Chapter 3
When he was dressed, Stepan Arkadyevitch sprinkled some scent on
himself, pulled down his shirt-cuffs, distributed into his pockets his
cigarettes, pocketbook, matches, and watch with its double chain and seals,
and shaking out his handkerchief, feeling himself clean, fragrant, healthy,
and physically at ease, in spite of his unhappiness, he walked with a slight
swing on each leg into the dining-room, where coffee was already waiting
for him, and beside the coffee, letters and papers from the office.
He read the letters. One was very unpleasant, from a merchant who was
buying a forest on his wife’s property. To sell this forest was absolutely
essential; but at present, until he was reconciled with his wife, the subject
could not be discussed. The most unpleasant thing of all was that his
pecuniary interests should in this way enter into the question of his
reconciliation with his wife. And the idea that he might be led on by his
interests, that he might seek a reconciliation with his wife on account of the
sale of the forest—that idea hurt him.
When he had finished his letters, Stepan Arkadyevitch moved the office-
papers close to him, rapidly looked through two pieces of business, made a
few notes with a big pencil, and pushing away the papers, turned to his
coffee. As he sipped his coffee, he opened a still damp morning paper, and
began reading it.
Stepan Arkadyevitch took in and read a liberal paper, not an extreme one,
but one advocating the views held by the majority. And in spite of the fact
that science, art, and politics had no special interest for him, he firmly held
those views on all these subjects which were held by the majority and by
his paper, and he only changed them when the majority changed them—or,
more strictly speaking, he did not change them, but they imperceptibly
changed of themselves within him.
Stepan Arkadyevitch had not chosen his political opinions or his views;
these political opinions and views had come to him of themselves, just as he
did not choose the shapes of his hat and coat, but simply took those that
were being worn. And for him, living in a certain society—owing to the
need, ordinarily developed at years of discretion, for some degree of mental
activity—to have views was just as indispensable as to have a hat. If there
was a reason for his preferring liberal to conservative views, which were
held also by many of his circle, it arose not from his considering liberalism
more rational, but from its being in closer accordance with his manner of
life. The liberal party said that in Russia everything is wrong, and certainly
Stepan Arkadyevitch had many debts and was decidedly short of money.
The liberal party said that marriage is an institution quite out of date, and
that it needs reconstruction; and family life certainly afforded Stepan
Arkadyevitch little gratification, and forced him into lying and hypocrisy,
which was so repulsive to his nature. The liberal party said, or rather
allowed it to be understood, that religion is only a curb to keep in check the
barbarous classes of the people; and Stepan Arkadyevitch could not get
through even a short service without his legs aching from standing up, and
could never make out what was the object of all the terrible and high-flown
language about another world when life might be so very amusing in this
world. And with all this, Stepan Arkadyevitch, who liked a joke, was fond
of puzzling a plain man by saying that if he prided himself on his origin, he
ought not to stop at Rurik and disown the first founder of his family—the
monkey. And so Liberalism had become a habit of Stepan Arkadyevitch’s,
and he liked his newspaper, as he did his cigar after dinner, for the slight
fog it diffused in his brain. He read the leading article, in which it was
maintained that it was quite senseless in our day to raise an outcry that
radicalism was threatening to swallow up all conservative elements, and
that the government ought to take measures to crush the revolutionary
hydra; that, on the contrary, “in our opinion the danger lies not in that
fantastic revolutionary hydra, but in the obstinacy of traditionalism
clogging progress,” etc., etc. He read another article, too, a financial one,
which alluded to Bentham and Mill, and dropped some innuendoes
reflecting on the ministry. With his characteristic quickwittedness he caught
the drift of each innuendo, divined whence it came, at whom and on what
ground it was aimed, and that afforded him, as it always did, a certain
satisfaction. But today that satisfaction was embittered by Matrona
Philimonovna’s advice and the unsatisfactory state of the household. He
read, too, that Count Beist was rumored to have left for Wiesbaden, and that
one need have no more gray hair, and of the sale of a light carriage, and of a
young person seeking a situation; but these items of information did not
give him, as usual, a quiet, ironical gratification. Having finished the paper,
a second cup of coffee and a roll and butter, he got up, shaking the crumbs
of the roll off his waistcoat; and, squaring his broad chest, he smiled
joyously: not because there was anything particularly agreeable in his mind
—the joyous smile was evoked by a good digestion.
