Chapter 1 of Anna Karinna, Book 2 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by William Manzell. Anna Karinna by Leo Tolstoy. Translated by Constance Garnett. Book 2, Chapter 1 At the end of the winter in the Trabotsky house, a consultation was being held, which was to pronounce on the state of Kittysouth on the measures to be taken to restore failing strength. She had been ill, and as spring came on she grew worse. The family doctor gave her cod liver oil, then iron, then nitrate of silver, but as the first and the second and the third were alike in doing no good, and as his advice when the spring came was to go abroad, a celebrated physician was called in. The celebrated physician, a very handsome man, still youngish, asked to examine the patient. He maintained with peculiar satisfaction it seemed that made modesty as a mere relic of barbarism, and that nothing could be more natural than for a man still youngish to handle a young girl naked. He thought it natural because he did it every day, and felt and thought as it seemed to him, no harm as he did it, and consequently he considered modesty in the girl not merely a relic of barbarism, but also as an insult to himself. There was nothing for it but to submit since, although the doctors had studied in the same school, had read the same books and learned the same science, and though some people said the celebrated doctor was a bad doctor, in the princess's household and circle it was for some reason accepted that this celebrated doctor alone had some special knowledge, and that he alone could save Kitty. After a careful examination and sounding of the bewildered patient, dazed with shame, the celebrated doctor, having scrupulously washed his hands, was standing in the drawing room talking to the prince. The prince frowned and coughed, listening to the doctor. As a man who had seen something in life, and neither a fool nor an invalid, he had no faith in medicine, and in his heart was furious at the whole farce, especially as he was perhaps the only one who fully comprehended the cause of Kitty's illness. Conceded lock-head, he thought, as he listened to the celebrated doctor's chatter about his daughter's symptoms. The doctor was meantime with difficulty restraining the expression of his contempt for this old gentleman, and with difficulty condescending to the level of his intelligence. He perceived that it was no good talking to the old man, and that the principal person in the house was the mother. Before her, he decided to scatter his pearls. At that instant, the princess came into the drawing room with the family doctor. The prince withdrew, trying not to show how ridiculous he thought the whole performance. The princess was distracted, and did not know what to do. She felt she had sinned against Kitty. Well, doctor, decide our fate, said the princess. Tell me everything. Is there hope, she meant to say, but her lips quivered, and she could not utter the question. Well, doctor? Immediately, princess, I will talk it over with my colleague, and then I will have the honor of laying my opinion before you. So we'd better leave you? As you please. The princess went out with a sigh. When the doctors were left alone, the family doctor began timidly explaining his opinion, that there was a commencement of tuberculosis trouble, bots, and so on. The celebrated doctor listened to him, and the middle of his sense looked at his big gold watch. Yes, said he, but the family doctor respectfully ceased in the middle of his observations. The commencement of the tuberculosis process, we are not, as you are aware, able to define until there are cavities. There is nothing definite, but we may suspect it. And there are indications, malnutrition, nervous excitability, and so on. The question stands thus, in presence of indications of tuberculosis process, what is to be done to maintain nutrition? But you know there are always moral, spiritual causes in the back of these cases. The family doctor permitted himself to interpolate with a subtle smile. Yes, that's an understood thing, responded the celebrated physician, again glancing at his watch. Big pardon, is the Yoski bridge done yet? Or shall I have to drive around? He asked. Ah, it is. Oh well, then I can do it in 20 minutes. So we were saying the problem may be put thus, to maintain nutrition and to give tone to the nerves. The one is in close connection with the other. One must attack both sides at once. And how about a tour abroad? Ask the family doctor. I have no liking for foreigners. And please take note, if there is an early stage of tuberculosis process, of which we cannot be certain, a foreign tour will be of no use. What is wanted is the means of improving nutrition and not for lowering it. And the celebrated doctor expounded his plan of treatment with sodden waters, a remedy obviously prescribed primarily on the ground that they could do no harm. The family doctor listened attentively and respectfully. But in favor of foreign travel, I would urge the change of habits, the removal from conditions calling up reminiscences. And then the mother wishes it, he added. Ah, well, in that case, to be sure, let them go. Only those German quacks are mischievous. They ought to be persuaded. Well, let them go. He glanced once more at his watch. Oh, time's up already. And he went to the door. The celebrated doctor announced to the princess a feeling of what was due from him dictated his doing so, that he ought to see the patient once more. What? Another examination? Cried the mother with whore. Oh, no. Only a few details, princess. Come this way. And the mother, accompanied by the doctor, went into the drawing room to Kitty, wasted and flushed with a peculiar glitter in her eyes left there by the agony of shame she had been put through. Kitty stood in the middle of the room. When the doctor came in, she flushed crimson and her eyes filled with tears. All her illness and treatment struck her as a thing so stupid, ludicrous even. Doctoring her seemed to her as absurd as putting together the pieces of a broken vase. Her heart was broken. Why would they try to cure her with pills and powders? But she could not grieve her mother, especially as her mother considered herself the blame. May I trouble you to sit down, princess? The celebrated doctor said to her. He sat down with a smile facing her, felt her pulse, and again began asking her tiresome questions. She answered him, and all at once got up, furious. Excuse me, doctor, but there is really no object in this. This is the third time you've asked me the same thing. The celebrated doctor did not take offense. Nervous irritability, he said to the princess. Even Kitty had left the room. However, I had finished, and the doctor began scientifically explaining to the princess, as an exceptionally intelligent woman, the condition of the young princess, and concluded by insisting on the drinking of the waters, which was certainly harmless. At the question, should they go abroad, the doctor plunged into deep meditation, as though resolving a weighty problem. Finally, his decision was pronounced. They were to go abroad, but to put no faith in foreign quacks, and to apply to him in any need. It seemed as though some piece of good fortune had come to pass after the doctor had gone. The mother was much more cheerful when she went back to her daughter, and Kitty pretended to be more cheerful. She had often, almost always, to be pretending now. Really, I'm quite well, Mama. But if you want to go abroad, let's go, she said, and trying to appear interested in the proposed tour, she began talking of the preparations for the journey. End of section one. Chapter 2 of Anna Karenina, Book 2 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by Larianne Walden. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Constance Garnett, Book 2, Chapter 2. Soon after the doctor, Dolly had arrived. She knew that there was to be a consultation that day, and though she was only just up after her confinement, she had another baby, a little girl, born at the end of the winter. So she had trouble and anxiety enough of her own.  Well, well, she said, coming into the drawing room without taking off her hat. You're all in good spirits, good news then? They tried to tell her what the doctor had said, but it appeared that though the doctor had talked distinctly enough and at great length, it was utterly impossible to report what he had said. The only point of interest was that it was settled they should go abroad. Dolly could not help sighing. Her dearest friend, her sister, was going away, and her life was not a cheerful one. Her relations with Stepan Arkadyevich after their reconciliation had become humiliating. The union Anna had cemented turned out to be of no solid character, and family harmony was breaking down again at the same point. There had been nothing definite, but Stepan Arkadyevich was hardly ever at home. Money, too, was hardly ever forthcoming, and Dolly was continually tortured by suspicions of infidelity, which she tried to dismiss, dreading the agonies of jealousy she had been through already. The first onslaught of jealousy, once lived through, could never come back again. And even the discovery of infidelities could never now affect her as it had the first time. Such a discovery now would only mean breaking up family habits, and she let herself be deceived, despising him and still more herself for the weakness. Besides this, the care of her large family was a constant worry to her. First, the nursing of her young baby did not go well. Then the nurse had gone away. Now one of the children had fallen ill. Well, how are all of you? asked her mother. Ah, Mama, we have plenty of troubles of our own. Lily is ill, and I'm afraid it's Scarletina. I have come here now to hear about Kitty, and then I shall shut myself up entirely, if, God forbid, it should be Scarletina. The old prince, too, had come in from his study after the doctor's departure, and after presenting his cheek to Dolly and saying a few words to her, he turned to his wife. How have you settled it? You're going? Well, and what do you mean to do with me? I suppose you had better stay here, Alexander, said his wife. That's as you like. Mama, why shouldn't Father come with us, said Kitty? It would be nicer for him and for us, too. The old prince got up and stroked Kitty's hair.  It always seemed to her that he understood her better than anyone in the family, though he did not say much about her. Being the youngest, she was her father's favourite, and she fancied that his love gave him insight. When now her glance met his blue, kindly eyes looking intently at her, it seemed to her that he saw right through her and understood all that was not good that was passing within her.  One simply strokes the bristles of dead women. Well, Dolinka, he turned to his elder daughter. What's your young buck about, eh? Nothing, Father, answered Dolly, understanding that her husband was meant. He's always out. I scarcely ever see him. She could not resist adding with a sarcastic smile. Why, hasn't he gone into the country yet to see about selling that forest? No, he's still getting ready for the journey. Oh, that's it, said the Prince. And so am I to be getting ready for a journey to? At your service, he said to his wife, sitting down. And I tell you what, Katya, he went on to his younger daughter. You must wake up one fine day and say to yourself, Why, I'm quite well and merry and going out again with father for an early morning walk in the frost, eh? But her father said seemed simple enough, yet at these words Kitty became confused and overcome like a detected criminal. Yes, he sees it all, he understands it all, and in these words he's telling me that though I'm ashamed, I must get over my shame. She could not pluck up spirit to make any answer. She tried to begin, and all at once burst into tears and rushed out of the room. See what comes of your jokes? The Princess pounced down on her husband. You're always—she began a string of reproaches. The Prince listened to the Princess's scolding rather a long while without speaking, but his face was more and more frowning. She's so much to be pitied, poor child, so much to be pitied, and you don't feel how it hurts her to hear the slightest reference to the calls of it. Ah, to be so mistaken in people, said the Princess, and by the change in her tone both Dolly and the Prince knew she was speaking of Vronsky. I don't know why there aren't laws against such base dishonorable people. Ah, I can't bear to hear you, said the Prince gloomily, getting up from his low chair and seeming anxious to get away, yet stopping in the doorway.  