Anna Karenina
trap. He sat down, tucked the tiger-skin rug round him, and lighted a
cigar. “How is it you don’t smoke? A cigar is a sort of thing, not
exactly a pleasure, but the crown and outward sign of pleasure. Come,
this is life! How splendid it is! This is how I should like to live!”
“Why, who prevents you?” said Levin, smiling.
“No, you’re a lucky man! You’ve got everything you like. You like
horses—and you have them; dogs—you have them; shooting—you have it;
farming—you have it.”
“Perhaps because I rejoice in what I have, and don’t fret for what I
haven’t,” said Levin, thinking of Kitty.
Stepan Arkadyevitch comprehended, looked at him, but said nothing.
Levin was grateful to Oblonsky for noticing, with his never-failing
tact, that he dreaded conversation about the Shtcherbatskys, and so
saying nothing about them. But now Levin was longing to find out what
was tormenting him so, yet he had not the courage to begin.
“Come, tell me how things are going with you,” said Levin, bethinking
himself that it was not nice of him to think only of himself.
Stepan Arkadyevitch’s eyes sparkled merrily.
“You don’t admit, I know, that one can be fond of new rolls when one
has had one’s rations of bread—to your mind it’s a crime; but I don’t
count life as life without love,” he said, taking Levin’s question his
own way. “What am I to do? I’m made that way. And really, one does so
little harm to anyone, and gives oneself so much pleasure....”
“What! is there something new, then?” queried Levin.
“Yes, my boy, there is! There, do you see, you know the type of
Ossian’s women.... Women, such as one sees in dreams.... Well, these
women are sometimes to be met in reality ... and these women are
terrible. Woman, don’t you know, is such a subject that however much
you study it, it’s always perfectly new.”
“Well, then, it would be better not to study it.”
“No. Some mathematician has said that enjoyment lies in the search for
truth, not in the finding it.”
Levin listened in silence, and in spite of all the efforts he made, he
could not in the least enter into the feelings of his friend and
understand his sentiments and the charm of studying such women.
Chapter 15
The place fixed on for the stand-shooting was not far above a stream in
a little aspen copse. On reaching the copse, Levin got out of the trap
and led Oblonsky to a corner of a mossy, swampy glade, already quite
free from snow. He went back himself to a double birch tree on the
other side, and leaning his gun on the fork of a dead lower branch, he
took off his full overcoat, fastened his belt again, and worked his
arms to see if they were free.
Gray old Laska, who had followed them, sat down warily opposite him and
pricked up her ears. The sun was setting behind a thick forest, and in
the glow of sunset the birch trees, dotted about in the aspen copse,
stood out clearly with their hanging twigs, and their buds swollen
almost to bursting.
From the thickest parts of the copse, where the snow still remained,
came the faint sound of narrow winding threads of water running away.
Tiny birds twittered, and now and then fluttered from tree to tree.
In the pauses of complete stillness there came the rustle of last
year’s leaves, stirred by the thawing of the earth and the growth of
the grass.
“Imagine! One can hear and see the grass growing!” Levin said to
himself, noticing a wet, slate-colored aspen leaf moving beside a blade
of young grass. He stood, listened, and gazed sometimes down at the wet
mossy ground, sometimes at Laska listening all alert, sometimes at the
sea of bare tree tops that stretched on the slope below him, sometimes
at the darkening sky, covered with white streaks of cloud.
A hawk flew high over a forest far away with slow sweep of its wings;
another flew with exactly the same motion in the same direction and
vanished. The birds twittered more and more loudly and busily in the
thicket. An owl hooted not far off, and Laska, starting, stepped
cautiously a few steps forward, and putting her head on one side, began
to listen intently. Beyond the stream was heard the cuckoo. Twice she
uttered her usual cuckoo call, and then gave a hoarse, hurried call and
broke down.
“Imagine! the cuckoo already!” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, coming out
from behind a bush.
“Yes, I hear it,” answered Levin, reluctantly breaking the stillness
with his voice, which sounded disagreeable to himself. “Now it’s
coming!”
Stepan Arkadyevitch’s figure again went behind the bush, and Levin saw
nothing but the bright flash of a match, followed by the red glow and
blue smoke of a cigarette.
“Tchk! tchk!” came the snapping sound of Stepan Arkadyevitch cocking
his gun.
“What’s that cry?” asked Oblonsky, drawing Levin’s attention to a
prolonged cry, as though a colt were whinnying in a high voice, in
play.
“Oh, don’t you know it? That’s the hare. But enough talking! Listen,
it’s flying!” almost shrieked Levin, cocking his gun.
They heard a shrill whistle in the distance, and in the exact time, so
well known to the sportsman, two seconds later—another, a third, and
after the third whistle the hoarse, guttural cry could be heard.
Levin looked about him to right and to left, and there, just facing him
against the dusky blue sky above the confused mass of tender shoots of
the aspens, he saw the flying bird. It was flying straight towards him;
the guttural cry, like the even tearing of some strong stuff, sounded
close to his ear; the long beak and neck of the bird could be seen, and
at the very instant when Levin was taking aim, behind the bush where
Oblonsky stood, there was a flash of red lightning: the bird dropped
like an arrow, and darted upwards again. Again came the red flash and
the sound of a blow, and fluttering its wings as though trying to keep
up in the air, the bird halted, stopped still an instant, and fell with
a heavy splash on the slushy ground.
