she would sit up.
“What are you thinking of, Katerina Alexandrovna, you mustn’t move
like that! Wait a minute. I’ll give him to you. Here we’re showing papa
what a fine fellow we are!”
And Lizaveta Petrovna, with one hand supporting the wobbling head,
lifted up on the other arm the strange, limp, red creature, whose head was
lost in its swaddling clothes. But it had a nose, too, and slanting eyes and
smacking lips.
“A splendid baby!” said Lizaveta Petrovna.
Levin sighed with mortification. This splendid baby excited in him no
feeling but disgust and compassion. It was not at all the feeling he had
looked forward to.
He turned away while Lizaveta Petrovna put the baby to the
unaccustomed breast.
Suddenly laughter made him look round. The baby had taken the breast.
“Come, that’s enough, that’s enough!” said Lizaveta Petrovna, but Kitty
would not let the baby go. He fell asleep in her arms.
“Look, now,” said Kitty, turning the baby so that he could see it. The
aged-looking little face suddenly puckered up still more and the baby
sneezed.
Smiling, hardly able to restrain his tears, Levin kissed his wife and went
out of the dark room. What he felt towards this little creature was utterly
unlike what he had expected. There was nothing cheerful and joyous in the
feeling; on the contrary, it was a new torture of apprehension. It was the
consciousness of a new sphere of liability to pain. And this sense was so
painful at first, the apprehension lest this helpless creature should suffer was
so intense, that it prevented him from noticing the strange thrill of senseless
joy and even pride that he had felt when the baby sneezed.
Chapter 17
Stepan Arkadyevitch’s affairs were in a very bad way.
The money for two-thirds of the forest had all been spent already, and he
had borrowed from the merchant in advance at ten per cent discount, almost
all the remaining third. The merchant would not give more, especially as
Darya Alexandrovna, for the first time that winter insisting on her right to
her own property, had refused to sign the receipt for the payment of the last
third of the forest. All his salary went on household expenses and in
payment of petty debts that could not be put off. There was positively no
money.
This was unpleasant and awkward, and in Stepan Arkadyevitch’s opinion
things could not go on like this. The explanation of the position was, in his
view, to be found in the fact that his salary was too small. The post he filled
had been unmistakably very good five years ago, but it was so no longer.
Petrov, the bank director, had twelve thousand; Sventitsky, a company
director, had seventeen thousand; Mitin, who had founded a bank, received
fifty thousand.
“Clearly I’ve been napping, and they’ve overlooked me,” Stepan
Arkadyevitch thought about himself. And he began keeping his eyes and
ears open, and towards the end of the winter he had discovered a very good
berth and had formed a plan of attack upon it, at first from Moscow through
aunts, uncles, and friends, and then, when the matter was well advanced, in
the spring, he went himself to Petersburg. It was one of those snug,
lucrative berths of which there are so many more nowadays than there used
to be, with incomes ranging from one thousand to fifty thousand roubles. It
was the post of secretary of the committee of the amalgamated agency of
the southern railways, and of certain banking companies. This position, like
all such appointments, called for such immense energy and such varied
qualifications, that it was difficult for them to be found united in any one
man. And since a man combining all the qualifications was not to be found,
it was at least better that the post be filled by an honest than by a dishonest
man. And Stepan Arkadyevitch was not merely an honest man—
unemphatically—in the common acceptation of the words, he was an honest
man—emphatically—in that special sense which the word has in Moscow,
when they talk of an “honest” politician, an “honest” writer, an “honest”
newspaper, an “honest” institution, an “honest” tendency, meaning not
simply that the man or the institution is not dishonest, but that they are
capable on occasion of taking a line of their own in opposition to the
authorities.
Stepan Arkadyevitch moved in those circles in Moscow in which that
expression had come into use, was regarded there as an honest man, and so
had more right to this appointment than others.
The appointment yielded an income of from seven to ten thousand a year,
and Oblonsky could fill it without giving up his government position. It was
in the hands of two ministers, one lady, and two Jews, and all these people,
though the way had been paved already with them, Stepan Arkadyevitch
had to see in Petersburg. Besides this business, Stepan Arkadyevitch had
promised his sister Anna to obtain from Karenin a definite answer on the
question of divorce. And begging fifty roubles from Dolly, he set off for
Petersburg.
Stepan Arkadyevitch sat in Karenin’s study listening to his report on the
causes of the unsatisfactory position of Russian finance, and only waiting
for the moment when he would finish to speak about his own business or
about Anna.
“Yes, that’s very true,” he said, when Alexey Alexandrovitch took off the
pince-nez, without which he could not read now, and looked inquiringly at
his former brother-in-law, “that’s very true in particular cases, but still the
principle of our day is freedom.”
