reminding them in Levin’s presence of the trouble their
mischief gave to the grown-up people, and that this trouble was all for their sake, and that if they smashed the cups
they would have nothing to drink their tea out of, and that
if they wasted the milk, they would have nothing to eat, and
die of hunger.
And Levin had been struck by the passive, weary incredulity with which the children heard what their mother said
to them. They were simply annoyed that their amusing play
had been interrupted, and did not believe a word of what
their mother was saying. They could not believe it indeed,
for they could not take in the immensity of all they habitually enjoyed, and so could not conceive that what they were
destroying was the very thing they lived by.
‘That all comes of itself,’ they thought, ‘and there’s nothing interesting or important about it because it has always
been so, and always will be so. And it’s all always the same.
We’ve no need to think about that, it’s all ready. But we want
to invent something of our own, and new. So we thought of
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putting raspberries in a cup, and cooking them over a candle, and squirting milk straight into each other’s mouths.
That’s fun, and something new, and not a bit worse than
drinking out of cups.’
‘Isn’t it just the same that we do, that I did, searching by
the aid of reason for the significance of the forces of nature
and the meaning of the life of man?’ he thought.
‘And don’t all the theories of philosophy do the same,
trying by the path of thought, which is strange and not natural to man, to bring him to a knowledge of what he has
known long ago, and knows so certainly that he could not
live at all without it? Isn’t it distinctly to be seen in the development of each philosopher’s theory, that he knows what is
the chief significance of life beforehand, just as positively as
the peasant Fyodor, and not a bit more clearly than he, and
is simply trying by a dubious intellectual path to come back
to what everyone knows?
‘Now then, leave the children to themselves to get things
alone and make their crockery, get the milk from the cows,
and so on. Would they be naughty then? Why, they’d die of
hunger! Well, then, leave us with our passions and thoughts,
without any idea of the one God, of the Creator, or without
any idea of what is right, without any idea of moral evil.
‘Just try and build up anything without those ideas!
‘We only try to destroy them, because we’re spiritually
provided for. Exactly like the children!
‘Whence have I that joyful knowledge, shared with the
peasant, that alone gives peace to my soul? Whence did I
get it?
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Anna Karenina
‘Brought up with an idea of God, a Christian, my whole
life filled with the spiritual blessings Christianity has given
me, full of them, and living on those blessings, like the children I did not understand them, and destroy, that is try to
destroy, what I live by. And as soon as an important moment of life comes, like the children when they are cold and
hungry, I turn to Him, and even less than the children when
their mother scolds them for their childish mischief, do I
feel that my childish efforts at wanton madness are reckoned against me.
‘Yes, what I know, I know not by reason, but it has been
given to me, revealed to me, and I know it with my heart, by
faith in the chief thing taught by the church.
‘The church! the church!’ Levin repeated to himself. He
turned over on the other side, and leaning on his elbow, fell
to gazing into the distance at a herd of cattle crossing over
to the river.
‘But can I believe in all the church teaches?’ he thought,
trying himself, and thinking of everything that could destroy his present peace of mind. Intentionally he recalled
all those doctrines of the church which had always seemed
most strange and had always been a stumbling block to
him.
‘The Creation? But how did I explain existence? By existence? By nothing? The devil and sin. But how do I explain
evil?… The atonement?…
‘But I know nothing, nothing, and I can know nothing
but what has been told to me and all men.’
And it seemed to him that there was not a single article
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of faith of the church which could destroy the chief thing—
faith in God, in goodness, as the one goal of man’s destiny.
Under every article of faith of the church could be put
the faith in the service of truth instead of one’s desires. And
each doctrine did not simply leave that faith unshaken, each
doctrine seemed essential to complete that great miracle,
continually manifest upon earth, that made it possible for
each man and millions of different sorts of men, wise men
and imbeciles, old men and children—all men, peasants,
Lvov, Kitty, beggars and kings to understand perfectly the
same one thing, and to build up thereby that life of the soul
which alone is worth living, and which alone is precious to
us.
