Anna Karenina (Annotated Maude Translation). Leo Tolstoy

with its glittering, kind, and sleepy eyes, ‘it was your own fault. You were frightened of a rival. But as I told you then, I do not know who had the better chance. Why did you not make a dash for it? I told you at the time that …’ He yawned, but only with his jaw, without opening his mouth.

      ‘Does he, or does he not, know that I proposed?’ thought Levin, looking at him. ‘Yes, there is something sly and diplomatic in his face,’ and feeling himself blush, he gazed in silence straight into Oblonsky’s eyes.

      ‘If there was anything on her side at that time, it was only the external attraction,’ continued Oblonsky. ‘You know his being a perfect aristocrat and his future position in Society had an effect, not on her but on her mother.’

      Levin frowned. The insult of the refusal he had had to face burned in his heart like a fresh, newly-received wound. But he was at home and the walls of home are helpful.

      ‘Wait, wait,’ he began, interrupting Oblonsky. ‘You talk of his being an aristocrat. But I should like to ask you what is Vronsky’s or anyone else’s aristocracy that I should be slighted because of it? You consider Vronsky an aristocrat. I don’t. A man whose father crawled up from nothing by intrigues and whose mother has had relations with heavens knows whom… . No, pardon me, I consider myself and people like me aristocrats: people who can point back to three or four honourable generations of their family, all with a high standard of education (talent and intelligence are a different matter), who have never cringed before anyone, never depended on anyone, but have lived as my father and my grandfather did. I know many such. You consider it mean for me to count the trees in my wood while you give Ryabinin thirty thousand roubles; but you will receive a Government grant and I don’t know what other rewards, and I shan’t, so I value what is mine by birth and labour… . We — and not those who only manage to exist by the bounty of the mighty of this world, and who can be bought for a piece of silver — are the aristocrats.’

      ‘But whom are you driving at? I agree with you,’ said Oblonsky sincerely and cheerfully, though he felt that Levin ranked him with those who could be bought for silver. Levin’s vehemence sincerely pleased him. ‘Whom are you driving at? Though much of what you say is not true of Vronsky, I am not speaking about that. I want to tell you candidly that if I were you, I’d come to Moscow now with me, and …’

      ‘No … I don’t know if you knew it or not and I don’t care, but I will tell you: I proposed and was refused, and your sister-in-law (Catherine Alexandrovna) is now only a painful and humiliating memory to me.’

      ‘Why? What nonsense!’

      ‘But don’t let us talk about it! Forgive me, please, if I have been rude to you,’ said Levin. Now that he had spoken out he became once more as he had been in the morning. ‘You are not angry with me, Stiva? Please don’t be angry,’ he said smiling, and took his hand.

      ‘Oh no, not at all! There was nothing to be angry about. I am glad we have had this explanation. And, do you know, the shooting in the early morning is often very good. Should we not go? I would not sleep again after it but go straight from there to the station.’

      ‘A capital idea!’