Anna Karenina

‘Matvei!’ he called. ‘You and Marya arrange things for Anna Arkadyevna there in the sitting room,’ he said to Matvei as he came in.

‘Very good, sir!’

Stepan Arkadyich put on his fur coat and went out to the porch.

‘You won’t be dining at home?’ Matvei asked, seeing him off.

‘That depends. And here’s something for expenses,’ he said, giving him ten roubles from his wallet. ‘Will that be enough?’

‘Enough or not, it’ll have to do,’ Matvei said, shutting the carriage door and stepping back on to the porch.

Meanwhile Darya Alexandrovna, having quieted the child and understanding from the sound of the carriage that he had left, went back to the bedroom. This was her only refuge from household cares, which surrounded her the moment she stepped out. Even now, during the short time she had gone to the children’s room, the English governess and Matryona Filimonovna had managed to ask her several questions that could not be put off and that she alone could answer: what should the children wear for their walk? should they have milk? should not another cook be sent for?

‘Ah, let me be, let me be!’ she said, and, returning to the bedroom, she again sat down in the same place where she had talked with her husband, clasped her wasted hands with the rings slipping off her bony fingers, and began turning the whole conversation over in her mind. ‘He left! But how has he ended it with her?’ she thought. ‘Can it be he still sees her? Why didn’t I ask him? No, no, we can’t come together again. Even if we stay in the same house - we’re strangers. Forever strangers!’ She repeated again with special emphasis this word that was so terrible for her. ‘And how I loved him, my God, how I loved him! ... How I loved him! And don’t I love him now? Don’t I love him more than before? The most terrible thing is ...’ she began, but did not finish her thought, because Matryona Filimonovna stuck her head in at the door.

‘Maybe we ought to send for my brother,’ she said. ‘He can at least make dinner. Otherwise the children won’t eat before six o’clock, like yesterday.’

‘Well, all right, I’ll come and give orders at once. Have you sent for fresh milk?’

And Darya Alexandrovna plunged into her daily cares and drowned her grief in them for a time.

V

Stepan Arkadyich had had an easy time at school, thanks to his natural abilities, but he was lazy and mischievous and therefore came out among the last. Yet, despite his dissipated life, none-too-high rank and none-too-ripe age, he occupied a distinguished and well-paid post as head of one of the Moscow offices. This post he had obtained through Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin, his sister Anna’s husband, who occupied one of the most important positions in the ministry to which the office belonged; but if Karenin had not appointed his brother-in-law to it, then Stiva Oblonsky would have obtained the post through a hundred other persons - brothers, sisters, relations, cousins, uncles, aunts - or another like it, with a salary of some six thousand, which he needed, because his affairs, despite his wife’s ample fortune, were in disarray.

Half Moscow and Petersburg were relatives or friends of Stepan Arkadyich. He had been born into the milieu of those who were or had become the mighty of this world. One-third of the state dignitaries, the elders, were his father’s friends and had known him in petticoats; another third were on familiar terms with him, and the final third were good acquaintances; consequently, the distributors of earthly blessings, in the form of positions, leases, concessions and the like, were all friends of his and could not pass over one of their own; and Oblonsky did not have to try especially hard to obtain a profitable post; all he had to do was not refuse, not envy, not quarrel, not get offended, which, owing to his natural kindness, he never did anyway. It would have seemed laughable to him if he had been told that he would not get a post with the salary he needed, the more so as he did not demand anything excessive; he only wanted what his peers were getting, and he could fill that sort of position no worse than anyone else.

Stepan Arkadyich was not only liked by all who knew him for his kind, cheerful temper and unquestionable honesty, but there was in him, in his handsome, bright appearance, shining eyes, black brows and hair, the whiteness and ruddiness of his face, something that physically made an amiable and cheerful impression on the people he met. ‘Aha! Stiva! Oblonsky! Here he is!’ they would almost always say with a joyful smile on meeting him. And if it sometimes happened that talking with him produced no especially joyful effect, a day or two later they would all rejoice again in the same way when they met him.