【有声英语文学名著】安娜卡列宁娜（63）

 SIXTY-THREE

 
 
‘And you? What are you dissatisfied with?’ she said with the same smile.
 
Her disbelief in his dissatisfaction with himself was pleasant, and unconsciously he challenged her to give reasons for her disbelief.
 
‘I am happy, but dissatisfied with myself . . .’ he answered.
 
‘How can you be dissatisfied if you are happy?’
 
‘I mean . . . How shall I put it? . . . In my heart I wish for nothing more, except that you shouldn’t stumble. Oh dear! How can you jump so!’ he said, interrupting the conversation to rebuke 1 her for making too quick a movement while stepping over a branch that lay across the path. ‘But when I examine myself and compare myself with others, especially with my brother, I feel how bad I am.’
 
‘In what way?’ asked she, still smiling. ‘Don’t you do anything for others? What about your small holdings, your farming, and your book?’
 
‘No. I feel it now more than ever — and it is your fault,’ he answered, pressing her arm, ‘that it’s not the right thing. I do it, but it is superficial. If I could love all that work as I love you . . . but of late I have been doing it like a task set me. . . .’
 
‘Well then, what do you say to Papa?’ asked Kitty. ‘Is he bad too, because he does nothing for the common good?’
 
‘He? Oh no! But one must have your father’s simplicity 2, clearness, and kindness, and have I got all that? I don’t act and I worry. It’s you who have done it. Before you were there, and that,’ he said with a glance at her figure, which she understood, ‘I put all my strength into my work; but now I can’t and I feel ashamed. I do it just like a task that has been set me. I pretend . . .’
 
‘Then would you now like to change places with Sergius Ivanich?’ asked Kitty. ‘Would you prefer to do that public work, and love that given task as he does, and nothing more?’
 
‘Of course not!’ replied Levin. ‘However, I am so happy that I don’t understand anything. . . . So you think he will propose to-day?’ he added after a pause.
 
‘I do, and I don’t. But I want him to, awfully 3! Wait, we’ll see.’ She stooped and picked an ox-eye daisy by the roadside. ‘There, begin! He will propose, he won’t . . .’ and she handed him the flower.
 
‘He will, he won’t,’ said Levin, pulling off the veined white petals 5.
 
‘No, no!’ exclaimed she, watching his fingers excitedly, as she seized his hand to stop him. ‘You’ve pulled off two at once.’
 
‘Well then, we won’t count this tiny one,’ said he, picking off a short ill-formed petal 4. ‘And here’s the trap overtaking us.’
 
‘Aren’t you tired, Kitty?’ the Princess called out.
 
‘Not at all.’
 
‘If so you’d better get in, if the horses are quiet and go at a walking pace.’
 
But it was not worth while to drive as they had nearly reached the place, and so they all went on foot.
 
 
 
 
 
Chapter 4
 
 
 
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VARENKA with the white kerchief over her black hair, surrounded by the children and good-naturedly and cheerfully busy with them, and evidently excited by the possibility of an offer of marriage from a man she liked, looked very attractive. Koznyshev walked by her side and did not cease admiring her. Looking at her he remembered all the charming things he had heard her say, and all he knew of her that was good, and he grew more and more conscious that what he felt for her was something rare, something he had felt but once before, a long, long time ago, when he was very young. His sense of pleasure at her nearness went on increasing until it reached a point where, when placing in her basket an enormous wood mushroom with a thin stem and up-curling top, he looked into her eyes and, noting the flush of joyful and frightened agitation that suffused her face, he himself became embarrassed and gave her a smile that said too much.
 
‘If it is so, I must think it over and come to a decision, and not let myself be carried away like a boy by the impulse of the moment,’ he told himself.
 
