, aid me ! ” and began to sigh and raise up his head, and he was assailed by terror that he would not be able to endure and would burst out weeping or would run away. It was agonizing to him. And only one hour had passed.

But after that hour there passed another, a third, all five hours, which he had assumed as the farthest limit, and the situation was still unchanged ; and he continued to suffer, for there was nothing else to do but suffer, thinking each minute that he had reached the extreme limit of patience, and that his heart would at any moment burst from compassion.

But minutes passed, and hours and again hours, and his suffering and terror grew and became more and more strained.

All those usual conditions of life, without which it is impossible to imagine anything, no longer existed for Levin. He lost the consciousness of time. Now the minutes, — those minutes when she called him up, and he held her clammy hand, which now compressed his with extraordinary strength, and now repulsed him,— appeared to him like hours, and now the hours appeared like minutes. He was surprised when Lizavéta Petrdvna asked him to light a candle behind the screen, and he learned that it was already five o’clock in the evening. If he had been told that it was only ten o’clock in the morning, he would not have been surprised. He knew just as little where he was as when things happened. He saw her feverish face, now perplexed and suffering, and now smiling and reassuring him. He saw also the princess, red, strained, with the dishevelled locks of her gray hair, and in tears, which she made an effort to swallow, biting her lips ; and he saw Dolly, and the doctor, smoking fat cigarettes, and Lizavéta Petrdvna, with a firm, resolute, and reassuring face, and the old prince, walking up and down in the parlour with a dejected face. But how they came in and went out, where they were, he did not know. The princess was now with the doctor in the sleeping-room, and now in the cabinet, where somehow there appeared a table set ; now it was not she, but Dolly.

Then Levin remembered having been sent somewhere. Once he was sent out to carry a table and a sofa somewhere. He did this with zeal, thinking that it was for her, and only later he learned that he was fixing a place to sleep in at night. Then he was sent to the cabinet to ask the doctor for something. The doctor made a reply and then began to speak of the disorder in the city council. Then he was sent to the princess’s sleeping-room to bring from there an image in gilt silver foil, and he climbed with the princess’s old chambermaid into a safe to get it, when he broke the lamp, and the chambermaid consoled him about his wife and about the lamp, and he brought the image and placed it at Kitty’s head, sticking it carefully behind her pillow. But where, when, and wherefore all that was done, he did not know. Nor did he understand why the princess took his hand and looked pitifully at him and asked him to calm himself, and why Dolly tried to persuade him to eat something and took him out of the room, and why the doctor, too, looked seriously and compassionately at him and offered him some drops.

All he knew and felt was that what was taking place was very much like what the year before had taken place in the hoteliof the provincial city, on the death-bed of his brother Nikolay. But that had been sorrow, and this was joy. But that sorrow and this joy were alike outside all habitual conditions of life and were, in that habitual life, openings, as it were, through which something superior was disclosed. And equally hard and painful was that which was taking place, and just as unattainably did the soul, while contemplating this superior event, rise to that height which before it had never understood, and whither reason could not follow it.

” 0 Lord, forgive and aid me ! ” he kept repeating to himself, feeling, in spite of the long and apparently complete alienation, that he was turning to God with the same confidence and simplicity as in the days of his childhood and first youth.

During all that time he was possessed of two distinct moods : one, outside her presence, with the doctor, who was smoking one fat cigarette after another, and who put them out against the edge of the full ash-tray, with Dolly, and with the prince, when the conversation turned on the dinner, on politics, on Marya PetrOvna’s disease, and when Levin suddenly for a moment forgot what was taking place, and felt as though he had just awakened ; and the other mood, in her presence, at her bedside, where his heart wanted to burst from compassion, and yet could not do so, and he incessantly prayed to God. And every time, when from a moment of forgetfulness he was torn away by a cry that reached him from the sleeping-room, he fell into the same strange error, which had assailed him in the first moment : every time when he heard the cry, he jumped up, ran away to justify himself, and recalled on his way that he was not to blame, and he wanted to defend and aid. But, looking at her, he saw once more that it was impossible to help her, and so was terrified and said, “ O Lord, forgive and aid me ! ” And the more time progressed, the stronger did the two moods get : the more calm, entirely oblivious of her, did he get outside her presence, and the more agonizing became both her sufferings and the consciousness of his impotence before them. He jumped up, and wished to run away somewhere, and yet to run to her.

Now and then, when she called him up again and again, he felt like rebuking her. But, when he saw her submissive, smiling face, and heard her words, ” I have worn you out,” he murmured against God ; but, immediately thinking of God, he prayed to be forgiven and saved.

XV.

He did not know whether it was late or early. The candles were all burning low. Dolly had just been in the cabinet, and proposed to the doctor that he should lie down. Levin sat down and listened to the doctor’s story about a charlatan of a magnetizer and looked at the ashes of his cigarette. There was a period of rest, and he forgot himself. He was listening to the doctor’s story, and he understood it. Suddenly there resounded an unearthly yell. The cry was so terrible that Levin did not even jump up, but, with bated breath, cast a frightened and interrogative glance at the doctor. The doctor leaned his head sidewise, to listen, and smiled an approving smile. Everything was so unusual that nothing startled Levin. ” No doubt it has to be so,” he thought, remaining in his chair. Whose cry was it ? He jumped up, on tiptoe ran into the sleeping-room, went past Lizavéta Petrévna and the princess, and occupied his place at the head of the bed. The cry died down, but some change had taken place. What it was he did not see or understand, nor did he want to see or understand. But he saw it on Lizavéta Petrovna’s face: it was stem and pale and just as resolute, though her jaw trembled a little and her eyes were steadfastly directed upon Kitty. Kitty’s feverish, worn-out face, with a strand of her hair sticking to her perspiring face, was turned toward him and looking for his glance. Her raised hands asked for his. Clasping his cold hands with hers that were clammy, she began to press them against her face.

“ Don’t go away, don’t go away ! lam not afraid, I am not afraid ! ” she said, speaking rapidly. ” Mamma, take the earrings, — they are in my way. Are you not afraid ? It will be soon, soon, Lizavéta Petrovna.”

She talked rapidly, rapidly, and wanted to smile. But suddenly her face was contorted, and she pushed him away from her.

” Yes, it is terrible ! I shall die, I shall die ! Go, go ! ” she screamed, and again was heard that unearthly yell.

Levin clasped his head and ran out of the room.

” It’s all right, it’s all right, all is well,” Dolly said to liim, as he was going out.

But, no matter what they might say to him, he knew that now everything was lost. Leaning his head against the door-post, he stood in the adjoining room and heard somebody’s screech and roar, such a one as he had never heard before, and he knew that it proceeded from that which had been Kitty. He had long ago ceased wishing for a child. He now hated that child. He did not even wish for her life now, — all he wished for was the cessation of those terrible sufferings.

” Doctor, what is it ? What is it ? My God ! ” he said, grasping the hand of the doctor, who had just come in.

” It will soon be over,” said the doctor. And the doctor’s face was so serious, as he was saying that, that Levin understood the words ” it will be over ” in the sense of ” she is dying.”

Beside himself, he ran into the sleeping-room. The first thing he saw was Lizavéta Petrdvna’s face. It was still more frowning and stem than before. Kitty’s face was not to be seen. Where it had been before, there was something terrible, both as to the sight of the strain upon it and to the sound which proceeded from it. He fell with his head against the wood of the bed, feeling that his heart was breaking. The terrible screams did not abate ; they became more terrible still and, as though reaching the last limit of terror, suddenly broke off. Levin did not trust his hearing, but there could be no doubt about it: the screams had stopped, and there was heard a quiet bustle, a rustling, and hurried breathing, and her faltering, living, gentle, happy voice, uttering softly, ” It is over.”

He raised his head. Impotently dropping her hands on the coverlet, uncommonly beautiful and calm, she looked speechlessly at him, and wanted to smile, but could not.

And suddenly, from that mysterious, terrible, unearthly world, in which he had lived for the past twenty-two hours, Levin felt himself instantaneously transferred into his former, habitual world, which now was gleaming in such a new light of happiness, that he was unable to endure it. All the strained strings broke. Sobs and tears of joy, which he had not at all foreseen, rose in him with such force, shaking his whole body, that they for a long time interfered with his speech.

Kneeling down before the bed, he held his wife’s hand between his lips and kissed it, and her hand answered with a feeble motion of her fingers to his kisses. In the meantime there, at the foot of the bed, in Lizavéta Petrévna’s nimble hands, like a flame over the lamp of an image, quivered the life of a human being, which had never been before, and which with the same right and with the same significance to itself would live and breed its like.

“ Alive ! Alive ! And a boy at that ! Don’t trouble yourself ! ” Levin heard the voice of Lizavéta Petrovna, who with her trembling hand was patting the baby on his back.

” Mamma, is it true ? ” was heard Kitty’s voice.

The princess answered her only with sobs.

And amidst the silence as an indubitable answer to the mother’s question, there was heard a voice entirely different from those repressed voices in the room. It was

the bold, audacious, unreasonable cry of a new human being coming one knew not whence.

If Levin had been told before that Kitty had died and that he had died with her, and that their children were angels, and that God was here before them, — he would not have marvelled at anything ; but now, having returned to the world of reality, he made great efforts of thought in order to comprehend that she was alive and well, and that that desperately whimpering being was his son. Kitty was alive and her sufferings were over. And he was inexpressibly happy. But the duld? Whence and wherefore did it come, and who was it ? He could not at all get used to this thought. It seemed to him something superfluous, some superabundance, to which he could not get accustomed for a long time.

XVI.

At ten o’clock, the old prince, Sergyéy Ivanovich, and Stepan Arkadevich were sitting with Levin and, having talked about the young mother, spoke also of other subjects. Levin listened to them and, involuntarily recalling the past, while this conversation was going on, thought of himself, such as he had been the previous day, before this had happened. It was as though a century had passed since then. He felt himself on some unapproachable height, from which he descended cautiously so as not to offend those with whom he was speaking. He kept talking and thinking of his wife, of the details of her present condition, and of his son, trying to become accustomed to the thought of his existence. The whole feminine world, which had received a new, unknown meaning for him after his marriage, now had risen so high in his opinion that he was unable to embrace it in his imagination. He listened to the conversation about the dinner of the previous day and thought, ” What is she now doing ? Is she asleep ? How does she feel ? What is she thinking about ? Is my son Dmitri crying ? ” And in the middle of the conversation, in the middle of a phrase, he leaped up and left the room.

” Let me know whether I may go to see her,” said the prince.

” All right, directly,” replied Levin ; and, without stopping, he went to see her.

She was not sleeping, but talking softly with her mother and making plans for the future christening.

Dressed up, her hair combed, in a pretty cap with

something blue in it, her arms straightened out on the coverlet, she was lying on her back and, meeting him with a glance, attracted him with that glance toward her. Her glance, bright before, beamed even more in proportion as he came near to her. On her countenance was that same change from the earthly to the unearthly, which is to be seen on the faces of the dying ; but there it is the leave-taking, and here the meeting. Again did agitation, similar to what he had experienced during the moment of the delivery, contract his heart. She took his hand and asked him whether he had slept. He was unable to reply and turned away, being convinced of Iris weakness.

” I have forgotten it all, Konstantin ! ” she said to him. ” And I am feeling so well now.”

She looked at him, but suddenly her expression changed.

” Give him to me ! ” she said, upon hearing the baby’s whine. ” Lizavéta Petrévna, give him to me, and he will see him.”

” Well, let his papa look at him ! ” said Lizavéta Petrovna, lifting up and carrying to him something red, strange, and wabbling. ” Wait, first we shall get dressed up,” and Lizavéta Petrovna put that red, wabbling thing down on the bed, began to unroll the child and again to roll him up, raising him with one finger and turning him over, and powdering him with something.

Levin, looking at that tiny, pitiful creature, was making a vain endeavour to find in his soul any signs of a paternal feeling for him. All he felt for him was loathing. But when the child was laid bare, and there flashed his tiny, saffron-coloured arms and his legs, with their little toes, and even with the big toes, which looked different from the rest, and when he saw Lizavéta Petrévna press down those sprawling arms, as though they were soft little springs, enclosing them in linen wraps, he was assailed by such pity for that being and by such terror lest she should do him some injury that he held her arm back.

Lizavéta Petrévna laughed out at him.

” Don’t fear, don’t fear ! ”

When the child was dressed up and changed into a firm little doll, Lizavéta Petrovna rolled him over, as though proud of her work, and stood back so that Levin might see his son in all his beauty.

Kitty looked, without taking her eyes off, sidewise at him. ” Give him to me, give him to me ! ” she said, trying to raise herself.

” Please, Katerina Aleksandrovna, you must not make such movements! Wait awhile, — I will give him to you. We shall show papa what kind of a dashing fellow we are ! ”

And Lizavéta Petrévna with one hand raised toward Levin that strange, shaking, red creature, which was hiding its head behind the edge of the swaddling-cloths (while the other hand, with its fingers only, supported the shaking head). And there were a nose, squinting eyes, and smacking lips.

” A fine baby ! ” said Lizavéta Petrévna.

Levin sighed in grief. This fine child impressed him only with a feeling of loathing and pity. It was not at all the feeling which he had expected.

He turned away, while Lizavéta Petrévna put him down to the unaccustomed breast.

Suddenly laughter made him raise his head. Kitty was laughing. The babe had taken hold of her breast.

” Enough, enough ! ” said Lizavéta Petrévna, but Kitty did not let go of him. He fell asleep in her arms.

” Look now ! ” said Kitty, turning the child to him so that he might be able to see him. The child’s old-looking face was even more wrinkled, and he sneezed.

Smiling and with difficulty repressing tears of emotion, Levin kissed his wife and left the dark room.

What he was experiencing toward that little creature was not at all what he had expected. There was nothing cheerful and joyful in that sentiment ; it was, on the contrary, a new, painful terror. It was the consciousness of a new sphere of mortification. And at first this consciousness was so painful to him, and the terror lest that helpless creature be injured was so strong, that back of it could not be seen the strange feeling of senseless joy and even pride which he had experienced when the child bad sneezed.

XVII.

Stepân Arkâdevich’s affairs were in a bad shape.

The money for two-thirds of the timber had all been spent, and he had already obtained almost the whole of the last third from the merchant, at a discount of ten per cent. The merchant refused to give him more money, the more so since Darya Aleksandrovna during that winter for the first time asserted her rights in the property and refused to sign on the contract a receipt for the last third of the timber. All the salary went on house expenses and on paying petty debts, of which there never was any end. They had absolutely no money.

That was disagreeable and awkward, and, in Stepan Arkâdevich’s opinion, ought not to be continued. The whole trouble, as he understood it, lay in the fact that he received too small a salary. The place which he had, had apparently been a very good one five years before, but now it was not. Petrdv, as director of a bank, received twelve thousand. Sventitski, as member of a company, received seventeen thousand. Mitin received fifty thousand when he founded a bank. ” Evidently I fell asleep, and was forgotten,” Stepan Arkàdevich thought. And he began to listen and watch things, and toward the end of winter he espied a very good place and directed his attack on it, first from Moscow, by means of aunts, uncles, and friends, and then, when the affair matured, he himself went to St. Petersburg. It was one of those places, of varying dimensions, from one to fifty thousand roubles’ salary a year, of which there now was a larger number

than formerly there used to be, snug bribing places; it was the position of a member of the Commission from the United Agency of the Mutual Credit Balance of the Southern Railways and Banking Establishments. This place, like all similar positions, demanded enormous knowledge and activity, such as it was difficult to find united in one man. And, as there could not be found a man who combined those qualities, it was better that it should be entrusted to an honest than to a dishonest man. Stepan Arkddevich was not only an honest man (without emphasis), but also an honest man (with emphasis), with that peculiar significance which the word has in Moscow, when they say : an honest public man, an honest writer, an honest periodical, an honest establishment, an honest party, and which signifies that the man, or establishment, is not only not dishonest, but on occasion knows how to stick a needle into the government’s sides. Stepdn Arkddevich moved in Moscow in those circles where that word was in use and was there regarded as an honest man, consequently he had a greater right to that place than anybody.

This place brought in from seven to ten thousand a year, and Oblonski could hold it without leaving his government position. It depended on two ministries, on one lady, and on two Jews, and all these people, though they had been approached, Stepdn Arkddevich had to see at St. Petersburg. Besides, Stepdn Arkddevich had promised his sister Anna to get from Karénin a definite answer in regard to the divorce. And so he begged Dolly for fifty roubles and went to St. Petersburg.

Sitting in Karénin’s cabinet, and listening to his theory on the causes of the bad state of the Russian finances, Stepdn Arkddevich waited only for the moment when he should get through, in order to speak to him about his affair and about Anna.

” Yes, that is quite true,” he said, when Aleksyéy Aleksdndrovich, taking off his eyeglasses, without which he could not read now, looked interrogatively at his exbrother-in-law, ” that is quite true in detail, but still the principle of our time is freedom.”

“Yes, but I advance another principle, one that embraces the principle of freedom,” said Aleksyéy Aleksdndrovich, emphasizing the word ” embraces ” and again putting on his eyeglasses, in order to read to his hearer the passage where that was mentioned.

And deciphering the neatly written, broad-margined manuscript, Aleksyéy Aleksdndrovich read once more the convincing passage.

” I reject the protectionist system, not for the advantage of private individuals, but for the common good, — equally for the lower and for the higher classes,” he said, looking over his eyeglasses at Obldnski. “ But they cannot understand it, they are busy only with their personal interests, and are carried away by words.”

Stepdn Arkddevich knew that when Karénin began to talk about what they did and thought, that is, those who did not wish to accept his projects and were the cause of all the evils of Russia, the end was near ; and so he completely abandoned the principle of freedom and gave him his full assent. Aleksyéy Aleksdndrovich grew silent, pensively turning the pages of his manuscript.

“ Oh, by the way,” said Stepdn Arkddevich, ” I wanted to ask you, when you see Pomorski, to drop the remark to him that I should like very much to occupy the vacant position of the member of the Commission from the United Agency of the Mutual Credit Balance of the Southern Railways.” Stepan Arkddevich had become accustomed to that appellation, which was so near to his heart, and he pronounced it correctly, without blundering.

Aleksyéy Aleksdndrovich asked him what the activity of that new commission consisted in, and fell to musing. He was reflecting whether in the activity of that commission there was nothing prejudicial to his projects.

But, as the activity of this new establishment was very complicated and his projects took in a very large field, he could not make it out at once, and so, taking off his eyeglasses, he said:

” Of course, I can tell him ; but why do you want that particular place ? “

“The salary is good, about nine thousand, and my means —”

” Nine thousand,” repeated Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich, frowning. The high figure of that salary reminded him that in this respect Stepan Arkâdevich’s proposed activity was contrary to the sense of his projects, which always preached economy.

” I find, as I explain in a note I have written on the subject, that in our day the immense salaries are the signs of the false economic assiette of our administration.”

” What do you mean ? ” said Stepan Arkâdevich. ” Let us say, a director of a bank gets ten thousand, — he earns that. Or an engineer receives twenty thousand. It is a live business, as you please.”

” I assume that a salary is the payment for goods, and that it is subject to the law of demand and supply. And if the apportionment of the salary departs from this law, as, for example, when I see two engineers leaving the Institute with equal knowledge and capacities, and one of them getting forty thousand, while the other is satisfied with two thousand, or that the companies choose for bank directors with enormous salaries jurists and hussars, who have no peculiar special information, — I conclude that the salary is determined, not according to the law of demand and supply, but simply by favouritism. And here we have an abuse, which is important in itself and has an injurious effect on the government service. I assume — ”

Stepan Arkâdevich hastened to interrupt his brother-in-law.

” Yes, but you must admit that the institution which is to be established is unquestionably useful. As you please, it’s a live business. What they lay the greatest weight on is that the affair should be conducted honestly,” said Stepan Arkâdevich, emphasizing the last word.

But the Moscow meaning of the word was incomprehensible to Aleksyéy Aleksândrovich.

” Honesty is only a negative quality,” he said.

” Still, you will do me a great favour,” said Stepân Arkâdevich, ” by dropping a remark to Pomorski. You know, during a conversation — “

“ But that depends mainly on Bolgârinov, I think,” said Aleksyéy Aleksândrovich.

“ Bolgârinov agrees to it for his part,” said Stepân Arkâdevich, blushing. Stepân Arkâdevich blushed at the mention of Bolgârinov, because on that morning he had called on him, and had been left with a disagreeable impression from his visit.

Stepân Arkâdevich knew full well that the business to which he wished to devote himself was new, alive, and honest; but that morning, when Bolgârinov had seemed to make him wait on purpose for two hours in the waitingroom with the other petitioners, he had suddenly felt uneasy.

He had felt uneasy either because he, a descendant of Burik, Prince Oblonski, had to wait two hours in the waitingroom of a Jew, or because for the first time in his life he was not following the example of his ancestors, who had served only the government, while he was about to enter a new field, — in any case, he had felt very ill at ease. In those two hours of waiting at Bolgârinov’s, Stepân Arkâdevich, walking briskly up and down the waitingroom, straightening out his side-whiskers, entering into conversations with the other petitioners, and trying to invent a pun about his waiting for the Jew, had carefully concealed from others and even from himself the feeling which he was experiencing.

But he had been vexed and annoyed all that time, himself not knowing why : whether because he could not make anything decent out of the pun, ” I stayed late at a Jew’s, at last to jubilate,” or for some other reason. When, at last, Bolgdrinov had received him with extraordinary civility, apparently triumphing over his humiliation, and almost refused him, Stepan Arkädevich tried to forget it as soon as possible. And when he now recalled it he blushed.

XVIII.

” Now I have another piece of business, and you know what it is. About Anna,” said Stepän Arkddevich, after a moment’s silence, having shaken off that disagreeable impression.

The moment Obldnski pronounced Anna’s name, Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich’s face completely changed: instead of the former animation, it now expressed fatigue and deadness.

” What is it that ‘you want of me ? ” he said, turning around on his chair, and snapping his eyeglasses.

” A decision, some kind of a decision, Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich. I turn to you now ” (” not as to an insulted husband,” Stepan Arkddevich wanted to say, but, being afraid that he might spoil the matter by that, he substituted the words :) ” not as to a statesman ” (which was irrelevant) ” but simply as to a man and a good man and Christian. You ought to pity her,” he said.

” In what way do you mean it ? ” Karénin said, softly.

” Yes, pity her. If you saw her as I did, — I passed the whole winter with her, — you would take pity on her. Her situation is terrible, yes, terrible.”

” It seems to me,” replied Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich, in a thinner, almost a squeaky voice, ” that Anna Arkadevna has everything she has been wishing for.”

” Oh, Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich, let us, for God’s sake, make no recriminations ! What is past, is past, and you know what she is wishing and waiting for, — for a divorce.”

” But I assume that Anna Arkàdevna declines the

divorce in case I demand that the son be left with me. That was the answer I gave, and I thought that the matter was settled. I myself regard it as settled,” squeaked Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich.

“ For God’s sake, don’t get excited,” said Stepan Arkadevich, touching the knee of his brother-in-law. “The affair is not settled. If you permit me to recapitulate, the matter stood like this : when you separated, you were great, as magnanimous as one could be ; you were prepared to give her everything, — her freedom, and even a divorce. She appreciated it. No, don’t think otherwise,— she did appreciate it ; so much so that during those first minutes, feeling her guilt toward you, she did not consider, and could not consider, everything. She refused every thing. But reality and time have shown that her situation is painful and impossible.”

” Anna Arkädevna’s life cannot interest me,” Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich interrupted him, raising his eyebrows.

“Permit me not to believe it,” Stepan Arkddevich retorted, softly. ” Her situation is painful for her, and without any advantage to anybody. You will say that she has deserved it. She knows it, and does not ask you for anything; she says directly that she has no right to ask you for anything. But I, we, all the relatives, all of us who love her, ask and implore you. Why should she be tormented ? Who is the gainer by it ? ”

” Excuse me, but you, it seems, are putting me in the position of a defendant,” muttered Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich.

“No, no, not at all. Understand me,” Stepdn Arkädevich said, touching his arm, as though he were convinced that that touch soothed his brother-in-law, “all I say is that her situation is painful, and it can be alleviated by you without losing anything by it. I will arrange it all for you in such a way that you will not notice it. You promised.”

“The promise was given before. And I assume that the question about the son has settled the matter. Besides, I had hoped that Anna Arkddevna would have enough magnanimity left — ” muttered pale Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich, speaking with difficulty, and with trembling lips.

“ She leaves it all to your magnanimity. She begs and implores you for one thing, — to take her out of this impossible situation, in which she now is. She no longer insists on the son. Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich, you are a good man. Enter for a moment into her situation. The question of divorce is for her, in her situation, a question of life and death. If you had not promised it before, she would have become reconciled to her situation, and would have remained living in the country. But you promised, and she wrote to you, and came to live in Moscow. And there, in Moscow, where every meeting with a person is a knife run into her heart, she has been living for six months, waiting each day for an answer. It is the same as though a person condemned to capital punishment were to be kept for months with a rope around his neck, promising him perhaps death and perhaps a pardon. Take pity on her, and then I will take it upon myself to arrange everything — Vos scrupules — ”

“ I am not talking of that, of that — ” Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich interrupted him, loathingly. “ But perhaps I promised what I had no right to promise.”

“ So you take back your promise ? ”

“ I never refuse to do what is possible, but I wish to have time to consider in how far what was promised is possible.”

