Leo Tolstoy Read online

  Having finished the newspaper, a second cup of coffee, and a kalatch[7] with butter, he got up, brushed the crumbs from his waistcoat and, expanding his broad chest, smiled joyfully, not because there was anything especially pleasant in his heart – the smile was evoked by good digestion.

  But this joyful smile at once reminded him of everything, and he turned pensive.

  Two children’s voices (Stepan Arkadyich recognized the voices of Grisha, the youngest boy, and Tanya, the eldest girl) were heard outside the door. They were pulling something and tipped it over.

  ‘I told you not to put passengers on the roof,’ the girl shouted in English. ‘Now pick it up!’

  ‘All is confusion,’ thought Stepan Arkadyich. ‘Now the children are running around on their own.’ And, going to the door, he called them. They abandoned the box that stood for a train and came to their father.

  The girl, her father’s favourite, ran in boldly, embraced him, and hung laughing on his neck, delighting, as always, in the familiar smell of scent coming from his side–whiskers. Kissing him finally on the face, which was red from bending down and radiant with tenderness, the girl unclasped her hands and was going to run out again, but her father held her back.

  ‘How’s mama?’ he asked, his hand stroking his daughter’s smooth, tender neck. ‘Good morning,’ he said, smiling to the boy who greeted him.

  He was aware that he loved the boy less, and always tried to be fair; but the boy felt it and did not respond with a smile to the cold smile of his father.

  ‘Mama? Mama’s up,’ the girl replied.

  Stepan Arkadyich sighed. ‘That means again she didn’t sleep all night,’ he thought.

  ‘And is she cheerful?’

  The girl knew that there had been a quarrel between her father and mother, and that her mother could not be cheerful, and that her father ought to know it, and that he was shamming when he asked about it so lightly. And she blushed for him. He understood it at once and also blushed.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘She told us not to study, but to go for a walk to grandma’s with Miss Hull.’

  ‘Well, go then, my Tanchurochka. Ah, yes, wait,’ he said, still holding her back and stroking her tender little hand.

  He took a box of sweets from the mantelpiece, where he had put it yesterday, and gave her two, picking her favourites, a chocolate and a cream.

  ‘For Grisha?’ the girl said, pointing to the chocolate.

  ‘Yes, yes.’ And stroking her little shoulder once more, he kissed her on the nape of the neck and let her go.

  ‘The carriage is ready,’ said Matvei. ‘And there’s a woman with a petition to see you,’ he added.

  ‘Has she been here long?’ asked Stepan Arkadyich.

  ‘Half an hour or so.’

  ‘How often must I tell you to let me know at once!’

  ‘I had to give you time for your coffee at least,’ Matvei said in that friendly–rude tone at which it was impossible to be angry.

  ‘Well, quickly send her in,’ said Oblonsky, wincing with vexation.

  The woman, Mrs Kalinin, a staff captain’s wife, was petitioning for something impossible and senseless; but Stepan Arkadyich, as was his custom, sat her down, heard her out attentively without interrupting, and gave her detailed advice on whom to address and how, and even wrote, briskly and fluently, in his large, sprawling, handsome and clear handwriting, a little note to the person who could be of help to her. Having dismissed the captain’s wife, Stepan Arkadyich picked up his hat and paused, wondering whether he had forgotten anything. It turned out that he had forgotten nothing, except what he had wanted to forget – his wife.

  ‘Ah, yes!’ He hung his head, and his handsome face assumed a wistful expression. ‘Shall I go or not?’ he said to himself. And his inner voice told him that he should not go, that there could be nothing here but falseness, that to rectify, to repair, their relations was impossible, because !t was impossible to make her attractive and arousing of love again or to make him an old man incapable of love. Nothing could come of it now but falseness and deceit, and falseness and deceit were contrary to his nature.

  ‘But at some point I’ll have to; it can’t remain like this,’ he said, trying to pluck up his courage. He squared his shoulders, took out a cigarette, lit it, took two puffs, threw it into the mother–of–pearl ashtray, walked with quick steps across the gloomy drawing room and opened the other door, to his wife’s bedroom.

  * * *

  IV

  Darya Alexandrovna, wearing a dressing–jacket, the skimpy braids of her once thick and beautiful hair pinned at the back of her head, her face pinched and thin, her big, frightened eyes protruding on account of that thinness, was standing before an open chiffonier, taking something out of it. Various articles lay scattered about the room. Hearing her husband’s footsteps, she stopped, looked at the door and vainly tried to give her face a stern and contemptuous expression. She felt that she was afraid of him and of the impending meeting. She had just been trying to do something she had already tried to do ten times in those three days: to choose some of her own and the children’s things to take to her mother’s – and again she could not make up her mind to do it; but now, as each time before, she told herself that things could not remain like this, that she had to do something, to punish, to shame him, to take revenge on him for at least a small part of the hurt he had done her. She still kept saying she would leave him, yet she felt it was impossible, because she could not get out of the habit of considering him her husband and of loving him. Besides, she felt that if she could barely manage to take care of her five children here in her own house, it would be still worse there where she was taking them all. As it was, during those three days the youngest had fallen ill because he had been fed bad broth, and the rest had gone with almost no dinner yesterday. She felt it was impossible to leave; but, deceiving herself, she still kept choosing things and pretending she was going to leave.

