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with sudden strangeness and seriousness at his brother:
“Anyway, don’t remember evil against me, Kostya!” and his voice
quivered. These were the only words that had been spoken sincerely
between them. Levin knew that those words meant, “You see, and you
know, that I’m in a bad way, and maybe we shall not see each other
again.” Levin knew this, and the tears gushed from his eyes. He
kissed his brother once more, but he could not speak, and knew not
what to say.
Three days after his brother’s departure, Levin too set off for his
foreign tour. Happening to meet Shtcherbatsky, Kitty’s cousin, in the
railway train, Levin greatly astonished him by his depression.
“What’s the matter with you?” Shtcherbatsky asked him.
“Oh, nothing; there’s not much happiness in life.”
“Not much? You come with me to Paris instead of to Mulhausen.
You shall see how to be happy.”
“No, I’ve done with it all. It’s time I was dead.”
“Well, that’s a good one!” said Shtcherbatsky, laughing; “why, I’m
only just getting ready to begin.”
“Yes, I thought the same not long ago, but now I know I shall soon
be dead.”
Levin said what he had genuinely been thinking of late. He saw
nothing but death or the advance towards death in everything. But his
cherished scheme only engrossed him the more. Life had to be got
through somehow till death did come. Darkness had fallen upon ev-
erything for him; but just because of this darkness he felt that the one
guiding clue in the darkness was his work, and he clutched it and clung
to it with all his strength.
Part Four.
Chapter 1.
The Karenins, husband and wife, continued living in the same
house, met every day, but were complete strangers to one another.
Alexey Alexandrovitch made it a rule to see his wife every day, so that
the servants might have no grounds for suppositions, but avoided din-
ing at home. Vronsky was never at Alexey Alexandrovitch’s house, but
Anna saw him away from home, and her husband was aware of it.
The position was one of misery for all three; and not one of them
would have been equal to enduring this position for a single day, if it
had not been for the expectation that it would change, that it was
merely a temporary painful ordeal which would pass over. Alexey
Alexandrovitch hoped that this passion would pass, as everything does
pass, that everyone would forget about it, and his name would remain
unsullied. Anna, on whom the position depended, and for whom it
was more miserable than for anyone, endured it because she not merely
hoped, but firmly believed, that it would all very soon be settled and
come right. She had not the least idea what would settle the position,
but she firmly believed that something would very soon turn up now.
Vronsky, against his own will or wishes, followed her lead, hoped too
that something, apart from his own action, would be sure to solve all
difficulties.