Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part One/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI
When Oblonsky asked Levin for what special reason he had come, Levin grew red in the face, and he was angry with himself because he grew red; but how could he have replied, "I have come to ask the hand of your sister-in-law"? Yet he had come for that single purpose.
The Levin and the Shcherbatsky families, belonging to the old nobility of Moscow, had always been on intimate and friendly terms. During Levin's student life the bond had grown stronger. He and the young Prince Shcherbatsky, the brother of Dolly and Kitty, had taken their preparatory studies, and gone through the university together. At that time Levin was a frequent visitor at the Shcherbatskys, and was in love with the house. Strange as it may seem, he was in love with the house itself, with the family, especially with the feminine portion. Konstantin Levin could not remember his mother, and his only sister was much older than he was, so that for the first time he found in the house of the Shcherbatskys that charming cultivated life so peculiar to the old nobility, and of which the death of his parents had deprived him. All the members of this family, but especially the ladies, seemed to him to be surrounded with a mysterious and poetic halo.
Not only did he fail to discover any faults in them, but underneath this poetic and mysterious halo surrounding them, he saw the loftiest sentiments and the most ideal perfections. Why these three young ladies were obliged to speak French and English every day; why they had to take turns in playing for hours at a time on the piano, the sounds of which floated up to their brother's room, where the young students were at work; why professors of French literature, of music, of drawing, of dancing, came to give them lessons; why the three young ladies, at a certain hour, accompanied by Mlle. Linon, drove out in their carriage to the Tverskoï Boulevard, wearing satin shubkas, Dolly's very long, Natalie's of half length, and Kitty's very short, showing her shapely ankles and close-fitting red stockings; and why when they went to the Tverskoï Boulevard they had to be accompanied by a lackey with a gilt cockade on his hat,—all these things and many others were absolutely incomprehensible to him. But he felt that all that took place in this mysterious sphere was beautiful, and he was in love especially with this mystery of accomplishment.
While he was a student he almost fell in love with Dolly, the eldest; but she soon married Oblonsky; then he began to be in love with the second. It was as if he felt it to be a necessity to love one of the three, only he could not decide which one he liked the best. But Natalie entered society, and soon married the diplomat, Lvof. Kitty was only a child when Levin left the university. Young Shcherbatsky joined the fleet, and was drowned in the Baltic; and Levin's relations with the family became more distant, in spite of his friendship with Oblonsky. At the beginning of the winter, however, after a year's absence in the country, he had met the Shcherbatskys again, and learned for the first time which of the three he was destined really to love.
It would seem as if there could be nothing simpler for a young man of thirty-two, of good family, possessed of a fair fortune, and likely to be regarded as an eligible suitor, than to ask the young Princess Shcherbatskaya in marriage, and probably Levin would have been accepted as an excellent match. But he was in love, and consequently it seemed to him Kitty was a creature so accomplished, her superiority was so above everything earthly, and he himself was such an earthly insignificant being, that he was unwilling to admit, even in thought, that others or Kitty herself would regard him as worthy of her.
Having spent two months in Moscow, as in a dream, meeting Kitty almost every day in society, which he allowed himself to frequent on account of her, he suddenly concluded that this alliance was impossible, and took his departure for the country. Levin's conclusion that it was impossible was reached by reasoning that in her parents' eyes he was not a suitor sufficiently advantageous or suitable for the beautiful Kitty, and that Kitty herself could not love him. In her parents' eyes, he was engaged in no definite line of activity, and at his age had no position in the world, while his comrades were colonels or staff-officers, distinguished professors, bank directors, railway officials, presidents of tribunals like Oblonsky; but he—and he knew very well how he was regarded by his friends—was only a pomyeshchik, or country proprietor, busy with breeding of cows, hunting woodcock, and building farmhouses: in other words, he was an incapable youth who had accomplished nothing, and who, in the eyes of society, was doing just what men do who have made a failure.
Surely, the mysterious, charming Kitty could not love a man so ill-favored, dull, and good-for-nothing as he felt that he was. Moreover, his former relations with her, consequent upon his friendship with her brother, were those of a grown man with a child, and seemed to him only an additional obstacle to love.
It was possible, he thought, for a girl to have a friendship for a good, homely man, such as he considered himself to be; but if he is to be loved with a love such as he felt for Kitty, he must be good-looking, and above all, a man of distinction.
He had heard that women often fall in love with ill-favored, stupid men, but he did not believe that such would be his own experience, just as he felt that it would be impossible for him to love a woman who was not beautiful, brilliant, and poetic.
But, having spent two months in the solitude of the country, he became convinced that this was not one of his youthful passions, that the state of his feelings allowed him not a moment of rest, and that he could not live without settling this mighty question—whether she would, or would not, be his wife; that his despair arose wholly from his imagination, and that he had no absolute certainty that she would refuse him.
He had now returned to Moscow with the firm intention of offering himself and of marrying her if she would accept him. If not .... he could not think what would become of him.