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)

  But it did not interest her at all. She and Levin had a conversation of their own, yet not a conversation, but a sort of mysterious communication, which brought them every moment nearer, and stirred in both a sense of glad terror before the unknown into which they were entering. At first Levin, in answer to Kitty's question how he could have seen her last year in the carriage, told her how he had been coming home from the mowing along the high-road and had met her. 'It was very, very early in the morning. You were probably only just awake. Your mother was asleep in the corner. It was an exquisite morning. I was walking along wondering who it could be in a four-in-hand? It was a splendid set of four horses with bells, and in a second you flashed by, and I saw at the window—you were sitting like this, holding the strings of your cap in both hands, and thinking awfully deeply about something,' he said, smiling. 'How I should like to know what you were thinking about then! Something important?' 'Wasn't I dreadfully untidy?' she wondered, but seeing the smile of ecstasy these reminiscences called up, she felt that the impression she had made had been very good. She blushed and laughed with delight: 'Really I don't remember.' 'How nicely Turovtsin laughs!' said Levin, admiring his moist eyes and shaking chest. 'Have you known him long?' asked Kitty. 'Oh, everyone knows him!' 'And I see you think he's a horrid man?' 'Not horrid, but nothing in him.' 'Oh, you're wrong! And you must give up thinking so directly!' said Kitty. 'I used to have a very poor opinion of him too, but he, he's an awfully nice and wonderfully good-hearted man. He has a heart of gold.' 'How could you find out what sort of heart he has?' 'We are great friends. I know him very well. Last winter, soon after . . . you came to see us,' she said, with a guilty and at the same time confiding smile, 'all Dolly's children had scarlet fever, and he happened to come and see her. And only fancy,' she said in a whisper, 'he felt so sorry for her that he stayed and began to help her look after the children. Yes, and for three weeks he stopped with them, and looked after the children like a nurse.' 'I am telling Konstantin Dmitritch about Turovtsin in the scarlet fever,' she said, bending over to her sister. 'Yes, it was wonderful, noble!' said Dolly, glancing towards Turovtsin, who had become aware they were talking of him, and smiling gently to him. Levin glanced once more at Turovtsin, and wondered how it was he had not realised all this man's goodness before. 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, and I'll never think ill of people again!' he said gaily, genuinely expressing what he felt at the moment.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  They've flung their caps over the windmills. But there are ways and ways of flinging them.' 'Yes, but what are her relations precisely with Kaluzhsky?' Betsy broke into unexpectedly mirthful and irrepressible laughter, a thing which rarely happened with her. 'You're encroaching on Princess Myaky's special domain now. That's the question of an enfant terrible,' and Betsy obviously tried to restrain herself, but could not, and went off into peals of that infectious laughter that people laugh who do not laugh often. 'You'd better ask them,' she brought out, between tears of laughter. 'No; you laugh,' said Anna, laughing too in spite of herself, 'but I never could understand it. I can't understand the husband's rôle in it.' 'The husband? Liza Merkalov's husband carries her shawl, and is always ready to be of use. But anything more than that in reality, no one cares to inquire. You know in decent society one doesn't talk or think even of certain details of the toilet. That's how it is with this.' 'Will you be at Madame Rolandak's fête?' asked Anna, to change the conversation. 'I don't think so,' answered Betsy, and, without looking at her friend, she began filling the little transparent cups with fragrant tea. Putting a cup before Anna, she took out a cigarette, and, fitting it into a silver holder, she lighted it. 'It's like this, you see: I'm in a fortunate position,' she began, quite serious now, as she took up her cup, 'I understand you, and I understand Liza. Liza now is one of those naïve natures that, like children, don't know what's good and what's bad. Anyway, she didn't comprehend it when she was very young. And now she's aware that the lack of comprehension suits her. Now, perhaps, she doesn't know on purpose,' said Betsy, with a subtle smile. 'But, anyway, it suits her. The very same thing, don't you see, may be looked at tragically, and turned into a misery, or it may be looked at simply and even humorously. Possibly you are inclined to look at things too tragically.' 'How I should like to know other people just as I know myself!' said Anna, seriously and dreamily. 'Am I worse than other people, or better? I think I'm worse.' 'Enfant terrible, enfant terrible!' repeated Betsy. 'But here they are.' XVIII T HEY heard the sound of steps and a man's voice, then a woman's voice and laughter, and immediately thereafter there walked in the expected guests: Sappho Shtoltz, and a young man beaming with excess of health, the so-called Vaska. It was evident that ample supplies of beefsteak, truffles, and Burgundy never failed to reach him at the fitting hour.