by Anna Karenina (tr Richard Pevear, Larissa Volokhonsky) (Penguin Classics) (epub)
e window he saw her go up to her brother, put her hand on his arm, and begin animatedly telling him something that obviously had nothing to do with him, Vronsky, and he found that vexing.
Well, so, maman, are you quite well?’ he repeated, turning to his mother.
‘Everything’s fine, excellent. Alexandre was very sweet. And Marie as become very pretty. She’s very interesting.’ Again she began to talk about what interested her most – her grandson’s baptism, for which she had gone to Petersburg – and about the special favour the emperor had shown her older son.
‘And here’s Lavrenty!’ said Vronsky, looking out the window. ‘We can go now, if you like.’
The old butler, who had come with the countess, entered the carriage to announce that everything was ready, and the countess got up to leave.
‘Let’s go, there are fewer people now,’ said Vronsky.
The maid took the bag and the lapdog, the butler and a porter the other bags. Vronsky gave his mother his arm; but as they were getting out of the carriage, several men with frightened faces suddenly ran past. The stationmaster, in a peaked cap of an extraordinary colour, also ran past.
Evidently something extraordinary had happened. People who had left the train were running back.
‘What? … What? … Where? … Threw himself! … run over! …’ could be heard among those passing by.
Stepan Arkadyich, with his sister on his arm, their faces also frightened, came back and stood by the door of the carriage, out of the crowd’s way.
The ladies got into the carriage, while Vronsky and Stepan Arkadyich went after the people to find out the details of the accident.
A watchman, either drunk or too bundled up because of the freezing cold, had not heard a train being shunted and had been run over.
Even before Vronsky and Oblonsky came back, the ladies had learned these details from the butler.
Oblonsky and Vronsky had both seen the mangled corpse. Oblonsky was obviously suffering. He winced and seemed ready to cry.
‘Ah, how terrible! Ah, Anna, if you’d seen it! Ah, how terrible!’ he kept saying.
Vronsky was silent, and his handsome face was serious but perfectly calm.
‘Ah, if you’d seen it, Countess,’ said Stepan Arkadyich. ‘And his wife is here … It was terrible to see her … She threw herself on the body. They say he was the sole provider for a huge family[32] It’s terrible!’
‘Can nothing be done for her?’ Mme Karenina said in an agitated whisper.
Vronsky glanced at her and at once left the carriage.
‘I’ll be right back, maman] he added, turning at the door.
When he came back a few minutes later, Stepan Arkadyich was already talking with the countess about a new soprano, while the countess kept glancing impatiently at the door, waiting for her son.
‘Let’s go now,’ said Vronsky, entering.
They went out together. Vronsky walked ahead with his mother. Behind came Mme Karenina with her brother. At the exit, the stationmaster overtook Vronsky and came up to him.
‘You gave my assistant two hundred roubles. Would you be so kind as to designate whom they are meant for?’
‘For the widow,’ Vronsky said, shrugging his shoulders. ‘I don’t see any need to ask.’
‘You gave it?’ Oblonsky cried behind him and, pressing his sister’s hand, added: ‘Very nice, very nice! Isn’t he a fine fellow? My respects, Countess.’
And he and his sister stopped, looking around for her maid.
When they came out, the Vronskys’ carriage had already driven off. The people coming out were still talking about what had happened.
‘What a terrible death!’ said some gentleman passing by. ‘Cut in two pieces, they say.’
‘On the contrary, I think it’s the easiest, it’s instantaneous,’ observed another.
‘How is it they don’t take measures?’ said a third.
Mme Karenina got into the carriage, and Stepan Arkadyich saw with surprise that her lips were trembling and she could hardly keep back her tears.
‘What is it, Anna?’ he asked, when they had driven several hundred yards.
‘A bad omen,’ she said.
‘What nonsense!’ said Stepan Arkadyich. ‘You’ve come, that’s the main thing. You can’t imagine what hopes I have in you.’
Have you known Vronsky for long?’ she asked.
Yes. You know, we hope he’s going to marry Kitty.’
‘Oh?’ Anna said softly. ‘Well, now let’s talk about you,’ she added, tossing her head as if she wanted physically to drive away something superfluous that was bothering her. ‘Let’s talk about your affairs. I got your letter and here I am.’
‘Yes, you’re my only hope,’ said Stepan Arkadyich.
‘Well, tell me everything.’
And Stepan Arkadyich started telling.
Driving up to the house, Oblonsky helped his sister out, sighed, pressed her hand, and went to his office.
