Joy

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)

  Glancing at his wife and Vronsky, he went up to the lady of the house, and sitting down for a cup of tea, began talking in his deliberate, always audible voice, in his habitual tone of banter, ridiculing someone. 'Your Rambouillet is in full conclave,' he said, looking round at all the party; 'the graces and the muses.' But Princess Betsy could not endure that tone of his—'sneering', as she called it, using the English word, and like a skilful hostess she at once brought him into a serious conversation on the subject of universal conscription. Alexey Alexandrovitch was immediately interested in the subject, and began seriously defending the new imperial decree against Princess Betsy, who had attacked it. Vronsky and Anna still sat at the little table. 'This is getting indecorous,' whispered one lady, with an expressive glance at Madame Karenin, Vronsky, and her husband. 'What did I tell you?' said Anna's friend. But not only those ladies, almost everyone in the room, even the Princess Myaky and Betsy herself, looked several times in the direction of the two who had withdrawn from the general circle, as though that were a disturbing fact. Alexey Alexandrovitch was the only person who did not once look in that direction, and was not diverted from the interesting discussion he had entered upon. Noticing the disagreeable impression that was being made on every one, Princess Betsy slipped someone else into her place to listen to Alexey Alexandrovitch, and went up to Anna. 'I'm always amazed at the clearness and precision of your husband's language,' she said. 'The most transcendental ideas seem to be within my grasp when he's speaking.' 'Oh yes!' said Anna, radiant with a smile of happiness, and not understanding a word of what Betsy had said. She crossed over to the big table and took part in the general conversation. Alexey Alexandrovitch, after staying half an hour, went up to his wife and suggested that they should go home together. But she answered, not looking at him, that she was staying to supper. Alexey Alexandrovitch made his bows and withdrew. The fat old Tatar, Madame Karenin's coachman, was with difficulty holding one of her pair of greys, chilled with the cold and rearing at the entrance. A footman stood opening the carriage door. The hall-porter stood holding open the great door of the house.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  And she felt so sorry for him that tears came into her eyes. But immediately she thought of the man for whom she had given him up. She vividly recalled his manly, resolute face, his noble self-possession, and the good-nature conspicuous in everything towards everyone. She remembered the love for her of the man she loved, and once more all was gladness in her soul, and she lay on the pillow, smiling happiness. 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry; but what could I do? It's not my fault,' she said to herself; but an inner voice told her something else. Whether she felt remorse at having won Levin's love, or at having refused him, she did not know. But her happiness was poisoned by doubts. 'Lord, have pity on us; Lord, have pity on us; Lord, have pity on us!' she repeated to herself, till she fell asleep. Meanwhile there took place below, in the prince's little library, one of the scenes so often repeated between the parents on account of their favourite daughter. 'What? I'll tell you what!' shouted the prince, waving his arms, and at once wrapping his squirrel-lined dressing-gown round him again. 'That you've no pride, no dignity; that you're disgracing, ruining your daughter by this vulgar, stupid matchmaking!' 'But, really, for mercy's sake, prince, what have I done?' said the princess, almost crying. She, pleased and happy after her conversation with her daughter, had gone to the prince to say good-night as usual, and though she had no intention of telling him of Levin's offer and Kitty's refusal, still she hinted to her husband that she fancied things were practically settled with Vronsky, and that he would declare himself so soon as his mother arrived. And thereupon, at those words, the prince had all at once flown into a passion, and began to use unseemly language. 'What have you done? I'll tell you what. First of all, you're trying to catch an eligible gentleman, and all Moscow will be talking of it, and with good reason. If you have evening parties, invite everyone, and don't pick out the possible suitors. Invite all the young bucks. Engage a piano-player, and let them dance, and not as you do things nowadays, hunting up good matches. It makes me sick, sick to see it, and you've gone on till you've turned the poor wench's head. Levin's a thousand times the better man. As for this little Petersburg swell, they're turned out by machinery, all on one pattern, and all precious rubbish. But if he were a prince of the blood, my daughter need not run after anyone.' 'But what have I done?' 'Why, you've…' The prince was crying wrathfully. 'I know if one were to listen to you,' interrupted the princess, 'we should never marry our daughter. If it's to be so, we'd better go into the country.' 'Well, and we had better.' 'But do wait a minute.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Levin, on hearing this, informed Yegor that, in his opinion, in marriage the great thing was love, and that with love one would always be happy, for happiness rests only on oneself. Yegor listened attentively, and obviously quite took in Levin's idea, but by way of assent to it he enunciated, greatly to Levin's surprise, the observation that when he had lived with good masters he had always been satisfied with his masters, and now was perfectly satisfied with his employer, though he was a Frenchman. 'Wonderfully good-hearted fellow!' thought Levin. 'Well, but you yourself, Yegor, when you got married, did you love your wife?' 'Ay! and why not?' responded Yegor. And Levin saw that Yegor too was in an excited state and intending to express all his most heartfelt emotions. 'My life, too, has been a wonderful one. From a child up . . .' he was beginning with flashing eyes, apparently catching Levin's enthusiasm, just as people catch yawning. But at that moment a ring was heard. Yegor departed, and Levin was left alone. He had eaten scarcely anything at dinner, had refused tea and supper at Sviazhsky's, but he was incapable of thinking of supper. He had not slept the previous night, but was incapable of thinking of sleep either. His room was cool, but he was oppressed by heat. He opened both the movable panes in his window and sat down to the table opposite the open panes. Over the snow-covered roofs could be seen a decorated cross with chains, and above it the rising triangle of Charles's Wain with the yellowish light of Capella. He gazed at the cross, then at the stars, drank in the fresh freezing air that flowed evenly into the room, and followed as though in a dream the images and memories that rose in his imagination. At four o'clock he heard steps in the passage and peeped out at the door. It was the gambler Myaskin, whom he knew, coming from the club. He walked gloomily, frowning and coughing. 