Excitement

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

  A physiological conclusion remains to be drawn. If the principles laid down in Chapter XIV are true, then it follows that the great cerebral difference between habitual and reasoned thinking must be this: that in the former an entire system of cells vibrating at any one moment discharges in its totality into another entire system, and that the order of the discharges tends to be a constant one in time; whilst in the latter a part of the prior system still keeps vibrating in the midst of the subsequent system, and the order—which part this shall be, and what shall be its concomitants in the subsequent system—has little tendency to fixedness in time. This physical selection, so to call it, of one part to vibrate persistently whilst the others rise and subside, we found, in the chapter in question, to be the basis of similar association, (See especially pp. 578-81.) It would seem to be but a minor degree of that still more urgent and importunate localized vibration which we can easiest conceive to underlie the mental fact of interest, attention, or dissociation. In terms of the brain-process, then, all these mental facts resolve themselves into a single peculiarity: that of indeterminateness of connection between the different tracts, and tendency of action to focalize itself, so to speak, in small localities which vary infinitely at different times, and from which irradiation may proceed in countless shifting ways. (Compare figure 80, p. 347.) To discover, or (what more benefits the present stage of nerve-physiology) to adumbrate by some possible guess, on what chemical or molecular-mechanical fact this instable equilibrium of the human brain may depend, should be the next task of the physiologist who ponders over the passage from brute to man. Whatever the physical peculiarity in question may be, it is the cause why a man, whose brain has it, reasons so much, whilst his horse, whose brain lacks it, reasons so little. We can but bequeath the problem to abler hands than our own. But, meanwhile, this mode of stating the matter suggests a couple of other inferences. The first is brief. If focalization of brain-activity be the fundamental fact of reasonable thought, we see why intense interest or concentrated passion makes us think so much more truly and profoundly. The persistent focalization of motion in certain tracts is the cerebral fact corresponding to the persistent domination in consciousness of the important feature of the subject. When not 'focalized,' we are scatter-brained; but when thoroughly impassioned, we never wander from the point. None but congruous and relevant images arise. When roused by indignation or moral enthusiasm, how trenchant are our emotions, how smiting are our words! The whole network of petty scruples and by-considerations which, at ordinary languid times, surrounded the matter like a cob-web, holding back our thought, as Gulliver was pinned to the earth by the myriad Lilliputian threads, are dashed through at a blow, and the subject stands with its essential and vital lines revealed.

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

  As Rochefoucauld says, there is something in the misfortunes of our very friends that does not altogether displease us; and an apostle of peace will feel a certain vicious thrill run through him, and enjoy a vicarious brutality, as he turns to the column in his newspaper at the top of which 'Shocking Atrocity' stands printed in large capitals. See how the crowd hocks round a street-brawl! Consider the enormous annual sale of revolvers to persons, not one in a thousand of whom has any serious intention of using them, but of whom each one has his carnivorous self-consciousness agreeably tickled by the notion, as he clutches the handle of his weapon, that he will be rather a dangerous customer to meet. See the ignoble crew that escorts every great pugilist—parasites who feel as if the glory of his brutality rubbed off upon them, and whose darling hope, from day today, is to arrange some set-to of which they may share the rapture without enduring the pains! The first blows at a prize-fight are apt to make a refined spectator sick; but his blood is soon up in favor of one party, and it will then seem as if the other fellow could not be banged and pounded and mangled enough—the refined spectator would like to reinforce the blows himself. Over the sinister orgies of blood of certain depraved and insane persons let a curtain be drawn, as well as over the ferocity with which otherwise fairly decent men may be animated, when (at the sacking of a town, for instance), the excitement of victory long delayed, the sudden freedom of rapine and of lust, the contagion of a crowd, and the impulse to imitate and outdo, all combine to swell the blind drunkenness of the killing-instinct, and carry it to its extreme. No! those who try to account for this from above downwards, as if it resulted from the consequences of the victory being rapidly inferred, and from the agreeable sentiments associated with them in the imagination, have missed the root of the matter. Our ferocity is blind, and can only be explained from below. Could we trace it back through our line of descent, we should see it taking more and more the form of a fatal reflex response, and at the same time becoming more and more the pure and direct emotion that it is.[393]

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

  Man is known again as 'the talking animal'; and language is assuredly a capital distinction between man and brute. But it may readily be shown how this distinction merely shows from those we have pointed out, easy dissociation of a representation into its ingredients, and association by similarity. Language is a system of signs, different from the things signified, but able to suggest them. No doubt brutes have a number of such signs. When a dog yelps in front of a door, and his master, understanding his desire, opens it, the dog may, after a certain number of repetitions, get to repeat in cold blood a yelp which was at first the involuntary interjectional expression of strong emotion. The same dog may be taught to 'beg' for food, and afterwards come to do so deliberately when hungry. The dog also learns to understand the signs of men, and the word 'rat' uttered to a terrier suggests exciting thoughts of the rat-hunt. If the dog had the varied impulse to vocal utterance which some other animals have, he would probably repeat the word 'rat' whenever he spontaneously happened to think of a rat-hunt-he no doubt does hare it as an auditory image, just as a parrot calls out different words spontaneously from its repertory, and having learned the name of a given dog will utter it on the sight of a different dog. In each of these separate cases the particular sign may be consciously noticed by the animal, as distinct from the particular thing signified, and will thus, so far as it goes, be a true manifestation of language. But when we come to man we find a great difference. He has a deliberate intention to apply a sign to everything. The linguistic impulse is with him generalized and systematic. For things hitherto unnoticed or unfelt, he desires a sign before he has one. Even though the dog should possess his 'yelp' for this thing, his 'beg' for that, and his auditory image 'rat' for a third thing, the matter with him rests there. If a fourth thing interests him for which no sign happens already to have been learned, he remains tranquilly without it and goes no further. But the man postulates it, its absence irritates him, and he ends by inventing it. This GENERAL PURPOSE constitutes, I take it, the peculiarity of human speech, and explains its prodigious development.

