Anna Karennina

by Leo Tolstoy

PART TWO

Chapter XXI.
The temporary stable, a wooden booth, had been put up close to the racecourse, and there his mare was to have been taken the previous day. He had not yet seen her there. During the last few days he had not ridden her out for exercise himself, but had put her in the charge of the trainer, and so now he absolutely did not know in what condition his mare had arrived yesterday or was in today. He had scarcely got out of his carriage when his stableboy (groom), recognizing the carriage some way off, called the trainer. A dry-looking Englishman, in high boots and a short jacket, clean-shaven, except for a tuft below his chin, came to meet him walking with the uncouth gait of a jockey, turning his elbows out and swaying from side to side.
"Well, how's Frou-Frou?" Vronsky asked in English.
"All right, sir," the Englishman's voice responded somewhere far down in his throat. "Better not go in," he added, touching his hat. "I've put a muzzle on her, and the mare's fidgety. Better not go in, it'll excite the mare."
"No, I'm going in. I want to look at her."
"Come along, then," said the Englishman, frowning, and speaking with his mouth shut, and, with swinging elbows, he went on in front with his disjointed gait.
They went into the little yard in front of the shed. The stableboy on duty, spruce and smart in his holiday attire, met them with a broom in his hand, and followed them. In the shed there were five horses in their separate stalls, and Vronsky knew that his chief rival, Makhotin's Gladiator, a very tall chestnut horse, had been brought there, and must be standing among them. Even more than his mare, Vronsky longed to see Gladiator, whom he had never seen, but Vronsky knew that by the etiquette of the racecourse it was not merely impossible for him to see the horse, but improper even to ask questions about him. just as he was passing along the passage, the boy opened the door into the second horsebox on the left, and Vronsky caught a glimpse of a big chestnut horse with white legs. He knew that this was Gladiator, but, with the feeling of a man turning away from the sight of another man's open letter, he turned round and went into Frou-Frou's stall.
"The stall belonging to Ma-k... Mak... I never can say the name- is here," said the Englishman over his shoulder, pointing his dirty-nailed thumb toward Gladiator's stall.
"Makhotin? Yes, he's my most serious rival," said Vronsky.
"If you were riding him," said the Englishman, "I'd bet on you.
"Frou-Frou's more nervous, while the other is more powerful," said Vronsky, smiling at the compliment to his riding.
"In a steeplechase it all depends on riding and on pluck," said the Englishman.
Of pluck- that is, energy and courage- Vronsky did not merely feel that he had enough; what was of far more importance, he was firmly convinced that no one in the world could have more of this pluck than he had.
"Don't you think I want more sweating down?"
"Oh, no," answered the Englishman. "Please, don't speak loud. The mare's fidgety," he added, nodding toward the horse box, before which they were standing, and from which came the sound of restless stamping in the straw.
He opened the door, and Vronsky went into the horse box, dimly lighted by one little window. In the horse box stood a dark bay mare, with a muzzle on, shifting her feet on the fresh straw. Looking round him in the twilight of the horse box, Vronsky unconsciously took in once more in a comprehensive glance all the points of his favorite mare. Frou-Frou was an animal of medium size, not altogether free from reproach, from a breeder's point of view. She was small-boned all over; though her chest was extremely prominent in front, it was narrow. Her hindquarters were a little drooping, and in her forelegs, and still more in her hind legs, there was a noticeable curvature. The muscles of both hind legs and forelegs were not very thick; but across her shoulders the mare was exceptionally broad, a peculiarity specially striking now that she was lean from training. The bones of her legs below the knees looked no thicker than a finger from in front, but were extraordinarily thick seen from the side. She looked altogether, except across the shoulders, apparently pinched in at the sides and pressed out in depth. But she had in the highest degree the quality that makes all defects forgotten: that quality was blood, the blood that tells, as the English expression has it. The muscles stood up sharply under the network of sinews, covered with the delicate, mobile skin, soft as satin, and they were hard as bone. Her clean-cut head, with prominent, bright, spirited eyes, broadened out at the open nostrils, that showed the red blood in the cartilage within. About all her figure, and especially her head, there was a certain expression of energy, and, at the same time, of softness. She was one of those creatures which seem devoid of speech only because the mechanism of their mouths does not allow of it.
To Vronsky, at any rate, it seemed that she understood all he felt at that moment as he looked at her.
Directly Vronsky went toward her, she drew in a deep breath, and, turning back her prominent eye tin the white looked bloodshot, she started at the approaching figures from the opposite side, shaking her muzzle, and shifting lightly from one leg to the other.
"There, you see how fidgety she is," said the Englishman.
"Whoa, darling! Whoa!" said Vronsky, going up to the mare and speaking soothingly to her.
But the nearer he came, the more excited she grew. Only when he stood by her head she was suddenly quieter, while the muscles quivered under her soft, delicate coat. Vronsky patted her strong neck, straightened over her sharp withers a stray lock of her mane that had fallen on the other side, and moved his face near her dilated nostrils, transparent as a bat's wing. She drew a loud breath and snorted out through her tense nostrils, started, pricked up her sharp ear, and put out her strong, black lip toward Vronsky, as though she would nip hold of his sleeve. But remembering the muzzle, she shook it and again began restlessly stamping her shapely legs one after the other.
"Calm down, darling, calm down!" he said, patting her again over her hindquarters; and, with a glad sense that his mare was in the best possible condition, he went out of the horse box.
The mare's excitement had infected Vronsky. He felt that his heart was throbbing, and that he, too, like the mare, longed to move, to bite; it was both fearful and delicious.
"Well, I rely on you, then," he said to the Englishman, "half-past six on the ground."
"All right," said the Englishman. "Oh, where are you going, my lord?" he asked suddenly, using the title my lord, which he scarcely ever used.
Vronsky in amazement raised his head, and stared, as he knew how to stare, not into the Englishman's eyes, but at his forehead, astounded at the impertinence of his question. But realizing that in asking this the Englishman had been looking at him not as an employer, but as a jockey, he answered:
"I've got to go to Briansky's; I shall be home within an hour."
"How often I'm asked that question today!" he said to himself, and he blushed, a thing which rarely happened to him. The Englishman looked gravely at him; and, as though he, too, knew where Vronsky was going, he added:
"The great thing is to keep quiet before a race," said he; "don't get out of temper, or upset about anything."
"All right," answered Vronsky, smiling; and, jumping into his carriage, he told the man to drive to Peterhof.
Before he had driven many paces away, the dark clouds that had been threatening rain all day broke, and there was a heavy downpour of rain.
"What a pity!" thought Vronsky, putting up the roof of the carriage. "It was muddy before, now it will be a perfect swamp." As he sat in solitude in the closed carriage, he took out his mother's letter and his brother's note, and read them through.
Yes, it was the same thing over and over again. Everyone- his mother, his brother- everyone thought fit to interfere in the affairs of his heart. This interference aroused in him a feeling of angry hatred- a feeling he had rarely known before. "What business is it of theirs? Why does everybody feel called upon to concern himself about me? And why do they worry me so? Just because they see that this is something they can't understand. If it were a common, vulgar, worldly intrigue, they would have left me alone. They feel that this is something different, that this is not a mere pastime, that this woman is dearer to me than life. And this is incomprehensible, and that's why it annoys them. Whatever our destiny is or may be, we have made it ourselves, and we do not complain of it," he said, in the word we linking himself with Anna. "No, they must needs teach us how to live. They haven't an idea of what happiness is; they don't know that without our love there is for us neither happiness nor unhappiness- no life at all," he thought.
He was angry with all of them for their interference just because he felt in his soul that they, all these people, were right. He felt that the love that bound him to Anna was not a momentary impulse, which would pass, as worldly intrigues do pass, leaving no other traces in the life of either save pleasant or unpleasant memories. He felt all the torture of his own position and hers, all the difficulty in store for them, conspicuous as they were in the eye of all the world- in concealing their love, in lying and deceiving; and in lying, deceiving, feigning and continually thinking of others, when the passion that united them was so intense that they were both oblivious of everything else save their love.
He vividly recalled all the constantly recurring instances of inevitable necessity for lying and deceit, which were so against his natural bent. He recalled particularly vividly the shame he had more than once detected in her at this necessity for lying and deceit. And he experienced the strange feeling that had sometimes come upon him since his relations with Anna. This was a feeling of loathing for something- whether for Alexei Alexandrovich, or for himself, or for the whole world, he could not have said. But he always drove away this strange feeling. Now, too, he shook it off and continued the thread of his thoughts.