'Poor, unlucky fellow!' thought Levin, and tears came into his eyes from love and pity for this man. He would have talked with him, and tried to comfort him, but remembering that he had nothing but his shirt on, he changed his mind and sat down again at the open pane to bathe in the cold air and gaze at the exquisite lines of the cross, silent, but full of meaning for him, and the mounting lurid yellow star. At seven o'clock there was a noise of people polishing the floors, and bells ringing in some servants' department, and Levin felt that he was beginning to get frozen. He closed the pane, washed, dressed, and went out into the street. XV T HE streets were still empty.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Tanya! Grisha!' said their mother, trying to save the frock, but, with tears in her eyes, smiling a blissful, rapturous smile. The new frocks were taken off, and orders were given for the little girls to have their blouses put on, and the boys their old jackets, and the wagonette to be harnessed, with Brownie, to the bailiff's annoyance, again in the shafts; to drive out for mushroom-picking and bathing. A roar of delighted shrieks arose in the nursery, and never ceased till they had set off for the bathing-place. They gathered a whole basketful of mushrooms; even Lily found a birch-mushroom. It had always happened before that Miss Hoole found them and pointed them out to her; but this time she found a big one quite of herself, and there was a general scream of delight, 'Lily has found a mushroom!' Then they reached the river, put the horses under the birch-trees, and went to the bathing-place. The coachman, Terenty, fastened the horses, who kept whisking away the flies, to a tree, and, treading down the grass, lay down in the shade of a birch and smoked his shag, while the never-ceasing shrieks of delight of the children floated across to him from the bathing-place. Though it was hard work to look after all the children and restrain their wild pranks, though it was difficult too to keep in one's head and not mix up all the stockings, little breeches, and shoes for the different legs, and to undo and to do up again all the tapes and buttons, Darya Alexandrovna, who had always liked bathing herself, and believed it to be very good for the children, enjoyed nothing so much as bathing with all the children. To go over all those fat little legs, pulling on their stockings, to take in her arms and dip those little naked bodies, and to hear their screams of delight and alarm, to see the breathless faces with wide-open, scared, and happy eyes of all her splashing cherubs, was a great pleasure to her. When half the children had been dressed, some peasant women in holiday dress, out picking herbs, came up to the bathing-shed and stopped shyly. Marya Filimonovna called one of them and handed her a sheet and a shirt that had dropped into the water for her to dry them, and Darya Alexandrovna began to talk to the women. At first they laughed behind their hands and did not understand her questions, but soon they grew bolder and began to talk, winning Darya Alexandrovna's heart at once by the genuine admiration of the children that they showed. 'My, what a beauty! as white as sugar,' said one, admiring Tan-itchka, and shaking her head; 'but thin…' 'Yes, she has been ill.' 'And so they've been bathing you too,' said another to the baby. 'No; he's only three months old,' answered Darya Alexandrovna with pride.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Except for the slight quiver of her lips and the moisture in her eyes that made them brighter, her smile was almost calm as she said— 'How long it is since we've seen each other!' and with desperate determination she pressed his hand with her cold hand. 'You've not seen me, but I've seen you,' said Levin, with a radiant smile of happiness, 'I saw you when you were driving from the railway station to Ergushovo.' 'When?' she asked, wondering. 'You were driving to Ergushovo,' said Levin, feeling as if he would sob with the rapture that was flooding his heart. 'And how dared I associate a thought of anything not innocent with this touching creature? And, yes, I do believe it's true what Darya Alexandrovna told me,' he thought. Stepan Arkadyevitch took him by the arm and led him away to Karenin. 'Let me introduce you.' He mentioned their names. 'Very glad to meet you again,' said Alexey Alexandrovitch coldly, shaking hands with Levin. 'You are acquainted?' Stepan Arkadyevitch asked in surprise. 'We spent three hours together in the train,' said Levin smiling, 'but got out, just as in a masquerade, quite mystified—at least I was.' 'Nonsense! Come along, please,' said Stepan Arkadyevitch, pointing in the direction of the dining-room. The men went into the dining-room and went up to a table, laid with six sorts of spirits and as many kinds of cheese, some with little silver spades and some without, caviare herrings, preserves of various kinds, and plates with slices of French bread. The men stood round the strong-smelling spirits and salt delicacies, and the discussion of the Russification of Poland between Koznishev, Karenin, and Pestsov died down in anticipation of dinner. Sergey Ivanovitch was unequalled in his skill in winding up the most heated and serious argument by some unexpected pinch of Attic salt that changed the disposition of his opponent. He did this now. Alexey Alexandrovitch had been maintaining that the Russification of Poland could only be accomplished as a result of larger measures which ought to be introduced by the Russian government. Pestsov insisted that one country can only absorb another when it is the more densely populated. Koznishev admitted both points, but with limitations. As they were going out of the drawing-room to conclude the argument, Koznishev said smiling— 'So, then, for the Russification of our foreign populations there is but one method—to bring up as many children as one can. My brother and I are terribly in fault, I see. You married men, especially you, Stepan Arkadyevitch, are the real patriots: what number have you reached?' he said, smiling genially at their host and holding out a tiny wine-glass to him. Everyone laughed, and Stepan Arkadyevitch with particular good-humour. 'Oh yes, that's the best method!' he said, munching cheese and filling the wine-glass with a special sort of spirit. The conversation dropped at the jest.