Those against such young gallants there have always been, and there still are. Yes if there has been nothing that ought not to have been, old as I am, I'd have called him out to the barrier of the young dandy. Yes and now you, physical, and call in these quacks. The Prince apparently had plenty more to say, but as soon as the Princess heard his tone she subsided at once, and became penitent, as she always did on serious occasions. Alexander, Alexander, she whispered, moving to him and beginning to weep. As soon as she began to cry the Prince, too, calmed down. He went up to her. There, that's enough, that's enough. You're wretched, too, I know, it can't be helped. There's no great harm done. God is merciful, thanks, he said, not knowing what he was saying, as he responded to the tearful kiss of the Princess that he felt on his hand. And the Prince went out of the room. Before this, as soon as Kitty went out of the room in tears, Dolly, with her motherly family instincts, had promptly perceived that here a woman's work lay before her, and she prepared to do it. She took off her hat, and, morally speaking, tucked up her sleeves and prepared for action. While her mother was attacking her father she tried to restrain her mother, so far as filial reverence would allow. During the Prince's outburst she was silent. She felt ashamed for her mother, and tender towards her father for so quickly being kind again. But when her father left them she made ready for what was the chief thing needful, to go to Kitty and console her. I've been meaning to tell you something for a long while, Mama. Did you know that Levin meant to make Kitty an offer when he was here the last time? He told Steve as so. Well, what then? I don't understand. So did Kitty perhaps refuse him? She didn't tell you so? No, she has said nothing to me, either of one or the other. She's too proud. But I know it's all on account of the other. Yes, but suppose she has refused Levin, and she wouldn't have refused him if it hadn't been for the other, I know. And then he has deceived her so horribly. It was too terrible for the Princess to think how she had sinned against her daughter, and she broke out angrily. Oh, I really don't understand. Nowadays they will all go their own way, and mothers haven't a word to say in anything, and then, Mama, I'll go up to her. Well do. Did I tell you not to? said her mother. End of chapter 2. Chapter 3 When she went into Kitty's little room, a pretty pink little room full of knickknacks and view sacks, as fresh and pink and white and gay as Kitty herself had been two months ago, Dolly remembered how they had decorated the room the year before together with what love and gaiety. Her heart turned cold when she saw Kitty sitting on a low chair near the door, her eyes fixed immovably on a corner of the rug. Kitty glanced at her sister, and the cold rather ill-tempered expression of her face did not change. I'm just going now, and I shall have to keep in, and you won't be able to come to see me, said Dolly sitting down beside her. I want to talk to you. What about, Kitty asked swiftly, lifting her head into Smay. What should it be but your trouble? I have no trouble. Nonsense, Kitty, do you suppose I could help knowing I know all about it, and believe me, it's of so little consequence, we've all been through it. Kitty did not speak, and her face had a stern expression. He's not worth your grieving over him, pursuit Darya Alexanderovna, coming straight to the point. No, because he has treated me with contempt, said Kitty, in a breaking voice. Don't talk of it. Please don't talk of it. But who can have told you so? No one has said that. I'm certain he was in love with you, and would still be in love with you, if it hadn't. Oh, the most awful thing of all for me is this sympathizing, shrieked Kitty, suddenly flying into a passion. She turned round on her chair, flushed crimson, and rapidly moving her fingers, pinched the clasp of her belt, first with one hand and then with the other. Dolly knew this trick her sister had of clenching her hands when she was much excited. She knew, too, that in moments of excitement Kitty was capable of forgetting herself and saying a great deal too much, and Dolly would have soothed her, but it was too late. What?  I don't want these condolences and humbug. Kitty, you're unjust. Why are you tormenting me? But I, quite the contrary, I see you're unhappy. But Kitty, in her fury, did not hear her. I've nothing to grieve over and be comforted about. I am too proud ever to allow myself to care for a man who does not love me. Yes, I don't say so, either. Only one thing. Tell me the truth, said Daria Alexandrovna, taking her by the hand. Tell me, did Levin speak to you? The mention of Levin's name seemed to deprive Kitty of the last vestige of self-control. She leaped up from her chair and flinging her clasp to the ground. She gesticulated rapidly with her hands and said, Why bring Levin in, too? I can't understand what you want to torment me for. I've told you and I say it again, that I have some pride, and never, never would I do as you're doing.  I can't understand it. You may, but I can't. And saying these words, she glanced at her sister, and seeing that Dolly sat silent, her head mournfully bowed, Kitty, instead of running out of the room as she had meant to do, sat down near the door and hid her face in her handkerchief. The silence lasted for two minutes. Dolly was thinking of herself. That humiliation of which she was always conscious came back to her with a peculiar bitterness when her sister reminded her of it. She had not looked for such cruelty in her sister, and she was angry with her. But suddenly she heard the rustle of a skirt, and with it the sound of heart-rending, smothered sobbing, and felt arms about her neck. Kitty was on her knees before her. Dolinka, I am so, so wretched, she whispered penitently, and the sweet face covered with tears hid itself in Daria Alexandrovna's skirt. As though tears were the indispensable oil, without which the machinery of mutual confidence could not run smoothly between the two sisters, the sisters after their tears talked, not of what was uppermost in their minds, but though they talked of outside matters, they understood each other. Kitty knew that the words she had uttered in anger about her husband's infidelity and her humiliating position had cut her poor sister to the heart, but that she had forgiven her. Dolly, for her part, knew all she had wanted to find out. She felt certain that her surmises were correct, that Kitty's misery, her inconsolable misery, was due precisely to the fact that Levin had made her an offer, and she had refused him, and Vronsky had deceived her, and that she was fully prepared to love Levin and to detest Vronsky. Kitty said not a word of that. She talked of nothing but her spiritual condition. I have nothing to make me miserable, she said, getting calmer, but can you understand that everything has become hateful, loathsome, coarse to me, and I myself most of all. You can't imagine what loathsome thoughts I have about everything. Why, whatever loathsome thoughts can you have? asked Dolly, smiling. The most utterly loathsome, in course, I can't tell you, it's not unhappiness or low spirits, but much worse, as though everything that was good in me was all hidden away, and nothing was left but the most loathsome. Come, how am I to tell you? She went on, seeing the puzzled look in her sister's eyes. Father began saying something to me just now. It seems to me he thinks all I want is to be married. Mother takes me to a ball, it seems to me she only takes me to get me married off as soon as may be, and be rid of me. I know it's not the truth, but I can't drive away such thoughts. Eligible suitors, as they call them, I can't bear to see them. It seems to me they're taking stock of me and thumbing me up. In old days, to go anywhere in a ball-dress was a simple joy to me. I admired myself. Now I feel ashamed and awkward. And then the doctor. Then Kitty hesitated. She wanted to say further that ever since this change had taken place in her, Stepan Arkadievich had become insufferably repulsive to her, and that she could not see him without the grossest and most hideous conceptions rising before her imagination. Oh, well, everything presents itself to me in the coarsest most loathsome light she went on. That's my illness. Perhaps it will pass off. But you mustn't think about it. I can't help it. I'm never happy, except with the children at your house. What a pity you can't be with me. Oh, yes, I'm coming. I've had scarletina, and I'll persuade mama to let me. Kitty insisted on having her way and went to stay at her sisters and nursed the children all through the scarletina, for scarletina it turned out to be. The two sisters brought all the six children successfully through it, but Kitty was no better in health, and in Lent the sherbotskies went abroad. CHAPTER IV The highest Petersburg society is essentially one. In it everyone knows everyone else, everyone even visits everyone else. But this great set has its subdivisions. Anna Arkadievna Karenina had friends and close ties in three different circles of this highest society. One circle was her husband's government official set, consisting of his colleagues and subordinates, brought together in the most various and capricious manner and belonging to different social strata. Anna found it difficult now to recall the feeling of almost awestrucken reverence which she had at first entertained for these persons. Now she knew all of them as people know one another in a country town. She knew their habits and weaknesses and where the shoe pinched each one of them. She knew their relations with one another and with the head authorities knew who was for whom and how each one maintained his position and where they agreed and disagreed. But the circle of political masculine interests had never interested her in spite of Countess Lydia Ivanovna's influence, and she avoided it. Another little set with which Anna was in close relations was the one by means of which Alexei Alexandrovich had made his career. The centre of this circle was the Countess Lydia Ivanovna. It was a set made up of elderly, ugly, benevolent and godly women and clever learned and ambitious men. One of the clever people belonging to the set had called it the conscience of Petersburg's society. Alexei Alexandrovich had the highest esteem for this circle and Anna with her special gift for getting on with everyone had in the early days of her life in Petersburg made friends in this circle also. Now since her return from Moscow she had come to feel this set insufferable. It seemed to her that both she and all of them were insincere as she felt so bored and ill at ease in that world that she went to see the Countess Lydia Ivanovna as little as possible. The third circle with which Anna had ties was preeminently the fashionable world, the world of balls, of dinners, of sumptuous dresses, the world that hung on to the court with one hand so as to avoid sinking to the level of the demimonde. For the demimonde the members of that fashionable world believed that they despised, though their tastes were not merely similar but in fact identical. Her connection with this circle was kept up through Princess Betsy Tsverskaya, her cousin's wife, who had an income of a hundred and twenty thousand rubles and who had taken a great fancy to Anna ever since she first came out, showed her much attention and drew her into her set, making fun of Countess Lydia Ivanovna's coterie. When I'm old and ugly I'll be the same, Betsy used to say, but for a pretty young woman like you it's early days for that house of charity. Anna had at