Chapter 5

‘Varvara Andreevna, 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. Varenka saw that he wanted to speak; she guessed of what, and felt faint with joy and panic. They had walked so far away that no one could hear them now, but still he did not begin to speak. It would have been better for Varenka to be silent. After a silence it would have been easier for them to say what they wanted to say than after talking about mushrooms. But against her own will, as it were accidentally, Varenka said:

‘So you found nothing? In the middle of the wood there are always fewer, though.’ Sergey Ivanovitch sighed and made no answer. He was annoyed that she had spoken about the mushrooms. He wanted to bring her back to the first words she had uttered about her childhood; but after a pause of some length, as though against his own will, he made an observation in response to her last words.

‘I have heard that the white edible funguses are found principally at the edge of the wood, though I can’t tell them apart.’

Some minutes more passed, they moved still further away from the children, and were quite alone. Varenka’s heart throbbed so that she heard it beating, and felt that she was turning red and pale and red again.

To be the wife of a man like Koznishev, after her position with Madame Stahl, was to her imagination the height of happiness. Besides, she was almost certain that she was in love with him. And this moment it would have to be decided. She felt frightened. She dreaded both his speaking and his not speaking.

Now or never it must be said—that Sergey Ivanovitch felt too. Everything in the expression, the flushed cheeks and the downcast eyes of Varenka betrayed a painful suspense. Sergey Ivanovitch saw it and felt sorry for her. He felt even that to say nothing now would be a slight to her. Rapidly in his own mind he ran over all the arguments in support of his decision. He even said over to himself the words in which he meant to put his offer, but instead of those words, some utterly unexpected reflection that occurred to him made him ask:

‘What is the difference between the ‘birch’ mushroom and the ‘white’ mushroom?’

Varenka’s lips quivered with emotion as she answered:

‘In the top part there is scarcely any difference, it’s in the stalk.’

And as soon as these words were uttered, both he and she felt that it was over, that what was to have been said would not be said; and their emotion, which had up to then been continually growing more intense, began to subside.

‘The birch mushroom’s stalk suggests a dark man’s chin after two days without shaving,’ said Sergey Ivanovitch, speaking quite calmly now.

‘Yes, that’s true,’ answered Varenka smiling, and unconsciously the direction of their walk changed. They began to turn towards the children. Varenka felt both sore and ashamed; at the same time she had a sense of relief.

When he had got home again and went over the whole subject, Sergey Ivanovitch thought his previous decision had been a mistaken one. He could not be false to the memory of Marie.

‘Gently, children, gently!’ Levin shouted quite angrily to the children, standing before his wife to protect her when the crowd of children flew with shrieks of delight to meet them.

Behind the children Sergey Ivanovitch and Varenka walked out of the wood. Kitty had no need to ask Varenka; she saw from the calm and somewhat crestfallen faces of both that her plans had not come off.

‘Well?’ her husband questioned her as they were going home again.

‘It doesn’t bite,’ said Kitty, her smile and manner of speaking recalling her father, a likeness Levin often noticed with pleasure.

‘How doesn’t bite?’

‘I’ll show you,’ she said, taking her husband’s hand, lifting it to her mouth, and just faintly brushing it with closed lips. ‘Like a kiss on a priest’s hand.’

‘Which didn’t it bite with?’ he said, laughing.

‘Both. But it should have been like this…’

‘There are some peasants coming…’

‘Oh, they didn’t see.’

Chapter 6

During the time of the children’s tea the grown-up people sat in the balcony and talked as though nothing had happened, though they all, especially Sergey Ivanovitch and Varenka, were very well aware that there had happened an event which, though negative, was of very great importance. They both had the same feeling, rather like that of a schoolboy after an examination, which has left him in the same class or shut him out of the school forever. Everyone present, feeling too that something had happened, talked eagerly about extraneous subjects. Levin and Kitty were particularly happy and conscious of their love that evening. And their happiness in their love seemed to imply a disagreeable slur on those who would have liked to feel the same and could not—and they felt a prick of conscience.