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  The carriages, posts, people, everything that was to be seen was covered with snow on one side, and was getting more and more thickly covered. For a moment there would come a lull in the storm, but then it would swoop down again with such onslaughts that it seemed impossible to stand against it. Meanwhile men ran to and fro, talking merrily together, their steps crackling on the platform as they continually opened and closed the big doors. The bent shadow of a man glided by at her feet, and she heard sounds of a hammer upon iron. 'Hand over that telegram!' came an angry voice out of the stormy darkness on the other side. 'This way! No. 28!' several different voices shouted again, and muffled figures ran by covered with snow. Two gentlemen with lighted cigarettes passed by her. She drew one more deep breath of the fresh air, and had just put her hand out of her muff to take hold of the doorpost and get back into the carriage, when another man in a military overcoat, quite close beside her, stepped between her and the flickering light of the lamp-post. She looked round, and the same instant recognised Vronsky's face. Putting his hand to the peak of his cap, he bowed to her and asked, 'Was there anything she wanted? Could he be of any service to her?' She gazed rather a long while at him without answering, and, in spite of the shadow in which he was standing, she saw, or fancied she saw, both the expression of his face and his eyes. It was again that expression of reverential ecstasy which had so worked upon her the day before. More than once she had told herself during the past few days, and again only a few moments before, that Vronsky was for her only one of the hundreds of young men, for ever exactly the same, that are met everywhere, that she would never allow herself to bestow a thought upon him. But now at the first instant of meeting him, she was seized by a feeling of joyful pride. She had no need to ask why he had come. She knew as certainly as if he had told her that he was here to be where she was. 'I didn't know you were going. What are you coming for?' she said, letting fall the hand with which she had grasped the doorpost. And irrepressible delight and eagerness shone in her face. 'What am I coming for?' he repeated, looking straight into her eyes. 'You know that I have come to be where you are,' he said, 'I can't help it.'

• 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)

  'Vronsky!' It really was Golenishtchev, a comrade of Vronsky's in the Corps of Pages. In the corps Golenishtchev had belonged to the liberal party; he left the corps without entering the army, and had never taken office under the government. Vronsky and he had gone completely different ways on leaving the corps, and had only met once since. At that meeting Vronsky perceived that Golenishtchev had taken up a sort of lofty intellectually liberal line, and was consequently disposed to look down upon Vronsky's interests and calling in life. Hence Vronsky had met him with the chilling and haughty manner he so well knew how to assume, the meaning of which was: 'You may like or dislike my way of life, that's a matter of the most perfect indifference to me; you will have to treat me with respect, if you want to know me.' Golenishtchev had been contemptuously indifferent to the tone taken by Vronsky. This second meeting might have been expected, one would have supposed, to estrange them still more. But now they beamed and exclaimed with delight on recognising one another. Vronsky would never have expected to be so pleased to see Golenishtchev, but probably he was not himself aware how bored he was. He forgot the disagreeable impression of their last meeting, and with a face of frank delight held out his hand to his old comrade. The same expression of delight replaced the look of uneasiness on Golenishtchev's face. 'How glad I am to meet you!' said Vronsky, showing his strong white teeth in a friendly smile. 'I heard the name Vronsky, but I didn't know which one. I'm very, very glad!' 'Let's go in. Come, tell me what you're doing.' 'I've been living here for two years. I'm working.' 'Ah!' said. Vronsky with sympathy; 'let's go in.' And with the habit common with Russians, instead of saying in Russian what he wanted to keep from the servants, he began to speak in French. 'Do you know Madame Karenin? We are travelling together. I am going to see her now,' he said in French, carefully scrutinising Golenishtchev's face. 'Ah! I did not know' (though he did know), Golenishtchev answered carelessly. 'Have you been here long?' he added. 'Four days,' Vronsky answered once more, scrutinising his friend's face intently. 'Yes, he's a decent fellow, and will look at the thing properly,' Vronsky said to himself, catching the significance of Golenishtchev's face and the change of subject. 'I can introduce him to Anna, he looks at it properly.' During those three months that Vronsky had spent abroad with Anna, he had always on meeting new people asked himself how the new person would look at his relations with Anna, and for the most part, in men, he had met with the 'proper' way of looking at it.