‘Now I will go and gather mushrooms quite on my own account, or else my harvest will not be noticeable,’ said he, and went away from the skirts of the wood, where they were walking about on the short silky grass under sparsely growing old birches, and penetrated deeper into the wood, where among the white birch trunks grew grey-stemmed aspens and dark hazel bushes. When he had gone some forty paces he stepped behind a spindle bush with pink and red earring-shaped blossoms, and paused, knowing that he could no longer be seen. Around him everything was quiet. Only the hum of flies, like that of a swarm of bees, sounded continually high up in the birch trees beneath which he stood, and occasionally the children’s voices reached him. Suddenly, from the skirts of the wood not far off, he heard Varenka’s contralto voice calling to Grisha, and a smile of pleasure lit up his face. Conscious of that smile, Koznyshev shook his head disapprovingly at his own state and taking out a cigar began to light it. He was long unable to strike a match against the bark of a birch. The delicate white outer bark adhered to the phosphorus, and the light went out. At last one match did burn up, and the scented smoke of the cigar, like a broad swaying sheet definitely outlined, moved forwards and upwards over the bush under the overhanging branches of the birch-tree. Watching the sheet of smoke, he went on slowly, meditating on his condition of mind.
 
‘Why not?’ he thought. ‘If it were just a sudden impulse or passion — if I only felt this attraction, this mutual attraction (it is mutual), but felt that it was contrary to the whole tenor of my life, and that by giving way to it I should be false to my vocation and duty . . . But it is nothing of the kind. The one thing I can find against it is that when I lost Marie I told myself that I would remain true to her memory. That is the only thing I can say against my feeling . . . That is important,’ thought Koznyshev, conscious nevertheless that this consideration could not have any importance for him personally, although in the eyes of others it might spoil his poetic rôle. ‘But, apart from that, however much I searched I could find nothing to say against my feeling. If I had chosen by reason alone, I could find nothing better!’
 
He recalled the women and girls he had known, but try as he would he could not recall one who united in herself to such a degree all, literally all, the qualities which he, thinking the matter over in cold blood, would desire in a wife. She had all the charm and freshness of youth but was no longer a child, and if she loved him, loved him consciously as a woman ought to love. That was one favourable consideration. The second one was: she was not only far from worldly, but evidently felt a repulsion from the world, yet she knew the world and had all the ways of a woman of good Society, without which a life-companion would be unthinkable for him. The third was: she was religious, not irresponsibly religious and kind-hearted like a child — like Kitty for instance — but her life was based on religious convictions. Even down to small details Koznyshev found in her all that he desired in a wife: she was poor and solitary, so that she would not bring into her husband’s house a crowd of relations and their influence, as he saw Kitty doing. She would be indebted to her husband for everything, which was a thing he had always desired in his future family life. And this girl, uniting all these qualities, loved him. He was modest, but could not help being aware of this. And he loved her. One of the opposite arguments was his age. But he came of a long-lived race, he had not a single grey hair, no one thought he was forty, and he remembered that Varenka had said it was only in Russia that men of fifty considered themselves old, and that in France a man of fifty considered himself dans la force de l’âge [in the prime of life], while one of forty was un jeune homme [a young man]. And what was the use of counting by years, when he felt as young at heart as he had been twenty years ago? Was it not youth that he was experiencing now, when coming out again on the other side of the wood he saw, in the bright slanting sunbeams, the graceful form of Varenka in her yellow dress and with a basket on her arm, stepping lightly past the trunk of an old birch, and when the impression of Varenka merged into one with the view that had so struck him with its beauty: the view of the field of ripening oats bathed in the slanting sunbeams and the old forest beyond, flecked with yellow, fading away into the bluish distance. His heart leapt with joy. His feelings carried him away. He felt that the matter was decided. Varenka, who had bent to pick a mushroom, rose buoyantly and glanced round. Throwing away his cigar Koznyshev went toward her with resolute steps.
 
 
 
 
 
Chapter 5
 
 
 
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‘MLLE VARENKA! When very young I formed my ideal of the woman I should love and whom I should be happy to call my wife. I have lived many years, and now in you for the first time I have met what I was in search of. I love you, and offer you my hand.’
 
This was what Koznyshev said to himself when he was already within ten steps of Varenka. Kneeling and with outstretched arms defending some mushrooms from Grisha, she was calling little Masha.
 
‘Come along, little ones! There are a lot here,’ she cried in her delightful mellow voice.
 
On seeing Koznyshev approaching she did not move; yet everything told him that she felt his approach and was glad of it.
 