“Yes, but I lay down another principle, embracing the principle of
freedom,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch, with emphasis on the word
“embracing,” and he put on his pince-nez again, so as to read the passage in
which this statement was made. And turning over the beautifully written,
wide-margined manuscript, Alexey Alexandrovitch read aloud over again
the conclusive passage.
“I don’t advocate protection for the sake of private interests, but for the
public weal, and for the lower and upper classes equally,” he said, looking
over his pince-nez at Oblonsky. “But they cannot grasp that, they are taken
up now with personal interests, and carried away by phrases.”
Stepan Arkadyevitch knew that when Karenin began to talk of what they
were doing and thinking, the persons who would not accept his report and
were the cause of everything wrong in Russia, that it was coming near the
end. And so now he eagerly abandoned the principle of free-trade, and fully
agreed. Alexey Alexandrovitch paused, thoughtfully turning over the pages
of his manuscript.
“Oh, by the way,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, “I wanted to ask you, some
time when you see Pomorsky, to drop him a hint that I should be very glad
to get that new appointment of secretary of the committee of the
amalgamated agency of the southern railways and banking companies.”
Stepan Arkadyevitch was familiar by now with the title of the post he
coveted, and he brought it out rapidly without mistake.
Alexey Alexandrovitch questioned him as to the duties of this new
committee, and pondered. He was considering whether the new committee
would not be acting in some way contrary to the views he had been
advocating. But as the influence of the new committee was of a very
complex nature, and his views were of very wide application, he could not
decide this straight off, and taking off his pince-nez, he said:
“Of course, I can mention it to him; but what is your reason precisely for
wishing to obtain the appointment?”
“It’s a good salary, rising to nine thousand, and my means….”
“Nine thousand!” repeated Alexey Alexandrovitch, and he frowned. The
high figure of the salary made him reflect that on that side Stepan
Arkadyevitch’s proposed position ran counter to the main tendency of his
own projects of reform, which always leaned towards economy.
“I consider, and I have embodied my views in a note on the subject, that
in our day these immense salaries are evidence of the unsound economic
assiette of our finances.”
“But what’s to be done?” said Stepan Arkadyevitch. “Suppose a bank
director gets ten thousand—well, he’s worth it; or an engineer gets twenty
thousand—after all, it’s a growing thing, you know!”
“I assume that a salary is the price paid for a commodity, and it ought to
conform with the law of supply and demand. If the salary is fixed without
any regard for that law, as, for instance, when I see two engineers leaving
college together, both equally well trained and efficient, and one getting
forty thousand while the other is satisfied with two; or when I see lawyers
and hussars, having no special qualifications, appointed directors of
banking companies with immense salaries, I conclude that the salary is not
fixed in accordance with the law of supply and demand, but simply through
personal interest. And this is an abuse of great gravity in itself, and one that
reacts injuriously on the government service. I consider….”
Stepan Arkadyevitch made haste to interrupt his brother-in-law.
“Yes; but you must agree that it’s a new institution of undoubted utility
that’s being started. After all, you know, it’s a growing thing! What they lay
particular stress on is the thing being carried on honestly,” said Stepan
Arkadyevitch with emphasis.
But the Moscow significance of the word “honest” was lost on Alexey
Alexandrovitch.
“Honesty is only a negative qualification,” he said.
“Well, you’ll do me a great service, anyway,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch,
“by putting in a word to Pomorsky—just in the way of conversation….”
“But I fancy it’s more in Volgarinov’s hands,” said Alexey
Alexandrovitch.
“Volgarinov has fully assented, as far as he’s concerned,” said Stepan
Arkadyevitch, turning red. Stepan Arkadyevitch reddened at the mention of
that name, because he had been that morning at the Jew Volgarinov’s, and
the visit had left an unpleasant recollection.
Stepan Arkadyevitch believed most positively that the committee in
which he was trying to get an appointment was a new, genuine, and honest
public body, but that morning when Volgarinov had—intentionally, beyond
a doubt—kept him two hours waiting with other petitioners in his waiting
room, he had suddenly felt uneasy.
Whether he was uncomfortable that he, a descendant of Rurik, Prince
Oblonsky, had been kept for two hours waiting to see a Jew, or that for the
first time in his life he was not following the example of his ancestors in
serving the government, but was turning off into a new career, anyway he
was very uncomfortable. During those two hours in Volgarinov’s waiting
room Stepan Arkadyevitch, stepping jauntily about the room, pulling his
whiskers, entering into conversation with the other petitioners, and
inventing an epigram on his position, assiduously concealed from others,
and even from himself, the feeling he was experiencing.
But all the time he was uncomfortable and angry, he could not have said
why—whether because he could not get his epigram just right, or from
some other reason. When at last Volgarinov had received him with