first avoided, as far as she could, Princess Ferskaya's world, because it necessitated an expenditure beyond her means, and besides in her heart she preferred the first circle. But since her visit to Moscow she had done quite the contrary. She avoided her serious-minded friends and went out into the fashionable world. There she met Vronsky and experienced an agitating joy at those meetings. She met Vronsky especially often at Betsy's, for Betsy was of Vronsky by birth and his cousin. Vronsky was everywhere where he had any chance of meeting Anna and speaking to her when he could of his love. She gave him no encouragement, but every time she met him there surged up in her heart that same feeling of quickened life that had come upon her that day in the railway carriage when she saw him for the first time. She was conscious herself that her delight sparkled in her eyes and curved her lips into a smile and she could not quench the expression of this delight. At first Anna sincerely believed that she was displeased with him for daring to pursue her. Soon after her return from Moscow, on arriving at a soiree where she had expected to meet him, and not finding him there, she realized distinctly from the rush of disappointment that she had been deceiving herself and that this pursuit was not merely not distasteful to her, but that had made the whole interest of her life. A celebrated singer was singing for the second time and all the fashionable world was in the theatre. Vronsky, seeing his cousin from his stall in the front row, did not wait till the entree act but went to her box. Why didn't you come to dinner, she said to him, I marvel at the second sight of lovers, she added with a smile so that no one but he could hear. She wasn't there, but come after the opera. Vronsky looked inquiringly at her. She nodded. He thanked her by a smile and sat down beside her. But how I remember your jeers, continued Princess Betsy, who took a peculiar pleasure in following up this passion to a successful issue. It's become of all that.  That's my one desire to be caught, answered Vronsky, with his serene good-humoured smile.  I begin to lose hope. Why, whatever hope can you have, said Betsy, offended on behalf of her friend. Entendant knew, but in her eyes there were gleams of light that betrayed that she understood perfectly and precisely as he did what hope he might have. None whatever, said Vronsky, laughing and showing his even rows of teeth. Excuse me, he added, taking an opera glass out of her hand and proceeding to scrutinize over her bare shoulder the row of boxes facing them. I'm afraid I'm becoming ridiculous. He was very well aware that he ran no risk of being ridiculous in the eyes of Betsy or any other fashionable people. He was very well aware that in their eyes the position of an unsuccessful lover of a girl, or of any woman free to marry, might be ridiculous. But the position of a man pursuing a married woman, and regardless of everything, staking his life on drawing her into adultery, has something fine and grand about it, and can never be ridiculous.  But why was it you didn't come to dinner? She said, admiring him. I must tell you about that. I was busily employed, and doing what do you suppose? I'll give you a hundred guesses, a thousand. You'd never guess. I've been reconciling a husband with a man who'd insulted his wife. Yes, really. Well, did you succeed? Almost. You really must tell me about it, she said, getting up. Come to me in the next ultraact. I can't. I'm going to the French theatre. From Nelson? Betsy queried in horror, though she could not herself have distinguished Nelson's voice from any chorus girls. Can't help it. I have an appointment there, all to do with my mission of peace. Blessed are the peacemakers, theirs is the kingdom of heaven, said Betsy, vaguely recollecting that she had heard some similar saying from someone. Very well then. Sit down, and tell me what it's all about. And she sat down again. CHAPTER V This is rather indiscreet, but it's so good it's an awful temptation to tell the story, said Vronsky, looking at her with his laughing eyes. I'm not going to mention any names, but I shall guess so much the better. Well, listen, two festive young men were driving, officers of your regiment, of course. I didn't say they were officers, two young men who had been lunching, in other words, drinking, possibly. They were driving on their way to dinner with a friend in the most festive state of mind, and they beheld a pretty woman in a hired sledge. She overtakes them, looks round at them, and so they fancy anyway, nods to them, and laughs. They of course follow her, they gallop at full speed. To their amazement the fair one alights at the entrance of the very house to which they were going. The fair one darts upstairs to the top story. They get a glimpse of red lips under a short veil and exquisite little feet. You describe it with such feeling that I fancy you must be one of the two. And after what you said just now, well, the young men go into their comrades. He was giving a farewell dinner. There they certainly did drink a little too much, as one always does at farewell dinners. And at dinner they inquire who lives at the top in that house. No one knows. Only their hosts valet, in answer to their inquiry, whether any young ladies are living on the top floor, answered that there were a great many of them about there. After dinner the two young men go into their hosts' study and write a letter to the unknown fair one. They compose an ardent epistle, a declaration, in fact, and they carry the letter upstairs themselves so as to elucidate whatever might appear not perfectly intelligible in the letter. Why are you telling me these horrible stories? Well, they ring, a maid-servant opens the door, they hand her the letter, and assure the maid that they're both so in love that they'll die on the spot at the door. The maid, stupefied, carries in their messages. All at once a gentleman appears, with whiskers like sausages as red as a lobster, announces that there is no one living in the flat except his wife, and sends them both about their business. How do you know he had whiskers like sausages, as you say? Ah, you shall hear. I've just been to make peace between them. Well, and what then? That's the most interesting part of the story. It appears that it's a happy couple, a government clerk and his lady, the government clerk lodges a complaint, and I became a mediator, and such a mediator I assure you Tally your hand couldn't hold a candle to me. Why, where was the difficulty? Ah, you shall hear. We apologize, in due form. We are in despair. We entreat forgiveness for the unfortunate misunderstanding. The government clerk with the sausages begins to melt, but he too desires to express his sentiments, and as soon as ever he begins to express them he begins to get hot and say nasty things, and again I am obliged to trot out all my diplomatic talents. I allowed that their conduct was bad, but I urged him to take into consideration their heedlessness, their youth. Then too the young men had only just been lunching together. You understand they regret it deeply and beg you to overlook their misbehavior. The government clerk was softened once more. I consent count and am ready to overlook it, but you perceive that my wife, my wife's a respectable woman, has been exposed to the persecution and insults and effrontery of young upstarts, scoundrels, and you must understand the young upstarts are present all the while, and I have to keep the peace between them. Again I call out all my diplomacy, and again as soon as the thing was about at an end, our friend the government clerk gets hot and red, and his sausages stand on end with wrath, and once more I launch out into diplomatic wiles. Ha! He must tell you this story, said Betsy, laughing, to a lady who came into her box. He has been making me laugh so. Well, bon chance! She added, giving Fransky one finger of the hand in which she held her fan, and with a shrug of her shoulders she twitched down the bodice of her gown that had worked up, so as to be duly naked as she moved forward towards the footlights into the light of the gas and the sight of all eyes. Fransky drove to the French theatre, where he really had to see the colonel of his regiment, who never missed a single performance there. He wanted to see him to report on the result of his mediation which had occupied and amused him for the last three days. Petritsky, whom he liked, was implicated in the affair, and the other culprit was a capital fellow and first-rate comrade, who had lately joined the regiment, the young Prince Kedrov. And what was most important, the interests of the regiment were involved in it, too. Both the young men were in Fransky's company. The colonel of the regiment was weighted upon by the government clerk, Venden, with a complaint against his officers who had insulted his wife. His young wife, so Venden told the story, he had been married half a year, was at church with her mother, and suddenly overcome by indisposition arising from her interesting condition, she could not remain standing, she drove home in the first sledge, a smart-looking one she came across. On the spot the officers set off in pursuit of her. She was alarmed and, feeling still more unwell, ran up the staircase home. Venden himself, on returning from his office, heard a ring at their bell and voices, went out, and seeing the intoxicated officers with a letter he had turned them out. He asked for exemplary punishment. Yes, it's all very well, said the colonel to Fransky, whom he had invited to come and see him. Petritsky's becoming impossible. Not a week goes by without some scandal. This government clerk won't let it drop. He'll go on with the thing. Fransky saw all the thanklessness of the business, that there could be no question of a duel in it, that everything must be done to soften the government clerk and hush the matter up. The colonel had called in Fransky just because he knew him to be an honourable and intelligent man, and, more than all, a man who cared for the honour of the regiment. They talked it over and decided that Petritsky and Kedrov must go with Fransky to Venden's to apologise. The colonel and Fransky were both fully aware that Fransky's name and rank would be sure to contribute greatly to the softening of the injured husband's feelings. And these two influences were not in fact without effect, though the result remained, as Fransky had described, uncertain. On reaching the French theatre, Fransky retired to the foyer with the colonel, and reported to him his success, or non-success. The colonel, thinking it all over, made up his mind not to pursue the matter further, but then for his own satisfaction proceeded to cross-examine Fransky about his interview. And it was a long while before he could restrain his laughter, as Fransky described, how the government clerk, after subsiding for a while, would suddenly flare up again, as he recalled the details, and how Fransky, at the last half-word of conciliation, skilfully manoeuvred a retreat, shoving Petritsky out before him. It's a disgraceful story, but killing. Kedrov really can't fight the gentleman. Was he so awfully hot? He commented, laughing. But what do you say to Claire today? She's marvellous. He went on, speaking of a new French actress. However often you see her, every day she's different. It's only the French who can do that. CHAPTER VI. OF ANNA CARENINA, BOOK II. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Bruce Peary. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy translated by Constance Garnett. BOOK II CHAPTER VI. Princess Betsy drove home from the theatre without waiting for the end of the last act. She had only just time to go into her dressing-room, sprinkle her long pale face with powder, rub it, set her dress to rights, and order tea in the big drawing-room when, one after another, carriages drove up to her huge house in Bolsheya, Morskeya. Her guests stepped out at the wide entrance and the stout porter who used to read the newspapers in the mornings behind the glass door to the edification of the passers-by, noiselessly opened the immense door letting the visitors pass by him into the house. Almost at the same instant the hostess with freshly arranged coiffure and freshened face walked in at one door and her guests at the other door of the drawing-room, a large room with dark walls, downy rugs, and a brightly lighted table gleaming with the light of candles, white cloth, silver samovar, and transparent china tea things. The hostess sat down at the table and took off her gloves. Chairs were set with the aid of footmen moving almost imperceptibly about the room. The party settled itself divided into two groups. One round the samovar near the hostess, the other at the opposite end of the drawing-room, round the handsome wife of an ambassador, in black velvet with sharply defined black eyebrows. In both groups conversation wavered, as it always does, for the first few minutes broken up by meetings, greetings, offers of tea, and as it were, feeling about for something to rest upon. She's exceptionally good as an actress. One can see she studied callback, said a diplomatic attaché in the group round the ambassador's wife. Did you notice how she fell down? Oh, please, don't let us talk about Nilsson. No one can possibly say anything new about her, said a fat red-faced flexing-headed lady without eyebrows and chignon, wearing an old silk dress. This was Princess Miyakeya, noted for her simplicity and the roughness of her manners, and nicknamed en font terrible. Princess Miyakeya, sitting in the middle between the two groups and listening to both, took part in the conversation first of one and then of the other. Three people have used that very phrase about callback to me today already, just as though they had made a compact about it, and I can't see why they liked that remark so. The conversation was cut short by this observation, and a new subject had to be thought of again. Do tell me something amusing but not spiteful, said the ambassador's wife, a great proficient in the art of that elegant conversation called by the English small talk. She addressed the attaché who was at a loss now what to begin upon. They say that that's a difficult task, that nothing's amusing that isn't spiteful. He began with a smile. But I'll try. Get me a subject. It all lies in the subject. If a subject's given me, it's easy to spin something round it. I often think that the celebrated talkers of the last century would have found it difficult to talk cleverly now. Everything clever is so stale. That has been said long ago the ambassador's wife interrupted him laughing. The conversation began amably, but just because it was too amiable it came to a stop again. They had to have recourse to the sure, never-failing topic. Gossip. Don't you think there's something Louis Kahn's about Tashkovich, he said, glancing towards a handsome fair-haired young man standing at the table? Oh, yes, he's in the same style as the drawing-room, and that's why it is he so often here. This conversation was maintained since it rested on allusions to what could not be talked of in that room, that is to say, of the relations of Tashkovich with their hostess. Among the Samovar and the hostess the conversation had been, meanwhile, vacillating in just the same way between three inevitable topics, the latest piece of public news, the theatre, and scandal. It too came finally to rest on the last topic, that is, ill-natured gossip. Have you heard the Maltisch of a woman, the mother, not the daughter, has ordered a costume in Diablo-Rose colour? Nonsense! No, that's too lovely.  Everyone had something to say in censure or ridicule of the luckless mad am Maltischiva, and the conversation crackled merrily, like a burning faggot-stack.  How did you like Nilsson? He asked. Oh! How can you steal upon anyone like that? How you startled me? She responded. Please, don't talk to me about the opera, you know nothing about music. I'd better meet you on your own ground and talk about your majolica and engravings. Come now, what treasure have you been buying lately at the old curiosity-shops? Would you like me to show you, but you don't understand such things. Oh, do show me. I've been learning about them at those—what's their names? The bankers. They've some splendid engravings. They showed them to us. Why, have you been at the Schutzbergs? Asked the hostess from the Samavar? Yes, ma cher. They asked my husband and me to dinner and told us the sauce at that dinner cost a hundred pounds, Princess Mayakaya said, speaking loudly and conscious everyone was listening. And very nasty sauce it was, some green mass. We had to ask them, and I made them sauce for eighteen pence and everybody was very much pleased with it. I can't run to a hundred-pound sauces. She's unique, said the lady of the house. Marvellous, said someone. The sensation produced by Princess Mayakaya's speeches was always unique, and the secret of the sensation she produced lay in the fact that though she spoke not always appropriately, as now, she said simple things with some sense in them. In the society in which she lived, such plain statements produced the effect of the wittiest epigram. Princess Mayakaya could never see why it had that effect, but she knew it had and took advantage of it. As everyone had been listening while Princess Mayakaya spoke and so the conversation around the Ambassador's wife had dropped, Princess Betsy tried to bring the whole party together and turned to the Ambassador's wife. Will you really not have tea? You should come over here by us. No, we're very happy here, the Ambassador's wife responded with a smile and she went on with the conversation that had been begun. It was a very agreeable conversation. They were criticizing the Karenans, husband and wife. Anna is quite changed since her stay in Moscow. There's something strange about her, said her friend. The great change is that she brought back with her the shadow of Alexei Vronsky, said the Ambassador's wife. Well, what of it? There's a fable of grims about a man without a shadow, a man who's lost his shadow. And that's his punishment for something. I never could understand how it was a punishment, but a woman must dislike being without a shadow. Yes, but women with a shadow usually come to a bad end, said Anna's friend. Bad luck to your tongue, said Princess Mayakaya suddenly. Madam Karenna's a splendid woman. I don't like her husband, but I like her very much. Why don't you like her husband? He's such a remarkable man, said the Ambassador's wife. My husband says there are few statesmen like him in Europe. And my husband tells me just the same, but I don't believe it, said Princess Mayakaya. If our husbands didn't talk to us, we should see the facts as they are.  I say it in a whisper, but doesn't it really make everything clear? Before, when I was told to consider him clever, I kept looking for his ability and thought myself a fool for not seeing it. But directly I said, he's a fool, though only in a whisper, everything's explained, isn't it? How spiteful you are today! Not a bit! I had no other way out of it.  No one is satisfied with his fortune, and everyone is satisfied with his wit. The attaché repeated the French saying, That's just it, just it, Princess Mayakaya turned to him. But the point is that I won't abandon Anna to your mercies. She's so nice, so charming, how can she help it if they're all in love with her and follow her about like shadows? Oh, I had no idea of blaming her for it, Anna's friend, said in self-defense. If no one follows us about like a shadow, that's no proof that we've any right to blame her. Without having Julie disposed of Anna's friend, the Princess Mayakaya got up, and together with the Ambassador's wife joined the group at the table, where the conversation was dealing with the king of Prussia. What wicked gossip were you talking over there, asked Betsy. About the Karenins, the Princess gave us a sketch of Alexei Alexandrovich, said the Ambassador's wife with a smile as she sat down at the table. Pity we didn't hear it, said Princess Betsy, glancing towards the door. Ah, here you are at last, she said, turning with a smile to Vronsky as he came in. Vronsky was not merely acquainted with all the persons whom he was meeting here, he saw them all every day, and so he came in with the quiet manner with which one enters a room full of people from whom one has only just parted. Where do I come from, he said, in answer to a question from the Ambassador's wife. Well, there's no hope for it, I must confess. I do believe I've seen it a hundred times, and always with fresh enjoyment. It's exquisite. I know it's disgraceful, but I go to sleep at the opera, and I sit at the opera-bouf to the last minute and enjoy it. This evening he mentioned a French actress and was going to tell something about her, but the Ambassador's wife with playful horror cut him short. Please don't tell us about that horror. All right, I won't, especially as everyone knows those horrors. And we should all go to see them if it were accepted as the correct thing, like the opera, chimed in Princess Miakaya. End of Chapter 6. Chapter 7 of Anna Karenina Book II. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Bruce Peary. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy translated by Constance Garnett. Book II. Chapter 7. Steps were heard at the door, and Princess Betsy, knowing it was Madame Karenina, glanced at Fransky. He was looking towards the door, and his face wore a strange new expression, joyfully, intently, and at the same time timidly, he gazed at the approaching figure, and slowly he rose to his feet. Anna walked into the drawing room, holding herself extremely erect as always, looking straight before her, and moving with her swift resolute and light step that distinguished her from all other society women, she crossed the short space to her hostess, shook hands with her, smiled, and with the same smile looked around at Fransky. Fransky bowed low, and pushed a chair up for her. She acknowledged this only by a slight nod, flushed a little, and frowned, but immediately while rapidly greeting her acquaintances and shaking the hands proffered to her, she addressed Princess Betsy. I have been at Countess Lydia's and meant to have come here earlier, but I stayed on, Sir John was there, he's very interesting. Oh, that's this missionary! Yes, he told us about the life in India, most interesting things. The conversation, interrupted by her coming in, flickered up again, like the light of a lamp being blown out. Sir John, yes, Sir John, I've seen him, he speaks well. The Vlasya of a girl's quite in love with him. And is it true the younger Vlasya of a girl's to marry Topov? Yes, they say it's quite a subtle thing. I wonder at the parents, they say it's a marriage for love. For love, what antediluvian notions you have, can one talk of love in these days, said the ambassador's wife? What's to be done? It's a foolish old fashion that's kept up still, said Vronsky. So much the worse for those who keep up the fashion, the only happy marriages I know are marriages of prudence. Yes, but then how often the happiness of these prudent marriages flies away like dust just because that passion turns up that they have refused to recognize, said Vronsky. But by marriages of prudence we mean those in which both parties have sewn their wild oats already. That's like scarletina, one has to go through it and get it over. Then they ought to find out how to vaccinate for love, like smallpox. I was in love in my young days, with a deacon, said the princess Miakia. I don't know that it did me any good. No, I imagine, joking apart, that to know love one must make mistakes and then correct them, said Princess Betsy. Even after marriage, said the ambassador's wife playfully. It's never too late to mend, the attaché repeated the English proverb. Just so Betsy agreed, one must make mistakes and correct them. What do you think about it? She turned to Anna, who with a faintly perceptible, resolute smile on her lips was listening in silence to the conversation. I think, said Anna, playing with the gloves she had taken off, I think of so many men, so many minds, certainly so many hearts, so many kinds of love. Vronsky was gazing at Anna and with a fainting heart waiting for what she would say. He sighed as after a danger escaped when she uttered these words. Anna suddenly turned to him. Oh, I have had a letter from Moscow. They write me that Kitty Shirobatskaya's very ill. Really, said Vronsky, knitting his brows. Anna looked sternly at him. That doesn't interest you? On the contrary, it does very much. What was it exactly they told you if I may know, he questioned. Anna got up and went to Betsy. Give me a cup of tea, she said, standing at her table. While Betsy was pouring out the tea, Vronsky went up to Anna. What is it they write to you? He repeated. I often think men have no understanding of what's not honorable, though they're always talking of it, said Anna, without answering him. I've wanted to tell you so a long while, she added, and moving a few steps away she sat down at a table in a corner covered with albums. I don't quite understand the meaning of your words, he said, handing her the cup. She glanced towards the sofa beside her and he instantly sat down. Yes, I have been wanting to tell you, she said, not looking at him. You behaved wrongly, very wrongly. Do you suppose I don't know that I've acted wrongly, but who was the cause of my doing so? What do you say that to me for, she said, glancing severely at him? You know what for, he answered boldly and joyfully, meeting her glance and not dropping his eyes. Not he, but she, was confused. That only shows you have no heart, she said, but her eyes said she knew he had a heart, and that was why she was afraid of him. What you spoke of just now was a mistake and not love.  