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'There must be snipe too,' he thought, and just as he reached the turning homewards he met the forest keeper, who confirmed his theory about the snipe. Levin went home at a trot, so as to have time to eat his dinner and get his gun ready for the evening. XIV As he rode up to the house in the happiest frame of mind, Levin heard the bell ring at the side of the principal entrance of the house. 'Yes, that's someone from the railway station,' he thought, 'just the time to be here from the Moscow train….Who could it be? What if it's brother Nikolay? He did say: 'Maybe I'll go to the waters, or may- be I'll come down to you." ' He felt dismayed and vexed for the first minute that his brother Nikolay's presence should come to disturb his happy mood of spring. But he felt ashamed of the feeling, and at once he opened, as it were, the arms of his soul, and with a softened feeling of joy and expectation, now he hoped with all his heart that it was his brother. He pricked up his horse, and riding out from behind the acacias he saw a hired three-horse sledge from the railway station, and a gentleman in a fur coat. It was not his brother. 'Oh, if it were only some nice person one could talk to a little !' he thought. 'Ah !' cried Levin joyfully, flinging up both his hands. 'Here's a delightful visitor ! Ah, how glad I am to see you !' he shouted, recognising Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'I shall find out for certain whether she's married, or when she's going to be married,' he thought. And on that delicious spring day he felt that the thought of her did not hurt him at all. 'Well, you didn't expect me, eh?' said Stepan Arkadyevitch, getting out of the sledge, splashed with mud on the bridge of his nose, on his cheek, and on his eyebrows, but radiant with health and good spirits. 'I've come to see you in the first place,' he said, embracing and kissing him, 'to have some stand-shooting second, and to sell the forest at Ergushovo third.' Delightful! What a spring we're having! How ever did you get along in a sledge?' 'In a cart it would have been worse still, Konstantin Dmitritch,' answered the driver, who knew him. 'Well, I'm very, very glad to see you,' said Levin, with a genuine smile of childlike delight. Levin led his friend to the room set apart for visitors, where Stepan Arkadyevitch's things were carried also—a bag, a gun in a case, a satchel for cigars.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Vronsky disliked it, yet he felt that Golenishtchev was unhappy, and was sorry for him. Unhappiness, almost mental derangement, was visible on his mobile, rather handsome face, while without even noticing Anna's coming in, he went on hurriedly and hotly expressing his views. When Anna came in in her hat and cape, and her lovely hand rapidly swinging her parasol, and stood beside him, it was with a feeling of relief that Vronsky broke away from the plaintive eyes of Golenishtchev which fastened persistently upon him, and with a fresh rush of love looked at his charming companion, full of life and happiness. Golenishtchev recovered himself with an effort, and at first was dejected and gloomy, but Anna, disposed to feel friendly with every one as she was at that time, soon revived his spirits by her direct and lively manner. After trying various subjects of conversation, she got him upon painting, of which he talked very well, and she listened to him attentively. They walked to the house they had taken, and looked over it. 'I am very glad of one thing,' said Anna to Golenishtchev when they were on their way back, 'Alexey will have a capital atelier. You must certainty take that room,' she said to Vronsky in Russian, using the affectionately familiar form as though she saw that Golenishtchev would become intimate with them in their isolation, and that there was no need of reserve before him. 'Do you paint?' said Golenishtchev, turning round quickly to Vronsky. 'Yes, I used to study long ago, and now I have begun to do a little,' said Vronsky, reddening. 'He has great talent,' said Anna with a delighted smile. 'I'm no judge, of course. But good judges have said the same.' VIII A NNA , in that first period of her emancipation and rapid return to health, felt herself unpardonably happy, and full of the joy of life. The thought of her husband's unhappiness did not poison her happiness. On one side that memory was too awful to be thought of. On the other side her husband's unhappiness had given her too much happiness to be regretted. The memory of all that had happened after her illness: her reconciliation with her husband, its breakdown, the news of Vronsky's wound, his visit, the preparations for divorce, the departure from her husband's house, the parting from her son—all that seemed to her like a delirious dream, from which she had waked up alone with Vronsky abroad. The thought of the harm caused to her husband aroused in her a feeling like repulsion, and akin to what a drowning man might feel who has shaken off another man clinging to him. That man did drown.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Levin made no answer this time, not because he did not want to enter upon a discussion with the priest, but because, so far, no one had ever asked him such questions, and when his babes did ask him those questions, it would be time enough to think about answering them. 'You are entering upon a time of life,' pursued the priest, 'when you must choose your path and keep to it. Pray to God that He may in His mercy aid you and have mercy on you!' he concluded. 'Our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, in the abundance and riches of His loving-kindness, forgives this child . . . ' and, finishing the prayer of absolution, the priest blessed him and dismissed him. On getting home that day, Levin had a delightful sense of relief at the awkward position being over and having been got through without his having to tell a lie. Apart from this, there remained a vague memory that what the kind, nice old fellow had said had not been at all so stupid as he had fancied at first, and that there was something in it that must be cleared up. 