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TWENTY-THREE
There remained the most difficult obstacle; if he crossed it ahead of the others, he would come in first. He was galloping2 up to the Irish bank. He and Frou-Frou both saw the bank while still some way off and to both of them came a momentary3 doubt. He noticed the mare4’s hesitation5 by her ears and raised his whip, but immediately felt that his doubt was groundless: the mare knew what was wanted, and, as he expected, she increased her speed, took off exactly at the right moment, and gave a leap the force of which carried her far across the ditch. Then without effort and without changing her legs Frou-Frou continued her gallop1.
‘Bravo, Vronsky!’ he heard the voices of a knot of people he knew — friends of his regiment6 — who were standing7 by this obstacle. He could not fail to recognize Yashvin’s voice, though he did not see him.
‘Oh, my beauty!’ he thought of Frou-Frou, as he listened to what was happening behind. ‘He is over it!’ he thought, as he heard Gladiator again galloping behind him. There remained one last water-jump, only a yard and a half wide. Vronsky did not even look at it, but hoping to win by a distance, began working the reins9 with a circular movement, raising and dropping the mare’s head in time with her stride. He felt the mare was using her last reserve of strength; not only her neck and shoulders were wet, but on her withers10, her head, and her pointed11 ears the sweat stood in drops, and she was breathing short and sharp. But he knew that her reserve of strength was more than enough for the remaining five hundred yards. It was only by feeling himself nearer to the ground and by the smoothness of the pace that Vronsky knew how much the mare had increased her speed. She leapt the ditch as if she did not notice it, seeming to fly across it like a bird. But at that very moment Vronsky, to his horror, felt that something terrible had happened. He himself, without knowing it, had made the unpardonable mistake of dropping back in his saddle and pulling up her head. Before he could realize this, the white legs of the gelding flashed close by him and Makhotin passed at a rapid gallop. Vronsky was touching12 the ground with one foot. He scarcely had time to withdraw the foot before Frou-Frou fell on her side, and snorting heavily and with her delicate damp neck making vain efforts to rise, began struggling on the ground at his feet, like a wounded, fluttering bird. Owing to Vronsky’s awkward movement she had dropped her hind8 legs and broken her back. But he only understood this much later. Now he only saw that Makhotin was quickly galloping away, while he, reeling, stood alone on the muddy, stationary13 ground; before him, breathing heavily, lay Frou-Frou, who, bending her head toward him, gazed at him with her beautiful eyes. Still not understanding what had happened, Vronsky pulled at the reins. The mare again began to struggle like a fish, causing the flaps of the saddle to creak; she got her front legs free, but unable to lift her hindquarters, struggled and immediately again fell on her side.
His face distorted with passion, pale and with quivering jaw14, Vronsky kicked her with his heel in the belly15 and again pulled at the reins. But she did not move and, muzzling16 the ground, only looked at her master with eloquent17 eyes.
‘Ah, ah, ah!’ groaned18 Vronsky, seizing his head. ‘Ah! what have I done?’ he exclaimed. ‘The race lost! And the fault mine — shameful19 and unpardonable. And this dear, unfortunate mare ruined! Ah! what have I done!’
Onlookers20, a doctor, an attendant, and officers of his regiment ran toward him. To his regret he felt that he was himself sound and unhurt. The mare had broken her back, and it was decided21 to shoot her. Vronsky was unable to reply to questions or to speak to anyone. He turned away and, without picking up the cap that had fallen from his head, left the racecourse without knowing where he was going. He felt miserable22. For the first time in his life he experienced the worst kind of misfortune — one that was irretrievable, and caused by his own fault.
Yashvin overtook him with his cap and led him home, and in half an hour Vronsky came to himself. But the memory of that steeplechase long remained the most painful and distressing23 memory of his life.
