Anna Karenina

by Leo Tolstoy

  'But you all love those animal pleasures,' she said, and again he noticed her gloomy eyes, which avoided him.

  'Why do you defend him so?' he said, smiling.

  'I'm not defending him, it makes absolutely no difference to me; but I think that if you didn't like those pleasures yourself, you might have refused. But it gives you pleasure to look at Teresa in the costume of Eve...'

  'Again, again the devil!' said Vronsky, taking the hand she had placed on the table and kissing it.

  'Yes, but I can't bear it! You don't know how I suffered waiting for you! I don't think I'm jealous. I'm not jealous. I believe you when you're here with me, but when you're alone somewhere leading your life, which is incomprehensible to me ...'

  She drew back from him, finally extricated the hook from her crochet, and quickly, with the help of her index finger, began drawing stitches of white woollen yarn, shining in the lamplight, one after another, and quickly, nervously flicking her wrist in its embroidered cuff.

  'Well, what then? Where did you meet Alexei Alexandrovich?' her voice suddenly rang unnaturally.

  'We bumped into each other in the doorway.'

  'And he bowed to you like this?' She pulled a long face and, half closing her eyes, quickly changed expression, folded her arms, and in her beautiful face Vronsky suddenly saw the very expression with which Alexei Alexandrovich had bowed to him. He smiled, and she gaily laughed that lovely deep laugh that was one of her main charms.

  'I decidedly do not understand him,' said Vronsky. 'If he had broken with you after your talk in the country, if he had challenged me to a duel ... but this I do not understand: how can he bear such a situation? He suffers, it's obvious.'

  'He?' she said with a laugh. 'He's perfectly content.'

  'Why are we all tormented when everything could be so good?'

  'Only not him. Don't I know him, the lie he's all steeped in? ... Is it possible, if he has any feeling, to live with me as he does? He doesn't understand or feel anything. Can a man who has any feeling live in the same house with his "criminal" wife? Can he talk to her? Call her "my dear"?'

  And again she involuntarily pictured him: 'Ma chere, my Anna!'

  'He's not a man, not a human being, he's a puppet! Nobody else knows it, but I do. Oh, if I were in his place, I'd have killed a wife like me long ago, I'd have torn her to pieces, I wouldn't say to her: "Ma chere Anna". He's not a man, he's an administrative machine. He doesn't understand that I'm your wife, that he's a stranger, that he's superfluous ... Let's not, let's not talk!...'

  'You're not right, not right, my love,' said Vronsky, trying to calm her. 'But never mind, let's not talk about him. Tell me, what have you been doing? What's wrong with you? What is this illness and what did the doctor say?'

  She looked at him with mocking delight. Apparently she had found other ridiculous and ugly sides in her husband and was waiting for the moment to come out with them.

  But he went on:

  'My guess is that it's not illness but your condition. When is it to be?'

  The mocking gleam in her eyes went out, but a different smile - of the knowledge of something he did not know and of a quiet sadness -replaced her former expression.

  'Soon, soon. You said our situation is tormenting and we must resolve it. If you knew how painful it is for me, and what I would have given to be able to love you freely and boldly! I wouldn't be tormented and wouldn't torment you with my jealousy ... And soon it will be so, but not the way we think.'

  And at the thought of how it would be, she seemed so pitiful to herself that tears came to her eyes and she could not go on. She laid her hand, shining under the lamp with its rings and whiteness, on his sleeve.

  'It will not be the way we think. I didn't want to tell you that, but you made me. Soon, soon everything will be resolved, we'll all, all be at peace and no longer tormented.'

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

  'You asked me when? Soon. And I won't survive it. Don't interrupt me!' and she began speaking hurriedly. 'I know this and know it for certain. I will die, and I'm very glad that I will die and deliver myself and you.'

  Tears flowed from her eyes. He bent to her hand and began to kiss it, trying to conceal his anxiety, which he knew had no grounds, but which he was unable to control.

  'There, that's better,' she said, pressing his hand with a strong movement. 'That is the one thing, the one thing left to us.'

  He recovered and raised his head.

  'What nonsense! What meaningless nonsense you're saying!'

  'No, it's true.'

  'What, what is true?'

  'That I will die. I had a dream.'

  'A dream?' Vronsky repeated and instantly recalled the muzhik in his dream.

  'Yes, a dream,' she said. 'I had this dream long ago. I dreamed that I ran into my bedroom, that I had to get something there, to find something out - you know how it happens in dreams,' she said, her eyes wide with horror, 'and there was something standing in the bedroom, in the corner.'

  'Ah, what nonsense! How can you believe . ..'

  But she would not let herself be interrupted. What she was saying was much too important for her.

  'And this something turned, and I saw it was a muzhik with a dishevelled beard, small and frightening. I wanted to run away, but he bent over a sack and rummaged in it with his hands ...'

  And she showed how he rummaged in the sack. There was horror in her face. And Vronsky, recalling his dream, felt the same horror filling his soul.