"Yes, she was unhappy before, but proud and at peace; and now she cannot be at peace and feel secure in her dignity, though she does not show it. Yes, we must put an end to it," he decided.
And for the first time the idea clearly presented itself that it was essential to put an end to this false position, and the sooner the better. "Abandon everything must we- she and I- and hide ourselves somewhere alone with our love," he said to himself.
Chapter XXII.
The shower did not last long, and by the time Vronsky arrived, his shaft horse trotting at full speed, and dragging the off horses galloping through the mud with their reins hanging loose, the sun had peeped out again, the roofs of the summer villas and the old lime trees in the gardens on both sides of the high street sparkled with wet brilliance, and from the twigs came a pleasant drip, and, from the roofs, rushing streams of water. He thought no more of shower spoiling the racecourse, but was now rejoicing because- thanks to the rain- he would be sure to find her at home and alone, as he knew that Alexei Alexandrovich, who had lately returned from a watering place, had not moved from Peterburg.
Hoping to find her alone, Vronsky alighted, as he always did, to avoid attracting attention, before crossing the bridge, and walked to the house. He did not go up the steps to the street door, but went into the court.
"Has your master come?" he asked a gardener.
"No, sir. The mistress is at home. But will you please go to the front door; there are servants there," the gardener answered. "They'll open the door."
"No, I'll go in from the garden."
And feeling satisfied that she was alone, and wanting to take her by surprise, since he had not promised to be there today, and she would certainly not expect him to come before the races, he walked, holding his sword and stepping cautiously over the sandy path, bordered with flowers, to the terrace that looked out upon the garden. Vronsky forgot now all that he had thought on the way of the hardships and difficulties of his position. He thought of nothing but that he would see her directly, not in imagination, but living, all of her, as she was in reality. He was just going in, stepping on his whole foot so as not to make a noise, up the worn steps of the terrace, when he suddenly remembered what he always forgot, and what caused the most torturing side of his relations with her: her son, with his questioning, and, as he fancied, hostile eyes.
This boy was more often than anyone else a check upon their freedom. When he was present, both Vronsky and Anna did not merely avoid speaking of anything that they could not have repeated before everyone; they did not even allow themselves to refer by hints to anything the boy did not understand. They had made no agreement about this, it had been settled of itself. They would have felt it as wounding themselves to deceive the child. In his presence they talked like acquaintances. But, in spite of this caution, Vronsky often saw the child's intent, bewildered glance fixed upon him, and a strange shyness, uncertainty- at one time there was friendliness, at another coldness and reserve, in the boy's manner to him, as though the child felt that between this man and his mother there existed some important bond, the significance of which he could not understand.
As a matter of fact the boy did feel that he could not understand this relation, and he tried painfully, yet was unable, to make clear to himself what feeling he ought to have for this man. With a child's keen instinct for every manifestation of feeling he saw distinctly that his father, his governess, his nurse- all not merely disliked Vronsky, but looked on him with horror and aversion, though they never said anything about him; while his mother looked on him as her greatest friend.
"What does it mean? Who is he? How ought I to love him? If I don't know, it's my fault; either I'm stupid or a naughty boy," thought the child. And this was what caused his dubious, inquiring, sometimes hostile expression, and the shyness and uncertainty which Vronsky found so irksome. This child's presence always and infallibly called up in Vronsky that strange feeling of inexplicable loathing which he had experienced of late. This child's presence called up both in Vronsky and in Anna a feeling akin to the feeling of a sailor who sees by the compass that the direction in which he is swiftly moving is far from the right one, but that to arrest his motion is not in his power, that every instant is carrying him farther and farther away, and that to admit to himself his deviation from the right direction is tantamount to admitting his certain ruin.
This child, with his innocent outlook upon life, was the compass that showed them the point at which they had departed from what they knew, yet did not want to know.
This time Seriozha was not at home, and she was completely alone. She was sitting on the terrace waiting for the return of her son, who had gone out for a stroll and had been caught in the rain. She had sent out a manservant and a maid to look for him, and was sitting here waiting for them. Dressed in a white gown, deeply embroidered, she was sitting in a corner of the terrace behind some flowers, and did not hear him. Bending her curly dark head, she pressed her forehead against a cool watering pot that stood on the parapet, and both her lovely hands, with the rings he knew so well, clasped the pot. The beauty of her whole figure, her head, her neck, her hands, struck Vronsky every time as something new and unexpected. He stood still, gazing at her in ecstasy. But, directly he would have made a step to come nearer to her, she was aware of his presence, pushed away the watering pot, and turned her flushed face toward him.
"What's the matter? Are you unwell," he said to her in French, going up to her. He would have run to her, but remembering that there might be outsiders, he looked round toward the balcony door, and reddened, as he always reddened, feeling that he had to be afraid and be on his guard.
"No, I'm quite well," she said, getting up and squeezing his outstretched hand tightly. "I did not expect... thee."
"My God! what cold hands!" he said.
"You startled me," she said. "I'm alone, and expecting Seriozha; he's out for a walk; they'll come from this direction."
But, in spite of her efforts to be calm, her lips were quivering.
"Forgive me for coming, but I couldn't pass the day without seeing you," he went on, speaking French, as he always did, to avoid using the stiff Russian plural form, so impossibly frigid between them, and the dangerously intimate singular.
"Forgive- for what I'm so glad!"
"But you're ill or worried," he went on, without letting go her hands and bending over her. "What were you thinking of?"
"Always of the same thing." she said, with a smile.
She spoke the truth. If ever at any moment she had been asked what she was thinking of, she could have answered truly: Of the same thing, of her happiness and her unhappiness. She was thinking, just when he came upon her, of this: Why was it, she wondered, that to others, to Betsy for instance (she knew of her secret connection with Tushkevich), all this was so easy, while to her it was such torture? Today this thought gained special poignancy from certain other considerations. She asked him about the races. He answered her questions, and, seeing that she was agitated, trying to calm her, he began telling her in the simplest tone the details of his preparations for the races.
"Shall I tell him, or not?" she thought, looking into his calm, affable eyes. "He is so happy, so absorbed in his races that he won't understand as he should; he won't understand all the significance of this event to us."
"But you haven't told me what you were thinking of when I came in," he said, interrupting his narrative; "pray, tell me!"
She did not answer, and, bending her head a little, she looked inquiringly at him from under her brows, her eyes shining under their long lashes. Her hand shook as it played with a leaf she had picked. He saw it, and his face expressed that utter subjection, that slavish devotion, which had done so much to win her.
"I see something has happened. Do you suppose I can be at peace, knowing you have a trouble I am not sharing? Tell me, for God's sake!" he repeated imploringly.
"Yes, I shan't be able to forgive him if he does not realize all the significance of it. Better not tell; why put him to the proof?" she thought, still staring at him in the same way, and feeling that her hand that held the leaf was trembling more and more.
"For God's sake!" he repeated, taking her hand.
"Shall I tell you?"
"Yes, yes, yes..."
"I am pregnant," she said, softly and slowly.
The leaf in her hand shook more violently, but she did not take her eyes off him, watching how he would take it. He turned pale, would have said something, but stopped; he dropped her hand, and his head sank on his breast. "Yes, he realizes all the significance of the fact," she thought, and gratefully she pressed his hand.
But she was mistaken in thinking he realized the significance of the news as she, a woman, realized it. On hearing it, he felt come upon him with tenfold intensity that strange feeling of loathing of someone. But, at the same time, he realized that the turning point he had been longing for had come now; that it was impossible to go on concealing things from her husband, and it was inevitable in one way or another that they should soon put an end to their unnatural position. But, besides that, her emotion physically affected him in the same way. He looked at her with a look of submissive tenderness, kissed her hand, got up, and, in silence, paced up and down the terrace.
"Yes," he said, going up to her resolutely. "Neither you nor I have looked on our relations as a passing amusement, and now our fate is sealed. It is absolutely necessary to put an end"- he looked round as he spoke- "to the deception in which we are living."
"Put an end? Put an end how, Alexei?" she said softly.
She was calmer now, and her face lighted up with a tender smile.
"Leave your husband and make our life one."
"It is one as it is," she answered, scarcely audibly.
"Yes, but completely, completely."
"But how, Alexei- tell me how?" she said in melancholy mockery at the hopelessness of her own situation. "Is there any way out of such a situation? Am I not the wife of my husband?"
"There is a way out of every situation. We must take our stand," he said. "Anything's better than the situation in which you're living. Of course, I see how you torture yourself over everything- the world, and your son, and your husband."
"Oh, not over my husband," she said, with a plain smile. "I don't know him, I don't think of him. He doesn't exist."
"You're not speaking sincerely. I know you. You worry about him too."
"Oh, he doesn't even know," she said, and suddenly a hot flush came over her face; her cheeks, her brow, her neck crimsoned, and tears of shame came into her eyes. "But let us not even talk of him."
Chapter XXIII.
Vronsky had several times already, though not so resolutely as now, tried to bring her to consider her position, and every time he had been confronted by the same superficiality and frivolity with which she met his appeal now. It was as though there were something in this which she could not or would not face, as though directly she began to speak of this, she, the real Anna, retreated somehow into herself, and another strange and unaccountable woman came out, whom he did not love and whom he feared, and who was in opposition to him. But today he was resolved to have it out.
"Whether he knows or not," said Vronsky, in his usual calm and firm tone, "whether he knows or not, has nothing to do with us. We cannot... You cannot stay like this, especially now."
"What's to be done, according to you?" she asked with the same frivolous irony. She who had so feared he would take her condition too frivolously, was now vexed with him for deducing from it the necessity of taking some step.
"Tell him everything, and leave him."
"Very well, let us suppose I do that," she said. "Do you know what the result of that would be? I can tell you it all beforehand," and a wicked light gleamed in her eyes, that had been so tender a minute before. "'Eh, you love another man, and have entered into a criminal liaison with him?'" (Mimicking her husband, she threw an emphasis on the word "criminal," as Alexei Alexandrovich did.) "'I warned you of the results in the religious, the civil, and the domestic aspects. You have not listened to me. Now I cannot let you disgrace my name'"- "and my son," she had meant to say, but about her son she could not jest- "'disgrace my name, and'- and more in the same style," she added. "In general terms, he'll say in his official manner, and with all distinctness and precision, that he cannot let me go, but will take all measures in his power to prevent scandal. And he will calmly and punctiliously act in accordance with his words. That's what will happen. He's not a man, but a machine- and a spiteful machine when he's angry," she added, recalling Alexei Alexandrovich as she spoke, with all the peculiarities of his figure and manner of speaking, and reckoning against him every defect she could find in him, forgiving him nothing for the great wrong she herself was doing him.
"But, Anna," said Vronsky, in a soft and persuasive voice, trying to soothe her, "we absolutely must tell him, at any rate, and then be guided by the line he takes."
"What- run away?"
"And why not run away? I don't see how we can keep on like this. And not for my sake- I see that you suffer."
"Yes, run away, and become your mistress," she said angrily.
"Anna," he said, with reproachful tenderness.
"Yes," she went on, "become your mistress, and complete the ruin of..."
Again she would have said "my son," but she could not utter that word.
Vronsky could not understand how she, with her strong and truthful nature, could endure this state of deceit, and not long to get out of it. But he did not suspect that the chief cause of it was the word son, which she could not utter. When she thought of her son, and his future attitude to his mother, who had abandoned his father, she felt such terror at what she had done that she no longer reasoned, but, being a woman, could only try to comfort herself with lying assurances and words so that everything should remain as it always had been, and that it was possible to forget the fearful question of how it would be with her son.
"I beg you, I entreat you," she said suddenly, taking his hand, and speaking in quite a different tone, sincere and tender, "never speak to me of that!"
"But, Anna..."
"Never. Leave it to me. I know all the baseness, all the horror of my position; but it's not so easy to decide as you think. Therefore leave it to me, and do what I say. Never speak to me of it. Do you promise me?... No, no, promise!..."
"I promise everything, but I can't be at peace, especially after what you have told me I can't be at peace, when you can't be at peace...."
"I?" she repeated. "Yes, I am worried sometimes; but that will pass, if you will never talk about this. When you talk about it- it's only then it worries me."
"I don't understand," he said.
"I know," she interrupted him, "how hard it is for your truthful nature to lie, and I grieve for you. I often think, how could you ruin your whole life for me."
"I was just thinking the very same thing," he said; "how could you sacrifice everything for my sake? I can't forgive myself because you're unhappy."
"I unhappy?" she said, coming closer to him, and looking at him with an ecstatic smile of love. "I am like a hungry man who has been given food. He may be cold, and dressed in rags, and ashamed, but he is not unhappy. I unhappy? No, this is my happiness...."
She could hear the sound of her son's voice coming toward them, and, glancing swiftly round the terrace, she got up impulsively. Her eyes glowed with the fire he knew so well; with a rapid movement she raised her lovely hands, covered with rings, took his head, looked into his face with a protracted gaze, and, putting up her face with smiling, parted lips, swiftly kissed his mouth and both eyes, and thrust him away. She would have gone, but he held her back.
"When?" he murmured in a whisper, gazing in ecstasy at her.
"Tonight, at one o'clock," she whispered, and, with a heavy sigh, she walked with her light, swift step to meet her son.
Seriozha had been caught by the rain in the big garden, and he and his nurse had taken shelter in a bower.
"Well, au revoir," she said to Vronsky. "I must soon be getting ready for the races. Betsy promised to fetch me."
Vronsky, looking at his watch, hurriedly drove off.
Chapter XXIV.
When Vronsky had looked at his watch on the Karenins' balcony, he had been so greatly agitated and lost in his thoughts that, although he saw the hands on the face of his watch, he could not take in what time it was. He came out onto the highroad and walked, picking his way carefully through the mud, to his carriage. He was so completely absorbed in his feeling for Anna, that he did not even think what o'clock it was, and whether he had time to go to Briansky's. He preserved, as often happens, only the external faculty of memory, that points out each step one has to take, one after the other. He went up to his coachman, who was dozing on the box in the shadow, already lengthening, of a thick lime tree; he admired the shifting clouds of midges circling over the hot horses, and, waking the coachman, he jumped into the carriage, and told him to drive to Briansky's. It was only after driving nearly seven verstas that he had sufficiently recovered himself to look at his watch, and realize that it was half past five, and that he was late.
There were several races set for that day: the Body Guards' race, then the officers' two-versta race, then the four-versta race, and then the race for which he was entered. He could still be in right time for his race, but if he went to Briansky's he could be only in full time, and he would arrive when the whole Court would be in their places. That would be a pity. But he had promised Briansky to come, and so he decided to drive on, telling the coachman not to spare the horses.
He reached Briansky's, spent five minutes there, and galloped back. This rapid drive calmed him. All that was painful in his relations with Anna, all the feeling of indefiniteness left by their conversation, had slipped out of his mind. He was thinking now with pleasure and excitement of the race, of his being in time after all, and now and then the thought of the happiness of this night's assignation flashed across his imagination like a dazzling light.
The excitement of the approaching race gained upon him more and more as he drove farther and farther into the atmosphere of the races, overtaking carriages driving up from the summer villas or out of Peterburg.
There was no longer anyone at home at his quarters; all were at the races, and his valet was looking out for him at the gate. While he was changing his clothes, his valet told him that the second race had begun already, that a lot of gentlemen had been to ask for him, and a boy had twice run up from the stables.
Dressing without hurry (he never hurried himself, and never lost his self-possession), Vronsky drove to the sheds. From the sheds he could see a perfect sea of carriages, and people on foot, soldiers surrounding the racecourse, and pavilions swarming with people. The second race was apparently going on, for just as he went into the sheds he heard a bell ringing. Going toward the stable, he met the white-legged chestnut, Makhotin's Gladiator, being led to the racecourse in a blue and orange horsecloth, with what looked like huge ears edged with blue.
"Where's Cord?" he asked the stableboy.
"In the stable, putting on the saddle."
In the open horse box stood Frou-Frou, saddled ready. They were just going to lead her out.
"I'm not too late?"
"All right! All right!" said the Englishman; "don't upset yourself!"
