Anna Karenina 39

ANNA KARENINA

 

PART 39

Chapter 11

 

Everyone took part in the conversation except Kitty and Levin. At first, when they were talking of the influence that one people has on another, there rose to Levin’s mind what he had to say on the subject. But these ideas, once of such importance in his eyes, seemed to come into his brain as in a dream, and had now not the slightest interest for him. It even struck him as strange that they should be so eager to talk of what was of no use to anyone. Kitty, too, should, one would have supposed, have been interested in what they were saying of the rights and education of women. How often she had mused on the subject, thinking of her friend abroad, Varenka, of her painful state of dependence, how often she had wondered about herself what would become of her if she did not marry, and how often she had argued with her sister about it! But it did not interest her at all. She and Levin had a conversation of their own, yet not a conversation, but some sort of mysterious communication, which brought them every moment nearer, and stirred in both a sense of glad terror before the unknown into which they were entering.

At first Levin, in answer to Kitty’s question how he could have seen her last year in the carriage, told her how he had been coming home from the mowing along the highroad and had met her.

“It was very, very early in the morning. You were probably only just awake. Your mother was asleep in the corner. It was an exquisite morning. I was walking along wondering who it could be in a four-in-hand? It was a splendid set of four horses with bells, and in a second you flashed by, and I saw you at the window—you were sitting like this, holding the strings of your cap in both hands, and thinking awfully deeply about something,” he said, smiling. “How I should like to know what you were thinking about then! Something important?”

“Wasn’t I dreadfully untidy?” she wondered, but seeing the smile of ecstasy these reminiscences called up, she felt that the impression she had made had been very good. She blushed and laughed with delight; “Really I don’t remember.”

“How nicely Turovtsin laughs!” said Levin, admiring his moist eyes and shaking chest.

“Have you known him long?” asked Kitty.

“Oh, everyone knows him!”

“And I see you think he’s a horrid man?”

“Not horrid, but nothing in him.”

“Oh, you’re wrong! And you must give up thinking so directly!” said Kitty. “I used to have a very poor opinion of him too, but he, he’s an awfully nice and wonderfully good-hearted man. He has a heart of gold.”

“How could you find out what sort of heart he has?”

“We are great friends. I know him very well. Last winter, soon after ... you came to see us,” she said, with a guilty and at the same time confiding smile, “all Dolly’s children had scarlet fever, and he happened to come and see her. And only fancy,” she said in a whisper, “he felt so sorry for her that he stayed and began to help her look after the children. Yes, and for three weeks he stopped with them, and looked after the children like a nurse.”

“I am telling Konstantin Dmitrievitch about Turovtsin in the scarlet fever,” she said, bending over to her sister.

“Yes, it was wonderful, noble!” said Dolly, glancing towards Turovtsin, who had become aware they were talking of him, and smiling gently to him. Levin glanced once more at Turovtsin, and wondered how it was he had not realized all this man’s goodness before.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, and I’ll never think ill of people again!” he said gaily, genuinely expressing what he felt at the moment.

Chapter 12

 

Connected with the conversation that had sprung up on the rights of women there were certain questions as to the inequality of rights in marriage improper to discuss before the ladies. Pestsov had several times during dinner touched upon these questions, but Sergey Ivanovitch and Stepan Arkadyevitch carefully drew him off them.

When they rose from the table and the ladies had gone out, Pestsov did not follow them, but addressing Alexey Alexandrovitch, began to expound the chief ground of inequality. The inequality in marriage, in his opinion, lay in the fact that the infidelity of the wife and the infidelity of the husband are punished unequally, both by the law and by public opinion. Stepan Arkadyevitch went hurriedly up to Alexey Alexandrovitch and offered him a cigar.

“No, I don’t smoke,” Alexey Alexandrovitch answered calmly, and as though purposely wishing to show that he was not afraid of the subject, he turned to Pestsov with a chilly smile.

“I imagine that such a view has a foundation in the very nature of things,” he said, and would have gone on to the drawing-room. But at this point Turovtsin broke suddenly and unexpectedly into the conversation, addressing Alexey Alexandrovitch.

“You heard, perhaps, about Pryatchnikov?” said Turovtsin, warmed up by the champagne he had drunk, and long waiting for an opportunity to break the silence that had weighed on him. “Vasya Pryatchnikov,” he said, with a good-natured smile on his damp, red lips, addressing himself principally to the most important guest, Alexey Alexandrovitch, “they told me today he fought a duel with Kvitsky at Tver, and has killed him.”

Just as it always seems that one bruises oneself on a sore place, so Stepan Arkadyevitch felt now that the conversation would by ill luck fall every moment on Alexey Alexandrovitch’s sore spot. He would again have got his brother-in-law away, but Alexey Alexandrovitch himself inquired, with curiosity:

“What did Pryatchnikov fight about?”

“His wife. Acted like a man, he did! Called him out and shot him!”

“Ah!” said Alexey Alexandrovitch indifferently, and lifting his eyebrows, he went into the drawing-room.

“How glad I am you have come,” Dolly said with a frightened smile, meeting him in the outer drawing-room. “I must talk to you. Let’s sit here.”

Alexey Alexandrovitch, with the same expression of indifference, given him by his lifted eyebrows, sat down beside Darya Alexandrovna, and smiled affectedly.

“It’s fortunate,” said he, “especially as I was meaning to ask you to excuse me, and to be taking leave. I have to start tomorrow.”

Darya Alexandrovna was firmly convinced of Anna’s innocence, and she felt herself growing pale and her lips quivering with anger at this frigid, unfeeling man, who was so calmly intending to ruin her innocent friend.

“Alexey Alexandrovitch,” she said, with desperate resolution looking him in the face, “I asked you about Anna, you made me no answer. How is she?”

“She is, I believe, quite well, Darya Alexandrovna,” replied Alexey Alexandrovitch, not looking at her.

“Alexey Alexandrovitch, forgive me, I have no right ... but I love Anna as a sister, and esteem her; I beg, I beseech you to tell me what is wrong between you? what fault do you find with her?”

Alexey Alexandrovitch frowned, and almost closing his eyes, dropped his head.

“I presume that your husband has told you the grounds on which I consider it necessary to change my attitude to Anna Arkadyevna?” he said, not looking her in the face, but eyeing with displeasure Shtcherbatsky, who was walking across the drawing-room.

“I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it, I can’t believe it!” Dolly said, clasping her bony hands before her with a vigorous gesture. She rose quickly, and laid her hand on Alexey Alexandrovitch’s sleeve. “We shall be disturbed here. Come this way, please.”

Dolly’s agitation had an effect on Alexey Alexandrovitch. He got up and submissively followed her to the schoolroom. They sat down to a table covered with an oilcloth cut in slits by penknives.

“I don’t, I don’t believe it!” Dolly said, trying to catch his glance that avoided her.

“One cannot disbelieve facts, Darya Alexandrovna,” said he, with an emphasis on the word “facts.”

“But what has she done?” said Darya Alexandrovna. “What precisely has she done?”

“She has forsaken her duty, and deceived her husband. That’s what she has done,” said he.

“No, no, it can’t be! No, for God’s sake, you are mistaken,” said Dolly, putting her hands to her temples and closing her eyes.

Alexey Alexandrovitch smiled coldly, with his lips alone, meaning to signify to her and to himself the firmness of his conviction; but this warm defence, though it could not shake him, reopened his wound. He began to speak with greater heat.

“It is extremely difficult to be mistaken when a wife herself informs her husband of the fact—informs him that eight years of her life, and a son, all that’s a mistake, and that she wants to begin life again,” he said angrily, with a snort.

“Anna and sin—I cannot connect them, I cannot believe it!”

“Darya Alexandrovna,” he said, now looking straight into Dolly’s kindly, troubled face, and feeling that his tongue was being loosened in spite of himself, “I would give a great deal for doubt to be still possible. When I doubted, I was miserable, but it was better than now. When I doubted, I had hope; but now there is no hope, and still I doubt of everything. I am in such doubt of everything that I even hate my son, and sometimes do not believe he is my son. I am very unhappy.”

He had no need to say that. Darya Alexandrovna had seen that as soon as he glanced into her face; and she felt sorry for him, and her faith in the innocence of her friend began to totter.

“Oh, this is awful, awful! But can it be true that you are resolved on a divorce?”

“I am resolved on extreme measures. There is nothing else for me to do.”

“Nothing else to do, nothing else to do....” she replied, with tears in her eyes. “Oh no, don’t say nothing else to do!” she said.

“What is horrible in a trouble of this kind is that one cannot, as in any other—in loss, in death—bear one’s trouble in peace, but that one must act,” said he, as though guessing her thought. “One must get out of the humiliating position in which one is placed; one can’t live à trois.”

“I understand, I quite understand that,” said Dolly, and her head sank. She was silent for a little, thinking of herself, of her own grief in her family, and all at once, with an impulsive movement, she raised her head and clasped her hands with an imploring gesture. “But wait a little! You are a Christian. Think of her! What will become of her, if you cast her off?”

“I have thought, Darya Alexandrovna, I have thought a great deal,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch. His face turned red in patches, and his dim eyes looked straight before him. Darya Alexandrovna at that moment pitied him with all her heart. “That was what I did indeed when she herself made known to me my humiliation; I left everything as of old. I gave her a chance to reform, I tried to save her. And with what result? She would not regard the slightest request—that she should observe decorum,” he said, getting heated. “One may save anyone who does not want to be ruined; but if the whole nature is so corrupt, so depraved, that ruin itself seems to be her salvation, what’s to be done?”

“Anything, only not divorce!” answered Darya Alexandrovna

“But what is anything?”

“No, it is awful! She will be no one’s wife, she will be lost!”

“What can I do?” said Alexey Alexandrovitch, raising his shoulders and his eyebrows. The recollection of his wife’s last act had so incensed him that he had become frigid, as at the beginning of the conversation. “I am very grateful for your sympathy, but I must be going,” he said, getting up.

“No, wait a minute. You must not ruin her. Wait a little; I will tell you about myself. I was married, and my husband deceived me; in anger and jealousy, I would have thrown up everything, I would myself.... But I came to myself again; and who did it? Anna saved me. And here I am living on. The children are growing up, my husband has come back to his family, and feels his fault, is growing purer, better, and I live on.... I have forgiven it, and you ought to forgive!”

Alexey Alexandrovitch heard her, but her words had no effect on him now. All the hatred of that day when he had resolved on a divorce had sprung up again in his soul. He shook himself, and said in a shrill, loud voice:

“Forgive I cannot, and do not wish to, and I regard it as wrong. I have done everything for this woman, and she has trodden it all in the mud to which she is akin. I am not a spiteful man, I have never hated anyone, but I hate her with my whole soul, and I cannot even forgive her, because I hate her too much for all the wrong she has done me!” he said, with tones of hatred in his voice.

“Love those that hate you....” Darya Alexandrovna whispered timorously.

Alexey Alexandrovitch smiled contemptuously. That he knew long ago, but it could not be applied to his case.

“Love those that hate you, but to love those one hates is impossible. Forgive me for having troubled you. Everyone has enough to bear in his own grief!” And regaining his self-possession, Alexey Alexandrovitch quietly took leave and went away.

Chapter 13

 

When they rose from table, Levin would have liked to follow Kitty into the drawing-room; but he was afraid she might dislike this, as too obviously paying her attention. He remained in the little ring of men, taking part in the general conversation, and without looking at Kitty, he was aware of her movements, her looks, and the place where she was in the drawing-room.

He did at once, and without the smallest effort, keep the promise he had made her—always to think well of all men, and to like everyone always. The conversation fell on the village commune, in which Pestsov saw a sort of special principle, called by him the “choral” principle. Levin did not agree with Pestsov, nor with his brother, who had a special attitude of his own, both admitting and not admitting the significance of the Russian commune. But he talked to them, simply trying to reconcile and soften their differences. He was not in the least interested in what he said himself, and even less so in what they said; all he wanted was that they and everyone should be happy and contented. He knew now the one thing of importance; and that one thing was at first there, in the drawing-room, and then began moving across and came to a standstill at the door. Without turning round he felt the eyes fixed on him, and the smile, and he could not help turning round. She was standing in the doorway with Shtcherbatsky, looking at him.

“I thought you were going towards the piano,” said he, going up to her. “That’s something I miss in the country—music.”

“No; we only came to fetch you and thank you,” she said, rewarding him with a smile that was like a gift, “for coming. What do they want to argue for? No one ever convinces anyone, you know.”

“Yes; that’s true,” said Levin; “it generally happens that one argues warmly simply because one can’t make out what one’s opponent wants to prove.”

Levin had often noticed in discussions between the most intelligent people that after enormous efforts, and an enormous expenditure of logical subtleties and words, the disputants finally arrived at being aware that what they had so long been struggling to prove to one another had long ago, from the beginning of the argument, been known to both, but that they liked different things, and would not define what they liked for fear of its being attacked. He had often had the experience of suddenly in a discussion grasping what it was his opponent liked and at once liking it too, and immediately he found himself agreeing, and then all arguments fell away as useless. Sometimes, too, he had experienced the opposite, expressing at last what he liked himself, which he was devising arguments to defend, and, chancing to express it well and genuinely, he had found his opponent at once agreeing and ceasing to dispute his position. He tried to say this.

She knitted her brow, trying to understand. But directly he began to illustrate his meaning, she understood at once.

“I know: one must find out what he is arguing for, what is precious to him, then one can....”

She had completely guessed and expressed his badly expressed idea. Levin smiled joyfully; he was struck by this transition from the confused, verbose discussion with Pestsov and his brother to this laconic, clear, almost wordless communication of the most complex ideas.

Shtcherbatsky moved away from them, and Kitty, going up to a card-table, sat down, and, taking up the chalk, began drawing diverging circles over the new green cloth.

They began again on the subject that had been started at dinner—the liberty and occupations of women. Levin was of the opinion of Darya Alexandrovna that a girl who did not marry should find a woman’s duties in a family. He supported this view by the fact that no family can get on without women to help; that in every family, poor or rich, there are and must be nurses, either relations or hired.

“No,” said Kitty, blushing, but looking at him all the more boldly with her truthful eyes; “a girl may be so circumstanced that she cannot live in the family without humiliation, while she herself....”

At the hint he understood her.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “Yes, yes, yes—you’re right; you’re right!”

And he saw all that Pestsov had been maintaining at dinner of the liberty of woman, simply from getting a glimpse of the terror of an old maid’s existence and its humiliation in Kitty’s heart; and loving her, he felt that terror and humiliation, and at once gave up his arguments.

A silence followed. She was still drawing with the chalk on the table. Her eyes were shining with a soft light. Under the influence of her mood he felt in all his being a continually growing tension of happiness.

“Ah! I’ve scribbled all over the table!” she said, and, laying down the chalk, she made a movement as though to get up.

“What! shall I be left alone—without her?” he thought with horror, and he took the chalk. “Wait a minute,” he said, sitting down to the table. “I’ve long wanted to ask you one thing.”

He looked straight into her caressing, though frightened eyes.

“Please, ask it.”

“Here,” he said; and he wrote the initial letters, w, y, t, m, i, c, n, b, d, t, m, n, o, t. These letters meant, “When you told me it could never be, did that mean never, or then?” There seemed no likelihood that she could make out this complicated sentence; but he looked at her as though his life depended on her understanding the words. She glanced at him seriously, then leaned her puckered brow on her hands and began to read. Once or twice she stole a look at him, as though asking him, “Is it what I think?”

“I understand,” she said, flushing a little.

“What is this word?” he said, pointing to the n that stood for never.

“It means never,” she said; “but that’s not true!”

He quickly rubbed out what he had written, gave her the chalk, and stood up. She wrote, t, i, c, n, a, d.

Dolly was completely comforted in the depression caused by her conversation with Alexey Alexandrovitch when she caught sight of the two figures: Kitty with the chalk in her hand, with a shy and happy smile looking upwards at Levin, and his handsome figure bending over the table with glowing eyes fastened one minute on the table and the next on her. He was suddenly radiant: he had understood. It meant, “Then I could not answer differently.”

He glanced at her questioningly, timidly.

“Only then?”

“Yes,” her smile answered.

“And n... and now?” he asked.

“Well, read this. I’ll tell you what I should like—should like so much!” she wrote the initial letters, i, y, c, f, a, f, w, h. This meant, “If you could forget and forgive what happened.”

He snatched the chalk with nervous, trembling fingers, and breaking it, wrote the initial letters of the following phrase, “I have nothing to forget and to forgive; I have never ceased to love you.”

She glanced at him with a smile that did not waver.

“I understand,” she said in a whisper.

He sat down and wrote a long phrase. She understood it all, and without asking him, “Is it this?” took the chalk and at once answered.

For a long while he could not understand what she had written, and often looked into her eyes. He was stupefied with happiness. He could not supply the word she had meant; but in her charming eyes, beaming with happiness, he saw all he needed to know. And he wrote three letters. But he had hardly finished writing when she read them over her arm, and herself finished and wrote the answer, “Yes.”

“You’re playing secrétaire?” said the old prince. “But we must really be getting along if you want to be in time at the theatre.”

Levin got up and escorted Kitty to the door.

In their conversation everything had been said; it had been said that she loved him, and that she would tell her father and mother that he would come tomorrow morning.

Chapter 14

 

When Kitty had gone and Levin was left alone, he felt such uneasiness without her, and such an impatient longing to get as quickly, as quickly as possible, to tomorrow morning, when he would see her again and be plighted to her forever, that he felt afraid, as though of death, of those fourteen hours that he had to get through without her. It was essential for him to be with someone to talk to, so as not to be left alone, to kill time. Stepan Arkadyevitch would have been the companion most congenial to him, but he was going out, he said, to a soirée, in reality to the ballet. Levin only had time to tell him he was happy, and that he loved him, and would never, never forget what he had done for him. The eyes and the smile of Stepan Arkadyevitch showed Levin that he comprehended that feeling fittingly.

“Oh, so it’s not time to die yet?” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, pressing Levin’s hand with emotion.

“N-n-no!” said Levin.

Darya Alexandrovna too, as she said good-bye to him, gave him a sort of congratulation, saying, “How glad I am you have met Kitty again! One must value old friends.” Levin did not like these words of Darya Alexandrovna’s. She could not understand how lofty and beyond her it all was, and she ought not to have dared to allude to it. Levin said good-bye to them, but, not to be left alone, he attached himself to his brother.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to a meeting.”

“Well, I’ll come with you. May I?”

“What for? Yes, come along,” said Sergey Ivanovitch, smiling. “What is the matter with you today?”

“With me? Happiness is the matter with me!” said Levin, letting down the window of the carriage they were driving in. “You don’t mind?—it’s so stifling. It’s happiness is the matter with me! Why is it you have never married?”

Sergey Ivanovitch smiled.

