第 5 页

Levin had meant to tell his brother of his determination to get married, and to ask his advice; he had indeed firmly resolved to do so. But after seeing his brother, listening to his conversation with the professor, hearing afterward the unconsciously patronizing tone in which his brother questioned him about agricultural matters (their mother's property had not been divided, and Levin took charge of both their shares), Levin felt that he could not for some reason broach to him his intention of marrying. He felt that his brother would not look on it as he would have wished him.

`Well, how is your Zemstvo doing?' asked Sergei Ivanovich, who was greatly interested in Zemstvo establishments and attached great importance to them.

`I really don't know.'

`What! But surely, you're a member of the board?'

`No, I'm not a member now; I've resigned,' answered Levin, `and I no longer attend the sessions.'

`What a pity!' commented Sergei Ivanovich, frowning.

Levin in self-defense began to describe what took place at the sessions in his district.

`That's how it always is!' Sergei Ivanovich interrupted him. `We Russians are always like that. Perhaps it's our strong point, really - this faculty of seeing our own shortcomings; but we overdo it, we comfort ourselves with irony, which we always have on the tip of our tongues. All I say is, give such rights as our Zemstvo establishments to any other European people, and... Why, the Germans or the English would have worked their way to freedom with them, while we simply turn them into ridicule.'

`But how can it be helped?' said Levin penitently. `It was my last trial. And I did try with all my soul. I can't. I'm no good at it.'

`It's not that you're no good at it,' said Sergei Ivanovich, `it is that you don't look at it as you should.'

`Perhaps not,' Levin answered dejectedly.

`Oh! do you know brother Nikolai's turned up again?'

This brother Nikolai was the elder brother of Constantin Levin, and half-brother of Sergei Ivanovich; a man who was done for, who had dissipated the greater part of his fortune, was living in the strangest and lowest company, and had quarreled with his brothers.

`What did you say?' Levin cried with horror. `How do you know?'

`Procophii saw him in the street.'

`Here in Moscow? Where is he? Do you know?' Levin got up from his chair, as though on the point of starting off at once.

`I'm sorry I told you,' said Sergei Ivanovich, shaking his head at his younger brother's excitement. `I sent to find out where he is living, and sent him his I O U to Trubin, which I paid. This is the answer he sent me.'

And Sergei Ivanovich took a note from under a paperweight and handed it to his brother.

Levin read in the queer, familiar handwriting: `I humbly beg you to leave me in peace. That's the only favor I ask of my gracious brothers. - Nikolai Levin.'

Levin read it, and without raising his head stood with the note in his hands opposite Sergei Ivanovich.

There was a struggle in his heart between the desire to forget his unhappy brother for the time, and the consciousness that it would be base to do so.

`He obviously wants to offend me,' pursued Sergei Ivanovich; `but he cannot offend me, and I should have wished with all my heart to assist him, but I know it's impossible to do that.'

`Yes, yes,' repeated Levin. `I understand and appreciate your attitude to him; but I shall go and see him.'

`If you want to, do; but I shouldn't advise it,' said Sergei Ivanovich. `As regards myself, I have no fear of your doing so; he will not make you quarrel with me; but for your own sake, I should say you would do better not to go. You can't do him any good; still, do as you please.'

`Very likely I can't do any good, but I feel - especially at such a moment - but that's another thing - I feel I could not be at peace.'

`Well, that's something I don't understand,' said Sergei Ivanovich. `One thing I do understand,' he added, `it's a lesson in humility. I have come to look very differently and more indulgently on what is called infamy since brother Nikolai has become what he is... you know what he did....'

`Oh, it's awful, awful!' repeated Levin.

After obtaining his brother's address from Sergei Ivanovich's footman, Levin was on the point of setting off at once to see him, but on second thought he decided to put off his visit till the evening. The thing to do to set his heart at rest was to accomplish what he had come to Moscow for. From his brother's Levin went to Oblonsky's office, and on getting news of the Shcherbatskys from him, he drove to the place where he had been told he might find Kitty.