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

  for in the constant rising and falling of considerations in the mind, where two associated systems of them are nearly in equilibrium it is often a matter of but a second more or less of attention at the outset, whether one system shall gain force to occupy the field and develop itself, and exclude the other, or be excluded itself by the other. When developed, it may make us act; and that act may seal our doom. When we come to the chapter on the Will, we shall see that the whole drama of the voluntary life hinges on the amount of attention, slightly more or slightly less, which rival motor ideas may receive. But the whole feeling of reality, the whole sting and excitement of our voluntary life, depends on our sense that in it things are really being decided from one moment to another, and that it is not the dull rattling off of a chain that was forged innumerable ages ago. This appearance, which makes life and history tingle with such a tragic zest, may not be an illusion. As we grant to the advocate of the mechanical theory that it may be one, so he must grant to us that it may not . And the result is two conceptions of possibility face to face with no facts definitely enough known to stand as arbiter between them. Under these circumstances, one can leave the question open whilst waiting for light, or one can do what most speculative minds do, that is, look to one's general philosophy to incline the beam. The believers in mechanism do so without hesitation, and they ought not to refuse a similar privilege to the believers in a spiritual force. I count myself among the latter, but as my reasons are ethical they are hardly suited for introduction into a psychological work.[379] The last word of psychology here is ignorance, for the 'forces' engaged are certainly too delicate and numerous to be followed in detail. Meanwhile, in view of the strange arrogance with which the wildest materialistic speculations persist in calling themselves 'science,' it is well to recall just what the reasoning is, by which the effect-theory of attention is confirmed. It is an argument from analogy, drawn from rivers, reflex actions and other material phenomena where no consciousness appears exist at all, and extended to cases where consciousness seems the phenomenon's essential feature. The consciousness doesn't count , these reasoners say; it doesn't exist for science, it is nil ; you mustn't think about it at all. The intensely reckless character of all this needs no comment. It is making the mechanical theory true per fas aut nefas . For the sake of that theory we make inductions from phenomena to others that are startlingly un like them; and we assume that a complication which Nature has introduced (the presence of feeling and of effort, namely) is not worthy of scientific recognition at all. Such conduct may conceivably be wise, though

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

  In the next two types of decision, the final fiat occurs before the evidence is all 'in.' It often happens that no paramount and authoritative reason for either course will come. Either seems a case of a Good, and there is no umpire as to which good should yield its place to the other. We grow tired of long hesitation and inconclusiveness, and the hour may come when we feel that even a bad decision is better than no decision at all. Under these conditions it will often happen that some accidental circumstance, supervening at a particular movement upon our mental weariness, will upset the balance in the direction of one of the alternatives, to which then we feel ourselves committed, although an opposite accident at the same time might have produced the opposite result. In the second type of case our feeling is to a certain extent that of letting ourselves drift with a certain indifferent acquiescence in a direction accidentally determined from without, with the conviction that, after all, we might as well stand by this course as by the other, and that things are in any event sure to turn out sufficiently right. In the third type the determination seems equally accidental, but it comes from within, and not from without. If often happens, when the absence of imperative principle is perplexing and suspense distracting, that we find ourselves acting, as it were, automatically, and as if by a spontaneous discharge of our nerves, in the direction of one of the horns of the dilemma. But so exciting is this sense of motion after our intolerable pent-up state, that we eagerly throw ourselves into it. 'Forward now!' we inwardly cry, 'though the heavens fall.' This reckless and exultant espousal of an energy so little premeditated by us that we feel rather like passive spectators cheering on the display of some extraneous force than like voluntary agents, is a type of decision too abrupt and tumultuous to occur often in humdrum and cool-blooded natures. But it is probably frequent in persons of strong emotional endowment and unstable or vacillating character. And in men of the world-shaking type, the Napoleons, Luthers, etc., in whom tenacious passion combines with ebullient activity, when by any chance the passion's outlet has been dammed by scruples or apprehensions, the resolution is probably often of this catastrophic kind. The flood breaks quite unexpectedly through the dam. That is should so often do so is quite sufficient to account for the tendency of these characters to a fatalistic mood of mind. And the fatalistic mood itself is sure to reinforce the strength of the energy just started on its exciting path of discharge.

