Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Six/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV
Varenka, in her white kerchief setting off her dark locks, and surrounded by children whom she was good-naturedly and gayly entertaining, and evidently excited by the possibility of a declaration from a man who was agreeable to her, was very fascinating. Sergyeï Ivanovitch walked by her side, and could not refrain from admiring her. As he looked at her he recalled all the pleasant remarks he had heard her make, all the goodness that he had found in her, and he confessed to himself more and more that the feeling which she aroused in him was something peculiar, like what he had experienced once, only long, long before, in his early youth.
The feeling of pleasure at being near her kept growing stronger, and at last when, as he put into her basket a monstrous birch mushroom with thin stem and edges, he looked into her eyes, and, noticing the blush of pleasure and timid emotion which spread over her face, he himself grew confused, and smiled with a mute smile which said too much.
"If this is the way it is going, I must deliberate and come to a decision, and not give way like a child to the impulse of a moment."
"I am going now to hunt for mushrooms independently of the rest of you, otherwise my acquisitions will not be noticed," said he; and he went off by himself from the edge of the woods, where they had been walking along the velvety turf among the old birch trees, scattered here and there in the forest together with the gray trunks of aspens and dark clumps of hazelnuts. Going off forty steps or so, and coming to a clump of the bush called beresklet, which was in full flower with its rosy catkins, Sergyeï Ivanovitch sheltered himself behind it, knowing that he would not be seen.
Around him it was perfectly still. Only up in the tree-tops above his head, ceaseless, like a swarm of bees, buzzed the flies, and occasionally he heard the voices of the children. Suddenly, not far from the edge of the woods, rang out Varenka's contralto voice, calling Grisha, and a happy smile spread over Sergyeï Ivanovitch's face. When he realized what he was doing, he shook his head disapprovingly at his state of mind, and, taking out a cigar, he began to smoke.
It was some time before he could light a match against the bole of a birch tree. The juicy scales of the white bark dampened the phosphorus, and the match refused to burn. At last one of the matches took fire, and the fragrant cigar-smoke, like a wide wavering scarf, floated up and away above the bush under the pendant twigs of the birches. As he followed the whiff of smoke with his eyes, Sergyeï Ivanovitch slowly walked on, thinking over the situation.
"And why should I not?" he asked himself. "If this was a caprice of passion, if I had experienced only this attachment, this mutual attachment—for I may call it mutual—and if I felt that it would run counter to the whole scheme of my life—if I felt that in giving way to this impression I should change my calling and duty—then it would not do at all. The one thing that I can bring against it is that when I lost Marie I vowed that I would never marry, in remembrance of her. This is the only thing that I can say against this feeling. .... This is serious," said Sergyeï Ivanovitch to himself, but at the same time he recognized that this consideration had personally for him no great importance, but would simply spoil in the eyes of others the poetic rôle which he had been keeping up so long.
"But besides this, no matter how long I searched, I should never find out what would be said against my feeling. If I used all my wits, I could never find any one better."
Among all the women and girls whom he had ever known he could not think of one who united to such a high degree all, yes, verily, all the qualities which in a cold calculation he should wish to see in his wife. She had all the freshness and charm of youth, and yet she was no longer a child and if she loved him she loved him sensibly, as a woman ought to love: this was one thing. Another was: she was not only far removed from worldly-mindedness, but evidently found fashionable society distasteful; but at the same time she knew society well and had all those ways of a woman of good society, lacking which married life for Sergyeï Ivanovitch was unthinkable. Thirdly, she was religious, but not like a child, irresponsibly religious and good, as Kitty, for example, was, but her life was founded on religious convictions. Even in trifles Sergyeï Ivanovitch found in her all that he desired in a wife. She was poor and unencumbered, so that she would not bring a throng of relatives and their influence into her husband's home, as he saw was the case with Kitty; but she would be in everything pledged to her husband, which was one of the conditions which he had demanded for himself in case he ever had any family life.
And this young woman, having all these qualities, loved him. He was modest, but he could not help seeing this. And he liked her. One obstacle stood in the way—his age. But his family were long-lived, he had not as yet a single gray hair, no one took him to be more than forty, and he remembered that Varenka had said that only in Russia men of fifty considered themselves old men, while in France a man of fifty reckoned himself dans la force de l'âge and one of forty was un jeune homme. But what signified his years when he felt himself as young in spirit as he had been twenty years before? Was not youth the feeling which he enjoyed when, coming out again from the forest into the clearing, he saw in the clear sunlight Varenka's graceful figure in her yellow frock and with her basket, moving along with light steps past the bole of an ancient birch tree, and the impression produced by the sight of Varenka blended with the surprising beauty of a field of oats shining yellow under the oblique rays of the sun, and beyond the field the old forest, variegated with yellow and stretching away into the azure distance? His heart swelled with joy. A feeling of tenderness seized him. He felt within him that his mind was made up. Varenka, who had just stooped down to pick up a mushroom, with an agile motion straightened herself up again and glanced around.
Sergyeï Ivanovitch, tossing away his cigar, went toward her with resolute steps.