Anna Karenina - Part 1 - Page 88/119

Levin remembered that when Nikolay had been in the devout stage,

the period of fasts and monks and church services, when he was

seeking in religion a support and a curb for his passionate

temperament, everyone, far from encouraging him, had jeered at

him, and he, too, with the others. They had teased him, called

him Noah and Monk; and, when he had broken out, no one had helped

him, but everyone had turned away from him with horror and

disgust.

Levin felt that, in spite of all the ugliness of his life, his

brother Nikolay, in his soul, in the very depths of his soul, was

no more in the wrong than the people who despised him. He was

not to blame for having been born with his unbridled temperament

and his somehow limited intelligence. But he had always wanted

to be good. "I will tell him everything, without reserve, and I

will make him speak without reserve, too, and I'll show him that

I love him, and so understand him," Levin resolved to himself,

as, towards eleven o'clock, he reached the hotel of which he had

the address.

"At the top, 12 and 13," the porter answered Levin's inquiry.

"At home?"

"Sure to be at home."

The door of No. 12 was half open, and there came out into the

streak of light thick fumes of cheap, poor tobacco, and the sound

of a voice, unknown to Levin; but he knew at once that his

brother was there; he heard his cough.

As he went in the door, the unknown voice was saying: "It all depends with how much judgment and knowledge the thing's

done."

Konstantin Levin looked in at the door, and saw that the speaker

was a young man with an immense shock of hair, wearing a Russian

jerkin, and that a pockmarked woman in a woolen gown, without

collar or cuffs, was sitting on the sofa. His brother was not to

be seen. Konstantin felt a sharp pang at his heart at the

thought of the strange company in which his brother spent his

life. No one had heard him, and Konstantin, taking off his

galoshes, listened to what the gentleman in the jerkin was

saying. He was speaking of some enterprise.

"Well, the devil flay them, the privileged classes," his

brother's voice responded, with a cough. "Masha! get us some

supper and some wine if there's any left; or else go and get

some."

The woman rose, came out from behind the screen, and saw

Konstantin.

"There's some gentleman, Nikolay Dmitrievitch," she said.