Contentment

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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)

  But now, without an instant's consideration, he declined it, and observing dissatisfaction in the most exalted quarters at this step, he immediately retired from the army. A month later Alexey Alexandrovitch was left alone with his son in his house at Petersburg, while Anna and Vronsky had gone abroad, not having obtained a divorce, but having absolutely declined all idea of one. Anna Karenina PART V I P RINCESS S HTCHERBATSKY considered that it was out of the question for the wedding to take place before Lent, just five weeks off, since not half the trousseau could possibly be ready by that time. But she could not but agree with Levin that to fix it for after Lent would be putting it off too late, as an old aunt of Prince Shtcherbatsky's was seriously ill and might die, and then the mourning would delay the wedding still longer. And therefore, deciding to divide the trousseau into two parts—a larger and a smaller trousseau—the princess consented to have the wedding before Lent. She determined that she would get the smaller part of the trousseau all ready now, and the larger part should be made later, and she was much vexed with Levin because he was incapable of giving her a serious answer to the question whether he agreed to this arrangement or not. The arrangement was the more suitable as, immediately after the wedding, the young people were to go to the country, where the more important part of the trousseau would not be wanted. Levin still continued in the same delirious condition in which it seemed to him that he and his happiness constituted the chief and sole aim of all existence, and that he need not now think or care about anything, that everything was being done and would be done for him by others. He had not even plans and aims for the future, he left its arrangements to others, knowing that everything would be delightful. His brother Sergey Ivanovitch, Stepan Arkadyevitch, and the princess guided him in doing what he had to do. All he did was to agree entirely with everything suggested to him. His brother raised money for him, the princess advised him to leave Moscow after the wedding. Stepan Arkadyevitch advised him to go abroad. He agreed to everything. 'Do what you choose, if it amuses you. I'm happy, and my happiness can be no greater and no less for anything you do,' he thought. When he told Kitty of Stepan Arkadyevitch's advice that they should go abroad, he was much surprised that she did not agree to this, and had some definite requirement of her own in regard to their future. She knew Levin had work he loved in the country. She did not, as he saw, understand this work, she did not even care to understand it. But that did not prevent her from regarding it as a matter of great importance.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  He wanted to say too that if public opinion were an infallible guide, then why were not revolutions and the commune as lawful as the move ment in favour of the Slavonic peoples? But these were merely thoughts that could settle nothing. One thing could be seen beyond doubt—that was that at the actual moment the discussion was irritating Sergey Ivanovitch, and so it was wrong to continue it. And Levin ceased speaking and then called the attention of his guests to the fact that the storm-clouds were gathering, and that they had better be going home before it rained. XVII T HE old prince and Sergey Ivanovitch got into the trap and drove off; the rest of the party hastened homewards on foot. But the storm-clouds, turning white and then black, moved down so quickly that they had to quicken their pace to get home before the rain. The foremost clouds, lowering and black as soot-laden smoke, rushed with extraordinary swiftness over the sky. They were still two hundred paces from home and a gust of wind had already blown up, and every second the downpour might be looked for. The children ran ahead with frightened and gleeful shrieks. Darya Alexandrovna, struggling painfully with her skirts that clung round her legs, was not walking, but running, her eyes fixed on the children. The men of the party, holding their hats on, strode with long steps beside her. They were just at the steps when a big drop fell splashing on the edge of the iron guttering. The children and their elders after them ran into the shelter of the house, talking merrily. 'Katerina Alexandrovna?' Levin asked of Agafea Mihalovna, who met them with kerchiefs and rugs in the hall. 'We thought she was with you,' she said. 'And Mitya?' 'In the copse, he must be, and the nurse with him.' Levin snatched up the rugs and ran towards the copse. In that brief interval of time the storm-clouds had moved on, covering the sun so completely that it was dark as an eclipse. Stubbornly, as though insisting on its right, the wind stopped Levin, and tearing the leaves and flowers off the lime-trees and stripping the white birch branches into strange unseemly nakedness, it twisted everything on one side—acacias, flowers, burdocks, long grass, and tall tree-tops. The peasant girls working in the garden ran shrieking into shelter in the servants' quarters. The streaming rain had already flung its white veil over all the distant forest and half the fields close by, and was rapidly swooping down upon the copse. The wet of the rain spirting up in tiny drops could be smelt in the air.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  The coffee was never really made, but spluttered over everyone, and boiled away, doing just what was required of it—that is, providing cause for much noise and laughter, and spoiling a costly rug and the baroness's gown. 'Well now, good-bye, or you'll never get washed, and I shall have on my conscience the worst sin a gentleman can commit. So you would advise a knife to his throat?' To be sure, and manage that your hand may be not far from his lips. He'll kiss your hand, and all will end satisfactorily,' answered Vronsky. 