TWENTY-SEVEN

 

 

‘It all depends on what time! There are times when one would give a whole month for a shilling and there are times when you would not give half an hour at any price. Is not that so, Kitty? Why are you so glum?’

 

‘I’m all right.’

 

‘Where are you off to? Stay a little longer,’ he said, turning to Varenka.

 

‘I must get home,’ said Varenka, rising and bursting into another fit of laughter. When she had recovered, she took leave and went into the house for her hat.

 

Kitty followed her. Even Varenka seemed different now. She was not worse, but different from what Kitty previously had imagined her to be.

 

‘Oh dear, I have not laughed so much for a long time!’ said Varenka, collecting her sunshade and bag. ‘What a dear your Papa is!’

 

Kitty remained silent.

 

‘When shall we meet?’ asked Varenka.

 

‘Mama was going to call on the Petrovs. Will you be there?’ asked Kitty, trying to sound Varenka.

 

‘I will,’ answered Varenka. ‘They are preparing to leave, so I have promised to help them pack.’

 

‘Then I’ll come too.’

 

‘No, why should you?’

 

‘Why not, why not, why not?’ asked Kitty with wide-open eyes, and holding Varenka’s sunshade to prevent her going. ‘No, wait a bit, tell me why not.’

 

‘Oh, nothing. Only your Papa has returned, and they don’t feel at ease with you.’

 

‘No, no, tell me why you do not wish me to be often at the Petrovs? You don’t, do you? Why?’

 

‘I have not said so,’ replied Varenka quietly.

 

‘No, please tell me!’

 

‘Shall I tell you everything?’ said Varenka.

 

‘Everything, everything!’ said Kitty.

 

‘There is nothing special to tell, only Petrov used to want to leave sooner but now does not want to go,’ said Varenka smiling.

 

‘Well, go on,’ Kitty hurried her, looking at her with a frown.

 

‘Well, I don’t know why, but Anna Pavlovna says he does not want to go, because you are here. Of course that was tactless, but they quarrelled about you. And you know how excitable such invalids are.’

 

Kitty frowned yet more, and remained silent, and only Varenka spoke, trying to soften and soothe Kitty, and foreseeing an approaching explosion of tears or words, she knew not which.

 

‘So it is better for you not to go. . . . And, you understand, don’t be hurt . . .’

 

‘It serves me right, it serves me right!’ Kitty began hurriedly, snatching Varenka’s sunshade out of her hands, and looking past her friend’s eyes.

 

Varenka felt like smiling at her friend’s childish anger but feared to offend her.

 

‘Why — serves you right? I don’t understand,’ she said.

 

‘It serves me right because it was all pretence, all invented and not heartfelt. What business had I with a stranger? So it comes about that I am the cause of a quarrel, and have been doing what nobody asked me to do. Because it is all pretence, pretence and pretence! . . .’

 

‘But what motive had you for pretending?’ said Varenka softly.

 

‘Oh, how stupid, how stupid! There was no need at all. . . . It was all pretence!’ Kitty said, opening and shutting the sunshade.

 

‘But with what object?’

 

‘To appear better than others to myself and to God — to deceive everybody. No, I shall not give in to that again! Let me be bad, but at any rate not false, not a humbug!’

 

‘But who is a “humbug”?’ asked Varenka reproachfully. ‘You speak as if . . .’

 

But Kitty was in one of her fits of passion. She would not let Varenka finish.

 

‘I am not talking about you, not about you at all. You are perfection. Yes, yes, you are all perfection; but how can I help it if I am bad? It would not have happened if I were not bad. So let me be what I am, but not pretend. What is Anna Pavlovna to me? Let them live as they like, and I will live as I like. I cannot be different. . . . And it’s all not the thing, not the thing!’

 

‘But what is not the thing?’ said Varenka, quite perplexed.

 

‘It’s all not the thing. I can’t live except by my own heart, but you live by principles. I have loved you quite simply, but you, I expect, only in order to save me, to teach me.’

 

‘You are unjust,’ said Varenka.

