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

by Leo Tolstoy

  Anna shook her head as though trying to drive away some unpleasant idea.

  "When? Why, the sooner the better! By tomorrow we shan't be ready. The day after tomorrow."

  "Yes...oh, no, wait a minute! The day after to-morrow's Sunday, I have to be at maman's," said Vronsky, embarrassed, because as soon as he uttered his mother's name he was aware of her intent, suspicious eyes. His embarrassment confirmed her suspicion. She flushed hotly and drew away from him. It was now not the Queen of Sweden's swimming-mistress who filled Anna's imagination, but the young Princess Sorokina. She was staying in a village near Moscow with Countess Vronskaya.

  "Can't you go tomorrow?" she said.

  "Well, no! The deeds and the money for the business I'm going there for I can't get by tomorrow," he answered.

  "If so, we won't go at all."

  "But why so?"

  "I shall not go later. Monday or never!"

  "What for?" said Vronsky, as though in amazement. "Why, there's no meaning in it!"

  "There's no meaning in it to you, because you care nothing for me. You don't care to understand my life. The one thing that I cared for here was Hannah. You say it's affectation. Why, you said yesterday that I don't love my daughter, that I love this English girl, that it's unnatural. I should like to know what life there is for me that could be natural!"

  For an instant she had a clear vision of what she was doing, and was horrified at how she had fallen away from her resolution. But even though she knew it was her own ruin, she could not restrain herself, could not keep herself from proving to him that he was wrong, could not give way to him.

  "I never said that; I said I did not sympathize with this sudden passion."

  "How is it, though you boast of your straightforwardness, you don't tell the truth?"

  "I never boast, and I never tell lies," he said slowly, restraining his rising anger. "It's a great pity if you can't respect..."

  "Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be. And if you don't love me any more, it would be better and more honest to say so."

  "No, this is becoming unbearable!" cried Vronsky, getting up from his chair; and stopping short, facing her, he said, speaking deliberately: "What do you try my patience for?" looking as though he might have said much more, but was restraining himself. "It has limits."

  "What do you mean by that?" she cried, looking with terror at the undisguised hatred in his whole face, and especially in his cruel, menacing eyes

  "I mean to say..." he was beginning, but he checked himself. "I must ask what it is you want of me?"

  "What can I want? All I can want is that you should not desert me, as you think of doing," she said, understanding all he had not uttered. "But that I don't want; that's secondary. I want love, and there is none. So then all is over."

  She turned towards the door.

  "Stop! sto--op!" said Vronsky, with no change in the gloomy lines of his brows, though he held her by the hand. "What is it all about? I said that we must put off going for three days, and on that you told me I was lying, that I was not an honorable man."

  "Yes, and I repeat that the man who reproaches me with having sacrificed everything for me," she said, recalling the words of a still earlier quarrel, "that he's worse than a dishonorable man-- he's a heartless man."

  "Oh, there are limits to endurance!" he cried, and hastily let go her hand.

  "He hates me, that's clear," she thought, and in silence, without looking round, she walked with faltering steps out of the room. "He loves another woman, that's even clearer," she said to herself as she went into her own room. "I want love, and there is none. So, then, all is over." She repeated the words she had said, "and it must be ended."

  "But how?" she asked herself, and she sat down in a low chair before the looking glass.

  Thoughts of where she would go now, whether to the aunt who had brought her up, to Dolly, or simply alone abroad, and of what he was doing now alone in his study; whether this was the final quarrel, or whether reconciliation were still possible; and of what all her old friends at Petersburg would say of her now; and of how Alexey Alexandrovitch would look at it, and many other ideas of what would happen now after this rupture, came into her head; but she did not give herself up to them with all her heart. At the bottom of her heart was some obscure idea that alone interested her, but she could not get clear sight of it. Thinking once more of Alexey Alexandrovitch, she recalled the time of her illness after her confinement, and the feeling which never left her at that time. "Why didn't I die?" and the words and the feeling of that time came back to her. And all at once she knew what was in her soul. Yes, it was that idea which alone solved all. "Yes, to die!... And the shame and disgrace of Alexey Alexandrovitch and of Seryozha, and my awful shame, it will all be saved by death. To die! and he will feel remorse; will be sorry; will love me; he will suffer on my account." With the trace of a smile of commiseration for herself she sat down in the armchair, taking off and putting on the rings on her left hand, vividly picturing from different sides his feelings after her death.

  Approaching footsteps--his steps--distracted her attention. As though absorbed in the arrangement of her rings, she did not even turn to him.

  He went up to her, and taking her by the hand, said softly:

  "Anna, we'll go the day after tomorrow, if you like. I agree to everything."

  She did not speak.

  "What is it?" he urged.

  "You know," she said, and at the same instant, unable to restrain herself any longer, she burst into sobs.

  "Cast me off!" she articulated between her sobs. "I'll go away tomorrow...I'll do more. What am I? An immoral woman! A stone round your neck. I don't want to make you wretched, I don't want to! I'll set you free. You don't love me; you love someone else!"

  Vronsky besought her to be calm, and declared that there was no trace of foundation for her jealousy; that he had never ceased, and never would cease, to love her; that he loved her more than ever.

  "Anna, why distress yourself and me so?" he said to her, kissing her hands. There was tenderness now in his face, and she fancied she caught the sound of tears in his voice, and she felt them wet on her hand. And instantly Anna's despairing jealousy changed to a despairing passion of tenderness. She put her arms round him, and covered with kisses his head, his neck, his hands.

  Chapter 25

  Feeling that the reconciliation was complete, Anna set eagerly to to work in the morning preparing for their departure. Though it was not settled whether they should go on Monday or Tuesday, as they had each given way to the other, Anna packed busily, feeling absolutely indifferent whether they went a day earlier or later. She was standing in her room over an open box, taking things out of it, when he came in to see her earlier than usually, dressed to go out.

  "I'm going off at once to see maman; she can send me the money by Yegorov. And I shall be ready to go tomorrow," he said.

  Though she was in such a good mood, the thought of his visit to his mother's gave her a pang.

  "No, I shan't be ready by then myself," she said; and at once reflected, "so then it was possible to arrange to do as I wished." "No, do as you meant to do. Go into the dining room, I'm coming directly. It's only to turn out those things that aren't wanted," she said, putting something more on the heap of frippery that lay in Annushka's arms.

  Vronsky was eating his beefsteak when she came into the dining- room.

  "You wouldn't believe how distasteful these rooms have become to me," she said, sitting down beside him to her coffee. "There's nothing more awful than these chambres garnies. There's no individuality in them, no soul. These clocks, and curtains, and, worst of all, the wallpapers--they're a nightmare. I think of Vozdvizhenskoe as the promised land. You're not sending the horses off yet?"

  "No, they will come after us. Where are you going to?"

  "I wanted to go to Wilson's to take some dresses to her. So it's really to be tomorrow?" she said in a cheerful voice; but suddenly he
r face changed.

  Vronsky's valet came in to ask him to sign a receipt for a telegram from Petersburg. There was nothing out of the way in Vronsky's getting a telegram, but he said, as though anxious to conceal something from her, that the receipt was in his study, and he turned hurriedly to her.

  "By tomorrow, without fail, I will finish it all."

  "From whom is the telegram?" she asked, not hearing him.

  "From Stiva," he answered reluctantly.

  "Why didn't you show it to me? What secret can there be between Stiva and me?"

  Vronsky called the valet back, and told him to bring the telegram.

  "I didn't want to show it to you, because Stiva has such a passion for telegraphing: why telegraph when nothing is settled?"

  "About the divorce?"

  "Yes; but he says he has not been able to come at anything yet. He has promised a decisive answer in a day or two. But here it is; read it."

  With trembling hands Anna took the telegram, and read what Vronsky had told her. At the end was added: "Little hope; but I will do everything possible and impossible."

  "I said yesterday that it's absolutely nothing to me when I get, or whether I never get, a divorce," she said, flushing crimson. "There was not the slightest necessity to hide it from me." "So he may hide and does hide his correspondence with women from me," she thought.

  "Yashvin meant to come this morning with Voytov," said Vronsky; "I believe he's won from Pyevtsov all and more than he can pay, about sixty thousand."

  "No," she said, irritated by his so obviously showing by this change of subject that he was irritated, "why did you suppose that this news would affect me so, that you must even try to hide it? I said I don't want to consider it, and I should have liked you to care as little about it as I do."

  "I care about it because I like definiteness," he said.

  "Definiteness is not in the form but the love," she said, more and more irritated, not by his words, but by the tone of cool composure in which he spoke. "What do you want it for?"

  "My God! love again," he thought, frowning.

  "Oh, you know what for; for your sake and your children's in the future."

  "There won't be children in the future."

  "That's a great pity," he said.

  "You want it for the children's sake, but you don't think of me?" she said, quite forgetting or not having heard that he had said, "for your sake and the children's."

  The question of the possibility of having children had long been a subject of dispute and irritation to her. His desire to have children she interpreted as a proof he did not prize her beauty.

  "Oh, I said: for your sake. Above all for your sake," he repeated, frowning as though in pain, "because I am certain that the greater part of your irritability comes from the indefiniteness of the position."

  "Yes, now he has laid aside all pretense, and all his cold hatred for me is apparent," she thought, not hearing his words, but watching with terror the cold, cruel judge who looked mocking her out of his eyes.

  "The cause is not that," she said, "and, indeed, I don't see how the cause of my irritability, as you call it, can be that I am completely in your power. What indefiniteness is there in the position? on the contrary..."

  "I am very sorry that you don't care to understand," he interrupted, obstinately anxious to give utterance to his thought. "The indefiniteness consists in your imagining that I am free."

  "On that score you can set your mind quite at rest," she said, and turning away from him, she began drinking her coffee.

  She lifted her cup, with her little finger held apart, and put it to her lips. After drinking a few sips she glanced at him, and by his expression, she saw clearly that he was repelled by her hand, and her gesture, and the sound made by her lips.

  "I don't care in the least what your mother thinks, and what match she wants to make for you," she said, putting the cup down with a shaking hand.

  "But we are not talking about that."

  "Yes, that's just what we are talking about. And let me tell you that a heartless woman, whether she's old or not old, your mother or anyone else, is of no consequence to me, and I would not consent to know her."

  "Anna, I beg you not to speak disrespectfully of my mother."

  "A woman whose heart does not tell her where her son's happiness and honor lie has no heart."

  "I repeat my request that you will not speak disrespectfully of my mother, whom I respect," he said, raising his voice and looking sternly at her

  She did not answer. Looking intently at him, at his face, his hands, she recalled all the details of their reconciliation the previous day, and his passionate caresses. "There, just such caresses he has lavished, and will lavish, and longs to lavish on other women!" she thought.

  "You don't love your mother. That's all talk, and talk, and talk!" she said, looking at him with hatred in her eyes.

  "Even if so, you must..."

  "Must decide, and I have decided," she said, and she would have gone away, but at that moment Yashvin walked into the room. Anna greeted him and remained.

  Why, when there was a tempest in her soul, and she felt she was standing at a turning point in her life, which might have fearful consequences--why, at that minute, she had to keep up appearances before an outsider, who sooner or later must know it all--she did not know. But at once quelling the storm within her, she sat down and began talking to their guest.

  "Well, how are you getting on? Has your debt been paid you?" she asked Yashvin.

  "Oh, pretty fair; I fancy I shan't get it all, but I shall get a good half. And when are you off?" said Yashvin, looking at Vronsky, and unmistakably guessing at a quarrel.

  "The day after tomorrow, I think," said Vronsky.

  "You've been meaning to go so long, though."

  "But now it's quite decided," said Anna, looking Vronsky straight in the face with a look which told him not to dream of the possibility of reconciliation.

  "Don't you feel sorry for that unlucky Pyevtsov?" she went on, talking to Yashvin.

  "I've never asked myself the question, Anna Arkadyevna, whether I'm sorry for him or not. You see, all my fortune's here"--he touched his breast pocket--"and just now I'm a wealthy man. But today I'm going to the club, and I may come out a beggar. You see, whoever sits down to play with me--he wants to leave me without a shirt to my back, and so do I him. And so we fight it out, and that's the pleasure of it."

  "Well, but suppose you were married," said Anna, "how would it be for your wife?"

  Yashvin laughed.

  "That's why I'm not married, and never mean to be."

  "And Helsingfors?" said Vronsky, entering into the conversation and glancing at Anna's smiling face. Meeting his eyes, Anna's face instantly took a coldly severe expression as though she were saying to him: "It's not forgotten. It's all the same."

  "Were you really in love?" she said to Yashvin.

  "Oh heavens! ever so many times! But you see, some men can play but only so that they can always lay down their cards when the hour of a rendezvous comes, while I can take up love, but only so as not to be late for my cards in the evening. That's how I manage things."

  "No, I didn't mean that, but the real thing." She would have said Helsingfors, but would not repeat the word used by Vronsky.

  Voytov, who was buying the horse, came in. Anna got up and went out of the room.

  Before leaving the house, Vronsky went into her room. She would have pretended to be looking for something on the table, but ashamed of making a pretense, she looked straight in his face with cold eyes.

  "What do you want?" she asked in French.

  "To get the guarantee for Gambetta, I've sold him," he said, in a tone which said more clearly than words, "I've no time for discussing things, and it would lead to nothing."

  "I'm not to blame in any way," he thought. "If she will punish herself, tant pis pour elle." But as he was going he fancied that she said something, and his heart suddenly ached with pity for he
r.

  "Eh, Anna?" he queried.

  "I said nothing," she answered just as coldly and calmly.

  "Oh, nothing, tant pis then," he thought, feeling cold again, and he turned and went out. As he was going out he caught a glimpse in the looking glass of her face, white, with quivering lips. He even wanted to stop and to say some comforting word to her, but his legs carried him out of the room before he could think what to say. The whole of that day he spent away from home, and when he came in late in the evening the maid told him that Anna Arkadyevna had a headache and begged him not to go in to her.

  Chapter 26

  Never before had a day been passed in quarrel. Today was the first time. And this was not a quarrel. It was the open acknowledgment of complete coldness. Was it possible to glance at her as he had glanced when he came into the room for the guarantee?--to look at her, see her heart was breaking with despair, and go out without a word with that face of callous composure? He was not merely cold to her, he hated her because he loved another woman--that was clear.