'So at the Français!' and, with a rustle of her skirts, she vanished. Kamerovsky got up too, and Vronsky, not waiting for him to go, shook hands and went off to his dressing-room. While he was washing, Petritsky described to him in brief outlines his position, as far as it had changed since Vronsky had left Petersburg. No money at all. His father said he wouldn't give him any and pay his debts. His tailor was trying to get him locked up, and another fellow, too, was threatening to get him locked up. The colonel of the regiment had announced that if these scandals did not cease he would have to leave. As for the baroness, he was sick to death of her, especially since she'd taken to offering continually to lend him money. But he had found a girl—he'd show her to Vronsky—a marvel, exquisite, in the strict Oriental style, 'genre of the slave Rebecca, don't you know.' He'd had a row, too, with Berkoshov, and was going to send seconds to him, but of course it would come to nothing. Altogether everything was supremely amusing and jolly. And, not letting his comrade enter into further details of his position, Petritsky proceeded to tell him all the interesting news. As he listened to Petritsky's familiar stories in the familiar setting of the rooms he had spent the last three years in, Vronsky felt a delightful sense of coming back to the careless Petersburg life that he was used to. 'Impossible!' he cried, letting down the pedal of the washing basin in 'which he had been sousing his healthy red neck. 'Impossible!' he cried, at the news that Laura had flung over Fertinghof and had made up to Mileev. 'And is he as stupid and pleased as ever? Well, and how's Buzulukov?' 'Oh, there is a tale about Buzulukov—simply lovely!' cried Petritsky. 'You know his weakness for balls, and he never misses a single court ball. He went to a big ball in a new helmet. Have you seen the new helmets? Very nice, lighter. Well, so he's standing. . . . No, I say, do listen.' 'I am listening,' answered Vronsky, rubbing himself with a rough towel. 'Up comes the Grand-Duchess with some ambassador or other, and, as ill-luck would have it, she begins talking to him about the new helmets. The Grand-Duchess positively wanted to show the new helmet to the ambassador.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'But that is a false idea. There is no sin for believers, their sin has been atoned for. Pardon,' she added, looking at the footman, who came in again with another letter. She read it and gave a verbal answer: 'Tomorrow at the Grand Duchess's' say. For the believer sin is not,' she went on. 'Yes, but faith without works is dead,' said Stepan Arkadyevitch, recalling the phrase from the catechism, and only by his smile clinging to his independence. There you have it—from the epistle of St. James,' said Alexey Alexandrovitch, addressing Lidia Ivanovna, with a certain reproachfulness in his tone. It was unmistakably a subject they had discussed more than once before. 'What harm has been done by the false interpretation of that passage! Nothing holds men back from belief like that misinterpretation. "I have not works, so I cannot believe," though all the while that is not said. But the very opposite is said.' 'Striving for God, saving the soul by fasting,' said Countess Lidia Ivanovna, with disgusted contempt, 'those are the crude ideas of our monks. . . . Yet that is nowhere said. It is far simpler and easier,' she added, looking at Oblonsky with the same encouraging smile with which at court she encouraged youthful maids of honour, disconcerted by the new surroundings of the court. 'We are saved by Christ who suffered for us. We are saved by faith,' Alexey Alexandrovitch chimed in, with a glance of approval at her words. 'Vous comprenez l'anglais?' asked Lidia Ivanovna, and receiving a reply in the affirmative, she got up and began looking through a shelf of books. 'I want to read him "Safe and Happy," or "Under the Wing,"' she said, looking inquiringly at Karenin. And finding the book, and sitting down again in her place, she opened it. 'It's very short. In it is described the way by which faith can be reached, and the happiness, above all earthly bliss, with which it fills the soul. The believer cannot be unhappy because he is not alone. But you will see.' She was just settling herself to read when the footman came in again. 'Madame Borozdin? Tell her, tomorrow at two o'clock. Yes,' she said, putting her finger in the place in the book, and gazing before her with her fine pensive eyes, 'that is how true faith acts. You know Marie Sanin? You know about her trouble? She lost her only child. She was in despair. And what happened? She found this comforter, and she thanks God now for the death of her child. Such is the happiness faith brings!'

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Turovtsin was one of the circle drinking in the. billiard-room, and Stepan Arkadyevitch was talking with Vronsky near the door at the farther corner of the room. 'It's not that she's dull; but this undefined, this unsettled position,' Levin caught, and he was hurrying away, but Stepan Arkadyevitch called to him. 'Levin!' said Stepan Arkadyevitch; and Levin noticed that his eyes were not full of tears exactly, but moist, which always happened when he had been drinking, or when he was touched. Just now it was due to both causes. 'Levin, don't go,' he said, and he warmly squeezed his arm above the elbow, obviously not at all wishing to let him go. 'This is a true friend of mine—almost my greatest friend,' he said to Vronsky. 'You have become even closer and dearer to me. And I want you, and I know you ought, to be friends, and great friends, because you're both splendid fellows.' 'Well, there's nothing for us now but to kiss and be friends,' Vronsky said, with good-natured playfulness, holding out his hand. Levin quickly took the offered hand, and pressed it warmly. 'I'm very, very glad,' said Levin. 'Waiter, a bottle of champagne,' said Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'And I'm very glad,' said Vronsky. But in spite of Stepan Arkadyevitch's desire, and their own desire, they had nothing to talk about, and both felt it. 'Do you know, he has never met Anna?' Stepan Arkadyevitch said to Vronsky. 'And I want above everything to take him to see her. Let us go, Levin!' 'Really?' said Vronsky. 'She will be very glad to see you. I should be going home at once,' he added, 'but I'm worried about Yashvin, and I want to stay on till he finishes.' 