Anna Karenina
that they connected these scientific questions with those spiritual
problems, that at times they almost touched on the latter; but every
time they were close upon what seemed to him the chief point, they
promptly beat a hasty retreat, and plunged again into a sea of subtle
distinctions, reservations, quotations, allusions, and appeals to
authorities, and it was with difficulty that he understood what they
were talking about.
“I cannot admit it,” said Sergey Ivanovitch, with his habitual
clearness, precision of expression, and elegance of phrase. “I cannot
in any case agree with Keiss that my whole conception of the external
world has been derived from perceptions. The most fundamental idea, the
idea of existence, has not been received by me through sensation;
indeed, there is no special sense-organ for the transmission of such an
idea.”
“Yes, but they—Wurt, and Knaust, and Pripasov—would answer that your
consciousness of existence is derived from the conjunction of all your
sensations, that that consciousness of existence is the result of your
sensations. Wurt, indeed, says plainly that, assuming there are no
sensations, it follows that there is no idea of existence.”
“I maintain the contrary,” began Sergey Ivanovitch.
But here it seemed to Levin that just as they were close upon the real
point of the matter, they were again retreating, and he made up his
mind to put a question to the professor.
“According to that, if my senses are annihilated, if my body is dead, I
can have no existence of any sort?” he queried.
The professor, in annoyance, and, as it were, mental suffering at the
interruption, looked round at the strange inquirer, more like a
bargeman than a philosopher, and turned his eyes upon Sergey
Ivanovitch, as though to ask: What’s one to say to him? But Sergey
Ivanovitch, who had been talking with far less heat and one-sidedness
than the professor, and who had sufficient breadth of mind to answer
the professor, and at the same time to comprehend the simple and
natural point of view from which the question was put, smiled and said:
“That question we have no right to answer as yet.”
“We have not the requisite data,” chimed in the professor, and he went
back to his argument. “No,” he said; “I would point out the fact that
if, as Pripasov directly asserts, perception is based on sensation,
then we are bound to distinguish sharply between these two
conceptions.”
Levin listened no more, and simply waited for the professor to go.
Chapter 8
When the professor had gone, Sergey Ivanovitch turned to his brother.
“Delighted that you’ve come. For some time, is it? How’s your farming
getting on?”
Levin knew that his elder brother took little interest in farming, and
only put the question in deference to him, and so he only told him
about the sale of his wheat and money matters.
Levin had meant to tell his brother of his determination to get
married, and to ask his advice; he had indeed firmly resolved to do so.
But after seeing his brother, listening to his conversation with the
professor, hearing afterwards the unconsciously patronizing tone in
which his brother questioned him about agricultural matters (their
mother’s property had not been divided, and Levin took charge of both
their shares), Levin felt that he could not for some reason begin to
talk to him of his intention of marrying. He felt that his brother
would not look at it as he would have wished him to.
“Well, how is your district council doing?” asked Sergey Ivanovitch,
who was greatly interested in these local boards and attached great
importance to them.
“I really don’t know.”
“What! Why, surely you’re a member of the board?”
“No, I’m not a member now; I’ve resigned,” answered Levin, “and I no
longer attend the meetings.”
“What a pity!” commented Sergey Ivanovitch, frowning.
Levin in self-defense began to describe what took place in the meetings
in his district.
“That’s how it always is!” Sergey Ivanovitch interrupted him. “We
Russians are always like that. Perhaps it’s our strong point, really,
the faculty of seeing our own shortcomings; but we overdo it, we
comfort ourselves with irony which we always have on the tip of our
tongues. All I say is, give such rights as our local self-government to
any other European people—why, the Germans or the English would have
worked their way to freedom from them, while we simply turn them into
ridicule.”
“But how can it be helped?” said Levin penitently. “It was my last
effort. And I did try with all my soul. I can’t. I’m no good at it.”
“It’s not that you’re no good at it,” said Sergey Ivanovitch; “it is
that you don’t look at it as you should.”
“Perhaps not,” Levin answered dejectedly.
“Oh! do you know brother Nikolay’s turned up again?”
This brother Nikolay was the elder brother of Konstantin Levin, and
half-brother of Sergey Ivanovitch; a man utterly ruined, who had
dissipated the greater part of his fortune, was living in the strangest
and lowest company, and had quarreled with his brothers.
“What did you say?” Levin cried with horror. “How do you know?”
“Prokofy saw him in the street.”
“Here in Moscow? Where is he? Do you know?” Levin got up from his
chair, as though on the point of starting off at once.
“I am sorry I told you,” said Sergey Ivanovitch, shaking his head at
his younger brother’s excitement. “I sent to find out where he is
living, and sent him his IOU to Trubin, which I paid. This is the
answer he sent me.”
And Sergey Ivanovitch took a note from under a paper-weight and handed
it to his brother.
Levin read in the queer, familiar handwriting: “I humbly beg you to
leave me in peace. That’s the only favor I ask of my gracious
brothers.—Nikolay Levin.”
Levin read it, and without raising his head stood with the note in his
hands opposite Sergey Ivanovitch.