‘Well, have you found anything?’ she asked from beneath her white kerchief turning her handsome face toward him, with a gentle smile.
 
‘Not one,’ said Koznyshev. ‘And you?’
 
She did not reply, being busy with the children who surrounded her.
 
‘There’s another, near the branch,’ she said, pointing to a small mushroom cut across its firm pinkish crown by a dry blade of grass from beneath which it had sprung up. Varenka rose when Masha had picked the mushroom, breaking it into two white pieces. ‘It reminds me of my childhood,’ she added, moving away from the children with Koznyshev.
 
They went a few paces in silence. Varenka saw that he wanted to speak, and guessing the subject she grew faint with joy and fear. They had gone far enough not to be overheard, but he still had not begun. It would have been better for Varenka to remain silent. It would have been easier after a silence to say what they wished to say than after talking about mushrooms; yet against her will, and as if by accident, she said:
 
‘So you have not found anything? But of course deep in the wood there are always fewer.’
 
Koznyshev sighed and did not speak. He was vexed that she had spoken about mushrooms. He wished to bring her back to her first remark about her childhood; but without wishing to, after a pause, he replied to her last words:
 
‘I have only heard that the white boleti grow chiefly on the outskirts, but I can’t even tell which are the white ones.’
 
A few more minutes passed; they had gone still further from the children and were quite alone. Varenka’s heart beat so that she seemed to hear it, and she felt herself growing red and then pale and red again.
 
To be the wife of a man like Koznyshev after her difficult life with Madame Stahl seemed to her the height of bliss. Besides, she was almost sure she loved him, and now in a moment it must be decided. She was frightened: frightened of what he might or might not say.
 
‘He must make his declaration now or never’; Koznyshev also felt this. Everything — Varenka’s look, her blush, her downcast eyes — betrayed painful expectation. He saw it and was sorry for her. He even felt that to say nothing now would be to offend her. His mind went rapidly over all the arguments in favour of his decision. He repeated to himself the words with which he had intended to propose; but instead of those words some unexpected thought caused him to say:
 
‘What difference is there between the white boleti and the birch-tree variety?’
 
Varenka’s lips trembled with emotion when she replied:
 
‘There is hardly any difference in the tops, but only in the stems.’
 
And as soon as those words were spoken, both he and she understood that all was over, and that what ought to have been said would not be said, and their excitement, having reached its climax, began to subside.
 
‘The stem of the birch-tree boletus reminds one of a dark man’s beard two days old,’ remarked Koznyshev calmly.
 
‘Yes, that’s true,’ answered Varenka with a smile, and involuntarily the direction of their stroll changed. They began to return to the children. Varenka felt pained and ashamed, but at the same time she experienced a sense of relief.
 
Koznyshev when he got home and went again over all his reasons, came to the conclusion that at first he had judged wrongly. He could not be unfaithful to Marie’s memory.
 
‘Gently, gently, children!’ shouted Levin almost angrily, stepping in front of his wife to shield her, when the crowd of children came rushing at them with shrieks of delight.
 
Behind the children Koznyshev and Varenka came out of the wood. Kitty had no need to question Varenka: from the calm and rather shamefaced look on both faces she knew that her plan had not been realized.
 
‘Well?’ inquired her husband on their way home.
 
‘Won’t bite,’ answered Kitty with a smile and manner of speaking like her father, which Levin often observed in her with pleasure.
 
‘Won’t bite? How do you mean?’
 
‘Like this,’ she said, taking her husband’s hand, raising it to her mouth, and slightly touching it with her closed lips. ‘As one kisses the bishop’s hand.’
 
‘Who won’t bite?’ said he, laughing.
 
‘Neither! And it should have been like this . . .’
 
‘Mind, here are some peasants coming . . .’
 
‘They didn’t see!’
 
 
 
 
 
Chapter 6
 
 
 
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DURING the children’s tea the grown-ups sat on the balcony and talked as if nothing had happened, though they all, especially Koznyshev and Varenka, knew very well that something had happened which though negative was highly important. They both experienced what is felt by a pupil who has failed in an examination and has to remain in the same class or be finally expelled from the school. Every one talked with peculiar animation about extraneous topics. Levin and Kitty felt particularly happy and in love with one another that evening. Their happiness in their love involved an unpleasant reflection on those who desired, but had failed, to secure the same happiness, and made them feel ashamed.
 
