by Anna Karenina (tr Richard Pevear, Larissa Volokhonsky) (Penguin Classics) (epub)
‘Vassily Lukich, do you know what extra I prayed for besides?’
‘To study better?’
‘No.’
‘Toys?’
‘No. You’ll never guess. It’s splendid, but secret! If it comes true, I’ll tell you. You can’t guess?’
‘No, I can’t. You’ll have to tell me,’ Vassily Lukich said, smiling, which rarely happened with him. ‘Well, lie down, I’m putting the candle out.’
‘And I can see what I prayed for better without the candle. Now I’ve nearly told you the secret!’ said Seryozha, laughing gaily.
When the candle was taken away, he heard and felt his mother. She stood over him and caressed him with her loving eyes. But windmills came, a penknife came, everything got confused, and he fell asleep.
XXVIII
On arriving in Petersburg, Vronsky and Anna stayed in one of the best hotels. Vronsky separately on the lower floor, Anna upstairs with the baby, the wet nurse and the maid, in a big four–room suite.
The day they arrived Vronsky went to see his brother. There he found his mother, who had come from Moscow on her own business. His mother and sister–in–law met him as usual; they asked him about his trip abroad, spoke of mutual acquaintances, and did not say a word about his liaison with Anna. But his brother, when he came to Vronsky the next day, asked about her himself, and Alexei Vronsky told him straight out that he considered his liaison with Mme Karenina a marriage; that he hoped to arrange for a divorce and then marry her; and till then he considered her just as much his wife as any other wife and asked him to convey that to his mother and his wife.
‘If society doesn’t approve of it, that’s all the same to me,’ said Vronsky, ‘but if my family wants to have family relations with me, they will have to have the same relations with my wife.’
The elder brother, who had always respected the opinions of the younger, could not quite tell whether he was right or wrong until society decided the question; he himself, for his own part, had nothing against it and went together with Alexei to see Anna.
In his brother’s presence, as in everyone else’s, Vronsky addressed Anna formally and treated her as a close acquaintance, but it was implied that the brother knew of their relations, and mention was made of Anna going to Vronsky’s estate.
Despite all his social experience, Vronsky, owing to the new position in which he found himself, was strangely deluded. It seems he ought to have understood that society was closed to him and Anna; but some vague arguments were born in his head, that it had been so only in olden times, while now, progress being so quick (without noticing it he had become an advocate of every sort of progress), society’s outlook had changed and the question of their being received in society was still to be decided. ‘Naturally,’ he thought, ‘court society will not receive her, but closer acquaintances can and must understand it in the right way.’
A man can spend several hours sitting cross–legged in the same position if he knows that nothing prevents him from changing it; but if he knows that he has to sit with his legs crossed like that, he will get cramps, his legs will twitch and strain towards where he would like to stretch them. That was what Vronsky felt with regard to society. Though in the depths of his soul he knew that society was closed to them, he tested whether it might change now and they might be received. But he very soon noticed that, though society was open to him personally, it was closed to Anna. As in the game of cat and mouse, arms that were raised for him were immediately lowered before Anna.
One of the first ladies of Petersburg society whom Vronsky saw was his cousin Betsy.
‘At last!’ she greeted him joyfully. ‘And Anna? I’m so glad! Where are you staying? I can imagine how awful our Petersburg must seem to you after your lovely trip; I can imagine your honeymoon in Rome. What about the divorce? Has that all been done?’
Vronsky noticed that Betsy’s delight diminished when she learned that there had been no divorce as yet. ,
‘They’ll throw stones at me, I know,’ she said, ‘but I’ll go to see Anna. Yes, I’ll certainly go. Will you be here long?’
And, indeed, she went to see Anna that same day; but her tone was now quite unlike what it used to be. She was obviously proud of her courage and wished Anna to appreciate the faithfulness of her friendship. She stayed less than ten minutes, talking about society news, and as she was leaving said:
‘You haven’t told me when the divorce will be. Granted I’ve thrown my bonnet over the mills, but other starched collars will blow cold on you until you get married. And it’s so simple now. Ça se fait.* So you leave on Friday? A pity we won’t see more of each other.’
From Betsy’s tone Vronsky could understand what he was to expect from society; but he made another attempt with his family. He had no hopes for his mother. He knew that she, who had so admired Anna when they first became acquainted, was now implacable towards her for having brought about the ruin of her son’s career. But he placed great hopes in Varya, his brother’s wife. He thought that she would not throw stones and would simply and resolutely go to see Anna and receive her.
The day after his arrival Vronsky went to her and, finding her alone, voiced his wish directly.
‘You know, Alexei,’ she said, after hearing him out, ‘how much I love you and how ready I am to do anything for you. But I have kept silent because I know I cannot be useful to you and Anna Arkadyevna,’ she said, articulating ‘Anna Arkadyevna’ with special care. ‘Please don’t think that I condemn her. Never. It may be that in her place I would have done the same thing. I do not and cannot go into the details,’ she said, glancing timidly at his sullen face. ‘But one must call things by their names. You want me to see her, to receive her, and in that way to rehabilitate her in society, but you must understand that I cannot do it. I have growing daughters, and I must live in society for my husband’s sake. If I go to see Anna Arkadyevna, she will understand that I cannot invite her or must do it so that she does not meet those who would take a different view of it, and that will offend her. I cannot raise her …’
‘I don’t consider that she has fallen any more than hundreds of other women whom you do receive!’ Vronsky interrupted her still more sullenly, and silently got up, realizing that his sister–in–law’s decision was not going to change.
‘Alexei! Don’t be angry with me. Please understand that it’s not my fault,’ said Varya, looking at him with a timid smile.
‘I’m not angry with you,’ he said just as sullenly, ‘but it doubles my
It’s done.
pain. What also pains me is that it breaks up our friendship. Or let’s say it doesn’t break it up, but weakens it. You realize that for me, too, it cannot be otherwise.’
And with that he left her.
Vronsky understood that further attempts were futile and that they would have to spend those few days in Petersburg as in a foreign city, avoiding all contacts with their former society so as not to be subjected to insults and unpleasantnesses, which were so painful for him. One of the most unpleasant things about the situation in Petersburg was that Alexei Alexandrovich and his name seemed to be everywhere. It was impossible to begin talking about anything without the conversation turning to Alexei Alexandrovich; it was impossible to go anywhere without meeting him. At least it seemed so to Vronsky, as it seems to a man with a sore finger that he keeps knocking into everything, as if on purpose, with that finger.
The stay in Petersburg seemed the more difficult to Vronsky because all that time he saw some new, incomprehensible mood in Anna. At one moment she appeared to be in love with him, at another she became cold, irritable and impenetrable. She was suffering over something and concealing something from him, and seemed not to notice those insults that poisoned his life and that for her, with her subtle perceptiveness, ought to have been still more painful.
XXIX
For Anna one of the objects of the trip to Russia was to see her son. Since the day she left Italy, the thought of seeing him had not cea
sed to excite her. And the closer she came to Petersburg, the greater became the joy and significance of this meeting for her. She never asked herself the question of how to arrange it. To her it seemed natural and simple to see her son when she was in the same town with him; but on arriving in Petersburg, she suddenly saw her present position in society clearly and realized that it would be difficult to arrange the meeting.
She had already been in Petersburg for two days. The thought of her son had never left her for a moment, but she still had not seen him. She felt she did not have the right to go directly to the house, where she might encounter Aiexei Alexandrovich. She might be insulted and turned away. As for writing and entering into relations with her husband, it was painful even to think of it: she could be at peace only when not thinking of her husband. To find out when and where her son went for his walks and see him then, was not enough for her: she had been preparing so long for this meeting, she had so much to tell him, she wanted so much to embrace him, to kiss him. Seryozha’s old nanny might have helped her and instructed her. But the nanny no longer lived in Alexei Alexandrovich’s house. In these hesitations and in the search for the nanny, two days passed.
Learning of the close relations between Alexei Alexandrovich and Countess Lydia Ivanovna, Anna decided on the third day to write her a letter, which cost her great effort, in which she said deliberately that permission to see her son depended on her husband’s magnanimity. She knew that if her husband were shown the letter, he, pursuing his role of magnanimity, would not refuse her.
The messenger who had carried the letter brought her a most cruel and unexpected reply – that there would be no reply. She had never felt so humiliated as in that moment when, having summoned the messenger, she heard from him a detailed account of how he had waited and how he had then been told: ‘There will be no reply.’ Anna felt herself humiliated, offended, but she saw that from her own point of view Countess Lydia Ivanovna was right. Her grief was the stronger because it was solitary. She could not and did not want to share it with Vronsky. She knew that for him, though he was the chief cause of her unhappiness, the question of her meeting her son would be a most unimportant thing. She knew that he would never be able to understand all the depth of her suffering; she knew that she would hate him for his cold tone at the mention of it. She feared that more than anything in the world, and so she concealed everything from him that had to do with her son.
She spent the whole day at home, inventing means for meeting her son, and arrived at the decision to write to her husband. She was already working on the letter when Lydia Ivanovna’s letter was brought to her. The countess’s silence had humbled and subdued her, but the letter, everything she could read between its lines, annoyed her so much, its malice seemed so outrageous compared with her passionate and legitimate tenderness for her son, that she became indignant with them and stopped accusing herself.
‘This coldness is a pretence of feeling,’ she said to herself. ‘All they want is to offend me and torment the child, and I should submit to them! Not for anything! She’s worse than I am. At least I don’t lie.’ And she decided then and there that the next day, Seryozha’s birthday itself, she would go directly to her husband’s house, bribe the servants, deceive them, but at all costs see her son and destroy the ugly deceit with which they surrounded the unfortunate child.
She went to a toy store, bought lots of toys, and thought over her plan of action. She would come early in the morning, at eight o’clock, when it was certain that Alexei Alexandrovich would not be up yet. She would have money with her, which she would give to the hall porter and the footman so that they would let her in, and, without lifting her veil, she would tell them she had come from Seryozha’s godfather to wish him a happy birthday and had been charged with putting the toys by the boy’s bed. The only thing she did not prepare was what she would say to her son. However much she thought about it, she could not think of anything.
The next day, at eight o’clock in the morning, Anna got out of a hired carriage by herself and rang at the big entrance of her former home.
‘Go and see what she wants. It’s some lady,’ said Kapitonych, not dressed yet, in a coat and galoshes, looking out of the window at a lady in a veil who was standing just at the door.
The porter’s helper, a young fellow Anna did not know, opened the door for her. She came in and, taking a three–rouble bill from her muff, hurriedly put it into his hand.
‘Seryozha … Sergei Alexeich,’ she said and started forward. Having examined the bill, the porter’s helper stopped her at the inside glass door.
‘Who do you want?’ he asked.
She did not hear his words and made no reply.
Noticing the unknown woman’s perplexity, Kapitonych himself came out to her, let her in the door and asked what she wanted.
‘I’ve come from Prince Skorodumov, to see Sergei Alexeich,’ she said.
‘He’s not up yet,’ the porter said, looking at her intently.
Anna had never expected that the totally unchanged interior of the front hall of the house in which she had lived for nine years would affect her so strongly. One after another, joyful and painful memories arose in her soul, and for a moment she forgot why she was there.
‘Would you care to wait?’ said Kapitonych, helping her off with her fur coat.
After taking her coat, Kapitonych looked into her face, recognized her and silently made a low bow.
‘Please come in, your excellency,’ he said to her.
She wanted to say something, but her voice refused to produce any sound; giving the old man a look of guilty entreaty, she went up the stairs with quick, light steps. All bent over, his galoshes tripping on the steps, Kapitonych ran after her, trying to head her off.
‘The tutor’s there and may not be dressed. I’ll announce you.’
Anna went on up the familiar stairs, not understanding what the old man was saying.
‘Here, to the left please. Excuse the untidiness. He’s in the former sitting room now,’ the porter said breathlessly. ‘Allow me, just a moment, your excellency, I’ll peek in,’ he said, and, getting ahead of her, he opened the tall door and disappeared behind it. Anna stood waiting. ‘He’s just woken up,’ the porter said, coming out the door again.
And as the porter said it, Anna heard the sound of a child’s yawn. From the sound of the yawn alone she recognized her son and could see him alive before her.
‘Let me in, let me in, go away!’ she said, and went through the tall doorway. To the right of the door stood a bed, and on the bed a boy sat upright in nothing but an unbuttoned shirt, his little body arched, stretching and finishing a yawn. As his lips came together, they formed themselves into a blissfully sleepy smile, and with that smile he slowly and sweetly fell back again.
‘Seryozha!’ she whispered, approaching him inaudibly.
While they had been apart, and with that surge of love she had been feeling all the time recently, she had imagined him as a four–year–old boy, the way she had loved him most. Now he was not even the same as when she had left him; he was still further from being a four–year–old, was taller and thinner. What was this! How thin his face was, how short his hair! How long his arms! How he had changed since she left him! But this was he, with his shape of head, his lips, his soft neck and broad shoulders.
‘Seryozha!’ she repeated just over the child’s ear.
He propped himself on his elbow, turned his tousled head from side to side as if looking for something, and opened his eyes. For several seconds he gazed quietly and questioningly at his mother standing motionless before him, then suddenly smiled blissfully and, closing his sleepy eyes again, fell, not back now, but towards her, towards her arms.
‘Seryozha! My sweet boy!’ she said, choking and putting her arms around his plump body.
‘Mama!’ he said, moving under her arms, so as to touch them with different parts of his body.
