Anna Karenina (Literature Classics Series). Leo Tolstoy

      Chapter 12

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      WHEN Levin first returned from Moscow, and while he still started and blushed every time he remembered the disgrace of the refusal, he had said to himself, ‘I blushed and started like this when I was ploughed in physics, and had to remain in the second class; and in the same way I felt myself lost when I made a mess of my sister’s affair that had been entrusted to me. And what happened? Now that years have passed, when I remember it, I am surprised that it could have grieved me so much. So it will be with this grief. Time will pass, and I shall become indifferent.’

      But three months passed and he had not become indifferent to it, and to think of it still hurt him as it had done in the first days. He could not find peace, because he had so long dreamed of family life and felt so ripe for it, but was still unmarried and further than ever from marriage.

      He himself felt painfully what all those around him felt too, that it is not good for a man of his age to be alone. He remembered how, just before leaving for Moscow, he had said to Nicholas, his cowman, a naïve peasant with whom he liked to talk: ‘Well, Nicholas, I want to get married,’ and how Nicholas had promptly replied, as on a matter about which there could be no doubt: ‘And it’s high time, Constantine Dmitrich.’ But now he was further from marriage than ever. The place was unoccupied, and when in imagination he tried to put one of the girls he knew there, he felt that it was quite impossible. Moreover, the memory of her refusal, and the part he had played in it, tormented him with shame. However much he told himself that he was not at all to blame in that matter, the memory of it, together with other shameful memories, made him start and blush. There had been in his past, as in that of every man, actions which he realized were bad, and for which his conscience ought to have tormented him; but the recollections of those bad actions did not torment him nearly as much as these trivial yet shameful memories. These wounds never closed up. And among these recollections stood the memory of her refusal and the pitiful rôle he must have played in the eyes of the others that evening. But time and work told. The painful memories became more and more covered over by the commonplace but important events of country life. Every week he thought less and less about Kitty. He waited impatiently to hear that she was married or was getting married soon, hoping that such news, like the drawing of an aching tooth, would quite cure him.

      Meanwhile spring had come, a glorious steady spring, without the expectations and disappointments spring usually brings. It was one of these rare springs which plants, animals, and men alike rejoice in. This lovely spring roused Levin still more and confirmed him in the determination completely to renounce the past in order to fashion his solitary life firmly and independently. Though he had not carried out many of the plans with which he had returned to the country from Moscow, he had held to the most important one, that of living a pure life, and he was not experiencing the shame which used to torment him when he had fallen, but was able to look people boldly in the face. Already in February he had received a letter from Mary Nikolavna to say that his brother Nicholas’s health was getting worse, but that he would not submit to any treatment. In consequence of this news Levin went to Moscow, saw his brother, and managed to persuade him to consult a doctor and go to a watering-place abroad. He was so successful in persuading his brother, and in lending him money for the journey without irritating him, that he was satisfied with himself in this respect. Besides his agricultural pursuits, which required special attention in spring, and besides reading, Levin had another occupation. He had that winter begun writing a book on agriculture, the basis of which was that the character of the labourer was treated as a definite factor, like climate and soil, and that therefore the conclusions of agricultural science should be deduced not from data supplied by climate and soil only, but from data of climate, soil, and the immutable character of the labourer. So that in spite of his solitary life, or rather because of it, his time was completely filled up; only occasionally he felt an unsatisfied desire to share with some one besides Agatha Mikhaylovna the thoughts that wandered through his brain — for even with her he often discussed physics, agricultural theories, and especially philosophy, which last was her favourite subject.

      The spring had set in late. During the last weeks of Lent the weather had been clear and frosty. It thawed in the sunshine by day, but at night the thermometer went down to sixteen degrees Fahrenheit. The snow was covered with a crust of ice so thick that carts could pass even where there were no roads. Easter found snow still on the ground; but on Easter Monday a warm wind began to blow, the clouds gathered, and for three days and nights warm stormy rain poured down. On the Thursday the wind fell and a thick grey mist rose as if to hide the secret of the changes nature was carrying on. Beneath the mist the snow-waters rushed down, the ice on the river cracked and moved, and the turbid, foaming torrents flowed quicker, till on the first Sunday after Easter toward evening the mists dissolved, the clouds broke into fleecy cloudlets and dispersed, the sky cleared, and real spring was there. In the morning the bright rising sun quickly melted the thin ice on the water and the warm air all around vibrated with the vapour given off by the awakening earth. Last year’s grass grew green again and new blades came up like needle-points, buds swelled on the guelder-rose and currant bushes and on the sticky, spicy birch trees, and among the golden catkins and on the willow branches the bees began to hum. The unseen larks burst into song above the velvety fresh green and the frozen stubble, the peewits began to cry above the water brought down by the storm and still flooding the lowlying places and marshes, and high up the cranes and geese flew, uttering their spring call. The cattle, who had lost all but a few patches of their winter coats, began to low in the meadows; the crooked-legged lambs began to play round their bleating mothers, who were losing their wool; swift-footed children began to run along the quickly-drying paths marked with imprints of bare feet, the merry voices of women who were bleaching their linen began to chatter by the ponds, and the axes of peasants, getting ready their wooden ploughs and harrows, clicked in the yards.

      The real spring had come.