  'He rummages and mutters in French, very quickly, and rolling the rs in his throat, you know: "Il faut le battre le fer, le broyer, le petrir . . ."* And

  * You must beat the iron, pound it, knead it.

  I was so frightened that I wanted to wake up, and I woke up... but I woke up in a dream. And I wondered what it meant. And Kornei says to me: "You'll die in childbirth, dear, in childbirth .. ."And I woke up ...'

  'What nonsense, what nonsense!' Vronsky was saying, aware himself that there was no conviction in his voice.

  'But let's not talk. Ring the bell, I'll order tea to be served. Wait, now, it won't be long, I...'

  But suddenly she stopped. The expression on her face changed instantly. Terror and anxiety suddenly gave way to an expression of quiet, serious and blissful attention. He could not understand the meaning of this change. She had felt the stirring of new life inside her.

  IV

  After meeting Vronsky on his porch, Alexei Alexandrovich drove, as he had intended, to the Italian Opera. He sat out two acts there and saw everyone he had to. On returning home, he studied the coat-rack attentively and, observing that no military coat hung there, went to his rooms as usual. But, contrary to his habit, he did not go to bed but paced up and down his study till three o'clock in the morning. The feeling of wrath against his wife, who did not want to observe propriety and fulfil the only condition placed upon her - not to receive her lover at home -left him no peace. She had not fulfilled his request, and he must now carry out his threat - demand a divorce and take her son from her. He knew all the difficulties connected with this matter, but he had said that he would do it and now he had to carry out his threat. Countess Lydia Ivanovna had hinted to him that this was the best way out of his situation, and lately the practice of divorce had brought the matter to such perfection that Alexei Alexandrovich saw a possibility of overcoming the formal difficulties. Besides, misfortunes never come singly, and the cases of the settlement of the racial minorities and the irrigation of the fields in Zaraysk province had brought down on Alexei Alexandrovich such troubles at work that he had been extremely vexed all the time recently.

  He did not sleep the entire night, and his wrath, increasing in a sort of enormous progression, by morning had reached the ultimate limits. He dressed hurriedly and, as if carrying a full cup of wrath and fearing to spill it, fearing to lose along with it the energy needed for a talk with his wife, went into her room as soon as he knew that she was up.


  Anna, who thought she knew her husband so well, was struck by his look when he came in. His brow was scowling, and his grim eyes stared straight ahead, avoiding hers; his lips were tightly and contemptuously compressed. In his stride, in his movements, in the sound of his voice there were such resolution and firmness as his wife had never seen in him before. He came into the room without greeting her, made straight for her writing desk and, taking the keys, opened the drawer.

  'What do you want?!' she cried.

  'Your lover's letters,' he said.

  'They're not here,' she said, closing the drawer; but by that movement he understood that he had guessed right and, rudely pushing her hand away, he quickly snatched the portfolio in which he knew she kept her most important papers. She tried to tear it from him, but he pushed her away.[3]

  'Sit down! I must talk with you,' he said, putting the portfolio under his arm and pressing it so tightly with his elbow that his shoulder rose up.

  Surprised and intimidated, she gazed at him silently.

  'I told you that I would not allow you to receive your lover at home.'

  'I had to see him, in order to ...'

  She stopped, unable to invent anything.

  'I will not go into the details of why a woman needs to see her lover.'

  'I wanted, I only ...' she said, flushing. His rudeness annoyed her and gave her courage. 'Can't you feel how easy it is for you to insult me?' she said.

  'One can insult an honest man or an honest woman, but to tell a thief that he is a thief is merely la constatation d'un fait.'*

  'This cruelty is a new feature -I did not know it was in you.'

  'You call it cruelty when a husband offers his wife freedom, giving her the honourable shelter of his name, only on condition that propriety is observed. Is that cruelty?'

  'It's worse than cruelty, it's baseness, if you really want to know!' Anna cried out in a burst of anger and got up, intending to leave.

  'No!' he shouted in his squeaky voice, which now rose a pitch higher than usual, and, seizing her arm so strongly with his big fingers that the

  * The establishing of a fact.

  bracelet he pressed left red marks on it, he forced her to sit down. 'Baseness? Since you want to use that word, it is baseness to abandon a husband and son for a lover and go on eating the husband's bread!'

  She bowed her head. Not only did she not say what she had said the day before to her lover - that he was her husband and her husband was superfluous - but she did not even think it. She felt all the justice of his words and only said softly:

  'You cannot describe my position as any worse than I myself understand it to be. But why are you saying all this?'

  'Why am I saying this? Why?' he went on just as wrathfully. 'So that you know that since you have not carried out my wish with regard to observing propriety, I shall take measures to bring this situation to an end.'

  'It will end soon anyway,' she said, and again, at the thought of her near and now desired death, tears came to her eyes.

  'It will end sooner than you've thought up with your lover! You must satisfy your animal passions ...'

  'Alexei Alexandrovich! I will not say that it is not magnanimous, but it is not even respectable to hit someone who is down.'

  'Yes, you're only mindful of yourself, but the suffering of the man who was your husband does not interest you. You are indifferent to the destruction of his whole life, to the suffering he has exple ... expre ... experimenced.'

  Alexei Alexandrovich was speaking so quickly that he became confused and could not get the word out. He finally came out with 'experimenced'. She nearly laughed and at the same time felt ashamed that anything could make her laugh at such a moment. And for the first time, momentarily, she felt for him, put herself in his place and pitied him. But what could she say or do? She bowed her head and was silent. He, too, was silent for a while and then began to speak in a cold and less squeaky voice, emphasizing the arbitrarily chosen words, which had no particular importance.

  'I've come to tell you ...' he said.

  She looked at him. 'No, I imagined it,' she thought, remembering the look on his face when he stumbled over the word 'experimenced', 'no, how can a man with those dull eyes, with that smug calm, feel anything?'

  'There's nothing I can change,' she whispered.

  'I've come to tell you that I am leaving for Moscow tomorrow and will not return to this house again, and you will be informed of my decision through my lawyer, to whom I shall entrust the matter of the divorce. My son will move to my sister's,' Alexei Aiexandrovich said, trying hard to recall what he had wanted to say about the son.

  'You need Seryozha in order to hurt me,' she said, looking at him from under her brows. 'You don't love him ... Leave me Seryozha!'

  'Yes, I've even lost my love for my son, because he is connected with my loathing for you. But all the same I will take him. Goodbye!'

  And he turned to go, but this time she held him back.

  'Alexei Aiexandrovich, leave me Seryozha!' she whispered once again. 'I have nothing more to say. Leave me Seryozha till my ... I will give birth soon, leave him with me!'

  Alexei Aiexandrovich turned red and, tearing his hand from hers, silently left the room.

  V

  The waiting room of the famous Petersburg lawyer was full when Alexei Aiexandrovich entered it. Three ladies: an old one, a young one, and a merchant's wife; and three gentlemen: one a German banker with a signet ring on his finger, another a merchant with a beard, and the third an irate official in uniform with a decoration around his neck, had obviously been waiting for a long time already. Two assistants were writing at their desks, their pens scratching. The writing implements, of which Alexei Aiexandrovich was a connoisseur, were exceptionally good. Alexei Aiexandrovich could not help noticing it. One of the assistants, without getting up, narrowed his eyes and addressed Alexei Aiexandrovich gruffly:

  'What would you like?'

  'I have business with the lawyer.'

  'The lawyer's occupied,' the assistant said sternly, pointing with his pen at the waiting people, and went on writing.

  'Could he not find time?' said Alexei Aiexandrovich.

  'He has no free time, he's always occupied. Kindly wait.'

  'Then I shall trouble you to give him my card,' Alexei Aiexandrovich said with dignity, seeing the necessity of abandoning his incognito.

  The assistant took the card and, evidently disapproving of its content, went through the door.

  Alexei Alexandrovich sympathized with open courts in principle, but he did not entirely sympathize with certain details of their application in our country, owing to higher official attitudes which were known to him, and he condemned them in so far as he could condemn anything ratified in the highest places. His whole life had been spent in administrative activity, and therefore, whenever he did not sympathize with anything, his lack of sympathy was softened by recognition of the inevitability of mistakes and the possibility of correcting them in each case. In the new court institutions he did not approve of the circumstances in which the legal profession had been placed.[4] But till now he had never dealt with lawyers and his disapproval had been merely theoretical, while now it was increased by the unpleasant impression he received in the lawyer's waiting room.

  'He'll come at once,' the assistant said; and indeed, two minutes later the long figure of an old jurist who had been consulting with the lawyer appeared in the doorway, along with the lawyer himself.

  The lawyer was a short, stocky, bald-headed man with a reddish-black beard, light and bushy eyebrows and a prominent forehead. He was dressed up like a bridegroom, from his tie and double watch-chain to his patent-leather boots. He had an intelligent, peasant-like face, but his outfit was foppish and in bad taste.

  'Kindly come in,' said the lawyer, addressing Alexei Alexandrovich. And, gloomily allowing Karenin to pass, he closed the door.

  'If you please?' He indicated an armchair by the paper-laden desk and himself sat do
wn in the presiding seat, rubbing his small, stubby-fingered hands overgrown with white hairs and inclining his head to one side. But he had no sooner settled in this position than a moth flew over the desk. With a dexterity one would not have expected of him, the lawyer spread his arms, caught the moth, and resumed his former position.

  'Before I begin talking about my case,' Alexei Alexandrovich said, his eyes following in surprise the lawyer's movement, 'I must observe that the matter I have to discuss with you must remain secret.'

  A barely noticeable smile parted the lawyer's drooping reddish moustaches.

  'I would not be a lawyer if I was unable to keep the secrets confided to me. But if you would like some assurance ...'

  Alexei Alexandrovich glanced at his face and saw that his grey, intelligent eyes were laughing and seemed to know everything already.

  'You know my name?' Alexei Alexandrovich continued.

  'I know you and your useful' - he caught another moth - 'activity, as every Russian does,' the lawyer said with a bow.