Leo Tolstoy Read online

  During his student days he nearly fell in love with the eldest one, Dolly, but she was soon married to Oblonsky. Then he began falling in love with the second one. It was as if he felt that he had to fall in love with one of the sisters, only he could not make out which one. But Natalie, too, as soon as she appeared in society, married the diplomat Lvov. Kitty was still a child when Levin left the university. The young Shcherbatsky, having gone into the navy, was drowned in the Baltic Sea, and Levin’s contacts with the Shcherbatskys, despite his friendship with Oblonsky, became less frequent. But when, after a year in the country, Levin came to Moscow at the beginning of that winter and saw the Shcherbatskys, he realized which of the three he had really been destined to fall in love with.

  Nothing could seem simpler than for him, a man of good stock, rich rather than poor, thirty–two years old, to propose to the young princess Shcherbatsky; in all likelihood he would be acknowledged at once as a good match. But Levin was in love, and therefore it seemed to him that Kitty was so perfect in all respects, a being so far above everything earthly, while he was such a base earthly being, that it was even unthinkable for others or for Kitty herself to acknowledge him as worthy of her.

  After spending two months in Moscow, as if in a daze, seeing Kitty almost every day in society, which he began to frequent in order to meet her, Levin suddenly decided that it could not be and left for the country.

  Levin’s conviction that it could not be rested on the idea that in the eyes of her relatives he was an unprofitable, unworthy match for the charming Kitty, and that Kitty could not love him. In their eyes, though he was now thirty–two, he did not have any regular, defined activity or position in society, whereas among his comrades one was already a colonel and imperial aide–de–camp, one a professor, one the director of a bank and a railway or the chief of an office like Oblonsky, while he (he knew very well what he must seem like to others) was a landowner, occupied with breeding cows, shooting snipe, and building things, that is a giftless fellow who amounted to nothing and was doing, in society’s view, the very thing that good–for–nothing people do.

  Nor could the mysterious and charming Kitty love such an unattractive man as he considered himself to be, and above all such a simple man, not distinguished in any way. Besides that, his former relations with Kitty – the relations of an adult to a child, because of his friendship with her brother – seemed to him another new obstacle to love. An unattractive, kindly man like himself might, he supposed, be loved as a friend, but to be loved with the love he himself felt for Kitty, one had to be a handsome – and above all a special – man.

  He had heard that women often love unattractive, simple people, but he did not believe it, because he judged by himself, and he could only love beautiful, mysterious and special women.

  Yet, after spending two months alone in the country, he became convinced that this was not one of those loves he had experienced in his early youth; that this feeling would not leave him a moment’s peace; that he could not live without resolving the question whether she would or would not be his wife; and that his despair came only from his imagination – he had no proof that he would be refused. And now he had come to Moscow with the firm determination to propose and to marry if he was accepted. Or … but he could not think what would become of him if he were refused.

  VII

  Arriving in Moscow on the morning train, Levin had gone to stay with his older half–brother Koznyshev and, after changing, entered his study, intending to tell him at once what he had come for and to ask his advice; but his brother was not alone. With him was a well–known professor of philosophy, who had actually come from Kharkov to resolve a misunderstanding that had arisen between them on a rather important philosophical question. The professor was engaged in heated polemics with the materialists. Sergei Koznyshev had followed these polemics with interest and, after reading the professor’s last article, had written him a letter with his objections; he had reproached the professor with making rather large concessions to the materialists. And the professor had come at once to talk it over. The discussion was about a fashionable question: is there a borderline between psychological and physiological phenomena in human activity, and where does it lie?[12]

  Sergei Ivanovich met his brother with the benignly cool smile he gave to everyone and, after introducing him to the professor, went on with the conversation.

  The small, yellow–skinned man in spectacles, with a narrow brow, turned away from the conversation for a moment to greet Levin and, paying no further attention to him, went on talking. Levin sat down to wait until the professor left, but soon became interested in the subject of the conversation.

  Levin had come across the articles they were discussing in magazines, and had read them, being interested in them as a development of the bases of natural science, familiar to him from his studies at the university, but he had never brought together these scientific conclusions about the animal origin of man[13] about reflexes, biology and sociology, with those questions about the meaning of life and death which lately had been coming more and more often to his mind.