But this joyous smile at once recalled everything to him, and he grew
thoughtful.
Two childish voices (Stepan Arkadyevitch recognized the voices of
Grisha, his youngest boy, and Tanya, his eldest girl) were heard outside the
door. They were carrying something, and dropped it.
“I told you not to sit passengers on the roof,” said the little girl in
English; “there, pick them up!”
“Everything’s in confusion,” thought Stepan Arkadyevitch; “there are the
children running about by themselves.” And going to the door, he called
them. They threw down the box, that represented a train, and came in to
their father.
The little girl, her father’s favorite, ran up boldly, embraced him, and
hung laughingly on his neck, enjoying as she always did the smell of scent
that came from his whiskers. At last the little girl kissed his face, which was
flushed from his stooping posture and beaming with tenderness, loosed her
hands, and was about to run away again; but her father held her back.
“How is mamma?” he asked, passing his hand over his daughter’s
smooth, soft little neck. “Good morning,” he said, smiling to the boy, who
had come up to greet him. He was conscious 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 his father’s chilly smile.
“Mamma? She is up,” answered the girl.
Stepan Arkadyevitch sighed. “That means that she’s not slept again all
night,” he thought.
“Well, is she cheerful?”
The little girl knew that there was a quarrel between her father and
mother, and that her mother could not be cheerful, and that her father must
be aware of this, and that he was pretending when he asked about it so
lightly. And she blushed for her father. He at once perceived it, and blushed
too.
“I don’t know,” she said. “She did not say we must do our lessons, but
she said we were to go for a walk with Miss Hoole to grandmamma’s.”
“Well, go, Tanya, my darling. Oh, wait a minute, though,” he said, still
holding her and stroking her soft little hand.
He took off the mantelpiece, where he had put it yesterday, a little box of
sweets, and gave her two, picking out her favorites, a chocolate and a
fondant.
“For Grisha?” said the little girl, pointing to the chocolate.
“Yes, yes.” And still stroking her little shoulder, he kissed her on the
roots of her hair and neck, and let her go.
“The carriage is ready,” said Matvey; “but there’s someone to see you
with a petition.”
“Been here long?” asked Stepan Arkadyevitch.
“Half an hour.”
“How many times have I told you to tell me at once?”
“One must let you drink your coffee in peace, at least,” said Matvey, in
the affectionately gruff tone with which it was impossible to be angry.
“Well, show the person up at once,” said Oblonsky, frowning with
vexation.
The petitioner, the widow of a staff captain Kalinin, came with a request
impossible and unreasonable; but Stepan Arkadyevitch, as he generally did,
made her sit down, heard her to the end attentively without interrupting her,
and gave her detailed advice as to how and to whom to apply, and even
wrote her, in his large, sprawling, good and legible hand, a confident and
fluent little note to a personage who might be of use to her. Having got rid
of the staff captain’s widow, Stepan Arkadyevitch took his hat and stopped
to recollect whether he had forgotten anything. It appeared that he had
forgotten nothing except what he wanted to forget—his wife.
“Ah, yes!” He bowed his head, and his handsome face assumed a
harassed expression. “To go, or not to go!” he said to himself; and an inner
voice told him he must not go, that nothing could come of it but falsity; that
to amend, to set right their relations was impossible, because it was
impossible to make her attractive again and able to inspire love, or to make
him an old man, not susceptible to love. Except deceit and lying nothing
could come of it now; and deceit and lying were opposed to his nature.
