Anna Karenina (Penguin) - Leo Tolstoy [153]
‘I find that you’re partly right. Our disagreement consists in this, that you take personal interest as the motive force, while I maintain that every man of a certain degree of education ought to be interested in the common good. You may be right that materially interested activity would be desirable. Generally, your nature is much too primesautière,t as the French say; you want either passionate, energetic activity or nothing.’
Levin listened to his brother, understood decidedly nothing and did not want to understand. He was afraid only that his brother might ask him a question which would make it clear that he had heard nothing.
‘So there, my good friend,’ said Sergei Ivanovich, touching his shoulder.
‘Yes, of course. Anyhow, I don’t insist,’ Levin replied with a childish, guilty smile. ‘What was it I was arguing about?’ he thought. ‘Of course, I’m right, and he’s right, and everything’s splendid. Only I have to go to the office and give orders.’ He stood up, stretching himself and smiling.
Sergei Ivanovich also smiled.
‘You want to have a stroll, let’s go together,’ he said, not wanting to part from his brother, who simply exuded freshness and briskness. ‘Let’s go, and call in at the office if you need to.’
‘Good heavens!’ cried Levin, so loudly that he frightened Sergei Ivanovich.
‘What? What’s the matter?’
‘How is Agafya Mikhailovna’s arm?’ said Levin, slapping his forehead. ‘I forgot all about it.’
‘Much better.’
‘Well, I’ll run over to see her all the same. I’ll be back before you can put your hat on.’
And with a rattle-like clatter of his heels, he ran down the stairs.
VII
While Stepan Arkadyich, having taken almost all the money there was in the house, went to Petersburg to fulfil the most natural and necessary duty, known to all who serve in the government though incomprehensible to those who do not, and without which it is impossible to serve - that of reminding the ministry of himself - and, in going about the fulfilment of this duty, spent his time merrily and pleasantly at the races and in summer houses, Dolly moved with the children to their country estate in order to reduce expenses as much as possible. She moved to her dowry estate, Yergushovo, the same one where the wood had been sold in spring and which was about thirty-five miles from Levin’s Pokrovskoe.
In Yergushovo the big, old house had been torn down long ago, and the prince had refurbished and enlarged the wing. Some twenty years ago, when Dolly was still a child, the wing had been roomy and comfortable, though it stood, as all wings do, sideways to the front drive and the south. But this wing was now old and decayed. When Stepan Arkadyich had gone to sell the wood in the spring, Dolly had asked him to look it over and order the necessary repairs. Stepan Arkadyich, who, like all guilty husbands, was very solicitous of his wife’s comfort, looked the house over himself and gave orders about everything he thought necessary. To his mind, there was a need to re-upholster all the furniture with cretonne, to hang curtains, to clean up the garden, make a little bridge by the pond and plant flowers; but he forgot many other necessary things, the lack of which later tormented Darya Alexandrovna.
Hard as Stepan Arkadyich tried to be a solicitous father and husband, he never could remember that he had a wife and children. He had a bachelor’s tastes, and they alone guided him. On returning to Moscow, he proudly announced to his wife that everything was ready, that the house would be a little joy, and that he strongly advised her to go. For Stepan Arkadyich his wife’s departure to the country was very agreeable in all respects: good for the children, less expensive, and freer for him. And Darya Alexandrovna considered a move to the country for the summer necessary for the children, especially for the little girl, who could not get over her scarlet fever, and also as a way of being rid of petty humiliations, paltry debts to the woodmonger, the fishmonger, the shoemaker, which tormented