Excitement

Passages

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

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• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  In the wealthy Kashinsky province, which always took the lead of other provinces in everything, there was now such a preponderance of forces that this policy once carried through properly there, might serve as a model for other provinces for all Russia. And hence the whole question was of the greatest importance. It was proposed to elect as marshal in place of Snetkov either Sviazhsky, or, better still, Nevyedovsky, a former university professor, a man of remarkable intelligence and a great friend of Sergey Ivanovitch. The meeting was opened by the governor, who made a speech to the nobles, urging them to elect the public functionaries, not from regard for persons, but for the service and welfare of their fatherland, and hoping that the honourable nobility of the Kashinsky province would, as at all former elections, hold their duty as sacred, and vindicate the exalted confidence of the monarch. When he had finished his speech, the governor walked out of the hall, and the noblemen noisily and eagerly—some even enthusiastically— followed him and thronged round him while he put on his fur-coat and conversed amicably with the marshal on the province. Levin, anxious to see into everything and not to miss anything, stood there too in the crowd, and heard the governor say: 'Please tell Marya Ivanovna my wife is very sorry she couldn't come to the Home.' And thereupon the nobles in high good humour sorted out their fur-coats and all drove off to the cathedral. In the cathedral Levin, lifting his hand like the rest and repeating the words of the archdeacon, swore with the most terrible oaths to do all the governor had hoped they would do. Church services always affected Levin, and as he uttered the words 'I kiss the cross,' and glanced round at the crowd of young and old men repeating the same, he felt touched. On the second and third days there was business relating to the finances of the nobility and the female high school, of no importance whatever, as Sergey Ivanovitch explained, and Levin, busy seeing after his own affairs, did not attend the meetings. On the fourth day the auditing of the marshal's accounts took place at the high table of the marshal of the province. And then there occurred the first skirmish between the new party and the old. The committee who had been deputed to verify the accounts reported to the meeting that all was in order. The marshal of the province got up, thanked the nobility for their confidence, and shed tears. The nobles gave him a loud welcome, and shook hands with him. But at that instant a nobleman of Sergey Ivanovitch's party said that he had heard that the committee had not verified the accounts, considering such a verification an insult to the marshal of the province.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Directly Vronsky went towards her, she drew in a deep breath, and, turning back her prominent eye till the white looked bloodshot, she stared at the approaching figures from the opposite side, shaking her muzzle, and shifting lightly from one leg to the other. 'There, you see how fidgety she is,' said the Englishman. 'There, darling! There!' said Vronsky, going up to the mare and speaking soothingly to her. But the nearer he came, the more excited she grew. Only when he stood by her head, she was suddenly quieter, while the muscles quivered under her soft, delicate coat. Vronsky patted her strong neck, straightened over her sharp withers a stray lock of her mane that had fallen on the other side, and moved his face near her dilated nostrils, transparent as a bat's wing. She drew a loud breath and snorted out through her tense nostrils, started, pricked up her sharp ear, and put out her strong, black lip towards Vronsky, as though she would nip hold of his sleeve. But remembering the muzzle, she shook it and again began restlessly stamping one after the other her shapely legs. 'Quiet, darling, quiet!' he said, patting her again over her hindquarters; and with a glad sense that his mare was in the best possible condition, he went out of the horse-box. The mare's excitement had infected Vronsky. He felt that his heart was throbbing, and that he too, like the mare, longed to move, to bite; it was both dreadful and delicious. 'Well, I rely on you, then,' he said to the Englishman; 'half-past six on the ground.' 'All right,' said the Englishman. 'Oh, where are you going, my lord?' he asked suddenly, using the title 'my lord', which he had scarcely ever used before. Vronsky in amazement raised his head, and stared, as he knew how to stare, not into the Englishman's eyes, but at his forehead, astounded at the impertinence of his question. But realising that in asking this the Englishman had been looking at him not as an employer, but as a jockey, he answered— 'I've got to go to Bryansky's; I shall be home within an hour.' 'How often I'm asked that question today!' he said to himself, and he blushed, a thing which rarely happened to him. The Englishman looked gravely at him; and, as though he, too, knew where Vronsky was going, he added— The great thing's to keep quiet before a race,' said he; 'don't get out of temper or upset about anything.' 'All right,' answered Vronsky, smiling; and jumping into his carriage, he told the man to drive to Peterhof.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Behind the tender, setting the platform more and more slowly swaying, came the luggage-van with a dog whining in it. At last the passenger carriages rolled in, oscillating before coming to a standstill. A smart guard jumped out, giving a whistle, and after him one by one the impatient passengers began to get down: an officer of the guards, holding himself erect, and looking severely about him; a nimble little merchant with a satchel, smiling gaily; a peasant with a sack over his shoulder. Vronsky, standing beside Oblonsky, watched the carriages and the passengers, totally oblivious of his mother. What he had just heard about Kitty excited and delighted him Unconsciously he arched his chest, and his eyes flashed. He felt himself a conqueror. 