Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Two/Chapter 12
CHAPTER XII
Even in the first weeks after Levin returned from Moscow, every time that with flushed cheeks and a trembling in his limbs he remembered the shame of his rejection, he would say to himself:—
"I blushed and trembled like this, and I felt that all was lost, when I got one in physics, and had to go into the second class; and I thought myself irretrievably ruined when I bungled in my sister's affairs, which were confided to me. And now? Now the years have gone by, and I look back and wonder how it could disturb my mind. It will be just the same with my disappointment this time. Time will pass, and I shall grow callous."
But three months passed away and the callousness did not come, and it was as painful for him to remember it as on the first day. He could not reconcile himself to the fact that, after dreaming so long of family life, after being, as he thought, so well prepared for it, not only was he not married, but found himself farther than ever from marriage. He felt painfully, as all those around him felt, that it is not good for a man of his age to live alone. He remembered that before his departure for Moscow he had once said to his cowherd, Nikolaï, a simple-hearted muzhik with whom he liked to talk:—
"Do you know, Nikolaï, I am thinking of getting married?" whereupon Nikolaï had instantly replied, as if there could not be the slightest doubt about it:—
"This ought to have been long ago, Konstantin Dmitritch."
And now marriage was farther off than ever. The place was taken; and when, exercising his imagination, he put into that place some young girl of his acquaintance, he felt that it was perfectly impossible. Moreover, the recollection of how Kitty refused him and of the part which he played still tormented him with mortification. It was idle to say that he was not to blame in this; this recollection, taken together with other mortifying experiences of the same sort, made him quiver and grow red in the face. He had on his conscience, as every man has, the remembrance of evil deeds for which he should have repented; but the remembrance of these evil deeds did not trouble him nearly so much as the feeling of his humiliation, slight as it really was. It was a wound that refused to heal. He could not keep out of his mind his rejection, and the miserable position in which he must have been placed in the eyes of others.
Time and labor, however, brought their balm; the painful impressions little by little began to fade in presence of the events of the country life, important in reality, in spite of their apparent insignificance. Each week his thoughts turned to Kitty with less frequency. He even began to await with impatience the news that she was married, or was going to be married, hoping that this event would bring healing in the same way as the pulling of a tooth may.
Meantime spring came, beautiful, friendly, without treachery or false promises,—a spring such as fills plants and animals, no less than men, with joy. This splendid season gave Levin new zeal, and confirmed his resolution to tear himself from the past so as to reorganize his solitary life on conditions of permanence and independence. Although many of the plans that he had formed on his return to the country had not been put into effect, yet the most essential one—that his life should be kept pure—had been realized. He experienced none of that sense of shame which ordinarily tormented him after a fall; and he could look fearlessly into men's eyes.
In February he had received a letter from Marya Nikolayevna, who informed him that his brother's health was failing, and that he would not use any remedies. In consequence of this letter he had immediately gone to Moscow, where he persuaded Nikolaï to consult a physician, and then to go abroad for the baths. He succeeded so well in persuading his brother and in lending him money for the journey, without exasperating him, that he felt quite satisfied with himself.
Besides his farm-labors, which especially occupied his attention that spring, and his ordinary reading, Levin was deeply engaged in writing a work on rural economy, which he had begun during the winter. His theory was that in farming the laborer's temperament is a factor as important as climate or the soil, and that consequently ail the deductions of agronomic science are drawn, not from the premises of soil and climate alone, but from the soil, the climate, and the certain unchangeable character of the laborer.
Thus, notwithstanding his loneliness or in consequence of his loneliness, his life, therefore, was very busy and full; only occasionally he felt the need of some one besides Agafya Mikhaïlovna with whom to communicate the ideas that came into his head. However, he brought himself to discuss with her about physics, the theories of rural economy, and, above all, philosophy. Philosophy was Agafya Mikhaïlovna's favorite subject.
The spring opened late. During the last weeks of Lent the weather was clear but cold. During the day the snow melted in the sun, but at night the mercury went down to seven degrees; the crust on the snow was so thick that carts could go anywhere across the fields.
It snowed on Easter Sunday. Then suddenly, on the following day, a warm wind blew, the clouds drifted over, and for three days and three nights a warm and heavy rain fell ceaselessly. On Thursday the wind went down, and then over the earth was spread a thick gray fog, as if to conceal the mysteries that were accomplishing in nature; under this fog, the fields were covered with water, the ice was melting and disappearing, the brooks ran more swiftly, foaming and muddy. Toward evening the Krasnaya Gorka, or Red Hill, began to show through the fog, the clouds scattered like snipe, and spring in reality was there in all her brilliancy.
The next morning the sun rose bright and quickly melted away the thin sheet of ice that still covered the ponds, and the warm atmosphere grew moist with the vapors rising from the earth; the old grass and the young blades peeping from the sod, with its tiny needles, the buds on the snow-ball trees, the currant bushes, and the sticky sappy birch trees, grew green, swelled, and on their branches, powdered with golden bloom, swarms of honey-bees buzzed in the sun. Invisible larks trilled their songs over the velvet of the green and the prairies freed from snow; the lapwings lamented for their hollows and marshes, submerged by the stormy waters; the wild swans and geese flew high in the air, with their calls of spring. The cattle, with rough hair and spots worn bare, lowed as they went out to pasture; the bandy-legged lambs gamboled around the bleating ewes, soon to lose their wool; swift-footed children ran barefoot over the wet paths, where their footprints were left like fossils; the peasant-women gossiped gayly around the edge of the pond, where they were bleaching their linen; and in the yards resounded the axes of the muzhiks, repairing their plows and their wagons.
Spring had really come.