Leo Tolstoy

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

  The rain had caught Seryozha in the big garden, and he and the nanny had sat it out in the gazebo.

  ‘Well, good–bye,’ she said to Vronsky. ‘We must be going to the races soon now. Betsy has promised to come for me.’

  Vronsky looked at his watch and left hastily.

  XXIV

  When Vronsky looked at his watch on the Karenins’ balcony, he was so agitated and preoccupied by his thoughts that he saw the hands on the face, but could not grasp what time it was. He went out to the road and walked to his carriage, stepping carefully through the mud. He was so full of his feeling for Anna that he did not even think what time it was and whether he could still manage to get to Briansky’s. He was left, as often happens, with only the external faculty of memory, which indicated what was to be done after what. He came up to his coachman, who had dozed off on the box in the already slanting shade of a thick linden, admired the iridescent columns of flies hovering over the sweaty horses and, waking the coachman, told him to go to Briansky’s. Only after driving some four miles did he recover sufficiently to look at his watch and grasp that it was half–past five and he was late.

  There were to be several races that day: a convoys’ race, then the officers’ mile–and–a–half, the three–mile, and the race in which he would ride. He could make it to his race, but if he went to Briansky’s, he would come barely in time and when the whole court was there. That was not good. But he had given Briansky his word that he would come and therefore decided to keep going, telling the coachman not to spare the troika.

  He arrived at Briansky’s, spent five minutes with him, and galloped back. This quick drive calmed him down. All the difficulty of his relations with Anna, all the uncertainty remaining after their conversation, left his head; with excitement and delight he now thought of the races, of how he would arrive in time after all, and every now and then the expectation of the happiness of that night’s meeting flashed like a bright light in his imagination.

  The feeling of the coming races took hold of him more and more the further he drove into their atmosphere, overtaking the carriages of those driving to the course from their country houses or Petersburg.

  There was no one at his quarters by then: they had all gone to the races, and his footman was waiting for him at the gate. While he was changing, the footman told him that the second race had already started, that many gentlemen had come asking for him, and the boy had come running twice from the stable.

  After changing unhurriedly (he never hurried or lost his self–control), Vronsky gave orders to drive to the sheds. From the sheds he could see a perfect sea of carriages, pedestrians, soldiers surrounding the racetrack and pavilions seething with people. The second race was probably under way, because he heard the bell just as he entered the shed. As he neared the stables, he met Makhotin’s white–legged chestnut Gladiator, being led to the racetrack in an orange and blue horse–cloth, his ears, as if trimmed with blue, looking enormous.

  ‘Where’s Cord?’ he asked the stableman.

  ‘In the stables, saddling up.’

  The stall was open, and Frou–Frou was already saddled. They were about to bring her out.

  ‘Am I late?’

  ‘All right, all right! Everything’s in order, everything’s in order,’ said the Englishman, ‘don’t get excited.’

  Vronsky cast a glance once more over the exquisite, beloved forms of the horse, whose whole body was trembling, and tearing himself with difficulty from this sight, walked out of the shed. He drove up to the pavilions at the best time for not attracting anyone’s attention. The mile–and–a–half race was just ending, and all eyes were turned to the horse–guard in the lead and the life–hussar behind him, urging their horses on with their last strength and nearing the post. Everyone was crowding towards the post from inside and outside the ring, and a group of soldiers and officers of the horse–guards shouted loudly with joy at the anticipated triumph of their officer and comrade. Vronsky slipped inconspicuously into the midst of the crowd almost at the moment when the bell ending the race rang out, and the tall, mud–spattered horse–guard, who came in first, lowering himself into the saddle, began to ease up on the reins of his grey, sweat–darkened, heavily breathing stallion.

  The stallion, digging his feet in with an effort, slackened the quick pace of his big body, and the horse–guard officer, like a man awakening from a deep sleep, looked around and smiled with difficulty. A crowd of friends and strangers surrounded him.