'Countess Vronsky is in that compartment,' said the smart guard, going up to Vronsky. The guard's words roused him, and forced him to think of his mother and his approaching meeting with her. He did not in his heart respect his mother, and without acknowledging it to himself, he did not love her, though in accordance with the ideas of the set in which he lived, and with his own education, he could not have conceived of any behaviour to his mother not in the highest degree respectful and obedient, and the more externally obedient and respectful his behaviour, the less in his heart he respected and loved her. XVIII V RONSKY followed the guard to the carriage, and at the door of the compartment he stopped short to make room for a lady who was getting out. With the insight of a man of the world, from one glance at this lady's appearance Vronsky classified her as belonging to the best society. He begged pardon, and was getting into the carriage, but felt he must glance at her once more; not that she was very beautiful, not on account of the elegance and modest grace which were apparent in her whole figure, but because in the expression of her charming face, as she passed close by him, there was something peculiarly caressing and soft. As he looked round, she too turned her head. Her shining grey eyes, that looked dark from the thick lashes, rested with friendly attention on his face, as though she were recognising him, and then promptly turned away to the passing crowd, as though seeking someone. In that brief look Vronsky had time to notice the suppressed eagerness which played over her face, and flitted between the brilliant eyes and the faint smile that curved her red lips. It was as though her nature were so brimming over with something that against her will it showed itself now in the flash of her eyes, and now in her smile.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  They're starting!' was heard on all sides after the hush of expectation. And little groups and solitary figures among the public began running from place to place to get a better view. In the very first minute the close group of horsemen drew out, and it could be seen they were approaching the stream in twos and threes and one behind another. To the spectators it seemed as though they had all started simultaneously, but to the racers there were seconds of difference that had great value to them. Frou-Frou, excited and over-nervous, had lost the first moment, and several horses had started before her, but before reaching the stream, Vronsky, who was holding in the mare with all his force as she tugged at the bridle, easily overtook three, and there were left in front of him Mahotin's chestnut Gladiator, whose hind-quarters were moving lightly and rhythmically up and down exactly in front of Vronsky, and in front of all, the dainty mare Diana, bearing Kuzovlev more dead than alive. For the first instant Vronsky was not master either of himself or his mare. Up to the first obstacle, the stream, he could not guide the motions of his mare. Gladiator and Diana came up to it together and almost at the same instant; simultaneously they rose above the stream and flew across to the other side; Frou-Frou darted after them, as if flying; but at the very moment when Vronsky felt himself in the air, he suddenly saw almost under his mare's hoofs Kuzovlev, who was floundering with Diana on the further side of the stream. (Kuzovlev had let go the reins as he took the leap, and the mare had sent him flying over her head). Those details Vronsky learned later; at the moment all he saw was that just under him, where Frou-Frou must alight, Diana's legs or head might be in the way. But Frou-Frou drew up her legs and back in the very act of leaping, like a falling cat, and, clearing the other mare, alighted beyond her. 'O the darling!' thought Vronsky. After crossing the stream Vronsky had complete control of his mare, and began holding her in, intending to cross the great barrier behind Mahotin, and to try to overtake him in the clear ground of about five hundred yards that followed it. The great barrier stood just in front of the imperial pavilion. The Tsar and the whole court and crowds of people were all gazing at them —at him, and Mahotin a length ahead of him, as they drew near the 'devil', as the solid barrier was called. Vronsky was aware of those eyes fastened upon him from all sides, but he saw nothing except the ears and neck of his own mare, the ground racing to meet him, and the back and white legs of Gladiator beating time swiftly before him, and keeping always the same distance ahead.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  They see our friend standing there.' (Petritsky mimicked how he was standing with the helmet.) 'The Grand-Duchess asked him to give her the helmet; he doesn't give it her. What do you think of that? Well, everyone's winking at him, nodding, frowning— give it to her, do! He doesn't give it her. He's mute as a fish. Only picture it! . . . Well, the . . . what's his name, whatever he was . . . tries to take the helmet from him . . . he won't give it up! . . . He pulls it from him, and hands it to the Grand-Duchess. "Here, your Highness," says he, "is the new helmet." She turned the helmet the other side up, and—just picture it! —plop went a pear and sweetmeats out of it, two pounds of sweetmeats! . . . He'd been storing them up, the darling!' Vronsky burst into roars of laughter. And long afterwards, when he was talking of other things, he broke out into his healthy laugh, showing his strong, close rows of teeth, when he thought of the helmet. Having heard all the news, Vronsky, with the assistance of his valet, got into his uniform, and went off to. report himself. He intended, when he had done that, to drive to his brother's, and to Betsy's, and to pay several visits with a view to beginning to go into that society where he might meet Madame Karenin. As he always did in Petersburg, he left home not meaning to return till late at night. Anna Karenina PART II I A T the end of the winter, in the Shtcherbatskys' house, a consultation was being held, which was to pronounce on the state of Kitty's health and the measures to be taken to restore her failing strength. She had been ill, and as spring came on she grew worse. The family doctor gave her codliver oil, then iron, then nitrate of silver, but as the first and the second and the third were alike in doing no good, and as his advice when spring came was to go abroad, a celebrated physician was called in.