Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Eight/Chapter 14
CHAPTER XIV
Levin looked away, and saw the herd, and his one-horse telyega and his coachman, who approached the herd of cattle, and began to talk to the herdsman. Then he heard the sound of wheels and the neighing of the horse; but he was so occupied with his thoughts that he did not think why it was that his coachman was coming for him.
He only realized it when the coachman, while still some distance off, cried:—
"The mistress sent for you. Your brother and another barin have come."
Levin got in at once, and took the reins.
As if awakened from sleep, it was long before he could collect his thoughts. He looked at the well-fed horse, and at the spot on his neck where the harness rubbed; and he looked at Ivan, the coachman, sitting beside him; and he thought of how he had been expect ing his brother, and that his wife was probably troubled because he was gone so long, and he tried to guess who the unknown guest who had come with his brother might be. And his brother and his wife and the unknown guest now seemed to him different from what they had been before. He felt that henceforth all his relations with these friends would be more pleasant than they had been.
"Now there shall be no more of that coldness, such as there used to be, between my brother and me .... no more disputes. Nor will Kitty and I quarrel any more; and whoever my guest is I shall be polite to him, and kind to the servants and to Ivan .... all will be different."
And holding in his good horse, which was whinnying with impatience and pleading for permission to show his paces, Levin kept looking at Ivan, who was sitting next him, not knowing what to do with his idle hands, and constantly pulling down his shirt, which the wind tugged at; and in his attempt to find a pretext for beginning a conversation with the man, he thought of saying that the horse's girth was buckled up too tightly, but then this seemed like censuring him, and he wanted to say something pleasant.
"You had better turn to the right and avoid that stump," said the coachman, taking hold of one of the reins.
"Please not touch, or try to give me lessons," said Levin, exasperated by his coachman's interference. Just the same as always he was made angry by any interference with his affairs, and he immediately became conscious how mistaken he was in supposing for a moment that his new spiritual condition could keep its character unchanged on contact with the reality.
When they had arrived within a quarter of a verst of the house, Levin saw Grisha and Tania running to meet him.
"Uncle Kostia, mamma is coming, and grandpa and Sergyeï Ivanovitch and some one else," they cried, as they ran up to the cart.
"Tell me, who is it?""Oh, he's an awful, horrid man, who does so with his arms," said Tania, climbing up into the cart and mimicking Katavasof.
"Tell me, is he young or old?" asked Levin, laughing, reminded of some one by Tania's performance.
"Akh, I only hope he is not a bore," said Levin to himself.
As soon as they reached a turn in the road and saw the party approaching. Levin recognized Katavasof, who was in a straw hat, and gesticulating exactly as Tania had represented it.
Katavasof was very fond of talking philosophy, and his conceptions were wholly drawn from the natural sciences, which had always been his specialty; and in Moscow Levin had frequently had discussions with him.
And one of these discussions, in which Katavasof had evidently felt that he was victorious, occurred to Levin's mind as soon as he saw him.
"Henceforth," he said to himself, "I will not enter into discussions, or express myself so flippantly."
Leaping from the cart and joining Katavasof and his brother, he asked where Kitty was.
"She has taken Mitya to Kolok,"—Kolok was a piece of woodland near the house,—"she wanted to get him established there, it was so hot at the house," said Dolly.
Levin always advised his wife against taking the baby to the woods, because he felt it was dangerous; so this news was not pleasant to him.
"She carries that son of hers from one place to another," said the old prince. "I told her she'd better try the ice-house."
"She wanted to go to the beehives. She thought you were there," added Dolly. "That is where we were going."
"Well, what have you been doing that's good?" said Sergyeï Ivanovitch, dropping behind the others, and walking with his brother.
"Oh, nothing particular; as usual, busy with the farm ing.[1] You'll stay with us awhile, now? We've been expecting you a long time."
"Only a fortnight. I have a great deal to do at Moscow."
At these words the two brothers looked at one another, and Levin, in spite of his usual and now especially strong desire to have friendly, and above all simple, relations with his brother, felt that it was awkward for him to look at him. He dropped his eyes and was at a loss what to say.
Trying to select some topic of conversation which would be agreeable to Sergyeï Ivanovitch, and avoiding the Serbian war and the Slavonic question, a hint at which Sergyeï Ivanovitch's remark about his occupation in Moscow gave, Levin began to talk about his brother's book.
"Well," he asked, "have there been many reviews of your book?"
Sergyeï Ivanovitch smiled at the intention of the question.
"No one thinks anything about it,—I, least of all," he said. "You see, Darya Aleksandrovna, we're going to have a shower," he added, pointing with his umbrella to the white clouds which were piling up above the aspen-tops.
It was evident by these words that the relationship between the brothers, which Levin wanted to overcome, was just the same as of old,—if not unfriendly, at least cool.
Levin approached Katavasof.
"How good it was of you to come to us!" said he.
"I have wanted to come for a long time. Now we shall have time to talk. Have you read Spencer?"
"Not thoroughly, I don't get anything out of him."
"How so? that is interesting. Why is that?"
"I have definitely made up my mind that the answers to certain questions which interest me are not to be found in him or his followers. Now ...."
But he was suddenly struck by the pleasant and serene expression of Katavasof's face, and he felt so sorry at having evidently disturbed his mental equilibrium by his remark, that, suddenly remembering his resolution, he stopped short. "However, we will talk about that by and by," he added. "If we are going to the apiary let us go this way, by this path," he said, turning to the others.
Passing through a narrow path along by an unmown field, covered on one side with an abundance of those bright flowers called Ivan-da-Marya, and in the midst of which grew frequent patches of the tall, dark green hellebore. Levin led his guests—who were afraid of being stung—to the cool dense shade of some young aspens, and established them on some benches and logs especially prepared for the purpose of receiving the beehives, and he himself went to the storehouse to fetch for the children, and the grown people as well, some bread, cucumbers, and fresh honey.
Trying to make as little disturbance as possible, and listening to the bees, which came flying more and more thickly around him, he strode along the path that led to the izba. At the very door, a bee entangled in his beard began to buzz, but he carefully freed himself from it. Going into the cool entry, he took his wire mask down from the peg where it hung, and put it on, and, thrusting his hands into his pockets, he went into the inclosure of the apiary, where, amid a smoothly shaven lawn, stood in straight rows on linden stakes all the old hives, each having for him its own special history, while the newer ones which had been set up that year were ranged along the wall. At the entrance of the hives he could see the young bees and the drones clustering together and tumbling over one another, while in their midst the working bees were industriously darting off in a straight line toward the forest, where the linden trees were in bloom, and quickly returning laden with their pollen.
His ears were filled with the incessant, monotonous humming made by the workers as they flew in with their burdens, by the drones enjoying their holiday, and by the guardian bees giving warning of the approach of an enemy and ready to sting.
On one side of the inclosure the old bee-keeper was smoothing a hoop, and did not see Levin; and Levin, without speaking to him, stood in the midst of his apiary.
He was glad of the chance of being alone so as to collect himself in face of the reality which had so suddenly come into vivid contrast with his recent state of mind.
He remembered that he had already been angry with Ivan, had shown coldness to his brother, and had spoken foolishly with Katavasof.
"Can it be possible that my happiness was only a transitory feeling, which will pass away, and leave no trace behind?"
But at the same moment as he analyzed his state of mind, he felt with joy that his experience had left new and important results. Practical life had only temporarily disturbed the spiritual calm which he had found; but in his heart it was still intact. Just as the bees, buzzing around him, threatened him, and robbed him of his physical calm, and compelled him to defend himself, so did the cares which surrounded him, as he sat in his little cart, disturb his spiritual calm; but this lasted only while he was in their midst. Just as his physical strength was intact while he was defending himself against the bees, so his newly attained spiritual power was also unimpaired.
- ↑ Khozhyaïstvo.