by Leo Tolstoy
When she got up, she recalled the previous day as in a fog.
'There was a quarrel. There was what had already happened several times. I said I had a headache, and he didn't come in. Tomorrow we're leaving, I must see him and get ready for the departure,' she said to herself. And, learning that he was in his study, she went to him. As she passed through the drawing room she heard a vehicle stop by the entrance, and, looking out the window, she saw a carriage with a young girl in a violet hat leaning out of it and giving orders to the footman who was ringing at the door. After negotiations in the front hall, someone came upstairs, and Vronsky's steps were heard by the drawing room. He was going downstairs with quick steps. Anna went to the window again. Now he came out on the steps without a hat and went up to the carriage. The young girl in the violet hat handed him a package. Vronsky, smiling, said something to her. The carriage drove off; he quickly ran back up the stairs.
The fog that had covered everything in her soul suddenly cleared. Yesterday's feelings wrung her aching heart with a new pain. She could not understand now how she could have lowered herself so far as to spend a whole day with him in his house. She went into his study to announce her decision to him.
'That was Mme Sorokin and her daughter calling by to bring me money and papers from maman. I couldn't get them yesterday. How's your head? Better?' he said calmly, not wishing to see or understand the gloomy and solemn expression on her face.
She stood silently in the middle of the room, gazing fixedly at him. He glanced at her, frowned momentarily, and went on reading a letter. She turned and slowly started out of the room. He could still bring her back, but she reached the door, he remained silent, and only the rustle of the turning page was heard.
'Ah, incidentally,' he said, when she was already in the doorway, 'we're definitely going tomorrow, aren't we?'
'You are, but I'm not,' she said, turning to him.
'Anna, we can't live like this ...'
'You are, but I'm not,' she repeated.
'This is becoming unbearable!'
'You ... you will regret that,' she said and walked out.
Frightened by the desperate look with which these words were spoken, he jumped up and was about to run after her, but, recollecting himself, sat down again, clenched his teeth tightly and frowned. This improper - as he found it - threat of something irritated him. 'I've tried everything,' he thought, 'the only thing left is to pay no attention,' and he began getting ready to go to town and again to his mother's, whose signature he needed on the warrant.
She heard the sound of his steps in the study and the dining room. He stopped by the drawing room. But he did not turn to her, he only gave orders to hand the stallion over to Voitov in his absence. Then she heard the carriage being brought, the door opening, him going out again. But now he was back in the front hall, and someone was running up the stairs. It was his valet running to fetch the gloves he had forgotten. She went to the window and saw him take the gloves without looking, touch the driver's back and say something to him. Then, without looking at the windows, he assumed his usual posture in the carriage, his legs crossed, and, pulling on a glove, disappeared round the corner.
XXVII
'He's gone. It's over!' Anna said to herself, standing at the window. And in response to this question the impressions of the horrible dream and of the darkness when the candle had gone out merged into one, filling her heart with cold terror.
'No, it can't be!' she cried out and, crossing the room, loudly rang the bell. She was now so afraid of staying alone that, without waiting for the servant to come, she went to meet him.
'Find out where the count went,' she said.
The servant replied that the count had gone to the stables.
'He said to tell you that the carriage will return at once, if you would like to go out.'
'Very well. Wait. I'll write a note. Send Mikhaila to the stables with the note. Quickly.'
She sat down and wrote:
T am to blame. Come home, we must talk. For God's sake come, I'm frightened!'
She sealed it and gave it to the servant.
She was afraid to stay alone now. She left the room after the servant and went to the nursery.
'No, this isn't right, it's not him! Where are his blue eyes, his sweet and timid smile?' was her first thought when she saw her plump, red-cheeked little girl with curly hair instead of Seryozha, whom, in the confusion of her thoughts, she had expected to see in the nursery. The girl, sitting at the table, was loudly and persistently banging on it with a stopper, looking senselessly at her mother with two black currants -her eyes. Having said, in reply to the governess's question, that she was quite well and was going to the country the next day, Anna sat down with the girl and began twirling the stopper of the carafe in front of her. But the child's loud, ringing laughter and the movement she made with her eyebrow reminded her so vividly of Vronsky that she hastily got up, stifling her sobs, and left. 'Is it really all over? No, it can't be,' she thought. 'He'll come back. But how will he explain to me that smile, that animation after talking with her? But even if he doesn't explain, I'll still believe him. If I don't, there is only one thing left for me - and I don't want it.'
