第241章

However many women and girls he thought of whom he knew, he could not think of a girl who united to such a degree all - positively all -the qualities he would wish to see in his wife. She had all the charm and freshness of youth, but she was not a child; and if she loved him, she loved him consciously, as a woman ought to love; that was one thing. Another point: she was not only far from being worldly, but had an unmistakable distaste for worldly society, and at the same time she knew the world, and had all the ways of a woman of the best society, which were absolutely essential to Sergei Ivanovich's conception of the woman who was to share his life. Thirdly: she was religious, and not like a child, unconsciously religious and good, as Kitty, for example, was, but her life was founded on religious principles. Even in trifling matters, Sergei Ivanovich found in her all that he wanted in his wife: she was poor and alone in the world, so she would not bring with her a mass of relations and their influence into her husband's house, as he saw now in Kitty's case. She would owe everything to her husband, which was what he had always desired, too, for his future family life. And this girl, who united all these qualities, loved him. He was a modest man, but he could not help seeing it. And he loved her. There was one consideration against it - his age. But he came of a long-lived family, he had not a single gray hair, no one would have taken him for forty, and he remembered Varenka's saying that it was only in Russia that men of fifty thought themselves old, and that in France a man of fifty considers himself dans la force de l'âge , while a man of forty is un jeune homme . But what did the mere reckoning of years matter when he felt as young in heart as he had been twenty years ago? Was it not youth to feel as he felt now, when coming from the other side to the edge of the wood he saw in the glowing light of the slanting sunbeams the graceful figure of Varenka in her yellow gown with her basket, walking lightly by the trunk of an old birch tree, and when this impression of the sight of Varenka blended so harmoniously with the beauty of the view, of the yellow oat field lying bathed in the slanting sunshine, and, beyond it, the distant ancient forest, flecked with yellow and melting into the blue of the distance? His heart throbbed joyously. A softened feeling came over him. He felt that he had made up his mind. Varenka, who had just crouched down to pick a mushroom, rose with a supple movement and looked round. Flinging away the cigar, Sergei Ivanovich advanced with resolute steps toward her.

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TOLSTOY: Anna Karenina Part 6, Chapter 05[Previous Chapter] [Table of Contents] Chapter 5 `Varvara Andreevna, when I was very young, I set before myself the ideal of the woman I loved and should be happy to call my wife. I have lived through a long life, and now for the first time I have met what I sought - in you. I love you, and offer you my hand.'

Sergei Ivanovich was saying this to himself while he was ten paces from Varenka. Kneeling down, with her hands over the mushrooms to guard them from Grisha, she was calling little Masha.

`Come here, little ones! There are so many!' she was saying in her sweet, deep voice.

Seeing Sergei Ivanovich approaching, she did not get up and did not change her position, but everything told him that she felt his presence and was glad of it.

`Well, did you find some?' she asked from under the white kerchief, turning her handsome, gently smiling face to him.

`Not one,' said Sergei Ivanovich. `Did you?'

She did not answer, busy with the children who thronged about her.

`That one too, near the twig,' she pointed out to little Masha a little fungus, split in half across its rosy cap by the dry grass from under which it thrust itself. Varenka got up while Masha picked the fungus, breaking it into two white halves. `This brings back my childhood,' she added, moving apart from the children, to Sergei Ivanovich's side.

They walked on for a few steps in silence. Varenka saw that he wanted to speak; she guessed of what, and felt faint with joy and panic.

They had walked so far away that no one could hear them now, but still he did not begin. It would have been better for Varenka to be silent. After a silence it would have been easier for them to say what they wanted to say, than after talking about mushrooms. But against her own will, as it were accidentally, Varenka said:

`So you found nothing? In the middle of the wood there are always fewer, though.'

Sergei Ivanovich sighed and made no answer. He was annoyed that she had spoken about the mushrooms. He wanted to bring her back to the first words she had uttered about her childhood; but after a pause of some length, as though against his own will, he made an observation in response to her last words.

`I have heard that the white edible fungi are found principally at the edge of the wood, though I can't tell them apart.'

Some minutes more passed; they moved still farther away from the children, and were quite alone. Varenka's heart throbbed so that she heard it beating, and felt that she was turning red, and pale, and red again.

To be the wife of a man like Koznishev, after her position with Madame Stahl, was to her imagination the height of happiness. Besides, she was almost certain that she was in love with him. And this moment it would have to be decided. She felt frightened. She dreaded both his speaking and his not speaking.

Now or never it must be said - Sergei Ivanovich felt that too.

Everything in the expression, the flushed cheeks and the downcast eyes of Varenka betrayed a painful suspense. Sergei Ivanovich saw it, and felt sorry for her. He felt even that to say nothing now would be a slight to her. Rapidly in his own mind he ran over all the arguments in support of his decision. He even said over to himself the words in which he meant to put his proposal, but instead of those words, some utterly unexpected reflection that occurred to him made him ask: