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Chapter 23

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DOLLY was ready to get into bed when Anna in her nightgown came into the room.

 

Several times during the day Anna had begun to talk about intimate matters, but after a few words she had always paused, saying: ‘Later on when we are alone we will talk it all over. I have so much to say to you!’

 

Now they were alone, but Anna did not know what to speak about. She sat by the window, looking at Dolly and mentally reviewing all those stores of intimate topics that had seemed inexhaustible, and could find nothing to say. It seemed to her at that moment as if everything had already been said.

 

‘Well, and how’s Kitty?’ she asked with a deep sigh and a guilty glance at Dolly. ‘Tell me the truth, Dolly: is she not angry with me?’

 

‘Angry? No!’ replied Dolly with a smile.

 

‘But she hates and despises me?’

 

‘Oh no! But you know one does not forgive those things!’

 

‘No, no,’ said Anna, turning away and looking out of the open window. ‘But it was not my fault, and whose fault was it? What does being in fault mean? Could things have been different? Now, what do you think? Could it have happened to you not to be Stiva’s wife?’

 

‘I really don’t know. But I want you to tell me this . . .’

 

‘Yes, yes, but we have not finished about Kitty. Is she happy? They say he’s a fine fellow.’

 

‘It is not enough to say he’s a fine fellow; I do not know a better man.’

 

‘Oh, I am so glad! I am very glad! It is not enough to say he’s a fine fellow,’ she repeated.

 

Dolly smiled.

 

‘But tell me about yourself. I have much to talk to you about and I have been talking with . . .’ Dolly did not know what to call him. She did not like to call him either ‘the Count’ or ‘Alexis Kirilich.’

 

‘With Alexis?’ said Anna. ‘I know you have. But I want to ask you frankly, what do you think of me and of my life?’

 

‘How can I tell you all at once? I really don’t know.’

 

‘Oh, but all the same, tell me! . . . You see what my life is. But don’t forget that you see us in summer, when you have come and we are not alone. . . . But we came here in early spring and lived quite alone, and we shall live alone again. I don’t wish for anything better. But imagine me living alone, without him, alone, and that will happen . . . everything shows that it will often happen, — that he will spend half his time from home,’ she said, rising and taking a seat nearer to Dolly. ‘Of course,’ she went on, interrupting Dolly, who was about to reply, ‘of course I won’t keep him against his will! I don’t keep him. One day there are races and his horses are running; he goes. I am very glad. But think of me, imagine my position. . . . But why talk of it!’ She smiled. ‘Well then, what did he talk about to you?’

 

‘He talked about what I myself wanted to ask you, so it is easy for me to be his advocate: about whether it isn’t possible . . . whether it can’t . . .’ Dolly hesitated, ‘how to remedy, to improve your position . . . you know my opinions. . . . But all the same, if it is possible you should get married.’

 

‘That is, get a divorce?’ said Anna. ‘Do you know, the only woman who called on me in Petersburg was Betsy Tverskaya? You know her, of course? Au fond c’est la femme la plus dépravée qui existe [At bottom, she’s the most depraved woman in existence]. She had a liaison with Tushkevich, deceiving her husband in the worst way, and she told me that she did not wish to know me as long as my position was irregular. . . ! Don’t think I am making any comparison . . . I know you, my darling. . . . But I could not help remembering. . . . Well then, what did he say to you?’ she repeated.

 

‘He said that he suffers on your account and on his own. Perhaps you will say it is egotism, but what legitimate and noble egotism! He wants, first of all, to legitimatize his daughter and to be your husband and have a right to you.’

 

‘What wife, what slave could be such a slave as I am in my position?’ Anna sullenly interrupted her.

 

‘But the chief thing he wants is that you should not suffer.’

 

‘That is impossible! Well?’

 

‘And his most legitimate wish is that your children should not be nameless.’

 

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

 

‘Annie, and those that will come . . .’

 

‘He may be at ease about that: I shall not have any more children.’

 

‘How do you know you won’t?’

 

‘I shan’t, because I don’t want them.’

 

And in spite of her agitation Anna smiled on noticing the naïve expression of curiosity, surprise and terror on Dolly’s face.

 

‘After my illness the doctor told me . . .’

 

‘Impossible!’ said Dolly, with wide-open eyes. To her this was one of those discoveries which leads to consequences and deductions so enormous that at the first moment one only feels that it is impossible to take it all in, but that one will have to think over it again and again.

 

This discovery, which suddenly explained to her those hitherto incomprehensible families where there were only one or two children, awoke in her so many thoughts, reflections and contradictory feelings that she could say nothing, and only stared at Anna with wide-open eyes full of astonishment. It was the very thing she had dreamt of but now on learning that it was possible, she was horrified. She felt that it was too simple a solution of too complex a question.

 

‘N’est-ce pas immoral? [Isn’t it immoral?]’ was all she said after a pause.

 

‘Why? Remember I have to choose between two things: either to become pregnant, that is ill, or to be the friend and comrade of my husband — for he is my husband all the same,’ said Anna, in a tone of intentional levity.

 

‘Well, yes, of course,’ said Dolly, listening to the very arguments which she had put to herself but not finding them so convincing as before.

 

‘For you and for others,’ said Anna, as if guessing her thoughts, ‘there may still be some doubt, but for me . . . Remember, I am not a wife; he loves me as long as his love lasts! Well, how am I to keep his love? In this way?’

 

She curved her white arms in front of her stomach.

 

With unusual rapidity, as happens at times of great agitation, thoughts and recollections crowded into Dolly’s mind. ‘I could not attract Stiva,’ she thought: ‘he left me for others, and the first one for whom he betrayed me did not hold him, though she was always pretty and bright! He threw her over and took another. Is it possible that Anna will attract and keep Count Vronsky in this way? If he looks for that sort of thing, he will find women whose dresses and manners are still brighter and more attractive. And however white and shapely her bare arms may be, however beautiful her full figure and her flushed face surrounded by that black hair — he will find others still more beautiful, as my horrid, pitiable and dear husband looks for and finds them!’

 

Dolly made no answer and only sighed. Anna noticed the sigh, which expressed dissent, and continued. She had other arguments in store, and such powerful ones that they could not be answered.

 

‘You say it is not right? But you must consider,’ she went on. ‘You forget my position. How can I desire children? I am not talking of the suffering: I am not afraid of that. But think who my children would be! Unfortunate beings, who would have to bear a stranger’s name! By the very fact of their birth they would have to be ashamed of their mother, their father, their birth!’

 

‘But that’s just why a divorce is necessary!’

 

Anna did not listen. She wanted to reproduce the arguments with which she had so often convinced herself.

 

‘What was my reason given me for, if I am not to use it to avoid bringing unfortunate beings into the world?’

 

She glanced at Dolly, but not pausing for a reply continued:

 

‘I should always feel guilty toward those unhappy children,’ said she. ‘If they don’t exist at any rate they are not unhappy, but if they are unhappy I alone shall be to blame.’

 

These were the very arguments Dolly had put to herself; but now she listened without understanding them. ‘How can one be guilty toward beings who don’t exist?’ thought she. And suddenly the question came into her mind, whether it could be better in any case for her favourite Grisha if he had never existed? This appeared to her so monstrous and strange that she shook her head, to dispel the confusion of insane thoughts that whirled in her brain.

 

‘Well, I don’t know; but it is not right,’ she said with a look of disgust.

 

‘Yes, but don’t forget what you are and what I am. . . . And besides,’ added Anna, in spite of the abundance of her arguments and the poverty of Dolly’s, apparently agreeing that it was not right, — ‘don’t forget the chief thing: that I am not in the same position as you! The question for you is, whether you desire not to have any more children; for me it is, whether I desire to have them. And that is a great difference. Don’t you see that, situated as I am, I cannot desire them?’

 

Dolly did not reply. She suddenly felt that she was so far away from Anna that there were questions on which they could never meet, and about which it was best not to talk.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 24

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‘THEN there is all the more need to regularize your position if possible,’ said Dolly.

 

‘Yes, if possible,’ Anna said, in what had suddenly become quite a different — a quiet and sad — voice.

 

‘Is a divorce not possible? I was told your husband had agreed . . .’

 

‘Dolly, I don’t want to speak about it!’

 

‘Well then, we won’t,’ Dolly hastened to say, noticing the look of pain on Anna’s face. ‘But I see that you look at things too dismally.’

 

‘I? Not at all! I am very cheerful and satisfied. You saw that je fais des passions [I inspire passion] . . . Veslovsky.’

 

‘Yes, to tell you the truth, I don’t like Veslovsky’s manner,’ said Dolly, wishing to change the subject.

 

‘Oh, not at all! It tickles Alexis, and that’s all; he is only a boy and entirely in my hands; you know, I manage him just as I please. He is just the same to me as your Grisha . . . Dolly!’ she said suddenly, changing her tone, ‘you say I look at things too dismally! You cannot understand. It is too dreadful. I try not to look at them at all!’

 

‘But I think you ought to. You must do all that is possible.’

 

‘But what is possible? Nothing! You say I must marry Alexis, and that I don’t consider that. I not consider that!’ she repeated, and flushed. She rose, drew herself up, sighed deeply, and with her light steps began pacing up and down the room, pausing occasionally. ‘I not consider it? Not a day, not an hour passes without my thinking about it and blaming myself for what I think . . . because those thoughts are enough to drive one mad! To drive one mad!’ she repeated. ‘When I think of it I cannot fall asleep without morphia. Well, all right. Let us discuss it quietly. They speak of divorce. For one thing, he would not agree now. He is now under the Countess Lydia Ivanovna’s influence.’

 

Dolly, sitting upright in her chair, with a pained expression of sympathy turned her head to follow Anna’s movements.

 

‘One must try,’ she said gently.

 

‘Let’s grant that. But what would it mean?’ said Anna, evidently expressing a thought she had considered a thousand times and knew by heart. ‘It means that I, who hate him but yet acknowledge myself to blame toward him — and I do think him magnanimous — I must humiliate myself by writing to him. . . ! Well, supposing I make that effort and do it: I shall receive either an insulting answer or his consent. Supposing I get his consent . . .’ Anna at that instant had reached the other end of the room and stopped there, doing something to the window curtain. ‘I receive his consent, and my so . . . son? They will not give him to me. He will grow up despising me, in the house of his father whom I have left. Understand that I love equally, I think, and both more than myself — two beings: Serezha and Alexis.’

 

She came back to the middle of the room and, pressing her chest with her arms, paused before Dolly. In her white dressing-gown her figure appeared peculiarly tall and broad. She bent her head and, trembling all over with emotion, looked from under her brows with moist, glittering eyes at the thin, piteous-looking little Dolly in her patched dressing-jacket and nightcap.

 

‘I love those two beings only, and the one excludes the other! I cannot unite them, yet that is the one thing I desire. And if I can’t have that, nothing matters — nothing, nothing! It will end somehow, therefore I can’t — I don’t like speaking about it. So don’t reproach me, don’t condemn me for anything! You in your purity cannot understand all I suffer!’

 

She came and sat down beside Dolly, peering into her face with a guilty look, and took her by the hand.

 

‘What are you thinking? What are you thinking of me? Don’t despise me! I don’t deserve contempt. I am simply unhappy. If anyone is unhappy, it is I!’ she murmured, and, turning away, she wept.

 

Left alone, Dolly said her prayers and got into bed. She had pitied Anna from the bottom of her heart while they were talking; but now she could not make herself think about her. Recollections of home and of her children rose in her imagination with a new and peculiar charm. That world of her own now seemed so precious and dear that she did not wish on any account to spend another day away from it, and she decided certainly to go home on the morrow.

 

Meanwhile Anna, returning to her boudoir, took a wineglass and put into it some drops of medicine, the chief ingredient of which was morphia. Having drunk it and sat still for a few moments, she entered her bedroom cheerfully and merrily.

 

When she came in Vronsky regarded her attentively. He tried to find some trace of the conversation which he knew, by her having remained so long in Dolly’s room, must have taken place. But in her expression of restrained excitement, which concealed something, he detected nothing except that beauty which, though familiar, still captivated him, her consciousness of this, and her desire that it should act on him. He did not wish to ask her what they had been talking about, but hoped that she would tell him of her own accord. However, she only said:

 

‘I am glad you like Dolly. You do?’

 

‘But I have known her a long time. I think she is very kind, mais excessivement terre-à-terre [though excessively matter-of-fact]. But all the same I was very glad she came.’

 

He took Anna’s hand and looked inquiringly into her eyes.

 

She, misunderstanding that look, smiled at him.

 

Next morning, in spite of her hosts’ entreaties, Dolly prepared to go home. Levin’s coachman in his by no means new coat, and a hat something like a post-boy’s, with his horses that did not match and the old calèche with mended mudguards, drove up gloomily but resolutely to the covered, sand-strewn portico.

 

Taking leave of the Princess Barbara and of the men was unpleasant to Dolly. After spending a day together both she and her host felt distinctly that they did not suit one another and that it was better for them not to associate. Only Anna felt sad. She knew that when Dolly was gone no one would call up in her soul the feelings which had been aroused by their meeting. To have those feelings awakened was painful, but still she knew that they were the best part of her soul, and that that part of her was rapidly being choked by the life she was leading.

 

When they had driven into the fields Dolly experienced a pleasant feeling of relief and she was about to ask the men how they had liked the Vronskys’ place, when suddenly Philip the coachman himself remarked:

 

‘They’re rich, that they are, but yet they gave us only two bushels of oats. The horses had eaten every grain before cockcrow! What’s two bushels? Only a bite. Nowadays oats are forty-five kopeks at the inns. When anyone comes to our place, no fear, we give their horses as much as they’ll eat.’

 

‘A stingy gentleman . . .’ confirmed the clerk.

 

‘Well, and did you like their horses?’ asked Dolly.

 

‘The horses? Fine’s the only word for them! And the food is good too. But it did seem so dull to me, Darya Alexandrovna! I don’t know how you found it,’ he added, turning his handsome, kindly face toward her.

 

‘I felt the same. Well, shall we get back by evening?’

 

‘We ought to.’

 

On returning home and finding every one safe and extremely nice, Dolly gave a very animated account of her visit, of how well she had been received, of the luxury and good taste at the Vronskys’, and of their amusements, and would not let anyone say a word against them.

 

‘One must know Anna and Vronsky — I have got to know him better now — in order to understand how kind and pathetic they are,’ said she with entire sincerity, forgetting the indefinite feelings of dissatisfaction and embarrassment she had experienced there.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 25

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VRONSKY and Anna went on living in the country in the same way, still taking no steps to obtain a divorce, all the summer and part of the autumn. They had agreed not to go away anywhere; but the longer they lived alone the more they both felt — especially in autumn when there were no visitors — that they would not be able to hold out and that a change was inevitable.

 

Their life seemed one that could not be improved upon: they had ample means, good health, a child, and both had occupations of their own. In the absence of visitors Anna still continued to devote attention to her person, and read a great deal — both novels and such serious books as were in fashion. She ordered all the books that were praised in the foreign newspapers and magazines they received, and read them with the attention one gives only to what one reads in solitude.

 

She studied also from books and from technical papers all the subjects with which Vronsky was occupied, so that he often came straight to her with questions about agriculture, architecture, and sometimes even horse-breeding or sport. He was astounded at her knowledge and memory, and at first used to doubt her information and want it confirmed. She would then find what he wanted in books and show it him.

 

The arrangement of the hospital also interested her. There she not only helped, but arranged and planned many things herself. Nevertheless, her chief preoccupation was still herself — herself in so far as Vronsky held her dear and in so far as she could compensate him for all he had given up. Vronsky appreciated this, which had become the sole aim of her life, a desire not only to please him but also to serve him; but at the same time he was troubled by these love-meshes in which she tried to entangle him. As time went on, the oftener he felt himself caught in these meshes the more he desired, not exactly to escape from them but to try whether they really interfered with his freedom. Had it not been for this ever-increasing desire for freedom — not to have a scene each time he had to go to town to a meeting or to the races — Vronsky would have been quite content with his life. The rôle he had chosen, that of a rich landowner — one of those who should constitute the kernel of the Russian aristocracy — was not only quite to his taste but, now that he had lived so for half a year, gave him ever-increasing pleasure. His affairs, which occupied and absorbed him more and more, progressed excellently. In spite of the tremendous sums the hospital, the machinery, the cows which he imported from Switzerland, and many other things were costing him, he was sure that he was not wasting his substance but increasing it. Where it was a question of income — the sale of forest land, of corn or wool, or the leasing of land — Vronsky was as hard as flint and could hold out for his price. In all operations on a large scale, both on this and on his other estates, he kept to the simplest and safest methods, and was extremely economical and careful in his expenditure on small details. Despite all the cunning and artfulness of the German steward, who tried to lead him into expenditure and presented all estimates in such a way that it at first appeared as if much would be required, though on consideration the thing could be done more cheaply and an immediate profit obtained, Vronsky did not submit to him. He listened to what the steward had to say and questioned him, but only consented when the things to be ordered or built were the latest, as yet unknown in Russia, and likely to astonish people. Besides, he decided on a big outlay only when he had money to spare, and when spending he went into every detail and insisted on getting the very best for his money. So that from the way he managed his business it was clear that he was not wasting but increasing his property.

 

In October there were the Nobility elections in the Kashin Province, in which Vronsky’s, Sviyazhsky’s, Koznyshev’s, and also a small part of Levin’s estates were situated.

 

Various circumstances, as well as the men who took part in them, caused these elections to attract public attention. They were much discussed and preparations were made for them. People living in Moscow and Petersburg as well as others from abroad, who had never come to any elections, assembled at these.

 

Vronsky had long ago promised Sviyazhsky to be present.

 

Before the elections Sviyazhsky, who often visited at Vozdvizhensk, called for Vronsky.

 

The day before, Vronsky and Anna had almost quarrelled about his proposed journey. It was autumn, the dullest and most depressing time of year in the country, and so Vronsky, bracing himself for a struggle, announced his departure in a sterner and colder way than he had ever before used to Anna. But, to his surprise, Anna took the news very quietly and only asked when he would return. He looked at her attentively, not understanding this calm manner. She answered his look with a smile. He knew her capacity for withdrawing into herself, and knew that she only did it when she had come to some resolution in her own mind without telling him of her plans. He feared this; but he so wished to avoid a scene that he pretended to believe, and to some extent sincerely believed, in what he wished to believe, namely, in her reasonableness.

 

‘I hope you won’t be dull?’

 

‘I hope not,’ replied Anna. ‘I received a box of books from Gautier’s yesterday. No, I shan’t be dull.’

 

‘She means to adopt this tone — well, so much the better!’ thought he, ‘or else it would be the usual thing again.’

 

And so, without challenging her to a frank explanation, he left for the elections. It was the first time since their union that he had parted from her without a full explanation. On the one hand this fact disturbed him, but on the other hand it seemed the best way. ‘At first there will be, as now, something uncertain, something concealed; but afterwards she will get used to it. In any case I can give her everything else, but not my independence as a man,’ he reflected.