Anger

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  And thinking of nothing but the journey before him, and the revision work he had to do, he went into his room and asked the porter who escorted him where his man was. The porter said that the man had only just gone out. Alexey Alexandrovitch ordered tea to be sent him, sat down to the table, and taking the guidebook, began considering the route of his journey. Two telegrams,' said the manservant, coming into the room. 'I beg your pardon, your excellency; I'd only just that minute gone out.' Alexey Alexandrovitch took the telegrams and opened them. The first telegram was the announcement of Stremov's appointment to the very post Karenin had coveted. Alexey Alexandrovitch flung the telegram down, and flushing a little, got up and began to pace up and down the room. 'Quos vult perdere dementat,' he said, meaning by quos the, persons responsible for this appointment. He was not so much annoyed that he had not received the post, that he had been conspicuously passed over; but it was incomprehensible, amazing to him that they did not see that the wordy phrase-monger Stremov was the last man fit for it. How could they fail to see how they were ruining themselves, lowering their prestige by this appointment? 'Something else in the same line,' he said to himself bitterly, opening the second telegram. The telegram was from his wife. Her name, written in blue pencil, 'Anna,' was the first thing that caught his eye. 'I am dying; I beg, I implore you to come. I shall die easier with your forgiveness,' he read. He smiled contemptuously, and flung down the telegram. That this was a trick and a fraud, of that, he thought for the first minute, there could be no doubt. 'There is no deceit she would stick at. She was near her confinement. Perhaps it is the confinement. But what can be their aim? To legitimise the child, to compromise me, and prevent a divorce,' he thought. 'But something was said in it: I am dying . . .' He read the telegram again, and suddenly the plain meaning of what was said in it struck him. 'And if it is true?' he said to himself. 'If it is true that in the moment of agony and nearness to death she is genuinely penitent, and I, taking it for a trick, refuse to go? That would not only be cruel, and everyone would blame me, but it would be stupid on my part.' 'Piotr, call a coach; I am going to Petersburg,' he said to his servant. Alexey Alexandrovitch decided that he would go to Petersburg and see his wife. If her illness was a trick, he would say nothing and go away again. If she were really in danger, and wished to see him before her death, he would forgive her if he found her alive, and pay her the last duties if he came too late.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  One can hear nothing for them.' 'Frogs or no frogs, I'm not the editor of a paper and I don't want to defend them; but I am speaking of the unanimity in the intellectual world,' said Sergey Ivanovitch, addressing his brother. Levin would have answered, but the old prince interrupted him. 'Well, about that unanimity, that's another thing, one may say,' said the prince. 'There's my son-in-law, Stepan Arkadyevitch, you know him. He's got a place now on the committee of a commission and some thing or other, I don't remember. Only there's nothing to do in it— why, Dolly, it's no secret! – and a salary of eight thousand. You try asking him whether his post is of use, he'll prove to you that it's most necessary. And he's a truthful man too, but there's no refusing to believe in the utility of eight thousand roubles.' 'Yes, he asked me to give a message to Darya Alexandrovna about the post,' said Sergey Ivanovitch reluctantly, feeling the prince's remark to be ill-timed. 'So it is with the unanimity of the press. That's been explained to me: as soon as there's war their incomes are doubled. How can they help believing in the destinies of the people and the Slavonic races . . . and all that?' 'I don't care for many of the papers, but that's unjust,' said Sergey Ivanovitch. 'I would only make one condition,' pursued the old prince. 'Alphonse Karr said a capital thing before the war with Prussia: "You consider war to be inevitable? Very good. Let everyone who advocates war be enrolled in a special regiment of advance-guards, for the front of every storm, of every attack, to lead them all!"' 'A nice lot the editors would make!' said Katavasov, with a loud roar, as he pictured the editors he knew in this picked legion. 'But they'd run,' said Dolly, 'they'd only be in the way.' 'Oh, if they ran away, then we'd have grape-shot or Cossacks with whips behind them,' said the prince. 'But that's a joke, and a poor one too, if you'll excuse me saying so, prince,' said Sergey Ivanovitch. 'I don't see that it was a joke, that . . .' Levin was beginning, but Sergey Ivanovitch interrupted him. 'Every member of society is called upon to do his own special work,' said he. 'And men of thought are doing their work when they express public opinion. And the single-hearted and full expression of public opinion is the service of the press and a phenomenon to rejoice us at the same time. Twenty years ago we should have been silent, but now we have heard the voice of the Russian people, which is ready to rise as one man and ready to sacrifice itself for its oppressed brethren; that is a great step and a proof of strength.' 'But it's not only making a sacrifice, but killing Turks,' said Levin timidly.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  It's clearer for him to see. Shall I bring a bit more bread? Give the little lad some more?' he said addressing Darya Alexandrovna and pointing to Grisha, who had finished his crust. 'I don't need to ask,' said Sergey Ivanovitch; 'we have seen and are seeing hundreds and hundreds of people who give up everything to serve a just cause, come from every part of Russia, and directly and clearly express their thought and aim. They bring their halfpence or go themselves and say directly what for. What does it mean?' 'It means, to my thinking,' said Levin, who was beginning to get warm, 'that among eighty millions of people there can always be found not hundreds, as now, but tens of thousands of people who have lost caste, ne'er-do-wells, who are always ready to go anywhere—to Pogatchev's bands, to Khiva, to Servia . . . ' 'I tell you that it's not a case of hundreds or of ne'er-do-wells, but the best representatives of the people!' said Sergey Ivanovitch, with as much irritation as if he were defending the last penny of his fortune. 'And what of the subscriptions? In this case it is a whole people directly expressing their will.' 