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  He had imagined riding on a steppe horse as something wild and romantic, and it had turned out nothing of the sort. But his simplicity, particularly in conjunction with his good looks, his amiable smile, and the grace of his movements, was very attractive. Either because his nature was sympathetic to Levin, or because Levin was trying to atone for his sins of the previous evening by seeing nothing but what was good in him, anyway he liked his society. After they had driven over two miles from home, Veslovsky all at once felt for a cigar and his pocket-book, and did not know whether he had lost them or left them on the table. In the pocket-book there were thirty-seven pounds, and so the matter could not be left in uncertainty. 'Do you know what, Levin, I'll gallop home on that left trace-horse. That will be splendid. Eh?' he said, preparing to get out. 'No, why should you?' answered Levin, calculating that Vassenka could hardly weigh less than seventeen stone. 'I'll send the coachman.' The coachman rode back on the trace-horse, and Levin himself drove the remaining pair. IX ' W ELL , now, what's our plan of campaign? Tell us all about it,' said Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'Our plan is this. Now we're driving to Gvozdyov. In Gvozdyov there's a grouse marsh on this side, and beyond Gvozdyov come some magnificent snipe marshes where there are grouse too. It's hot now, and we'll get there—it's fifteen miles or so—towards evening and have some evening shooting; we'll spend the night there and go on tomorrow to the bigger moors.' 'And is there nothing on the way?' 'Yes; but we'll reserve ourselves; besides it's hot. There are two nice little places, but I doubt there being anything to shoot.' Levin would himself have liked to go into these little places, but they were near home; he could shoot over them any time, and they were only little places—there would hardly be room for three to shoot. And so, with some insincerity, he said that he doubted there being anything to shoot. When they reached a little marsh Levin would have driven by, but Stepan Arkadyevitch, with the experienced eye of a sportsman, at once detected reeds visible from the road. 'Shan't we try that?' he said, pointing to the little marsh. 'Levin, do, please! how delightful!' Vassenka Veslovsky began begging, and Levin could but consent. Before they had time to stop, the dogs had flown one before the other into the marsh. 'Krak! Laska! …" The dogs came back. 'There won't be room for three. I'll stay here,' said Levin, hoping they would find nothing but peewits, who had been startled by the dogs, and turning over in their flight, were plaintively wailing over the marsh. 'No! Come along, Levin, let's go together!' Veslovsky called. 'Really, there's not room. Laska, back, Laska!

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'I told you not to let anyone out!' he cried to the doorkeeper. 'I let someone in, your excellency!' 'Mercy on us!' and with a heavy sigh the marshal of the province walked with downcast head to the high table in the middle of the room, his legs staggering in his white trousers. Nevyedovsky had scored a higher majority, as they had planned, and he was the new marshal of the province. Many people were amused, many were pleased and happy, many were in ecstasies, many were disgusted and unhappy. The former marshal of the province was in a state of despair, which he could not conceal. When Nevyedovsky went out of the room, the crowd thronged round him and followed him enthusiastically, just as they had followed the governor who had opened the meetings, and just as they had followed Snetkov when he was elected. XXXI T HE newly elected marshal and many of the successful party dined that day with Vronsky. Vronsky had come to the elections partly because he was bored in the country and wanted to show Anna his right to independence, and also to repay Sviazhsky by his support at the election for all the trouble he had taken for Vronsky at the district council election, but chiefly in order strictly to perform all those duties of a nobleman and landowner which he had taken upon himself. But he had not in the least expected that the election would so interest him, so keenly excite him, and that he would be so good at this kind of thing: He was quite a new man in the circle of the nobility of the province, but his success was unmistakable, and he was not wrong in supposing that he had already obtained a certain influence. This influence was due to his wealth and reputation, the capital house in the town lent him by his old friend Shirkov, who had a post in the department of finances and was director of a flourishing bank in Kashin; the excellent cook Vronsky had brought from the country, and his friendship with the governor, who was a schoolfellow of Vronsky's—a schoolfellow he had patronised and protected indeed. But what contributed more than all to his success was his direct, equable manner with everyone, which very quickly made the majority of the noblemen reverse the current opinion of his supposed haughtiness.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'Mituh!' (so the peasant called the house-porter, in a tone of contempt), 'you may be sure he'll make it pay, Konstantin Dmitrievitch! He'll get his share, however he has to squeeze to get it! He's no mercy on a Christian. But Uncle Fokanitch' (so he called the old peasant Platon), 'do you suppose he'd flay the skin off a man? Where there's debt, he'll let anyone off. And he'll not wring the last penny out. He's a man too.' 'But why will he let anyone off?' 'Oh, well, of course, folks are different. One man lives for his own wants and nothing else, like Mituh; he only thinks of filling his belly, but Fokanitch is a righteous man. He lives for his soul. He does not forget God.' 'How thinks of God? How does he live for his soul?' Levin almost shouted. 'Why, to be sure, in truth, in God's way. Folks are different. Take you now, you wouldn't wrong a man….' 