  Vronsky deliberately avoided that select high–society crowd which moved and talked with restrained freedom in front of the pavilions. He could see that Anna was there, and Betsy, and his brother’s wife, but he purposely did not approach them, so as not to become diverted. But the acquaintances he met constantly stopped him, telling details of the earlier races and asking why he was late.

  Just as all the participants were summoned to the pavilion to receive their prizes and everyone turned there, Vronsky’s older brother, Alexander, a colonel with aiguillettes, of medium height, as stocky as Alexei but more handsome and ruddy, with a red nose and a drunken, open face, came up to him.

  ‘Did you get my note?’ he said. ‘You’re impossible to find.’

  Alexander Vronsky, despite the dissolute and, in particular, drunken life he was known for, was a perfect courtier.

  Now, talking with his brother about something very disagreeable for him, and knowing that the eyes of many might be directed at them, he had a smiling look, as if he were joking about some unimportant matter.

  ‘I did, and I really don’t understand what you are worried about,’ said Alexei.

  ‘I’m worried about this – that it was just observed to me that you were not here and that on Monday you were seen in Peterhof.’

  ‘There are matters that may be discussed only by those directly involved, and the matter you are worried about is such a …’

  ‘Yes, but then don’t stay in the service, don’t…’

  ‘I ask you not to interfere, that’s all.’

  Alexei Vronsky’s frowning face paled and his jutting lower jaw twitched, something that seldom happened to him. Being a man with a very kind heart, he seldom got angry, but when he did, and when his chin twitched, he could be dangerous, as his brother knew. Alexander Vronsky smiled gaily.

  ‘I only wanted to give you mother’s letter. Answer her and don’t get upset before the race. Bonne chance!’ he added, smiling, and walked away from him.

  But just then another friendly greeting stopped Vronsky.

  ‘You don’t want to know your friends! Good afternoon, mon cher!’ said Stepan Arkadyich, and here, amidst this Petersburg brilliance, his ruddy face and glossy, brushed–up side–whiskers shone no less than in Moscow. ‘I arrived yesterday, and I’m very glad I’ll see your triumph. When shall we meet?’

  ‘Come to the officers’ mess tomorrow,’ Vronsky said and, pressing his sleeve apologetically, walked to the middle of the racetrack, where the horses were already being brought for the big steeplechase.

  Sweating horses, exhausted from racing, were led home accompanied by grooms, and new ones appeared one after the other for the forthcoming race – fresh, for the most part English, horses, in hoods, their bellies tightly girt, looking like strange, huge birds. On the right the lean beauty Frou–Frou was brought in, stepping on her supple and rather long pasterns as if on springs. Not far from her the cloth was being taken off the big–eared Gladiator. Vronsky’s attention was inadvertently drawn to the stallion’s large, exquisite, perfectly regular forms, with wonderful hindquarters and unusually short pasterns, sitting just over the hoof. He wanted to go to his horse but again was stopped by an acquaintance.

  ‘Ah, there’s Karenin,’ the acquaintance with whom he was talking said to him. ‘Looking for his wife, and she’s in the central pavilion. You haven’t seen her?’

  ‘No, I haven’t,’ Vronsky replied and, not even glancing at the pavilion in which he had been told Anna was, he went over
to his horse.

  Vronsky had just managed to inspect the saddle, about which he had to give some instructions, when the participants were summoned to the pavilion to draw numbers and start. With serious, stern faces, many of them pale, seventeen officers gathered at the pavilion and each took a number. Vronsky got number seven. The call came: ‘Mount!’

