Anna Karennina

by Leo Tolstoy

PART ONE

Chapter XI.
Levin emptied his glass, and they were silent for a while.
"There's one other thing I ought to tell you. Do you know Vronsky?" Stepan Arkadyevich asked Levin.
"No, I don't. Why do you ask?"
"Give us another bottle," Stepan Arkadyevich directed the Tatar, who was filling up their glasses and fidgeting round them just when he was least wanted.
"Why, you ought to know Vronsky because he's one of your rivals."
"Who's Vronsky?" said Levin, and his face was suddenly transformed from the look of childlike ecstasy which Oblonsky had just been admiring to an angry and unpleasant expression.
"Vronsky is one of the sons of Count Kirill Ivanovich Vronsky, and one of the finest specimens of the gilded youth of Peterburg. I made his acquaintance in Tver, when I was there on official business, and he came there for the levy of recruits. Fearfully rich, handsome, great connections, an aide-de-camp, and with all that a very fine good-natured fellow. But he's more than simply a good-natured fellow, as I've found out here- he's a cultured man, too, and very intelligent; he's a man who'll make his mark."
Levin scowled and kept silent.
"Well, he turned up here soon after you'd gone, and, as I can see, he's over head and ears in love with Kitty, and you know that her mother..."
"Excuse me, but I know nothing," said Levin, frowning gloomily. And immediately he recalled his brother Nikolai, and how vile he was to have been able to forget him.
"You wait a bit- wait a bit," said Stepan Arkadyevich, smiling and touching his hand. "I've told you what I know, and I repeat that in this delicate and tender matter, as far as one can conjecture, I believe the chances are in your favor."
Levin dropped back in his chair; his face was pale.
"But I would advise you to settle the thing as soon as possible," pursued Oblonsky, filling up his glass.
"No, thanks, I can't drink any more," said Levin, pushing away his glass. "I shall get drunk.... Come, tell me how are you getting on?" he went on, obviously anxious to change the conversation.
"One word more: in any case I advise you to settle the question soon. Tonight I don't advise you to speak," said Stepan Arkadyevich. "Go round tomorrow morning, make a proposal in classic form, and God bless you...."
"Oh, do you still think of coming to me for some shooting? Come next spring, do," said Levin.
Now his whole soul was full of remorse that he had begun this conversation with Stepan Arkadyevich. His peculiar feeling was profaned by talk of the rivalry of some Peterburg officer, of the suppositions and the counsels of Stepan Arkadyevich.
Stepan Arkadyevich smiled. He knew what was passing in Levin's soul.
"I'll come some day," he said. "Yes, my dear, women- they're the pivot everything turns upon. Things are in a bad way with me, very bad. And it's all through women. Tell me frankly, now," he pursued, picking up a cigar and keeping one hand on his glass; "give me your advice."
"Why, what is it?"
"I'll tell you. Suppose you're married; you love your wife, but are fascinated by another woman..."
"Excuse me, but I'm absolutely unable to comprehend how just as I can't comprehend how I could now, after my dinner, go straight to a baker's shop and steal a loaf."
Stepan Arkadyevich's eyes sparkled more than usual.
"Why not? A loaf will sometimes smell so good that one can't resist it.
"Himmlisch ist's wenn ich bezwungen
Meine irdische Begier;
Aber doch wenn's nicht gelungen
Hatt' ich auch recht hubsch Plaisir!"
As he said this, Stepan Arkadyevich smiled subtly. Levin, too, could not help smiling.
"Yes, but joking apart," resumed Oblonsky, "you must understand that the woman, a sweet, gentle, loving creature, poor and lonely, has sacrificed everything. Now, when the thing's done, don't you see, can one possibly cast her off? Even supposing one parts from her, so as not to break up one's family life, still, can one help feeling for her, setting her on her feet, lightening her lot?"
"Well, you must excuse me there. You know to me all women are divided into two classes.... Well, no... it would be truer to say: there are women, and there are... I've never seen charming fallen beings, and I never shall see them, but such creatures as that painted Frenchwoman at the counter with the ringlets are vermin to my mind, and all fallen women are like her."
"But the Magdalen?"
"Ah, drop that! Christ would never have said those words if He had known how they would be abused. Of all the Gospel those words are the only ones remembered. However, I'm not saying so much what I think, as what I feel. I have a loathing for fallen women. You're afraid of spiders, and I of these vermin. Most likely you've not made a study of spiders and don't know their character; and so it is with me."
"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 with his left hand. But denying 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; you're done for," Stepan Arkadyevich said with weary despair.
Levin smiled slightly.
"Yes, you're done for," resumed Oblonsky. "But what's to be done?"
"Don't steal loaves."
Stepan Arkadyevich 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; while 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 sorts of love, which you remember Plato defines in his Banquet, serve as the touchstone of men. Some men only understand one sort, and some only the other. And those who only know the nonplatonic love talk in vain 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 positively don't know."
"You see," said Stepan Arkadyevich, "you're very much all of a piece. That's your quality 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 constantly corresponding 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."
Levin sighed and made no reply. He was thinking of his own affairs, and was not listening to Oblonsky.
And suddenly both of them felt that though they were friends, though they had been dining together, and drunk wine which should have drawn them closer, yet each was thinking only of his own affairs, and they had nothing to do with one another. Oblonsky had more than once experienced this extreme sense of aloofness, instead of intimacy, coming on after dinner, and he knew what to do in such cases.
"Let's have the check!" he called, and he went into the next room, where he promptly came across an aide-de-camp of his acquaintance and dropped into conversation with him about an actress and her protector. And at once, in this conversation with the aide-de-camp, Oblonsky had a sense of relaxation and relief after his conversation with Levin, which always put him to too great a mental and spiritual strain.
When the Tatar appeared with a check of twenty-six roubles and some kopecks, besides a tip for himself, Levin, who would another time have been horrified, like anyone from the country, at his share of fourteen roubles, did not notice it, paid, and set off homeward to dress and go to the Shcherbatskys', where his fate was to be decided.
Chapter XII.
The young princess Kitty Shcherbatskaia was eighteen. It was the first winter that she had been out in the world. Her success in society had been greater than that of either of her elder sisters, and greater even than her mother had anticipated. To say nothing of the young men who danced at the Moscow balls being almost all in love with Kitty, two serious suitors had already, the first winter, made their appearance: Levin, and, immediately after his departure, Count Vronsky.
Levin's appearance at the beginning of the winter, his frequent visits, and evident love for Kitty, had led to the first serious conversations between Kitty's parents as to her future, and to disputes between them. The Prince was on Levin's side; he said he wished for nothing better for Kitty. The Princess for her part, going round the question in the manner peculiar to women, maintained that Kitty was too young, that Levin had done nothing to prove that he had serious intentions, that Kitty felt no great attraction to him, and there were some other reasons too; but she did not state the principal point, which was that she looked for a better match for her daughter, that Levin was not to her liking, and that she did not understand him. When Levin had abruptly departed, the Princess was delighted, and said to her husband triumphantly: 'You see, I was right.' When Vronsky appeared on the scene, she was still more delighted, confirmed in her opinion that Kitty was to make not simply a good, but a brilliant match.
In the mother's eyes there could be no comparison between Vronsky and Levin. The mother disliked in Levin his strange and uncompromising opinions and his shyness in society, founded on his pride, as she supposed, and his queer sort of life, as she considered it, absorbed in cattle and peasants. She did not very much like it that he, who was in love with her daughter, had kept coming to the house for six weeks, as though he were waiting for something, inspecting, as though he were afraid he might be doing them too great an honor by making a proposal, and did not realize that a man who continually visits at a house where there is a young unmarried girl, is bound to make his intentions clear. And suddenly, without doing so, he disappeared. "It's as well he's not attractive enough for Kitty to have fallen in love with him," thought the mother.
Vronsky satisfied all the mother's desires. Very wealthy, clever, of aristocratic family, on the highroad to a brilliant career in the army and at court, and a fascinating man. Nothing better could be wished for.
Vronsky openly flirted with Kitty at balls, danced with her, and came continually to the house; consequently there could be no doubt of the seriousness of his intentions. But, in spite of that, the mother had spent the whole of that winter in a state of terrible anxiety and agitation.
