Chapter 4

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DARYA ALEXANDROVNA was there in a dressing-jacket, with her large frightened eyes, made more prominent by the emaciation of her face, and her knot of thin plaits of once luxurious and beautiful hair. The room was covered with scattered articles, and she was standing among them before an open wardrobe, where she was engaged in selecting something. Hearing her husband’s step she stopped and looked at the door, vainly trying to assume a severe and contemptuous expression. She felt that she was afraid of him and afraid of the impending interview. She was trying to do what she had attempted ten times already during those three days, to sort out her own and her children’s clothes to take to her mother’s; but she could not bring herself to do it, and said again, as she had done after each previous attempt, that things could not remain as they were — that she must do something to punish and humiliate him, and to revenge herself if only for a small part of the pain he had caused her. She still kept saying that she would leave him, but felt that this was impossible. It was impossible because she could not get out of the habit of regarding him as her husband and of loving him. Besides, she felt that if here, in her own home, it was all she could do to look after her five children properly, it would be still worse where she meant to take them. As it was, during these three days the youngest had fallen ill because they had given him sour broth, and the others had had hardly any dinner yesterday. She felt that it was impossible for her to leave; but still deceiving herself, she went on sorting the things and pretending that she really would go.

 

On seeing her husband she thrust her arms into a drawer of the wardrobe as if looking for something, and only when he had come close to her did she turn her face toward him. But her face, which she wanted to seem stern and determined, expressed only perplexity and suffering.

 

‘Dolly!’ he said in a soft, timid voice. He drew his head down, wishing to look pathetic and submissive, but all the same he shone with freshness and health. With a rapid glance she took in his fresh and healthy figure from head to foot. ‘Yes, he is happy and contented,’ she thought, ‘but what about me? . . . And that horrid good-nature of his which people love and praise so, how I hate it!’ She pressed her lips together and a cheek-muscle twitched on the right side of her pale and nervous face.

 

‘What do you want?’ she said quickly in a voice unlike her usual deep tones.

 

‘Dolly,’ he repeated unsteadily, ‘Anna is coming to-day.’

 

‘What’s that to do with me? I can’t receive her!’ she exclaimed.

 

‘But after all, Dolly, you really must,’ said he.

 

‘Go away, go away, go away!’ she cried, as if in physical pain, without looking at him.

 

Oblonsky could think calmly of his wife, could hope that ‘things would shape themselves’ as Matthew had said, and could calmly read his paper and drink his coffee, but when he saw her worn, suffering face, and heard her tone, resigned and despairing, he felt a choking sensation. A lump rose to his throat and tears glistened in his eyes.

 

‘Oh, my God! What have I done? Dolly — for heaven’s sake! . . . You know . . .’ He could not continue. His throat was choked with sobs.

 

She slammed the doors of the wardrobe and looked up at him.

 

‘Dolly, what can I say? . . . Only forgive me! Think, nine years. . . . Can’t they atone for a momentary — a momentary . . .’

 

Her eyes drooped and she waited to hear what he would say, as if entreating him to persuade her somehow that she had made a mistake.

 

‘A momentary infatuation, . . .’ he said, and was going on; but at those words her lips tightened again as if with pain, and again the muscle in her right cheek began to twitch.

 

‘Go away — go away from here!’ she cried in a still shriller voice, ‘and don’t talk to me of your infatuations and all those horrors!’

 

She wished to go away, but staggered and held on to the back of a chair to support herself. His face broadened, his lips swelled, and his eyes filled with tears.

 

‘Dolly!’ he said, now actually sobbing, ‘for heaven’s sake think of the children — they have done nothing! Punish me — make me suffer for my sin! Tell me what to do — I am ready for anything. I am the guilty one. I have no words to express my guilt. . . . But Dolly, forgive me!’

 

She sat down and he could hear her loud, heavy breathing. He felt unutterably sorry for her. She tried again and again to speak and could not. He waited.

 

‘You think of our children when you want to play with them, but I am always thinking of them, and know they are ruined now,’ she said, evidently repeating one of the phrases she had used to herself again and again during those three days.

 

But she had spoken of ‘our children’, and looking gratefully at her he moved to take her hand; but she stepped aside with a look of repugnance.

