Contentment

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.

Page 2 of 189 · 20 per page

• From Sex at Dawn (2010)

  There is no expectation of commitment, and any child she conceives is raised in her mother’s house, with the help of the girl’s brothers and the rest of the community. Recalling her childhood, Yang Erche Namu echoes Malidoma Patrice Somé’s description of his African childhood, explaining, “We children could roam at our own will and visit from house to house and village to village without our mothers’ ever fearing for our safety. Every adult was responsible for every child, and every child in turn was respectful of every adult.” 7 Among the Mosuo, a man’s sisters’ children are considered his paternal responsibility—not those who may (or may not) be the fruit of his own nocturnal visits to various flower rooms. Here we see another society in which male parental investment is unrelated to biological paternity. In the Mosuo language, the word Awu translates to both father and uncle. “In place of one father, Mosuo children have many uncles who take care of them. In a way,” writes Yang Erche Namu, “we also have many mothers, because we call our aunts by the name azhe Ami, which means ‘little mother.’ “ 8 In a twist that should send many mainstream theorists into a tailspin, sexual relations are kept strictly separate from Mosuo family relations. At night, Mosuo men are expected to sleep with their lovers. If not, they sleep in one of the outer buildings, never in the main house with their sisters. Custom prohibits any talk of love or romantic relationships in the family home. Complete discretion is expected from everyone. While both men and women are free to do as they will, they’re expected to respect one another’s privacy. There’s no kissing and telling at Lugu Lake. The mechanics of the açia relationships, as they are referred to by Mosuo, are characterized by a sacred regard for each individual’s autonomy—whether man or woman. 9 Cai Hua, a Chinese anthropologist and author of A Society without Fathers or Husbands, explains, “Not only do men and women have the freedom to foster as many açia relationships as they want and to end them as they please, but each person can have simultaneous relationships with several açia, whether it be during one night or over a longer period.” These relationships are discontinuous, lasting only as long as the two people are in each other’s presence. “Each visitor’s departure from the woman’s home is taken to be the end of their açia relationship,” according to Cai Hua. “There is no concept of açia that applies to the future. The açia relationship … only exists instantaneously and retrospectively,” although a couple may repeat their visits as often as they wish. 10 Particularly libidinous Mosuo women and men unashamedly report having had hundreds of relationships. Shame, from their perspective, would be the proper response to promises of or demands for fidelity. A vow of fidelity would be considered inappropriate—an attempt at negotiation or exchange.

• From Sex at Dawn (2010)

  This premarital “service” includes sequential sex with fifteen to twenty men. If the bride-to-be does well, she’ll earn payments of meat from the men, which will be paid directly to her future mother-in-law on a festival day. Cacilda Jethá (coauthor of this book) conducted a World Health Organization study of sexual behavior among villagers in rural Mozambique in 1990. She found that the 140 men in her study group were involved with 87 women as wives, 252 other women as long-term sexual partners, and 226 additional women on an occasional basis, working out to an average of four ongoing sexual relationships per man, not counting the unreported casual encounters many of these men likely experienced as well. Among the Warao, a group living in the forests of Brazil, ordinary relations are suspended periodically and replaced by ritual relations, known as mamuse. During these festivities, adults are free to have sex with whomever they like. These relationships are honorable and believed to have a positive effect upon any children that might result. In his fascinating profile of the Pirahã and a scientist who studies them, journalist John Colapinto reports that “though [they] do not allow marriage outside their tribe, they have long kept their gene pool refreshed by permitting their women to sleep with outsiders.” 12 Among the Siriono, it’s common for brothers to marry sisters, forming an altogether different sort of Brady Bunch. The marriage itself takes place without any sort of ceremony or ritual: no exchanges of property or vows, not even a feast. Just rehang your hammocks next to the women’s and you’re married, boys. This casual approach to what anthropologists call “marriage” is anything but unusual. Early explorers, whalers, and fur trappers of the frigid north found the Inuit to be jaw-droppingly hospitable hosts. Imagine their confused gratitude when they realized the village headman was offering his own bed (wife included) to the weary, freezing traveler. In fact, the welcome Knud Ramusen and others had stumbled into was a system of spouse exchange central to Inuit culture, with clear advantages in that unforgiving climate. Erotic exchange played an important role in linking families from distant villages in a durable web of certain aid in times of crisis. Though the harsh ecology of the Arctic dictated a much lower population density than the Amazon or even the Kalahari Desert, extra-pair sexual interaction helped cement bonds that offered the same insurance against unforeseen difficulties. None of this behavior is considered adultery by the people involved. But then, adultery is as slippery a term as marriage. It’s not just thy neighbor’s wife who can lead a man astray, but thine own as well.