  Feeling that he and the other riders were the centre towards which all eyes were turned, Vronsky, in a state of tension, which usually made him slow and calm of movement, approached his horse. In honour of the races, Cord had put on his gala outfit: a black, high–buttoned frock coat, a stiffly starched collar propping up his cheeks, a black Derby hat and top–boots. He was calm and imposing, as always, and held the horse himself by both sides of the bridle, standing in front of her. Frou–Frou continued to tremble as in a fever. Her fire–filled eye looked askance at the approaching Vronsky. Vronsky slipped a finger under the girth. The horse looked still more askance, bared her teeth, and flattened one ear. The Englishman puckered his lips, wishing to show a smile at his saddling being checked.

  ‘Mount up, you’ll be less excited.’

  Vronsky gave his rivals a last look. He knew that during the race he would no longer see them. Two were already riding ahead to the starting place. Galtsyn, one of the dangerous rivals and Vronsky’s friend, was fussing around a bay stallion that would not let him mount. A little life–hussar in tight breeches rode by at a gallop, hunched on the croup like a cat, trying to imitate the English. Prince Kuzovlev sat pale on his thoroughbred mare from Grabov’s stud, while an Englishman led her by the bridle. Vronsky and all his comrades knew Kuzovlev and his peculiarity of ‘weak’ nerves and terrible vanity. They knew that he was afraid of everything, afraid of riding an army horse; but now, precisely because it was scary, because people broke their necks, and because by each obstacle there was a doctor, an ambulance wagon with a cross sewn on it and a sister of mercy, he had decided to ride. Their eyes met, and Vronsky winked at him gently and approvingly. There was only one man he did not see – his chief rival, Makhotin on Gladiator.

  ‘Don’t rush,’ Cord said to Vronsky, ‘and remember one thing: don’t hold her back at the obstacles and don’t send her over, let her choose as she likes.’

  ‘Very well, very well,’ said Vronsky, taking the reins.

  ‘Lead the race, if you can; but don’t despair till the last moment, even if you’re behind.’

  Before the horse had time to move, Vronsky, with a supple and strong movement, stood in the serrated steel stirrup and lightly, firmly placed his compact body on the creaking leather saddle. Putting his right foot into the stirrup, he evened up the double reins between his fingers with an accustomed gesture, and Cord loosed his grip. As if not knowing which foot to put first, Frou–Frou, pulling at the reins with her long neck, started off as if on springs, rocking her rider on her supple back.

  Cord, increasing his pace, walked after them. The excited horse, trying to trick her rider, pulled the reins now to one side, now to the other, and Vronsky tried in vain to calm her with his voice and hand.

  They were already nearing the dammed–up stream, heading for the place where they were to start. Many of the riders were in front of him, many behind, when Vronsky suddenly heard the sound of galloping in the mud of the road behind him and was overtaken by Makhotin on his white–legged, big–eared Gladiator. Makhotin smiled, showing his long teeth, but Vronsky gave him an angry look. He generally did not like him and now considered him his most dangerous rival, and he was vexed that the man had ridden past, alarming his horse. Frou–Frou kicked up her left leg in a gallop, made two leaps and, angered by the tight reins, went into a jolting trot, bouncing her rider up and down. Cord also frowned and almost ambled after Vronsky.

  XXV

  In all there were seventeen officers riding in the race. It was to take place on the big three–mile, elliptical course in front of the pavilion. Nine obstacles had been set up on this course: a stream, a five–foot–high solid barrier right in front of the pavilion, a dry ditch, a water ditch, a slope, an Irish bank (one of the most difficult obstacles), consisting of a raised bank stuck with brush, beyond which, invisible to the horse, was another ditch, so that the horse had to clear both obstacles or get badly hurt; then two more water ditches and a dry one – and the finishing line was in front of the pavilion. But the start of the race was not on the course, but some two hundred yards to the side of it, and within that stretch was the first obstacle – a dammed–up stream seven feet wide, which the riders at their discretion could either jump or wade across.

  Three times the riders lined up, but each time someone’s horse broke rank, and they had to start over again. The expert starter, Colonel Sestrin, was beginning to get angry when, finally, at the fourth try, he shouted: ‘Go!’ – and the riders took off.