'Yes, yes, good-bye!' said Levin, breathless with excitement, and turning round he took his stick and walked quickly away towards home. At the peasant's words that Fokanitch lived for his soul, in truth, in God's way, undefined but significant ideas seemed to burst out as though they had been locked up, and all striving towards one goal, they thronged whirling through his head, blinding him with their light. XII L EVIN strode along the highroad, absorbed not so much in his thoughts (he could not yet disentangle them) as in his spiritual condition, unlike anything he had experienced before. The words uttered by the peasant had acted on his soul like an electric shock, suddenly transforming and combining into a single whole the whole swarm of disjointed, impotent, separate thoughts that incessantly occupied his mind. These thoughts had unconsciously been in his mind even when he was talking about the land. He was aware of something new in his soul, and joyfully tested this new thing, not yet knowing what it was. 'Not living for his own wants, but for God? For what God? And could one say anything more senseless than what he said? He said that one must not live for one's own wants, that is, that one must not live for what we understand, what we are attracted by, what we desire, but must live for something incomprehensible, for God, whom no one can understand nor even define. What of it? Didn't I understand those senseless words of Fyodor's? And understanding them, did I doubt of their truth? Did I think them stupid, obscure, inexact? No, I understood him, and exactly as he understands the words. I understood them more fully and clearly than I understand anything in life, and never in my life have I doubted nor can I doubt about it. And not only I, but everyone, the whole world understands nothing fully but this, and about this only they have no doubt and are always agreed.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'Oh yes, of course.' While they were talking the crowd streamed by them into the dining-room. They went forward too, and heard a gentleman with a glass in his hand delivering a loud discourse to the volunteers. 'In the service of religion, humanity, and our brothers,' the gentleman said, his voice growing louder and louder; 'to this great cause mother Moscow dedicates you with her blessing. Jivio!' he concluded, loudly and tearfully. Every one shouted Jivio! and a fresh crowd dashed into the hall, almost carrying the princess off her legs. 'Ah, princess! that was something like!' said Stepan Arkadyevitch, suddenly appearing in the middle of the crowd and beaming upon them with a delighted smile. 'Capitally, warmly said, wasn't it? Bravo! And Sergey Ivanovitch! Why, you ought to have said something—just a few words, you know, to encourage them; you do that so well,' he added with a soft, respectful, and discreet smile, moving Sergey Ivanovitch forward a little by the arm. 'No, I'm just off.' 'Whereto?' 'To the country, to my brother's,' answered Sergey Ivanovitch. 'Then you'll see my wife. I've written to her, but you'll see her first. Please tell her that they've seen me and that it's "all right," as the English say. She'll understand. Oh, and be so good as to tell her I'm appointed secretary of the committee. . . . But she'll understand! You know, les petites misères de la vie humaine,' he said, as it were apologising to the princess. 'And Princess Myaky—not Liza, but Bibish—is sending a thousand guns and twelve nurses. Did I tell you?' 'Yes, I heard so,' answered Koznishev indifferently. 'It's a pity you're going away,' said Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'Tomorrow we're giving a dinner to two who're setting off—Dimer-Bartnyansky from Petersburg and our Veslovsky, Grisha. They're both going. Veslovsky's only lately married. There's a fine fellow for you! Eh, prin cess?' he turned to the lady. The princess looked at Koznishev without replying. But the fact that Sergey Ivanovitch and the princess seemed anxious to get rid of him did not in the least disconcert Stepan Arkadyevitch. Smiling, he stared at the feather in the princess's hat, and then about him as though he were going to pick something up. Seeing a lady approaching with a collecting-box, he beckoned her up and put in a five-rouble note. 'I can never see these collecting-boxes unmoved while I've money in my pocket,' he said. 'And how about today's telegram?

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  He liked in Katavasov the clearness and simplicity of his conception of life. Levin thought that the clearness of Katavasov's conception of life was due to the poverty of his nature; Katavasov thought that the disconnectedness of Levin's ideas was due to his lack of intellectual discipline; but Levin enjoyed Katavasov's clearness, and Katavasov enjoyed the abundance of Levin's untrained ideas, and they liked to meet and to discuss. Levin had read Katavasov some parts of his book, and he had liked them. On the previous day Katavasov had met Levin at a public lecture and told him that the celebrated Metrov, whose article Levin had so much liked, was in Moscow, that he had been much interested by what Katavasov had told him about Levin's work, and that he was coming to see him tomorrow at eleven, and would be very glad to make Levin's acquaintance. 'You're positively a reformed character, I'm glad to see,' said Katavasov, meeting Levin in the little drawing-room. 'I heard the bell and thought; Impossible that it can be he at the exact time! . . . Well, what do you say to the Montenegrins now? They're a race of warriors.' 'Why, what's happened ?' asked Levin. Katavasov in few words told him the last piece of news from the war, and going into his study, introduced Levin to a short, thick-set man of pleasant appearance. This was Metrov. The conversation touched for a brief space on politics and on how recent events were looked at in the higher spheres in Petersburg. Metrov repeated a saying that had reached him through a most trustworthy source, reported as having been uttered on this subject by the Tsar and one of the ministers. Katavasov had heard also on excellent authority that the Tsar had said something quite different. Levin tried to imagine circumstances in which both sayings might have been uttered, and the conversation on that topic dropped. 