• From Sex at Dawn (2010)

  Then watch what happens. As with bonobos, where female coalitions are the ultimate social authority and individual females need not fear the larger males, human societies in which women are “sassy and confident,” as Barnes described the Mosuo girls—free to express their minds and sexuality without fear of shame or persecution—tend to be far more comfortable places for most men than societies ruled by a male elite. Maybe matriarchal societies are so difficult for Western male anthropologists to recognize because they expect a culture where men are suffering under the high heels of women—a reverse reflection of the long-standing male oppression of women in Western cultures. Instead, observing a society where most of the men are lounging about relaxed and happy, they conclude they’ve found yet another patriarchy, thereby missing the point entirely. The March of the Monogamous The idea of monogamy hasn’t so much been tried and found wanting, as found difficult and left untried. G. K. C HESTERTON The surprise box-office hit of 2005 was a film called March of the Penguins. The second-biggest money-making documentary to date, viewers were touched by its depiction of the extreme dedication penguin couples showed in nurturing their adorable penguin pups. Many viewers saw their own marriages reflected in the penguins’ sacrifice for their offspring and for each other. As one reviewer put it, “It’s impossible to watch the thousands of penguins huddled together against the icy Antarctic blasts … without feeling a tug of anthropomorphic kinship.” Churches across the United States reserved cinemas for private screenings for their congregations. Rich Lowry, editor of The National Review , told a conference of young Republicans, “Penguins are the really ideal example of monogamy. The dedication of these birds is amazing.” Adam Leipzig, president of National Geographic Feature Films, declared the penguins “model parents,” continuing, “What they go through to look after their children is phenomenal, and no parent who sees it will ever complain about the school run. There are parallels with human nature and it’s moving to see.” 18 But unlike the birds themselves, penguin sexuality is not all black and white. That perfect penguin pair, that “ideal example of monogamy,” those “model parents” are monogamous only as long as it takes to get their little one out of the egg, off the ice, and into the frigid Antarctic water—a little less than a year. If you’ve seen the film, you know that with all the trekking back and forth across the windswept ice and huddling against raging Antarctic blizzards, there’s not much in the way of extramarital temptation anyway. Once Junior is swimming with the other eleven-month-olds—the penguin equivalent of kindergarten—fidelity is quickly forgotten, divorce is quick, automatic, and painless, and Mom and Dad are back on the penguin prowl.

• From Sex at Dawn (2010)

  When Le Jeune tried to explain the advantages of saving some of their food, “They laughed at me. ‘Tomorrow’ (they said) ‘we shall make another feast with what we shall capture.’ “ 12 Israeli anthropologist Nurit Bird-David explains, “Just as Westerners’ behaviour is understandable in relation to their assumption of shortage, so hunter-gatherers’ behaviour is understandable in relation to their assumption of affluence. Moreover, just as we analyze, even predict, Westerners’ behavior by presuming that they behave as if they did not have enough, so we can analyze, even predict, hunter-gatherers’ behaviour by presuming that they behave as if they had it made [emphasis added].” 13 While farmers toil to grow rice, potatoes, wheat, or corn, a forager’s diet is characterized by a variety of nutritious plants and critters. But how much work is foraging? Is it an efficient way to get a meal? Archaeologist David Madsen investigated the energy efficiency of foraging for Mormon crickets (Anabrus simplex), which had been on the menu of the local native people in present-day Utah. His group collected crickets at a rate of about eighteen crunchy pounds per hour. At that rate, Madsen calculated that in just an hour’s work, a forager could collect the caloric equivalent of eighty-seven chili dogs, forty-nine slices of pizza, or forty-three Big Macs—without all the heart-clogging fats and additives. 14 Before you scoff at the culinary appeal of Mormon crickets, give some thought to the frightening reality lurking within a typical chili dog. Another study found that the !Kung San (in the Kalahari desert, mind you) had an average daily intake (in a good month) of 2,140 calories and ninety-three grams of protein. Marvin Harris puts it simply: “Stone age populations lived healthier lives than did most of the people who came immediately after them.” 15 And maybe healthier than people who came long after them, too. The castles and museums of Europe are full of suits of armor too small to fit any but the most diminutive of modern men. While our medieval ancestors were shrimpy by modern standards, archaeologist Timothy Taylor believes that the human ancestors who first controlled fire—about 1.4 million years ago—were taller than the average person today. Skeletons dug up in Greece and Turkey show that pre-agricultural men in those areas were about five foot nine on average, with women being about five foot five. But with the adoption of agriculture, average height plummeted. Modern Greeks and Turks still aren’t as tall, on average, as their ancient ancestors. Throughout the world, the shift to agriculture accompanied a dramatic drop in the quality of most people’s diets and overall health. Describing what he terms “the worst mistake in human history,” Jared Diamond writes, “Hunter-gatherers practiced the most successful and longest-lasting life style in human history. In contrast,” he concludes, “we’re still struggling with the mess into which agriculture has tumbled us, and it’s unclear whether we can solve it.”

• From Sex at Dawn (2010)