“ No, Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich,” Obldnski exclaimed, jumping up, “ I do not want to believe it ! She is as unhappy as any woman can be, and you cannot refuse such a — ”

“ In so far as what was promised is possible. Vous professez d’etre un Hire penseur. But I, as a believing man, cannot in such an important matter act contrary to the Christian religion.”

” But in Christian communities and with us, so far as I know, divorce is admissible,” said Stepan Arkadevich. “Divorce is permitted even by our Church. And we see — ”

” It is permitted, but not in this sense.”

“ Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich, I do not recognize you,” Oblonski said, after some silence. ” Did you not forgive everything (and did we not appreciate it ?) and, guided by that very Christian sentiment, were you not ready to sacrifice everything? You said yourself that you would give the cloak when the coat was taken, and now — ”

“I ask you,” said Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich, in a squeaky voice and with trembling jaw, suddenly leaping to his feet and growing pale, ” I ask you to stop, to stop this conversation.”

“ Oh, forgive me, forgive me, if I have grieved you ! ” muttered Stepan Arkadevich, with an embarrassed smile, extending his hand. ” Still, I merely communicated my message.”

Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich gave him his hand, fell to musing, and said :

“ I must think it over and find rules of guidance. Day after tomorrow I will give you a definite answer,” he said, after some reflection.

XIX.

Stepan Arkadevich was on the point of leaving, when Kornéy came to announce :

” Sergyéy Aleksyéevich ! ”

” Who is that Sergyéy Aleksyéevich ? ” Stepan Arkadevich began, but immediately thought who it was.

” Ah, Serézha ! ” he said. ” Sergyéy Aleksyéevich ! I thought the director of a department. Anna asked me to take a look at him,” he happened to recall.

And he recalled the timid, pitiful expression, with which Anna, dismissing him, had said : “ Still you will see him. Find out precisely where he is, who is with him. And, St!va — if it were possible ! It is possible, is it not ? ” Stepan Arkadevich knew what the words “ If it is possible ” meant ; they meant, — if it were possible to arrange the divorce in such a way that she might retain her son. Now Stepan Arkadevich saw that that was entirely out of the question ; still he was glad to see his nephew.

Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich reminded his brother-in-law that nothing was ever said to his son about his mother, and asked him not to mention a word about her.

“ He was very ill after the meeting with his mother, which we had not anticipated,” said Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich. ” We were even afraid for his life. But a rational cure and sea-baths have improved his health, and now, with the doctor’s advice, I am sending him to school. The influence of companions has been very salutary upon him, and he is quite well again and is a good student.”

” What a fine fellow he has turned out to be ! Not at all Serézha, but a whole Sergyéy Aleksyéevich ! ” Stepan

Arkadevich said, smilingly, looking at the handsome, broad-shouldered boy, in his blue jacket and long trousers, walking briskly and unconstrainedly. The boy looked healthy and happy. He bowed to his uncle as to a stranger, but, on recognizing him, he blushed and rapidly turned away from him, as though offended and irritated by something. The boy walked over to his father and handed him a note containing his grades at school.

“ That is nice,” said his father, ” you may go.”

” He has grown thinner and is taller, and is no longer a child, but a boy ; I like that,” said Stepan Arkadevich. ” Do you remember me ? “

” I do, mon onclc,” he replied, looking at his uncle, and again seeming embarrassed.

The uncle called up the boy, and took his hand.

” Well, how are things ? ” he said, wishing to talk with him, but not knowing what to say.

The boy, blushing and making no reply, cautiously pulled his hand out of that of his uncle. The moment Stepan Arkadevich let go of his hand, he like a bird set free, casting an interrogative glance at his father, with rapid steps walked out of the room.

A year had passed since Serézha had for the last time seen his mother. Since then he had not once heard about her. That same year he was sent to school, and there became acquainted with companions, whom he loved. Those dreams and reminiscences about his mother, which after his meeting with her had made him sick, now no longer interested him. Whenever they came to him, he took care to dispel them, as he considered them disgraceful or fit only for girls, and not for a boy who was attending school. He knew that there was a difference between his father and his mother, which had separated them, and that he was to stay with his father, and he tried to become accustomed to that idea.

When he saw his uncle, who resembled his mother, he felt annoyed because this evoked the very recollections which he considered shameful. This was the more disagreeable to him since, from a few words which he had heard, while waiting at the door of the cabinet, he guessed that they must have spoken about his mother. And, in order not to condemn his father, with whom he was living, and on whom he depended, and, above all, not to fall into sentimentality, which he regarded as so humiliating, Serézha tried not to look at his uncle, who had come to disturb his peace, and not to think of what he was talking about.

But when Stepan Arkadevich, who went out after him, saw him on the staircase, and called him up and asked him how he passed his time at school between classes, Serézha, not being in his father’s presence, talked freely with him.

” We are now having a railway,” he said, answering his question. ” You see, it is like this : two sit down on a bench, — those are the passengers, and one stands up on the bench. And all hitch themselves up to it, — they hold on with their hands, or with their belts, and they run through all the rooms. The doors are all opened in advance. But it is hard to be a conductor there ! “

” Is it the one that is standing up ? ” asked Stepan Arkadevich, smiling.

” Yes. It takes courage and quickness, especially when they suddenly stop, or some one falls down.”

” Yes, that is no joke,” said Stepan Arkadevich, looking sorrowfully at those animated eyes, his mother’s eyes, no longer those of a child, no longer entirely innocent. And, though he had promised Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich not to talk about Anna, he did not hold out

” Do you remember your mother ? ” he suddenly asked.

” No, I do not,” Serézha said, quickly ; lowering his face, he blushed. His uncle could not get anything more out of him.

The Slavic tutor half an hour later found his charge on the staircase, and for a long time could not make out whether he was angry, or crying.

” Did you fall down and hurt yourself ? ” asked the tutor. “I told you it was a dangerous game. And I shall have to tell the director.”

” If I had hurt myself, nobody would have known it. You may be sure of that.”

” What is it, then ? “

” Det me alone! — I remember, I do not — What business of his is it ? Why should I remember ? Let me alone ! ” he turned, not to the tutor, but to the whole world.

XX.

Stepân Arkâdevich, as usual, did not pass his time uselessly in St. Petersburg. In addition to the business which he had,— his sister’s divorce and the position,— he had to refresh himself, as he said, after his Moscow mustiness.

Moscow, in spite of its cafés chantants and busses, was after all a stagnant pool. Stepan Arkadevich always felt so. Living in Moscow, especially in the proximity of his family, he felt himself losing courage. Whenever he stayed for any length of time in Moscow, without leaving it, he finally began to become uneasy on account of his wife’s ill humour and reproaches, on account of the children’s health and education, and on account of the petty interests of his service; he was even disquieted by the fact-that he had debts. But he had only to come to St. Petersburg and stay there awhile, in the circle in which he used to move, where people lived, that’s it, lived and did not vegetate, and all his thoughts at once disappeared and melted away, like the wax in the face of the fire.

His wife ? He had only that day spoken with Prince Chechénski. Prince Chechénski had a wife and a family, — grown-up children who were pages, — and he had another, an illegitimate family, in which, too, there were children. Though the first family was nice, Prince Chechénski felt happier with his second family. And he introduced his eldest son to his second family and told Stepân Arkâdevich that he found that useful and educative for his son. What would they say to that in Moscow ?

The children ? In St. Petersburg the children did not act as obstacles to their fathers. The children were being educated in all kinds of establishments, and there was not that wild conception, so common in Moscow, — for example in the case of Lvov, — that the whole luxury of life was for the children, and nothing but labour and cares for the parents. Here they understood that a man had to live for himself, as an educated man ought to live.

The service ? The service, too, was here not that assiduous, hopeless grind that it was in Moscow ; here service was interesting. A meeting, an obliging act, a word well put, the ability to perform all kinds of tricks, — and a man’s career was made, as was the case with Bryantsev, whom Stepan Arkädevich had met the day before, and who now was a dignitary of the first rank. Such kind of service presented some interest.

But more than anything else, the St. Petersburg view of money matters had a soothing effect upon Stepan Arkadevich. Bartnyänski, who was spending at least fifty thousand, to judge from the swath which he was cutting, had told him a remarkable witticism about it the day before.

Getting into a conversation with Bartnyänski, Stepan Arkadevich had said to him :

” You, I think, are on a footing of close friendship with Mordvinski ; you can do me a favour, — put in a word for me with him. There is a place which I should like to occupy, — a membership of the Agency — “

” Well, I shall forget it all the same — Only, what pleasure do you find in getting into relations with those Jews on the railways ? Say what you please, it is an abomination.”

Stepän Arkädevich did not tell him that it was a lively business ; Bartnyänski would not have understood liiin.

” I need money, — nothing to live on.”

” But you are living ? “

” I am, but the debts.”

” You don’t say? Much? ” Bartnyänski asked, compassionately.

“Very much, some twenty thousand.”

Bartnyänski burst out into a merry laugh.

” 0 happy man ! ” he said. ” I have a million and a half of them, and no money, and yet I live, as you see.”

And Stepän Arkädevich saw, not only in words, but in fact, the justice of this. Zhivakhdv had three thousand roubles of debts and not a penny to his soul, and yet he lived, and lived well ! Count Krivtsov had long ago gone up the flue, and yet he kept two women. Petrdvski had squandered five millions, and yet continued to live in the same style, and even was in charge of finances and received a salary of twenty thousand. Besides, St. Petersburg had a salutary physical effect upon Stepän Arkädevich. It made him younger. In Moscow he now and then looked at his bald spot, fell asleep after dinner, stretched himself, walked up the staircase at a slow pace, breathing heavily, felt tedium in the presence of young women, and did not dance at balls. But in St. Petersburg he always felt that ten years had fallen off his shoulders.

In St. Petersburg he experienced the very thing that sixty-year-old Prince Peter Oblonski, who had just returned from abroad, had told him of the day before :

” We do not know how to live here,” Peter Oblonski had said. “Would you believe it, I passed a summer at Baden, — really I felt as though I were a very young man. “Whenever I saw a young woman, I thought — I would dine and take a drink of something, — and I felt strong and full of life. When I came back to Russia, — I had to go at once to my wife, and to the country at that, — well, you would not believe it, in two weeks I put on my morning-gown and stopped dressing for dinner. No thought of young women then ! I was altogether an old man once more. All there was left to do was to think of saving my soul. I went to Paris, and I recuperated once more.”

Stepän Arkadevich felt precisely the same difference as did Peter Obldnski. In Moscow he let himself down so much that if he, indeed, lived there long enough, he would, before he knew it, reach the point of having to save his soul ; but in St. Petersburg he felt himself once more a decent kind of man.

Between Princess Betsy Tverskdy and Stepan Arkddevich there had always existed some very strange relations. Stepàn Arkadevich had always jestingly paid her attentions, and had always, again jestingly, told her most indecent things, knowing that she liked that best. On the day following his conversation with Karénin, Stepän Arkddevich, calling on her, felt himself so young that in this jocular courting and story-telling he accidentally went so far that he did not know how to extricate himself because, to his misfortune, he not only did not like her, but felt a loathing for her. This tone had established itself between them only because she liked him very much. And so he was very glad of the arrival of Princess Myagki, who interrupted their tête-à-tête.

” Oh, you are here, too ! ” she said, when she saw him. ” Well, how is your poor sister ? Don’t look at me that way ! ” she added. ” Ever since everybody has been attacking her, all those who are a thousand times worse than she, I find that she acted very well. I cannot forgive Vrdnski for not having sent word to me when he was in St. Petersburg. I should have called on her and should have gone everywhere with her. Well, tell me something about her ! “

” Yes, her situation is hard, she — ” Stepän Arkadevich began to talk, in the simplicity of his heart taking the words of Princess Myägki, ” Tell me about your sister,” as genuine coin. Princess Myâgki, as was her wont, immediately interrupted him, and began to talk herself.

” She did what everybody but me is doing all the time, concealing their acts ; but she would not deceive, and so did well. And she did better still in that she abandoned that half-witted brother-in-law of yours. Everybody kept saying that he was clever ; I was the only one who said that he was stupid. Now that he has leagued himself with Lidiya Ivänovna and with Landau all say that he is half-witted, and I should like to differ from everybody, but I cannot.”

” Please explain to me,” said Stepan Arkadevich, “ what that means ? I called on him yesterday on my sister’s affair, and asked him for a definite answer. He gave me none, and said that he would consider it, and this morning, instead of an answer, I received an invitation to spend the evening at the house of Countess Lidiya Ivanovna.”

” That’s it, that’s it ! ” Princess Myägki exclaimed, joyfully. ” They will ask Landau what he has to say.”

“ Landau ? What for ? What is that Landau ? ”

“ What, do you not know Jules Landau le fameux, Jules Landau le clairvoyant? He, too, is half-witted, but on him depends your sister’s fate. That is what comes from living in the province, — you do not know a thing. Landau, you see, was a clerk in a Paris shop, and he went to a doctor. In the doctor’s waitingroom he fell asleep, and in his sleep he began to give advice to the patients. Those were marvellous bits of advice. Then, — you know Yuri Meledinski, the sick man ? His wife learned about this Landau, and took him to her husband. He has been curing him. In my opinion, he has not done him any good, for he is just as feeble as he used to be, but they believe in him and travel around with him. And thus they brought him to Russia. Here they all took him up, and he is curing everybody. He has cured Countess

Bezzubov, and she has taken such a liking for him that she has adopted him as her son.”

” What do you mean ? “

“As I tell you, she has adopted him. He is now no longer Landau, but Count Bezzubov. But that is another matter ; but Lidiya, — I like her very much, though her head is turned, — of course, has pitched on this Landau, and without him neither she, nor Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich, undertake anything, and so your sister’s fate is now in the hands of this Landau, alias Count Bezzubov.”

XXL

After a superb dinner with a large quantity of cognac, consumed at Bartny an ski’s, Stepän Arkadevich, only a little later than the appointed time, entered the house of Countess Lidiya Ivénovna.

“Is anybody else with Countess Lidiya Ivänovna? The Frenchman ? ” Stepan Arkadevich asked the porter, scanning Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich’s familiar overcoat, and another, a strange, naïve overcoat with buckles.

“ Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich Karénin and Count Bezzubov,” the porter replied, sternly.

“Princess Myägki has guessed it right,” thought Ste-pän” Arkadevich, ascending the staircase. “ Strange ! However, it would be well to cultivate her acquaintance. She has an enormous influence. If she dropped a word to Pomorski, I should certainly get it.”

It was still light outside, but in Lidiya Ivanovna’s small drawingroom the blinds were down and lamps were burning.

At a round table, beneath a lamp, sat the countess and Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich, talking softly with each other. An undersized, spare-ribbed man with feminine hips, with legs bent inward at the knee, exceedingly pale and handsome, with beautiful, sparkling eyes and long hair, which was lying on the collar of his coat, stood at the other end, examining the pictures on the wall. Having ‘exchanged greetings with the hostess and with Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich, Stepän Arkadevich involuntarily cast another glance upon the stranger.

“ Monsieur Landau ! ” The countess turned to him,

with a gentleness and caution which surprised Oblonski. And she introduced him to Stepan Arkadevich.

Landau looked hastily around, walked up, and, smiling, put into Stepdn Arkadevich’s hand his own motionless, clammy hand, and immediately went back to examine the portraits. The countess and Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich exchanged significant looks.

” I am very glad to see you, especially to-night,” said Countess Lidiya Ivanovna, indicating to Stepan Arkadevich a seat near Karénin.

” I have introduced you to him as to Landau,” she said, in a soft voice, glancing at the Frenchman and immediately afterward at Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich, “but he is really Count Bezzubov, as you, no doubt, know. Only he does not like that title.”

” Yes, I have heard,” replied Stepan Arkadevich, ” they say he has completely cured Countess Bezzubov.”

” She was here to-day, — she is so wretched ! ” the countess turned to Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich. “ That separation is terrible for her. It is such a shock to her ! “

” Will he positively go ? ” Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich asked her.

” Yes, he is going to Paris. He heard a voice yesterday,” said Countess Lidiya Ivanovna, glancing at Stepdn Arkddevich.

“ Ah, a voice,” repeated Oblénski, feeling that he had to be as careful as possible in that company, in which was taking place, or was going to take place, something peculiar, to which as yet he did not have the key.

There ensued a momentary silence, after which Countess Lidiya Ivdnovna, as though approaching the chief subject of conversation, said to Oblénski, with a delicate smile :

” I have known you for a long time and am glad to have an opportunity to know you more closely. Les amis de nos amis sont nos amis. But, in order to be a friend, one has to fancy himself in the condition of his friend’s soul, and I am afraid you have not been doing that in relation to Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich. ‘You understand what I am talking about,” she said, raising her beautiful, pensive eyes.

“ Partly, countess, I understand that the situation of Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich — ” said Oblonski, who did not exactly know what it was all about, and who, therefore, wished to stick to generalities.

” The change is not in the external situation,” Countess Lidiya Ivdnovna said, sternly, at the same time looking with loving eyes at Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich, who had risen and gone over to Landau. ” His heart has changed, — a new heart has been given him, and I am afraid that you have not fully grasped the change which has taken place in him.”

” Well, in a general kind of way I can imagine the change. We have always been friendly with each other, and now — ” said Stepdn Arkadevich, replying with a tender glance to her glance, trying to figure out with which of the two ministers she was better acquainted, in order to know about which to ask her.

” The change which has taken place in him cannot weaken his sentiment of love for his neighbours ; on the contrary, the change which has taken place in him must increase that love. But I am afraid that you do not understand me. Do you not want some tea ? ” she said, with her eyes indicating the lackey who was carrying tea around on a tray.

“ Not quite, countess. Of course, his misfortune — ”

” Yes, the misfortune which has become his greatest happiness, now that the heart has become renewed, and all filled with it,” she said, casting a loving glance at Stepan Arkadevich.

” I think I may ask her to put in a word with both,” thought Stepdn Arkadevich.

” Oh, of course, countess,” he said, ” but I think that these changes are so intimate that no one, not even the closest friends, like to talk of them.”

” On the contrary ! We must speak and aid each other.”

” Yes, no doubt, but there is such a difference of convictions, and then — ” Oblonski said, with a soft smile.

“There can be no difference in the matter of sacred truth.”

“Oh, yes, of course, but—” and, becoming confused, Stepän Arkädevich broke off. He saw that she was talking about religion.

” I think he will soon fall into a trance,” Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich said in a significant whisper, walking over to Lidiya Ivanovna.

Stepan Arkädevich looked around. Landau was sitting at a window, leaning against the arm and the back of a chair, and lowering his head. When he observed the glances directed at him, he raised his head and smiled a childish, naïve smile.

“Do not direct your attention to him,” said Lidiya Ivanovna, with a gentle motion pushing a chair over for Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich. “ I have noticed — ” she began, when a lackey entered the room with a letter. Lidiya Ivänovna quickly ran through the note, with extraordinary rapidity wrote an answer and gave it to the lackey, and came back to the table. ” I have noticed,” she continued the conversation which had been interrupted, “ that the Muscovites, especially the men, are the most indifferent of people toward religion.”

” Oh, no, countess, it seems to me that the Muscovites have the reputation of being the firmest,” replied Stepan Arkädevich.

” Yes, so far as I understand, you, I am sorry to say, are one of the indifferent men,” said Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich, with a weary smile, turning to him.

“ How can one be indifferent ! ” said Lidiya Ivänovna.

” I am in this respect not exactly indifferent, but in a state of expectancy,” said Stepan Arkädevich, with his most emollient smile. “ I do not think that the time for these questions has come for me.”

Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich and Lidiya Ivänovna exchanged glances.

“We can never know whether the time has come for us, or not,” Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich said, sternly. “ We must not think whether we are ready or not : divine grace is not guided by human considerations ; it sometimes does not descend on those who work for it, and comes down on those who are not prepared, as it came down on Saul.”

“ No, not yet, I think,” said Lidiya Ivanovna, who during that time had been watching the Frenchman.

Landau got up and walked over to them.

” Will you permit me to listen ? ” he asked.

” Oh, yes, I did not want to disturb you,” said Lidiya Ivanovna, looking tenderly at him. “ Be seated near us.”

“ All that is necessary is not to shut the eyes, in order not to be deprived of the light,” continued Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich.

“ Oh, if you knew the happiness which we experience, when we feel His eternal presence in our soul ! ” said Countess Lidiya Ivanovna, with a blissful smile.

” But a man may sometimes feel himself incapable of rising to such a height,” said Stepan Arkädevich, feeling that he was not sincere when he admitted a religious height, and at the same time not having the courage to confess his free thought to a person that with one word of hers to Pomorski might secure him the desired place.

“ That is, you wish to say that sin is in his way ? ” said Lidiya Ivänovna. “ But that is a false opinion. There is no sin for believers, — sin has been redeemed. Pardon,” she added, looking at the lackey who had again entered with a note. She read it and gave the verbal answer, ” Tell him, tomorrow, at the grand duchess’s — For the believer there is do sin,” she continued the conversation.

” Yes, but faith without acts is dead,” said Stepan Arkadevich, recalling that phrase from the catechism, asserting his independence with a smile only.

” There it is, from the Epistle of James,” said Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich, turning with some reproach to Lidiya Ivanovna, apparently referring to a subject they had often spoken of before. ” How much harm the false interpretation of that passage has caused ! ‘ I have no deeds, I cannot believe,’ though that is not written anywhere. The very opposite is written.”

” To work for God, to save our souls by work and fasting,” Countess Lidiya Ivanovna said, with loathing contempt, ” those are the wild conceptions of our monks — But it does not say so nn y where. It is all much simpler and easier,” she added, looking at Obldnski with that exceedingly encouraging smile with which at court she encouraged the young maids of honour, who were embarrassed by the new surroundings.

” We are saved by Christ who has suffered for us. We are saved by faith,” affirmed Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich, approving her words with his glance.

” Vous comprenez Vanglais?” asked Lidiya IvLnovna, and, having received an affirmative answer, she got up and began to look over the books on the shelf.

“ I want to read ‘ Safe and Happy ‘ and ‘ Under the Wing,’ ” she said, looking interrogatively at Karénin. And, having found the book and taken her seat again, she opened it. ” It is very short. Here is described the path on which faith is acquired, and that happiness, which is higher than everything earthly, and which then fills one’s soul. A believing man cannot be unhappy, because he is not alone. You will see.” She got ready to read, when the lackey came in again. ” Borozdina ? Tell her tomorrow, at two. Yes,” she said, marking the passage in the book with her finger, and with a sigh casting her pensive eyes in front of her. ” This is the way true faith acts. Do you know Marie Sanin ? Do you know of her unhappiness ? She has lost her only child. She was in despair. Well, what do you think ? She has found this friend, and now she thanks God for the loss of her child. That is the happiness which faith gives ! ”

” Oh, yes, that is very — ” said Stepdn Arkadevich, glad to see that she was about to read, which would give him a chance to collect his senses. ” I had better not ask for anything to-day,” he thought. ” I shall be happy if I get away from here without getting into a muddle.”

” It will be tiresome for you,” said Countess Lidiya Ivänovna, turning to Landau. ” You do not know English, but it is short.”

” Oh, I shall understand,” Landau said, with the same smile, and closing his eyes.

Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich and Lidiya Ivanovna exchanged significant glances, and the reading began.

XXII.

Stepân Abkädevich was completely baffled by those new, strange speeches which he heard. The complexity of the St. Petersburg life in general had an exciting effect upon him and took him out of the Moscow stagnation ; these complications he liked and understood in the familiar spheres which he frequented ; but in this strange sphere he was perplexed and puzzled, and was unable to grasp it all. Listening to Lidiya Ivanovna, and feeling directed upon himself Landau’s beautiful, naïve, or rascally eyes, — he did not know which, — Stepan Arkadevich began to experience a peculiar heaviness in his head.

The most varied thoughts began to get mixed in his head. ” Marie Sanin is glad that her child died — It would be nice to have a smoke now — To be saved it is only necessary to believe, and the monks do not know how to do it, but Countess Lidiya Ivànovna knows — and why does my head feel so heavy ? Is it from the cognac, or because this is all so strange ? Still it seems to me I have not done anything improper so far. But I cannot ask her now for it. I heard it said that they make you pray. It would be dreadful if they made me pray. It would be too stupid. What bosh she is reading there, but she pronounces well. Landau-Bezzubov, why is he Bezzubov ? ” Suddenly Stepän Arkadevich began to feel that his lower jaw was twitching irresistibly for a yawn. He concealed his yawn by straightening out his side-whiskers and pulled himself together. But suddenly he felt that he was sleeping and was getting ready to snore. He awoke just as Countess Lidiya Ivdnovna exclaimed, ” He is asleep.”

Stepan Arkadevich awoke in fright, feeling himself guilty and caught. But he immediately was consoled, when he saw that the words ” He is asleep,” had no reference to him, but to Landau. The Frenchman had fallen asleep, like Stepan Arkadevich. But his own sleep, he thought, would have offended them (however, he did not even think of it, for everything seemed so strange to him), while Landau’s sleep gave them, especially so to Countess Lidiya Ivanovna, extraordinary pleasure.

” Mon ami,” said Lidiya Ivanovna, cautiously raising the folds of her silk dress, so as not to make any noise, and in her excitement calling Karénin not Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich, but ” mon ami,” ” donnez-lui la main ! Vous voyez ? Hush ! ” she hissed to the lackey, who had come in once more. ” Do not receive ! “

The Frenchman was asleep, or pretended to be, leaning his head against the back of the chair, and making motions with his clammy hands, which were lying on his knee, as though he wanted to catch something. Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich got up, trying to walk cautiously, but still catching in the table, went over to Landau, and put his hand into that of the Frenchman. Stepan Arkädevich, too, got up and, opening his eyes wide in an attempt to wake himself if he was asleep, looked now at one and now at another. All that was in waking. Stepan Arkadevich felt that things were getting more and more muddled in his head.

