Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Two/Chapter 17
CHAPTER XVII
Stepan Arkadyevitch went up-stairs, his pockets bulging out with " promises to pay," due in three months, which the merchant had given him. The sale of the forest was concluded; he had money in his pocket; sport had been good; and Stepan Arkadyevitch was in the happiest frame of mind, and therefore was especially eager to dispel the sadness which had taken possession of Levin. He wanted a good ending for the day that since dinner had shown such promise.
In point of fact, Levin was not in good spirits, and in spite of his desire to seem amiable and thoughtful toward his beloved guest, he could not control himself. The intoxication which he felt in learning that Kitty was not married had begun little by little to affect him.
Kitty not married, and ill—ill from love for a man who had jilted her. It was almost like a personal insult. Vronsky had slighted her, and she had slighted him. Levin, consequently, had gained the right to despise him. He was therefore his enemy. Levin did not reason this all out. He had a vague sense that there was something in this humiliating to him, and he was angry now because it had upset his plans, and so everything which came up annoyed him. The stupid sale of the forest, which had taken place under his roof, and the way Oblonsky had been cheated, exasperated him.
"Well, is it finished?" he asked, as he met Stepan Arkadyevitch up-stairs. "Would you like some supper?"
"Yes, I won't refuse. What an appetite I feel in the country! It's wonderful! Why did n't you offer a bite to Rabinin?"
"Ah! the devil take him!"
"Why! how you treated him!" exclaimed Oblonsky. "You didn't even offer him your hand! Why didn't you offer him your hand?"
"Because I don't shake hands with my lackey, and my lackey is worth a hundred of him."
"What a retrograde you are! And how about the fusion of classes?" said Oblonsky.
"Let those who like it, enjoy it! It is disgusting to me."
"You, I see, are a retrograde."
"To tell the truth, I never asked myself what I am. I am Konstantin Levin—nothing more."
"And Konstantin Levin in a very bad humor," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, smiling.
"Yes, I am in bad humor, and do you know why? Because .... excuse me .... because of your stupid barg...."
Stepan Arkadyevitch frowned good-naturedly, like a man who is unreasonably scolded and blamed.
"There! that'll do!" he said. "After any one has sold anything, they come saying, 'You might have sold this at a higher price;' but no one thinks of offering this fine price before the sale. .... No; I see you have a grudge against this unfortunate Rabinin."
"Maybe I have. And do you know why? You will call me retrograde or some worse name, but it is so vexatious and disgusting to me to see what is going on everywhere—the nobility which I belong to, and in spite of your fusion of classes, am very glad to belong to, always getting poorer and poorer. .... And this growing poverty is not in consequence of luxurious living. That would be nothing. To live like lords is proper for the nobles; the nobles only can do this. Now the muzhiks are buying up our lands; that does not trouble me; the proprietor does nothing, the muzhik is industrious, and supplants the lazy man. So it ought to be. And I am very glad for the muzhik. But what vexes me, and stirs my soul, is to see the proprietor robbed by.... I don't know how to express it.... by his own innocence. Here is a Polish leaseholder, who has bought, at half price, a superb estate of a lady who lives at Nice. Yonder is a merchant who has hired a farm for a ruble an acre, and it is worth ten rubles an acre. And this very day, without the slightest reason, you have given this rascal a present of thirty thousand."
"But what can I do? Count my trees one by one?"
"Certainly; if you have not counted them, Rabinin did, and his children will have the means whereby to live and get an education, whereas yours, perhaps, will not."
"Well, forgive me, but there is something pitiful in such minute calculations. We have our ways of doing things, and they have theirs; and let them get the profits. There now! Moreover, it is done, and that 's the end of it. .... And here is my favorite omelette coming it; and then Agafya Mikhaïlovna will certainly give us a glass of her marvelous herb-beer." ....
Stepan Arkadyevitch sat down at the table and began to joke with Agafya Mikhaïlovna, assuring her that he had not eaten such a dinner and such a supper for an age.
"You can give fine speeches, at least," said Agafya Mikhaïlovna. "But Konstantin Dmitritch, whatever was set before him, if only a crust of bread, would eat it and go away."
