Anna Karenina. Leo Tolstoy

his head disapprovingly, as though he had grave doubts whether this game were worth the candle.

      “Would you like to go into my study?” Levin said in French to Stepan Arkadyevitch, scowling morosely. “Go into my study; you can talk there.”

      “Quite so, where you please,” said Ryabinin with contemptuous dignity, as though wishing to make it felt that others might be in difficulties as to how to behave, but that he could never be in any difficulty about anything.

      On entering the study Ryabinin looked about, as his habit was, as though seeking the holy picture, but when he had found it, he did not cross himself. He scanned the bookcases and bookshelves, and with the same dubious air with which he had regarded the snipe, he smiled contemptuously and shook his head disapprovingly, as though by no means willing to allow that this game were worth the candle.

      “Well, have you brought the money?” asked Oblonsky. “Sit down.”

      “Oh, don’t trouble about the money. I’ve come to see you to talk it over.”

      “What is there to talk over? But do sit down.”

      “I don’t mind if I do,” said Ryabinin, sitting down and leaning his elbows on the back of his chair in a position of the intensest discomfort to himself. “You must knock it down a bit, prince. It would be too bad. The money is ready conclusively to the last farthing. As to paying the money down, there’ll be no hitch there.”

      Levin, who had meanwhile been putting his gun away in the cupboard, was just going out of the door, but catching the merchant’s words, he stopped.

      “Why, you’ve got the forest for nothing as it is,” he said. “He came to me too late, or I’d have fixed the price for him.”

      Ryabinin got up, and in silence, with a smile, he looked Levin down and up.

      “Very close about money is Konstantin Dmitrievitch,” he said with a smile, turning to Stepan Arkadyevitch; “there’s positively no dealing with him. I was bargaining for some wheat of him, and a pretty price I offered too.”

      “Why should I give you my goods for nothing? I didn’t pick it up on the ground, nor steal it either.”

      “Mercy on us! nowadays there’s no chance at all of stealing. With the open courts and everything done in style, nowadays there’s no question of stealing. We are just talking things over like gentlemen. His excellency’s asking too much for the forest. I can’t make both ends meet over it. I must ask for a little concession.”

      “But is the thing settled between you or not? If it’s settled, it’s useless haggling; but if it’s not,” said Levin, “I’ll buy the forest.”

      The smile vanished at once from Ryabinin’s face. A hawklike, greedy, cruel expression was left upon it. With rapid, bony fingers he unbuttoned his coat, revealing a shirt, bronze waistcoat buttons, and a watch chain, and quickly pulled out a fat old pocketbook.

      “Here you are, the forest is mine,” he said, crossing himself quickly, and holding out his hand. “Take the money; it’s my forest. That’s Ryabinin’s way of doing business; he doesn’t haggle over every half-penny,” he added, scowling and waving the pocketbook.

      “I wouldn’t be in a hurry if I were you,” said Levin.

      “Come, really,” said Oblonsky in surprise. “I’ve given my word, you know.”

      Levin went out of the room, slamming the door. Ryabinin looked towards the door and shook his head with a smile.

      “It’s all youthfulness—positively nothing but boyishness. Why, I’m buying it, upon my honor, simply, believe me, for the glory of 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 . . . .”

      Chapter 17

      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.