Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (feel good books TXT) 📕

man of a class in all respects the opposite of that to which his predecessor had belonged, and to which Stepan Arkadyevitch had hitherto belonged himself. On the previous day Stepan Arkadyevitch had appeared at the office in a uniform, and the new chief had been very affable and had talked to him as to an acquaintance. Consequently Stepan Arkadyevitch deemed it his duty to call upon him in his non-official dress. The thought that the new chief might not tender him a warm reception was the other unpleasant thing. But Stepan Arkadyevitch instinctively felt that everything would come round all right. “They’re all people, all men, like us poor sinners; why be nasty and quarrelsome?” he thought as he went into the hotel.

“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.

VIII

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