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  But if he had been asked, and those who looked at it 'properly' had been asked, exactly how they did look at it, both he and they would have been greatly puzzled to answer. In reality, those who in Vronsky's opinion had the 'proper' view had no sort of view at all, but behaved in general as well-bred persons do behave in regard to all the complex and insoluble problems with which life is encompassed on all. sides; they behaved with propriety, avoiding allusions and unpleasant questions. They assumed an air of fully comprehending the import and force of the situation, of accepting and even approving of it, but of considering it superfluous and uncalled for to put all this into words. Vronsky at once divined that Golenishtchev was of this class, and therefore was doubly pleased to see him. And in fact, Golenishtchev's manner to Madame Karenin, when he was taken to call on her, was all that Vronsky could have desired. Obviously without the slightest effort he steered clear of all subjects which might lead to embarrassment. He had never met Anna before, and was struck by her beauty, and still more by the frankness with which she accepted her position. She blushed when Vronsky brought in Golenishtchev, and he was extremely charmed by this childish blush overspreading her candid and handsome face. But what he liked particularly was the way in which at once, as though on purpose that there might be no misunderstanding with an outsider, she called Vronsky simply Alexey, and said they were moving into a house they had just taken, what was here called a palazzo. Golenishtchev liked this direct and simple attitude to her own position. Look-ink at Anna's manner of simple-hearted, spirited gaiety, and knowing Alexey Alexandrovitch and Vronsky, Golenishtchev fancied that he understood her perfectly. He fancied that he understood what she was utterly unable to understand: how it was that, having made her husband wretched, having abandoned him and her son and lost her good name, she yet felt full of spirits, gaiety, and happiness. 'It's in the guide-book,' said Golenishtchev, referring to the palazzo Vronsky had taken. 'There's a first-rate Tintoretto there. One of his latest period.' 'I tell you what: it's a lovely day, let's go and have another look at it,' said Vronsky, addressing Anna. 'I shall be very glad to; I'll go and put on my hat. Would you say it's hot?' she said, stopping short in the doorway and looking inquiringly at Vronsky. And again a vivid flush overspread her face. Vronsky saw from her eyes that she did not know on what terms he cared to be with Golenishtchev, and so was afraid of not behaving as he would wish.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  He did not, as he had had to do with previous attempts to find comforting arguments, need to revive a whole chain of thought to find the feeling. Now, on the contrary, the feeling of joy and peace was keener than ever, and thought could not keep pace with feeling. He walked across the terrace and looked at two stars that had come out in the darkening sky, and suddenly he remembered. 'Yes, looking at the sky, I thought that the dome that I see is not a deception, and then I thought something, I shirked facing something,' he mused. 'But whatever it was, there can be no disproving it! I have but to think, and all will come clear!' Just as he was going into the nursery he remembered what it was he had shirked facing. It was that if the chief proof of the Divinity was His revelation of what is right, how is it this revelation is confined to the Christian church alone? What relation to this revelation have the beliefs of the Buddhists, Mohammedans, who preached and did good too? It seemed to him that he had an answer to this question; but he had not time to formulate it to himself before he went into the nursery. Kity was standing with her sleeves tucked up over the baby in the bath. Hearing her husband's footsteps, she turned towards him, summoning him to her with her smile. With one hand she was supporting the fat baby that lay floating and sprawling on its back, while with the other she squeezed the sponge over him. 'Come, look, look!' she said, when her husband came up to her. 'Agafea Mihalovna's right. He knows us!' Mitya had on that day given unmistakable, incontestable signs of recognising all his friends. As soon as Levin approached the bath, the experiment was tried, and it was completely successful. The cook, sent for with this object, bent over the baby. He frowned and shook his head disapprovingly. Kitty bent down to him, he gave her a beaming smile, propped his little hands on the sponge and chirruped, making such a queer little contented sound with his lips, that Kitty and the nurse were not alone in their admiration. Levin, too, was surprised and delighted. The baby was taken out of the bath, drenched with water, wrapped in towels, dried, and after a piercing scream, handed to his mother. 'Well, I am glad you are beginning to love him,' said Kitty to her husband, when she had settled herself comfortably in her usual place, with the baby at her breast. 'I am so glad i It had begun to distress me. You said you had no feeling for him.' 'No; did I say that? I only said I was disappointed.'