'That word "people" is so vague,' said Levin. 'Parish clerks, teachers, and one in a thousand of the peasants, maybe, know what it's all about. The rest of the eighty millions, like Mihalitch, far from expressing their will, haven't the faintest idea what there is for them to express their will about. What right have we to say that this is the people's will ?' XVI S ERGEY I VANOVITCH, being practised in argument, did not reply, but at once turned the conversation to another aspect of the subject. 'Oh, if you want to learn the spirit of the people by arithmetical computation, of course it's very difficult to arrive at it. And voting has not been introduced among us and cannot be introduced, for it does not express the will of the people; but there are other ways of reaching that. It is felt in the air, it is felt by the heart. I won't speak of those deep currents which are astir in the still ocean of the people, and which are evident to every unprejudiced man; let us look at society in the narrow sense. All the most diverse sections of the educated public, hostile before, are merged in one. Every division is at an end, all the public organs say the same thing over and over again, all feel the mighty torrent that has overtaken them and is carrying them in one direction.' 'Yes, all the newspapers do say the same thing,' said the prince. 'That's true. But so it is the same thing that all the frogs croak before a storm.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  XII C ONNECTED with the conversation that had sprung up on the rights of women there were certain questions as to the inequality of rights in marriage improper to discuss before the ladies. Pestsov had several times during dinner touched upon these questions, but Sergey Ivanovitch and Stepan Arkadyevitch carefully drew him off them. When they rose from the table and the ladies had gone out, Pestsov did not follow them, but addressing Alexey Alexandrovitch, began to expound the chief ground of inequality. The inequality in marriage, in his opinion, lay in the fact that the infidelity of the wife and the infidelity of the husband are punished unequally, both by the law and by public opinion. Stepan Arkadyevitch went hurriedly up to Alexey Alexandrovitch and offered him a cigar. 'No, I don't smoke,' Alexey Alexandrovitch answered calmly, and as though purposely wishing to show that he was not afraid of the subject, he turned to Pestsov with a chilly smile. 'I imagine that such a view has a foundation in the very nature of things,' he said, and would have gone on to the drawing-room. But at this point Turovtsin broke suddenly and unexpectedly into the conversation, addressing Alexey Alexandrovitch. 'You heard, perhaps, about Pryatchnikov?' said Turovtsin, warmed up by the champagne he had drunk, and long waiting for an opportunity to break the silence that had weighed on him. 'Vasya Pryatchnikov,' he said, with a good-natured smile on his damp, red lips, addressing himself principally to the most important guest, Alexey Alexandrovitch, 'they told me today he fought a duel with Kvitsky at Tver, and has killed him.' Just as it always seems that one bruises oneself on a sore place, so Stepan Arkadyevitch felt now that the conversation would by ill luck fall every moment on Alexey Alexandrovitch's sore spot. He would again have got his brother-in-law away, but Alexey Alexandrovitch himself inquired, with curiosity— 'What did Pryatchnikov fight about?' 'His wife. Acted like a man, he did! Called him out and shot him!' 'Ah!' said Alexey Alexandrovitch indifferently, and lifting his eyebrows, he went into the drawing-room. 'How glad I am you have come,' Dolly said with a frightened smile, meeting him in the outer drawing-room. 'I must talk to you. Let's sit here.' Alexey Alexandrovitch, with the same expression of indifference, given him by his lifted eyebrows, sat down beside Darya Alexandrovna, and smiled affectedly. 'It's fortunate,' said he, 'especially as I was meaning to ask you to excuse me, and to be taking leave. I have to start tomorrow.' Darya Alexandrovna was firmly convinced of Anna's innocence, and she felt herself growing pale and her lips quivering with anger at this frigid, unfeeling man, who was so calmly intending to ruin her innocent friend. 'Alexey Alexandrovitch,' she said, with desperate resolution looking him in the face, 'I asked you about Anna; you made me no answer.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  And now what does he do? If he'd killed me, if he'd killed him, I could have borne anything, I could have forgiven anything; but no, he . . . How was it I didn't guess what he would do? He's doing just what's characteristic of his mean character. He'll keep himself in the right, while me, in my ruin, he'll drive still lower to worse ruin yet. . . .' She recalled the words from the letter. 'You can conjecture what awaits you and your son. . . .' 'That's a threat to take away my child, and most likely by their stupid law he can. But I know very well why he says it. He doesn't believe even in my love for my child, or he despises it (just as he always used to ridicule it). He despises that feeling in me, but he knows that I won't abandon my child, that I can't abandon my child, that there could be no life for me without my child, even with him whom I love; but that if I abandoned my child and ran away from him, I should be acting like the most infamous, basest of women. He knows that, and knows that I am incapable of doing that.' She recalled another sentence in the letter. 'Our life must go on as it has done in the past. . . .' 'That life was miserable enough in old days; it has been awful of late. What will it be now? And he knows all that; he knows that I can't repent that I breathe, that I love; he knows that it can lead to nothing but lying and deceit; but he wants to go on torturing me. I know him; I know that he's at home and is happy in deceit, like a fish swimming in the water. No, I won't give him that happiness. I'll break through the spider-web of lies in which he wants to catch me, come what may. Anything's better than lying and deceit.' 'But how? My God! my God! Was ever a woman so miserable as I am? . ..' 'No; I will break through it, I will break through it!' she cried, jumping up and keeping back her tears. And she went to the writingtable to write him another letter. But at the bottom of her heart she felt that she was not strong enough to break through anything, that she was not strong enough to get out of her old position, however false and dishonourable it might be. She sat down at the writing-table, but instead of writing she clasped her hands on the table, and, laying her head on them, burst into tears, with sobs and heaving breast like a child crying.