But at once she felt that by that very word forbidden, she had shown that she acknowledged certain rights over him, and by that very fact was encouraging him to speak of love. I have long meant to tell you this, she went on looking resolutely into his eyes, and hot all over from the burning flush on her cheeks. I've come on purpose this evening, knowing I should meet you. I have come to tell you that this must end. I have never blushed before anyone, and you forced me to feel to blame for something. He looked at her, and was struck by a new spiritual beauty in her face. What do you wish of me, he said simply and seriously? I want you to go to Moscow and ask for Kitty's forgiveness, she said. You don't wish that, he said. He saw that she was saying what she forced herself to say, not what she wanted to say. If you love me as you say, she whispered, Do so that I may be at peace. His face grew radiant. Don't you know that you're all my life to me, but I know no peace, and I can't give it to you. All myself and love, yes, I can't think of you and myself apart. You and I are one to me, and I see no chance before us of peace, for me or for you. I see a chance of despair, of wretchedness, or I see a chance of bliss, what bliss? Can it be there's no chance of it? He murmured with his lips, but she heard. She strained every effort of her mind to say what ought to be said. But instead of that, she let her eyes rest on him, full of love, and made no answer. It's come, he thought in ecstasy, when I was beginning to despair and it seemed there would be no end, it's come, she loves me, she owns it. Then do this for me, never say such things to me, and let us be friends, she said in words, but her eyes spoke quite differently. Friends we shall never be, you know that yourself, whether we shall be the happiest or the wretchedest of people, that's in your hands. She would have said something, but he interrupted her. I ask one thing only, I ask for the right to hope, to suffer as I do, but if even that cannot be, command me to disappear and I disappear, you shall not see me if my presence is distasteful to you. I don't want to drive you away. Only don't change anything, leave everything as it is, he said in a shaky voice. Here's your husband. At that instant Alexei Alexandrovich did in fact walk into the room with his calm, awkward gate. Glancing at his wife and Fransky, he went up to the lady of the house and sitting down for a cup of tea, began talking in his deliberate, always audible voice, in his habitual tone of banter, ridiculing someone. Your ram-guye is in full conclave, he said, looking round at all the party, the graces and the muses. But Princess Betsy could not endure that tone of his, sneering, as she called it, using the English word, and, like a skillful hostess, she had once brought him into a serious conversation on the subject of universal conscription. Alexei Alexandrovich was immediately interested in the subject and began furiously defending the new imperial decree against Princess Betsy who had attacked it. Fransky and Anna still sat at the little table. This is getting in-decorous, whispered one lady, with an expressive glance at Madame Karanina Fransky and her husband. What did I tell you, said Anna's friend. But not only those ladies, almost everyone in the room, even the Princess Mayakaya and Betsy herself, looked several times in the direction of the two who had withdrawn from the general circle, as though that were a disturbing fact. Alexei Alexandrovich was the only person who did not once look in that direction, and was not diverted from the interesting discussion he had entered upon. Noticing the disagreeable impression that was being made on everyone, Princess Betsy slipped someone else into her place to listen to Alexei Alexandrovich and went up to Anna. I'm always amazed at the clearness and precision of your husband's language, she said. The most transcendental ideas seem to be within my grasp when he's speaking. Oh yes, said Anna, radiant with a smile of happiness and not understanding a word of what Betsy had said. She crossed over to the big table and took part in the general conversation. Alexei Alexandrovich, after staying half an hour, went up to his wife and suggested that they should go home together, but she answered not looking at him that she was staying to supper. Alexei Alexandrovich made his bowels and withdrew. The fat old tartar, Madame Karenina's coachman, was with difficulty holding one of his pair of greys chilled with the cold and rearing at the entrance. A footman stood opening the carriage door. The hall porter stood holding open the great door of the house. Anna Arkadievna, with her quick little hand, was unfastening the lace of her sleeve caught in the hook of her fur cloak and with bent head listening to the words Vronsky murmured as he escorted her down. Youth said nothing, of course, and I asked nothing he was saying, but you know that friendship's not what I want, that there's only one happiness in life for me, that word that you dislike so, yes, love. Love, she repeated slowly, in an inner voice, and suddenly at the very instant she unhooked the lace she added, why I don't like the word is that it means too much to me, far more than you can understand, and she glanced into his face, au revoir. She gave him her hand and with her rapid springy step she passed by the porter and vanished into the carriage. Her glance, the touch of her hand, set him aflame. He kissed the palm of his hand where she had touched it and went home, happy in the sense that he had gotten nearer to the attainment of his aims that evening than during the last two months. CHAPTER VIII. Alexei Alexandrovich had seen nothing striking or improper in the fact that his wife was sitting with Fransky at a table apart in eager conversation with him about something. But he noticed that to the rest of the party this appeared something striking and improper, and for that reason it seemed to him too to be improper. He made up his mind that he must speak of it to his wife. On reaching home Alexei Alexandrovich went to his study, as he usually did, seated himself in his load-chair, opened a book on the papacy at the place where he had laid the paper-knife in it, and read till one o'clock, just as he usually did. But from time to time he rubbed his high forehead and shook his head as though to drive away something. At his usual time he got up and made his toilet for the night. Anna Arkadyevna had not yet come in. With a book under his arm he went upstairs, but this evening instead of his usual thoughts and meditations upon official details, his thoughts were absorbed by his wife and something disagreeable connected with her. Away to his usual habit he did not get into bed, but fell to walking up and down the rooms, with his hands clasped behind his back. He could not go to bed, feeling that it was absolutely needful for him first to think thoroughly over the position that had just arisen. When Alexei Alexandrovich had made up his mind that he must talk to his wife about it, it had seemed a very easy and simple matter. But now, when he began to think over the question that had just presented itself, it seemed to him very complicated and difficult. Alexei Alexandrovich was not jealous. Jealousy, according to his notions, was an insult to one's wife and one ought to have confidence in one's wife. Why one ought to have confidence, that is to say complete conviction that his young wife would always love him, he did not ask himself. But he had no experience of lack of confidence because he had confidence in her and told himself that he ought to have it. Now, though his conviction that jealousy was a shameful feeling and that one ought to feel confidence had not broken down, he felt that he was standing face to face with something illogical and irrational and did not know what was to be done.  All his life Alexei Alexandrovich had lived and worked in official spheres having to do with the reflection of life. And every time he had stumbled against life itself, he had shrunk away from it. Now he experienced a feeling akin to that of a man who, while calmly crossing a precipice by a bridge, should suddenly discover that the bridge is broken and that there is a chasm below. That chasm was life itself, the bridge that artificial life in which Alexei Alexandrovich had lived. For the first time the question presented itself to him of the possibility of his wife's loving someone else, and he was horrified at it. He did not undress but walked up and down with his regular tread over the resounding parquet of the dining-room where one lamp was burning, over the carpet of the dark drawing-room in which the light was reflected on the big new portrait of himself hanging over the sofa, and across her boudoir where two candles burned lighting up the portraits of her parents and women friends and the pretty knick-knacks of her writing-table that he knew so well. He walked across her boudoir to the bedroom door and turned back again. At each turn in his walk, especially at the parquet of the lighted dining-room, he halted and said to himself, Yes, this I must decide and put a stop to, I must express my few of it and my decision, and he turned back again. But express what, what decision, he said to himself in the drawing-room, and he found no reply. But after all, he asked himself before turning into the boudoir, What has occurred? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Boudoir, what has occurred? Nothing. She was talking a long while with him, but what of that? Surely women in society can talk to whom they please? And then jealousy means lowering both myself and her, he told himself as he went into her boudoir. But this dictum which had always had such weight with him before, had now no weight and no meaning at all. And from the bedroom door he turned back again, but as he entered the dark drawing-room some inner voice told him that it was not so, and that if others noticed it that showed that there was something. And he said to himself again in the dining-room, Yes, I must decide and put a stop to it and express my view of it. And again at the turn in the drawing-room he asked himself, Decide how? And again he asked himself, What had occurred and answered nothing? And recollected that jealousy was a feeling insulting to his wife. But again in the drawing-room he was convinced that something had happened.  