Part 32 (1/2)
”What is she like, what is she like? Like what she used to be, or like what she was in the carriage? What if Darya Alexandrovna told the truth? Why shouldn't it be the truth?” he thought.
”Oh, please, introduce me to Karenin,” he brought out with an effort, and with a desperately determined step he walked into the drawing room and beheld her.
She was not the same as she used to be, nor was she as she had been in the carriage; she was quite different.
She was scared, shy, shame-faced, and still more charming from it. She saw him the very instant he walked into the room. She had been expecting him. She was delighted, and so confused at her own delight that there was a moment, the moment when he went up to her sister and glanced again at her, when she, and he, and Dolly, who saw it all, thought she would break down and would begin to cry. She crimsoned, turned white, crimsoned again, and grew faint, waiting with quivering lips for him to come to her. He went up to her, bowed, and held out his hand without speaking. Except for the slight quiver of her lips and the moisture in her eyes that made them brighter, her smile was almost calm as she said: ”How long it is since we've seen each other!” and with desperate determination she pressed his hand with her cold hand.
”You've not seen me, but I've seen you,” said Levin, with a radiant smile of happiness. ”I saw you when you were driving from the railway station to Ergushovo.”
”When?” she asked, wondering.
”You were driving to Ergushovo,” said Levin, feeling as if he would sob with the rapture that was flooding his heart. ”And how dared I a.s.sociate a thought of anything not innocent with this touching creature? And, yes, I do believe it's true what Darya Alexandrovna told me,” he thought.
Stepan Arkadyevitch took him by the arm and led him away to Karenin.
”Let me introduce you.” He mentioned their names.
”Very glad to meet you again,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch coldly, shaking hands with Levin.
”You are acquainted?” Stepan Arkadyevitch asked in surprise.
”We spent three hours together in the train,” said Levin smiling, ”but got out, just as in a masquerade, quite mystified--at least I was.”
”Nonsense! Come along, please,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, pointing in the direction of the dining room.
The men went into the dining-room and went up to a table, laid with six sorts of spirits and as many kinds of cheese, some with little silver spades and some without, caviar, herrings, preserves of various kinds, and plates with slices of French bread.
The men stood round the strong-smelling spirits and salt delicacies, and the discussion of the Russification of Poland between Koznishev, Karenin, and Pestsov died down in antic.i.p.ation of dinner.
Sergey Ivanovitch was unequaled in his skill in winding up the most heated and serious argument by some unexpected pinch of Attic salt that changed the disposition of his opponent. He did this now.
Alexey Alexandrovitch had been maintaining that the Russification of Poland could only be accomplished as a result of larger measures which ought to be introduced by the Russian government.
Pestsov insisted that one country can only absorb another when it is the more densely populated.
Koznishev admitted both points, but with limitations. As they were going out of the drawing room to conclude the argument, Koznishev said, smiling: ”So, then, for the Russification of our foreign populations there is but one method--to bring up as many children as one can. My brother and I are terribly in fault, I see. You married men, especially you, Stepan Arkadyevitch, are the real patriots: what number have you reached?” he said, smiling genially at their host and holding out a tiny wine gla.s.s to him.
Everyone laughed, and Stepan Arkadyevitch with particular good humor.
”Oh, yes, that's the best method!” he said, munching cheese and filling the wine-gla.s.s with a special sort of spirit. The conversation dropped at the jest.
”This cheese is not bad. Shall I give you some?” said the master of the house. ”Why, have you been going in for gymnastics again?” he asked Levin, pinching his muscle with his left hand. Levin smiled, bent his arm, and under Stepan Arkadyevitch's fingers the muscles swelled up like a sound cheese, hard as a k.n.o.b of iron, through the fine cloth of the coat.
”What biceps! A perfect Samson!”
”I imagine great strength is needed for hunting bears,” observed Alexey Alexandrovitch, who had the mistiest notions about the chase. He cut off and spread with cheese a wafer of bread fine as a spider-web.
Levin smiled.
”Not at all. Quite the contrary; a child can kill a bear,” he said, with a slight bow moving aside for the ladies, who were approaching the table.