  Sassy and confident, [a Mosuo girl will] grow up cherished in a circle of male and female relatives…. When she joins the dances and invites a boy into her flower room, it will be for love, or lust, or whatever people call it when they are operating on hormones and heavy breathing. She will not need that boy—or any other—to have a home, to make a “family.” She already knows that she will always have both. 12 The Mosuo approach to love and sex may well finally be destroyed by the hordes of Han Chinese tourists who threaten to turn Lugu Lake into a theme-park version of Mosuo culture. But the Mosuo’s persistence in the face of decades—if not centuries—of extreme pressure to conform to what many scientists still insist is human nature stands as a proud, undeniable counter-example to the standard narrative. Mosuo woman (Photo: Jim Goodman) Mosuo women (Photo: Sachi Cunningham/www.germancamera.com) On the Inevitability of Patriarchy Despite societies like the Mosuo’s in which women are autonomous and play crucial roles in maintaining social and economic stability, and plentiful evidence from dozens of foraging societies in which females enjoy high status and respect, many scientists rigidly insist that all societies are and always have been patriarchal. In Why Men Rule (originally titled The Inevitability of Patriarchy), sociologist Steven Goldberg provides an example of this absolutist view, writing, “Patriarchy is universal…. Indeed, of all social institutions there is probably none whose universality is so totally agreed upon…. There is not, nor has there ever been, any society that even remotely failed to associate authority and leadership in suprafamilial areas with the male. There are no borderline cases.” 13 Strong words. Yet, in 247 pages, Goldberg fails to mention the Mosuo even once. Goldberg does mention the Minangkabau of West Sumatra, Indonesia, but only in an appendix, where he cites two passages from others’ research. The first, dating to 1934, says that men are generally served food before women. From this, Goldberg concludes that males wield superior power in Minangkabau society. This is as logically consistent as concluding that Western societies must be matriarchal because men often hold doors open for women, allowing them to pass first. The second passage Goldberg cites is from a paper co-authored by anthropologist Peggy Reeves Sanday, suggesting that the Minangkabau men have some degree of authority in the application of various aspects of traditional law. Minangkabau woman and girls (Photo: Christopher Ryan) 14 There are two big problems with Goldberg’s application of Sanday’s work. First, there is no inherent contradiction between claiming that a society is not patriarchal and yet that men do enjoy various types of authority.

• From Sex at Dawn (2010)

  The standard narrative holds that this is when long-term pair bonding began in our species: if each male could have only one female mate at a time, most males would end up with a girl to call their own. Indeed, where there is debate about the nature of innate human sexuality, the only two acceptable options appear to be that humans evolved to be either monogamous (M–F) or polygynous (M–FFF+)—with the conclusion normally being that women generally prefer the former configuration while most men would opt for the latter. But what about multiple mating, where most males and females have more than one concurrent sexual relationship? Why—apart from moral disgust—is prehistoric promiscuity not even considered, when nearly every relevant source of evidence points in that direction? After all, we know that the foraging societies in which human beings evolved were small-scale, highly egalitarian groups who shared almost everything. There is a remarkable consistency to how immediate return foragers live—wherever they are. * The !Kung San of Botswana have a great deal in common with Aboriginal people living in outback Australia and tribes in remote pockets of the Amazon rainforest. Anthropologists have demonstrated time and again that immediate-return hunter-gatherer societies are nearly universal in their fierce egalitarianism. Sharing is not just encouraged; it’s mandatory. Hoarding or hiding food, for example, is considered deeply shameful, almost unforgivable behavior in these societies. 9 Foragers divide and distribute meat equitably, breastfeed one another’s babies, have little or no privacy from one another, and depend upon each other for survival. As much as our social world revolves around notions of private property and individual responsibility, theirs spins in the opposite direction, toward group welfare, group identity, profound interrelation, and mutual dependence. Though this may sound like naïve New Age idealism, whining over the lost Age of Aquarius, or a celebration of prehistoric communism, not one of these features of pre-agricultural societies is disputed by serious scholars. The overwhelming consensus is that egalitarian social organization is the de-facto system for foraging societies in all environments. In fact, no other system could work for foraging societies. Compulsory sharing is simply the best way to distribute risk to everyone’s benefit: participation mandatory. Pragmatic? Yes. Noble? Hardly. We believe this sharing behavior extended to sex as well.

• From Sex at Dawn (2010)

  They noted that most households held three generations, that older folks commanded great respect, and that the community disdained any display of wealth, showing a “fear of ostentation derived from an ancient belief among Italian villagers relating to maloccio (the evil eye). Children,” Wolf wrote, “were taught that any display of wealth or superiority over a neighbor would bring bad luck.” Noting that Roseto’s egalitarian social bonds were already breaking down in the mid-1960s, Wolf and Bruhn predicted that within a generation, the town’s mortality rates would start to shift upward. In follow-up studies they conducted 25 years later, they reported, “The most striking social change was a widespread rejection of a long standing taboo against ostentation,” and that “sharing, once typical of Roseto, had given way to competition.” Rates of both heart disease and stroke had doubled in a generation. 19 Among foragers, where property is shared, poverty tends to be a nonissue. In his classic book Stone Age Economics, anthropologist Marshall Sahlins explains that “the world’s most primitive people have few possessions, but they are not poor. Poverty is not a certain small amount of goods, nor is it just a relation between means and ends; above all it is a relation between people. Poverty is a social status. As such it is the invention of civilization.” 20 Socrates made the same point 2,400 years ago: “He is richest who is content with least, for contentment is the wealth of nature.” But the wealth of civilization is material. After reading every word of the Old Testament, journalist David Plotz was struck by its mercantile tone. “The overarching theme of the Bible,” he wrote, “particularly of Genesis, is real estate. God is … constantly making land deals (and then remaking them, on different terms)…. It’s not just land that the Bible is obsessed with, but also portable property: gold, silver, livestock.” 21 Malthus and Darwin were both struck by the characteristic egalitarianism of foragers, the former writing, “Among most of the American tribes … so great a degree of equality prevailed that all the members of each community would be nearly equal sharers in general hardships of savage life and in the pressure of occasional famines.”