Princess Shcherbatskaia had herself been married thirty years ago, her aunt arranging the match. The wooer, about whom everything was well known beforehand, had come, looked at his intended, and been looked at. The matchmaking aunt had ascertained and communicated their mutual impression. That impression had been favorable. Afterward, on a day fixed beforehand, the expected proposal was made to her parents, and accepted. All had passed very simply and easily. So it seemed, at least, to the Princess. But over her own daughters she had felt how far from simple and easy is the business, apparently so commonplace, of marrying off one's daughters. The panics that had been lived through, the thoughts that had been brooded over, the money that had been wasted, and the disputes with her husband over marrying the two elder girls, Darya and Natalya! Now, since the youngest began to come out in the world, the Princess was going through the same terrors, the same doubts, and still more violent quarrels with her husband, than she had over the elder girls. The old Prince, like all fathers indeed, was exceedingly scrupulous on the score of the honor and reputation of his daughters; he was unreasonably jealous over his daughters, especially over Kitty, who was his favorite, and at every turn he had scenes with the Princess for compromising her daughter. The Princess had grown accustomed to this already with her other daughters, but now she felt that there was more ground for the Prince's scrupulousness. She saw that of late years much was changed in the manners of society, that a mother's duties had become still more difficult. She saw that girls of Kitty's age formed some sort of clubs, went to some sort of lectures, mixed freely in men's society, drove about the streets alone; many of them did not curtsy; and, what was the most important thing, all of them were firmly convinced that to choose their husband was their own affair, and not their parents'. "Marriages aren't made nowadays as they used to be," was thought and said by all these young girls, and even by their elders. But just how marriages were made nowadays, the Princess could not learn from anyone. The French fashion- of the parents arranging their children's future- was not accepted; it was condemned. The English fashion of the complete independence of girls was also not accepted, and not possible in Russian society. The Russian fashion of matchmaking was considered unseemly; it was ridiculed by everyone- even by the Princess herself. But how girls were to be married, and how parents were to marry them, no one knew. Everyone with whom the Princess had chanced to discuss the matter said the same thing: "Mercy on us, it's high time in our day to cast off all that old-fashioned business. It's the young people have to marry, and not their parents; and so we ought to leave the young people to arrange it as they choose." It was very easy for anyone to say who had no daughters, but the Princess realized that, in the process of getting to know each other, her daughter might fall in love, and fall in love with someone who did not care to marry her, or who was quite unfit to be her husband. And, however much it was instilled into the Princess that in our times young people ought to arrange their lives for themselves, she was unable to believe it, just as she would have been unable to believe that, at any time whatever, loaded pistols were the most suitable playthings for children five years old. And so the Princess was more uneasy over Kitty than she had been over the elder daughters.
Now she was afraid that Vronsky might confine himself to simply flirting with her daughter. She saw that her daughter was in love with him, but tried to comfort herself with the thought that he was an honorable man, and would not do this. But at the same time she knew how easy it is, with the freedom of manners of today, to turn a girl's head, and how lightly men generally regard such a crime. The week before, Kitty had told her mother of a conversation she had with Vronsky during a mazurka. This conversation had partly reassured the Princess; yet her assurance could not be perfect. Vronsky had told Kitty that both he and his brother were so used to obeying their mother that they never made up their minds to any important undertaking without consulting her. "And, just now, I am impatiently awaiting my mother's coming from Peterburg, as a peculiar piece of luck," he had told her.
Kitty had repeated this without attaching any significance to the words. But her mother saw them in a different light. She knew that the old lady was expected from day to day, that she would be pleased at her son's choice, and she felt it strange that he should not make his proposal through fear of vexing his mother. However, she was so anxious for the marriage itself, and still more for relief from her fears, that she believed it was so. Bitter as it was for the Princess to see the unhappiness of her eldest daughter, Dolly, on the point of leaving her husband, her anxiety over the decision of her youngest daughter's fate engrossed all her feelings. Today, with Levin's reappearance, a fresh source of anxiety arose. She was afraid that her daughter, who had at one time, as she fancied, a feeling for Levin, might, from an extreme sense of honesty, refuse Vronsky, and that Levin's arrival might generally complicate and delay the affair, now so near conclusion.
"Why, has he been here long?" the Princess asked about Levin, as they returned home.
"He came today, maman."
"There's one thing I want to say..." began the Princess, and from her serious and alert face, Kitty guessed what it would be.
"Mamma," she said, flushing hotly and turning quickly to her, "please, please don't say anything about that. I know, I know all about it."
She wished what her mother wished for, but the motives of her mother's wishes hurt her.
"I only want to say that to raise hopes..."
"Mamma, darling, for goodness' sake, don't talk about it. It's so horrible to talk about it."
"I won't," said her mother, seeing the tears in her daughter's eyes; "but one thing, my love; you promised me you would have no secrets from me. You won't?"
"Never, mamma- none," answered Kitty, flushing and looking her mother straight in the face; "but I have nothing to tell you now, and I... I... If I wanted to, I don't know what to say or how... I don't know..."
"No, she could not tell an untruth with those eyes," thought the mother, smiling at her agitation and happiness. The Princess smiled: so immense and so important seemed to the poor child everything that was taking place just now in her soul.
Chapter XIII.
After dinner, and till the beginning of the evening, Kitty was experiencing a sensation akin to that of a young man before a battle. Her heart throbbed violently, and her thoughts would not rest on anything.
She felt that this evening, when both these men would meet for the first time, would be a turning point in her life. And she was continually picturing them to herself, at one moment each individually, and then both together. When she mused on the past, she dwelt with pleasure, with tenderness, on the memories of her relations with Levin. The memories of childhood and of Levin's friendship with her dead brother have a special poetic charm to her relations with him. His love for her, of which she felt certain, was flattering and delightful to her; and it was easy for her to think of Levin. In her memories of Vronsky there always entered a certain element of awkwardness, though he was in the highest degree a fashionable and even-tempered man, as though there were some false note- not in Vronsky, he was very simple and charming- but in herself; while with Levin she felt herself perfectly simple and clear. But, on the other hand, directly she thought of the future with Vronsky, there arose before her a perspective of brilliant happiness; with Levin the future seemed misty.
When she went upstairs to dress, and looked into the looking glass, she noticed with joy that it was one of her good days, and that she was in complete possession of all her forces- she needed this so for what lay before her: she was conscious of external composure and free grace in her movements.
At half-past seven she had only just gone down into the drawing room, when the footman announced, "Constantin Dmitrievich Levin." The Princess was still in her room, and the Prince had not come in. "So it is to be," thought Kitty, and all the blood seemed to rush to her heart. She was horrified at her paleness, as she glanced into the looking glass.
At that moment she knew beyond doubt that he had come early on purpose to find her alone and to propose to her. And only then for the first time the whole thing presented itself in a new, different aspect; only then she realized that the question did not affect her only- with whom she would be happy, and whom she loved- but that she would have that moment to wound a man whom she liked. And to wound him cruelly... Wherefore? Because he, dear fellow, loved her, was in love with her. But there was no help for it; it must be so- it would have to be so.
"My God! shall I myself really have to say it to him?" she thought. "Can I tell him I don't love him? That will be a lie. What am I to say to him? That I love someone else? No, that's impossible. I'm going away- I'm going away."
She had reached the door, when she heard his step. "No It's not honest. What have I to be afraid of? I have done nothing wrong. What is to be, will be! I'll tell the truth. And with him one can't be ill at ease. Here he is," she said to herself, seeing his powerful and timid figure, with his shining eyes fixed on her. She looked straight into his face, as though imploring him to spare her, and gave him her hand.
"It's not time yet; I think I'm too early," he said glancing round the empty drawing room. When he saw that his expectations were realized, that there was nothing to prevent him from speaking, his face became somber.
"Oh, no," said Kitty, and sat down at a table.
"But this was just what I wanted, to find you alone," he began, without sitting down, and not looking at her, so as not to lose courage.
"Mamma will be down directly. She was very much tired yesterday. Yesterday..."
She talked on, not knowing what her lips were uttering, and not taking her supplicating and caressing eyes off him.
He glanced at her; she blushed, and ceased speaking.
"I told you I did not know whether I should be here long... that it depended on you..."
She dropped her head lower and lower, not knowing herself what answer she should make to what was coming.
"That it depended on you," he repeated. "I meant to say... I meant to say... I came for this... To have you be my wife!" he blurted out, not knowing what he was saying, but feeling that the most terrible thing was said, he stopped short and looked at her.