Chapter 9

At four o'clock, conscious of his throbbing heart, Levin stepped out of a hired sleigh at the Zoological Gardens and turned along the path to the frozen mounds and the skating ground, knowing that he would certainly find her there, as he had seen the Shcherbatsky's carriage at the entrance.

It was a bright, frosty day. Rows of carriages, sleighs, drivers and gendarmes were standing in the approach. Crowds of well-dressed people, with hats bright in the sun, swarmed about the entrance and along the well-swept paths between the little houses adorned with carving in the Russian style. The old curly birches of the gardens, all their twigs laden with snow, looked as though freshly decked in sacred vestments.

He walked along the path toward the skating ground, and kept saying to himself - `You mustn't be excited, you must be calm. What's the matter with you? What do you want? Be still, foolish one,' he conjured his heart. And the more he tried to compose himself, the more breathless he found himself. An acquaintance met him and called him by his name, but Levin did not even recognize him. He went toward the mounds, whence came the clank of the chains of sleighs as they slipped down or were dragged up, the rumble of the sliding sleighs and the sounds of merry voices. He walked on a few steps, and the skating ground lay open before him, and at once, amid all the skaters, he recognized her.

He knew she was there by the rapture and the terror that seized his heart. She was standing talking to a lady at the opposite end of the ground. There was apparently nothing striking either in her dress or her attitude, but for Levin she was as easy to find in that crowd as a rose among nettles. Everything was made bright by her. She was the smile that shed light on all around her. `Is it possible I can go over there on the ice - approach her?' he thought. The place where she stood seemed to him a holy shrine, unapproachable, and there was one moment when he was almost retreating, so overwhelmed was he with terror. He had to make an effort to master himself, and to remind himself that people of all sorts were moving about her, and that he, too, might have come there to skate. He descended, for a long while avoiding looking at her as at the sun, yet seeing her, as one does the sun, without looking.

On that day of the week, and at that time of day, people of one set, all acquainted with one another, used to meet on the ice. There were skillful skaters there, showing off their skill, and beginners clinging to chairs with timid, awkward movements, and boys and elderly people skating with hygienic motives. They seemed to Levin an elect band of blissful beings because they were here, near her. All the skaters, it seemed, with perfect self-possession, skated toward her, skated by her, even spoke to her, and were happy, quite apart from her, enjoying the capital ice and the fine weather.

Nikolai Shcherbatsky, Kitty's cousin, in a short jacket and tight trousers, was sitting on a bench with his skates on. Seeing Levin, he shouted to him:

`Ah, the first skater in Russia! Been here long? First-rate ice - do put your skates on.'

`I haven't got my skates,' Levin answered, marveling at this boldness and ease in her presence, and not for one second losing sight of her, though he did not look at her. He felt as though the sun were coming near him. She was in a corner, and turning out her slender feet in their high boots, she, with obvious timidity, skated toward him. A boy in Russian dress, desperately waving his arms and bending down to the ground, overtook her. She skated a little uncertainly; taking her hands out of the little muff that hung on a cord, she held them ready for emergency, and looking toward Levin, whom she had recognized, she smiled at him and at her own fears. When she had got round the turn, she got a start with one foot and skated straight up to Shcherbatsky. Clutching at his arm, she nodded with a smile to Levin. She was more beautiful than he had imagined her.

When he thought of her, he could call up a vivid picture of her to himself, especially the charm of that little fair head, so freely set on the shapely girlish shoulders, and so full of childish brightness and kindness. Her childish countenance, together with the delicate beauty of her figure, made up that special charm of hers, which he appreciated so well. But what always struck him in her as something unlooked for was the expression of her eyes - soft, serene and truthful; and, above all, her smile, which always transported Levin to an enchanted world, where he felt moved and tender, as he remembered himself during certain rare days of his early childhood.

`Have you been here long?' she said, giving him her hand. `Thank you,' she added, as he picked up the handkerchief that had fallen out of her muff.

