by Leo Tolstoy
Mikhail Vassilyevich Slyudin, the office manager, was a simple, intelligent, good and moral man, and Alexei Alexandrovich sensed that he was personally well disposed towards him; but their five years of work together had placed between them a barrier to heartfelt talks.
Alexei Alexandrovich, having finished signing papers, sat silently for a long time, glancing at Mikhail Vassilyevich, and tried several times to start talking, but could not. He had already prepared the phrase: 'You have heard of my grief?' But he ended by saying, as usual: 'So you will prepare this for me' - and dismissed him.
The other man was the doctor, who was also well disposed towards him; but they had long ago come to a tacit agreement that they were both buried in work and always in a hurry.
Of his female friends, and of the foremost of them, Countess Lydia Ivanovna, Alexei Alexandrovich did not think. All women, simply as women, were frightening and repulsive to him.
XXII
Alexei Alexandrovich had forgotten Countess Lydia Ivanovna, but she had not forgotten him. At this most difficult moment of lonely despair, she came to see him and walked into his study unannounced. She found him in the same position in which he had been sitting, resting his head on both hands.
'J'ai force la consigne,'* she said, coming in with rapid steps and breathing heavily from agitation and quick movement. 'I've heard everything! Alexei Alexandrovich! My friend!' she went on, firmly pressing his hand with both hands and looking into his eyes with her beautiful, pensive eyes.
Alexei Alexandrovich, frowning, got up and, freeing his hand from hers, moved a chair for her.
'If you please, Countess. I am not receiving because I am ill,' he said, and his lips trembled.
'My friend!' repeated Countess Lydia Ivanovna, not taking her eyes off him, and suddenly the inner tips of her eyebrows rose, forming a triangle on her forehead; her unattractive yellow face became still more unattractive; but Alexei Alexandrovich could feel that she pitied him and was ready to weep. He was deeply moved: he seized her plump hand and began to kiss it.
* I have forced my way in.
'My friend!' she said in a voice faltering with agitation. 'You mustn't give way to grief. Your grief is great, but you must find comfort.'
'I'm broken, I'm destroyed, I'm no longer a human being!' Alexei Alexandrovich said, letting go of her hand, but continuing to look into her tear-filled eyes. 'My position is the more terrible in that I can find no foothold in myself or anywhere.'
'You will find a foothold. Seek it not in me, though I beg you to believe in my friendship,' she said with a sigh. 'Our foothold is love, the love that He left us. His burden is light,'[31] she said with that rapturous look that Alexei Alexandrovich knew so well. 'He will support you and help you.'
Though there was in these words that tenderness before her own lofty feelings, and that new, rapturous, mystical mood which had recently spread in Petersburg,[32] and which Alexei Alexandrovich had considered superfluous, he now found it pleasant to hear.
'I'm weak. I'm annihilated. I foresaw nothing and now I understand nothing.'
'My friend,' Lydia Ivanovna repeated.
'It's not the loss of what isn't there now, it's not that,' Alexei Alexandrovich went on. 'I don't regret it. But I can't help feeling ashamed before people for the position I find myself in. It's wrong, but I can't help it, I can't help it.'
'It was not you who accomplished that lofty act of forgiveness, which I admire along with everyone, but He, dwelling in your heart,' Countess Lydia Ivanovna said, raising her eyes rapturously, 'and therefore you cannot be ashamed of your action.'
Alexei Alexandrovich frowned and, bending his hands, began cracking his fingers.
'One must know all the details,' he said in a high voice. 'There are limits to a man's strength, Countess, and I've found the limits of mine. I had to spend the whole day today making arrangements, arrangements about the house, resulting' (he emphasized the word 'resulting') 'from my new solitary situation. The servants, the governess, the accounts ... These petty flames have burned me up, I couldn't endure it. Over dinner ... yesterday I almost left the dinner table. I couldn't stand the way my son looked at me. He didn't ask me what it all meant, but he wanted to ask, and I couldn't endure that look. He was afraid to look at me, but that's not all...'
Alexei Alexandrovich wanted to mention the bill that had been brought to him, but his voice trembled and he stopped. He could not recall that bill, on blue paper, for a hat and ribbons, without pitying himself.
'I understand, my friend,' said Countess Lydia Ivanovna. 'I understand everything. Help and comfort you will not find in me, but all the same I've come only so as to help you if I can. If I could take from you these petty, humiliating cares ... I understand that you need a woman's word, a woman's order. Will you entrust me with it?'
Alexei Alexandrovich pressed her hand silently and gratefully.
'We'll look after Seryozha together. I'm not strong in practical matters. But I'll take it up, I'll be your housekeeper. Don't thank me. It is not I who am doing it.. .'
'I cannot help thanking you.'
'But, my friend, don't give in to that feeling you spoke of - of being ashamed of what is the true loftiness of a Christian: "He that humbleth himself shall be exalted".[33] And you cannot thank me. You must thank Him and ask Him for help. In Him alone shall we find peace, comfort, salvation and love,' she said and, raising her eyes to heaven, began to pray, as Alexei Alexandrovich understood from her silence.
Alexei Alexandrovich listened to her now, and these expressions that had once seemed not exactly unpleasant but unnecessary, now seemed natural and comforting. He had not liked the new rapturous spirit. He was a believer who was interested in religion mostly in a political sense, and the new teaching that allowed itself some new interpretations was disagreeable to him on principle, precisely because it opened the door to debate and analysis. His former attitude to this new teaching had been cold and even inimical, and he had never argued with Countess Lydia Ivanovna, who was enthusiastic about it, but had carefully passed over her challenges in silence. But now for the first time he listened to her words with pleasure and did not inwardly object to them.
'I'm very, very grateful to you, both for your deeds and for your words,' he said, when she had finished praying.
Countess Lydia Ivanovna once more pressed both her friend's hands.
'Now I shall get down to work,' she said with a smile, after a pause, wiping the remaining tears from her face. 'I am going to Seryozha. I shall turn to you only in extreme cases.' And she got up and went out.
Countess Lydia Ivanovna went to Seryozha's rooms and there, drenching the frightened boy's cheeks with tears, told him that his father was a saint and his mother was dead.
Countess Lydia Ivanovna kept her promise. She indeed took upon herself all the cares of managing and running Alexei Alexandrovich's house. But she was not exaggerating when she said that she was not strong in practical matters. All her orders had to be changed, they were unfeasible as they were, and the one who changed them was Kornei, Alexei Alexandrovich's valet, who, unnoticed by anyone, began to run the entire Karenin household and, while dressing his master, calmly and carefully reported to him what was needed. But all the same Lydia Ivanovna's help was in the highest degree effective: she gave Alexei Alexandrovich moral support in the awareness of her love and respect for him, and especially, as she found it comforting to think, in that she had almost converted him to Christianity - that is, turned him from an indifferent and lazy believer into an ardent and firm adherent of that new explanation of Christian doctrine that had lately spread in Petersburg. Alexei Alexandrovich easily became convinced of it. Like Lydia Ivanovna and other people who shared their views, he was totally lacking in depth of imagination, in that inner capacity owing to which the notions evoked by the imagination become so real that they demand to be brought into correspondence with other notions and with reality. He did not see anything impossible or incongruous in the notion that death,
which existed for unbelievers, did not exist for him, and that since he possessed the fullest faith, of the measure of which he himself was the judge, there was no sin in his soul and he already experienced full salvation here on earth.
It is true that Alexei Alexandrovich vaguely sensed the levity and erroneousness of this notion of his faith, and he knew that when, without any thought that his forgiveness was the effect of a higher power, he had given himself to his spontaneous feeling, he had experienced greater happiness than when he thought every moment, as he did now, that Christ lived in his soul and that by signing papers he was fulfilling His will; but it was necessary for him to think that way, it was so necessary for him in his humiliation to possess at least an invented loftiness from which he, despised by everyone, could despise others, that he clung to his imaginary salvation as if it were salvation indeed.
XXIII
Countess Lydia Ivanovna had been given in marriage as a young, rapturous girl to a rich, noble, very good-natured and very dissolute bon vivant. In the second month her husband abandoned her and responded to her rapturous assurances of tenderness only with mockery and even animosity, which people who knew the count's kind heart and saw no defects in the rapturous Lydia were quite unable to explain. Since then, though not divorced, they had lived apart, and whenever the husband met his wife, he treated her with an invariable venomous mockery, the reason for which was impossible to understand.
Countess Lydia Ivanovna had long ceased to be in love with her husband, but she never ceased being in love with someone. She was in love with several people at the same time, both men and women; she was in love with almost everyone who was particularly distinguished in some way. She was in love with all the new princesses and princes who had come into the tsar's family. She was in love with one metropolitan, one bishop and one priest. She was in love with one journalist, with three Slavs, with Komisarov,[34] with one minister, one doctor, one English missionary, and with Karenin. All these loves, now waning, now waxing, filled her heart, gave her something to do, but did not keep her from conducting very extensive and complex relations at court and in society. But once she took Karenin under her special patronage after the misfortune that befell him, once she began toiling in his house, looking after his well-being, she felt that all the other loves were not real, and that she was now truly in love with Karenin alone. The feeling she now experienced for him seemed stronger to her than all her former feelings. Analysing it and comparing it with the former ones, she saw clearly that she would not have been in love with Komisarov if he had not saved the emperor's life, would not have been in love with Ristich-Kudzhitsky if there had been no Slavic question,[35] but that she loved Karenin for himself, for his lofty, misunderstood soul, the high sound of his voice, so dear to her, with its drawn-out intonations, his weary gaze, his character, and his soft, white hands with their swollen veins. She was not only glad when they met, but sought signs in his face of the impression she made on him. She wanted him to like her not only for what she said, but for her whole person. For his sake she now took greater care with her toilette than ever. She caught herself dreaming of what might have happened if she were not married and he were free. She blushed with excitement when he came into the room; she could not suppress a smile of rapture when he said something pleasant to her.
For several days now Countess Lydia Ivanovna had been in the greatest agitation. She had learned that Anna and Vronsky were in Petersburg. Alexei Alexandrovich had to be saved from meeting her, he had to be saved even from the painful knowledge that this terrible woman was in the same town with him and that he might meet her at any moment.
Lydia Ivanovna, through her acquaintances, gathered intelligence about what those loathsome people, as she called Anna and Vronsky, intended to do, and tried during those days to direct her friend's every movement so that he would not meet them. The young adjutant, Vronsky's friend, through whom she obtained information and who hoped to obtain a concession through Countess Lydia Ivanovna, told her that they had finished their business and were leaving the next day. Lydia Ivanovna was beginning to calm down when the next morning she was brought a note and with horror recognized the handwriting. It was the handwriting of Anna Karenina. The envelope was of thick paper, like birch bark; the oblong yellow sheet bore an enormous monogram and the letter gave off a wonderful scent.
'Who brought it?*
'A messenger from a hotel.'
It was some time before Countess Lydia Ivanovna could sit down and read the letter. Excitement had given her an attack of the shortness of breath she suffered from. When she calmed down, she read the following, written in French:
Mme la Comtesse: The Christian feelings that fill your heart inspire in me what is, I feel, the unpardonable boldness of writing to you. I am unhappy in being separated from my son. I beg you to allow me to see him once before my departure. Forgive me for reminding you of myself. I am addressing you and not Alexei Alexandrovich only because I do not want to make that magnanimous man suffer from any reminder of me. Knowing your friendship for him, you will understand me. Will you send Seryozha to me, or shall I come to the house at a certain appointed time, or will you let me know where I can see him outside the house? I do not anticipate a refusal, knowing the magnanimity of the person upon whom it depends. You cannot imagine the longing I have to see him, and therefore you cannot imagine the gratitude your help will awaken in me.
Anna.
Everything in this letter annoyed Countess Lydia Ivanovna: the content, the reference to magnanimity and especially what seemed to her the casual tone.
'Tell him there will be no reply,' Countess Lydia Ivanovna said and at once, opening her blotting pad, wrote to Alexei Alexandrovich that she hoped to see him between twelve and one for the felicitations at the palace.
'I must discuss an important and sad matter with you. We will arrange where when we meet. Best of all would be my house, where I shall prepare your tea. It is necessary. He imposes the cross. He also gives the strength,' she added, so as to prepare him at least a little.
Countess Lydia Ivanovna usually wrote two or three notes a day to Alexei Alexandrovich. She liked this process of communicating with him, as having both elegance and mystery, which were lacking in her personal relations.
XXIV
The felicitations were coming to an end. On their way out, people met and discussed the latest news of the day, the newly bestowed awards, and the transfers of important officials.
'What if Countess Marya Borisovna got the ministry of war, and Princess Vatkovsky was made chief of staff?' a grey-haired little old man in a gold-embroidered uniform said, addressing a tall, beautiful lady-in-waiting who had asked about the transfers.
'And I an aide-de-camp,' the lady-in-waiting said, smiling.
'You already have an appointment. In the religious department. And for your assistant - Karenin.'
'How do you do, Prince!' said the old man, shaking hands with a man who came over.
'What did you say about Karenin?' asked the prince.
'He and Putyatov got the Alexander Nevsky.'[36]
'I thought he already had it.'
'No. Just look at him,' said the old man, pointing with his embroidered hat to Karenin in his court uniform, a new red sash over his shoulder, standing in the doorway of the reception room with an influential member of the State Council. 'Happy and pleased as a new copper penny,' he added, stopping to shake hands with a handsome, athletically built gentleman of the bedchamber.
'No, he's aged,' the gentleman of the bedchamber said.
'From worry. He keeps writing projects nowadays. He won't let that unfortunate fellow go now until he's told him everything point by point.'
'Aged? Il fait des passions.* I think Countess Lydia Ivanovna is now jealous of his wife.'
'Come, come! Please don't say anything bad about Countess Lydia Ivanovna.'
'But is it bad that she's in love with Karenin?'
'And is it true that Madame Karenina's here?'
>
'That is, not here in the palace, but in Petersburg. I met them yesterday, her and Alexei Vronsky, bras dessus, bras dessous,* on Morskaya.'
'C'est un homme qui n'a pas . . .'* the gentleman of the bedchamber began, but stopped, making way and bowing to a person of the tsar's family passing by.
So people talked ceaselessly of Alexei Alexandrovich, judging him and laughing at him, while he, standing in the way of a State Council member he had caught, explained his financial project to him point by point, not interrupting his explanation for a moment, so as not to let him slip away.
At almost the same time that his wife had left him, the bitterest of events for a man in the service had also befallen Alexei Alexandrovich - the cessation of his upward movement. This cessation was an accomplished fact and everyone saw it clearly, but Alexei Alexandrovich himself was not yet aware that his career was over. Whether it was the confrontation with Stremov, or the misfortune with his wife, or simply that Alexei Alexandrovich had reached the limit destined for him, it became obvious to everyone that year that his official career had ended. He still occupied an important post, was a member of many commissions and committees, but he was an entirely spent man from whom nothing more was expected. Whatever he said, whatever he proposed, he was listened to as though it had long been known and was the very thing that was not needed.
