Leo Tolstoy - Leo Tolstoy - The Complete Novels (The Greatest Novelists of All Time – Book 4)

“Good-day, Vassily,” he said, walking into the corridor with his hat cocked on one side, and addressing a footman he knew; “why, you’ve let your whiskers grow! Levin, number seven, eh? Take me up, please. And find out whether Count Anitchkin” (this was the new head) “is receiving.”

“Yes, sir,” Vassily responded, smiling. “You’ve not been to see us for a long while.”

“I was here yesterday, but at the other entrance. Is this number seven?”

Levin was standing with a peasant from Tver in the middle of the room, measuring a fresh bearskin, when Stepan Arkadyevitch went in.

“What! you killed him?” cried Stepan Arkadyevitch. “Well done!

A she-bear? How are you, Arhip!”

He shook hands with the peasant and sat down on the edge of a chair, without taking off his coat and hat.

“Come, take off your coat and stay a little,” said Levin, taking his hat.

“No, I haven’t time; I’ve only looked in for a tiny second,” answered Stepan Arkadyevitch. He threw open his coat, but afterwards did take it off, and sat on for a whole hour, talking to Levin about hunting and the most intimate subjects.

“Come, tell me, please, what you did abroad? Where have you been?” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, when the peasant had gone.

“Oh, I stayed in Germany, in Prussia, in France, and in England— not in the capitals, but in the manufacturing towns, and saw a great deal that was new to me. And I’m glad I went.”

“Yes, I knew your idea of the solution of the labor question.”

“Not a bit: in Russia there can be no labor question. In Russia the question is that of the relation of the working people to the land; though the question exists there too—but there it’s a matter of repairing what’s been ruined, while with us…”

Stepan Arkadyevitch listened attentively to Levin.

“Yes, yes!” he said, “it’s very possible you’re right. But I’m glad you’re in good spirits, and are hunting bears, and working, and interested. Shtcherbatsky told me another story—he met you—that you were in such a depressed state, talking of nothing but death….”

“Well, what of it? I’ve not given up thinking of death,” said Levin. “It’s true that it’s high time I was dead; and that all this is nonsense. It’s the truth I’m telling you. I do value my idea and my work awfully; but in reality only consider this: all this world of ours is nothing but a speck of mildew, which has grown up on a tiny planet. And for us to suppose we can have something great—ideas, work—it’s all dust and ashes.”

“But all that’s as old as the hills, my boy!”

“It is old; but do you know, when you grasp this fully, then somehow everything becomes of no consequence. When you understand that you will die tomorrow, if not today, and nothing will be left, then everything is so unimportant! And I consider my idea very important, but it turns out really to be as unimportant too, even if it were carried out, as doing for that bear. So one goes on living, amusing oneself with hunting, with work—anything so as not to think of death!”

Stepan Arkadyevitch smiled a subtle affectionate smile as he listened to Levin.

“Well, of course! Here you’ve come round to my point. Do you remember you attacked me for seeking enjoyment in life? Don’t be so severe, O moralist!”

“No; all the same, what’s fine in life is…” Levin hesitated— “oh, I don’t know. All I know is that we shall soon be dead.”

“Why so soon?”

“And do you know, there’s less charm in life, when one thinks of death, but there’s more peace.”

“On the contrary, the finish is always the best. But I must be going,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, getting up for the tenth time.

“Oh, no, stay a bit!” said Levin, keeping him. “Now, when shall we see each other again? I’m going tomorrow.”

“I’m a nice person! Why, that’s just what I came for! You simply must come to dinner with us today. Your brother’s coming, and Karenin, my brother-in-law.”

“You don’t mean to say he’s here?” said Levin, and he wanted to inquire about Kitty. He had heard at the beginning of the winter that she was at Petersburg with her sister, the wife of the diplomat, and he did not know whether she had come back or not; but he changed his mind and did not ask. “Whether she’s coming or not, I don’t care,” he said to himself.

“So you’ll come?”

“Of course.”

“At five o’clock, then, and not evening dress.”

And Stepan Arkadyevitch got up and went down below to the new head of his department. Instinct had not misled Stepan Arkadyevitch. The terrible new head turned out to be an extremely amenable person, and Stepan Arkadyevitch lunched with him and stayed on, so that it was four o’clock before he got to Alexey Alexandrovitch.

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Alexey Alexandrovitch, on coming back from church service, had spent the whole morning indoors. He had two pieces of business before him that morning; first, to receive and send on a deputation from the native tribes which was on its way to Petersburg, and now at Moscow; secondly, to write the promised letter to the lawyer. The deputation, though it had been summoned at Alexey Alexandrovitch’s instigation, was not without its discomforting and even dangerous aspect, and he was glad he had found it in Moscow. The members of this deputation had not the slightest conception of their duty and the part they were to play. They naïvely believed that it was their business to lay before the commission their needs and the actual condition of things, and to ask assistance of the government, and utterly failed to grasp that some of their statements and requests supported the contention of the enemy’s side, and so spoiled the whole business. Alexey Alexandrovitch was busily engaged with them for a long while, drew up a program for them from which they were not to depart, and on dismissing them wrote a letter to Petersburg for the guidance of the deputation. He had his chief support in this affair in the Countess Lidia Ivanovna. She was a specialist in the matter of deputations, and no one knew better than she how to manage them, and put them in the way they should go. Having completed this task, Alexey Alexandrovitch wrote the letter to the lawyer. Without the slightest hesitation he gave him permission to act as he might judge best. In the letter he enclosed three of Vronsky’s notes to Anna, which were in the portfolio he had taken away.

Since Alexey Alexandrovitch had left home with the intention of not returning to his family again, and since he had been at the lawyer’s and had spoken, though only to one man, of his intention, since especially he had translated the matter from the world of real life to the world of ink and paper, he had grown more and more used to his own intention, and by now distinctly perceived the feasibility of its execution.

He was sealing the envelope to the lawyer, when he heard the loud tones of Stepan Arkadyevitch’s voice. Stepan Arkadyevitch was disputing with Alexey Alexandrovitch’s servant, and insisting on being announced.

“No matter,” thought Alexey Alexandrovitch, “so much the better. I will inform him at once of my position in regard to his sister, and explain why it is I can’t dine with him.”

“Come in!” he said aloud, collecting his papers, and putting them in the blotting-paper.

“There, you see, you’re talking nonsense, and he’s at home!” responded Stepan Arkadyevitch’s voice, addressing the servant, who had refused to let him in, and taking off his coat as he went, Oblonsky walked into the room. “Well, I’m awfully glad I’ve found you! So I hope…” Stepan Arkadyevitch began cheerfully.