“Can I have missed it?” shouted Stepan Arkadyevitch, who could not see
for the smoke.
“Here it is!” said Levin, pointing to Laska, who with one ear raised,
wagging the end of her shaggy tail, came slowly back as though she
would prolong the pleasure, and as it were smiling, brought the dead
bird to her master. “Well, I’m glad you were successful,” said Levin,
who, at the same time, had a sense of envy that he had not succeeded in
shooting the snipe.
“It was a bad shot from the right barrel,” responded Stepan
Arkadyevitch, loading his gun. “Sh... it’s flying!”
The shrill whistles rapidly following one another were heard again. Two
snipe, playing and chasing one another, and only whistling, not crying,
flew straight at the very heads of the sportsmen. There was the report
of four shots, and like swallows the snipe turned swift somersaults in
the air and vanished from sight.
The stand-shooting was capital. Stepan Arkadyevitch shot two more birds
and Levin two, of which one was not found. It began to get dark. Venus,
bright and silvery, shone with her soft light low down in the west
behind the birch trees, and high up in the east twinkled the red lights
of Arcturus. Over his head Levin made out the stars of the Great Bear
and lost them again. The snipe had ceased flying; but Levin resolved to
stay a little longer, till Venus, which he saw below a branch of birch,
should be above it, and the stars of the Great Bear should be perfectly
plain. Venus had risen above the branch, and the ear of the Great Bear
with its shaft was now all plainly visible against the dark blue sky,
yet still he waited.
“Isn’t it time to go home?” said Stepan Arkadyevitch.
It was quite still now in the copse, and not a bird was stirring.
“Let’s stay a little while,” answered Levin.
“As you like.”
They were standing now about fifteen paces from one another.
“Stiva!” said Levin unexpectedly; “how is it you don’t tell me whether
your sister-in-law’s married yet, or when she’s going to be?”
Levin felt so resolute and serene that no answer, he fancied, could
affect him. But he had never dreamed of what Stepan Arkadyevitch
replied.
“She’s never thought of being married, and isn’t thinking of it; but
she’s very ill, and the doctors have sent her abroad. They’re
positively afraid she may not live.”
“What!” cried Levin. “Very ill? What is wrong with her? How has
she...?”
While they were saying this, Laska, with ears pricked up, was looking
upwards at the sky, and reproachfully at them.
“They have chosen a time to talk,” she was thinking. “It’s on the
wing.... Here it is, yes, it is. They’ll miss it,” thought Laska.
But at that very instant both suddenly heard a shrill whistle which, as
it were, smote on their ears, and both suddenly seized their guns and
two flashes gleamed, and two bangs sounded at the very same instant.
The snipe flying high above instantly folded its wings and fell into a
thicket, bending down the delicate shoots.
“Splendid! Together!” cried Levin, and he ran with Laska into the
thicket to look for the snipe.
“Oh, yes, what was it that was unpleasant?” he wondered. “Yes, Kitty’s
ill.... Well, it can’t be helped; I’m very sorry,” he thought.
“She’s found it! Isn’t she a clever thing?” he said, taking the warm
bird from Laska’s mouth and packing it into the almost full game bag.
“I’ve got it, Stiva!” he shouted.
Chapter 16
On the way home Levin asked all details of Kitty’s illness and the
Shtcherbatskys’ plans, and though he would have been ashamed to admit
it, he was pleased at what he heard. He was pleased that there was
still hope, and still more pleased that she should be suffering who had
made him suffer so much. But when Stepan Arkadyevitch began to speak of
the causes of Kitty’s illness, and mentioned Vronsky’s name, Levin cut
him short.
“I have no right whatever to know family matters, and, to tell the
truth, no interest in them either.”
Stepan Arkadyevitch smiled hardly perceptibly, catching the
instantaneous change he knew so well in Levin’s face, which had become
as gloomy as it had been bright a minute before.
“Have you quite settled about the forest with Ryabinin?” asked Levin.
“Yes, it’s settled. The price is magnificent; thirty-eight thousand.
Eight straight away, and the rest in six years. I’ve been bothering
about it for ever so long. No one would give more.”
“Then you’ve as good as given away your forest for nothing,” said Levin
gloomily.
“How do you mean for nothing?” said Stepan Arkadyevitch with a
good-humored smile, knowing that nothing would be right in Levin’s eyes
now.
“Because the forest is worth at least a hundred and fifty roubles the
acre,” answered Levin.
“Oh, these farmers!” said Stepan Arkadyevitch playfully. “Your tone of
contempt for us poor townsfolk!... But when it comes to business, we do
it better than anyone. I assure you I have reckoned it all out,” he
said, “and the forest is fetching a very good price—so much so that I’m
afraid of this fellow’s crying off, in fact. You know it’s not
‘timber,’” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, hoping by this distinction to
convince Levin completely of the unfairness of his doubts. “And it
won’t run to more than twenty-five yards of fagots per acre, and he’s
giving me at the rate of seventy roubles the acre.”
Levin smiled contemptuously. “I know,” he thought, “that fashion not
only in him, but in all city people, who, after being twice in ten
years in the country, pick up two or three phrases and use them in
season and out of season, firmly persuaded that they know all about it.
‘_Timber, run to so many yards the acre._’ He says those words without
understanding them himself.”
“I wouldn’t attempt to teach you what you write about in your office,”
said he, “and if need arose, I should come to you to ask about it. But