Anna Karenina

Chapter 12
In the early days after his return from Moscow, whenever Levin shuddered
and grew red, remembering the disgrace of his rejection, he said to himself:
"This was just how I used to shudder and blush, thinking myself utterly
lost, when I was plucked in physics and did not get my remove; and how I
thought myself utterly ruined after I had mismanaged that affair of my
sister's that was entrusted to me. And yet, now that years have passed, I
recall it and wonder that it could distress me so much. It will be the same
thing too with this trouble. Time will go by and I shall not mind about this
either."
But three months had passed and he had not left off minding about it; and it
was as painful for him to think of it as it had been those first days. He could
not be at peace because after dreaming so long of family life, and feeling
himself so ripe for it, he was still not married, and was further than ever
from marriage. He was painfully conscious himself, as were all about him,
that at his years it is not well for man to be alone. He remembered how
before starting for Moscow he had once said to his cowman Nikolay, a
simple-hearted peasant, whom he liked talking to: "Well, Nikolay! I mean
to get married," and how Nikolay had promptly answered, as of a matter on
which there could be no possible doubt: "And high time too, Konstantin
Demitrievitch." But marriage had now become further off than ever. The
place was taken, and whenever he tried to imagine any of the girls he knew
in that place, he felt that it was utterly impossible. Moreover, the
recollection of the rejection and the part he had played in the affair tortured
him with shame. However often he told himself that he was in no wise to
blame in it, that recollection, like other humiliating reminiscences of a
similar kind, made him twinge and blush. There had been in his past, as in
every man's, actions, recognized by him as bad, for which his conscience
ought to have tormented him; but the memory of these evil actions was far
from causing him so much suffering as those trivial but humiliating
reminiscences. These wounds never healed. And with these memories was
now ranged his rejection and the pitiful position in which he must have
appeared to others that evening. But time and work did their part. Bitter
memories were more and more covered up by the incidents--paltry in his
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eyes, but really important--of his country life. Every week he thought less
often of Kitty. He was impatiently looking forward to the news that she was
married, or just going to be married, hoping that such news would, like
having a tooth out, completely cure him.
Meanwhile spring came on, beautiful and kindly, without the delays and
treacheries of spring,--one of those rare springs in which plants, beasts, and
man rejoice alike. This lovely spring roused Levin still more, and
strengthened him in his resolution of renouncing all his past and building
up his lonely life firmly and independently. Though many of the plans with
which he had returned to the country had not been carried out, still his most
important resolution--that of purity--had been kept by him. He was free
from that shame, which had usually harassed him after a fall; and he could
look everyone straight in the face. In February he had received a letter from
Marya Nikolaevna telling him that his brother Nikolay's health was getting
worse, but that he would not take advice, and in consequence of this letter
Levin went to Moscow to his brother's and succeeded in persuading him to
see a doctor and to go to a watering-place abroad. He succeeded so well in
persuading his brother, and in lending him money for the journey without
irritating him, that he was satisfied with himself in that matter. In addition
to his farming, which called for special attention in spring, and in addition
to reading, Levin had begun that winter a work on agriculture, the plan of
which turned on taking into account the character of the laborer on the land
as one of the unalterable data of the question, like the climate and the soil,
and consequently deducing all the principles of scientific culture, not
simply from the data of soil and climate, but from the data of soil, climate,
and a certain unalterable character of the laborer. Thus, in spite of his
solitude, or in consequence of his solitude, his life was exceedingly full.
Only rarely he suffered from an unsatisfied desire to communicate his stray
ideas to someone besides Agafea Mihalovna. With her indeed he not
infrequently fell into discussion upon physics, the theory of agriculture, and
especially philosophy; philosophy was Agafea Mihalovna's favorite
subject.
Spring was slow in unfolding. For the last few weeks it had been steadily
fine frosty weather. In the daytime it thawed in the sun, but at night there
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were even seven degrees of frost. There was such a frozen surface on the
snow that they drove the wagons anywhere off the roads. Easter came in the
snow. Then all of a sudden, on Easter Monday, a warm wind sprang up,
storm clouds swooped down, and for three days and three nights the warm,
driving rain fell in streams. On Thursday the wind dropped, and a thick
gray fog brooded over the land as though hiding the mysteries of the
transformations that were being wrought in nature. Behind the fog there
was the flowing of water, the cracking and floating of ice, the swift rush of
turbid, foaming torrents; and on the following Monday, in the evening, the
fog parted, the storm clouds split up into little curling crests of cloud, the
sky cleared, and the real spring had come. In the morning the sun rose
brilliant and quickly wore away the thin layer of ice that covered the water,
and all the warm air was quivering with the steam that rose up from the
quickened earth. The old grass looked greener, and the young grass thrust
up its tiny blades; the buds of the guelder-rose and of the currant and the
sticky birch-buds were swollen with sap, and an exploring bee was
humming about the golden blossoms that studded the willow. Larks trilled
unseen above the velvety green fields and the ice-covered stubble-land;
peewits wailed over the low lands and marshes flooded by the pools; cranes
and wild geese flew high across the sky uttering their spring calls. The
cattle, bald in patches where the new hair had not grown yet, lowed in the
pastures; the bowlegged lambs frisked round their bleating mothers.
Nimble children ran about the drying paths, covered with the prints of bare
feet. There was a merry chatter of peasant women over their linen at the
pond, and the ring of axes in the yard, where the peasants were repairing
ploughs and harrows. The real spring had come.
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