She looked at the clock. Twelve minutes had passed. 'He has received the note now and is coming back. It won't be long, another ten minutes ... But what if he doesn't come? No, that can't be. He mustn't see me with tearful eyes. I'll go and wash. Ah, and did I do my hair or not?' she asked herself. And could not remember. She felt her head with her hand. 'Yes, my hair's been done, but I certainly don't remember when.' She did not even believe her hand and went to the pier-glass to see whether her hair had indeed been done or not. It had been, but she could not remember when she had done it. 'Who is that?' she thought, looking in the mirror at the inflamed face with strangely shining eyes fearfully looking at her. 'Ah, it's me,' she realized, and looking herself all over, she suddenly felt his kisses on her and, shuddering, moved her shoulders. Then she raised her hand to her lips and kissed it.
'What is this? I'm losing my mind.' And she went to her bedroom, where Annushka was tidying up.
'Annushka,' she said, stopping before the maid and looking at her, not knowing what she was going to say to her.
'You wanted to go to Darya Alexandrovna's,' said the maid, as if she understood.
'To Darya Alexandrovna's? Yes, I'll go.'
'Fifteen minutes there, fifteen minutes back. He's on his way, he'll be here at any moment.' She took out her watch and looked at it. 'But how could he go away and leave me in such a state? How can he live without making it up with me?' She went to the window and began to look out. In terms of time, he could already be back. But her calculation could be wrong, and again she started recalling when he had left and counting the minutes.
As she was going to the big clock to check her watch, someone drove up. Looking out of the window, she saw his carriage. But no one came up the stairs and voices could be heard below. This was the messenger, who had come back in the carriage. She went down to him.
'I didn't find the count. He left for the Nizhni Novgorod railway.'
'What are you doing? What...' she said to the merry, red-cheeked Mikhaila, who was handing her note back to her.
'Ah, yes, he didn't get it,' she remembered.
'Take this note to Countess Vronsky's country estate. You know it? And bring an answer at once,' she said to the messenger.
'And I, what shall I do?' she thought. 'Ah, I'm going to Dolly's, that's right, otherwise I'll go out of my mind. Ah, I can also send a telegram.' And she wrote a telegram:
'I absolutely must talk with you, come at once.'
Having sent the telegram, she went to get dressed. Dressed and with her hat on, she again looked into the eyes of the plump, placid Annushka. Obvious compassion could be seen in those small, kind, grey eyes.
'Annushka, dear, what am I to do?' Anna said, sobbing, as she sank helplessly into an armchair.
'Why worry so, Anna
Arkadyevna! It happens. You go and take your mind off it,' said the maid.
'Yes, I'll go,' said Anna, recollecting herself and getting up. 'And if a telegram comes while I'm gone, send it to Darya Alexandrovna's ... No, I'll come back myself.
'Yes, I mustn't think, I must do something, go out, first of all - leave this house,' she said, listening with horror to the terrible turmoil in her heart, and she hurriedly went out and got into the carriage.
'Where to, ma'am?' asked Pyotr, before climbing up on the box.
'To Znamenka, to the Oblonskys'.'
XXVIII
The weather was clear. All morning there had been a fine, light drizzle, but now it had cleared up. The iron roofs, the flagstones of the pavements, the cobbles of the roadway, the wheels and leather, copper and tin of the carriages - everything glistened brightly in the May sun. It was three o'clock and the liveliest time in the streets.