  Listening to his brother’s conversation with the professor, he noticed that they connected the scientific questions with the inner, spiritual ones, several times almost touched upon them, but that each time they came close to what seemed to him the most important thing, they hastily retreated and again dug deeper into the realm of fine distinctions, reservations, quotations, allusions, references to authorities, and he had difficulty understanding what they were talking about.

  ‘I cannot allow,’ Sergei Ivanovich said with his usual clarity and precision of expression and elegance of diction, ‘I can by no means agree with Keiss that my whole notion of the external world stems from sense impressions. The fundamental concept of being itself is not received through the senses, for there exists no special organ for conveying that concept.’

  ‘Yes, but they – Wurst and Knaust and Pripasov [14] will reply to you that your consciousness of being comes from the totality of your sense impressions, that this consciousness of being is the result of sensations. Wurst even says directly that where there are no sensations, there is n concept of being.’

  ‘I would say the reverse,’ Sergei Ivanovich began …

  But here again it seemed to Levin that, having approached the most important thing, they were once more moving away, and he decided to put a question to the professor.

  ‘Therefore, if my senses are destroyed, if my body dies, there can be no further existence?’ he asked.

  The professor, vexed and as if mentally pained by the interruption, turned to the strange questioner, who looked more like a barge–hauler than a philosopher, then shifted his gaze to Sergei Ivanovich as if to ask: what can one say to that? But Sergei Ivanovich, who spoke with far less strain and one–sidedness than the professor, and in whose head there still remained room enough both for responding to the professor and for understanding the simple and natural point of view from which the question had been put, smiled and said:

  ‘That question we still have no right to answer …’

  ‘We have no data,’ the professor confirmed and went on with his arguments. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I will point out that if, as Pripasov states directly, sensation does have its basis in impression, we must distinguish strictly between these two concepts.’

  Levin listened no more and waited until the professor left.

  VIII

  When the professor had gone, Sergei Ivanovich turned to his brother.

  ‘Very glad you’ve come. Staying long? How’s the farming?’

  Levin knew that his older brother had little interest in farming and that he asked about it only as a concession to him, and therefore he answered only about the sales of wheat and about money.

  Levin wanted to tell his brother of his intention to marry and to ask his advice; he was even firmly resolved on it. But when he saw his brother, listened to his conversation with the professor, and then heard the inadv
ertently patronizing tone with which his brother asked him about farm matters (their mother’s estate had not been divided, and Levin was in charge of both parts), for some reason he felt unable to begin talking with his brother about his decision to marry. He felt that his brother would not look upon it as he would have wished.

  ‘Well, how are things with your zemstvo?’ asked Sergei Ivanovich, who was very interested in the zemstvo and ascribed great significance to it.

  ‘I don’t really know …’

  ‘How’s that? Aren’t you a member of the board?’ ‘No, I’m no longer a member. I resigned,’ replied Konstantin Levin, ‘and I don’t go to the meetings any more.’

  ‘Too bad!’ said Sergei Ivanovich, frowning.

  Levin, to vindicate himself, began to describe what went on at the meetings in his district.

  ‘But it’s always like that!’ Sergei Ivanovich interrupted. ‘We Russians are always like that. Maybe it’s a good feature of ours – the ability to see our own failings – but we overdo it, we take comfort in irony, which always comes readily to our tongues. I’ll tell you only that if they gave some other European nation the same rights as in our zemstvo institutions – the Germans or the English would have worked their way to freedom with them, while we just laugh.’

  ‘But what to do?’ Levin said guiltily. ‘This was my last attempt. And I put my whole soul into it. I can’t. I’m incapable.’

  ‘Not incapable,’ said Sergei Ivanovich, ‘but you don’t have the right view of the matter.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Levin replied glumly.

  ‘You know, brother Nikolai is here again.’

  Brother Nikolai was Konstantin Levin’s older brother and Sergei Ivanovich’s half–brother, a ruined man, who had squandered the greater part of his fortune, moved in very strange and bad society, and had quarrelled with his brothers.

  ‘What did you say?’ Levin cried out 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 he were about to leave at once.

  ‘I’m sorry I told you,’ said Sergei Ivanovich, shaking his head at his brother’s agitation. ‘I sent to find out where he’s living, and returned him his promissory note to Trubin, which I paid. Here’s how he answered me.’