'Of course, not now,' thought Levin, 'but some day later on.' Levin felt more than ever now that there was something not clear and not clean in his soul, and that, in regard to religion, he was in the same position which he perceived so clearly and disliked in others, and for which he blamed his friend Sviazhsky. Levin spent that evening with his betrothed at Dolly's, and was in very high spirits. To explain to Stepan Arkadyevitch the state of excitement in which he found himself, he said that he was happy like a dog being trained to jump through a hoop, who, having at last caught the idea, and done what was required of him, whines and wags its tail, and jumps up to the table and the windows in its delight. II O N the day of the wedding, according to the Russian custom (the princess and Darya Alexandrovna insisted on strictly keeping all the customs), Levin did not see his betrothed, and dined at his hotel with three bachelor friends, casually brought together at his rooms. These were Sergey Ivanovitch, Katavasov, a university friend, now professor of natural science, whom Levin had met in the street and insisted on taking home with him, and Tchirikov, his best man, a Moscow conciliation-board judge, Levin's companion in his bear-hunts. The dinner was a very merry one: Sergey Ivanovitch was in his happiest mood, and was much amused by Katavasov's originality. Katavasov, feeling his originality was appreciated and understood, made the most of it. Tchirikov always gave a lively and good-humoured support to conversation of any sort.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  And they don't sanction the gentry's moving outside bounds clearly laid down in their ideas.' 'Maybe so; but anyway it's a pleasure such as I have never known in my life. And there's no harm in it, you know. Is there?' answered Levin. 'I can't help it if they don't like it. Though I do believe it's all right. Eh?' 'Altogether,' pursued Sergey Ivanovitch, 'you're satisfied with your day?' 'Quite satisfied. We cut the whole meadow. And such a splendid old man I made friends with there! You can't fancy how delightful he was!' 'Well, so you're content with your day. And so am I. First, I solved two chess problems, and one a very pretty one—a pawn opening. I'll show it you. And then—I thought over our conversation yesterday.' 'Eh! our conversation yesterday?' said Levin, blissfully dropping his eyelids and drawing deep breaths after finishing his dinner, and absolutely incapable of recalling what their conversation yesterday was about. 'I think you are partly right. Our difference of opinion amounts to this, that you make the mainspring self-interest, while I suppose that interest in the common weal is bound to exist in every man of a certain degree of advancement. Possibly you are right too, that action founded on material interest would be more desirable. You are altogether, as the French say, too primesautière a nature; you must have intense, energetic action, or nothing.' Levin listened to his brother and did not understand a single word, and did not want to understand. He was only afraid his brother might ask him some question which would make it evident he had not heard. 'So that's what I think it is, my dear boy,' said Sergey Ivanovitch, touching him on the shoulder. 'Yes, of course. But, do you know? I won't stand up for my view,' answered Levin, with a guilty, childlike smile. 'Whatever was it I was disputing about?' he wondered. 'Of course, I'm right, and he's right, and. it's all first-rate. Only I must go round to the counting-house and see to things.' He got up, stretching and smiling. Sergey Ivanovitch smiled too. 'If you want to go out, let's go together,' he said, disinclined to be parted from his brother, who seemed positively breathing out freshness and energy. 'Come, we'll go to the counting-house, if you have to go there.' 'Oh, heavens!' shouted Levin, so loudly that Sergey Ivanovitch was quite frightened. 'What, what is the matter?' 'How's Agafea Mihalovna's hand?' said Levin, slapping himself on the head. 'I'd positively forgotten her even.' 'It's much better.'

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'Where is he?' 'Maybe he's gone into the passage, but here he comes anyway. That is he,' said the doorkeeper, pointing to a strongly built, broad-shouldered man with a curly beard, who, without taking off his sheepskin cap, was running lightly and rapidly up the worn steps of the stone staircase. One of the members going down—a lean official with a portfolio—stood out of his way and looked disapprovingly at the legs of the stranger, then glanced inquiringly at Oblonsky. Stepan Arkadyevitch was standing at the top of the stairs. His good-naturedly beaming face above the embroidered collar of his uniform beamed more than ever when he recognised the man coming up. 'Why, it's actually you, Levin, at last!' he said with a friendly mock-; ing smile, scanning Levin as he approached. 'How is it you have deigned to look me up in this den?' said Stepan Arkadyevitch, and not content with shaking hands, he kissed his friend. 'Have you been here long?' 'I have just come, and very much wanted to see you,' said Levin, looking shyly and at the same time angrily and uneasily around. 'Well, let's go into my room,' said Stepan Arkadyevitch, who knew his friend's sensitive and irritable shyness, and, taking his arm, he drew him along, as though guiding him through dangers. Stepan Arkadyevitch was on familiar terms with almost all his acquaintances, and called almost all of them by their Christian names: old men of sixty, boys of twenty, actors, ministers, merchants, and adjutant-generals, so that many of his intimate chums were to be found at the extreme ends of the social ladder, and would have been very much surprised to learn that they had, through the medium of Oblonsky, something in common. He was the familiar friend of everyone with whom he took a glass of champagne, and he took a glass of champagne with everyone, and when in consequence he met any of his disreputable chums, as he used in joke to call many of his friends, in the presence of his subordinates, he well knew how, with his characteristic tact, to diminish the disagreeable impression made on them. Levin was not a disreputable chum, but Oblonsky, with his ready tact, felt that Levin fancied he might not care to show his intimacy with him before his subordinates, and so he made haste to take him off into his room. Levin was almost of the same age as Oblonsky; their intimacy did not rest merely on champagne. Levin had been the friend and companion of his early youth.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  I'll tell the truth. And with him one can't be ill at ease. Here he is,' she said to herself, seeing his powerful, shy figure, with his shining eyes fixed on her. She looked straight into his face, as though imploring him to spare her, and gave her hand. 'It's not time yet; I think I'm too early,' he said, glancing round the empty drawing-room. When he saw that his expectations were realised, that there was nothing to prevent him from speaking, his face became gloomy. 'Oh no,' said Kitty, and sat down to the table. 'But this was just what I wanted, to find you alone,' he began, not sitting down, and not looking at her, so as not to lose courage. 