• From Sex at Dawn (2010)

  It’s win-win or everybody loses. * All names and identifying details have been changed. Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Confronting the Sky Together Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being “in love” which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away … —Louis de Bernières, Correlli’s Mandolin There is a cost … for the society that insists on conformity to a particular range of heterosexual practices. We believe that cultures can be rationally designed. We can teach and reward and coerce. But in so doing we must also consider the price of each culture, measured in the time and energy required for training and enforcement and in the less tangible currency of human happiness that must be spent to circumvent our innate predispositions. E. O. W ILSON 1 So now what? Having written this whole book about sex, we’d like to confusingly suggest that most of us take sex way too seriously: when it’s just sex, that’s all it is. In such cases, it’s not love. Or sin. Or pathology. Or a good reason to destroy an otherwise happy family. Like the Victorians, most contemporary Western societies inflate the inherent value of sex by restricting supply (“Good girls don’t”) and inflating demand (Girls Gone Wild). This process leads to a distorted vision of just how important sex actually is. Yes, sex is essential, but it’s not something that must always be taken so seriously. Think of food, water, oxygen, shelter, and all the other elements of life crucial to survival and happiness but that don’t figure in our day-to-day thinking unless they become unavailable. A reasonable relaxation of moralistic social codes making sexual satisfaction more easily available would also make it less problematic. This appears to be the overall trajectory of history. While many are perplexed and disturbed by the “hooking up” culture, the sexting of racy images back and forth, full recognition of all legal rights for gay male and lesbian couples, and so on, there’s not much they can do to stop any of it for long. In terms of sexuality, history appears to be flowing back toward a hunter-gatherer casualness. If so, future generations may suffer fewer pathological manifestations of sexual frustration and unnecessarily fractured families. Concerning the Siriono, with whom he lived, Holmberg writes, “The Siriono rarely, if ever, lack for sexual partners. Whenever the sex drive is up, there is almost always an available partner willing to reduce it…. Sex anxiety seems to be remarkably low in Siriono society. Such manifestations as excessive indulgence, continence, or sex dreams and fantasies are rarely encountered.”

• From Sex at Dawn (2010)

  22 For his part, Darwin recognized the inherent conflict between the capital-based civilization he knew and what he saw as the natives’ self-defeating generosity, writing, “Nomadic habits, whether over wide plains, or through the dense forests of the tropics, or along the shores of the sea, have in every case been highly detrimental…. The perfect equality of all the inhabitants,” he wrote, “will for many years prevent their civilization.” 23 Finding Contentment “at the Bottom of the Scale of Human Beings” Looking for an example of the world’s most downtrodden, pathetic, desperately poor “savages,” Malthus cited “the wretched inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego” who had been judged by European travelers to be “at the bottom of the scale of human beings.” Just thirty years later Charles Darwin was in Tierra del Fuego, observing these same people. He agreed with Malthus concerning the Fuegians, writing in his journal, “I believe if the world was searched, no lower grade of man could be found.” As chance would have it, Captain Robert FitzRoy of the Beagle— the ship on which Darwin was sailing—had picked up three young Fuegians on an earlier voyage, and brought them back to England to introduce them to the glories of British life and a proper Christian education. Now, after they’d experienced firsthand the superiority of civilized living, FitzRoy was returning them to their own people to serve as missionaries. The plan was for them to show the Fuegians the folly of their “savage” ways and help them join the civilized world. But just a year after Jemmy, York, and Fuegia had been returned to their people at Woollya cove, near the base of what is now called Mount Darwin, the Beagle and her crew returned to find the huts and gardens the British sailors had built for the three Fuegians deserted and overgrown. Eventually, Jemmy appeared and explained that he and the other Christianized Fuegians had reverted to their former way of living. Darwin, overcome with sadness, wrote in his journal that he’d never seen “so complete & grievous a change” and that “it was painful to behold him.” They brought Jemmy aboard the ship and dressed him for dinner at the captain’s table, much relieved to see that he at least remembered how to use a knife and fork properly. Captain FitzRoy offered to bring him back to England, but Jemmy declined, saying he had “not the least wish to return to England” as he was “happy and contented” with “plenty fruits,” “plenty fish,” and “plenty birdies.” Remember the Yucatán. What looks like even extreme poverty—“the bottom of the scale of human beings”—may contain unrecognizable forms of wealth. Recall the “starving” Australian Aboriginal people, happily roasting low-fat rats and noshing on juicy grubs as revolted Englishmen looked on, certain they were witnessing the last demented spasms of starvation.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Words for him took away the beauty of what he saw. He assented to what his brother said, but he could not help beginning to think of other things. When they came out of the woods, all his attention was engrossed by the view of the fallow-land on the upland, in parts yellow with grass, in parts trampled and chequered with furrows, in parts dotted with ridges of dung, and in parts even ploughed. A string of carts was moving across it. Levin counted the carts, and was pleased that all that were wanted had been brought, and at the sight of the meadows his thoughts passed to the mowing. He always felt something special moving him to the quick at the hay-making. On reaching the meadow Levin stopped the horse. The morning dew was still lying on the thick undergrowth of the grass, and that he might not get his feet wet, Sergey Ivanovitch asked his brother to drive him in the trap up to the willow-tree from which the carp was caught. Sorry as Konstantin Levin was to crush down his mowing-grass, he drove him into the meadow. The high grass softly turned about the wheels and the horse's legs, leaving its seeds clinging to the wet axles and spokes of the wheels. His brother seated himself under a bush, arranging his tackle, while Levin led the horse away, fastened him up, and walked into the vast grey-green sea of grass unstirred by the wind. The silky grass with its ripe seeds came almost to his waist in the dampest spots. Crossing the meadow, Konstantin Levin came out on to the road, and met an old man with a swollen eye, carrying a skep on his shoulder. 'What? Taken a stray swarm, Fomitch?' he asked. 'No, indeed, Konstantin Mitritch! All we can do to keep our own! This is the second swarm that has flown away. . . . Luckily the lads caught them. They were ploughing your field. They unyoked the horses and galloped after them.' 'Well, what do you say, Fomitch—start mowing or wait a bit?' 'Eh, well! Our way's to wait till St. Peter's Day. But you always mow sooner. Well, to be sure, please God, the hay's good. There'll be plenty for the beasts.' 'What do you think about the weather?' 'That's in God's hands. Maybe it will be fine.' Levin went up to his brother. Sergey Ivanovitch had caught nothing, but he was not bored, and seemed in the most cheerful frame of mind. Levin saw that, stimulated by his conversation with the doctor, he wanted to talk. Levin, on the other hand, would have liked to get home as soon as possible to give orders about getting together the mowers for next day, and to set at rest his doubts about the mowing, which greatly absorbed him. 'Well, let's be going,' he said.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  The dresses had to be altered so that they could not be recognised, and they ought to have been ready three days before. It appeared that two dresses had not been done at all, while the other one had not been altered as Anna had intended. The dressmaker came to explain, declaring that it would be better as she had done it, and Anna was so furious that she felt ashamed when she thought of it afterwards. To regain her serenity completely she went into the nursery, and spent the whole evening with her son, put him to bed herself, signed him with the cross, and tucked him up. She was glad she had not gone out anywhere, and had spent the evening so well. She felt so light-hearted and serene, she saw so clearly that all that had seemed to her so important on her railway journey was only one of the common trivial incidents of fashionable life, and that she had no reason to feel ashamed before anyone else or before herself. Anna sat down at the hearth with an English novel and waited for her husband. Exactly at half-past nine she heard his ring, and he came into the room. 'Here you are at last!' she observed, holding out her hand to him. He kissed her hand and sat down beside her. 'Altogether then, I see your visit was a success,' he said to her. 'Oh yes,' she said, and she began telling him about everything from the beginning: her journey with Countess Vronsky, her arrival, the accident at the station. Then she described the pity she had felt, first for her brother, and afterwards for Dolly. 'I imagine one cannot exonerate such a man from blame, though he is your brother,' said Alexey Alexandrovitch severely. Anna smiled. She knew that he said that simply to show that family considerations could not prevent him from expressing his genuine opinion. She knew that characteristic in her husband, and liked it. 'I am glad it has all ended so satisfactorily, and that you are back again,' he went on. 'Come, what do they say about the new act I have got passed in the council?' Anna had heard nothing of this act, and she felt conscience-stricken at having been able so readily to forget what was to him of such importance. 'Here, on the other hand, it has made a great sensation,' he said, with a complacent smile. She saw Alexey Alexandrovitch wanted to tell her something pleasant to him about it, and she brought him by questions to telling it. With the same complacent smile he told her of the ovations he had received in consequence of the act he had passed. 'I was very, very glad.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  But in her family she was strict in carrying out all that was required by the Church—and not merely in order to set an example, but with all her heart in it. The fact that the children had not been at the sacrament for nearly a year worried her extremely, and with the full approval and sympathy of Marya Filimonovna she decided that this should take place now in the summer. For several days before, Darya Alexandrovna was busily deliberating on how to dress all the children. Frocks were made or altered and washed, seams and flounces were let out, buttons were sewn on, and ribbons got ready. One dress, Tanya's, which the English governess had undertaken, cost Darya Alexandrovna much loss of temper. The English governess in altering it had made the seams in the wrong place, had taken up the sleeves too much, and altogether spoilt the dress. It was so narrow on Tanya's shoulders that it was quite painful to look at her. But Marya Filimonovna had the happy thought of putting in gussets, and adding a little shoulder-cape. The dress was set right, but there was nearly a quarrel with the English governess. On the morning, however, all was happily arranged, and towards ten o'clock—the time at which they had asked the priest to wait for them for the mass—the children in their new dresses, with beaming faces, stood on the step before the carriage waiting for their mother. In the carriage, instead of the restive Raven, they had harnessed, thanks to the representations of Marya Filimonovna, the bailiff's horse, Brownie, and Darya Alexandrovna, delayed by anxiety over her own attire, came out and got in, dressed in a white muslin gown. Darya Alexandrovna had done her hair, and dressed with care and excitement. In old days she had dressed for her own sake to look pretty and be admired. Later on, as she got older, dress became more and more distasteful to her. She saw that she was losing her good looks. But now she began to feel pleasure and interest in dress again. Now she did not dress for her own sake, not for the sake of her own beauty, but simply that as the mother of those exquisite creatures she might not spoil the general effect. And looking at herself for the last time in the looking-glass she was satisfied with herself. She looked nice. Not nice as she would have wished to look nice in old days at a ball, but nice for the object which she now had in view.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  The peasants gathered into groups—those further away under a cart, those nearer under a willow bush. Levin sat down by them; he felt disinclined to go away. All constraint with the master had disappeared long ago. The peasants got ready for dinner. Some washed, the young lads bathed in the stream, others made a place comfortable for a rest, untied their sacks of bread, and uncovered the pitchers of rye-beer. The old man crumbled up some bread in a cup, stirred it with the handle of a spoon, poured water on it from the dipper, broke up some more bread, and having seasoned it with salt, he turned to the east to say his prayer. 'Come, master, taste my sop,' said he, kneeling down before the cup. The sop was so good that Levin gave up the idea of going home. He dined with the old man, and talked to him about his family affairs, taking the keenest interest in them, and told him about his own affairs and all the circumstances that could be of interest to the old man. He felt much nearer to him than to his brother, and could not help smiling at the affection he felt for this man. When the old man got up again, said his prayer, and lay down under a bush, putting some grass under his head for a pillow, Levin did the same, and in spite of the clinging flies that were so persistent in the sunshine, and the midges that tickled his hot face and body, he fell asleep at once and only waked when the sun had passed to the other side of the bush and reached him. The old man had been awake a long while, and was sitting up whetting the scythes of the younger lads. Levin looked about him and hardly recognised the place, everything was so changed. The immense stretch of meadow had been mown and was sparkling with a peculiar fresh brilliance, with its lines of already sweet smelling grass in the slanting rays of the evening sun. And the bushes about the river had been cut down, and the river itself, not visible before, now gleaming like steel in its bends, and the moving, ascending, peasants, and the sharp wall of grass of the unmown part of the meadow, and the hawks hovering over the stripped meadow— all was perfectly new. Raising himself, Levin began considering how much had been cut and how much more could still be done that day. The work done was exceptionally much for forty-two men. They had cut the whole of the big meadow, which had, in the years of serf labour, taken thirty scythes two days to mow. Only the corners remained to do, where the rows were short. But Levin felt a longing to get as much mowing done that day as possible, and was vexed with the sun sinking so quickly in the sky.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'You don't say so!' 'And have you any children?' 'I've had four; I've two living—a boy and a girl. I weaned her last carnival.' 'How old is she?' 'Why, two years old.' 'Why did you nurse her so long?' 'It's our custom: for three fasts….' And the conversation became more interesting to Darya Alexandrovna. What sort of time did she have? What was the matter with the boy? Where was her husband? Did it often happen? Darya Alexandrovna felt disinclined to leave the peasant women, so interesting to her was their conversation, so completely identical were all their interests. What pleased her most of all was that she saw clearly what all the women admired more than anything was her having so many children, and such fine ones. The peasant women even made Darya Alexandrovna laugh, and offended the English governess, because she was the cause of the laughter she did not understand. One of the younger women kept staring at the Englishwoman, who was dressing after all the rest and when she put on her third petticoat she could not refrain from the remark, 'My, she keeps putting on and putting on, and she'll never have done!' she said, and they all went off into roars. IX O N the drive home, as Darya Alexandrovna, with all her children round her, their heads still wet from their bathe, and a kerchief tied over her own head, was getting near the house, the coachman said, 'There's some gentleman coming: the master of Pokrovskoe, I do believe.' Darya Alexandrovna peeped out in front, and was delighted when she recognised in the grey hat and grey coat the familiar figure of Levin walking to meet them. She was glad to see him at any time, but at this moment she was specially glad he should see her in all her glory. No one was better able to appreciate her grandeur than Levin. Seeing her, he found himself face to face with one of the pictures of his day-dream of family life. 'You're like a hen with your chickens, Darya Alexandrovna.' 'Ah, how glad I am to see you!' she said, holding out her hand to him. 