If he describes how a child lingered at the foot of the
stairs, teasing an old servant, or how a peasant-woman stood in a
doorway, laughing and calling to the men at work in the farmyard, the
thing becomes a poetic event; in half a page he makes an unforgettable
scene. It suddenly glows and flushes, and its effect in the story is
profound. A passing glimpse of this kind is caught, say, by Anna in
her hungry desperation, by Levin as he wanders and speculates; and
immediately their experience is the fuller by an eloquent memory. The
vividness of the small scene becomes a part of them, for us who read;
it is something added to our impression of their reality. And so the
half-page is not a diversion or an interlude; it speeds the story by
augmenting the tone and the value of the lives that we are watching.
It happens again and again; that is Tolstoy's way of creating a life,
of raising it to its full power by a gradual process of enrichment,
till Anna or Levin is at length a complete being, intimately
understood, ready for the climax of the tale.
But of course it takes time, and it chanced that this deliberation
made a special difficulty in the case of Anna's story. As for Levin,
it was easy to give him ample play; he could be left to emerge and to
assume his place in the book by leisurely degrees, for it is not until
much has passed that his full power is needed.
Pages:
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249