'Mamma will be down directly. She was very much tired . . . Yesterday . . . ' She talked on, not knowing what her lips were uttering, and not taking her supplicating and caressing eyes off him. He glanced at her; she blushed, and ceased speaking. 'I told you I did not know whether I should be here long . . . that it depended on you . . . ' She dropped her head lower and lower, not knowing herself what answer she should make to what was coming. 'That it depended on you,' he repeated. 'I meant to say . . . I meant to say . . . I came for this . . . to be my wife!' he brought out, not knowing what he was saying; but feeling that the most terrible thing was said, he stopped short and looked at her…. She was breathing heavily, not looking at him. She was feeling ecstasy. Her soul was flooded with happiness. She had never anticipated that the utterance of love would produce such a powerful effect on her. But it lasted only an instant. She remembered Vronsky. She lifted her clear, truthful eyes, and seeing his desperate face, she answered hastily— 'That cannot be . . . forgive me.' A moment ago, and how close she had been to him, of what importance in his life! And how aloof and remote from him she had become now! 'It was bound to be so,' he said, not looking at her. He bowed, and was meaning to retreat. XIV B UT at that very moment the princess came in. There was a look of horror on her face when she saw them alone, and their disturbed faces. Levin bowed to her, and said nothing. Kitty did not speak nor lift her eyes. 'Thank God, she has refused him,' thought the mother, and her face lighted up with the habitual smile with which she greeted her guests on Thursdays. She sat down and began questioning Levin about his life in the country.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  And he was happy at it. He knew only that he had told her the truth, that he had come where she was, that all the happiness of his life, the only meaning in life for him, now lay in seeing and hearing her. And when he got out of the carriage at Bologova to get some seltzer water, and caught sight of Anna, involuntarily his first word had told her just what he thought. And he was glad he had told her it, that she knew it now and was thinking of it. He did not sleep all night. When he was back in the carriage, he kept unceasingly going over every position in which he had seen her, every word she had uttered, and before his fancy, making his heart faint with emotion, floated pictures of a possible future. When he got out of the train at Petersburg, he felt after his sleepless night as keen and fresh as after a cold bath. He paused near his compartment, waiting for her to get out. 'Once more,' he said to himself, smiling unconsciously, 'once more I shall see her walk, her face; she will say something, turn her head, glance, smile, maybe.' But before he caught sight of her, he saw her husband, whom the stationmaster was deferentially escorting through the crowd. 'Ah, yes! The husband.' Only now for the first time did Vronsky realise clearly the fact that there was a person attached to her, a husband. He knew that she had a husband, but had hardly believed in his existence, and only now fully believed in him, with his head and shoulders, and his legs clad in black trousers; especially when he saw this husband calmly take her arm with a sense of property. Seeing Alexey Alexandrovitch with his Petersburg face and severely self-confident figure, in his round hat, with his rather prominent spine, he believed in him, and was aware of a disagreeable sensation, such as a man might feel tortured by thirst, who, on reaching a spring, should find a dog, a sheep, or a pig, who has drunk of it and muddied the water. Alexey Alexandrovitch's manner of walking, with a swing of the hips and flat feet, particularly annoyed Vronsky. He could recognise in no one but himself an indubitable right to love her. But she was still the same, and the sight of her affected him the same way, physically reviving him, stirring him, and filling his soul with rapture. He told his German valet, who ran up to him from the second-class, to take his things and go on, and he himself went up to her. He saw the first meeting between the husband and wife, and noted with a lover's insight the signs of slight reserve with which she spoke to her husband.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'He came down dressed. No doubt he's run up to her again.' Stepan Arkadyevitch guessed right. Levin had run up again to his wife to ask her once more if she forgave him for his idiocy yesterday, and, moreover, to beg her for Christ's sake to be more careful. The great thing was for her to keep away from the children—they might any minute push against her. Then he had once more to hear her declare that she was not angry with him for going away for two days, and to beg her to be sure to send him a note next morning by a servant on horseback, to write him, if it were but two words only, to let him know that all was well with her. Kitty was distressed, as she always was, at parting for a couple of days from her husband, but when she saw his eager figure, looking big and strong in his shooting-boots and his white blouse, and a sort of sportsman elation and excitement incomprehensible to her, she forgot her own chagrin for the sake of his pleasure, and said good-bye to him cheerfully. 'Pardon, gentlemen!' he said, running put on to the steps. 'Have you put the lunch in? Why is the chestnut on the right? Well, it doesn't matter. Laska, down; go and lie down!' 'Put it with the herd of oxen,' he said to the herdsman, who was waiting for him at the steps with some question. 'Excuse me, here comes another villain.' Levin jumped out of the wagonette, in which he had already taken his seat, to meet the carpenter, who came towards the steps with a rule in his hand. 'You didn't come to the counting-house yesterday, and now you're detaining me. Well, what is it?' 'Would your honour let me make another turning? It's only three steps to add. And we make it just fit at the same time. It will be much more convenient.' 'You should have listened to me,' Levin answered with annoyance. 'I said: Put the lines and then fit in the steps. Now there's no setting it right. Do as I told you, and make a new staircase.' The point was that in the lodge that was being built the carpenter had spoilt the staircase, fitting it together without calculating the space it was to fill, so that the steps were all sloping when it was put in place. Now the carpenter wanted keeping the same staircase, to add three steps. 'It will be much better.' 'But where's your staircase coming out with its three steps?' 'Why, upon my word, sir,' the carpenter said with a contemptuous smile. 'It comes out right at the very spot. It starts, so to speak,' he said with a persuasive gesture; 'it comes down, and comes down, and comes out.'