She was breathing heavily, without looking at him. She was feeling ecstasy. Her soul was flooded with happiness. She had never anticipated that his utterance of love would produce such a powerful effect on her. But it lasted only an instant. She remembered Vronsky. She lifted her clear, truthful eyes, and, seeing Levin's desperate face, she answered hastily:
"That cannot be... Forgive me."
A moment ago, and how close she had been to him, of what importance in his life! And how aloof and remote from him she had become now!
"It could not have been otherwise," he said, without looking at her. He bowed, and was about to leave.
Chapter XIV.
But at that very moment the Princess came in. There was a look of horror on her face when she beheld them alone, and saw their disturbed faces. Levin bowed to her, and said nothing. Kitty neither spoke nor lifted her eyes. "Thank God, she has refused him," thought the mother, and her face lighted up with the habitual smile with which she greeted her guests on Thursdays. She sat down and began questioning Levin about his life in the country. He sat down again, waiting for other visitors to arrive, in order to go off unnoticed.
Five minutes later there came in a friend of Kitty's, married the preceding winter- Countess Nordstone.
She was a thin, sallow, sickly and nervous woman, with brilliant black eyes. She was fond of Kitty, and her affection for her showed itself, as the affection of married women for girls always does, in the desire to make a match for Kitty after her own ideal of married happiness; she wanted her to marry Vronsky. Levin she had often met at the Shcherbatskys' early in the winter, and she had always disliked him. Her invariable and favorite pursuit, when they met, consisted in making fun of him.
"I do like it when he looks down at me from the height of his grandeur, or breaks off his wise conversation with me because I'm a fool, or is condescending to me. I like that so- to see him condescending! I am so glad he can't bear me," she used to say of him.
She was right, for Levin actually could not bear her, and despised her for what she was proud of and regarded as a fine characteristic- her nervousness, her refined contempt and indifference for everything coarse and earthly.
The Countess Nordstone and Levin had got into that mutual relation not infrequently seen in society, when two persons, who remain externally on friendly terms, despise each other to such a degree that they cannot even take each other seriously, and cannot even be offended by each other.
The Countess Nordstone pounced upon Levin at once.
"Ah, Constantin Dmitrievich! So you've come back to our corrupt Babylon," she said, giving him her tiny, yellow hand and recalling what he had chanced to say early in the winter, that Moscow was a Babylon. "Come, is Babylon reformed, or have you degenerated?" she added, glancing with a simper at Kitty.
"It's very flattering for me, Countess, that you remember my words so well," responded Levin, who had succeeded in recovering his composure, and at once from habit dropped into his tone of joking hostility to the Countess Nordstone. "They must certainly make a great impression on you."
"Oh, I should think so! I always note everything down. Well, Kitty, have you been skating again?..."
And she began talking to Kitty. Awkward as it was for Levin to withdraw now, it would still have been easier for him to perpetrate this awkwardness than to remain all the evening and see Kitty, who glanced at him now and then and avoided his eyes. He was on the point of getting up, when the Princess, noticing that he was silent, addressed him.
"Shall you be long in Moscow? You're busy with the Zemstvo, though, aren't you, and can't be away for long?"
"No, Princess, I'm no longer a member of the board," he said. "I have come up for a few days."
"There's something the matter with him," thought Countess Nordstone, glancing at his stern, serious face. "He isn't in his old argumentative mood. But I'll draw him out. I do love making a fool of him before Kitty, and I'll do it."
"Constantin Dmitrievich," she said to him, "do explain to me please, what does it mean- you know all about such things- in our village of Kaluga all the peasants and all the women have drunk up all they possessed, and now they can't pay us any rent. What's the meaning of that? You always praise the mouzhiks so."
At that instant another lady came into the room, and Levin got up.
"Excuse me, Countess, but I really know nothing about it, and can't tell you anything," he said, and looked round at the officer who came in behind the lady.
"That must be Vronsky," thought Levin, and, to be sure of it, glanced at Kitty. She had already had time to look at Vronsky, and looked round at Levin. And, simply from the look in her eyes, that grew unconsciously brighter, Levin knew that she loved this man- knew it as surely as if she had told him in so many words. But what sort of a man was he?
Now, whether for good or for ill, Levin could not choose but remain; he must find out what the man was like whom she loved.
There are people who, on meeting a successful rival, no matter in what, are at once disposed to turn their backs on everything good in him, and to see only what is bad. There are people who, on the contrary, desire above all to find in that successful rival the qualities by which he has worsted them, and seek with a throbbing ache at heart only what is good. Levin belonged to the second class. But he had no difficulty in finding what was good and attractive in Vronsky. It was apparent at the first glance. Vronsky was a squarely built, dark man, not very tall, with a good-humored, handsome and exceedingly calm and firm face. Everything about his face and figure, from his short-cropped black hair and freshly shaven chin down to his loosely fitting, brand-new uniform, was simple and at the same time elegant. Making way for the lady who had come in, Vronsky went up to the Princess and then to Kitty.
As he approached her, his beautiful eyes shone with an especially tender light, and with a faint, happy and modestly triumphant smile (so it seemed to Levin), bowing carefully and respectfully over her, he held out his small broad hand to her.
Greeting and saying a few words to everyone, he sat down without once glancing at Levin, who had never taken his eyes off him.
"Let me introduce you," said the Princess, indicating Levin. "Constantin Dmitrievich Levin, Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky."
Vronsky got up and, looking cordially at Levin, shook hands with him.
"I believe I was to have dined with you this winter," he said, smiling his simple and open smile; "but you had unexpectedly left for the country."
"Constantin Dmitrievich despises and hates the town, and us townspeople," said Countess Nordstone.
"My words must make a deep impression on you, since you remember them so well," said Levin, and, suddenly becoming conscious that he had said just the same thing before, he reddened.
Vronsky looked at Levin and Countess Nordstone, and smiled.
"Are you always in the country?" he inquired. "I should think it must be dull in the winter."
"It's not dull if one has work to do; besides, one's not dull by oneself," Levin replied abruptly.
"I am fond of the country," said Vronsky, noticing, yet affecting not to notice, Levin's tone.
"But I hope, Count, you would not consent to live in the country always," said Countess Nordstone.
"I don't know; I have never tried for long. I experienced a queer feeling once," he went on. "I never longed so for the country- Russian country, with bast shoes and peasants- as when I was spending a winter with my mother in Nice. Nice itself is dull enough, you know. And, indeed, Naples and Sorrento are only pleasant for a short time. And it's just there that Russia comes back to one's mind most vividly, and especially the country. It's as though..."
He talked on, addressing both Kitty and Levin, turning his serene, friendly eyes from one to the other, and saying obviously just what came into his head.
Noticing that Countess Nordstone wanted to say something, he stopped short without finishing what he had begun, and listened attentively to her.
The conversation did not flag for an instant, so that the old Princess, who always kept in reserve, in case a subject should be lacking, two heavy guns- the classical and professional education, and universal military service- had not to move out either of them, while Countess Nordstone had no chance of chaffing Levin.
Levin wanted to, and could not, take part in the general conversation; saying to himself every instant, "Now go," he still did not go, as though waiting for something.
The conversation fell upon table turning and spirits, and Countess Nordstone, who believed in spiritualism, began to describe the miracles she had seen.
"Ah, Countess, you really must take me; for pity's sake do take me to see them! I have never seen anything extraordinary, though I am always on the lookout for it everywhere," said Vronsky, smiling.
"Very well- next Saturday," answered Countess Nordstone. "But you, Constantin Dmitrievich- are you a believer?" she asked Levin.
"Why do you ask me? You know what I shall say."
"But I want to hear your opinion."
"My opinion," answered Levin, "is merely that this table turning proves that educated society- so called- is no higher than the peasants. They believe in the evil eye, and in witchcraft and conjurations, while we..."
"Oh, then you aren't a believer?"
"I can't believe, Countess."
"But if I've seen for myself?"
"The peasant women, too, tell us they have seen hobgoblins."
"Then you think I tell a lie?"
And she laughed a mirthless laugh.
"Oh, no, Masha, Constantin Dmitrievich merely said he could not believe," said Kitty, blushing for Levin, and Levin saw this, and, still more exasperated, would have answered; but Vronsky with his bright frank smile rushed to the support of the conversation, which was threatening to become disagreeable.
"You do not admit the possibility at all?" he queried. "But why not? We admit the existence of electricity, of which we know nothing. Why should there not be some new force, still unknown to us, which..."
"When electricity was discovered," Levin interrupted hurriedly, "it was only the phenomenon that was discovered, and it was unknown from what it proceeded and what were its effects, and ages passed before its applications were conceived. But the spiritualists, on the contrary, have begun with tables writing for them, and spirits appearing to them, and have only later started saying that it is an unknown force."
Vronsky listened attentively to Levin, as he always did listen, obviously interested in his words.
"Yes, but the spiritualists say we don't know at present what this force is, but there is a force, and these are the conditions in which it acts. Let the scientific men find out what the force consists of. No, I don't see why there should not be a new force, if it..."
"Why, because with electricity," Levin interrupted again, "every time you rub tar against wool, a certain phenomenon is manifested; but in this case it does not happen every time, and so it follows it is not a natural phenomenon."
Feeling probably that the conversation was taking a tone too serious for a drawing room, Vronsky made no rejoinder, but by way of trying to change the conversation, he smiled brightly, and turned to the ladies.
"Do let us try at once, Countess," he said; but Levin would finish saying what he thought.
"I think," he went on, "that this attempt of the spiritualists to explain their miracles as some sort of new natural force is most futile. They boldly talk of spiritual force, and then try to subject it to material experiment."
Everyone was waiting for him to finish, and he felt this.
"Why, I think you would be a first-rate medium," said Countess Nordstone, "there's something enthusiastic about you."
Levin opened his mouth, was about to say something, reddened, and said nothing.
"Do let us try table turning at once, please," said Vronsky. "Princess, will you allow it?
And Vronsky stood up, looking about for a little table.
Kitty got up to fetch a table, and, as she passed, her eyes met Levin's. She felt for him with her whole heart, the more because she was pitying him for a suffering of which she was herself the cause. "If you can forgive me, forgive me," said her eyes, "I am so happy."
"I hate them all, and you, and myself," his eyes responded, and he took up his hat. But he was not destined to escape. just as they were arranging themselves round the table, and Levin was on the point of retiring, the old Prince came in, and, after greeting the ladies, addressed Levin.
"Ah!" he began joyously. "Been here long, my boy? I didn't even know you were in town. Very glad to see you." The old Prince embraced Levin, and, talking to him, did not observe Vronsky, who had risen, and was calmly waiting till the Prince should turn to him.
Kitty felt how grievous her father's cordiality was to Levin after what had happened. She saw, too, how coldly her father responded at last to Vronsky's bow, and how Vronsky looked with amiable perplexity at her father, trying and failing to understand how and why anyone could be hostilely disposed toward him, and she flushed.
"Prince, let us have Constantin Dmitrievich," said Countess Nordstone, "we want to try an experiment."
"What experiment? Table turning? Well, you must excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, but to my mind it is better fun to play the ring game," said the old Prince, looking at Vronsky, and guessing that it had been his suggestion. "There's some sense in that, anyway."
Vronsky looked wonderingly at the Prince with his firm eyes, and, with a faint smile, began immediately talking to Countess Nordstone of the great ball that was to come off next week.
"I hope you will be there?" he said to Kitty. As soon as the old Prince turned away from him, Levin slipped out unnoticed, and the last impression he carried away with him of that evening was the smiling, happy face of Kitty answering Vronsky's inquiry about the ball.
Chapter XV.
At the end of the evening Kitty told her mother of her conversation with Levin, and in spite of all the pity she felt for Levin, she was glad at the thought that she had received a proposal. She had no doubt that she had acted rightly. But after she had gone to bed, she could not sleep for a long while. One impression pursued her relentlessly. It was Levin's face, with his scowling brows, and his kind eyes looking out in dark dejection below them, as he stood listening to her father, and glancing at her and at Vronsky. And she felt so sorry for him that tears came into her eyes. But immediately she thought of the man for whom she had given him up. She vividly recalled his manly, firm face, his noble calmness, and the good nature so conspicuous toward everyone. She remembered the love for her of the man she loved, and once more all was gladness in her soul, and she lay on the pillow smiling with happiness. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry; but what could I do? It's not my fault," she said to herself; but an inner voice told her otherwise. Whether she felt remorse at having captivated Levin, or at having refused him, she did not know. But her happiness was poisoned by doubts. "Lord, have pity on us; Lord, have pity, Lord, have pity!" she said over to herself till she fell asleep.
Meanwhile there took place below, in the Prince's little study, one of the scenes so often repeated between the parents on account of their favorite daughter.
"What? I'll tell you what!" shouted the Prince, brandishing his arms, and at once wrapping his squirrel-lined dressing gown round him again. "That you've no pride, no dignity; that you're disgracing, ruining your daughter by this vulgar, stupid matchmaking!"
"But, really, for mercy's sake, Prince, what have I done?" said the Princess, almost crying.
She, pleased and happy after her conversation with her daughter, had gone to the Prince to say good night as usual, and though she had no intention of telling him of Levin's proposal and Kitty's refusal, still she hinted to her husband that she fancied things were practically settled with Vronsky, and would be definitely so as soon as his mother arrived. And thereupon, at those words, the Prince had all at once flown into a passion, and begun to use unseemly language.
"What have you done? I'll tell you what. First of all, you're trying to allure an eligible gentleman, and all Moscow will be talking of it, and with good reason. If you have evening parties, invite everyone, don't pick out the possible suitors. Invite all these whelps [so the Prince styled the youths of Moscow]; engage a piano player, and let them dance- and not as you did tonight: only the wooers, and doing your matching. It makes me sick- sick to see it- and you've gone on till you've turned the poor lass's head. Levin's a thousand times the better man. As for this Peterburg swell- they're turned out by machinery, all on one pattern, and all precious rubbish. But if he were a prince of the blood, my daughter need not run after anyone."
"But what have I done?"
"Why, you've..." The Prince was yelling wrathfully.
"I know if one were to listen to you," interrupted the Princess, "we should never marry off our daughter. If it's to be so, we'd better go into the country."
"Well, we had better."
"But do wait a minute. Do I wheedle them? I don't wheedle them in the least. A young man, and a very nice one, has fallen in love with her, and she, I fancy..."
"Oh, yes, you fancy! And how if she really is in love, and he's no more thinking of marriage than I am!... Oh, that I should live to see it!... "Ah- spiritualism! Ah- Nice! Ah- the ball!'" And the Prince, imagining that he was mimicking his wife, made a mincing curtsy at each word. "And this is how we prepare wretchedness for Katenka; and she's really got the notion into her head...."
"But what makes you suppose so?"
"I don't suppose; I know. For such things we have eyes; womenfolk haven't. I see a man who has serious intentions, that's Levin: and I see a quail, like this cackler, who's only amusing himself."
"Oh, well, when once you get an idea into your head!..."
"Well, you'll remember my words, but too late, just as with Dashenka."
"Well, well, we won't talk of it," the Princess stopped him, recollecting her unlucky Dolly.
"By all means, and good night!"
And signing each other with the cross, the husband and wife parted with a kiss, feeling that each remained of his or her own opinion.
The Princess had at first been quite certain that that evening had settled Kitty's fortune, and that there could be no doubt of Vronsky's intentions, but her husband's words had disturbed her. And returning to her own room, in terror before the unknown future, she, too, like Kitty, repeated several times in her heart, "Lord, have pity; Lord, have pity; Lord, have pity!"
Chapter XVI.
Vronsky had never had a real home life. His mother had been in her youth a brilliant society woman, who had had during her married life, and still more afterward, many love affairs notorious in the whole fashionable world. His father he scarcely remembered, and he had been educated in the Corps of Pages.
Leaving the school very young as a brilliant officer, he had at once got into the circle of wealthy Peterburg army men. Although he did go more or less into Peterburg society, his love affairs had always hitherto been outside it.
In Moscow he had for the first time felt, after his luxurious and coarse life at Peterburg, all the charm of intimacy with a sweet and innocent girl of his own rank, who cared for him. It never even entered his head that there could be any harm in his relations with Kitty. At balls he danced principally with her. He was a constant visitor at her house. He talked to her as people commonly do talk in society- all sorts of nonsense, but nonsense to which he could not help attaching a special meaning in her case. Although he said nothing to her that he could not have said before everybody, he felt that she was becoming more and more dependent upon him, and the more he felt this, the better he liked it, and the tenderer was his feeling for her. He did not know that this mode of behavior in relation to Kitty had a definite character, that it is courting young girls with no intention of marriage, and that such courting is one of the evil actions common among brilliant young men such as he was. It seemed to him that he was the first who had discovered this pleasure, and he was enjoying his discovery.
If he could have heard what her parents were saying that evening, if he could have put himself at the point of view of the family, and have heard that Kitty would be unhappy if he did not marry her, he would have been greatly astonished, and would not have believed it. He could not believe that what gave such great and delicate pleasure to him, and above all to her, could be wrong. Still less could he have believed that he ought to marry.
Marriage had never presented itself to him as a possibility. He not only disliked family life, but a family, and especially a husband, in accordance with the views general in the bachelor world in which he lived, were conceived as something alien, repellent, and, above all, ridiculous. But though Vronsky had not the least suspicion of what the parents were saying, he felt on coming away from the Shcherbatskys' that the secret spiritual bond which existed between him and Kitty had grown so much stronger that evening that some step must be taken. But what step could and should be taken he could not imagine.
"What is so exquisite," he thought, as he returned from the Shcherbatskys', carrying away with him, as he always did, a delicious feeling of purity and freshness, arising partly from the fact that he had not been smoking for a whole evening, and with it a new feeling of tenderness at her love for him- "what is so exquisite is that not a word has been said by me or by her, yet we understand each other so well in this unseen language of looks and tones, that this evening more clearly than ever she told me she loves me. And how sweetly, simply, and most of all, how trustfully! I feel myself better, purer. I feel that I have a heart, and that there is a great deal of good in me Those sweet, loving eyes! When she said: 'Indeed I do...'"
"Well, what then? Oh, nothing. It's good for me, and good for her." And he began wondering where to finish the evening.
He passed in review the places he might go to. "Club? a game of bezique; champagne with Ignatov? No, I'm not going. Chateau des Fleurs; there I shall find Oblonsky, songs, the cancan. No, I'm sick of it. That's why I like the Shcherbatskys', because I'm growing better. I'll go home." He went straight to his room at Dussot's Hotel, ordered supper, and then undressed, and as soon as his head touched the pillow, fell into a sound sleep.
Chapter XVII.
Next day, at eleven o'clock in the morning, Vronsky drove to the station of the Peterburg railway to meet his mother, and the first person he came across on the great flight of steps was Oblonsky, who was expecting his sister by the same train.
"Ah! Your Excellency!" cried Oblonsky, "Whom are you meeting?"
"My mother," Vronsky responded, smiling, as everyone did who met Oblonsky. He shook hands with him, and together they ascended the steps. "She is to be here from Peterburg today."
"I was looking out for you till two o'clock last night. Where did you go from the Shcherbatskys'?"
"Home," answered Vronsky. "I must own I felt so well content yesterday after the Shcherbatskys' that I didn't care to go anywhere."
"'I can tell the gallant steeds' by some... I don't know what... 'paces'; I can tell youths 'by their faces,'" declaimed Stepan Arkadyevich, just as he had done before to Levin.
Vronsky smiled with a look that seemed to say that he did not deny it, but he promptly changed the subject.
"And whom are you meeting?" he asked.
"I? I've come to meet a pretty woman," said Oblonsky.
"So that's it!"
"Honi soit qui mal y pense! My sister Anna."
"Ah! that's Madame Karenina," said Vronsky.
"You know her, no doubt?"
"I think I do. Or perhaps not... I really am not sure," Vronsky answered heedlessly, with a vague recollection of something stiff and tedious evoked by the name Karenina.
"But Alexei Alexandrovich, my celebrated brother-in-law, you surely must know. All the world knows him."
"I know him by reputation and by sight. I know that he's clever, learned, religious somewhat... But you know that's not... not in my line," said Vronsky in English.
"Yes, he's a very remarkable man; rather a conservative, but a very nice man," observed Stepan Arkadyevich, "a very nice man."
"Oh, well, so much the better for him," said Vronsky smiling. "Oh, you've come," he said, addressing a tall old footman of his mother's standing at the door; "come here."
Besides the charm Oblonsky had in general for everyone, Vronsky had felt of late specially drawn to him by the fact that in his imagination he was associated with Kitty.
"Well, what do you say? Shall we give a supper on Sunday for the diva?" he said to him with a smile, taking his arm.
"Of course. I'm collecting subscriptions. Oh, did you make the acquaintance of my friend Levin?" asked Stepan Arkadyevich.
"Yes; but he left rather early."
"He's a capital fellow," pursued Oblonsky. "Isn't he?"
"I don't know why it is," responded Vronsky, "in all Moscow people- present company of course excepted," he put in jestingly, "there's something uncompromising. They are all on the defensive, lose their tempers, as though they all want to make one feel something...."
"Yes, that's true, it's so," said Stepan Arkadyevich, laughing cheerfully.
"Will the train be in soon?" Vronsky asked a railway official.
"The train's signaled," answered the man.
The approach of the train was more and more evident by the preparatory bustle in the station, the rush of porters, the movement of gendarmes and attendants, and crowding people meeting the train. Through the frosty vapor could be seen workmen in short sheepskins and soft felt boots crossing the rails of the curving line. The hiss of the boiler could be heard on the distant rails, and the rumble of something heavy.
"No," said Stepan Arkadyevich, who felt a great inclination to tell Vronsky of Levin's intentions in regard to Kitty. "No, you haven't got a true impression of Levin. He's a very nervous man, and is sometimes out of humor, it's true, but then he is often very charming. He has such a true, honest nature, and a heart of gold. But yesterday there were special reasons," pursued Stepan Arkadyevich, with a meaning smile, totally oblivious of the genuine sympathy he had felt the day before for his friend, and feeling the same sympathy now, only for Vronsky. "Yes, there were reasons why he could not help being either particularly happy or particularly unhappy."
Vronsky stood still and asked directly: "How so? Do you mean he proposed to your belle-soeur yesterday?"
"Maybe," said Stepan Arkadyevich. "I fancied something of the sort yesterday. Yes, if he went away early, and was out of humor too, such must be the case.... He's been so long in love, and I'm very sorry for him."
"So that's it!... I should imagine, though, she might reckon on a better match," said Vronsky, setting his chest straight and walking about again, "though I don't know him, of course," he added. "Yes, that is a hateful position! That's why most fellows prefer to have to do with the Claras. If you don't succeed with them it only proves that you've not enough cash, but in this case one's dignity is in the balance. But here's the train."
The engine had already whistled in the distance. A few instants later the platform began to shake, and, with puffs of steam hanging low in the air from the frost, the engine rolled up, with the rod of the middle wheel rhythmically moving up and down, and the bowed, muffled figure of the engine driver covered with hoarfrost. Behind the tender, setting the platform more and more slowly and more powerfully shaking, came the luggage van with a dog whining in it. At last the passenger carriages rolled in, quivering before coming to a standstill.
A smart guard jumped out, giving a whistle, and after him one by one the impatient passengers began to get down: an officer of the guards, holding himself erect, and looking severely about him; a nimble young merchant with a bag, smiling gaily; a peasant with a sack over his shoulder.
Vronsky, standing beside Oblonsky, watched the carriages and the passengers, totally oblivious of his mother. What he had just heard about Kitty excited and delighted him. Unconsciously he straightened his chest, and his eyes flashed. He felt himself a conqueror.
"Countess Vronskaia is in that compartment," said the smart guard, going up to Vronsky.
The guard's words roused him, and forced him to think of his mother and his approaching meeting with her. He did not in his heart respect his mother, and, without acknowledging it to himself, he did not love her, though in accordance with the ideas of the set in which he lived, and with his own upbringing, he could not have conceived of any behavior to his mother not in the highest degree respectful and obedient, and the more externally obedient and respectful, the less in his heart he respected and loved her.
Chapter XVIII.
Vronsky followed the guard to the carriage, and at the door of the compartment he stopped short to make room for a lady who was getting out.