'Why, is he losing?' 'He keeps losing, and I'm the only friend that can restrain him.' 'Well, what do you say to pyramids? Levin, will you play? Capital!' said Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'Get the table ready,' he said to the marker. 'It has been ready for a long while,' answered the marker, who had already set the balls in a triangle, and was knocking the red one about for his own diversion. 'Well, let us begin.' After the game Vronsky and Levin sat down at Gagin's table, and at Stepan Arkadyevitch's suggestion Levin took a hand in the game. Vronsky sat down at the table, surrounded by friends, who were incessantly coming up to him. Every now and then he went to the 'infernal' to keep an eye on Yashvin. Levin was enjoying a delightful sense of repose after the mental fatigue of the morning. He was glad that all hostility was at an end with Vronsky, and the sense of peace, decorum, and comfort never left him. When the game was over, Stepan Arkadyevitch took Levin's arm. 'Well, let us go to Anna's, then. At once? Eh? She is at home. I promised her long ago to bring you.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  It was the very busiest working-time, when all the peasantry show an extraordinary intensity of self-sacrifice in labour, such as is never shown in any other conditions of life, and would be highly esteemed if the men who showed these qualities themselves thought highly of them, and if it were not repeated every year, and if the results of this intense labour were not so simple. To reap and bind the rye and oats and to carry it, to mow the meadows, turn over the fallows, thrash the seed and sow the winter corn—all this seems so simple and ordinary; but to succeed in getting through it all everyone in the village, from the old man to the young child, must toil incessantly for three or four weeks, three times as hard as usual, living on rye-beer, onions, and black bread, thrashing and carrying the sheaves at night, and not giving more than two or three hours in the twenty-four to sleep. And every year this is done all over Russia. Having lived the greater part of his life in the country and in the closest relations with the peasants, Levin always felt in this busy time that he was infected by this general quickening of energy in the people. In the early morning he rode over to the first sowing of the rye, and to the oats, which were being carried to the stacks, and returning home at the time his wife and sister-in-law were getting up, he drank coffee with them and walked to the farm, where a new threshing-machine was to be set working to get ready the seed-corn. He was standing in the cool granary, still fragrant with the leaves of the hazel branches interlaced on the freshly peeled aspen beams of the new thatch roof. He gazed through the open door in which the dry bitter dust of the threshing whirled and played, at the grass of the threshing-floor in the sunlight and the fresh straw that had been brought in from the barn, then at the speckly-headed, white-breasted swallows that flew chirping in under the roof and, fluttering their wings, settled in the crevices of the doorway, then at the peasants bustling in the dark, dusty barn, and he thought strange thoughts— 'Why is it all being done?' he thought. 'Why am I standing here, making them work?

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  It seemed as though he knew both what he was and for what he was living, for he acted and lived resolutely and without hesitation. Indeed, in these latter days he was far more decided and unhesitating in life than he had ever been. When he went back to the country at the beginning of June, he went back also to his usual pursuits. The management of the estate, his relations with the peasants and the neighbours, the care of his household, the management of his sister's and brother's property, of which he had the direction, his relations with his wife and kindred, the care of his child, and the new beekeeping hobby he had taken up that spring, filled all his time. These things occupied him now, not because he justified them to himself by any sort of general principles, as he had done in former days; on the contrary, disappointed by the failure of his former efforts for the general welfare, and too much occupied with his own thought and the mass of business with which he was burdened from all sides, he had completely given up thinking of the general good, and he busied himself with all this work simply because it seemed to him that he must do what he was doing—that he could not do otherwise. In former days —almost from childhood, and increasingly up to full manhood—when he had tried to do anything that would be good for all, for humanity, for Russia, for the whole village, he had noticed that the idea of it had been pleasant, but the work itself had always been incoherent, that then he had never had a full conviction of its absolute necessity, and that the work that had begun by seeming so great, had grown less and less, till it vanished into nothing. But now, since his marriage, when he had begun to confine himself more and more to living for himself, though he experienced no delight at all at the thought of the work he was doing, he felt a complete conviction of its necessity, saw that it succeeded far better than in old days, and that it kept on growing more and more. Now, involuntarily it seemed, he cut more and more deeply into the soil like a plough, so that he could not be drawn out without turning aside the furrow.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  He tried to be calm, but it was the same again. His finger pressed the cock before he had taken a good aim at the bird. It got worse and worse. He had only five birds in his game-bag when he walked out of the marsh towards the alders where he was to rejoin Stepan Arkadyevitch. Before he caught sight of Stepan Arkadyevitch he saw his dog. Krak darted out from behind the twisted root of an alder, black all over with the stinking mire of the marsh, and with the air of a conqueror sniffed at Laska. Behind Krak there came into view in the shade of the alder-tree the shapely figure of Stepan Arkadyevitch. He came to meet him, red and perspiring, with unbuttoned neckband, still limping in the same way. 