He noticed this, rubbed his forehead and sat down in her boudoir. There looking at her table with the Malachite blotting-case lying at the top and an unfinished letter, his thoughts suddenly changed. He began to think of her, of what she was thinking and feeling. For the first time he pictured vividly to himself her personal life, her ideas, her desires, and the idea that she could and should have a separate life of her own seemed to him so alarming that he made haste to dispel it. It was the chasm which he was afraid to peep into. To put himself in thought and feeling in another person's place was a spiritual exercise not natural to Alexei Alexandrovich. He looked on this spiritual exercise as a harmful and dangerous abuse of the fancy. And the worst of it all thought he, is it just now at the very moment when my great work is approaching completion, he was thinking of the project he was bringing forward at the time, and I stand in need of all my mental peace and all my energies.  I'm not one of those men who submit to uneasiness and worry without having the force of character to face them. I must think it over, come to a decision, and put it out of my mind, he said, aloud. The question of her feelings, of what has passed and may be passing in her soul, that's not my affair, that's the affair of her conscience, and falls under the head of religion. He said to himself, feeling consolation in the sense that he had found to which division of regulating principles this new circumstance could be properly referred. And so, Alexei Alexandrovich said to himself, questions as to her feelings and so on are questions for her conscience, with which I can have nothing to do. My duty is clearly defined. As the head of the family I am a person bound in duty to guide her and consequently impart the person responsible. I am bound to point out the danger I perceive to warn her, even to use my authority. I ought to speak plainly to her. And everything that he would say to night to his wife took clear shape in Alexei Alexandrovich's head. Thinking over what he would say, he somewhat regretted that he should have to use his time and mental powers for domestic consumption with so little to show for it, but in spite of that the form and contents of the speech before him shaped itself as clearly and distinctly in his head as a ministerial report. I must say and express fully the following points. First exposition of the value to be attached to public opinion and to decorum, secondly exposition of religious significance of marriage, thirdly, if need be, reference to the calamity possibly ensuing to our son, fourthly, reference to the unhappiness likely to result to herself. And interlacing his fingers, Alexei Alexandrovich stretched them, and the joints of the fingers cracked. This trick, a bad habit, the cracking of his fingers always soothed him and gave precision to his thoughts so needful to him at this juncture. There was the sound of a carriage driving up to the front door. Alexei Alexandrovich halted in the middle of the room. A woman's step was heard mounting the stairs. Alexei Alexandrovich, ready for his speech, stood compressing his crossed fingers, waiting to see if the crack would not come again. One joint cracked. Already from the sound of light steps on the stairs, he was aware that she was close, and though he was satisfied with his speech, he felt frightened of the explanation confronting him. CHAPTER IX. Anna came in with hanging head, playing with the tassels of her hood. Her face was brilliant and glowing, but this glow was not one of brightness. It suggested the fearful glow of a conflagration in the midst of a dark night. On seeing her husband, Anna raised her head and smiled, as though she had just waked up. You're not in bed. What a wonder, she said, letting fall her hood and without stopping, she went on into the dressing room. It's late, Alexei Alexandrovich, she said, when she had gone through the doorway. Anna, it's necessary for me to have a talk with you. With me, she said, wonderingly. She came out from behind the door of the dressing room and looked at him. Why, what is it? What about, she asked, sitting down? Well, let's talk if it's so necessary. But it would be better to get to sleep. Anna said what came to her lips and marveled, hearing herself, at her own capacity for lying. How simple and natural were her words, and how likely that she was simply sleepy. She felt herself clad in an impenetrable armor of falsehood. She felt that some unseen force had come to her aid and was supporting her. Anna, I must warn you, he began. Warn me, she said, of what? She looked at him so simply, so brightly, that anyone who did not know her as her husband knew her could not have noticed anything unnatural, either in the sound or the sense of her words. But to him, knowing her, knowing that whenever he went to bed five minutes later than usual, she noticed it and asked him the reason. To him, knowing that every joy, every pleasure, and pain that she felt, she communicated to him at once. To him, now to see that she did not care to notice his state of mind, that she did not care to say a word about herself, meant a great deal. He saw that the inmost recesses of her soul that had always hitherto lain open before him were closed against him. More than that, he saw from her tone that she was not even perturbed at that. But as it were said straight out to him, yes, it's shut up, and so it must be and will be in the future. Now he experienced a feeling such as a man might have returning home and finding his own house locked up. But perhaps the key may yet be found, thought Alexi Alexandrovich. I want to warn you, he said, in a low voice, that through thoughtlessness and lack of caution you may have caused yourself to be talked about in society. Your two animated conversation this evening with Kalkvronsky, he enunciated the name firmly and with deliberate emphasis, attracted attention. He talked and looked at her, laughing eyes, which frightened him now with their impenetrable look, and as he talked he felt all the uselessness and idleness of his words. You're always like that, she answered, as though completely misrepresenting him, and of all he had said, only taking in the last phrase, one time you don't like my being dull, and another time you don't like my being lively, I wasn't dull, does that offend you? Alexi Alexandrovich shivered, and bent his hands to make the joints crack. Oh, please don't do that, I do so dislike it, she said. Anna, is this you, said Alexi Alexandrovich, quietly making an effort over himself in restraining the motion of his fingers? But what is this all about, she said, with such genuine and drool wonder? What do you want of me? Alexi Alexandrovich paused, and rubbed his forehead and his eyes. He saw that instead of doing as he intended, that is, to say, warning his wife against a mistake in the eyes of the world. He had unconsciously become agitated over what was the fair of her conscience, and was struggling against the barrier he fancied between them. This is what I meant to say to you, he went on, coldly and composably, and I beg you to listen to it. I consider jealousy, as you know, a humiliating and degrading feeling, and I shall never allow myself to be influenced by it. But there are certain rules of decorum which cannot be disregarded with impunity. This evening it was not I observed it, but judging by the impression made on the company, every one observed that your conduct and deportment were not altogether what could be desired. I positively don't understand, said Anna, shrugging her shoulders. He doesn't care, she thought. But other people noticed it, and that's what upsets him. You're not well, Alexi Alexandrovich, she added, and she got up, and would have gone towards the door, but he moved forward as though he would stop her. His face was ugly and forbidding, as Anna had never seen him. She stopped, and bending her head back and on one side began with her rapid hand taking out her hairpins. Well, I'm listening to what's to come, she said calmly and ironically, and indeed I listen with interest, for I should like to understand what's the matter. She spoke and marveled at the confident, calm and natural tone in which she was speaking, and the choice of the words she used. To enter into all the details of your feelings, I have no right, and besides, I regard that as useless and even harmful. began Alexi Alexandrovich, ferreting in one soul, one often ferrets out something that might have lain there unnoticed.  Our life has been joined, not by man, but by God. That union can only be severed by a crime, and a crime of that nature brings its own chastisement. I don't understand a word, and oh dear, how sleepy I am, un-leggly, she said, rapidly passing her hand through her hair, feeling for the remaining hairpins. And I forgot it's sake, don't speak like that, he said gently. Perhaps I am mistaken, but believe me, what I say, I say as much for myself as for you. I am your husband, and I love you.  But the word love threw her into revolt again. She thought, love, can he love? If he hadn't heard there was such a thing as love, he would never have used the word. He doesn't even know what love is. Alexia Alexandrovich, really I don't understand, she said, define what it is you find. Pardon, let me say all I have to say. I love you, but I am not speaking of myself. The most important persons in this matter are our son and yourself. It may well very be, I repeat, that my words seem to you utterly unnecessary and out of place. It may be that they are called forth by a mistaken impression. In that case, I beg you to forgive me. But if you are conscious yourself of even the smallest foundation for them, then I beg you to think a little, and if your heart prompts you to speak out to me. Alexia Alexandrovich was unconsciously saying something utterly unlike what he had prepared. I have nothing to say, and besides, she said hurriedly, with difficulty repressing a smile, it's really time to be in bed. Alexia Alexandrovich sighed, and without saying more, went into the bedroom. When she came into the bedroom he was already in bed. His lips were sternly compressed, and his eyes looked away from her. Anna got into her bed and lay expecting every minute that he would begin to speak to her again. She both feared his speaking and wished for it, but he was silent. She waited for a long while without moving, and had forgotten about him. She thought of that other. She pictured him, and felt how her heart was flooded with emotion and guilty delight at the thought of him. Suddenly she heard an even, tranquil snore. For the first instant Alexia Alexandrovich seemed, as it were, appalled at his own snoring, and ceased. But after an interval of two breathings, the snore sounded again with a new tranquil rhythm. It's late, it's late, she whispered with a smile. A long while she lay, not moving, with open eyes, whose brilliance she almost fancied she could herself see in the darkness. CHAPTER X From that time a new life began for Alexia Alexandrovich and for his wife. Nothing special happened. Anna went out into society, as she had always done before, was particularly often at Princess Betsy's, and met Vronsky everywhere. Alexia Alexandrovich saw this, but could do nothing. All his efforts to draw her into open discussion, she confronted with a barrier which she could not penetrate, made up of a sort of amused perplexity. Outwardly everything was the same, but their inner relations were completely changed. Alexia Alexandrovich, a man of great power in the world of politics, felt himself helpless in this. Like an ox with head bent, submissively, he awaited the blow which he felt was lifted over him. Every time he began to think about it, he felt that he must try once more that by kindness, tenderness, and persuasion, there was still hope of saving her, of bringing her back to herself, and every day he made ready to talk to her. But every time he began talking to her, he felt that the spirit of evil and deceit which had taken possession of her had possession of him too, and he talked to her in a tone quite unlike that in which he had meant to talk. Involuntarily he talked to her in his habitual tone of jeering at anyone who should say what he was saying. And in that tone it was impossible to say what needed to be said to her. CHAPTER XI. That