Leo Tolstoy

by Anna Karenina (tr Richard Pevear, Larissa Volokhonsky) (Penguin Classics) (epub)

  Darya Alexandrovna found it strange to hear how calmly in the right he was, there at his own table. She remembered Levin, who thought the opposite, being just as resolute in his opinions at his own table. But she loved Levin and was therefore on his side.

  ‘So we can rely on you, Count, for the next session?’ said Sviyazhsky. ‘But you must leave early so as to be there by the eighth. Why don’t you honour me with a visit first?’

  ‘And I’m somewhat in agreement with your beau–frère,’ said Anna. ‘Only not in the same way,’ she added with a smile. ‘I’m afraid we’ve had too many of these social responsibilities lately. Just as there used to be so many officials that there had to be an official for every case, so now it’s all social activists. Alexei’s been here six months and he’s already a member of five or six social institutions – he’s a trustee, a judge, a councillor, a juror, and something to do with horses. Du train que cela va,* all his time will be spent on it. And I’m afraid when there’s such a host of these affairs, it’s all just form. How many places are you a member of, Nikolai Ivanych?’ She turned to Sviyazhsky. ‘More than twenty, isn’t it?’

  Anna spoke playfully, but irritation could be felt in her voice. Darya Alexandrovna, who was observing Anna and Vronsky very closely, noticed it at once. She also noticed that Vronsky’s face during this conversation immediately acquired a serious and stubborn expression.

  * At this rate.

  Noticing this and the fact that, to change the subject, Princess Varvara at once began talking hurriedly of some Petersburg acquaintances, and recalling Vronsky’s stray remarks in the garden about his activities, Dolly understood that the question of social activity was connected with some private quarrel between Anna and Vronsky.

  The dinner, the wines, the table – it was all very fine, but it was all the same as Darya Alexandrovna had seen at big formal dinners and balls, which she had become unused to, and had the same impersonal and strained character; and therefore, on an ordinary day and in a small circle, it all made an unpleasant impression on her.

  After dinner they sat on the terrace for a while. Then they began to play lawn tennis. The players, dividing into two groups, installed themselves on a carefully levelled and rolled croquet–ground, on either side of a net stretched between two gilded posts. Darya Alexandrovna tried to play, but at first she could not understand the game, and by the time she did understand it, she was so tired that she sat down with Princess Varvara and merely watched. Her partner, Tushkevich, also dropped out; but the others went on with the game for a long time. Sviyazhsky and Vronsky both played very well and seriously. They kept a sharp eye on the ball sent to them, ran to it adroitly, without haste or delay, waited for it to bounce and, hitting the ball squarely and firmly with the racket, sent it back over the net. Veslovsky played worse than the others. He got too excited, but, to make up for it, he enlivened the other players with his merriment. His laughter and shouting never ceased. With the ladies’ permission, he removed his frock coat, as did the other men, and his big, handsome figure in white shirtsleeves, with his red, sweaty face and brisk movements, etched itself in the memory.

  When Darya Alexandrovna went to bed that night, the moment she closed her eyes she saw Vasenka Veslovsky dashing about the croquet–ground.

  But during the game Darya Alexandrovna was not happy. She did not like the playful relations between Vasenka Veslovsky and Anna, which went on all the while, and that general unnaturalness of grown–ups when they play at a children’s game by themselves, without children. But, so as not to upset the others and to pass the time somehow, she joined the game again, after resting, and pretended to have fun. All that day she had had the feeling that she was playing in the theatre with actors better than herself and that her poor playing spoiled the whole thing.

  She had come with the intention of spending two days if all went well. But that same evening, during the game, she decided to leave the next day. Those painful cares of motherhood that she had hated so on her way there, now, after a day spent without them, presented themselves to her in a different light and drew her to them.

  When, after the evening tea and a late boat ride, Darya Alexandrovna went to her room alone, got undressed and sat down to do her thin hair for the night, she felt great relief.

  It was even unpleasant for her to think that Anna would shortly come to her. She wanted to be alone with her thoughts.

  XXIII

  Dolly was about to get into bed when Anna came in dressed for the night.

  During the day Anna had several times begun talking about her intimate affairs and had stopped each time after a few words. ‘Later, when we’re alone, we’ll discuss everything. There’s so much I must tell you,’ she had said.

  Now they were alone and Anna did not know what to talk about. She sat by the window, looking at Dolly and going through all that seemingly inexhaustible store of intimate conversation, and found nothing. It seemed to her just then that everything had already been said.

  ‘Well, how’s Kitty?’ she said, sighing heavily and looking guiltily at Dolly. ‘Tell me the truth, Dolly, is she angry with me?’

  ‘Angry? No,’ Darya Alexandrovna said, smiling.

  ‘But she hates me, despises me?’

  ‘Oh, no! But, you know, such things don’t get forgiven.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Anna, turning away and looking out of the open window. ‘But it wasn’t my fault. And whose fault was it? What does "fault" mean? Could it have been otherwise? What do you think? Could you not be Stiva’s wife?’

  ‘I really don’t know. But tell me this …’

  ‘Yes, yes, but we haven’t finished about Kitty. Is she happy? He’s a wonderful man, they say.’

  ‘To say he’s wonderful isn’t enough. I don’t know a better man.’ ‘Ah, I’m so glad! I’m very glad! To say he’s a wonderful man isn’t enough,’ she repeated.

  Dolly smiled.

  ‘But tell me about yourself. I must have a long talk with you. I spoke with …’ Dolly did not know what to call him. She felt awkward calling him either the count or Alexei Kirillych.

  ‘With Alexei,’ Anna said. ‘I know you did. But I wanted to ask you directly – what do you think about me, about my life?’

  ‘How can I say so suddenly? I really don’t know.’

  ‘No, tell me all the same … You see my life. But don’t forget you’re seeing us in the summer, on a visit, and that we’re not by ourselves … But we came in early spring, we lived completely alone, and we shall live alone, and I don’t wish for anything better than that. But imagine me living alone without him, alone – and it will happen … Everything tells me that it will be repeated often, that he will spend half his time away from home,’ she said, getting up and moving closer to Dolly.

  ‘Of course,’ she interrupted Dolly, who was about to object, ‘of course, I can’t keep him by force. And I’m not keeping him now. There’s a race today, his horses are in it, off he goes. I’m very glad. But think of me, imagine my position … Ah, why speak of that!’ She smiled. ‘So, what did he talk about with you?’

  ‘He talked about what I myself want to talk about, and it’s easy for me to be his advocate: about whether it mightn’t be possible, whether you couldn’t.. .’Darya Alexandrovna faltered, ‘improve your situation, put it right… You know how I look at… But all the same, if possible, you should get married …’

  ‘Meaning a divorce?’ said Anna. ‘You know, the only woman who came to see me in Petersburg was Betsy Tverskoy. Do you know her? Au fond c’est la femme la plus depravée qui existe.* She had a liaison with Tushkevich, deceiving her husband in the nastiest way. And she told me that she didn’t want to know me as long as my situation was irregular. Don’t think I’m comparing … I know you, my darling. But I happened to remember … Well, so what did he tell you?’ she repeated.

  ‘He said he suffers for you and for himself. You may say it’s egoism, but it’s such legitimate and noble egoism! He would like, first of all,
to

  * At bottom, she’s the most depraved woman in the world.

  legitimize his daughter and to be your husband, to have the right to you.’

  ‘What wife, what slave, can be so much a slave as I am, in my situation?’ she interrupted gloomily.

  ‘And the main thing he wants … he wants you not to suffer.’

  ‘That’s impossible! Well?’

  ‘Well, and the most legitimate thing – he wants your children to have a name.’

  ‘What children?’ said Anna, not looking at Dolly and narrowing her eyes.

  ‘Annie, and the future …’

  ‘He can rest easy about that, I won’t have any more children.’

  ‘How can you say you won’t have any more?…’

  ‘I won’t, because I don’t want it.’

  And, despite all her excitement, Anna smiled, noticing the naive look of curiosity, astonishment and horror on Dolly’s face.

  ‘The doctor told me after my illness……….

  ‘It can’t be!’ said Dolly, wide–eyed. For her it was one of those discoveries the consequences and conclusions of which are so enormous that for the first moment one feels only that it is impossible to grasp it all, but that one must think about it a great, great deal.

  This discovery, which suddenly explained for her all those formerly incomprehensible families with only one or two children, called up in her so many thoughts, reflections and contradictory feelings that she was unable to say anything and only looked at Anna with wide–eyed astonishment. This was the very thing she had dreamed of that morning on her way there, but now, on learning that it was possible, she was horrified. She felt it was a much too simple solution of a much too complicated question.

  ‘N’est–ce pas immoral!’* was all she said, after a pause.

  ‘Why? Consider, I have to choose between the two: either to become pregnant, meaning ill, or to be a friend, a companion for my husband, or the same as my husband,’ Anna said in a deliberately superficial and frivolous tone.

  ‘Ah, yes, yes,’ Darya Alexandrovna repeated, listening to the very

  * Isn’t it immoral? same arguments she had produced for herself and finding them no longer convincing.

  ‘For you, for others,’ Anna said, as if guessing her thoughts, ‘there may still be doubt, but for me … Understand, I’m not a wife. He loves me as long as he loves me. And what then, how am I to keep his love? With this?’

  She held her white arms out in front of her stomach.

  Thoughts and memories came crowding into Darya Alexandrovna’s head with extraordinary quickness, as happens in moments of excitement. ‘I didn’t make myself attractive to Stiva,’ she thought. ‘He left me for other women, and the first one he betrayed me for did not keep him by being always beautiful and gay. He dropped her and took another. And is this how Anna is going to attract and keep Count Vronsky? If he’s looking for that, he’ll find clothes and manners that are still more gay and attractive. And however white, however beautiful her bare arms, however attractive her full bosom, her flushed face against that dark hair, he’ll find still better ones, as my disgusting, pathetic and dear husband seeks and finds them.’

  Dolly made no answer and only sighed. Anna noticed her sigh, which showed disagreement, and went on. She had more arguments in store, such strong ones that it was impossible to answer them.

  ‘You say it’s not good? But you must consider,’ she went on. ‘You forget my situation. How can I want children? I’m not talking about the suffering, I’m not afraid of that. But think, who will my children be? Unfortunate children, who will bear another man’s name. By their very birth they’ll be placed in the necessity of being ashamed of their mother, their father, their birth.’

  ‘That’s just why you must get divorced.’

  But Anna did not hear her. She wanted to voice the same arguments with which she had so often persuaded herself.

  ‘Why have I been given reason, if I don’t use it so as not to bring unfortunate children into the world?’

  She looked at Dolly, but went on without waiting for an answer:

  ‘I would always feel guilty before those unfortunate children,’ she said. ‘If they don’t exist, at least they won’t be unfortunate, and if they’re unfortunate, I alone am to blame.’

  These were the same arguments Darya Alexandrovna had produced for herself, but now she listened to them and could not understand them. ‘How can she be guilty before beings who don’t exist?’ she wondered.

  And suddenly a thought came to her: could it be better in any possible case for her favourite, Grisha, if he had never existed? And it seemed so wild to her, so strange, that she shook her head to scatter this whirling confusion of mad thoughts.

  ‘No, I don’t know, it’s not good,’ she merely said, with a squeamish look on her face.

  ‘Yes, but don’t forget what you are and what I am … And besides,’ Anna added, as if, despite the wealth of her arguments and the poverty of Dolly’s, she still admitted that it was not good, ‘don’t forget the main thing, that I’m not in the same situation now as you are. For you the question is whether you do not want to have any more children, and for me it’s whether I want to have them. And that is a big difference. You see, I can’t want it in my situation.’

  Darya Alexandrovna did not object. She suddenly felt she had become so distant from Anna that there were questions between them which they would never agree on and of which it was better not to speak.

  XXIV

  ‘Then you need all the more to settle your situation, if possible,’ said Dolly.

  ‘Yes, if possible,’ Anna said suddenly, in a completely different, soft and sad voice.

  ‘Is divorce impossible? I was told your husband has agreed.’

  ‘Dolly! I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘Well, then we won’t,’ Darya Alexandrovna hastened to say, noticing the look of suffering on Anna’s face. ‘I only see that you look at things too darkly.’

  ‘Me? Not a bit. I’m very cheerful and content. You’ve noticed, je fais des passions.* Veslovsky …’

  ‘Yes, to tell the truth, I didn’t like Veslovsky’s tone,’ Darya Alexandrovna said, wishing to change the subject.

  ‘Ah, not a bit! It tickles Alexei, that’s all; but he’s a boy and he’s entirely in my hands; you understand, I control him as I please. He’s the same as your Grisha … Dolly!’ she suddenly changed her tone, ‘you say

  * I’m a success with men.

  I look at things too darkly. You cannot understand. It’s too terrible. I try not to look at all.’

  ‘But I think you must. You must do everything possible.’

  ‘But what is possible? Nothing. You say marry Alexei and that I don’t think about it. I don’t think about it!!’ she repeated, and colour came to her face. She rose, drew herself up, sighed deeply, and began pacing the room with her light step, pausing every now and then. ‘I don’t think? There isn’t a day or an hour that I don’t think of it and don’t reproach myself for that thinking … because the thought of it could drive me mad. Drive me mad,’ she repeated. ‘When I think of it, I can’t fall asleep without morphine. But, very well. Let’s talk calmly. Divorce, I’m told. First of all, he won’t grant me a divorce. He is now under the influence of Countess Lydia Ivanovna.’