'Well? You have been popping away!' he said, smiling good-humouredly. 'How have you got on?' queried Levin. But there was no need to ask, for he had already seen the full game-bag. 'Oh, pretty fair.' He had fourteen birds. 'A splendid marsh! I've no doubt Veslovsky got in your way. It's awkward too, shooting with one dog,' said Stepan Arkadyevitch, to soften his triumph. XI W HEN Levin and Stepan Arkadyevitch reached the peasant's hut where Levin always used to stay, Veslovsky was already there. He was sitting in the middle of the hut, clinging with both hands to the bench from which he was being pulled by a soldier, the brother of the peasant's wife, who was helping him off with his miry boots. Veslovsky was laughing his infectious, good-humoured laugh. 'I've only just come. Ils ont été charmants. Just fancy, they gave me drink, fed me! Such bread, it was exquisite! Délicieux! And the vodka, I never tasted any better. And they would not take a penny for anything. And they kept saying: "Excuse our homely ways."' 'What should they take anything for? They were entertaining you, to be sure. Do you suppose they keep vodka for sale?' said the soldier, succeeding at last in pulling the soaked boot off the blackened stocking. In spite of the dirtiness of the hut, which was all muddied by their boots and the filthy dogs licking themselves clean, and the smell of marsh mud and powder that filled the room, and the absence of knives and forks, the party drank their tea and ate their supper with a relish only known to sportsmen. Washed and clean, they went into a hay-barn swept ready for them, where the coachman had been making up beds for the gentlemen.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Leaving him there to wash and change his clothes, Levin went off to the counting-house to speak about the ploughing and clover. Agafea Mihalovna, always very anxious for the credit of the house, met him in the hall with inquiries about dinner. 'Do just as you like, only let it be as soon as possible,' he said, and went to the bailiff. When he came back, Stepan Arkadyevitch, washed and combed, came out of his room with a beaming smile, and they went upstairs together. 'Well, I am glad I managed to get away to you! Now I shall understand what the mysterious business is that you are always absorbed in here. No, really, I envy you. What a house, how nice it all is! So bright, so cheerful!' said Stepan Arkadyevitch, forgetting that it was not always spring and fine weather like that day. 'And your nurse is simply charming! A pretty maid in an apron might be even more agreeable, perhaps; but for your severe monastic style it does very well.' Stepan Arkadyevitch told him many interesting pieces of news; especially interesting to Levin was the news that his brother, Sergey Ivanovitch, was intending to pay him a visit in the summer. Not one word did Stepan Arkadyevitch say in reference to Kitty and the Shtcherbatskys; he merely gave him greetings from his wife. Levin was grateful to him for his delicacy, and was very glad of his visitor. As always happened with him during his solitude, a mass of ideas and feelings had been accumulating within him, which he could not communicate to those about him. And now he poured out upon Stepan Arkadyevitch his poetic joy in the spring, and his failures and plans for the land, and his thoughts and criticisms on the books he had been reading, and the idea of his own book, the basis of which really was, though he was unaware of it himself, a criticism of all the old books on agriculture. Stepan Arkadyevitch, always charming, understanding everything at the slightest reference, was particularly charming on this visit, and Levin noticed in him a special tenderness, as it were, and a new tone of respect that flattered him. The efforts of Agafea Mihalovna and the cook, that the dinner should be particularly good, only ended in the two famished friends attacking the preliminary course, eating a great deal of bread-and-butter, salt goose and salted mushrooms, and in Levin's finally ordering the soup to be served without the accompaniment of little pies, with which the cook had particularly meant to impress their visitor. But though Stepan Arkadyevitch was accustomed to very different dinners, he thought everything excellent: the herb-brandy, and the bread, and the butter, and above all the salt goose and the mushrooms, and the nettle soup, and the chicken in white sauce, and the white Crimean wine—everything was superb and delicious. 'Splendid, splendid!' he said, lighting a fat cigar after the roast.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  And immediately after this came the delicious, slow saunter, with his hand on the scythe, during which he could wipe away the streaming sweat, take deep breaths of air, and look about at the long string of mowers and at what was happening around in the forest and the country. The longer Levin mowed, the oftener he felt the moments of unconsciousness in which it seemed not his hands that swung the scythe, but the scythe mowing of itself, a body full of life and consciousness of its own, and as though by magic, without thinking of it, the work turned out regular and well-finished of itself. These were the most blissful moments. It was only hard work when he had to break off the motion, which had become unconscious, and to think; when he had to mow round a hillock or a tuft of sorrel. The old man did this easily. When a hillock came he changed his action, and at one time with the heel, and at another with the tip of his scythe, clipped the hillock round both sides with short strokes. And while he did this he kept looking about and watching what came into his view: at one moment he picked a wild berry and ate it or offered it to Levin, then he flung away a twig with the blade of the scythe, then he looked at a quail's nest, from which the bird flew just under the scythe, or caught a snake that crossed his path, and lifting it on the scythe as though on a fork showed it to Levin and threw it away. For both Levin and the young peasant behind him, such changes of position were difficult. Both of them, repeating over and over again 'the same strained movement, were in a perfect frenzy of toil, and were incapable of shifting their position and at the same time watching what was before them. Levin did not notice how time was passing. If he had been asked how long he had been working he would have said half an hour—and it was getting on for dinner-time. As they were walking back over the cut grass, the old man called Levin's attention to the little girls and boys who were coming from different directions, hardly visible through the long grass, and along the road towards the mowers, carrying sacks of bread dragging at their little hands and pitchers of the sour rye-beer, with cloths wrapped round them. 'Look 'ee, the little emmets crawling!' he said, pointing to them, and he shaded his eyes with his hand to look at the sun. They mowed two more rows; the old man stopped. 'Come, master, dinner-time!' he said briskly. And on reaching the stream the mowers moved off across the lines of cut grass towards their pile of coats, where the children who had brought their dinners were sitting waiting for them.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  And with all this, Stepan Arkadyevitch, who liked a joke, was fond of puzzling a plain man by saying that if he prided himself on his origin, he ought not to stop at Rurik and disown the first founder of his family—the monkey. And so liberalism had become a habit of Stepan Arkadyevitch's, and he liked his newspaper, as he did his cigar after dinner, for the slight fog it diffused in his brain. He read the leading article, in which it was maintained that it was quite senseless in our day to raise an outcry that radicalism was threatening to swallow up all conservative elements, and that the government ought to take measures to crush the revolutionary hydra; that, on the contrary, 'in our opinion the danger lies not in that fantastic revolutionary hydra, but in the obstinacy of traditionalism clogging progress,' etc. etc. He read another article too, a financial one, which alluded to Bentham and Mill, and dropped some innuendoes reflecting on the ministry. With his characteristic quick-wittedness he caught the drift of each innuendo, divined whence it came, at whom and on what ground it was aimed, and that afforded him, as it always did, a certain satisfaction. But today that satisfaction was embittered by Matrona Philimonovna's advice and the unsatisfactory state of the household. He read, too, that Count Beist was rumoured to have left for Wiesbaden, and that one need have no more grey hair, and of the sale of a light carriage, and of a young person seeking a situation; but these items of information did not give him, as usual, a quiet, ironical gratification. Having finished the paper, a second cup of coffee and a roll and butter, he got up, shaking the crumbs of the roll off his waistcoat; and, squaring his broad chest, he smiled joyously: not because there was anything particularly agreeable in his mind—the joyous smile was evoked by a good digestion. But this joyous smile at once recalled everything to him, and he grew thoughtful. Two childish voices (Stepan Arkadyevitch recognised the voices of Grisha, his youngest boy, and Tanya, his eldest girl) were heard outside the door. They were carrying something, and dropped it. 'I told you not to sit passengers on the roof,' said the little girl in English; 'there, pick them up!' 'Everything's in confusion,' thought Stepan Arkadyevitch; 'there are the children running about by themselves.' And going to the door, he called them. They threw down the box, that represented a train, and came in to their father. The little girl, her father's favourite, ran up boldly, embraced him, and hung laughingly on his neck, enjoying as she always did the smell of scent that came from his whiskers.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  The princess, conscious that Agafea Mihalovna's wrath must be chiefly directed against her, as the person responsible for the raspberry jam-making, tried to appear to be absorbed in other things and not interested in the jam, talked of other matters, but cast stealthy glances in the direction of the stove. 'I always buy my maids' dresses myself, of some cheap material,' the princess said, continuing the previous conversation. 'Isn't it time to skim it, my dear?' she added, addressing Agafea Mihalovna. There's not the slightest need for you to do it, and it's hot for you,' she said, stopping Kitty. 'I'll do it,' said Dolly, and getting up, she carefully passed the spoon over the frothing sugar, and from time to time shook off the clinging jam from the spoon by knocking it on a plate that was covered with yellow-red scum and blood-coloured syrup. 'How they'll enjoy this at tea-time!' she thought of her children, remembering how she herself as a child had wondered how it was the grown-up people did not eat what was best of all—the scum of the jam. 'Stiva says it's much better to give money.' Dolly took up meanwhile the weighty subject under discussion, what presents should be made to servants. 'But.. .' 'Money's out of the question!' the princess and Kitty exclaimed with one voice. 'They appreciate a present…' 'Well, last year, for instance, I bought our Matrona Semyenovna, not a poplin, but something of that sort,' said the princess. 'I remember she was wearing it on your nameday.' 'A charming pattern—so simple and refined,—I should have liked it myself, if she hadn't had it, Something like Varenka's. So pretty and inexpensive.' 'Well, now I think it's done,' said Dolly, dropping the syrup from the spoon. 'When it sets as it drops, it's ready. Cook it a little longer, Agafea Mihalovna.' 'The flies!' said Agafea Mihalovna angrily. 'It'll be just the same,' she added. 'Ah, how sweet it is! don't frighten it!' Kitty said suddenly, looking at a sparrow that had settled on the step and was pecking at the centre of a raspberry. 'Yes, but you keep a little further from the stove,' said her mother. 'A propos de Varenka,' said Kitty, speaking in French, as they had been doing all the while, so that Agafea Mihalovna should not understand them, 'you know, maman, I somehow expect things to be settled today. You know what I mean. How splendid it would be!' 'But what a famous matchmaker she is!' said Dolly. 'How carefully and cleverly she throws them together! . . .' 'No!