XIX
When Anna came in, Dolly was sitting in the small drawing room with a plump, tow–headed boy who already resembled his father, listening as he recited a French lesson. The boy was reading, his hand twisting and trying to tear off the barely attached button of his jacket. His mother took his hand away several times, but the plump little hand would take hold of the button again. His mother tore the button off and put it in her pocket.
‘Keep your hands still, Grisha,’ she said, and went back to knitting a blanket, her handwork from long ago, which she always took up in difficult moments; she was now knitting nervously, flicking the stitches over with her finger and counting them. Though yesterday she had sent word to her husband that she did not care whether his sister came or not, she had everything ready for her arrival and was excitedly awaiting her.
Dolly was crushed by her grief and totally consumed by it. Nevertheless she remembered that Anna, her sister–in–law, was the wife of one of the most important people in Petersburg and a Petersburg grande dame. And owing to this circumstance, she did not act on what she had said to her husband, that is, did not forget that Anna was coming. ‘After all, she’s not guilty of anything,’ thought Dolly. ‘I know nothing but the very best about her, and with regard to myself, I’ve seen only kindness and friendship from her.’ True, as far as she could remember her impression of the Karenins’ house in Petersburg, she had not liked it; there was something false in the whole shape of their family life. ‘But why shouldn’t I receive her? As long as she doesn’t try to console me!’ thought Dolly. ‘All these consolations and exhortations and Christian forgivenesses –I’ve already thought of it all a thousand times, and it’s no good.’
All those days Dolly was alone with her children. She did not want to talk about her grief, and with this grief in her soul she could not talk about irrelevancies. She knew that one way or another she would tell Anna everything, and her joy at the thought of how she would tell her everything alternated with anger at the need to speak about her humiliation with her, his sister, and to hear ready–made phrases of exhortation and consolation from her.
As often happens, she kept looking at her watch, expecting her every minute, and missed precisely the one when her guest arrived, so that she did not even hear the bell.
Hearing the rustle of a dress and light footsteps already at the door, she turned, and her careworn face involuntarily expressed not joy but surprise. She stood up and embraced her sister–in–law.
‘What, here already?’ she said, kissing her.
‘Dolly, I’m so glad to see you!’
‘I’m glad, too,’ said Dolly, smiling weakly and trying to make out from the expression on Anna’s face whether she knew or not. ‘She must know,’ she thought, noticing the commiseration on Anna’s face. ‘Well, come along, I’ll take you to your room,’ she continued, trying to put off the moment of talking as long as possible.
‘This is Grisha? My God, how he’s grown!’ said Anna and, having kissed him, without taking h
er eyes off Dolly, she stopped and blushed. ‘No, please, let’s not go anywhere.’
She took off her scarf and hat and, catching a strand of her dark, curly hair in it, shook her head, trying to disentangle it.
‘And you are radiant with happiness and health,’ said Dolly, almost with envy.
‘I? … Yes,’ said Anna. ‘My God, Tanya! The same age as my Seryozha,’ she added, turning to the girl who came running in. She took her in her arms and kissed her. ‘A lovely girl, lovely! Show them all to me.’
She called them all by name, remembering not only the names, but the years, months, characters, illnesses of all the children, and Dolly could not help appreciating it.
‘Well, let’s go to them then,’ she said. ‘A pity Vasya’s asleep.’
After looking at the children, they sat down, alone now, to have coffee in the drawing room. Anna reached for the tray, then pushed it aside.
‘Dolly,’ she said, ‘he told me.’
Dolly looked coldly at Anna. She expected falsely compassionate Phrases now, but Anna said nothing of the sort.
‘Dolly, dear!’ she said, ‘I don’t want either to defend him or to console you – that is impossible. But, darling, I simply feel sorry for you, sorry with all my heart!’
ears suddenly showed behind the thick lashes of her bright eyes. She moved closer to her sister–in–law and took her hand in her own energetic little hand. Dolly did not draw back, but the dry expression on her face did not change. She said:
‘It’s impossible to console me. Everything is lost after what’s happened, everything is gone!’
And as soon as she had said it, the expression on her face suddenly softened. Anna raised Dolly’s dry, thin hand, kissed it and said: ‘But, Dolly, what’s to be done, what’s to be done? What’s the best way to act in this terrible situation? – that’s what we must think about.’
‘Everything’s over, that’s all,’ said Dolly. ‘And the worst of it, you understand, is that I can’t leave him. There are the children, I’m tied. And I can’t live with him, it pains me to see him.’
‘Dolly, darling, he told me, but I want to hear it from you, tell me everything.’
Dolly gave her a questioning look.
Unfeigned concern and love could be seen on Anna’s face.
‘Very well,’ she said suddenly. ‘But I’ll tell it from the beginning. You know how I got married. With maman’s upbringing, I was not only innocent, I was stupid. I didn’t know anything. They say, I know, that husbands tell their wives their former life, but Stiva …’ – she corrected herself – ‘Stepan Arkadyich told me nothing. You won’t believe it, but until now I thought I was the only woman he had known. I lived like that for eight years. You must understand that I not only didn’t suspect his unfaithfulness, I considered it impossible, and here, imagine, with such notions, suddenly to learn the whole horror, the whole vileness … You must understand me. To be fully certain of my own happiness, and suddenly …’ Dolly went on, repressing her sobs, ‘and to get a letter … his letter to his mistress, to my governess. No, it’s too terrible!’ She hastily took out a handkerchief and covered her face with it. ‘I could even understand if it was a passion,’ she went on after a pause, ‘but to deceive me deliberately, cunningly … and with whom? … To go on being my husband together with her … it’s terrible! You can’t understand…’
‘Oh, no, I do understand! I understand, dear Dolly, I understand,’ said Anna, pressing her hand.
‘And do you think he understands all the horror of my position?’ Dolly went on. ‘Not a bit! He’s happy and content.’
‘Oh, no!’ Anna quickly interrupted. ‘He’s pitiful, he’s overcome with remorse …’ ‘Is he capable of remorse?’ Dolly interrupted, peering intently into her sister–in–law’s face.
‘Yes, I know him. I couldn’t look at him without pity. We both know him. He’s kind, but he’s proud, and now he’s so humiliated. What moved me most of all…’ (and here Anna guessed what might move Dolly most of all) ‘there are two things tormenting him: that he’s ashamed before the children, and that, loving you as he does … yes, yes, loving you more than anything in the world,’ she hastily interrupted Dolly, who was about to object, ‘he has hurt you, crushed you. "No, no, she won’t forgive me," he keeps saying.’
Dolly pensively stared past her sister–in–law, listening to her words.
‘Yes, I understand that his position is terrible; it’s worse for the guilty than for the innocent,’ she said, ‘if he feels guilty for the whole misfortune. But how can I forgive him, how can I be his wife again after her? For me to live with him now would be torture, precisely because I loved him as I did, because I love my past love for him …’
And sobs interrupted her words.
But as if on purpose, each time she softened, she again began to speak of what irritated her.
‘You see, she’s young, she’s beautiful,’ she went on. ‘Do you understand, Anna, who took my youth and beauty from me? He and his children. I’ve done my service for him, and that service took my all, and now, naturally, he finds a fresh, vulgar creature more agreeable. They’ve surely talked about me between them, or, worse still, passed me over in silence – you understand?’ Again her eyes lit up with hatred. ‘And after that he’s going to tell me … Am I supposed to believe him? Never. No, it s the end of everything, everything that made for comfort, a reward for toil, suffering … Would you believe it? I’ve just been teaching Grisha: before it used to be a joy, now it’s a torment. Why do I strain and toil? Why have children? The terrible thing is that my soul suddenly turned over, and instead of love, of tenderness, I feel only spite towards him, yes, spite. I could kill him and …’
‘Darling Dolly, I understand, but don’t torment yourself. You’re so tended, so agitated, that you see many things wrongly.’
Dolly quieted down, and for a minute or two they were silent.
‘What’s to be done, think, Anna, help me. I’ve thought it all over and don’t see anything.’
Anna could not think of anything, but her heart responded directly to every word, to every expression on her sister–in–law’s face.
‘I’ll say one thing,’ Anna began. ‘I’m his sister, I know his character, this ability to forget everything, everything’ (she made a gesture in front of her face), ‘this ability for total infatuation, but also for total remorse. He can’t believe, he can’t understand now, how he could have done what he did.’
‘No, he understands, he understood!’ Dolly interrupted. ‘But I … you’re forgetting me … is it any easier for me?’
‘Wait. When he was telling me about it, I confess, I still didn’t understand all the horror of your position. I saw only him and that the family was upset; I felt sorry for him, but, talking with you, as a woman I see something else; I see your sufferings, and I can’t tell you how sorry I am for you! But, Dolly, darling, though I fully understand your sufferings, there’s one thing I don’t know: I don’t know … I don’t know how much love for him there still is in your soul. Only you know whether it’s enough to be able to forgive. If it is, then forgive him!’
‘No,’ Dolly began; but Anna interrupted her, kissing her hand once more.
‘I know more of the world than you do,’ she said. ‘I know how people like Stiva look at it. You say he talked with her about you. That never happened. These people may be unfaithful, but their hearth and wife are sacred to them. Somehow for them these women remain despised and don’t interfere with the family. Between them and the family they draw some sort of line that can’t be crossed. I don’t understand it, but it’s so.’