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  But he came of a long-lived family, he had not a single grey hair, no one would have taken him for forty, and he remembered Varenka's saying that it was only in Russia that men of fifty thought themselves old, and that in France a man of fifty considers himself dans la force de l'age, while a man of forty is un jeune homme. But what did the mere reckoning of years matter when he felt as young in heart as he had been twenty years ago? Was it not youth to feel as he felt now, when coming from the other side to the edge of the wood he saw in the glowing light of the slanting sunbeams the gracious figure of Varenka in her yellow gown with her basket, walking lightly by the trunk of an old birch-tree, and when this impression of the sight of Varenka blended so harmoniously with the beauty of the view, of the yellow oatfield lying bathed in the slanting sunshine, and beyond it the distant ancient forest flecked with yellow and melting into the blue of the distance? His heart throbbed joyously. A softened feeling came over him. He felt that he had made up his mind. Varenka, who had just crouched down to pick a mushroom, rose with a supple movement and looked round. Flinging away the cigar, Sergey Ivanovitch advanced with resolute steps towards her. V 'V ARVARA A NDREEVNA , when I was very young, I set before myself the ideal of the woman I loved and should be happy to call my wife. I have lived through a long life, and now for the first time I have met what I sought—in you. I love you, and offer you my hand.' Sergey Ivanovitch was saying this to himself while he was ten paces from Varvara. Kneeling down, with her hands over the mushrooms to guard them from Grisha, she was calling little Masha. 'Come here, little ones! There are so many!' she was saying in her sweet, deep voice. Seeing Sergey Ivanovitch approaching, she did not get up and did not change her position, but everything told him that she felt his presence and was glad of it. 'Well, did you find some?' she asked from under the white kerchief, turning her handsome, gently smiling face to him. 'Not one,' said Sergey Ivanovitch. 'Did you?' She did not answer, busy with the children who thronged about her. 'That one too, near the twig,' she pointed out to little Masha a little fungus, split in half across its rosy cap by the dry grass from under which it thrust itself. Varenka got up while Masha picked the fungus, breaking it into two white halves. 'This brings back my childhood,' she added, moving apart from the children beside Sergey Ivanovitch. They walked on for some steps in silence.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  A smile of pleasure lighted up his face. He tossed his head upwards and waved the glass in his hand, greeting Vronsky, and showing him by the gesture that he could not come to him before the quartermaster, who stood craning forward his lips ready to be kissed. 'Here he is!' shouted the colonel. 'Yashvin told me you were in one of your gloomy tempers.' Serpuhovskoy kissed the moist, fresh lips of the gallant-looking quartermaster, and wiping his mouth with his handkerchief, went up to Vronsky. 'How glad I am!' he said, squeezing his hand and drawing him on one side. 'You look after him,' the colonel shouted to Yashvin, pointing to Vronsky; and he went down below to the soldiers. 'Why weren't you at the races yesterday? I expected to see you there,' said Vronsky, scrutinising Serpuhovskoy. 'I did go, but late. I beg your pardon,' he added, and he turned to the adjutant: 'Please have this divided from me, each man as much as it runs to.' And he hurriedly took notes for three hundred roubles from his pocket-book, blushing a little. 'Vronsky! Have anything to eat or drink?' asked Yashvin. 'Hi, something for the count to eat! Ah, here it is: have a glass!' The fête at the colonel's lasted a long while. There was a great deal of drinking. They tossed Serpuhovskoy in the air and caught him again several times. Then they did the same to the colonel. Then, to the accompaniment of the band, the colonel himself danced with Petritsky. Then the colonel, who began to show signs of feebleness, sat down on a bench in the courtyard and began demonstrating to Yashvin the superiority of Russia over Prussia, especially in cavalry attack, and there was a lull in the revelry for the moment. Serpuhovskoy went into the house to the bathroom to wash his hands, and found Vronsky there: Vronsky was drenching his head with water. He had taken off his coat and put his sunburnt, hairy neck under the tap, and was rubbing it and his head with his hands. When he had finished, Vronsky sat down by Serpuhovskoy. They both sat down in the bathroom on a lounge, and a conversation began which was very interesting to both of them. 'I've always been hearing about you through my wife,' said Serpuhovskoy. 'I'm glad you've been seeing her pretty often.' 'She's friendly with Varya, and they're the only women in Peters burg I care about seeing,' answered Vronsky, smiling. He smiled because he foresaw the topic the conversation would turn on, and he was glad of it. 'The only ones?' Serpuhovskoy queried, smiling. 'Yes; and I' heard news of you, but not only through your wife,' said Vronsky, checking his hint by a stern expression of face. 'I was greatly delighted to hear of your success, but not a bit surprised. I expected even more.' Serpuhovskoy smiled.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'Though it's a pity to take him from his work (but he has plenty of time!), I must look at his face; will he feel I'm looking at him? I wish he'd turn round . . . I'll will him to!' and she opened her eyes wide, as though to intensify the influence of her gaze. 'Yes, they draw away all the sap and give a false appearance of prosperity,' he muttered, stopping to write, and, feeling that she was looking at him and smiling, he looked round. 'Well?' he queried, smiling, and getting up. 'He looked round,' she thought. 'It's nothing; I wanted you to look round,' she said, watching him, and trying to guess whether he was vexed at being interrupted or not. 'How happy we are alone together!—I am, that is,' he said, going up to her with a radiant smile of happiness. 'I'm just as happy. I'll never go anywhere, especially not to Moscow.' 'And what were you thinking about?' 'I? I was thinking . . . No, no, go along, go on writing; don't break off,' she said, pursing up her lips, 'and I must cut out these little holes now, do you see?' She took up her scissors and began cutting them out. 'No; tell me, what was it?' he said, sitting down beside her and watching the tiny scissors moving round. 'Oh! what, was I thinking about? I was thinking about Moscow, about the back of your head.' 'Why should I, of all people, have such happiness! It's unnatural, too good,' he said, kissing her hand. 'I feel quite the opposite; the better things are, the more natural it seems to me.' 'And you've got a little curl loose,' he said, carefully turning her head round. 'A little curl, oh yes. No, no, we are busy at our work!' Work did not progress further, and they darted apart from one another like culprits when Kouzma came in to announce that tea was ready. 'Have they come from the town?' Levin asked Kouzma. 'They've just come; they're unpacking the things.' 'Come quickly,' she said to him as she went out of the study, 'or else I shall read your letters without you.' Left alone, after putting his manuscripts together in the new portfolio bought by her, he washed his hands at the new washstand with the elegant fittings, that had all made their appearance with her. Levin smiled at his own thoughts, and shook his head disapprovingly at those thoughts; a feeling akin to remorse fretted him. There was something shameful, effeminate, Capuan, as he called it to himself, in his present mode of life. 'It's not right to go on like this,' he thought. 'It'll soon be three months, and I'm doing next to nothing. Today, almost for the first time, I set to work seriously, and what happened? I did nothing but begin and throw it aside.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'This cheese is not bad. Shall I give you some?' said the master of the house. 'Why, have you been going in for gymnastics again?' he asked Levin, pinching his muscle with his left hand. Levin smiled, bent his arm, and under Stepan Arkadyevitch's fingers the muscles swelled up like a sound cheese, hard as a knob of iron, through the fine cloth of the coat. 'What biceps! A perfect Samson!' 'I imagine great strength is needed for hunting bears,' observed Alexey Alexandrovitch, who had the mistiest notions about the chase. He cut off and spread with cheese a wafer of bread fine as a spiderweb. Levin smiled. 'Not at all. Quite the contrary; a child can kill a bear,' he said, with a slight bow moving aside for the ladies, who were approaching the table. 'You have killed a bear, I've been told?' said Kitty, trying assiduously to catch with her fork a perverse mushroom that would slip away, and setting the lace quivering over her white arm. 'Are there bears on your place?' she added, turning her charming little head to him and smiling. There was apparently nothing extraordinary in what she said, but what unutterable meaning there was for him in every sound, in every turn of her lips, her eyes, her hand as she said it! There was entreaty for forgiveness, and trust in him and tenderness—soft, timid tenderness—and promise and hope and love for him, which he could not but believe in and which choked him with happiness. 'No, we've been hunting in the Tver province. It was coming back from there that I met your beaufrère in the train, or your beaufrère's brother-in-law,' he said with a smile. 'It was an amusing meeting.' And he began telling with droll good-humour how, after not sleeping all night, he had, wearing an old fur-lined, full-skirted coat, got into Alexey Alexandrovitch's compartment. 'The conductor, forgetting the proverb, would have chucked me out on account of my attire; but thereupon I began expressing my feelings in elevated language, and . . . you, too,' he said, addressing Karenin and forgetting his name, 'at first would have ejected me on the ground of the old coat, but afterwards you took my part, for which I am extremely grateful.' 'The rights of passengers generally to choose their seats are too ill-defined,' said Alexey Alexandrovitch, rubbing the tips of his fingers on his handkerchief. 'I saw you were in uncertainty about me,' said Levin, smiling good-naturedly, 'but I made haste to plunge into intellectual conversation to smooth over the defects of my attire.' Sergey Ivanovitch, while he kept up a conversation with their hostess, had one ear for his brother, and he glanced askance at him. 'What is the matter with him today?

