Leo Tolstoy - Anna Karenina

Katavassov was very fond of discussing metaphysics, having derived his notions from natural science writers who had never studied metaphysics, and in Moscow Levin had had many arguments with him of late.

And one of these arguments, in which Katavassov had obviously considered that he came off victorious, was the first thing Levin thought of as he recognized him.

"No, whatever I do, I won't argue and give utterance to my ideas lightly," he thought.

Getting out of the wagonette and greeting his brother and Katavassov, Levin asked about his wife.

"She has taken Mitia to Kolok" (a copse near the house). "She meant to have him out there because it's so hot indoors," said Dolly. Levin had always advised his wife not to take the baby to the wood, thinking it unsafe, and he was not pleased to hear this.

"She rushes about from place to place with him," said the Prince, smiling. "I advised her to try putting him in the icehouse."

"She meant to come to the apiary. She thought you would be there. We are going there," said Dolly.

"Well, and what are you doing?" said Sergei Ivanovich, falling back from the rest and walking beside him.

"Oh, nothing special. Busy as usual with the land," answered Levin. "Well, and what about you? Come for long? We have been expecting you for such a long time."

"Only for a fortnight. I've a great deal to do in Moscow."

At these words the brothers' eyes met, and Levin, in spite of the desire he always had, stronger than ever just now, to be on affectionate and still more open terms with his brother, felt an awkwardness in looking at him. He dropped his eyes and did not know what to say.

Casting over the subjects of conversation that would be pleasant to Sergei Ivanovich, and would keep him off the subject of the Servian war and the Slavonic question, at which he had hinted by alluding to what he had to do in Moscow, Levin began to talk of Sergei Ivanovich's book.

"Well, have there been any reviews of your book?" he asked.

Sergei Ivanovich smiled at the intentional character of the question.

"No one is interested in that now, and I least of all," he said. "Just look, Darya Alexandrovna, we shall have a shower," he added, pointing with a sunshade at the white rain clouds that showed above the aspen treetops.

And these words were enough to reestablish again between the brothers that tone- hardly hostile, but chilly- which Levin had been so longing to avoid.

Levin went up to Katavassov.

"It was jolly of you to make up your mind to come," he said to him.

"I've been intending to a long while. Now we shall have some discussion- we'll see to that. Have you been reading Spencer?"

"No, I've not finished reading him," said Levin. "But I don't need him now."

"How's that? That's interesting. Why so?"

"I mean that I'm fully convinced that the solution of the problems that interest me I shall never find in him and his like. Now…"

But Katavassov's serene and good-humored expression suddenly struck him, and he felt such tenderness for his own happy mood, which he was unmistakably disturbing by this conversation, that he remembered his resolution and stopped short.

"But we'll talk later on," he added. "If we're going to the apiary, it's this way, along this little path," he said, addressing them all.

Going along the narrow path to a little uncut meadow covered on one side with thick clumps of brilliant heartsease, among which stood up here and there tall, dark green tufts of hellebore, Levin settled his guests in the dense, cool shade of the young aspens on a bench and some stumps purposely put there for visitors to the apiary who might be afraid of the bees, and he went off himself to the hut to get bread, cucumbers, and fresh honey, to regale them with.

Trying to make his movements as deliberate as possible, and listening to the bees that buzzed more and more frequently past him, he walked along the little path to the hut. In the very entry one bee hummed angrily, caught in his beard, but he carefully extricated it. Going into the shady outer room, he took down from the wall his veil, that hung on a peg, and putting it on, and thrusting his hands into his pockets, he went into the fenced-in bee garden, where there stood in the midst of a closely mown space in regular rows, fastened with bast on posts, all the hives he knew so well, the old stocks, each with its own history, and along the fences the younger swarms hived that year. In front of the openings of the hives, it made his eyes giddy to watch the bees and drones whirling round and round about the same spot, while among them the worker bees flew in and out with spoils, or in search of them, always in the same direction, into the wood, to the flowering linden trees, and back to the hives.

His ears were filled with the incessant hum in various notes- now the busy hum of the worker bee flying quickly off, then the blaring of the lazy drone, and the excited buzz of the bees on guard, protecting their property from the enemy and preparing to sting. On the farther side of the fence the old beekeeper was shaving a hoop for a tub, and he did not see Levin. Levin stood still in the midst of the apiary and did not call him.

He was glad of a chance to be alone to recover from the influence of ordinary actual life, which had already depressed his happy mood.

He thought that he had already had time to lose his temper with Ivan, to show coolness to his brother, and to talk flippantly with Katavassov.

"Can it have been only a momentary mood, and will it pass and leave no trace?" he thought.

But the same instant, going back to his mood, he felt with delight that something new and important had happened to him. Real life had only for a time overcast the spiritual peace he had found, but it was still untouched within him.

Just as the bees, whirling round him, now menacing him and distracting his attention, prevented him from enjoying complete physical peace, forced him to restrain his movements to avoid them, so had the petty cares that had swarmed about him from the moment he got into the trap, restricted his spiritual freedom; but that lasted only so long as he was among them. Just as his bodily strength was still unaffected, in spite of the bees, so too was the spiritual strength that he had just become aware of.

"Do you know, Kostia, with whom Sergei Ivanovich traveled on his way here?" said Dolly, doling out cucumbers and honey to the children. "With Vronsky! He's going to Servia."

"And not alone; he's taking a squadron out with him at his own expense," said Katavassov.

"That's the right thing for him," said Levin. "Are volunteers still going out then?" he added, glancing at Sergei Ivanovich.

Sergei Ivanovich did not answer. He was carefully, with a blunt knife, getting a live bee covered with sticky honey out of a cup full of white honeycomb.

"I should think so! You should have seen what was going on at the station yesterday!" said Katavassov, biting with a succulent sound into a cucumber.

"Well, what is one to make of it? In Christ's name, do explain to me, Sergei Ivanovich, where are all those volunteers going, whom are they fighting with," asked the old Prince, unmistakably taking up a conversation that had sprung up in Levin's absence.

"With the Turks," Sergei Ivanovich answered, smiling serenely, as he extricated the bee, dark with honey and helplessly kicking, and transferred it with the knife to a stout aspen leaf.

"But who has declared war on the Turks?- Ivan Ivanovich Ragozov and Countess Lidia Ivanovna, assisted by Madame Stahl?"

"No one has declared war, but people sympathize with their neighbors' suffering, and are eager to help them," said Sergei Ivanovich.

"But the Prince is not speaking of help," said Levin, coming to the assistance of his father-in-law, "but of war. The Prince says that private persons cannot take part in war without the permission of the government."