‘I’ve only just arrived, and am very anxious to see you,’ answered Levin, looking round with constraint, and yet crossly and uneasily.
‘Well then, come into my room,’ said Oblonsky, who knew his friend’s self-conscious and irritable shyness; and seizing him by the arm he led him along as if past some danger.
Oblonsky was on intimate terms with almost all his acquaintances, men of sixty and lads of twenty, actors, Ministers of State, tradesmen, and Lords in Waiting, so that a great many people on familiar terms with him stood at the two extremes of the social ladder and would have been much surprised to know that they had something in common through Oblonsky. He was on familiar terms with everybody he drank champagne with, and he drank champagne with everybody. But when in the presence of his subordinates he happened to meet any of his ‘disreputable pals’, as he jocularly called them, he was able, with his innate tact, to minimize the impression such a meeting might leave on their minds. Levin was not a ‘disreputable pal’, but Oblonsky felt that Levin imagined he might not care to show their intimacy in the presence of the subordinates, and that was why he hurried him into his private room.
Levin and Oblonsky were almost of the same age; and with Levin, Oblonsky was on familiar terms not through champagne only. Levin had been his comrade and friend in early youth, and they were fond of one another as friends who have come together in early youth often are, in spite of the difference in their characters and tastes. Yet, as often happens between men who have chosen different pursuits, each, while in argument justifying the other’s activity, despised it in the depth of his heart. Each thought that his own way of living was real life, and that the life of his friend was — illusion. Oblonsky could not repress a slightly sarcastic smile at the sight of Levin. How many times he had already seen him arriving in Moscow from the country, where he did something, though what it was Oblonsky could never quite understand or feel any interest in. Levin came to Moscow always excited, always in a hurry, rather shy and irritated by his own shyness, and usually with totally new and unexpected views about things. Oblonsky laughed at all this, and yet liked it. Similarly, Levin in his heart despised the town life his friend was leading, and his official duties which he considered futile and ridiculed. But the difference was that Oblonsky, doing as every one else did, laughed with confidence and good-humour, while Levin laughed uncertainly and sometimes angrily.
‘We have long been expecting you,’ said Oblonsky entering his private room and releasing Levin’s arm, as if to show that here all danger was past. ‘I’m very, very glad to see you!’ continued he. ‘Well, how are you, eh? When did you arrive?’
Levin looked silently at the faces of the two strangers, Oblonsky’s colleagues, and especially at the hands of the elegant Grinevich, who had such long white fingers and such long yellowish nails curving at the points, and such large glittering sleeve-links, that evidently his hands occupied his whole attention and deprived him of freedom of thought. Oblonsky at once noticed Levin’s look and smiled.
‘Oh, of course! Let me introduce you,’ he said. ‘My colleagues: Philip Ivanich Nikitin; Michael Stanislavich Grinevich,’ then turning to Levin, ‘Constantine Dmitrich Levin, an active member of the Zemstvo, one of the new sort — a gymnast who lifts a hundredweight and a half with one hand, a cattle-breeder, a sportsman, — my friend and a brother of Sergius Ivanich Koznyshev.’
‘Very pleased …’ said the old official.
‘I have the honour of knowing your brother, Sergius Ivanich,’ said Grinevich, holding out his narrow hand with the long fingernails.
Levin frowned, shook hands coldly, and immediately turned to Oblonsky. Though Levin had great respect for his stepbrother, an author known throughout Russia, he hated to be regarded not as Constantine Levin but as a brother of the famous Koznyshev.
‘No, I am no longer on the Zemstvo — I have quarrelled with the lot of them, and don’t attend their meetings any more,’ said he, addressing his friend.
‘Quick work!’ said Oblonsky, with a smile. ‘What was it all about?’
‘It’s a long story — I’ll tell you some other time,’ said Levin, but at once began telling it. ‘To put it in a nutshell, I have come to the conclusion that there is and can be no such thing as Zemstvo work,’ he said, speaking as if some one had just offended him. ‘On the one hand it’s simply playing! They play at being a parliament, and I am neither young enough nor old enough to amuse myself with toys. On the other hand …’ he hesitated, ‘it is a means of getting pelf for the provincial coterie! We used to have guardianships and judgeships as soft jobs, and now we’ve Zemstvos — not bribes, but unearned salaries!’ he went on as warmly as if he had just been contradicted.
‘Aha! I see you’ve reached another new phase — a Conservative one this time!’ said Oblonsky. ‘However, we’ll talk about that later.’
‘Yes, later! … But I want to see you,’ said Levin, gazing with aversion at Grinevich’s hand.
Oblonsky’s smile was hardly perceptible.
‘Didn’t you tell me you would never again put on Western European clothes?’ he asked, surveying Levin’s new suit, evidently made by a French tailor. ‘That’s it! You’re in a new phase.’
Levin suddenly blushed, not as grown-up people blush who hardly notice it themselves, but as boys blush who are aware that their shyness is ridiculous and therefore feel ashamed of it and blush still more, almost to tears. It was so strange to see that intelligent manly face in such a childish condition that Oblonsky left off looking at him.
‘Where shall we see one another? You know it is very, very important for me to have a talk with you,’ said Levin.
Oblonsky seemed to consider: ‘Well — suppose we go to lunch at Gurin’s and have a talk there? I am free till three.’
‘No,’ said Levin, after a moment’s consideration; ‘I have to go somewhere else.’
‘Well then, let’s dine together.’
‘Dine? But I’ve nothing particular to say — only a word or two … to ask you something! We can have a talk some other time.’
‘Well, tell me the word or two now, and we’ll talk at dinner.’
‘The two words are … however, it’s nothing particular,’ said Levin, and his face became almost vicious in his efforts to overcome his shyness.
‘What are the Shcherbatskys doing? All going on as usual?’
Oblonsky, who had long known that Levin was in love with his, Oblonsky’s, sister-in-law Kitty, smiled very slightly and his eyes sparkled merrily.
‘You spoke of two words, but I can’t answer in two because… . Excuse me a moment… .’
The Secretary came in, familiarly respectful, though with a certain modest consciousness (common to all secretaries) of his superiority to his chief in knowledge of business affairs, approached Oblonsky with some papers, and on the plea of asking a question began to explain some difficulty. Oblonsky, without hearing him to the end, put his hand in a kindly way on the Secretary’s sleeve and, softening his remark with a smile, said:
‘No; please do it as I said,’ and, having in a few words explained his view of the matter, he pushed the paper away and said finally: ‘Yes, please do it that way, Zachary Nikitich!’
The Secretary went out, abashed. Levin, who during Oblonsky’s talk with the Secretary had quite overcome his shyness, stood leaning both arms on the back of a chair and listening with ironical attention.
‘I don’t understand it at all!’ he remarked.
‘What don’t you understand?’ asked Oblonsky with his usual merry smile, as he took out a cigarette. He expected Levin to say something eccentric.
‘I don’t understand what you’re doing,’ said Levin, shrugging his shoulders. ‘How can you