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  What delighted him particularly was that now he knew he would be able to hold out. His pleasure was only disturbed by his row not being well cut. 'I will swing less with my arm and more with my whole body,' he thought, comparing Tit's row, which looked as if it had been cut with a line, with his own unevenly and irregularly lying grass. The first row, as Levin noticed, Tit had mown specially quickly, probably wishing to put his master to the test, and the row happened to be a long one. The next rows were easier, but still Levin had to strain every nerve not to drop behind the peasants. He thought of nothing, wished for nothing, but not to be left behind the peasants, and to do his work as well as possible. He heard nothing but the swish of the scythes, and saw before him Tit's upright figure mowing away, the crescent-shaped curve of the cut grass, the grass and flower heads slowly and rhythmically falling before the blade of his scythe, and ahead of him the end of the row, where would come the rest. Suddenly, in the midst of his toil, without understanding what it was or whence it came, he felt a pleasant sensation of chill on his hot, moist shoulders. He glanced at the sky in the interval for whetting the scythes. A heavy, lowering storm-cloud had blown up, and big raindrops were falling. Some of the peasants went to their coats and put them on; others—just like Levin himself—merely shrugged their shoulders, enjoying the pleasant coolness of it. Another row, and yet another row, followed—long rows and short rows, with good grass and with poor grass. Levin lost all sense of time, and could not have told whether it was late or early now. A change began to come over his work, which gave him immense satisfaction. In the midst of his toil there were moments during which he forgot what he was doing, and it came all easy to him, and at those same moments his row was almost as smooth and well cut as Tit's. But so soon as he recollected what he was doing, and began trying to do better, he was at once conscious of all the difficulty of his task, and the row was badly mown. On finishing yet another row he would have gone back to the top of the meadow again to begin the next, but Tit stopped, and going up to the old man said something in a low voice to him. They both looked at the sun. 'What are they talking about, and why doesn't he go back?' thought Levin, not guessing that the peasants had been mowing no less than four hours without stopping, and it was time for their lunch. 'Lunch, sir,' said the old man.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'I think the big balcony room.' 'Oh no, that's too far off! Better in the corner room, we shall see each other more. Come, let's go up,' said Anna, as she gave her favourite horse the sugar the footman had brought her. 'Et vous oubliez votre devoir,' she said to Veslovsky, who came out too on the steps. 'Pardon, j'en at tout pléin les poches,' he answered, smiling, putting his fingers in his waistcoat pocket. 'Mais vous venez trop tard,' she said, rubbing her handkerchief on her hand, which the horse had made wet in taking the sugar. Anna turned to Dolly. 'You can stay some time? For one day only? That's impossible!' 'I promised to be back, and the children . . .' said Dolly, feeling embarrassed both because she had to get her bag out of the carriage, and because she knew her face must be covered with dust. 'No, Dolly, darling! . . . Well, we'll see. Come along, come along!' and Anna led Dolly to her room. That room was not the smart guest-chamber Vronsky had suggested, but the one of which Anna had said that Dolly would excuse it. And this room, for which excuse was needed, was more full of luxury than any in which Dolly had ever stayed, a luxury that reminded her of the best hotels abroad. 'Well, darling, how happy I am!' Anna said, sitting down in her riding-habit for a moment beside Dolly. Tell me about all of you. Stiva I had only a glimpse of, and he cannot tell one about the children. How is my favourite, Tanya? Quite a big girl, I expect?' 'Yes, she's very tall,' Darya Alexandrovna answered shortly, surprised herself that she should respond so coolly about her children. 'We are having a delightful stay at the Levins',' she added. 'Oh, if I had known,' said Anna, 'that you do not despise me! . . . You might have all come to us. Stiva's an old friend and a great friend of Alexey's, you know,' she added, and suddenly she blushed. 'Yes, but we are all . . . ' Dolly answered in confusion. 'But in my delight I'm talking nonsense. The one thing, darling, is that I am so glad to have you!' said Anna, kissing her again. 'You haven't told me yet how and what you think about me, and I keep wanting to know. But I'm glad you will see me as I am. The chief thing I shouldn't like would be for people to imagine I want to prove anything. I don't want to prove anything; I merely want to live, to do no one harm but myself. I have the right to do that, haven't I? But it is a big subject, and we'll talk over everything properly later. Now I'll go and dress and send a maid to you.' XIX L EFT alone, Darya Alexandrovna, with a good housewife's eye, scanned her room.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Taking the crowns off their heads the priest read the last prayer and congratulated the young people. Levin looked at Kitty, and he had never before seen her look as she did. She was charming with the new radiance of happiness in her face. Levin longed to say something to her, but he did not know whether it was all over. The priest got him out of his difficulty. He smiled his kindly smile and said gently, 'Kiss your wife, and you kiss your husband,' and took the candles out of their hands. Levin kissed her smiling lips with timid care, gave her his arm, and with a new strange sense of closeness, walked out of the church. He did not believe, he could not believe, that it was true. It was only when their wondering and timid eyes met that he believed in it, because he felt that they were one. After supper, the same night, the young people left for the country. VII V RONSKY and Anna had been travelling for three months together in Europe. They had visited Venice, Rome, and Naples, and had just arrived at a small Italian town where they meant to stay some time. A handsome head waiter, with thick pomaded hair parted from the neck upwards, an evening coat, a broad white cambric shirt-front, and a bunch of trinkets hanging above his rounded stomach, stood with his hands in the full curve of his pockets, looking contemptuously from under his eyelids while he gave some frigid reply to a gentleman who had stopped him. Catching the sound of footsteps coming from the other side of the entry towards the staircase, the head waiter turned round, and seeing the Russian count, who had taken their best rooms, he took his hands out of his pockets deferentially, and with a bow informed him that a courier had been, and that the business about the palazzo had been arranged. The steward was prepared to sign the agreement. 'Ah! I'm glad to hear it,' said Vronsky. 'Is madame at home or not?' 'Madame has been out for a walk but has returned now,' answered the waiter. Vronsky took off his soft wide-brimmed hat and passed his handkerchief over his heated brow and hair, which had grown half over his ears, and was brushed back covering the bald patch on his head. And glancing casually at the gentleman, who still stood there gazing intently at him, he would have gone on. 'This gentleman is a Russian, and was inquiring after you,' said the head waiter. With mingled feelings of annoyance at never being able to get away from acquaintances anywhere, and longing to find some sort of diversion from the monotony of his life, Vronsky looked once more at the gentleman, who had retreated and stood still again, and at the same moment a light came into the eyes of both. 'Golenishtchev!'

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Beside Anna, on a hot-looking grey cavalry-horse, was Vassenka Veslovsky in his Scotch cap with floating ribbons, his stout legs stretched out in front, obviously pleased with his own appearance. Darya Alexandrovna could not suppress a good-humoured smile as she recognised him. Behind rode Vronsky on a dark bay mare, obviously heated from galloping. He was holding her in, pulling at the reins. After him rode a little man in the dress of a jockey. Sviazhsky and Princess Varvara in a new char-à-banc with a big, raven-black trotting-horse, overtook the party on horseback. Anna's face suddenly beamed with a joyful smile at the instant when, in the little figure huddled in a corner of the old carriage, she recognised Dolly. She uttered a cry, started in the saddle, and set her horse into a gallop. On reaching the carriage she jumped off without assistance, and holding up her riding-habit, she ran up to greet Dolly. 'I thought it was you and dared not think it. How delightful! You can't fancy how glad I am!' she said, at one moment pressing her face against Dolly and kissing her, and at the next holding her off and examining her with a smile. 'Here's a delightful surprise, Alexey!' she said, looking round at Vronsky, who had dismounted, and was walking towards them. Vronsky, taking off his tall grey hat, went up to Dolly. 'You wouldn't believe how glad we are to see you,' he said, giving peculiar significance to the words, and showing his strong white teeth in a smile. Vassenka Veslovsky, without getting off his horse, took off his cap and greeted the visitor by gleefully waving the ribbons over his head. 'That's Princess Varvara,' Anna said in reply to a glance of inquiry from Dolly as the char-à-banc drove up. 'Ah!' said Darya Alexandrovna, and unconsciously her face betrayed her dissatisfaction. Princess Varvara was her husband's aunt, and she had long known her, and did not respect her. She knew that Princess Varvara had passed her whole life toadying on her rich relations, but that she should now be sponging on Vronsky, a man who was nothing to her, mortified Dolly on account of her kinship with her husband. Anna noticed Dolly's expression, and was disconcerted by it. She blushed, dropped her riding-habit, and stumbled over it. Darya Alexandrovna went up to the char-à-banc and coldly greeted Princess Varvara. Sviazhsky too she knew. He inquired how his queer friend with the young wife was, and running his eyes over the ill-matched horses and the carriage with its patched mudguards, proposed to the ladies that they should get into the char-à-banc. 'And I'll get into this vehicle,' he said. 'The horse is quiet, and the princess drives capitally.' 'No, stay as you were,' said Anna, coming up, 'and we'll go in the carriage,' and taking Dolly's arm, she drew her away.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  He had resolved from the first to tell her two things— that he was not chaste as she was, and that he was not a believer. It was agonising, but he considered he ought to tell her both these facts. 'No, not now, later!' he said. 'Very well, later, but you must certainly tell me. I'm not afraid of anything. I want to know everything. Now it is settled.' He added: 'Settled that you'll take me whatever I may be—you won't give me up? Yes?' 'Yes, yes.' Their conversation was interrupted by Mademoiselle Linon, who with an affected but tender smile came to congratulate her favourite pupil. Before she had gone, the servants came in with their congratulations. Then relations arrived, and there began that state of blissful absurdity from which Levin did not emerge till the day after his wedding. Levin was in a continual state of awkwardness and discomfort, but the intensity of his happiness went on all the while increasing. He felt continually that a great deal was being expected of him—what, he did not know; and he did everything he was told, and it all gave him happiness. He had thought his engagement would have nothing about it like others, that the ordinary conditions of engaged couples would spoil his special happiness; but it ended in his doing exactly as other people did, and his happiness being only increased thereby and becoming more and more special, more and more unlike anything that had ever happened. 'Now we shall have sweetmeats to eat,' said Mademoiselle Linon— and Levin drove off to buy sweetmeats. 'Well, I'm very glad,' said Sviazhsky. 'I advise you to get the bouquets from Fomin's.' 'Oh, are they wanted?' And he drove to Fomin's. His brother offered to lend him money, as he would have so many expenses, presents to give…. 'Oh, are presents wanted?' And he galloped to Foulde's. And at the confectioner's, and at Fomin's, and at Foulde's he saw that he was expected; that they were pleased to see him, and prided themselves on his happiness, just as everyone whom he had to do with during those days. What was extraordinary was that everyone not only liked him, but even people previously unsympathetic, cold, and callous, were enthusiastic over him, gave way to him in everything, treated his feeling with tenderness and delicacy, and shared his conviction that he was the happiest man in the world because his betrothed was beyond perfection. Kitty too felt the same thing. When Countess Nordston ventured to hint that she had hoped for something better, Kitty was so angry and proved so conclusively that nothing in the world could be better than Levin, that Countess Nordston had to admit it, and in Kitty's presence never met Levin without a smile of ecstatic admiration.