Anna Karenina

Stepan Arkadyich chose neither his tendency nor his views, but these tendencies and views came to him themselves, just as he did not choose the shape of a hat or a frock coat, but bought those that were in fashion. And for him, who lived in a certain circle, and who required some mental activity such as usually develops with maturity, having views was as necessary as having a hat. If there was a reason why he preferred the liberal tendency to the conservative one (also held to by many in his circle), it was not because he found the liberal tendency more sensible, but because it more closely suited his manner of life. The liberal party said that everything was bad in Russia, and indeed Stepan Arkadyich had many debts and decidedly too little money. The liberal party said that marriage was an obsolete institution and was in need of reform, and indeed family life gave Stepan Arkadyich little pleasure and forced him to lie and pretend, which was so contrary to his nature. The liberal party said, or, rather, implied, that religion was just a bridle for the barbarous part of the population, and indeed Stepan Arkadyich could not even stand through a short prayer service without aching feet and could not grasp the point of all these fearsome and high-flown words about the other world, when life in this one could be so merry. At the same time, Stepan Arkadyich, who liked a merry joke, sometimes took pleasure in startling some simple soul by saying that if you want to pride yourself on your lineage, why stop at Rurik⁴ and renounce your first progenitor - the ape? And so the liberal tendency became a habit with Stepan Arkadyich, and he liked his newspaper, as he liked a cigar after dinner, for the slight haze it produced in his head. He read the leading article, which explained that in our time it was quite needless to raise the cry that radicalism was threatening to swallow up all the conservative elements, and that it was the government’s duty to take measures to crush the hydra of revolution; that, on the contrary, ‘in our opinion, the danger lies not in the imaginary hydra of revolution, but in a stubborn traditionalism that impedes progress’, and so on. He also read yet another article, a financial one, in which mention was made of Bentham and Mill⁵ and fine barbs were shot at the ministry. With his peculiar quickness of perception he understood the meaning of each barb: by whom, and against whom, and on what occasion it had been aimed, and this, as always, gave him a certain pleasure. But today this pleasure was poisoned by the recollection of Matryona Filimonovna’s advice, and of the unhappy situation at home. He also read about Count Beust,⁶ who was rumoured to have gone to Wiesbaden, and about the end of grey hair, and about the sale of a light carriage, and a young person’s offer of her services; but this information did not, as formerly, give him a quiet, ironic pleasure.

Having finished the newspaper, a second cup of coffee, and a kalatch⁷ with butter, he got up, brushed the crumbs from his waistcoat and, expanding his broad chest, smiled joyfully, not because there was anything especially pleasant in his heart - the smile was evoked by good digestion.

But this joyful smile at once reminded him of everything, and he turned pensive.

Two children’s voices (Stepan Arkadyich recognized the voices of Grisha, the youngest boy, and Tanya, the eldest girl) were heard outside the door. They were pulling something and tipped it over.

‘I told you not to put passengers on the roof,’ the girl shouted in English. ‘Now pick it up!’

‘All is confusion,’ thought Stepan Arkadyich. ‘Now the children are running around on their own.’ And, going to the door, he called them. They abandoned the box that stood for a train and came to their father.

The girl, her father’s favourite, ran in boldly, embraced him, and hung laughing on his neck, delighting, as always, in the familiar smell of scent coming from his side-whiskers. Kissing him finally on the face, which was red from bending down and radiant with tenderness, the girl unclasped her hands and was going to run out again, but her father held her back.

‘How’s mama?’ he asked, his hand stroking his daughter’s smooth, tender neck. ‘Good morning,’ he said, smiling to the boy who greeted him.

He was aware that he loved the boy less, and always tried to be fair; but the boy felt it and did not respond with a smile to the cold smile of his father.

‘Mama? Mama’s up,’ the girl replied.

Stepan Arkadyich sighed. ‘That means again she didn’t sleep all night,’ he thought.

‘And is she cheerful?’

The girl knew that there had been a quarrel between her father and mother, and that her mother could not be cheerful, and that her father ought to know it, and that he was shamming when he asked about it so lightly. And she blushed for him. He understood it at once and also blushed.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘She told us not to study, but to go for a walk to grandma’s with Miss Hull.’