‘Take my word for it, Alexander won’t come,’ said the old Princess.
 
They were expecting Oblonsky by the evening train, and the old Prince had written that he would perhaps accompany him.
 
‘And I know why,’ continued the Princess. ‘He says young married folk should be left to themselves for a while.’
 
‘Yes, Papa has really abandoned us,’ said Kitty. ‘We have not seen him . . . And are we young married folk? . . . Why, we are such old ones now!’
 
‘Only if he doesn’t come I too shall say good-bye to you children,’ said the Princess with a sorrowful sigh.
 
‘Oh, what an idea, Mama!’ rejoined both her daughters.
 
‘Just consider him! Why, at present . . .’
 
And suddenly the old Princess’s voice unexpectedly quavered. Her daughters said no more and glanced at one another. ‘Mama always finds something sad,’ this glance seemed to say. They did not know that pleasant as it was for her to stay with her daughter and necessary as she felt herself to be there, she suffered keenly, both on her own and on her husband’s account, since they gave their last and favourite daughter in marriage and the family nest was left empty.
 
‘What is it, Agatha Mikhaylovna?’ Kitty asked suddenly when the old woman stopped in front of her with a look of mystery and importance.
 
‘How about supper?’
 
‘Oh, that’s just right,’ said Dolly. ‘You go and give your orders, and I will hear Grisha his lesson. He hasn’t done anything to-day.’
 
‘That’s a rebuke for me! No, Dolly! I will go,’ said Levin, jumping up.
 
Grisha, who had entered a High School, had some homework to prepare during the summer holidays. While still in Moscow Dolly had begun learning Latin with him, and on coming to the Levins made it a rule to go over with him, at least once a day, the most difficult lessons — Latin and arithmetic. Levin offered to replace her, but having once heard Levin giving the lesson and noticing that he was not doing it the same way as the master who had coached the boy in Moscow, she — though embarrassed and anxious not to offend Levin — told him resolutely that the text-book must be followed in the master’s way and that she would rather give the lessons herself. Levin was vexed with Oblonsky for carelessly leaving it to the boy’s mother to look after his lessons which she did not understand, instead of doing it himself, and he was vexed with the masters also for teaching the children so badly; but he promised his sister-in-law to give the lessons in the way she wished. So he went on teaching Grisha not in his own way but according to the book, and therefore did it half-heartedly and often missed a lesson. So it had happened that day.
 
‘No, I will go, Dolly! You stay here,’ he said. ‘We shall do it all properly by the book. Only when Stiva comes we shall go shooting and then I shall miss the lessons.’
 
And Levin went off to find Grisha.
 
Varenka spoke in the same way to Kitty. Even in the Levins’ well-ordered household she found ways to be of use.
 
‘I will see about supper,’ she said, ‘and you stay here’; and she rose to accompany Agatha Mikhaylovna.
 
‘Yes, do. I expect they could not get any chickens, but there are our own . . .’ answered Kitty.
 
‘Agatha Mikhaylovna and I will arrange it,’ and Varenka went out with the old woman.
 
‘What a nice girl!’ said the Princess.
 
‘Not nice, Mama, but so charming that there is no one else like her!’
 
‘So you are expecting Stephen Arkadyevich to-night?’ asked Koznyshev, evidently disinclined to join in a conversation about Varenka. ‘It would be hard to find two brothers-in-law more unlike,’ he went on with his subtle smile; ‘the one always on the move, living always in Society like a fish in water; the other, our Constantine here, lively, quick, sensitive to everything, but as soon as he appears in Society either shutting up altogether or floundering about absurdly like a fish on dry land!’
 
‘Yes, he is very thoughtless,’ said the Princess to Koznyshev. ‘I was just going to ask you to tell him that it is impossible for her’ — she indicated Kitty — ‘to remain here, and that she must certainly come to Moscow. He says, “Get a doctor to come out here” . . .’
 
‘Mama, he will do all that’s necessary and will agree to everything,’ interpolated Kitty, annoyed with her mother for asking Koznyshev’s opinion on such a matter.
 
In the midst of their conversation they heard the snorting of horses and the scraping of wheels on the gravel of the avenue.
 
Dolly had not had time to rise to go to meet her husband, before Levin had jumped out of the window of the room below, where he had been teaching Grisha, and had lifted the boy out too.
 
‘It’s Stiva!’ shouted Levin from under the balcony. ‘We have finished, Dolly, don’t worry!’ he added, running like a boy to meet the carriage.
 
‘Is, ea, id; ejus, ejus, ejus,’ shouted Grisha, hopping down the avenue.
 
‘And some one with him. It must be Papa!’ shouted Levin, who had stopped at the bend of the avenue. ‘Kitty, don’t come down those steep steps, go round!’
 
But Levin was mistaken in supposing that one of the men in the calèche was the old Prince. When he came nearer he saw, sitting beside Oblonsky, a stout handsome young man wearing a Scotch bonnet with long ribbons streaming behind. It was Vasenka Veslovsky, a second cousin of the Shcherbatskys, a brilliant Petersburg-Moscow young man. ‘A most splendid fellow and a passionate sportsman,’ as Oblonsky said when he introduced him.
 
Not at all dismayed by the disappointment he caused by appearing instead of the old Prince, Veslovsky gaily greeted Levin, reminding him that they had met before, and lifting Grisha he caught him up into the vehicle over the pointer Oblonsky had brought with him.
 
Levin did not get in, but followed the calèche. He was rather vexed that the old Prince, whom he liked more and more the better he knew him, had not come, and vexed because this Vasenka Veslovsky, a quite superfluous stranger, had come. Veslovsky seemed to him still more alien and superfluous when they arrived at the porch — at which the whole animated group of grown-ups and children had gathered — and he saw Vasenka Veslovsky kissing Kitty’s hand with a particularly tender and gallant air.
 
‘We, your wife and I, are cousins and old acquaintances,’ said Vasenka Veslovsky, once again giving Levin’s hand a very, very hard squeeze.
 
‘Well, is there any game?’ asked Oblonsky of Levin, scarcely giving himself time to say a word of greeting to everybody. ‘He and I have the cruellest intentions. . . . Why, Mama! They have not been in Moscow since then. . . . Here, Tanya! That’s for you. . . . Please get it out of the calèche, behind there . . .’ he was saying to those about him. ‘How much refreshed you are looking, Dolly, dear!’ he went on, kissing his wife’s hand again and holding it in his own while he patted it with the other hand.
 
Levin, who but a few moments before had been in the brightest of spirits, was now looking dismally at every one, dissatisfied with everything.
 
‘Whom was he kissing yesterday with those same lips?’ he thought as he looked at Oblonsky caressing his wife. He looked at Dolly, and was not pleased with her either.
 
‘Of course she does not believe in his love. Then why is she so pleased? Disgusting!’ thought he.
 
He looked at the Princess, who a few moments before had seemed so nice, and did not like the way she welcomed that beribboned Vasenka, as if to her own house.
 
Even Koznyshev, who had also come out of the porch, displeased Levin by the feigned friendliness with which he greeted Oblonsky, whom, as Levin knew, he neither liked nor respected.
 
And Varenka too seemed disgusting because of the manner in which she with her saint nitouche [holy unapproachable] air made that gentleman’s acquaintance, while all her thought was how to get married.
 
But most repugnant of all was Kitty, for the way she fell in with the gay tone of that gentleman, who appeared to consider his arrival in the country a regular festival for everybody, and particularly objectionable was the smile with which she responded to his smiles.
 
Talking noisily, they all went into the house, but as soon as all were seated Levin turned and left the room.
 
Kitty noticed that something was wrong with her husband. She tried to seize an opportune moment to speak to him alone; but he hurried away from her, saying that he must go to the office. It was long since the farm work had seemed so important to him as it did that evening. ‘For them it is always a holiday,’ he thought, ‘yet here we have work that is no holiday task, which cannot be put off, and without which life is impossible.