a good expression, ‘come round,’’ he thought. ‘I must repeat
that.’
‘Matvey!’ he shouted. ‘Arrange everything with Darya in
the sitting room for Anna Arkadyevna,’ he said to Matvey
when he came in.
‘Yes, sir.’
Stepan Arkadyevitch put on his fur coat and went out
onto the steps.
‘You won’t dine at home?’ said Matvey, seeing him off.
‘That’s as it happens. But here’s for the housekeeping,’
he said, taking ten roubles from his pocketbook. ‘That’ll be
enough.’
‘Enough or not enough, we must make it do,’ said Matvey, slamming the carriage door and stepping back onto the
steps.
Darya Alexandrovna meanwhile having pacified the
child, and knowing from the sound of the carriage that he
had gone off, went back again to her bedroom. It was her
solitary refuge from the household cares which crowded
upon her directly she went out from it. Even now, in the
short time she had been in the nursery, the English govern
25
ess and Matrona Philimonovna had succeeded in putting
several questions to her, which did not admit of delay, and
which only she could answer: ‘What were the children to
put on for their walk? Should they have any milk? Should
not a new cook be sent for?’
‘Ah, let me alone, let me alone!’ she said, and going back
to her bedroom she sat down in the same place as she had
sat when talking to her husband, clasping tightly her thin
hands with the rings that slipped down on her bony fingers,
and fell to going over in her memory all the conversation.
‘He has gone! But has he broken it off with her?’ she thought.
‘Can it be he sees her? Why didn’t I ask him! No, no, reconciliation is impossible. Even if we remain in the same house,
we are strangers—strangers forever!’ She repeated again
with special significance the word so dreadful to her. ‘And
how I loved him! my God, how I loved him!…. How I loved
him! And now don’t I love him? Don’t I love him more than
before? The most horrible thing is,’ she began, but did not
finish her thought, because Matrona Philimonovna put her
head in at the door.
‘Let us send for my brother,’ she said; ‘he can get a dinner
anyway, or we shall have the children getting nothing to eat
till six again, like yesterday.’
‘Very well, I will come directly and see about it. But did
you send for some new milk?’
And Darya Alexandrovna plunged into the duties of the
day, and drowned her grief in them for a time.
26
Anna Karenina
Chapter 5
Stepan Arkadyevitch had learned easily at school,
thanks to his excellent abilities, but he had been idle and
mischievous, and therefore was one of the lowest in his
class. But in spite of his habitually dissipated mode of life,
his inferior grade in the service, and his comparative youth,
he occupied the honorable and lucrative position of president of one of the government boards at Moscow. This
post he had received through his sister Anna’s husband,
Alexey Alexandrovitch Karenin, who held one of the most
important positions in the ministry to whose department
the Moscow office belonged. But if Karenin had not got his
brotherin-law this berth, then through a hundred other
personages— brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles, and aunts—
Stiva Oblonsky would have received this post, or some other
similar one, together with the salary of six thousand absolutely needful for him, as his affairs, in spite of his wife’s
considerable property, were in an embarrassed condition.
Half Moscow and Petersburg were friends and relations of Stepan Arkadyevitch. He was born in the midst
of those who had been and are the powerful ones of this
world. One-third of the men in the government, the older
men, had been friends of his father’s, and had known him
in petticoats; another third were his intimate chums, and
the remainder were friendly acquaintances. Consequently
27
the distributors of earthly blessings in the shape of places,
rents, shares, and such, were all his friends, and could not
overlook one of their own set; and Oblonsky had no need
to make any special exertion to get a lucrative post. He had
only not to refuse things, not to show jealousy, not to be
quarrelsome or take offense, all of which from his characteristic good nature he never did. It would have struck him
as absurd if he had been told that he would not get a position
with the salary he required, especially as he expected nothing out of the way; he only wanted what the men of his own
age and standing did get, and he was no worse qualified for
performing duties of the kind than any other man.
Stepan Arkadyevitch was not merely liked by all who
knew him for his good humor, but for his bright disposition,
and his unquestionable honesty. In him, in his handsome,
radiant figure, his sparkling eyes, black hair and eyebrows,
and the white and red of his face, there was something which
produced a physical effect of kindliness and good humor on
the people who met him. ‘Aha! Stiva! Oblonsky! Here he is!’
was almost always said with a smile of delight on meeting
him. Even though it happened at times that after a conversation with him it seemed that nothing particularly delightful
had happened, the next day, and the next, every one was just
as delighted at meeting him again.