 

‘I do think of the children, and would do anything in the world to save them; but I do not know how to save them — whether by taking them away from their father, or by leaving them with a dissolute — yes, a dissolute father. . . . Tell me, do you think it possible for us to live together after what has happened? Is it possible? Say, is it possible?’ she repeated, raising her voice. ‘When my husband, the father of my children, has love affairs with his children’s governess?’

 

‘But what’s to be done? — what’s to be done?’ said he, in a piteous voice, hardly knowing what he was saying, and sinking his head lower and lower.

 

‘You are horrid and disgusting to me!’ she shouted, getting more and more excited. ‘Your tears are — water! You never loved me; you have no heart, no honour! To me you are detestable, disgusting — a stranger, yes, a perfect stranger!’ She uttered that word stranger, so terrible to herself, with anguish and hatred.

 

He looked at her and the hatred he saw in her face frightened and surprised him. He did not understand that his pity exasperated her. She saw in him pity for herself but not love. ‘No, she hates me; she will not forgive me,’ he thought. ‘It is awful, awful!’ he muttered.

 

At that moment a child began to cry in another room, probably having tumbled down. Darya Alexandrovna listened, and her face softened suddenly.

 

She seemed to be trying to recollect herself, as if she did not know where she was or what she had to do. Then she rose quickly and moved toward the door.

 

‘After all, she loves my child,’ he thought, noticing the change in her face when the baby cried; ‘my child — then how can she hate me?’

 

‘Dolly, just a word!’ he said, following her.

 

‘If you follow me, I shall call the servants and the children! I’ll let everybody know you are a scoundrel! I am going away to-day, and you may live here with your mistress!’

 

She went out, slamming the door.

 

Oblonsky sighed, wiped his face, and with soft steps left the room. ‘Matthew says “things will shape themselves,” — but how? I don’t even see a possibility. . . . Oh dear, the horror of it! And her shouting — it was so vulgar,’ he thought, recalling her screams and the words scoundrel and mistress. ‘And the maids may have heard it! It is dreadfully banal, dreadfully!’ For a few seconds Oblonsky stood alone; then he wiped his eyes, sighed, and expanding his chest went out of the room.

 

It was a Friday, the day on which a German clockmaker always came to wind up the clocks. Seeing him in the dining-room, Oblonsky recollected a joke he had once made at the expense of this accurate baldheaded clockmaker, and he smiled. ‘The German,’ he had said, ‘has been wound up for life to wind up clocks.’ Oblonsky was fond of a joke. ‘Well, perhaps things will shape themselves — “shape themselves”! That’s a good phrase,’ he thought. ‘I must use that.’

 

‘Matthew!’ he called. ‘Will you and Mary arrange everything for Anna Arkadyevna in the little sitting-room?’ he added when Matthew appeared.

 

‘Yes, sir.’

 

Oblonsky put on his fur coat, and went out into the porch.

 

‘Will you be home to dinner, sir?’ said Matthew, as he showed him out.

 

‘I’ll see. . . . Oh, and here’s some money,’ said he, taking a ten-rouble note out of his pocket-book. ‘Will it be enough?’

 

‘Enough or not, we shall have to manage, that’s clear,’ said Matthew, closing the carriage door and stepping back into the porch.

 

Meanwhile Darya Alexandrovna after soothing the child, knowing from the sound of the carriage wheels that her husband had gone, returned to her bedroom. It was her only place of refuge from household cares. Even now, during the few minutes she had spent in the nursery, the English governess and Matrena Filimonovna had found time to ask some questions that could not be put off and which she alone could answer. ‘What should the children wear when they went out? Ought they to have milk? Should not a new cook be sent for?’

 

‘Oh, do leave me alone!’ she cried; and returning to her bedroom she sat down where she had sat when talking with her husband. Locking together her thin fingers, on which her rings hung loosely, she went over in her mind the whole of their conversation.

 

‘Gone! But how did he finish with her?’ she thought. ‘Is it possible that he still sees her? Why didn’t I ask him? No, no! It’s impossible to be reunited. . . . Even if we go on living in the same house, we are strangers — strangers for ever!’ she repeated, specially emphasizing the word that was so dreadful to her. ‘And how I loved him! Oh God, how I loved him! . . . How I loved — and don’t I love him now? Don’t I love him more than ever? The most terrible thing . . .’ She did not finish the thought, because Matrena Filimonovna thrust her head in at the door.