which for Vronsky had been almost a whole year, the one absorbing desire of his life, replacing all his old desires. That which for Anna had been an impossible, terrible, and even for that reason more entrancing dream of bliss, that desire had been fulfilled. He stood before her, pale, his lower jaw quivering, and besought her to be calm, not knowing how or why. Anna, Anna, he said with a choking voice, Anna, for pity's sake. But the lighter he spoke, the lower she dropped her, once proud and gay, now shame-strickened head, and she bowed down and sank from the sofa where she was sitting, down on the floor, at his feet. She would have fallen on the carpet if he had not held her. My God, forgive me, she said, sobbing, pressing his hands to her bosom. She felt so sinful, so guilty, that nothing was left her, but to humiliate herself and beg forgiveness. And as now there was no one in her life but him, to him she addressed her prayer for forgiveness. Looking at him, she had a physical sense of her humiliation, and she could say nothing more. He felt what a murderer must feel, when he sees the body he has robbed of life. That body, robbed by him of life, was their love, the first stage of their love. There was something awful and revolting in the memory of what had been bought at this fearful price of shame. Shame at their spiritual nakedness crushed her and infected him. But in spite of all the murderer's horror before the body of his victim, he must hack it to pieces, hide the body, must use what he has gained by his murder. And with fury, as it were with passion, the murderer falls on the body and drags it and hacks at it, so he covered her face and shoulders with kisses. She held his hand and did not stir. Yes, these kisses, that is, what has been bought by this shame. Yes, in one hand, which will always be mined, the hand of my accomplice. She lifted up that hand and kissed it. He sank on his knees and tried to see her face, but she hit it, and said nothing. At last as though making an effort over herself, she got up and pushed him away. Her face was still as beautiful. But it was only the more pitiful for that. All is over, she said, I have nothing but you. Remember that. I could never forget what is my whole life, for one instance of this happiness. Happiness, she said with horror and loathing, and her horror unconsciously infected him. For pity's sake, not a word, not a word more. She rose quickly and moved away from him. Not a word more, she repeated, and with a look of chill despair, incomprehensible to him, she parted from him. She felt that at that moment she could not put into words the sense of shame, of rapture, and of horror at this stepping into a new life, and she did not want to speak of it, to vulgarize this feeling by inappropriate words. But later too, and the next day, and the third day, she still found no words in which she could express the complexity of her feelings. Indeed she could not even find thoughts in which she could clearly think out all that was in her soul. She said to herself, no, just now I can't think of it, later on when I am calmer. But this calm for thought never came. Every time the thought rose of what she had done and what would happen to her, and what she ought to do, a horror came over her, and she drove those thoughts away. Later, later, she said, when I am calmer. But in dreams when she had no control of her thoughts, her position presented it to her in all its hideous nakedness. One dream haunted her almost every night. She dreamed that both were her husbands at once, that both were lavishing caresses on her. Alexei Alexandrovich was weeping, kissing her hands, and saying how happy we are now, and Alexei Ronsky was there, laughing, that this was ever so much simpler, and that now both of them were happy and contented. But this dream weighed on her like a nightmare, and she awoke from it in terror. End of Chapter 11. Chapter 12 of Anna Kranina, Book II. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Anna Kranina by Leo Tolstoy. Translated by Constance Garnett. Book II, Chapter 12. In the early days after his return from Moscow, whenever Leven shuddered and grew red, remembering the disgrace of his rejection, he said to himself, this was just how I used to shudder and blush, thinking myself utterly lost when I was plucked in physics and did not get my remove, and how I thought myself utterly ruined after I had mismanaged that affair of my sisters that she entrusted to me. And yet, now that years have passed, I recall it and wonder that it could distress me so much. It will be the same thing, too, with this trouble. Time will go by, and I shall not mind about this either. But three months had passed, and he had not left off minding about it. And it was as painful for him to think of it as it had been those first days. He could not be at peace, because after dreaming so long of family life and feeling himself so ripe for it, he was still not married and was further than ever from marriage. He was painfully conscious himself, as were all about him, that at his years it is not well for man to be alone. He remembered how, before starting from Moscow, he had once said to his cowman, Nikolai, a simple-hearted peasant whom he liked talking to, well, Nikolai, I mean to be married, and how Nikolai had promptly answered, as of a matter on which there could be no possible doubt. And high time, too, Konstantin Dmitrievich. But marriage had now become further off than ever. The place was taken. And whenever he tried to imagine any of the girls he knew in that place, he felt that it was utterly impossible. Moreover, the recollection of that rejection and the part he had played in the affair tortured him with shame. However often he told himself that he was in no wise to blame in it, that recollection, like other humiliating reminiscences of a similar kind, made him twinge and blush. There had been in his past, as in every man's, actions recognized by him as bad, for which his conscience ought to have tormented him. But the memory of these actions had him so much suffering, as those trivial but humiliating reminiscences. These wounds never healed, and with these memories was now arranged his rejection and the pinnacle position in which he must have appeared to others that evening. But time and work did their part. Better memories were more and more covered up by the incidents, paltry in his eyes, but really important of his country life. Every week he thought less often of Kitty. He was patiently looking forward to the news that she was married, or just going to be married, hoping that such news would, like having a tooth out, completely cure him. Meanwhile, spring came on, beautiful and kindly, without the delays and treacheries of spring, one of those rare springs in which plants, beasts, and man rejoice alike. This lovely spring roused love and still more, and strengthened him in his resolution of renouncing all his past, and building up his lonely life firmly and independently. Though many of the plans with which he had returned to the country had not been carried out, still the most important resolution, that of purity, had been kept by him. He was free from that shame, which had usually harassed him after a fall, and he could look everyone straight in the face. In February, he had received a letter from Maria Nikolevna, telling him that his brother Nikolai's health was getting worse, but that he would not take advice, and in consequence of this letter, Levin went to Moscow, to his brothers, and succeeded in persuading him to see a doctor, and to go to a watering place abroad. He succeeded so well in persuading his brother, and in lending him money for the journey without irritating him, that he was satisfied with himself in the matter. In addition to his farming, which called for special attention in the spring, and in addition to reading, Levin had begun that winter a work on agriculture, the plan of which turned on taking into account the character of the laborer on the land as one of the unalterable data of the question, like the climate and the soil, and consequently deducing all the principles of scientific culture, not simply from the data of soil and climate, but from the data of soil, climate, and a certain unalterable character of the laborer. Thus, in spite of his solitude, or in consequence of his solitude, his life was exceedingly full. Only rarely he suffered from an unsatisfied desire to communicate history ideas to someone besides Agafea Mehalovna. With her indeed, he did not infrequently fell into discussion upon physics, the theory of agriculture, and especially philosophy. Philosophy was Agafea Mehalovna's favorite subject. Spring was slow and unfolding. For the last few weeks, it had been steadily fine, frosty weather. In the daytime, it thawed in the sun, but at night, there were even seven degrees of frost. There was such a frozen surface on the snow that they drove the wagons anywhere off the roads. Easter came in the snow. Then, all of a sudden, on Easter Monday, a warm wind sprang up, storm clouds swooped down, and for three days and three nights, the warm driving rain fell in streams. On Thursday, the wind rooped, and a thick gray fog brooded over the land as though hiding the mysteries of the transformations that were being wrought in nature. Behind the fog, there was the flowing of water, the cracking and floating of ice, the swift rush of turbid foaming torrents, and on the following Monday in the evening, the fog parted, the storm clouds split up into little curling crests of cloud. The sky cleared and the real spring had come. In the morning, the sun rose brilliant and quickly wore away, the thin layer of ice that covered the water, and all the warm air was quivering with the steam that rose up from the quickened earth. The old grass looked greener and the young grass dressed up its tiny blades. The buds of the gilder rose and of the current and the sticky birch buds were swollen with sap, and an exploring bee was humming about the golden blossoms that studded the willow. Larks trilled unseen above the velvety green fields and the ice-covered stubble land. Piewits wailed over the lowlands and marshes flooded by the pools. Cranes in the wild geese flew high across the sky uttering their spring calls. The cattle, balden patches where the new hair had not grown yet, lowered in the pastures. The bow-legged lambs risked around their bleeding mothers. Nimble children ran about the drying paths covered with the prints of bare feet. There was a merry chatter of peasant women over their linen at the pond and the ring of axes in the yard where the peasants were repairing plows and terrors. The real spring had come. End of chapter 12, recording by Sarah Jane's Weir, Ponsavan Laws. CHAPTER XIII Levin put on his big boots and, for the first time, a cloth-jacket and set of his fur cloak, and went out to look after his farm, stepping over streams of water that flashed in the sunshine and dazzled his eyes, and treading one minute on ice and the next into sticky mud. Spring is the time of plans and projects, and as he came out into the farm-yard, Levin, like a tree in spring that knows not what form will be taken by the young shoots and twigs imprisoned in its swelling buds, hardly knew what undertakings he was going to begin upon now in the farm-work that was so dear to him.  