 

‘But I am not talking about others, only about myself.’

 

‘Kitty!’ came her mother’s voice, ‘come here and show Papa your corals.’

 

Kitty took from the table a little box which held the corals, and with a proud look, without having made it up with her friend, went to where her mother was.

 

‘What’s the matter? Why are you so red?’ asked both her mother and father together.

 

‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘I’ll come back in a minute,’ and ran away.

 

‘She is still here,’ thought Kitty. ‘What shall I say to her? Oh dear! What have I done, what have I said? Why have I offended her? What am I to do? What shall I say to her?’ thought Kitty and stopped at the door.

 

Varenka, with her hat on, sat at the table examining the spring of her sunshade, which Kitty had broken. She looked up.

 

‘Varenka, forgive me, forgive me!’ whispered Kitty, coming close to her. ‘I don’t remember what I said. I . . .’

 

‘Really, I did not wish to distress you,’ said Varenka with a smile.

 

Peace was made. But with her father’s return the world in which she had been living completely changed for Kitty. She did not renounce all she had learnt, but realized that she had deceived herself when thinking that she could be what she wished to be. It was as if she had recovered consciousness; she felt the difficulty of remaining without hypocrisy or boastfulness on the level to which she had wished to rise.

 

Moreover, she felt the oppressiveness of that world of sorrow, sickness and death in which she was living. The efforts she had been making to love it now seemed tormenting, and she longed to get away quickly to the fresh air, back to Russia, to Ergushovo, where as she knew from a letter her sister Dolly had moved with the children.

 

But her affection for Varenka was not weakened. When taking leave of her, Kitty tried to persuade her to come and stay with them in Russia.

 

‘I will come when you are married,’ said Varenka.

 

‘I shall never marry.’

 

‘Well, then, I shall never come.’

 

‘Then I will marry for that purpose only. Mind now, don’t forget your promise!’ said Kitty.

 

The doctor’s prediction was justified. Kitty returned to Russia quite cured! She was not as careless and light-hearted as before, but she was at peace. Her old Moscow sorrows were no more than a memory.

 

 

 

 

 

PART THREE

 

 

 

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Chapter 1

 

 

 

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SERGIUS IVANICH KOZNYSHEV, wishing to take a rest from mental work, went to stay with his brother in the country instead of going abroad as usual. According to his views country life was preferable to any other, and he had now come to his brother’s house to enjoy it. Constantine Levin was very pleased, especially as he no longer expected his brother Nicholas to come that summer. But in spite of his affection and respect for Koznyshev, Constantine did not feel at ease with his step-brother in the country. To Constantine the country was the place where one lived — that is to say, where one rejoiced, suffered, and laboured; but to Koznyshev the country was, on the one hand, a place of rest from work, and, on the other, a useful antidote to depravity, an antidote to which he resorted with pleasure and with a consciousness of its utility. To Constantine the country seemed a good place because it was the scene of unquestionably useful labour; to Koznyshev it seemed good because one could and should do nothing there. Besides this, Koznyshev’s attitude toward the peasants jarred on Constantine. Koznyshev was wont to say that he knew and loved the common people: he often conversed with peasants, and was able to do it well, frankly, and without affectation, deducing from every such conversation data in the peasants’ favour and proofs of his own knowledge of the people. Constantine regarded the peasants as the chief partners in a common undertaking, and despite his respect and the feeling of a blood-tie — probably, as he said, sucked in with the milk of his peasant nurse — he as partner in their common undertaking, though often filled with admiration for the strength, meekness, and justice of these people, was very often (when the business required other qualities) exasperated with them for their carelessness, untidiness, drunkenness, and untruthfulness. Had Constantine been asked whether he liked the peasants, he would not have known what to answer. He both liked and disliked them, just as he liked and disliked all human beings. With his natural kind heart he of course liked human beings more than he disliked them, and naturally the peasants were included; but he could not like or dislike the people as if they were something apart, because he not only lived among them, his interests closely bound up with theirs, but he considered himself one of the people and could not find in himself any special qualities or defects which placed him in contrast with them. Moreover, though he had lived in very close relations with the peasants, as their master, mediator, and above all as their adviser (the peasants trusted him, and would often come thirty miles to consult him), he had no definite opinion concerning them. Had he been asked whether he knew the people, he would have been just as much at a loss for a reply as he was for a reply to the question whether he liked them. To say that he knew the peasants was tantamount to saying that he knew human beings. He continually observed and learnt to know all sorts of human beings, among them human beings of the peasant class, whom he considered interesting, constantly discovering in them new traits and altering his opinions accordingly. Koznyshev, on the other hand, just as he praised country life as a contrast to the life he disliked, liked the peasants as a contrast to the class he disliked, and regarded them as a contrast to humanity in general. His methodical mind had formed definite views on the life of the people, founded partly on that life itself, but chiefly on its contrast. He never altered his opinions about the people nor his sympathetic attitude toward them. In the disputes which took place between the brothers when discussing the peasants, Koznyshev was always victorious, just because he had definite views about them, their character, attributes, and tastes; while Constantine had no definite and fixed views, and was often guilty of self-contradiction when arguing on that subject.

