Anna Karenina полностью

‘You seem to picture every woman as a mere female, une couveuse,’^da said Stepan Arkadyich. ‘If she’s busy, it must be with children. No, she’s bringing her up splendidly, it seems, but we don’t hear about her. She’s busy, first of all, with writing. I can already see you smiling ironically, but you shouldn’t. She’s writing a book for children and doesn’t tell anybody about it, but she read it to me, and I gave the manuscript to Vorkuev ... you know, that publisher ... a writer himself, it seems. He’s a good judge, and he says it’s a remarkable thing. But you’ll think she’s a woman author? Not a bit of it. Before all she’s a woman with heart, you’ll see that. Now she has a little English girl and a whole family that she’s occupied with.’

‘What is it, some sort of philanthropy?’

‘See, you keep looking at once for something bad. It’s not philanthropy, it’s heartfelt. They had - that is, Vronsky had - an English trainer, a master of his trade, but a drunkard. He’s drunk himself up completely, delirium tremens, and the family’s abandoned. She saw them, helped them, got involved, and now the whole family’s on her hands; and not patronizingly, not with money, but she herself is helping the boys with Russian in preparation for school, and she’s taken the girl to live with her. You’ll see her there.’

The carriage drove into the courtyard, and Stepan Arkadyich loudly rang the bell at the entrance, where a sleigh was standing.

And, without asking the servant who opened the door whether anyone was at home, Stepan Arkadyich went into the front hall. Levin followed him, more and more doubtful whether what he was doing was good or bad.

Looking in the mirror, Levin noticed that he was flushed; but he was sure that he was not drunk, and he walked up the carpeted stairway behind Stepan Arkadyich. Upstairs Stepan Arkadyich asked the footman, who bowed to him as a familiar of the house, who was with Anna, and received the answer that it was Mr Vorkuev.

‘Where are they?’

‘In the study.’

Passing through a small dining room with dark panelled walls, Stepan Arkadyich and Levin crossed a soft carpet to enter the semi-dark study, lit by one lamp under a big, dark shade. Another lamp, a reflector, burned on the wall, throwing its light on to a large, full-length portrait of a woman, to which Levin involuntarily turned his attention. This was the portrait of Anna painted in Italy by Mikhailov. While Stepan Arkadyich went behind a trellis-work screen and the male voice that had been speaking fell silent, Levin gazed at the portrait, stepping out of its frame in the brilliant light, and could not tear himself away from it. He even forgot where he was and, not listening to what was said around him, gazed without taking his eyes from the astonishing portrait. It was not a painting but a lovely living woman with dark, curly hair, bare shoulders and arms, and a pensive half smile on her lips, covered with tender down, looking at him triumphantly and tenderly with troubling eyes. Only, because she was not alive, she was more beautiful than a living woman can be.

‘I’m very glad,’ he suddenly heard a voice beside him, evidently addressing him, the voice of the same woman he was admiring in the portrait. Anna came to meet him from behind the trellis, and in the half light of the study Levin saw the woman of the portrait in a dark dress of various shades of blue, not in the same position, and not with the same expression, but at the same height of beauty that the artist had caught. She was less dazzling in reality, but in the living woman there was some new attractiveness that was not in the portrait.

X

She had risen to meet him, not concealing her joy at seeing him. And in the calmness with which she gave him her small and energetic hand, introduced him to Vorkuev and pointed to the pretty, red-haired girl who was sitting there over her work, referring to her as her ward, Levin saw the familiar and agreeable manners of a high-society woman, always calm and natural.

‘Very, very glad,’ she repeated, and on her lips these words for some reason acquired a special meaning for Levin. ‘I’ve long known of you and loved you, both for your friendship with Stiva and for your wife ... I knew her for a very short time, but she left me with the impression of a lovely flower, precisely a flower. And now she’ll soon be a mother!’

She spoke freely and unhurriedly, shifting her eyes now and then from Levin to her brother, and Levin felt that the impression he made was good, and he at once found it light, simple and pleasant to be with her, as if he had known her since childhood.

‘Ivan Petrovich and I settled in Alexei’s study,’ she said, in answer to Stepan Arkadyich’s question whether he might smoke, ‘precisely in order to smoke.’ And with a glance at Levin, instead of asking if he smoked, she moved a tortoise-shell cigar case towards her and took out a cigarette.

‘How are you feeling today?’ her brother asked.

‘All right. Nerves, as usual.’