Chapter 26
—>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<—
EXTERNALLY Karenin’s relations with his wife remained as before. The only difference was that he was even more occupied than before. As in former years, at the beginning of the spring he went abroad to recuperate his health, which was upset each year by the winter’s work. And as usual he returned in July and at once with increased energy took up his customary work. And as usual his wife had moved to the country house while he remained in Petersburg.
Since their conversation on the night of the Princess Tverskaya’s party he had never spoken to Anna of his suspicions and jealousy, and that habitual tone of his which seemed to mock at some one was exactly suited to his present relations with her. He was rather colder toward her. He appeared only to be slightly dissatisfied with her for that first night’s talk which she had evaded. In his behaviour to her there was a shade of vexation, but nothing more. ‘You did not wish to have an explanation,’ he seemed to say to her in imagination, ‘so much the worse for you. Now you will ask me to explain, and I shall not do so. So much the worse for you,’ he thought, like a man who having vainly tried to extinguish a fire should be vexed at his vain exertions and say to it: ‘Well, go on and burn, it is your own fault.’
He who was so wise and astute in official affairs did not realize the insanity of such an attitude toward his wife. He did not understand it because it would have been too terrible to realize his real situation and he had closed, locked, and sealed that compartment of his soul which contained his feelings for his family — that is, his wife and son.
He who had been a considerate father, since the end of that winter had become particularly cold toward his son, and treated him in the same bantering manner as he did his wife. ‘Ah, young man!’ was the way in which he addressed him.
Karenin thought and said that in no previous year had he had so much official business as this year; but he was not conscious of the fact that this year he invented work for himself, and that this was one of the means of keeping that compartment closed where lay his feelings for and thoughts of his family, which became more terrible the longer they lay there. If anyone had ventured to ask him what he thought of his wife’s conduct, the mild and gentle Karenin would not have given any answer, but would have been angry with the man who put such a question. That was why Karenin’s face bore a stern, proud expression when anyone asked about his wife’s health. He did not wish to think about his wife’s conduct and feelings at all, and he really did not think about them.
The country house the Karenins regularly occupied in summer was in Peterhof, and generally the Countess Lydia Ivanovna also lived near by and was in constant touch with Anna. That year the Countess Lydia Ivanovna refused to live in Peterhof, did not once come to see Anna, and hinted to Karenin the undesirability of Anna’s intimacy with Betsy and Vronsky. Karenin stopped her severely, expressing the opinion that his wife was above suspicion, and from that time began to avoid the Countess. He did not wish to see, and did not see, that many people in Society already looked askance at Anna; he did not wish to understand, and did not understand, why his wife particularly insisted on moving to Tsarskoe Selo, where Betsy lived and near which place Vronsky’s regiment was stationed. He did not let himself think about this and did not think about it; yet at the bottom of his soul, without admitting it to himself or having any proofs or even suspicions of it, he nevertheless knew certainly that he was a wronged husband, and was therefore profoundly unhappy.
How often during the eight years of happy married life with his wife, when he saw others who were unfaithful wives or deceived husbands, had Karenin said to himself, ‘How could they let it come to that? How is it they do not end such a hideous state of things?’ But now, when the misfortune had fallen on his own head, he not only did not think of how to end it, but did not wish to recognize it at all — and did not wish to recognize it just because it was too terrible, too unnatural.
Since his return from abroad Karenin had been twice at the country house. Once he dined there, and the other time he spent an evening with some visitors, but he had not once stayed the night, as he used to do in former years.
The day of the races was a very busy one for Karenin; but in the morning when he made his plans for the day he decided that immediately after an early dinner he would go to see his wife at the country house, and from there to the races, at which the whole Court would be present and where he ought to appear. He would call on his wife, because he had decided to do so once a week for the sake of propriety. Besides, he had that day to give her money for her expenses, due according to their custom by the fifteenth of each month.
Having with the mental control habitual to him considered these matters concerning his wife, he did not allow his thoughts to run on further about her.
He had a very busy morning. On the previous day the Countess Lydia Ivanovna had sent him a pamphlet by a celebrated traveller in China, and a letter asking him to receive this traveller, who for various reasons was very interesting and necessary to them. Karenin had not had time to finish the pamphlet the evening before, and did so in the morning. Then he received petitioners, heard reports, gave audiences, assigned posts and ordered dismissals, apportioned rewards, pensions, and salaries, and attended to correspondence — everyday matters, as he called them, which took up so much of his time. After that came personal matters — a visit from his doctor and one from his steward. The latter did not keep him long. He only handed Karenin the money he wanted and gave him a short account of the state of his affairs, which was not quite satisfactory, for it happened that, owing to their having been from home a good deal, more had been spent that year than usual and there was a deficit. But the doctor, a celebrated Petersburg physician who was on friendly terms with Karenin, took up a good deal of time. Karenin had not expected him to-day and was surprised to see him, and yet more surprised that the doctor questioned him very particularly about his state of health, sounding his chest and tapping and feeling his liver. Karenin did not know that his friend Lydia Ivanovna, having noticed that he was not in good health that summer, had asked the doctor to go and see his patient. ‘Do it for my sake,’ the Countess Lydia Ivanovna had said.
‘I will do it for the sake of Russia, Countess,’ replied the doctor.
‘Dear man!’ the Countess Lydia Ivanovna had exclaimed.
The doctor was very dissatisfied with Karenin’s state of health. He found him insufficiently nourished and his liver much enlarged, and that the waters had had no effect at all. He prescribed as much physical exercise and as little mental strain as possible, and above all no worries of any kind — that is, he advised what was for Karenin as impossible as not to breathe, and he went away leaving Karenin with a disagreeable consciousness that something was wrong with him which could not be remedied.
In the porch, after leaving Karenin, the doctor met Slyudin, Karenin’s private secretary, whom he knew very well. They had been at the University together, and though they very seldom met, they respected one another and were good friends, and to no one but Slyudin would the doctor have expressed his opinion about his patient.
‘I am very glad you have been to see him,’ said Slyudin. ‘He is not well, and I believe that . . . Well, what is it?’
‘It is this,’ said the doctor, beckoning over Slyudin’s head to his coachman to drive up. ‘It’s this,’ and with his white hands he took a finger of his kid glove and stretched it; ‘if you try to break a cord that is slack it is not easy to break it, but strain that cord to its utmost and the weight of a finger will snap it. And he, by his hard work and the conscientious way he does it, is strained to the utmost; and there is a pressure from outside, and a heavy one,’ concluded the doctor, raising his eyebrows significantly. ‘Will you be at the races?’ he added, descending the steps to his brougham.
‘Yes, yes, of course it takes a lot of time,’ he replied to some remark of Slyudin’s which he had not quite caught.
After the doctor, who had taken up so much time, came the famous traveller, and Karenin, thanks to the pamphlet he had just read and to what he knew before, greatly impressed the traveller by the depth of his knowledge of the subject and the breadth of his enlightened outlook.
At the same time as the traveller, a provincial Marshal of the Nobility was announced with whom Karenin had some things to talk over. When he too had left, he had to finish his everyday business with his private secretary and had also to drive to see an important personage on a grave and serious matter. He only managed to get back at five, his dinner-time, and having dined with his private secretary, he invited the latter to drive with him to his country house and to go to the races with him.
Without acknowledging it to himself, Karenin now looked out for opportunities of having a third person present at his interviews with his wife.
Chapter 27
—>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<—
ANNA was upstairs standing in front of a mirror pinning, with Annushka’s help, a last bow to her dress, when she heard the wheels of a carriage grating on the gravel at the entrance.
‘It is too early for Betsy,’ she thought, and glancing out of the window she saw the carriage, and sticking out of it a black hat and Karenin’s familiar ears. ‘How unfortunate! Can he mean to stay the night?’ thought she, and so awful and horrible appeared to her the consequences that might result therefrom that, without a moment’s hesitation, she went out to meet him with a bright beaming face; and feeling within herself the presence of the already familiar spirit of lies and deceit, she gave herself up to it at once and began speaking without knowing what she was going to say.
‘Ah, how nice this is!’ she said, giving her husband her hand and smilingly greeting Slyudin as a member of the household. ‘You are staying the night, I hope?’ were the first words prompted by the spirit of lies. ‘And now we shall go together. Only it is a pity that I promised to go with Betsy. She will be coming for me.’
Karenin made a grimace at the mention of Betsy’s name.
‘Oh, I will not separate the inseparables,’ he said in his usual facetious tone. ‘I will go with Slyudin. The doctors have ordered me to walk. I will walk part way and imagine that I am still taking the waters.’
‘There is no hurry,’ said Anna. ‘Would you like some tea?’
She rang.
‘Tea, please, and tell Serezha that his father is here. Well, how is your health? You have not been here before; look how pretty my verandah is,’ she went on, turning now to her husband, now to Slyudin.
She spoke very simply and naturally, but too much and too fast. She felt this herself, especially as by the inquisitive way Slyudin looked at her she noticed that he seemed to be watching her.
Slyudin immediately went out on to the verandah, and she sat down by her husband.
‘You are not looking quite well,’ she said.
‘No,’ he replied, ‘the doctor came to see me this morning and robbed me of an hour. I feel that some friend of mine must have sent him: my health is so precious . . .’
‘Yes, but what did he say?’
She questioned him about his health and his work, persuading him to take a rest and to move out to her in the country.
She said all this lightly, rapidly, and with peculiarly sparkling eyes; but Karenin did not now attach any importance to this tone of hers. He only heard her words, and gave them only their direct meaning. And he answered simply, though jokingly. In all this conversation nothing particular passed, but never afterwards could Anna recall this short scene without being tormented by shame.
Serezha came in, preceded by his governess. Had Karenin allowed himself to observe, he would have noticed the timid, confused look which the child cast first at his father and then at his mother. But he did not want to see, and did not see, anything.
‘Ah, young man! He has grown. He is really getting quite a man. How do you do, young man?’
And he held out his hand to the frightened boy.
Serezha, who had always been timid with his father, now that the latter addressed him as ‘young man’, and that the question whether Vronsky was a friend or a foe had entered his head, shrank from him. He looked round at his mother, as if asking for protection. Only with his mother he felt at ease. Karenin meanwhile talked to the governess with his hand on his son’s shoulder, and Serezha felt so extremely uncomfortable that Anna saw he was about to cry.
Anna, who had blushed when the boy came in, saw how distressed he was, and, rising, lifted Karenin’s hand off her son’s shoulder, kissed the boy, led him out on to the verandah, and returned at once.
‘Well, it’s time we were going,’ she said, glancing at her watch. ‘I wonder Betsy has not come . . .’
‘Yes,’ said Karenin, and interlacing his hands he cracked his fingers. ‘I also came to bring you some money, since “nightingales are not fed on fables,” ’ he added. ‘I expect you want it?’
‘No, I don’t. . . . Yes, I do,’ she replied without looking at him, and blushing to the roots of her hair. ‘But I suppose you will call here after the races.’
‘Oh, yes!’ answered Karenin. ‘And here is the ornament of Peterhof, the Princess Tverskaya,’ he added, glancing out of the window at an approaching carriage of English build with a small body placed very high. ‘What elegance! Charming! Well then, we will start too.’
The Princess Tverskaya did not get out, only her footman in his black hat, cape, and gaiters jumped down at the front door.
‘I am going, good-bye!’ said Anna, and giving her son a kiss she went up to Karenin and held out her hand to him. ‘You were very kind to come.’
Karenin kissed her hand.
‘Well then, au revoir! You will come back for tea, that is right!’ she said, and went out beaming and gay. But as soon as she ceased to see him she became conscious of the place on her hand his lips had touched and shuddered with disgust.
TWENTY-THREE
There remained the most difficult obstacle; if he crossed it ahead of the others, he would come in first. He was galloping2 up to the Irish bank. He and Frou-Frou both saw the bank while still some way off and to both of them came a momentary3 doubt. He noticed the mare4’s hesitation5 by her ears and raised his whip, but immediately felt that his doubt was groundless: the mare knew what was wanted, and, as he expected, she increased her speed, took off exactly at the right moment, and gave a leap the force of which carried her far across the ditch. Then without effort and without changing her legs Frou-Frou continued her gallop1.
‘Bravo, Vronsky!’ he heard the voices of a knot of people he knew — friends of his regiment6 — who were standing7 by this obstacle. He could not fail to recognize Yashvin’s voice, though he did not see him.
‘Oh, my beauty!’ he thought of Frou-Frou, as he listened to what was happening behind. ‘He is over it!’ he thought, as he heard Gladiator again galloping behind him. There remained one last water-jump, only a yard and a half wide. Vronsky did not even look at it, but hoping to win by a distance, began working the reins9 with a circular movement, raising and dropping the mare’s head in time with her stride. He felt the mare was using her last reserve of strength; not only her neck and shoulders were wet, but on her withers10, her head, and her pointed11 ears the sweat stood in drops, and she was breathing short and sharp. But he knew that her reserve of strength was more than enough for the remaining five hundred yards. It was only by feeling himself nearer to the ground and by the smoothness of the pace that Vronsky knew how much the mare had increased her speed. She leapt the ditch as if she did not notice it, seeming to fly across it like a bird. But at that very moment Vronsky, to his horror, felt that something terrible had happened. He himself, without knowing it, had made the unpardonable mistake of dropping back in his saddle and pulling up her head. Before he could realize this, the white legs of the gelding flashed close by him and Makhotin passed at a rapid gallop. Vronsky was touching12 the ground with one foot. He scarcely had time to withdraw the foot before Frou-Frou fell on her side, and snorting heavily and with her delicate damp neck making vain efforts to rise, began struggling on the ground at his feet, like a wounded, fluttering bird. Owing to Vronsky’s awkward movement she had dropped her hind8 legs and broken her back. But he only understood this much later. Now he only saw that Makhotin was quickly galloping away, while he, reeling, stood alone on the muddy, stationary13 ground; before him, breathing heavily, lay Frou-Frou, who, bending her head toward him, gazed at him with her beautiful eyes. Still not understanding what had happened, Vronsky pulled at the reins. The mare again began to struggle like a fish, causing the flaps of the saddle to creak; she got her front legs free, but unable to lift her hindquarters, struggled and immediately again fell on her side.
His face distorted with passion, pale and with quivering jaw14, Vronsky kicked her with his heel in the belly15 and again pulled at the reins. But she did not move and, muzzling16 the ground, only looked at her master with eloquent17 eyes.
‘Ah, ah, ah!’ groaned18 Vronsky, seizing his head. ‘Ah! what have I done?’ he exclaimed. ‘The race lost! And the fault mine — shameful19 and unpardonable. And this dear, unfortunate mare ruined! Ah! what have I done!’
Onlookers20, a doctor, an attendant, and officers of his regiment ran toward him. To his regret he felt that he was himself sound and unhurt. The mare had broken her back, and it was decided21 to shoot her. Vronsky was unable to reply to questions or to speak to anyone. He turned away and, without picking up the cap that had fallen from his head, left the racecourse without knowing where he was going. He felt miserable22. For the first time in his life he experienced the worst kind of misfortune — one that was irretrievable, and caused by his own fault.
Yashvin overtook him with his cap and led him home, and in half an hour Vronsky came to himself. But the memory of that steeplechase long remained the most painful and distressing23 memory of his life.
Chapter 26
—>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<—
EXTERNALLY Karenin’s relations with his wife remained as before. The only difference was that he was even more occupied than before. As in former years, at the beginning of the spring he went abroad to recuperate his health, which was upset each year by the winter’s work. And as usual he returned in July and at once with increased energy took up his customary work. And as usual his wife had moved to the country house while he remained in Petersburg.
Since their conversation on the night of the Princess Tverskaya’s party he had never spoken to Anna of his suspicions and jealousy, and that habitual tone of his which seemed to mock at some one was exactly suited to his present relations with her. He was rather colder toward her. He appeared only to be slightly dissatisfied with her for that first night’s talk which she had evaded. In his behaviour to her there was a shade of vexation, but nothing more. ‘You did not wish to have an explanation,’ he seemed to say to her in imagination, ‘so much the worse for you. Now you will ask me to explain, and I shall not do so. So much the worse for you,’ he thought, like a man who having vainly tried to extinguish a fire should be vexed at his vain exertions and say to it: ‘Well, go on and burn, it is your own fault.’
He who was so wise and astute in official affairs did not realize the insanity of such an attitude toward his wife. He did not understand it because it would have been too terrible to realize his real situation and he had closed, locked, and sealed that compartment of his soul which contained his feelings for his family — that is, his wife and son.
He who had been a considerate father, since the end of that winter had become particularly cold toward his son, and treated him in the same bantering manner as he did his wife. ‘Ah, young man!’ was the way in which he addressed him.
Karenin thought and said that in no previous year had he had so much official business as this year; but he was not conscious of the fact that this year he invented work for himself, and that this was one of the means of keeping that compartment closed where lay his feelings for and thoughts of his family, which became more terrible the longer they lay there. If anyone had ventured to ask him what he thought of his wife’s conduct, the mild and gentle Karenin would not have given any answer, but would have been angry with the man who put such a question. That was why Karenin’s face bore a stern, proud expression when anyone asked about his wife’s health. He did not wish to think about his wife’s conduct and feelings at all, and he really did not think about them.
The country house the Karenins regularly occupied in summer was in Peterhof, and generally the Countess Lydia Ivanovna also lived near by and was in constant touch with Anna. That year the Countess Lydia Ivanovna refused to live in Peterhof, did not once come to see Anna, and hinted to Karenin the undesirability of Anna’s intimacy with Betsy and Vronsky. Karenin stopped her severely, expressing the opinion that his wife was above suspicion, and from that time began to avoid the Countess. He did not wish to see, and did not see, that many people in Society already looked askance at Anna; he did not wish to understand, and did not understand, why his wife particularly insisted on moving to Tsarskoe Selo, where Betsy lived and near which place Vronsky’s regiment was stationed. He did not let himself think about this and did not think about it; yet at the bottom of his soul, without admitting it to himself or having any proofs or even suspicions of it, he nevertheless knew certainly that he was a wronged husband, and was therefore profoundly unhappy.
How often during the eight years of happy married life with his wife, when he saw others who were unfaithful wives or deceived husbands, had Karenin said to himself, ‘How could they let it come to that? How is it they do not end such a hideous state of things?’ But now, when the misfortune had fallen on his own head, he not only did not think of how to end it, but did not wish to recognize it at all — and did not wish to recognize it just because it was too terrible, too unnatural.
Since his return from abroad Karenin had been twice at the country house. Once he dined there, and the other time he spent an evening with some visitors, but he had not once stayed the night, as he used to do in former years.
The day of the races was a very busy one for Karenin; but in the morning when he made his plans for the day he decided that immediately after an early dinner he would go to see his wife at the country house, and from there to the races, at which the whole Court would be present and where he ought to appear. He would call on his wife, because he had decided to do so once a week for the sake of propriety. Besides, he had that day to give her money for her expenses, due according to their custom by the fifteenth of each month.
Having with the mental control habitual to him considered these matters concerning his wife, he did not allow his thoughts to run on further about her.
He had a very busy morning. On the previous day the Countess Lydia Ivanovna had sent him a pamphlet by a celebrated traveller in China, and a letter asking him to receive this traveller, who for various reasons was very interesting and necessary to them. Karenin had not had time to finish the pamphlet the evening before, and did so in the morning. Then he received petitioners, heard reports, gave audiences, assigned posts and ordered dismissals, apportioned rewards, pensions, and salaries, and attended to correspondence — everyday matters, as he called them, which took up so much of his time. After that came personal matters — a visit from his doctor and one from his steward. The latter did not keep him long. He only handed Karenin the money he wanted and gave him a short account of the state of his affairs, which was not quite satisfactory, for it happened that, owing to their having been from home a good deal, more had been spent that year than usual and there was a deficit. But the doctor, a celebrated Petersburg physician who was on friendly terms with Karenin, took up a good deal of time. Karenin had not expected him to-day and was surprised to see him, and yet more surprised that the doctor questioned him very particularly about his state of health, sounding his chest and tapping and feeling his liver. Karenin did not know that his friend Lydia Ivanovna, having noticed that he was not in good health that summer, had asked the doctor to go and see his patient. ‘Do it for my sake,’ the Countess Lydia Ivanovna had said.
‘I will do it for the sake of Russia, Countess,’ replied the doctor.
‘Dear man!’ the Countess Lydia Ivanovna had exclaimed.
The doctor was very dissatisfied with Karenin’s state of health. He found him insufficiently nourished and his liver much enlarged, and that the waters had had no effect at all. He prescribed as much physical exercise and as little mental strain as possible, and above all no worries of any kind — that is, he advised what was for Karenin as impossible as not to breathe, and he went away leaving Karenin with a disagreeable consciousness that something was wrong with him which could not be remedied.
In the porch, after leaving Karenin, the doctor met Slyudin, Karenin’s private secretary, whom he knew very well. They had been at the University together, and though they very seldom met, they respected one another and were good friends, and to no one but Slyudin would the doctor have expressed his opinion about his patient.
‘I am very glad you have been to see him,’ said Slyudin. ‘He is not well, and I believe that . . . Well, what is it?’
‘It is this,’ said the doctor, beckoning over Slyudin’s head to his coachman to drive up. ‘It’s this,’ and with his white hands he took a finger of his kid glove and stretched it; ‘if you try to break a cord that is slack it is not easy to break it, but strain that cord to its utmost and the weight of a finger will snap it. And he, by his hard work and the conscientious way he does it, is strained to the utmost; and there is a pressure from outside, and a heavy one,’ concluded the doctor, raising his eyebrows significantly. ‘Will you be at the races?’ he added, descending the steps to his brougham.
‘Yes, yes, of course it takes a lot of time,’ he replied to some remark of Slyudin’s which he had not quite caught.
After the doctor, who had taken up so much time, came the famous traveller, and Karenin, thanks to the pamphlet he had just read and to what he knew before, greatly impressed the traveller by the depth of his knowledge of the subject and the breadth of his enlightened outlook.
At the same time as the traveller, a provincial Marshal of the Nobility was announced with whom Karenin had some things to talk over. When he too had left, he had to finish his everyday business with his private secretary and had also to drive to see an important personage on a grave and serious matter. He only managed to get back at five, his dinner-time, and having dined with his private secretary, he invited the latter to drive with him to his country house and to go to the races with him.
Without acknowledging it to himself, Karenin now looked out for opportunities of having a third person present at his interviews with his wife.
Chapter 27
—>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<—
ANNA was upstairs standing in front of a mirror pinning, with Annushka’s help, a last bow to her dress, when she heard the wheels of a carriage grating on the gravel at the entrance.
‘It is too early for Betsy,’ she thought, and glancing out of the window she saw the carriage, and sticking out of it a black hat and Karenin’s familiar ears. ‘How unfortunate! Can he mean to stay the night?’ thought she, and so awful and horrible appeared to her the consequences that might result therefrom that, without a moment’s hesitation, she went out to meet him with a bright beaming face; and feeling within herself the presence of the already familiar spirit of lies and deceit, she gave herself up to it at once and began speaking without knowing what she was going to say.
‘Ah, how nice this is!’ she said, giving her husband her hand and smilingly greeting Slyudin as a member of the household. ‘You are staying the night, I hope?’ were the first words prompted by the spirit of lies. ‘And now we shall go together. Only it is a pity that I promised to go with Betsy. She will be coming for me.’
Karenin made a grimace at the mention of Betsy’s name.
‘Oh, I will not separate the inseparables,’ he said in his usual facetious tone. ‘I will go with Slyudin. The doctors have ordered me to walk. I will walk part way and imagine that I am still taking the waters.’
‘There is no hurry,’ said Anna. ‘Would you like some tea?’
She rang.
‘Tea, please, and tell Serezha that his father is here. Well, how is your health? You have not been here before; look how pretty my verandah is,’ she went on, turning now to her husband, now to Slyudin.
She spoke very simply and naturally, but too much and too fast. She felt this herself, especially as by the inquisitive way Slyudin looked at her she noticed that he seemed to be watching her.
Slyudin immediately went out on to the verandah, and she sat down by her husband.
‘You are not looking quite well,’ she said.
‘No,’ he replied, ‘the doctor came to see me this morning and robbed me of an hour. I feel that some friend of mine must have sent him: my health is so precious . . .’
‘Yes, but what did he say?’
She questioned him about his health and his work, persuading him to take a rest and to move out to her in the country.
She said all this lightly, rapidly, and with peculiarly sparkling eyes; but Karenin did not now attach any importance to this tone of hers. He only heard her words, and gave them only their direct meaning. And he answered simply, though jokingly. In all this conversation nothing particular passed, but never afterwards could Anna recall this short scene without being tormented by shame.
Serezha came in, preceded by his governess. Had Karenin allowed himself to observe, he would have noticed the timid, confused look which the child cast first at his father and then at his mother. But he did not want to see, and did not see, anything.
‘Ah, young man! He has grown. He is really getting quite a man. How do you do, young man?’
And he held out his hand to the frightened boy.
Serezha, who had always been timid with his father, now that the latter addressed him as ‘young man’, and that the question whether Vronsky was a friend or a foe had entered his head, shrank from him. He looked round at his mother, as if asking for protection. Only with his mother he felt at ease. Karenin meanwhile talked to the governess with his hand on his son’s shoulder, and Serezha felt so extremely uncomfortable that Anna saw he was about to cry.
Anna, who had blushed when the boy came in, saw how distressed he was, and, rising, lifted Karenin’s hand off her son’s shoulder, kissed the boy, led him out on to the verandah, and returned at once.
‘Well, it’s time we were going,’ she said, glancing at her watch. ‘I wonder Betsy has not come . . .’
‘Yes,’ said Karenin, and interlacing his hands he cracked his fingers. ‘I also came to bring you some money, since “nightingales are not fed on fables,” ’ he added. ‘I expect you want it?’
‘No, I don’t. . . . Yes, I do,’ she replied without looking at him, and blushing to the roots of her hair. ‘But I suppose you will call here after the races.’
‘Oh, yes!’ answered Karenin. ‘And here is the ornament of Peterhof, the Princess Tverskaya,’ he added, glancing out of the window at an approaching carriage of English build with a small body placed very high. ‘What elegance! Charming! Well then, we will start too.’
The Princess Tverskaya did not get out, only her footman in his black hat, cape, and gaiters jumped down at the front door.
‘I am going, good-bye!’ said Anna, and giving her son a kiss she went up to Karenin and held out her hand to him. ‘You were very kind to come.’
Karenin kissed her hand.
‘Well then, au revoir! You will come back for tea, that is right!’ she said, and went out beaming and gay. But as soon as she ceased to see him she became conscious of the place on her hand his lips had touched and shuddered with disgust.