 

Koznyshev thought his younger brother a splendid fellow, with his heart in the right place, but with a mind which, though rather quick, was swayed by the impression of the moment and was therefore full of contradictions. With an elder brother’s condescension he sometimes explained to him the meaning of things, but could find no pleasure in discussion, because he could gain too easy a victory.

 

Constantine considered his brother to be a man of great intellect, noble in the highest sense of the word, and gifted with the power of working for the general welfare. But the older he grew and the more intimately he came to know his brother, the oftener the thought occurred to him that the power of working for the general welfare — a power of which he felt himself entirely destitute — was not a virtue but rather a lack of something: not a lack of kindly honesty and noble desires and tastes, but a lack of the power of living, of what is called heart — the aspiration which makes a man choose one out of all the innumerable paths of life that present themselves, and desire that alone. The better he knew his brother, the more he noticed that Koznyshev and many other social workers were not led to this love for the common good by their hearts, but because they had reasoned out in their minds that it was a good thing to do that kind of work, and took to it accordingly. What further strengthened this conviction, was noticing that his brother did not take the question of the general welfare, or of the immortality of the soul, any more to heart than a game of chess.

 

Another thing which made Constantine Levin feel his brother’s presence inconvenient was that in the country, especially during the summer, while Levin was always busy with the farm and the long summer days were too short for doing all that had to be done, Koznyshev was resting. But even though he was resting from mental labours and was not writing, he was so used to mental activity that he liked expressing his thoughts in an elegant, concise style, and liked having a listener. His most usual and natural listener was his brother; and therefore, despite their friendly relations, Constantine felt uncomfortable at leaving him alone. Koznyshev loved to lie basking in the sunshine, talking lazily.

 

‘You can’t imagine what a pleasure this complete laziness is to me: not a thought in my brain — you might send a ball rolling through it!’

 

But it wearied Constantine to sit listening to him, particularly because he knew that during his absence the manure was being carted into the field, and it was impossible to guess where they would throw it if he were not there to see. The ploughshares too would not be screwed up properly, or taken out; and then he would be told that these ploughs were a silly invention: ‘How can they be compared to our old Russian plough?’ and so on.

 

‘Haven’t you walked about enough in this heat?’ said Koznyshev.

 

‘No; I must just look in at the counting-house for a moment,’ answered Levin, and off he ran to the fields.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 2

 

 

 

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AT the beginning of June Levin’s old nurse and house-keeper, Agatha Mikhaylovna, happened to slip as she was carrying to the cellar a jar of mushrooms which she had just pickled, and sprained her wrist. A talkative young medical man who had only just qualified and been appointed doctor for the Zemstvo district arrived, examined the hand, said it was not sprained, and enjoyed a talk with the celebrated Sergius Ivanich Koznyshev. He told him all the gossip of the district to show off his enlightened views and complained of the unsatisfactory conditions prevailing there. Koznyshev listened attentively, asked questions, and, enlivened by the presence of a new listener, became quite chatty, made some pointed and weighty remarks respectfully appreciated by the young doctor, and reached that state of animation his brother so well knew, which generally followed a brilliant and lively conversation. After the doctor’s departure Koznyshev felt inclined to go to the river with his fishing-rod. He was fond of angling, and seemed proud of being able to like such, a stupid occupation. Constantine, who was obliged to go to the cornfields and meadows, offered to give his brother a lift in his trap.