” Que la personne qui est arrivée la dernière, celle qui demande, qu’elle sorte. Qu’elle sorte ! ” muttered the Frenchman, without opening his eyes.

” Vous m’excuserez, mais vous voyez— Revenez vers dix heurs, encore mieux demain.”

” Qu’elle sorte ! ” the Frenchman repeated, impatiently.

” C’est moi, ricst-ce pas ? ” and, having received an affirmative answer, Stepan Arkadevich, forgetting what he had intended to ask Lidiya Ivdnovna about, forgetting his sister’s affair, possessed of the desire only to get away as fast as possible, went out on tiptoe and, as from an infected house, ran into the street and for a long time talked and jested with the driver, trying as quickly as possible to regain his senses.

In the French theatre, where he came in time for the last act, and then at the Tartars’ over the champagne, Stepan Arkadevich revived a little in the atmosphere which was more suitable to him. Still, he never was entirely himself during the whole evening.

On returning home to Peter Obion ski’s, where he was stopping in St. Petersburg, Stepan Arkâdevich found a note from Betsy. She wrote to him that she was very anxious to finish the conversation on which they had begun, and begged him to come on the next day. He had hardly had time to read the note and frown over it, when down-stairs was heard the clumsy tread of men carrying something heavy.

Stepan Arkadevich went out to see what it was. It was juvenescent Peter Obldnski. He was so drunk that he was unable to ascend the staircase ; but, upon seeing Stepdn Arkddevich, he ordered the men to put him down on his feet, and, clutching him, he went with him to his room, where he began to tell him how he had passed the evening, whereat he fell asleep.

Stepdn Arkâdevich was dispirited, which rarely happened with him, and for a long time could not fall asleep. Everything which he recalled was abominable, but most abominable, as though it had been something disgraceful, was the evening at the house of Countess Lidiya Ivdnovna.

On the following day he received from Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich a definite refusal to grant Anna a divorce, and he understood that the decision was based on what the Frenchman had said the evening before in his real or pretended sleep.

XXIII.

In order to accomplish anything in family life, there has to be either a complete discord between husband and wife, or a concord of love. But when the relations of the two are indefinite, and neither the one nor the other is the case, nothing can be accomplished.

Many families remain for years in their old places, with which both parties are surfeited, only because there is no complete discord, and no agreement.

And thus the Moscow life, in the heat and dust, when the sun warmed no longer as in the spring, but as in the summer, and all the trees in the boulevards had long been in leaf, and the leaves were already covered with dust, was intolerable to Vrdnski and to Anna ; but they did not go back to Vozdvfzhenskoe, as had been decided upon long ago, and remained living in Moscow, of which both were heartily tired, because of late there had been no agreement between them.

The irritation which separated them had no external cause, and all the attempts at explanations did not remove it, but only increased it. It was an internal irritation, which for her had its foundation in the waning of his love, and for him, in the regret for having placed himself, on her account, in a difficult situation, which she, instead of alleviating, was only making harder. Neither the one nor the other gave expression to the causes of their irritation, but each regarded the other as in the wrong, and they took every occasion to prove that to each other.

For her, all of him, with all his habits, thoughts, and wishes, with all his mental and physical composition, was but one thing, — love of women, and this love, as she felt, was to be concentrated on her alone. This love had diminished ; consequently, as she understood it, he must have transferred part of that love to others, or to one other woman, and she was jealous. She was jealous of him not on account of any particular women, but on account of the diminution of his love. As she did not yet have a subject for jealousy, she tried to find one. At the slightest hint she transferred her jealousy from one subject to another. Now she was jealous of him on account of those coarse women, with whom he, thanks to his bachelor connections, could easily enter into relations ; now she was jealous on account of the society ladies, whom he could easily meet ; now she was jealous on account of an imaginary girl, whom he would marry after breaking off his connection with her. And this latter jealousy tormented her more than anything else, especially because in an unguarded moment he had told her frankly that his mother understood him so little that she permitted herself to try to persuade him to marry Princess Sorokin.

And, being jealous of him, Anna was indignant at him and tried to find in everything causes for indignation. She accused him of everything which was hard in her situation. The torturing condition of expectancy, which she passed in Moscow, between heaven and earth ; Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich’s slowness and indecision ; her solitude, — she ascribed them all to him. If he loved her, he would understand the whole gravity of her situation, and would bring her out of it. Even so it was his fault that they were living in Moscow, and not in the country. He could not live by burying himself in the country, as she wished to do. He absolutely needed society, and he placed her in that terrible situation, the gravity of which he did not want to understand. And again it was his fault that she was for ever separated from her son.

Even those rare moments of tenderness, which occurred between them, did not calm her: in his tenderness she now saw a shade of calm and assertiveness, which had not been before, and which irritated her.

It was dusk. Anna, expecting his return from a bachelor dinner, to which he had gone, was walking all alone up and down his cabinet (in which room the rattling of the pavement was heard least) and meditating on all the details of the expressions in the quarrel which they had had on the previous day. Retracing the steps from the memorable insulting words of the quarrel to what had been their cause, she finally came back to the beginning of the conversation. For a long time she could not believe that their difference could have begun from such a harmless conversation, which was not near to the heart of either. And yet it was so. It had all begun with his ridiculing the female gymnasia, considering them useless, while she took their part. He assumed a disrespectful attitude to female education in general and said that Hannah, the English girl, Anna’s protégée, did not need to know physics.

That irritated Anna. She saw in it a contemptuous reference to her occupations, and brooded on a sentence which would repay him for the pain he had caused her, and finally said it to him :

” I do not expect you to be mindful of me and my feelings, as a loving man would be, but I have expected simply delicacy,” she said.

And indeed, he blushed from annoyance and said something disagreeable. She did not remember what she had replied to him, but he said to her, apparently with the desire of giving her pain also :

” I am not interested in your passion for that girl, that is true, because I see that it is unnatural”

This cruelty, with which he was destroying the world which she had built up with such difficulty in order to make her hard life endurable ; that injustice, with which he accused her of pretence, of unnaturalness, made her explode.

” I am very sorry that only the coarse and material things are comprehensible and natural for you,” she said, leaving the room.

When he came to her in the evening, they did not mention the quarrel, but both of them felt that it had been smoothed over, not forgotten.

Now he had been away from home the whole day, and she felt so lonely and so oppressed at the consciousness of the quarrel, that she wanted to forget everything, to forgive, and make her peace with him, — she wanted to accuse herself and justify him.

“ It is my own fault. I am irritable, and senselessly jealous. I will make up with him, and we shall go to the country, where I shall be calmer,” she said to herself.

” Unnatural,” she suddenly recalled, not so much the word, as the intention of paining her, which had offended her so much. ” I know what he meant to convey ; he wanted to say that it was unnatural for me to love a stranger’s child, since I do not love his own daughter. What does he know about love for children, about my love for Serézha, whom I have sacrificed for his sake ? But this desire to pain me ! Yes, he loves another woman, — it cannot be otherwise.”

And, upon observing that, in the desire to calm herself, she was only making the round of the circle, which she had traversed so many times before, and was returning to her former irritation, she got frightened at herself. ” Is it really impossible ? Can I really not take it upon myself ? ” she said to herself ; and again she began from the beginning : ” He is truthful ; he is honest ; he loves me. I love him, — and in a few days we shall get the divorce. What

else is needed ? What is needed is calm and confidence, and I will take it all upon myself. Yes, as soon as he comes, I will tell him that it was my fault, though it was not, and we shall leave the city.”

And, in order that she might not think any more and surrender herself to her irritation, she rang the bell and commanded the trunks to be brought in, in order to pack the things for the country.

At ten o’clock Vrdnski came home.

XXIV.

” Well, did you have a good time?” she asked, going out to meet him, with a guilty and meek expression on her face.

” As usual,” he replied, seeing at once, by a mere glance at her, that she was in one of her good moods. He had become accustomed to these transitions, and just then was particularly glad of the change, for he was himself in the happiest frame of mind.

” What do I see ? That is nice ! ” he said, pointing to the trunks in the antechamber.

” Yes, we must go back. I went out for a ride, and it was so nice that I felt like getting back to the country. There is nothing that is keeping you back, is there ? ”

“ There is nothing I wish more. I will be back in a minute, and we shall have a talk, — I only want to change my clothes. Order them to bring tea ! “

And he went to his cabinet.

There was something offensive in his remark, ” That is nice,” something like what one says to a child when it has stopped its caprices, and still more offensive was the contrast between her guilty and his self-confident tone ; and she for a moment felt in herself the rising desire for strife ; but, making an effort over herself, she suppressed it and met Vrdnski as merrily as before.

When he came out to see her, she told him, repeating in part the words which she had prepared, about the way she had passed the day, and about her plans for the departure.

” You know, I was almost inspired,” she said. ” What

is the use of waiting here for the divorce ? Would it not be the same in the country ? I cannot wait any longer. I do not want to hope, — do not want to hear of the divorce. I have decided that it shall no longer have any influence on my life. And do you consent ? “

” Oh, yes ! ” he said, looking restlessly at her agitated countenance.

” What did you do there ? Who was there ? ” she asked, after a silence.

Vronski named the guests.

” The dinner was fine, and the boat-races, and all that was quite nice, but in Moscow they cannot do anything without becoming ridiculous. There appeared a lady, the swimming-teacher of the Queen of Sweden, and she gave a display of her art.”

” What ? She swam ? ” asked Anna, frowning.

“In a kind of a red costume de natation, — an old, homely woman. So when shall we leave ? “

” What a stupid idea ! Does she swim particularly well?” asked Anna, without giving a reply.

“ Absolutely nothing especial. That’s why I say it was terribly stupid. So when do you intend to leave ? “

Anna tossed her head, as though wishing to dispel disagreeable thoughts.

“When shall we go? The sooner the better. We cannot get ready for tomorrow. Day after tomorrow.”

“Yes—no, wait! Day after tomorrow is Monday, and I have to be with mamma,” said Vrdnski, in embarrassment, because the moment he pronounced his mother’s name, he felt upon himself her fixed, suspicious glance. She flamed up and moved away from him. Now it was no longer the teacher of the Queen of Sweden, but Princess Sorokin, who was living in a suburban estate with Countess Vrdnski, that presented herself to Anna.

“ You can go there tomorrow ! ” she said.

“ No, I cannot ! The business which takes me there — powers of attorney and money matters — cannot be attended to tomorrow,” he replied.

“ If so, we shall not leave at all ! ”

“ Why ? *

” I will not go later : either on Monday, or never ! “

” Why so ? ” Vrdnski said, as though in surprise. “ There is no sense in that.”

“ For you it has no sense because you do not care in the least for me. You do not want to understand my life. The one thing that interested me here was Hannah. Yrou tell me that it is hypocrisy. You told me yesterday that I did not love my daughter, and that I am pretending to love that English girl, and that that is unnatural; I should like to know what life could be natural for me here.”

For a moment she regained her senses, and was terrified at the thought of having become untrue to her intention. But, even though she knew that she was ruining herself, she could not hold back, could not help showing him how unjust he was, — could not surrender to him.

” I never said that ; I said that I did not sympathize with that sudden love.”

“ Why do you, who boast of your directness, not tell the truth ? “

” I never boast, and I never tell an untruth,” he said, softly, repressing his anger, which was rising in him. ” I am very sorry that you do not respect — ”

“ Respect has been invented to cover up an empty spot where love ought to be. And if you do not love me any more, it would be better and more honest to say so.”

« Really, this is getting unbearable ! ” exclaimed Vronski, getting up from his chair. And, stopping in front of her, he said with deliberation : “ Why do you try my patience?” As he spoke he looked as though he could say many things more, but was restraining himself. “ There are limits to it ! “

” What do you mean to say by this ? ” she exclaimed, looking in terror at the open expression of hatred, which was depicted in his whole face, but especially in his cruel, threatening eyes.

” I mean to say — ” he began, but he stopped. “ I must ask you what it is you want of me ? “

” What can I want ? All I can want is that you should not abandon me, as you think of doing,” she said, comprehending all that he had left unsaid. ” But I do not want it, — that is a secondary matter. I want love, and that does not exist. Consequently all is ended.”

She turned to walk to the door.

“Wait! Wait!” said Vronski, without smoothing out the gloomy wrinkles on his brows, but taking hold of her arm and stopping her. ” What is it all about ? I said that the journey must be put off for three days, whereupon you told me that I lied and that I was a dishonest man.”

” Yes ; and I repeat that a man who reproaches me because he has sacrificed everything for my sake,” she said, recalling the words of their former quarrel, “ is worse than a dishonest man, he is a man without a heart.”

“ Yes, there are limits to patience ! ” he shouted, quickly dropping her arm.

“ He hates me, — that is evident,” she thought ; and silently, without looking around, she left the room with uncertain steps.

” He loves another woman, — that is more evident still,” she said to herself, as she entered her room. “ I want love, and that does not exist. Consequently all is ended,” she repeated the words uttered by her, “and I must make an end of it.”

“ But how ? ” she asked herself, seating herself in a chair in front of a mirror.

The thoughts of where she would go, — whether to her aunt who had educated her, or to Dolly, or simply alone abroad, and of what he was doing alone in the cabinet, and whether this quarrel was final, or whether a reconciliation was still possible, and of what all her former St. Petersburg acquaintances would say now, and how Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich would look at it, and many more thoughts of what would happen now, after the rupture, passed through her head, but she did not put her whole soul into her thoughts. In her soul there was an indistinct thought which alone interested her, but she could not be conscious of it. As she once more recalled Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich, she thought also of her sickness after her childbirth, and of the feeling which at that time had not left her. ” Why did I not die ? ” she recalled the words which she had uttered then, and the feeling that went with them. And she suddenly comprehended what there was in her soul. Yes, it was that thought which solved everything. ” Yes, to die ! ”

“ And the shame and disgrace of Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich, and of Serézha, and my own terrible disgrace,— everything will be saved by death. To die, — and he will repent, will be sorry, will love me, and suffer for me ! ” With an arrested smile of compassion toward herself, she sat in the chair, taking the rings from the fingers of her left hand, and putting them on again, and vividly viewing from all sides his feelings after her death.

Approaching steps, his steps, distracted her attention. As though busy putting away her rings, she did not even turn around toward him.

He went up to her and, taking her hand, said, softly :

“ Anna, we will go day after tomorrow, if you so wish.

I agree to everything.”

She kept silence.

“ Well ? ” he asked.

“ You know yourself,” she said ; and, unable to restrain herself, she at once burst out into sobs.

“ Cast me off, cast me off ! ” she muttered between sobs.

« I will leave tomorrow — I will do more. Who am I ? A dissolute woman. A stone about your neck. I do not want to torment you, I do not want to ! I will free you. You do not love me, you love another ! “

Vrdnski implored her to calm herself, and assured her that there was not a sign even of a foundation for jealousy, that he had never stopped loving her, and that he loved her more than ever.

” Anna, why do you torment yourself and me so ? ” he said, kissing her hand. In his face was now expressed tenderness, and it seemed to her that her ear caught the sound of tears in his voice and that she felt their moisture on her hand. And immediately Anna’s desperate jealousy passed into desperate, passionate tenderness, and she embraced him and showered kisses on him, on his head, his neck, his hands.

XXV.

Feeling that the reconciliation was complete, Anna in the morning began to make her preparations for the journey. Though it was not decided whether they would go on Monday or on Tuesday, as on the night before they had been yielding to one another, Anna made active preparations for the journey, feeling now quite indifferent to whether they would leave a day earlier or later. She was standing in her room over an open trunk, picking out things, when he, all dressed, came earlier than usual to her room.

” I will go at once to mamma, — she can send me the money by Egorov. And tomorrow I am ready to start,” he said.

Although she was well disposed, the mention of his going down to his mother’s summer residence stung her.

” I shall not get ready in time, any way,” she said, and immediately she thought : ” Consequently, it was possible for him to arrange matters as I wanted him to.” ” Do as you please. Go to the dining-room ! I will be there in a minute. I just want to pick out these useless things,” she said, putting something into Annushka’s arms, where there was already a heap of old things.

Vronski was eating his beefsteak, when she entered the dining-room.

“ Y ou can’t imagine how sick I am of these rooms,” she said, seating herself near him to drink her coffee. ” Nothing is more terrible than these chambres garnies. There is no facial expression to them, no soul. These clocks,

these curtains, above all, this wall-paper, are a nightmare. I am thinking of Vozdvizhenskoe as of the promised land. Have you sent back the horses yet ? “

« No, they will follow us. Why, do you want to drive out somewhere ? “

” I wanted to go down to Mrs. Wilson. I wanted to take some garments to her. So it is definitely tomorrow ? ” she said, in a merry voice ; but suddenly her face changed.

Vrdnski’s valet came to ask for a receipt of a telegram from St. Petersburg. There was nothing peculiar in Vrdnski’s receiving telegrams, but he, seemingly trying to conceal something from her, told him that the receipt was in the cabinet, and hurriedly turned to her.

” Tomorrow I shall by all means settle everything.”

” From whom is the despatch ? ” she asked, without hearing what he was saying.

” From Stiva,” he replied, reluctantly.

” Why did you not show it to me? What secret can Stiva have from me? ”

Vronski called back the valet, and ordered him to bring the telegram.

” I did not wish to show it to you because Stiva has a passion for wiring ; what is there to wire so long as it is not decided ? “

“ About the divorce ? “

” Yes ; but he writes that he has not yet been able to obtain anything. He promises a definite answer in a few days. Bead it yourself !”

Anna took the despatch with trembling hands, and read what Vrdnski had just told her. It ended with the words : ” There is little hope, but I will do everything possible and impossible.”

” I said yesterday that it did not make a particle of difference to me when I am going to get it, or if 1 shall get it at all,” she said, blushing. ” There was no need of concealing it from me.” ” So he can conceal and he does conceal his correspondence with women from me,” she thought.

” Yashvin wanted to come this morning with Voytov,” said Vrdnski. ” I think he has won everything from Pyevtsov, even more than he can pay, — about sixty thousand.”

” Beally,” she said, becoming irritated at the thought that with that change of subject he wanted to show her that she was irritated, ” what makes you think that that news interests me so much that it is necessary to conceal it from me ? I told you that I did not wish to think of it, and I wish you would give it as little thought as I do.”

“I am interested in it because I like clearness,” he said.

” The clearness is not in the form, but in the love,” she said, getting more and more excited, not at his words, but at the tone of cold calm with which he was speaking. ” Why do you wish for it ? “

” 0 Ford ! Again about love,” he thought, frowning.

“ You know why : for your sake and for the sake of the children that will be,” he said.

“ There will be no children.”

« That is a pity,” he said.

« You need it for the sake of the children ; but you do not think of me,” she said, forgetting and not hearing that he said, ” For your sake and for the sake of the children.”

The question of the possibility of having children had long ago become a cause for quarrels and always irritated her. She explained his desire to have children as a lack of appreciation of her beauty.

” Oh, I said ‘For your sake.’ More than anything, for your sake,” he repeated, frowning, as though from pain, “ because I am convinced that a large proportion of your irritation is due to the indefiniteness of your situation.”

“Yes, he has now ceased to pretend, and I can see all his cold hatred of me,” she thought, without hearing his words, but gazing in terror at the cold and cruel judge who, teasing her, was looking out of his eyes.

” That is not the cause,” she said, ” and I even fail to understand how my being completely in your power can be the cause of what you call my irritation. Where is here the indefiniteness of my situation ? On the contrary — “

” I am very sorry that you do not want to see it,” he interrupted her, bent on telling her his thoughts. ” The indefiniteness consists in your imagining that I am free.”

J o o

” You may be at your ease on that score,” she said; and, turning away from him, she began to drink her coffee.

8he raised the cup and, extending her little finger, carried it to her mouth. Having taken a few swallows, she glanced at him and, from the expression of his face, she understood clearly that he was disgusted with her hand and gesture, and with the sound winch her lips were producing.

“It makes absolutely no difference to me what your mother thinks and how she wants to get you married,” she said, putting the cup down with trembling hand.

” But we are not talking of that.”

” Yes, about that very thing. And believe me, a woman without a heart, be she an old woman or not, your mother, or a stranger, is not interesting to me, and I do not want to know her.”

” Anna, I beg you not to speak disrespectfully of my mother.”

“A woman who does not divine with her heart where lies the happiness and honour of her son has no heart.”

” I repeat my prayer that you will not speak disrespectfully of my mother, whom I respect,” he said, raising his voice, and looking sternly at her.

She made no reply. Looking fixedly at him, at his face, his hands, she recalled in all its details the scene of their last night’s reconciliation and his passionate caresses. ” Just such caresses he has been lavishing, and wishes to lavish, on other women ! ” she thought.

“You do not love your mother. Those are only words, words, words ! ” she said, looking hatefully at him.

” If so, it is necessary — “

” It is necessary to make up our minds, and I have made up mine,” she said, wishing to leave. But just then Yashvin entered the room. Anna exchanged greetings with him, and stopped.

Why, when in her soul there was a storm, and she felt that she was standing at a turning-point in life, which might have terrible consequences, — why she had to feign at that moment before a stranger, who sooner or later would find out all about it, — she did not know; but immediately allaying her inner storm, she sat down and began to talk with the guest.

” Well, how are your affairs ? Did you get the money ? ” she asked Yäshvin.

” All right. I think I shall not get everything, and on Wednesday I have to leave. When are you going ? ” Yâshvin said, half-closing his eyes and glancing at Vronski, as though he suspected that a quarrel had taken place between them.

” I think day after tomorrow,” said Vrdnski.

” You, it seems, have been getting ready a long time.”

“But now it is decided,” said Anna, looking straight into Vronski’s eyes with an expression which said to him that he had better not think even of the possibility of a reconciliation.

“Are you really not sorry for that unfortunate Pyevtsov ? ” she continued her conversation with Yashvin.

“ I never ask myself, Anna Arkàdevna, whether I am sorry, or not. My whole fortune is here,” he pointed to his side pocket, ” and now I am a rich man ; 1 shall go to-day to the club, and may come out a beggar. The man that sits down with me wants himself to leave me without a shirt, and I feel the same toward him. And so we fight, and in that fies the pleasure.”

” Well, and if you were married,” said Anna, ” how would that be for your wife ? “

Ydshvin laughed.

” It is for that reason, apparently, that I have not married, and have never even thought of it.”

” And Helsingfors ? ” said Vronski, entering into the conversation, and casting a glance at smiling Anna. When their glances met, Anna’s countenance suddenly assumed a cold and stern expression, as though she said to him : “Not forgotten. Still the same.”

” Is it possible you have been in love ? ” she said to Yéshvin.

” O Lord ! How many times ! Understand that some men sit down at cards, but always so as to get up when the time comes for the rendezvous. And I can busy myself with love, but only in such a way as never to be late in the evening for a card game. That is the way I fix it.”

” I am not asking you about that, but about the real love.” She wanted to say “ Helsingfors,” but did not want to use a word employed by Vronski.

Then Vdy tov came ; he wanted to buy a stallion. Anna got up and left the room.

Before going away Vrdnski went to see her. She wanted to pretend that she was looking for something on the table, but, getting ashamed of her feigning, she looked straight at him, with a cold glance.

“What do you wish?” she asked him, in French.

“ I want to get Gambetta’s certificate, — I have sold him,” he said, in a tone which expressed, clearer than words, “ I have no time for explanations, and they will not lead anywhere.”

“ I am not guilty toward her in any way,” he thought. “ If she wants to punish herself, tant pis pour elle.” But, as he was leaving the room, it seemed to him that she said something, and his heart suddenly throbbed with compassion for her.

“ What is it, Anna ? ” he asked.

“ I did not say anything,” she replied, just as coldly and calmly.

“ If nothing, tant pis” he thought, growing again cold. He turned around and left the room. As he went out, he saw her face in the mirror ; it was pale, and her lips trembled. He wanted to stop and say some consoling words to her, but his feet took him out of the room before he could think what to tell her. He passed that whole day away from the house, and when he came back late in the evening, the maid told him that Anna Arkadevna had a headache and asked him not to come to see her.

XXVI.

Never before had a whole day passed in a quarrel. This was the first day. And it was not a quarrel. It was a manifest admission of a complete estrangement. Was it possible to look at her as he had looked, when he came into the room for the certificate, to look at her and see that her heart was bursting from despair, and to pass out in silence with that indifferent, calm expression ? It was not merely that he had cooled off toward her, but he hated her, for he loved another woman, — that was clear.

And, recalling all those cruel words which he had said, Anna tried to think of the words which he apparently wished to say and might say, and she grew more and more excited.

“I do not keep you,” he might have said. “You may go wherever you please. You did not want to be divorced from your husband, no doubt, in order to be able to return to him. Go back to him ! If you need money, I will give it to you. How many roubles do you need ? “

All the most cruel words which the coarsest kind of a man might have employed he said to her in her imagination, and she did not forgive him those words any more than as though he had actually told them to her.

“And did he not as late as yesterday swear that he loved me, he, a truthful and honest man ? Have I not often despaired in vain ? ” she immediately said to herself.

Outside of her drive to Mrs. Wilson, which took two hours, Anna passed the whole day in doubt whether it was all over, or whether there was a hope for a reconciliation, whether she ought to leave at once, or whether she should see him once more. She waited for him a whole day, and in the evening, as she went to her room, after having given orders to have him told that she had a headache, she said to herself : ” If he comes, in spite of the words of the chambermaid, that means that he loves me still ; if not, it means that all is ended, and then I will decide what to do.”

