‘Serezha,’ she said as soon as the governess had gone away, ‘it was wrong, but you won’t do it again? . . . You love me?’
She felt the tears coming into her eyes.
‘As if I could help loving him,’ she said to herself looking into his frightened and yet happy face. ‘And is it possible that he would take sides with his father to torment1 me?’ The tears were already streaming down her cheeks, and in order to hide them she jumped up abruptly2 and went out on to the verandah.
After the thunderstorms of the last few days the weather had grown clear and cold.
She shivered with cold, and with the terror that seized her with new power out in the open air.
‘Go to Mariette,’ she said to Serezha, who had come out after her; and she began pacing up and down the straw matting of the verandah.
‘Is it possible that they could not forgive me or understand that it could not have been otherwise?’ she asked herself.
She stopped and looked at the crown of an aspen trembling in the wind, with its clean-washed leaves glistening3 brilliantly in the cold sunshine, and she felt that they would not forgive, that everybody would now be as pitiless toward her as the sky and the trees, and again she felt that duality in her soul.
‘No, no, I must not think,’ she said to herself; ‘I must get ready to go. Where? When? Whom shall I take with me?’
‘To Moscow? Yes, by the evening train, with Annushka and Serezha, and with only the most necessary things. But first I must write to both of them.’
She quickly went to her sitting-room4 and wrote to her husband.
‘After what has happened I can no longer remain in your house. I am going away and taking my son. I do not know the law and therefore I do not know to which of his parents a son must be left, but I am taking him because I cannot live without him. Be generous and leave him to me!’
Up to that point she wrote quickly and naturally; but the appeal to his generosity5, in which she did not believe, and the necessity of finishing the letter with something moving, stopped her. . . .
‘I cannot speak of my fault and my repentance6, because . . .’ She stopped again, unable to connect her thoughts. ‘No, I will say nothing,’ she thought, tore up the letter, rewrote it, omitting the reference to his generosity, and sealed it.
The other letter she meant to write was to Vronsky.
‘I have informed my husband,’ she began, and was unable to write any more. It seemed so coarse and unwomanly. ‘Besides, what can I write to him?’ she asked herself; and again she blushed with shame. She thought of his calmness, and a feeling of vexation with him made her tear the paper to pieces, with the one sentence written on it.
‘There is no need to write anything,’ she thought, closed her blotting-book, went upstairs to tell the governess and the servant that she was going to Moscow that evening, and then began packing.

IN all the rooms of the country house porters, gardeners, and footmen went about carrying out the things. Cupboards and chests of drawers stood open, twice the nearest shop had been sent to for balls of string. The floor was strewn with newspapers. Two trunks, several bags, and some strapped-up rugs had been taken down to the hall. A closed carriage and two izvoshchiks [one-horse cabs] were waiting at the front porch. Anna, who had forgotten her agitation while she was working, stood at a table in the sitting-room packing her hand-bag when Annushka drew her attention to the noise of approaching carriage wheels. Anna looked out and saw Karenin’s messenger in the porch ringing the bell.
‘Go and see what it is,’ she said, and, calmly prepared for anything, sat down in an easy-chair and folded her hands on her knees. A footman brought her a thick envelope addressed in her husband’s handwriting.
‘The messenger has been told to wait for an answer,’ he said.
‘All right,’ she replied, and as soon as he had gone she tore open the envelope with trembling fingers.
A packet of new still unfolded notes in a paper band fell out. She unfolded the letter and read the end first: ‘All necessary preparations shall be made for your return. I beg you will note that I attach importance to this request of mine,’ she read. Having glanced through it, she went back and read it again from the beginning. When she had finished she felt cold, and knew that a more dreadful misfortune had befallen her than she had ever expected.
She had that morning repented of having told her husband and wished it were possible to unsay her words; and here was a letter treating her words as unsaid and giving her what she had desired; but now the letter appeared more terrible than anything she could have imagined.
‘He’s in the right, he’s in the right!’ she muttered; ‘of course he always is in the right, he is a Christian, he is magnanimous! Yes, a mean, horrid man! And no one but I understands or will understand it, and I cannot explain it. They say he’s a religious, moral, honest, and wise man, but they do not see what I have seen. They do not know how for eight years he has been smothering my life, smothering everything that was alive in me, that he never once thought I was a live woman, in need of love. They do not know how at every step he hurt me and remained self-satisfied. Have I not tried, tried with all my might, to find a purpose in my life? Have I not tried to love him, tried to love my son when I could no longer love my husband? But the time came when I understood that I could no longer deceive myself, that I am alive, and cannot be blamed because God made me so, that I want to love and to live. And now? If he killed me — if he had killed him, — I would have borne anything, I would have forgiven anything! But no! He . . .
‘How was it I did not guess what he would do? He will do what is consistent with his low nature. He will be in the right, but as for me who am already disgraced he will disgrace me more and more!
“You can yourself foresee what awaits you and your son!” ’ — she repeated the words of the letter. ‘That is a threat that he will take my son from me, and probably their stupid laws will permit it. But don’t I know why he said it? He does not believe in my love for my son or he despises it. He always did snigger at it! He despises that feeling of mine, but he knows that I will not give up my son, that I cannot give him up, that without my son I cannot live even with the man I love, — that if I forsook my son I should act like a horrid disreputable woman. He knows that and knows that I have not the power to do it.’
‘ “Our life must go on as heretofore” ’ — she recalled another sentence of the letter. ‘That life was painful before, lately it had been dreadful. What will it be now? And he knows it all; knows that I cannot repent of breathing, of loving, knows that nothing but lies and deception can come of this arrangement, but he wants to continue to torture me. I know him; I know that he swims and delights in falsehood as a fish does in water. But no! I will not give him that pleasure, come what will. I will break this web of lies in which he wishes to entangle me. Anything is better than lies and deception!
‘But how? Oh God! oh God! Was a woman ever as unhappy as I am? . . . No, I shall break it off, break it off!’ she exclaimed, jumping up and forcing back her tears. And she went to the table to write him another note, though she knew in the depths of her soul that she would not have the strength to break anything off nor to escape from her former position, however false and dishonest it might be.
She sat down at her writing-table, but instead of writing she folded her arms on the table and put her head on them, and began to cry, sobbing with her whole bosom heaving, as a child cries.
She wept because the hopes of clearing up and defining her position were destroyed for ever. She knew beforehand that everything would remain as it was and would be even far worse than before. She felt that, insignificant as it had appeared that morning, the position she held in Society was dear to her, and that she would not have the strength to change it for the degraded position of a woman who had forsaken husband and child and formed a union with her lover; that, however much she tried, she could not become stronger than herself. She would never be able to feel the freedom of love, but would always be a guilty woman continually threatened with exposure, deceiving her husband for the sake of a shameful union with a man who was a stranger and independent of her, and with whom she could not live a united life. She knew that it would be so, and yet it was so terrible that she could not even imagine how it would end. And she cried, without restraint, like a punished child.
The approaching step of the footman recalled her to herself and hiding her face from him she pretended to be writing.
‘The messenger is asking for the answer,’ he said.
‘The answer? Yes, let him wait: I will ring,’ said Anna.
‘What can I write?’ she thought. ‘What can I decide alone? What do I know? What do I want? That I am in love?’ And she felt again a schism in her soul, and again was frightened by the feeling; so she seized the first pretext for action that occurred to her to divert her thoughts from herself. ‘I must see Alexis,’ as she called Vronsky in her thoughts. ‘He alone can tell me what to do. I shall go to Betsy’s and perhaps shall meet him there,’ quite forgetting that the evening before when she had told him she was not going to the Princess Tverskaya’s, he had replied that in that case he would not go either. She wrote to her husband:
‘I have received your letter. — A.,’ rang, and gave the note to the footman.
‘We are not going,’ she said to Annushka, who had just come in.
‘Not going at all?’
‘No, but don’t unpack till to-morrow, and let the carriage wait. I am going to see the Princess.’
‘What dress shall I put out?’

THE croquet match to which the Princess Tverskaya had invited Anna was to be played by two ladies and their admirers. The two ladies were the chief representatives of a choice new Petersburg circle called, in imitation of an imitation of something, Les sept merveilles du monde [The seven wonders of the world]. These ladies belonged to a circle which, though higher, was entirely hostile to the set Anna frequented. Old Stremov — one of Petersburg’s influential men, and Lisa Merkalova’s adorer — was also officially hostile to Karenin. These considerations had made Anna reluctant to come, and it was to her refusal that the hints in Princess Tverskaya’s note had referred. But now the hope of seeing Vronsky had brought Anna.
She arrived at the Princess Tverskaya’s house before the other visitors.
Just as she arrived Vronsky’s footman, who with his well-brushed whiskers looked like a Gentleman of the Bedchamber, also came up. He stopped at the door, took off his cap, and let her pass. Anna saw him, and only then remembered that the evening before Vronsky had said that he was not coming. Probably he had sent a note to say so.
As she was taking off her outdoor things in the hall she heard the footman — who even pronounced his r’s like a Gentleman of the Bedchamber — say: ‘From the Count to the Princess,’ as he delivered the note.
She felt inclined to ask where his master was; she wanted to go home and write to him to come to her house, or to go to him herself But none of these things could be done. She heard in front of her the bell that announced her arrival, and the Princess Tverskaya’s footman was already standing half-turned toward her at an open door, waiting for her to enter the inner rooms.
‘The Princess is in the garden; she will be informed in a minute. Will you not come into the garden?’ said another footman in the next room.
The feelings of irresolution and indefiniteness were just the same as at home, or even worse, because she could do nothing; she could not see Vronsky but had to stay there, in this company of strangers so out of sympathy with her present mood. But she wore a costume that she knew suited her, she was not alone but surrounded by a ceremonious setting of idleness, and she felt easier than at home; she had no need to think of what to do. Everything did itself. When she met Betsy coming toward her in a white costume that struck Anna by its elegance, Anna smiled at her as usual. The Princess Tverskaya came accompanied by Tushkevich and a young girl, a relation, who to the great delight of her provincial parents was spending the summer with the grand Princess.
There must have been something unusual about Anna’s look, for Betsy noticed it at once.
‘I have slept badly,’ answered Anna, gazing at the footman, who she guessed was bringing Vronsky’s note.
‘How glad I am that you have come!’ said Betsy. ‘I am tired, and am going to have a cup of tea before they arrive. Won’t you and Masha go and look at the croquet-lawn where the grass is cut?’ she said to Tushkevich. ‘We can have a heart-to-heart talk over our tea. We’ll have a cosy chat, won’t we?’ she added in English, pressing the hand with which Anna held her sunshade.
‘Yes, especially as I cannot stay long. I must go to the old Countess Vrede — I promised to, ages ago,’ said Anna, to whom falsehood — so alien to her by nature — had now become so simple and natural in Society that it even gave her pleasure. Why she had said something she had not even thought of a moment before she could not have explained. Her only reason for saying it was that since Vronsky was not coming she must secure her freedom and try to see him in some other way. But why she had mentioned the old Lady-in-Waiting Vrede, to whom, among many other people, she owed a visit, she could not have explained; and yet as it happened she could have thought of nothing better had she tried to invent the most cunning means of seeing Vronsky.
‘No, I won’t let you go on any account,’ said Betsy, fixing her eyes intently on Anna. ‘I should be really hurt, if I were not so fond of you. It’s just as if you thought my company might compromise you! Please bring us tea in the little drawing-room,’ she said to the footman, screwing up her eyes as she always did when speaking to a footman.
She took the note from him and read it.
‘Alexis has failed us,’ she said in French. ‘He writes that he cannot come.’ She spoke in a natural and matter-of-fact tone, as if it never entered her head that Vronsky had any other interest for Anna than as a croquet player.
Anna was aware that Betsy knew everything, but when she heard her talk about Vronsky she always felt a momentary conviction that Betsy knew nothing about it.
‘Ah!’ said Anna, in an indifferent tone as if she cared very little about it, and went on with a smile: ‘How could your company compromise anyone?’ This play of words, this concealment of a secret, had a great charm for Anna, as it has for all women. It was not the necessity for secrecy, not its purpose, but the process itself that was fascinating.
‘I cannot be more Catholic than the Pope,’ she said. ‘Stremov and Lisa Merkalova are the cream of the cream of Society! They are received everywhere, and I’ — she put special stress on that I — ‘never was severe or intolerant: I simply have not the time.’
‘No! Perhaps you do not want to meet Stremov? Let him and Alexis Alexandrovich break lances at their Committee Meetings, that has nothing to do with us. In Society he is the most amiable man I know, and a passionate croquet player. You’ll see! And in spite of his ridiculous position as Lisa’s old admirer, you should see how he carries it off. He is very charming. Sappho Stolz you do not know? She is quite a new type.’
While Betsy was saying this Anna saw by her bright intelligent look that she partly understood Anna’s position and was devising something. They were in a small sitting-room.
‘But I must write to Alexis;’ and Betsy sat down at the table, wrote a few words, and put the paper in an envelope. ‘I am writing to ask him to come to dinner; I have one lady too many. See if I have made it pressing enough! Excuse me! I must leave you for a minute; please close the envelope and send it,’ she said from the doorway; ‘I have some orders to give.’
Without thinking for an instant Anna sat down at the table with Betsy’s note, and without reading it added at the bottom: ‘I must see you. Come to Vrede’s garden. I shall be there at six.’ She closed it, and Betsy returning sent it off in her presence.
Over their tea, which was brought them in the cool little drawing-room, the two women really had before the arrival of the visitors the cosy chat the Princess Tverskaya had promised Anna. They passed in review all who were expected to come, and their conversation dwelt at some length on Lisa Merkalova.
‘She is very nice and was always attractive to me,’ said Anna.
‘You must love her: she dotes on you. Yesterday she came to me at the races and was quite in despair that she had missed you. She said that you are a real heroine for a novel, and that were she a man she would have committed a thousand follies for your sake. Stremov tells her she is committing them as it is!’
‘Yes, but do tell me! I never can understand,’ said Anna after a pause, in a tone that clearly proved she was not putting an idle question and that what she was asking about was more important to her than it ought to be; ‘do tell me what are her relations with Prince Kaluzhsky, whom they call Mishka? I have not often met them. . . . What are they?’
Betsy looked at her with smiling eyes. ‘It is a new fashion,’ she replied. ‘They have all adopted that fashion. They have kicked over the traces, but there are different ways of doing it.’
‘Yes, but what are her relations with Kaluzhsky?’
Betsy burst into an unexpected, merry and uncontrollable peal of laughter, a thing she rarely did. ‘You are encroaching on the Princess Myagkaya’s domain! That is a question an enfant terrible might put!’ and Betsy evidently tried to, but could not, control herself and again burst out into the infectious kind of laughter peculiar to those who laugh seldom. ‘You must ask them!’ she uttered, while tears of laughter choked her voice.
‘It is all very well for you to laugh,’ said Anna, who could not help laughing too, ‘but I never was able to understand it. I cannot understand the husband’s position.’
‘The husband’s! Lisa Merkalova’s husband carries her rugs after her and is always at her service. But what there is behind it all, no one really cares to know. Don’t you know that in good Society no one talks or even thinks about certain details of the toilet? It is just the same in such cases.’
‘Will you be at Rolandaki’s fête?’ asked Anna in order to change the subject.
‘I don’t think so,’ answered Betsy, and while looking at her friend she began filling the little translucent cup with aromatic tea. She moved one of the cups toward Anna, got out a pachitos [straw-covered cigarette], placed it in a silver holder, and lit it.
‘You see,’ she said, ‘I am in a lucky position! I understand you and I understand Lisa. Lisa’s is one of those naïve natures who, like children, are unable to understand the difference between right and wrong. At least she did not understand it when she was very young. And now she knows that the rôle of not understanding becomes her. Now perhaps she is purposely ingenuous,’ and Betsy smiled pointedly. ‘But still it becomes her. You see a thing may be looked at tragically and turned to a torment, or looked at quite simply, and even gaily. Perhaps you are inclined to take things too tragically.’
‘How I wish I knew others as I know myself!’ said Anna, seriously and thoughtfully. ‘Am I worse than others or better? Worse I think.’
‘Enfant terrible! enfant terrible!’ Betsy repeated. ‘But here they come!’