Anna Karenina (Annotated Maude Translation). Leo Tolstoy

buy anything of him. I’ve been bargaining with him for wheat and offering a good price.’

      ‘Why should I give you what is mine for nothing? I have not found it on the ground nor stolen it.’

      ‘Oh dear no, nowadays it is quite impossible to steal. Absolutely everything nowadays goes before a jury, everything is judged honourably, there’s no possibility of stealing. We speak honestly. It’s too much for the forest, there’s no making any profit on it. I am asking to have something knocked off, if only a trifle.’

      ‘Well, have you settled the business or not? If you have, there’s no use bargaining, but if not,’ said Levin, ‘I will buy the forest myself.’

      The smile vanished from Ryabinin’s face, which assumed a hawk-like, rapacious, and cruel expression. With his bony fingers he rapidly unfastened his coat, exposing his braided shirt, the brass buttons of his waistcoat, and a watch-chain, and quickly took out a thick old pocket-book.

      ‘If you please, the forest is mine,’ he said, rapidly crossing himself and holding out his hand. ‘Take your money, the forest is mine. That’s the way Ryabinin does business, no fussing about kopeks,’ he said, frowning and flourishing his pocket-book.

      ‘If I were you I should not be in a hurry to take it,’ remarked Levin.

      ‘What d’you mean?’ said Oblonsky with surprise. ‘Why, I’ve given my word.’

      Levin went out and slammed the door. Ryabinin looked at it and smiled, shaking his head.

      ‘That’s all his youthfulness, his absolute childishness. Why, I am making this purchase, believe me, just for the honour and glory of the thing, so that it should be Ryabinin and not another that has bought Oblonsky’s forest. But it’s still a question whether by God’s mercy I can make a profit. Believe me, before God! Please, sir, the agreement must be written …’

      An hour later the dealer, with his coat well lapped over, the hooks of his overcoat carefully fastened, and with the agreement in his pocket, seated himself in his little cart and drove home.

      ‘Oh, these gentlefolks!’ he remarked to his clerk, while hooking up the leather apron of the cart, ‘regular objects!’

      ‘But may I congratulate you on the purchase, Michael Ignatich?’

      ‘Well, well …’

      Chapter 17

      OBLONSKY went upstairs, his pockets bulging with the treasury-bills payable in three months’ time with which Ryabinin had paid him. The forest transaction was completed, he had the money in his pocket, the shooting had been fine, Oblonsky was in the best of spirits, and therefore all the more anxious to dispel Levin’s ill-humour. He wanted to finish the day at supper as pleasantly as he had begun it.

      Levin really was in a bad humour, and in spite of his desire to behave kindly and amiably to his charming guest he could not master himself. The intoxication of the news that Kitty was not married was beginning little by little to take effect on him.

      Kitty was unmarried and ill, and ill for love of the man who had slighted her. This insult seemed to fall upon him. Vronsky had slighted her and she had slighted him, Levin. Consequently Vronsky had a right to despise him and was therefore his enemy. But Levin did not think all this. He dimly felt that there was something insulting to him in the affair, and was angry not with what had upset him but with everything that presented itself to him. The stupid sale of the forest, the swindle Oblonsky had fallen a prey to, which had been perpetrated in his house, irritated him.

      ‘Well, have you finished?’ he said when he met Oblonsky upstairs. ‘Will you have some supper?’

      ‘I won’t say no. What an appetite I get in the country, wonderful! Why did you not offer Ryabinin something to eat?’

      ‘Let him go to the devil!’

      ‘Well, really, how you treat him!’ said Oblonsky. ‘You did not even give him your hand. Why not shake hands with him?’

      ‘Because I do not shake hands with the footman, and the footman is a hundred times better than he.’

      ‘What a reactionary you really are! What about merging the classes?’ said Oblonsky.

      ‘Let those who like it merge to their hearts’ content, but it sickens me.’

      ‘I see you are quite a reactionary.’

      ‘I have really never considered what I am. I am Constantine Levin, that’s all.’

      ‘And Constantine Levin is in a very bad temper,’ said Oblonsky, smiling.

      ‘Yes, I am in a bad temper, and do you know why? Because, excuse me, of your stupid sale.’

      Oblonsky wrinkled his face good-naturedly, like an innocent man who was being hurt and interfered with.

      ‘Oh don’t!’ he said. ‘When has a man ever sold anything without being told immediately after that it was worth much more? But while he is trying to sell nobody offers him more… . No, I see you have a grudge against that unfortunate Ryabinin.’

      ‘Maybe I have. And do you know why? You will again call me a reactionary or some other dreadful name, but all the same it vexes and hurts me to see on all sides the impoverishment of the noblesse, to which I too belong and to which, in spite of the merging of the classes, I am very glad to belong… . And impoverished not from extravagance. That would not matter so much: to spend like a nobleman is their business — only the noblesse know how to do it. At present the peasants around here are buying land — that does not pain me. The squire does nothing, the peasant works and squeezes out the idler. That is as it should be and I am very glad on the peasant’s account. But it hurts me to see this impoverishment as a result of — shall I call it simplicity? Here a Polish leaseholder buys for half its value the splendid estate of a lady who lives in Nice. There land that is worth ten roubles a desyatina is leased to a merchant for one rouble. And now you, without any reason, have presented that scamp with thirty thousand roubles.’

      ‘Then what do you want? Is one to count every tree?’

      ‘Certainly count them! You have not counted them but Ryabinin has! Ryabinin’s children will have the means to live and get an education, while yours may not have!’

      ‘Well, forgive me, but there is something petty in all this counting. We have our occupation and they have theirs, and they have to make a profit. Anyway the thing is done and there’s an end to it. And here come the fried eggs, just the way I like them best. And Agatha Mikhaylovna will give us some of that excellent herb brandy… .’

      Oblonsky sat down to table and began joking with Agatha Mikhaylovna, assuring her that it was long since he had had such a dinner and supper as that day.

      ‘Well, you appreciate it at least,’ said Agatha Mikhaylovna; ‘but Constantine Dmitrich, whatever one gives him, if it were only a crust of bread, would just eat it and go away.’

      Try as Levin would to control himself, he remained morose and silent. There was one question he wanted to put to Oblonsky, but could not bring himself to ask, nor could he find the form to put it in or the moment to ask it. When Oblonsky had gone down to his room and, after again washing, had put on his frilled nightshirt and got into bed, Levin still lingered in his room talking about various trifles and unable to ask what he wanted to know.

      ‘What wonderful soap they make!’ he said, examining and unwrapping a cake of scented soap Agatha Mikhaylovna had prepared for the visitor, but which Oblonsky had not used. ‘Just look, it is quite a work of art.’

      ‘Yes, yes, there are all sorts of improvements in everything now,’ said Oblonsky with a moist and beautiful yawn. ‘In the theatres for instance and all places of amusement… . Oh, oh, oh!’ he yawned. ‘Electric light everywhere. Oh, oh!’

      ‘Yes, electric light,’ said Levin. ‘Yes, by the by, where is Vronsky now?’