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

  Hegelian dialectics are, emotionally considered, one and the same thing. In the pantomime all common things are represented to happen in impossible ways, people jump down each other's throats, houses turn inside out, old women become young men, everything 'passes into its opposite' with inconceivable celerity and skill; and this, so far from producing perplexity, brings rapture to the beholder's mind. And so in the Hegelian logic, relations elsewhere recognized under the insipid name of distinctions (such as that between knower and object, many and one) must first be translated into impossibilities and contradictions, then 'transcended' and identified by miracle, ere the proper temper is induced for thoroughly enjoying the spectacle they show. [294] The reader will please understand that I am quite willing to leave the hypothesis of the transcendental Ego as a substitute for the passing Thought open to discussion on general speculative grounds . Only in this book I prefer to stick by the common-sense assumption that we have successive conscious states, because all psychologists make it, and because one does not see how there can be a Psychology written which does not postulate such thoughts as its ultimate data. The data of all natural sciences become in turn subjects of a critical treatment more refined than that which the sciences themselves accord; and so it may fare in the end with our passing Thought. We have ourselves seen (pp. 197-201) that the sensible certainty of its existence is less strong than is usually assumed. My quarrel with the transcendental Egoists is mainly about their grounds for their belief. Did they consistently propose it as a substitute for the passing Thought, did they consistently deny the latter's existence , I should respect their position more. But so far as I can understand them, they habitually believe in the passing Thought also. They seem even to believe in the Lockian stream of separate ideas, for the chief glory of the Ego in their pages is always its power to 'overcome' this separateness and unite the naturally disunited, 'synthetizing ,' 'connecting ,' or 'relating ' the ideas together being used as synonyms, by transcendentalist writers, for knowing various objects at once . Not the being conscious at all, but the being conscious of many things together is held to be the difficult thing, in our psychic life, which only the wonder-working Ego can perform. But on what slippery ground does one get the moment one changes the definite notion of knowing an object into the altogether vague one of uniting or synthetizing the ideas of its various parts!—In the chapters on Sensation we shall come upon all this again. [295] "When we compare the listless inactivity of the infant, slumbering from the moment at which he takes his milky food to the moment at which he wakes to require it again, with the restless energies of that mighty being which he is to become in his maturer years, pouring truth after truth, in rapid and dazzling profusion, upon the

• From Story of O (1954)

  Completely stunned and bewildered, as she still was, and gasping with joy, she none the less was easily able to see that he was admiring her, and that he desired her. Who could have resisted her moist, half-open mouth, with its full lips, the white stalk of her arching neck against the black collar of her pageboy jacket, her eyes large and clear, which refused to be evasive? But the only gesture Sir Stephen allowed himself was to run his fingers over her eyebrows, then over her lips. Then he sat down facing her on the opposite side of the fireplace, and when René had also sat down in an armchair, he began to speak. "I don't believe René has ever spoken to you about his family," he said. "Still, perhaps you do know that his mother, before she married his father, had previously been married to an Englishman, who had a son from his first marriage. I am that son, and it was she who raised me, until she left my father. So René and I are not actually relatives, and yet, in a way, we are brothers. That René loves you I have no doubt. I would have known even if he hadn't told me, even if he hadn't made a move: all one has to do is to see the way he looks at you. I know too that you are among those girls who have been to Roissy, and i imagine you'll be going back again. In principle, the ring you're wearing gives me the right to do with you what I will, as it does to all those men who know its meaning. But that involves merely a fleeting assignation, and what we expect from you is more serious. I say 'we' because, as you see, René is saying nothing: he prefers to have me speak for both of us. "If we are brothers, I am the eldest, ten years older than he. There is also between us a freedom so absolute and of such long standing that what belongs to me has always belonged to him, and what belongs to him has likewise belonged to me. Will you agree to join with us? I beg of you to, and I ask you to swear to it because it will involve more than your submission, which I know we can count on. Before you reply, realize for a moment that I am only, and can only be, another form of your lover: you will still have only one master. A more formidable one, I grand you, than the men to whom you were surrendered at Roissy, because I shall be there every day, and besides I am fond of habits and rites...." (This last phrase he uttered in English.)

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

  There is another sort of human play, into which higher aesthetic feelings enter.. I refer to that love of festivities, ceremonies, ordeals, etc., which seems to be universal in our species. The lowest savages have their dances, more or less formally conducted. The various religions have their solemn rites and exercises, and civic and military power symbolize their grandeur by processions and celebrations of divers sorts. We have our operas and parties and masquerades. An element common to all these ceremonial games, as they may be called, is the excitement of concerted action as one of an organized crowd. The same acts, performed with a crowd, seem to mean vastly more than when performed alone. A walk with the people on a holiday afternoon, an excursion to drink beer or coffee at a popular 'resort,' or an ordinary ball-room, are examples of this. Not only are we amused at seeing so many strangers, but there is a distinct stimulation at feeling our share in their collective life. The perception of them is the stimulus; and our reaction upon it is our tendency to join them and do what they are doing, and our unwillingness to be the first to leave off and go home alone. This seems a primitive element in our nature, as it is difficult to trace any association of ideas that could lead up to it; although, once granting it to exist, it is very easy to see what its uses to a tribe might be in facilitating prompt and vigorous collective action. The formation of armies and the undertaking of military expeditions would be among its fruits. In the ceremonial games it is but the impulsive starting-point. What particular things the crowd then shall do, depends for the most part on the initiative of individuals, fixed by imitation and habit, and continued by tradition. The co-operation of other aesthetic pleasures with games, ceremonial or other, has a great deal to do with the selection of such as shall become stereotyped and habitual. The peculiar form of excitement called by Professor Bain the emotion of pursuit, the pleasure of a crescendo, is the soul of many common games. The immense extent of the play-activities in human life is too obvious to be more than mentioned.[403]