'Yes, here he's written almost a book on the natural conditions of the labourer in relation to the land,' said Katavasov; 'I'm not a specialist, but I, as a natural science man, was pleased at his not taking mankind as something outside biological laws; but, on the contrary, seeing his dependence on his surroundings, and in that dependence seeking the laws of his development.' 'That's very interesting,' said Metrov. 'What I began precisely was to write a book on agriculture; but studying the chief instrument of agriculture, the labourer,' said Levin, reddening, 'I could not help coming to quite unexpected results.' And Levin began carefully, as it were, feeling his ground, to expound his views. He knew Metrov had written an article against the generally accepted theory of political economy, but to what extent he could reckon on his sympathy with his own new views he did not know and could not guess from the clever and serene face of the learned man.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  He stumbled over the stump as he came, and moved, as she thought, extraordinarily slowly. She thought he came slowly, but he was running. Noticing Laska's special attitude as she crouched on the ground, as it were scratching big prints with her hind paws, and with her mouth slightly open, Levin knew she was pointing at grouse, and with an inward prayer for luck, especially with the first bird, he ran up to her. Coming quite close up to her, he could from his height look beyond her, and he saw with his eyes what she was seeing with her nose. In a space between two little thickets, at a couple of yards' distance, he could see a grouse. Turning its head, it was listening. Then lightly preening and folding its wings, it disappeared round a corner with a clumsy wag of its tail. 'Fetch it, fetch it!' shouted Levin, giving Laska a shove from behind. 'But I can't go,' thought Laska. 'Where am I to go? From here I feel them, but if I move forward I shall know nothing of where they are or who they are.' But then he shoved her with his knee, and in an excited whisper said, 'Fetch it, Laska.' 'Well, if that's what he wishes, I'll do it, but I can't answer for myself now,' she thought, and darted forward as fast as her legs would carry her between the thick bushes. She scented nothing now; she could only see and hear, without understanding anything. Ten paces from her former place a grouse rose with a guttural cry and the peculiar round sound of its wings. And immediately after the shot it splashed heavily with its white breast on the wet mire. Another bird did not linger, but rose behind Levin without the dog. When Levin turned towards it, it was already some way off. But his shot caught it. Flying twenty paces further, the second grouse rose upwards, and whirling round like a ball, dropped heavily on a dry place. 'Come, this is going to be some good!' thought Levin, packing the warm and fat grouse into his game-bag. 'Eh, Laska, will it be good?' When Levin, after loading his gun, moved on, the sun had fully risen, though unseen behind the storm-clouds. The moon had lost all its lustre, and was like a white cloud in the sky. Not a single star could be seen. The sedge, silvery with dew before, now shone like gold. The stagnant pools were all like amber. The blue of the grass had changed to yellow-green.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'She won't scare them,' answered Levin, sympathising with his bitch's pleasure and hurrying after her. As she came nearer and nearer to the familiar breeding-places there was more and more earnestness in Laska's exploration. A little marsh bird did not divert her attention for more than an instant. She made one circuit round the clump of reeds, was beginning a second, and suddenly quivered with excitement and became motionless. 'Come, come, Stiva!' shouted Levin, feeling his heart beginning to beat more violently; and all of a sudden, as though some sort of shutter had been drawn back from his straining ears, all sounds, confused but loud, began to beat on his hearing, losing all sense of distance. He heard the steps of Stepan Arkadyevitch, mistaking them for the tramp of the horses in the distance; he heard the brittle sound of the twigs on which he had trodden, taking this sound for the flying of a grouse. He heard too, not far behind him, a splashing in the water, which he could not explain to himself. Picking his steps, he moved up to the dog. 'Fetch it!' Not a grouse but a snipe flew up from beside the dog. Levin had lifted his gun, but at the instant when he was taking aim, the sound of splashing grew louder, came closer, and was joined with the sound of Veslovsky's voice, shouting something with strange loudness. Levin saw he had his gun pointed behind the snipe, but still he fired. When he had made sure he had missed, Levin looked round and saw the horses and the wagonette not on the road but in the marsh. Veslovsky, eager to see the shooting, had driven into the marsh, and got the horses stuck in the mud. 'Damn the fellow!' Levin said to himself, as he went back to the carriage that had sunk in the mire. 'What did you drive in for?' he said to him drily, and calling the coachman, he began pulling the horses out. Levin was vexed both at being hindered from shooting and at his horses getting stuck in the mud, and still more at the fact that neither Stepan Arkadyevitch nor Veslovsky helped him and the coachman to unharness the horses and get them out, since neither of them had the slightest notion of harnessing. Without vouchsafing a syllable in reply to Vassenka's protestations that it had been quite dry there, Levin worked in silence with the coachman at extricating the horses. But then, as he got warm at the work and saw how assiduously Veslovsky was tugging at the wagonette by one of the mud-guards, so that he broke it indeed, Levin blamed himself for having under the influence of yesterday's feelings been too cold to Veslovsky, and tried to be particularly genial so as to smooth over his chilliness.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'I'm coming, I'm coming, Varvara Andreevna,' said Sergey Ivanovitch, finishing his cup of coffee, and putting into their separate pockets his handkerchief and cigar-case. 