 

‘Hadn’t I better send for my brother?’ she said. ‘After all, he can cook a dinner; — or else the children will go without food till six o’clock, as they did yesterday.’

 

‘All right! I’ll come and see about it in a moment. . . . Has the milk been sent for?’ and Darya Alexandrovna plunged into her daily cares, and for a time drowned her grief in them.

 

 

 

Chapter 5

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OBLONSKY’S natural ability had helped him to do well at school, but mischief and laziness had caused him to finish very low in his year’s class. Yet in spite of his dissipated life, his unimportant service rank, and his comparative youth, he occupied a distinguished and well-paid post as Head of one of the Government Boards in Moscow. This post he had obtained through Alexis Alexandrovich Karenin, his sister Anna’s husband, who held one of the most important positions in the Ministry to which that Moscow Board belonged. But even if Karenin had not nominated his brother-in-law for that post, Stiva Oblonsky, through one of a hundred other persons — brothers, sisters, relations, cousins, uncles or aunts — would have obtained this or a similar post with a salary of some 6000 roubles a year, which he needed because in spite of his wife’s substantial means his affairs were in a bad way.

 

Half Moscow and half Petersburg were his relations or friends. He was born among those who were or who became the great ones of this world. One third of the official world, the older men, were his father’s friends and had known him in petticoats, he was on intimate terms with another third, and was well acquainted with the last third. Consequently the distributors of earthly blessings, such as government posts, grants, concessions, and the like, were all his friends. They could not overlook one who belonged to them, so that Oblonsky had no special difficulty in obtaining a lucrative post; he had only not to raise any objections, not to be envious, not to quarrel, and not to take offence — all things which, being naturally good-tempered, he never did. It would have seemed to him ridiculous had he been told that he would not get a post with the salary he required; especially as he did not demand anything extraordinary. He only wanted what other men of his age and set were getting; and he could fill such an office as well as anybody else.

 

Oblonsky was not only liked by every one who knew him for his kind and joyous nature and his undoubted honesty, but there was something in him — in his handsome and bright appearance, his beaming eyes, black hair and eyebrows, and his white-and-rosy complexion, that had a physical effect on those he met, making them feel friendly and cheerful. ‘Ah! Stiva Oblonsky! Here he is!’ said almost every one he met, smilingly. Even if conversation with him sometimes caused no special delight, still the next day, or the next, every one was as pleased as ever to meet him.

 

It was the third year that Oblonsky had been Head of that Government Board in Moscow, and he had won not only the affection but also the respect of his fellow-officials, subordinates, chiefs, and all who had anything to do with him. The chief qualities that had won him this general respect in his Office were, first, his extreme leniency, founded on a consciousness of his own defects; secondly, his true Liberalism — not that of which he read in his paper, but that which was in his blood and made him treat all men alike whatever their rank or official position; thirdly and chiefly, his complete indifference to the business he was engaged on, in consequence of which he was never carried away by enthusiasm and never made mistakes.

 

Having arrived at his destination, Oblonsky, respectfully followed by the door-keeper bearing his portfolio, entered his little private room, put on his uniform, and came out into the Office. The clerks and attendants all rose and bowed cheerfully and respectfully. Oblonsky walked quickly, as was his wont, to his place, shook hands with the Members, and sat down. He chatted and joked just as much as was proper and then turned to business. No one could determine better than he the limits of freedom, simplicity, and formality, necessary for the pleasant transaction of business. The Secretary came up with the papers, cheerfully and respectfully like everybody in Oblonsky’s Office, and remarked in the familiarly Liberal tone introduced by Oblonsky:

 

‘After all, we’ve managed to get that information from the Penza Provincial Office. Here — will you please. . . .’

 

‘Got it at last?’ said Oblonsky, holding this paper down with his finger. ‘Well, gentlemen . . .’ and the sitting commenced.

 

‘If they only knew,’ he thought, bowing his head gravely as he listened to a Report, ‘how like a guilty little boy their President was half-an-hour ago! . . .’ and his eyes sparkled while the Report was being read. Till two o’clock the business was to continue uninterruptedly, but at two there was to be an adjournment for lunch.

