Anna Karenina Part 32

"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 a.s.sociate 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 antic.i.p.ation 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 gla.s.s to him.

Everyone laughed, and Stepan Arkadyevitch with particular good humor.

"Oh, yes, that's the best method!" he said, munching cheese and filling the wine-gla.s.s 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 k.n.o.b 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 a.s.siduously 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-frere in the train, or your beau-frere's brother-in-law," he said with a smile. "It was an amusing meeting."

And he began telling with droll good-humor 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 pa.s.sengers 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 un.o.btrusively, 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 ba.s.s.

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 cla.s.sical; 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 favor."

"You are for cla.s.sics, 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 gla.s.s 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 cla.s.sical from education, but in this discussion I am personally unable to arrive at a conclusion. I see no distinct grounds for cla.s.sical studies being given a preeminence 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 favorable influence on intellectual development. Moreover, it cannot be denied that the influence of the cla.s.sical authors is in the highest degree moral, while, unfortunately, with the study of the natural sciences are a.s.sociated 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 ba.s.s. 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 cla.s.sical 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 favor of cla.s.sical 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 cla.s.sical 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 cla.s.sical 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 pa.s.sed 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 emanc.i.p.ation 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 a.s.sist in the general labor of man."

"Quite so," Alexey Alexandrovitch a.s.sented. "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 emanc.i.p.ation!" 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, honor; 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 ba.s.s. "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.

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 longs" 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.