“I am very glad, she seems a nice gi....” Sergey Ivanovitch was beginning.

“Don’t say it! don’t say it!” shouted Levin, clutching at the collar of his fur coat with both hands, and muffling him up in it. “She’s a nice girl” were such simple, humble words, so out of harmony with his feeling.

Sergey Ivanovitch laughed outright a merry laugh, which was rare with him. “Well, anyway, I may say that I’m very glad of it.”

“That you may do tomorrow, tomorrow and nothing more! Nothing, nothing, silence,” said Levin, and muffling him once more in his fur coat, he added: “I do like you so! Well, is it possible for me to be present at the meeting?”

“Of course it is.”

“What is your discussion about today?” asked Levin, never ceasing smiling.

They arrived at the meeting. Levin heard the secretary hesitatingly read the minutes which he obviously did not himself understand; but Levin saw from this secretary’s face what a good, nice, kind-hearted person he was. This was evident from his confusion and embarrassment in reading the minutes. Then the discussion began. They were disputing about the misappropriation of certain sums and the laying of certain pipes, and Sergey Ivanovitch was very cutting to two members, and said something at great length with an air of triumph; and another member, scribbling something on a bit of paper, began timidly at first, but afterwards answered him very viciously and delightfully. And then Sviazhsky (he was there too) said something too, very handsomely and nobly. Levin listened to them, and saw clearly that these missing sums and these pipes were not anything real, and that they were not at all angry, but were all the nicest, kindest people, and everything was as happy and charming as possible among them. They did no harm to anyone, and were all enjoying it. What struck Levin was that he could see through them all today, and from little, almost imperceptible signs knew the soul of each, and saw distinctly that they were all good at heart. And Levin himself in particular they were all extremely fond of that day. That was evident from the way they spoke to him, from the friendly, affectionate way even those he did not know looked at him.

“Well, did you like it?” Sergey Ivanovitch asked him.

“Very much. I never supposed it was so interesting! Capital! Splendid!”

Sviazhsky went up to Levin and invited him to come round to tea with him. Levin was utterly at a loss to comprehend or recall what it was he had disliked in Sviazhsky, what he had failed to find in him. He was a clever and wonderfully good-hearted man.

“Most delighted,” he said, and asked after his wife and sister-in-law. And from a queer association of ideas, because in his imagination the idea of Sviazhsky’s sister-in-law was connected with marriage, it occurred to him that there was no one to whom he could more suitably speak of his happiness, and he was very glad to go and see them.

Sviazhsky questioned him about his improvements on his estate, presupposing, as he always did, that there was no possibility of doing anything not done already in Europe, and now this did not in the least annoy Levin. On the contrary, he felt that Sviazhsky was right, that the whole business was of little value, and he saw the wonderful softness and consideration with which Sviazhsky avoided fully expressing his correct view. The ladies of the Sviazhsky household were particularly delightful. It seemed to Levin that they knew all about it already and sympathized with him, saying nothing merely from delicacy. He stayed with them one hour, two, three, talking of all sorts of subjects but the one thing that filled his heart, and did not observe that he was boring them dreadfully, and that it was long past their bedtime.

Sviazhsky went with him into the hall, yawning and wondering at the strange humour his friend was in. It was past one o’clock. Levin went back to his hotel, and was dismayed at the thought that all alone now with his impatience he had ten hours still left to get through. The servant, whose turn it was to be up all night, lighted his candles, and would have gone away, but Levin stopped him. This servant, Yegor, whom Levin had noticed before, struck him as a very intelligent, excellent, and, above all, good-hearted man.

“Well, Yegor, it’s hard work not sleeping, isn’t it?”

“One’s got to put up with it! It’s part of our work, you see. In a gentleman’s house it’s easier; but then here one makes more.”

It appeared that Yegor had a family, three boys and a daughter, a seamstress, whom he wanted to marry to a cashier in a saddler’s shop.

Levin, on hearing this, informed Yegor that, in his opinion, in marriage the great thing was love, and that with love one would always be happy, for happiness rests only on oneself.

Yegor listened attentively, and obviously quite took in Levin’s idea, but by way of assent to it he enunciated, greatly to Levin’s surprise, the observation that when he had lived with good masters he had always been satisfied with his masters, and now was perfectly satisfied with his employer, though he was a Frenchman.

“Wonderfully good-hearted fellow!” thought Levin.

“Well, but you yourself, Yegor, when you got married, did you love your wife?”

“Ay! and why not?” responded Yegor.

And Levin saw that Yegor too was in an excited state and intending to express all his most heartfelt emotions.

“My life, too, has been a wonderful one. From a child up....” he was beginning with flashing eyes, apparently catching Levin’s enthusiasm, just as people catch yawning.

But at that moment a ring was heard. Yegor departed, and Levin was left alone. He had eaten scarcely anything at dinner, had refused tea and supper at Sviazhsky’s, but he was incapable of thinking of supper. He had not slept the previous night, but was incapable of thinking of sleep either. His room was cold, but he was oppressed by heat. He opened both the movable panes in his window and sat down to the table opposite the open panes. Over the snow-covered roofs could be seen a decorated cross with chains, and above it the rising triangle of Charles’s Wain with the yellowish light of Capella. He gazed at the cross, then at the stars, drank in the fresh freezing air that flowed evenly into the room, and followed as though in a dream the images and memories that rose in his imagination. At four o’clock he heard steps in the passage and peeped out at the door. It was the gambler Myaskin, whom he knew, coming from the club. He walked gloomily, frowning and coughing. “Poor, unlucky fellow!” thought Levin, and tears came into his eyes from love and pity for this man. He would have talked with him, and tried to comfort him, but remembering that he had nothing but his shirt on, he changed his mind and sat down again at the open pane to bathe in the cold air and gaze at the exquisite lines of the cross, silent, but full of meaning for him, and the mounting lurid yellow star. At seven o’clock there was a noise of people polishing the floors, and bells ringing in some servants’ department, and Levin felt that he was beginning to get frozen. He closed the pane, washed, dressed, and went out into the street.