Levin, in spite of his efforts to control himself, was melancholy and gloomy. He wanted to ask Stepan Arkadyevitch one question, but he could not make up his mind, nor could he find either the opportunity in which to ask it, or a suitable form in which to couch it.
Stepan Arkadyevitch had gone down to his room, and, after another bath, had put on a ruffled night-shirt and gone to bed. Levin still dallied in his room, talking about various trifles, but not having the courage to ask what he had at heart.
"How wonderfully well this is made!" said he, taking from its wrapper a piece of perfumed soap, which Agafya Mikhailovna had prepared for the guest, but which Oblonsky had not used. "Just look; isn't it truly a work of art?"
"Yes; all sorts of improvements nowadays," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, with a beatific yawn. "The theaters, for example, and—a—a—a"—yawning again—"these amusing a-a-a .... and electric lights everywhere a-a-a-a-a...."
"Yes, the electric lights," repeated Levin. "And that Vronsky, where is he now?" he suddenly asked, putting down the soap.
"Vronsky?" said Stepan Arkadyevitch, ceasing to yawn, "He is at Petersburg. He went away shortly after you did, and has not been in Moscow since. And do you know, Kostia," he continued, leaning his elbow on a little take placed near the head of the bed, and resting his handsome ruddy face on his hand, while two oily, good-natured, and sleepy eyes shone out like twin stars, "I am going to tell you the truth. You yourself were to blame. You were afraid of a rival. And I will remind you of what I said: I don't know which of you had the best chances. Why didn't you go ahead? I told you then that...."
He yawned again, with his jaws only, trying not to open his mouth.
"Does he, or does n't he, know that I offered myself?" thought Levin, looking at him. "Yes! there is something subtle, something diplomatic, in his face; "and, feeling that he was flushing, he said nothing, but looked straight into Oblonsky's eyes.
"If on her part there was any feeling for him, it was merely a slight drawing," continued Oblonsky. "You know, that absolutely high breeding of his and the chances of position in the world had an effect on her mother, but not on her."
Levin frowned. The humiliation of his rejection, with which he was suffering as from a recent wound, smarted in his heart. Fortunately, he was at home; and the very walls of the home sustain one.
"Wait! wait!" he interrupted; "you said, 'high breeding '[1]! But let me ask you, what means this high breeding of Vronsky, or any one else—a high breeding that could look down on me. You consider Vronsky an aristocrat. I don't. A man whose father sprang from nothing, by means of intrigue, whose mother has had liaisons with God knows whom .... Oh, no, excuse me! Aristocrats, in my opinion, are men like myself, who can show in the past three or four generations of excellent families, belonging to the most cultivated classes,—talents and intellect are another matter,—who never abased themselves before anybody, and were never dependent on others,—like my father and grandfather. And I know many such. It seems small business to you that I count my trees, while you give thirty thousand rubles to Rabinin: but you receive a salary, and other things; and I receive nothing of the sort, and therefore I appreciate what my father left me, and what my labor gives me We are the aristocrats, and not those who live only by means of what the powers of this world dole out to them, and who can be bought for a copper."
"There! whom are you so angry with? I agree with you," replied Stepan Arkadyevitch, sincerely and gayly, though he knew that when Levin hurled his sarcasms at those who could be bought for a copper, he meant him. But Levin's animation really pleased him. "Whom are you angry with? Though much of what you say about Vronsky is not true, still I won't speak about that. I will tell you frankly that if I were in your place, I would start for Moscow, and ...."
"No! I don't know whether you know or not,—but it's over for me. I will tell you. I proposed and was rejected; so that now the memory of Katerina Aleksandrovna is painful and humiliating."
"Why so? What nonsense!"
"But let us not speak of it. Forgive me if I have been rude to you," said Levin. Now that he had made a clean breast of it, he began once more to feel as he had felt in the morning. "You will not be angry with me, Stiva? I beg of you, don't be angry with me," said he, and with a smile he took his hand.
"Of course not. I will not think anything more about it. I am very glad, though, that we have spoken frankly to each other. And, do you know, sport will be capital to-morrow. We can try it again, can't we? In that case I would not even sleep, but go straight from the grove to the station."
"Capital!"
- ↑ Aristokratism