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  And he wanted to prove this theoretically in his book and practically on his land. XXX A T the end of September the timber had been carted for building the cattle-yard on the land that had been allotted to the association of peasants, and the butter from the cows was sold and the profits divided. In practice the system worked capitally, or, at least, so it seemed to Levin. In order to work out the whole subject theoretically and to complete his book, which, in Levin's day-dreams, was not merely to effect a revolution in political economy, but to annihilate that science entirely and to lay the foundation of a new science of the relation of the people to the soil, all that was left to do was to make a tour abroad, and to study on the spot all that had been done in the same direction, and to collect conclusive evidence that all that had been done there was not what was wanted. Levin was only waiting for the delivery of his wheat to receive the money for it and go abroad. But the rains began, preventing the harvesting of the corn and potatoes left in the fields, and putting a stop to all work, even to the delivery of the wheat. The mud was impassable along the roads; two mills were carried away, and the weather got worse and worse. On the 30th of September the sun came out in the morning, and hoping for fine weather, Levin began making final preparations for his journey. He gave orders for the wheat to be delivered, sent the bailiff to the merchant to get the money owing him, and went out himself to give some final directions on the estate before setting off. Having finished all his business, soaked through with the streams of water which kept running down the leather behind his neck and his gaiters, but in the keenest and most confident temper, Levin returned homewards in the evening. The weather had become worse than ever towards evening; the hail lashed the drenched mare so cruelly that she went along sideways, shaking her head and ears; but Levin was all right under his hood, and he looked cheerfully about him at the muddy streams running under the wheels, at the drops hanging on every bare twig, at the whiteness of the patch of unmelted hailstones on the planks of the bridge, at the thick layer of still juicy, fleshy leaves that lay heaped up about the stripped elm-tree. In spite of the gloominess of nature around him, he felt peculiarly eager.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  He was going both to rest for a fortnight, and in the very heart of the people, in the farthest wilds of the country, to enjoy the sight of that uplifting of the spirit of the people, of which, like all residents in the capital and big towns, he was fully persuaded. Katavasov had long been meaning to carry out his promise to stay with Levin, and so he was going with him. II S ERGEY I VANOVITCH and Katavasov had only just reached the station of the Kursk line, which was particularly busy and full of people that day, when, looking round for the groom who was following with their things, they saw a party of volunteers driving up in four cabs. Ladies met them with bouquets of flowers, and followed by the rushing crowd they went into the station. One of the ladies, who had met the volunteers, came out of the hall and addressed Sergey Ivanovitch. 'You too come to see them off?' she asked in French. 'No, I'm going away myself, princess. To my brother's for a holiday. Do you always see them off?' said Sergey Ivanovitch with a hardly perceptible smile. 'Oh, that would be impossible!' answered the princess. 'Is it true that eight hundred have been sent from us already? Malvinsky wouldn't believe me.' 'More than eight hundred. If you reckon those who have been sent not directly from Moscow, over a thousand,' answered Sergey Ivanovitch. 'There! That's just what I said!' exclaimed the lady. 'And it's true too, I suppose, that more than a million has been subscribed?' 'Yes, princess.' 'What do you say to today's telegram? Beaten the Turks again.' 'Yes, so I saw,' answered Sergey Ivanovitch. They were speaking of the last telegram stating that the Turks had been for three days in succession beaten at all points and put to flight, and that tomorrow a decisive engagement was expected. 'Ah, by the way, a splendid young fellow has asked leave to go, and they've made some difficulty, I don't know why. I meant to ask you, I know him, please write a note about his case. He's being set by Countess Lidia Ivanovna.' Sergey Ivanovitch asked for all the details the princess knew about the young man, and going into the first-class waiting-room, wrote a note to the person on whom the granting of leave of absence depended, and handed it to the princess. 'You know Count Vronsky, the notorious one . . . is going by this train?' said the princess with a smile full of triumph and meaning, when he found her again and gave her the letter. 'I had heard he was going, but I did not know when. By this train?' 'I've seen him. He's here: there's only his mother seeing him off. It's the best thing, anyway, that he could do.'