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'See, now,' said Katavasov, drawling his words from a habit acquired in the lecture-room, 'what a capable fellow was our friend Konstantin Dmitritch. I'm not speaking of present company, for he's absent. At the time he left the university he was fond of science, took an interest in humanity; now one-half of his abilities is devoted to deceiving himself, and the other to justifying the deceit.' 'A more determined enemy of matrimony than you I never saw,' said Sergey Ivanovitch. 'Oh no, I'm not an enemy of matrimony. I'm in favour of division of labour. People who can do nothing else ought to rear people while the rest work for their happiness and enlightenment. That's how I look at it. To muddle up two trades is the error of the amateur; I'm not one of their number.' 'How happy I shall be when I hear that you're in love!' said Levin. 'Please invite me to the wedding.' 'I'm in love now.' 'Yes, with a cuttlefish! You know,' Levin turned to his brother, 'Mihail Semyonovitch is writing a work on the digestive organs of the . . .' 'Now, make a muddle of it! It doesn't matter what about. And the fact is, I certainly do love cuttlefish.' 'But that's no hindrance to your loving your wife.' 'The cuttlefish is no hindrance. The wife is the hindrance.' 'Why so?' 'Oh, you'll see! You care about farming, hunting,—well, you'd better look out!' 'Arhip was here today; he said there were a lot of elks in Prudno, and two bears,' said Tchirikov. 'Well, you must go and get them without me.' 'Ah, that's the truth,' said Sergey Ivanovitch. 'And you may say good-bye to bear-hunting for the future—your wife won't allow it!' Levin smiled. The picture of his wife not letting him go was so pleasant that he was ready to renounce the delights of looking upon bears for ever. 'Still, it's a pity they should get those two bears without you. Do you remember last time at Hapilovo? That was a delightful hunt!' said Tchirikov. Levin had not the heart to disillusion him of the notion that there could be something delightful apart from her, and so said nothing. 'There's some sense in this custom of saying good-bye to bachelor life,' said Sergey Ivanovitch. 'However happy you may be, you must regret your freedom.' 'And confess there is a. feeling that you want to jump out of window, like Gogol's bridegroom?' 'Of course there is, but it isn't confessed,' said Katavasov, and he broke into loud laughter 'Oh, well, the window's open. Let's start off this instant to Tver! There's a big she-bear: one can go right up to the lair. Seriously, let's go by the five o'clock!

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  The sledge-drivers clearly knew all about it. They crowded round Levin with happy faces, quarrelling among themselves, and offering their services. Trying not to offend the other sledge-drivers, and promising to drive with them too, Levin took one and told him to drive to the Shtcherbatskys'. The sledge-driver was splendid in a white shirt-collar, sticking out over his overcoat and into his strong, full-blooded red neck. The sledge was high and comfortable, and altogether such a one as Levin never drove in after, and the horse was a good one, and tried to gallop but didn't seem to move. The driver knew the Shtcherbatskys' house, and drew up at the entrance with a curve of his arm and a 'Wo!' especially indicative of respect for his fare. The Shtcherbatskys' hall-porter certainly knew all about it. This was evident from the smile in his eyes and the way he said— 'Well, it's a long while since you've been to see us, Konstantin Dmitrievitch!' Not only he knew all about it, but he was unmistakably delighted and making efforts to conceal his joy. Looking into his kindly old eyes, Levin realised even something new in his happiness. 'Are they up?' 'Pray walk in! Leave it here,' said he, smiling, as Levin would have come back to take his hat. That meant something. 'To whom shall I announce your honour?' asked the footman. The footman, though a young man, and one of the new school of footmen, a dandy, was a very kind-hearted, good fellow, and he too knew all about it. 'The princess . . . the prince . . . the young princess . . .' said Levin. The first person he saw was Mademoiselle Linon. She walked across the room, and her ringlets and her face were beaming. He had only just spoken to her, when suddenly he heard the rustle of a skirt at the door, and Mademoiselle Linon vanished from Levin's eyes, and a joyful terror came over him at the nearness of his happiness. Mademoiselle Linon was in great haste, and leaving him, went out at the other door. Directly she had gone out, swift, swift light steps sounded on the parquet, and his bliss, his life, himself—what was best in himself, what he had so long sought and longed for—was quickly, so quickly approaching him. She did not walk, but seemed, by some unseen force, to float to him. He saw nothing but her clear, truthful eyes, frightened by the same bliss of love that flooded his heart. Those eyes were shining nearer and nearer, blinding him with their light of love. She stopped still close to him, touching him. Her hands rose and dropped on to his shoulders. She had done all she could—she had run up to him and given herself up entirely, shy and happy.