 

It was just the time of year, the turning-point of summer, when the result of that year’s harvest becomes assured, when the autumn sowings have to be considered, and when the hay harvest is close at hand; when the grey-green rye waves its formed but as yet not swollen ears lightly in the wind; when the green oats, with irregular clumps of yellow grass interspersed, stand unevenly on late-sown fields; when the early buckwheat spreads out and hides the ground; when the fallow land, trodden as hard as a stone by the cattle, is half-ploughed, with here and there long strips omitted as too hard for the plough; when the smell of dried heaps of manure in the fields mingles with the honied perfume of the grasses; and waiting for the scythe, the lowland meadows lie smooth as a lake by the river’s banks, showing here and there black heaps of weeded sorrel stalks. It was the time of that short pause before the labour, yearly renewed, of getting in the harvest, which always demands all the peasants’ strength for its accomplishment. The promise of the harvest was splendid, the weather clear and hot, and the short night dewy.

 

The brothers had to pass through the forest on their way to the meadows. Koznyshev was all the while filled with admiration for the beauty of the thickly-leaved forest, and kept pointing out to his brother the old lime trees, looking so dark on the shady side, covered with creamy buds all ready to burst into blossom; or the new shoots, sparkling like emeralds, on the trees. Constantine Levin did not like talking or hearing about the beauty of nature. Words seemed to detract from the beauty of what he was looking at. He assented to what his brother said but could not help thinking of other things. When they emerged from the forest his attention was arrested at the sight of a fallow field and a hillock, here and there yellow with grass or broken up and cut into squares, in some parts speckled with heaps of manure, or even ploughed. A string of carts was moving over the field.

 

Levin counted the carts, and was pleased to see that sufficient manure was being brought. At the sight of the meadows his thoughts turned to the hay harvest. The thought of the hay harvest always touched him to the quick. When they reached the meadow Levin stopped. At the roots of the thick grass the morning dew still lingered, and Koznyshev, afraid of wetting his feet, asked his brother to drive him across the meadow to the willow clump near which perch could be caught. Though Constantine was loth to crush his grass, he drove across the meadow. The tall grass twined softly about the wheels and the horse’s legs, leaving seeds on the wet spokes and hubs.

 

Koznyshev sat down by the willows, while Levin led away his horse, and having tethered it, stepped into the immense grey-green sea of grass, so dense that the wind could not ruffle it. In the meadow, which was flooded every spring, the silky grass, now scattering seeds, reached almost to his waist. When Constantine Levin had passed right across the meadow and reached the road, he met an old man with a swollen eye carrying a swarm of bees in a skep.

 

‘Have you found it, Fomich?’ he asked.

 

‘Found it, indeed, Constantine Dmitrich! I only hope not to lose my own. This is the second time a swarm has got away, and it’s only thanks to those lads there that I’ve got this one back. They were ploughing for you, and unharnessed a horse and galloped after it. . . .’

 

‘Well, Fomich, what do you think? Shall we begin mowing, or wait a little?’

 

‘Oh, well, our custom is to wait till St. Peter’s Day, but you always mow earlier. Why not, God willing? The grass is fine; there will be more room for the cattle.’

 

‘And what do you think of the weather?’

 

‘That’s God’s business — perhaps the weather will keep fine too.’

 

Levin went back to his brother.

 

Though he had caught nothing, Koznyshev did not feel bored and seemed in the best of spirits. Levin saw that he had been roused by his conversation with the doctor and wanted to have a talk. Levin, on the contrary, was impatient to get home in order to give orders about hiring the mowers on the morrow, and to decide about the hay harvest, which greatly occupied his mind.