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  XX V RONSKY was staying in a roomy, clean, Finnish hut, divided into two by a partition. Petritsky lived with him in camp too. Petritsky was asleep when Vronsky and Yashvin came into the hut. 'Get up, don't go on sleeping,' said Yashvin, going behind the partition and giving Petritsky, who was lying with ruffled hair and with his nose in the pillow, a prod on the shoulder. Petritsky jumped up suddenly on to his knees and looked round. 'Your brother's been here,' he said to Vronsky. 'He waked me up, damn him, and said he'd look in again.' And pulling up the rug he flung himself back on the pillow. 'Oh, do shut up, Yashvin!' he said, getting furious with Yashvin, who was pulling the rug off him. 'Shut up!' He turned over and opened his eyes. 'You'd better tell me what to drink; such a nasty taste in my mouth, that…' 'Brandy's better than anything,' boomed Yashvin. 'Tereshtchenko! brandy for your master and cucumbers,' he shouted, obviously taking pleasure in the sound of his own voice. 'Brandy do you think? Eh?' queried Petritsky, blinking and rubbing his eyes. 'And you'll drink something? All right then, we'll have a drink together! Vronsky, have a drink?' said Petritsky, getting up and wrapping the tiger-skin rug round him. He went to the door of the partition wall, raised his hands, and hummed in French, 'There was a king in Thule.' 'Vronsky, will you have a drink?' 'Go along,' said Vronsky, putting on the coat his valet handed him. 'Where are you off to?' asked Yashvin. 'Oh, here are your three horses,' he added, seeing the carriage drive up. 'To the stables, and I've got to see Bryansky, too, about the horses,' said Vronsky. Vronsky had as a fact, promised to call at Bryansky's, some eight miles from Peterhof, and to bring him some money owing for some horses; and he hoped to have time to get that in too. But his comrades were at once aware that he was not only going there. Petritsky, still humming, winked and made a pout with his lips, as though he would say: 'Oh yes, we know your Bryansky.' 'Mind you're not late!' was Yashvin's only comment; and to change the conversation: 'How's my roan? is he doing all right?' he inquired, looking out of window at the middle one of the three horses, which he had sold Vronsky. 'Stop!' cried Petritsky to Vronsky as he was just going out. 'Your brother left a letter and a note for you. Wait a bit; where are they?' Vronsky stopped. 'Well, where are they ?' 'Where are they? That's just the question!' said Petritsky solemnly, moving his forefinger upwards from his nose. 'Come, tell me; this is silly!' said Vronsky smiling. 'I have not lighted the fire. Here somewhere about.' 'Come, enough fooling! Where is the letter?'

