exasperated and tortured Golenishtchev, but Vronsky was incapable of
deceiving and torturing himself, and even more incapable of exasperation.
With his characteristic decision, without explanation or apology, he simply
ceased working at painting.
But without this occupation, the life of Vronsky and of Anna, who
wondered at his loss of interest in it, struck them as intolerably tedious in an
Italian town. The palazzo suddenly seemed so obtrusively old and dirty, the
spots on the curtains, the cracks in the floors, the broken plaster on the
cornices became so disagreeably obvious, and the everlasting sameness of
Golenishtchev, and the Italian professor and the German traveler became so
wearisome, that they had to make some change. They resolved to go to
Russia, to the country. In Petersburg Vronsky intended to arrange a partition
of the land with his brother, while Anna meant to see her son. The summer
they intended to spend on Vronsky’s great family estate.
Chapter 14
Levin had been married three months. He was happy, but not at all in the
way he had expected to be. At every step he found his former dreams
disappointed, and new, unexpected surprises of happiness. He was happy;
but on entering upon family life he saw at every step that it was utterly
different from what he had imagined. At every step he experienced what a
man would experience who, after admiring the smooth, happy course of a
little boat on a lake, should get himself into that little boat. He saw that it
was not all sitting still, floating smoothly; that one had to think too, not for
an instant to forget where one was floating; and that there was water under
one, and that one must row; and that his unaccustomed hands would be
sore; and that it was only to look at it that was easy; but that doing it,
though very delightful, was very difficult.
As a bachelor, when he had watched other people’s married life, seen the
petty cares, the squabbles, the jealousy, he had only smiled contemptuously
in his heart. In his future married life there could be, he was convinced,
nothing of that sort; even the external forms, indeed, he fancied, must be
utterly unlike the life of others in everything. And all of a sudden, instead of
his life with his wife being made on an individual pattern, it was, on the
contrary, entirely made up of the pettiest details, which he had so despised
before, but which now, by no will of his own, had gained an extraordinary
importance that it was useless to contend against. And Levin saw that the
organization of all these details was by no means so easy as he had fancied
before. Although Levin believed himself to have the most exact conceptions
of domestic life, unconsciously, like all men, he pictured domestic life as
the happiest enjoyment of love, with nothing to hinder and no petty cares to
distract. He ought, as he conceived the position, to do his work, and to find
repose from it in the happiness of love. She ought to be beloved, and
nothing more. But, like all men, he forgot that she too would want work.
And he was surprised that she, his poetic, exquisite Kitty, could, not merely
in the first weeks, but even in the first days of their married life, think,
remember, and busy herself about tablecloths, and furniture, about
mattresses for visitors, about a tray, about the cook, and the dinner, and so
on. While they were still engaged, he had been struck by the definiteness
with which she had declined the tour abroad and decided to go into the
country, as though she knew of something she wanted, and could still think
of something outside her love. This had jarred upon him then, and now her
trivial cares and anxieties jarred upon him several times. But he saw that
this was essential for her. And, loving her as he did, though he did not
understand the reason of them, and jeered at these domestic pursuits, he
could not help admiring them. He jeered at the way in which she arranged
the furniture they had brought from Moscow; rearranged their room; hung
up curtains; prepared rooms for visitors; a room for Dolly; saw after an
abode for her new maid; ordered dinner of the old cook; came into collision
with Agafea Mihalovna, taking from her the charge of the stores. He saw
how the old cook smiled, admiring her, and listening to her inexperienced,
impossible orders, how mournfully and tenderly Agafea Mihalovna shook
her head over the young mistress’s new arrangements. He saw that Kitty
was extraordinarily sweet when, laughing and crying, she came to tell him
that her maid, Masha, was used to looking upon her as her young lady, and
so no one obeyed her. It seemed to him sweet, but strange, and he thought it
would have been better without this.
He did not know how great a sense of change she was experiencing; she,
who at home had sometimes wanted some favorite dish, or sweets, without
the possibility of getting either, now could order what she liked, buy pounds
of sweets, spend as much money as she liked, and order any puddings she
pleased.