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Considering and rejecting the duel, Alexey Alexandrovitch turned to divorce—another solution selected by several of the husbands he remembered. Passing in mental review all the instances he knew of divorces (there were plenty of them in the very highest society with which he was very familiar), Alexey Alexandrovitch could not find a single example in which the object of divorce was that which he had in view. In all these instances the husband had practically ceded or sold his unfaithful wife, and the very party which, being in fault, had not the right to contract a fresh marriage, had formed counterfeit, pseudo-matrimonial ties with a self- styled husband. In his own case, Alexey Alexandrovitch saw that a legal divorce, that is to say, one in which only the guilty wife would be repudiated, was impossible of attainment. He saw that the complex conditions of the life they led made the coarse proofs of his wife's guilt, required by the law, out of the question; he saw that a certain refinement in that life would not admit of such proofs being brought forward, even if he had them, and that to bring forward such proofs would damage him in the public estimation more than it would her. An attempt at divorce could lead to nothing but a public scandal, which would be a perfect godsend to his enemies for calumny and attacks on his high position in society. His chief object, to define the position with the least amount of disturbance possible, would not be attained by divorce either. Moreover, in the event of divorce, or even of an attempt to obtain a divorce, it was obvious that the wife broke off all relations with the husband and threw in her lot with the lover. And in spite of the complete, as he supposed, contempt and indifference he now felt for his wife, at the bottom of his heart Alexey Alexandrovitch still had one feeling left in regard to her—a disinclination to see her free to throw in her lot with Vronsky, so that her crime would be to her advantage. The mere notion of this so exasperated Alexey Alexandrovitch, that directly it rose to his mind he groaned with inward agony, and got up and changed his place in the carriage, and for a long while after he sat with scowling brows, wrapping his numbed and bony legs in the fleecy rug. 'Apart from formal divorce, one might still do like Karibanov, Paskudin, and that good fellow Dram—that is, separate from one's wife,' he went on thinking, when he had regained his composure. But this step too presented the same drawback of public scandal as a divorce, and what was more, a separation, quite as much as a regular divorce, flung his wife into the arms of Vronsky.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  The snipe showed themselves in numbers. They kept flying up from just under the dogs, from under the sportmen's legs, and Levin might have retrieved his ill-luck. But the more he shot, the more he felt disgraced in the eyes of Veslovsky, who kept popping away merrily and indiscriminately, killing nothing, and not in the slightest abashed by his ill-success. Levin, in feverish haste, could not restrain himself, got more and more out of temper, and ended by shooting almost without a hope of hitting. Laska, indeed, seemed to understand this. She began looking more languidly, and gazed back at the sportsmen, as it were, with perplexity or reproach in her eyes. Shots fol lowed shots in rapid succession. The smoke of the powder hung about the sportsmen, while in the great roomy net of the game-bag there were only three light little snipe. And of these one had been killed by Veslovsky alone, and one by both of them together. Meanwhile from the other side of the marsh came the sound of Stepan Arkadyevitch's shots, not frequent, but, as Levin fancied, well-directed, for almost after each they heard 'Krak, Krak, apporte !' This excited Levin still more. The snipe were floating continually in the air over the reeds. Their whirring wings close to the earth, and their harsh cries high in the air, could be heard on all sides; the snipe that had risen first and flown up into the air, settled again before the sportsmen. Instead of two hawks there were now dozens of them hovering with shrill cries over the marsh. After walking through the larger half of the marsh, Levin and Veslovsky reached the place where the peasants' mowing-grass was divided into long strips reaching to the reeds, marked off in one place by the trampled grass, in another by a path mown through it. Half of these strips had already been mown. Though there was not so much hope of finding birds in the uncut part as the cut part, Levin had promised Stepan Arkadyevitch to meet him, and so he walked on with his companion through the cut and uncut patches. 'Hi, sportsmen!' shouted one of a group of peasants, sitting on an unharnessed cart; 'come and have some lunch with us! Have a drop of wine!' Levin looked round. 'Come along, it's all right!' shouted a good-humoured-looking bearded peasant with a red face, showing his white teeth in a grin, and holding up a greenish bottle that flashed in the sunlight. 'Qu'est-ce qu'ils disent? asked Veslovsky. 'They invite you to have some vodka. Most likely they've been dividing the meadow into lots. I should have some,' said Levin, not without some guile, hoping Veslovsky would be tempted by the vodka, and would go away to them. 'Why do they offer it?' 'Oh, they're merry-making. Really, you should join them.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Anna, forgetting her inward agitation in the work of packing, was standing at a table in her boudoir, packing her travelling-bag, when Annushka called her attention to the rattle of some carriage driving up. Anna looked out of window and saw Alexey Alexandrovitch's courier on the steps, ringing at the front door bell. 'Run and find out what it is,' she said, and with a calm sense of being prepared for anything, she sat down in a low chair, folding her hands on her knees. A footman brought in a thick packet directed in Alexey Alexandrovitch's hand. 'The courier has orders to wait for an answer,' he said. 'Very well,' she said, and as soon as he had left the room she tore open the letter with trembling fingers. A roll of unfolded notes done up in a wrapper fell out of it. She disengaged the letter and began reading it at the end. 