Anna Karenina

hen Kitty had gone and Levin was left alone, he felt such uneasiness
without her, and such an impatient longing to get as quickly, as
quickly as possible, to tomorrow morning, when he would see her again
and be plighted to her forever, that he felt afraid, as though of
death, of those fourteen hours that he had to get through without her.
It was essential for him to be with someone to talk to, so as not to be
left alone, to kill time. Stepan Arkadyevitch would have been the
companion most congenial to him, but he was going out, he said, to a
soirée, in reality to the ballet. Levin only had time to tell him he
was happy, and that he loved him, and would never, never forget what he
had done for him. The eyes and the smile of Stepan Arkadyevitch showed
Levin that he comprehended that feeling fittingly.

“Oh, so it’s not time to die yet?” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, pressing
Levin’s hand with emotion.

“N-n-no!” said Levin.

Darya Alexandrovna too, as she said good-bye to him, gave him a sort of
congratulation, saying, “How glad I am you have met Kitty again! One
must value old friends.” Levin did not like these words of Darya
Alexandrovna’s. She could not understand how lofty and beyond her it
all was, and she ought not to have dared to allude to it. Levin said
good-bye to them, but, not to be left alone, he attached himself to his
brother.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to a meeting.”

“Well, I’ll come with you. May I?”

“What for? Yes, come along,” said Sergey Ivanovitch, smiling. “What is
the matter with you today?”

“With me? Happiness is the matter with me!” said Levin, letting down
the window of the carriage they were driving in. “You don’t mind?—it’s
so stifling. It’s happiness is the matter with me! Why is it you have
never married?”

Sergey Ivanovitch smiled.

“I am very glad, she seems a nice gi....” Sergey Ivanovitch was
beginning.

“Don’t say it! don’t say it!” shouted Levin, clutching at the collar of
his fur coat with both hands, and muffling him up in it. “She’s a nice
girl” were such simple, humble words, so out of harmony with his
feeling.

Sergey Ivanovitch laughed outright a merry laugh, which was rare with
him. “Well, anyway, I may say that I’m very glad of it.”

“That you may do tomorrow, tomorrow and nothing more! Nothing, nothing,
silence,” said Levin, and muffling him once more in his fur coat, he
added: “I do like you so! Well, is it possible for me to be present at
the meeting?”

“Of course it is.”

“What is your discussion about today?” asked Levin, never ceasing
smiling.

They arrived at the meeting. Levin heard the secretary hesitatingly
read the minutes which he obviously did not himself understand; but
Levin saw from this secretary’s face what a good, nice, kind-hearted
person he was. This was evident from his confusion and embarrassment in
reading the minutes. Then the discussion began. They were disputing
about the misappropriation of certain sums and the laying of certain
pipes, and Sergey Ivanovitch was very cutting to two members, and said
something at great length with an air of triumph; and another member,
scribbling something on a bit of paper, began timidly at first, but
afterwards answered him very viciously and delightfully. And then
Sviazhsky (he was there too) said something too, very handsomely and
nobly. Levin listened to them, and saw clearly that these missing sums
and these pipes were not anything real, and that they were not at all
angry, but were all the nicest, kindest people, and everything was as
happy and charming as possible among them. They did no harm to anyone,
and were all enjoying it. What struck Levin was that he could see
through them all today, and from little, almost imperceptible signs
knew the soul of each, and saw distinctly that they were all good at
heart. And Levin himself in particular they were all extremely fond of
that day. That was evident from the way they spoke to him, from the
friendly, affectionate way even those he did not know looked at him.

“Well, did you like it?” Sergey Ivanovitch asked him.

“Very much. I never supposed it was so interesting! Capital! Splendid!”

Sviazhsky went up to Levin and invited him to come round to tea with
him. Levin was utterly at a loss to comprehend or recall what it was he
had disliked in Sviazhsky, what he had failed to find in him. He was a
clever and wonderfully good-hearted man.