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'Yes, sa compagne called me, and I tried to pacify him; he's very ill, and was dissatisfied with the doctor. I'm used to looking after such invalids.' 'Yes; I've heard you live at Mentone with your aunt—I think— Madame Stahl: I used to know her belle-soeur.' 'No, she's not my aunt. I call her mamma, but I am not related to her; I was brought up by her,' answered Varenka, flushing a little again. This was so simply said, and so sweet was the truthful and candid expression of her face, that the princess saw why Kitty had taken such a fancy to Varenka. 'Well, and what's this Levin going to do?' asked the princess. 'He's going away,' answered Varenka. At that instant Kitty came up from the spring beaming with delight that her mother had become acquainted with her unknown friend. 'Well, see, Kitty, your intense desire to make friends with Mademoiselle . . . ' 'Varenka,' Varenka put in smiling, 'that's what everyone calls me.' Kitty blushed with pleasure, and slowly, without speaking, pressed her new friend's hand, which did not respond to her pressure, but lay motionless in her hand. The hand did not respond to her pressure, but the face of Mademoiselle Varenka glowed with a soft, glad, though rather mournful, smile, that showed large but handsome teeth. 'I have long wished for this too,' she said. 'But you are so busy.' 'Oh no, I'm not at all busy,' answered Varenka, but at that moment she had to leave her new friends because two little Russian girls, children of an invalid, ran up to her. 'Varenka, mamma's calling!' they cried. And Varenka went after them. XXXII T HE particulars which the princess had learned in regard to Varenka's past and her relations with Madame Stahl were as follows. Madame Stahl, of whom some people said that she had worried her husband out of his life, while others said it was he who had made her wretched by his immoral behaviour, had always been a woman of weak health and enthusiastic temperament. When, after her separation from her husband, she gave birth to her only child, the child had died almost immediately, and the family of Madame Stahl, knowing her sensibility, and fearing the news would kill her, had substituted another child, a baby born the same night and in the same house in Petersburg, the daughter of the chief cook of the Imperial Household. This was Varenka. Madame Stahl learned later on that Varenka was not her own child, but she went on bringing her up, especially as very soon afterwards Varenka had not a relation of her own living. Madame Stahl had now been living more than ten years continuously abroad, in the south, never leaving her couch.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  See if they've put the new washstand in it.' 'Very well, I'll go directly,' said Levin, standing up and kissing her. 'No, I'd better not speak of it,' he thought, when she had gone in before him. 'It is a secret for me alone, of vital importance for me, and not to be put into words. 'This new feeling has not changed me, has not made me happy and enlightened all of a sudden, as I had dreamed, just like the feeling for my child. There was no surprise in this either. Faith—or not faith—I don't know what it is—but this feeling has come just as imperceptibly through suffering, and has taken firm root in my soul. 'I shall go on in the same way, losing my temper with Ivan the coachman, falling into angry discussions, expressing my opinions tactlessly; there will be still the same wall between the holy of holies of my soul and other people, even my wife; I shall still go on scolding her for my own terror, and being remorseful for it; I shall still be as unable to understand with my. reason why I pray, and I shall still go on praying; but my life now, my whole life apart from anything that can happen to me, every minute of it is no more meaningless, as it was before, but it has the positive meaning of goodness, which I have the power to put into it.' THE END Anna Karenina

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  He passed in review the places he might go to. 'Club? a game of bezique, champagne with Ignatov? No, I'm not going. Chateau des Fleurs; there I shall find Oblonsky, songs, the cancan. No, I'm sick of it. That's why I like the Shtcherbatskys', that I'm growing better. I'll go home.' He went straight to his room at Dussots' Hotel, ordered supper, and then undressed, and as soon as his head touched the pillow, fell into a sound sleep. XVII N EXT day at eleven o'clock in the morning Vronsky drove to the station of the Petersburg railway to meet his mother, and the first person he came across on the great flight of steps was Oblonsky, who was expecting his sister by the some train. 'Ah! your excellency!' cried Oblonsky, 'whom are you meeting?' 'My mother,' Vronsky responded, smiling, as everyone did who met Oblonsky. He shook hands with him, and together they ascended the steps. 'She is to be here from Petersburg today.' 'I was looking out for you till two o'clock last night. Where did you go after the Shtcherbatskys'?' 'Home,' answered Vronsky. 'I must own I felt so well content yesterday after the Shtcherbatskys' that I didn't care to go anywhere.' ' "I know a gallant steed by tokens sure, And by his eyes I know a youth in love,"' declaimed Stepan Arkadyevitch, just as he had done before to Levin. Vronsky smiled with a look that seemed to say that he did not deny it, but he promptly changed the subject. 'And whom are you meeting?' he asked. 'I? I've come to meet a pretty woman,' said Oblonsky. 'You don't say so!' 'Honi soit qui mal y pense ! My sister Anna.' 'Ah! that's Madame Karenin,' said Vronsky. 'You know her, no doubt?' 'I think so. Or perhaps not . . . I really am not sure,' Vronsky answered heedlessly, with a vague recollection of something stiff and tedious evoked by the name Karenin. 'But Alexy Alexandrovitch, my celebrated brother-in-law, you surely must know. All the world knows him.' 'I know him by reputation and by sight. I know that he's clever, learned, religious somewhat.. . But you know that's no t. . . not in my line,' said Vronsky in English. 'Yes, he's a very remarkable man; rather a conservative, but a splendid man,' observed Stepan Arkadyevitch, 'a splendid man.' 'Oh well, so much the better for him,' said Vronsky smiling. 'Oh, you've come,' he said, addressing a tall old footman of his mother's standing at the door; 'come here.' Besides the charm Oblonsky had in general for everyone, Vronsky had felt of late specially drawn to him by the fact that in his imagination he was associated with Kitty. 'Well, what do you say? Shall we give a supper on Sunday for the diva?' he said to him with a smile, taking his arm. 'Of course. I'm collecting subscriptions. Oh, did you make the acquaintance of my friend Levin?' asked Stepan Arkadyevitch.