”You have killed a bear, I've been told!” said Kitty, trying a.s.siduously to catch with her fork a perverse mushroom that would slip away, and setting the lace quivering over her white arm. ”Are there bears on your place?” she added, turning her charming little head to him and smiling.
There was apparently nothing extraordinary in what she said, but what unutterable meaning there was for him in every sound, in every turn of her lips, her eyes, her hand as she said it! There was entreaty for forgiveness, and trust in him, and tenderness-- soft, timid tenderness--and promise and hope and love for him, which he could not but believe in and which choked him with happiness.
”No, we've been hunting in the Tver province. It was coming back from there that I met your beau-frere in the train, or your beau-frere's brother-in-law,” he said with a smile. ”It was an amusing meeting.”
And he began telling with droll good-humor how, after not sleeping all night, he had, wearing an old fur-lined, full-skirted coat, got into Alexey Alexandrovitch's compartment.
”The conductor, forgetting the proverb, would have chucked me out on account of my attire; but thereupon I began expressing my feelings in elevated language, and...you, too,” he said, addressing Karenin and forgetting his name, ”at first would have ejected me on the ground of the old coat, but afterwards you took my part, for which I am extremely grateful.”
”The rights of pa.s.sengers generally to choose their seats are too ill-defined,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch, rubbing the tips of his fingers on his handkerchief.
”I saw you were in uncertainty about me,” said Levin, smiling good-naturedly, ”but I made haste to plunge into intellectual conversation to smooth over the defects of my attire.” Sergey Ivanovitch, while he kept up a conversation with their hostess, had one ear for his brother, and he glanced askance at him. ”What is the matter with him today? Why such a conquering hero?” he thought. He did not know that Levin was feeling as though he had grown wings. Levin knew she was listening to his words and that she was glad to listen to him. And this was the only thing that interested him. Not in that room only, but in the whole world, there existed for him only himself, with enormously increased importance and dignity in his own eyes, and she. He felt himself on a pinnacle that made him giddy, and far away down below were all those nice excellent Karenins, Oblonskys, and all the world.
Quite without attracting notice, without glancing at them, as though there were no other places left, Stepan Arkadyevitch put Levin and Kitty side by side.
”Oh, you may as well sit there,” he said to Levin.
The dinner was as choice as the china, in which Stepan Arkadyevitch was a connoisseur. The soupe Marie-Louise was a splendid success; the tiny pies eaten with it melted in the mouth and were irreproachable. The two footmen and Matvey, in white cravats, did their duty with the dishes and wines un.o.btrusively, quietly, and swiftly. On the material side the dinner was a success; it was no less so on the immaterial. The conversation, at times general and at times between individuals, never paused, and towards the end the company was so lively that the men rose from the table, without stopping speaking, and even Alexey Alexandrovitch thawed.
Chapter 10.
Pestsov liked thras.h.i.+ng an argument out to the end, and was not satisfied with Sergey Ivanovitch's words, especially as he felt the injustice of his view.
”I did not mean,” he said over the soup, addressing Alexey Alexandrovitch, ”mere density of population alone, but in conjunction with fundamental ideas, and not by means of principles.”
”It seems to me,” Alexey Alexandrovitch said languidly, and with no haste, ”that that's the same thing. In my opinion, influence over another people is only possible to the people which has the higher development, which...”
”But that's just the question,” Pestsov broke in in his ba.s.s.
He was always in a hurry to speak, and seemed always to put his whole soul into what he was saying. ”In what are we to make higher development consist? The English, the French, the Germans, which is at the highest stage of development? Which of them will nationalize the other? We see the Rhine provinces have been turned French, but the Germans are not at a lower stage!” he shouted. ”There is another law at work there.”
”I fancy that the greater influence is always on the side of true civilization,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch, slightly lifting his eyebrows.
”But what are we to lay down as the outward signs of true civilization?” said Pestsov.
”I imagine such signs are generally very well known,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch.
”But are they fully known?” Sergey Ivanovitch put in with a subtle smile. ”It is the accepted view now that real culture must be purely cla.s.sical; but we see most intense disputes on each side of the question, and there is no denying that the opposite camp has strong points in its favor.”
”You are for cla.s.sics, Sergey Ivanovitch. Will you take red wine?” said Stepan Arkadyevitch.