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  This dear good Sviazhsky, keeping a stock of ideas simply for social purposes, and obviously having some other principles hidden from Levin, while with the crowd, whose name is legion, he guided public opinion by ideas he did not share; that irascible country gentleman, perfectly correct in the conclusions that he had been worried into by life, but wrong in his exasperation against a whole class, and that the best class in Russia; his own dissatisfaction with the work he had been doing, and the vague hope of finding a remedy for all this—all was blended in a sense of inward turmoil and anticipation of some solution near at hand. Left alone in the room assigned him, lying on a spring mattress that yielded unexpectedly at every movement of his arm or his leg, Levin did not fall asleep for a long while. Not one conversation with Sviazhsky, though he had said a great deal that was clever, had interested Levin; but the conclusions of the irascible landowner required consideration. Levin could not help recalling every word he had said, and in imagination amending his own replies. 'Yes, I ought to have said to him: You say that our husbandry does not answer because the peasant hates improvements, and that they must be forced on him by authority. If no system of husbandry answered at all without these improvements, you would be quite right. But the only system that does answer is when the labourer is working in accordance with his habits, just as on the old peasant's land half-way here. Your and our general dissatisfaction with the system shows that either we are to blame or the labourers'. We have gone our way—the European way—a long while, without asking ourselves about the qualities of our labour force. Let us try to look upon the labour force not as an abstract force, but as the Russian peasant with his instincts, and we shall arrange our system of culture in accordance with that. Imagine, I ought to have said to him, that you have the same system as the old peasant has, that you have found means of making your labourers take an interest in the success of the work, and have found the happy mean in the way of improvements which they will admit, and you will, without exhausting the soil, get twice or three times the yield you got before. Divide it in halves, give half as the share of labour, the surplus left you will be greater, and the share of labour will be greater too. And to do this one must lower the standard of husbandry and interest the labourers in its success. How to do this?—that's a matter of detail; but undoubtedly it can be done.' This idea threw Levin into great excitement. He did not sleep half the night, thinking over in detail the putting of his idea into practice.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  She was vexed, too, that from all she could learn of this connection it was not that brilliant, graceful, worldly liaison which she would have welcomed, but a sort of Werterish, desperate passion, so she was told, which might well lead him into imprudence. She had not seen him since his abrupt departure from Moscow, and she sent her elder son to bid him come to see her. This elder son too was dipleased with his younger brother. He did not distinguish what sort of love his might be, big or little, passionate or passionless, lasting or passing (he kept a ballet-girl himself, though he was the father of a family, so he was not disposed to be severe on that score), but he knew that this love-affair was viewed with displeasure by those whom it was necessary to please, and therefore he did not approve of his brother's conduct. Besides the service and society, Vronsky had another great interest— horses; he was passionately fond of horses. That year races and a steeplechase had been arranged for the officers. Vronsky had put his name down, bought a thoroughbred English mare, and in spite of his love-affair, he was looking forward to the races with intense, though reserved, excitement…. These two passions did not interfere with one another. On the contrary, he needed occupation and distraction quite apart from his love, so as to recruit and rest himself from the violent emotions that agitated him. XIX O N the day of the races at Krasnoe Selo, Vronsky had come earlier than usual to eat beefsteak in the common mess-room of the regiment. He had no need to be strict with himself, as he had very quickly been brought down to the required light weight; but still he had to avoid gaining flesh, and so he eschewed farinaceous and sweet dishes. He sat with his coat unbuttoned over a white waistcoat, resting both elbows on the table, and while waiting for the steak he had ordered he looked at a French novel that lay open on his plate. He was only looking at the book to avoid conversation with the officers coming in and out; he was thinking. He was thinking of Anna's promise to see him that day after the races. But he had not seen her for three days, and as her husband had just returned from abroad, he did not know whether she would be able to meet him today or not, and. he did not know how to find out. He had had his last interview with her at his cousin Betsy's summer villa. He visited the Karenins' summer villa as rarely as possible. Now he wanted to go there, and he pondered the question how to do it. 'Of course I shall say Betsy has sent me to ask whether she's coming to the races. Of course, I'll go,' he decided, lifting his head from the book.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  I've worked it all out.' Hearing why he had come, the princess was half humorously, half seriously angry with him, and sent him home to dress and not to hinder Kitty's hairdressing, as Charles the hairdresser was just coming. 'As it is, she's been eating nothing lately and is losing her looks, and then you must come and upset her with your nonsense,' she said to him. 'Get along with you, my dear!' Levin, guilty and shamefaced, but pacified, went back to his hotel. His brother, Darya Alexandrovna, and Stepan Arkadyevitch, all in full dress, were waiting for him to bless him with the holy picture. There was no time to lose. Darya Alexandrovna had to drive home again to fetch her curled and pomaded son, who was to carry the holy pictures after the bride. Then a carriage had to be sent for the best man, and another that would take Sergey Ivanovitch away would have to be sent back. . . . Altogether there was a great many most complicated matters to be considered and arranged. One thing was unmistakable, that there must be no delay, as it was already half-past six. Nothing special happened at the ceremony of benediction with the holy picture. Stepan Arkadyevitch stood in a comically solemn pose beside his wife, took the holy picture, and telling Levin to bow down to the ground, he blessed him with his kindly, ironical smile, and kissed him three times! Darya Alexandrovna did the same, and immediately was in a hurry to get off, and again plunged into the intricate question of the destinations of the various carriages. 'Come, I'll tell you how we'll manage: you drive in our carriage to fetch him, and Sergey Ivanovitch, if he'll be so good, will drive there and then send his carriage.' 'Of course; I shall be delighted.' 'We'll come on directly with him. Are your things sent off?' said Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'Yes,' answered Levin, and he told Kouzma to put out his clothes for him to dress. III A C ROWD of people, principally women, was thronging round the church lighted up for the wedding. Those who had not succeeded in getting into the main entrance were crowding about the windows, pushing, wrangling, and peeping through the gratings. More than twenty carriages had already been drawn up in ranks along the street by the police. A police officer, regardless of the frost, stood at the entrance, gorgeous in his uniform. More carriages were continually driving up, and ladies wearing flowers and carrying their trains, and men taking off their helmets or black hats kept walking into the church.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  His excitement, his delight, and his tenderness for Frou-Frou grew keener and keener. He longed to look round again, but he did not dare do this, and tried to be cool and not to urge on his mare, so to keep the same reserve of force in her as he felt that Gladiator still kept. There remained only one obstacle, the most difficult; if he could cross it ahead of the others, he would come in first. He was flying towards the Irish barricade, Frou-Frou and he both together saw the barricade in the distance, and both the man and the mare had a moment's hesitation. He saw the uncertainty in the mare's ears and lifted the whip, but at the same time felt that his fears were groundless; the mare knew what was wanted. She quickened her pace and rose smoothly, just as he had fancied she would, and as she left the ground gave herself up to the force of her rush, which carried her far beyond the ditch; and with the same rhythm, without effort, with the same leg forward, Frou-Frou fell back into her pace again. 'Bravo, Vronsky!' he heard shouts from a knot of men—he knew they were his friends in the regiment—who were standing at the obstacle. He could not fail to recognise Yashvin's voice though he did not see him. 'O my sweet!' he said inwardly to Frou-Frou, as he listened for what was happening behind. 'He's cleared it!' he thought, catching the thud of Gladiator's hoofs behind him. There remained only the last ditch, filled with water and five feet wide. Vronsky did not even look at it, but anxious to get in a long way first began sawing away at the reins, lifting the mare's head and letting it go in time with her paces. He felt that the mare was at her very last reserve of strength; not her neck and shoulders merely were wet, but the sweat was standing in drops on her mane, her head, her sharp ears, and her breath came in short, sharp gasps. But he knew that she had strength left more than enough for the remaining five hundred yards. It was only from feeling himself nearer the ground and from the peculiar smoothness of his motion that Vronsky knew how greatly the mare had quickened her pace. She flew over the ditch as though not noticing it.