The hotel of the provincial town where Nikolay Levin was lying
ill was one of those provincial hotels which are constructed on
the newest model of modern improvements, with the best intentions
of cleanliness, comfort, and even elegance, but owing to the
public that patronizes them, are with astounding rapidity
transformed into filthy taverns with a pretension of modern
improvement that only makes them worse than the old-fashioned,
honestly filthy hotels. This hotel had already reached that
stage, and the soldier in a filthy uniform smoking in the entry,
supposed to stand for a hall-porter, and the cast-iron, slippery,
dark, and disagreeable staircase, and the free and easy waiter in
a filthy frock coat, and the common dining room with a dusty
bouquet of wax flowers adorning the table, and filth, dust, and
disorder everywhere, and at the same time the sort of modern
up-to-date self-complacent railway uneasiness of this hotel,
aroused a most painful feeling in Levin after their fresh young
life, especially because the impression of falsity made by the
hotel was so out of keeping with what awaited them.
As is invariably the case, after they had been asked at what
price they wanted rooms, it appeared that there was not one
decent room for them; one decent room had been taken by the
inspector of railroads, another by a lawyer from Moscow, a third
by Princess Astafieva from the country. There remained only one
filthy room, next to which they promised that another should be
empty by the evening. Feeling angry with his wife because what
he had expected had come to pass, which was that at the moment of
arrival, when his heart throbbed with emotion and anxiety to know
how his brother was getting on, he should have to be seeing after
her, instead of rushing straight to his brother, Levin conducted
her to the room assigned them.
"Go, do go!" she said, looking at him with timid and guilty eyes.
He went out of the door without a word, and at once stumbled over
Marya Nikolaevna, who had heard of his arrival and had not dared
to go in to see him. She was just the same as when he saw her in
Moscow; the same woolen gown, and bare arms and neck, and the
same good-naturedly stupid, pockmarked face, only a little
plumper.
"Well, how is he? how is he?"
"Very bad. He can't get up. He has kept expecting you. He....
Are you...with your wife?"
Levin did not for the first moment understand what it was
confused her, but she immediately enlightened him.