________________________________________________
_ Levin empited his glass, and they were silent for a while.
"There's one other thing I ought to tell you. Do you know
Vronsky?" Stepan Arkadyevitch asked Levin.
"No, I don't. Why do you ask?"
"Give us another bottle," Stepan Arkadyevitch directed the Tatar,
who was filling up their glasses and fidgeting round them just
when he was not wanted.
"Why you ought to know Vronsky is that he's one of your rivals."
"Who's Vronsky?" said Levin, and his face was suddenly
transformed from the look of childlike ecstasy which Oblonsky had
jsut been admiring to an angry and unpleasant expression.
"Vronsky is one of the sons of Count Kirill Ivanovitch Vronsky,
and one of the finest specimens of the gilded youth of
Petersburg. I made his acquaintance in Tver when I was there on
official business, and he came there for the levy of recruits.
Fearfully rich, handsome, great connections, an aide-de-camp, and
with all that a very nice, good-natured fellow. But he's more
than simply a good-natured fellow, as I've found out here--he's a
cultivated man, too, and very intelligent; he a man who'll make
his mark."
Levin scowled and was dumb.
"Well, he turned up here soon after you'd gone, and as I can see,
he's over head and ears in love with Kitty, and you know that her
mother..."
"Excuse me, but I know nothing," said Levin, frowning gloomily.
And immediately he recollected his brother Nikolay and how
hateful he was to have been able to forget him.
"You wait a bit, wait a bit," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, smiling
and touching his hand. "I've told you what I know, and I repeat
that in this delicate and tender matter, as far as one can
conjecture, I believe the chances are in your favor."
Levin dropped back in his chair; his face was pale.
"But I would advise you to settle the thing as soon as may be,"
pursued Oblonsky, filling up his glass.
"No, thanks, I can't drink any more," said Levin, pushing away
his glass. "I shall be drunk...Come, tell me how are you getting
on?" he went on, obviously anxious to change the coversation.
"One word more: in any case I advise you to settle the questions
soon. Tonight I don't advise you to speak," said Stepan
Arkadyevitch. "Go round tomorrow morning, make an offer in due
form, and God bless you..."
"Oh, do you still think of coming to me for some shooting? Come
next spring, do," said Levin.
Now his whole sould was full of remorse that he had begun this
coversation with Stepan Arkadyevitch. A feeling such as his was
profaced by talk of the rivalry of some Petersburg officer, of
the suppositions and the counsels of Stepan Arkadyevitch.
Stepan Arkadyevitch smiled. He knew what was passing in Levin's
soul.
"I'll come some day," he said. "But women, my boy, they're the
pivot everything turns upon. Things are in a bad way with me,
very bad. And it's all through women. Tell me frankly now," he
pursued, picking up a cigar and keeping one hand on his glass;
"give me your advice."
"Why, what is it?"
"I'll tell you. Suppose you're married, you love your wife, but
you're fascinated by another woman..."
"Excuse me, but I'm absolutely unable to comprehend how...just as
I can't comprehend how I could now, after my dinner, go straight
to a baker's shop and steal a roll."
Stepan Arkadyevitch's eyes sparkled more than usual.
"Why not? A roll will sometimes smell so good one can't resist
it."
"Himmlisch ist's, wenn ich bezwungen Meine irdische Begier; Aber
doch wenn's nich gelungen Hatt' ich auch recht huebsch Plaisir!"
As he said this, Stepan Arkadyevitch smiled subtly. Levin, too,
could not help smiling.
"Yes, but joking apart," resumed Stepan Arkadyevitch, "you must
understand that the woman is a sweet, gentle loving creature,
poor and lonely, and has sacrificed everything. Now, when the
thing's done, don't you see, can oe possibly cast her off? Even
supposing one parts from her, so as not to break up one's family
life, still, can one help feeling for her, setting her on her
feet, softeneing her lot?"
"Well, you must excuse me there. You know to me all women are
divided into two classes...at least no...truer to say: there are
women and there are...I've never seen exquisite fallen beings,
and I never shall see them, but such creatures as that painted
Frenchwoman at the counter with the ringlets are vermin to my
mind, and all fallen women are the same."
"But the Magdalen?"
"Ah, drop that! Christ would never have said those words if He
had known how they would be abused. Of all the Gospel those
words are the only ones remembered. However, I'm not saying so
much what I think, as what I feel. I have a loathing for fallen
women. You're afraid of spiders, and I of these vermin. Most
likely you've not made a study of spiders and don't know their
character; and so it is with me."
"It's very well for you to talk like that; it's very much like
that gentleman in Dickens who used to fling all difficult
questions over his right shoulder. BUt to deny the facts is no
answer. What's to be done--you tell me that, what's to be done?
Your wife gets older, while you're full of life. Before you've
time to look round, you feel that you can't love your wife with
love, however much you may esteem her. And then all at once love
turns up, and you're done for, done for," Stepan Arkadyevitch
said with weary despair.
Levin half smiled.
"Yes, you're done for," resumed Oblonsky. "But what's to be
done?"
"Don't steal rolls."
Stepan Arkadyevitch laughed outright.
"Oh, moralist! But you must understand, there are two women; one
insists only on her rights, and those rights are your love, which
you can't give her; and the other sacrifices everything for you
and asks for nothing. What are you to do? How are you to act?
There's a fearful tragedy in it."
"If you care for my profession of faith as regards that, I'll
tell you that I don't believe there was any tradedy about it.
And this is why. To my mind, love...both the sorts of love,
which you remember Plato defines in his Banquet, served as the
test of men. Some men only understand one sort, and some only
the other. And those who only know the non-platonic love have no
need to talk of tragedy. In such love there can be no sort of
tragedy. I'm much obliged for the gratification, my humble
respects'--that's all the tragedy. And in plationic love there
can be no tragedy, because in that love all is clear and pure,
because..."
At that instant Levin recollected his own sins and the inner
conflich he had lived through. And he added unexpectedly:
"But perhaps you are right. Very likely...I don't know, I don't
know."
"It's this, don't you see," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, "you're
very much all of a piece. That's your stong point and your
failing. You have a character that's all of a piece, and you
wnat the whole of life to be of a piece too--but that's not how
it is. You despise public official work because you want the
reality to be invariably corresponding all the while with the
aim--and that's not how it is. You want a man's work, too, always
to have a defined aim, and love and family life always to be
undivided--and that's not how it is. All the variety, all the
charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow."
Levin sighed and made no reply. He was thinking of his own
affaris, and did not hear Oblonsky.
And suddenly both of them felt that though they were friends,
though they had been dining and drinking together, which should
have drawn them closer, yet each was thinking only of his own
affairs, and they had nothing to do with one another. Oblonsky
had more htan once experienced this extreme sense of aloofness,
instead of intimacy, coming on after dinner, and he knew what to
do in such cases.
"Bill!" he called, and he went into the next room where he
promptly came across and aide-de-camp of his acquaintance and
dropped into conversation with him about an actress and her
protector. And at once in the conversation with the aide-de-camp
Oblonsky had a sense of relaxation and relief after the
conversation with Levin, which always put him to too great a
mental and spiritual strain.
When the Tatar appeared with a bill for twenty-six roubles and
odd kopecks, besides a tip for himself, Levin, who would another
time have been horrified, like any one from the cuntry, at his
share of fourteen roubles, did not notice it, paid, and set off
homewards to dress and go to the Shtcherbatskys' there to decide
his fate. _
Read next: Part One: Chapter 12
Read previous: Part One: Chapter 10
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