'And how sweet my Varenka is! eh?' said Kitty to her husband, as soon as Sergey Ivanovitch rose. She spoke so that Sergey Ivanovitch could hear, and it was clear that she meant him to do so. 'And how good-looking she is—such a refined beauty! Varenka!' Kitty shouted. 'Shall you be in the mill copse? We'll come out to you.' 'You certainly forget your condition, Kitty,' said the old princess, hurriedly coming out at the door. 'You mustn't shout like that.' Varenka, hearing Kitty's voice and her mother's reprimand, went with light, rapid steps up to Kitty. The rapidity of her movement, her flushed and eager face, everything betrayed that something out of the common was going on in her. Kitty knew what this was, and had been watching her intently. She called Varenka at that moment merely in order mentally to give her a blessing for the important event which, as Kitty fancied, was bound to come to pass that day after dinner in the wood. 'Varenka, I should be very happy if a certain something were to happen,' she whispered as she kissed her. 'And are you coming with us?' Varenka said to Levin in confusion, pretending not to have heard what had been said. 'I am coming, but only as far as the threshing-floor, and there I shall stop.' 'Why, what do you want there?' said Kitty. 'I must go to have a look at the new wagons, and to check the invoice,' said Levin; 'and where will you be?' 'On the terrace.' II O N the terrace were assembled all the ladies of the party. They always liked sitting there after dinner, and that day they had work to do there too. Besides the sewing and knitting of baby-clothes, with which all of them were busy, that afternoon jam was being made on the terrace by a method new to Agafea Mihalovna, without the addition of water. Kitty had introduced this new method, which had been in use in her home. Agafea Mihalovna, to whom the task of jam-making had always been intrusted, considering that what had been done in the Levin household could not be amiss, had nevertheless put water with the strawberries, maintaining that the jam could not be made without it. She had been caught in the act, and was now making jam before everyone, and it was to be proved to her conclusively that jam could be very well made without water. Agafea Mihalovna, her face heated and angry, her hair untidy, and her thin arms bare to the elbows, was turning the preserving-pan over the charcoal stove, looking darkly at the raspberries and devoutly hoping they would stick and not cook properly.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Stepping carefully with her sunburnt, bare feet, the old woman conducted Levin, and moved back the fence for him by the threshing-floor. 'Straight on and you'll come to the marsh. Our lads drove the cattle there yesterday evening.' Laska ran eagerly forward along the little path. Levin followed her with a light, rapid step, continually looking at the sky. He hoped the sun would not be up before he reached the marsh. But the sun did not delay. The moon, which had been bright when he went out, by now shone only like a crescent of quicksilver. The pink flush of dawn, which one could not help seeing before, now had to be sought to be discerned at all. What were before undefined, vague blurs in the distant countryside could now be distinctly seen. They were sheaves of rye. The dew, not visible till the sun was up, wetted Levin's legs and his blouse above his belt in the high-growing, fragrant hemp-patch, from which the pollen had already fallen out. In the transparent stillness of morning the smallest sounds were audible. A bee flew by Levin's ear with the whizzing sound of a bullet. He looked carefully, and saw a second and a third. They were all flying from the bee-hives behind the hedge, and they disappeared over the hemp-patch in the direction of the marsh. The path led straight to the marsh. The marsh could be recognised by the mist which rose from it, thicker in one place and thinner in another, so that the reeds and willow-bushes swayed like islands in this mist. At the edge of the marsh and the road peasant boys and men, who had been herding for the night, were lying, and in the dawn all were asleep under their coats. Not far from them were three hobbled horses. One of them clanked a chain. Laska walked beside her master, pressing a little forward and looking round. Passing the sleeping peasants and reaching the first reeds, Levin examined his pistons and let his dog off. One of the horses, a sleek, dark-brown three-year-old, seeing the dog, started away, switched its tail and snorted. The other horses too were frightened, and splashing through the water with their hobbled legs, and drawing their hoofs out of the thick mud with a squelching sound, they bounded out of the marsh. Laska stopped, looked ironically at the horses and inquiringly at Levin. Levin patted Laska, and whistled as a sign that she might begin. Laska ran joyfully and anxiously through the slush that swayed under her.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Running into the marsh among the familiar scents of roots, marsh plants, and slime and the extraneous smell of horse dung, Laska detected at once a smell that pervaded the whole marsh, the scent of that strong-smelling bird that always excited her more than any other. Here and there among the moss and marsh plants this scent was very strong, but it was impossible to determine in which direction it grew stronger or fainter. To find the direction, she had to go further away from the wind. Not feeling the motion of her legs, Laska bounded with a stiff gallop, so that at each bound she could stop short, to the right, away from the wind that blew from the east before sunrise, and turned facing the wind. Sniffing in the air with dilated nostrils, she felt at once that not their tracks only but they themselves were here before her, and not one, but many. Laska slackened her speed. They were here, but where precisely she could not yet determine. To find the very spot, she began to make a circle, when suddenly her master's voice drew her off. 