In the evening she heard the rumble of his carriage, his ringing of the bell, his steps, and his conversation with the maid ; he took the maid’s words, asked nothing else, and went to his room. Consequently, all was ended.

And death, as the only means for reestablishing love for her in his heart, for punishing him, and for obtaining a victory in the struggle, which the evil spirit that had taken his abode in her heart was waging with him, presented itself to her clearly and vividly.

Now it no longer made any difference whether she had better go to Vozdvizhenskoe, or not, whether she would get a divorce from her husband, or not, — all that was unnecessary. Only one thing was necessary, and that was, to punish him.

When she poured out for herself the usual dose of opium and considered that she needed only to empty the whole bottle in order to die, that appeared so easy and simple to her that she again began to enjoy the thought of how he would suffer, repent, and love her memory, when it would be too late. She lay in her bed with open eyes, looking, in the light of the one candle that was burning low, at the moulded cornice of the ceiling and at the shadow of the screen, which covered a part of the cornice, and she presented vividly to herself what he would think when she should be no more, and should be a mere memory to him. “ ‘ How could I have said those cruel words to her ? ‘ he will say. ‘ How could I have left the room without saying a word to her? But now she is

no more. She has left us for ever. She is there — ‘ ” Suddenly the shadow of the screen began to quiver, and shrouded the whole cornice, the whole ceiling, and other shadows from the other side darted to meet it ; for a moment the shadows rushed back, then moved up with increased rapidity, quivered, blended, and all grew dark. ” Death ! ” she thought. And she was assailed by such terror that for a long time she could not make out where she was, and for a long time her trembling hands could not find a match with which to light another candle in place of the one that had gone out. ” No, be it what it may, I must live ! I love him, and he loves me. That will pass,” she said to herself, feeling that the tears of joy at returning to life were flowing down her cheeks. And, to save herself from her terror, she went hurriedly to his cabinet.

He was sleeping a sound sleep in his cabinet. She went up to him and, lighting his face from above, remained for a long time looking at him. Now that he was sleeping she loved him so much that at the sight of him she could not repress tears of tenderness ; but she knew that if he should awake, he would look at her with a cold glance, conscious of his righteousness, and that, before talking to him of her love, she would have to prove to him how guilty he had been toward her. She did not wake him, but returned to her room, and, after a second dose of opium, toward morning fell into a heavy, imperfect sleep, never ceasing to be conscious of herself.

In the morning a terrible nightmare, which had come to her several times in her dreams, before her liaison with Vrdnski, came again to her and woke her. An old man with a dishevelled beard was doing something, bending over some iron, repeating senseless French words, and, as before during these nightmares (this constituted the terrible part of them), she felt that the old man did not pay any attention to her, but was doing a terrible thing to

omit >‘fiol b iot l .‘iGirrn … “

” rriiri Jg yniJocd the iron, — over her. And she awoke in a cold perspiration.

When she got up, she recalled the previous day, as though through a mist.

” There had been a quarrel. There had happened that which had happened several times before. I said that I had a headache, and he did not come in. Tomorrow we shall leave, — I must see him and get ready for the journey,” she said to herself. And, upon hearing that he was in the cabinet, she went to him. As she crossed the drawingroom, she heard a vehicle stop at the entrance, and, looking through the window, she saw a carriage, out of which was looking a young girl in a lilac hat, giving some kind of an order to the lackey, who was ringing the bell. After some exchange of questions in the antechamber, somebody went up-stairs, and next to the drawingroom could be heard Vronski’s footsteps. He walked down-stairs with rapid steps. Anna again walked over to the window. There he came out on the porch without a hat. He walked over to the carriage. The young lady in the lilac hat handed him a package. Vronski smiled, saying something to her. The carriage drove off, and he rapidly ran up-stairs again.

The mist which had been shrouding everything in her soul was suddenly dispelled. She could not understand how she could have lowered herself so much as to stay a whole day with him in his house. She went to his cabinet to inform him of her decision.

” That was Princess Sorokin with her daughter ; they brought me the money and the papers from mamma. I could not receive them yesterday. How is your head ? Better ? ” he said, calmly, not anxious to see and understand the gloomy and triumphant expression of her face.

She looked silently and steadfastly at him, standing in the middle of the room. He glanced at her, for a moment frowned, and continued to read the letter. She turned

around and slowly started to leave the room. He might still have stopped her, but she reached the door, and he was still silent, and all that could be heard was the rustling when he turned over the sheet of paper.

« By the way,” he said, when she was already at the door, “ are we going tomorrow for certain ? Am I right ? ”

” You, but not I,” she said, turning to him.

” Anna, it is impossible to live thus — “

” You, but not I,” she repeated.

” This is getting intolerable ! “

“ You — will regret it,” she said, leaving the room.

Frightened by the desperate expression with which these words were said, he jumped up and wanted to run after her, but, upon reflection, he again sat down and, tightly clinching his teeth, knit his brow. That indecent threat — such he considered it to be — irritated him. ” I have tried everything,” he thought. ” Only one thing is left for me to do, and that is, not to pay any attention,” and he got ready to go down-town and to his mother again, from whom he had to get a signature for a power of attorney.

She heard the sounds of his footsteps in the cabinet and the dining-room. At the drawingroom he stopped. But he did not turn into her room; he only gave the order to let Vdytov have the stallion in his absence. Then she heard his carriage drive up, and the door opened, and he again stepped out. There he was again in the vestibule, and somebody ran up-stairs. It was the valet who ran up to get his gloves, which he had forgotten. She went up to the window and saw him take the gloves, without looking at them, and, tapping the coachman on the shoulder, say something to him. Then, without looking at the windows, he took up his customary attitude in his carriage, crossing one leg over the other, and, putting on a glove, disappeared behind the comer.

XXVII.

” He is gone ! All is ended ! ” Anna said to herself, standing at the window ; and, in response to that exclamation, the impressions of the darkness, as the candle went out, and of the terrible dream blending into one, filled her heart with cold terror.

“ No, it cannot be ! ” she exclaimed ; and, crossing the room, she pulled at the bell. She now felt so terribly at being left alone that, without waiting for the arrival of a servant, she went out to meet him.

“ Find out whither the count has gone,” she said.

The servant replied that the count had gone to the stables.

” The count has left word that if you wish to drive out the carriage will soon be back.”

” All right. Wait ! I will write a note in a minute. Send Mikhäylo with the note to the stables. Do it at once ! ”

She sat down and wrote :

” I am to blame. Come home, — we must have an explanation. For God’s sake, come ! I am feeling terribly.”

She sealed it, and gave it to the servant.

She was afraid to be left alone now, and immediately after the servant had left, went out of the room and walked into the nursery.

” No, that is not it, it is not he ! Where are his blue eyes, his sweet and timid smile ? ” was her first thought, as she saw her chubby, ruddy little girl, with her black flowing hair, instead of Serézha, whom she, in the tangle of her ideas, had expected to find in the nursery. The little girl was sitting at the table and, striking it stubbornly and stoutly with a stopper, was looking senselessly at her mother with her two blackberries, — her black eyes. In reply to the Englishwoman’s question, Anna said that she was quite well, and that she was going to the country on the next day ; then she seated herself near her child and began to twirl the stopper of the decanter in front of her. But the loud, sonorous laugh of the baby and the motion which she made with her brow so vividly reminded her of Vronski that, repressing her sobs, she got up hurriedly and left the room.

“ Is it all ended ? No, it cannot be,” she thought. “ He will come back. But how will he explain away that smile, that animation after talking with her ? Even if he will not explain it to me I will believe him. If I do not believe him, there is but one thing left for me to do, and that I do not wish.”

She looked at her watch. Twelve minutes had passed. ” Now he has received the note, and he is driving back. Not long now, ten minutes more — But what if he does not come ? No, it cannot be. He must not see me with tearful eyes. I will go and wash my face. Yes, have I combed my hair yet, or not?” she asked herself. She was unable to recall doing it. She touched her head with her hand. ” Yes, my hair is combed. I positively do not remember when I did it. Who is that ? ” she thought, looking in the mirror at the feverish face with the strangely glistening eyes, which were looking in fright at her. ” That is I,” she suddenly comprehended and, scanning herself, she suddenly felt upon herself his kisses and, shivering, moved her shoulders. Then she raised her hand to her lips and kissed it.

” What is that ? Am I going insane ? ” and she went to the sleeping-room, where Annushka was cleaning up.

“Annushka,” she said, stopping in front of her and looking at her, without knowing what to say.

“ You wanted to go to Darya Aleksandrovna,” the maid said, as though understanding her meaning.

” To Ddrya Aleksandrovna ? Yes, I will go there.”

” Fifteen minutes there, and fifteen minutes back. He is on his way now, — he will be back at once.” She took out her watch and looked at it. ” But how could he have gone away, leaving me in such a condition ? How can he live without making up with me ? ” She went up to the window and began to look at the street. It was time for him to be back. But her calculation might have been wrong, and she began to recall once more when he had left, and to count the minutes.

Just as she walked over to the clock, in order to verify her watch, somebody drove up. She looked out of the window and saw his carriage. But nobody came up-stairs, and in the lower story voices could be heard. It was the messenger who had come back in the carriage. She went down to him.

” I did not find the count there, — be had gone down the Nizhne-Ndvgorod Road.”

” What’ do you want ? What ? ” she turned to ruddy, merry Mikhäylo, who was handing her back her note.

” Oh, he did not get it,” she recalled.

“ Go with this note at once to the country, to Countess Vronski, you know, and bring me back an answer at once,” she said to the messenger.

” And what shall I do myself ? ” she thought. ” Yes, I will go to Dolly, that is so, or else I shall lose my mind. Yes, I can send him a despatch.” And she wrote out a telegram.

” I must have a talk with you. Come at once.”

After sending off the telegram, she went to dress herself. When she was dressed and had put on her hat, she again looked into the eyes of plump, calm Annushka.

Compassion was quite apparent in those small, good, gray eyes.

” Annushka dear, what shall I do? ” Anna muttered, through sohs, helplessly sinking into a chair.

“Why do you worry so, Anna Arkédevna? These things do happen ! Drive out, amuse yourself ! ” said the chambermaid.

” I will go out,” said Anna, coming to her senses, and getting up. ” If there is a telegram while I am away, send it to Darya Aleksandrovna — No, I will come back myself.”

“ Yes, I must not think, I must do something, drive out, above all, go away from this house,” she said, in terror listening to the frightful throbbing of her heart. She hurried out of the house and took her seat in the carriage.

” Where do you wish to go ? ” asked Peter, before getting on his box.

“ To the Znamenka, to the Oblonskis’.”

XXVIII.

The weather was clear. During the whole morning a heavy drizzle had been falling, but it had cleared up awhile before. The iron roofs, the flagstones of the sidewalks, the round stones of the pavement, the wheels, the leather, the brass, and the tin plates of the carriage, — everything shone brightly in the May sun. It was three o’clock and the most animated time in the streets.

Sitting in the comer of the easy carriage, which barely swayed on its flexible springs at the rapid trot of the grays, Anna, to the accompaniment of the incessant rumble of the wheels and the rapidly changing impressions in the open, went over the events of the last few days, and saw her situation in an entirely different light from what it had appeared to her at home. Now the thought of death no longer appeared so terrible and so clear, and death itself seemed no longer inevitable. Now she rebuked herself for the degradation toward which she had descended. ” I implore him to forgive me. I have surrendered myself to him. I have declared myself guilty. Why ? Can I not live without him ? ” And, without answering her question as to how she could live without him, she began to read the signs. ” Office and Magazine. Dentist. Yes, I will tell Dolly everything. She does not like Vrbnski. It will be shameful and painful, but I will tell her everything. She loves me, and I will follow her advice. I will not submit to him ; I will not allow him to educate himself. Filippov, Pastry Baker. They say they take the dough to St. Petersburg. The Moscow water is so good. And the Mytishchi wells and pancakes.” And she recalled how long, long ago, when she was seventeen years old, she used to go with her aunt to Trditsa. ” We had to go by carriage then. Is it possible it was I, with the red hands ? How many things, which then used to seem beautiful and unattainable, have become insignificant, and that which was then is now for ever unattainable ! Could I have believed then that I would come to such degradation ? How proud and satisfied he will be when he gets my note ! But I will prove to him — What a nasty odour this paint has ! Why do they paint and build so much ? Fashions and Garments,” she read. A man bowed to her. It was Annushka’s husband. ” Our parasites,” she recalled Vronski’s words. ” Ours ? Why ours ? The terrible part of it is that you cannot tear out the past by the roots. It is impossible to tear it out, but the memory of it may be hidden. And I will hide it.” And there she recalled her past with Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich, and how she had eradicated him from her memory. ” Dolly will think that I am leaving my second husband, and that, therefore, I am certainly in the wrong. Do I want to be in the right ? I cannot!” she muttered, and she felt like weeping. But she immediately began to think of what those two girls could be smiling about. “No doubt, about love. They do not know how little cheerful, how base, it is — The boulevard and the children. Three boys are running, playing horses. Serézha ! And I shall lose everything and shall not bring him back. Yes, I shall lose everv-thing if he does not come back. He may have missed the train, and may have come back. You want to be humiliated again’?” she said to herself. “No, I will go to Dolly, and I will tell her outright : ‘ I am unhappy ; I deserve it ; I am guilty, but still I am unhappy, — help me ? ‘ These horses, this carriage, — how contemptible I am in this carriage, — they are all his ; but I will not see them again.”

Thinking over the words in which she would tell Dolly about it, and purposely lacerating her heart, Anna ascended the staircase.

” Is any one in ? ” she asked in the antechamber.

“ Katerina Aleksandrovna Levin,” replied the lackey.

“ Kitty ! That same Kitty with whom Vrdnski was in love ! ” thought Anna. “ The one he mentioned with love. He is sorry that he did not marry her. But of me he thinks with hatred, and he is sorry that he united with me.”

Between the sisters, in the meantime, while Anna was walking up, there was going on a consultation about nursing. Dolly went out by herself to meet the guest, who was disturbing their conversation.

“Oh, you have not left yet? I wanted to go to see you,” she said. ” I had a letter to-day from Stiva.”

“ We, too, have had a telegram from him,” replied Anna, looking around, to catch a glimpse of Kitty.

“He writes that he cannot understand what it is Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich wants, but that he would not leave without an answer.”

“ I thought there was somebody here. May I read the letter ?”

“ Yes, Kitty,” Dolly said, in embarrassment. ” She is staying in the nursery. She was very ill.”

” So I heard. May I read the letter ? ”

” I will bring it at once. But he does not refuse. On the contrary, Stiva still hopes,” said Dolly, stopping at the door.

” I do not hope, and I do not wish for it.”

” What is it ? Does Kitty consider it degrading to meet me ? ” thought Anna, when she was left alone. ” Maybe she is right. But it is not for her, who has been in love with Vrénski, it is not for her to show this to me, though she may be right. I know that in my situation not one decent woman may receive me. I know that I sacrificed everything to him from that first moment. And here is the reward ! Oh, how I hate him ! Why did I come here ? It is harder, it is worse for me.” She heard in the next room the voices of the sisters talking with each other. ” What shall I tell Dolly now ? Shall I give Kitty the pleasure of knowing that I am unhappy, and submit to her condescending manner ? No, Dolly will not understand herself. I have nothing to tell her. But it would be interesting to see Kitty and to show her that I despise everybody and everything, and that it all makes no difference to me.”

Dolly came back with the letter. Anna read it, and silently returned it to her.

” I knew all that,” she said. ” And that does not interest me in the least.”

” Why ? I, on the contrary, have hope,” said Dolly, looking with curiosity at Anna. She had never seen her in such a strange, irritable state. “ When shall you leave ? ” she asked her.

Anna half-closed her eyes and looked in front of her, without making any reply.

” Well, is Kitty hiding from me ? ” she said, looking at the door, and blushing.

” Oh, what nonsense ! She nurses the baby, and things are not going right, so I have been advising her— She would be very glad. She will be here soon,” said Dolly, awkwardly, being unable to tell an untruth. ” Here she is.”

When Kitty heard that Anna had arrived, she did not wish to go out to her ; but Dolly persuaded her to do so. Collecting all her strength, Kitty came out and, blushing, went up to her and gave her her hand.

” I am very glad,” she said, in a trembling voice.

Kitty was embarrassed by the struggle which was going on within her between her hostility toward that bad woman and the desire to be condescending to her ; but, the moment she saw Anna’s pretty, sympathetic face, all the hostility vanished at once.

“I should not have been surprised if you had not wished to meet me. I am used to everything. You were ill, I understand. Yes, you have changed,” said Anna.

Kitty felt that Anna was looking inimically at her. She explained that hostility by the awkward situation in which Anna, who had been patronizing her before, found herself now, and she felt sorry for her.

They talked about the illness, about the baby, about Stfva, but apparently nothing interested Anna.

“ I came to bid you good-bye,” she said, getting up.

” When will you leave ? “

But Anna, without answering, again turned to Kitty.

“ Yes, I am very glad to have seen you,” she said, with a smile. ” I have heard so much of you from all sides, even from your husband. He called on me, and I like him very much,” she added, evidently with a bad intention. ” Where is he ? “

” He has gone to the country,” Kitty said, blushing.

” Dive him my regards, be sure and do so! “

” To be sure! ” Kitty repeated, naïvely, looking compassionately into her eyes.

“ So good-bye, Dolly ! ” And, kissing Dolly and pressing Kitty’s hand, Anna hurriedly left the room.

” She is still the same, and just as attractive. She is very pretty ! ” Kitty said, when she was left alone with her sister. ” But there is something pitiful about her. Terribly pitiful ! ”

” Yes, there is something peculiar about her to-day,” said Dolly. “ When I saw her off in the antechamber, it looked to me as though she wanted to cry.”

XXIX.

Anna got into the carriage in a worse condition than she had been in when she had left her house. To her former torments was now added the feeling of insult and renunciation, which she had clearly felt at her meeting with Kitty.

” Where do you wish to go ? Home ? ” asked Peter.

” Yes, home,” she said, not even thinking where he was driving her.

” How they looked at me as at something terrible, incomprehensible, and curious. What can he be telling that man with so much fire ? ” she thought, as she looked at two pedestrians. ” Can one tell another of his feelings ? I wanted to tell Dolly, and I did well not to tell her. How glad she would have been of my misfortune ! She would have concealed it ; but the chief feeling would have been joy at seeing me punished for the very pleasures for which she envied me. Kitty would have been even gladder. How I see all through her ! She knows that I was, more than usual, kind to her husband. And she is jealous of me, and hates me. And, in addition, she despises me. In her eyes I am an immoral woman. If I were an immoral woman, I could make her husband fall in love with me — if I wanted. I wanted it then. Now this fellow is satisfied with himself,” she thought about a fat, ruddy gentleman who drove toward her and, taking her for an acquaintance, raised his shining hat over his shining bald head, but soon convinced himself that he had made a mistake. ” He thought that he knew me.

But he knows me as little as anybody in the world knows me. I do not know myself. I know my appetites, as the French say. Now they want that dirty icecream. That they know for certain,” she thought, looking at two boys who stopped an icecream seller, who took his vat down from his head, and wiped his perspiring face with the end of the towel. “We all of us want something sweet, something savoury. If not candy, it is dirty icecream. Kitty too: if not Vronski, at least Levin. And she envies me. And she hates me. And we all of us hate each other. I hate Kitty, Kitty hates me. That is true. Tyutkin, Coiffeur. Je me fais coiffer par Tyutkin — I will tell him so when he comes,” she thought, smiling. But that same moment she recalled that she now had nobody to tell that funny thing to. ” And there is nothing funny and jolly ! Everything is nasty. The bells are ringing for evening service, and that merchant is making such precise obeisances ! as though he were afraid of dropping something. What are these churches for, and that ringing, and that lie ? Only in order to conceal the fact that we despise each other, like these cabmen that curse each other so maliciously. Yashvin says : ‘ He wants to leave me without a shirt, and I wish to leave him so.’ That is true ! “

In the midst of these thoughts, which carried her away so much that she forgot to think of her situation, she was surprised by the stop of the carriage at the porch of her house. When she saw the porter, who came out to meet her, she recalled that she had sent a note and a telegram.

“ Any answer ? ” she asked.

” I will go and see,” replied the porter, and, looking in his desk, he took out and handed her the thin, square envelope of a telegram. “ I cannot come before ten o’clock. Vronski,” she read.

” And has the messenger come back ? ”

” No, madam,” replied the porter.

” If so, I know what I have to do,” she said ; and, feeling within her a rising, indefinite anger and the necessity of revenge, she ran up-stairs. ” I will go and see him myself. Before leaving entirely, I will tell him everything. I have never hated a person, the way I hate that man ! ” Seeing his hat on the hayrack, she shuddered in disgust. She did not consider that his telegram was an answer to her telegram, and that he had not yet received her note. She imagined him now speaking calmly with his mother and with Princess Sordkin, and rejoicing at her suffering. ” Yes, I must go there at once,” she said to herself, not knowing whither to go. She wanted as quickly as possible to get away from the feelings which she was experiencing in that terrible house. The servants, the walls, the things in that house, — everything called forth disgust and malice in her, and pressed her down as though with a weight.

” Yes, I must go to the railway station, and if he is not there, I must go and take him unawares.” Anna looked in the newspapers for a schedule of the trains. There is a train in the evening at two minutes past eight. ” Yes, I shall have time for it.” She ordered other horses to be hitched up and busied herself with putting into a travelling-bag such things as she might need for a few days. She knew that she should not come back. She dimly decided, among all the plans that crossed her head, that after what would happen there at the station, or in the estate of the countess, she would travel by the Nlzhne-Novgorod Road to the first town and would stop there.

The dinner was on the table ; she went up, sniffed at the bread and cheese, and, convincing herself that the odour of victuals was distasteful to her, ordered up the carriage, and went out. The house was already casting its shadow across the street, and it was a clear evening, and still warm in the sun. And Annushka, who took down her things, and Peter, who put the things into the carriage, and the coachman, who was apparently dissatisfied, — all were distasteful to her and irritated her with their words and motions.

” I do not need you, Peter.”

” And how about the ticket ? “

” Well, as you please, it is all the same to me,” she said, in anger.

Peter jumped on the box and, with his arms akimbo, told the coachman to drive to the station.

XXX.

“ There it is again ! Again I understand everything,” Anna said to herself, the moment the carriage started and, rocking, rumbled over the cobblestones of the pavement, and again the impressions began to give way to each other in her mind.

“Yes, what was the last good thought I had?” she tried to recall it. “ Tyutkin Coiffeur ? No, not that. Yes, the thing that Yashvin talked about : the struggle for existence and hatred are the only things that unite people. Yes, you are driving there in vain,” she mentally turned to a company of people in a four-in-hand, who were apparently driving out of town to have a good time. ” The dog that you are taking with you will not help you. You can’t run away from yourselves.” Casting a side-glance in the direction in which Peter was looking, she saw a deaddrunk factory hand, with a shaking head, whom a policeman was taking somewhere. ” This one more likely,” she thought. “ Count Vrdnski and I did not find that pleasure, either, though we had expected much from it.” And Anna for the first time turned the bright light, in which she now saw everything, on her relations with him, which she had hitherto evaded thinking of. ” What has he been looking for in me? Not so much love as the gratification of his ambition.” She recalled his words, and the expression of his face, which reminded her of a submissive setter, during the first period of their liaison. And everything now confirmed that. “ Yes, in him was the triumph of a successful ambition. Of course, there was also love, but the greater share fell to the pride of success. He boasted of me. Now it is past. There is nothing to boast of. There is nothing to pride himself on, but much to be ashamed of. He has taken from me everything he could, and now he no longer needs me. He is tired of me, and tries not to be dishonest in respect to me. He blurted out yesterday that he wants the divorce and marriage in order to burn his ships. He loves me, but how ? The zest is gone. This man wants to surprise everybody, and is very much satisfied with himself,” she thought, looking at a ruddy clerk, who was riding a manege horse. “ Yes, he no longer finds that zest in me. If I go away from him he will be glad at heart.”

This was not a supposition, — she saw it clearly in that dazzling light, which now opened up before her the meaning of life and of human relations.

” My love is growing more passionate and selfish, and his is going out and going out, and that is why we are separating,” she continued to think. ” And it cannot be helped. For me everything is in him, and I demand that he should give himself more and more to me. But he wants to get away farther and farther from me. That’s it: before our liaison we kept going all the time toward each other, and since then we have been irresistibly going in various directions. And this cannot be changed. He tells me that I am senselessly jealous, and I have been telling myself that I am ; but that is not true. I am not jealous, but dissatisfied. But — ” she opened her mouth and changed her position in the carriage from the agitation evoked in her by the thought which came to her. ” If I could be anything more than a paramour, who passionately loves his caresses ! But I cannot and do not wish to be anything else. And by this desire I provoke his disgust, while he provokes my resentment, and it cannot be otherwise. Do I not know that he would not think of deceiving me, that he has no intentions on Princess Lordkin, that he is not in love with Kitty, that he will not betray me ? I know it all, but that does not make it easier for me. If he, without loving me, will be good and gentle to me from a sense of duty, and that which I want will not be, it will be a thousand times worse than resentment. That is hell ! And that is precisely the case now. He has not been loving me for quite awhile. Where love ends, hatred begins. I do not know these streets at all. There are mountains, and houses and houses — And in the houses are people and people — How many there are, — there is no end of them, — and all of them hate each other. Suppose I discover that which I wish in order to be happy. Well ? I get a divorce, Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich gives me Serézha, and I marry Vronski.”

