Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Five/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II
The princess and Darya Aleksandrovna insisted on strictly observing the established customs; so Levin was not to see his "bride" on the day of the wedding, and he dined at his hotel with three bachelors, who met in his room by chance: they were Sergyeï Ivanovitch; Katavasof, an old university friend, now professor of natural sciences, whom Levin had met on the street and brought home to dinner; Chirikof, his shafer or best man, justice of the peace at Moscow, and Levin's companion in bear-hunting.
The dinner was very lively. Sergyeï Ivanovitch was in the best of spirits, and greatly enjoyed Katavasof's originality. Katavasof, feeling that his originality was appreciated and understood, made a great display of it and Chirikof added his share of gayety to the conversation.
"So, here is our friend Konstantin Dmitrievitch," said Katavasof, with the slow speech of a professor accustomed to talk ex cathedra;" what a talented fellow he was! I speak of him in the past, for he no longer exists. He loved science when he left the university; he took an interest in humanity; now he employs half his faculties in deceiving himself, and the other half in apologizing for the deception."
"I never met a more confirmed enemy of marriage than you," said Sergyeï Ivanovitch.
"No, I am not its enemy; I am a friend of the distribution of labor. People who cannot do anything ought to be the ones to propagate the race. All the rest should devote themselves to their intellectual development and welfare. That is my opinion. I know a great many people are inclined to confound these two, but I am not of the number."
"How delighted I should be to hear that you were in love!" exclaimed Levin. "Pray invite me to your wedding."
"But I am already in love."
"Yes, with some cuttlefish. You know," said Levin, turning to his brother, "Mikhaïl Semyonuitch has written a work on the nutrition, and ...."
"Now, I beg of you not to confuse matters! It is of no consequence what I have written; but it is a fact that I love a cuttlefish."
"That need not prevent your loving a wife."
"No; but my wife would object to my loving the cuttlefish."
"Why so?"
"You will see how it will be. Now, you love your farming, hunting. .... Well! just wait awhile!"
"I met Arkhip to-day," said Chirikof; "he says that there are quantities of elk at Prudnoye, and two bears."
"Well! you may hunt them without me."
"You see how it is," said Sergyeï Ivanovitch, "You may as well say good-by to bear-hunting; your wife won't allow it."
Levin smiled. The idea that his wife would object to his hunting seemed so delightful that he was ready to renounce the pleasure of ever meeting a bear again.
"However, I am sorry to hunt those two bears without you," said Chirikof. "Do you remember the last time at Khapilovo? The hunting was marvelous."
Levin did not care to spoil his friend's illusion that life would be worth nothing without hunting, and so he made no reply.
"The custom of saying good-by to one's bachelor life is not without meaning," said Sergyeï Ivanovitch. "However happy one may be, a man regrets his liberty."
"Confess that, like Gogolevsky, when he was engaged, you feel like jumping out of the window."
"Certainly; but he won't confess it," said Katavasof, with a loud laugh.
"The window is open Come now, let us go to Tver! We might find one bear in her lair. Indeed, we have still time to catch the five o'clock train," said Chirikof, smiling. "Hear them laugh!"
"Well, upon my honor," replied Levin, smiling, too, "I cannot discover the least trace of regret in my soul for my lost liberty."
"Yes! your soul is in such a chaos now that you cannot find anything in it," said Katavasof. "Wait till it becomes calmer; then you will see."
"No, if I felt in the least degree that there was nothing beyond my feeling of"—he did not like to speak of love before Katavasof—"of happiness, I should regret my lost freedom. But it is not so at all; I am even delighted at my loss of freedom."
"You are a hopeless case," exclaimed Katavasof. "However, let us drink to his recovery, or let us at least hope for him that one per cent of his illusions may be accomplished. And even that would be such happiness as was never known on this earth!"
Shortly after dinner the guests separated, to dress for the wedding.
When he was left alone, and had a chance to think over the conversation of these bachelors. Levin again asked himself whether he really regretted the liberty of which his friends had just been talking, and he smiled at the idea.
"Liberty? why liberty? Happiness for me consists in loving, in thinking her thoughts, in wishing her wishes, without any liberty. That is happiness!"
"But can I know her thoughts, her wishes, her feelings?" whispered some voice. The smile disappeared from his face and he fell into a deep study. And suddenly a strange feeling came over him: fear and doubt came over him—doubt about everything.
"Suppose she does not love me? What if she is marrying me merely for the sake of being married? What if she does not herself know what she is doing?" he asked himself, "Will she, perhaps, see her mistake, and discover, after we are married, that she does not love me, and that she never can love me?"