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  But the old man bent down every time he came across a mushroom, picked it up and put it in his bosom. 'Another present for my old woman,' he said as he did so. Easy as it was to mow the wet, soft grass, it was hard work going up and down the steep sides of the ravine. But this did not trouble the old man. Swinging his scythe just as ever, and moving his feet in their big, plaited shoes with firm, little steps, he climbed slowly up the steep place, and though his breeches hanging out below his smock, and his whole frame trembled with effort, he did not miss one blade of grass or one mushroom on his way, and kept making jokes with the peasants and Levin. Levin walked after him and often thought he must fall, as he climbed with a scythe up a steep cliff where it would have been hard work to clamber without anything. But he climbed up and did what he had to do. He felt as though some external force were moving him. VI M ASHKIN U PLAND was mown, the last row finished, the peasants had put on their coats and were gaily trudging home. Levin got on his horse, and parting regretfully from the peasants, rode homewards. On the hillside he looked back; he could not see them in the mist that had risen from the valley; he could only hear rough, good-humoured voices, laughter, and the sound of clanking scythes. Sergey Ivanovitch had long ago finished dinner, and was drinking iced lemon and water in his own room, looking through the reviews and papers which he had only just received by post, when Levin rushed into the room, talking merrily, with his wet and matted hair sticking to his forehead, and his back and chest grimed and moist. 'We mowed the whole meadow! Oh, it is nice, delicious! And how have you been getting on?' said Levin, completely forgetting the disagreeable conversation of the previous day. 'Mercy! what do you look like!' said Sergey Ivanovitch, for the first moment looking round with some dissatisfaction. 'And the door, do shut the door!' he cried. 'You must have let in a dozen at least.' Sergey Ivanovitch could not endure flies, and in his own room he never opened the window except at night, and carefully kept the door shut. 'Not one, on my honour. But if I have, I'll catch them. You wouldn't believe what a pleasure it is! How have you spent the day?' 'Very well. But have you really been mowing the whole day? I expect you're as hungry as a wolf. Kouzma has got everything ready for you.' 'No, I don't feel hungry even.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Madame Karenin entered the carriage again to say good-bye to the countess. 'Well, countess, you have met your son, and I my brother,' she said. 'And all my gossip is exhausted. I should have nothing more to tell you.' 'Oh no,' said the countess, taking her hand. 'I could go all round the world with you and never be dull. You are one of those delightful women in whose company it's sweet to be silent as well as to talk. Now please don't fret over your son; you can't expect never to be parted.' Madame Karenin stood quite still, holding herself very erect, and her eyes were smiling. 'Anna Arkadyevna,' the countess said in explanation to her son, 'has a little son eight years old, I believe, and she has never been parted from him before, and she keeps fretting over leaving him.' 'Yes, the countess and I have been talking all the time, I of my son and she of hers,' said Madame Karenin, and again a smile lighted up her face, a caressing smile intended for him. 'I am afraid that you must have been dreadfully bored,' he said, promptly catching the ball of coquetry she had flung him. But apparently she did not care to pursue the conversation in that strain, and she turned to the old countess. 'Thank you so much. The time has passed so quickly. Good-bye, countess.' 'Good-bye, my love,' answered the countess. 'Let me have a kiss of your pretty face. I speak plainly, at my age, and I tell you simply that I've lost my heart to you.' Stereotyped as the phrase was, Madame Karenin obviously believed it and was delighted by it. She flushed, bent down slightly, and put her cheek to the countess's lips, drew herself up again, and with the same smile fluttering between her lips and her eyes, she gave her hand to Vronsky. He pressed the little hand she gave him, and was delighted, as though at something special, by the energetic squeeze with which she freely and vigorously shook his hand. She went out with the rapid step, which bore her rather fully-developed figure with such strange lightness. 'Very charming,' said the countess. That was just what her son was thinking. His eyes followed her till her graceful figure was out of sight, and then the smile remained on his face. He saw out of window how she went up to her brother, put her arm in his, and began telling him something eagerly, obviously something that had nothing to do with him, Vronsky, and at that he felt annoyed. 'Well, maman, are you perfectly well?' he repeated, turning to his mother. 'Everything has been delightful. Alexandre has been very good, and Marie has grown very pretty. She's very interesting.' And she began telling him again of what interested her most—the christening of her grandson, for which she had been staying in Petersburg, and the special favour shown her elder son by the Tsar.