'Preparations shall be made for your arrival here. . . . I attach particular significance to compliance . . .' she read. She ran on, then back, read it all through, and once more read the letter all though again from the beginning. When she had finished she felt that she was cold all over, and that a fearful calamity, such as she had not expected, had burst upon her. In the morning she had regretted that she had spoken to her husband, and wished for nothing so much as that those words could be unspoken. And here this letter regarded them as unspoken, and gave her what she had wanted. But now this letter seemed to her more awful than anything she had been able to conceive. 'He's right!' she said; 'of course, he's always right; he's a Christian, he's generous! Yes, vile, base creature! And no one understands it except me, and no one ever will; and I can't explain it. They say he's so religious, so high-principled, so upright, so clever; but they don't see what I've seen. They don't know how he has crushed my life for eight years, crushed everything that was living in me—he has not once even thought that I'm a live woman who must have love. They don't know how at every step he's humiliated me, and been just as pleased with himself. Haven't I striven, striven with all my strength, to find something to give meaning to my life? Haven't I struggled to love him, to love my son when I could not love my husband? But the time came when I knew that I couldn't cheat myself any longer, that I was alive, that I was not to blame, that God has made me so that I must love and live.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  And here I am living on. The children are growing up, my husband has come back to his family, and feels his fault, is growing purer, better, and I live on. . . . I have forgiven it, and you ought to forgive!' Alexey Alexandrovitch heard her, but her words had no effect on him now. All the hatred of that day when he had resolved on a divorce had sprung up again in his soul. He shook himself, and said in a shrill, loud voice— 'Forgive I cannot, and do not wish to, and I regard it as wrong. I have done everything for this woman, and she has trodden it all in the mud to which she is akin. I am not a spiteful man, I have never hated anyone, but I hate her with my whole soul, and I cannot even forgive her, because I hate her too much for all the wrong she has done me!' he said, with tones of hatred in his voice. 'Love those that hate you . . .' Darya Alexandrovna whispered timorously. Alexey Alexandrovitch smiled contemptuously. That he knew long ago, but it could not be applied to this case. 'Love those that hate you, but to love those one hates is impossible. Forgive me for having troubled you. Everyone has enough to bear in his own grief!' And regaining his self-possession, Alexey Alexandrovitch quietly took leave and went away. XIII W HEN they rose from table, Levin would have liked to follow Kitty into the drawing-room; but he was afraid she might dislike this, as too obviously paying her attention. He remained in the little ring of men, taking part in the general conversation, and without looking at Kitty, he was aware of her movements, her looks, and the place where she was in the drawing-room. He did at once, and without the smallest effort, keep the promise he had made her—always to think well of all men, and to like everyone always. The conversation fell on the village commune, in which Pestsov saw a sort of special principle, called by him the 'choral' principle. Levin did not agree with Pestsov, nor with his brother, who had a special attitude of his own, both admitting and not admitting the significance of the Russian commune. But he talked to them, simply trying to reconcile and soften their differences. He was not in the least interested in what he said himself, and even less so in what they said; all he wanted was that they and everyone should be happy and contented. He knew now the one thing of importance; and that one thing was at first there, in the drawing-room, and then began moving across and came to a standstill at the door.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'All that I maintain is that the labour force ought to be investigated from the point of view of natural science; that is to say, it ought to be studied, its qualities ascertained . . . ' 'But that's utter waste of time. That force finds a certain form of activity of itself, according to the stage of its development. There have been slaves first everywhere, then metayers; and we have the half-crop system, rent, and day-labourers. What are you trying to find?' Levin suddenly lost his temper at these words, because at the bottom of his heart he was afraid that it was true—true that he was trying to hold the balance even between communism and the familiar forms, and that this was hardly possible. 'I am trying to find means of working productively for myself and for the labourers. I want to organise . . .' he answered hotly. 'You don't want to organise anything; it's simply just as you've been all your life, that you want to be original, to pose as not exploiting the peasants simply, but with some idea in view.' 'Oh, all right, that's what you think—and let me alone!' answered Levin, feeling the muscles of his left cheek twitching uncontrollably. 'You've never had, and never have, convictions; all you want is to please your vanity.' 'Oh, very well; then let me alone!' 'And I will let you alone! and it's high time I did, and go to the devil with you! and I'm very sorry I ever came!' In spite of all Levin's efforts to soothe his brother afterwards, Nikolay would listen to nothing he said, declaring that it was better to part, and Konstantin saw that it simply was that life was unbearable to him. Nikolay was just getting ready to go, when Konstantin went in to him again and begged him, rather unnaturally, to forgive him if he had hurt his feelings in any way. 'Ah, generosity!' said Nikolay, and he smiled. 'If you want to be right, I can give you that satisfaction. You're in the right; but I'm going all the same.' It was only just at parting that Nikolay kissed him, and said, looking with sudden strangeness and seriousness at his brother— 'Anyway, don't remember evil against me, Kostya!' and his voice quivered. These were the only words that had been spoken sincerely between them. Levin knew that those words meant, 'You see, and you know, that I'm in a bad way, and maybe we shall not see each other again.' Levin knew this, and the tears gushed from his eyes. He kissed his brother once more, but he could not speak, and knew not what to say. Three days after his brother's departure, Levin too set off for his foreign tour. Happening to meet Shtcherbatsky, Kitty's cousin, in the railway train, Levin greatly astonished him by his depression. 'What's the matter with you?' Shtcherbatsky asked him. 'Oh, nothing; there's not much happiness in life.'

