Anna Karenina

‘Darya Alexandrovna told me to inform you that she is leaving. Let him do as he - that is, you - pleases,’ he said, laughing with his eyes only, and, putting his hands in his pockets and cocking his head to one side, he looked fixedly at his master.

Stepan Arkadyich said nothing. Then a kind and somewhat pathetic smile appeared on his handsome face.

‘Eh? Matvei?’ he said, shaking his head.

‘Never mind, sir, it’ll shape up,’ said Matvei.

‘Shape up?’

‘That’s right, sir.’

‘You think so? Who’s there?’ Stepan Arkadyich asked, hearing the rustle of a woman’s dress outside the door.

‘It’s me, sir,’ said a firm and pleasant female voice, and through the door peeked the stern, pock-marked face of Matryona Filimonovna, the nanny.

‘What is it, Matryosha?’ Stepan Arkadyich asked, going out of the door to her.

Although Stepan Arkadyich was roundly guilty before his wife and felt it himself, almost everyone in the house, even the nanny, Darya Alexandrovna’s chief friend, was on his side.

‘Well, what is it?’ he said dejectedly.

‘You should go to her, sir, apologize again. Maybe God will help. She’s suffering very much, it’s a pity to see, and everything in the house has gone topsy-turvy. The children should be pitied. Apologize, sir. No help for it! After the dance, you must pay the ...’

‘But she won’t receive me ...’

‘Still, you do your part. God is merciful, pray to God, sir, pray to God.’

‘Well, all right, go now,’ said Stepan Arkadyich, suddenly blushing. ‘Let’s get me dressed.’ He turned to Matvei and resolutely threw off his dressing gown.

Matvei was already holding the shirt like a horse collar, blowing away something invisible, and with obvious pleasure he clothed the pampered body of his master in it.

III

After dressing, Stepan Arkadyich sprayed himself with scent, adjusted the cuffs of his shirt, put cigarettes, wallet, matches, a watch with a double chain and seals into his pockets with an accustomed gesture, and, having shaken out his handkerchief, feeling himself clean, fragrant, healthy, and physically cheerful despite his misfortune, went out, springing lightly at each step, to the dining room, where coffee was already waiting for him, and, next to the coffee, letters and papers from the office.

He sat down and read the letters. One was very unpleasant - from a merchant who was buying a wood on his wife’s estate. This wood had to be sold; but now, before his reconciliation with his wife, it was out of the question. The most unpleasant thing here was that it mixed financial interests into the impending matter of their reconciliation. And the thought that he might be guided by those interests, that he might seek a reconciliation with his wife in order to sell the wood, was offensive to him.

Having finished the letters, Stepan Arkadyich drew the office papers to him, quickly leafed through two files, made a few marks with a big pencil, then pushed the files away and started on his coffee. Over coffee he unfolded the still damp morning newspaper and began to read it.

Stepan Arkadyich subscribed to and read a liberal newspaper,³ not an extreme one, but one with the tendency to which the majority held. And though neither science, nor art, nor politics itself interested him, he firmly held the same views on all these subjects as the majority and his newspaper did, and changed them only when the majority did, or, rather, he did not change them, but they themselves changed imperceptibly in him.