Thinking of Aleksyéy Aleksandrovich, she immediately saw him before her with extraordinary vividness, with his lifeless, dim, near-sighted eyes, the blue veins on his white hands, his intonations, and the cracking of his fingers, and, recalling the feeling which had existed between them, and which, too, was called love, she shuddered from disgust..

“ Well, I get a divorce, and am Vrénski’s wife. Will Kitty cease looking at me the way she looked at me today ? No. And will Serézha stop asking or thinking of my two husbands ? And what new sentiment shall I invent between me and Vrénski ? Is it possible to have, not happiness, but a cessation of torment ? No and no ! ” She replied no to herself without the least hesitation. ” Impossible ! We diverge in fife and I cause his unhappiness, and he mine, and it is impossible to change him or me. Every possible attempt has been made, — the screw is loose. Yes, a beggar with a child. She thinks that she ought to be pitied. Have not all of us been thrown into this world simply to hate each other, and, therefore, to torture ourselves and others ? Gymnasiasts are walking there, and laughing. Serézha ? ” she recalled. “ I thought that I loved him and was sentimental over my tenderness for him. And yet I have lived without him, have exchanged him for another love, and did not complain of the change so long as this love gratified me.” And she thought in disgust of what she called love. And the clearness with which she now saw her own life and that of others gave her pleasure. ” Such am I, and Peter, and coachman Fédor, and that merchant, and all those people who live near the Volga, whither these advertisements invite to go, and everywhere, and at all times,” she thought, just as she was nearing the low structure of the Nfzhne-Novgorod station, and porters rushed out toward her.

“ Do you wish a ticket as far as Obirälovka ? ” asked Peter.

She had entirely forgotten whither she was going, or for what purpose, and only with great effort could understand the question.

” Yes,” she said to him, handing him a purse with money. And, taking a small red bag on her arm, she left the carriage.

As she made her way through the crowd toward the first-class waitingroom, she slowly recalled all the details of her situation and those resolves, between which she was wavering. And again, now hope, and now despair, began in the old sore spots to lacerate the wounds of her tortured, terribly palpitating heart. While sitting on the star-shaped divan and waiting for the train, she, looking in disgust at those who came in and went out (they were all disgusting to her), thought of how she would arrive at the station and would write him a note, and ‘ what she would write to him, and of how he now was complaining to his mother about his situation (without understanding her situation), and of how she. would enter the room, and what she would say. Then again she thought of how her life might still be happy, and how tormentingly she loved and hated him, and how terribly her heart was beating.

XXXI.

The bell was rung. There passed some homely, impudent, hurrying young men who, at the same time, were attentive to the impression which they were producing ; then Peter, in his lively-and gaiters, with his dull, animal face, crossed the hall and went up to her to take her to the train. The noisy men grew silent, as she passed by them on the platform, and one of them whispered some-tiling to another, of course something nasty. She ascended the high step and sat down alone in the compartment on a soiled, once white, spring divan. Her little bag leaped up on the springs and stopped its motion. Peter with a stupid smile raised his gallooned hat at the window, in sign of farewell, and the impertinent conductor slammed the door and put down the latch. A homely lady in a bustle (Anna mentally divested that woman of her clothes and was frightened at her homeliness) and a girl laughing unnaturally were running below.

” Katerina Andréevna has it all, ma tante ! ” screamed the girl.

” The girl, too, is deformed and mincing,” thought Anna. Not to see anybody, she got up and seated herself at the opposite window in the empty car. A greasy, homely peasant in a cap, underneath which peeped out his dishevelled hair, passed by that window, bending down to the wheels of the car. ” There is something familiar in that homely peasant,” thought Anna. And, recalling her dream, she, trembling with fear, walked over to the opposite door. The conductor opened the door, to let in a married pair.

” Do you wish to get out ? “

Anna made no reply. The conductor and the passengers who were entering did not notice under her veil the expression of terror on her face. She returned to her corner and took her seat. The married couple seated themselves on the opposite side, attentively but furtively examining her gown. Both husband and wife appeared disgusting to Anna. The husband asked her whether she would permit him to smoke, evidently not because he wanted to smoke, but in order to get into a conversation with her. Having received her consent, he began to speak in French with his wife, though he needed even less to say anything than to smoke. In their feigning they spoke silly things, only that she might hear them. Anna saw clearly that they were bored with each other, and that they hated one another. Nor could such miserable deformities be anything but hated.

The second bell was heard, and soon after the moving of luggage, a noise, din, and laughter. It was so clear to Anna that nobody had any cause for joy that this laughter irritated her painfully, and she felt like closing her ears in order not to hear it. Finally the third bell was rung ; the whistle, the scream of the engine, was heard ; the chain clanked, and the man made the sign of the cross. ” It would be interesting to ask him what he means by it,” thought Anna, looking maliciously at him. She looked past the lady through the window at the people that seemed to be gliding backwards,, though they were only standing on the platform, to see the train off. The car in which Anna was sitting swayed evenly at the junction of the rails and glided past the platform, a stone wall, a disc, — past other cars ; the wheels sounded more softly and evenly on the rails, emitting a slight metallic sound ; the window was lighted up by the bright evening sun and the breeze began to play with the curtain. Anna forgot about her neighbours in the car, and, inhaling the fresh air, while the car moved on with a slight swaying motion, began to think again :

” Yes, what was it I stopped on ? On the reflection that I cannot imagine a situation in which life would not be a torment ; that we are all created in order to be tormented, and that we all of us know it and only try to contrive means for deceiving ourselves. But what are you going to do if you see the truth ? “

” Beason is given man precisely that he may be able to free himself from what worries him,” the lady said, in French, apparently satisfied with her phrase, and twisting her tongue.

These words seemed to answer Anna’s thought.

“To free himself from what worries him,” repeated Anna.

And glancing at the red-cheeked man and the lean woman, she understood that the sickly woman considered herself an unappreciated woman and that her husband was deceiving her and maintaining her in her opinion about herself. Anna seemed to see their history and all the nooks’of their souls, transferring the light upon them. But there was nothing of interest there, and she continued her thinking.

“ Yes, I am worried very much, and reason is given me that I may free myself from it. Why not put out the candle when there is nothing more to look at, when it is an abomination to look at all this ? But how ? Why did the conductor run by, holding on to the rail ? Why do they make such a noise, those young men in the next car ? Why do they talk, why do they laugh ? Everything is an untruth, everything is a lie, everything is a deception, everything is evil ! “

When the train stopped at the station, Anna went out in a crowd of other passengers, and, moving away from them as from the plague-stricken, she stood still on the platform, trying to recall why she had come there, and what it was she intended to do. Everything which had seemed possible to her before was now so hard to consider, especially in the noisy crowd of all these abominable people, who did not give her any rest. Now porters ran up to her, offering her their services; now young men, striking the heels of their boots against the planks of the platform and talking in loud voices, were scanning her ; now people coming toward her stepped aside in the wrong directions. Recalling that she had intended to travel on, if there should be no answer, she stopped one of the porters and asked him whether the coachman, who had gone with a note to Count Vronski, was not there.

” Count Vrdnski ? His men were here just awhile ago. They met Princess Lordkin and her daughter. And what kind of a fellow is that coachman ? “

While she was talking with the porter, coachman Mikhäylo, red-faced, merry, wearing a foppish blue sleeveless coat and a chain, evidently proud of having carried out her order so well, came up to her and handed her a note. She tore it open, and her heart was compressed even before she read it.

“ I am very sorry that the note did not reach me. I shall be back at ten,” Vronski wrote in a careless hand.

“ Yes. I expected it ! ” she said to herself, with an evil smile.

“All right, go home!” she said, softly, turning to Mikhäylo. She spoke softly, for the rapid pulsation of her heart interfered with her breathing. “No, I will not allow you to torment me,” she thought. Turning with a threat, not toward him, not toward herself, but toward him who caused her to be tormented, she walked down the platform, past the station.

Two chambermaids, who were walking up and down the platform, turned back their heads and looked at her, making some loud remarks about her toilet. “ They are the real thing,” they remarked about the lace which she had on. The young men did not give her any rest. They again stared at her face and, laughing out in an unnatural voice, walked past her. The station chief, passing by her, asked her whether she was going to take the train. A boy who was selling kvas did not take his eyes off her. ” O Lord, where shall I go ? ” she thought, going farther and farther away on the platform. At the end of it she stopped. Some ladies and children, who had met a gentleman in glasses and laughed and talked loudly, grew silent and scanned her, as she walked by them. She increased her steps and walked away from them to the edge of the platform. A freight-train was approaching. The platform began to shake, and it seemed to her that she was again travelling.

And suddenly, recalling the man who had been crushed on the day of her first meeting with Vrdnski, she comprehended what she had to do. Descending with a light, rapid gait the steps which led from the water-tower to the rails, she stopped close to the train which was passing. She looked at the bottom of the cars, at the linchpins and chains and the large iron wheels of the first car, and, measuring with her eyes, tried to determine the middle between the front and the hind wheels and the moment when it would be precisely in front of her.

“ There ! ” she said to herself, looking in the shadow of the car at the sand mixed with coal dust, with which the ties were covered, ” there, in the very middle, — and I will punish him, and will be freed from all, and from myself.”

She wanted to drop down in the middle of the first car, when it came abreast with her ; but the red bag, which she began to pull off from her arm, retarded her, and it was too late ; the middle had passed her. It was necessary to wait for the next car. A sensation which resembled what she experienced when, bathing, she got ready to go into the water, took possession of her, and she made the sign of the cross. The habitual motion of crossing herself called forth in her soul a whole series of girlish and childish recollections, and suddenly the darkness, which was shrouding everything from her, was rent, and life for a moment presented itself to her with all its bright past joys. But she did not take her eyes off the wheels of the approaching second car. And precisely at the moment when its middle was opposite her, she threw aside the red bag and, drawing her head into her shoulders, fell under the car on her hands, and with a light motion, as though preparing herself to rise at once, got down on her knees. And at that identical moment she was horrified at what she was doing. ” Where am I ? What am I doing ? What for ? ” She wanted to get up, to throw herself back; but something enormous, something inexorable, knocked her on the head and dragged her by the shoulder. ” Lord, forgive me everything ! ” she mumbled, feeling the impossibility of the struggle. The peasant, muttering something, was working on the iron. And the candle, at which she had been reading the book that was filled with tribulation, deceits, sorrow, and evil, flickered with a brighter light than ever, illuminated for her everything which had been in the darkness, began to crackle and grow dim, and went out for ever.

PART THE EIGHTH

I.

Nearly two months had passed. It was now the middle of a hot summer, and Sergyéy Ivénovich had only just got ready to leave Moscow.

In Sergyéy Ivanovich’s life events of their own had been taking place. More than a year before he had finished his book, the fruit of six years of work, under the title of ” Outline of the Principles and Forms of Political Life in Europe and in Russia.” Several parts of this book and the introduction had been published in magazines, and other parts had been read by Sergyéy Ivanovich to men of his circle, so that the ideas of this production could no longer be an absolute novelty for the public ; none the less Sergyéy Ivanovich expected that the book at its appearance would produce a serious impression on the public and, if not a revolution in science, at least a powerful commotion in the learned world.

This book, carefully prepared, had been published the year before and had been sent out to the booksellers.

Without asking anybody about it, reluctantly and with feigned indifference replying to his friends’ questions about the way the book went, not even asking the booksellers how it sold, Sergyéy Ivanovich watched attentively, with strained attention, for the first impression which his book would produce on the public and on literature.

But a week passed, a second, a third, and no impression was to be perceived on the public ; his friends, specialists

and scholars, now and then, apparently for the sake of politeness, spoke of it to him. His other acquaintances, who were not interested in a book of scientific contents, did not mention it to him at all. And the public, especially now that it was occupied with something else, treated his book with absolute indifference. In literature, too, there was not a word said about the book for the period of a month.

Sergyéy Ivänovich figured out to a nicety the time necessary for the writing of a review, but a month passed, and another, and still there was silence.

Only in the Northern Beetle, in a humourous feuilleton about the singer Drabanti, whose voice was cracked, there were incidentally a few contemptuous words about Koznyshév’s book, which showed that it had long ago been condemned and turned over to universal ridicule.

Finally, in the third month, there appeared a critical article in a serious periodical. Sergyéy Ivanovich knew its author. He had met him once at Golubtsov’s.

The author of that article was a very young, sickly feuilletonist, wide-awake as a writer, but a man of extremely little culture and timid in his personal relations.

In spite of his complete contempt for the author, Sergyéy Ivänovich most respectfully took up the article to read. It was terrible.

Apparently the feuilletonist had comprehended the whole book as it was impossible to understand it. But he had so cleverly picked out passages that to those who had not read the book (obviously nobody had), it was quite clear that the whole book was nothing but a conglomeration of high-sounding words, improperly used at that (as the question marks indicated), and that the author of the book was a very ignorant man. And all that was so cleverly done that Sergyéy Ivanovich himself would not have minded such a clever piece of work; but it was precisely that which made it so terrible.

In spite of the absolute sincerity with which Sergyéy Ivänovich verified the justice of the critic’s arguments, he did not for a moment dwell on his defects and mistakes, which had been ridiculed, but involuntarily at once proceeded to recall all the minutest details of his meeting and conversation with the author of the article.

” Have I offended him in any way ? ” Sergyéy Ivänovich asked himself.

And recalling how at their meeting he had corrected that young man in something which had evinced his ignorance, Sergyéy Ivänovich found the explanation of the meaning of that article.

After that article there ensued a dead silence concerning the book, both in print and orally, and Sergyéy Ivänovich saw that his work of six years, which had been attended with so much love and labour, had passed by unnoticed.

Sergyéy Ivänovich’s situation was the harder still because after finishing his book he had no other study work to do, and that before had taken up the greater part of his time.

Sergyéy Ivänovich was clever, cultured, healthy, active, and did not know how to use his activity. Conversations in the drawingrooms, sessions, meetings, and committees, wherever it was possible to speak, took up part of his time ; but, being an old city dweller, he did not permit himself to waste all his time in conversations, as his inexperienced brother had done during his stay in Moscow ; he still had much leisure and mental powers left.

Luckily for him, during this most oppressive time, caused by the failure of his book, the questions of the nonOrthodox believers, American friends, Samära famine, exposition, spiritualism gave way to the Slavic question, which before that had merely glowed under the ashes in society, and Sergyéy Ivänovich, who even before that had been one of the promoters of the question, now abandoned himself wholly to it.

In the circle to which Sergyéy Ivänovich belonged nothing was being said or written except about the Servian war. Everything that the idle crowd usually does to kill time was now being done for the benefit of the Slavs. Balls, concerts, dinners, matches, ladies’ gowns, beer, inns, — everything gave evidence of the Slavic sympathies.

With much of what at that time was being written and talked about in reference to this matter, Sergyéy Ivänovich did not agree in detail. He saw that the Slavic question had become one of those fashionable infatuations, which, following one another, serve society as an excuse for occupations ; he saw also that there were many men who busied themselves with this matter for selfish and ambitious purposes. He recognized that the papers printed much that was unnecessary and exaggerated, for the mere purpose of attracting public attention and outcrying one another. He saw that with this general exaltation of society, there leaped forward and cried loudest all those who had failed or who had been overlooked : generals-in-chief without armies, ministers without portfolios, journalists without periodicals, leaders of parties without partisans. He saw that much of it was frivolous and ridiculous ; but he also saw and recognized the unquestionable, ever growing enthusiasm, which united all classes into one, and which one could not help but sympathize with. The massacres of the brothers in faith and blood called forth sympathy for the sufferers and indignation against the oppressors. And the heroism of the Servians and Montenegrins, who were fighting for a great cause, bred in the whole nation the desire to aid their brothers, not with words only, but also with deeds.

At the same time there was another phenomenon which caused Sergyéy Ivänovich to rejoice : that was the manifestation of a public opinion. Society definitely expressed its wish. The national soul received an expression, as Sergyéy Ivanovich said. And the more he busied himself with this matter, the more evident did it become to him that it was a matter which was to assume enormous proportions, — was to form an epoch.

He devoted himself entirely to this great business, and forgot to think of his book.

All his time was now occupied, so that he was unable to answer all the letters and demands directed to him.

Having worked all the spring and part of the summer, he only in July got ready to go to the country, to his brother’s.

He went there, both to rest for two weeks, and in the holy of holies of the nation, in the country wilderness, to enjoy the sight of that exaltation of the popular spirit, of which he and all the dwellers of the capitals and the cities were fully convinced. Katavasov, who had long been getting ready to make good the promise which he had given Levin about coming to visit him, went with him.

IL

Sergyéy Ivanovich and Katavdsov had hardly reached the peculiarly animated station of the Kursk Railway and, after leaving the carriage, had not yet had time to look at the lackey who was driving behind with their things, when volunteers drove up in four cabs. Ladies met them with bouquets and, accompanied by a surging crowd, entered the station.

One of the ladies who received the volunteers, leaving the station, turned to Sergyéy Ivdnovich.

” Have you, too, come to see them off ? ” she asked him in French.

“No, I am going away myself, princess. To take a rest at my brother’s. And do you always see them off?” Sergyéy Ivdnovich said, with a faint smile.

” Impossible,” replied the princess. ” Is it true that we have sent off eight hundred ? Malvmski did not believe me.”

“ More than eight hundred. If we count those that went indirectly from Moscow, there are more than a thousand,” said Sergyéy Ivdnovich.

“ Exactly. I said so ‘ ” the lady broke in, joyously. ” And is it true that about a million has been contributed ? ”

” More, princess.”

” What do you think of to-day’s telegram ? The Turks have been beaten again.”

” Yes, I have read it,” replied Sergyéy Ivdnovich.

They were talking of the latest telegram which confirmed the news that three days before the Turks had been beaten at all-points and were running, and that on the morrow a decisive battle was expected.

” Oh, by the way, a fine young man asked to be sent. I do not know why difficulties were put in his way. I wanted to ask you, — I know him, — please write a note. He comes from Countess Lidiya Ivanovna.”

Having inquired into the details which the princess knew about the young man who wanted to be sent, Sergyéy Ivdnovich went to the first-class waitingroom and there wrote the note to the proper person, and handed it to the princess.

” Do you know, Count Vronski — the famous one — is on this train,” the princess said, with a triumphant and significant smile, when he found her and gave her the note.

” I heard that he was going, but I did not know when. On this train ? ”

” I saw him. He is here ; only his mother is seeing him off. It is, after all, the best he can do.”

“ Oh, yes, of course.”

While they were talking, the crowd surged past them to the dining-table. They, too, moved forward, and heard the loud voice of a gentleman, who, with a wine-glass in his hand, was addressing the volunteers. ” To serve for our faith, for humanity, for our brothers,” the gentleman said, raising his voice more and more. “ Mother Moscow blesses you for the great work. Zhfvio!”1 he concluded in a loud and tearful voice.

All cried “ Zhivio ! ” and another crowd surged into the hall and almost knocked the princess off her feet.

” Ah, princess, glad to see you ! ” said Stepän Arkadevieh, beaming with a joyous smile, suddenly appearing in the middle of the crowd. ” It was nice, and warmly said, don’t you think so ? Bravo ‘ Sergyéy Ivanovich, ïThe hurrah of the Servians.

you ought to say something yourself, a few words, you know, of encouragement; you do it so well,” he added, with a tender, respectful, and cautious smile, slightly pushing Sergyéy Ivanovich by the arm.

“No, I am leaving now.”

<< Whither ? “

” To the country, to see my brother,” replied Sergyéy Ivanovich.

“ Then you will see my wife. I wrote to her, but you will see her before ; please tell her that you have seen me, and that I am all right. She will understand. Still, tell her, if you please, that I have been appointed a member of the Commission of the United— Well, she will understand. You know, les petites misères de la vie humaine,” he turned to the princess, as though excusing himself. “And Myâgki, not Liza, but Bibish, sends a thousand rifles and twenty Sisters. Did I tell you ? “

” Yes, I heard,” Koznyshév replied, reluctantly.

“ What a pity you are leaving,” said Stepdn Arkâdevich. ” Tomorrow we shall dine two volunteers, Dimer Bar-tyânski, from St. Petersburg, and our Grisha Veslovski. Both of them are going. Vesldvski has lately married. What a fine fellow ! Don’t you think so, princess ? ” he turned to the lady.

The princess made no reply, but glanced at Koznyshév. The fact that Sergyéy Ivanovich and the princess seemed to be wanting to get rid of him did not in the least embarrass Stepân Arkâdevich. He looked, smilingly, now at the feather of the princess’s hat, and now sidewise, as though he were going to pick something up. Wien he saw a lady passing by with a box, he called her up and put a five-rouble bill into it.

” I cannot see these boxes with equanimity so long as I have any money left,” he said. ” Is not to-day’s telegram fine ? The Montenegrins are great fellows.”

“ You don’t say ! ” he exclaimed, when the princess told him that Vronski was going by that train. For a moment Stepan Arkadevich’s face expressed grief, but a minute later, when, slightly jerking with each leg, and straightening out his side-whiskers, he entered the room where Vrdnski was, he had entirely forgotten his sobs of despair over his sister’s body, and saw in Vrdnski only a hero and old friend.

“With all his faults, we must do him justice,” the princess said to Sergyéy Ivanovich, the moment Obldnski bad left them. “His is a thoroughly Russian, Slavic nature ! Only I am afraid that it will not be pleasant for Vrdnski to see him. Say what you please, but I am touched by the fate of that man. Talk to him on the way ! ” said the princess.

“ Yes, perhaps, if the occasion offers itself.”

” I had never liked him. But that expiates many things. He not only goes there himself, but is taking a whole squadron with him at his own expense.”

“ Yes, I heard so.”

The bell was heard. All hurried toward the door.

“ There he is! ” said the princess, pointing to Vronski, who, in a long overcoat and in a broad-brimmed black hat, was walking linking arms with his mother. Oblonski was by his side, talking in an animated way to him.

Vrdnski frowned, looking in front of him, as though he did not hear what Stepan Arkâdevich was saying.

Evidently by Oblonski’s direction he looked toward the place where the princess and Sergyéy Ivanovich stood, and silently raised his hat. His aged face, which expressed suffering, looked petrified.

On reaching the platform, Vronski silently let his mother pass by and disappeared into the compartment of a car.

On the platform were heard the sounds of “ God save the Tsar ! ” then the shouts, “ Hurrah ! ” and ” Zhfvio ! ” One of the volunteers, a tall, very young man with a

sunken breast, bowed ostentatiously, waving his felt hat and a bouquet above his head. After him there moved forward two officers, who kept bowing also, and an elderly man with a long beard, who was wearing a soiled cap.

III.

Having bid the princess farewell, Sergyéy Ivdnovich and Katavasov, who had come up in the meanwhile, entered the car, which was crammed full of people, and the train started.

At the Tsaritsyn station the train was met by a fine choir of young men, singing, ” Glory ! ” Again the volunteers bowed and thrust their heads out of the windows, but Sergyéy Ivänovich paid no attention to them ; he had had so much to do with the volunteers that he knew their general type, and this no longer interested him. But Katavasov, who with his learned labours had not had an opportunity to observe the volunteers, was very much interested in them, and asked Sergyéy Ivänovich about them.

Sergyéy Ivanovich advised him to go to the second class to talk with them in person. At the next station Katavasov followed that advice.

At the first stop he went over to the second class and became acquainted with the volunteers. They were sitting in the corner of the car, talking loudly, apparently aware of the fact that the attention of the passengers and of Katavasov, who had just entered, was directed toward them. Loudest of all spoke the tall fellow with the sunken breast. He was evidently drunk and told some kind of a story of what had happened in their establishment. Opposite him sat a no longer young officer in a military jacket of the Austrian uniform of the Guards. He smiled, listening to the story-teller, and now and then

stopped him. A third, in an artillery uniform, was sitting on a coffer near them. A fourth was asleep.

Entering into a conversation with the youth, Katavasov learned that he was a rich Moscow merchant, who had squandered a large fortune before he was twenty-two years old. Katavdsov did not like him because he was spoiled, effeminate, and weak of health ; he was apparently convinced, especially now that he had had something to drink, that he was committing a heroic act, and boasted in the most disagreeable manner possible.

The second, an ex-officer, also produced an unpleasant impression on Katavasov. He was, evidently, a man who had tried everything. He had served on the railway, had been a superintendent, and had himself established factories, and he talked about everything, using learned words unnecessarily and out of place.

The third, an artilleryman, on the contrary, pleased Katavasov very much. He was a modest, quiet man, who apparently bowed before the knowledge of the exGuardsman and before the heroic self-sacrifice of the merchant, and did not say anything about himself. When Katavasov asked him what had urged him to go to Servia, he replied modestly :

” Well, everybody is going. It is necessary to help the Servians. They are to be pitied.”

” Yes, there is especially a lack there of our artillerymen,” said Katavasov.

“ I have not served long in the artillery ; maybe they will attach me to the infantry or cavalry.”

” Why should they put you in the infantry, since they need artillerymen most?” said Katavdsov, judging from his years that he must be of pretty high rank.

” I have not served long in the artillery, — I am a y un k er out of service,” he said, after which he began to explain why he did not pass his examination.

All that taken together produced a disagreeable impression on Katavasov, and, when at a station the volunteers went out to get a drink, Katavasov wanted to verify his unfavourable impression by talking about it to some one. Au old man, a passenger on the train, wearing a military uniform, had been listening all the time to Katavasov’s conversation with the volunteers. When they were left alone, Katavdsov turned to him.

” What a diversity among all these men who are going there,” Katavdsov said, vaguely, wishing to express his own opinion and, at the same time, to elicit that of the old man.