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Count Krivtsov was considered a hopeless case by everyone, and yet he kept two mistresses. Petrovsky had run through five millions, and still lived in just the same style, and was even a manager in the financial department with a salary of twenty thousand. But besides this, Petersburg had physically an agreeable effect on Stepan Arkadyevitch. It made him younger. In Moscow he sometimes found a grey hair in his head, dropped asleep after dinner, stretched, walked slowly upstairs, breathing heavily, was bored by the society of young women, and did not dance at balls. In Petersburg he always felt ten years younger. His experience in Petersburg was exactly what had been described to him on the previous day by Prince Pyotr Oblonsky, a man of sixty, who had just come back from aboard— 'We don't know the way to live here,' said Pyotr Oblonsky. 'I spent the summer in Baden, and you wouldn't believe it, I felt quite a young man. At a glimpse of a pretty woman, my thoughts . . .One dines and drinks a glass of wine, and feels strong and ready for anything. I came home to Russia—had to see my wife, and, what's more, go to my country place; and there, you'd hardly believe it, in a fortnight I'd got into a dressing-gown and given up dressing for dinner. Needn't say I had no thoughts left for pretty women. I became quite an old gentleman. There was nothing left for me but to think of my eternal salvation. I went off to Paris—I was as right as could be at once.' Stepan Arkadyevitch felt exactly the difference that Pyotr Oblonsky described. In Moscow he degenerated so much that if he had had to be there for long together, he might in good earnest have come to considering his salvation; in Petersburg he felt himself a man of the world again. Between Princess Betsy Tverskoy and Stepan Arkadyevitch there had long existed rather curious relations. Stepan Arkadyevitch always flirted with her in jest, and used to say to her, also in jest, the most unseemly things, knowing that nothing delighted her so much. The day after his conversation with Karenin, Stepan Arkadyevitch went to see her, and felt so youthful that in this jesting flirtation and nonsense he recklessly went so far that he did not know how to extricate himself, as unluckily he was so far from being attracted by her that he thought her positively disagreeable. What made it hard to change the conversation was the fact that he was very attractive to her. So that he was considerably relieved at the arrival of Princess Myaky, which cut short their tête-à-tête. 'Ah, so you're here!' said she when she saw him. 'Well, and what news of your poor sister? You needn't look at me like that,' she added.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Gladiator rose, with no sound of knocking against anything. With a wave of his short tail he disappeared from Vronsky's sight. 'Bravo!' cried a voice. At the same instant, under Vronsky's eyes, right before him flashed the palings of the barrier. Without the slightest change in her action his mare flew over it; the palings vanished, and he heard only a crash behind him. The mare, excited by Gladiator's keeping ahead, had risen too soon before the barrier, and grazed it with her hind hoofs. But her pace never changed, and Vronsky, feeling a spatter of mud in his face, realised that he was once more the same distance from Gladiator. Once more he perceived in front of him the same back and short tail, and again the same swiftly moving white legs that got no further away. At the very moment when Vronsky thought that now was the time to overtake Mahotin, Frou-Frou herself, understanding his thoughts, without any incitement on his part, gained ground considerably, and began getting alongside of Mahotin on the most favourable side, close to the inner cord. Mahotin would not let her pass that side. Vronsky had hardly formed the thought that he could perhaps pass on the outer side, when Frou-Frou shifted her pace and began overtaking him on the other side. Frou-Frou's shoulder, beginning by now to be dark with sweat, was even with Gladiator's back. For a few lengths they moved evenly. But before the obstacle they were approaching, Vronsky began working at the reins, anxious to avoid having to take the outer circle, and swiftly passed Mahotin just upon the declivity. He caught a glimpse of his mud-stained face as he flashed by. He even fancied that he smiled. Vronsky passed Mahotin, but he was immediately aware of him close upon him, and he never ceased hearing the even-thudding hoofs and the rapid and still quite fresh breathing of Gladiator. The next two obstacles, the watercourse, and the barrier, were easily crossed, but Vronsky began to hear the snorting and thud of Gladiator closer upon him. He urged on his mare, and to his delight felt that she easily quickened her pace, and the thud of Gladiator's hoofs was again heard at the same distance away. Vronsky was at the head of the race, just as he had wanted to be and as Cord had advised, and now he felt sure of being the winner.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  The figure from a lifeless imagined thing had become living, and such that it could never be changed. That figure lived, and was clearly and unmistakably defined. The sketch might be corrected in accordance with the requirements of the figure, the legs, indeed, could and must be put differently, and the position of the left hand must be quite altered; the hair too might be thrown back. But in making these corrections he was not altering the figure but simply getting rid of what concealed the figure. He was, as it were, stripping off the wrappings which hindered it from being distinctly seen. Each new feature only brought out the whole figure in all its force and vigour, as it had suddenly come to him from the spot of tallow. He was carefully finishing the figure when the cards were brought him. 'Coming, coming!' He went in to his wife. 'Come, Sasha, don't be cross!' he said, smiling timidly and affectionately at her. 'You were to blame. I was to blame. I'll make it all right.' And having made peace with his wife he put on an olive-green overcoat with a velvet collar and a hat, and went towards his studio. The successful figure he had already forgotten. Now he was delighted and excited at the visit of these people of consequence, Russians, who had come in their carriage. Of his picture, the one that stood now on his easel, he had at the bottom of his heart one conviction—that no one had ever painted a picture like it. He did not believe that his picture was better than all the pictures of Raphael, but he knew that what he tried to convey in that picture, no one ever had conveyed. This he knew positively, and had known a long while, ever since he had begun to paint it. But other people's criticisms, whatever they might be, had yet immense consequence in his eyes, and they agitated him to the depths of his soul. Any remark, the most insignificant, that showed that the critic saw even the tiniest part of what he saw in the picture, agitated him to the depths of his soul. He always attributed to his critics a more profound comprehension than he had himself, and always expected from them something he did not himself see in the picture. And often in their criticisms he fancied that he had found this. He walked rapidly to the door of his studio, and in spite of his excitement he was struck by the soft light on Anna's figure as she stood in the shade of the entrance listening to Golenishtchev, who was eagerly telling her something, while she evidently wanted to look round at the artist.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  I was busily employed, and doing what, do you suppose? I'll give you a hundred guesses, a thousand . . . you'd never guess. I've been reconciling a husband with a man who'd insulted his wife. Yes, really!' 'Well, did you succeed?' 'Almost.' 'You really must tell me about it,' she said, getting up. 'Come to me in the next entr'acte.' 'I can't; I'm going to the French theatre.' 'From Nilsson?' Betsy queried in horror, though she could not herself have distinguished Nilsson's voice from any chorus girl's. 'Can't help it. I've an appointment there, all to do with my mission of peace.' '"Blessed are the peacemakers; theirs is the kingdom of heaven,"' said Betsy, vaguely recollecting she had heard some similar saying from someone. 'Very well, then, sit down, and tell me what it's all about.' And she sat down again. V 'T HIS is rather indiscreet, but it's so good, it's an awful temptation to tell the story,' said Vronsky, looking at her with his laughing eyes. 'I'm not going to mention any names.' 'But I shall guess, so much the better.' 'Well, listen: two festive young men were driving——' 'Officers of your regiment, of course?' 'I didn't say they were officers,—two young men who had been lunching.' 'In other words, drinking.' 'Possibly. They were driving on their way to dinner with a friend in the most festive state of mind. And they beheld a pretty woman in a hired sledge; she overtakes them, looks round at them, and, so they fancy anyway, nods to them and laughs. They, of course, follow her. They gallop at full speed. To their amazement, the fair one alights at the entrance of the very house to which they were going. The fair one darts upstairs to the top storey. They get a glimpse of red lips under a short veil, and exquisite little feet.' 'You describe it with such feeling that I fancy you must be one of the two.' 'And after what you said, just now! Well, the young men go in to their comrade's; he was giving a farewell dinner. There they certainly did drink a little too much, as one always does at farewell dinners. And at dinner they inquire who lives at the top in that house. No one knows; only their host's valet, in answer to their inquiry whether any "young ladies" are living on the top floor, answered that there were a great many of them about there. After dinner the two young men go into their host's study, and write a letter to the unknown fair one. They compose an ardent epistle, a declaration in fact, and they carry the letter upstairs themselves, so as to elucidate whatever might appear not perfectly intelligible in the letter.' 'Why are you telling me these horrible stories? Well?'