  Seeing her husband, she thrust her hands into a drawer of the chiffonier as if hunting for something, and turned to look at him only when he came up quite close to her. But her face, to which she had wanted to give a stern and resolute expression, showed bewilderment and suffering.

  ‘Dolly!’ he said in a soft, timid voice. He drew his head down between his shoulders, wishing to look pitiful and submissive, but all the same he radiated freshness and health.

  She gave his figure radiating freshness and health a quick glance up and down. ‘Yes, he’s happy and content!’ she thought, ‘while I… ? And this repulsive kindness everyone loves and praises him for – I hate this kindness of his.’ She pressed her lips together; the cheek muscle on the right side of her pale, nervous face began to twitch.

  ‘What do you want?’ she said in a quick, throaty voice, not her own.

  ‘Dolly,’ he repeated with a tremor in his voice, ‘Anna is coming today!’

  ‘So, what is that to me? I can’t receive her!’ she cried.

  ‘But anyhow, Dolly, we must…’

  ‘Go away, go away, go away,’ she cried out, not looking at him, as if the cry had been caused by physical pain.

  Stepan Arkadyich could be calm when he thought about his wife, could hope that everything would shape up, as Matvei put it, and could calmly read the newspaper and drink his coffee; but when he saw her worn, suffering face, and heard the sound of that resigned and despairing voice, his breath failed him, something rose in his throat and his eyes glistened with tears.

  ‘My God, what have I done! Dolly! For God’s sake! … If…’ He could not go on, sobs caught in his throat.

  She slammed the chiffonier shut and looked at him.

  ‘Dolly, what can I say? … Only – forgive me, forgive me … Think back, can’t nine years of life atone for a moment, a moment…’

  She lowered her eyes and listened, waiting for what he would say, as if begging him to dissuade her somehow.

  ‘A moment of infatuation …’ he brought out and wanted to
go on, but at this phrase she pressed her lips again, as if from physical pain, and again the cheek muscle on the right side of her face began to twitch.

  ‘Go away, go away from here!’ she cried still more shrilly. ‘And don’t talk to me about your infatuations and your abominations!’

  She wanted to leave but swayed and took hold of the back of a chair to support herself. His face widened, his lips swelled, his eyes filled with tears.

  ‘Dolly!’ he said, sobbing now. ‘For God’s sake, think of the children, they’re not guilty. I’m guilty, so punish me, tell me to atone for it. However I can, I’m ready for anything! I’m guilty, there are no words to say how guilty I am! But, Dolly, forgive me!’

  She sat down. He could hear her loud, heavy breathing and felt inexpressibly sorry for her. She tried several times to speak, but could not. He waited.

  ‘You think of the children when it comes to playing with them, Stiva, but I always think of them, and I know that they’re lost now.’ She uttered one of the phrases she had obviously been repeating to herself during those three days.

  She had said ‘Stiva’ to him. He glanced at her gratefully and made a movement to take her hand, but she withdrew from him with loathing.

  ‘I think of the children and so I’ll do anything in the world to save them; but I don’t know how I can best save them: by taking them away from their father, or by leaving them with a depraved father – yes, depraved … Well, tell me, after … what’s happened, is it possible for us to live together? Is it possible? Tell me, is it possible?’ she repeated, raising her voice. ‘After my husband, the father of my children, has had a love affair with his children’s governess …’

  ‘But what to do? What to do?’ he said in a pitiful voice, not knowing what he was saying, and hanging his head lower and lower.

  ‘You are vile, you are loathsome to me!’ she cried, growing more and more excited. ‘Your tears are just water! You never loved me; there’s no heart, no nobility in you! You’re disgusting, vile, a stranger, yes, a total stranger to me!’ With pain and spite she uttered this word so terrible for her – ‘stranger’.

  He looked at her, and the spite that showed on her face frightened and astonished him. He did not understand that his pity for her exasperated her. In him she saw pity for herself, but no love. ‘No, she hates me. She won’t forgive me,’ he thought.

  ‘This is terrible! Terrible!’ he said.

  Just then a child, who had probably fallen down, started crying in the other room. Darya Alexandrovna listened and her face suddenly softened.

  It clearly took her a few seconds to pull herself together, as if she did not know where she was or what to do, then she got up quickly and went to the door.