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'The people make sacrifices and are ready to make sacrifices for their soul, but not for murder,' he added, instinctively connecting the conversation with the ideas that had been absorbing his mind. 'For their soul? That's a most puzzling expression for a natural science man, do you understand? What sort of thing is the soul?' said Katavasov, smiling. 'Oh, you know.' 'No, by God, I haven't the faintest idea!' said Katavasov with a loud roar of laughter. ' "I bring not peace, but a sword," says Christ,' Sergey Ivanovitch rejoined for his part, quoting as simply as though it were the easiest thing to understand the very passage that had always puzzled Levin most. 'That's so, no doubt,' the old man repeated again. He was standing near them and responded to a chance glance turned in his direction. 'Ah, my dear fellow, you're defeated, utterly defeated! cried Katavasov good humouredly. Levin reddened with vexation, not at being defeated, but at having failed to control himself and being drawn into argument. 'No, I can't argue with them,' he thought; 'they wear impenetrable armour, while I'm naked.' He saw that it was impossible to convince his brother and Katavasov, and he saw less possibility of himself agreeing with them. What they advocated was the very pride of intellect that had almost been his ruin. He could not admit that some dozens of men, among them his brother, had the right, on the ground of what they were told by some hundreds of glib volunteers swarming to the capital, to say that they and the newspapers were expressing the will and feeling of the people, and a feeling which was expressed in vengeance and murder. He could not admit this, because he neither saw the expression of such feelings in the people among whom he was living, nor found them in himself (and he could not but consider himself one of the persons making up the Russian people), and most of all because he, like the people, did not know and could not know what is for the general good, though he knew beyond a doubt that this general good could be attained only by the strict observance of that law of right and wrong which has been revealed to every man, and therefore he could not wish for war or advocate war for any general objects whatever. He said as Mihalitch did and the people, who had expressed their feeling in the traditional invitations of the Varyagi: 'Be princes and rule over us. Gladly we promise complete submission. All the labour, all humiliations, all sacrifices we take upon ourselves; but we will not judge and decide.' And now, according to Sergey Ivanovitch's account, the people had foregone this privilege they had bought at such a costly price.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'Well, you've not been dull?' he said, eagerly and good-humouredly, going up to her. 'What a terrible passion it is—gambling!' 'No, I've not been dull; I've learned long ago not to be dull. Stiva has been here and Levin.' 'Yes, they meant to come and see you. Well, how did you like Levin?' he said, sitting down beside her. 'Very much. They have not long been gone. What was Yashvin doing?' 'He was winning—seventeen thousand. I got him away. He had really started home, but he went back again, and now he's losing.' 'Then what did you stay for?' she asked, suddenly lifting her eyes to him. The. expression of her face was cold and ungracious. 'You told Stiva you were saying on to get Yashvin away. And you have left him there.' The same expression of cold readiness for the conflict appeared on his face too. 'In the first place, I did not ask him to give you any message; and secondly, I never tell lies. But what's the chief point, I wanted to stay, and I stayed,' he said, frowning. 'Anna, what is it for, why will you?' he said after a moment's silence, bending over towards her, and he opened his hand, hoping she would lay hers in it. She was glad of this appeal for tenderness. But some strange force of evil would not let her give herself up to her feelings, as though the rules of warfare would not permit her to surrender. 'Of course you wanted to stay, and you stayed. You do everything you want to. But what do you tell me that for? With what object?' she said, getting more and more excited. 'Does anyone contest your rights? But you want to be right, and you're welcome to be right.' His hand closed, he turned away, and his face wore a still more? obstinate expression. 'For you it's a matter of obstinacy,' she said, watching him intently and suddenly finding the right word for that expression that irritated her, 'simply obstinacy. For you it's a question of whether you keep the upper hand of me, while for me . . .' Again she felt sorry for herself, and she almost burst into tears. 'If you knew what it is for me! When I feel as I do now that you are hostile, yes, hostile to me, if you knew what this means for me! If you knew how I feel on the brink of calamity at this instant, how afraid I am of myself!' And she turned away, hiding her sobs. 'But what are you talking about?' he said, horrified at her expression of despair, and again bending over her, he took her hand and kissed it. 'What is it for? Do I seek amusements outside our home? Don't I avoid the society of women?'