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  And she was not a girl who had gone the stale round of balls till every face in the ballroom was familiar and tiresome. But she was in the middle stage between these two: she was excited, and at the same time she had sufficient self-possession to be able to observe. In the left corner of the ballroom she saw the cream of society gathered together. There—incredibly naked— was the beauty Lidi, Kosunsky's wife; there was the lady of the house; there shone the bald head of Krivin, always to be found where the best people were. In that direction gazed the young men, not venturing to approach. There, too, she descried Stiva, and there she saw the exquisite figure and head of Anna in a black velvet gown. And he was there. Kitty had not seen him since the evening she refused Levin. With her long-sighted eyes she knew him at once, and was even aware that he was looking at her. 'Another turn, eh? You're not tired?' said Korsunsky, a little out of breath. 'No, thank you!' 'Where shall I take you?' 'Madame Karenin's here, I think… take me to her.' 'Wherever you command.' And Korsunsky began waltzing with measured steps straight towards the group in the left corner, continually saying, 'Pardon, mesdames, pardon, pardon, mesdames'; and steering his course through the sea of lace, tulle, and ribbon, and not disarranging a feather, he turned his partner sharply round, so that her slim ankles, in light, transparent stockings, were exposed to view, and her train floated out in fan shape and covered Krivin's knees. Korsunsky bowed, set straight his open shirt-front, and gave her his arm to conduct her to Anna Arkadyevna. Kitty, flushed, took her train from Krivin's knees, and, a little giddy, looked round, seeking Anna. Anna was not in lilac, as Kitty had so urgently wished, but in a black, low-cut velvet gown, showing her full throat and shoulders, that looked as though carved in old ivory, and her rounded arms, with tiny, slender wrists. The whole gown was trimmed with Venetian guipure. On her head, among her black hair— her own, with no false additions—was a little wreath of pansies, and a bouquet of the same in the black ribbon of her sash among white lace. Her coiffure was not striking. All that was noticeable was the little wilful tendrils of her curly hair that would always break free about her neck and temples. Kitty had been seeing Anna every day; she adored her, and had pictured her invariably in lilac.