  ‘But she does love my child,’ he thought, noticing the change in her face at the child’s cry, ‘my child – so how can she hate me?’

  ‘One word more, Dolly,’ he said, going after her.

  ‘If you come after me, I’ll call the servants, the children! Let everybody know you’re a scoundrel! I’m leaving today, and you can live here with your mistress!’

  And she went out, slamming the door.

  Stepan Arkadyich sighed, wiped his face and with quiet steps started out of the room. ‘Matvei says it will shape up – but how? I don’t see even a possibility. Ah, ah, how terrible! And what trivial shouting,’ he said to himself, remembering her cry and the words ‘scoundrel’ and ‘mistress’. ‘And the maids may have heard! Terribly trivial, terribly!’ Stepan Arkadyich stood alone for a few seconds, wiped his eyes, sighed, and, squaring his shoulders, walked out of the room.

  It was Friday and the German clockmaker was winding the clock in the dining room. Stepan Arkadyich remembered his joke about this punctilious, bald–headed man, that the German ‘had been wound up for life himself, so as to keep winding clocks’ – and smiled. Stepan Arkadyich loved a good joke. ‘But maybe it will shape up! A nice little phrase: shape up,’ he thought. ‘It bears repeating.’

  ‘Matvei!’ he called. ‘You and Marya arrange things for Anna Arkadyevna there in the sitting room,’ he said to Matvei as he came in.

  ‘Very good, sir!’

  Stepan Arkadyich put on his fur coat and went out to the porch.

  ‘You won’t be dining at home?’ Matvei asked, seeing him off.

  ‘That depends. And here’s something for expenses,’ he said, giving him ten roubles from his wallet. ‘Will that be enough?’

  ‘Enough or not, it’ll have to do,’ Matvei said, shutting the carriage door and stepping back on to the porch.

  Meanwhile Darya Alexandrovna, having quieted the child and understanding from the sound of the carriage that he had left, went back to the bedroom. This was her only refuge from household cares, which surrounded her the moment she stepped out. Even now, during the short time she had gone to the children’s room, the English governess and Matryona Filimonovna had managed to ask her several questions that could not be put off and that she alone could answer: what should the children wear for their walk? should they have milk? should not another cook be sent for?

  ‘Ah, let me be, let me be!’ she said, and, returning to the bedroom, she again sat down in the same place where she had talked with her husband, clasped her wasted hands with the rings slipping off her bony fingers, and began turning the whole conversation over in her mind. ‘He left! But how has he ended it with her?’ she thought. ‘Can it be he still sees her? Why didn’t I ask him? No, no, we can’t come together again. Even if we stay in the same house – we’re strangers. Forever strangers!’ She repeated again with special emphasis this word that was so terrible for her. ‘And how I loved him, my God, how I loved him! … How I loved him! And don’t I love him now? Don’t I love him more than before? The most terrible thing is …’ she began, but did not finish her thought, because Matryona Filimonovna stuck her head in at the door.

  ‘Maybe we ought to send for my brother,’ she said. ‘He can at least make dinner. Otherwise the children won’t eat before six o’clock, like yesterday.’

  ‘Well, all right, I’ll come and give orders at once. Have you sent for fresh milk?’

  And Darya Alexandrovna plunged into her daily cares and drowned her grief in them for a time.

  V

  Stepan Arkadyich had had an easy time at school, thanks to his natural abilities, but he was lazy and mischievous and therefore came out among the last. Yet, despite his dissipated life, none–too–high rank and none–too–ripe age, he occupied a distinguished and well–paid post as head of one of the Moscow offices. This post he had obtained through Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin, his sister Anna’s husband, who occupied one of the most important positions in the ministry to which the office belonged; but if Karenin had not appointed his brother–in–law to it, then Stiva Oblonsky would have obtained the post through a hundred other persons – brothers, sisters, relations, cousins, uncles, aunts – or another like it, with a salary of some six thousand, which he needed, because his affairs, despite his wife’s ample fortune, were in disarray.

  Half Moscow and Petersburg were relatives or friends of Stepan Arkadyich. He had been born into the milieu of those who were or had become the mighty of this world. One–third of the state dignitaries, the elders, were his father’s friends and had known him in petticoats; another third were on familiar terms with him, and the final third were good acquaintances; consequently, the distributors of earthly blessings, in the form of positions, leases, concessions and the like, were all friends of his and could not pass over one of their own; and Oblonsky did not have to try especially hard to obtain a profitable post; all he had to do was not refuse, not envy, not quarrel, not get offended, which, owing to his natural kindness, he never did anyway. It would have seemed laughable to him if he had been told that he would not get a post with the salary he needed, the more so as he did not demand anything excessive; he only wanted what his peers were getting, and he could fill that sort of position no worse than anyone else.