`I? Not long ago... yesterday... I mean I arrived... today...' answered Levin, in his emotion not comprehending her question immediately. `I meant to come and see you,' he said; and then, recollecting what his intention was in seeking her, he was promptly overcome with confusion, and blushed. `I didn't know you could skate, and skate so well.'

She looked at him attentively, as though wishing to make out the cause of his confusion.

`Your praise is worth having. The tradition is kept up here that you are the best of skaters,' she said, with her little black-gloved hand brushing some needles of hoarfrost off her muff.

`Yes, I used to skate with passion once upon a time; I wanted to attain perfection.'

`You do everything with passion, I think,' she said smiling. `I should so like to see how you skate. Do put on skates, and let's skate together.'

`Skate together Can that be possible?' thought Levin, gazing at her.

`I'll put them on directly,' he said.

And he went off to get skates.

`It's a long while since we've seen you here, sir,' said the attendant, supporting his foot, and screwing on the heel of the skate. `Except you, there's none of the gentlemen first-rate skaters. Will that be all right?' said he, tightening the strap.

`Oh, yes, yes; make haste, please,' answered Levin, with difficulty restraining the smile of rapture which would overspread his face. `Yes,' he thought, `this is life, this is happiness! Together, she said; let us skate together! Speak to her now? But that's just why I'm afraid to speak - because I'm happy now, happy even though only in hope.... And then?... But I must! I must! I must! Away, faintheartedness!'

Levin rose to his feet, took off his overcoat, and, gaining speed over the rough ice round the pavilion, came out on the smooth ice and skated without effort, as it were, by, simple exercise of will, increasing and slackening speed and turning his course. He approached her with timidity, but again her smile reassured him.

She gave him her hand, and they set off side by side, going faster and faster, and the more rapidly they moved the more tightly she grasped his hand.

`With you I should soon learn; I somehow feel confidence in you,' she said to him.

`And I have confidence in myself when you are leaning on me,' he said, but was at once frightened at what he had said, and blushed. And indeed, no sooner had he uttered these words, than all at once, like the sun going behind a cloud, her face lost all its tenderness, and Levin detected the familiar change in her expression that denoted mental concentration; a tiny wrinkle came upon her smooth brow.

`Is there anything troubling you? However, I've no right to ask such a question,' he said hurriedly.

`Oh, why so?... No, I have nothing to trouble me,' she responded coldly, and immediately added: `You haven't seen Mlle. Linon, have you?'

`Not yet.'

`Go and speak to her - she likes you so much.'

`What's wrong? I have offended her. Lord help me!' thought Levin, and he flew towards the old Frenchwoman with the gray ringlets, who was sitting on a bench. Smiling and showing her false teeth, she greeted him as an old friend.

`Yes, you see we're growing up,' she said to him, glancing toward Kitty, `and growing old. Tiny bear has grown big now!' pursued the Frenchwoman, laughing, and she reminded him of his joke about the three young ladies whom he had compared to the three bears in the English nursery tale. `Do you remember that's what you used to call them?'

He remembered absolutely nothing, but she had been laughing at the joke for ten years now and was fond of it.

`Now, go and skate, go and skate. Our Kitty has learned to skate nicely, hasn't she?'

When Levin darted up to Kitty her face was no longer stern; her eyes looked at him with the same sincerity and tenderness, but Levin fancied that in her tenderness there was a certain note of deliberate composure. And he felt depressed. After talking a little of her old governess and her peculiarities, she questioned him about his life.

`Surely, you must feel dull in the country in the winter,' she said.

`No, I'm not dull - I am very busy,' he said, feeling that she was making him submit to her composed tone, which he would not have the strength to break through - just as had been the case at the beginning of the winter.

`Are you going to stay in town long?' Kitty questioned him.

`I don't know,' he answered, not thinking of what he was saying. The thought came into his mind that if he were held in submission by her tone of quiet friendliness he would end by going back again without deciding anything, and he resolved to mutiny against it.

`How is it you don't know?'

`I don't know. It depends upon you,' he said, and was immediately horror-stricken at his own words.