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Looking down at her he saw her face in profile, and from the scarcely perceptible quiver of her lips and eyelashes he knew she was aware of his eyes upon her. She did not look round, but the high scolloped collar, that reached her little pink ear, trembled faintly. He saw that a sigh was held back in her throat, and the little hand in the long glove shook as it held the candle. All the fuss of the shirt, of being late, all the talk of friends and relations, their annoyance, his ludicrous position—all suddenly passed away and he was filled with joy and dread. The handsome, stately head-deacon wearing a silver robe, and his curly locks standing out at each side of his head, stepped smartly forward, and lifting his stole on two fingers, stood opposite the priest. 'Blessed be the name of the Lord,' the solemn syllables rang out slowly one after another, setting the air quivering with waves of sound. 'Blessed is the name of our God, from the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,' the little old priest answered in a submissive, piping voice, still fingering something at the lectern. And the full chorus of the unseen choir rose up, filling the whole church, from the windows to the vaulted roof, with broad waves of melody. It grew stronger, rested for an instant, and slowly died away. They prayed, as they always do, for peace from on high and for salvation, for the Holy Synod, and for the Tsar; they prayed, too, for the servants of God, Konstantin and Ekaterina, now plighting their troth. 'Vouchsafe to them love made perfect, peace and help, O Lord, we beseech Thee,' the whole church seemed to breathe with the voice of the head-deacon. Levin heard the words, and they impressed him. 'How did they guess that it is help, just help that one wants?' he thought, recalling all his fears and doubts of late. 'What do I know? what can I do in this fearful business,' he thought, 'without help? Yes, it is help I want now.' When the deacon had finished the prayer for the Imperial family, the priest turned to the bridal pair with a book: 'Eternal God, that joinest together in love them that were separate,' he read in a gentle, piping voice: 'who hath ordained the union of holy wedlock that cannot be set asunder. Thou who didst bless Isaac and Rebecca and their descendants, according to Thy Holy Covenant; bless Thy servants, Konstantin and Ekaterina, leading them in the path of all good works. For gracious and merciful art Thou, our Lord, and glory be to Thee, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, now and ever shall be.' 'Amen!' the unseen choir sent rolling again upon the air. '"Joinest together in love them that were separate."

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Konstantin Levin was the only person who had not arrived. But this was so much the better, as on going into the dining-room, Stepan Arkadyevitch found to his horror that the port and sherry had been procured from Depré, and not from Levy, and, directing that the coachman should be sent off as speedily as possible to Levy's, he was going back to the drawing-room. In the dining-room he was met by Konstantin Levin. 'I'm not late?' 'You can never help being late!' said Stephan Arkadyevitch, taking his arm. 'Have you a lot of people? Who's here?' asked Levin, unable to help blushing, as he knocked the snow off his cap with his glove. 'All our own set. Kitty's here. Come along, I'll introduce you to Karenin.' Stepan Arkadyevitch, for all his liberal views, was well aware that to meet Karenin was sure to be felt a flattering distinction, and so treated his best friends to this honour. But at that instant Konstantin Levin was not in a condition to feel all the gratification of making such an acquaintance. He had not seen Kitty since that memorable evening when he met Vronsky, not counting, that is, the moment when he had had a glimpse of her on the high-road. He had known at the bottom of his heart that he would see her here today. But to keep his thoughts free, he had tried to persuade himself that he did not know it. Now when he heard that she was here, he was suddenly conscious of such delight, and at the same time of such dread, that his breath failed him and he could not utter what he wanted to say. 'What is she like, what is she like? Like what she used to be, or like what she was in the carriage? What if Darya Alexandrovna told the truth? Why shouldn't it be the truth?' he thought. 'Oh, please, introduce me to Karenin,' he brought out with an effort, and with a desperately determined step he walked into the drawing-room and beheld her. She was not the same as she used to be, nor was she as she had been in the carriage; she was quite different. She was scared, shy, shame-faced, and still more charming from it. She saw him the very instant he walked into the room. She had been expecting him. She was delighted, and so confused at her own delight that there was a moment, the moment when he went up to her sister and glanced again at her, when she, and he, and Dolly, who saw it all, thought she would break down and would begin to cry. She crimsoned, turned white, crimsoned again, and grew faint, waiting with quivering lips for him to come to her. He went up to her, bowed, and held out his hand without speaking.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Without turning round he felt the eyes fixed on him, and the smile, and he could not help turning round. She was standing in the doorway with Shtcherbatsky. looking at him. 'I thought you were going towards the piano,' said he, going up to her. 'That's something I miss in the country—music.' 'No; we only came to fetch you and thank you,' she said, rewarding him with a smile that was like a gift, 'for coming. What do they want to argue for? No one ever convinces anyone, you know.' 'Yes; that's true,' said Levin; 'it generally happens that one argues warmly simply because one can't make out what one's opponent wants to prove.' Levin had often noticed in discussions between the most intelligent people that after enormous efforts, and an enormous expenditure of logical subtleties and words, the disputants finally arrived at being aware that what they had so long been struggling to prove to one another had long ago, from the beginning of the argument, been known to both, but that they liked different things, and would not define what they liked for fear of its being attacked. He had often had the experience of suddenly in a discussion grasping what it was his opponent liked and at once liking it too, and immediately he found himself agreeing, and then all arguments fell away as useless. Sometimes, too, he had experienced the opposite, expressing at last what he liked himself, which he was devising arguments to defend, and, chancing to express it well and genuinely, he had found his opponent at once agreeing and ceasing to dispute his position. He tried to say this. She knitted her brow, trying to understand. But directly he began to illustrate his meaning, she understood at once. 'I know: one must find out what he is arguing for, what is precious to him, then one can . . . ' She had completely guessed and expressed his badly expressed idea. Levin smiled joyfully; he was struck by this transition from the confused, verbose discussion with Pestsov and his brother to this laconic, clear, almost wordless communication of the most complex ideas. Shtcherbatsky moved away from them, and Kitty, going up to a card-table, sat down, and, taking up the chalk, began drawing diverging circles over the new green cloth. They began again on the subject that had been started at dinner— the liberty and occupations of women. Levin was of the opinion of Darya Alexandrovna that a girl who did not marry should find a woman's duties in a family.