And remembering that when they met he had corrected the young man about something he had said that betrayed ignorance, Sergey Ivanovitch found the clue to explain the article.
This article was followed by a deadly silence about the book both in the press and in conversation, and Sergey Ivanovitch saw that his six years' task, toiled at with such love and labor, had gone, leaving no trace.
Sergey Ivanovitch's position was still more difficult from the fact that, since he had finished his book, he had had no more literary work to do, such as had hitherto occupied the greater part of his time.
Sergey Ivanovitch was clever, cultivated, healthy, and energetic, and he did not know what use to make of his energy.
Conversations in drawing rooms, in meetings, assemblies, and committees--everywhere where talk was possible--took up part of his time. But being used for years to town life, he did not waste all his energies in talk, as his less experienced younger brother did, when he was in Moscow. He had a great deal of leisure and intellectual energy still to dispose of.
Fortunately for him, at this period so difficult for him from the failure of his book, the various public questions of the dissenting sects, of the American alliance, of the Samara famine, of exhibitions, and of spiritualism, were definitely replaced in public interest by the Slavonic question, which had hitherto rather languidly interested society, and Sergey Ivanovitch, who had been one of the first to raise this subject, threw himself into it heart and soul.
In the circle to which Sergey Ivanovitch belonged, nothing was talked of or written about just now but the Servian War.
Everything that the idle crowd usually does to kill time was done now for the benefit of the Slavonic States.
Balls, concerts, dinners, matchboxes, ladies' dresses, beer, restaurants-- everything testified to sympathy with the Slavonic peoples.
From much of what was spoken and written on the subject, Sergey Ivanovitch differed on various points.
He saw that the Slavonic question had become one of those fashionable distractions which succeed one another in providing society with an object and an occupation. He saw, too, that a great many people were taking up the subject from motives of self-interest and self-advertisement.
He recognized that the newspapers published a great deal that was superfluous and exaggerated, with the sole aim of attracting attention and outbidding one another.
He saw that in this general movement those who thrust themselves most forward and shouted the loudest were men who had failed and were smarting under a sense of injury--generals without armies, ministers not in the ministry, journalists not on any paper, party leaders without followers.
He saw that there was a great deal in it that was frivolous and absurd. But he saw and recognized an unmistakable growing enthusiasm, uniting all classes, with which it was impossible not to sympathize.
The massacre of men who were fellow Christians, and of the same Slavonic race, excited sympathy for the sufferers and indignation against the oppressors.
And the heroism of the Servians and Montenegrins struggling for a great cause begot in the whole people a longing to help their brothers not in word but in deed.
But in this there was another aspect that rejoiced Sergey Ivanovitch. That was the manifestation of public opinion.
The public had definitely expressed its desire.
The soul of the people had, as Sergey Ivanovitch said, found expression.
And the more he worked in this cause, the more incontestable it seemed to him that it was a cause destined to assume vast dimensions, to create an epoch.
He threw himself heart and soul into the service of this great cause, and forgot to think about his book.
His whole time now was engrossed by it, so that he could scarcely manage to answer all the letters and appeals addressed to him.
He worked the whole spring and part of the summer, and it was only in July that he prepared to go away to his brother's in the country.
He was going both to rest for a fortnight, and in the very heart of the people, in the farthest wilds of the country, to enjoy the sight of that uplifting of the spirit of the people, of which, like all residents in the capital and big towns, he was fully persuaded.
Katavasov had long been meaning to carry out his promise to stay with Levin, and so he was going with him.
Chapter 2.
Sergey Ivanovitch and Katavasov had only just reached the station of the Kursk line, which was particularly busy and full of people that day, when, looking round for the groom who was following with their things, they saw a party of volunteers driving up in four cabs.
Ladies met them with bouquets of flowers, and followed by the rushing crowd they went into the station.
One of the ladies, who had met the volunteers, came out of the hall and addressed Sergey Ivanovitch.
"You too come to see them off?" she asked in French.
"No, I'm going away myself, princess.
To my brother's for a holiday.
Do you always see them off?" said Sergey Ivanovitch with a hardly perceptible smile.
"Oh, that would be impossible!" answered the princess. "Is it true that eight hundred have been sent from us already?
Malvinsky wouldn't believe me."
"More than eight hundred.
If you reckon those who have been sent not directly from Moscow, over a thousand," answered Sergey Ivanovitch.
"There!
That's just what I said!" exclaimed the lady. "And it's true too, I suppose, that more than a million has been subscribed?"
"Yes, princess."
"What do you say to today's telegram?
Beaten the Turks again."
"Yes, so I saw," answered Sergey Ivanovitch.
They were speaking of the last telegram stating that the Turks had been for three days in succession beaten at all points and put to flight, and that tomorrow a decisive engagement was expected.
"Ah, by the way, a splendid young fellow has asked leave to go, and they've made some difficulty, I don't know why.
I meant to ask you; I know him; please write a note about his case.
He's being sent by Countess Lidia Ivanovna."
Sergey Ivanovitch asked for all the details the princess knew about the young man, and going into the first-class waiting-room, wrote a note to the person on whom the granting of leave of absence depended, and handed it to the princess.
"You know Count Vronsky, the notorious one...is going by this train?" said the princess with a smile full of triumph and meaning, when he found her again and gave her the letter.
"I had heard he was going, but I did not know when.