To be continued

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Anna Karenina 38

ANNA KARENINA

 

PART 38

Chapter 8

 

Alexey Alexandrovitch, on coming back from church service, had spent the whole morning indoors. He had two pieces of business before him that morning; first, to receive and send on a deputation from the native tribes which was on its way to Petersburg, and now at Moscow; secondly, to write the promised letter to the lawyer. The deputation, though it had been summoned at Alexey Alexandrovitch’s instigation, was not without its discomforting and even dangerous aspect, and he was glad he had found it in Moscow. The members of this deputation had not the slightest conception of their duty and the part they were to play. They naïvely believed that it was their business to lay before the commission their needs and the actual condition of things, and to ask assistance of the government, and utterly failed to grasp that some of their statements and requests supported the contention of the enemy’s side, and so spoiled the whole business. Alexey Alexandrovitch was busily engaged with them for a long while, drew up a program for them from which they were not to depart, and on dismissing them wrote a letter to Petersburg for the guidance of the deputation. He had his chief support in this affair in the Countess Lidia Ivanovna. She was a specialist in the matter of deputations, and no one knew better than she how to manage them, and put them in the way they should go. Having completed this task, Alexey Alexandrovitch wrote the letter to the lawyer. Without the slightest hesitation he gave him permission to act as he might judge best. In the letter he enclosed three of Vronsky’s notes to Anna, which were in the portfolio he had taken away.

Since Alexey Alexandrovitch had left home with the intention of not returning to his family again, and since he had been at the lawyer’s and had spoken, though only to one man, of his intention, since especially he had translated the matter from the world of real life to the world of ink and paper, he had grown more and more used to his own intention, and by now distinctly perceived the feasibility of its execution.

He was sealing the envelope to the lawyer, when he heard the loud tones of Stepan Arkadyevitch’s voice. Stepan Arkadyevitch was disputing with Alexey Alexandrovitch’s servant, and insisting on being announced.

“No matter,” thought Alexey Alexandrovitch, “so much the better. I will inform him at once of my position in regard to his sister, and explain why it is I can’t dine with him.”

“Come in!” he said aloud, collecting his papers, and putting them in the blotting-paper.

“There, you see, you’re talking nonsense, and he’s at home!” responded Stepan Arkadyevitch’s voice, addressing the servant, who had refused to let him in, and taking off his coat as he went, Oblonsky walked into the room. “Well, I’m awfully glad I’ve found you! So I hope....” Stepan Arkadyevitch began cheerfully.

“I cannot come,” Alexey Alexandrovitch said coldly, standing and not asking his visitor to sit down.

Alexey Alexandrovitch had thought to pass at once into those frigid relations in which he ought to stand with the brother of a wife against whom he was beginning a suit for divorce. But he had not taken into account the ocean of kindliness brimming over in the heart of Stepan Arkadyevitch.

Stepan Arkadyevitch opened wide his clear, shining eyes.

“Why can’t you? What do you mean?” he asked in perplexity, speaking in French. “Oh, but it’s a promise. And we’re all counting on you.”

“I want to tell you that I can’t dine at your house, because the terms of relationship which have existed between us must cease.”

“How? How do you mean? What for?” said Stepan Arkadyevitch with a smile.

“Because I am beginning an action for divorce against your sister, my wife. I ought to have....”

But, before Alexey Alexandrovitch had time to finish his sentence, Stepan Arkadyevitch was behaving not at all as he had expected. He groaned and sank into an armchair.

“No, Alexey Alexandrovitch! What are you saying?” cried Oblonsky, and his suffering was apparent in his face.

“It is so.”

“Excuse me, I can’t, I can’t believe it!”

Alexey Alexandrovitch sat down, feeling that his words had not had the effect he anticipated, and that it would be unavoidable for him to explain his position, and that, whatever explanations he might make, his relations with his brother-in-law would remain unchanged.

“Yes, I am brought to the painful necessity of seeking a divorce,” he said.

“I will say one thing, Alexey Alexandrovitch. I know you for an excellent, upright man; I know Anna—excuse me, I can’t change my opinion of her—for a good, an excellent woman; and so, excuse me, I cannot believe it. There is some misunderstanding,” said he.

“Oh, if it were merely a misunderstanding!...”

“Pardon, I understand,” interposed Stepan Arkadyevitch. “But of course.... One thing: you must not act in haste. You must not, you must not act in haste!”

“I am not acting in haste,” Alexey Alexandrovitch said coldly, “but one cannot ask advice of anyone in such a matter. I have quite made up my mind.”

“This is awful!” said Stepan Arkadyevitch. “I would do one thing, Alexey Alexandrovitch. I beseech you, do it!” he said. “No action has yet been taken, if I understand rightly. Before you take advice, see my wife, talk to her. She loves Anna like a sister, she loves you, and she’s a wonderful woman. For God’s sake, talk to her! Do me that favour, I beseech you!”

Alexey Alexandrovitch pondered, and Stepan Arkadyevitch looked at him sympathetically, without interrupting his silence.

“You will go to see her?”

“I don’t know. That was just why I have not been to see you. I imagine our relations must change.”

“Why so? I don’t see that. Allow me to believe that apart from our connection you have for me, at least in part, the same friendly feeling I have always had for you ... and sincere esteem,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, pressing his hand. “Even if your worst suppositions were correct, I don’t—and never would—take on myself to judge either side, and I see no reason why our relations should be affected. But now, do this, come and see my wife.”

“Well, we look at the matter differently,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch coldly. “However, we won’t discuss it.”

“No; why shouldn’t you come today to dine, anyway? My wife’s expecting you. Please, do come. And, above all, talk it over with her. She’s a wonderful woman. For God’s sake, on my knees, I implore you!”

“If you so much wish it, I will come,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch, sighing.

And, anxious to change the conversation, he inquired about what interested them both—the new head of Stepan Arkadyevitch’s department, a man not yet old, who had suddenly been promoted to so high a position.

Alexey Alexandrovitch had previously felt no liking for Count Anitchkin, and had always differed from him in his opinions. But now, from a feeling readily comprehensible to officials—that hatred felt by one who has suffered a defeat in the service for one who has received a promotion, he could not endure him.

“Well, have you seen him?” said Alexey Alexandrovitch with a malignant smile.

“Of course; he was at our sitting yesterday. He seems to know his work capitally, and to be very energetic.”

“Yes, but what is his energy directed to?” said Alexey Alexandrovitch. “Is he aiming at doing anything, or simply undoing what’s been done? It’s the great misfortune of our government—this paper administration, of which he’s a worthy representative.”

