Anna Karenina

Lying on his back, he was now looking at the high, cloudless sky. ‘Don’t I know that it is infinite space and not a round vault? But no matter how I squint and strain my sight, I cannot help seeing it as round and limited, and despite my knowledge of infinite space, I am undoubtedly right when I see a firm blue vault, more right than when I strain to see beyond it.’

Levin had stopped thinking and was as if only listening to the mysterious voices that spoke joyfully and anxiously about something among themselves.

‘Can this be faith?’ he wondered, afraid to believe his happiness. ‘My God, thank you!’ he said, choking back the rising sobs and with both hands wiping away the tears that filled his eyes.

XIV

Levin looked before him and saw the herd, then he saw his own little gig with Raven harnessed to it, and the coachman, who drove up to the herd and said something to the herdsman; then, already close to him, he heard the sound of wheels and the snorting of the sleek horse; but he was so absorbed in his thoughts that he did not even think why the coachman was coming to him.

He remembered it only when the coachman, having driven up quite close to him, called out.

‘The mistress sent me. Your brother has come and some other gentleman with him.’

Levin got into the gig and took the reins.

As if roused from sleep, Levin took a long time coming to his senses. He looked at the sleek horse, lathered between the thighs and on the neck where a strap rubbed it, looked at the coachman, Ivan, who was sitting beside him, and remembered that he had been expecting his brother, that his wife was probably worried by his long absence, and tried to guess who the visitor was who had come with his brother. He now pictured his brother, and his wife, and the unknown visitor differently than before. It seemed to him that his relations with all people would now be different.

‘With my brother now there won’t be that estrangement there has always been between us, there won’t be any arguments; with Kitty there will be no more quarrels; with the visitor, whoever he is, I’ll be gentle and kind; and with the servants, with Ivan, everything will be different.’

Keeping a tight rein on the good horse, who was snorting with impatience and begging to run free, Levin kept looking at Ivan, who sat beside him not knowing what to do with his idle hands and constantly smoothing down his shirt, and sought a pretext for starting a conversation with him. He wanted to say that Ivan should not have tightened the girth so much, but that seemed like a reproach and he wanted to have a loving conversation. Yet nothing else came to his mind.

‘Please bear to the right, sir, there’s a stump,’ said the coachman, guiding Levin by the reins.

‘Kindly do not touch me and do not instruct me!’ said Levin, vexed by this interference from the coachman. This interference vexed him just as it always had, and at once he sadly felt how mistaken he had been in supposing that his inner state could instantly change him in his contacts with reality.

About a quarter of a mile from home, Levin saw Grisha and Tanya running to meet him.

‘Uncle Kostya! Mama’s coming, and grandpapa, and Sergei Ivanych, and somebody else,’ they said, climbing into the gig.

‘Who is it?’

‘He’s terribly scary! And he goes like this with his arms,’ said Tanya, standing up in the gig and imitating Katavasov.

‘But is he old or young?’ Levin asked, laughing, reminded of someone by Tanya’s imitation. ‘Ah,’ he thought, ‘I only hope it’s not somebody unpleasant!’

Only when he turned round the bend of the road and saw them coming to meet him did Levin recognize Katavasov in his straw hat, walking along waving his arms just as Tanya had imitated him.

Katavasov was very fond of talking about philosophy, taking his notion of it from natural scientists who never studied philosophy, and in Moscow recently Levin had had many arguments with him.

One of those conversations, in which Katavasov had thought he had gained the upper hand, was the first thing that Levin remembered when he recognized him.

‘No, I’m not going to argue and speak my thoughts light-mindedly, not for anything,’ he thought.

Getting down from the gig and greeting his brother and Katavasov, Levin asked about his wife.

‘She’s taken Mitya to Kolok’ (that was a wood near the house). ‘She wanted to settle him there, it’s hot in the house, said Dolly.’

Levin had always advised his wife against taking the baby to the wood, which he considered dangerous, and the news displeased him.

‘She rushes from place to place with him,’ the prince said, smiling. ‘I advised her to try taking him to the ice-cellar.’

‘She wanted to go to the apiary. She thought you were there. That’s where we’re going,’ said Dolly.

‘Well, what are you up to?’ said Sergei Ivanovich, lagging behind the others and walking side by side with his brother.

‘Nothing special. Busy with farming, as usual,’ Levin answered. ‘And you, can you stay long? We’ve been expecting you all this while.’