Anna Karenina - Part 5

They had just come back from Moscow, and were glad to be alone.

He was sitting at the writing table in his study, writing. She,

wearing the dark lilac dress she had worn during the first days

of their married life, and put on again today, a dress

particularly remembered and loved by him, was sitting on the

sofa, the same old-fashioned leather sofa which had always stood

in the study in Levin's father's and grandfather's days. She was

sewing at _broderie anglaise_. He thought and wrote, never losing

the happy consciousness of her presence. His work, both on the

land and on the book, in which the principles of the new land

system were to be laid down, had not been abandoned; but just as

formerly these pursuits and ideas had seemed to him petty and

trivial in comparison with the darkness that overspread all life,

now they seemed as unimportant and petty in comparison with the

life that lay before him suffused with the brilliant light of

happiness. He went on with his work, but he felt now that the

center of gravity of his attention had passed to something else,

and that consequently he looked at his work quite differently and

more clearly. Formerly this work had been for him an escape from

life. Formerly he had felt that without this work his life would

be too gloomy. Now these pursuits were necessary for him that

life might not be too uniformly bright. Taking up his

manuscript, reading through what he had written, he found with

pleasure that the work was worth his working at. Many of his old

ideas seemed to him superfluous and extreme, but many blanks

became distinct to him when he reviewed the whole thing in his

memory. He was writing now a new chapter on the causes of the

present disastrous condition of agriculture in Russia. He

maintained that the poverty of Russia arises not merely from the

anomalous distribution of landed property and misdirected

reforms, but that what had contributed of late years to this

result was the civilization from without abnormally grafted upon

Russia, especially facilities of communication, as railways,

leading to centralization in towns, the development of luxury,

and the consequent development of manufactures, credit and its

accompaniment of speculation--all to the detriment of

agriculture. It seemed to him that in a normal development of

wealth in a state all these phenomena would arise only when a

considerable amount of labor had been put into agriculture, when

it had come under regular, or at least definite, conditions; that

the wealth of a country ought to increase proportionally, and

especially in such a way that other sources of wealth should not

outstrip agriculture; that in harmony with a certain stage of

agriculture there should be means of communication corresponding

to it, and that in our unsettled condition of the land, railways,

called into being by political and not by economic needs, were

premature, and instead of promoting agriculture, as was expected

of them, they were competing with agriculture and promoting the

development of manufactures and credit, and so arresting its

progress; and that just as the one-sided and premature

development of one organ in an animal would hinder its general

development, so in the general development of wealth in Russia,

credit, facilities of communication, manufacturing activity,

indubitably necessary in Europe, where they had arisen in their

proper time, had with us only done harm, by throwing into the

background the chief question calling for settlement--the

question of the organization of agriculture.

While he was writing his ideas she was thinking how unnaturally

cordial her husband had been to young Prince Tcharsky, who had,

with great want of tact, flirted with her the day before they

left Moscow. "He's jealous," she thought. "Goodness! how sweet

and silly he is! He's jealous of me! If he knew that I think no

more of them than of Piotr the cook," she thought, looking at his

head and red neck with a feeling of possession strange to

herself. "Though it's a pity to take him from his work (but he

has plenty of time!), I must look at his face; will he feel I'm

looking at him? I wish he'd turn round...I'll _will_ him to!"

and she opened her eyes wide, as though to intensify the

influence of her gaze.

"Yes, they draw away all the sap and give a false appearance of

prosperity," he muttered, stopping to write, and, feeling that

she was looking at him and smiling, he looked round.

"Well?" he queried, smiling, and getting up.

"He looked round," she thought.

"It's nothing; I wanted you to look round," she said, watching

him, and trying to guess whether he was vexed at being

interrupted or not.

"How happy we are alone together!--I am, that is," he said,

going up to her with a radiant smile of happiness.

"I'm just as happy. I'll never go anywhere, especially not to

Moscow."

"And what were you thinking about?"

"I? I was thinking.... No, no, go along, go on writing; don't

break off," she said, pursing up her lips, "and I must cut out

these little holes now, do you see?"

She took up her scissors and began cutting them out.

"No; tell me, what was it?" he said, sitting down beside her and

watching the tiny scissors moving round.

"Oh! what was I thinking about? I was thinking about Moscow,

about the back of your head."

"Why should I, of all people, have such happiness! It's

unnatural, too good," he said, kissing her hand.

"I feel quite the opposite; the better things are, the more

natural it seems to me."

"And you've got a little curl loose," he said, carefully turning

her head round.

"A little curl, oh yes. No, no, we are busy at our work!"

Work did not progress further, and they darted apart from one

another like culprits when Kouzma came in to announce that tea

was ready.

"Have they come from the town?" Levin asked Kouzma.

"They've just come; they're unpacking the things."

"Come quickly," she said to him as she went out of the study, "or

else I shall read your letters without you."

Left alone, after putting his manuscripts together in the new

portfolio bought by her, he washed his hands at the new washstand

with the elegant fittings, that had all made their appearance

with her. Levin smiled at his own thoughts, and shook his head

disapprovingly at those thoughts; a feeling akin to remorse

fretted him. There was something shameful, effeminate, Capuan,

as he called it to himself, in his present mode of life. "It's

not right to go on like this," he thought. "It'll soon be three

months, and I'm doing next to nothing. Today, almost for the

first time, I set to work seriously, and what happened? I did

nothing but begin and throw it aside. Even my ordinary pursuits

I have almost given up. On the land I scarcely walk or drive

about at all to look after things. Either I am loath to leave

her, or I see she's dull alone. And I used to think that, before

marriage, life was nothing much, somehow didn't count, but that

after marriage, life began in earnest. And here almost three

months have passed, and I have spent my time so idly and

unprofitably. No, this won't do; I must begin. Of course, it's

not her fault. She's not to blame in any way. I ought myself to

be firmer, to maintain my masculine independence of action; or

else I shall get into such ways, and she'll get used to them

too.... Of course she's not to blame," he told himself.

But it is hard for anyone who is dissatisfied not to blame

someone else, and especially the person nearest of all to him,

for the ground of his dissatisfaction. And it vaguely came into

Levin's mind that she herself was not to blame (she could not be

to blame for anything), but what was to blame was her education,

too superficial and frivolous. ("That fool Tcharsky: she wanted,

I know, to stop him, but didn't know how to.") "Yes, apart from

her interest in the house (that she has), apart from dress and

_broderie anglaise_, she has no serious interests. No interest in

her work, in the estate, in the peasants, nor in music, though

she's rather good at it, nor in reading. She does nothing, and

is perfectly satisfied." Levin, in his heart, censured this, and

did not as yet understand that she was preparing for that period

of activity which was to come for her when she would at once be

the wife of her husband and mistress of the house, and would

bear, and nurse, and bring up children. He knew not that she was

instinctively aware of this, and preparing herself for this time

of terrible toil, did not reproach herself for the moments of

carelessness and happiness in her love that she enjoyed now while

gaily building her nest for the future.