She was dreaming with delight now of Dolly’s coming to them with her
children, especially because she would order for the children their favorite
puddings and Dolly would appreciate all her new housekeeping. She did not
know herself why and wherefore, but the arranging of her house had an
irresistible attraction for her. Instinctively feeling the approach of spring,
and knowing that there would be days of rough weather too, she built her
nest as best she could, and was in haste at the same time to build it and to
learn how to do it.
This care for domestic details in Kitty, so opposed to Levin’s ideal of
exalted happiness, was at first one of the disappointments; and this sweet
care of her household, the aim of which he did not understand, but could
not help loving, was one of the new happy surprises.
Another disappointment and happy surprise came in their quarrels. Levin
could never have conceived that between him and his wife any relations
could arise other than tender, respectful and loving, and all at once in the
very early days they quarreled, so that she said he did not care for her, that
he cared for no one but himself, burst into tears, and wrung her arms.
This first quarrel arose from Levin’s having gone out to a new farmhouse
and having been away half an hour too long, because he had tried to get
home by a short cut and had lost his way. He drove home thinking of
nothing but her, of her love, of his own happiness, and the nearer he drew to
home, the warmer was his tenderness for her. He ran into the room with the
same feeling, with an even stronger feeling than he had had when he
reached the Shtcherbatskys’ house to make his offer. And suddenly he was
met by a lowering expression he had never seen in her. He would have
kissed her; she pushed him away.
“What is it?”
“You’ve been enjoying yourself,” she began, trying to be calm and
spiteful. But as soon as she opened her mouth, a stream of reproach, of
senseless jealousy, of all that had been torturing her during that half hour
which she had spent sitting motionless at the window, burst from her. It was
only then, for the first time, that he clearly understood what he had not
understood when he led her out of the church after the wedding. He felt
now that he was not simply close to her, but that he did not know where he
ended and she began. He felt this from the agonizing sensation of division
that he experienced at that instant. He was offended for the first instant, but
the very same second he felt that he could not be offended by her, that she
was himself. He felt for the first moment as a man feels when, having
suddenly received a violent blow from behind, he turns round, angry and
eager to avenge himself, to look for his antagonist, and finds that it is he
himself who has accidentally struck himself, that there is no one to be angry
with, and that he must put up with and try to soothe the pain.
Never afterwards did he feel it with such intensity, but this first time he
could not for a long while get over it. His natural feeling urged him to
defend himself, to prove to her she was wrong; but to prove her wrong
would mean irritating her still more and making the rupture greater that was
the cause of all his suffering. One habitual feeling impelled him to get rid of
the blame and to pass it on to her. Another feeling, even stronger, impelled
him as quickly as possible to smooth over the rupture without letting it
grow greater. To remain under such undeserved reproach was wretched, but
to make her suffer by justifying himself was worse still. Like a man half-
awake in an agony of pain, he wanted to tear out, to fling away the aching
place, and coming to his senses, he felt that the aching place was himself.
He could do nothing but try to help the aching place to bear it, and this he
tried to do.
They made peace. She, recognizing that she was wrong, though she did
not say so, became tenderer to him, and they experienced new, redoubled
happiness in their love. But that did not prevent such quarrels from
happening again, and exceedingly often too, on the most unexpected and
trivial grounds. These quarrels frequently arose from the fact that they did
not yet know what was of importance to each other and that all this early
period they were both often in a bad temper. When one was in a good
temper, and the other in a bad temper, the peace was not broken; but when
both happened to be in an ill-humor, quarrels sprang up from such
incomprehensibly trifling causes, that they could never remember
afterwards what they had quarreled about. It is true that when they were
both in a good temper their enjoyment of life was redoubled. But still this
first period of their married life was a difficult time for them.
During all this early time they had a peculiarly vivid sense of tension, as
it were, a tugging in opposite directions of the chain by which they were