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Now these pursuits were necessary for him that life might not be too uniformly bright. Taking up his manuscript, reading through what he had written, he found with pleasure that the work was worth his working at. Many of his old ideas seemed to him superfluous and extreme, but many blanks became distinct to him when he reviewed the whole thing in his memory. He was writing now a new chapter on the causes of the present disastrous condition of agriculture in Russia. He maintained that the poverty of Russia arises not merely from the anomalous distribution of landed property and misdirected reforms, but that what had contributed of late years to this result was the civilisation from without abnormally grafted upon Russia, especially facilities of communication, as railways, leading to centralisation in towns, the development of luxury, and the consequent development of manufactures, credit and its accompaniment of speculation—all to the detriment of agriculture. It seemed to him that in a normal development of wealth in a state all these phenomena would arise only when a considerable amount of labour had been put into agriculture, when it had come under regular, or at least definite, conditions; that the wealth of a country ought to increase proportionally, and especially in such a way that other sources of wealth should not outstrip agriculture; that in harmony with a certain stage of agriculture there should be means of communication corresponding to it, and that in our unsettled condition of the land, railways, called into being by political and not by economic needs, were premature, and instead of promoting agriculture, as was expected of them, they were competing with agriculture and promoting the development of manufactures and credit, and so arresting its progress; and that just as the one-sided and premature development of one organ in an animal would hinder its general development, so in the general development of wealth in Russia, credit, facilities of communication, manufacturing activity, indubitably necessary in Europe, where they had arisen in their proper time, had with us only done harm, by throwing into the background the chief question calling for settlement—the question of the organisation of agriculture. While he was writing his ideas she was thinking how unnaturally cordial her husband had been to young Prince Tcharsky, who had, with great want of tact, flirted with her the day before they left Moscow. 'He's jealous,' she thought. 'Goodness! How sweet and silly he is! He's jealous of me! If he knew that I think no more of them than of Piotr the cook,' she thought, looking at his head and red neck with a feeling of possession strange to herself.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  He was impatiently looking forward to the news that she was married, or just going to be married, hoping that such news would, like having a tooth out, completely cure him. Meanwhile spring came on, beautiful and kindly, without the delays and treacheries of spring,—one of those rare springs in which plants, beasts, and man rejoice alike. This lovely spring roused Levin still more, and strengthened him in his resolution of renouncing all his past and building up his lonely life firmly and independently. Though many of the plans with which he had returned to the country had not been carried out, still his most important resolution—that of purity—had been kept by him. He was free from that shame, which had usually harassed him after a fall; and he could look everyone straight in the face. In February he had received a letter from Marya Nikolaevna telling him that his brother Nikolay's health was getting worse, but that he would not take advice, and in consequence of this letter Levin went to Moscow to his brother's, and succeeded in persuading him to see a doctor and to go to a watering-place abroad. He succeeded so well in persuading his brother, and in lending him money for the journey without irritating him, that he was satisfied with himself in that matter. In addition to his farming, which called for special attention in spring, in addition to reading, Levin had begun that winter a work on agriculture, the plan of which turned on taking into account the character of the labourer on the land as one of the unalterable data of the question, like the climate and the soil, and consequently deducing all the principles of scientific culture, not simply from the data of soil and climate, but from the data of soil, climate, and a certain unalterable character of the labourer. Thus, in spite of his solitude, or in consequence of his solitude, his life was exceedingly full. Only rarely he suffered from an unsatisfied desire to communicate his stray ideas to someone besides Agafea Mihalovna. With her indeed he not unfrequently fell into discussions upon physics, the theory of agriculture, and especially philosophy; philosophy was Agafea Mihalovna's favourite subject. Spring was slow in unfolding. For the last few weeks it had been steadily fine frosty weather. In the daytime it thawed in the sun, but at night there were even seven degrees of frost. There was such a frozen surface on the snow that they drove the wagons anywhere off the roads. Easter came in the snow.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  And she was at once aware that Levin was aware of this. It was just for this fineness of perception, for this delicacy, that Darya Alexandrovna liked Levin. 'I know, of course,' said Levin, 'that that simply means that you would like to see me, and I'm exceedingly glad. Though I can fancy that, used to town housekeeping as you are, you must feel in the wilds here, and if there's anything wanted, I'm altogether at your disposal.' 'Oh no!' said Dolly. 'At first things were rather uncomfortable, but now we've settled everything capitally—thanks to my old nurse,' she said, indicating Marya Filimonovna, who, seeing that they were speaking of her, smiled brightly and cordially to Levin. She knew him, and knew that he would be a good match for her young lady, and was very keen to see the matter settled. 'Won't you get in, sir, we'll make room this side!' she said to him. 'No, I'll walk. Children, who'd like to race the horses with me?' The children knew Levin very little, and could not remember when they had seen him, but they experienced in regard to him none of that strange feeling of shyness and hostility which children so often experience towards hypocritical, grown-up people, and for which they are so often and miserably punished. Hypocrisy in anything whatever may deceive the cleverest and most penetrating man, but the least wide-awake of children recognises it, and is revolted by it, however ingeniously it may be disguised. Whatever faults Levin had, there was not a trace of hypocrisy in him, and so the children showed him the same friendliness that they saw in their mother's face. On his invitation, the two elder ones at once jumped out to him and ran with him as simply as they would have done with their nurse or Miss Hoole or their mother. Lily, too, began begging to go to him, and her mother handed her to him; he sat her on his shoulder and ran along with her. 