  And Sergei Ivanovich handed his brother a note from under a paperweight.

  Levin read what was written in that strange, so familiar handwriting: ‘I humbly beg you to leave me alone. That is the one thing I ask of my gentle little brothers. Nikolai Levin.’

  Levin read it and, not raising his head, stood before Sergei Ivanovich with the note in his hand.

  His soul was struggling between the desire to forget just then about his unfortunate brother, and the consciousness that to do so would be wrong.

  ‘He obviously wants to insult me,’ Sergei Ivanovich went on, ‘but insult me he cannot, and I wish with all my heart that I could help him, yet I know it’s impossible.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Levin repeated. ‘I understand and appreciate your attitude towards him; but I will go and see him.’

  ‘Go if you like, but I don’t advise it,’ said Sergei Ivanovich. ‘That is, as far as I’m concerned, I’m not afraid of it, he won’t make us quarrel with each other; but for your own sake, I advise you not to go. You can’t help. However, do as you please.’

  ‘Maybe I can’t help, but I feel, especially at this moment – though that’s another matter – I feel I can’t be at peace.’

  ‘Well, that I don’t understand,’ said Sergei Ivanovich. ‘I understand only one thing,’ he added, ‘that it’s a lesson in humility. I’ve begun to take a different and more lenient view of what’s known as baseness since brother Nikolai became what he is … You know what he’s done …’

  ‘Ah, it’s terrible, terrible!’ Levin repeated.

  Having obtained his brother’s address from Sergei Ivanovich’s footman, Levin wanted to go to him at once, but, on reflection, decided to postpone his visit till evening. First of all, to be at peace with himself, he had to resolve the matter that had brought him to Moscow. From his brother’s Levin went to Oblonsky’s office and, learning about the Shcherbatskys, went where he was told he could find Kitty.

  IX

  At four o’clock, feeling his heart pounding, Levin got out of a cab at the Zoological Garden and walked down the path towards the sledging hills and the skating rink, knowing for certain that he would find her there, because he had seen the Shcherbatskys’ carriage at the entrance.

  It was a clear frosty day. At the entrance stood rows of carriages, sleighs, cabbies, mounted police. Proper folk, their hats gleaming in the sun, swarmed by the gate and along the cleared paths, among little Russian cottages with fretwork eaves and ridges; the old curly–headed birches in the garden, all their branches hung with snow, seemed to be decked out in new festive garments.

  He walked down the path towards the skating rink and said to himself: ‘Mustn’t be excited, must keep calm. What are you doing? What’s the matter with you? Quiet, stupid!’ He spoke to his heart. And the more he tried to calm himself, the more breathless he became. An acquaintance went by and called out to him, but Levin did not even recognize who it was. He came to the hills, where there was a clanking of chains towing sledges up and down, the clatter of descending sledges and the sound of merry voices. He walked on a few more steps, and before him opened the skating rink, and at once, among all the skaters, he recognized her.

  He knew she was there by the joy and fear that overwhelmed his heart. She stood at the other end of the rink, talking to a lady. There seemed to be nothing very special in her dress, nor in her pose; but for Levin she was as easy to recognize in that crowd as a rose among nettles. Everything was lit up by her. She was the smile that brightened everything around. ‘Can I really step down there on the ice and go over to her?’ he thought. The place where she stood seemed to him unapproachably holy, and there was a moment when he almost went away – he was so filled with awe. Making an effort, he reasoned that all sorts of people were walking near her and that he might have come to skate there himself. He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.

  On that day of the week and at that hour of the day, people of the same circle, all acquaintances, gathered on the ice. Here there were expert skaters who showed off their art, and learners leaning on chairs[15] moving timidly and clumsily, and young boys, and old people who skated for hygienic purposes. To Levin they all seemed chosen and lucky because they were there, close to her. It seemed that with perfect equanimity the skaters went ahead, came abreast of her, even talked to her, and enjoyed themselves quite independently of her, taking advantage of the excellent ice and good weather.

  Nikolai Shcherbatsky, Kitty’s cousin, in a short jacket and narrow trousers, was sitting on a bench with his skates on. Seeing Levin, he called out to him:

  ‘Ah, the foremost Russian skater! Been here long? The ice is excellent, put your skates on!’