Anna Karenina - Part 1 - Page 42/119

"It's very well for you to talk like that; it's very much like

that gentleman in Dickens who used to fling all difficult

questions over his right shoulder. But to deny the facts is no

answer. What's to be done--you tell me that, what's to be done?

Your wife gets older, while you're full of life. Before you've

time to look round, you feel that you can't love your wife with

love, however much you may esteem her. And then all at once love

turns up, and you're done for, done for," Stepan Arkadyevitch

said with weary despair.

Levin half smiled.

"Yes, you're done for," resumed Oblonsky. "But what's to be

done?"

"Don't steal rolls."

Stepan Arkadyevitch laughed outright.

"Oh, moralist! But you must understand, there are two women; one

insists only on her rights, and those rights are your love, which

you can't give her; and the other sacrifices everything for you

and asks for nothing. What are you to do? How are you to act?

There's a fearful tragedy in it."

"If you care for my profession of faith as regards that, I'll

tell you that I don't believe there was any tragedy about it.

And this is why. To my mind, love...both the sorts of love,

which you remember Plato defines in his Banquet, served as the

test of men. Some men only understand one sort, and some only

the other. And those who only know the non-platonic love have no

need to talk of tragedy. In such love there can be no sort of

tragedy. 'I'm much obliged for the gratification, my humble

respects'--that's all the tragedy. And in platonic love there

can be no tragedy, because in that love all is clear and pure,

because..."

At that instant Levin recollected his own sins and the inner

conflict he had lived through. And he added unexpectedly: "But perhaps you are right. Very likely...I don't know, I don't

know."

"It's this, don't you see," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, "you're

very much all of a piece. That's your strong point and your

failing. You have a character that's all of a piece, and you

want the whole of life to be of a piece too--but that's not how

it is. You despise public official work because you want the

reality to be invariably corresponding all the while with the

aim--and that's not how it is. You want a man's work, too,

always to have a defined aim, and love and family life always to

be undivided--and that's not how it is. All the variety, all the

charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow."