Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Five/Chapter 15
CHAPTER XV
They were just back from Moscow, and enjoying their solitude. Levin was sitting at his library table, writing; Kitty, dressed in a dark violet dress, which she had worn in the first days of their marriage, and which Levin had always liked, was making broderie anglaise, as she sat on the divan,—on the great leather divan which ever since the days of Levin's father and grandfather had stood in the library.
Levin enjoyed her presence while he was writing and thinking. He had not abandoned his occupations,—his farming, and the treatise in which the principles of his new method of conducting his estate were to be evolved. But, as before, these occupations and thoughts seemed to him small and useless in comparison with the gloom that overshadowed his life; so now they seemed just as petty and unimportant in comparison with the life before him, irradiated as it was with the full light of joy. He kept up his occupations, but felt now that the center of gravity of his interests had shifted, and that consequently he looked otherwise and more clearly than formerly at the matter.
In former days this occupation seemed like the salvation of his life; in former days he felt that without it life would be altogether gloomy; now these occupations were necessary in order that his life might not be too monotonously bright. As he took up his manuscript again, reading over what he had written, he felt with satisfaction that the work was worth his attention. Many of his former thoughts seemed to him exaggerated and extravagant, but many of the gaps became clearly evident to him as he reviewed the whole subject. He was now writing a new chapter, in which he treated of the causes for the unfavorable condition of Russian agriculture. He argued that the poverty of the country was caused not entirely by the unequal distribution of the land property and false economical tendencies, but that this cooperated with the abnormal introduction of a veneer of civilization, especially the means of communication, the railways, which produced an exaggerated centralization in the cities, the development of luxury, and consequently the creation of new industries at the expense of agriculture, an extraordinary extension of the credit system and its concomitant—stock speculation. It seemed to him that with a normal development of riches in the empire all these signs of exterior civilization would appear only when the cultivation of the land should have attained a proportional development, when it should have at least been established on correct, determining conditions; that the wealth of a country ought to increase at a regular ratio, and in such a way that agriculture should not be outstripped by other branches of wealth; that the means of intercommunication ought to be developed in conformity with the natural development of agriculture, and that in view of our improper use of the land, the railways, constructed not by reason of actual necessity, but from political motives, were premature, and instead of the cooperation which they were expected to give to agriculture, they arrested it by encouraging the spread of manufacturing and the credit system; and that, therefore, just as a one-sided and premature development of one organ in the body would prevent its general development, so for the general development of wealth in Russia, the credit system, the means of intercommunication, the recrudescence of manufacturing industries, however indispensable they may have been in Europe, where they are opportune, have in Russia done nothing but harm by keeping from sight the most important question as to the organization of agriculture.
While Levin was writing, Kitty was thinking how her husband, on the evening before they left Moscow, had watched unnaturally the young Prince Charsky, who, with remarkable lack of tact, had made love to her. "He is jealous," she said to herself. "Bozhe moï! how good and stupid he is! To be jealous of me! If he only knew that for me they are all like Piotr the cook!" And she glanced with a strange feeling of proprietorship at the back of her husband's head and his sunburnt neck.
"It is a shame to interrupt him, but he has plenty of time. I must see his face; will he feel how I am looking at him I will will for him to turn round. There, I will make him."
And she opened her eyes as wide as she could, as if to concentrate more strength into her gaze.
"Yes, they attract all the best sap and give a false appearance of wealth," murmured Levin, ceasing to write, and conscious that she was looking at him and smiling. He turned around.
"What is it?" he asked, smiling, and getting up.
"He did turn round," she thought. "Nothing; I only willed to make you turn around," and she looked at him as if to fathom whether he was vexed or not because she had disturbed him.
"Well, how good it is to be alone together! For me, at least," said he, radiant with joy, going to where she sat.
"I am so happy here! I never, never, want to go away again, especially not to Moscow."
"But what were you thinking about?"
"I? I was thinking. ...no, no; go on with your writing! don't let your mind be distracted," she replied, pouting. "I must cut all these eyelet-holes now; do you see?"
And she took her scissors and began to snip.
"No; tell me what you were thinking about!" he insisted, sitting down near her, and following all the movements of her little scissors.
"Oh! What was I thinking about? About Moscow and—the nape of your neck!"
"What have I done to deserve this great happiness? It is supernatural. It is too good," said he, kissing her hand.
"To me, on the contrary, the happier I am the more natural I find it!"
"You have a little stray curl," he said, turning her head around carefully.
"A stray curl? let it be. We must think about serious things."
But their conference was interrupted; and, when Kuzma came to announce tea, they separated as if they were guilty.
"Are they returned from town?" asked Levin of Kuzma.
"They're just back,—they're unpacking the things now."
"Come as quickly as you can," said Kitty, going from the library.
Levin, left alone, shut up his books and papers in a new portfolio, bought by his wife, washed his hands in a new wash-basin supplied with elegant new appurtenances, also bought by her, and, smiling at his thoughts, nodded his head disapprovingly; he was tormented by a feeling which resembled remorse. His life had become too indolent, too spoiled. It was a life of a Capuan, and he felt ashamed of it. "To live so is not good," he thought. "Here, for three months, I have scarcely done a thing! To-day, almost for the first time, I have set about anything seriously, and what was the result? I have hardly begun before I give it up. I even neglect my ordinary occupations. I don't watch the men. I don't go anywhere. Sometimes I am sorry to leave her; sometimes I see that she is out of spirits; I who believed that existence before marriage counted for nothing, and that life only began after marriage! And here, for three months, I have been spending my time in absolute idleness. This must not go on. I must do something. Of course, she is not to blame, and one could not lay the least blame on her. But I ought to have shown more firmness, and have preserved my manly independence; otherwise, I shall get into confirmed bad habits.... of course, she is not to blame...."
A discontented man finds it hard not to blame some one or other for his discontent, and generally the very person who is nearest. And so Levin felt vaguely that while the fault was not his wife's—and he could not lay it to her charge—it was owing to her bringing up; it was too superficial and frivolous. "That fool of a Charsky, for example, .... I know she wanted to get rid of him; but she did not know how."
Then he went on again:—
"Yes! Besides the petty interests of housekeeping .... she looks out for those and enjoys them; besides her toilet and her broderie anglaise, she has no serious interests, no sympathy in my labors, in my schemes, or for the muzhiks, no taste for reading or music; and yet she is a good musician. She does absolutely nothing, and yet she is perfectly content."
Levin in his heart judged her thus, and did not comprehend that his wife was making ready for the time of activity which was ere long to come to her, when she would be at once wife, mistress of the house[1], mother, nurse, teacher. He did not understand that she knew this by intuition, and in preparing for this terrible task could not blame herself for these indolent moments, and the enjoyment of love, which made her so happy, while she was cheerily building her nest for the future.
- ↑ Khozaïka doma