‘Mark my words, Alexander will not come,’ said the old princess.

That evening they were expecting Stepan Arkadyevitch to come down by train, and the old prince had written that possibly he might come too.

‘And I know why,’ the princess went on; ‘he says that young people ought to be left alone for a while at first.’

‘But papa has left us alone. We’ve never seen him,’ said Kitty. ‘Besides, we’re not young people!—we’re old, married people by now.’

‘Only if he doesn’t come, I shall say good-bye to you children,’ said the princess, sighing mournfully.

‘What nonsense, mamma!’ both the daughters fell upon her at once.

‘How do you suppose he is feeling? Why, now…’

And suddenly there was an unexpected quiver in the princess’s voice. Her daughters were silent, and looked at one another. ‘Maman always finds something to be miserable about,’ they said in that glance. They did not know that happy as the princess was in her daughter’s house, and useful as she felt herself to be there, she had been extremely miserable, both on her own account and her husband’s, ever since they had married their last and favorite daughter, and the old home had been left empty.

‘What is it, Agafea Mihalovna?’ Kitty asked suddenly of Agafea Mihalovna, who was standing with a mysterious air, and a face full of meaning.

‘About supper.’

‘Well, that’s right,’ said Dolly; ‘you go and arrange about it, and I’ll go and hear Grisha repeat his lesson, or else he will have nothing done all day.’

‘That’s my lesson! No, Dolly, I’m going,’ said Levin, jumping up.

Grisha, who was by now at a high school, had to go over the lessons of the term in the summer holidays. Darya Alexandrovna, who had been studying Latin with her son in Moscow before, had made it a rule on coming to the Levins’ to go over with him, at least once a day, the most difficult lessons of Latin and arithmetic. Levin had offered to take her place, but the mother, having once overheard Levin’s lesson, and noticing that it was not given exactly as the teacher in Moscow had given it, said resolutely, though with much embarrassment and anxiety not to mortify Levin, that they must keep strictly to the book as the teacher had done, and that she had better undertake it again herself. Levin was amazed both at Stepan Arkadyevitch, who, by neglecting his duty, threw upon the mother the supervision of studies of which she had no comprehension, and at the teachers for teaching the children so badly. But he promised his sister-in-law to give the lessons exactly as she wished. And he went on teaching Grisha, not in his own way, but by the book, and so took little interest in it, and often forgot the hour of the lesson. So it had been today.

‘No, I’m going, Dolly, you sit still,’ he said. ‘We’ll do it all properly, like the book. Only when Stiva comes, and we go out shooting, then we shall have to miss it.’

And Levin went to Grisha.

Varenka was saying the same thing to Kitty. Even in the happy, well-ordered household of the Levins Varenka had succeeded in making herself useful.

‘I’ll see to the supper, you sit still,’ she said, and got up to go to Agafea Mihalovna.

‘Yes, yes, most likely they’ve not been able to get chickens. If so, ours…’

‘Agafea Mihalovna and I will see about it,’ and Varenka vanished with her.

‘What a nice girl!’ said the princess.

‘Not nice, maman; she’s an exquisite girl; there’s no one else like her.’

‘So you are expecting Stepan Arkadyevitch today?’ said Sergey Ivanovitch, evidently not disposed to pursue the conversation about Varenka. ‘It would be difficult to find two sons-in-law more unlike than yours,’ he said with a subtle smile. ‘One all movement, only living in society, like a fish in water; the other our Kostya, lively, alert, quick in everything, but as soon as he is in society, he either sinks into apathy, or struggles helplessly like a fish on land.’

‘Yes, he’s very heedless,’ said the princess, addressing Sergey Ivanovitch. ‘I’ve been meaning, indeed, to ask you to tell him that it’s out of the question for her’ (she indicated Kitty) ‘to stay here; that she positively must come to Moscow. He talks of getting a doctor down…’

‘Maman, he’ll do everything; he has agreed to everything,’ Kitty said, angry with her mother for appealing to Sergey Ivanovitch to judge in such a matter.