First of all, he went to the cattle. The cows had been let out into their paddock and their smooth sides were already shining with their new sleek spring coats. They basked in the sunshine and loathe to go to the meadow. Levin gazed admiringly at the cows. He knew so intimately to the minutest detail of their condition, and gave orders for them to be driven out into the meadow and the cows to be let into the paddock. The herdsmen ran gaily to get ready for the meadow. The cowherd girls, picking up their petticoats, ran splashing through the mud with bare legs, still white, not yet brown from the sun, waving brushwood in their hands, chasing the calves that frolicked in the mirth of spring. After admiring the young ones of that year who were particularly fine, the early calves were the size of a peasant's cow, and Paava's daughter, at three months old, was as big as a yearling. Levin gave orders for a trough to be brought out and for them to be fed in the paddock. But it appeared that as the paddock had not been used during the winter, the hurdles made in the autumn for it were broken. He sent for the carpenter, who, according to his orders, ought to have been at work at the thrashing machine. But it appeared that the carpenter was repairing the harrows which ought to have been repaired before Lent. This was very annoying to Levin. It was annoying to come upon that everlasting slovenlyness in the farm work against which he had been striving with all his might for so many years. The hurdles, as he ascertained, being not wanted in winter, had been carried to the cart-horse's stable and there broken, as they were of light construction, only meant for feeding calves. Moreover, it was apparent also that the harrows and all the agricultural implements which he had directed to be looked over and repaired in the winter, for which very purpose he had hired three carpenters, had not been put into repair, and the harrows were being repaired when they ought to have been harrowing the field. Levin sent for his bailiff, but immediately went off himself to look for him. The bailiff, beaming all over, like every one that day, in a sheepskin bordered with astrashan, came out of the barn, twisting a bit of straw in his hands. Why isn't the carpenter at the thrashan machine? Oh! I meant to tell you, yesterday, the harrows want repairing. Here it's time they got to work in the fields. But what were they doing in the winter, then? But what did you want the carpenter for? Where are the hurdles for the calves' paddock? I ordered them to be got ready. What would you have with those peasants? said the bailiff, with a wave of his hand. It's not those peasants, but this bailiff, said Levin, getting angry. Why? What do I keep you for? he cried. But, but thinking himself, that this would not help matters, he stopped short, in the middle of a sentence, and merely sighed. Well, what do you say? Can sewing begin? he asked, after a pause. Behind Turkin, to-morrow, or the next day, they might begin. And the clover? I've sent Vasily and Mishka. They're sewing. Only I don't know if they'll manage to get through. It's so slushy. How many acres? About fifteen. Why not so all? cried Levin. That they were only sewing the clover on fifteen acres, not on all the forty-five, was still more annoying to him. However, as he knew, both from books and from his own experience, never did well except when it was sewn as early as possible, almost in the snow, and yet Levin could never get this done. There's no one to send. What would you have with such a set of peasants? Three haven't turned up. And there's Semyon. Well, you should have taken some men from the thatching. And so I have, as it is. Where are the peasants, then? Five are making compost. Which meant compost? Four are shifting the oats for fear of a touch of mildew. Constantine Demetrivich. Levin knew very well that a touch of mildew meant that his English seed-oats were already ruined. Again, they had not done as he had ordered. Why? But I told you, during Lent, to put in pipes. Don't put yourself out. We shall get it all done in time. Levin waved his hand angrily, went into the granary to glance at the oats, and then to the stable. The oats were not yet spoiled, but the peasants were carrying the oats and spades when they might simply let them slide down into the lower granary, and arranging for this to be done, and taking two workmen from there for sowing clover, Levin got over his vexation with the bailiff. Indeed, it was such a lovely day that one could not be angry. Ignut! he called to the coachman, who, with his sleeves tucked up, was washing the carriage wheels. Saddle me. Which, sir? Well, let it be colpic. Yes, sir. While they were saddling his horse, Levin again called up the bailiff, who was hanging about in sight, to make it up with him, and began talking to him about the spring operations before them, and his plans for the farm. The wagons were to begin carting manure earlier, so as to get all done before the early mowing, and the plowing of the further land to go on without a break, so as to let it ripen, lying fallow, and the mowing to be all done by hired labor, not on half-profits. The bailiff listened attentively, and obviously made an effort to approve of his employer's projects, but still he had that look, Levin knew so well, that always irritated him, a look of hopelessness and despondency. That look said, that's all very well, but is God-wills. Nothing mortified Levin so much as that tone, but it was the tone common to all the bailiffs he had ever had. They had all taken up that attitude to his plans, and so now he was not angered by it, but mortified, and felt all the more rouse to struggle against this, as it seemed, elemental force continually ranged against him, for which he couldn't find no other expression than as God-wills. If we can manage it, Constantine Demetrivich, said the bailiff, why ever shouldn't you manage it? We positively must have another fifteen laborers, and they don't turn up. There were some here today asking seventy rubles for the summer. Levin was silent. Again he was brought face to face with that opposing force. He knew that however much they tried, they could not hire more than forty, thirty, seven perhaps, or thirty-eight laborers for a reasonable sum. Some forty had been taken on, and there were no more. But still he could not help struggling against it. Then to Surrey, to Chelfvarokka, if they don't come, we must look for them. Oh, I'll send, to be sure, said Vasily Vadorovich, despondently, but there are the horses, too. They're not good for much. We'll get some more. I know, of course, Levin added, laughing, you always want to do with as little and as poor quality as possible. But this year I'm not going to let you have things your own way. I'll see to everything myself. Why, I don't think you take much rest as it is. It cheers us up to work under the master's eye. So they're sowing clover behind the birch-dale. I'll go and have a look at them, he said, getting on to the little big hob, Kolpik, who was led up by the coachman. You can't get across the streams, Constantine Demetriovitch, the coachman shouted. All right, I'll go by the forest. And Levin rode through the slush of the farmyard to the gate, and out into the open country, his good little horse, after his long inactivity, stepping out gallantly, snorting over the pools and asking, as it were, for guidance. If Levin had felt happy before, in the cattle pens and farmyard, he felt happier yet in the open country, swaying rhythmically with the ambling paces of his good little cob, drinking in the warm, yet fresh scent of the snow and the air, as he rode through his forest over the crumbling, wasted snow, still left in parts and covered with dissolving tracks. He rejoiced over every tree, with a moss reviving on its bark, and the bud swelling on its shoots. When he came out of the forest, in the immense plain before him, his grass fields stretched in an unbroken carpet of green, without one bare place or swamp, only spotted here and there in the hollows with patches of melting snow. He was not put out of temper, even by the sight of the peasant's horses and colts trampling down his young grass.  We must get the plowing done first, Constantine Dmitrievich, answered Epat. The further he rode, the happier he became, and plans for the land rose to his mine each better than the last, to plant all his fields with hedges along the southern borders, so that the snow should not lie under them, to divide them up into six fields of arable and three of pasture and hay, to build a cattle-yard at the further end of the estate, and to dig a pond, and to construct movable pens for the cattle as a means of manuring the land. And then eight hundred acres of wheat, three hundred of potatoes, and four hundred of clover, and not one acre exhausted. Absorbed in such dreams, carefully keeping his horse by the hedges, so as not to trample his young crops, he rode up to the laborers who had been sent to sow clover. A cart with the seed in it was standing, not at the edge, but in the middle of the crop, and the winter corn had been torn up by the wheels and trampled by the horse. Both the laborers were sitting in the hedge, probably smoking a pipe together. The earth in the cart, with which the seed was mixed, was not crushed to powder, but crusted together or adhering in clods. Seeing the master, the laborer, Vasily, went towards the cart, while Mishka set to work sowing. This was not as it should be, but with the laborer's leaven seldom lost his temper. When Vasily came up, Leaven told him to lead the horse to the hedge. It's all right, sir. It'll spring up again," responded Vasily. Please don't argue, said Leaven, but do as you're told. Yes, sir," answered Vasily, and he took the horse's head. What is sowing? Konstantin Dimitrovich. He said, hesitating, first rate, only it's a work to get about. You drag a ton of earth on your shoes. Why is it you have earth that's not sifted? said Leaven. Well, we crumble it up," answered Vasily, taking up some seed and rolling the earth in his palms. Vasily was not to blame for their having filled up his cart with unsifted earth, but still it was annoying. Leaven had more than once already tried away he knew for stifling his anger, and turning all that seemed dark right again, and he tried that way now. He watched how Mishka strode along, swinging the huge clods of earth that clung to each foot, and getting off his horse, he took the sieve from Vasily and started sowing himself. Where did you stop? Vasily pointed to the mark with his foot, and Leaven went forward as best he could, scattering the seed on the land. Walking was as difficult as on a bog, and by the time Leaven had ended the row, he was in a great heat, and he stopped and gave up the sieve to Vasily. Well, master, when summer's here, mind you don't scold me for these rows," said Vasily. Eh! said Leaven cheerily, already filling the effect of his method. Well, you'll see in the summer time, it'll look different.  How I did work at it. I do my best, Constantine Dimitriovitch. Do you see? As I would for my own father. I don't like bad work myself, nor would I let another man do it. What's good for the master's good for us, too? To look out yonder now, said Vasily, pointing, it does one's heart good. It's a lovely spring, Vasily. Why, it's a spring such as the old men don't remember the like of. I was up home, and old man up there has sown wheat, too, about an acre of it. He was saying you wouldn't know it from rye. Have you been sowing wheat long? Why, sir, it was you, taught us the year before last. You gave me two measures. We sowed about eight bushels, and sowed a root. Well, mind you crumble up the clods, said Leaven, going towards his horse, and keep an eye on Mishka. And if there's a good crop, you shall have half a ruble for every acre. Humbly thankful, we are very well content, sir, as it is. Leaven got on his horse, and rode towards the field, where was last year's clover, and the one which was plowed ready for the spring-corn. The crop of clover coming up in the stubble was magnificent. It had survived everything, and stood up vividly green through the broken stalks of last year's wheat. The horse sank in up to the pasturns, and he drew each hoof with a sucking sound out of the half-thought ground. Over the plowland riding was utterly impossible. The horse could only keep a foothold, where there was ice, and in the thawing furrows he sank deep in at each step. The plowland was in splendid condition. In a couple of days it would be fit for harrowing and sowing. Everything was capital, everything was cheering. Leaven rode back across the streams, hoping the water would have gone down, and he did in fact get across, and startled two ducks. There must be snipe, too, he thought, and just as he reached the turning-homewards he met the forest-keeper who confirmed his theory about the snipe. Leaven went home at a trot, so as to have time to eat his dinner and get his gun ready for the evening.