'Glad to see me, but you didn't let me know. My brother's staying with me. I got a note from Stiva that you were here.' 'From Stiva?' Darya Alexandrovna asked with surprise. 'Yes; he writes that you are here, and that he thinks you might allow me to be of use to you,' said Levin, and as he said it he became suddenly embarrassed, and, stopping abruptly, he walked on in silence by the wagonette, snapping off the buds of the lime-trees and nibbling them. He was embarrassed through a sense that Darya Alexandrovna would be annoyed by receiving from an outsider help that should by rights have come from her own husband. Darya Alexandrovna certainly did not like this little way of Stepan Arkadyevitch's of foisting his domestic duties on others.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  He would go into the nursery several times a day, and sit there for a long while, so that the nurses, who were at first afraid of him, got quite used to his presence. Sometimes for half an hour at a stretch he would sit silently gazing at the saffron-red, downy, wrinkled face of the sleeping baby, watching the movements of the frowning brows, and the fat little hands, with clenched fingers, that rubbed the little eyes and nose. At such moments particularly Alexey Alexandrovitch had a sense of perfect peace and inward harmony, and saw nothing extraordinary in his position, nothing that ought to be changed. But as time went on, he saw more and more distinctly that however natural the position now seemed to him, he would not long be allowed to remain in it. He felt that besides the blessed spiritual force controlling his soul, there was another, a brutal force, as powerful, or more powerful, which controlled his life, and that this force would not allow him that humble peace he longed for. He felt that everyone was looking at him with inquiring wonder, that he was not understood, and that something was expected of him. Above all, he felt the instability and unnaturalness of his relations with his wife. When the softening effect of the near approach of death had passed away, Alexey Alexandrovitch began to notice that Anna was afraid of him, ill at ease with him, and could not look him straight in the face. She seemed to be wanting, and not daring, to tell him something; and as though forseeing their present relations could not continue, she seemed to be expecting something from him. Towards the end of February it happened that Anna's baby daughter, who had been named Anna too, fell ill. Alexey Alexandrovitch was in the nursery in the morning, and leaving orders for the doctor to be sent for, he went to his office. On finishing his work, he returned home at four. Going into the hall he saw a handsome groom, in a braided livery and a bear fur cape, holding a white fur cloak. 'Who is here?' asked Alexey Alexandrovitch. 'Princess Elizaveta Federovna Tverskoy,' the groom answered, and it seemed to Alexey Alexandrovitch that he grinned. During all this difficult time Alexey Alexandrovitch had noticed that his worldly acquaintances, especially women, took a peculiar interest in him and his wife. All these acquaintances he observed with difficulty concealing their mirth at something; the same mirth that he had perceived in the lawyer's eyes, and just now in the eyes of this groom. Everyone seemed, somehow, hugely delighted, as though they had just been at a wedding. When they met him, with ill-disguised enjoyment they inquired after his wife's health. The presence of Princess Iverskoy was unpleasant to Alexey Alexandrovitch from the memories associated with her, and also because he disliked her, and he went straight to the nursery.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  On reaching home and finding everyone entirely satisfactory and particularly charming, Darya Alexandrovna began with great liveliness telling them how she had arrived, how warmly they had received her, of the luxury and good taste in which the Vronskys lived, and of their recreations, and she would not allow a word to be said against them. 'One has to know Anna and Vronsky—I have got to know him better now—to see how nice they are, and how touching,' she said, speaking now with perfect sincerity, and forgetting the vague feeling of dissatisfaction and awkwardness she had experienced there. XXV V RONSKY and Anna spent the whole summer and part of the winter in the country, living in just the same conditions, and still taking no steps to obtain a divorce. It was an understood thing between them that they should not go away anywhere; but both felt, the longer they lived alone, especially in the autumn, without guests in the house, that they could not stand this existence, and that they would have to alter it. Their life was apparently such that nothing better could be desired. They had the fullest abundance of everything; they had a child, and both had occupation. Anna devoted just as much care to her appearance when they had no visitors, and she did a great deal of reading, both of novels and of what serious literature was in fashion. She ordered all the books that were praised in the foreign papers and reviews she received, and read them with that concentrated attention which is only given to what is read in seclusion. Moreover, every subject that was of interest to Vronsky, she studied in books and special journals, so that he often went straight to her with questions relating to agriculture or architecture, sometimes even with questions relating to horse-breeding or sport. He was amazed at her knowledge, her memory, and at first was disposed to doubt it, to ask for confirmation of her facts; and she would find what he asked for in some book, and show it him. The building of the hospital, too, interested her. She did not merely assist, but planned and suggested a great deal herself.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'I think sending him abroad is much the same as punishing a carp by putting it into the water,' said Levin. Then he recollected that this idea, which he had heard from an acquaintance and uttered as his own, came from a fable of Krilov's, and that the acquaintance had picked it up from a newspaper article. After driving home with his sister-in-law, and finding Kitty in good spirits and quite well, Levin drove to the club. VII L EVIN reached the club just at the right time. Members and visitors were driving up as he arrived. Levin had not been at the club for a very long while—not since he lived in Moscow, when he was leaving the university and going into society. He remembered the club, the external details of its arrangement, but he had completely forgotten the impres sion it had made on him in old days. But as soon as, driving into the wide semi-circular court and getting out of the sledge, he mounted the steps, and the hall-porter, adorned with a cross-way scarf, noiselessly opened the door to him with a bow; as soon as he saw in the porter's room the cloaks and goloshes of members who thought it less trouble to take them off downstairs; as soon as he heard the mysterious ringing bell that preceded him as he ascended the easy, carpeted staircase, and saw the statue on the landing, and the third porter at the top doors, a familiar figure grown older, in the club livery, opening the door without haste or delay, and scanning the visitors as they passed in—Levin felt the old impression of the club come back in a rush, an impression of repose, comfort, and propriety. 'Your hat, please,' the porter said to Levin, who forgot the club rule to leave his hat in the porter's room. 'Long time since you've been. The prince put your name down yesterday. Prince Stepan Arkadyevitch is not here yet.' The porter did not only know Levin, but also all his ties and relationships, and so immediately mentioned his intimate friends. Passing through the outer hall, divided up by screens, and the room partitioned on the right, where a man sits at the fruit-buffet, Levin overtook an old man walking slowly in, and entered the dining-room full of noise and people. He walked along the tables, almost all full, and looked at the visitors. He saw people of all sorts, old and young; some he knew a little, some intimate friends. There was not a single cross or worried-looking face. All seemed to have left their cares and anxieties in the porter's room with their hats, and were all deliberately getting ready to enjoy the material blessings of life. Sviazhsky was here and Shtcherbatsky, Nevyedovsky and the old prince, and Vronsky and Sergey Ivanovitch. 'Ah! why are you late?' the prince said smiling, and giving him his hand over his own shoulder.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  The meeting had already begun. Round the cloth-covered table, at which Katavasov and Metrov seated themselves, there were some half-dozen persons, and one of these was bending close over a manuscript, reading something aloud. Levin sat down in one of the empty chairs that were standing round the table, and in a whisper asked a student sitting near what was being read. The student, eyeing Levin with displeasure, said— 'Biography.' Though Levin was not interested in the biography, he could not help listening, and learned some new and interesting facts about the life of the distinguished man of science. When the reader had finished, the chairman thanked him and read some verses of the poet Ment sent him on the jubilee, and said a few words by way of thanks to the poet. Then Katavasov in his loud, ringing voice read his address on the scientific labours of the man whose jubilee was being kept. When Katavasov had finished, Levin looked at his watch, saw it was past one, and thought that there would not be time before the concert to read Metrov his book, and indeed, he did not now care to do so. During the reading he had thought over their conversation. He saw distinctly now that though Metrov's ideas might perhaps have value, his own ideas had a value too, and their ideas could only be made clear and lead to something if each worked separately in his chosen path, and that nothing would be gained by putting their ideas together. And having made up his mind to refuse Metrov's invitation, Levin went up to him at the end of the meeting. Metrov introduced Levin to the chairman, with whom he was talking of the political news. Metrov told the chairman what he had already told Levin, and Levin made the same remarks on his news that he had already made that morning, but for the sake of variety he expressed also a new opinion which had only just struck him. After that the conversation turned again on the university question. As Levin had already heard it all, he made haste to tell Metrov that he was sorry he could not take advantage of his invitation, took leave, and drove to Lvov's. IV L vov , the husband of Natalie, Kitty's sister, had spent all his life in foreign capitals, where he had been educated, and had been in the diplomatic service.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  He was not put out of temper even by the sight of the peasants' horses and colts trampling down his young grass (he told a peasant he met to drive them out), nor by the sarcastic and stupid reply of the peasant Ipat, whom he met on the way, and asked, 'Well, Ipat, shall we soon be sowing?' 'We must get the ploughing done first, Konstantin Dmitritch,' answered Ipat. The further he rode, the happier he became, and plans for the land rose to his mind each better than the last; to plant all his fields with hedges along the southern borders, so that the snow should not lie under them; to divide them up into six fields of arable and three of pasture and hay; to build a cattle-yard at the further end of the estate, and to dig a pond and to construct movable pens for the cattle as a means of manuring the land. And then eight hundred acres of wheat, three hundred of potatoes, and four hundred of clover, and not one acre exhausted. Absorbed in such dreams, carefully keeping his horse by the hedges, so as not to trample his young crops, he rode up to the labourers who had been sent to sow clover. A cart with the seed in it was standing, not at the edge, but in the middle of the crop, and the winter-corn had been torn up by the wheels and trampled by the horse. Both the labourers were sitting in the hedge, probably smoking a pipe together. The earth in the cart, with which the seed was mixed, was not crushed to powder, but crusted together or adhering in clods. Seeing the master, the labourer, Vassily, went towards the cart, while Mishka set to work sowing. This was not as it should be, but with the labourers Levin seldom lost his temper. When Vassily came up, Levin told him to lead the horse to the hedge. 'It's all right, sir, it'll spring up again,' responded Vassily. 'Please don't argue,' said Levin, 'but do as you're told.' 'Yes, sir,' answered Vassily, and he took the horse's head. 'What a sowing, Konstantin Dmitrich,' he said, hesitating; 'first-rate. Only it's a work to get about! You drag a ton of earth on your shoes.' 'Why is it you have earth that's not sifted?' said Levin. 'Well, we crumble it up,' answered Vassily, taking up some seed and rolling the earth in his palms. Vassily was not to blame for their having filled up his cart with unsifted earth, but still it was annoying.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  The women were standing up waiting on them. The young, sturdy-looking son was telling something funny with his mouth full of pudding, and they were all laughing, the woman in the clogs, who was pouring cabbage-soup into a bowl, laughing most merrily of all. Very probably the good-looking face of the young woman in the clogs had a good deal to do with the impression of well-being this peasant household made upon Levin, but the impression was so strong that Levin could never get rid of it. And all the way from the old peasant's to Sviazhsky's he kept recalling this peasant farm as though there were something in this impression that demanded his special attention. XXVI S VIAZHSKY was the marshal of his district. He was five years older than Levin, and had long been married. His sister-in-law, a young girl Levin liked very much, lived in his house; and Levin knew that Sviazhsky and his wife would have greatly liked to marry the girl to him. He knew this with certainty, as so-called eligible young men always know it, though he could never have brought himself to speak of it to anyone; and he knew too that, although he wanted to get married, and although by every token this very attractive girl would make an excellent wife, he could no more have married her, even if he had not been in love with Kitty Shtcherbatsky, than he could have flown up to the sky. And this knowledge poisoned the pleasure he had hoped to find in the visit to Sviazhsky. On getting Sviazhsky's letter with the invitation for shooting, Levin had immediately thought of this; but in spite of it he had made up his mind that Sviazhsky's having such views for him was simply his own groundless supposition, and so he would go, all the same. Besides, at the bottom of his heart he had a desire to try himself, put himself to the test in regard to this girl. The Sviazhskys' home life was exceedingly pleasant, and Sviazhsky himself, the best type of man taking part in local affairs that Levin knew, was very interesting to him.