one consideration against it—his age. But he came of a long-lived family,
he had not a single gray hair, no one would have taken him for forty, and he
remembered Varenka’s saying that it was only in Russia that men of fifty
thought themselves old, and that in France a man of fifty considers himself
dans la force de l’âge, while a man of forty is un jeune homme. But what
did the mere reckoning of years matter when he felt as young in heart as he
had been twenty years ago? Was it not youth to feel as he felt now, when
coming from the other side to the edge of the wood he saw in the glowing
light of the slanting sunbeams the gracious figure of Varenka in her yellow
gown with her basket, walking lightly by the trunk of an old birch tree, and
when this impression of the sight of Varenka blended so harmoniously with
the beauty of the view, of the yellow oatfield lying bathed in the slanting
sunshine, and beyond it the distant ancient forest flecked with yellow and
melting into the blue of the distance? His heart throbbed joyously. A
softened feeling came over him. He felt that he had made up his mind.
Varenka, who had just crouched down to pick a mushroom, rose with a
supple movement and looked round. Flinging away the cigar, Sergey
Ivanovitch advanced with resolute steps towards her.
Chapter 5
“Varvara Andreevna, when I was very young, I set before myself the
ideal of the woman I loved and should be happy to call my wife. I have
lived through a long life, and now for the first time I have met what I sought
—in you. I love you, and offer you my hand.”
Sergey Ivanovitch was saying this to himself while he was ten paces from
Varvara. Kneeling down, with her hands over the mushrooms to guard them
from Grisha, she was calling little Masha.
“Come here, little ones! There are so many!” she was saying in her
sweet, deep voice.
Seeing Sergey Ivanovitch approaching, she did not get up and did not
change her position, but everything told him that she felt his presence and
was glad of it.
“Well, did you find some?” she asked from under the white kerchief,
turning her handsome, gently smiling face to him.
“Not one,” said Sergey Ivanovitch. “Did you?”
She did not answer, busy with the children who thronged about her.
“That one too, near the twig,” she pointed out to little Masha a little
fungus, split in half across its rosy cap by the dry grass from under which it
thrust itself. Varenka got up while Masha picked the fungus, breaking it into
two white halves. “This brings back my childhood,” she added, moving
apart from the children beside Sergey Ivanovitch.
They walked on for some steps in silence. Varenka saw that he wanted to
speak; she guessed of what, and felt faint with joy and panic. They had
walked so far away that no one could hear them now, but still he did not
begin to speak. It would have been better for Varenka to be silent. After a
silence it would have been easier for them to say what they wanted to say
than after talking about mushrooms. But against her own will, as it were
accidentally, Varenka said:
“So you found nothing? In the middle of the wood there are always
fewer, though.” Sergey Ivanovitch sighed and made no answer. He was
annoyed that she had spoken about the mushrooms. He wanted to bring her
back to the first words she had uttered about her childhood; but after a
pause of some length, as though against his own will, he made an
observation in response to her last words.
“I have heard that the white edible funguses are found principally at the
edge of the wood, though I can’t tell them apart.”
Some minutes more passed, they moved still further away from the
children, and were quite alone. Varenka’s heart throbbed so that she heard it
beating, and felt that she was turning red and pale and red again.
To be the wife of a man like Koznishev, after her position with Madame
Stahl, was to her imagination the height of happiness. Besides, she was
almost certain that she was in love with him. And this moment it would
have to be decided. She felt frightened. She dreaded both his speaking and
his not speaking.
Now or never it must be said—that Sergey Ivanovitch felt too.
Everything in the expression, the flushed cheeks and the downcast eyes of
Varenka betrayed a painful suspense. Sergey Ivanovitch saw it and felt sorry
for her. He felt even that to say nothing now would be a slight to her.
Rapidly in his own mind he ran over all the arguments in support of his
decision. He even said over to himself the words in which he meant to put
his offer, but instead of those words, some utterly unexpected reflection that
occurred to him made him ask:
“What is the difference between the ‘birch’ mushroom and the ‘white’
mushroom?”
Varenka’s lips quivered with emotion as she answered:
“In the top part there is scarcely any difference, it’s in the stalk.”
And as soon as these words were uttered, both he and she felt that it was
over, that what was to have been said would not be said; and their emotion,
which had up to then been continually growing more intense, began to
subside.
“The birch mushroom’s stalk suggests a dark man’s chin after two days
without shaving,” said Sergey Ivanovitch, speaking quite calmly now.
“Yes, that’s true,” answered Varenka smiling, and unconsciously the
direction of their walk changed. They began to turn towards the children.
Varenka felt both sore and ashamed; at the same time she had a sense of
relief.
When he had got home again and went over the whole subject, Sergey
Ivanovitch thought his previous decision had been a mistaken one. He could
not be false to the memory of Marie.
“Gently, children, gently!” Levin shouted quite angrily to the children,
standing before his wife to protect her when the crowd of children flew with
shrieks of delight to meet them.
Behind the children Sergey Ivanovitch and Varenka walked out of the
wood. Kitty had no need to ask Varenka; she saw from the calm and
somewhat crestfallen faces of both that her plans had not come off.
“Well?” her husband questioned her as they were going home again.
“It doesn’t bite,” said Kitty, her smile and manner of speaking recalling
her father, a likeness Levin often noticed with pleasure.
“How doesn’t bite?”
“I’ll show you,” she said, taking her husband’s hand, lifting it to her
mouth, and just faintly brushing it with closed lips. “Like a kiss on a priest’s