With the habitual feeling of a man of the world, from one glance at this lady's appearance Vronsky classified her as belonging to the best society. He begged pardon, and was getting into the carriage, but felt he must glance at her once more; not because she was very beautiful, not because of that elegance and modest grace which were apparent in her whole figure, but because in the expression of her charming face, as she passed close by him, there was something peculiarly caressing and soft. As he looked round, she too turned her head. Her shining gray eyes, that looked dark because of her thick lashes, rested with friendly attention on his face, as though she were recognizing him, and then promptly turned away to the passing crowd, as though seeking someone. In that brief look Vronsky had time to notice the suppressed animation which played over her face, and flitted between the brilliant eyes and the faint smile that curved her red lips. It was as though her nature were so brimming over with something that, against her will, it showed itself now in the flash of her eyes, and now in her smile. Deliberately she shrouded the light in her eyes, but it shone against her will in her faintly perceptible smile.
Vronsky stepped into the carriage. His mother, a dried-up old lady with black eyes and ringlets, screwed up her eyes, scanning her son, and smiled slightly with her thin lips. Getting up from the seat and handing her maid a handbag, she gave her little wrinkled hand to her son to kiss, and lifting his head from her hand, kissed him on the cheek.
"You got my telegram? Quite well? Thank God."
"You had a good journey?" said her son, sitting down beside her, and involuntarily listening to a woman's voice outside the door. He knew it was the voice of the lady he had met at the door.
"All the same I don't agree with you," said the lady's voice.
"It's the Peterburg view, madame."
"Not Peterburg, but simply feminine," she responded.
"Well, well, allow me to kiss your hand."
"Good-by, Ivan Petrovich. And would you see if my brother is here, and send him to me?" said the lady in the doorway, and stepped back again into the compartment.
"Well, have you found your brother?" said Countess Vronskaia, addressing the lady.
Vronsky understood now that this was Madame Karenina.
"Your brother is here," he said, standing up. "Excuse me, I did not know you, and, indeed, our acquaintance was so slight," said Vronsky bowing, "that no doubt you do not remember me."
"Oh, no," said she, "I should have known you because your mother and I have been talking, I think, of nothing but you all the way." As she spoke she let the animation that would insist on coming out show itself in her smile. "And still no sign of my brother."
"Do call him, Aliosha," said the old countess.
Vronsky stepped out onto the platform and shouted: "Oblonsky! Here!"
Madame Karenina, however, did not wait for her brother, but catching sight of him she stepped out with her light, resolute step. And as soon as her brother had reached her, with a gesture that struck Vronsky by its decision and its grace, she flung her left arm around his neck, drew him rapidly to her, and kissed him warmly. Vronsky looked on, never taking his eyes from her, and smiled, he could not have said why. But recollecting that his mother was waiting for him, he went back again into the carriage.
"She's very sweet, isn't she?" said the Countess of Madame Karenina. "Her husband put her with me, and I was delighted to have her. We've been talking all the way. And so you, I hear... vous filez le parfait amour. Tant mieux, mon cher, tant mieux."
"I don't know what you are referring to, maman," he answered coldly. "Come, maman, let us go."
Madame Karenina entered the carriage again to say good-by to the Countess.
"Well, Countess, you have met your son, and I my brother," she said gaily. "And all my stories are exhausted; I should have nothing more to tell you."
"Oh, no," said the Countess, taking her hand. "I could go all around the world with you and never be dull. You are one of those delightful women in whose company it's sweet either to be silent or to chat. Now please don't fret over your son; you can't expect never to be parted."
Madame Karenina stood quite still, holding herself very erect, and her eyes were smiling.
"Anna Arkadyevna," the Countess said in explanation to her son, "has a little son eight years old, I believe, and she has never been parted from him before, and she keeps fretting over leaving him."
"Yes, the Countess and I have been talking all the time, I of my son and she of hers," said Madame Karenina, and again a smile lighted up her face- a caressing smile intended for him.
"I am afraid that you must have been dreadfully bored," he said, promptly catching the ball of coquetry she had flung him. But apparently she did not care to pursue the conversation in that strain, and she turned to the old Countess.
"Thank you so much. The time has passed so quickly. Good-by, Countess."
"Good-by, my love," answered the Countess. "Let me kiss your pretty face. I speak plainly, at my age, and I tell you simply that I've lost my heart to you."
Stereotyped as the phrase was, Madame Karenina obviously believed it and was delighted by it. She flushed, bent down slightly, and put her cheek to the Countess's lips, drew herself up again, and, with the same smile fluttering between her lips and her eyes, she gave her hand to Vronsky. He pressed the little hand she gave him, and was delighted, as though at something special, by the energetic squeeze with which she freely and vigorously shook his hand. She went out with the rapid step which bore her rather fully developed figure with such strange lightness.
"Very charming," said the Countess.
That was precisely what her son was thinking. His eyes followed her till her graceful figure was out of sight, and then the smile remained on his face. He saw out of the window how she went up to her brother, put her arm in his, and began telling him something animatedly- obviously something that had nothing to do with him, Vronsky, and at that he felt annoyed.
"Well, maman, are you perfectly well?" he repeated, turning to his mother.
"Everything has been delightful. Alexandre has been very good, and Marie has grown very pretty. She's very interesting."
And she began telling him again of what interested her most- the christening of her grandson, for which she had been staying in Peterburg, and the special favor shown her elder son by the Czar.
"Here's Lavrentii," said Vronsky, looking out of the window; "now we can go, if you like."
The old butler who had traveled with the Countess came to the carriage to announce that everything was ready, and the Countess got up to go.
"Come; there's not such a crowd now," said Vronsky.
The maid took a handbag and the lap dog, the butler and a porter the other baggage. Vronsky gave his mother his arm; but just as they were getting out of the carriage several men ran suddenly by with panic-stricken faces. The stationmaster, too, ran by in his extraordinarily colored cap. Obviously something unusual had happened. The crowd was running to the tail end of the train.
"What?... What?... Where?... Flung himself!... Crushed!..." was heard among the crowd.
Stepan Arkadyevich, with his sister on his arm, turned back. They too looked scared, and stopped at the carriage door to avoid the crowd.
The ladies got in, while Vronsky and Stepan Arkadyevich followed the crowd to find out details of the disaster.
A watchman, either drunk or too much muffled up in the bitter frost, had not heard the train moving back, and had been crushed.
Before Vronsky and Oblonsky came back the ladies heard the facts from the butler.
Oblonsky and Vronsky had both seen the mutilated corpse. Oblonsky was evidently distressed. He frowned and seemed ready to cry.
"Ah, how awful! Ah, Anna, if you had seen it! Ah, how awful!" he kept repeating.
Vronsky did not speak; his handsome face was serious, but perfectly calm.
"Ah, if you had seen it, Countess," said Stepan Arkadyevich. "And his wife was there.... It was awful to see her!... She flung herself on the body. They say he was the only support of an immense family. How awful!"
"Couldn't one do anything for her?" said Madame Karenina in an agitated whisper.
Vronsky glanced at her, and immediately got out of the carriage.
"I'll be back directly, maman," he remarked, turning round in the doorway.
When he came back a few minutes later, Stepan Arkadyevich was already in conversation with the Countess about a new singer, while she was impatiently looking toward the door, waiting for her son.
"Now let us be off," said Vronsky, coming in.
They went out together. Vronsky was in front with his mother. Behind walked Madame Karenina with her brother. Just as they were going out of the station the stationmaster overtook Vronsky.
"You gave my assistant two hundred roubles. Would you kindly explain for whose benefit you intend them?"
"For the widow," said Vronsky, shrugging his shoulders. "I should have thought there was no need to ask."
"You gave that?" cried Oblonsky behind, and, pressing his sister's hand, he added: "Most charming, most charming! Isn't he a fine fellow? Good-by, Countess."
And he and his sister stood still, looking for her maid.
When they went out the Vronskys' carriage had already driven away. People coming in were still talking of what had happened.
"What a horrible death!" said a gentleman, passing by. "They say he was cut in two."
"On the contrary, I think it's the easiest- instantaneous," observed another.
"How is it they don't take proper precautions?" a third was saying.
Madame Karenina seated herself in the carriage, and Stepan Arkadyevich saw with surprise that her lips were quivering, and that she was with difficulty restraining her tears.
"What is it, Anna?" he asked, when they had driven a few hundred sagenes.
"It's an omen of evil," she said.
"What nonsense!" said Stepan Arkadyevich. "You've come, that's the chief thing. You can't conceive how I'm resting my hopes on you."
"Have you known Vronsky long? she asked.
"Yes. You know we're hoping he will marry Kitty."
"Yes?" said Anna softly. "Come now, let us talk of you," she added, tossing her head, as though she would physically shake off something superfluous oppressing her. "Let us talk of your affairs. I got your letter, and here I am."
"Yes, all my hopes are in you," said Stepan Arkadyevich.
"Well, tell me all about it."
And Stepan Arkadyevich began his story.
On reaching home Oblonsky helped his sister out, sighed, pressed her hand, and set off to his office.
Chapter XIX.
When Anna entered the tiny drawing room, she found Dolly sitting there with a white-headed plump little boy, already resembling his father; she was listening to a lesson in French reading. As the boy read, he kept twisting and trying to tear off a button that was nearly off his jacket. His mother had several times taken his hand from it, but the plump little hand went back to the button again. His mother pulled the button off and put it in her pocket.
"Keep your hands still, Grisha," she said, and she took up her work, a coverlet she had long been making. She always set to work on it at depressed moments, and now she knitted at it nervously, twitching her fingers and counting the stitches. Though she had sent word the day before to her husband that it was nothing to her whether his sister came or not, she had made everything ready for her arrival, and was expecting her sister-in-law with agitation.
Dolly was crushed by her sorrow, utterly swallowed up by it. Still she did not forget that Anna, her sister-in-law, was the wife of one of the most important personages in Peterburg, and was a Peterburg grande dame. And, thanks to this circumstance, she did not carry out her threat to her husband- that is to say, she had not forgotten that her sister-in-law was coming. "And, after all, Anna is in no wise to blame," thought Dolly. "I know nothing save the very best about her, and I have seen nothing but kindness and affection from her toward myself." It was true that as far as she could recall her impressions at Peterburg at the Karenins', she did not like their household itself; there was something artificial about the whole arrangement of their family life. "But why should I not receive her? If only she doesn't take it into her head to console me!" thought Dolly. "All consolations and exhortations and Christian forgiveness- I have thought all this over a thousand times, and it's all no use."
All these days Dolly had been alone with her children. She did not want to talk of her sorrow, but with that sorrow in her heart she could not talk of outside matters.
She knew that in one way or another she would tell Anna everything, and she was alternately glad at the thought of speaking freely, and angry at the necessity of speaking of her humiliation with her, his sister, and of hearing her ready-made phrases of exhortation and consolation.
She had been on the lookout for her, glancing at her watch every minute, and, as often happens, let slip that precise minute when her visitor arrived, so that she did not hear the bell.
Catching the sound of skirts and of light steps at the door, she looked round, and her careworn face unconsciously expressed not gladness, but wonder. She got up and embraced her sister-in-law.
"What, here already?" she said as she kissed her.
"Dolly, how glad I am to see you!"
"I am glad, too," said Dolly, faintly smiling, and trying by the expression of Anna's face to find out whether she knew. "Most likely she knows," she thought, noticing the sympathy in Anna's face. "Well, come along, I'll take you to your room," she went on, trying to defer as long as possible the time of explanation.
"Is this Grisha? Heavens, how he's grown!" said Anna; and kissing him, never taking her eyes off Dolly, she stood still and flushed. "No, please, let us stay here."
She took off her shawl and her hat, and catching it in a lock of her black hair, which was a mass of curls, she tossed her head and shook her hair down.
"You are radiant with health and happiness!" said Dolly, almost with envy.
"I?... Yes," said Anna. "Merciful heavens, Tania! You're the same age as my Seriozha," she added, addressing the little girl as she ran in. She took her in her arms and kissed her. "Delightful child, delightful! Show me them all."
She mentioned them, not only remembering the names, but the years, months, characters, illnesses of all the children, and Dolly could not but appreciate that.
"Very well, we will go to them," she said. "It's a pity Vassia's asleep."
After seeing the children, they sat down, alone now, in the drawing room, to coffee. Anna took the tray, and then pushed it away from her.
"Dolly," she said, "he has told me."
Dolly looked coldly at Anna; she was waiting now for hypocritically sympathetic phrases, but Anna said nothing of the sort.
"Dolly, darling," she said, "I don't want to intercede for him, nor to try to comfort you- that's impossible. But, my dearest, I'm simply sorry, sorry from my heart for you!"
Under the thick lashes of her shining eyes tears suddenly glittered. She moved nearer to her sister-in-law and took her hand in her own, vigorous and little. Dolly did not shrink away, but her face did not lose its frigid expression. She said:
"To comfort me is impossible. Everything's lost after what has happened, everything's over!"
And directly she had said this, her face suddenly softened. Anna lifted the wasted, thin hand of Dolly, kissed it and said:
"But, Dolly, what's to be done, what's to be done? How is it best to act in this awful position- that's what you must think of."
"All's over, and there's nothing more," said Dolly. "And the worst of it all is, you see, that I can't cast him off: there are the children- my hands are tied. And I can't live with him! It's a torture for me to see him."
"Dolly, darling, he has spoken to me, but I want to hear it from you: tell me all about it."
Dolly looked at her inquiringly.
Sympathy and love unfeigned were apparent on Anna's face.
"Very well," she suddenly said. "But I will begin at the beginning. You know how I was married. With the education maman gave us I was more than innocent- I was foolish. I knew nothing. They say, I know, men tell their wives of their former lives, but Stiva"- she corrected herself- "Stepan Arkadyevich told me nothing. You'll hardly believe it, but till now I imagined that I was the only woman he had known. So I lived eight years. You must understand that I was not only far from suspecting infidelity, but I regarded it as impossible, and then- try to imagine it- with such conceptions to find out suddenly all the horror, all the loathsomeness... You must try and understand me. To be fully convinced of one's happiness, and all at once..." continued Dolly, holding back her sobs, "To get a letter... His letter to his mistress, a governess in my employ. No, it's too awful!" She hastily pulled out her handkerchief and hid her face in it. "I can understand if it were passion," she went on, after a brief silence, "but to deceive me deliberately, slyly... And with whom?... To go on being my husband while he and she... It's awful! You can't understand..."
"Oh, yes, I understand! I understand! Dolly, dearest, I do understand," said Anna, pressing her hand.
"And do you imagine he realizes all the awfulness of my position? Dolly resumed. "Not in the slightest! He's happy and contented."
"Oh, no!" Anna interposed quickly. "He's to be pitied, he's weighed down by remorse..."
"Is he capable of remorse?" Dolly interrupted, gazing intently into her sister-in-law's face.
"Yes. I know him. I could not look at him without feeling sorry for him. We both know him. He's good-natured, but he's proud, and now he's so humiliated. What touched me most..." (And here Anna guessed what would touch Dolly most.) "He's tortured by two things: that he's ashamed for the children's sake, and that, loving you- yes, yes, loving you beyond everything on earth," she hurriedly interrupted Dolly, who would have rejoined- "he has hurt you, pierced you to the heart. 'No, no, she cannot forgive me,' he keeps on saying."
Dolly looked pensively past her sister-in-law as she listened to her words.
"Yes, I can see that his position is awful; it's worse for the guilty than the innocent," she said, "if he feels that all the misery comes from his fault. But how am I to forgive him, how am I to be his wife again after her? For me to live with him now would be torture, just because I love my past love for him..."
And sobs cut short her words.
But as though of set design, each time she was softened she began to speak again of what exasperated her.
"She's young, you see, she's pretty," she went on. "Do you know, Anna, my youth and my beauty are gone, taken by whom? By him and his children. I have worked for him, and all I had has gone in his service, and now of course any fresh, vulgar creature has more charm for him. No doubt they talked of me together, or, worse still, they were silent about me.... Do you understand?"
Again her eyes glowed with hatred.
"And after that he will tell me... What! Am I to believe him? Never! No, everything is over, everything that once constituted my comfort, the reward of my work and of my sufferings... Would you believe it? I was teaching Grisha just now: once this was a joy to me, now it is a torture. What have I to strive and toil for? Why to have children? What's so awful is that all at once my heart's turned, and instead of love and tenderness, I have nothing but hatred for him; yes, hatred. I could kill him and..."
"Darling Dolly, I understand, but don't torture yourself You are so insulted, so excited, that you look at many things mistakenly."
Dolly grew calmer, and for two minutes both were silent.
"What's to be done? Think for me, Anna, help me. I have thought over everything, and I see nothing."
Anna could not find anything, but her heart echoed instantly to each word, to each change of expression on her sister-in-law's face.