The old man was a soldier who had gone through two campaigns. He knew what a military man was, and, from the looks and the conversation of those gentlemen, and the dashing way in which they applied themselves to the bottle on their way, he regarded them as poor soldiers. Besides, he was a dweller in a county seat and wanted to tell how a soldier of their town, who was on an indefinite furlough, a drunkard and a thief, whom nobody wanted for a workman, had gone as a volunteer. But, knowing from experience that in the present mood of society it was dangerous to express an opinion which was contrary to that of the generality, and, especially, to condemn the volunteers, he himself tried to find out Katavasov’s opinion.

” Well, men are wanted there,” he said, laughing with his eyes. And they began to talk of the latest news from the war, and both concealed their surprise from each other as to why there should be a battle on the morrow, since the Turks had, according to the latest news, been beaten at all points. And thus the two parted, without expressing their opinions.

Returning to Iris car, Katavdsov, compromising with truth, told Sergydy Ivanovich of his observations on the volunteers, from which it appeared that they were all fine fellows.

At a large station in a city, the volunteers were again

met with singing and shouts ; again there appeared collectors of contributions, men and women, and the provincial ladies offered the volunteers bouquets and followed them to the buffet ; but all that was in a much weaker and smaller way than at Moscow.

IV.

During the stop at the capital of the Government, Sergyéy Ivanovich did not go to the buffet, but began to walk up and down the platform.

When he for the first time passed by Vronski’s compartment, he noticed that the curtain was drawn. But, on going by for the second time, he saw the old countess at the window. She called Koznyshév up to her.

“ I am seeing him off as far as Kursk,” she said.

” Yes, I have heard,” said Sergyéy Ivanovich, stopping at her window and looking in. ” What a beautiful action on his part! ” he added, noticing that Vronski was not in the compartment.

” Yes, what was he to do after his misfortune ? “

« What a terrible event ! ” said Sergyéy Ivanovich.

” Oh, what I have gone through ! Gome in, please — What I have gone through ! ” she repeated, when Sergyéy Ivanovich had entered and taken up a seat beside her. “ You cannot imagine it! For six weeks he did not speak to any one, and ate only when I implored him to do so. Not for a minute could he be left alone. We took everything away from him with which he might have killed himself ; we lived in the lower story, but it was impossible to foresee anything. You know he had shot himself once on her account,” she said, and the old woman’s brows were wrinkled, as she recalled this. “Yes, she ended as such a woman ought to have ended. She even chose a low, base kind of a death.”

” It is not for us to judge, countess,” Sergyéy Ivänovich

said, with a sigh, ” but I understand how hard that must have been for you.”

” Oh, don’t speak of it ! I was living on my estate, and he was with me. A note was brought. He wrote an answer and sent it off. We did not know at all that she was at the station. In the evening, when I had just retired, my Mary told me that a lady had thrown herself under the train at the station. It was as though something had struck me. I knew that it was she. The first thing I said was not to tell him. But they had already told him of it. His coachman had been there and had seen it all. When I ran into his room, he was no longer himself, — it was terrible to look at him. He did not say a word and galloped away there. I do not know what happened there, but they brought him home almost dead. I should not have recognized him. Prostration complete, said the doctor. Then there began almost madness — Oh, why speak of it ? ” said the countess, waving her hand. ” It was a terrible time ! Say what you please, but she was a bad woman. What kind of desperate passions are those ? Only to prove something particular. Well, she has proved it. She has ruined herself and two good men, her husband and my unfortunate son.”

” What about her husband ? ” asked Sergyéy Ivänovich.

“He took her daughter. Aleksyéy at first agreed to everything ; but now he is terribly tormented at having given his daughter to a stranger. He cannot take back his word. Karénin came to the funeral. We tried not to have him meet Aleksyéy. For him, her husband, it is after all best that way. She has freed him. But my poor son had given himself all to her. He had thrown up everything, his career and me, and she did not pity him, but, as though on purpose, completely undid him. Say what you please, her death even is that of a bad woman without religion. May God forgive me, but I cannot help hating her memory, as I look at my son’s ruin.”

“ How is he now ? ”

« God has come to our aid with this Servian war. I am an old person, — I do not understand a thing about it, but God has sent it to him. Of course, being his mother, I feel terribly about it ; the main thing is, they say, ce n’est pas bien vu à Pctcrsbourg. But what is to be done ? This alone could have lifted him up. Yäshvin, his friend, had lost everything, and was getting ready to go to Servia. He came to see him and persuaded him to go too. Now this takes up his attention. Please talk with him, — I want him to be diverted. He is so sad. And to his misfortune he has a toothache. He will be glad to see you. Please talk with him ! He is walking on this side.”

Sergyéy Ivänovich said that he would be very glad to, and went over on the other side of the train.

V.

In the slanting evening shadow of the sacks piled up on the platform, Vrénski, in his long overcoat and with his hat drawn over his forehead, and his hands in his pockets, was walking, like a caged animal, rapidly turning back at each twenty steps. It seemed to Sergyéy Ivdnovich, as he approached him, that Vrénski saw him, but pretended that he did not see him. That made no difference to Sergyéy Ivanovich. He stood above all personal considerations with Vrénski.

At that moment Vrénski was in Sergyéy Ivanovich’s eyes an important factor in a great matter, and Koznyshév considered it his duty to encourage him and approve of him. He went up to him.

Vrénski stopped, looked at him, recognized him, and, . taking several steps toward Sergyéy Ivänovich, gave him a firm pressure of his hand.

” Maybe you did not wish to meet me,” said Sergyéy Ivänovich, ” but can I not be useful to you ? “

” There is no one whom it would be less unpleasant to meet than you,” said Vronski. ” Pardon me. There is nothing pleasant for me in life.”

” I understand. I wanted to offer you my services,” said Sergyéy Ivänovich, looking closely at Vrénski’s apparently suffering face. ” Do you not need a letter to Distich, to Milan ? “

” Oh, no!” Vrénski said, as though experiencing a difficulty in understanding him. « If it does not make any difference to you, let us walk. It is so close in the cars.

A letter? Ho, thank you; to die no recommendations are needed. Unless it be a letter to the Turks — ” he said, smiling with his mouth only. His eyes continued to have an angry and suffering expression.

” Yes, but perhaps it would be easier for you to enter into relations, which none the less must exist, with a man who is prepared for them. I was very glad to hear of your determination. There have been so many attacks made on the volunteers that a man like you raises them in public opinion.”

“ I, as a man,” said Vrénski, ” have this advantage, that life is not worth anything to me. That I have enough physical energy left to cut my way into a square and crush them or myself fall down, — that I know. I am glad to have a cause for which to give up my life, which is more than useless to me, — it is a nuisance. Somebody will be the gainer by it.” And he made an impatient motion with his jaw from the uninterrupted grinding toothache, which even prevented his speaking with that expression which he wished to employ.

” You will be regenerated, — I predict,” said Sergyéy Ivanovich, feeling himself touched. ” The liberation of our brothers from the yoke is a worthy aim of life and death. God grant you external success, — and internal peace,” he added, extending his hand to him.

Vrénski gave a firm pressure to Sergyéy Ivanovich’s hand.

” Yes, as a tool I may be of some use. But as a man I am a ruin,” he said, speaking with interruptions.

The agonizing pain of the strong tooth, which filled his mouth with saliva, made it hard for him to talk. He grew silent, gazing at the wheels of the tender, which was slowly and softly gliding on the rails.

Suddenly something else, not a pain, but a tormenting inner uneasiness made him for a moment forget his toothache. At the sight of the tender and the rails, and under the influence of his conversation with his acquaintance, whom he had not yet met since his misfortune, he suddenly thought of her, that is, of as much as there had been left of her when he, like an insane man, ran into the barracks of the railway station: on the table the bloodstained body, still full of the recent life, shamelessly stretched out among strangers; the unmarred head thrown back, with its heavy braids and flowing hair over the temples, and on the exquisite face, with its ruddy mouth half-open, a congealed strange expression, pitiful at the lips and terrible in the arrested gaze of the open eyes, as though uttering that terrible word about his repenting, which she had said to him during their quarrel.

And he tried to recall her such as she had been then when he had met her for the first time at the station, — mysterious, charming, loving, seeking and giving happiness, and not cruelly revengeful, as he recalled her at the last moment. He tried to think of his best moments with her ; but they were for ever poisoned. He remembered only her triumphant, accomplished threat of a useless, but ineffaceable repentance. He no longer felt his toothache, and sobs contorted his face.

Passing twice by the sacks and regaining his composure, he calmly turned to Sergyéy Ivanovich.

” Have you not had any telegram since yesterday’s ? Yes, they have been crushed for the third time, but tomorrow a decisive battle is expected.”

And, talking about the proclamation of Milan as king and of the enormous consequences to which this might lead, they, after the second bell, went each to his car.

VI.

Not knowing when he should be able to leave Moscow, Sergyéy Ivanovich had not telegraphed to his brother to send somebody out to meet him. Levin was not at home, when Katavasov and Sergyéy Ivanovich, in a small tarantas, which they hired at the station, and covered with dust, looking like negroes, at noon drove up to the porch of the Pokrovskoe mansion. Kitty, who was sitting on the balcony with her father and sister, recognized her brother-in-law and ran down-stairs to meet him.

“ Are you not ashamed not to have sent us word ? ” she said, giving Sergyéy Ivânovich her hand, and offering him her brow.

“We got here nicely without troubling you,” replied Sergyéy Ivànovich. ” I am so dusty that I am afraid to touch you. I was so busy that I did not know when I would be able to tear myself away. But you, as of old,” he said, smiling, ” enjoy your quiet happiness beyond the current, in your calm pool. Here is our friend Fédor Vasilevich, who has at last made up his mind to come.”

” I am not a negro, — I will get washed and then I shall look like a man,” said Katavasov, with his usual jocularity, giving his hand, and smiling with his teeth, which had a peculiar sparkle in his black face.

“ Konstantin will be very happy. He has gone to the out-farm. It is time for him to be back.”

” Still attending to his farm. That’s it, in a pool,” said Katavasov. ” But we, in the city, see nothing but the Servian war. How does my friend look upon it ? No doubt differently from what everybody else thinks of it ! “

” No, he is just like the rest,” replied Nitty, somewhat eonfused, looking back at Sergyéy Ivänovich. “I will send for him. Papa is visiting us. He has lately arrived from abroad.”

And, having given orders to have Levin sent for and the dust-covered gentlemen taken to wash themselves, one in the cabinet, the other in what used to be Dolly’s room, and to have a lunch got for the guests, she, taking advantage of the right to rapid motions, of which she had been deprived during her pregnancy, ran up to the balcony.

” It is Sergyéy Ivanovich and Katavdsov, the professor,” she said.

” Oh, that is heavy in the heat ! ” said the prince.

” No, papa, he is a very dear man, and Konstantin loves him very much,” Kitty, observing the expression of sarcasm in her father’s face, said to him, with a smile, as though she was imploring him for something.

“Oh, I did not mean anything.”

“ Go down to them, darling,” Kitty turned to her sister, “ and entertain them ! They saw Stiva at the station, he is well. I will run down to Mitya. Unfortunately I have not nursed him since tea. He is now awake and, no doubt, crying.” And, feeling a flow of milk, she ran with a rapid step to the nursery.

Indeed, she had not only guessed (the connection ■with the babe was not yet broken), but knew for certain, from the flow of milk, that the child needed to be fed.

She knew that he was crying even before she came up to the nursery. And, indeed, he was crying. She heard his voice, and she increased her steps. P>ut, the faster she walked, the harder he cried. It was a good, healthy voice, though hungry and impatient.

“ Has it been long, nurse ? ” Kitty said, rapidly, seating herself on a chair and getting ready to nurse. “Give him to me quickly. Oh, nurse, how tiresome you are ! Can’t you wait to tie the cap later ? “

The child was screaming from hunger.

“ That won’t do, motherkin ! ” said Agäfya Mikhaylovna, who was nearly always present in the nursery. ” He has to be got in shape. Ahoo, ahoo ! ” she sang out over him, paying no attention to the mother.

The nurse took the child to his mother. Agafya Mikhaylovna walked back of him with a face melting with tenderness.

“ He knows, he knows me. I swear by God, Motherkin Katerina Aleksandrovna, he recognizes me ! ” Agäfya Mikhaylovna tried to shout louder than the child.

But Kitty was not listening to her words. Her impatience was growing greater, like the child’s.

Because of the impatience things did not go smoothly at once. The child did not grasp what was necessary, and so grew angry.

Finally, after a desperate, breathless cry and empty lapping, matters were arranged, and both mother and child felt simultaneously satisfied and grew quiet.

“ The poor child is all in a sweat,” Kitty said, in a whisper, feeling the boy.

“ What makes you think that he recognizes you ?” she added, looking sidewise at the eyes of the child, which, as she thought, peeped roguishly from underneath his cap, which had slipped down on his brow, at his evenly swelling cheeks, and at his hand with its red palm, with which he was making circular motions.

“ Impossible ! If he could tell, he would first recognize me,” Kitty said, smiling, in reply to Agäfya Mikhaylovna’s affirmation.

She smiled because, although she had said that he could not tell, she knew in her heart that he not only recognized Agäfya Mikhaylovna, but that he also knew and comprehended a lot of things which nobody ever knew,

and that she herself, his mother, had found them out and had begun to understand them, only thanks to him. For Agafya Mikhaylovna, for the nurse, for the grandfather, even for the father, Mitya was a living creature that demanded only material attention ; but for the mother he had long ago begun to be a moral being, with whom there was already a whole history of soul’s relations.

« When he wakes up, God willing, you will find out for yourself. Wien I do like this, he beams, the darling. That’s it, he beams, like a clear day,” said Agafya Mikhaylovna.

« All right, all right, we shall see,” whispered Kitty. « Now go, he is falling asleep.”

VII.

Agafya Mikhaylovna went out on tiptoe : the nurse let down the blind, drove out the flies from underneath the netting of the crib, and a gadfly, which was beating against the window-pane, and sat down, waving a wilting birch branch over mother and child.

” It is hot, though, dreadfully hot ! If God would only send a little rain I ” she said.

« Yes, yes, hush,” was all Kitty replied, softly swaying, tenderly pressing Mitya’s chubby hand, which looked as though cut by a thread at the wrist and which he feebly moved, now closing, and now opening his eyes. This little hand vexed Kitty : she wanted so much to kiss it, but was afraid to do so for fear of waking him. The hand at last stopped moving, and his eyes remained closed. Only now and then, continuing his work, the child raised his long, bent lashes and looked at his mother with eyes which appeared black and humid’in the semiobscurity. The nurse stopped waving, and fell asleep. Up-stairs were heard the peal of the old prince’s voice and Katavasov’s guffaws.

” They have, no doubt, struck up a conversation without me,” thought Kitty. ” It is so annoying that Konstantin has not yet returned. He must have gone to the apiary again. Though it is lonely to have him away so often, I am glad of it. It distracts him. He is happier and merrier now than he was in the spring. Then he was so gloomy, and he suffered so much, that I felt terribly for him. How funny he is ! ” she whispered, smiling.

She knew what it was that tormented her husband. It was his unbelief. In spite of the fact that, if she had been asked whether she supposed that in the future life he would be lost if he did not believe, she would have been compelled to admit that he would be, — this unbelief did not make her unhappy ; and she who recognized the fact that there could be no salvation for a non-believer, and who loved her husband’s soul more than anything in the world, thought with a smile of his unbelief and said to herself that he was so funny.

“Why does he read those philosophies of his all the year round ? ” she thought. ” If it tells all about that in those books, he can understand them. But if they contain untruth, what is the use of reading them ? He says himself that he should like to believe. Why does he not believe ? No doubt, because he thinks too much. And he thinks too much because he is too much alone. All sole alone. He cannot talk to us about everything. I think these guests will be a pleasure to him, especially Katavasov. He likes to discuss with them,” she thought. And immediately she transferred herself mentally to the question of where it would be most convenient to put Katavasov for the night, whether by himself, or together with Sergyéy Ivanovich. And suddenly a thought came to her, that made her tremble with excitement and even disturb Mitya, who for this looked sternly at her. “ The laundress, I think, has not brought back the washing, and the bedclothes for the guests are all used up. If I do not look out, Agafya Mikhaylovna will give Sergyéy Mikhaylovich sheets that have been used,” and at this thought alone the blood rushed to Kitty’s face.

“ I will look after it,” she decided, and, returning to her former thoughts, she remembered that some important intimate thought had been interrupted, and she tried to recall what it was. ” Yes, Konstantin is an unbeliever,” she recalled it, with a smile.

” Well, he is an unbeliever ! I would rather have him all the time such as he is than to see him like Madame Shtal, or such as I wanted myself to be when I was abroad. No, he will not pretend.”

And a recent instance of his goodness suddenly rose before her. Two weeks before Dolly had received a repentant letter from Stepän Arkddevich. He implored her to save his honour, to sell her estate, in order to pay his debts. Dolly was in despair, hated her husband, despised him, felt sorry for him, wanted to be separated, refused, but finally agreed to selling part of her estate. After that Kitty with an involuntary smile of blessedness recalled the embarrassment of her husband, his repeated awkward approaches to the matter he was interested in, and how at last, having discovered the only means of aiding Dolly, without offending her, he had proposed to Kitty to give up her part of the estate, a thing of which she had not thought of doing before.

Where is here his unbelief ? With his heart, with that fear of offending any one, even a child ! Everything for others, nothing for himself. Sergyéy Ivänovich actually thinks that it is Konstantin’s duty to be his clerk. So it is with his sister. Now Dolly and her children are his wards. All these peasants come to him every day, as though he were obliged to serve them.

” Yes, be only like your father, just like him,” she muttered, giving Mitya over to the nurse and touching his cheek with her lips.

VIII.

Ever since that moment when, at the sight of his beloved dying brother, Levin for the first time looked at the questions of life and death through his new convictions, as he called them, which, in the period between his twentieth and thirty-sixth year, imperceptibly took the place of his childish and juvenile beliefs, he had become horrified not so much at death as at life without the least conception of whence it came, what it was for, and what it meant. The organism, its dissolution, the indestructibility of matter, the law of the preservation of energy, evolution, were the words which had taken the place of his former belief. These words, and the conceptions which went with them, were very good for mental purposes ; but they gave nothing for life, and Levin suddenly felt himself in the position of a man who has given up his fur coat for a gauze dress, and has for the first time, during a frost, convinced himself indubitably, not by means of ratiocinations, but with his whole being, that he is not better than naked, and that he must inevitably die a painful death.

Since that moment Levin, without giving himself an account of it, and continuing to live as before, kept experiencing that terror on account of his ignorance.

Besides, he felt dimly that what he called his convictions was not only ignorance, but that it was a peculiar composition of thought which made impossible the knowledge of what he needed.

At first, his marriage, the new joys and duties, with which he became acquainted, completely drowned these thoughts ; but latterly, after his wife’s childbirth, when he lived in Moscow without any occupation, this question began to present itself more and more often, and more and more persistently to demand a solution.

The question for him consisted in the following : “If I do not recognize those answers which Christianity gives to the questions of my life, what other answers do I recognize?” And he was absolutely unable to find in his whole arsenal of convictions any answers, or even anything resembling an answer.

He was in the attitude of a man who is looking for food in toy and in gun shops.

Instinctively and unconsciously to himself, he now in each book, in each conversation, in each man, looked for relations to these questions and for their solution.

What baffled and irritated him most was that the majority of the people of his circle and age, who, like him, had exchanged their former beliefs for new convictions, such as he held, did not see any misfortune in it, and were completely satisfied and calm. Thus Levin was tormented, not only by his chief question, but also by this: Were those people sincere? Did they not dissemble ? Or, did they not in some way understand more clearly than he those answers which science gave to the questions that interested him ? And he carefully studied the opinions of those people and books that gave expression to those answers.

The one thing he had found, ever since the questions had been interesting him, was that he was mistaken in his supposition, as he remembered it from his youthful university circle, that religion had outlived its time, and that it no longer existed. All the people whom he knew and whose lives were good, believed. The old prince, and Lvov, for whom he had taken such a liking, and Sergyéy Ivanovich, and all the women, and his wife believed, just as he had believed in his first youth, and ninety-nine hundredths of the Russian people — all that part of the nation whose life inspired him with most respect — believed.

Another thing was that, after having read a number of books, he convinced himself that the people who shared his opinions with him did not understand anything else by them, and that, without explaining anything, they only denied the questions, without an answer to which he could not live, and tried to solve entirely different questions, which could not interest him, such as about the evolution of organisms, about the mechanical explanation of the soul, and so forth.

Besides, during his wife’s childbirth there had occurred an extraordinary event. He, an unbeliever, had begun to pray, and, while he had prayed, he had believed. But as soon as the moment had passed, he was unable to give to that mood any place in his life.

He could not acknowledge that he then knew the truth, and that now he was mistaken ; because the moment he began to think of it calmly, everything went to pieces ; nor could he acknowledge that he had been mistaken then, for he thought highly of that mood of his, whereas, by assuming it to have been a tribute to his weakness, he would have defiled those minutes. He was in painful discord with himself, and strained all his mental powers, in order to get out of it.

IX.

These thoughts vexed and tormented him, now more feebly, and now more strongly, but they never left him. He read and thought, and the more he read and thought, the farther did he feel himself from the aim which he was pursuing.

Having during his last stay in Moscow and in the country convinced himself that he would not find any answer in the materialists, he read and re-read Plato, and Spinoza, and Kant, and Schelling, and Hegel, and Schopenhauer, that is, those philosophers who explained life not in a materialistic way.

The ideas seemed fruitful to him, when he read them, or when he himself tried to find refutations of the other teachings, especially against the materialists ; but the moment he read, or himself reflected on, the solution of the questions, there always was repeated one and the same thing. Following the given definitions of obscure words, such as ” spirit, will, freedom, substance,” and purposely allowing himself to be caught in the word-trap, which the philosophers placed for him, or he for himself, he seemed to be understanding something. But he needed only to forget the artificial chain of thoughts, and from life to return to what satisfied him when he followed a given thread of thoughts, — and suddenly all that artificial building fell in, like a card house, and it became evident that the structure was made of the same permutated words, which were independent of anything more important in life than reason.

At one time, while reading Schopenhauer, he substituted the word ” love ” for ” will,” and for two days this new philosophy consoled him, so long as he did not get away from it ; but it fell in like the rest, when he later looked at it from life, and it turned out to be a gauze dress, devoid of warmth.

His brother advised him to read the theological works of Khomyakov. Levin read the second volume and, in spite of its polemical, elegant, and clever tone, which at first repelled him, was struck in it by the Church doctrine. He was at first struck by the idea that the attainment of divine truths was not given to man, but was given to the totality of men united in love,— to the Church. He rejoiced at the thought that it was easier to believe in the existing, now living Church, which formed all the creeds of men and had God at its head, and was therefore sacred and infallible, and from it to accept the belief in God, in the creation, the fall, the redemption, than to begin with God, a distant, mysterious God, creation, and so forth. But when he later read the history of the Church, by a Catholic writer, and another, by a Greek Orthodox author, and saw that both Churches, infallible in their essence, denied each other, he was disappointed also in Khomyakov’s doctrine of the Church, and this structure fell as much to dust as the philosophical teachings.

All that spring he was not himself and experienced terrible minutes.

“Without the knowledge what I am and why I am here it is impossible to live. But I cannot know it, consequently I cannot live,” Levin said to himself.

” In endless time, in the infinitude of matter, in infinite space there separated itself an organic bubble, and this bubble will hold itself together awhile and ■will burst, and that bubble am I.”

That was an agonizing untruth, but it was the only, last result of centuries of labours of the human mind in this direction.

That was the last belief on which were reared all pursuits of human inquiry, in nearly all its branches. It was the reigning conviction, and Levin had involuntarily, himself not knowing how, adopted this one out of all the other explanations, as being at least clear.

But it was not only au untruth, it was a cruel sarcasm of an evil power, — evil, abominable, and such as it was impossible to submit to.

It was necessary to free oneself from that power. And the liberation was in the hands of each person. It was necessary to put a stop to this dependence on evil. And there was one means, — death.

And though a happy father of a family, a healthy man, Levin was several times so near to suicide that he put away a rope, so as not to hang himself by it, and was afraid to go out with a gun, so as not to shoot himself.

But Levin did not shoot or hang himself, and continued to live.

X.

Whenever Levin thought of what he was and for what purpose he lived, he found no answer and arrived at despair, but when he stopped asking himself about it, he seemed to know what he was and for what purpose he lived, for he acted and lived firmly and definitely ; even during this later time he lived more firmly and definitely than before.

When he returned to the country in the beginning of June, he also returned to his customary occupations. The farming, his relations with the peasants and neighbours, his home affairs, his brother’s and his sister’s business, which he had on his hands, his relations with his wife and his relatives, his cares for the child, and the new beehunting, which had been fascinating him since spring, took up all his time.

These things interested him, not because he justified them by some general considerations, as he used to do before ; on the contrary, having now, on the one hand, become disenchanted by the failure of his former undertakings for the common good, and, on the other, being too busy with his thoughts and with the very quantity itself of his affairs, which beset him on all sides, he entirely gave up all considerations for the common good, and these matters interested him only because it seemed to him that he ought to do what he was doing, — that he could not do otherwise.