'Laska! here?' he asked, pointing her to a different direction. She stopped, asking him if she had better not go on doing as she had begun. But he repeated his command in an angry voice, pointing to a spot covered with water, where there could not be anything. She obeyed him, pretending she was looking, so as to please him, went round it, and went back to her former position, and was at once aware of the scent again. Now when he was not hindering her, she knew what to do, and without looking at what was under her feet, and to her vexation stumbling over a high stump into the water, but righting herself with her strong, supple legs, she began making the circle which was to make all clear to her. The scent of them reached her, stronger, and more and more defined, and all at once it became perfectly clear to her that one of them was here, behind this tuft of reeds, five paces in front of her; she stopped, and her whole body was still and rigid. On her short legs she could see nothing in front of her, but by the scent she knew it was sitting not more than five paces off. She stood still, feeling more and more conscious of it, and enjoying it in anticipation. Her tail was stretched straight and tense, and only wagging at the extreme end. Her mouth was slightly open, her ears raised. One ear had been turned wrong side out as she ran up, and she breathed heavily but warily, and still more warily looked round, but more with her eyes than her head, to her master. He was coming along with the face she knew so well, though the eyes were always terrible to her.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  But he had promised Bryansky to come, and so he decided to drive on, telling the coachman not to spare the horses. He reached Bryansky's, spent five minutes there, and galloped back. The rapid drive calmed him. All that was painful in his relations with Anna, all the feeling of indefiniteness left by their conversation, had slipped out of his mind. He was thinking now with pleasure and excitement of the race, of his being, anyhow, in time, and now and then the thought of the blissful interview awaiting him that night flashed across his imagination like a flaming light. The excitement of the approaching race gained upon him as he drove further and further into the atmosphere of the races, overtaking carriages driving up from the summer villas or out of Petersburg. At his quarters no one was left at home; all were at the races, and his valet was looking out for him at the gate. While he was changing his clothes, his valet told him that the second race had begun already, that a lot of gentlemen had been to ask for him, and a boy had twice run up from the stables. Dressing without hurry (he never hurried himself, and never lost his self-possession), Vronsky drove to the sheds. From the sheds he could see a perfect sea of carriages, and people on foot, soldiers surrounding the racecourse, and pavilions swarming with people. The second race was apparently going on, for just as he went into the sheds he heard a bell ringing. Going towards the stable, he met the white-legged chestnut, Mahotin's Gladiator, being led to the racecourse in a blue forage horsecloth, with what looked like huge ears edged with blue. 'Where's Cord?' he asked the stable-boy. 'In the stable, putting on the saddle.' In the open horse-box stood Frou-Frou, saddled ready. They were just going to lead her out. 'I'm not too late?' 'All right! All right!' said the Englishman; 'don't upset yourself!' Vronsky once more took in in one glance the exquisite lines of his favourite mare, who was quivering all over, and with an effort he tore himself from the sight of her, and went out of the stable.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'But what conclusion have they come to?' 'Excuse me . . . ' The two neighbours had risen, and Sviazhsky, once more checking Levin in his inconvenient habit of peeping into what was beyond the outer chambers of his mind, went to see his guests out, XXVIII L EVIN was insufferably bored that evening with the ladies; he was stirred as he had never been before by the idea that the dissatisfaction he was feeling with his system of managing his land was not an exceptional case, but the general condition of things in Russia; that the organisation of some relation of the labourers to the soil in which they would work, as with the peasant he had met half-way to the Sviazhskys' was not a dream, but a problem which must be solved. And it seemed to him that the problem could be solved, and that he ought to try and solve it. After saying good-night to the ladies, and promising to stay the whole of the next day, so as to make an expedition on horseback with them to see an interesting ruin in the crown forest, Levin went, before going to bed, into his host's study to get the books on the labour question that Sviazhsky had offered him. Sviazhsky's study was a huge room, surrounded by bookcases and with two tables in it—one a massive writing-table, standing in the middle of the room, and the other a round table, covered with recent numbers of reviews and journals in different languages, ranged like the rays of a star round the lamp. On the writing-table was a stand of drawers marked with gold lettering, and full of papers of various sorts. Sviazhsky took out the books, and sat down in a rocking-chair. 'What are you looking at there?' he said to Levin, who was standing at the round table looking through the reviews. 'Oh yes, there's a very interesting article here,' said Sviazhsky of the review Levin was holding in his hand. 'It appears,' he went on, with eager interest, 'that Friedrich was not, after all, the person chiefly responsible for the partition of Poland. It is proved . . . ' And, with his characteristic clearness, he summed up those new, very important, and interesting revelations. Although Levin was engrossed at the moment by his ideas about the problem of the land, he wondered, as he heard Sviazhsky: 'What is there inside him? And why, why is he interested in the partition of Poland?' When Sviazhsky had finished, Levin could not help asking: 'Well, and what then?' But there was nothing to follow. It was simply interesting that it had been proved to be so and so. But Sviazhsky did not explain, and saw no need to explain why it was interesting to him. 'Yes, but I was very much interested by your irritable neighbour,' said Levin, sighing.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'But three steps will add to the length too . . . where is it to come out?' 'Why, to be sure, it'll start from the bottom and go up and go up, and come out so,' the carpenter said obstinately and convincingly. 