'Don't be afraid, don't be afraid, Darya Alexandrovna!' he said, smiling good-humouredly to the mother; 'there's no chance of my hurting or dropping her.' And, looking at his strong, agile, assiduously careful and needlessly wary movements, the mother felt her mind at rest, and smiled gaily and approvingly as she watched him. Here, in the country, with children, and with Darya Alexandrovna, with whom he was in sympathy, Levin was in a mood, not infrequent with him, of childlike light-heartedness that she particularly liked in him. As he ran with the children, he taught them gymnastic feats, set Miss Hoole laughing with his queer English accent, and talked to Darya Alexandrovna of his pursuits in the country. After dinner, Darya Alexandrovna, sitting alone with him on the balcony, began to speak of Kitty.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  One-third of the men in. the government, the older men, had been friends of his father's, and had known him in petticoats; another third were his intimate chums, and the remainder were friendly acquaintances. Consequently the distributors of earthly blessings in the shape of places, rents, shares, and such, were all his friends, and could not overlook one of their own set; and Oblonsky had no need to make any special exertion to get a lucrative post. He had only not to refuse things, not to show jealousy, not to be quarrelsome or take offence, all of which from his characteristic good nature he never did. It would have struck him as absurd if he had been told that he would not get a position with the salary he required, especially as he expected nothing out of the way; he only wanted what the men of his own age and standing did get, and he was no worse qualified for performing duties of the kind than any other man. Stepan Arkadyevitch was not merely liked by all who knew him for his good-humour, his bright disposition, and his unquestionable honesty. In him, in his handsome, radiant figure, his sparkling eyes, black hair and eyebrows, and the white and red of his face, there was something which produced a physical effect of kindliness and good-humour on the people who met him. 'Aha! Stiva! Oblonsky! Here he is ! ' was almost always said with a smile of delight on meeting him. Even though it happened at times that after a conversation with him it seemed that nothing particularly delightful had happened, the next day, and the next, every one was just as delighted at meeting him again. After filling for three years the post of president of one of the government boards at Moscow, Stepan Arkadyevitch had won the respect, as well as the liking, of his fellow-officials, subordinates, and superiors, and all who had had business with him. The principal qualities in Stepan Arkadyevitch which had gained him this universal respect in the service consisted, in the first place, of his extreme indulgence for others, founded on a consciousness of his own shortcomings; secondly, of his perfect liberalism—not the liberalism he read of in the papers, but the liberalism that was in his blood, in virtue of which he treated all men perfectly equally and exactly the same, whatever their fortune or calling might be; and thirdly—the most important point—his complete indifference to the business in which he was engaged, in consequence of which he was never carried away, and never made mistakes. On reaching the offices of the board, Stepan Arkadyevitch, escorted by a deferential porter with a portfolio, went into his little private room, put on his uniform, and went into the board-room. The clerks and copyists all rose, greeting him with good-humoured deference.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  She remembered how she had told her husband of what was almost a declaration made her at Petersburg by a young man, one of her husband's subordinates, and how Alexey Alexandrovitch had answered that every woman living in the world was exposed to such incidents, but that he had the fullest confidence in her tact, and could never lower her and himself by jealousy. 'So then there's no reason to speak of it? And indeed, thank God, there's nothing to speak of,' she told herself. XXXIII A LEXEY A LEXANDROVITCH came back from the meeting of the ministers at four o'clock, but as often happened, he had not time to come in to her. He went into his study to see the people waiting for him with petitions, and to sign some papers brought him by his chief secretary. At dinner-time (there were always a few people dining with the Karenins) there arrived an old lady, a cousin of Alexey Alexandrovitch, the chief secretary of the department and his wife, and a young man who had been recommended to Alexey Alexandrovitch for the service. Anna went into the drawing-room to receive these guests. Precisely at five o'clock, before the bronze Peter the First clock had struck the fifth stroke, Alexey Alexandrovitch came in, wearing a white tie and evening coat with two stars, as he had to go out directly after dinner. Every minute of Alexey Alexandrovitch's life was portioned out and occupied. And to make time to get through all that lay before him every day, he adhered to the strictest punctuality. 'Unhasting and unresting,' was his motto. He came into the dining-hall, greeted everyone, and hurriedly sat down, smiling to his wife. 'Yes, my solitude is over. You wouldn't believe how uncomfortable' (he laid stress on the word uncomfortable) 'it is to dine alone.' At dinner he talked a little to his wife about Moscow matters, and, with a sarcastic smile, asked her after Stepan Arkadyevitch; but the conversation was for the most part general, dealing with Petersburg official and public news. After dinner he spent half an hour with his guests, and again, with a smile, pressed his wife's hand, withdrew, and drove off to the council. Anna did not go out that evening either to the Princess Betsy Tverskoy, who, hearing of her return, had invited her, nor to the theatre, where she had a box for that evening. She did not go out principally because the dress she had reckoned upon was not ready. Altogether, Anna, on turning, after the departure of her guests, to the consideration of her attire, was very much annoyed. She was generally a mistress of the art of dressing well without great expense, and before leaving Moscow she had given her dressmaker three dresses to transform.