Anna Karennina

by Leo Tolstoy

PART THREE

Chapter XI.
In the middle of July the elder of the village on Levin's sister's estate, about twenty verstas from Pokrovskoe, came to Levin to report about the hay, and how things were going there. The chief source of income on his sister's estate was from the water meadows. In former years the hay had been bought by the peasants for twenty roubles the dessiatina. When Levin took over the management of the estate, he thought on examining the grasslands that they were worth more, and he fixed the price at twenty-five roubles the dessiatina. The peasants would not give that price, and, as Levin suspected, kept off other purchasers. Then Levin had driven over himself, and arranged to have the grass cut, partly by hired labor, partly at a payment of a certain proportion of the crop. The peasants of this village put every hindrance they could in the way of this new arrangement, but it was carried out, and the first year the meadows had yielded a profit almost double. Two years ago and the previous year the peasants had maintained the same opposition to the arrangement, and the hay had been cut on the same system. This year the peasants were doing all the mowing for a third of the hay crop, and the village elder had come now to announce that the hay had been cut, and that, fearing rain, he had invited the countinghouse clerk over, had divided the crop in his presence, and had raked together eleven stacks as the owner's share. From the vague answers to his question how much hay had been cut on the principal meadow, from the hurry of the village elder who had made the division, without asking leave, from the whole tone of the peasant, Levin perceived that there was something wrong in the division of the hay, and made up his mind to drive over himself to look into the matter.
Arriving by dinnertime at the village, and leaving his horse at the cottage of an old friend of his, the husband of his brother's wet nurse, Levin went to see the old man in his beehouse, wanting to find out from him the truth about the hay. Parmenich, a talkative, comely old man, gave Levin a very warm welcome, showed him all he was doing, told him everything about his bees and the swarms of that year; but gave vague and unwilling answers to Levin's inquiries about the mowing. This confirmed Levin still more in his suspicions. He went to the hayfields and examined the stacks. The haystacks could not possibly contain fifty wagonloads each, and to convict the peasants Levin ordered the wagons that had carried the hay to be brought up directly, to lift one stack, and carry it into the barn. There turned out to be only thirty-two loads in the stack. In spite of the village elder's assertions about the compressibility of hay, and its having settled down in the stacks, and his swearing that everything had been done in fear of God, Levin stuck to his point that the hay had been divided without his orders, and that, therefore, he would not accept that hay as fifty loads to a stack. After a prolonged dispute the matter was decided by the peasants taking, as their share, these eleven stacks, reckoning them as fifty loads each, and apportioning the owner's share anew. The arguments and the division of the haycocks lasted the whole afternoon. When the last of the hay had been divided, Levin, entrusting the superintendence of the rest to the countinghouse clerk, sat down on a haycock marked off by a stake of willow, and looked admiringly at the meadow swarming with peasants.
In front of him, in the bend of the river beyond the little marsh, moved a bright-colored line of peasant women, merrily chattering with their ringing voices, and the scattered hay was being rapidly formed into gray winding rows over the pale green aftermath. After the women came the men with pitchforks, and from the gray rows there were growing up broad, high, soft haycocks. To the left telegas were rumbling over the meadow that had been already cleared, and one after another the haycocks vanished, flung up in huge forkfuls, and in their place there were rising heavy cartloads of fragrant hay hanging over the horses' hindquarters.
"What weather for haying! What hay it'll be!" said an old man, squatting down beside Levin. "It's tea, not hay It's like scattering grain to the ducks, the way they pick it up!" he added, pointing to the growing haycocks. "Since dinnertime they've carried a good half of it."
"The last load, eh?" he shouted to a young peasant, who drove by, standing in the front of an empty telega box, shaking the reins of hemp.
"The last, dad!" the lad shouted back, pulling in the horse, and, smiling, he looked round at a bright, rosy-cheeked peasant girl who sat in the telega box, smiling too, and drove on.
"Who's that? Your son?" asked Levin.
"My dear youngest," said the old man with a tender smile.
"What a fine fellow!"
"The lad's all right."
"Married already?"
"Yes, it's two years last St. Philip's day."
"Any children?"
"Children, indeed! Why, for over a year he was innocent as a babe himself, and bashful too," answered the old man. "What hay this is! It's tea indeed!" he repeated, wishing to change the subject.
Levin looked more attentively at Vanka Parmenov and his wife. They were loading a haycock onto the wagon not far from him. Ivan Parmenov was standing on the wagon, taking, laying in place, and stamping down the huge bundles of hay, which his pretty young wife deftly handed up to him, at first in armfuls, and then on the pitchfork. The young wife worked easily, merrily, and deftly. The close-packed hay did not once break away by her fork. First she tedded it, stuck the fork into it, then with a rapid, supple movement leaned the whole weight of her body on it, and at once with a bend of her back under the red belt she drew herself up, and arching her full bosom under the long white apron, with a deft turn swung the fork in her arms, and flung the bundle of hay high onto the wagon. Ivan, obviously doing his best to save her every minute of unnecessary labor, made haste, opening wide his arms to clutch the bundle and lay it in the wagon. As she raked together what was left of the hay, the young wife shook off the bits of hay that had fallen on her neck, and, arranging the red kerchief that was gone backward baring her white brow, not browned by the sun, she crept under the wagon to tie up the load. Ivan directed her how to fasten the cord to the crosspiece, and at something she said he laughed aloud. In the expressions of both faces was to be seen vigorous, young, freshly awakened love.
Chapter XII.
The load was tied on. Ivan jumped down and took the quiet, sleek horse by the bridle. The young wife flung the rake up on the load; with a bold step, swinging her arms, she went to join the women, who were forming a ring for the haymakers' dance. Ivan drove off to the road and fell into line with the other loaded wagons. The peasant women, with their rakes on their shoulders, gay with bright flowers, and chattering with ringing, merry voices, walked behind the hay wagon. One wild untrained female voice broke into a song, and sang it alone through a verse, and then the same verse was unanimously taken up and repeated by half a hundred strong healthy voices, of all sorts, coarse and fine.
The women, all singing, began to come close to Levin, and he felt as though a storm were swooping down upon him with a thunder of merriment. The storm swooped down, enveloped him and the haycock on which he was lying, and the other haycocks, and wagonloads, and the whole meadow and distant fields all seemed to be shaking and singing to the measures of this wild merry song, with its shouts and whistles and clapping. Levin felt envious of this health and mirthfulness; he longed to take part in the expression of this joy of life. But he could do nothing, and had to lie and look on and listen. When the peasants, with their singing, had vanished out of sight and hearing, a weary feeling of despondency at his own isolation, his physical inactivity, his alienation from this world, came over Levin.
Some of the very peasants who had been most active in wrangling with him over the hay, some whom he had treated with contumely, and who had tried to cheat him- those very peasants had greeted him good-humoredly, and evidently had not, were incapable of having, any feeling of rancor against him, any regret, any recollection even of having tried to deceive him. All that was drowned in a sea of merry common labor. God gave the day, God gave the strength. And the day and the strength were consecrated to labor, and that labor was its own reward. For whom the labor? What would be its fruits? These were idle considerations- beside the point.
Often Levin had admired this life, often he had a sense of envy of the men who led this life; but today, for the first time, especially under the influence of what he had seen in the attitude of Ivan Parmenov to his young wife, the idea presented itself definitely to his mind that it was in his power to exchange the dreary, artificial, idle, and individualistic life he was leading for this laborious, pure, and generally delightful life.
The old man who had been sitting beside him had long ago gone home; the people had all gone their different ways. Those who lived near had gone home, while those who came from afar were gathered into a group for supper, and to spend the night in the meadow. Levin, unobserved by the peasants, still lay on the haycock, and still looked on, and listened, and mused. The peasants who remained for the night in the meadow scarcely slept all the short summer night. At first there was the sound of merry talk and general laughing over the supper, then singing again, and laughter.
All the long day of toil had left no trace in them save lightness of heart. Before the early dawn all was hushed. Nothing was to be heard but the night sounds of the frogs that never ceased in the marsh, and the horses snorting in the mist that rose over the meadow before morning. Rousing himself, Levin got up from the haycock, and, looking at the stars, he saw that the night was over.
"Well, what am I going to do? How am I to set about it?" he said to himself, trying to express to himself all the thoughts and feelings he had passed through in this brief night. All the thoughts and feelings he had passed through fell into three separate trains of thought. One was the renunciation of his old life, of his utterly useless education. This renunciation gave him satisfaction, and was easy and simple. Another series of thoughts and mental images related to the life he longed to live now. The simplicity, the purity, the sanity of this life he felt clearly, and he was convinced he would find in it its content, its peace, and its dignity, of the lack of which he was so miserably conscious. But a third series of ideas turned upon the question of how to effect this transition from the old life to the new. And there nothing took clear shape for him. "A wife. Work and the necessity of work. Leave Pokrovskoe? Buy land? Become a member of a peasant community? Marry a peasant girl? How am I to set about it?" he asked himself again, and could not find an answer. "I haven't slept all night, though, and I can't think it out clearly," he said to himself. "I'll work it out later. One thing's certain- this night has decided my fate. All my old dreams of home life were absurd, not the real thing," he told himself. "It's all ever so much simpler and better...."
"How beautiful!" he thought, looking at the strange, as it were, mother-of-pearl shell of white fleecy cloudlets resting right over his head in the middle of the sky. "How exquisite it all is in this exquisite night! And when was there time for that cloud shell to form? Just now I looked at the sky, and there was nothing in it- only two white streaks. Yes, and so imperceptibly, too, my views of life changed!"
He went out of the meadow and walked along the highroad toward the village. A slight wind arose, and the sky looked gray and sullen. The gloomy moment had come that usually precedes the dawn, the full triumph of light over darkness.
Shrinking from the cold, Levin walked rapidly, looking at the ground. "What's that? Someone coming," he thought, catching the tinkle of bells, and lifting his head. Forty paces from him a carriage and four with the luggage on its top was driving toward him along the grassy highroad on which he was walking. The shaft horses were tilted against the shafts by the ruts, but the dexterous driver sitting on the box held the shaft over the ruts, so that the wheels ran on the smooth part of the road.
This was all Levin noticed, and without wondering who it could be, he gazed absently at the coach.
In the coach was an old lady dozing in one corner, and at the window, evidently only just awake, sat a young girl holding in both hands the ribbons of a white cap. With a face full of light and thought, full of a subtle, complex inner life, that was remote from Levin, she was gazing from the window at the glow of the sunrise.
At the very instant when this apparition was vanishing, the truthful eyes glanced at him. She recognized him, and her face lighted up with wondering delight.
He could not be mistaken. There were no other eyes like those in all the world. There was only one creature in the world that could concentrate for him all the brightness and meaning of life. It was she. It was Kitty. He comprehended that she was driving to Ergushovo from the railway station. And everything that had been stirring Levin during this sleepless night, all the resolutions he had made, all vanished at once. He recalled with horror his dreams of marrying a peasant girl. There only, in this carriage that had crossed over to the other side of the road, and was rapidly disappearing- there only could he find the solution of the riddle of his life, which had weighed so agonizingly upon him of late.
She did not look out again. The sound of the carriage springs was no longer audible, the bells could scarcely be heard. The barking of dogs showed the carriage had reached the village, and all that was left was the empty fields all round, the village in front, and he himself isolated and apart from it all, wandering lonely along the deserted highroad.
He glanced at the sky, expecting to find there the cloud shell he had been admiring and taking as the symbol of the ideas and feelings of that night. There was nothing in the sky in the least like a shell. There, in the remote heights above, a mysterious change had been accomplished. There was no trace of a shell, and there was stretched over fully half the sky an even cover of tiny, and ever tinier, cloudlets. The sky had grown blue and bright; and with the same softness, but with the same remoteness, it met his questioning gaze.
"No," he said to himself, "however good that life of simplicity and toil may be, I cannot go back to it. I love her."
Chapter XIII.
None but those who were most intimate with Alexei Alexandrovich knew that, while on the surface the coldest and most rational of men, he had one weakness quite opposed to the general trend of his character. Alexei Alexandrovich could not hear or see a child or woman crying without being moved. The sight of tears threw him into a state of nervous agitation, and he utterly lost all power of reflection. The head clerk of his board and the secretary were aware of this, and used to warn women who came with petitions on no account to give way to tears, if they did not want to ruin their chances. "He will get angry, and will not listen to you," they used to say. And, as a fact, in such cases the emotional disturbance set up in Alexei Alexandrovich by the sight of tears found expression in hasty anger. "I can do nothing. Kindly leave the room!" he would usually shout in such cases.
When, returning from the races, Anna had informed him of her relations with Vronsky, and immediately afterward had burst into tears, hiding her face in her hands, Alexei Alexandrovich, for all the fury aroused in him against her, was aware at the same time of a rush of that emotional disturbance always produced in him by tears. Conscious of it, and conscious that any expression of his feelings at that minute would be out of keeping with the situation, he tried to suppress every manifestation of life in himself, and so neither stirred nor looked at her. This was what had caused that strange expression of deathlike rigidity in his face which had so impressed Anna.
When they reached the house he helped her to get out of the carriage, and, making an effort to master himself, took leave of her with his usual urbanity, and uttered that phrase that bound him to nothing; he said that tomorrow he would let her know his decision.
His wife's words, confirming his worst suspicions, had sent a cruel pang to the heart of Alexei Alexandrovich. That pang was intensified by the strange feeling of physical pity for her engendered by her tears. But when he was all alone in the carriage Alexei Alexandrovich, to his surprise and delight, felt complete relief both from this pity and from the doubts and agonies of jealousy.
He experienced the sensations of a man who has had a tooth out after suffering long from toothache. After a fearful agony and a sense of something huge, bigger than the head itself, being torn out of his jaw, the sufferer, hardly able to believe in his own good luck, feels all at once that what has so long envenomed his existence and enchained his attention, exists no longer, and that he can live and think again, and take an interest in other things besides his tooth. This feeling Alexei Alexandrovich was experiencing. The agony had been strange and terrible, but now it was over; he felt that he could live again and think of something other than his wife.
"No honor, no heart, no religion; a corrupt woman. I always knew it and always saw it, though I tried to deceive myself to spare her," he said to himself. And it actually seemed to him that he always had seen it: he recalled incidents of their past life, in which he had never seen anything wrong before- now these incidents proved clearly that she had always been a corrupt woman. "I made a mistake in linking my life to hers; but there was nothing wrong in my mistake, and so I cannot be unhappy. It's not I who am to blame," he told himself, "but she. But I have nothing to do with her. She does not exist for me."
All that would befall her and her son, toward whom his sentiments were as much changed as toward her, ceased to interest him. The only thing that interested him now was the question in what way he could best, with most propriety and comfort for himself, and so with most justice, shake clear the mud with which she had spattered him in her fall, and then proceed along his path of active, honorable, and useful existence.
"I cannot be made unhappy by the fact that a contemptible woman has committed a crime. I have only to find the best way out of the difficult position in which she has placed me. And I shall find it," he said to himself, frowning more and more. "I'm neither the first nor the last." And to say nothing of historical instances dating from Menelaus, recently revived in the memory of all by La Belle Helene, a whole list of contemporary examples of husbands with unfaithful wives in the highest society rose before Alexei Alexandrovich's imagination. "Daryalov, Poltavsky, Prince Karibanov, Count Paskudin, Dram... Yes, even Dram... such an honest, capable fellow... Semionov, Chagin, Sigonin," Alexei Alexandrovich remembered. "Admitting that a certain quite irrational ridicule falls to the lot of these men, yet I never saw anything but a misfortune in it, and always felt sympathy for it," Alexei Alexandrovich said to himself, though indeed this was not the fact, and he had never felt sympathy for misfortunes of that kind, but the more often he had heard of instances of unfaithful wives betraying their husbands, the more highly he had thought of himself. "It is a misfortune which may befall anyone. And this misfortune has befallen me. The only thing to be done is to make the best of the situation." And he began passing in review the methods of proceeding of men who had been in the same position that he was in.
"Daryalov fought a duel...."
The duel had particularly fascinated the thoughts of Alexei Alexandrovich in his youth, just because he was physically a fainthearted man, and was himself well aware of the fact. Alexei Alexandrovich could not without horror contemplate the idea of a pistol aimed at himself, and never made use of any weapon in his life. This horror had in his youth set him often pondering on dueling, and picturing himself in a position in which he would have to expose his life to danger. Having attained success and an established position in the world, he had long ago forgotten this feeling; but the habitual bent of feeling reasserted itself, and dread of his own cowardice proved even now so strong that Alexei Alexandrovich spent a long while thinking over the question of dueling in all its aspects, and hugging the idea of a duel, though he was fully aware beforehand that he would never under any circumstances fight one.
"There's no doubt our society is still so barbarous (it's not the same in England) that very many"- and among these were those whose opinion Alexei Alexandrovich particularly valued- "look favorably on the duel; but what result is attained by it? Suppose I call him out," Alexei Alexandrovich went on to himself, and vividly picturing the night he would spend after the challenge, and the pistol aimed at him, he shuddered, and knew that he never would do it- "suppose I call him out. Suppose I am taught," he went on musing, "I am placed, I press the trigger," he said to himself, closing his eyes, "and it turns out I have killed him," Alexei Alexandrovich said to himself, and he shook his head as though to dispel such silly ideas. "What sense is there in murdering a man in order to define one's relation to a guilty wife and son? I should still have to decide what I ought to do with her. But what is more probable, and what would doubtlessly occur- I should be killed or wounded. I, the innocent person, should be the victim- killed or wounded. It's even more senseless. But, apart from that, a challenge to fight would be an act hardly honest on my side. Don't I know beforehand that my friends would never allow me to fight a duel- would never allow the life of a statesman, needed by Russia, to be exposed to danger? What would come of it? It would come of it that, knowing beforehand that the matter would never come to real danger, it would amount to my simply trying to gain a certain sham reputation by such a challenge. That would be dishonest, that would be false, that would be deceiving myself and others. A duel is quite impossible, and no one expects it of me. My aim is simply to safeguard my reputation, which is essential for the uninterrupted pursuit of my public duties." Official duties, which had always been of great consequence in Alexei Alexandrovich's eyes, seemed of special importance to his mind at this moment.
Considering and rejecting the duel, Alexei Alexandrovich turned to divorce- another solution selected by several of the husbands he remembered. Passing in mental review all the instances he knew of divorces (there were plenty of them in the very highest society with which he was very familiar), Alexei Alexandrovich could not find a single example in which the object of divorce was that which he had in view. In all these instances the husband had practically ceded or sold his unfaithful wife, and the very party who, being in fault, had not the right to contract a marriage, had formed counterfeit, pseudo-matrimonial ties with a new husband. In his own case, Alexei Alexandrovich saw that a legal divorce, that is to say, one in which only the guilty wife would be repudiated, was impossible of attainment. He saw that the complex conditions of the life they led made the coarse proofs of his wife's guilt, required by the law, out of the question; he saw that a certain refinement in that life would not admit of such proofs being brought forward, even if he had them, and that to bring forward such proofs would damage him in the public estimation more than it would her.
An attempt at divorce could lead to nothing but a public scandal, which would be a perfect godsend to his enemies for calumny and attacks on his high position in society. His chief object, to define the position with the least amount of disturbance possible, would not be attained by divorce either. Moreover, in the event of divorce, or even of an attempt to obtain a divorce, it was obvious that the wife broke off all relations with the husband and threw in her lot with the lover. And, in spite of the complete, as he supposed, contempt and indifference he now felt for his wife, at the bottom of his heart Alexei Alexandrovich still had one feeling left in regard to her- a disinclination to see her free to throw in her lot with Vronsky, so that her crime would be to her advantage. The mere notion of this so exasperated Alexei Alexandrovich, that directly it rose to his mind he groaned with inward agony, and got up and changed his place in the carriage, and for a long while after he sat with scowling brows, wrapping his numbed and bony legs in the fleecy rug.
"Apart from formal divorce, one might still do as Karibanov, Paskudin, and that good fellow Dram did- that is, separate from one's wife," he went on thinking, when he had regained his composure. But this step too presented the same drawback of public scandal as a divorce, and, what was more, a separation, quite as much as a regular divorce, flung his wife into the arms of Vronsky. "No, it's out of the question, out of the question!" he said aloud, twisting his rug about him again. "I cannot be unhappy, but neither she nor he ought to be happy."
The feeling of jealousy, which had tortured him during the period of uncertainty, had passed away at the instant when, with agony, the tooth had been extracted by his wife's words. But that feeling had been replaced by another- the desire, not merely that she should not triumph, but that she should get due punishment for her crime. He did not acknowledge this feeling, but at the bottom of his heart he longed for her to suffer for having destroyed his peace of mind, and having dishonored him. And once again going over the conditions inseparable from a duel, a divorce, a separation, and once again rejecting them, Alexei Alexandrovich felt convinced that there was only one solution- to keep her with him, concealing what had happened from the world, and using every measure in his power to break off the intrigue, and still more- though this he did not admit to himself- to punish her. "I must communicate to her my decision; that, thinking over the terrible position in which she has placed her family, all other solutions will be worse for both sides than an external status quo, and that such I agree to retain, on the strict condition of obedience on her part to my wishes- that is to say, cessation of all intercourse with her lover." When this decision had been finally adopted, another weighty consideration occurred to Alexei Alexandrovich in support of it. "By such a course only shall I be acting in accordance with the dictates of religion," he told himself. "In adopting this course, I am not casting off a guilty wife, but giving her a chance of amendment; and, indeed, difficult as the task will be to me, I shall devote part of my energies to her reformation and salvation." Though Alexei Alexandrovich was perfectly aware that he could not exert any moral influence over his wife, that such an attempt at reformation could lead to nothing but falsity; though in passing through these difficult moments he had not once thought of seeking guidance in religion; yet now, when his conclusion corresponded, as it seemed to him, with the requirements of religion, this religious sanction to his decision gave him complete satisfaction, and to some extent restored his peace of mind. He was pleased to think that, even in such an important crisis in life, no one would be able to say that he had not acted in accordance with the principles of that religion whose banner he had always held aloft amid the general coolness and indifference. As he pondered over subsequent developments, Alexei Alexandrovich did not see, indeed, why his relations with his wife should not remain practically the same as before. No doubt, she could never regain his esteem, but there was not, and there could not be, any sort of reason why his existence should be troubled, and why he should suffer because she was a bad and faithless wife. "Yes, time will pass- time, which arranges all things; and the old relations will be reestablished," Alexei Alexandrovich told himself; so far reestablished, that is, that I shall not be sensible of a break in the continuity of my life. She is bound to be unhappy, but I am not to blame, and so I cannot be unhappy."
Chapter XIV.
As he neared Peterburg, Alexei Alexandrovich not only adhered entirely to his decision, but was even composing in his head the letter he would write to his wife. Going into the hall Alexei Alexandrovich glanced at the letters and papers brought from his Ministry and directed that they should be brought to him in his study.
"The horses can be taken out, and I will see no one," he said in answer to the porter, with a certain pleasure, indicative of his agreeable frame of mind, emphasizing the words, "see no one."
In his study Alexei Alexandrovich walked up and down twice, and stopped at an immense writing table, on which six candles had already been lighted by the valet who had preceded him. He cracked his knuckles, and sat down, sorting out his writing appurtenances. Putting his elbows on the table, he bent his head on one side, thought a minute, and began to write, without pausing for a second. He wrote without using any form of address to her, and wrote in French, making use of the plural "vous," which has not the same note of coldness as the corresponding Russian form.
"At our last conversation, I notified you of my intention of communicating to you my decision in regard to the subject of that conversation. Having carefully considered everything, I am writing now with the object of fulfilling that promise. My decision is as follows. Whatever your conduct may have been, I do not consider myself justified in breaking the ties in which we are bound by a Higher Power. The family cannot be broken up by a whim, a caprice, or even by the sin of one of the partners in the marriage, and our life must go on as it has done in the past. This is essential for me, for you, and for our son. I am fully persuaded that you have repented, and do repent, of what has called forth the present letter, and that you will co-operate with me in eradicating the cause of our estrangement, and forgetting the past. In the contrary event, you can conjecture what awaits you and your son. All this I hope to discuss more in detail in a personal interview. As the season is drawing to a close, I would beg you to return to Peterburg as quickly as possible- not later than Tuesday. All necessary preparations shall be made for your arrival here. I beg you to note that I attach particular significance to compliance with this request.
"A. Karenin
"P.S.- I enclose the money which may be needed for your expenses."
He read the letter through and felt pleased with it, and especially because he had remembered to enclose money: there was not a harsh word, not a reproach in it, nor was there undue indulgence. Most of all, it was a golden bridge for a return. Folding the letter and smoothing it with a massive ivory knife, and putting it in an envelope with the money, he rang the bell with the gratification it always afforded him to use the well-arranged appointments of his writing table.
"Give this to a messenger to be delivered to Anna Arkadyevna tomorrow, at the summer villa," he said, getting up.
"Certainly, Your Excellency; is tea to be served in the study?"
Alexei Alexandrovich ordered tea to be brought to the study, and playing with the massive paper knife, he moved to his easy chair, near which there had been placed ready for him a lamp and the French work on les tables Eugubines that he had begun. Over the easy chair there hung in a gold frame an oval portrait of Anna, a fine painting by a celebrated artist. Alexei Alexandrovich glanced at it. The unfathomable eyes gazed ironically and insolently at him, as they did that night of their last explanation. Insufferably insolent and challenging was the effect in Alexei Alexandrovich's eyes of the black lace about the head, admirably touched in by the painter, the black hair and handsome white hand the fourth finger of which was covered with rings. After looking at the portrait for a minute, Alexei Alexandrovich shuddered so that his lips quivered and produced "brrr," and turned away. He made haste to sit down in his easy chair and opened the book. He tried to read, but he could not revive the very vivid interest he had felt before in Eugubine inscriptions. He looked at the book and thought of something else. He thought not of his wife, but of a complication that had arisen in his official life, which at the time constituted the chief interest of it. He felt that he had penetrated more deeply than ever before into this intricate affair, and that he had originated a leading idea- he could say it without self-flattery- calculated to clear up the whole business, to strengthen him in his official career, to discomfit his enemies, and thereby to be of the greatest benefit to the State. Directly the servant had set the tea and left the room, Alexei Alexandrovich got up and went to the writing table. Moving into the middle of the table a portfolio of current papers, with a scarcely perceptible smile of self-satisfaction, he took a pencil from a rack and plunged into the perusal of a complex report relating to the present complication. The complication was of this nature: Alexei Alexandrovich's characteristic quality as a politician, that special individual qualification that every rising functionary possesses, the qualification that with his unflagging ambition, his reserve, his honesty, and his self-confidence had made his career, was his contempt for red tape, his cutting down of correspondence, his direct contact, wherever possible, with the living fact, and his economy. It happened that the famous Commission of the 2nd of June had set on foot an inquiry into the irrigation of lands in the Zaraisky province, which fell under Alexei Alexandrovich's department, and was a glaring example of fruitless expenditure and paper reforms. Alexei Alexandrovich was aware of the truth of this. The irrigation of these lands in the Zaraisky province had been initiated by the predecessor of Alexei Alexandrovich's predecessor. And vast sums of money had actually been spent, and were still being spent, on this business, and utterly unproductively, and the whole business could obviously lead to nothing whatever. Alexei Alexandrovich had perceived this at once on entering office, and would have liked to lay hands on the business. But at first, when he did not yet feel secure in his position, he knew it would affect too many interests, and would be imprudent; later on he had been engrossed in other questions, and had simply forgotten this case. It went of itself, like all such cases, by the mere force of inertia. (Many people gained their livelihood by this business, especially one highly conscientious and musical family: all the daughters played on stringed instruments, and Alexei Alexandrovich knew the family and had stood godfather to one of the elder daughters.) The raising of this question by a hostile Ministry was in Alexei Alexandrovich's opinion a dishonorable proceeding, seeing that in every Ministry there were things similar and worse, which no one inquired into, for well-known reasons of official etiquette. However, now that the gauntlet had been thrown down to him, he had boldly picked it up and demanded the appointment of a special commission to investigate and verify the working of the Commission of Irrigation of the lands in the Zaraisky province; but in compensation he gave no quarter to the enemy either. He demanded also the appointment of another special commission to inquire into the question of the Native Tribes Organization. The question of the Native Tribes had been brought up incidentally in the Committee of the 2nd of June, and had been pressed forward actively by Alexei Alexandrovich, as one admitting of no delay on account of the deplorable condition of the native tribes. In the Committee this question had been a ground of contention between several Ministries. The Ministry hostile to Alexei Alexandrovich proved that the condition of the native tribes was exceedingly flourishing, that the proposed reconstruction might be the ruin of their prosperity, and that if there were anything wrong, it arose mainly from the failure on the part of Alexei Alexandrovich's Ministry to carry out the measures prescribed by law. Now Alexei Alexandrovich intended to demand: First, that a new commission should be formed which should be empowered to investigate the condition of the native tribes on the spot; secondly, if it should appear that the condition of the native tribes actually was such as it appeared to be from the official data in the hands of the Committee, that another new scientific commission should be appointed to investigate the deplorable condition of the native tribes from the- (a) political, (b) administrative, (c) economic, (d) ethnographical, (e) material, and (f) religious points of view; thirdly, that evidence should be required from the rival Ministry of the measures that had been taken during the last ten years by that Ministry for averting the disastrous conditions in which the native tribes were now placed; and, fourthly and finally, that that Ministry be asked to explain why it had, as appeared from the reports submitted before the Committee, under Nos. 17,015 and 18,308, dated December 5, 1863, and June 7, 1864 respectively, acted in direct contravention of the intention of the basic and organic law, T... Statute 18, and the note to Statute 36. A flush of eagerness suffused the face of Alexei Alexandrovich as he rapidly wrote out a synopsis of these ideas for his own benefit. Having filled a sheet of paper, he got up, rang, and sent a note to the head clerk to look up certain necessary facts for him. Getting up and walking about the room, he glanced again at the portrait, frowned, and smiled contemptuously. After reading a little more of the book on Eugubine inscriptions, and renewing his interest in it, Alexei Alexandrovich went to bed at eleven o'clock, and recollecting as he lay in bed the incident with his wife, he saw it now in by no means so gloomy a light.
Chapter XV.
Though Anna had obstinately and with exasperation contradicted Vronsky- when he told her their position was impossible, and persuaded her to lay open everything to her husband- at the bottom of her heart she regarded her own position as false and dishonorable, and she longed with her whole soul to change it. On the way home from the races she had told her husband the truth in a moment of excitement, and in spite of the agony she had suffered in doing so, she was glad of it. After her husband had left her, she told herself that she was glad, that now everything was made clear, and at least there would be no more lying and deception. It seemed to her beyond doubt that her position was now made clear forever. It might be bad, this new position, but it would be clear; there would be no indefiniteness or falsehood about it. The pain she had caused herself and her husband in uttering those words would be rewarded now by everything being made clear, she thought. That evening she saw Vronsky, but she did not tell him of what had passed between her and her husband, though, to make the position clear, it was necessary to tell him.
When she woke up next morning the first thing that rose to her mind was what she had said to her husband, and those words seemed to her so awful that she could not conceive now how she could have brought herself to utter those strange, coarse words, and could not imagine what would come of it. But the words were spoken, and Alexei Alexandrovich had gone away without saying anything. "I saw Vronsky and did not tell him. At the very instant he was going away I would have turned him back and told him, but I changed my mind, because it was strange that I had not told him the first minute. Why was it I wanted to tell him and didn't?" And in answer to this question a burning blush of shame spread over her face. She knew what had kept her from it, she knew that she had been ashamed. Her position, which had seemed to her simplified the night before, suddenly struck her now as not only not simple, but as absolutely hopeless. She felt terrified at the disgrace, of which she had not even thought before. Directly she thought of what her husband would do, the most terrible ideas came to her mind. She had a vision of being turned out of the house, of her shame being proclaimed to all the world. She asked herself where she should go when she was turned out of the house, and she could not find an answer.
When she thought of Vronsky, it seemed to her that he did not love her, that he was already beginning to be tired of her, that she could not offer herself to him, and she felt bitter against him for it. It seemed to her that the words that she had spoken to her husband, and had continually repeated in her imagination, she had said to everyone, and everyone had heard them. She could not bring herself to look those of her own household in the face. She could not bring herself to call her maid, and still less go downstairs and see her son and his governess.
The maid, who had been listening at her door for a long while, came into her room of her own accord. Anna glanced inquiringly into her face, and blushed with a scared look. The maid begged her pardon for coming in, saying that she had fancied the bell rang. She brought her clothes and a note. The note was from Betsy. Betsy reminded her that Liza Merkalova and Baroness Stoltz were coming to play croquet with her that morning with their adorers, Kaluzhsky and old Stremov. "Come, if only as a study in characters. I shall expect you," she finished.
Anna read the note and heaved a deep sigh.
"Nothing- I need nothing," she said to Annushka, who was rearranging the bottles and brushes on the dressing table. "You may go. I'll dress at once and come down. I need nothing, nothing."
Annushka went out, but Anna did not begin dressing, and sat in the same position, her head and hands hanging listlessly, and every now and then she shivered all over, was apparently about to make some gesture, utter some word, and sank back into lifelessness again. She repeated continually, "My God! my God!" But neither "God" nor "my" had any meaning to her. The idea of seeking help in her difficulty in religion was as remote from her as seeking help from Alexei Alexandrovich himself, although she had never had doubts of the faith in which she had been brought up. She knew that the support of religion was possible only upon condition of renouncing what made up for her the whole meaning of life. She was not simply miserable, she began to feel alarm at the new spiritual condition, never experienced before, in which she found herself. She felt as though everything were beginning to be double in her soul, just as objects sometimes appear double to overtired eyes. She hardly knew at times what it was she feared, and what she hoped for. Whether she feared or desired what had happened, or what was going to happen, and exactly what she longed for, she could not have said.
"Ah, what am I doing!" she said to herself, feeling a sudden thrill of pain in both sides of her head. When she came to herself, she saw that she was holding her hair in both hands, each side of her temples, and she was pressing them. She jumped up, and began walking about.
"The coffee is ready, and mademoiselle and Seriozha are waiting," said Annushka, coming back again and finding Anna in the same position.
"Seriozha? What about Seriozha?" Anna asked, with sudden eagerness, recollecting her son's existence for the first time that morning.
"He's been naughty, I think," answered Annushka with a smile.
"In what way?"
"Some peaches were lying on the table in the corner room. I think he ate one of them on the sly."
The recollection of her son suddenly roused Anna from the helpless condition in which she found herself. She recalled the partly sincere, though greatly exaggerated, role of the mother living for her child, which she had taken up of late years, and she felt with joy that in the plight in which she found herself she had a dominion independent of any position she would be placed in by her relations to her husband or to Vronsky. This dominion was her son. In whatever position she might be placed, she could not abandon her son. Her husband might put her to shame and turn her out, Vronsky might grow cold to her and go on living his own life apart (she thought of him again with bitterness and reproach); she could not leave her son. She had an aim in life. And she must act; act to secure the position of her son, so that he might not be taken from her. Quickly indeed, as quickly as possible, she must take action before he was taken from her. She must take her son and go away. Here was the one thing she had to do now. She must be calm, and get out of this insufferable position. The thought of immediate action binding her to her son, of going away somewhere with him, gave her this calming.
She dressed quickly, went downstairs, and with resolute steps walked into the drawing room, where she found, as usual, waiting for her, the coffee, Seriozha, and his governess. Seriozha, all in white, with his back and head bent, was standing at a table under a looking glass, and with an expression of intense concentration which she knew well, and in which he resembled his father, he was doing something to the flowers he carried.
The governess had a particularly severe expression. Seriozha screamed shrilly, as he often did, "Ah, mamma!" and stopped, hesitating whether to go to greet his mother and put down the flowers, or to finish making the wreath and go with the flowers.
The governess, after saying good morning, began a long and detailed account of Seriozha's naughtiness, but Anna did not hear her; she was considering whether she would take her with her or not. "No, I won't take her," she decided. "I'll go alone with my son."
"Yes, it's very wrong," said Anna, and taking her son by the shoulder she looked at him, not severely, but with a timid glance that bewildered and delighted the boy, and she kissed him. "Leave him to me," she said to the astonished governess, and without letting go of her son, she sat down at the table, where coffee was set ready for her.
"Mamma! I... I didn't..." he said, trying to make out from her expression what was in store for him in regard to the peaches.
"Seriozha," she said, as soon as the governess had left the room, "that was wrong, but you'll never do it again, will you?... You love me?"
She felt that the tears were coming into her eyes. "Can I help loving him?" she said to herself, looking deeply into his scared and at the same time delighted eyes. "And can he ever join his father in punishing me? Is it possible he will not feel for me?" Tears were already flowing down her face, and to hide them she got up abruptly and almost ran out on the terrace.
After the thundershowers of the last few days, cold, bright weather had set in. The air was cold in the bright sun that filtered through the freshly washed leaves.
She shivered, both from the cold and from the inward horror which had clutched her with fresh force in the open air.
"Run along, run along to Mariette," she said to Seriozha, who had followed her out, and she began walking up and down on the straw matting of the terrace. "Can it be that they won't forgive me, won't understand how it all could not have been otherwise?" she said to herself.
Standing still, and looking at the tops of the aspen trees waving in the wind, with their freshly washed, brightly shining leaves in the cold sunshine, she knew that they would not forgive her, that everyone and everything would be merciless to her now as was that sky, that green. And again she felt that everything was doubling in her soul. "I mustn't, mustn't think," she said to herself. "I must get ready. To go where? When? Whom to take with me? Yes- to Moscow, by the evening train. Annushka and Seriozha, and only the most necessary things. But first I must write to them both." She went quickly indoors into her boudoir, sat down at the table, and wrote to her husband:
"After what has happened I cannot remain any longer in your house. I am going away, and taking my son with me. I don't know the law; and so I don't know with which of the parents the son should remain; but I take him with me because I cannot live without him. Be generous, leave him to me."
Up to this point she wrote rapidly and naturally, but the appeal to his generosity, a quality she did not recognize in him, and the necessity of winding up the letter with something touching, pulled her up.
"Of my fault and my remorse I cannot speak, because..."
She stopped again, finding no connection in her ideas. "No," she said to herself, "there's no need of anything," and tearing up the letter, she wrote it again, leaving out the allusion to generosity, and sealed it up.
Another letter had to be written to Vronsky. "I have told my husband," she wrote, and she sat a long while unable to write more. It was so coarse, so unfeminine. "And what more am I to write him?" she said to herself. Again a flush of shame spread over her face; she recalled his composure, and a feeling of anger against him impelled her to tear the sheet with the phrase she had written into tiny bits. "No need of anything," she said to herself, and closing her blotting case she went upstairs, told the governess and the servants that she was going that day to Moscow, and at once set to work to pack up her things.
Chapter XVI.
All the rooms of the summer villa were full of porters, gardeners, and footmen, going to and fro carrying out things. Cupboards and chests were open; twice they had to run to a store for cord; pieces of newspaper were cluttering the floor. Two trunks, some bags and strapped-up plaids had been carried down into the hall. The carriage and two hired cabs were waiting at the steps. Anna, forgetting her inward agitation in the work of packing, was standing at a table in her boudoir, packing her traveling bag, when Annushka called her attention to the clatter of some carriage driving up. Anna looked out of the window and saw Alexei Alexandrovich's messenger on the steps, ringing at the front doorbell.
"Run and find out what it is," she said, and, with a calm sense of being prepared for anything, she sat down in a low chair, folding her hands on her knees. A footman brought in a thick packet directed in Alexei Alexandrovich's hand.
"The messenger has orders to wait for an answer," he said.
"Very well," she said, and as soon as he had left the room she tore open the letter with trembling fingers. A packet of unfolded banknotes done up with a band fell out of it. She extricated the letter and began reading it from the end. "Preparations shall be made for your arrival here... I attach particular significance to compliance...." she read. She ran through it backward, read it all through, and once more read the letter all through again, from the beginning. When she had finished, she felt that she was cold all over, and that a fearful calamity, such as she had not expected, had burst upon her.
In the morning she had regretted that she had spoken to her husband, and wished for nothing so much as that those words might be unspoken. And here this letter regarded them as unspoken, and gave her what she had wanted. But now this letter seemed to her more awful than anything she had been able to conceive.
"He's right!" she said. "Of course, he's always right; he's a Christian, he's generous! Yes, vile, base creature! And no one understands it except me, and no one ever will; and I can't explain it. They say he's so religious, so high-principled, so upright, so clever; but they don't see what I've seen. They don't know how he has crushed my life for eight years, crushed everything that was living in me- he has not once even thought that I'm a live woman who must have love. They don't know how at every step he's humiliated me, and been just as pleased with himself. Haven't I striven- striven with all my strength- to find something to give meaning to my life? Haven't I struggled to love him, to love my son when I could not love my husband? But the time came when I knew that I couldn't cheat myself any longer, that I was alive, that I was not to blame, that God has made me so that I must love and live. And now what does he do? If he'd killed me, if he'd killed him, I could have borne anything, I could have forgiven anything; but, no, he..."
"How was it I didn't guess what he would do? He's doing just what's natural to his mean character. He'll keep himself in the right, while he'll drive me, in my ruin, still lower, still to worse ruin..."
"'You can conjecture what awaits you and your son,'" she recalled a part of his letter. "That's a threat to take away my child, and most likely according to their stupid law he can. But I know very well why he says it. He doesn't believe even in my love for my child, or he despises it (just as he always used to ridicule it). He despises that feeling in me, but he knows that I won't abandon my child, that I can't abandon my child, that there could be no life for me without my child, even with him whom I love; but that if I abandoned my child and ran away from him, I should be acting like the most infamous, basest of women. He knows that, and knows that I am incapable of doing that."
"Our life must go on as it has done in the past," she recalled another sentence in his letter. "That life was miserable enough in the old days; it has been awful of late. What will it be now? And he knows all that; he knows that I can't repent breathing, repent loving; he knows that it can lead to nothing but lying and deceit; but he wants to go on torturing me. I know him; I know that he's at home and is happy in deceit, like a fish swimming in the water. No, I won't give him that happiness. I'll break through the spider's web of lies in which he wants to catch me, come what may. Anything's better than lying and deceit."
"But how? My God! my God! Was ever a woman so miserable as I am?..."
"No; I will break through it, I will break through it!" she cried, jumping up and keeping back her tears. And she went to the writing table to write him another letter. But at the bottom of her heart she felt that she was not strong enough to break through anything, that she was not strong enough to get out of her old position, however false and dishonorable it might be.
She sat down at the writing table, but instead of writing she clasped her hands on the table, and, laying her head on them, burst into tears, with sobs and heaving breast, like a child crying. She was weeping because her dream of her position being made clear and definite had been annihilated forever. She knew beforehand that everything would go on in the old way, and far worse, indeed, than in the old way. She felt that her position in the world she enjoyed, and which had seemed to her of so little consequence in the morning, was now precious to her, that she would not have the strength to exchange it for the shameful position of a woman who has abandoned husband and child to join her lover; that however much she might struggle, she could not be stronger than herself. She would never know freedom in love, but would remain forever a guilty wife, with the menace of detection hanging over her at every instant; deceiving her husband for the sake of a shameful connection with a man living apart and away from her, whose life she could never share. She knew that this was how it would be, and at the same time it was so awful that she could not even conceive what it would end in. And she cried without restraint, as children cry when they are punished.
The sound of a footman's steps forced her to rouse herself, and, hiding her face from him, she pretended to be writing.
"The messenger asks if there's any answer," the footman informed her.
"Any answer? Yes," said Anna. "Let him wait. I'll ring."
"What can I write?" she thought. "What can I decide upon alone? What do I know? What do I want? What is there I care for?" Again she felt that her soul was beginning to double. She was terrified again at this feeling, and clutched at the first pretext for doing something which might divert her thoughts from herself. "I ought to see Alexei" (so she called Vronsky in her thoughts); "no one but he can tell me what I ought to do. I'll go to Betsy's, perhaps I shall see him there," she said to herself, completely forgetting that, when she had told him the day before that she was not going to Princess Tverskaia's he had said that in that case he should not go either. She went up to the table, wrote to her husband: "I have received your letter.- A."; and, ringing the bell, gave it to the footman.
"We are not going," she said to Annushka, as she came in.
"Not going at all?"
"No; don't unpack till tomorrow, and let the carriage wait. I'm going to the Princess."
"Which dress am I to get ready?"
Chapter XVII.
The croquet party to which the Princess Tverskaia had invited Anna was to consist of two ladies and their adorers. These two ladies were the chief representatives of a select new Peterburg circle, nicknamed, in imitation of some imitation, les sept merveilles du monde. These ladies belonged to a circle which, though of the highest society, was utterly hostile to that in which Anna moved. Moreover, old Stremov, one of the most influential people in Peterburg, and the admirer of Liza Merkalova, was Alexei Alexandrovich's enemy in the political world. From all these considerations Anna had not meant to go, and the hints in Princess Tverskaia's note referred to her refusal. But now Anna was eager to go, in the hope of seeing Vronsky.
Anna arrived at Princess Tverskaia's earlier than the other guests.
At the very moment of her entry, Vronsky's footman, with his side whiskers combed out, and looking like a Kammerjunker, went in too. He stopped at the door, and, taking off his cap, let her pass. Anna recognized him, and only then recalled that Vronsky had told her the day before that he would not come. Most likely he was sending a note to say so.
As she took off her outer garment in the hall, she heard the footman say, rolling his r's even like a Kammerjunker: "From the Count for the Princess," as he handed over the note.
She longed to question him as to where his master was. She longed to turn back and send him a letter to come and see her, or to go herself to see him. But none of the three courses was possible. Already she heard bells ringing ahead of her to announce her arrival, and Princess Tverskaia's footman was standing at the open door waiting for her to pass into the inner rooms.
"The Princess is in the garden; she will be informed immediately. Would you be pleased to walk into the garden?" announced another footman in another room.
The position of uncertainty, of indecision, was still the same as at home- worse, in fact, since it was impossible to take any step, impossible to see Vronsky, and she had to remain here among outsiders, in company so uncongenial to her present mood. But she was wearing a dress that she knew suited her. She was not alone; all around was that luxurious setting of idleness that she was used to, and she felt less wretched than at home. She was not forced to think what she had to do. Everything would be done of itself. On meeting Betsy coming toward her in a white gown that struck her by its elegance, Anna smiled to her just as she always did. Princess Tverskaia was walking with Tushkevich and a young lady, a relation, who, to the great joy of her parents in the provinces, was spending the summer with the fashionable Princess.
There was probably something unusual about Anna, for Betsy noticed it at once.
"I slept badly," answered Anna, looking intently at the footman who came to meet them, and, as she supposed, brought Vronsky's note.
"How glad I am you've come!" said Betsy. "I'm tired, and was just longing to have some tea before they come. You might go," she turned to Tushkevich, "with Masha, and try the croquet ground over there, where they've been clipping it. We shall have time to talk a little over tea, we'll have a cozy chat, eh?" she said in English to Anna, with a smile, pressing the hand which held a parasol.
"Yes, especially as I can't stay very long with you. I'm forced to go on to old Madame Vrede. I've been promising to go for a century," said Anna, to whom lying, alien as it was to her nature, had become not merely simple and natural in society, but a positive source of satisfaction. Why she said this, which she had not thought of a second before, she could not have explained. She had said it simply from the reflection that as Vronsky would not be here, she had better secure her own freedom, and try to see him somehow. But why she had spoken of old Hoffraulein Vrede, whom she had to go and see, as she had to see many other people, she could not have explained; and yet, as it afterward turned out, had she cudgeled her brains for the most cunning subterfuge to meet Vronsky, she could have thought of nothing better.
"No. I'm not going to let you go for anything," answered Betsy, looking intently into Anna's face. "Really, if I were not fond of you, I should feel offended. One would think you were afraid my society would compromise you.- Tea in the small dining room, please," she said, half closing her eyes, as she always did when addressing the footman.
Taking the note from him, she read it.
"Alexei is playing us false," she said in French; "he writes that he can't come," she added, in a tone as simple and natural as though it could never enter her head that Vronsky could mean anything more to Anna than a game of croquet. Anna knew that Betsy knew everything, but, hearing how she spoke of Vronsky before her, she almost felt persuaded for a minute that she knew nothing.
"Ah!" said Anna indifferently, as though not greatly interested in the matter; and she went on, smiling: "How can you or your friends compromise anyone?"
This playing with words, this hiding of a secret, had a great fascination for Anna, as, indeed, it has for all women. And it was not the necessity of concealment, not the purpose for which the concealment was contrived, but the process of concealment itself which attracted her.
"I can't be more catholic than the Pope," she said. "Stremov and Liza Merkalova- why, they're the cream of the cream of society. Besides, they're received everywhere, and I"- she laid special stress on the I- "have never been strict and intolerant. It's simply that I haven't the time."
"No; you don't care, perhaps, to meet Stremov? Let him and Alexei Alexandrovich tilt at each other in the Committee- that's no affair of ours. But, in society, he's the most amiable man I know, and an ardent croquet player. You shall see. And, in spite of his absurd position as Liza's lovesick swain at his age, you ought to see how he carries off the absurd position. He's very nice. Don't you know Sappho Stoltz? Oh, that's a new type- quite new!"
Betsy went on with all this chatter, yet, at the same time, from her good-humored, shrewd glance, Anna felt that she partly guessed her plight, and was hatching something for her benefit. They were in the little boudoir.
"I must write to Alexei, though," and Betsy sat down to the table, scribbled a few lines, and put the note in an envelope. "I'm telling him to come to dinner. I've one lady extra to dinner with me, and no man to take her in. Look what I've said- will that persuade him? Excuse me, I must leave you for a minute. Would you seal it up, please, and send it off? she said from the door; "I have to give some directions."
Without a moment's hesitation, Anna sat down to the table with Betsy's letter, and, without reading it, wrote below: "It's essential for me to see you. Come to the Vrede garden. I shall be there at six o'clock." She sealed it up, and, Betsy coming back, in her presence handed the note for transmittal.
At tea, which was brought them on a little tea table in the cool little drawing room, a cozy chat promised by Princess Tverskaia before the arrival of her visitors really did come off between the two women. They criticized the people they were expecting, and the conversation fell upon Liza Merkalova.
"She's very sweet, and I always liked her," said Anna.
"You ought to like her. She raves about you. Yesterday she came up to me after the races and was in despair at not finding you. She says you're a real heroine of romance, and that if she were a man she would do all sorts of mad things for your sake. Stremov says she does that as it is."
"But do tell me, please- I never could make it out," said Anna, after being silent for some time, speaking in a tone that showed she was not asking an idle question, but that what she was asking was of greater importance to her than it should have been, "do tell me, please: what are her relations with Prince Kaluzhsky- Mishka, as he's called? I've met them so little. What does it mean?"
Betsy smiled with her eyes, and looked intently at Anna.
"It's a new mode," she said. "They've all adopted that mode. They've flung their caps over the windmills. But there are ways and ways of flinging them."
"Yes, but precisely what are her relations with Kaluzhsky?"
Betsy broke into unexpectedly mirthful and irrepressible laughter, a thing which rarely happened with her.
"You're encroaching on Princess Miaghkaia's special domain now. That's the question of an enfant terrible," and Betsy obviously tried to restrain herself, but could not, and went off into peals of that infectious laughter peculiar to people who do not laugh often. "You'd better ask them," she brought out, between tears of laughter.
"No; you laugh," said Anna, laughing too, in spite of herself, "but I never could understand it. I can't understand the husband's role in it."
"The husband? Liza Merkalova's husband carries her shawl, and is always ready to be of use. But no one cares to inquire about what is really going on. You know, in decent society one doesn't talk or think even of certain details of the toilet. That's how it is in this case."
"Will you be at Madame Rolandaky's fete?" asked Anna, to change the conversation.
"I don't think so," answered Betsy, and, without looking at her friend, she began filling the little transparent cups with fragrant tea. Putting a cup before Anna, she took out a thin cigarette, and, fitting it into a silver holder, she lighted it. "It's like this, you see: I'm in a fortunate position," she began, quite serious now, as she took up her cup. "I understand you, and I understand Liza. Liza now is one of those naive natures that, like children, don't know what's good and what's bad. Anyway, she didn't comprehend it when she was very young. And now she's aware that the lack of comprehension suits her. Now, perhaps, she doesn't know on purpose," said Betsy, with a subtle smile. "But, anyway, it suits her. The very same thing, don't you see, may be looked at tragically, and turned into misery, or it may be looked at simply, and even humorously. Possibly you are inclined to look at things too tragically."
"How I should like to know other people just as I know myself!" said Anna, seriously and dreamily. "Am I worse than other people, or better? I think I'm worse."
"Enfant terrible, enfant terrible!" repeated Betsy. "But here they are."
Chapter XVIII.
They heard the sound of steps and a man's voice, then a woman's voice and laughter, and immediately thereafter there walked in the expected guests: Sappho Stoltz, and a young man beaming with excess of health, the so-called Vaska. It was evident that ample supplies of beefsteak, truffles, and Burgundy were profitable for his health. Vaska bowed to the two ladies, and glanced at them, but only for one second. He walked after Sappho into the drawing room, and followed her about as though he were chained to her, keeping his sparkling eyes fixed on her as though he wanted to eat her. Sappho Stoltz was a blonde beauty with black eyes. She walked with smart little steps in high-heeled shoes, and shook hands with the ladies vigorously, like a man.
Anna had never met this new star of fashion, and was struck by her beauty, the exaggerated extreme to which her dress was carried, and the boldness of her manners. On her head there was such an echafaudage of soft, golden hair- her own and false mixed- that her head was equal in size to the elegantly rounded bust, of which so much was exposed in front. The impulsive abruptness of her movements was such that at every step the lines of her knees and the upper part of her legs were distinctly marked under her dress, and the question involuntarily rose in one's mind where in the undulating, piled-up mountain of material at the back the real body of the woman, so small and slender, so naked in front, and so hidden behind and below, really came to an end.
Betsy made haste to introduce her to Anna.
"Only fancy, we all but ran over two soldiers," she began telling them at once, using her eyes, smiling and twitching away her train, which she at first threw too much to one side. "I drove here with Vaska... Ah, to be sure, you don't know each other." And, mentioning his surname, she introduced the young man, and, reddening, broke into a ringing laugh at her mistake- that is, at her having called him Vaska before a stranger. Vaska bowed once more to Anna, but he said nothing to her. He addressed Sappho: "You've lost your bet. We got here first. Pay up," said he, smiling.
Sappho laughed still more festively.
"Not just now," said she.
"It's all one, I'll have it later."
"Very well, very well. Oh, yes," she turned suddenly to Princess Betsy: "I am a nice person... I positively forgot it.... I've brought you a visitor. And here he comes."
The unexpected young visitor, whom Sappho had brought with her, and whom she had forgotten, was, however, a personage of such consequence that, in spite of his youth, both the ladies rose on his entrance.
He was a new admirer of Sappho's. Like Vaska, he now dogged her footsteps.
Soon after Prince Kaluzhsky arrived, and Liza Merkalova with Stremov. Liza Merkalova was a thin brunette, with an Oriental, languid type of face, and charming- as everyone used to say- ineffable eyes. The tone of her dark dress (Anna immediately observed and appreciated the fact) was in perfect harmony with her style of beauty. Liza was as soft and loose as Sappho was tight and shackled.
But to Anna's taste Liza was far more attractive. Betsy had said to Anna that she had adopted the pose of an unsophisticated child, but when Anna saw her she felt this was not the truth. She really was unsophisticated, spoiled, yet a sweet and irresponsible woman. It is true that her tone was the same as Sappho's; that, like Sappho, she had two men, one young and one old, tacked on to her, and devouring her with their eyes. But there was something in her higher than her surroundings. There was in her the glow of the real diamond among paste. This glow shone out in her charming, truly ineffable eyes. The weary, and at the same time passionate, glance of those eyes, encircled by dark rings, impressed one by its perfect sincerity. Everyone looking into those eyes fancied he knew her wholly, and, knowing her, could not but love her. At the sight of Anna, her whole face lighted up at once with a smile of delight.
"Ah, how glad I am to see you!" she said, going up to her. "Yesterday, at the races, I wanted just to get to you, but you'd gone away. I did so want to see you, especially yesterday. Wasn't it awful?" she said, looking at Anna with eyes that seemed to lay bare all her soul.
"Yes; I had no idea it would be so thrilling," said Anna, blushing.
The company got up at this moment to go into the garden.
"I'm not going," said Liza, smiling and settling herself close to Anna. "You won't go either, will you? Who wants to play croquet?"
"Oh, I like it," said Anna.
"There, how do you manage never to be bored by things? One has but to look at you, to be joyful. You're alive, but I'm bored."
"How can you be bored? Why, you live among the merriest people in Peterburg," said Anna.
"Possibly the people who are not of our set are even more bored; but we are not amused ourselves- I certainly am not, but awfully, awfully bored."
Sappho, smoking a cigarette, went off into the garden with the two young men. Betsy and Stremov remained at the tea table.
"You bored?" said Betsy. "Sappho says they enjoyed themselves tremendously at your house last night."
"Ah, how dreary it all was!" said Liza Merkalova. "We all drove back to my place after the races. And always the same people, always the same. Always the same thing. We lounged about on sofas all the evening. What's enjoyable about that? No; do tell me how you manage never to be bored?" she said, addressing Anna again. "One has but to look at you and one sees a woman who may be happy or unhappy, but who isn't bored. Tell me- how do you do it?"
"I do nothing," answered Anna, blushing at these searching questions.
"That's the best way," Stremov put in.
Stremov was a man of fifty, partly gray, but still vigorous in appearance, very ugly, but with a characteristic and intelligent face. Liza Merkalova was his wife's niece, and he spent all his leisure hours with her. On meeting Anna Karenina, since he was Alexei Alexandrovich's enemy in the government, he tried, like a shrewd man and a man of the world, to be particularly cordial with her, the wife of his enemy.
"Nothing," he put in with a subtle smile, "that's the very best way. I told you long ago," he said, turning to Liza Merkalova, "that, in order not to be bored, you mustn't think you're going to be bored. Just as you mustn't be afraid of not being able to fall asleep, if you're afraid of sleeplessness. That's precisely what Anna Arkadyevna has just said."
"I should be very glad if I had said it, for it's not only clever but true," said Anna, smiling.
"No, do tell me why it is one can't go to sleep, and one can't help being bored?"
"To sleep well one should work, and to enjoy oneself one should also work."
"What am I to work for when my work is of no use to anybody? And I can't, and won't, knowingly make a pretense at it."
"You're incorrigible," said Stremov, without looking at her, and he spoke again to Anna.
As he rarely met Anna, he could say nothing but banalities to her, but he said those banalities, when was she returning to Peterburg, and how fond Countess Lidia Ivanovna was of her- with an expression which suggested that he longed with his whole soul to please her, and show his regard for her- and even more than that.
Tushkevich came in, announcing that the party were awaiting the other players to begin croquet.
"No, don't go away, please don't," pleaded Liza Merkalova, hearing that Anna was going. Stremov joined in her entreaties.
"It's too violent a transition," he said, "to go from such company to old Madame Vrede. And, besides, you will only give her a chance for talking scandal, while here you will arouse other feelings, of the finest and directly opposed to scandal," he said to her.
Anna pondered for an instant in uncertainty. This shrewd man's flattering words, the naive, childlike affection shown her by Liza Merkalova, and all the worldly atmosphere she was used to- it was all so easy, while that which was in store for her was so difficult, that she was for a minute in uncertainty: should she remain, should she put off a little longer the painful moment of explanation? But, remembering what was in store for her when she would be alone at home, if she did not come to some decision; remembering that gesture- terrible even in memory- when she had clutched her hair in both hands, she said good-by and went away.
Chapter XIX.
In spite of Vronsky's apparently frivolous life in society, he was a man who hated disorder. In early youth, in the Corps of Pages, he had experienced the humiliation of a refusal, when he had tried, being in difficulties, to borrow money, and since then he had never once put himself in the same position again.
In order to keep his affairs in some sort of order, he was wont, about five times a year (more or less frequently, according to circumstances), to shut himself up alone and put all his affairs into definite shape. This he would call his day of washing up or faire la lessive.
On waking up late in the morning after the races, Vronsky put on a white linen coat, and, without shaving or taking his bath, he distributed about the table money, bills, and letters, and set to work. Petritsky, who knew he was ill-tempered on such occasions, on waking up and seeing his comrade at the writing table, quietly dressed and went out without getting in his way.
Every man who knows to the minutest details all the complexity of the conditions surrounding him, cannot help imagining that the complexity of these conditions, and the difficulty of making them clear, is something exceptional and personal, peculiar to himself, and never supposes that others are surrounded by just as complicated an array of personal affairs as he is. So indeed it seemed to Vronsky. And not without inward pride, and not without reason, he thought that any other man would long ago have been in difficulties, and would have been forced to some dishonorable course, if he had found himself in such a difficult position. But Vronsky felt that now especially it was essential for him to clear up and define his position if he were to avoid getting into difficulties.