'It'll reach the ceiling and the wall.' 'Upon my word! Why, it'll go up, and up, and come out like this.' Levin took out a ramrod and began sketching him the staircase in the dust. 'There, do you see?' 'As your honour likes,' said the carpenter, with a sudden gleam in his eyes, obviously understanding the thing at last. 'It seems it'll be best to make a new one.' 'Well, then, do it as you're told,' Levin shouted, seating himself in the wagonette. 'Down! Hold the dogs, Philip!' Levin felt now at leaving behind all his family and household cares such an eager sense of joy in life and expectation that he was not disposed to talk. Besides that, he had that feeling of concentrated excitement that every sportsman experiences as he approaches the scene of action. If he had anything on his mind at that moment, it was only the doubt whether they would start anything in the Kolpensky marsh, whether Laska would show to advantage in comparison with Krak, and whether he would shoot well that day himself. Not to disgrace himself before a new spectator—not to be outdone by Oblonsky—that too was a thought that crossed his brain. Oblonsky was feeling the same, and he too was not talkative. Vassenka Veslovsky kept up alone a ceaseless flow of cheerful chatter. As he listened to him now, Levin felt ashamed to think how unfair he had been to him the day before. Vassenka was really a nice fellow, simple, good-hearted, and very good-humoured. If Levin had met him before he was married, he would have made friends with him. Levin rather disliked his holiday attitude to life and a sort of free and easy assumption of elegance. It was as though he assumed a high degree of importance in himself that could not be disputed, because he had long nails and a stylish cap, and everything else to correspond; but this could be forgiven for the sake of his good nature and good breeding. Levin liked him for his good education, for speaking French and English with such an excellent accent, and for being a man of his world. Vassenka was extremely delighted with the left horse, a horse of the Don steppes. He kept praising him enthusiastically. 'How fine it must be galloping over the steppes on a steppe horse! Eh? isn't it?' he said.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  And as he vividly pictured the happiness of seeing her, his face lighted up. 'Send to my house, and tell them to have out the carriage and three horses as quick as they can,' he said to the servant, who handed him the steak on a hot silver dish, and moving the dish up he began eating. From the billiard-room next door came the sound of balls knocking, of talk and laughter. Two officers appeared at the entrance-door: one, a young fellow, with a feeble, delicate face, who had lately joined the regiment from the Corps of Pages; the other, a plump, elderly officer, with a bracelet on his wrist, and little eyes, lost in fat. Vronsky glanced at them, frowned, and looking down at his book as though he had not noticed them, he proceeded to eat and read at the same time. 'What? Fortifying yourself for your work?' said the plump officer, sitting down beside him. 'As you see,' responded Vronsky, knitting his brows, wiping his mouth, and not looking at the officer. 'So you're not afraid of getting fat?' said the latter, turning a chair round for the young officer. 'What?' said Vronsky angrily, making a wry face of disgust, and showing his even teeth. 'You're not afraid of getting fat?' 'Waiter, sherry!' said Vronsky, without replying, and moving the book to the other side of him, he went on reading. The plump officer took up the list of wines and turned to the young officer. 'You choose what we're to drink,' he said, handing him the card, and looking at him. 'Rhine wine, please,' said the young officer, stealing a timid glance at Vronsky, and trying to pull his scarcely visible moustache. Seeing that Vronsky did not turn round, the young officer got up. 'Let's go into the billiard-room,' he said. Anna Karenina The plump officer rose submissively, and they moved towards the door. At that moment there walked into the room the tall and well-built Captain Yashvin. Nodding with an air of lofty contempt to the two officers, he went up to Vronsky. 'Ah! here he is!' he cried, bringing his big hand down heavily on his epaulet. Vronsky looked round angrily, but his face lighted up immediately with his characteristic expression of genial and manly serenity. 'That's it, Alexey,' said the captain, in his loud baritone. 'You must just eat a mouthful, now, and drink only one tiny glass.' 'Oh, I'm not hungry.' 'There go the inseparables,' Yashvin dropped, glancing sarcastically at the two officers who were at that instant leaving the room. And he bent his long legs, swathed in tight riding-breeches, and sat down in the chair, too low for him, so that his knees were cramped up in a sharp angle. 'Why didn't you turn up at the Red Theatre yesterday? Numerova wasn't at all bad. Where were you?' 'I was late at the Tverskoys',' said Vronsky. 'Ah!' responded Yashvin.

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  If in these our first acts pleasures and pains bear no part, as little do they bear in our last acts, or those artificially acquired performances which have become habitual. All the daily routine of life, our dressing and undressing, the coming and going from our work or carrying through of its various operations, is utterly without mental reference to pleasure and pain, except under rarely realized conditions. It is ideo-motor action. As I do not breathe for the pleasure of the breathing, but simply find that I am breathing, so I do not write for the pleasure of the writing, but simply because I have once begun, and being in a state of intellectual excitement which keeps venting itself in that way, find that I am writing still. Who will pretend that when he idly fingers his knife-handle at the table, it is for the sake of any pleasure which it gives him, or pain which he thereby avoids. We do all these things because at the moment we cannot help it; our nervous systems are so shaped that they overflow in just that way; and for many of our idle or purely 'nervous' and fidgety performances we can assign absolutely no reason at all.