And strange, even painful, thoughts about Kitty came to his mind; he began to be violently jealous of Vronsky, just as he had been the year before; there came up before him, like the memory of yesterday, that evening when he had seen them together, and he suspected her of not having confessed everything to him.
He quickly sprang up.
"No," said he, in despair, "I cannot let this remain so! I will go and find her,—I will talk with her, and say to her again, for the last time: 'We are free; is it not better to stop just where we are? Anything is better than lifelong unhappiness, shame, distrust!'"
And with despair in his heart, full of hatred toward all mankind, toward himself and Kitty, he left the hotel and hastened to her house.
He found her in one of the rear rooms sitting on a large chest, busy with her maid, looking over dresses of all colors, spread out over the backs of the chairs and on the floor.
"Akh!" she exclaimed, beaming with joy at seeing him. "What brings thee? What brings you?" Even up to this last day she sometimes said tui, sometimes vui. "I was not expecting you! I am just disposing of my maiden wardrobe."
"Ah! that is good!" he replied, frowning at the maid.
"Run away, Duniasha; I will call you," said Kitty; and as soon as she had gone she asked, using the second person of the pronoun, "What is the matter with thee?" this time resolutely. She remarked her lover's strange, excited, and gloomy face, and was seized with fear.
"Kitty, I am in torture, and I cannot suffer alone!" he said to her with despair in his voice, stopping in front of her and looking into her eyes in a beseeching way. He at once saw by her face, so sincere and loving, that nothing whatever would result from his determination; yet he felt an urgent need of being reassured from her own lips.
"I came to tell you that it is not yet too late; that everything can even now be taken back."
"What? I do not understand. What is the matter with thee?"
"I am—as I have said and thought a thousand times before—I am not worthy of you. You once could not consent to marry me. Think of it! Perhaps you are mistaken now. Think of it well. You cannot love me ....if.... it is better to acknowledge it," he continued, without looking at her. "I shall be miserable, but no matter; let people say what they please; anything is better than unhappiness! .... But anything is better now, while there is yet time ...."
"I do not understand you," she replied, frightened. "You mean you want to take back your word .... break off our...."
"Yes, if you do not love me."
"You must be insane!" she exclaimed, red with vexation. But the sight of Levin's piteous face arrested her anger; and pushing the frocks from one of the chairs, she sat down near him.
"What are you thinking of? Tell me all."
"I think that you cannot love me. Why should you love me?"
"Bozhe moï! what can I do?" .... said she; and she burst into tears.
"Akh! what have I done?" he cried instantly, and throwing himself on his knees, he covered her hands with kisses.
When the princess came into the room five minutes later, she found them completely reconciled. Kitty had not only convinced him of her love, but in answer to his question she had explained to him why she loved him. She said that she loved him because she understood him perfectly; because she knew that he could love, and that all he loved was good and beautiful.
Levin found the explanation perfectly satisfactory. When the princess came in, they were sitting side by side on the big chest, looking over the frocks, and discussing their fate. Kitty wanted to give Duniasha the brown frock that she wore the day Levin proposed to her; and he insisted that it should not be given to any one, and that Duniasha should have the blue frock.
"But don't you see that she is a brunette, and the blue frock will not be becoming to her? .... I have thought it all over." ....
When she learned why Levin was there, the princess was half vexed at him, and sent him home to make his own toilet and leave Kitty in peace, as Charles was going to dress Kitty's hair.
"She is quite excited enough," said she; "she has eaten nothing for days, and is losing all her beauty; and here you come to trouble her with your foolishness. Come, go away now, my dear."
Levin went back to the hotel, guilty and ashamed, but reassured. His brother, Darya Aleksandrovna, and Stepan Arkadyevitch, in full dress, were already waiting with holy images to bless him. There was no time to be lost. Darya Aleksandrovna had to go home again to get her son perfumed and curled for the occasion; the child was to carry the sacred image before the bride. Then one carriage must be sent for the shafer or best man, while another was to come to the hotel for Sergyeï Ivanovitch. .... This day was full of complications. One thing was certain, that no delay was permissible, for it was already half-past six.
The ceremony of the benediction was anything but solemn. Stepan Arkadyevitch assumed a comically grave attitude beside his wife, raised the sacred image, and obliged Levin to kneel before it, while he blessed him with an affectionate and wicked smile; at last he kissed him three times; and Darya Aleksandrovna did the same very hastily, for she was in a great hurry to get away, and in great perplexity about the carriage arrangements.
"Well! This is what we will do: you go for him in our carriage, and perhaps Sergyeï Ivanovitch will be so good as to come immediately, and to send back his." ....
"Certainly, with pleasure."
"We will come back together. Has the luggage been sent?" asked Stepan Arkadyevitch.
"Yes," replied Levin; and he called Kuzma to help him dress.