What Vronsky attacked first, as being the easiest, was his pecuniary position. Writing out on note paper in his minute handwriting all that he owed, he added up the amount and found that his debts amounted to seventeen thousand and some odd hundreds, which he left out for the sake of clearness. Reckoning up his cash and the balance in his bankbook, he found that he had left one thousand eight hundred roubles, and nothing coming in before the New Year. Reckoning over again his list of debts, Vronsky copied it, dividing it into three classes. In the first class he put the debts which he would have to pay at once, or for which he must in any case have the money ready so that on demand for payment there would not be a moment's delay in paying. Such debts amounted to about four thousand: one thousand five hundred for a horse, and two thousand five hundred as surety for a young comrade, Venevsky, who had lost that sum to a cardsharper in Vronsky's presence. Vronsky had wanted to pay the money at the time (he had that amount then), but Venevsky and Iashvin had insisted that they would pay and not Vronsky, who had not played. So far, so good; but Vronsky knew that in this dirty business, though his only share in it was undertaking by word of mouth to be surety for Venevsky, it was absolutely necessary for him to have the two thousand five hundred roubles, so as to be able to fling it at the cheat, and have no more words with him. And so, for this first and most important division, he must have four thousand roubles. The second class- eight thousand roubles- consisted of less important debts. These were principally accounts owing in connection with his race horses, to the purveyor of oats and hay, the Englishman, the saddler, and so on. He would have to pay some two thousand roubles on these debts too, in order to be quite free from anxiety. The last class of debts- to shops, to hotels, to his tailor- were such as need not be considered. So that he needed at least six thousand roubles, and he only had one thousand eight hundred for current expenses. For a man with one hundred thousand roubles of revenue, which was what everyone fixed as Vronsky's income, such debts, one would suppose, could hardly be embarrassing; but the fact was that he was far from having one hundred thousand. His father's immense property, which alone yielded a yearly income of two hundred thousand, was left undivided between the brothers. At the time when the elder brother, with a mass of debts, had married Princess Varia Chirkova, the daughter of a Dekabrist without any fortune whatever, Alexei had given up to his elder brother almost the whole income from his father's estate, reserving for himself only twenty-five thousand a year from it. Alexei had said at the time to his brother that the sum would be sufficient for him until he married, which he would probably never do. And his brother, who was in command of one of the most expensive regiments, and was only just married, could not decline the gift. His mother, who had her own separate property, had allowed Alexei every year twenty thousand in addition to the twenty-five thousand he had reserved, and Alexei had spent it all. Of late his mother, incensed with him on account of his love affair and his leaving Moscow, had given up sending him the money. And, in consequence of this, Vronsky, who had been in the habit of living on the scale of forty-five thousand a year, having only received twenty thousand that year, now found himself in difficulties. To get out of these difficulties, he could not apply to his mother for money. Her last letter, which he had received the day before, had particularly exasperated him by the hints it contained that she was quite ready to help him to succeed in the world and in the army, but not to lead a life which scandalized all good society. His mother's attempt to buy him stung him to the quick and made him feel colder than ever toward her. But he could not draw back from the generous word when it was once uttered, even though he felt now, vaguely foreseeing certain eventualities in his liaison with Madame Karenina, that his generous word had been spoken thoughtlessly, and that, even though he were not married, he might need all the hundred thousand of income. But it was impossible to draw back. He had only to recall his brother's wife, to remember how that sweet, delightful Varia sought, at every convenient opportunity, to remind him that she remembered his generosity and appreciated it, to grasp the impossibility of taking back his gift. It was as impossible as beating a woman, or stealing, or lying. One thing only could and ought to be done, and Vronsky determined upon it without an instant's hesitation: to borrow money from a moneylender, ten thousand roubles, a proceeding which presented no difficulty; to cut down his expenses generally, and to sell his race horses. Resolving on this, he promptly wrote a note to Rolandaky, who had more than once sent to him with offers to buy horses from him. Then he sent for the Englishman and the moneylender, and divided what money he had according to the accounts he intended to pay. Having finished this business, he wrote a cold and cutting answer to his mother. Then he took out of his notebook three notes of Anna's, read them again, burned them, and, remembering their conversation on the previous day, he sank into deep thought.
Chapter XX.
Vronsky's life was particularly happy in that he had a code of principles, which defined with unfailing certitude what he ought and what he ought not to do. This code of principles covered only a very small circle of contingencies, but then the principles were never doubtful, and Vronsky, as he never went outside that circle, had never had a moment's hesitation about doing what he ought to do. These principles laid down as invariable rules: that one must pay a cardsharper, but need not pay a tailor; that one must never tell a lie to a man, but one may to a woman; that one must never cheat anyone, but one may a husband; that one must never pardon an insult, but one may give one and so on. These principles were possibly not reasonable and not good, but they were of unfailing certainty, and, so long as he adhered to them, Vronsky felt that his heart was at peace and he could hold his head up. But of late, in regard to his relations with Anna, Vronsky had begun to feel that his code of principles did not fully cover all possible contingencies, and to foresee in the future difficulties and perplexities for which he could find no guiding clue.
His present relation to Anna and to her husband was to his mind clear and simple. It was clearly and precisely defined in the code of principles by which he was guided.
She was an honorable woman who had bestowed her love upon him, and he loved her, and therefore she was in his eyes a woman who had a right to the same respect, or even more, than a lawful wife. He would have had his hand chopped off before he would have allowed himself by a word, by a hint, to humiliate her, or even to fall short of the fullest respect a woman could look for.
His attitude toward society, too, was clear. Everyone might know, might suspect it, but no one might dare to speak of it. If any did speak, he was ready to force all who might do so to be silent and to respect the nonexistent honor of the woman he loved.
His attitude to the husband was the clearest of all. From the moment that Anna loved Vronsky, he had regarded his own right over her as the one thing unassailable. Her husband was simply a superfluous and tiresome person. No doubt he was in a pitiable position, but how could that be helped? The one thing the husband had a right to was to demand satisfaction with a weapon in his hand, and Vronsky was prepared for this at any minute.
But of late new inner relations had arisen between her and him, which frightened Vronsky by their indefiniteness. Only the day before she had told him that she was with child. And he felt that this fact, and what she expected of him, called for something not fully defined in that code of principles by which he had hitherto steered his course in life. And he had been indeed caught unawares, and, at the first moment when she spoke to him of her position, his heart had prompted him to beg her to leave her husband. He had said that, but now, thinking things over he saw clearly that it would be better to manage avoiding that; and at the same time, as he told himself this, he was afraid whether such an avoidance were not wrong.
"If I told her to leave her husband, it would mean uniting her life with mine; am I prepared for that? How can I take her away now, when I have no money? Supposing I could arrange... But how can I take her away while I'm in the service? If I say it, I ought to be prepared to do it; that is, I ought to have the money and to retire from the army."
And he grew thoughtful. The question whether to retire from the service or not brought him to the other, and perhaps the chief though hidden, interest of his life, of which none knew but he.
Ambition was the old dream of his youth and childhood, a dream which he did not confess even to himself, though it was so strong that now this passion was even doing battle with his love. His first steps in the world and in the service had been successful, but two years before he had made a great mistake. Anxious to show his independence, and for the sake of advancement, he had refused a post that had been offered him, hoping that this refusal would heighten his value; but it turned out that he had been too bold, and he was passed over. And having, whether he liked or not, taken up for himself the position of an independent man, he carried it off with great tact and good sense, behaving as though he bore no grudge against anyone, nor regarding himself as injured in any way, and caring for nothing but to be left alone since he was enjoying himself. In reality he had ceased to enjoy himself as long ago as the year before, when he had gone to Moscow. He felt that this independent attitude of a man who might have done anything, but cared to do nothing, was already beginning to pall, that many people were beginning to fancy that he was not really capable of anything but being a straightforward, good-natured fellow. His connection with Madame Karenina, by creating so much sensation and attracting general attention, had given him a fresh distinction, which had soothed his gnawing worm of ambition for a while; but a week ago that worm had been roused up again with fresh force. The friend of his childhood, a man of the same set, of the same coterie, his comrade in the Corps of Pages, Serpukhovskoy, who had left school with him, and had been his rival in class, in gymnastics, in their scrapes and their dreams of glory, had come back a few days before from Central Asia, where he had gained two steps up in rank, and an order rarely bestowed upon generals so young.
As soon as he arrived in Peterburg, people began to talk about him as a newly risen star of the first magnitude. A schoolfellow of Vronsky's and of the same age, he was a general and was expecting a command which might have influence on the course of political events; while Vronsky, though he was independent and brilliant, and beloved by a charming woman, was simply a cavalry captain who was readily allowed to be as independent as ever he liked. "Of course, I don't envy Serpukhovskoy and never could envy him; but his advancement shows me that one has only to watch one's opportunity, and the career of a man like me may be very rapidly made. Three years ago he was in just the same position as I am. If I retire, I burn my ships. If I remain in the army, I lose nothing. She said herself she did not wish to change her position. And with her love I cannot feel envious of Serpukhovskoy." And, slowly twirling his mustaches, he got up from the table and walked about the room. His eyes shone particularly brightly, and he felt in that firm, calm, and happy frame of mind which always came after he had thoroughly faced his position. Everything was straight and clear, just as after former days of striking balances. He shaved, took a cold bath, dressed, and went out.