Chapter XV
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
to-day, 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.1 She was
sewing at broderie anglaise. bl 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,2 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. To-day, 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 some one 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.