Book Five - Chapter 15

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_ They had just come back from Moscow, and were glad to be alone.
He was sitting at the writing-table in his study, writing. She,
wearing the dark lilac dress she had worn during the first days
of their married life, and put on again to-day, a dress
particularly remembered and loved by him, was sitting on the
sofa, the same old-fashioned leather sofa which had always stood
in the study in Levin's father's and grandfather's days. She was
sewing at broderie anglaise. He thought and wrote, never losing
the happy consciousness of her presence. His work, both on the
land and on the book, in which the principles of the new land
system were to be laid down, had not been abandoned; but just as
formerly these pursuits and ideas had seemed to him petty and
trivial in comparison with the darkness that overspread all life,
now they seemed as unimportant and petty in comparison with the
life that lay before him suffused with the brilliant light of
happiness. He went on with his work, but he felt now that the
center of gravity of his attention had passed to something else,
and that consequently he looked at his work quite differently and
more clearly. Formerly this work had been for him an escape from
life. Formerly he had felt that without this work his life would
be too gloomy. Now these pursuits were necessary for him that
life might not be too uniformly bright. Taking up his manuscript,
reading through what he had written, he found with pleasure that
the work was worth his working at. Many of his old ideas seemed
to him superfluous and extreme, but many blanks became distinct
to him when he reviewed the whole thing in his memory. He was
writing now a new chapter on the causes of the present disastrous
condition of agriculture in Russia. He maintained that the
poverty of Russia arises not merely from the anomalous
distribution of landed property and misdirected reforms, but that
what had contributed of late years to this result was the
civilization from without abnormally grafted upon Russia,
especially facilities of communication, as railways, leading to
centralization in towns, the development of luxury, and the
consequent development of manufactures, credit and its
accompaniment of speculation--all to the detriment of
agriculture. It seemed to him that in a normal development of
wealth in a state all these phenomena would arise only when a
considerable amount of labor had been put into agriculture, when
it had come under regular, or at least definite, conditions; that
the wealth of a country ought to increase proportionally, and
especially in such a way that other sources of wealth should not
outstrip agriculture; that in harmony with a certain stage of
agriculture there should be means of communication corresponding
to it, and that in our unsettled condition of the land, railways,
called into being by political and not by economic needs, were
premature, and instead of promoting agriculture, as was expected
of them, they were competing with agriculture and promoting the
development of manufactures and credit, and so arresting its
progress; and that just as the one-sided and premature
development of one organ in an animal would hinder its general
development, so in the general development of wealth in Russia,
credit, facilities of communication, manufacturing activity,
indubitably necessary in Europe, where they had arisen in their
proper time, had with us only done harm, by throwing into the
background the chief question calling for settlement--the
question of the organization of agriculture.

While he was writing his ideas she was thinking how unnaturally
cordial her husband had been to young Prince Tcharsky, who had,
with great want of tact, flirted with her the day before they
left Moscow. "He's jealous," she thought. "Goodness! how sweet
and silly he is! He's jealous of me! If he knew that I think no
more of them than of Piotr the cook," she thought, looking at his
head and red neck with a feeling of possession strange to
herself. "Though it's a pity to take him from his work (but he
has plenty of time!), I must look at his face; will he feel I'm
looking at him? I wish he'd turn round ...I'll will him to!"
and she opened her eyes wide, as though to intensify the
influence of her gaze.

"Yes, they draw away all the sap and give a false appearance of
prosperity," he muttered, stopping to write, and, feeling that
she was looking at him and smiling, he looked round.

"Well?" he queried, smiling, and getting up.

"He looked round," she thought.

"It's nothing; I wanted you to look round," she said, watching
him, and trying to guess whether he was vexed at being
interrupted or not.

"How happy we are alone together!--I am, that is," he said, going
up to her with a radiant smile of happiness.

"I'm just as happy. I'll never go anywhere, especially not to
Moscow."

"And what were you thinking about?"

"I? I was thinking ...No, no, go along, go on writing; don't
break off," she said, pursing up her lips, "and I must cut out
these little holes now, do you see?"

She took up her scissors and began cutting them out.

"No; tell me, what was it?" he said, sitting down beside her and
watching the tiny scissors moving round.

"Oh! what was I thinking about? I was thinking about Moscow,
about the back of your head."

"Why should I, of all people, have such happiness! It's
unnatural, too good," he said, kissing her hand.

"I feel quite the opposite; the better things are, the more
natural it seems to me."

"And you've got a little curl loose," he said, carefully turning
her head round.

"A little curl, oh yes. No, no, we are busy at our work!"

Work did not progress further, and they darted apart from one
another like culprits when Kouzma came in to announce that tea
was ready.

"Have they come from the town?" Levin asked Kouzma.

"They've just come; they're unpacking the things."

"Come quickly," she said to him as she went out of the study, "or
else I shall read your letters without you."

Left alone, after putting his manuscripts together in the new
portfolio bought by her, he washed his hands at the new washstand
with the elegant fittings, that had all made their appearance
with her. Levin smiled at his own thoughts, and shook his head
disapprovingly at those thoughts; a feeling akin to remorse
fretted him. There was something shameful, effeminate, Capuan, as
he called it to himself, in his present mode of life. "It's not
right to go on like this," he thought. "It'll soon be three
months, and I'm doing next to nothing. To-day, almost for the
first time, I set to work seriously, and what happened? I did
nothing but begin and throw it aside. Even my ordinary pursuits I
have almost given up. On the land I scarcely walk or drive about
at all to look after things. Either I am loath to leave her, or I
see she's dull alone. And I used to think that, before marriage,
life was nothing much, somehow didn't count, but that after
marriage, life began in earnest. And here almost three months
have passed, and I have spent my time so idly and unprofitably.
No, this won't do; I must begin. Of course, it's not her fault.
She's not to blame in any way. I ought myself to be firmer, to
maintain my masculine independence of action; or else I shall get
into such ways, and she'll get used to them too.... Of course
she's not to blame," he told himself.

But it is hard for anyone who is dissatisfied not to blame some
one else, and especially the person nearest of all to him, for
the ground of his dissatisfaction. And it vaguely came into
Levin's mind that she herself was not to blame (she could not be
to blame for anything), but what was to blame was her education,
too superficial and frivolous. ("That fool Tcharsky: she wanted,
I know, to stop him, but didn't know how to.") "Yes, apart from
her interest in the house (that she has), apart from dress and
broderie anglaise, she has no serious interests. No interest in
her work, in the estate, in the peasants, nor in music, though
she's rather good at it, nor in reading. She does nothing, and is
perfectly satisfied." Levin, in his heart, censured this, and did
not as yet understand that she was preparing for that period of
activity which was to come for her when she would at once be the
wife of her husband and mistress of the house, and would bear,
and nurse, and bring up children. He knew not that she was
instinctively aware of this, and preparing herself for this time
of terrible toil, did not reproach herself for the moments of
carelessness and happiness in her love that she enjoyed now while
gaily building her nest for the future. _

Read next: Book Five: Chapter 16

Read previous: Book Five: Chapter 14

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