Sitting in the corner of the comfortable carriage, barely rocking on its resilient springs to the quick pace of the greys, again going over the events of the last few days, under the incessant clatter of the wheels and the quickly changing impressions of the open air, Anna saw her situation quite differently from the way it had seemed to her at home. Now the thought of death no longer seemed to her so terrible and clear, and death itself no longer appeared inevitable. Now she reproached herself for stooping to such humiliation. 'I begged him to forgive me. I submitted to him. I acknowledged myself guilty. Why? Can't I live without him?' And, not answering the question of how she would live without him, she began reading the signboards. 'Office and Warehouse. Dentist. Yes, I'll tell Dolly everything. She doesn't like Vronsky. It will be shameful, painful, but I'll tell her everything. She loves me, and I'll follow her advice. I won't submit to him; I won't allow him to teach me. Filippov, Baker. They say he also sells his dough in Petersburg. Moscow water is so good. The Mytishchi springs and the pancakes.' And she remembered how long, long ago, when she was just seventeen years old, she had gone with her aunt to the Trinity Monastery.[26] 'One still went by carriage. Was that really me with the red hands? How much of what then seemed so wonderful and unattainable has become insignificant, and what there was then is now for ever unattainable. Would I have believed then that I could come to such humiliation? How proud and pleased he'll be when he gets my note! But I'll prove to him ... How bad that paint smells. Why are they always painting and building? Fashions and Attire,' she read. A man bowed to her. It was Annushka's husband. 'Our parasites,' she remembered Vronsky saying. 'Ours? Why ours? The terrible thing is that it's impossible to tear the past out by the roots. Impossible to tear it out, but possible to hide the memory of it. And I will hide it.' Here she remembered her past with Alexei Alexandrovich and how she had wiped him from her memory. 'Dolly will think I'm leaving a second husband and so I'm probably in the wrong. As if I want to be right! I can't be!' she said, and wanted to cry. But she at once began thinking what those two young girls could be smiling at. 'Love, probably? They don't know how joyless it is, how low... A boulevard and children. Three boys running, playing horses. Seryozha! And I'll lose everything and not get him back. Yes, I'll lose everything if he doesn't come back. Maybe he was late for the train and is back by now. Again you want humiliation!' she said to herself. 'No, I'll go to Dolly and tell her straight out: I'm unhappy, I deserve it, I'm to blame, but even so I'm unhappy, help me.
These horses, this carriage - how loathsome I am to myself in this carriage - it's all his. But I won't see them anymore.'
Thinking of the words she was going to say to Dolly, and deliberately chafing her own heart, Anna went up the steps.
'Is anyone here?' she asked in the front hall.
'Katerina Alexandrovna Levin,' the footman replied.
'Kitty! The same Kitty that Vronsky was in love with,' thought Anna, 'the one he remembered with love. He regrets not having married her. And me he remembers with hatred, and he regrets having become intimate with me.'
When Anna arrived, the two sisters were having a consultation about nursing. Dolly came out alone to meet her guest, who had just interrupted their conversation.
'You haven't left yet? I wanted to come and see you myself,' she said. 'I received a letter from Stiva today.'
'We also received a telegram,' Anna replied, looking past her for Kitty.
'He writes that he can't understand precisely what Alexei Alexandrovich wants, but that he won't leave without an answer.'
'I thought there was someone with you. May I read the letter?'
'Yes, it's Kitty,' Dolly said, embarrassed. 'She stayed in the nursery. She's been very ill.'
'I heard. May I read the letter?'
'I'll bring it at once. But he doesn't refuse. On the contrary, Stiva has hopes,' said Dolly, pausing in the doorway.
'I have no hope, and don't even wish it,' said Anna.
'What is it?' thought Anna, left alone. 'Does Kitty consider it humiliating to meet me? Maybe she's right. But it's not for her, who was once in love with Vronsky, it's not for her to show it to me, even if it's true. I know that not a single decent woman can receive me in my position. I know that from the first moment I sacrificed everything to him! And this is the reward! Oh, how I hate him! And why did I come here? It's still worse, still harder.' She heard the voices of the sisters talking in the other room. 'And what shall I say to Dolly now? Shall I comfort Kitty with my unhappiness, submit to her patronizing? No, and Dolly won't understand anything either. And I have nothing to tell her. It would only be interesting to see Kitty and show her how I despise everyone and everything, and how it makes no difference to me now.'
Dolly came with the letter. Anna read it and silently handed it back.
'I knew all that,' she said. 'And it doesn't interest me in the least.' 'But why? On the contrary, I'm hopeful,' said Dolly, looking at Anna with curiosity. She had never seen her in such a strange, irritated state. 'When are you leaving?' she asked.
Anna looked straight ahead with narrowed eyes and did not answer her.
'So is Kitty hiding from me?' she said, looking towards the door and blushing.
'Oh, what nonsense! She's nursing and it's not going well, so I advised her ... She's very glad. She'll come at once,' Dolly said awkwardly, not knowing how to tell an untruth. 'And here she is.'
Learning that Anna was there, Kitty did not want to come out, but Dolly persuaded her to. Gathering her strength, Kitty came out and, blushing, went to her and held out her hand.
'I'm very glad,' she said in a trembling voice.
Kitty was confused by the struggle going on inside her between animosity towards this bad woman and the wish to be lenient with her; but as soon as she saw Anna's beautiful, sympathetic face, all her animosity disappeared at once.
'I wouldn't have been surprised if you didn't want to meet me. I've grown used to everything. You've been ill? Yes, you've changed,' said Anna.
Kitty felt that Anna was looking at her with animosity. She explained this animosity by the awkward position that Anna, who had once patronized her, now felt herself to be in, and she felt sorry for her.
They talked about her illness, about the baby, about Stiva, but obviously nothing interested Anna.
'I came to say goodbye to you,' she said, getting up.
'When are you leaving?'
But Anna, again without answering, turned to Kitty.
'Yes, I'm very glad to have seen you,' she said with a smile. 'I've heard so much about you from all sides, even from your husband. He visited me, and I liked him very much,' she added, obviously with ill intent. 'Where is he?'
'He went to the country,' Kitty said, blushing.
'Be sure to give him my regards.'
'I'll be sure to!' Kitty naively repeated, looking into her eyes with compassion.
'Farewell then, Dolly!' and having kissed Dolly and shaken Kitty's hand, Anna hastily went out.
'The same as always and just as attractive. Such a handsome woman!' said Kitty, when she was alone with her sis
ter. 'But there's something pathetic about her! Terribly pathetic!'
'No, today there was something peculiar about her,' said Dolly. 'When I saw her off in the front hall, I thought she was going to cry.'
XXIX
Anna got into the carriage in a still worse state than when she had left the house. To the former torment was now added the feeling of being insulted and cast out, which she clearly felt when she met Kitty.
'Where to, ma'am? Home?' asked Pyotr.
'Yes, home,' she said, not even thinking of where she was going.
'How they looked at me as if at something frightful, incomprehensible and curious. What can he be talking about so ardently with the other one?' she thought, looking at two passers-by. 'Is it really possible to tell someone else what one feels? I wanted to tell Dolly, and it's a good thing I didn't. How glad she would be of my unhappiness! She would hide it, but her main feeling would be joy that I've been punished for the pleasures she envied me. Kitty, she would be even more glad. How I see right through her! She knows that I was more than usually friendly to her husband. And she's jealous, and she hates me. And also despises me. In her eyes I'm an immoral woman. If I were an immoral woman, I could get her husband to fall in love with me... if I wanted to. And I did want to. This one is pleased with himself,' she thought of a fat, red-cheeked gentleman who, as he drove by in the opposite direction, took her for an acquaintance and raised a shiny hat over his bald, shiny head and then realized he was mistaken. 'He thought he knew me. And he knows me as little as anyone else in the world knows me. I don't know myself. I know my appetites, as the French say. Those two want that dirty ice cream. That they know for certain,' she thought, looking at two boys who had stopped an ice-cream man, who was taking the barrel down from his head and wiping his sweaty face with the end of a towel. 'We all want something sweet, tasty. If not candy, then dirty ice cream. And Kitty's the same: if not Vronsky, then Levin. And she envies me. And hates me. We all hate each other. I Kitty, Kitty me. That's the truth.