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Levin said without much interest, for he had wanted to ask her advice, and so was annoyed that he had come at an unlucky moment. 'Grisha and she went into the raspberries, and there . . . I can't tell you really what she did. It's a thousand pities Miss Elliot's not with us. This one sees to nothing—she's a machine . . . Figurez-vous que la petite? …' And Darya Alexandrovna described Masha's crime. 'That proves nothing; it's not a question of evil propensities at all, it's simply mischief,' Levin assured her. 'But you are upset about something? What have you come for?' asked Dolly. 'What's going on there?' And in the tone of her question Levin heard that it would be easy for him to say what he had meant to say. 'I've not been in there, I've been alone in the garden with Kitty. We've had a quarrel for the second time since . . . Stiva came.' Dolly looked at him with her shrewd, comprehending eyes. 'Come, tell me, honour bright, has there been . . . not in Kitty, but in that gentleman's behaviour, a tone which might be unpleasant—not unpleasant, but horrible, offensive to a husband?' 'You mean, how shall I say . . . Stay, stay in the corner!' she said to Masha, who, detecting a faint smile on her mother's face, had been turning round. The opinion of the world would be that he is behaving as young men do behave. Il fait la cour à une jeune et jolie femme, and a husband who's a man of the world should only be flattered by it.' 'Yes, yes,' said Levin gloomily; 'but you noticed it?' 'Not only I, but Stiva noticed it. Just after breakfast he said to me in so many words, "Je crois que Veslovsky fait un petit brin de cour à Kitty."' 'Well, that's all right then; now I'm satisfied. I'll send him away,' said Levin. 'What do you mean! Are you crazy?' Dolly cried in horror; 'nonsense, Kostya, only think!' she said, laughing. 'You can go now to Fanny,' she said to Masha. 'No, if you wish it, I'll speak to Stiva. He'll take him away. He can say you're expecting visitors. Altogether he doesn't fit into the house.' 'No, no, I'll do it myself.' 'But you'll quarrel with him?' 'Not a bit. I shall so enjoy it,' Levin said, his eyes flashing with real enjoyment. 'Come, forgive her, Dolly, she won't do it again,' he said of the little sinner, who had not gone to Fanny, but was standing irresolutely before her mother, waiting and looking up from under her brows to catch her mother's eye. The mother, glanced at her. The child broke into sobs, hid her face on her mother's lap, and Dolly laid her thin, tender hand on her head. 'And what is there in common between us and him?' thought Levin, and he went off to look for Veslovsky.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  She knew that to him, although he was the primary cause of her distress, the question of her seeing her son would seem a matter of very little consequence. She knew that he would never be capable of understanding all the depth of her suffering, that for his cool tone at any allusion to it she would begin to hate him. And she dreaded that more than anything in the world, and so she hid from him everything that related to her son. Spending the whole day at home she considered ways of seeing her son, and had reached a decision to write to her husband. She was just composing this letter when she was handed the letter from Lidia Ivanovna. The countess's silence had subdued and depressed her, but the letter, all that she read between the lines in it, so exasperated her, this malice was so revolting beside her passionate, legitimate tenderness for her son, that she turned against other people and left off blaming herself. 'This coldness—this pretence of feeling!' she said to herself. 'They must needs insult me and torture the child, and I am to submit to it! Not on any consideration! She is worse than I am. I don't lie, anyway.' And she decided on the spot that next day, Seryozha's birthday, she would go straight to her husband's house, bribe or deceive the servants, but at any cost see her son and overturn the hideous deception with which they were encompassing the unhappy child. She went to a toy-shop, bought toys and thought over a plan of action. She would go early in the morning at eight o'clock, when Alexey Alexandrovitch would be certain not to be up. She would have money in her hand to give the hall-porter and the footman, so that they should let her in, and not raising her veil, she would say that she had come from Seryozha's godfather to congratulate him, and that she had been charged to leave the toys at his bedside. She had prepared everything but the words she should say to her son. Often as she had dreamed of it, she could never think of anything. The next day; at eight o'clock in the morning, Anna got out of a hired sledge and rang at the front entrance of her former home. 'Run and see what's wanted. Some lady,' said Kapitonitch, who, not yet dressed, in his overcoat and goloshes, had peeped out of window and seen a lady in a veil standing close up to the door. His assistant, a lad Anna did not know, had no sooner opened the door to her than she came in, and pulling a three-rouble note out of her muff put it hurriedly into his hand. 'Seryozha—Sergey Alexandrovitch,' she said, and was going on. Scrutinising the note, the porter's assistant stopped her at the second glass-door. 'Whom do you want?' he asked.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  She said something aloud, he says, something insulting, and went away.' 'Count, your maman is asking for you,' said the young Princess Sorokin, peeping out of the door of the box. 'I've been expecting you all the while,' said his mother, smiling sarcastically. 'You were nowhere to be seen.' Her son saw that she could not suppress a smile of delight. 'Good evening, maman. I have come to you,' he said coldly. 'Why aren't you going to faire la cour à Madame Karenin?' she went on, when Princess Sorokin had moved away. 'Elle fait sensation. On oublie la Patti pour elle.' 'Maman, I have asked you not to say anything to me of that,' he answered, scowling. 'I'm only saying what everyone's saying.' Vronsky made no reply, and saying a few words to Princess Sorokin, he went away. At the door he met his brother. 'Ah, Alexey!' said his brother. 'How disgusting! Idiot of a woman, nothing else. . . . I wanted to go straight to her. Let's go together.' Vronsky did not hear him. With rapid steps he went downstairs; he felt that he must do something, but he did not know what. Anger with her for having put herself and him in such a false position, together with pity for her suffering, filled his heart. He went down, and made straight for Anna's box. At her box stood Stremov, talking to her. 'There are no more tenors. Le moule en est brisé!' Vronsky bowed to her and stopped to greet Stremov. 'You came in late, I think, and have missed the best song,' Anna said to Vronsky, glancing ironically, he thought, at him. 'I am a poor judge of music,' he said, looking sternly at her. 'Like Prince Yashvin,' she said smiling, 'who considers that Patti sings too loud.' 'Thank you,' she said, her little hand in its long glove taking the playbill Vronsky picked up, and suddenly at that instant her lovely face quivered. She got up and went into the interior of the box. Noticing in the next act that her box was empty, Vronsky rousing indignant 'hushes' in the silent audience, went out in the middle of a solo and drove home. Anna was already at home. When Vronsky went up to her, she was in the same dress as she had worn at the theatre. She was sitting in the first armchair against the wall, looking straight before her. She looked at him, and at once resumed her former position. 'Anna,' he said. 'You, you are to blame for everything!' she cried, with tears of despair and hatred in her voice, getting up. 'I begged, I implored you not to go; I knew it would be unpleasant . . . ' 'Unpleasant!' she cried—'hideous! As long as I live I shall never forget it. She said it was a disgrace to sit beside me.' 'A silly woman's chatter,' he said; 'but why risk it, why provoke? . . .