Formerly (it had begun almost in childhood and kept growing until full manhood) whenever he had tried to do something which would do good to everybody, to humanity, to Russia, to the whole village, he had observed that the thoughts of it were agreeable, but the activity itself was always senseless ; there was no full conviction that the matter was absolutely necessary, and the activity itself, which at first appeared so great, kept growing smaller and smaller, until it reached the point of impossibility ; but now, when, since his marriage, he had begun to confine his life more to himself, he, no longer experiencing any joy at the thought of his activity, felt the certainty that his work was necessary, and saw that it proceeded much better than before and that it grew larger and larger.

Now he, almost against his will, buried himself deeper and deeper in the soil, like a plough, so that he could not even get out of it without opening a furrow.

It was unquestionably necessary for his family to live the way their fathers and grandfathers had been accustomed to live, that is, in the same conditions of culture, and to bring up the children in the same way. That was as necessary as eating when one is hungry ; and for that it was necessary, just as in preparing the meal, to conduct the farming machine at Pokrovskoe in such a manner as to have an income. Just as there could be no doubt about paying a debt, so it was necessary to manage the homestead in such a manner that the son, receiving it as an inheritance, should be as thankful for it to his father as Levin was to his grandfather for everything which he had built and set out. And so it was necessary for him not to let the land, but to manage it himself, keep cows, manure the fields, set out forests.

It was impossible not to attend to the affairs of Sergyéy Ivanovich, his sister, and all the peasants who came to get his advice and who had become accustomed to it, as it is impossible to throw away the child whom you happen to hold in your arms. He had to care for the comforts of lüs sister-in-law and her children, whom he had invited to stay with him, and of his wife and child, and it was impossible not to be with them at least a small part of the day.

And all that, together with the chase and the new beehunting, took .up all that life of Levin which had no meaning for him whenever he thought.

And not only did Levin know precisely what he had to do, he also knew how he had to do it, and what business was more important than another.

He knew that it was necessary to hire labourers as cheaply as possible, but that he ought not to enslave them by advancing them money, thus getting them for less than they were worth, even though that was profitable. It was all right to sell the peasants straw when there was no feed to be had, even though they were to be pitied ; but the inn and dramshop had to be abolished, even though they brought an income. The illegal woodcutting he would prosecute most severely, but he would take no fines for the cattle driven on his land ; and, though this vexed the guards and did away with the fear, cattle thus driven in were to be released.

Peter, who was paying a usurer ten per cent, a month, was to get a loan, in order to save him ; but no grace was to be shown to the peasants who did not pay their rental. The clerk was not to be forgiven for having delayed mowing the small meadow and losing the grass for nothing ; on the other hand, the eighty desyatmas, where a forest had been set out, were not to be mowed. No mercy was to be shown to the farm-hand who went away during working time, because his father had died, — no matter how much he might be pitied, — and he was to be paid less for the valuable time which he had lost ; at the same time he could not refuse giving a monthly allowance to the old, worthless manorial servants.

Even so Levin knew that, upon returning home, he had first to go to his wife, who was not well, while the peasants who had been waiting for him for three hours might be left to wait longer ; and he knew that, in spite of the pleasure which he experienced in settling a swarm, he had to forego this pleasure and, leaving the old man to settle the swarm without him, to go and talk with the peasants who came to find him at the apiary.

He did not know whether he did right or wrong, and not only would not have thought now of arguing the question, but he even avoided talking and thinking about these matters.

Reflections led him to doubts and interfered with his seeing what was to be done and what not. But when he did not think, but lived, he incessantly felt in his soul the presence of an infallible judge, who decided which of two possible acts was better, and which worse, and the moment he did not act as was proper, he became at once aware of it.

Thus he lived, not knowing, and not seeing the possibility of knowing, what he was and for what purpose he was living in the world, and being tormented by this ignorance to such an extent that he was afraid of suicide, and at the same time firmly laying out a certain, definite path for himself in life.

XI.

On the day that Sergyéy Ivänovich arrived at Pokrovskoe, Levin happened to be in one of his most agonizing moods.

It was that busy work-time when the whole peasant population manifests an unusual tension of self-sacrifice to labour, such as makes no appearance in any other conditions of life, and would be esteemed very highly, if the people manifesting these qualities esteemed them, if they were not repeated each year, and if the consequences of this tension were not so simple.

To mow and reap the rye and oats and haul it all off, to cut the rowen, to plough in the fallows, to thresh the seeds, and to sow the winter fields, — all that seems simple and usual ; but in order to succeed in doing it, it is necessary for all the country population, from the oldest to the youngest, to work incessantly for three or four weeks, and three times as much as at any other time, living on kvas, onions, and black bread, threshing and hauling the ricks off at night, and giving not more than two or three hours a day to sleep. And this is done each year all over Russia.

Having lived the greater part of his life in the country and in close relations with the masses, Levin always felt during this work-time that the general national excitement was communicated to him.

Early in the morning he went out to see the first sowing of the rye, and the oats that were being hauled to the lofts, and, returning home at the time when his wife and his sister-in-law got up, he drank coffee with them and went on foot to the out-farm, where they were to start a newly erected thresliing-machine for the preparation of the seeds.

All that day, Levin, talking with his clerk and with the peasants, and at home, with his wife, with Dolly, ■with her children, and with his father-in-law, kept thinking of one and only one thing, which had been interesting him during that time in spite of the farm cares, and in everything looking for something related to his question : ” What am I ? and where am I ? and why am I?”

Standing in the cold-room of the newly thatched kiln, with the still unshed fragrant leaves of the hazelnut rafters pressed down by the thatch to the bark-stripped fresh aspen purlins, Levin looked now through the open door, where whirled about the dry, bitter dust of the threshing, at the grass of the threshing-floor yard and at the fresh straw, which had just been brought out from the barn, and upon which shone the burning sun ; now at the bright-headed, white-breasted swallows, which, whistling, flew under the roof and, flapping their wings, stopped in the transoms of the door ; and now at the people swarming in the dark and dusty kiln, — and thought strange thoughts.

” What is all that done for ? ” he thought. ” Why do I stand here, compelling them to work ? What makes them bustle so and try to show their zeal in my presence ? Why does that old woman Matréna work so hard ? (I cured her when at the fire she was struck down by a beam),” he thought, looking at the lean old woman, who, turning over the grain with the rake, was stepping tensely with her black, sunburnt feet over the rough, uneven threshing-floor. ” She got well then ; but to-day, or tomorrow, or in ten years, she will be buried, and nothing will be left of her, nor of that foppish woman in the red shirt, who with such a nimble, gentle motion separates the grain from the chaff. She, too, will be buried, and so will soon be that piebald gelding,” he thought, looking at the horse with the loosely hanging belly, which was breathing heavily through its dilated nostrils, as it walked in the treadmill. “ The horse will be buried, and so will be Fédor the feeder, with his curly chaff-filled beard and his shirt, which is torn over his white shoulder. And he keeps opening the sheaves, and commanding, and shouting to the women, and with a rapid motion adjusting the belt on the fly-wheel. Moreover, I, too, shall be buried, and nothing will be left. What for ? ’’

He was thinking that and at the same time kept looking at the watch, to figure out how much they would thresh in an hour. He had to know it, in order, calculating on this basis, to give them the task for the day.

” It is nearly an hour, and they have begun only on the third rick,” thought Levin. He walked over to the feeder and, shouting above the rumble of the machine, told him to feed it more evenly.

” You feed too much at a time, Fédor ! You see, it gets caught, and so it goes slowly. Even it up ! “

Fédor, whose perspiring face was black from the dust sticking to it, cried something in reply, but still did not do as Levin wanted.

Levin walked over to the drum and, pushing Fédor aside, began himself to feed.

Having worked almost until the peasant dinner, which was not far off, he went out of the kiln with the feeder and kept talking, stopping at the yellow stack of the cut rye, which was squarely placed on the threshing-floor, ready to be threshed.

The feeder was from a distant village, from the one where Levin used to let the land on the company principle. Now it was let to the innkeeper.

Levin got into a conversation with feeder Fédor in regard to this land, asking him whether Platdn, a rich and good peasant of that village, would not take the land for the coming year.

” The price is high, — Platdn cannot make it pay, Konstantin Dmitrievich,” replied the peasant, picking out ears from his perspiring bosom.

” But how does Kirillov make it pay ? ”

“ Mityukha ” (thus the peasants contemptuously called the innkeeper) “can’t help making it pay, Konstantin Dmitrievich ! He will squeeze a fellow, and will get what he wants. He will not spare a Christian. But Uncle Fokänych ” (thus he called Platon) “ will not flay a man alive. To some he gives on credit, and on others he loses. Sometimes he does not get back his own. He is a good man.”

” Why should he not demand his own ? “

” There are all kinds of people : one man lives only for his own needs, like Mityukha, who is only filling his belly, while Fokänych is a man of truth. He lives for his soul. He thinks of God.”

“ What do you mean by ‘ he thinks of God ‘ ? How does he live for his soul ? ” Levin almost shouted.

” You know how, according to the truth, according to God’s word. There are all kinds of people. Take you, for example, — you will not offend a man — ”

“ Yes, yes, good-bye ! ” said Levin, choking from agitation. Turning around, he took his cane and rapidly walked toward the house. At the peasant’s words that Fokänych lived for his soul, according to the truth, and according to God’s word, indistinct, but significant thoughts seemed to have broken loose somewhere from confinement and, all of them tending toward one goal, began to whirl in his head, blinding him with their light.

XII.

Levin was striding along the highway with long steps, intent on listening, not so much to his thoughts (he could not yet make them out), as to his mental state, which was such as he had never experienced before.

The words uttered by the peasant produced in him the effect of an electric spark, which suddenly transformed and blended into one a whole swarm of heterogeneous, impotent, disconnected thoughts, which had never ceased interesting him. These thoughts had, imperceptibly to him, interested him at the time when he was speaking about the letting of the land.

He felt something new in his soul, and it gave him pleasure to finger that new thing, not knowing yet what it was.

” Not to live for one’s own needs, but for God. For what God ? What more senseless thing can a person say than what he has said ? He said that one must not live for his own needs, that is, that we must not live for what we understand, for what we are drawn to, for what we want, but for something incomprehensible, for God, whom nobody can understand or define. Well ? Have I not comprehended these senseless words of Fédor ? Or, having comprehended them, do I doubt their justice ? Have I found them stupid, obscure, inexact ?

” No, I have comprehended him, precisely as he himself understands his words ; I understand them more clearly and more fully than anything in life, and never in my life have I doubted them, or could I have doubted them. Not I alone, but everybody, the whole world, understands them fully, and in this alone all men have no doubts and are in complete accord.

” I have been looking for miracles, and was sorry not to have seen a miracle which might have convinced me. A material miracle might have enticed me. But the only possible, the eternally existing miracle, which surrounds me on all sides, I did not even observe!

” Fédor says that Kirillov the innkeeper is living for his belly. That is comprehensible and sensible. All of us, being sensible beings, cannot help but live for our bellies’ sake. And suddenly this same Fédor says that it is bad to live for the belly, and that we ought to live for truth, for God, and I understand his hint ! And I, and millions of people, who have lived for centuries back, and who live now, peasants, the poor in spirit, and the wise, who have thought and written about it, and those who in their obscure language say the same, — we all agree on this one point, what it is that we should live for, and what is good. With all people in common, I have only one firm, indubitable, clear bit of knowledge, and that knowledge cannot be explained through reason, — it is outside of it, and it has no causes and can have no effects.

” If the good has any cause, it is no longer good ; if it has any effects, — rewards, — it is again no good. Consequently the good is beyond the chain of cause and effect.

” And this I know, and all of us know.

” What greater miracle can there be ?

” Is it possible I have found the solution of everything ? Is it possible all my sufferings have come to an end ? ’ thought Levin, marching over the dusty road, without noticing the heat, or fatigue, and experiencing the sensation of having an old suffering allayed. It was such a joyous sensation that it seemed incredible to him. He choked with agitation and, unable to proceed on his march, walked off the road into the forest and sat down in the shade of the aspens on the unmown grass. He took his hat off his perspiring head and, leaning on his arm, lay down on the lush, fluffy forest grass.

” Yes, I must clear it up and comprehend it,” he thought, looking fixedly at the uncrushed grass which was in front of him, and watching the movements of a little green bug, which was’climbing a blade of couch-grass and was arrested in its ascent by a goutwort leaf. ” What have I discovered ? ” he asked himself, turning aside the gout wort leaf, that it might not be in the bug’s way, and bending down another grass-blade for the bug to crawl on. ” What gives me pleasure ? What have I discovered ?

“ I have not discovered anything. I have only found out what I know already. I have come to comprehend the power which has not only given me life in the past, but gives me life even now. I have freed myself from deception, I have found out the master.

“ Formerly I used to say that in my body, in the body of this grass and of this bug (it did not want to go on this blade, but has unfolded its wings and has flown away), there takes place a transmutation of matter according to physical, chemical, and physiological laws. And in all of us, and in these aspens, and in the clouds, and in the nebular spots, there takes place an evolution. An evolution from what ? to what ? An eternal evolution and struggle ? — As though there can be any direction and struggle in the infinite. And there I wondered why, in spite of the greatest tension of my reason in that direction, the meaning of life, the meaning of my own impulses and strivings, was not revealed to me. Now I say that I know the meaning of my life : to live for God, for the soul. And this meaning, in spite of its clearness, is mysterious and miraculous. And such, too, is the meaning of everything existing. Yes, pride,” he said to himself, rolling over on his stomach and beginning to knot some grass-blades, trying not to break them.

” And not only mental pride, but also mental stupidity. Above all, it is rascality, that’s it, mental rascality. That’s it, mental scoundrelism,” he repeated.

And he briefly recapitulated the whole progression of his thoughts for the last two years, the beginning of which was the clear, obvious thought of death at the sight of his beloved, hopelessly sick brother.

Having then for the first time comprehended clearly that for every man, and for him too, there was nothing ahead but suffering, death, and eternal oblivion, he decided that it was impossible to live thus, and that it was necessary for him either to explain his life in such a way that it should not appear as an evil mockery of some devil, or to shoot himself.

But he did nothing of the kind, and continued to live, to think, and to feel, and even during that time got married and experienced many joys, and was happy, whenever he did not think of the meaning of his life.

” What did that mean ? ” It meant that he was living well, but thinking badly.

He had been living (without being conscious of it) by those spiritual truths which he had imbibed with his milk, and had been thinking, not only by failing to acknowledge these truths, but by cautiously avoiding them.

Now it was clear to him that he could live only thanks to those beliefs in which he had been brought up.

“What should I have been, and how should I have passed my life if I had not had those beliefs, if I had not known that one has to live for God, and not for Ins own needs ? I should have robbed, lied, killed. Nothing of what forms the chief joys of my life would have existed for me.” And, making the greatest effort of imagination, he was still unable to imagine that bestial creature which he would have been if he had not known what he was living for.

” I have been looking for an answer to my question. But reason could not give me an answer to my question, for it is incommensurable with that question. That answer was given me by life itself, by my knowledge of what was good and what bad. This knowledge I have not acquired in any way, — it was given me with the rest, it was given me because I could not get it anywhere.

” Where did I get it from? Have I attained by reason to the conviction that it is necessary to love our neighbour and not choke him ? I was told that in my childhood, and I joyously believed it, because I was told that which was in my soul. Who has discovered that ? Not reason. Reason has discovered the struggle for existence and the law that demands that I should choke all those who are in the way of the gratification of my desires. That is a deduction of reason. But to love my neighbour could not have been discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.”

XIII.

And Levin recalled a recent scene between Dolly and her children. The children, being left alone, began to boil raspberries over the candles and to spirt the milk in fountain shape into their mouths. When their mother caught them doing this, she in Levin’s presence began to impress them with the idea what labour that which they were destroying had cost the grown people, and that the labour was performed for their sakes ; that, if they were going to break the cups, they would not have anything from which to drink tea, and that, if they spilled the milk, they would not have anything to eat, and they would starve.

Levin was struck by that calm, dejected incredulity, with which the children listened to their mother. They were merely grieved because their entertaining game had been interfered with, and they did not believe a word of what their mother told them. Nor could they have believed, for they could not comprehend the whole volume of that which they made use of, and so they could not represent to themselves the fact that what they were destroying was the same that they were living by.

“ That exists all by itself,” they thought, « and there is nothing interesting or important in that, for that has always been and will always be. And it will always be one and the same. We have nothing there to think about ; it is all ready, while we wish to invent something new and different. And so we have contrived to put the raspberries into a cup and to boil it over a candle, and to pour the milk into each other’s mouths in the shape of a fountain. That is jolly and new and in no way worse than drinking from cups.”

” Are we not doing the same, have I not done it, trying to discover through reason the meaning of the forces of Nature and the meaning of human life ? ” he continued thinking.

“ And is not the same done by all the philosophical theories, when they, by means of reason, which is strange and unsuitable for man, try to bring him to the knowledge of that which he has known for a long time, and knows so well that he would be unable to live without it ? Can we not clearly see in the development of the theory of any philosopher that he knows in advance and just as indubitably as Fédor, and in no way more clearly than he, what the chief meaning of life is, and that he is only trying by a doubtful mental path to return to that which is known to everybody ?

” Well, if we were to let the children obtain everything for themselves, to make the dishes, milk the cows, and so forth, — would they be naughty ? They would starve. Well, let us loose with our passions and ideas, and without any conception of the one God and Creator ! or without the conception of what is good, without an explanation of moral evil.

” Well, try and build something without these concepts !

” We only destroy, because we are spiritually satiated. That’s it, we are cliildren !

” Whence comes to me the joyful knowledge, which I have in common with the peasant, and which alone gives me peace of mind ? Where did I get it from ?

” I, brought up in the conception of God, a Christian, having filled all my life with those spiritual benefits which Christianity has given me, all saturated and living by those benefits, I, like the children, failing to understand them, destroy, that is, wish to destroy, that by which I live. And the moment an important moment of life arrives, I run to Him, just like the children when they are cold and hungry, and still less than the cliildren, when their mother scolds them for their naughtiness, do I feel that my arrogance is counted against me.

” Yes, what I know, I know not through reason, but it has been given to me, it has been revealed to me, and I know it with my heart, with my faith in that chief matter which the Church preaches.

” The Church ? The Church ! ” Levin repeated to himself, rolled over on the other side and, leaning on his arm, began to look into the distance, at the herd going down to the river on the other side.

” But can I believe in everything which the Church teaches ? ” he thought, trying himself, and thinking of everything which might destroy his present peace. He purposely began to think of those teachings of the Church which more than anything had appeared strange to him, and had seduced him. “ The creation ? — And how do I explain existence ? By existence ? By nothing ? — The devil, and sin ? — And how do I explain evil ? — The Redeemer !

” But I know nothing, nothing, and I cannot know except what I have been told with all the rest.”

And it seemed to him that there was not a single tenet of the Church which could impair the chief thing, the belief in God, in the good, as the only destiny of man.

For ever)’ tenet of the Church might be substituted the belief in the service of truth instead of needs. And each of these not only failed to impair it, but was even necessary in order that there might take place that chief miracle, which is eternally manifested upon earth, and which consists in this, that it is possible for each, together with millions of all kinds of people, of wise men and saintly fools, of children and old men, — with all, with the peasant, with Lvov, with Kitty, with mendicants, and with kings, — indubitably to understand one and the same thing, and to arrange that life of the soul, for which alone it is worth while living, and which alone we esteem.

Lying on his back, he now looked at the high, cloudless heaven. ” Do I not know that this is endless space and not a round vault? But, no matter how much I may squint and strain my vision, I cannot help seeing it otherwise than round and finite, and, in spite of my knowledge of infinite space, I am unquestionably right when I see the firm blue vault, — I am more right than when I strain myself to see beyond it.”

Levin stopped thinking and seemed only to be listening to mysterious voices which were joyfully and anxiously talking to each other.

” Is it faith ? ” he thought, being afraid to believe his happiness. ” 0 Lord, I thank Thee ! ” he muttered, swallowing the sobs that rose in him, and with both hands wiping off the tears which filled his eyes.

XIV.

Levin glanced in front of him and saw the herd, then he saw his cart, drawn by Blacky, and his coachman, who drove up to the herd and spoke to the shepherd ; then he heard near him the sound of wheels and the snorting of a well-fed horse ; but he was so absorbed in his thoughts that he did not reflect why the coachman should drive toward him.

He thought of it only when the coachman drove up close to him and called out to him :

” The mistress has sent me. Your brother and another gentleman have arrived.”

Levin seated himself in the cart and took the reins.

As though awakened from sleep, Levin could not come to for quite awhile. He looked at the well-fed horse, which was lathered between the legs and at the neck, where the traces rubbed against it, and he looked at Ivan the coachman, and he recalled that he had been expecting his brother, and that his wife was, no doubt, worried by his long absence, and tried to guess who the guest might be that had arrived with his brother. And Iris brother, and wife, and the unknown guest appeared to him in a different light than before. It seemed to him that all his relations with these people were different now.

« With my brother there will no longer be that estrangement which has always existed between us, — there will be no quarrels ; to the guest, whoever he may be, I shall be kind and amiable ; with the servants, with Ivan, — everything will be different.”

Tightly reining in the good horse, which was snorting from impatience and was begging for the reins, Levin looked at Ivän, who was sitting beside him and did not know what to do with his unoccupied hands and kept holding back his shirt which was blown up by the wind, and tried to find an excuse for entering into a conversation with him. He wanted to say that Ivän had needlessly raised the saddle strap so high, but that sounded like a reprimand, whereas he wanted to have a pleasant talk. Of anything else he could not think.

” Please bear to the right, there is a stump here,” said the coachman, pulling at Levin’s rein.

“ Please don’t touch it, and don’t teach me ! ” said Levin, angered at his interference. As always, anybody’s interference made him angry, and he immediately felt to his sorrow how faulty his supposition was that his spiritual mood would at once change him in his contact with reality.

When Levin was about a quarter of a verst from the house, he saw Grisha and Tdnya running up toward him.

” Uncle Konstantin ! Mamma is coming, and grandfather, and Sergyéy Ivanovich, and somebody else,” they said, climbing into the cart.

“ And who ? ”

« He is awfully terrible ! And this is the way he moves his arms,” said Tdnya, rising in the cart and imitating Katavasov.

“Is he old or young ? ” Levin asked her, laughing, for Tanya’s imitation reminded him of somebody.

” Oh, if only it is not a disagreeable man ! ” thought Levin.

Only at a bend of the road did Levin see those who were walking toward him, and he recognized Katavdsov in his straw hat, who was walking and swaying his arms precisely the way Tdnya had described him.

Katavdsov was very fond of talking of philosophy, having his conceptions about it from the naturalists, who had never bn sied themselves with philosophy ; during his last stay in Moscow Levin had had many disputes with him.

And one of those conversations, when Kataväsov had obviously imagined that he had vanquished his opponent, was the first thing that Levin thought of, when he recognized him.

“No, under no conditions will I dispute and express my ideas with levity,” he thought.

Getting out of the cart and exchanging greetings with his brother and with Katavasov, Levin asked how his wife was.

“She has taken Mitya to the Wold.” (That was the name of the forest near the house.) ” She wanted to fix him there, for it is so hot in the house,” said Dolly.

As Levin had always dissuaded his wife from taking the boy to the forest, finding it dangerous, this information did not please him.

“ She carries him around from one place to another,” the prince said, smiling. ” I have advised her to take him down to the ice-cellar.”

” She wanted to go to the apiary. She thought that you were there. We were going there,” said Dolly.

“Well, what are you doing?” said Sergyéy Ivanovich, separating himself from the rest and walking abreast with his brother.

“ Nothing especial. I busy myself with the farm, as ever,” replied Levin.

” Well, have you come to stay for awhile ? We have been expecting you so long.”

” I shall stay about two weeks. I have too much to do in Moscow.”

At these words the eyes of the brothers met, and Levin, in spite of his usual desire to be friendly, which now was especially strong, and, above all, to assume simple re lations to his brother, felt uneasy in looking at him. He lowered his eyes and did not know what to say.

He ran through all the subjects for conversation, which might be agreeable to Sergyéy Ivänovich and would distract him from talking about the Servian war and the Slavic question, at which he hinted when he spoke of his work in Moscow. Levin began by asking about his book.

” Well, have you had any reviews of your book ? ” he asked.

Sergyéy Ivanovich smiled at the intentionality of the question.

“No one is interested in it, and I least of all,” he said. ” Do you see, Darya Aleksandrovna, it will rain,” he added, pointing with his umbrella at the white clouds that had appeared above the tops of the aspens.

And these words sufficed again to establish between the brothers the cold, even if not hostile, relation to each other, which Levin wished to avoid.

Levin went up to Katavasov.

“ How well you did to make up your mind to come ! ” he said to him.

” I had intended to come for some time. Now we shall chat together. Have you read Spencer ? “

“ No, I have not finished him,” said Levin. “ However, I do not need him now.”

” How is that ? That is interesting. Why ? “

“ That is, I have come to the final conclusion that neither in him, nor in his like shall I find a solution of the questions that interest me. Now — “

But Katavasov’s calm and merry face suddenly startled him, and he grew so sorry for his mood, which he apparently was impairing by that conversation, that, recalling his intention, he broke off.

” Well, we shall speak of it later,” he added. “ If you want to go to the apiary, please this way, by this path,” he turned to the whole company.

Having walked along a narrow path to an unmown clearing, which on one side was thickly covered with brightly coloured violets, and here and there with a profusion of tall, dark green bushes of hellebore, Levin placed his guests in the dense, fresh shade of young aspens, on benches and blocks purposely prepared for visitors of the apiary who were afraid of the bees, and himself went to the bee ground to bring the children and the grown-ups bread, cucumbers, and fresh honey.

