Anna Karenina (Penguin) - Leo Tolstoy [398]
‘What’s the difficulty?’ said Levin.
‘Ah, it’s a long and boring story! It’s all so indefinite in this country. But the point is that, while waiting for the divorce, she’s been living here in Moscow for three months, where everybody knows them both. She doesn’t go anywhere, doesn’t see any women except Dolly, because, you understand, she doesn’t want them to come to her out of kindness. That fool, Princess Varvara - even she found it improper and left. And so, in that situation another woman wouldn’t be able to find resources in herself. She, though, you’ll see how she’s arranged her life, how calm and dignified she is. To the left, into the lane, across from the church!’ Stepan Arkadyich shouted, leaning out of the window of the carriage. ‘Pah, what heat!’ he said, opening his already unbuttoned coat still more, though it was twelve degrees below zero.
‘But she has a daughter; mustn’t she keep her busy?’ said Levin.
‘You seem to picture every woman as a mere female, une couveuse,’da said Stepan Arkadyich. ‘If she’s busy, it must be with children. No, she’s bringing her up splendidly, it seems, but we don’t hear about her. She’s busy, first of all, with writing. I can already see you smiling ironically, but you shouldn’t. She’s writing a book for children and doesn’t tell anybody about it, but she read it to me, and I gave the manuscript to Vorkuev ... you know, that publisher ... a writer himself, it seems. He’s a good judge, and he says it’s a remarkable thing. But you’ll think she’s a woman author? Not a bit of it. Before all she’s a woman with heart, you’ll see that. Now she has a little English girl and a whole family that she’s occupied with.’
‘What is it, some sort of philanthropy?’
‘See, you keep looking at once for something bad. It’s not philanthropy, it’s heartfelt. They had - that is, Vronsky had - an English trainer, a master of his trade, but a drunkard. He’s drunk himself up completely, delirium tremens, and the family’s abandoned. She saw them, helped them, got involved, and now the whole family’s on her hands; and not patronizingly, not with money, but she herself is helping the boys with Russian in preparation for school, and she’s taken the girl to live with her. You’ll see her there.’
The carriage drove into the courtyard, and Stepan Arkadyich loudly rang the bell at the entrance, where a sleigh was standing.
And, without asking the servant who opened the door whether anyone was at home, Stepan Arkadyich went into the front hall. Levin followed him, more and more doubtful whether what he was doing was good or bad.
Looking in the mirror, Levin noticed that he was flushed; but he was sure that he was not drunk, and he walked up the carpeted stairway behind Stepan Arkadyich. Upstairs Stepan Arkadyich asked the footman, who bowed to him as a familiar of the house, who was with Anna, and received the answer that it was Mr Vorkuev.
‘Where are they?’
‘In the study.’
Passing through a small dining room with dark panelled walls, Stepan Arkadyich and Levin crossed a soft carpet to enter the semi-dark study, lit by one lamp under a big, dark shade. Another lamp, a reflector, burned on the wall, throwing its light on to a large, full-length portrait of a woman, to which Levin involuntarily turned his attention. This was the portrait of Anna painted in Italy by Mikhailov. While Stepan Arkadyich went behind a trellis-work screen and the male voice that had been speaking fell silent, Levin gazed at the portrait, stepping out of its frame in the brilliant light, and could not tear himself away from it. He even forgot where he was and, not listening to what was said around him, gazed without taking his eyes from the astonishing portrait.