Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy [books to read in your 30s .txt] 📗

it, that Ryabinin, and no one else, should have bought the copse of Oblonsky. And as to the profits, why, I must make what God gives. In God’s name. If you would kindly sign the title-deed.⁠ ⁠…”

Within an hour the merchant, stroking his big overcoat neatly down, and hooking up his jacket, with the agreement in his pocket, seated himself in his tightly covered trap, and drove homewards.

“Ugh, these gentlefolks!” he said to the clerk. “They⁠—they’re a nice lot!”

“That’s so,” responded the clerk, handing him the reins and buttoning the leather apron. “But I can congratulate you on the purchase, Mihail Ignatitch?”

“Well, well.⁠ ⁠…”

XVII

Stepan Arkadyevitch went upstairs with his pocket bulging with notes, which the merchant had paid him for three months in advance. The business of the forest was over, the money in his pocket; their shooting had been excellent, and Stepan Arkadyevitch was in the happiest frame of mind, and so he felt specially anxious to dissipate the ill-humor that had come upon Levin. He wanted to finish the day at supper as pleasantly as it had been begun.

Levin certainly was out of humor, and in spite of all his desire to be affectionate and cordial to his charming visitor, he could not control his mood. The intoxication of the news that Kitty was not married had gradually begun to work upon him.

Kitty was not married, but ill, and ill from love for a man who had slighted her. This slight, as it were, rebounded upon him. Vronsky had slighted her, and she had slighted him, Levin. Consequently Vronsky had the right to despise Levin, and therefore he was his enemy. But all this Levin did not think out. He vaguely felt that there was something in it insulting to him, and he was not angry now at what had disturbed him, but he fell foul of everything that presented itself. The stupid sale of the forest, the fraud practiced upon Oblonsky and concluded in his house, exasperated him.

“Well, finished?” he said, meeting Stepan Arkadyevitch upstairs. “Would you like supper?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say no to it. What an appetite I get in the country! Wonderful! Why didn’t you offer Ryabinin something?”

“Oh, damn him!”

“Still, how you do treat him!” said Oblonsky. “You didn’t even shake hands with him. Why not shake hands with him?”

“Because I don’t shake hands with a waiter, and a waiter’s a hundred times better than he is.”

“What a reactionist you are, really! What about the amalgamation of classes?” said Oblonsky.

“Anyone who likes amalgamating is welcome to it, but it sickens me.”

“You’re a regular reactionist, I see.”

“Really, I have never considered what I am. I am Konstantin Levin, and nothing else.”

“And Konstantin Levin very much out of temper,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, smiling.

“Yes, I am out of temper, and do you know why? Because⁠—excuse me⁠—of your stupid sale.⁠ ⁠…”

Stepan Arkadyevitch frowned good-humoredly, like one who feels himself teased and attacked for no fault of his own.

“Come, enough about it!” he said. “When did anybody ever sell anything without being told immediately after the sale, ‘It was worth much more’? But when one wants to sell, no one will give anything.⁠ ⁠… No, I see you’ve a grudge against that unlucky Ryabinin.”

“Maybe I have. And do you know why? You’ll say again that I’m a reactionist, or some other terrible word; but all the same it does annoy and anger me to see on all sides the impoverishing of the nobility to which I belong, and, in spite of the amalgamation of classes, I’m glad to belong. And their impoverishment is not due to extravagance⁠—that would be nothing; living in good style⁠—that’s the proper thing for noblemen; it’s only the nobles who know how to do it. Now the peasants about us buy land, and I don’t mind that. The gentleman does nothing, while the peasant works and supplants the idle man. That’s as it ought to be. And I’m very glad for the peasant. But I do mind seeing the process of impoverishment from a sort of⁠—I don’t know what to call it⁠—innocence. Here a Polish speculator bought for half its value a magnificent estate from a young lady who lives in Nice. And there a merchant will get three acres of land, worth ten roubles, as security for the loan of one rouble. Here, for no kind of reason, you’ve made that rascal a present of thirty thousand roubles.”

“Well, what should I have done? Counted every tree?”

“Of course, they must be counted. You didn’t count them, but Ryabinin did. Ryabinin’s children will have means of livelihood and education, while yours maybe will not!”

“Well, you must excuse me, but there’s something mean in this counting. We have our business and they have theirs, and they must make their profit. Anyway, the thing’s done, and there’s an end of it. And here come some poached eggs, my favorite dish. And Agafea Mihalovna will give us that marvelous herb-brandy.⁠ ⁠…”

Stepan Arkadyevitch sat down at the table and began joking with Agafea Mihalovna, assuring her that it was long since he had tasted such a dinner and such a supper.

“Well, you do praise it, anyway,” said Agafea Mihalovna, “but Konstantin Dmitrievitch, give him what you will⁠—a crust of bread⁠—he’ll eat it and walk away.”

Though Levin tried to control himself, he was gloomy and silent. He wanted to put one question to Stepan Arkadyevitch, but he could not bring himself to the point, and could not find the words or the moment in which to put it. Stepan Arkadyevitch had gone down to his room, undressed, again washed, and attired in a nightshirt with goffered frills, he had got into bed, but Levin still lingered in his room, talking of various trifling matters, and not daring to ask what he wanted to know.

“How wonderfully they make this soap,” he said gazing at a piece of soap he was handling, which Agafea Mihalovna had put ready for the visitor but Oblonsky had not used. “Only look; why, it’s a work of art.”

“Yes, everything’s