 

It was not quite two when the large glass doors suddenly swung open and some one came in. All the Members from beneath the Emperor’s portrait and from behind the Mirror of Justice, glad of some distraction, looked toward the door; but the door-keeper at once turned out the intruder and closed the glass doors behind him.

 

When the Report had been read, Oblonsky rose, stretching himself, and, paying tribute to the Liberalism of the times, took out a cigarette before leaving the Office to go to his private room. Two of his colleagues — Nikitin, an old hardworking official, and Grinevich, a Gentleman of the Bedchamber — followed him out.

 

‘We shall have time to finish after lunch,’ said Oblonsky.

 

‘Plenty of time,’ said Nikitin.

 

‘He must be a precious rogue, that Fomin,’ said Grinevich, referring to one of those concerned in the case under consideration.

 

Oblonsky made a face at these words, thereby indicating that it is not right to form an opinion prematurely, and did not reply.

 

‘Who was it came in?’ he asked the door-keeper.

 

‘Some man came in without permission, your Excellency, when I wasn’t looking. He asked for you. I told him, “When the Members come out, then. . . .” ’

 

‘Where is he?’

 

‘Perhaps he has gone out into the hall; he was walking about there just now. That’s him,’ said the door-keeper, pointing to a strongly-built broad-shouldered man with a curly beard, who, without taking off his sheepskin cap, was running lightly and quickly up the worn steps of the stone staircase. A lanky official, going down with a portfolio, stopped, with a disapproving look at the feet of the man running upstairs, and then glanced inquiringly at Oblonsky, who was standing at the top of the stairs. His kindly face, beaming over the gold-embroidered collar of his uniform, grew still more radiant when he recognized the man who was coming up.

 

‘Yes, it’s he! Levin, at last!’ he said, scrutinizing the approaching Levin with a friendly mocking smile. ‘How is it you deign to look me up in this den?’ he asked; and not contented with pressing his friend’s hand, he kissed him. ‘Been here long?’

 

‘I’ve only just arrived, and am very anxious to see you,’ answered Levin, looking round with constraint, and yet crossly and uneasily.

 

‘Well then, come into my room,’ said Oblonsky, who knew his friend’s self-conscious and irritable shyness; and seizing him by the arm he led him along as if past some danger.

 

Oblonsky was on intimate terms with almost all his acquaintances, men of sixty and lads of twenty, actors, Ministers of State, tradesmen, and Lords in Waiting, so that a great many people on familiar terms with him stood at the two extremes of the social ladder and would have been much surprised to know that they had something in common through Oblonsky. He was on familiar terms with everybody he drank champagne with, and he drank champagne with everybody. But when in the presence of his subordinates he happened to meet any of his ‘disreputable pals’, as he jocularly called them, he was able, with his innate tact, to minimize the impression such a meeting might leave on their minds. Levin was not a ‘disreputable pal’, but Oblonsky felt that Levin imagined he might not care to show their intimacy in the presence of the subordinates, and that was why he hurried him into his private room.

 

Levin and Oblonsky were almost of the same age; and with Levin, Oblonsky was on familiar terms not through champagne only. Levin had been his comrade and friend in early youth, and they were fond of one another as friends who have come together in early youth often are, in spite of the difference in their characters and tastes. Yet, as often happens between men who have chosen different pursuits, each, while in argument justifying the other’s activity, despised it in the depth of his heart. Each thought that his own way of living was real life, and that the life of his friend was — illusion. Oblonsky could not repress a slightly sarcastic smile at the sight of Levin. How many times he had already seen him arriving in Moscow from the country, where he did something, though what it was Oblonsky could never quite understand or feel any interest in. Levin came to Moscow always excited, always in a hurry, rather shy and irritated by his own shyness, and usually with totally new and unexpected views about things. Oblonsky laughed at all this, and yet liked it. Similarly, Levin in his heart despised the town life his friend was leading, and his official duties which he considered futile and ridiculed. But the difference was that Oblonsky, doing as every one else did, laughed with confidence and good-humour, while Levin laughed uncertainly and sometimes angrily.