at work on his upper lip, and he raised one finger. Matvey
nodded at the looking-glass.
‘Alone. Is the room to be got ready upstairs?’
‘Inform Darya Alexandrovna: where she orders.’
‘Darya Alexandrovna?’ Matvey repeated, as though in
doubt.
‘Yes, inform her. Here, take the telegram; give it to her,
and then do what she tells you.’
‘You want to try it on,’ Matvey understood, but he only
said, ‘Yes sir.’
Stepan Arkadyevitch was already washed and combed
and ready to be dressed, when Matvey, stepping deliberately
in his creaky boots, came back into the room with the telegram in his hand. The barber had gone.
‘Darya Alexandrovna told me to inform you that she
is going away. Let him do—that is you—do as he likes,’ he
said, laughing only with his eyes, and putting his hands in
his pockets, he watched his master with his head on one
side. Stepan Arkadyevitch was silent a minute. Then a
good-humored and rather pitiful smile showed itself on his
handsome face.
‘Eh, Matvey?’ he said, shaking his head.
‘It’s all right, sir; she will come round,’ said Matvey.
‘Come round?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Do you think so? Who’s there?’ asked Stepan
Arkadyevitch, hearing the rustle of a woman’s dress at the
door.
11
‘It’s I,’ said a firm, pleasant, woman’s voice, and the stern,
pockmarked face of Matrona Philimonovna, the nurse, was
thrust in at the doorway.
‘Well, what is it, Matrona?’ queried Stepan Arkadyevitch,
going up to her at the door.
Although Stepan Arkadyevitch was completely in the
wrong as regards his wife, and was conscious of this himself, almost every one in the house (even the nurse, Darya
Alexandrovna’s chief ally) was on his side.
‘Well, what now?’ he asked disconsolately.
‘Go to her, sir; own your fault again. Maybe God will aid
you. She is suffering so, it’s sad to hee her; and besides, everything in the house is topsy-turvy. You must have pity, sir,
on the children. Beg her forgiveness, sir. There’s no help for
it! One must take the consequences…’
‘But she won’t see me.’
‘You do your part. God is merciful; pray to God, sir, pray
to God.’
‘Come, that’ll do, you can go,’ said Stepan Arkadyevitch,
blushing suddenly. ‘Well now, do dress me.’ He turned to
Matvey and threw off his dressing-gown decisively.
Matvey was already holding up the shirt like a horse’s
collar, and, blowing off some invisible speck, he slipped it
with obvious pleasure over the well-groomed body of his
master.
12
Anna Karenina
Chapter 3
When he was dressed, Stepan Arkadyevitch sprinkled
some scent on himself, pulled down his shirt-cuffs, distributed into his pockets his cigarettes, pocketbook, matches,
and watch with its double chain and seals, and shaking out
his handkerchief, feeling himself clean, fragrant, healthy,
and physically at ease, in spite of his unhappiness, he walked
with a slight swing on each leg into the dining-room, where
coffee was already waiting for him, and beside the coffee,
letters and papers from the office.
He read the letters. One was very unpleasant, from a
merchant who was buying a forest on his wife’s property.
To sell this forest was absolutely essential; but at present,
until he was reconciled with his wife, the subject could not
be discussed. The most unpleasant thing of all was that his
pecuniary interests should in this way enter into the question of his reconciliation with his wife. And the idea that
he might be led on by his interests, that he might seek a
reconciliation with his wife on account of the sale of the
forest—that idea hurt him.
When he had finished his letters, Stepan Arkadyevitch
moved the office-papers close to him, rapidly looked
through two pieces of business, made a few notes with a big
pencil, and pushing away the papers, turned to his coffee.
As he sipped his coffee, he opened a still damp morning pa
13
per, and began reading it.
Stepan Arkadyevitch took in and read a liberal paper,
not an extreme one, but one advocating the views held by
the majority. And in spite of the fact that science, art, and
politics had no special interest for him, he firmly held those
views on all these subjects which were held by the majority
and by his paper, and he only changed them when the majority changed them—or, more strictly speaking, he did not
change them, but they imperceptibly changed of themselves
within him.