Lying on his back, he gazed up now into the high, cloudless sky. ‘Do I not know that that is infinite space, and that
it is not a round arch? But, however I screw up my eyes and
strain my sight, I cannot see it not round and not bounded,
and in spite of my knowing about infinite space, I am incontestably right when I see a solid blue dome, and more right
than when I strain my eyes to see beyond it.’
Levin ceased thinking, and only, as it were, listened to
mysterious voices that seemed talking joyfully and earnestly within him.
‘Can this be faith?’ he thought, afraid to believe in his
happiness. ‘My God, I thank Thee!’ he said, gulping down
his sobs, and with both hands brushing away the tears that
filled his eyes.
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Anna Karenina
Chapter 14
Levin looked before him and saw a herd of cattle, then
he caught sight of his trap with Raven in the shafts, and the
coachman, who, driving up to the herd, said something to
the herdsman. Then he heard the rattle of the wheels and
the snort of the sleek horse close by him. But he was so buried in his thoughts that he did not even wonder why the
coachman had come for him.
He only thought of that when the coachman had driven
quite up to him and shouted to him. ‘The mistress sent me.
Your brother has come, and some gentleman with him.’
Levin got into the trap and took the reins. As though just
roused out of sleep, for a long while Levin could not collect
his faculties. He stared at the sleek horse flecked with lather
between his haunches and on his neck, where the harness
rubbed, stared at Ivan the coachman sitting beside him, and
remembered that he was expecting his brother, thought that
his wife was most likely uneasy at his long absence, and tried
to guess who was the visitor who had come with his brother. And his brother and his wife and the unknown guest
seemed to him now quite different from before. He fancied
that now his relations with all men would be different.
‘With my brother there will be none of that aloofness
there always used to be between us, there will be no disputes; with Kitty there shall never be quarrels; with the
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visitor, whoever he may be, I will be friendly and nice; with
the servants, with Ivan, it will all be different.’
Pulling the stiff rein and holding in the good horse that
snorted with impatience and seemed begging to be let go,
Levin looked round at Ivan sitting beside him, not knowing
what to do with his unoccupied hand, continually pressing
down his shirt as it puffed out, and he tried to find something to start a conversation about with him. He would have
said that Ivan had pulled the saddle-girth up too high, but
that was like blame, and he longed for friendly, warm talk.
Nothing else occurred to him.
‘Your honor must keep to the right and mind that stump,’
said the coachman, pulling the rein Levin held.
‘Please don’t touch and don’t teach me!’ said Levin, angered by this interference. Now, as always, interference
made him angry, and he felt sorrowfully at once how mistaken had been his supposition that his spiritual condition
could immediately change him in contact with reality.
He was not a quarter of a mile from home when he saw
Grisha and Tanya running to meet him.
‘Uncle Kostya! mamma’s coming, and grandfather, and
Sergey Ivanovitch, and someone else,’ they said, clambering
up into the trap.
‘Who is he?’
‘An awfully terrible person! And he does like this with
his arms,’ said Tanya, getting up in the trap and mimicking Katavasov.
‘Old or young?’ asked Levin, laughing, reminded of
someone, he did not know whom, by Tanya’s performance.
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Anna Karenina
‘Oh, I hope it’s not a tiresome person!’ thought Levin.
As soon as he turned, at a bend in the road, and saw the
party coming, Levin recognized Katavasov in a straw hat,
walking along swinging his arms just as Tanya had shown
him. Katavasov was very fond of discussing metaphysics,
having derived his notions from natural science writers
who had never studied metaphysics, and in Moscow Levin
had had many arguments with him of late.
And one of these arguments, in which Katavasov had obviously considered that he came off victorious, was the first
thing Levin thought of as he recognized him.
‘No, whatever I do, I won’t argue and give utterance to
my ideas lightly,’ he thought.
Getting out of the trap and greeting his brother and Katavasov, Levin asked about his wife.
‘She has taken Mitya to Kolok’ (a copse near the house).
‘She meant to have him out there because it’s so hot indoors,’ said Dolly. Levin had always advised his wife not to
take the baby to the wood, thinking it unsafe, and he was
not pleased to hear this.
‘She rushes about from place to place with him,’ said the
prince, smiling. ‘I advised her to try putting him in the ice
cellar.’
‘She meant to come to
