Anna Karenina

Fortunately for him, at this most trying time of his book’s failure, the questions of racial minorities, American friends, famine in Samara, the Exposition, and spiritism came to be replaced by the Slavic question,² previously only smouldering in society, and Sergei Ivanovich, one of those who had previously raised this question, gave himself wholly to it.

In the milieu to which Sergei Ivanovich belonged, nothing else was talked or written about at that time but the Slavic question and the Serbian war. All that an idle crowd usually does to kill time was now done for the benefit of the Slavs. Balls, concerts, dinners, speeches, ladies’ dresses, beer, taverns - all bore witness to a sympathy with the Slavs.

With much of what was said and written on this subject Sergei Ivanovich did not agree in detail. He saw that the Slavic question had become one of those fashionable fads which, supplanting one another, always serve as a subject of concern for society; he also saw that there were many people who concerned themselves with it for vain, self-interested purposes. He recognized that the newspapers printed a great many useless and exaggerated things with one aim - to draw attention to themselves and out-shout the rest. He saw that in this general upsurge of society the ones who leaped to the forefront and shouted louder than the rest were all the failures and the aggrieved: commanders-in-chief without armies, ministers without ministries, journalists without journals, party chiefs without partisans. He saw that much here was frivolous and ridiculous; but he also saw and recognized the unquestionable, ever growing enthusiasm which united all classes of society, with which one could not but sympathize. The slaughter of co-religionists and brother Slavs awakened sympathy for the sufferers and indignation against the oppressors. And the heroism of the Serbs and Montenegrins, fighting for a great cause, generated in the whole nation a desire to help their brothers not in word now but in deed.

But with that came another phenomenon that made Sergei Ivanovich rejoice: this was the manifestation of public opinion. Society definitely expressed its wish. The nation’s soul was given expression, as Sergei Ivanovich liked to put it. And the more involved he became in it, the more obvious it seemed to him that this was a cause that would attain vast proportions, that would mark an epoch.

He devoted himself completely to the service of this great cause and forgot all about his book.

His time was now wholly taken up, so that he was even unable to respond to all the letters and requests addressed to him.

Having spent the entire spring and part of the summer working, it was only in the month of July that he decided to go to his brother’s in the country.

He was going for a two-week rest in the very holy of holies of the people, the depths of the country, there to revel in the sight of that upsurge of popular spirit of which he and all the inhabitants of the capital and other cities were fully convinced. Katavasov, who had long wanted to fulfil his promise to visit Levin, went with him.

II

Sergei Ivanovich and Katavasov had only just driven up to the Kursk railway station, particularly alive with people that day, climbed out of the carriage, and looked round for the footman who was coming after them with the luggage, when the volunteers³ arrived in four hired cabs. Ladies with bouquets met them and, accompanied by the crowd that poured after them, they went into the station.

One of the ladies who had met the volunteers addressed Sergei Ivanovich as she came out of the waiting room.

‘You’ve also come to see them off?’ she asked in French.

‘No, Princess, I’m travelling myself. For a rest at my brother’s. Do you always see them off?’ Sergei Ivanovich said with a barely perceptible smile.

‘One couldn’t possibly!’ replied the princess. ‘Is it true that we’ve already sent eight hundred men? Malvinsky didn’t believe me.’

‘More than eight hundred. If we count those who weren’t sent directly from Moscow, it’s over a thousand,’ said Sergei Ivanovich.

‘Well, there. Just what I said!’ the lady agreed joyfully. ‘And it’s true that nearly a million has been donated now?’

‘More, Princess.’

‘And how about today’s telegram? The Turks have been beaten again.’

‘Yes, I read it,’ replied Sergei Ivanovich. They were speaking of the latest telegram confirming that for three days in a row the Turks had been beaten at all points and had fled, and that the decisive battle was expected the following day.

‘Ah, yes, you know, there’s a certain young man, a wonderful one, who wants to volunteer. I don’t know why they made difficulties. I know him and wanted to ask you please to write a note. He’s been sent from Countess Lydia Ivanovna.’

Having asked what details the princess knew about the volunteering young man, Sergei Ivanovich went to the first-class waiting room, wrote a note to the person on whom it depended, and gave it to the princess.