Stepan Arkadyevitch had not chosen his political opinions or his views; these political opinions and views had
come to him of themselves, just as he did not choose the
shapes of his hat and coat, but simply took those that were
being worn. And for him, living in a certain society—owing to the need, ordinarily developed at years of discretion,
for some degree of mental activity—to have views was
just as indispensable as to have a hat. If there was a reason for his preferring liberal to conservative views, which
were held also by many of his circle, it arose not from his
considering liberalism more rational, but from its being in
closer accordance with his manner of life. The liberal party
said that in Russia everything is wrong, and certainly Stepan Arkadyevitch had many debts and was decidedly short
of money. The liberal party said that marriage is an institution quite out of date, and that it needs reconstruction;
and family life certainly afforded Stepan Arkadyevitch little gratification, and forced him into lying and hypocrisy,
which was so repulsive to his nature. The liberal party said,
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Anna Karenina
or rather allowed it to be understood, that religion is only
a curb to keep in check the barbarous classes of the people; and Stepan Arkadyevitch could not get through even
a short service without his legs aching from standing up,
and could never make out what was the object of all the terrible and high-flown language about another world when
life might be so very amusing in this world. And with all
this, Stepan Arkadyevitch, who liked a joke, was fond of
puzzling a plain man by saying that if he prided himself on
his origin, he ought not to stop at Rurik and disown the first
founder of his family—the monkey. And so Liberalism had
become a habit of Stepan Arkadyevitch’s, and he liked his
newspaper, as he did his cigar after dinner, for the slight fog
it diffused in his brain. He read the leading article, in which
it was maintained that it was quite senseless in our day to
raise an outcry that radicalism was threatening to swallow up all conservative elements, and that the government
ought to take measures to crush the revolutionary hydra;
that, on the contrary, ‘in our opinion the danger lies not in
that fantastic revolutionary hydra, but in the obstinacy of
traditionalism clogging progress,’ etc., etc. He read another
article, too, a financial one, which alluded to Bentham and
Mill, and dropped some innuendoes reflecting on the ministry. With his characteristic quickwittedness he caught the
drift of each innuendo, divined whence it came, at whom
and on what ground it was aimed, and that afforded him,
as it always did, a certain satisfaction. But today that satisfaction was embittered by Matrona Philimonovna’s advice
and the unsatisfactory state of the household. He read, too,
15
that Count Beist was rumored to have left for Wiesbaden,
and that one need have no more gray hair, and of the sale of
a light carriage, and of a young person seeking a situation;
but these items of information did not give him, as usual,
a quiet, ironical gratification. Having finished the paper, a
second cup of coffee and a roll and butter, he got up, shaking
the crumbs of the roll off his waistcoat; and, squaring his
broad chest, he smiled joyously: not because there was anything particularly agreeable in his mind—the joyous smile
was evoked by a good digestion.
But this joyous smile at once recalled everything to him,
and he grew thoughtful.
Two childish voices (Stepan Arkadyevitch recognized
the voices of Grisha, his youngest boy, and Tanya, his eldest
girl) were heard outside the door. They were carrying something, and dropped it.
‘I told you not to sit passengers on the roof,’ said the little
girl in English; ‘there, pick them up!’
‘Everything’s in confusion,’ thought Stepan Arkadyevitch;
‘there are the children running about by themselves.’ And
going to the door, he called them. They threw down the box,
that represented a train, and came in to their father.
The little girl, her father’s favorite, ran up boldly, embraced him, and hung laughingly on his neck, enjoying as
she always did the smell of scent that came from his whiskers. At last the little girl kissed his face, which was flushed
from his stooping posture and beaming with tenderness,
loosed her hands, and was about to run away again; but her
father held her back.
16
Anna Karenina
‘How is mamma?’ he asked, passing his hand over his
daughter’s smooth, soft little neck. ‘Good morning,’ he said,
smiling to the boy, who had come up to greet him. He was
conscious that he loved the boy less, and always tried to be
fair; but the boy felt it, and did not respond with a smile to
his father’s chilly smile.
‘Mamma? She is up,’ answered the girl.
Stepan Arkadyevitch sighed. ‘That means that she’s not
slept again all night,’ he thought.
‘Well, is she cheerful?’
The little girl knew that there was a quarrel between her
father and mother, and that her mother could not be cheerful, and that her father must be aware of this, and that he
was pretending when he asked about it so lightly. And she
blushed for her father. He at once perceived it, and blushed
too.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘She did not say we must do our
lessons, but she said we were to go for a walk with Miss
Hoole to grandmamma’s.’
‘Well, go, Tanya, my darling. Oh, wait a minute, though,’
he said, still holding her and stroking her soft little hand.
He took off the mantelpiece, where he had put it yesterday, a little box of sweets, and gave her two, picking out her
favorites, a chocolate and a fondant.
‘For Grisha?’ said the little girl, pointing to the chocolate.
‘Yes, yes.’ And still stroking her little shoulder, he kissed
her on the roots of her hair and neck, and let her go.
‘The carriage is ready,’ said Matvey; ‘but there’s some one
17
to see you with a petition.’
‘Been here long?’ asked Stepan
