‘Well, devil take the privileged classes,’ his brother’s voice spoke, coughing. ‘Masha! Get us something for supper and serve some wine, if there’s any left, or else send for some.’
The woman got up, stepped out from behind the partition, and saw Konstantin.
‘Some gentleman’s here, Nikolai Dmitrich,’36 she said.
‘Who does he want?’ Nikolai Levin’s voice said crossly.
‘It’s me,’ replied Konstantin Levin, stepping into the light.
‘Me who?’ Nikolai’s voice repeated still more crossly. He could be heard quickly getting up, snagging on something, and then Levin saw before him in the doorway the figure of his brother, so familiar and yet so striking in its wildness and sickliness, huge, thin, stoop-shouldered, with big, frightened eyes.
He was still thinner than three years ago when Konstantin Levin had last seen him. He was wearing a short frock coat. His arms and broad bones seemed still more huge. His hair had become thinner, the same straight moustache hung over his lips, the same eyes gazed strangely and naïvely at the man coming in.
‘Ah, Kostya!’ he said suddenly, recognizing his brother, and his eyes lit up with joy. But in the same second he glanced at the young man and made the convulsive movement with his head and neck that Konstantin knew so well, as if his tie were too tight on him; and a quite different, wild, suffering and cruel expression settled on his emaciated face.
‘I wrote to both you and Sergei Ivanych that I don’t know and don’t wish to know you. What do you, what do the two of you want?’
He was quite different from the way Konstantin had imagined him. The most difficult and worst part of his character, that which made communication with him so hard, had been forgotten by Konstantin Levin when he thought about him; and now, when he saw his face, and especially that convulsive turning of the head, he remembered it all.
‘I don’t want anything from you,’ he replied timidly. ‘I simply came to see you.’
Nikolai was apparently softened by his brother’s timidity. He twitched his lips.
‘Ah, just like that?’ he said. ‘Well, come in, sit down. Want some supper? Masha, bring three portions. No, wait. Do you know who this is?’ he said to his brother, pointing to the gentleman in the sleeveless jacket. ‘This is Mr Kritsky, my friend from way back in Kiev, a very remarkable man. He’s being sought by the police, of course, because he’s not a scoundrel.’
And he looked round, as was his habit, at everyone in the room. Seeing the woman standing in the doorway make a movement as if to go, he shouted to her: ‘Wait, I said.’ And with that clumsiness in conversation that Konstantin knew so well, he again looked around at everybody and began telling his brother Kritsky’s story: how he had been expelled from the university for starting Sunday schools37 and a society to aid poor students, how he had then become a teacher in a people’s school, how he had been expelled from there as well, and how later he had been taken to court for something.
‘You were at Kiev University?’ Konstantin Levin said to Kritsky, in order to break the awkward silence that ensued.
‘Yes, Kiev,’ Kritsky began crossly, scowling.
‘And this woman,’ Nikolai Levin interrupted him, pointing to her, ‘is my life’s companion, Marya Nikolaevna. I took her from a house’ - and his neck twitched as he said it. ‘But I love her and respect her, and I ask everyone who wants to know me,’ he added, raising his voice and frowning, ‘to love and respect her. She’s the same as my wife, the same. So there, you know who you’re dealing with. And if you think you’re lowering yourself, here’s your hat and there’s the door.’
And again his eyes passed questioningly over them all.
‘Why should I be lowering myself? I don’t understand.’
‘Then tell them to serve supper, Masha: three portions, some vodka and wine ... No, wait ... No, never mind ... Go.’
XXV
‘So you see,’ Nikolai Levin went on with effort, wrinkling his brow and twitching. It was obviously hard for him to think what to say and do. ‘You see ...’ He pointed at some small iron bars tied with string in the corner of the room. ‘See that? That’s the beginning of a new business we’re undertaking. This business is a manufacturing association ...’
Konstantin was almost not listening. He peered into his brother’s sickly, consumptive face, felt more and more sorry for him, and was unable to make himself listen to what his brother was telling him about the association. He could see that this association was only an anchor saving him from despising himself. Nikolai Levin went on speaking:
