Anna Karennina

by Leo Tolstoy

PART TWO

Chapter I.
Toward the end of winter, in the house of the Shcherbatskys, a consultation was being held, which was to determine the state of Kitty's health, and what was to be done to restore her failing strength. She had been ill, and, as spring came on, she grew worse. The family doctor gave her cod-liver oil, then iron, then lunar caustic; but since neither the first, nor the second, nor the third availed, and since his advice was to go abroad before the beginning of the spring, a celebrated doctor was called in. The celebrated doctor, not yet old and a very handsome man, demanded an examination of the patient. He maintained, with special satisfaction, it seemed, that maiden modesty is merely a relic of barbarism, and that nothing could be more natural than for a man who was not yet old to handle a young girl in the nude. He deemed this natural, because he did it every day, and neither felt nor thought, as it seemed to him, anything evil as he did it and, consequently, he considered girlish modesty not merely as a relic of barbarism, but, as well, an insult to himself.
It was necessary to submit, for, although all the doctors studied in the same school, all using the same textbooks, and all learned in the same science, and though some people said this celebrated doctor was but a poor doctor, in the Princess's household and circle it was for some reason held that this celebrated doctor alone had some peculiar knowledge, and that he alone could save Kitty. After thorough examination and tapping of the patient, distraught and dazed with shame, the celebrated doctor, having painstakingly washed his hands, was standing in the drawing room talking to the Prince. The Prince frowned and coughed as he listened to the doctor. As a man who had seen something of life, and neither a fool nor an invalid, he had no faith in medicine, and at soul was wrought up with all this comedy, especially as he was probably the only one who fully understood the cause of Kitty's illness. "You're barking up the wrong tree," he mentally applied this phrase from the hunter's vocabulary to the celebrated doctor, as he listened to the latter's patter about the symptoms of his daughter's complaint. The doctor, for his part, found difficulty in restraining the expression of his contempt for this old grandee, as well as in condescending to the low level of his comprehension. He perceived that it was useless to talk to the old man, and that the head of this house was the mother- and she it was before whom he intended to scatter his pearls. It was at this point that the Princess entered the drawing room with the family doctor. The Prince retreated, doing his best not to betray how ridiculous he regarded the whole comedy. The Princess was distraught, and did not know what to do. She felt herself at fault before Kitty.
"Well, doctor, decide our fate," said the Princess. "Tell me everything."- "Is there any hope?" was what she had wanted to say, but her lips quivered, and she could not utter this question. "Well, doctor?"
"Immediately, Princess- I will discuss the matter with my colleague, and then have the honor of laying my opinion before you."
"Then we had better leave you?"
"As you please."
The Princess, with a sigh, stepped outside.
When the doctors were left alone, the family doctor began timidly explaining his opinion, that there was an incipient tubercular process, but... and so on. The celebrated doctor listened to him, and in the middle of the other's speech looked at his big gold watch.
"That is so," said he. "But..."
The family doctor respectfully ceased in the middle of his speech.
"As you know, we cannot determine the incipience of the tubercular process; until the appearance of vomicae there is nothing determinate. But we may suspect it. And there are indications: malnutrition, nervous excitability, and so on. The question stands thus: if we suspect a tubercular process, what must we do to maintain nutrition?"
"But then, you know, there are always moral, spiritual causes at the back of these cases," the family doctor permitted himself to interpolate with a subtle smile.
"Yes, that's to be taken for granted," retorted the celebrated doctor, again glancing at his watch. "Beg pardon- but is the Iauzsky bridge finished yet, or must one still make a detour?" he asked. "Ah! It is finished. Well, in that case I can make it in twenty minutes. As we were saying, the question may be posited thus: the nutrition must be maintained and the nerves improved. The one is bound with the other; one must work upon both sides of this circle."
"But what about the trip abroad?" asked the family doctor.
"I am a foe to trips abroad. And take notice: if there is any incipient tubercular process, which we cannot know, a trip abroad will not help. We must have a remedy that would improve nutrition, and do no harm."
And the celebrated doctor expounded his plan of treatment with Soden waters, in designating which his main end was evidently their harmlessness.
The family doctor heard him out attentively and respectfully.
"But in favor of foreign travel I would urge the change of habits, the removal from conditions which evoke memories. And then- the mother wishes it," he added.
"Ah! Well, in that case, one might go; well, let them go; but those German charlatans may do harm.... Our instructions ought to be followed.... Well, let them go then."
He again glanced at his watch.
"Oh! it's time to go," and he went to the door.
The celebrated doctor informed the Princess (prompted by a feeling of propriety) that he must see the patient once more.
"What! Another examination!" the mother exclaimed in horror.
"Oh, no- I merely need certain details, Princess."
"Come this way."
And the mother, followed by the doctor, went into the drawing room to Kitty. Wasted and blushing, with a peculiar glitter in her eyes- a consequence of the shame she had gone through, Kitty was standing in the middle of the room. When the doctor came in she turned crimson, and her eyes filled with tears. All her illness and its treatment seemed to her a thing so stupid- even funny! Treatment seemed to her as funny as reconstructing the pieces of a broken vase. It was her heart that was broken. Why, then, did they want to cure her with pills and powders? But she could not hurt her mother- all the more so since her mother considered herself to blame.
"May I trouble you to sit down, Princess?" the celebrated doctor said to her.
Smiling, he, sat down facing her, felt her pulse, and again started in with his tiresome questions. She answered him, and suddenly, becoming angry, got up.
"You must pardon me, doctor- but really, this will lead us nowhere. You ask me the same things, three times running."
The celebrated doctor did not take umbrage.
"Sickly irritability," said he to the Princess, when Kitty had left the room. "However, I had finished...."
And the doctor scientifically defined to the Princess, as to an exceptionally clever woman, the condition of the young Princess, and concluded by explaining the mode of drinking the unnecessary waters. When the question of going abroad came up, the doctor was plunged into profound considerations, as though deciding a weighty problem. Finally his decision was given: they might go abroad, but must put no faith in charlatans, but turn to him in everything.
It seemed as though some cheerful influence had sprung up after the doctor's departure. The mother grew more cheerful when she returned to her daughter, while Kitty too pretended to be more cheerful. She had frequent, almost constant, occasions to be pretending now.
"Really, I'm quite well, maman. But if you want to go abroad, let's!" she said, and, trying to show that she was interested in the proposed trip, she began talking of the preparations for the departure.
Chapter II.
Right after the doctor Dolly arrived. She knew that the consultation was scheduled for that day, and, despite the fact that she had only recently gotten up from her lying-in (she had had another little girl at the end of the winter), despite her having enough trouble and cares of her own, she had left her breast baby and an ailing girl to come and learn Kitty's fate, which was being decided that day.
"Well, what's what?" said she, entering into the drawing room, without taking off her hat. "You're all in good spirits. That means good news, then?"
An attempt was made to tell her what the doctor had said, but it proved that, even though the doctor had talked coherently and long, it was utterly impossible to convey what he had said. The only point of interest was that going abroad was definitely decided upon.
Dolly could not help sighing. Her dearest friend, her sister, was going away. And her life was far from gay. Her relations with Stepan Arkadyevich after their reconciliation had become humiliating. The welding Anna had made proved not at all solid, and family concord had broken down again at the same point. There was nothing definite, but Stepan Arkadyevich was hardly ever at home; also, there was hardly ever any money, and Dolly was constantly being tortured by suspicions of infidelities, and by now she drove them away from her, dreading the agony of jealousy she had already experienced. The first explosion of jealousy, once lived through, could never return, and even the discovery of infidelities could never affect her now as it had the first time. Such a discovery now would only mean breaking up her family habits, and she permitted him to deceive her, despising him- and still more herself- for this weakness. Besides this, the cares of her large family were a constant torment to her: now the nursing of her breast baby did not go well; now the nurse would leave, now (as at the present time) one of the children would fall ill.
"Well, how's everybody in your family?" asked her mother.
"Ah, maman, we have enough trouble of our own. Lili has taken ill, and I'm afraid it's scarlatina. I have come here now to find out about Kitty, and then I shall shut myself up entirely, if- God forbid- it really be scarlatina."
The old Prince too had come in from his study after the doctor's departure, and, after offering his cheek to Dolly, and chatting awhile with her, he turned to his wife:
"What have you decided- are you going? Well, and what do you want to do with me?"
"I think you had better stay here, Alexandre," said his wife.
"Just as you wish."
"Maman, why shouldn't father come with us?" said Kitty. "He'll feel better, and so will we."
The old Prince got up and stroked Kitty's hair. She lifted her head and looked at him with a forced smile. It always seemed to her that he understood her better than anyone else in the family did, though he spoke but little with her. Being the youngest, she was her father's favorite, and she fancied that his love for her gave him insight. When now her gaze met his blue, kindly eyes, scrutinizing her intently, it seemed to her that he saw right through her, and understood all the evil things that were at work within her. Reddening, she was drawn toward him, expecting a kiss; but he merely patted her hair and said:
"These silly chignons! One can't as much as get near one's real daughter, but simply stroke the hair of defunct females. Well Dolinka," he turned to his elder daughter, "what's your ace up to now?"
"Nothing, papa," answered Dolly, who knew that this referred to her husband. "He's always out; I hardly ever see him," she could not resist adding with a mocking smile.
"Why, hasn't he gone into the country yet- about the sale of the forest?"
"No; he's still getting ready."
"Oh, that's it!" said the Prince. "And so I'm to be getting ready, too? At your service," he said to his wife, sitting down. "And as for you, Katia," he went on, addressing his younger daughter, "you must wake up one fine day and say to yourself: Why, I'm quite well, and merry, and I'm going out again with papa for an early morning stroll in the frost. Eh?"
What her father said seemed simple enough, yet at these words Kitty grew confused and upset, like a criminal caught red-handed. "Yes, he knows all, he understands all, and in these words he's telling me that though I'm ashamed, I must live through my shame." She could not pluck up spirit enough to make any answer. She made an attempt but suddenly burst into tears, and ran out of the room.
"See what comes of your jokes!" the Princess pounced on her husband. "You're always..." she launched into her reproachful speech.
The Prince listened to the Princess's reproaches rather a long while and kept silent, but his face grew more and more glowering.
"She's so much to be pitied, poor thing, so much to be pitied, yet you don't feel how it pains her to hear the least hint as to the cause of it all. Ah! to be so mistaken in people!" said the Princess, and by the change in her tone both Dolly and the Prince knew she meant Vronsky. "I don't know why there aren't laws against such vile, dishonorable people."
"Ah, I oughtn't to listen to you!" said the Prince glumly, getting up from his chair, as if to go, yet pausing in the doorway. "There are laws, my dear, and since you've challenged me to it, I'll tell you who's to blame for it all: you- you, you alone. Laws against such young gallants have always existed, and still exist! Yes, if there weren't anything that ought not to have been, I, old as I am, would have called him out to the barrier, this swell. Yes, and now go ahead and physic her, and call in these charlatans."
The Prince, it seemed, had plenty more to say, but no sooner had the Princess caught his tone than she subsided at once, and became penitent, as was always the case in serious matters.
"Alexandre, Alexandre," she whispered, approaching him and bursting into tears.
As soon as she began to weep the Prince, too, calmed down. He went up to her.
"There, that's enough, that's enough! You feel badly too, I know. Nothing can be done about it! It's not so very bad. God is merciful... thanks..." he said, without knowing himself what he was saying now, responding to the moist kiss of the Princess that he felt on his hand. And the Prince went out of the room.
No sooner had Kitty gone out of the room, in tears, than Dolly, with her motherly, domestic habit, had promptly perceived that here a woman's work lay before her, and got ready for it. She took off her hat, and, morally speaking, tucked up her sleeves and got ready for action. While her mother was attacking her father, she tried to restrain her mother, so far as daughterly reverence would allow. During the Prince's outburst she was silent; she felt ashamed for her mother and tender toward her father for so quickly being kind again. But when her father left, she made ready for what was most necessary- to go to Kitty and compose her.
"I've intended long since to tell you something, maman: did you know that Levin meant to propose to Kitty when he was here last? He told Stiva so."
"Well, what of it? I don't understand..."
"Why, perhaps Kitty refused him?... Did she say nothing to you?"
"No, she said nothing to me either of the one or the other; she's too proud. But I know it's all on account of this..."
"Yes, but suppose she has refused Levin- and she wouldn't have refused him if it hadn't been for the other, I know. And then, this fellow has deceived her so horribly."
It was too frightful for the Princess to think how much at fault she was before her daughter, and she grew angry.
"Oh, now I really understand nothing! Nowadays everybody thinks to live after his own way; a mother isn't told a thing, and then you have..."
"Maman, I'll go to her."
"Do. Am I forbidding you?"
Chapter III.
When she went into Kitty's little sanctum, a pretty, rosy little room, full of knickknacks in vieux saxe, as youthful and rosy and gay as Kitty herself had been only two months ago, Dolly recalled how they had together decorated the room the year before, with what gaiety and love. Her heart turned cold when she beheld Kitty sitting on the low chair nearest the door, her eyes fixed immovably on a corner of the rug. Kitty glanced at her sister, and the cold, rather austere expression of her face did not change.
"I'm going now, and shall entrench myself at home, and you won't be able to come to see me," said Darya Alexandrovna sitting down beside her. "I want to talk to you."
"What about?" Kitty asked swiftly, lifting her head in fright.
"What should it be, save what's grieving you?"
"I have no grief."
"Come, Kitty. Do you possibly think I cannot know? I know all. And, believe me, this is so insignificant... We've all been through it."
Kitty did not speak, and her face had a stern expression.
"He's not worth your suffering on his account," pursued Darya Alexandrovna, coming straight to the point.
"Yes- because he has disdained me," said Kitty, in a jarring voice. "Don't say anything! Please, don't say anything!"
"But whoever told you that? No one has said that. I'm certain he was in love with you, and remained in love with you, but..."
"Oh, the most awful thing of all for me are these condolences!" cried out Kitty, in a sudden fit of anger. She turned round on her chair, turned red, and her fingers moved quickly, as she pinched the buckle of the belt she held, now with one hand, now with the other. Dolly knew this trick her sister had of grasping something in turn with each of her hands, when in excitement; she knew that, in a moment of excitement Kitty was capable of forgetting herself and saying a great deal too much and much that was unpleasant, and Dolly would have calmed her; but it was already too late.
"What- what is it you want to make me feel, eh?" said Kitty quickly. "That I've been in love with a man who didn't even care to know me, and that I'm dying for love of him? And this is said to me by my own sister, who imagines that... that... that she's sympathizing with me!... I don't want these condolences and hypocrisies!"
"Kitty, you're unjust."
"Why do you torment me?"
"But I... On the contrary... I can see you're hurt...."
But Kitty in her heat did not hear her.
"I've nothing to despair over and be comforted about. I'm sufficiently proud never to allow myself to care for a man who does not love me."
"Why, I don't say anything of the kind... Only, tell me the truth," said Darya Alexandrovna, taking her by the hand, "tell me- did Levin speak to you?..."
The mention of Levin seemed to deprive Kitty of the last vestige of self-control. She leaped up from her chair, and, flinging the buckle to the ground, gesticulating rapidly with her hands, she said:
"Why bring Levin in too? I can't understand- what you want to torture me for? I've told you, and I repeat it- I have some pride, and never, never would I do what you're doing- going back to a man who's deceived you, who has come to love another woman. I can't understand this! You may- but I can't do it!"
And, having said these words, she glanced at her sister, and seeing that Dolly sat silent, her head mournfully bowed, Kitty, instead of leaving the room, as she had intended, sat down near the door, and, hiding her face in her shawl, let her head drop.
The silence lasted for two minutes. Dolly's thoughts were of herself. That humiliation of which she was always conscious came back to her with special pain when her sister reminded her of it. She had not expected such cruelty from her sister, and was resentful. But suddenly she heard the rustle of a skirt, and, simultaneously, an outburst of smothered sobbing, and felt arms clasping her neck from below. Kitty was on her knees before her.
"Dolinka, I am so, so unhappy!" she whispered penitently.
And the endearing face, covered with tears, hid itself in Darya Alexandrovna's skirt.
It was as if tears were the indispensable oil without which the machinery of mutual communion could not run smoothly between the two sisters; the sisters, after their tears, discussed everything but that which engrossed them; but, even in talking of outside matters, they understood one another. Kitty knew that what she had uttered in anger about her husband's infidelity and her humiliating position had struck her poor sister to the very depths of her heart, but she also knew that the latter had forgiven her. Dolly for her part had comprehended all she had wanted to find out. She had become convinced that her surmises were correct; that Kitty's misery, her incurable misery, was due precisely to the fact that Levin had proposed to her and she had refused him, while Vronsky had deceived her, and that she stood ready to love Levin and to hate Vronsky. Kitty said no word of this; she spoke of nothing save her own spiritual state.
"I have nothing to grieve over," she said, calming down, "but you could understand that everything has become loathsome, hateful, coarse to me- and I myself most of all. You can't imagine what loathsome thoughts I have about everything."
"Why, whatever loathsome thoughts can you have?" asked Dolly, smiling.
"Most, most loathsome and coarse: I couldn't tell you. This is not melancholy, nor boredom, but far worse. As if everything of good that I had were gone out of sight, while only that which was most loathsome were left. Well, how shall I put it to you?" she went on, seeing incomprehension in her sister's eyes. "Papa began saying something to me just now... It seems to me he thinks all I need is to marry. If mamma takes me to a ball- it seems to me she takes me only to marry me off as fast as possible, and get me off her hands. I know this isn't so, but I can't drive away such thoughts. These suitors so called- I can't bear the sight of them. It seems to me as if they're always taking stock of me. Formerly, to go anywhere in a ball dress was a downright joy to me; I used to admire myself; now I feel ashamed, in at ease. Well, take any example you like... This doctor... Now..."
Kitty hesitated; she wanted to say further that ever since this change had taken place in her, Stepan Arkadyevich had become unbearably repulsive to her, and that she could not see him without imagining the grossest and most hideous things.
"Well now, everything appears to me, in the coarsest, most loathsome aspect," she went on. "That is my ailment. Perhaps all this will pass..."
"Try not to think of such things..."
"I can't help it. I feel well only when I am with the children, at your house."
"What a pity you can't visit me!"
"Oh, yes, I'll come.- I've had scarlatina, and I'll persuade maman to let me come."
Kitty insisted on having her way, and went to stay at her sister's and nursed the children all through the scarlatina- for it really proved to be scarlatina. The two sisters brought all the six children successfully through it; Kitty's health, however, did not improve, and in Lent the Shcherbatskys went abroad.
Chapter IV.
There is really only one circle of Peterburg upper society: everyone knows everyone else, even visits each other. But this great circle has subdivisions of its own. Anna Arkadyevna Karenina had friends and close ties in three different circles. One circle was her husband's set of civil servants and officials, consisting of his colleagues and subordinates, brought together in a most diversified and capricious manner, yet separated by social conditions. Anna could now recall only with difficulty the feeling of almost pious reverence which she had at first borne for these persons. Now she knew all of them, as people know one another in a provincial town; she knew their habits and weaknesses, and where the shoe pinched each one of them. She knew their attitudes toward one another and to the chief center; knew who backed whom, and how and wherewithal each one maintained his position, and who agreed or disagreed with whom; but this circle of political, masculine interests could not interest her, and, in spite of Countess Lidia Ivanovna's suggestions, she avoided it.
Another small circle, with which Anna was intimate, was the one by means of which Alexei Alexandrovich had made his career. The center of this circle was the Countess Lidia Ivanovna. This was a circle of elderly, homely, virtuous and pious women, and clever, learned and ambitious men. One of the clever people belonging to this small circle had called it "the conscience of Peterburg society." Alexei Alexandrovich appreciated this circle very much, and Anna, who knew so well how to get on with all, had in the early days of her life in Peterburg found friends even in this circle. But now, upon her return from Moscow, this set had become unbearable to her. It seemed to her that both she and all of them were dissimulating, and she experienced such boredom and lack of ease in their society that she tried to visit the Countess Lidia Ivanovna as infrequently as possible.
And, finally, the third circle with which Anna had ties was the really fashionable world- the world of balls, of dinners, of sumptuous dresses; the world that hung on to the court with one hand, in order not to sink to the level of the demimonde, which the members of the fashionable world believed they despised- yet the tastes of both were not only similar, but precisely the same. Her connection with this circle was maintained through Princess Betsy Tverskaia, her cousin's wife, who had an income of a hundred and twenty thousand roubles, and who had taken a great liking to Anna ever since she first came out, looking after her and drawing her into her own circle, poking fun at that of Countess Lidia Ivanovna.
"When I'm old and shall have lost my looks, I'll be the same," Betsy used to say; "but for a young and pretty woman like you it's much too early to join that Old Ladies' Home."
Anna had at first avoided, as much as she could, Princess Tverskaia's world, because it necessitated expenditures above her means- and, besides, at soul she preferred the first circle; but after her trip to Moscow, things fell out quite the other way. She avoided her moral friends, and went out into the fashionable world. There she would meet Vronsky, and experienced an agitating joy at such meetings. Especially often did she meet Vronsky at Betsy's, for Betsy was a Vronsky by birth, and his cousin. Vronsky went everywhere where he might meet Anna, and, at every chance he had, spoke to her of his love. She offered him no encouragement, yet every time she met him there was kindled in her soul that same feeling of animation which had come upon her that day in the railway carriage when she had seen him for the first time. She felt herself that her delight shone in her eyes and puckered her lips into a smile- and she could not quench the expression of this delight.
At first Anna had sincerely believed that she was displeased with him for daring to pursue her; but not long after her return from Moscow, on arriving at a soiree where she had anticipated meeting him, yet not finding him there, she realized clearly, from the feeling of sadness which overcame her, that she had been deceiving herself, and that this pursuit was not merely not distasteful to her, but that it constituted all the interest of her life.
It was the second performance of a celebrated cantatrice, and all the fashionable world was in the theater. Vronsky, seeing his cousin from his seat in the front row, did not wait till the entr'acte, but went to her box.
"Why didn't you come to dinner?" she said to him. "I marvel at this clairvoyance of lovers," she added with a smile, so that no one but he could hear, "she wasn't there. But do come after the opera."
Vronsky looked inquiringly at her. She nodded. He thanked her by a smile, and sat down beside her.
"But how I remember your jeers!" continued Princess Betsy, who took special delight in following up the progress of this passion. "What's become of all that? You're caught, my dear fellow."
"That's my one desire- to be caught," answered Vronsky, with his calm, good-natured smile. "If I complain at all, it's only that I'm not caught enough, if the truth were told. I begin to lose hope."
"Why, whatever hope can you expect?" said Betsy, offended on behalf of her friend. "Entendons nous...." But in her eyes flitted gleams of light, which proclaimed that she understood very well, even as much as he did, what hope he might entertain.
"None whatever," said Vronsky, laughing and showing his closely set teeth. "Excuse me," he added, taking the binoculars out of her hand, and proceeding to scrutinize, over her bare shoulder, the row of boxes opposite them. "I'm afraid I'm becoming ridiculous."
He was very well aware that he ran no risk of being ridiculous in the eyes of Betsy and all other fashionable people. He was very well aware that in the eyes of these people the role of the hapless lover of a girl, or in general, of any woman free to marry, might be ridiculous; but the role of a man pursuing a married woman, and, regardless of everything, staking his life on drawing her into adultery- that role has something beautiful and majestic about it, and can never be ridiculous, and so it was with a proud and gay smile under his mustaches that he lowered the binoculars and looked at his cousin.
"But why didn't you come to dinner?" she said, admiring him.
"I must tell you about that. I was busy- and with what, do you suppose? I'll give you a hundred guesses, a thousand... you'd never guess. I've been reconciling a husband with a man who'd insulted his wife. Yes, really!"
"Well, did you reconcile them?"
"Almost."
"You really must tell me about it," she said, getting up. "Come to me in the next entr'acte."
"I can't; I'm going to the French theater."
"Leaving Nilsson?" Betsy queried in horror, though she could not herself have distinguished Nilsson from any chorus girl.
"What can I do? I've an appointment there, all because of my mission of peace."
"'Blessed are the peacemakers;' 'they shall be saved'," said Betsy, recalling something of that sort she had heard from somebody or other. "Very well, then, sit down, and tell me what it's all about."
And she resumed her seat.
Chapter V.
"This is rather indiscreet, but it's so charming that one is awfully tempted to tell the story," said Vronsky, looking at her with laughing eyes. "I don't intend to mention any names."
"But I shall guess them- so much the better."
"Listen, then: two festive young men were driving along..."
"Officers of your regiment, of course?"
"I didn't say they were officers- just two young men who had been lunching."
"In other words, drinking."
"Possibly. They were driving on their way to dinner with a friend in the gayest of moods. And they catch sight of a pretty woman in a hired sleigh, who overtakes them, looks back at them, and- so it seemed to them, at any rate- nods to them and laughs. They, of course, follow her- galloping at full speed. To their amazement, the fair one alights at the entrance of the very house to which they were going. The fair one darts upstairs to the top floor. All they got was a glimpse of rosebud lips under a short veil, and of exquisite little feet."
"You tell this with such feeling that it seems to me you yourself must have been one of the two."
"But what did you tell me just now?... Well, the young men enter their comrade's apartment- he was giving a farewell dinner. There they certainly did take a drop too much, as is always the case at farewell dinners. And at dinner they inquire who lives at the top in that house. No one knows; only their host's valet, in answer to their inquiry whether any 'young ladies' are living on the top floor, answered that there were a great many of them. After dinner the two young men go into their host's study, and write a letter to the fair unknown. They composed a passionate epistle, really a declaration, and then carry the letter upstairs themselves, so as to explain whatever might prove not altogether clear in the letter."
"Why do you tell me such nasty things? And then?"
"They ring. A maidservant opens the door, they hand her the letter, and assure her that they're both so enamored that they'll die on the spot at the door. The maid, stupefied, carries on the negotiations. Suddenly a gentleman appears- with side whiskers like country sausages, he is as red as a lobster and, informing them that there is no one living in that flat except his wife, he sends them both packing."
"How do you know he had side whiskers like sausages, as you put it?"
"Ah, do but listen. Recently I went to make peace between them."
"Well, and what was the upshot?"
"That's the most interesting part. This couple turned out to be a most happy one- a government clerk and his lady. The government clerk lodges a complaint, whereupon I become a mediator- and what a mediator!... I assure you Talleyrand was a nobody compared to me."
"Just what was the difficulty?"
"Ah, do but listen.... We make fitting apologies: 'We are in despair; we entreat forgiveness for the unfortunate misunderstanding.' The government clerk with the country sausages begins to melt, and he, too, desires to express his sentiments, but no sooner does he begin to express them than he gets heated and says nasty things, and again I'm obliged to trot out all my diplomatic talents. 'I agree that their action was bad, but I beg of you to take into consideration the misunderstanding, and their youth; besides, the young men had just come from their lunch. You understand. Their repentance is heartfelt and they beg you to forgive their misbehavior.' The government clerk was softened once more. 'I consent, Count, and am ready to forgive but you must understand that my wife- my wife!- a respectable woman is subjected to annoyances, and insults, and impertinences by certain milksops, scou-...' Yet, you understand, the milksop is present, and it is up to me to make peace between them. Again I trot out all my diplomacy, and again, just as the matter is about to be concluded, our friend the government clerk gets heated and turns red while his country sausages bristle up, and I once more exert diplomatic finesse."
"Ah, you must hear this story!" said Betsy, laughing, to a lady who was entering the box. "He has made me laugh so much... Well, bonne chance!" she added, giving Vronsky the one finger free from holding her fan, and with a shrug of her shoulders letting down the bodice of her gown, that had worked up, so as to be fittingly and fully nude as she moved forward, toward the footlights, into the lights of the gas, and within the ken of all.
Vronsky drove to the French theater, where he really had to see the colonel of his regiment, who never missed a single performance there; he wanted to talk over his peacemaking, which had been occupying and amusing him for the last three days. Petritsky, whom he liked, was implicated in the affair, as well as another fine fellow and excellent comrade, who had lately joined the regiment- the young Prince Kedrov. But, mainly, the interests of the regiment were involved as well.
Both culprits were in Vronsky's squadron. The colonel of the regiment had received a call from the government clerk, Venden, with a complaint against his officers, who had insulted his wife. His young wife, as Venden told the story- he had been married half a year- had been at church with her mother, and, suddenly feeling indisposed, due to her interesting condition, found that she could not remain standing and drove home in the first sleigh with the mettlesome coachman she came across. It was then that the officers set off in pursuit of her; she was alarmed, and, feeling still worse, ran home up the staircase. Venden himself, on returning from his office, had heard a ring at their bell and voices, had stepped out, and seeing the intoxicated officers with a letter, he had pushed them out. He was asking that the culprits be severely punished.
"You may say what you will," said the colonel to Vronsky, whom he had invited to come and see him. "Petritsky is becoming impossible. Not a week goes by without some scrape. This clerk chap won't let matters drop- he'll go on with the thing."
Vronsky saw all the thanklessness of the business, and that a duel was out of the question here; that everything must be done to soften this government clerk, and hush the matter up. The colonel had called in Vronsky precisely because he knew him to be an honorable and intelligent man, but, above all, one to whom the honor of the regiment was dear. They talked it over, and decided that Petritsky and Kedrov must go with Vronsky to this government clerk and apologize. The colonel and Vronsky were both fully aware that Vronsky's name and insignia of aide-de-camp were bound to go a long way toward softening the government clerk. And these two influences proved in fact not without effect; though the result of the mediation remained, as Vronsky had described, uncertain.
On reaching the French theater, Vronsky retired to the foyer with the colonel, and reported to him his success- or lack of it. The colonel, thinking it all over, decided not to go on with the matter; but then, for his own delectation, proceeded to question Vronsky about the details of his interview and for a long while could not restrain his laughter as he listened to Vronsky's story of how the government clerk, after subsiding for a while, would suddenly flare up again, as he recalled the details, and how Vronsky, at the last half-word of conciliation, had skillfully maneuvered a retreat, shoving Petritsky out before him.
"It's a disgraceful scrape, but a killing one. Kedrov really can't fight this gentleman! So he was awfully wrought up?" he asked again, laughing. "But what do you think of Claire today? She's a wonder!" he went on, speaking of a new French actress. "No matter how often you see her, she's different each time. It's only the French who can do that."
Chapter VI.
Princess Betsy drove home from the theater without waiting for the end of the last act. She had just time enough to go into her dressing room, sprinkle her long, pale face with powder, rub it off, set her dress to rights, and order tea in the big drawing room, when one after another carriages drove up to her huge house on the Bolshaia Morskaia. Her guests dismounted at the wide entrance, and the stout porter, who used to read newspapers mornings behind the glass door, to the edification of the passers-by, noiselessly opened the immense door, letting the visitors pass by him into the house.
Almost at the same instant that the hostess, with freshly arranged coiffure and freshened face, entered at one door, her guests entered at the other, into the drawing room, a large room with dark walls, downy rugs and a brightly lighted table, gleaming with the light of candles, the whiteness of napery, the silver of the samovar and the tea service of transparent porcelain.
The hostess sat down at the samovar and took off her gloves. Chairs were set with the aid of footmen, moving almost imperceptibly about the room; the party settled itself, divided into two groups: one round the samovar near the hostess, the other at the opposite end of the drawing room, round the handsome wife of an ambassador, in black velvet, with sharply defined black eyebrows. In both groups conversation wavered, as it always does, for the first few minutes, broken up by meetings, salutations, offers of tea, and, as it were, seeking for some point in common.
"She's exceptionally fine as an actress; one can see she's studied Kaulbach," said a diplomatist in the circle of the ambassador's wife. "Did you notice how she fell down?..."
"Oh, please, don't let us talk about Nilsson! No one can possibly say anything new about her," said a fat, red-faced, flaxen-headed lady, without eyebrows and without chignon, wearing an old silk dress. This was Princess Miaghkaia, noted for her simplicity and the roughness of her manners, and nicknamed enfant terrible. Princess Miaghkaia was seated halfway between the two groups, and, listening to both, took part in the conversation first of one and then of the other. "Three people have used that very phrase about Kaulbach to me today, just as though they had conspired. And I don't know why that phrase should be so much to their liking."
The conversation was cut short by this observation, and again a new subject had to be thought of.
"Do tell us something amusing, yet not spiteful," said the ambassador's wife, a great proficient in the art of that elegant conversation called by the English small talk. She addressed the diplomatist, who was now at a loss just what to begin upon.
"That is said to be a difficult task- only that which is spiteful is supposed to be amusing," he began with a smile. "However, I'll make the attempt. Give me a theme. it's all a matter of the theme. If the theme be but given, it's easy enough to embroider it. I often think that the celebrated conversationalists of the last century would find it difficult to talk cleverly now. Everything clever has become such a bore...."
"That has been said long ago," the ambassador's wife interrupted him, laughing.
The conversation had begun amiably, but just because it was too amiable, it came to a stop again. They had to have recourse to the sure, never-failing remedy- malicious gossip.
"Don't you think there's something Louis Quinze about Tushkevich?" he said, glancing toward a handsome, fair-haired young man, standing at the table.
"Oh, yes! He's in the same style as the drawing room, and that's why it is he's so often here."
This conversation was kept up, since it depended on allusions to what could not be talked of in that room- that is to say, of the relations of Tushkevich with their hostess.
Round the samovar and the hostess the conversation having, in the meanwhile, vacillated in precisely the same way between the three inevitable topics- the latest piece of public news, the theater, and censuring the fellow creature- had finally come to rest on the last topic- that is, malicious gossip.
"Have you heard that even the Maltishcheva- the mother, not the daughter- has ordered a costume in diable rose color?"
"Impossible! No, that's just charming!"
"I wonder that with her sense- for after all she's no fool- she doesn't see how funny she is."
Every one had something to say in censure or ridicule of the hapless Maltishcheva, and the conversation crackled merrily, like a blazing bonfire.
The husband of Princess Betsy, a good-natured corpulent man, an ardent collector of engravings, hearing that his wife had visitors, had come into the drawing room before leaving for his club. Stepping noiselessly over the thick rugs, he approached Princess Miaghkaia.
"How did you like Nilsson?" he asked.
"Oh, how can you steal up on anyone like that! How you startled me!" she responded. "Please don't talk to me about the opera; you know nothing about music. I'd rather come down to your own level, and discuss with you your majolica and engravings. Come, now, what treasure have you been buying lately at the rag fair?"
"Would you like me to show you? But you don't understand such things."
"Yes, show me. I've been learning about them at those- what's their names?... those bankers... They have some splendid engravings. They showed them to us."
"Why, have you been at the Schutzburgs?" asked the hostess from behind the samovar.
"Yes, ma chere. They asked my husband and myself to dinner, and I was told that the sauce at that dinner cost a thousand roubles," Princess Miaghkaia said, speaking loudly, conscious that all were listening; "and very nasty sauce it was- some green mess. We had to ask them, and I made a sauce for eighty-five kopecks, and everybody was very much pleased with it. I can't afford thousand-rouble sauces."
"She's unique!" said the lady of the house.
"Amazing!" somebody else added.
The effect produced by Princess Miaghkaia's speeches was always the same, and the secret of the effect she produced lay in the fact that though she spoke not always appropriately, as now, she said homely truths, not devoid of sense. In the society in which she lived such utterances had the same result as the most pungent wit. Princess Miaghkaia could never see why it had that result, but she knew it had, and took advantage of it.
Since everyone had been listening while Princess Miaghkaia spoke, and the conversation around the ambassador's wife had dropped, Princess Betsy tried to bring the whole party together, and she addressed the ambassador's wife.
"Really won't you have tea? Do come and join us."
"No, we're very comfortable here," the ambassador's wife responded with a smile, and went on with the interrupted conversation.
It was a most agreeable conversation. They were censuring the Karenins, husband and wife.
"Anna is quite changed since her stay in Moscow. There's something strange about her," said one of her feminine friends.
"The great change is that she has brought back with her the shadow of Alexei Vronsky," said the ambassador's wife.
"Well, what of it? There's a fable of Grimm's about a man without a shadow- a man deprived of his shadow. As a punishment for something or other. I never could understand just how this was a punishment. Yet a woman must probably feel uncomfortable without a shadow."
"Yes, but women followed by a shadow usually come to a bad end," said Anna's friend.
"Bite your tongue!" said Princess Miaghkaia suddenly. "Karenina is a splendid woman. I don't like her husband- but her I like very much."
"Why don't you like her husband? He's such a remarkable man," said the ambassador's wife. "My husband says there are few statesmen like him in Europe."
"And my husband tells me just the same, but I don't believe it," said Princess Miaghkaia. "If our husbands didn't talk to us, we should see the facts as they are. Alexei Alexandrovich, to my thinking, is simply a fool. I say it in a whisper.... But doesn't it really make everything clear? Before, when I was told to consider him clever, I kept looking for his ability, and thought myself a fool for not seeing it; but directly I said, he's a fool, though only in a whisper, everything became clear- isn't that so?"
"How spiteful you are today!"
"Not a bit. I'd no other way out of it. One of us two had to be the fool. And, as you know, one could never say that of oneself."
"No one is satisfied with his fortune, and everyone is satisfied with his wit," the diplomatist repeated the French saying.
"That's it- that's just it," Princess Miaghkaia turned to him promptly. "But the point is that I won't abandon Anna to your mercies. She's such a dear, so charming. How can she help it if they're all in love with her, and follow her about like shadows?"
"Oh, I had no idea of censuring her," Anna's friend said in self-defense.
"If we have no shadows following us, it does not prove that we've any right to blame her."
And, having duly disposed of Anna's friend, the Princess Miaghkaia got up, and, together with the ambassador's wife, joined the group at the table, where the general conversation had to do with the king of Prussia.
"What were you gossiping so maliciously about?" asked Betsy.
"About the Karenins. The Princess gave us a character sketch of Alexei Alexandrovich," said the ambassador's wife with a smile, as she sat down at the table.
"Pity we didn't hear it!" said Princess Betsy, glancing toward the door. "Ah, here you are at last!" she said, turning with a smile to Vronsky who was entering.
Vronsky was not merely acquainted with all the persons whom he was meeting here; he saw them all every day; and so he came in with the quiet manner with which one enters a room full of people whom one had left only a short while ago.
"Where do I come from?" he repeated the question of the ambassador's wife. "Well, there's no help for it- I must confess. From the opera bouffe. I do believe I've seen it a hundred times, and always with fresh enjoyment. It's exquisite! I know it's disgraceful, but I go to sleep at the opera, yet I sit out the opera bouffe to the last minute, and enjoy it. This evening..."
He mentioned a French actress, and was about to tell something about her; but the ambassador's wife, with playful trepidation, cut him short.
"Please, don't tell us about that horror."
"Very well, I won't- especially as everyone knows those horrors."
"And we should all go to see them if it were accepted as the correct thing, like the opera," chimed in Princess Miaghkaia.
Chapter VII.
Steps were heard at the door, and Princess Betsy, knowing it was Madame Karenina, glanced at Vronsky. He was looking toward the door, and his face wore a strange new expression. Joyfully, intently, and at the same time timidly, he gazed at the approaching figure, and slowly he rose to his feet. Anna walked into the drawing room. Holding herself extremely erect, as always, looking straight before her, and moving with her swift, resolute and light step, that distinguished her walk from that of other society women, she crossed the few paces that separated her from her hostess, shook hands with her, smiled, and with the same smile looked around at Vronsky. Vronsky bowed low and pushed a chair up for her.
She acknowledged this only by a slight nod, flushed, and frowned. But immediately, while rapidly greeting her acquaintances, and shaking the hands proffered to her, she addressed Princess Betsy:
"I have been at Countess Lidia's, and meant to have come here earlier, but I stayed on. Sir John was there. A most interesting man."
"Oh, that's this missionary?"
"Yes; he told us about life in India, most interestingly."
The conversation, interrupted by her coming in, flickered up again like the light of a lamp being blown out.
"Sir John! Yes, Sir John. I've seen him. He speaks well. Vlassieva is altogether in love with him."
"And is it true that the younger Vlassieva is to marry Topov?"
"Yes- they say it's quite settled."
"I wonder at the parents! They say it's a marriage of passion."
"Of passion? What antediluvian notions you have! Whoever talks of passion nowadays?" said the ambassador's wife.
"What would you do? This silly old fashion is still far from dead," said Vronsky.
"So much the worse for those who keep up the fashion. The only happy marriages I know are marriages of prudence."
"Yes,- but then, how often the happiness of these prudent marriages is scattered like dust, precisely because that passion to which recognition has been denied appears on the scene," said Vronsky.
"But by marriages of prudence we mean those in which both parties have sown their wild oats already. That's like scarlatina- one has to go through with it and get it over with."
"In that case we must learn how to vaccinate for love, like small-pox."
"I was in love in my young days- with a church clerk," said the Princess Miaghkaia. "I don't know that it did me any good."
"No; I think- all jokes aside- that to know love, one must first make a fault, and then mend it," said Princess Betsy.
"Even after marriage?" said the ambassador's wife playfully.
"It's never too late to mend," the diplomatist repeated the English proverb.
"Just so," Betsy agreed; "one must make a mistake and rectify it. What do you think about it?" She turned to Anna, who, with a barely perceptible resolute smile on her lips, was listening to the conversation.
"I think" said Anna, playing with the glove she had taken off, "I think... if there are as many minds as there are heads, then surely there must be as many kinds of love as there are hearts."
Vronsky was gazing at Anna, and with a heart sinking was waiting for what she would say. He sighed as after a danger escaped when she had uttered these words.
Anna suddenly turned to him.
"Oh, I have had a letter from Moscow. They write me that Kitty Shcherbatskaia's very ill."
"Really?" said Vronsky, knitting his brows.
Anna looked sternly at him.
"That doesn't interest you?"
"On the contrary, it does- very much. What is it, exactly, that they write you, if may know?" he asked.
Anna got up and went to Betsy.
"Give me a cup of tea," she said, pausing behind her chair.
While Betsy was pouring out the tea, Vronsky walked up to Anna.
"What is it they write you?" he repeated.
"I often think men have no understanding of what is dishonorable, though they're forever talking of it," said Anna, without answering him. "I've wanted to tell you something for a long while," she added, and, moving a few steps away, she sat down at a corner table which held albums.
"I don't quite understand the significance of your words," he said, handing her the cup.
She glanced towards the sofa beside her, and he instantly sat down.
"Yes, I've wanted to tell you," she said, without looking at him. "Your action was wrong- wrong, very wrong."
"Do you suppose I don't know that I've acted wrongly? But who was the cause of my doing so?"
"Why do you say that to me?" she said looking at him sternly.
"You know why," he answered, boldly and joyously, meeting her glance and without dropping his eyes.
It was not he, but she, who became confused.
"That merely proves you have no heart," she said. But her eyes said that she knew he had a heart, and that was why she was afraid of him.
"What you spoke of just now was a mistake, and not love."
"Remember that I have forbidden you to utter that word, that detestable word," said Anna, with a shudder. But at once she felt that by that very word "forbidden" she had shown that she acknowledged certain rights over him, and by that very fact was encouraging him to speak of love. "I have long meant to tell you this," she went on, looking resolutely into his eyes, and all aflame from the burning flush on her cheeks. "I've come here purposely this evening, knowing I should meet you. I have come to tell you that this must end. I have never blushed before anyone, and you force me to feel guilty of something."
He looked at her and was struck by a new spiritual beauty in her face.
"What do you wish of me?" he said, simply and gravely.
"I want you to go to Moscow and ask for Kitty's forgiveness," she said.
"That is not your wish," he said.
He saw she was saying what she was forcing herself to say, not what she wanted to say.
"If you love me, as you say," she whispered, "you will do this, so that I may be at peace."
His face grew radiant.
"Don't you know that you're all my life to me? But I know no peace, and I can't give it to you; all of myself, and love- yes. I can't think of you and myself apart. You and I are one to me. And I see no possibility before us of peace- either for me or for you. I see a possibility of despair, of wretchedness.... Or else I see a possibility of happiness- and what a happiness!... Can it be impossible?" he added, his lips barely moving- yet she heard.
She strained every effort of her mind to say what ought to be said. But instead of that she let her eyes rest on him, full of love, and made no answer.
"It's come!" he thought in ecstasy. "When I was beginning to despair, and it seemed there would be no end- it's come! She loves me! She owns it!"
"Then do this for me: never say such things to me, and let us be friends," she said in words; but her eyes spoke quite differently.
"Friends we shall never be- that you know yourself. Whether we shall be the happiest or the most wretched of people- that lies within your power."
She would have said something, but he interrupted her.
"For I ask but one thing: I ask for the right to hope, to suffer- even as I am doing now. But if even that cannot be, command me to disappear, and I disappear. You shall not see me if my presence is painful to you."
"I don't want to drive you away."
"Only don't change anything- leave everything as it is," said he, in a shaky voice. "Here's your husband."
At that instant Alexei Alexandrovich did in fact walk into the room with his calm, ungainly gait.
Glancing at his wife and Vronsky, he went up to the lady of the house, and, sitting down for a cup of tea, began talking in his unhasty, always audible voice, in his habitual tone of banter, as if he were teasing someone.
"Your Rambouillet is in full conclave," he said looking round at all the party; "the graces and the muses."
But Princess Betsy could not endure that tone of his- sneering, as she called it, using the English word, and like a clever hostess she at once brought him around to a serious conversation on the subject of universal conscription. Alexei Alexandrovich was immediately carried away by the subject, and began seriously defending the new imperial decree before Princess Betsy, who had attacked it.
Vronsky and Anna still sat at the little table.
"This is getting indecorous," whispered one lady, with an expressive glance at Madame Karenina, her husband and Vronsky.
"What did I tell you?" said Anna's friend.
But it was not only these ladies who watched them- almost everyone in the room, even the Princess Miaghkaia and Betsy herself, looked several times in the direction of the two who had withdrawn from the general circle, as though they found it a hindrance. Alexei Alexandrovich was the only person who did not once look in their direction, and was not diverted from the interesting discussion he had entered upon.
Noticing the disagreeable impression that was being made on everyone, Princess Betsy slipped someone else into her place to listen to Alexei Alexandrovich, and walked over to Anna.
"I'm always amazed at the clearness and precision of your husband's language," she said. "The most transcendent ideas seem to be within my grasp when he's speaking."
"Oh, yes!" said Anna, radiant with a smile of happiness, and not understanding a word of what Betsy had said. She crossed over to the big table and took part in the general conversation.
Alexei Alexandrovich, after staying half an hour, walked up to his wife and suggested that they go home together. But she answered, without looking at him, that she was staying to supper. Alexei Alexandrovich bowed himself out.
The fat old Tatar, Madame Karenina's coachman, in a glistening leather coat, was with difficulty bridling the left of her pair of grays, chilled with the cold and rearing at the entrance. A footman stood by the carriage door he had opened. The hall porter stood holding open the great door of the house. Anna Arkadyevna, with her quick little hand, was unfastening the lace of her sleeve, caught in the hook of her fur cloak, and with bent head was listening rapturously to the words Vronsky murmured as he saw her down to her carriage.
"You've said nothing, of course, and I ask nothing," he was saying; "but you know that friendship is not what I want: that there's only one happiness in life for me- that word you dislike so... yes, love!..."
"Love..." she repeated slowly, in an inner voice, and suddenly, at the very instant she unhooked the lace, she added, "I don't like the word precisely because it means too much to me, far more than you can understand," and she glanced into his face. "Good-by."
She gave him her hand, and with her rapid, springy step she passed by the porter and vanished into the carriage.
Her glance, the touch of her hand, had seared him. He kissed the palm of his hand where she had touched it, and went home, happy in the realization that he had got nearer to the attainment of his aims that evening than during the two last months.
Chapter VIII.
Alexei Alexandrovich had seen nothing striking or improper in the fact that his wife was sitting with Vronsky at a table apart, in eager conversation with him about something. But he noticed that to the rest of the party this appeared as something striking and improper, and for that reason it seemed to him, too, to be improper. He made up his mind that he must speak of it to his wife.
On reaching home Alexei Alexandrovich went to his study, as he usually did, seated himself in his low chair, opened a book on the Papacy at the place he had marked by inserting the paper knife, read till one o'clock, just as he usually did. But from time to time he would rub his high forehead and shake his head, as though to drive away something. At his usual time he got up and made his toilet for the night. Anna Arkadyevna had not yet come in. With a book under his arm he went upstairs. But this evening, instead of his usual thoughts and meditations upon official details, his thoughts were absorbed by his wife and something disagreeable connected with her. Contrary to his usual habit, he did not get into bed, but fell to walking up and down the rooms with his hands clasped behind his back. He could not go to bed, feeling that it was absolutely needful for him first to think thoroughly over the situation that had just arisen.
When Alexei Alexandrovich had made up his mind that he must have a talk with his wife, it had seemed a very easy and simple matter. But now, when he began to think over the question that had just presented itself, it seemed to him very complicated and difficult.
Alexei Alexandrovich was not jealous. Jealousy, according to his notions, was an insult to one's wife, and one ought to have confidence in one's wife. Why one ought to have that confidence- that is to say, a complete conviction that his young wife would always love him- he did not ask himself. But he had never experienced such a lack of confidence, because he had confidence in her, and told himself that he ought to have it. Now, though his conviction that jealousy was a shameful feeling, and that one ought to feel confidence, had not broken down, he still felt that he was standing face to face with something illogical and fatuous, and did not know what ought to be done. Alexei Alexandrovich was standing face to face with life, with the possibility of his wife's loving someone other than himself, and this seemed to him very fatuous and incomprehensible, because it was of the very stuff of life. All his life Alexei Alexandrovich had lived and worked in official spheres, having to do merely with the reflections of life. And every time he had stumbled against life itself he had shrunk away from it. Now he experienced a feeling akin to that of a man who, while calmly crossing a precipice by a bridge, should suddenly discover that the bridge is broken, and that there is a chasm below. That chasm was life itself- the bridge, that artificial life in which Alexei Alexandrovich had lived. For the first time the question presented itself to him of the possibility of his wife's loving someone else, and he was horrified at it.
He did not undress, but walked up and down with his regular tread over the resounding parquet of the dining room, where one lamp was burning; over the carpet of the dark drawing room, in which the light was reflected merely on the big new portrait of himself hanging over the sofa; and across her boudoir, where two candles burned, lighting up the portraits of her parents and feminine friends, and the pretty knickknacks of her writing table, every one of which he knew so well. He walked across her boudoir to the bedroom door and turned back again.
At each turn in his walk, especially on the parquet of the well-lit dining room, he halted and said to himself, "Yes, this I must decide and put a stop to; I must express my view of it and my decision." And he turned back again. "But just what shall I express? And what decision?" he would say to himself in the drawing room- and found no answer. "But, after all," he asked himself before turning into the boudoir," what has occurred? Nothing. She was talking a long while with him. But what of that? Surely women in society can talk to whom they please. And then, jealousy means debasing both her and myself," he soliloquized as he entered her boudoir; but this dictum, which had always had such weight with him before, had now no weight and no meaning whatsoever. And from the bedroom door he turned back again; but as he entered the dark drawing room some inner voice told him that it was not so, and that if others had noticed, it meant that there was something. And he said to himself again in the dining room: "Yes, I must decide and put a stop to it, and express my views...." And again at the turn in the drawing room he asked himself: "Decide how?" And again he asked inwardly: "What has occurred?" And answered: "Nothing," and recollected that jealousy was a feeling insulting to his wife; but again in the drawing room he was convinced that something had happened. His thoughts, like his body, were describing a complete circle, without alighting upon anything new. He noticed this, rubbed his forehead, and sat down in her boudoir.
There, looking at her table, with the malachite blotting case lying at the top, and an unfinished letter, his thoughts suddenly changed. He began to think of her, of what her thoughts and emotions must be. For the first time he pictured vividly to himself her personal life, her ideas, her desires, and the thought that she could and must have a separate life of her own seemed to him so appalling that he made haste to drive it away. It was the chasm which he was afraid to peep into. To put himself in thought and feeling in another person's place was a spiritual action foreign to Alexei Alexandrovich. He looked on this spiritual action as a harmful and dangerous abuse of the fancy.
"And the worst of it all," thought he, "is that just now, at the very moment when my great work is approaching completion" (he was thinking of the project he was bringing forward at the time), "when I stand in need of all my mental peace and all my energies- just now this stupid worry has to come falling about my ears. But what's to be done? I'm not one of those men who submit to uneasiness and worry without having the force of character to face them."
"I must think this over, come to a decision, and put it out of my mind," he said aloud.
"The question of her feelings, of what has passed and may be passing in her soul- that's not my affair; that's the affair of her conscience, and falls under the head of religion," he said to himself, feeling consolation in the sense that he had found to which division of regulating principles this new circumstance could be properly referred.
"And so," Alexei Alexandrovich said to himself, "questions as to her feelings, and so on, are questions for her conscience, with which I can have nothing to do. My duty is clearly defined. As the head of the family, I am a person bound in duty to guide her, and, consequently, in part the person responsible; I am bound to point out the danger I perceive, to warn her, even to use my authority. I ought to speak plainly to her."
And everything that he would say tonight to his wife took clear shape in Alexei Alexandrovich's head. Thinking over what he would say, he somewhat regretted that he should have to use his time and mental powers for domestic consumption, with so little to show for it, but, in spite of that, the form and consistency of the speech before him shaped itself as clearly and distinctly in his head as a ministerial report. "I must speak on, and express fully, the following points: first, an explanation of the value to be attached to public opinion and to decorum; secondly, an explanation of the religious significance of marriage; thirdly, if need be, a reference to the calamity possibly ensuing to our son; fourthly, a reference to the unhappiness likely to result to herself." And, interlacing his fingers, the palms downward, Alexei Alexandrovich stretched his hands, and the joints of the fingers cracked.
This gesture, this bad habit- the joining of his hands cracking his fingers, always soothed him, and gave precision to his thoughts, so needful to him now. There was the sound of a carriage driving up to the front door. Alexei Alexandrovich halted in the middle of the room.
A woman's step was heard mounting the stairs. Alexei Alexandrovich, ready for his speech, stood squeezing his crossed fingers, waiting for their crack to come again. One joint cracked.
Already, from the sound of light steps on the stairs, he was aware that she was close, and though he was satisfied with his speech, he felt frightened because of the explanation confronting him.
Chapter IX.
Anna came in with her head bent, playing with the tassels of her hood. Her face was glowing with a vivid glow; but this glow was not one of joyousness- it recalled the fearful glow of a conflagration in the midst of a dark night. On seeing her husband, Anna raised her head and smiled, as though she had just waked up.
"You're not in bed? What a miracle!" she said throwing off her hood and, without stopping, she went on into the dressing room. "It's late, Alexei Alexandrovich," she said, from behind the door.
"Anna, I must have a talk with you."
"With me?" she said, wonderingly. She came out from the door, and looked at him. "Why, what is it? What about?" she asked, sitting down. "Well, let's talk, if it's so necessary. But it would be better to go to sleep."
Anna was saying whatever came to her tongue, and marveled, hearing herself, at her own capacity for lying. How simple and natural were her words, and how likely that she was simply sleepy She felt herself clad in an impenetrable armor of falsehood. She felt that some unseen force had come to her aid and was supporting her.
"Anna, I must warn you," he began.
"Warn me? she said. "Of what?
She looked at him so simply, so brightly, that anyone who did not know her as her husband knew her could not have noticed anything unnatural, either in the sound or the sense of her words. But to him, knowing her, knowing that whenever he went to bed five minutes later than usual, she noticed it, and asked him the reason- to him, knowing that every joy, every pleasure and pain that she felt she communicated to him at once- to him it meant a great deal to see now that she did not care to notice his state of mind, that she did not care to say a word about herself. He saw that the inmost recesses of her soul, that had always hitherto lain open before him, were now closed against him. More than that, he saw from her tone that she was not even perturbed at that, but seemed to be saying straightforwardly to him: "Yes, it is closed now, which is as it should be, and will be so in future." Now he experienced a feeling such as a man might have who, returning home, finds his own house locked up. "But perhaps the key may yet be found," thought Alexei Alexandrovich.
"I want to warn you," he said in a low voice, "that through thoughtlessness and lack of caution you may cause yourself to be talked about in society. Your too animated conversation this evening with Count Vronsky" (he enunciated the name firmly and with quiet intervals) "attracted attention."
He talked and looked at her laughing eyes, which frightened him now with their impenetrable look, and, as he talked, he felt all the uselessness and futility of his words.
"You're always like that," she answered as though completely misapprehending him, and of all he had said only taking in the last phrase. "One time you don't like my being dull, and another time you don't like my being lively. I wasn't dull. Does that offend you?"
Alexei Alexandrovich shivered, and bent his hands to make the joints crack.
"Oh, please, don't do that- I dislike it so," she said.
"Anna, is this you?" said Alexei Alexandrovich quietly, making an effort over himself, and restraining the motion of his hands.
"But what is it all about?" she said, with such genuine and droll wonder. "What do you want of me?"
Alexei Alexandrovich paused, and rubbed his forehead and his eyes. He saw that instead of doing as he had intended- that is to say, warning his wife against a mistake in the eyes of the world- he had unconsciously become agitated over what was the affair of her conscience, and was struggling against some imaginary barrier.
"This is what I meant to say to you," he went on coldly and composedly, "and I beg you to hear me to the end. I consider jealousy, as you know, a humiliating and degrading feeling, and I shall never allow myself to be guided by it; but there are certain rules of decency which cannot be disregarded with impunity. This evening it was not I who observed it- but, judging by the impression made on the company, everyone observed that your conduct and deportment were not altogether what one would desire."
"I positively don't understand," said Anna, shrugging her shoulders. "He doesn't care," she thought. "But other people noticed it and that's what upsets him."- "You're not well, Alexei Alexandrovich," she added, and, getting up, was about to pass through the door; but he moved forward as though he would stop her.
His face was gloomy and forbidding, as Anna had never seen it before. She stopped, and bending her head back and to one side, began taking out her hairpins with her quick-darting hand.
"Well, I'm listening- what does follow?" she said, calmly and ironically; "and, indeed, I am listening even with interest, for I should like to understand what it is all about."
She spoke, and marveled at the confident, calm and natural tone in which she spoke, and at the choice of the words she used.
"To enter into all the details of your feelings I have no right, and, besides, I regard that as useless and even harmful," began Alexei Alexandrovich. "Rummaging in our souls, we often bring up something that might have otherwise lain there unnoticed. Your feelings are an affair of your own conscience; but I am in duty bound to you, to myself and to God, to point out to you your duties. Our life has been joined, not by man, but by God. That union can only be severed by a crime, and a crime of that nature brings its own chastisement."
"I don't understand a word. And, oh dear! how sleepy I am, unluckily," she said, rapidly passing her hand through her hair, feeling for the remaining hairpins.
"Anna, for God's sake don't speak like that!" he said gently. "Perhaps I am mistaken, but believe me, that which I am saying I say as much for myself as for you. I am your husband, and I love you."
For an instant her face fell, and the mocking gleam in her eyes died away; but the phrase "I love" threw her into revolt again. She thought: "Love? Can he love? If he hadn't heard there was such a thing as love, he would never have used the word. He doesn't even know what love is."
"Alexei Alexandrovich, I really do not understand," she said. "Define what it is you consider..."
"Pardon, let me say all I