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'I have no trouble.' 'Nonsense, Kitty. Do you suppose I could help knowing? I know all about it. And believe me, it's of so little consequence. . . . We've all been through it.' Kitty did not speak, and her face had a stern expression. 'He's not worth your grieving over him,' pursued Darya Alexandrovna, coming straight to the point. 'No, because he has treated me with contempt,' said Kitty, in a breaking voice. 'Don't talk of it! Please, don't talk of it!' 'But who can have told you so? No one has said that. I'm certain he was in love with you, and would still be in love with you, if it hadn't…' 'Oh, the most awful thing of all for me is this sympathising!' shrieked Kitty, suddenly flying into a passion. She turned round on her chair, flushed crimson, and rapidly moving her fingers, pinched the clasp of her belt first with one hand and then with the other. Dolly knew this trick her sister had of clenching her hands when she was much excited; she knew, too, that in moments of excitement Kitty was capable of forgetting herself and saying a great deal too much, and Dolly would have soothed her, but it was too late. 'What, what is it you want to make me feel, eh?' said Kitty quickly. 'That I've been in love with a man who didn't care a straw for me, and that I'm dying of love for him? And this is said to me by my own sister, who imagines that . . . that . . . that she's sympathising with me! . . . I don't want these condolences and humbug!' 'Kitty, you're unjust.' 'Why are you tormenting me?' 'But I . . . quite the contrary . . . I see you're unhappy….' But Kitty in her fury did not hear her. 'I've nothing to grieve over and be comforted about. I am too proud ever to allow myself to care for a man who does not love me.' 'Yes, I don't say so either….Only one thing. Tell me the truth,' said Darya Alexandrovna, taking her by the hand: 'tell me, did Levin speak to you? . . . ' The mention of Levin's name seemed to deprive Kitty of the last vestige of self-control. She leaped up from her chair, and flinging her clasp on the ground, she gesticulated rapidly with her hands and said— 'Why bring Levin in too? I can't understand what you want to torment me for.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'Look how natural and sweet it all is.' 'It's so funny to see your engouements,' said the princess. 'No, we'd better go back,' she added, noticing Levin coming towards them with his companion and a German doctor, to whom he was talking very noisily and angrily. They turned to go back, when suddenly they heard, not noisy talk, but shouting. Levin, stopping short, was shouting at the doctor, and the doctor, too, was excited. A crowd gathered about them. The princess and Kitty beat a hasty retreat, while the colonel joined the crowd to find out what was the matter. A few minutes later the colonel overtook them. 'What was it?' inquired the princess. 'Scandalous and disgraceful!' answered the colonel. 'The one thing to be dreaded is meeting Russians abroad. That tall gentleman was abusing the doctor, flinging all sorts of insults at him because he wasn't treating him quite as he liked, and he began waving his stick at him. It's simply a scandal!' 'Oh, how unpleasant!' said the princess. 'Well, and how did it end?' 'Luckily at that point that. . . the one in the mushroom hat. . . intervened. A Russian lady, I think she is,' said the colonel. 'Mademoiselle Varenka?' asked Kitty. 'Yes, yes. She came to the rescue before anyone; she took the man by the arm and led him away.' 'There, mamma,' said Kitty; 'you wonder that I'm enthusiastic about her.' The next day, as she watched her unknown friend, Kitty noticed that Mademoiselle Varenka was already on the same terms with Levin and his companion as with her other protégés. She went up to them, entered into conversation with them, and served as interpreter for the woman, who could not speak any foreign language. Kitty began to entreat her mother still more urgently to let her make friends with Varenka. And, disagreeable as it was to the princess to seem to take the first step in wishing to make the acquaintance of Madame Stahl, who thought fit to give herself airs, she made in quiries about Varenka, and, having ascertained particulars about her tending to prove that there could be no harm though little good in the acquaintance, she herself approached Varenka and made acquaintance with her. Choosing a time when her daughter had gone to the spring, while Varenka had stopped outside the baker's, the princess went up to her. 'Allow me to make your acquaintance,' she said, with her dignified smile. 'My daughter has lost her heart to you,' she said. 'Possibly you do not know me. I am . . . ' 'That feeling is more than reciprocal, princess,' Varenka answered hurriedly. 'What a good deed you did yesterday to our poor compatriot!' said the princess. Varenka flushed a little. 'I don't remember. I don't think I did anything,' she said. 'Why, you saved that Levin from disagreeable consequences.'