Vronsky once more took in at one glance the beautiful lines of his favorite mare, who was quivering all over, and with an effort he tore himself from the sight of her, and went out of the stable. He went toward the pavilions at the most favorable moment for escaping attention. The two-versta race was just finishing, and all eyes were fixed on the cavalry guard in front and the light hussar behind, urging their horses on with a last effort close to the winning post. From the center and outside of the ring all were crowding to the winning post, and a group of soldiers and officers of the cavalry guards were shouting loudly their delight at the expected triumph of their officer and comrade. Vronsky moved into the middle of the crowd unnoticed, almost at the very moment when the bell rang at the finish of the race, and the tall, mud-spattered cavalry guard who came in first, leaning over the saddle, let go the reins of his panting gray stallion that looked dark with sweat.
The stallion, stiffening out his legs, with an effort stopped his rapid course, and the officer of the cavalry guards looked round him like a man waking up from a heavy sleep, and just managed to smile. A crowd of friends and outsiders pressed round him.
Vronsky intentionally avoided that select crowd of upper world, which was moving and talking with discreet freedom before the pavilions. He knew that Madame Karenina was there, and Betsy, and his brother's wife, and he purposely did not go near them for fear of something distracting his attention. But he was continually met and stopped by acquaintances, who told him about the previous races, and kept asking him why he was so late.
At the time when the racers had to go to the pavilion to receive the prizes, and all attention was directed to that point, Vronsky's elder brother, Alexandre, a colonel with the shoulder knot, came up to him. He was not tall, though as broadly built as Alexei, and handsomer and rosier than he; he had a red nose, and an open, tipsy face.
"Did you get my note?" he said. "There's never any finding you."
Alexandre Vronsky, in spite of his dissolute life, and particularly his drunken habits, for which he was notorious, was quite one of the Court circle.
Now, as he talked to his brother of a matter bound to be exceedingly disagreeable to him, knowing that the eyes of many people might be fixed upon him, he kept a smiling countenance, as though he were jesting with his brother about something of little moment.
"I got it, and I really can't make out what you are worrying yourself about," said Alexei.
"I'm worrying myself because the remark has just been made to me that you weren't here, and that you were seen in Peterhof on Monday."
"There are matters which only concern those directly interested in them, and the matter you are so worried about is of that nature..."
"Yes, but if so, one does not belong in the service, one does not..."
"I beg you not to meddle, and that is all."
Alexei Vronsky's frowning face turned pale, and his prominent lower jaw quivered, which happened rarely with him. Being a man of very warm heart, he was seldom angry; but when he was angry, and when his chin quivered, then, as Alexandre Vronsky knew, he was dangerous. Alexandre Vronsky smiled gaily.
"I only wanted to give you mother's letter. Answer it and don't worry about anything just before the race. Bonne chance," he added, smiling, and he moved away from him. But after him another friendly greeting brought Vronsky to a standstill.
"So you won't recognize your friends! How are you, mon cher?" said Stepan Arkadyevich, as conspicuously brilliant in the midst of all the Peterburg brilliance as he was in Moscow, his face rosy, and his whiskers sleek and glossy. "I came up yesterday, and I'm delighted because I shall see your triumph. When shall we meet?"
"Come tomorrow to the messroom," said Vronsky, and squeezing him by the sleeve of his greatcoat, with apologies, he moved away to the center of the racecourse, where the horses were being led for the great steeplechase.
The horses who had run in the last race were being led home, steaming and exhausted, by the stableboys, and one after another the fresh horses for the coming race made their appearance, for the most part English racers, wearing horsecloths and looking with their drawn-up bellies like strange, huge birds. On the right Frou-Frou was led in, lean and beautiful, lifting up her elastic, rather long pasterns, as though moved by springs. Not far from her they were taking the caparison off the lop-cared Gladiator. The strong, exquisite, perfectly correct lines of the stallion, with his superb hindquarters and excessively short pasterns almost over his hoofs, attracted Vronsky's attention in spite of himself. He would have gone up to his mare, but he was again detained by an acquaintance.
"Oh, there's Karenin!" said the acquaintance with whom he was chatting. "He's looking for his wife, and she's in the middle of the pavilion. Didn't you see her?"
"No, I didn't," answered Vronsky, and without even glancing round toward the pavilion where his friend was pointing out Madame Karenina, he went up to his mare.
Vronsky had not had time to look at the saddle, about which he had to give some direction, when the entrants were summoned to the pavilion to receive their numbers and places in the row at starting. Seventeen officers, looking serious and severe, many with pale faces, met together in the pavilion and drew the numbers. Vronsky drew number 7. The cry was heard: "Mount!"
Feeling that, with the others riding in the race, he was the center upon which all eyes were fastened, Vronsky walked up to his mare in that state of nervous tension in which he usually became dilatory and calm in his movements. Cord, in honor of the races, had put on his best clothes, a black coat buttoned up, a stiffly starched collar, which propped up his cheeks, a black bowler and Hessian boots. He was calm and dignified as ever, and was with his own hands holding Frou-Frou by both reins, standing straight in front of her. Frou-Frou was still trembling as though in a fever. Her eye, full of fire, glanced sideways at Vronsky. Vronsky slipped his finger under the saddle girth. The mare glanced aslant at him, drew up her lip, and twitched her ear. The Englishman puckered up his lips, intending to indicate a smile that anyone should verify his saddling.
"Get up; you won't feel so excited."
Vronsky looked round for the last time at his rivals. He knew that he would not see them during the race. Two were already riding forward to the point from which they were to start. Galtsin, a friend of Vronsky's and one of his more formidable rivals, was moving round a bay horse that would not let him mount. A little hussar of the life guards in tight riding breeches rode off at a gallop, crouched up like a cat over the porridge, in imitation of English jockeys. Prince Kuzovlev sat with a white face on his thoroughbred mare from the Grabovsky stud, while an English groom led her by the bridle. Vronsky and all his comrades knew Kuzovlev and his peculiarity of "weak nerves" and terrible vanity. They knew that he was afraid of everything- afraid of riding a line horse. But now, just because it was terrible, because people broke their necks, and there was a doctor standing at each obstacle, and an ambulance with a cross on it, and a sister of mercy, he had made up his mind to take part in the race. Their eyes met, and Vronsky gave him a friendly and encouraging nod. Only one he did not see, his chief rival, Makhotin on Gladiator.
"Don't be in a hurry," said Cord to Vronsky, "and remember one thing: don't hold her in at the fences, and don't urge her on; let her go as she likes."
"All right, all right," said Vronsky, taking the reins.
"If you can, lead the race; but don't lose heart till the last minute, even if you're behind."
Before the mare had time to move, Vronsky stepped with an agile, vigorous movement into the steel-toothed stirrup, and lightly and firmly placed his compacted body on the creaking leather of the saddle. Getting his right foot in the stirrup, he with habitual moving smoothed the double reins between his fingers, and Cord let go. As though she did not know which foot to put first, Frou-Frou started, dragging at the reins with her long neck, and as though she were on springs, shaking her rider from side to side. Cord quickened his step, following him. The excited mare, trying to deceive her rider, pulled at the reins, first on one side and then the other, and Vronsky tried in vain with voice and hand to soothe her.
They were just reaching the dammed-up stream on their way to the starting point. Several of the riders were in front and several behind, when suddenly Vronsky heard the sound of a horse galloping in the behind him, and he was overtaken by Makhotin on his white-legged, lop-eared Gladiator. Makhotin smiled, showing his long teeth, but Vronsky looked at him angrily. He did not like him, and regarded him now as his most formidable rival. He was angry with him for galloping past and exciting his mare. Frou-Frou started into a gallop, her left foot forward, made two bounds, and fretting at the tightened reins, passed into a jolting trot, bumping her rider up and down. Cord, too, scowled, and followed Vronsky almost ambling.
Chapter XXV.
There were seventeen officers in all riding in this race. The racecourse was a large four-versta ring in the form of an ellipse in front of the pavilion. On this course nine obstacles had been arranged: the stream, a big and solid barrier two arsheenes high, just before the pavilion, a dry ditch, a ditch full of water, a precipitous slope, an Irish barricade (one of the most difficult obstacles, consisting of a mound fenced with brushwood, beyond which was a ditch out of sight for the horses, so that the horse had to clear both obstacles or possibly be killed); then two more ditches filled with water, and one dry one; and the end of the race was just facing the pavilion. But the race began not in the ring, but a hundred arsheenes away from it, and in that part of the course was the first obstacle, a dammed-up stream, three arsheenes in breadth, which the racers could leap or wade through as they preferred.
Three times they were ranged ready to start, but each time some horse thrust itself out of line, and they had to begin again. The starter, Colonel Sestrin, was beginning to lose his temper, when at last, for the fourth time, he shouted "Away!" and the riders started.
Every eye, every opera glass, was turned on the brightly colored group of riders at the moment they were in line to start.
"They're off! They're starting!" was heard on all sides after the hush of expectation.
And little groups and solitary figures among the public began running from place to place to get a better view. In the very first minute the close group of horsemen spread out, and it could be seen that they were approaching the stream in twos and threes and one behind another. To the spectators it seemed as though they had all started simultaneously, but to the racers there were seconds of difference that had great value to them.
Frou-Frou, excited and overnervous, had lost the first moment, and several horses had started before her, but before reaching the stream, Vronsky, who was holding in the mare with all his force as she tugged at the bridle, easily overtook three, and there were left in front of him Makhotin's chestnut Gladiator, whose hindquarters were moving lightly and rhythmically up and down exactly in front of Vronsky, and, in front of all, the dainty mare Diana bearing the more dead than alive Kuzovlev.
For the first instant Vronsky was not master either of himself or his mare. Up to the first obstacle, the stream, he could not guide the motions of his mare.
Gladiator and Diana came up to it together and almost at the same instant; at a stroke they rose above the stream and flew across to the other side; Frou-Frou darted after them easily, as if flying; but at the very moment when Vronsky felt himself in the air, he suddenly saw almost under his mare's hoofs Kuzovlev, who was floundering with Diana on the further side of the stream. (Kuzovlev had let go the reins as he took the leap, and the mare had fallen together with him over her head.) Those details Vronsky learned later; at the moment all he saw was that just under him, where Frou-Frou must alight, Diana's legs or head might be in the way. But Frou-Frou drew up her legs and back in the very act of leaping, like a falling cat, and, clearing the other mare, alighted beyond her.
"Oh, you darling!" flashed through Vronsky's head.
After crossing the stream Vronsky had complete control of his mare, and began holding her in, intending to cross the great barrier behind Makhotin, and to try to overtake him in the clear ground of about two hundred sazhenes that followed it.
The great barrier stood just in front of the Imperial Pavilion. The Czar and the whole Court, and crowds of people, were all gazing at them- at him, and at Makhotin, a length ahead of him, as they drew near the "devil," as the solid barrier was called. Vronsky was aware of those eyes fastened upon him from all sides, but he saw nothing except the ears and neck of his own mare, the ground racing to meet him, and the back and white legs of Gladiator beating time swiftly before him, and keeping always the same distance ahead. Gladiator rose, with no sound of knocking against anything. With a wave of his short tail he disappeared from Vronsky's sight.
"Bravo!" cried a voice.
At the same instant, under Vronsky's eyes, right before him flashed the palings of the barrier. Without the slightest change in her action his mare flew over it; the palings vanished, and he heard only a crash behind him. The mare, excited by Gladiator's keeping ahead, had risen too soon before the barrier, and grazed it with one of her hind hoofs. But her pace never changed, and Vronsky, feeling a spatter of mud in his face, realized that he was once more the same distance from Gladiator. Once more he perceived in front of him the same back and short tail, and again the same swiftly moving white legs that got no further away.
At the very moment when Vronsky thought that now was the time to overtake Makhotin, Frou-Frou herself, understanding his thoughts, without any incitement on his part, gained considerably, and began getting alongside of Makhotin on the most favorable side, close to the inner rope. Makhotin would not let her pass that side. Vronsky had hardly formed the thought that he could perhaps pass on the outer side, when Frou-Frou shifted her pace and began overtaking him on the other side. Frou-Frou's shoulder, beginning by now to be dark with sweat, was even with Gladiator's back. For a few bounds they moved evenly. But before the obstacle they were approaching, Vronsky began working at the reins, anxious to avoid having to take the outer circle, and swiftly passed Makhotin just upon the declivity. He caught a glimpse of his mud-stained face as he flashed by. He even fancied that he smiled. Vronsky passed Makhotin, but he was immediately aware of him close upon him, and he never ceased hearing just behind him the even-thudding hoofs and the rapid and still quite fresh breathing of Gladiator.
The next two obstacles, the watercourse and the barrier, were easily crossed, but Vronsky began to hear the snorting and thud of Gladiator closer upon him. He urged on his mare, and to his delight felt that she easily quickened her pace, and the thud of Gladiator's hoofs was again heard at the same distance away.
Vronsky was at the head of the race, just as he wanted to be and as Cord had advised, and now he felt sure of being the winner. His excitement, his delight, and his tenderness for Frou-Frou grew keener and keener. He longed to look round, but he did not dare do this, and tried to be cool and not to urge on his mare, so as to keep the same reserve of force in her as he felt that Gladiator still kept. There remained only one obstacle, the most difficult; if he could cross it ahead of the others, he would come in first. He was flying toward the Irish barricade; Frou-Frou and he both together saw the barricade in the distance, and both the man and the mare had a moment's hesitation. He saw the uncertainty in the mare's ears and lifted the whip, but at the same time felt that his fears were groundless; the mare knew what was wanted. She quickened her pace and rose rhythmically, just as he had fancied she would, and as she left the ground gave herself up to the force of her rush, which carried her far beyond the ditch; and with the same rhythm, without effort, with the same leg forward, Frou-Frou fell back into her pace again.
"Bravo, Vronsky!" he heard shouts from a knot of men- he knew they were his friends and his regiment comrades- who were standing at the obstacle. He could not fail to recognize Iashvin's voice, though he did not see him.
"O my sweet!" he said inwardly to Frou-Frou, as he listened for what was happening behind. "He's cleared it!" he thought, catching the thud of Gladiator's hoofs behind him. There remained only the last ditch, filled with water and two arsheenes wide. Vronsky did not even look at it, but anxious to come in a long way ahead began sawing away at the reins, lifting the mare's head and letting it go in time with her paces. He felt that the mare was at her very last reserve of strength; not her neck and shoulders merely were wet, but the sweat was standing in drops on her mane, her head, her sharp ears, and her breath came in short, sharp gasps. But he knew that she had strength left more than enough for the remaining two hundred sazhenes. It was only from feeling himself nearer the ground and from the peculiar smoothness of his motion that Vronsky knew how greatly the mare had quickened her pace. She flew over the ditch as though not noticing it. She flew over it like a bird; but at the same instant Vronsky, to his horror, felt that failing to keep up with the mare's pace, he had, he did not know how, made an abominable, unpardonable move in recovering his seat in the saddle. All at once his position had shifted and he knew that something awful had happened. He could not yet make out what had happened, when the white legs of a chestnut horse flashed by close to him, and Makhotin passed at a swift gallop. Vronsky was touching the ground with one foot, and his mare was sinking on that foot. He just had time to free his leg when she fell on one side, gasping painfully, and, making vain efforts to rise with her delicate, soaking neck, she fluttered on the ground at his feet like a shot bird. The clumsy movement made by Vronsky had broken her back. But that he only knew much later. At that moment he knew only that Makhotin had flown swiftly by, while he stood staggering alone on the muddy, motionless ground, and Frou-Frou lay gasping before him, bending her head back and gazing at him with her exquisite eye. Still unable to realize what had happened, Vronsky tugged at his mare's reins. Again she struggled all over like a fish, and, her shoulders making the wings of the saddle crackle, she rose on her front legs; but unable to lift her back, she quivered all over and again fell on her side. With his face hideous with passion, pale, his lower jaw trembling, Vronsky kicked her with his heel in the stomach and again fell to tugging at the rein. She did not stir, but thrusting her nose into the ground, she simply gazed at her master with her speaking eyes.
"A-a-a!" groaned Vronsky, clutching at his head. "Ah! what have I done!" he cried. "The race lost! And my fault! shameful, unpardonable! And the poor darling, ruined mare! Ah, what have I done!"
A crowd of men, a doctor and his assistant, the officers of his regiment, ran up to him. To his misery he felt that he was whole and unhurt. The mare had broken her back, and it was decided to shoot her. Vronsky could not answer questions, could not speak to anyone. He turned, and without picking up his fallen cap, walked away from the racecourse, unconscious of where he was going. He felt utterly wretched. For the first time in his life he knew the bitterest sort of misfortune, misfortune beyond remedy, and caused by his own fault.
Iashvin overtook him with his cap, and led him home, and half an hour later Vronsky had regained his self-possession. But the memory of that race remained for long in his heart, the cruelest and bitterest memory of his life.
Chapter XXVI.
The external relations of Alexei Alexandrovich and his wife had remained unchanged. The sole difference lay in the fact that he was more busily occupied than ever. As in former years, at the beginning of the spring he had gone to a foreign watering place for the sake of his health, being deranged every year with his strenuous winter work. And just as always he returned in July and at once fell to his usual work with increased energy. Just as always, too, his wife had moved for the summer to a villa out of town, while he remained in Peterburg.
From the date of their conversation after the party at Princess Tverskaia's he had never spoken again to Anna of his suspicions and his jealousies, and that habitual tone of his of bantering mimicry was the most convenient tone possible for his present attitude to his wife. He was a little colder to his wife. He simply seemed to be slightly displeased with her for that first midnight conversation, which she had repelled. In his attitude to her there was a shade of vexation, but nothing more. "You would not be open with me," he seemed to say, mentally addressing her; "so much the worse for you. Now you may beg as you please, but I won't be open with you. So much the worse for you!" he said mentally, like a man who, after vainly attempting to extinguish a fire, should fly in a rage with his vain efforts and say, "Oh, very well then! You shall burn for this!"
This man, so subtle and astute in official life, did not realize all the insanity of such an attitude to his wife. He did not realize it, because it was too terrible to him to realize his actual position, and he shut down and locked and sealed up in his heart that secret place where lay hid his feelings toward his family- that is, his wife and son. He who had been such a considerate father, had from the end of that winter become peculiarly frigid to his son, and adopted to him just the same bantering tone as he used with his wife. "Aha, young man!" was the greeting with which he met him.
Alexei Alexandrovich asserted, and believed, that he had never in any previous year had so much official business as that year. But he was not aware that he sought work for himself that year, that this was one of the means for keeping shut that secret place where lay hid his feelings toward his wife and son, and his thoughts about them, which became more terrible the longer they lay there. If anyone had had the right to ask Alexei Alexandrovich what he thought of his wife's behavior, the mild and peaceable Alexei Alexandrovich would have made no answer, but he would have been greatly angered with any man who should question him on that subject. It was precisely for this reason that there came into Alexei Alexandrovich's face a look of haughtiness and severity whenever anyone inquired after his wife's health. Alexei Alexandrovich did not want to think at all about his wife's behavior and feelings, and he actually succeeded in not thinking about them at all.
Alexei Alexandrovich's permanent summer villa was in Peterhof, and the Countess Lidia Ivanovna used to spend the summer there, close to Anna, and constantly seeing her. That year Countess Lidia Ivanovna declined to settle in Peterhof, did not call once at Anna Arkadyevna's, and had hinted to Alexei Alexandrovich about the unsuitability of Anna's close intimacy with Betsy and Vronsky. Alexei Alexandrovich had sternly cut her short, roundly declaring his wife to be above suspicion, and from that time began to avoid Countess Lidia Ivanovna. He did not want to see, and did not see, that many people in society cast dubious glances on his wife; he did not want to understand, and did not understand, why his wife had so particularly insisted on staying at Tsarskoe, where Betsy was staying, and not far from the camp of Vronsky's regiment. He did not allow himself to think about it, and he did not think about it; but, all the same, though he never admitted it to himself, and had no proofs, nor even suspicious evidence, at the bottom of his heart he knew beyond all doubt that he was a deceived husband, and he was profoundly miserable about it.
How often during those eight years of happy life with his wife had Alexei Alexandrovich looked at other men's faithless wives and other deceived husbands and asked himself: "How can people descend to that? How is it they don't put an end to such a hideous situation?" But now, when the misfortune had come upon himself, he was so far from thinking of putting an end to the situation that he would not recognize it at all- would not recognize it just because it was too awful, too unnatural.
Since his return from abroad Alexei Alexandrovich had been twice at their country villa. Once he dined there, another time he spent the evening there with a party of friends, but he had not once stayed the night there, as it had been his habit to do in previous years.
The day of the races had been a very busy day for Alexei Alexandrovich; but when sketching out the day in the morning he made up his mind to go immediately after his early dinner, to their summer villa to see his wife and from there to the races, which all the Court were to witness, and at which he was bound to be present. He was going to see his wife, because he had determined to see her once a week to keep up appearances. And besides, on that day, as it was the fifteenth, he had to give his wife some money for her expenses, according to their usual arrangement.
With his habitual control over his thoughts, though he thought all this about his wife, he did not let his thoughts stray further in regard to her.
That morning was a very full one for Alexei Alexandrovich. The evening before, Countess Lidia Ivanovna had sent him a pamphlet by a celebrated traveler in China, who was staying in Peterburg, and with it she enclosed a note begging him to see the traveler himself, as he was an extremely interesting person from various points of view, and likely to be useful. Alexei Alexandrovich had not had time to read the pamphlet through in the evening, and finished it in the morning. Then people began arriving with petitions, and then came the reports, interviews, appointments, dismissals, apportionment of rewards, pensions, payments, papers- the workday round, as Alexei Alexandrovich called it, that always took up so much time. Then there was a private business of his own, a visit from the doctor, and from the steward who managed his property. The steward did not take up much time. He simply gave Alexei Alexandrovich the money he needed, together with a brief statement of the position of his affairs, which was not altogether satisfactory, as during that year, owing to increased expenses, more had been paid out than usual, and there was a deficit. But the doctor, a celebrated Peterburg doctor, who was an intimate acquaintance of Alexei Alexandrovich, had taken up a great deal of time. Alexei Alexandrovich had not expected him that day, and was surprised at his visit, and still more so when the doctor questioned him very carefully about his health, listened to his breathing, and tapped at his liver. Alexei Alexandrovich did not know that his friend Lidia Ivanovna, noticing that he was not as well as usual that year, had begged the doctor to go and examine him. "Do this for my sake," the Countess Lidia Ivanovna had said to him.
"I will do it for the sake of Russia, Countess," replied the doctor.
"A priceless man!" said the Countess Lidia Ivanovna.
The doctor was extremely dissatisfied with Alexei Alexandrovich. He found the liver considerably enlarged, and the digestive powers weakened, while the course of mineral waters had been quite without effect. He prescribed more physical exercise as far as possible, and as far as possible less mental strain, and above all no worry- in other words, just what was as much out of Alexei Alexandrovich's power as abstaining from breathing. Then he withdrew, leaving in Alexei Alexandrovich an unpleasant sense that something was wrong with him, and that there was no chance of curing it.
As he was coming away, the doctor chanced to meet on the steps an acquaintance of his, Sludin, who was head clerk in Alexei Alexandrovich's office. They had been comrades at the university, and, though they rarely met, they thought highly of each other and were excellent friends, and hence there was no one to whom the doctor would have given his opinion of a patient so freely as to Sludin.
"How glad I am you've been seeing him!" said Sludin. "He's not well, and I fancy... Well, what do you think of him?"
"I'll tell you," said the doctor, beckoning over Sludin's head to his coachman to bring the carriage round. "It's just this," said the doctor, taking a finger of his kid glove in his white hands and pulling it, "if you don't strain the strings, and then try to break them, you'll find it a difficult job; but strain a string to its very utmost, and the mere weight of one finger on the strained string will snap it. And with his close assiduity, his conscientious devotion to his work, he's strained to the utmost; and there's some outside burden weighing on him, and that not a light one," concluded the doctor, raising his eyebrows significantly. "Will you be at the races?" he added, as he came down to his carriage. "Yes, yes, to be sure; it does waste a lot of time," the doctor responded vaguely to some reply of Sludin's he had not caught.
Directly after the doctor, who had taken up so much time, came the celebrated traveler, and Alexei Alexandrovich, by means of the pamphlet he had only just finished reading, and his previous acquaintance with the subject, impressed the traveler by the depth of his knowledge of the subject and the breadth and enlightenment of his view of it.
At the same time with the traveler there was announced a provincial marshal of nobility on a visit to Peterburg, with whom Alexei Alexandrovich had to have some conversation. After his departure, he had to finish the daily routine of business with his head clerk, and then he still had to drive round to call on a certain personage on a matter of grave and serious import. Alexei Alexandrovich hardly managed to be back by five o'clock, his dinner hour, and, after dining with his head clerk, he invited him to drive with him to his summer villa and to the races.
Though he did not acknowledge it to himself, Alexei Alexandrovich always tried nowadays to secure the presence of a third person in his interviews with his wife.
Chapter XXVII.
Anna was upstairs, standing before the looking glass, and, with Annushka's assistance, pinning the last ribbon on her gown when she heard carriage wheels crunching the gravel at the entrance.
"It's too early for Betsy," she thought, and, glancing out of the window, she caught sight of the carriage and, protruded from it, the black hat of Alexei Alexandrovich, and the ears that she knew so well. "How unlucky! Can he be going to stay the night?" she wondered, and the thought of all that might come of such a chance struck her as so awful and terrible that, without dwelling on it for a moment, she went down to meet him with a bright and radiant face; and conscious of the presence of that spirit of falsehood and deceit in herself that she had come to know of late, she abandoned herself to that spirit and began talking, hardly knowing what she was saying.
"Ah, how lovely of you!" she said, giving her husband her hand, and with a smile greeting Sludin, who was like one of the family. "You're staying the night, I hope?" was the first word the spirit of falsehood prompted her to utter. "And now we'll go together. Only it's a pity I've promised Betsy. She's coming for me."
Alexei Alexandrovich knit his brows at Betsy's name.
"Oh, I'm not going to separate the inseparables," he said in his usual bantering tone. "I'm going with Mikhail Vassilyevich. Even the doctors order me to walk. I'll walk, and fancy myself at the springs again."
"There's no hurry," said Anna. "Would you like tea?"
She rang.
"Bring in tea, and tell Seriozha that Alexei Alexandrovich is here. Well, tell me, how have you been? Mikhail Vassilyevich, you've not been to see me before. Look how lovely it is out on the terrace," she said, turning first to one and then to the other.
She spoke very simply and naturally, but too much and too fast. She was the more aware of this from noticing in the inquisitive look which Mikhail Vassilyevich turned on her that he was, as it were, keeping watch on her.
Mikhail Vassilyevich promptly went out on the terrace.
She sat down beside her husband.
"You don't look quite well," she said.
"Yes," he said; "the doctor's been with me today and wasted an hour of my time. I feel that some one of our friends must have sent him: my health's so precious...."
"Come: what did he say?"
She questioned him about his health, and what he had been doing, and tried to persuade him to take a rest and come out to her.
All this she said brightly, rapidly, and with a peculiar brilliance in her eyes. But Alexei Alexandrovich did not now attach any special significance to this tone of hers. He heard only her words and gave them only the direct sense they bore. And he answered simply, though jestingly. There was nothing remarkable in all this conversation, but never after could Anna recall this brief scene without an agonizing pang of shame.
Seriozha came in, preceded by his governess. If Alexei Alexandrovich had allowed himself to observe he would have noticed the timid and bewildered eyes with which Seriozha glanced first at his father and then at his mother. But he would not see anything, and he did not see it.
"Ah, the young man! He's grown. Really, he's getting quite a man. How are you, young man?"
And he gave his hand to the scared child.
Seriozha had been shy of his father before, and now, ever since Alexei Alexandrovich had taken to calling him "young man," and since that insolvable question had occurred to him as to whether Vronsky were friend or foe, he avoided his father. He looked round toward his mother, as though seeking refuge. It was only with his mother that he was at ease. Meanwhile, Alexei Alexandrovich was holding his son by the shoulder, while he was speaking to the governess, and Seriozha was so miserably uncomfortable that Anna saw he was on the point of tears.
Anna, who had flushed a little the instant her son had come in, noticing that Seriozha was uncomfortable, got up hurriedly, took Alexei Alexandrovich's hand from her son's shoulder, and, kissing the boy, led him out onto the terrace, and quickly came back.
"It's time to start, though," said she, glancing at her watch. "How is it Betsy doesn't come?..."
"Yes," said Alexei Alexandrovich, and, getting up, he folded his hands and cracked his fingers. "I've come to bring you some money, too- for nightingales, we know, can't live on fairy tales," he said. "You want it, I expect?"
"No, I don't... Yes, I do," she said, without looking at him, and crimsoning to the roots of her hair. "But you'll come back here after the races, I suppose?"
"Oh, yes!" answered Alexei Alexandrovich. "And here's the glory of Peterhof- Princess Tverskaia," he added, looking out of the window at the English harnessed carriage, with the tiny seats placed extremely high. "What elegance! Charming! Well, let us be starting too, then."
Princess Tverskaia did not get out of her carriage, but her liveryman, in spatterdashes, a cape and black high hat, jumped off at the entrance.
"I'm going; good-by!" said Anna, and, kissing her son, she went up to Alexei Alexandrovich and held out her hand to him. "It was ever so lovely of you to come."
Alexei Alexandrovich kissed her hand.
"Well, au revoir, then! You'll come back for some tea- that'll be delightful!" she said, and went out, radiant and gay. But as soon as he was out of sight, she became aware of the spot on her hand that his lips had touched, and she shuddered with repulsion.
Chapter XXVIII.
When Alexei Alexandrovich reached the racecourse Anna was already sitting in the pavilion beside Betsy, in that pavilion where the highest society had gathered. She caught sight of her husband in the distance. Two men, her husband and her lover, were the two centers of her existence, and, unaided by her external senses, she was aware of their proximity. She was aware of her husband approaching a long way off, and she could not help following him in the surging crowd in the midst of which he was moving. She watched his progress toward the pavilion, saw him now responding condescendingly to an ingratiating bow, now exchanging friendly, nonchalant greetings with his equals, now assiduously trying to catch the eye of some great one of this world, and taking off his big round hat that pressed down the tips of his ears. All these ways of his she knew, and all were hateful to her. "Nothing but ambition, nothing but desire to get on- that's all there is in his soul," she thought; "as for his lofty ideals, love of culture, religion, they are only so many tools for getting on."
From his glances toward the ladies' pavilion (he was staring straight at her, but did not distinguish his wife in the sea of muslin, ribbons, feathers, parasols and flowers) she saw that he was looking for her, but she purposely avoided noticing him.
"Alexei Alexandrovich!" Princess Betsy called to him; "I'm sure you don't see your wife: here she is."
He smiled his chilly smile.
"There's so much splendor here that one's eyes are dazzled," he said, and he went into the pavilion. He smiled to his wife as a man should smile on meeting his wife after only just parting from her, and greeted the princess and other acquaintances, giving to each what was due- that is to say, jesting with the ladies and dealing out friendly greetings among the men. Below, near the pavilion, was standing an adjutant general of whom Alexei Alexandrovich had a high opinion, noted for his intelligence and culture. Alexei Alexandrovich entered into conversation with him.
There was an interval between the races, and so nothing hindered conversation. The adjutant general expressed his disapproval of races. Alexei Alexandrovich replied defending them. Anna heard his high, measured tones, without losing one word, and every word struck her as false, and stabbed her ears with pain.
When the four-versta steeplechase was beginning, she bent forward and gazed with fixed eyes at Vronsky as he went up to his horse and mounted, and at the same time she heard that loathsome, never-ceasing voice of her husband. She was in an agony of terror for Vronsky, but a still greater agony was the never-ceasing, as it seemed to her, stream of her husband's shrill voice with its familiar intonations.
"I'm a wicked woman, a lost woman," she thought; "but I don't like lying, I can't endure falsehood, while as for him [her husband], falsehood is the breath of life to him. He knows all about it, he sees it all; what does he care if he can talk so calmly? If he were to kill me, if he were to kill Vronsky, I might respect him. No, all he wants is falsehood and propriety," Anna said to herself, not considering exactly what it was she wanted of her husband, and how she would have liked to see him behave. She did not understand either that Alexei Alexandrovich's peculiar loquacity that day, so exasperating to her, was merely the expression of his inward distress and uneasiness. As a child that has been hurt hops about, putting all his muscles into movement to drown the pain, in the same way Alexei Alexandrovich needed mental exercise to drown the thoughts of his wife, that in her presence and in Vronsky's, and with the continual iteration of his name, would force themselves on his attention. And it is as natural for a child to hop about, as it was natural for him to talk well and cleverly. He was saying:
"Danger in the races to officers, to cavalrymen, is an essential element in the race. If England can point to the most brilliant feats of cavalry in military history, it is simply owing to the fact that she has historically developed this force both in beasts and in men. Sport has, in my opinion, a great value, and, as is always the case, we see nothing but what is most superficial."
"It's not superficial," said Princess Tverskaia. "One of the officers, they say, has broken two ribs."
Alexei Alexandrovich smiled his smile, which uncovered his teeth, but revealed nothing more.
"We'll admit, Princess, that that's not superficial," he said, "but internal. But that's not the point," and he turned again to the general with whom he talked seriously; "we mustn't forget that those who are taking part in the race are military men, who have chosen that career, and one must allow that every calling has its disagreeable side. It forms an integral part of the duties of an officer. Low sports, such as prize fighting or Spanish bullfights, are a sign of barbarity. But specialized trials of skill are a sign of development."
"No, I shan't come another time; it's too upsetting," said Princess Betsy. "Isn't it, Anna?"
"It is upsetting, but one can't tear oneself away," said another lady. "If I'd been a Roman woman I should never have missed a single circus."
Anna said nothing, and, keeping her opera glass up, gazed always at the same spot.
At that moment a tall general walked through the pavilion. Breaking off what he was saying, Alexei Alexandrovich got up hurriedly, though with dignity, and bowed low to the general.
"You're not racing?" the officer asked, chaffing him.
"My race is a harder one," Alexei Alexandrovich responded deferentially.
And though the answer meant nothing, the general looked as though he had heard a witty remark from a witty man, and fully relished la pointe de la sauce.
"There are two aspects," Alexei Alexandrovich resumed: "those who take part and those who look on; and love for such spectacles is an unmistakable proof of a low degree of development in the spectator, I admit, but..."
"Any bets, Princess?" sounded Stepan Arkadyevich's voice from below, addressing Betsy. "Who's your favorite?"
"Anna and I are for Kuzovlev," replied Betsy.
"I'm for Vronsky. A pair of gloves?"
"Done!"
"But it is a pretty sight, isn't it?"
Alexei Alexandrovich paused while the others were talking near him, but he began again directly.
"I admit that manly sports do not..." he made an attempt to continue.
But at that moment the racers started, and all conversation ceased. Alexei Alexandrovich also fell silent, and everyone stood up and turned toward the stream. Alexei Alexandrovich took no interest in the race, and so he did not watch the racers, but fell listlessly to scanning the spectators with his weary eyes. His eyes rested upon Anna.
Her face was white and stern. She was obviously seeing nothing and no one but one man. Her hand had convulsively clutched her fan, and she held her breath. He looked at her and hastily turned away, scrutinizing other faces.
"But here's this lady too, and others very much moved as well; it's very natural," Alexei Alexandrovich told himself He tried not to look at her, but unconsciously his eyes were drawn to her. He examined that face again, trying not to read what was so plainly written on it, and against his own will, with horror, read in it what he did not want to know.
The first fall- Kuzovlev's, at the stream- agitated everyone, but Alexei Alexandrovich saw distinctly on Anna's pale, triumphant face that the man she was watching had not fallen. When, after Makhotin and Vronsky had cleared the worst barrier, the next officer had been thrown straight on his head at it and fatally injured, and a shudder of horror passed over the whole public, Alexei Alexandrovich saw that Anna did not even notice it, and had some difficulty in realizing what they were saying around her. But more and more often, and with greater persistence, he watched her. Anna, wholly engrossed as she was with the sight of Vronsky racing, became aware of her husband's cold eyes fixed upon her from aside.
She glanced round for an instant, looked inquiringly at him, and with a slight frown turned away again.
"Ah, I don't care!" she seemed to say to him, and she did not once glance at him again.
The race was an unlucky one, and of the seventeen officers who rode in it more than half had been thrown and hurt. Toward the end of the race everyone was in a state of agitation, which was intensified by the fact that the Czar was displeased.
Chapter XXIX.
Everyone was loudly expressing disapprobation, everyone was repeating a phrase someone had uttered: "The lions and gladiators will be the next thing," and everyone was feeling horrified; so that when Vronsky fell to the ground, and Anna moaned aloud, there was nothing very much out of the way in it. But afterward a change came over Anna's face which really went beyond decorum. She utterly lost her head. She began fluttering like a caged bird, at one moment wanting to get up and move away, and at the next turning to Betsy.
"Let us go, let us go!" she said.
But Betsy did not hear her. She was bending down, talking to a general who had come up to her.
Alexei Alexandrovich went up to Anna and courteously offered her his arm.
"Let us go, if you like," he said in French, but Anna was listening to the general and did not notice her husband.
"He's broken his leg too, so they say," the general was saying. "This surpasses everything."
Without answering her husband, Anna lifted her opera glass and gazed toward the place where Vronsky had fallen; but it was so far off, and there was such a crowd of people about it, that she could make out nothing. She put down the opera glass, and would have moved away, but at that moment an officer galloped up and made some announcement to the Czar. Anna craned forward, listening.
"Stiva! Stiva!" she cried to her brother.
But her brother did not hear her. Again she would have moved away.
"Once more I offer you my arm if you want to be going," said Alexei Alexandrovich, reaching for her hand.
She drew back from him with aversion, and without looking at his face answered:
"No, no, leave me alone- I'll stay."
She saw now that from the place of Vronsky's accident an officer was running across the course toward the pavilion. Betsy waved her handkerchief to him. The officer brought the news that the rider was not killed, but that the back of the horse had been broken.
On hearing this Anna sat down hurriedly, and hid her face in her fan. Alexei Alexandrovich saw that she was weeping, and could not control her tears, nor even the sobs that were shaking her bosom. Alexei Alexandrovich stood so as to screen her, giving her time to recover herself.
"For the third time I offer you my arm," he said to her after a short interval, turning to her. Anna gazed at him and did not know what to say. Princess Betsy came to her rescue.
"No, Alexei Alexandrovich; I brought Anna and I promised to take her home," put in Betsy.
"Excuse me, Princess," he said smiling courteously, but looking her very firmly in the face, "but I see that Anna's not very well, and I wish her to come home with me."
Anna looked about her in a frightened way, got up submissively, and laid her hand on her husband's arm.
"I'll send to him and find out, and let you know," Betsy whispered to her.
As they left the pavilion, Alexei Alexandrovich, as always, talked to those he met, and Anna had, as always, to talk and answer; but she was utterly beside herself, and moved hanging on her husband's arm, as though in a dream.
"Is he killed or not? Is it true? Will he come or not? Shall I see him today?" she was thinking.
She took her seat in her husband's carriage in silence, and in silence drove out of the press of carriages. In spite of all he had seen, Alexei Alexandrovich still did not allow himself to consider his wife's real condition. He merely saw the outward symptoms. He saw that she was behaving unbecomingly, and considered it his duty to tell her so. But it was very difficult for him not to say more, to tell her nothing but that. He opened his mouth to tell her she had behaved unbecomingly, but he could not help saying something utterly different.
"What an inclination we all have, though, for these cruel spectacles! he said. "I observe..."
"Eh? I don't understand," said Anna contemptuously.
He was offended, and at once began to say what he had meant to say.
"I am obliged to tell you..." he began.
"So now we are to have it out," she thought, and she felt frightened.
"I am obliged to tell you that your behavior has been unbecoming today," he said to her, in French.
"In what way has my behavior been unbecoming?" she said aloud, turning her head swiftly and looking him straight in the face, not with the bright expression that seemed covering something, but with a look of determination, under which she concealed with difficulty the dismay she was feeling.
"Be careful," he said, pointing to the open window opposite the coachman.
He got up and pulled up the window.
"What did you consider unbecoming?" she repeated.
"The despair you were unable to conceal at the accident to one of the riders."
He waited for her to retort, but she was silent, looking straight before her.
"I have already begged you so to conduct yourself in society that even malicious tongues can find nothing to say against you. There was a time when I spoke of your inward attitude, but I am not speaking of that now. Now I speak only of your external attitude. You have behaved improperly, and I would wish it not to occur again."
She did not hear half of what he was saying; she felt panic-stricken before him, and was thinking whether it was true that Vronsky was not killed. Was it of him they were speaking when they said the rider was unhurt, but that the back of the horse had been broken? She merely smiled with a forced smile when he finished, and made no reply, because she had not heard what he said. A