In the middle of their conversation they heard the snorting of horses and the sound of wheels on the gravel. Dolly had not time to get up to go and meet her husband, when from the window of the room below, where Grisha was having his lesson, Levin leaped out and helped Grisha out after him.

‘It’s Stiva!’ Levin shouted from under the balcony. ‘We’ve finished, Dolly, don’t be afraid!’ he added, and started running like a boy to meet the carriage.

‘Is ea id, ejus, ejus, ejus!’ shouted Grisha, skipping along the avenue.

‘And some one else too! Papa, of course!’ cried Levin, stopping at the entrance of the avenue. ‘Kitty, don’t come down the steep staircase, go round.’

But Levin had been mistaken in taking the person sitting in the carriage for the old prince. As he got nearer to the carriage he saw beside Stepan Arkadyevitch not the prince but a handsome, stout young man in a Scotch cap, with long ends of ribbon behind. This was Vassenka Veslovsky, a distant cousin of the Shtcherbatskys, a brilliant young gentleman in Petersburg and Moscow society. ‘A capital fellow, and a keen sportsman,’ as Stepan Arkadyevitch said, introducing him.

Not a whit abashed by the disappointment caused by his having come in place of the old prince, Veslovsky greeted Levin gaily, claiming acquaintance with him in the past, and snatching up Grisha into the carriage, lifted him over the pointer that Stepan Arkadyevitch had brought with him.

Levin did not get into the carriage, but walked behind. He was rather vexed at the non-arrival of the old prince, whom he liked more and more the more he saw of him, and also at the arrival of this Vassenka Veslovsky, a quite uncongenial and superfluous person. He seemed to him still more uncongenial and superfluous when, on approaching the steps where the whole party, children and grown-up, were gathered together in much excitement, Levin saw Vassenka Veslovsky, with a particularly warm and gallant air, kissing Kitty’s hand.

‘Your wife and I are cousins and very old friends,’ said Vassenka Veslovsky, once more shaking Levin’s hand with great warmth.

‘Well, are there plenty of birds?’ Stepan Arkadyevitch said to Levin, hardly leaving time for everyone to utter their greetings. ‘We’ve come with the most savage intentions. Why, maman, they’ve not been in Moscow since! Look, Tanya, here’s something for you! Get it, please, it’s in the carriage, behind!’ he talked in all directions. ‘How pretty you’ve grown, Dolly,’ he said to his wife, once more kissing her hand, holding it in one of his, and patting it with the other.

Levin, who a minute before had been in the happiest frame of mind, now looked darkly at everyone, and everything displeased him.

‘Who was it he kissed yesterday with those lips?’ he thought, looking at Stepan Arkadyevitch’s tender demonstrations to his wife. He looked at Dolly, and he did not like her either.

‘She doesn’t believe in his love. So what is she so pleased about? Revolting!’ thought Levin.

He looked at the princess, who had been so dear to him a minute before, and he did not like the manner in which she welcomed this Vassenka, with his ribbons, just as though she were in her own house.

Even Sergey Ivanovitch, who had come out too onto the steps, seemed to him unpleasant with the show of cordiality with which he met Stepan Arkadyevitch, though Levin knew that his brother neither liked nor respected Oblonsky.

And Varenka, even she seemed hateful, with her air sainte nitouche making the acquaintance of this gentleman, while all the while she was thinking of nothing but getting married.

And more hateful than anyone was Kitty for falling in with the tone of gaiety with which this gentleman regarded his visit in the country, as though it were a holiday for himself and everyone else. And, above all, unpleasant was that particular smile with which she responded to his smile.

Noisily talking, they all went into the house; but as soon as they were all seated, Levin turned and went out.

Kitty saw something was wrong with her husband. She tried to seize a moment to speak to him alone, but he made haste to get away from her, saying he was wanted at the counting-house. It was long since his own work on the estate had seemed to him so important as at that moment. ‘It’s all holiday for them,’ he thought; ‘but these are no holiday matters, they won’t wait, and there’s no living without them.’