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'Well, what do you say? Can sowing begin?' he asked, after a pause. 'Behind Turkin tomorrow or next day they might begin.' 'And the clover?' 'I've sent Vassily and Mishka; they're sowing. Only I don't know if they'll manage to get through; it's so slushy.' 'How many acres?' 'About fifteen.' 'Why not sow all?' cried Levin. That they were only sowing the clover on fifteen acres, not in all the forty-five, was still more annoying to him. Clover, as he knew, both from books and from his own experience, never did well except when it was sown as early as possible, almost in the snow. And yet Levin could never get this done. 'There's no one to send. What would you have with such a set of peasants? Three haven't turned up. And there's Semyon . . . ' 'Well, you should have taken some men from the thatching.' 'And so I have, as it is.' 'Where are the peasants, then?' 'Five are making compôte' (which meant compost), 'four are shifting the oats for fear of a touch of mildew, Konstantin Dmitritch.' Levin knew very well that 'a touch of mildew' meant that his English seed oats were already ruined. Again they had not done as he had ordered. 'Why, but I told you during Lent to put pipes,' he cried. 'Don't put yourself out; we shall get it all done in time.' Levin waved his hand angrily, went into the granary to glance at the oats, and then to the stable. The oats were not yet spoiled. But the peasants were carrying the oats in spades when they might simply let them slide down into the lower granary; and arranging for this to be done, and taking two workmen from there for sowing clover, Levin got over his vexation with the bailiff. Indeed, it was such a lovely day that one could not be angry. 'Ignat!' he called to the coachman, who, with his sleeves tucked up, was washing the carriage wheels, 'saddle me . . . ' 'Which, sir?' 'Well, let it be Kolpik.' 'Yes, sir.' While they were saddling his horse, Levin again called up the bailiff, who was hanging about in sight, to make it up with him, and began talking to him about the spring operations before them, and his plans for the farm. The wagons were to begin carting manure earlier, so as to get all done before the early mowing. And the ploughing of the further land to go on without a break so as to let it ripen lying fallow. And the mowing to be all done by hired labour, not on half-profits. The bailiff listened attentively, and obviously made an affort to approve of his employer's projects. But still he had that look Levin knew so well that always irritated him, a look of hopelessness and despondency. That look said: 'That's all very well, but as God wills.' Nothing mortified Levin so much as that tone.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  He smiled his chilly smile. 'There's so much splendour here that one's eyes are dazzled,' he said, and he went into the pavilion. He smiled to his wife as a man should smile on meeting his wife after only just parting from her, and greeted the princess and other acquaintances, giving to each what was due—that is to say, jesting with the ladies and dealing out friendly greetings among the men. Below, near the pavilion, was standing an adjutant-general of whom Alexey Alexandrovitch had a high opinion, noted for his intelligence and culture. Alexey Alexandrovitch entered into conversation with him. There was an interval between the races, and so nothing hindered conversation. The adjutant-general expressed his disapproval of races. Alexey Alexandrovitch replied defending them. Anna heard his high, measured tones, not losing one word, and every word struck her as false, and stabbed her ears with pain. When the three-mile steeplechase was beginning, she bent forward and gazed with fixed eyes at Vronsky as he went up to his horse and mounted, and at the same time she heard that loathsome, never-ceasing voice of her husband. She was in an agony of terror for Vronsky, but a still greater agony was the never-ceasing, as it seemed to her, stream of her husband's shrill voice with its familiar intonations. 'I'm a wicked woman, a lost woman,' she thought; 'but I don't like lying, I can't endure falsehood, while as for him (her husband) it's the breath of his life—falsehood. He knows all about it, he sees it all; what does he care if he can talk so calmly? If he were to kill me, if he were to kill Vronsky, I might respect him. No, all he wants is falsehood and propriety,' Anna said to herself, not considering exactly what it was she wanted of her husband, and how she would have liked to see him behave. She did not understand either that Alexey Alexandrovitch's peculiar loquacity that day, so exasperating to her, was merely the expression of his inward distress and uneasiness. As a child that has been hurt skips about, putting all his muscles into movement to drown the pain, in the same way Alexey Alexandrovitch needed mental exercise to drown the thoughts of his wife that in her presence and in Vronsky's, and with the continual iteration of his name, would force themselves on his attention. And it was as natural for him to talk well and cleverly, as it is natural for a child to skip about. He was saying— 'Danger in the races of officers, of cavalry men, is an essential element in the race. If England can point to the most brilliant feats of cavalry in military history, it is simply owing to the fact that she has historically developed this force both in beasts and in men.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  An arbitrator of disputes is no use to me. I never appeal to him, and never shall appeal to him. The schools are no good to me, but positively harmful, as I told you. For me the district institutions simply mean the liability to pay fourpence halfpenny for every three acres, to drive into the town, sleep with bugs, and listen to all sorts of idiocy and loathsomeness, and self-interest offers me no inducement.' 'Excuse me,' Sergey Ivanovitch interposed with a smile, 'self-interest did not induce us to work for the emancipation of the serfs, but we did work for it.' 'No!' Konstantin Levin broke in with still greater heat; 'the emancipation of the serfs was a different matter. There self-interest did come in. One longed to throw off that yoke that crushed us, all decent people among us. But to be a town-councillor and discuss how many dustmen are needed, and how chimneys shall be constructed in the town in which I don't live—to serve on a jury and try a peasant who's stolen a flitch of bacon, and listen for six hours at a stretch to all sorts of jabber from the counsel for the defence and the prosecution, and the president cross-examining my old half-witted Alioshka, "Do you admit, prisoner in the dock, the fact of the removal of the bacon?" "Eh?"' Konstantin Levin had warmed to his subject, and began mimicking the president and the half-witted Alioshka: it seemed to him that it was all to the point. But Sergey Ivanovitch shrugged his shoulders. 'Well, what do you mean to say, then?' 'I simply mean to say that those rights that touch me . . . my interest, I shall always defend to the best of my ability; that when they made raids on us students, and the police read our letters, I was ready to defend those rights to the utmost, to defend my rights to education and freedom. I can understand compulsory military service, which affects my children, my brothers, and myself, I am ready to deliberate on what concerns me; but deliberating on how to spend forty thousand roubles of district council money, or judging the half-wined Alioshka— I don't understand, and I can't do it.' Konstantin Levin spoke as though the floodgates of his speech had burst open. Sergey Ivanovitch smiled. 'But tomorrow it'll be your turn to be tried; would it have suited your tastes better to be tried in the old criminal tribunal?' 'I'm not going to be tried. I shan't murder anybody, and I've no need of it.