After filling for three years the post of president of one
of the government boards at Moscow, Stepan Arkadyevitch
had won the respect, as well as the liking, of his fellowofficials, subordinates, and superiors, and all who had
had business with him. The principal qualities in Stepan
28
Anna Karenina
Arkadyevitch which had gained him this universal respect
in the service consisted, in the first place, of his extreme
indulgence for others, founded on a consciousness of his
own shortcomings; secondly, of his perfect liberalism—not
the liberalism he read of in the papers, but the liberalism
that was in his blood, in virtue of which he treated all men
perfectly equally and exactly the same, whatever their fortune or calling might be; and thirdly—the most important
point—his complete indifference to the business in which
he was engaged, in consequence of which he was never carried away, and never made mistakes.
On reaching the offices of the board, Stepan Arkadyevitch,
escorted by a deferential porter with a portfolio, went into
his little private room, put on his uniform, and went into
the boardroom. The clerks and copyists all rose, greeting
him with good-humored deference. Stepan Arkadyevitch
moved quickly, as ever, to his place, shook hands with his
colleagues, and sat down. He made a joke or two, and talked
just as much as was consistent with due decorum, and began work. No one knew better than Stepan Arkadyevitch
how to hit on the exact line between freedom, simplicity,
and official stiffness necessary for the agreeable conduct of
business. A secretary, with the good-humored deference
common to every one in Stepan Arkadyevitch’s office, came
up with papers, and began to speak in the familiar and easy
tone which had been introduced by Stepan Arkadyevitch.
‘We have succeeded in getting the information from
the government department of Penza. Here, would you
care?….’
29
‘You’ve got them at last?’ said Stepan Arkadyevitch, laying his finger on the paper. ‘Now, gentlemen….’
And the sitting of the board began.
‘If they knew,’ he thought, bending his head with a significant air as he listened to the report, ‘what a guilty little
boy their president was half an hour ago.’ And his eyes were
laughing during the reading of the report. Till two o’clock
the sitting would go on without a break, and at two o’clock
there would be an interval and luncheon.
It was not yet two, when the large glass doors of the
boardroom suddenly opened and someone came in.
All the officials sitting on the further side under the portrait of the Tsar and the eagle, delighted at any distraction,
looked round at the door; but the doorkeeper standing at
the door at once drove out the intruder, and closed the glass
door after him.
When the case had been read through, Stepan
Arkadyevitch got up and stretched, and by way of tribute to
the liberalism of the times took out a cigarette in the boardroom and went into his private room. Two of the members
of the board, the old veteran in the service, Nikitin, and the
Kammerjunker Grinevitch, went in with him.
‘We shall have time to finish after lunch,’ said Stepan
Arkadyevitch.
‘To be sure we shall!’ said Nikitin.
‘A pretty sharp fellow this Fomin must be,’ said Grinevitch of one of the persons taking part in the case they were
examining.
Stepan Arkadyevitch frowned at Grinevitch’s words, giv30
Anna Karenina
ing him thereby to understand that it was improper to pass
judgment prematurely, and made him no reply.
‘Who was that came in?’ he asked the doorkeeper.
‘Someone, your excellency, crept in without permission
directly my back was turned. He was asking for you. I told
him: when the members come out, then…’
‘Where is he?’
‘Maybe he’s gone into the passage, but here he comes anyway. That is he,’ said the doorkeeper, pointing to a strongly
built, broad-shouldered man with a curly beard, who, without taking off his sheepskin cap, was running lightly and
rapidly up the worn steps of the stone staircase. One of the
members going down—a lean official with a portfolio—
stood out of his way and looked disapprovingly at the legs
of the stranger, then glanced inquiringly at Oblonsky.
Stepan Arkadyevitch was standing at the top of the
stairs. His good-naturedly beaming face above the embroidered collar of his uniform beamed more than ever when he
recognized the man coming up.
‘Why, it’s actually you, Levin, at last!’ he said with a
friendly mocking smile, scanning Levin as he approached.
‘How is it you have deigned to look me up in this den?’ said
Stepan Arkadyevitch, and not content with shaking hands,
he kissed his friend. ‘Have you been here long?’
‘I have just come, and very much wanted to see you,’ said
Levin, looking shyly and at the same time angrily and uneasily around.
‘Well, let’s go into my room,’ said Stepan Arkadyevitch,
who knew his friend’s sensitive and irritable shyness, and,
31
taking his arm, he drew him along, as though guiding him
through dangers.
Stepan Arkadyevitch was on familiar terms with almost
all his acquaintances, and called almost all of them by their
Christian names: old men of