“Most delighted,” he said, and asked after his wife and sister-in-law.
And from a queer association of ideas, because in his imagination the
idea of Sviazhsky’s sister-in-law was connected with marriage, it
occurred to him that there was no one to whom he could more suitably
speak of his happiness, and he was very glad to go and see them.

Sviazhsky questioned him about his improvements on his estate,
presupposing, as he always did, that there was no possibility of doing
anything not done already in Europe, and now this did not in the least
annoy Levin. On the contrary, he felt that Sviazhsky was right, that
the whole business was of little value, and he saw the wonderful
softness and consideration with which Sviazhsky avoided fully
expressing his correct view. The ladies of the Sviazhsky household were
particularly delightful. It seemed to Levin that they knew all about it
already and sympathized with him, saying nothing merely from delicacy.
He stayed with them one hour, two, three, talking of all sorts of
subjects but the one thing that filled his heart, and did not observe
that he was boring them dreadfully, and that it was long past their
bedtime.

Sviazhsky went with him into the hall, yawning and wondering at the
strange humor his friend was in. It was past one o’clock. Levin went
back to his hotel, and was dismayed at the thought that all alone now
with his impatience he had ten hours still left to get through. The
servant, whose turn it was to be up all night, lighted his candles, and
would have gone away, but Levin stopped him. This servant, Yegor, whom
Levin had noticed before, struck him as a very intelligent, excellent,
and, above all, good-hearted man.

“Well, Yegor, it’s hard work not sleeping, isn’t it?”

“One’s got to put up with it! It’s part of our work, you see. In a
gentleman’s house it’s easier; but then here one makes more.”

It appeared that Yegor had a family, three boys and a daughter, a
sempstress, whom he wanted to marry to a cashier in a saddler’s shop.

Levin, on hearing this, informed Yegor that, in his opinion, in
marriage the great thing was love, and that with love one would always
be happy, for happiness rests only on oneself.

Yegor listened attentively, and obviously quite took in Levin’s idea,
but by way of assent to it he enunciated, greatly to Levin’s surprise,
the observation that when he had lived with good masters he had always
been satisfied with his masters, and now was perfectly satisfied with
his employer, though he was a Frenchman.

“Wonderfully good-hearted fellow!” thought Levin.

“Well, but you yourself, Yegor, when you got married, did you love your
wife?”

“Ay! and why not?” responded Yegor.

And Levin saw that Yegor too was in an excited state and intending to
express all his most heartfelt emotions.

“My life, too, has been a wonderful one. From a child up....” he was
beginning with flashing eyes, apparently catching Levin’s enthusiasm,
just as people catch yawning.

But at that moment a ring was heard. Yegor departed, and Levin was left
alone. He had eaten scarcely anything at dinner, had refused tea and
supper at Sviazhsky’s, but he was incapable of thinking of supper. He
had not slept the previous night, but was incapable of thinking of
sleep either. His room was cold, but he was oppressed by heat. He
opened both the movable panes in his window and sat down to the table
opposite the open panes. Over the snow-covered roofs could be seen a
decorated cross with chains, and above it the rising triangle of
Charles’s Wain with the yellowish light of Capella. He gazed at the
cross, then at the stars, drank in the fresh freezing air that flowed
evenly into the room, and followed as though in a dream the images and
memories that rose in his imagination. At four o’clock he heard steps
in the passage and peeped out at the door. It was the gambler Myaskin,
whom he knew, coming from the club. He walked gloomily, frowning and
coughing. “Poor, unlucky fellow!” thought Levin, and tears came into
his eyes from love and pity for this man. He would have talked with
him, and tried to comfort him, but remembering that he had nothing but
his shirt on, he changed his mind and sat down again at the open pane
to bathe in the cold air and gaze at the exquisite lines of the cross,
silent, but full of meaning for him, and the mounting lurid yellow
star. At seven o’clock there was a noise of people polishing the
floors, and bells ringing in some servants’ department, and Levin felt
that he was beginning to get frozen. He closed the pane, washed,
dressed, and went out into the street.