There was a struggle in his heart between the desire to forget his
unhappy brother for the time, and the consciousness that it would be
base to do so.
“He obviously wants to offend me,” pursued Sergey Ivanovitch; “but he
cannot offend me, and I should have wished with all my heart to assist
him, but I know it’s impossible to do that.”
“Yes, yes,” repeated Levin. “I understand and appreciate your attitude
to him; but I shall go and see him.”
“If you want to, do; but I shouldn’t advise it,” said Sergey
Ivanovitch. “As regards myself, I have no fear of your doing so; he
will not make you quarrel with me; but for your own sake, I should say
you would do better not to go. You can’t do him any good; still, do as
you please.”
“Very likely I can’t do any good, but I feel—especially at such a
moment—but that’s another thing—I feel I could not be at peace.”
“Well, that I don’t understand,” said Sergey Ivanovitch. “One thing I
do understand,” he added; “it’s a lesson in humility. I have come to
look very differently and more charitably on what is called infamous
since brother Nikolay has become what he is ... you know what he
did....”
“Oh, it’s awful, awful!” repeated Levin.
After obtaining his brother’s address from Sergey Ivanovitch’s footman,
Levin was on the point of setting off at once to see him, but on second
thought he decided to put off his visit till the evening. The first
thing to do to set his heart at rest was to accomplish what he had come
to Moscow for. From his brother’s Levin went to Oblonsky’s office, and
on getting news of the Shtcherbatskys from him, he drove to the place
where he had been told he might find Kitty.
Chapter 9
At four o’clock, conscious of his throbbing heart, Levin stepped out of
a hired sledge at the Zoological Gardens, and turned along the path to
the frozen mounds and the skating ground, knowing that he would
certainly find her there, as he had seen the Shtcherbatskys’ carriage
at the entrance.
It was a bright, frosty day. Rows of carriages, sledges, drivers, and
policemen were standing in the approach. Crowds of well-dressed people,
with hats bright in the sun, swarmed about the entrance and along the
well-swept little paths between the little houses adorned with carving
in the Russian style. The old curly birches of the gardens, all their
twigs laden with snow, looked as though freshly decked in sacred
vestments.
He walked along the path towards the skating-ground, and kept saying to
himself—“You mustn’t be excited, you must be calm. What’s the matter
with you? What do you want? Be quiet, stupid,” he conjured his heart.
And the more he tried to compose himself, the more breathless he found
himself. An acquaintance met him and called him by his name, but Levin
did not even recognize him. He went towards the mounds, whence came the
clank of the chains of sledges as they slipped down or were dragged up,
the rumble of the sliding sledges, and the sounds of merry voices. He
walked on a few steps, and the skating-ground lay open before his eyes,
and at once, amidst all the skaters, he knew her.
He knew she was there by the rapture and the terror that seized on his
heart. She was standing talking to a lady at the opposite end of the
ground. There was apparently nothing striking either in her dress or
her attitude. But for Levin she was as easy to find in that crowd as a
rose among nettles. Everything was made bright by her. She was the
smile that shed light on all round her. “Is it possible I can go over
there on the ice, go up to her?” he thought. The place where she stood
seemed to him a holy shrine, unapproachable, and there was one moment
when he was almost retreating, so overwhelmed was he with terror. He
had to make an effort to master himself, and to remind himself that
people of all sorts were moving about her, and that he too might come
there to skate. He walked down, for a long while avoiding looking at
her as at the sun, but seeing her, as one does the sun, without
looking.
On that day of the week and at that time of day people of one set, all
acquainted with one another, used to meet on the ice. There were crack
skaters there, showing off their skill, and learners clinging to chairs
with timid, awkward movements, boys, and elderly people skating with
hygienic motives. They seemed to Levin an elect band of blissful beings
because they were here, near her. All the skaters, it seemed, with
perfect self-possession, skated towards her, skated by her, even spoke
to her, and were happy, quite apart from her, enjoying the capital ice
and the fine weather.
Nikolay Shtcherbatsky, Kitty’s cousin, in a short jacket and tight
trousers, was sitting on a garden seat with his skates on. Seeing
Levin, he shouted to him:
“Ah, the first skater in Russia! Been here long? First-rate ice—do put
your skates on.”
“I haven’t got my skates,” Levin answered, marveling at this boldness
and ease in her presence, and not for one second losing sight of her,
though he did not look at her. He felt as though the sun were coming
near him. She was in a corner, and turning out her slender feet in
their high boots with obvious timidity, she skated towards him. A boy
in Russian dress, desperately waving his arms and bowed down to the
ground, overtook her. She skated a little uncertainly; taking her hands
out of the little muff that hung on a cord, she held them ready for
emergency, and looking towards Levin, whom she had recognized, she
smiled at him, and at her own fears. When she had got round the turn,
she gave herself a push off with one foot, and skated straight up to
Shtcherbatsky. Clutching at his arm, she nodded smiling to Levin. She
was more splendid than he had imagined her.
When he thought of her, he could call up a vivid picture of her to
himself, especially the charm of that little fair head, so freely set
on the shapely girlish shoulders, and so full of childish brightness