________________________________________________
_ The house was big and old-fashioned, and Levin, though he lived
alone, had the whole house heated and used. He knew that this
was stupid, he knew that it was positively not right, and
contrary to his present new plans, but this house was a whole
world to Levin. It was the world in which his father and mother
had lived and died. They had lived just the life that to Levin
seemed the ideal of perfection, and that he had dreamed of
beginning with his wife, his family.
Levin scarcely remembered hs mother. His conception of her was
for him a sacred memory, and his future wife was bound to be in
his imagination a repetition of that exquisite, holy ideal of a
woman that his mother had been.
He was so far from conceiving of love for woman apart from
marriage that he positively pictured to himself first the family,
and only secondarily the woman who woud give him a family. His
ideas of marriage were, consequently, quite unlike those of the
great majority of his acquaintances, for whom getting married was
one of the numerous facts of social life. For Levin it was the
chief affair of life, on which its whole happiness turned. And
now he had to give up that.
When he had gone into the little drawing room, where he always
had tea, and had settled himself in his srmchair with a book ,
and Agafea Mihalovna had brought him tea, and with her usual,
"Well, I'll stay a while, sir," had taken a chair in the window,
he felt that, however strange it might be, he had not parted from
his daydreams, and that he could not live without them. Whether
with her, or with another, still it would be. He was reading a
book, and thinking of what he was reading, and stopping to listen
to Agafea Mihalovna, who gossiped away without flagging, and yet
with ll that, all sorts of pictures of family life and work in
the future rose disconnectedly before his imagination. He felt
that in the dpeth of his soul something had been put in its
place, settled down, and laid to rest.
He heard Anafea Mihalovna talking of how Prohor had forgotten his
duty to God, and with the money Levin had given him to buy a
horse, had been drinking without stopping, and had beaten his
wife till he'd half killed her. He listened, and read his book,
and recalled the whole train of ideas suggested by his reading.
It was Tyndall's Treatise on Heat. He recalled his own
criticisms of Tyndall ofr his complacent satisfaction in the
cleverness of his experiments, and for his lack of philosophic
insight. And suddenly there floated into his mind the joyful
thoght: "In two years' time I shall have two Dutch cows; Pava
herself will perhaps still be alive, a dozen young daughters of
Berkood and the three others--how lovely!"
He took up his book again. "Very good, electricity and heat are
the same thing; but is it possible to substitute the one quantity
for the onther in the equation for the solution of any problem?
No. Well, then what of it? The connection between all the forces
of nature is felt instictively...It's particulary nice if Pava's
daughter should be a red-spotted cow, and all the herd will take
after her, and the other three, too! Splendid! To go out with
my wife and visitors to meet the herd...My wife says, Kostya and
I looked after that calf like a child.' How can it interest you
so much?' says a visitor. Everything that interests him,
interests me.' But who will she be?" And he rememberd what had
happened at Moscow..."Well, there's nothing to be done...It's not
my fault. But now everything shall go on in a new way. It's
nonsense to pretend that life won't let one, that the past won't
let one. One must struggle to live better, much better."...He
raised his head, and fell to dreaming. Old Laska, who had not
yet fully digested her delight at his return, and crept up to
him, bringing in the scent of fresh air, put her head under his
hand, and whined plaintively, asking to be stroked.
"There, who'd have thought it?" said Agafea Mihalovna. "The dog
now...why, she understands that her master's come home, and that
he's low-spirited."
"Why low-spirited?"
"Do you suppose I don't see it, sir? It's high time I should know
the genty. Why, I've grown up from a little thing with them.
It's nothing, sir, so long as there's health and a clear
conscience."
Levin looked intenely at her, surprised at how well she knew his
thoght.
"Shall I fetch you another cup?" said she, and taking his cup she
went out.
Laska kept poking her head under his hand. He stroked her, and
she promptly curled up at his feet, laying her head on a hindpaw.
And in token of all now being well and satisfactory, she opened
her mouth a little, smacked her lips, and settling her sticky
lips more comfortably about her old teeth, she sand into blissful
repose. Levin watched all her movements attentively.
"That's what I'll do," he said to himself; "that's what I'll do!
Nothing's amiss...All's well." _
Read next: Part One: Chapter 28
Read previous: Part One: Chapter 26
Table of content of Anna Karenina
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