He tried to make as few rapid motions as possible and listened to the bees that flew past him more and more frequently, and, proceeding on the path, reached a hut. Near the vestibule a bee whirred, having lost its way in his beard, but he cautiously freed it.

On entering the shady vestibule, he took down his net, which was hanging on a peg on the wall, and, putting it on and thrusting his hands into his pockets, went into the enclosed apiary, where, in a mown plot, stood the old beehives, each with its own story, familiar to him, and in regular rows attached to posts by means of bast strings, while along the wicker fence were the young beehives which had been set out this last year. Before the entrances of the hives the playing bees and drones, circling and crowding in one place, glimmered before one’s eyes, and among them flew working-bees with loads or after loads, directing their flight always in the same direction, to a blossoming linden in the forest, and back again to the hives.

In the ears incessantly dinned a variety of sounds, of the busy working-bees rapidly flying past, of an idle trumpeting drone, and of excited watch-bees, guarding their possessions against the enemy, and ever ready to sting. Beyond the fence, a peasant was planing a hoop ; he did not see Levin. Levin did not call him, but stopped in the middle of the apiary.

He was glad of the opportunity of being left alone, in

order to get away from reality, which had already had time to depress his spirits.

He recalled that he had in the meantime become angry with Ivän, shown his coolness to his brother, and spoken with levity to Katavésov.

“ Is it possible it was only a momentary mood, and that it will pass without leaving any trace ? ” he thought.

But, returning that very moment to his mood, he felt with joy that something new and important had taken place in him. Reality had only for a moment shrouded that spiritual peace which he had found ; it was still unharmed in him.

Just as the bees, which now circled about him and, threatening and distracting him, deprived him of his full physical calm and compelled him to shrink and evade them, so also the cares, which had beset him from the moment when he took his seat in the cart, deprived him of his spiritual freedom ; but that lasted only so long as he was in the midst of them. Just as, in spite of the bees, his physical strength was unharmed in him, even so unharmed was his spiritual power, which he had newly created

XV.

“Do you know, Konstantin, with whom Sergyéy Ivànovich was travelling ? ” said Dolly, having distributed the cucumbers and honey to the children. ” With Vronski ! He is going to Servia.”

“ And not himself only, but he is taking a whole squadron with him at his own expense ! ” said Katavdsov.

” That is like him,” said Levin. ” Are the volunteers still going ? ” he added, looking at Sergyéy Ivanovich.

Sergyéy Ivänovich made no reply, but, sticking the blunt side of the knife into the cup, in which sidewise lay a white honeycomb, tried to pick out a live bee which had got caught in the oozing honey.

” I should say they are ! You ought to have seen yesterday what there was at the station!” said Katavasov, loudly crunching a cucumber.

” Well, how is that to be understood ? For Christ’s sake, explain to me, Sergyéy Ivânovich, where those volunteers are going to ? With whom are they fighting ? ” asked the old prince, apparently continuing the conversation which had begun in Levin’s absence.

” With the Turks,” Sergyéy Ivanovich replied, with a calm smile, having picked out the bee that helplessly moved its legs and looked black from the honey, and putting it down from the knife on a strong aspen leaf.

” But who has declared war on the Turks ? Is it Ivan Ivanovich Ragdzov and Countess Lidiya Ivanovna with Madame Shtal?”

“ Nobody has declared war, but the people feel compassion for their brothers and want to aid them,” said Sergyéy Ivanovich.

“The prince is not talking of the aid,” said Levin, taking the part of his father-in-law. “The prince says that private individuals cannot take part in a war without the permission of the government.”

“ Konstantin, look, a bee ! Really, they will sting us ! ” said Dolly, warding off a wasp.

” It is not a bee, but a wasp,” said Levin.

“ Well, sir, well, sir, what is your theory ? ” Katavasov said, smilingly, to Levin, apparently provoking him to a discussion. ” Why have private individuals no right ? ”

“ My theory is this : war is, on the one hand, such a beastly, cruel, and terrible business that not a man, not to mention a Christian, can take the responsibility of beginning a war, but must leave it only to the government, which is called to do that and is inevitably provoked to the war. On the other hand, both science and common sense dictate that in matters of state, especially in matters of war, the citizens should renounce their personal wills.”

Sergyéy Ivanovich and Katavasov began to talk at the same time, both of them prepared to retort.

“ That’s where the trouble is, sir : there may be cases when the government does not do the will of its citizens, and then society declares its own will,” said Kataväsov.

But Sergyéy Ivanovich did not approve of that retort. He frowned at Katavasov’s words and adduced another retort.

“ You do not put the question right. There is here no declaration of war, but simply the expression of a humane Christian sentiment. Brothers of one blood and one faith are being killed. Well, let us even assume, not brothers, not coreligionists, but simply children, women, old men ; feeling revolts, and Russians hasten to help put a stop to those horrors. Imagine yourself to be walking in the street and seeing a drunkard strike a woman or child ; I think you would not stop to ask whether war has been declared on that man, but you would make for him and would defend the assaulted person.”

” But I should not kill,” said Levin.

” Yes, you would.”

“I do not know about that. If I saw it, I should abandon myself to my immediate feeling ; I cannot say in advance. But there is no such immediate feeling in the case of the oppression of the Slavs, and there cannot be.”

“ Perhaps there is none for you. But for others it exists,” said Sergyéy Ivänovich, with an impatient frown. “ Among the people live the traditions about the Orthodox men suffering under the yoke of the ‘ infidel Hagarites.’ The people have heard about the sufferings of their brothers, and they talk.”

“ Perhaps,” Levin said, evasively, “ but I do not see it ; I am myself the people, and I do not feel it.”

“ And I too,” said the prince. “ I lived abroad and read the papers and, I confess, before the Bulgarian atrocities, I was absolutely unable to comprehend why the Russians should suddenly have fallen in love with their Slavic brothers ? I myself do not feel the least love for them. I was very much grieved thinking that I was some kind of a monster, or that Karlsbad was having that effect upon me. But when I came here, I calmed myself ; I see that there are other people besides me who are interested only in Russia, and not in our Slavic brothers. Take, for example, Konstantin.”

“ Personal opinions do not mean anything,” said Sergyéy Ivanovich. “ We have nothing to do with personal opinions when all of Russia, the nation, has expressed its will.”

“ But, pardon me, I do not see that. The people do not wish to know it,” said the prince.

“ Really, papa — why not ? And on Sunday in church ? ” said Dolly, listening to the conversation. “ Let me have a towel, if you please,” she said to the old man, who was looking at the children with a smile. “It cannot be possible that all — “

” What was there in church on Sunday ? The priest was commanded to read it. So he did. They did not understand a word and sighed, as at any sermon,” continued the prince. “ Then they were told that a collection was to be taken up for a soul-saving business, and so they took out their purses and gave a kopek, but what it was for they did not know.”

“The people cannot help knowing; the consciousness of their fate always exists among the masses, and at such moments as the present it becomes clear to them,” Sergyéy Ivanovich said, with insistence, glancing at the old beekeeper.

The handsome old man, with black, gray-streaked beard and thick, silvery hair, stood motionless, holding a cup with honey, and kindly and calmly looking at his masters from the height of his stature, apparently not understanding and not wishing to understand what they were saying.

“ That is precisely so,” he said, in response to Sergyéy Ivanovich’s words, with a significant shake of his head.

“ Yes, ask him. He knows nothing and thinks nothing,” said Levin. “ Mikhàylych, have you heard about the war ? ” he turned to him. “ About what they read in church ? What do you think of it? Ought we to fight for the Christians ? ”

“ What have we to think about ? Aleksàndr Nikolaevich, the emperor takes care of us, — he will also take care of us in these matters. He can see better. Shall I bring you more bread ? Shall I give some to the lad ? ” He turned to Dàrya Aleksandrovna, pointing to Grisha, who was finishing his crust.

“ I do not need to ask,” said Sergyéy Ivànovich, “ we have seen hundreds and hundreds of men throw up everything in order to serve the right cause, coming from all the ends of Russia, and openly and clearly expressing their thoughts and purposes. They bring their mites, or go themselves, and they say directly for what purpose. What does that signify ? ”

“ In my opinion it signifies,” said Levin, beginning to become excited, “ that in a nation of eighty millions there will always be found, not hundreds, as at present, but tens of thousands, who have lost their social standing, a restless crowd, ready to go anywhere, — to join Pugachév’s robber band, or to go to Khiva, to Servia — ”

” I tell you, not hundreds, and not a restless crowd, but the best representatives of the nation ! ” said Sergyéy Ivanovich, with an expression as though he were defending his last possessions. “ And the contributions ? Here the whole nation directly expresses its will.”

“ This word ‘ nation ‘ is so indefinite,” said Levin. “ Township scribes, teachers, and of the peasants one in a thousand know, perhaps, what is going on. But the remainder of the eighty millions, like Mikhàylych, not only do not express their will, but have not even the slightest conception what they should express their will about. What right have we, then, to say that that is the nation’s will ? “

XVI.

Sergyéy Ivanovich, who was experienced in dialectics, made no retort, but immediately transferred the conversation to another field.

” Yes, if you want to discover the national spirit in an arithmetical way, you will find it very hard. Voting has not been introduced in our country, and cannot be, because it does not represent the popular will ; but there are other ways for that. It is felt in the air, it is felt with the heart. I do not speak of those undercurrents, which have begun to move in the stagnant sea of the people, and which are clear to any unprejudiced person. Look at society in the narrower sense ! All the most varied parties of the world of intelligence, so hostile before, have blended into one. All dissensions have stopped ; all the public organs speak of one and the same thing, — all of them have come to feel the elementary force that has seized them and is carrying them all in one direction.”

” Yes, the papers all say the same thing,” said the prince. “That is so. They all croak alike, like frogs before a storm. It is impossible to hear anything for their croaking.”

“Frogs, or no frogs, — I am not an editor of newspapers, and I do not want to defend them ; but I am talking about the agreement of ideas in the world of intelligence,” said Sergyéy Ivänovich, turning to his brother.

Levin wanted to retort, but the old prince interrupted him.

“ Well, about that agreement of ideas a great deal might be said,” said the prince. “ I have a son-in-law, Stepan Arkddevich, — you know him. He is now getting the place of a member on the committee of a commission, and something else, I do not remember what. Only, there is nothing to do there, — well, Dolly, it is no secret ! — but he gets a salary of eight thousand. Try and ask him whether his service is useful, and he will prove to you that it is of prime importance. He is a truthful man, but how can one refuse believing in favour of eight thousand roubles.”

“Yes, he asked me to inform Darya Aleksandrovna about having received the place,” Sergyéy Ivanovich said, impatiently, as the prince’s words seemed to him irrelevant.

“ Thus it is also with the agreement of ideas in the case of the newspapers. It has been explained to me like this : the moment a war breaks out, their income is doubled. How can they help considering the fates of nations and of the Slavs — and all that ? “

” I have no use for many of the papers, but that is not just,” said Sergyéy Ivänovich.

“I would make only one condition,” continued the prince. ” Alphonse Karr wrote beautifully before the war with Prussia: ‘You consider war inevitable? Very well. Let all who preach war be put in a special legion of the van, and send them out to the storm, the attack, ahead of everybody ! ‘ “

“ The editors would cut a fine figure ! ” said Katavasov, laughing loud ; he was thinking of some of the editors he knew as forming part of that chosen legion.

“ Why, they would only run,” said Dolly, “ they would only be in the way.”

“And if they run, fire canister-shot at them, or put Cossacks behind them with horsewhips ! ” said the prince.

“ That is a joke, a bad joke, pardon me for saying so,” said Sergyéy Ivanovich.

“ I do not see that it is a joke, it — ” began Levin, but Sergyéy Ivanovich interrupted him.

” Every member of society is called to do what is proper for him,” he said. “ And the men of thought do their work, expressing the public opinion. And the unanimous and full, expression of the public opinion is a merit in the press, and, at the same time, an encouraging phenomenon. Twenty years ago we should have kept silent, but now is heard the voice of the Russian people, who are ready to rise like one man and prepare to sacrifice themselves for their oppressed brothers ; that is a great step and an earnest of power.”

“ But they not only sacrifice themselves ; they also kill the Turks,” said Levin. ” The masses bring sacrifices, and are prepared to bring them, for the sake of their souls, but not for the sake of murder,” he added, involuntarily connecting the conversation with the ideas which had been interesting him.

” How so for the soul ? That is a difficult conception for a naturalist. What is a soul ? ” Kataväsov said, smiling.

” Oh, you know ! “

” Upon my word, I have not the slightest idea ! ” Katavasov said, with a loud laugh.

” I have brought the sword, and not peace, says Christ,” Sergyéy Ivanovich interposed, in a simple manner, as though speaking of a most natural thing, and quoting that part of the Gospel which most provoked Levin.

” That is precisely so,” again said the old man, who was standing near them, replying to the glance which was accidentally cast at him.

“ Yes, sir, you are beaten, completely beaten ! ” Katavasov called out, merrily.

Levin blushed from anger, not because he was beaten, but because he had not held out and had involved himself in a discussion.

“ No, I must not discuss matters with them,” he thought ;

« they have an impermeable coat of mail, and I am naked.”

He saw that his brother and Kataväsov could not be convinced, and still less did he see the possibility of agreeing with them. What they were preaching was the same mental pride which had almost ruined him. He could not agree with the statement that dozens of men, among which number was his brother, should have the right to say, basing their statements on what hundreds of glib volunteers who came to the capitals told them, that they and the newspapers were expressing the will and thought of the people, a thought which found its expression in revenge and murder. He could not agree with it, because he did not see the expression of these ideas in the masses, among whom he was living, and did not find these ideas in himself (whereas he could not help regarding himself as being one of the men that formed the Russian nation), and, chiefly, because, with the masses, he could not tell wherein consisted the common good, while he was firmly convinced that the attainment of that common good was possible, only through a strict fulfilment of that law of goodness which was revealed to everybody, and so he could not wish for war and advocate it for any general purposes whatever. He was saying with Mikhàylych and with the people who had expressed their thought in the tradition about the invitation tendered to the Varen-gians : ” Rule and direct us. We gladly promise full submission. All the labour, all the humiliations, all the sacrifices we take upon ourselves ; but we will not judge or decide.” And now the nation, according to Sergyéy Ivanovich’s words, renounced that right, which had been purchased so dearly.

He wanted also to say that, if public opinion was an infallible judge, a revolution, the Commune, were just as legitimate as the movement in favour of the Slavs. But all those were ideas that could not change anything.

There was only one thing which was incontestable, and that was that at the present moment the discussion irritated Sergyéy Ivanovich, and that, therefore, it was wrong to dispute ; and so Levin kept silence and directed the attention of the guests to the clouds which were gathering, advising them to go back before it began to rain.

XVII.

The prince and Sergyéy Ivanovich seated themselves in the cart and drove back ; the rest of the company walked home at a brisk gait.

But the cloud, now growing white, and now black, moved so rapidly that they had to increase their steps in order to get home before the rain. The low advanceclouds, black like sooty smoke, ran with extraordinary rapidity over the sky. They had two hundred steps more to go when a wind rose and a downpour could be expected at any second.

The children ran ahead, with screams of fear and joy.

Därya Aleksandrovna, with difficulty struggling against her skirts, which wound about her legs, no longer walked, but ran, all the time keeping an eye on her children. The men held their hats with their hands and walked with rapid strides. They were just reaching the large porch, when a drop struck and splashed against the edge of the iron gutter. The children, and after them the adults, with loud and merry talking ran under the protection of the roof.

” Katerina Aleksandrovna ? ” Levin asked Agafya Mikhaylovna, who, carrying shawls and plaids, met them in the antechamber.

“We thought they were with you,” she said.

“ And Mitya ? “

“ In the Wold, no doubt, and the nurse is with them.” Levin “tabbed the shawls and ran to the Wold.

During that short interim the storm-cloud had already veiled the sun so much that it was as dark as in an eclipse. As though demanding its own, the wind stubbornly arrested Levin and, tearing the leaves and blossoms off the linden-trees and monstrously and strangely baring the birch branches, bent everything in one direction, — the acacias, the flowers, the burdock, the grass, and the tree-tops. The girls working in the garden ran screaming under the rook of the servant building. The white curtain of the downpour had already swept down on the distant forest and half of the nearer field, and was moving on the Wold. The dampness of the rain, bursting into tiny drops, could be felt in the air.

Bending his head forward and struggling against the wind, which tore the shawls from him, Levin was already approaching the Wold, and already saw something white beyond an oak-tree, when suddenly everything flashed, the whole earth flamed up, and above his head the vault seemed to have cracked. Opening his blinded eyes, Levin tried to peer through the dense rain curtain, which now separated him from the Wold, and he first of all saw to his terror the green top of a familiar oak-tree in the middle of the grove, which had peculiarly changed its place. ” Could it be struck ? ” Levin had barely time to think, when, accelerating his motion, the tree-top disappeared behind the other trees, and he heard the crackling of the oak falling on the other trees.

The flash of the lightning, the sound of the thunder, and the sensation of his body suddenly wrapped in cold blended for Levin in one impression of terror.

” 0 Lord ! 0 Lord ! If only not on them ! ” he muttered.

And, although he immediately thought how senseless his prayer was that they might not be killed by the oak which had already fallen, he repeated it, knowing that he could do nothing better than say that senseless prayer.

He ran up to the place where they generally were, but did not find them there.

They were at the other end of the grove, under an old linden, and were calling him. Two figures in dark dresses (they had white on before) were standing there, bending over something. Those were Kitty and the nurse. The rain was beginning to stop and it was growing bright, when Levin ran up to them. The lower part of the nurse’s dress was dry, but Kitty’s garments were wet through and through, and stuck to her body. Though it had stopped raining, they still remained standing in the same attitude which they had assumed when the storm broke loose. Both were bending over the baby-carriage with the green umbrella.

” Alive ? Unharmed ? Thank God ! ” he muttered, splashing with his water-soaked shoes in the puddles of water, and running toward them.

Kitty’s ruddy and wet face was turned to him and smiling timidly from underneath her hat, which had changed its shape.

” Are you not ashamed ? I cannot understand how one can be so careless ! ” he in his indignation attacked his wife.

Upon my word, it is not my fault. We were on the point of going back when he got unruly. He had to be changed. We just started—” Kitty began to excuse herself.

Mitya was unharmed and dry, and never woke up.

” Well, thank God ! I do not know what I am saying.” They gathered up the wet diapers ; the nurse took up the baby and carried him. Levin walked beside his wife, feeling guilty on account of his indignation, and stealthily pressing her hand, so that the nurse might not see it.

XVIII.

During the whole day, in all the varied conversations, in which Levin seemed to take part only with the external side of his reason, he kept joyfully listening to the fulness of his heart, in spite of the disenchantment about the change which was to have taken place in him.

After the rain it was too wet to go out walking ; besides, the storm-clouds did not leave the horizon and here and there crossed the edges of the sky, growing darker and thundering. The whole company passed the rest of the day at home.

No more discussions were taken up ; on the contrary, after dinner all were in the happiest of moods.

Katavasov at first amused the ladies with his original jokes, which were so pleasing when one first became acquainted with him, but later, incited by Sergyéy Ivanovich, he told them of his very interesting observations on the diversity of characters and even physiognomies of the male and female house-flies, and about their life. Sergyéy Ivanovich, too, was gay, and at tea, incited by his brother, he expounded his views on the future of the Eastern question, and he did that so simply and so well that everybody listened to lüm.

Kitty was the only one who could not hear all he said, — she was called away to give Mitya a bath.

A few minutes later, Levin, too, was called to the nursery.

Leaving his tea, and himself sorry to interrupt the pleasant conversation, and at the same time worried at

was he had concealed from himself. It was this : If the main proof of the Divinity is His revelation about what is good, why is this revelation confined to the Christian Church only ? What relation to this revelation have the creeds of the Buddhists and Mohammedans, who also profess and do what is good ?

He thought that he had an answer to this question ; but he had no time to express it to himself, when he entered the nursery.

Kitty was standing with rolled-up sleeves at the bathtub over the child who was splashing in it. Upon hearing her husband’s steps, she turned her face to him and called him up with a smile. With one hand she supported the head of the chubby child swimming on his back and sprawling with his legs, while with the other she evenly compressed her muscles and squeezed the water from a sponge upon him.

” Just look at him ! ” she said, when her husband came up to her. ” Agafya Mikhaylovna is right : he recognizes faces.”

It was evident that on that day Mitya had unquestionably begun to recognize the faces around him.

When Levin walked over to the bathtub, an experiment was made, and that experiment was a complete success. The cook, who was called in for the purpose, bent down over the child. He frowned and gave a negative shake with his head. Kitty bent over him, and he beamed with a smile, pressed his little hands against the sponge, and, rolling his lips, produced such a strange, satisfied sound, that not only Kitty and the nurse, but even Levin were transported with sudden joy.

With one hand the child was taken out from the bathtub, water was poured over him, he was wrapped in a sheet, rubbed down and, after a piercing cry, turned over to his mother.

“ Well, I am glad that you are beginning to love him,” Kitty said to her husband, when, with her boy at the breast, she had calmly seated herself in her customary place. ” I am very glad. It had been worrying me. You used to say that you had no feeling for him.”

” Really, did I say I had no feeling for him ? All I said was that I was disappointed.”

” What ? Disappointed in him ? “

“ Not exactly disappointed in him, but in my feeling ; I had expected more. I had expected that, as a surprise, there would blossom in me a new, agreeable feeling. And suddenly, instead, there was loathing, pity — ”

She attentively listened to him over her baby, putting on her thin fingers the rings which she had taken off to bathe Mitya.

“Above all, much more fear and pity than pleasure. To-day, after that fright during the storm, I comprehended how I loved him.”

Kitty beamed with a smile.

“Were you very much frightened?” she asked. “I was, too, but I feel more frightened now, since it is passed. I will go and take a look at the oak. Oh, how dear Katavasov is ! Yes, the whole day has been a pleasant one. And you are so good to Sergyéy Ivanovich, whenever you try — Well, go to them ! After the bath it is always so hot here and such a steam — “

XIX.

After leaving the nursery, and being left alone, Levin at once reverted to the thought in which something was not clear.

Instead of going to the drawingroom, where voices were heard, he stopped on the terrace and, leaning over the balustrade, began to look at the sky.

It had grown dark, and in the south, whither he was looking, there were no clouds. The clouds were on the opposite side. There lightnings flashed and the distant rumble of thunder was heard. Levin listened to the drops which fell evenly from the lindens in the garden and looked at the familiar triangle of the stars and at the galaxy, with its branches, passing through it. At each flash of the lightning not only the milky way, but even the bright stars disappeared; but the moment the lightning went out, they all appeared again on the same spots, as though hurled there by a well-aiming arm.

” What is it that worries me ? ” Levin said to himself, feeling in advance that the solution of his doubts, though he did not know it, was already in his soul.

” Yes, the only obvious, incontestable manifestations of the Divinity are the laws of what is good, as shown to the world in the revelation, and as I feel them within me, and in the recognition of which I not merely join, but am involuntarily united with other men in one company of believers, called the Church. Well, and the Jews, the Mohammedans, the Confucianists, the Buddhists, — what are they ? ” he put to himself the question which had seemed perilous to him. ” Is it possible those hundreds of millions of men are deprived of that greatest good, without which life has no meaning ? ” He fell to musing, but immediately corrected himself. ” But what am I asking myself about ? ” he said to himself. ” I am asking about the relation to the Divinity of all the various faiths of humanity. I am asking about the general manifestation of God for the whole world with all these nebular spots. “What am I doing ? To me personally, to my heart, has unquestionably been revealed the knowledge which is not accessible to reason, and I persist in trying to express this knowledge by means of reason and in words.

« Do I not know that the stars do not move ? ” he asked himself, looking at a bright planet which had already changed its position in the top branch of a birch-tree. ” But, looking at the motion of the stars, I cannot imagine the rotation of the earth, and I am right in saying that the stars are moving.

” And could the astronomers understand or calculate anything, if they took into account all the complex and varied motions of the earth ? All their wonderful conclusions about the distances, weights, motions, and disturbances of the heavenly bodies are based on the visible motion of the luminaries around the motionless earth, on that same motion which is now before me, and which has been such for millions of beings through the ages, and has been and always will be the same, and can always be verified. And just as idle and unstable as would be the conclusions of the astronomers, if they were not based on the observations of the visible heavens, in respect to one meridian and one horizon, even so idle and unstable would be my conclusions, if they were not based on that comprehension of the good, which has always been and always will be the same for everybody, and which is revealed to me through Christianity, and always may be verified in my soul. And so I have no right and no chance to put the

question about the other faiths and their relations to the Divinity.”

comprehend through reason why I pray and continue praying, — but my life, my whole life, independently of everything that may happen to me, every minute of it, is now no longer senseless, as it has been, but has an unquestionable meaning from the good, which it is in my power to invest it with ! ”

” Oh, you have not returned ? ” suddenly was heard the voice of Kitty, who was taking the same road to the drawingroom. ” Are you put out about anything? ” she said, looking fixedly at his face in the starlight.

But she would not have seen his face, if a flash of lightning, dimming the stars, had not lighted it up. In this light she saw the whole of his face, and, seeing that he was calm and joyful, she smiled at him.

” She understands,” he thought, ” she knows what I am thinking about. Shall I tell her or not ? Yes, I shall.” But just as he was about to say it, she began to speak.

” Listen, Konstantin ! Do me the favour,” she said, ” and go to the comer room and see whether Sergyéy Ivanovich will be comfortable there. It is not proper for me to go there. See whether they have placed the new washstand there.”

THE END.