"One thing I would say," began Anna. "I am his sister, I know his character, that faculty of forgetting everything, everything" (she waved her hand before her forehead), "that faculty for being completely carried away, but for completely repenting, too. He cannot believe it, he cannot comprehend now, how he could have acted as he did."
"No; he understands, and understood!" Dolly broke in. "But I... You are forgetting me... Does that make it easier for me?"
"Wait a minute. When he told me, I will own I did not realize all the horror of your position. I saw nothing but him, and that the family was broken up. I felt sorry for him, but after talking to you, I see it, as a woman, quite differently. I see your agony, and I can't tell you how sorry I am for you! But, Dolly, darling, while I fully realize your sufferings, there is one thing I don't know; I don't know... I don't know how much love there is still in your heart for him. That you know- whether there is enough for you to be able to forgive him. If there is- forgive him!"
"No," Dolly was beginning, but Anna cut her short, kissing her hand once more.
"I know more of the world than you do," she said. I know how men like Stiva look at it. You speak of his talking of you with her. That never happened. Such men are unfaithful, but their own home and wife are sacred to them. Somehow or other these women are still looked on with contempt by them, and do not touch on their feeling for their family. They draw a sort of line that can't be crossed between them and their families. I don't understand it, but it is so."
"Yes, but he has kissed her..."
"Dolly, hush, darling. I saw Stiva when he was in love with you. I remember the time when he came to me and cried, talking of you, and of what a poetry and loftiness you were for him, and I know that the longer he has lived with you the loftier you have been in his eyes. You know we have sometimes laughed at him for putting in at every word: "Dolly's a marvelous woman." have always been a divinity for him, and you are that still, and this has not been a passion of the heart...
"But if it be repeated?"
"It cannot be, as I understand it...
"Yes, but could you forgive it?"
"I don't know, I can't judge... No, I can judge," said Anna, thinking a moment; and grasping the position in her thought and weighing it in her inner balance, she added: "Yes, I can, I can, I can. Yes, I could forgive. I could not be the same, no; but I could forgive, and forgive as though it had never been, never been at all...."
"Oh, of course," Dolly interposed quickly, as though saying what she had more than once thought, "else it would not be forgiveness. If one forgives, it must be completely, completely. Come, let us go; I'll take you to your room," she said, getting up, and on the way she embraced Anna. "My dear, how glad I am you came. It has made things better, ever so much better."
Chapter XX.
The whole of that day Anna spent at home- that is, at the Oblonskys', and received no one, though some of her acquaintances had already heard of her arrival, and came to call the same day. Anna spent the whole morning with Dolly and the children. She merely sent a brief note to her brother to tell him that he must not fail to dine at home. "Come, God is merciful," she wrote.
Oblonsky did dine at home: the conversation was general, and his wife, speaking to him, addressed him as "Stiva," as she had not done for some time past. In the relations of husband and wife the same estrangement still remained, but there was no talk of separation, and Stepan Arkadyevich saw the possibility of explanation and reconciliation.
Immediately after dinner Kitty came in. She knew Anna Arkadyevna, but only very slightly, and she came now to her sister's with some trepidation, at the prospect of meeting this fashionable Peterburg lady, of whom everyone spoke so highly. But she made a favorable impression on Anna Arkadyevna- she perceived that at once. Anna was unmistakably admiring her loveliness and her youth: before Kitty knew where she was she found herself not merely under Anna's sway, but in love with her, as young girls do fall in love with older and married women. Anna did not resemble a fashionable lady, or the mother of a boy eight years old. In the elasticity of her movements, the freshness and the animation which persisted in her face and broke out in her smile and her glance, she would rather have passed for a girl of twenty, had it not been for a serious and, at times, a mournful look in her eyes, which struck and attracted Kitty. Kitty felt that Anna was perfectly simple and was concealing nothing, but that she had another higher world of interests, complex and poetic, which were inaccessible to Kitty.
After dinner, when Dolly withdrew to her own room, Anna rose quickly and went up to her brother, who was just lighting a cigar.
"Stiva," she said to him, winking gaily, making the sign of the cross over him, and glancing toward the door, "go, and God help you.
He tossed away his cigar, having understood her, and departed through the doorway.
When Stepan Arkadyevich had disappeared, she went back to the sofa where she had been sitting, surrounded by the children. Either because the children saw that their mother was fond of this aunt, or that they themselves sensed a special charm in her, the two elder ones, and the younger following their lead, as children so often do, had clung about their new aunt since before dinner, and would not leave her side. And it had become a sort of game among them to sit as close as possible to their aunt, to touch her, hold her little hand, kiss it, play with her ring, or even touch the flounce of her skirt.
"Come, come, as we were sitting before," said Anna Arkadyevna, sitting down in her place.
And again Grisha poked his little face under her arm, and nestled with his head on her gown, beaming with pride and happiness.
"And when is your next ball?" she asked Kitty.
"Next week- and a splendid ball. One of those balls where one always enjoys oneself."
"Why, are there balls where one always enjoys oneself?" Anna said, with tender irony.
"It's strange, but there are. At the Bobrishchevs' one always enjoys oneself, and at the Nikitins' too, while at the Mezhkovs' it's always dull. Haven't you noticed it?"
"No, my dear, for me there are no balls now where one enjoys oneself," said Anna, and Kitty detected in her eyes that peculiar world which was not revealed to her. "For me there are some which are less dull and tiresome than others."
"How can you be dull at a ball?"
"Why should not I be dull at a ball?" inquired Anna.
Kitty perceived that Anna knew what answer would follow.
"Because you always look the loveliest of all."
Anna had the faculty of blushing. She blushed, and said:
"In the first place it's never so; and secondly, if it were, what difference would it make to me?"
"Are you coming to this ball? asked Kitty.
"I imagine it won't be possible to avoid going. Here, take it," she said to Tania, who was pulling the loosely fitting ring off her white, slender-tipped finger.
"I shall be so glad if you go. I should so like to see you at a ball."
"Anyway, if I do go, I shall comfort myself with the thought that it's a pleasure to you.... Grisha, don't pull my hair. It's untidy enough without that," she said, putting up a straying lock, which Grisha had been playing with.
"I imagine you at the ball in lilac."
"And why in lilac, precisely?" asked Anna, smiling. "Now, children, run along, run along. Do you hear? Miss Hoole is calling you to tea," she said tearing the children from her, and sending them off to the dining room.
"I know why you press me to come to the ball. You expect a great deal of this ball, and you want everyone to be there and take part in it."
"How do you know? Yes!"
"Oh! What a happy time you are at," pursued Anna. "I remember, and I know this blue haze, like the mist on the mountains in Switzerland. This mist, which covers everything in that blissful time when childhood is just ending, and out of that vast circle, happy and gay, there is a path growing narrower and narrower, and it is delightful and alarming to enter the ballroom, bright and splendid as it is.... Who has not been through it?"
Kitty smiled without speaking. "But how did she go through it? How I should like to know all her love story!" thought Kitty, recalling the unromantic appearance of Alexei Alexandrovich, her husband.
"I know something. Stiva told me, and I congratulate you. I liked him so much," Anna continued. "I met Vronsky at the railway station."
"Oh, was he there?" asked Kitty, blushing. "What was it Stiva told you?"
"Stiva blabbed about it all. And I should be so glad. I traveled yesterday with Vronsky's mother," she went on; "and his mother talked without a pause of him; he's her favorite. I know mothers are partial, but..."
"What did his mother tell you?"
"Oh, a great deal! And although I know that he's her favorite, one can still see how chivalrous he is.... Well, for instance, she told me that he had wanted to give up all his property to his brother; that he had done something extraordinary when he was quite a child- saved a woman from the water. He's a hero, in fact," said Anna, smiling and recollecting the two hundred roubles he had given at the station.
But she did not tell Kitty about the two hundred roubles. For some reason it was disagreeable to her to think of it. She felt that there was something that had to do with her in it, and something that ought not to have been.
"She pressed me very much to go and see her," Anna went on; "and I shall be glad to go to see her tomorrow. Stiva is staying a long while in Dolly's room, thank God," Anna added, changing the subject, and getting up, Kitty fancied, displeased with something.
"No, I'm first! No, I!" screamed the children, who had finished tea, running up to their Aunt Anna.
"All together," said Anna, and she ran laughing to meet them, and, embracing them, threw all the children, shrieking with delight, into a swarming heap.

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