“Really, I don’t know what fault one could find with him. His policy I don’t know, but one thing—he’s a very nice fellow,” answered Stepan Arkadyevitch. “I’ve just been seeing him, and he’s really a capital fellow. We lunched together, and I taught him how to make, you know that drink, wine and oranges. It’s so cooling. And it’s a wonder he didn’t know it. He liked it awfully. No, really he’s a capital fellow.”

Stepan Arkadyevitch glanced at his watch.

“Why, good heavens, it’s four already, and I’ve still to go to Dolgovushin’s! So please come round to dinner. You can’t imagine how you will grieve my wife and me.”

The way in which Alexey Alexandrovitch saw his brother-in-law out was very different from the manner in which he had met him.

“I’ve promised, and I’ll come,” he answered wearily.

“Believe me, I appreciate it, and I hope you won’t regret it,” answered Stepan Arkadyevitch, smiling.

And, putting on his coat as he went, he patted the footman on the head, chuckled, and went out.

“At five o’clock, and not evening dress, please,” he shouted once more, turning at the door.

Chapter 9

 

It was past five, and several guests had already arrived, before the host himself got home. He went in together with Sergey Ivanovitch Koznishev and Pestsov, who had reached the street door at the same moment. These were the two leading representatives of the Moscow intellectuals, as Oblonsky had called them. Both were men respected for their character and their intelligence. They respected each other, but were in complete and hopeless disagreement upon almost every subject, not because they belonged to opposite parties, but precisely because they were of the same party (their enemies refused to see any distinction between their views); but, in that party, each had his own special shade of opinion. And since no difference is less easily overcome than the difference of opinion about semi-abstract questions, they never agreed in any opinion, and had long, indeed, been accustomed to jeer without anger, each at the other’s incorrigible aberrations.

They were just going in at the door, talking of the weather, when Stepan Arkadyevitch overtook them. In the drawing-room there were already sitting Prince Alexander Dmitrievitch Shtcherbatsky, young Shtcherbatsky, Turovtsin, Kitty, and Karenin.

Stepan Arkadyevitch saw immediately that things were not going well in the drawing-room without him. Darya Alexandrovna, in her best gray silk gown, obviously worried about the children, who were to have their dinner by themselves in the nursery, and by her husband’s absence, was not equal to the task of making the party mix without him. All were sitting like so many priests’ wives on a visit (so the old prince expressed it), obviously wondering why they were there, and pumping up remarks simply to avoid being silent. Turovtsin—good, simple man—felt unmistakably a fish out of water, and the smile with which his thick lips greeted Stepan Arkadyevitch said, as plainly as words: “Well, old boy, you have popped me down in a learned set! A drinking party now, or the Château des Fleurs, would be more in my line!” The old prince sat in silence, his bright little eyes watching Karenin from one side, and Stepan Arkadyevitch saw that he had already formed a phrase to sum up that politician of whom guests were invited to partake as though he were a sturgeon. Kitty was looking at the door, calling up all her energies to keep her from blushing at the entrance of Konstantin Levin. Young Shtcherbatsky, who had not been introduced to Karenin, was trying to look as though he were not in the least conscious of it. Karenin himself had followed the Petersburg fashion for a dinner with ladies and was wearing evening dress and a white tie. Stepan Arkadyevitch saw by his face that he had come simply to keep his promise, and was performing a disagreeable duty in being present at this gathering. He was indeed the person chiefly responsible for the chill benumbing all the guests before Stepan Arkadyevitch came in.

On entering the drawing-room Stepan Arkadyevitch apologized, explaining that he had been detained by that prince, who was always the scapegoat for all his absences and unpunctualities, and in one moment he had made all the guests acquainted with each other, and, bringing together Alexey Alexandrovitch and Sergey Koznishev, started them on a discussion of the Russification of Poland, into which they immediately plunged with Pestsov. Slapping Turovtsin on the shoulder, he whispered something comic in his ear, and set him down by his wife and the old prince. Then he told Kitty she was looking very pretty that evening, and presented Shtcherbatsky to Karenin. In a moment he had so kneaded together the social dough that the drawing-room became very lively, and there was a merry buzz of voices. Konstantin Levin was the only person who had not arrived. But this was so much the better, as going into the dining-room, Stepan Arkadyevitch found to his horror that the port and sherry had been procured from Depré, and not from Levy, and, directing that the coachman should be sent off as speedily as possible to Levy’s, he was going back to the drawing-room.

In the dining-room he was met by Konstantin Levin.

“I’m not late?”

“You can never help being late!” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, taking his arm.

“Have you a lot of people? Who’s here?” asked Levin, unable to help blushing, as he knocked the snow off his cap with his glove.

“All our own set. Kitty’s here. Come along, I’ll introduce you to Karenin.”

Stepan Arkadyevitch, for all his liberal views, was well aware that to meet Karenin was sure to be felt a flattering distinction, and so treated his best friends to this honour. But at that instant Konstantin Levin was not in a condition to feel all the gratification of making such an acquaintance. He had not seen Kitty since that memorable evening when he met Vronsky, not counting, that is, the moment when he had had a glimpse of her on the highroad. He had known at the bottom of his heart that he would see her here today. But to keep his thoughts free, he had tried to persuade himself that he did not know it. Now when he heard that she was here, he was suddenly conscious of such delight, and at the same time of such dread, that his breath failed him and he could not utter what he wanted to say.

“What is she like, what is she like? Like what she used to be, or like what she was in the carriage? What if Darya Alexandrovna told the truth? Why shouldn’t it be the truth?” he thought.

“Oh, please, introduce me to Karenin,” he brought out with an effort, and with a desperately determined step he walked into the drawing-room and beheld her.

She was not the same as she used to be, nor was she as she had been in the carriage; she was quite different.

She was scared, shy, shame-faced, and still more charming from it. She saw him the very instant he walked into the room. She had been expecting him. She was delighted, and so confused at her own delight that there was a moment, the moment when he went up to her sister and glanced again at her, when she, and he, and Dolly, who saw it all, thought she would break down and would begin to cry. She crimsoned, turned white, crimsoned again, and grew faint, waiting with quivering lips for him to come to her. He went up to her, bowed, and held out his hand without speaking. Except for the slight quiver of her lips and the moisture in her eyes that made them brighter, her smile was almost calm as she said:

“How long it is since we’ve seen each other!” and with desperate determination she pressed his hand with her cold hand.

“You’ve not seen me, but I’ve seen you,” said Levin, with a radiant smile of happiness. “I saw you when you were driving from the railway station to Ergushovo.”

“When?” she asked, wondering.

“You were driving to Ergushovo,” said Levin, feeling as if he would sob with the rapture that was flooding his heart. “And how dared I associate a thought of anything not innocent with this touching creature? And, yes, I do believe it’s true what Darya Alexandrovna told me,” he thought.

Stepan Arkadyevitch took him by the arm and led him away to Karenin.

“Let me introduce you.” He mentioned their names.

“Very glad to meet you again,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch coldly, shaking hands with Levin.

“You are acquainted?” Stepan Arkadyevitch asked in surprise.

“We spent three hours together in the train,” said Levin smiling, “but got out, just as in a masquerade, quite mystified—at least I was.”

“Nonsense! Come along, please,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, pointing in the direction of the dining-room.

The men went into the dining-room and went up to a table, laid with six sorts of spirits and as many kinds of cheese, some with little silver spades and some without, caviar, herrings, preserves of various kinds, and plates with slices of French bread.

The men stood round the strong-smelling spirits and salt delicacies, and the discussion of the Russification of Poland between Koznishev, Karenin, and Pestsov died down in anticipation of dinner.

Sergey Ivanovitch was unequaled in his skill in winding up the most heated and serious argument by some unexpected pinch of Attic salt that changed the disposition of his opponent. He did this now.

Alexey Alexandrovitch had been maintaining that the Russification of Poland could only be accomplished as a result of larger measures which ought to be introduced by the Russian government.

Pestsov insisted that one country can only absorb another when it is the more densely populated.

Koznishev admitted both points, but with limitations. As they were going out of the drawing-room to conclude the argument, Koznishev said, smiling:

“So, then, for the Russification of our foreign populations there is but one method—to bring up as many children as one can. My brother and I are terribly in fault, I see. You married men, especially you, Stepan Arkadyevitch, are the real patriots: what number have you reached?” he said, smiling genially at their host and holding out a tiny wine-glass to him.

Everyone laughed, and Stepan Arkadyevitch with particular good humour.

“Oh, yes, that’s the best method!” he said, munching cheese and filling the wine-glass with a special sort of spirit. The conversation dropped at the jest.

“This cheese is not bad. Shall I give you some?” said the master of the house. “Why, have you been going in for gymnastics again?” he asked Levin, pinching his muscle with his left hand. Levin smiled, bent his arm, and under Stepan Arkadyevitch’s fingers the muscles swelled up like a sound cheese, hard as a knob of iron, through the fine cloth of the coat.

“What biceps! A perfect Samson!”

“I imagine great strength is needed for hunting bears,” observed Alexey Alexandrovitch, who had the mistiest notions about the chase. He cut off and spread with cheese a wafer of bread fine as a spider-web.

Levin smiled.

“Not at all. Quite the contrary; a child can kill a bear,” he said, with a slight bow moving aside for the ladies, who were approaching the table.

“You have killed a bear, I’ve been told!” said Kitty, trying assiduously to catch with her fork a perverse mushroom that would slip away, and setting the lace quivering over her white arm. “Are there bears on your place?” she added, turning her charming little head to him and smiling.

There was apparently nothing extraordinary in what she said, but what unutterable meaning there was for him in every sound, in every turn of her lips, her eyes, her hand as she said it! There was entreaty for forgiveness, and trust in him, and tenderness—soft, timid tenderness—and promise and hope and love for him, which he could not but believe in and which choked him with happiness.

“No, we’ve been hunting in the Tver province. It was coming back from there that I met your beau-frère in the train, or your beau-frère’s brother-in-law,” he said with a smile. “It was an amusing meeting.”

And he began telling with droll good-humour how, after not sleeping all night, he had, wearing an old fur-lined, full-skirted coat, got into Alexey Alexandrovitch’s compartment.

“The conductor, forgetting the proverb, would have chucked me out on account of my attire; but thereupon I began expressing my feelings in elevated language, and ... you, too,” he said, addressing Karenin and forgetting his name, “at first would have ejected me on the ground of the old coat, but afterwards you took my part, for which I am extremely grateful.”

“The rights of passengers generally to choose their seats are too ill-defined,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch, rubbing the tips of his fingers on his handkerchief.

“I saw you were in uncertainty about me,” said Levin, smiling good-naturedly, “but I made haste to plunge into intellectual conversation to smooth over the defects of my attire.” Sergey Ivanovitch, while he kept up a conversation with their hostess, had one ear for his brother, and he glanced askance at him. “What is the matter with him today? Why such a conquering hero?” he thought. He did not know that Levin was feeling as though he had grown wings. Levin knew she was listening to his words and that she was glad to listen to him. And this was the only thing that interested him. Not in that room only, but in the whole world, there existed for him only himself, with enormously increased importance and dignity in his own eyes, and she. He felt himself on a pinnacle that made him giddy, and far away down below were all those nice excellent Karenins, Oblonskys, and all the world.

Quite without attracting notice, without glancing at them, as though there were no other places left, Stepan Arkadyevitch put Levin and Kitty side by side.

“Oh, you may as well sit there,” he said to Levin.

The dinner was as choice as the china, in which Stepan Arkadyevitch was a connoisseur. The soupe Marie-Louise was a splendid success; the tiny pies eaten with it melted in the mouth and were irreproachable. The two footmen and Matvey, in white cravats, did their duty with the dishes and wines unobtrusively, quietly, and swiftly. On the material side the dinner was a success; it was no less so on the immaterial. The conversation, at times general and at times between individuals, never paused, and towards the end the company was so lively that the men rose from the table, without stopping speaking, and even Alexey Alexandrovitch thawed.

Chapter 10

 

Pestsov liked thrashing an argument out to the end, and was not satisfied with Sergey Ivanovitch’s words, especially as he felt the injustice of his view.

“I did not mean,” he said over the soup, addressing Alexey Alexandrovitch, “mere density of population alone, but in conjunction with fundamental ideas, and not by means of principles.”

“It seems to me,” Alexey Alexandrovitch said languidly, and with no haste, “that that’s the same thing. In my opinion, influence over another people is only possible to the people which has the higher development, which....”

“But that’s just the question,” Pestsov broke in in his bass. He was always in a hurry to speak, and seemed always to put his whole soul into what he was saying. “In what are we to make higher development consist? The English, the French, the Germans, which is at the highest stage of development? Which of them will nationalize the other? We see the Rhine provinces have been turned French, but the Germans are not at a lower stage!” he shouted. “There is another law at work there.”

“I fancy that the greater influence is always on the side of true civilization,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch, slightly lifting his eyebrows.

“But what are we to lay down as the outward signs of true civilization?” said Pestsov.

“I imagine such signs are generally very well known,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch.

“But are they fully known?” Sergey Ivanovitch put in with a subtle smile. “It is the accepted view now that real culture must be purely classical; but we see most intense disputes on each side of the question, and there is no denying that the opposite camp has strong points in its favour.”

“You are for classics, Sergey Ivanovitch. Will you take red wine?” said Stepan Arkadyevitch.

“I am not expressing my own opinion of either form of culture,” Sergey Ivanovitch said, holding out his glass with a smile of condescension, as to a child. “I only say that both sides have strong arguments to support them,” he went on, addressing Alexey Alexandrovitch. “My sympathies are classical from education, but in this discussion I am personally unable to arrive at a conclusion. I see no distinct grounds for classical studies being given a pre-eminence over scientific studies.”

“The natural sciences have just as great an educational value,” put in Pestsov. “Take astronomy, take botany, or zoology with its system of general principles.”

“I cannot quite agree with that,” responded Alexey Alexandrovitch “It seems to me that one must admit that the very process of studying the forms of language has a peculiarly favourable influence on intellectual development. Moreover, it cannot be denied that the influence of the classical authors is in the highest degree moral, while, unfortunately, with the study of the natural sciences are associated the false and noxious doctrines which are the curse of our day.”

Sergey Ivanovitch would have said something, but Pestsov interrupted him in his rich bass. He began warmly contesting the justice of this view. Sergey Ivanovitch waited serenely to speak, obviously with a convincing reply ready.

“But,” said Sergey Ivanovitch, smiling subtly, and addressing Karenin, “One must allow that to weigh all the advantages and disadvantages of classical and scientific studies is a difficult task, and the question which form of education was to be preferred would not have been so quickly and conclusively decided if there had not been in favour of classical education, as you expressed it just now, its moral—disons le mot—anti-nihilist influence.”

“Undoubtedly.”

“If it had not been for the distinctive property of anti-nihilistic influence on the side of classical studies, we should have considered the subject more, have weighed the arguments on both sides,” said Sergey Ivanovitch with a subtle smile, “we should have given elbow-room to both tendencies. But now we know that these little pills of classical learning possess the medicinal property of anti-nihilism, and we boldly prescribe them to our patients.... But what if they had no such medicinal property?” he wound up humorously.

At Sergey Ivanovitch’s little pills, everyone laughed; Turovtsin in especial roared loudly and jovially, glad at last to have found something to laugh at, all he ever looked for in listening to conversation.

Stepan Arkadyevitch had not made a mistake in inviting Pestsov. With Pestsov intellectual conversation never flagged for an instant. Directly Sergey Ivanovitch had concluded the conversation with his jest, Pestsov promptly started a new one.

“I can’t agree even,” said he, “that the government had that aim. The government obviously is guided by abstract considerations, and remains indifferent to the influence its measures may exercise. The education of women, for instance, would naturally be regarded as likely to be harmful, but the government opens schools and universities for women.”

And the conversation at once passed to the new subject of the education of women.

Alexey Alexandrovitch expressed the idea that the education of women is apt to be confounded with the emancipation of women, and that it is only so that it can be considered dangerous.

“I consider, on the contrary, that the two questions are inseparably connected together,” said Pestsov; “it is a vicious circle. Woman is deprived of rights from lack of education, and the lack of education results from the absence of rights. We must not forget that the subjection of women is so complete, and dates from such ages back that we are often unwilling to recognize the gulf that separates them from us,” said he.

“You said rights,” said Sergey Ivanovitch, waiting till Pestsov had finished, “meaning the right of sitting on juries, of voting, of presiding at official meetings, the right of entering the civil service, of sitting in parliament....”

“Undoubtedly.”

“But if women, as a rare exception, can occupy such positions, it seems to me you are wrong in using the expression ‘rights.’ It would be more correct to say duties. Every man will agree that in doing the duty of a juryman, a witness, a telegraph clerk, we feel we are performing duties. And therefore it would be correct to say that women are seeking duties, and quite legitimately. And one can but sympathize with this desire to assist in the general labour of man.”

“Quite so,” Alexey Alexandrovitch assented. “The question, I imagine, is simply whether they are fitted for such duties.”

“They will most likely be perfectly fitted,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, “when education has become general among them. We see this....”

“How about the proverb?” said the prince, who had a long while been intent on the conversation, his little comical eyes twinkling. “I can say it before my daughter: her hair is long, because her wit is....”

“Just what they thought of the negroes before their emancipation!” said Pestsov angrily.

“What seems strange to me is that women should seek fresh duties,” said Sergey Ivanovitch, “while we see, unhappily, that men usually try to avoid them.”

“Duties are bound up with rights—power, money, honour; those are what women are seeking,” said Pestsov.

“Just as though I should seek the right to be a wet-nurse and feel injured because women are paid for the work, while no one will take me,” said the old prince.

Turovtsin exploded in a loud roar of laughter and Sergey Ivanovitch regretted that he had not made this comparison. Even Alexey Alexandrovitch smiled.

“Yes, but a man can’t nurse a baby,” said Pestsov, “while a woman....”

“No, there was an Englishman who did suckle his baby on board ship,” said the old prince, feeling this freedom in conversation permissible before his own daughters.

“There are as many such Englishmen as there would be women officials,” said Sergey Ivanovitch.

“Yes, but what is a girl to do who has no family?” put in Stepan Arkadyevitch, thinking of Masha Tchibisova, whom he had had in his mind all along, in sympathizing with Pestsov and supporting him.

“If the story of such a girl were thoroughly sifted, you would find she had abandoned a family—her own or a sister’s, where she might have found a woman’s duties,” Darya Alexandrovna broke in unexpectedly in a tone of exasperation, probably suspecting what sort of girl Stepan Arkadyevitch was thinking of.

“But we take our stand on principle as the ideal,” replied Pestsov in his mellow bass. “Woman desires to have rights, to be independent, educated. She is oppressed, humiliated by the consciousness of her disabilities.”

“And I’m oppressed and humiliated that they won’t engage me at the Foundling,” the old prince said again, to the huge delight of Turovtsin, who in his mirth dropped his asparagus with the thick end in the sauce.

To be continued

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