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been dragging on for three months past. As soon as the divorce is over,
she will marry Vronsky. How stupid these old ceremonies are, that no
one believes in, and which only prevent people being comfortable!”
Stepan Arkadyevitch put in. “Well, then their position will be as
regular as mine, as yours.”
“What is the difficulty?” said Levin.
“Oh, it’s a long and tedious story! The whole business is in such an
anomalous position with us. But the point is she has been for three
months in Moscow, where everyone knows her, waiting for the divorce;
she goes out nowhere, sees no woman except Dolly, because, do you
understand, she doesn’t care to have people come as a favor. That fool
Princess Varvara, even she has left her, considering this a breach of
propriety. Well, you see, in such a position any other woman would not
have found resources in herself. But you’ll see how she has arranged
her life—how calm, how dignified she is. To the left, in the crescent
opposite the church!” shouted Stepan Arkadyevitch, leaning out of the
window. “Phew! how hot it is!” he said, in spite of twelve degrees of
frost, flinging his open overcoat still wider open.
“But she has a daughter: no doubt she’s busy looking after her?”
said Levin.
“I believe you picture every woman simply as a female, une
couveuse,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch. “If she’s occupied, it must be
with her children. No, she brings her up capitally, I believe, but one
doesn’t hear about her. She’s busy, in the first place, with what she
writes. I see you’re smiling ironically, but you’re wrong. She’s writing a
children’s book, and doesn’t talk about it to anyone, but she read it to me
and I gave the manuscript to Vorkuev...you know the publisher...and
he’s an author himself too, I fancy. He understands those things, and
he says it’s a remarkable piece of work. But are you fancying she’s an
authoress?—not a bit of it. She’s a woman with a heart, before every-
thing, but you’ll see. Now she has a little English girl with her, and a
whole family she’s looking after.”
“Oh, something in a philanthropic way?”
“Why, you will look at everything in the worst light. It’s not from
philanthropy, it’s from the heart. They—that is, Vronsky— had a trainer,
an Englishman, first-rate in his own line, but a drunkard. He’s com-
pletely given up to drink—delirium tremens— and the family were
cast on the world. She saw them, helped them, got more and more
interested in them, and now the whole family is on her hands. But not
by way of patronage, you know, helping with money; she’s herself pre-
paring the boys in Russian for the high school, and she’s taken the little
girl to live with her. But you’ll see her for yourself.”
The carriage drove into the courtyard, and Stepan Arkadyevitch
rang loudly at the entrance where sledges were standing.
And without asking the servant who opened the door whether the
lady were at home, Stepan Arkadyevitch walked into the hall. Levin
followed him, more and more doubtful whether he was doing right or
wrong.
Looking at himself in the glass, Levin noticed that he was red in
the face, but he felt certain he was not drunk, and he followed Stepan
Arkadyevitch up the carpeted stairs. At the top Stepan Arkadyevitch
inquired of the footman, who bowed to him as to an intimate friend,
who was with Anna Arkadyevna, and received the answer that it was
M. Vorkuev.
“Where are they?”
“In the study.”
Passing through the dining room, a room not very large, with dark,
paneled walls, Stepan Arkadyevitch and Levin walked over the soft