Anna Karenina — Chapter 138 in French
By Leo Tolstoy
Ils venaient de rentrer de Moscou et jouissaient de leur solitude. They were just back from Moscow, and enjoying their solitude. Lui, installé à son bureau, dans son cabinet de travail, écrivait ; elle, vêtue d’une robe violette, chère à son mari parce qu’elle la portait les premiers jours de leur mariage et qu’elle lui seyait à merveille, faisait de la broderie anglaise, assise sur le grand divan de cuir, celui même qui ornait le cabinet de travail du grand-père et du père de Lévine. Levin was sitting at his library table, writing; Kitty, dressed in a dark violet dress, which she had worn in the first days of their marriage, and which Levin had always liked, was making broderie anglaise, as she sat on the divan,—on the great leather divan which ever since the days of Levin's father and grandfather had stood in the library.
Il jouissait de la présence de sa femme tout en réfléchissant et écrivant. Levin enjoyed her presence while he was writing and thinking. Il n'avait pas abandonné ses travaux agricoles et son livre sur la transformation des conditions agronomiques. He had not abandoned his occupations,—his farming, and the treatise in which the principles of his new method of conducting his estate were to be evolved. Il n’avait pas abandonné ses travaux agricoles et son livre sur la transformation des conditions agronomiques, mais si autrefois ses occupations lui avaient paru petites et misérables, comparées à la tristesse des ténèbres qui enveloppaient sa vie, c’était bien pire maintenant devant l’avenir rempli de clarté et de bonheur. But, as before, these occupations and thoughts seemed to him small and useless in comparison with the gloom that overshadowed his life; so now they seemed just as petty and unimportant in comparison with the life before him, irradiated as it was with the full light of joy. Il ne les abandonnait pas, mais sentait que le centre de gravité de son attention s’était déplacé et porté ailleurs, et sa besogne lui en paraissait d’autant plus aisée. He kept up his occupations, but felt now that the center of gravity of his interests had shifted, and that consequently he looked otherwise and more clearly than formerly at the matter.
Autrefois le travail lui était apparu comme le salut ; il sentait que sans cela sa vie serait trop sombre ; actuellement ses occupations lui étaient nécessaires pour que sa vie ne fût pas uniformément claire. In former days this occupation seemed like the salvation of his life; in former days he felt that without it life would be altogether gloomy; now these occupations were necessary in order that his life might not be too monotonously bright. En relisant son travail, il constata avec plaisir que l’affaire en valait la peine ; bien que plusieurs de ses idées anciennes lui parussent excessives ; par contre, en embrassant toute l’œuvre, il vit comment il lui faudrait combler certaines lacunes. As he took up his manuscript again, reading over what he had written, he felt with satisfaction that the work was worth his attention. Bien que plusieurs de ses idées anciennes lui parussent excessives et extravagantes, par contre, en embrassant toute l'œuvre, il vit clairement comment il lui faudrait combler certaines lacunes. Many of his former thoughts seemed to him exaggerated and extravagant, but many of the gaps became clearly evident to him as he reviewed the whole subject. Il récrivait maintenant le chapitre où il traitait des causes de la situation désavantageuse de l’agriculture en Russie. He was now writing a new chapter, in which he treated of the causes for the unfavorable condition of Russian agriculture. Il tâchait de prouver que la pauvreté de la Russie ne tenait pas seulement à la distribution inégale des terres mais qu’elle provenait en partie de cette civilisation extérieure, avec ses voies de communication entraînant la centralisation dans les villes, le développement du luxe, de l’industrie, du crédit et de son compagnon, l’agiotage. He argued that the poverty of the country was caused not entirely by the unequal distribution of the land property and false economical tendencies, but that this cooperated with the abnormal introduction of a veneer of civilization, especially the means of communication, the railways, which produced an exaggerated centralization in the cities, the development of luxury, and consequently the creation of new industries at the expense of agriculture, an extraordinary extension of the credit system and its concomitant—stock speculation. Il lui semblait qu’avec le développement normal des richesses dans le pays, tous ces phénomènes ne se produiraient qu’après que l’agriculture aurait pris une grande extension et serait placée dans des conditions régulières, définies ; que les richesses du pays doivent s’accroître également, surtout de telle façon que les autres branches de l’industrie ne devancent pas l’agriculture ; que les voies de communication doivent suivre le développement de l’agriculture ; qu’avec le partage inégal des terres, la création des voies ferrées est subordonnée aux besoins politiques et non aux besoins économiques, si bien qu’au lieu d’aider à l’agriculture, ce qu’on en attendait, les chemins de fer ont provoqué le développement de l’industrie et du crédit et arrêté l’agriculture. Il pensait que de même que le développement prématuré et asymétrique d’un organe peut nuire au développement général de l’animal, de même, le développement général de la richesse, le crédit, les chemins de fer, le développement de l’industrie, absolument nécessaires en Europe où leur temps est venu, sont nuisibles en Russie, parce qu’ils écartent la question principale, la seule urgente, l’organisation agricole. It seemed to him that with a normal development of riches in the empire all these signs of exterior civilization would appear only when the cultivation of the land should have attained a proportional development, when it should have at least been established on correct, determining conditions; that the wealth of a country ought to increase at a regular ratio, and in such a way that agriculture should not be outstripped by other branches of wealth; that the means of intercommunication ought to be developed in conformity with the natural development of agriculture, and that in view of our improper use of the land, the railways, constructed not by reason of actual necessity, but from political motives, were premature, and instead of the cooperation which they were expected to give to agriculture, they arrested it by encouraging the spread of manufacturing and the credit system; and that, therefore, just as a one-sided and premature development of one organ in the body would prevent its general development, so for the general development of wealth in Russia, the credit system, the means of intercommunication, the recrudescence of manufacturing industries, however indispensable they may have been in Europe, where they are opportune, have in Russia done nothing but harm by keeping from sight the most important question as to the organization of agriculture.
Tandis que Lévine écrivait, Kitty songeait combien son mari avait été sottement inquiet du jeune prince Tcharsky, qui, la veille de son départ, lui avait fait ostensiblement la cour. While Levin was writing, Kitty was thinking how her husband, on the evening before they left Moscow, had watched unnaturally the young Prince Charsky, who, with remarkable lack of tact, had made love to her. « Il est jaloux, pensait-elle. "He is jealous," she said to herself. Mon Dieu ! qu’il est gentil et bête ! how good and stupid he is! Il est jaloux ! To be jealous of me! S’il savait qu’ils sont tous pour moi comme Pierre, le cuisinier ! If he only knew that for me they are all like Piotr the cook!" » Et avec un sentiment étrange pour elle, elle jeta un regard de propriétaire sur sa nuque et son cou rouges. And she glanced with a strange feeling of proprietorship at the back of her husband's head and his sunburnt neck.