  All eyes, all binoculars were turned to the bright–coloured little group of riders as they lined up.

  ‘They’re off and running!’ came from all sides, after the expectant hush.

  In groups and singly, people on foot began rushing from place to place in order to see better. In the very first moment, the compact group of riders stretched out and could be seen in twos and threes, one after another, nearing the stream. For the spectators it looked as if they were all riding together; but for the riders there were seconds of difference that were of great significance to them.

  Excited and much too high–strung, Frou–Frou lost the first moment, and several horses took off ahead of her, but before reaching the stream, Vronsky, holding the horse back with all his strength as she moved into her stride, easily overtook three of them and ahead of him there remained only Makhotin’s chestnut Gladiator, whose rump bobbed steadily and easily just in front of Vronsky, and ahead of them all the lovely Diana, carrying Kuzovlev, more dead than alive.

  For the first few minutes Vronsky was not yet master either of himself or of his horse. Up to the first obstacle, the stream, he was unable to guide his horse’s movements.

  Gladiator and Diana came to it together and almost at one and the same moment: one–two, they rose above the river and flew across to the other side; effortlessly, as if flying, Frou–Frou soared after them, but just as Vronsky felt himself in the air, he suddenly saw, almost under his horse’s feet, Kuzovlev floundering with Diana on the other side of the stream (Kuzovlev had let go of the reins after the leap, and the horse, along with him, had gone flying head over heels). These details Vronsky learned afterwards; now all he saw was that Diana’s leg or head might be right on the spot where Frou–Frou had to land. But Frou–Frou, like a falling cat, strained her legs and back during the leap and, missing the horse, raced on.

  ‘Oh, you sweetheart!’ thought Vronsky.

  After the stream, Vronsky fully mastered the horse and began holding her back, intending to go over the big barrier behind Makhotin and then, in the next unobstructed stretch of some five hundred yards, to try to get ahead of him.

  The big barrier stood right in front of the tsar’s pavilion. The emperor, and the entire court, and throngs of people – all were looking at them, at him and at Makhotin, who kept one length ahead of him, as they approached the devil (as the solid barrier was called). Vronsky felt those eyes directed at him from all sides, but he saw nothing except the ears and neck of his horse, the earth racing towards him, and Gladiator’s croup and white legs beating out a quick rhythm ahead of him and maintaining the same distance. Gladiator rose, not knocking against anything, swung his short tail and disappeared from Vronsky’s sight.

  ‘Bravo!’ said some single voice.

  That instant, just in front of him, the boards of the barrier flashed before Vronsky’s eyes. Without the least change of movement the horse soared under him; the boards vanished, and he only heard something knock behind him. Excited by Gladiator going ahead of her, the horse had risen too early before the barrier and knocked against it with a back hoof. But her pace did not change, and Vronsky, receiving a lump of mud in the f
ace, realized that he was again the same distance from Gladiator. In front of him he again saw his croup, his short tail, and again the same swiftly moving white legs not getting any further away.

  That same instant, as Vronsky was thinking that they now had to get ahead of Makhotin, Frou–Frou herself, already knowing his thought, speeded up noticeably without any urging and started to approach Makhotin from the most advantageous side – the side of the rope. Makhotin would not let her have the rope. Vronsky had just thought that they could also get round him on the outside, when Frou–Frou switched step and started to go ahead precisely that way. Frou–Frou’s shoulder, already beginning to darken with sweat, drew even with Gladiator’s croup. They took several strides together. But, before the obstacle they were approaching, Vronsky, to avoid making the larger circle, began working the reins and, on the slope itself, quickly got ahead of Makhotin. He saw his mud–spattered face flash by. It even seemed to him that he smiled. Vronsky got ahead of Makhotin, but he could feel him right behind him and constantly heard just at his back the steady tread and the short, still quite fresh breathing of Gladiator’s nostrils.