The Complete Works of Leo Tolstoy (25+ Works with active table of contents)

by Leo Tolstoy

  "Again, the devil again," Vronsky said, taking the hand she had laid on the table and kissing it.

  "Yes; but I can't help it. You don't know what I have suffered waiting for you. I believe I'm not jealous. I'm not jealous: I believe you when you're here; but when you're away somewhere leading your life, so incomprehensible to me..."

  She turned away from him, pulled the hook at last out of the crochet work, and rapidly, with the help of her forefinger, began working loop after loop of the wool that was dazzling white in the lamplight, while the slender wrist moved swiftly, nervously in the embroidered cuff.

  "How was it, then? Where did you meet Alexey Alexandrovitch?" Her voice sounded in an unnatural and jarring tone.

  "We ran up against each other in the doorway."

  "And he bowed to you like this?"

  She drew a long face, and half-closing her eyes, quickly transformed her expression, folded her hands, and Vronsky suddenly saw in her beautiful face the very expression with which Alexey Alexandrovitch had bowed to him. He smiled, while she laughed gaily, with that sweet, deep laugh, which was one of her greatest charms.

  "I don't understand him in the least," said Vronsky. "If after your avowal to him at your country house he had broken with you, if he had called me out--but this I can't understand. How can he put up with such a position? He feels it, that's evident."

  "He?" she said sneeringly. "He's perfectly satisfied."

  "What are we all miserable for, when everything might be so happy?"

  "Only not he. Don't I know him, the falsity in which he's utterly steeped?... Could one, with any feeling, live as he is living with me? He understands nothing, and feels nothing. Could a man of any feeling live in the same house with his unfaithful wife? Could he talk to her, call her 'my dear'?"

  And again she could not help mimicking him: "'Anna, ma chere; Anna, dear'!"

  "He's not a man, not a human being--he's a doll! No one knows him; but I know him. Oh, if I'd been in his place, I'd long ago have killed, have torn to pieces a wife like me. I wouldn't have said, 'Anna, ma chere'! He's not a man, he's an official machine. He doesn't understand that I'm your wife, that he's outside, that he's superfluous.... Don't let's talk of him!..."

  "You're unfair, very unfair, dearest," said Vronsky, trying to soothe her. "But never mind, don't let's talk of him. Tell me what you've been doing? What is the matter? What has been wrong with you, and what did the doctor say?"

  She looked at him with mocking amusement. Evidently she had hit on other absurd and grotesque aspects in her husband and was awaiting the moment to give expression to them.

  But he went on:

  "I imagine that it's not illness, but your condition. When will it be?"

  The ironical light died away in her eyes, but a different smile, a consciousness of something, he did not know what, and of quiet melancholy, came over her face.

  "Soon, soon. You say that our position is miserable, that we must put an end to it. If you knew how terrible it is to me, what I would give to be able to love you freely and boldly! I should not torture myself and torture you with my jealousy.... And it will come soon but not as we expect."

  And at the thought of how it would come, she seemed so pitiable to herself that tears came into her eyes, and she could not go on. She laid her hand on his sleeve, dazzling and white with its rings in the lamplight

  "It won't come as we suppose. I didn't mean to say this to you, but you've made me. Soon, soon, all will be over, and we shall all, all be at peace, and suffer no more."

  "I don't understand," he said, understanding her.

  "You asked when? Soon. And I shan't live through it. Don't interrupt me!" and she made haste to speak. "I know it; I know for certain. I shall die; and I'm very glad I shall die, and release myself and you."

  Tears dropped from her eyes; he bent down over her hand and began kissing it, trying to hide his emotion, which, he knew, had no sort of grounds, though he could not control it.

  "Yes, it's better so," she said, tightly gripping his hand. "That's the only way, the only way left us."

  He had recovered himself, and lifted his head.

  "How absurd! What absurd nonsense you are talking!"

  "No, it's the truth."

  "What, what's the truth?"

  "That I shall die. I have had a dream."

  "A dream?" repeated Vronsky, and instantly he recalled the peasant of his dream.

  "Yes, a dream," she said. "It's a long while since I dreamed it. I dreamed that I ran into my bedroom, that I had to get something there, to find out something; you know how it is in dreams," she said, her eyes wide with horror; "and in the bedroom, in the corner, stood something."

  "Oh, what nonsense! How can you believe..."

  But she would not let him interrupt her. What she was saying was too important to her.

  "And the something turned round, and I saw it was a peasant with a disheveled beard, little, and dreadful looking. I wanted to run away, but he bent down over a sack, and was fumbling there with his hands..."

  She showed how he had moved his hands. There was terror in her face. And Vronsky, remembering his dream, felt the same terror filling his soul.

  "He was fumbling and kept talking quickly, quickly in French, you know: Il faut le battre, le fer, le brayer, le petrir.... And in my horror I tried to wake up, and woke up...but woke up in the dream. And I began asking myself what it meant. And Korney said to me: 'In childbirth you'll die, ma'am, you'll die....' And I woke up."

  "What nonsense, what nonsense!" said Vronsky; but he felt himself that there was no conviction in his voice.

  "But don't let's talk of it. Ring the bell, I'll have tea. And stay a little now; it's not long I shall..."

  But all at once she stopped. The expression of her face instantaneously changed. Horror and excitement were suddenly replaced by a look of soft, solemn, blissful attention. He could not comprehend the meaning of the change. She was listening to the stirring of the new life within her.

  Chapter 4

  Alexey Alexandrovitch, after meeting Vronsky on his own steps, drove, as he had intended, to the Italian opera. He sat through two acts there, and saw everyone he had wanted to see. On returning home, he carefully scrutinized the hat stand, and noticing that there was not a military overcoat there, he went, as usual, to his own room. But, contrary to his usual habits, he did not go to bed, he walked up and down his study till three o'clock in the morning. The feeling of furious anger with his wife, who would not observe the proprieties and keep to the one stipulation he had laid on her, not to receive her lover in her own home, gave him no peace. She had not complied with his request, and he was bound to punish her and carry out his threat--obtain a divorce and take away his son. He knew all the difficulties connected with this course, but he had said he would do it, and now he must carry out his threat. Countess Lidia Ivanovna had hinted that this was the best way out of his position, and of late the obtaining of divorces had been brought to such perfection that Alexey Alexandrovitch saw a possibility of overcoming the formal difficulties. Misfortunes never come singly, and the affairs of the reorganization of the native tribes, and of the irrigation of the lands of the Zaraisky province, had brought such official worries upon Alexey Alexandrovitch that he had been of late in a continual condition of extreme irritability.

  He did not sleep the whole night, and his fury, growing in a sort of vast, arithmetical progression, reached its highest limits in the morning. He dressed in haste, and as though carrying his cup full of wrath, and fearing to spill any over, fearing to lose with his wrath the energy necessary for the interview with his wife, he went into her room directly he heard she was up.

  Anna, who had thought she knew her husband so well, was amazed at his appearance when he went in to her. His brow was lowering, and his eyes stared darkly before him, avoiding her eyes; his mouth was tightly and contemptuously shut. In his walk, in his gestures, in the sound of his voice there was a determination and firmness such a
s his wife had never seen in him. He went into her room, and without greeting her, walked straight up to her writing-table, and taking her keys, opened a drawer.

  "What do you want?" she cried.

  "Your lover's letters," he said.

  "They're not here," she said, shutting the drawer; but from that action he saw he had guessed right, and roughly pushing away her hand, he quickly snatched a portfolio in which he knew she used to put her most important papers. She tried to pull the portfolio away, but he pushed her back.

  "Sit down! I have to speak to you," he said, putting the portfolio under his arm, and squeezing it so tightly with his elbow that his shoulder stood up. Amazed and intimidated, she gazed at him in silence.

  "I told you that I would not allow you to receive your lover in this house."

  "I had to see him to..."

  She stopped, not finding a reason.

  "I do not enter into the details of why a woman wants to see her lover."

  "I meant, I only..." she said, flushing hotly. This coarseness of his angered her, and gave her courage. "Surely you must feel how easy it is for you to insult me?" she said.

  "An honest man and an honest woman may be insulted, but to tell a thief he's a thief is simply la constatation d'un fait."

  "This cruelty is something new I did not know in you."

  "You call it cruelty for a husband to give his wife liberty, giving her the honorable protection of his name, simply on the condition of observing the proprieties: is that cruelty?"

  "It's worse than cruel--it's base, if you want to know!" Anna cried, in a rush of hatred, and getting up, she was going away.

  "No!" he shrieked in his shrill voice, which pitched a note higher than usual even, and his big hands clutching her by the arm so violently that red marks were left from the bracelet he was squeezing, he forcibly sat her down in her place.

  "Base! If you care to use that word, what is base is to forsake husband and child for a lover, while you eat your husband's bread!"

  She bowed her head. She did not say what she had said the evening before to her lover, that HE was her husband, and her husband was superfluous; she did not even think that. She felt all the justice of his words, and only said softly:

  "You cannot describe my position as worse than I feel it to be myself; but what are you saying all this for?"

  "What am I saying it for? what for?" he went on, as angrily. "That you may know that since you have not carried out my wishes in regard to observing outward decorum, I will take measures to put an end to this state of things."

  "Soon, very soon, it will end, anyway," she said; and again, at the thought of death near at hand and now desired, tears came into her eyes.

  "It will end sooner than you and your lover have planned! If you must have the satisfaction of animal passion..."

  "Alexey Alexandrovitch! I won't say it's not generous, but it's not like a gentleman to strike anyone who's down."

  "Yes, you only think of yourself! But the sufferings of a man who was your husband have no interest for you. You don't care that his whole life is ruined, that he is thuff...thuff..."

  Alexey Alexandrovitch was speaking so quickly that he stammered, and was utterly unable to articulate the word "suffering." In the end he pronounced it "thuffering." She wanted to laugh, and was immediately ashamed that anything could amuse her at such a moment. And for the first time, for an instant, she felt for him, put herself in his place, and was sorry for him. But what could she say or do? Her head sank, and she sat silent. He too was silent for some time, and then began speaking in a frigid, less shrill voice, emphasizing random words that had no significance.

  "I came to tell you..." he said.

  She glanced at him. "No, it was my fancy," she thought, recalling the expression of his face when he stumbled over the word "suffering." "No; can a man with those dull eyes, with that self-satisfied complacency, feel anything?"

  "I cannot change anything," she whispered.

  "I have come to tell you that I am going tomorrow to Moscow, and shall not return again to this house, and you will receive notice of what I decide through the lawyer into whose hands I shall intrust the task of getting a divorce. My son is going to my sister's," said Alexey Alexandrovitch, with an effort recalling what he had meant to say about his son.

  "You take Seryozha to hurt me," she said, looking at him from under her brows. "You do not love him.... Leave me Seryozha!"

  "Yes, I have lost even my affection for my son, because he is associated with the repulsion I feel for you. But still I shall take him. Goodbye!"

  And he was going away, but now she detained him.

  "Alexey Alexandrovitch, leave me Seryozha!" she whispered once more. "I have nothing else to say. Leave Seryozha till my...I shall soon be confined; leave him!"

  Alexey Alexandrovitch flew into a rage, and, snatching his hand from her, he went out of the room without a word.

  Chapter 5

  The waiting-room of the celebrated Petersburg lawyer was full when Alexey Alexandrovitch entered it. Three ladies--an old lady, a young lady, and a merchant's wife--and three gentlemen-- one a German banker with a ring on his finger, the second a merchant with a beard, and the third a wrathful-looking government clerk in official uniform, with a cross on his neck-- had obviously been waiting a long while already. Two clerks were writing at tables with scratching pens. The appurtenances of the writing-tables, about which Alexey Alexandrovitch was himself very fastidious, were exceptionally good. He could not help observing this. One of the clerks, without getting up, turned wrathfully to Alexey Alexandrovitch, half closing his eyes. "What are you wanting?"

  He replied that he had to see the lawyer on some business.

  "He is engaged," the clerk responded severely, and he pointed with his pen at the persons waiting, and went on writing.

  "Can't he spare time to see me?" said Alexey Alexandrovitch.

  "He has not time free; he is always busy. Kindly wait your turn."

  "Then I must trouble you to give him my card," Alexey Alexandrovitch said with dignity, seeing the impossibility of preserving his incognito.

  The clerk took the card and, obviously not approving of what he read on it, went to the door.

  Alexey Alexandrovitch was in principle in favor of the publicity of legal proceedings, though for some higher official considerations he disliked the application of the principle in Russia, and disapproved of it, as far as he could disapprove of anything instituted by authority of the Emperor. His whole life had been spent in administrative work, and consequently, when he did not approve of anything, his disapproval was softened by the recognition of the inevitability of mistakes and the possibility of reform in every department. In the new public law courts he disliked the restrictions laid on the lawyers conducting cases. But till then he had had nothing to do with the law courts, and so had disapproved of their publicity simply in theory; now his disapprobation was strengthened by the unpleasant impression made on him in the lawyer's waiting room.

  "Coming immediately," said the clerk; and two minutes later there did actually appear in the doorway the large figure of an old solicitor who had been consulting with the lawyer himself.

  The lawyer was a little, squat, bald man, with a dark, reddish beard, light-colored long eyebrows, and an overhanging brow. He was attired as though for a wedding, from his cravat to his double watch-chain and varnished boots. His face was clever and manly, but his dress was dandified and in bad taste.

  "Pray walk in," said the lawyer, addressing Alexey Alexandrovitch; and, gloomily ushering Karenin in before him, he closed the door.

  "Won't you sit down?" He indicated an armchair at a writing table covered with papers. He sat down himself, and, rubbing his little hands with short fingers covered with white hairs, he bent his head on one side. But as soon as he was settled in this position a moth flew over the table. The lawyer, with a swiftness that could never have been expected of him, opened his hands, caught the moth, and resumed his former
attitude.

  "Before beginning to speak of my business," said Alexey Alexandrovitch, following the lawyer's movements with wondering eyes, "I ought to observe that the business about which I have to speak to you is to be strictly private."

  The lawyer's overhanging reddish mustaches were parted in a scarcely perceptible smile.

  "I should not be a lawyer if I could not keep the secrets confided to me. But if you would like proof..."

  Alexey Alexandrovitch glanced at his face, and saw that the shrewd, gray eyes were laughing, and seemed to know all about it already.

  "You know my name?" Alexey Alexandrovitch resumed.

  "I know you and the good"--again he caught a moth--"work you are doing, like every Russian," said the lawyer, bowing.