 

‘Well, let’s go,’ said he.

 

‘Where’s the hurry? Let’s sit here a little. How wet you are! Though nothing bites, it’s pleasant; hunting and similar sports are good because they bring one in touch with nature. . . . How lovely this steel-coloured water is!’ said he. ‘And these grassy banks always remind me of that riddle — you know — “The grass says to the water, We will shake, we will shake. . . .” ’

 

‘I don’t know that riddle,’ replied Levin in a dull tone.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 3

 

 

 

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‘DO you know, I’ve been thinking about you,’ said Koznyshev. ‘From what the doctor told me — and he is by no means a stupid young fellow — the things going on in your district are simply disgraceful. I have already told you, and I say it again, it is not right to stop away from the Zemstvo meetings, and in general to take no part in its activities! If all the better sort stand aside, of course heaven only knows what will happen. We expend money for salaries, but there are no schools, no medical assistance, no midwives, no chemists, no anything!’

 

‘You know I have tried,’ Levin replied slowly and reluctantly, ‘but I can’t! So what am I to do?’

 

‘Why can’t you? I confess I don’t understand. I can’t admit it to be indifference or inaptitude; is it possible that it is mere laziness?’

 

‘Neither the one nor the other — nor the last. I have tried and seen that I can do nothing,’ said Levin.

 

He did not pay much attention to what his brother was saying. Peering into the distance across the river, he made out something black in the cornfield, and could not see whether it was only a horse or the steward on horseback.

 

‘Why can you do nothing? You have made an attempt, and because according to your judgment it was a failure, you gave it up. Fancy having so little ambition!’

 

‘Ambition?’ reiterated Levin, stung by his brother’s words. ‘I do not understand it. If at college they had told me that others understood the integral calculus and I did not, that would have been a case for ambition; but in these matters the first requisite is a conviction that one has the necessary ability, and above all that it is all very important.’

 

‘Well, and is it not very important?’ said Koznyshev, stirred by the perception that his occupations were regarded as unimportant and especially by his brother’s evident inattention to what he was saying.

 

‘They don’t appear important to me. Do what you will, they don’t grip me,’ replied Levin, having made out that what he saw was the steward, who was probably dismissing the peasants from their ploughing too soon, for they were turning the ploughs over. ‘Is it possible they have finished ploughing?’ thought he.

 

‘Come now! After all,’ continued the elder brother with a frown on his handsome, intelligent face, ‘there are limits to everything! It is all very well to be a crank, to be sincere and dislike hypocrisy — I know that very well — but what you are saying has either no meaning at all or a very bad meaning. How can you consider it unimportant that the people, whom you love, as you maintain . . .’

 

‘I never maintained it,’ thought Levin. . . .

 

‘. . . are dying without help? Ignorant midwives murder the babies, and the people remain steeped in ignorance, at the mercy of every village clerk; while you have in your power the means of helping them, and yet are not helping because you do not consider it important!’

 

And Koznyshev confronted his brother with this dilemma: ‘Either you are so undeveloped that you don’t see all that you might do, or you don’t want to sacrifice your peace of mind or your vanity — I don’t know which — in order to do it.’ Constantine felt that there was nothing for him but to submit or else to own to a lack of love for the common cause, and he felt wounded and grieved.

 

‘Both the one and the other,’ said he resolutely. ‘I can’t see how it is to be done . . .’

 

‘What? Don’t see how medical help can be given, by distributing the money in a proper way . . .’

 

‘Well, it seems impossible to me. . . . To give medical help over the whole three thousand square miles of our district, with our deep snow, impassable when it begins melting, our snowdrifts, and the pressure of work at harvest time, is impossible. Besides, I have no faith in medicine generally . . .’

 

‘Come now! That is unjust. . . . I could cite thousands of cases to you. . . . And how about schools?’

 

‘Schools? What for?’

 

‘What do you mean? Is it possible to doubt the utility of education? If it is good for you, why not for everybody?’