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'But I'll say more: my wife is a wonderful woman . . .' Stepan Arkadyevitch sighed, remembering his position with his wife, and, after a moment's silence, resumed—'She has a gift of foreseeing things. She sees right through people; but that's not all, she knows what will come to pass, especially in the way of marriages. She foretold, for instance, that Princess Shahovskoy would marry Brenteln. No one would believe it, but it came to pass. And she's on your side.' 'How do you mean?' 'It's not only that she likes you—she says that Kitty is certain to be your wife.' At these words Levin's face suddenly lighted up with a smile, a smile not far from tears of emotion. 'She says that!' cried Levin. 'I always said she was exquisite, your wife. There, that's enough, enough said about it,' he said, getting up from his seat. 'All right, but do sit down.' But Levin could not sit down. He walked with his firm tread twice up and down the little cage of a room, blinked his eyelids that his tears might not fall, and only then sat down to the table. 'You must understand,' said he, 'it's not love. I've been in love, but it's not that. It's not my feeling, but a sort of force outside me has taken possession of me. I went away, you see, because I made up my mind that it could never be, you understand, as a happiness that does not come on earth; but I've struggled with myself, I see there's no living without it. And it must be settled.' 'What did you go away for?' 'Ah, stop a minute! Ah, the thoughts that come crowding on one! The questions one must ask oneself! Listen. You can't imagine what you've done for me by what you said. I'm so happy that I've become positively hateful; I've forgotten everything. I heard today that my brother Nikolay . . . you know, he's here . . . I had even forgotten him. It seems to me that he's happy too. It's a sort of madness. But one thing's awful…. Here, you've been married, you know the feeling . . . it's awful that we—old—with a past . . . not of love, but of sins . . . are brought all at once so near to a creature pure and innocent; it's loathsome, and that's why one can't help feeling oneself unworthy.' 'Oh, well, you've not many sins on your conscience.' 'Alas! all the same,' said Levin, 'when with loathing I go over my life, I shudder and curse and bitterly regret it….Yes.' 'What would you have? The world's made so,' said Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'The one comfort is like that prayer, which I always liked: "Forgive me not according to my unworthiness, but according to Thy loving-kindness." That's the only way she can forgive me.' XI L EVIN emptied his glass, and they were silent for a while.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  He supported this view by the fact that no family can get on without women to help; that in every family, poor or rich, there are and must be nurses, either relations or hired. 'No,' said Kitty, blushing, but looking at him all the more boldly with her truthful eyes; 'a girl may be so circumstanced that she cannot live in the family without humiliation, while she herself…' At the hint he understood her. 'Oh yes,' he said. 'Yes, yes, yes—you're right; you're right!' And he saw all that Pestsov had been maintaining at dinner of the liberty of woman, simply from getting a glimpse of the terror of an old maid's existence and its humiliation in Kitty's heart; and loving her, he felt that terror and humiliation, and at once gave up his arguments. A silence followed. She was still drawing with the chalk on the table. Her eyes were shining with a soft light. Under the influence of her mood he felt in all his being a continually growing tension of happiness. 'Ah! I've scribbled all over the table!' she said, and, laying down the chalk, she made a movement as though to get up. 'What! shall I be left alone—without her?' he thought with horror, and took the chalk. 'Wait a minute,' he said, sitting down to the table. 'I've long wanted to ask you one thing.' He looked straight into her caressing, though frightened eyes. 'Please, ask it.' 'Here,' he said; and he wrote the initial letters, w, y, t, m, i, c, n, b, d, t, m, n, o, t. These letters meant, 'When you told me it could never be, did that mean never, or then?' There seemed no likelihood that she could make out this complicated sentence; but he looked at her as though his life depended on her understanding the words. She glanced at him seriously, then leaned her puckered brow on her hands and began to read. Once or twice she stole a look at him, as though asking him, 'Is it what I think?' 'I understand,' she said, flushing a little. 'What is this word?' he said, pointing to the n that stood for never. 'It means never,' she said; 'but that's not true!' He quickly rubbed out what he had written, gave her the chalk, and stood up. She wrote, t, i, c, n, a, d. Dolly was completely comforted in the depression caused by her conversation with Alexey Alexandrovitch when she caught sight of the two figures: Kitty with the chalk in her hand, with a shy and happy smile looking upwards at Levin, and his handsome figure bending over the table with glowing eyes fastened one minute on the table and the next on her. He was suddenly radiant: he had understood. It meant, 'Then I could not answer differently.' He glanced at her questioningly, timidly. 'Only then?' 'Yes,' her smile answered.