Leo Tolstoy

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

  In his study Alexei Alexandrovich paced up and down a couple of times, stopped by the enormous desk, on which six candles had been lit beforehand by the valet, cracked his fingers and sat down, sorting out his writing accessories. Placing his elbows on the desk, he inclined his head to one side, thought for a moment, and began to write, not stopping for a second. He wrote without addressing her and in French, using the plural pronoun ‘you’, which does not have that character of coldness which it has in Russian.

  In our last conversation I expressed my intention to inform you of my decision with regard to the subject of that conversation. Having thought it all over attentively, I am now writing with the purpose of fulfilling that promise. My decision is the following: whatever your actions may have been, I do not consider myself justified in breaking the bonds by which a higher power has united us. A family may not be destroyed by the caprice, arbitrariness or even crime of one of the spouses, and our life must go on as before. That is necessary for me, for you, for our son. I am fully convinced that you have repented and do repent for being the occasion of this present letter and that you will assist me in eradicating the cause of our discord and in forgetting the past. Otherwise you yourself can imagine what awaits you and your son. All this I hope to discuss in more detail in a personal meeting. Since the summer season is coming to an end, I would ask you to move back to Petersburg as soon as possible, not later than Tuesday. All necessary arrangements for your move will be made. I beg you to note that I ascribe particular importance to the fulfilment of my request.

  A. Karenin

  PS Enclosed is the money you may need for your expenses.

  He read the letter over and remained pleased with it, especially with having remembered to enclose money; there was not a cruel word, not a reproach, but no lenience either. Above all, there was a golden bridge for return. Having folded the letter, smoothed it with a massive ivory paper–knife, and put money in the envelope, with the pleasure always aroused in him by the handling of his well–arranged writing accessories, he rang.

  ‘Give this to the courier, to be delivered tomorrow to Anna Arkadyevna at the country house,’ he said and stood up.

  ‘Yes, your excellency. Will you take tea in the study?’

  Alexei Alexandrovich ordered tea to be served in the study and, toying with the massive paper–knife, went to the armchair by which a lamp had been prepared, with a French book he had begun reading on the Eugubine Tables.[13] Above the armchair, in a gilt frame, hung an oval portrait of Anna, beautifully executed by a famous painter. Alexei Alexandrovich looked at it. The impenetrable eyes looked at him insolently and mockingly, as on that last evening of their talk. The sight of the black lace on her head, her black hair and the beautiful white hand with its fourth finger covered with rings, splendidly executed by the painter, impressed him as unbearably insolent and defiant. After looking at the portrait for about a minute, Alexei Alexandrovich gave such a start that his lips trembled and produced a ‘brr’, and he turned away. Hastily sitting down in the armchair, he opened the book. He tried to read, but simply could not restore in himself the quite lively interest he had formerly taken in the Eugubine Tables. He was looking at the book and thinking about other things. He was thinking not about his wife but about a certain complication that had recently emerged in his state activity, which at that time constituted the main interest of his work. He felt that he was now penetrating this complication more deeply than ever, and that in his head there was hatching – he could say it without self–delusion – a capital idea, which would disentangle this whole affair, raise him in his official career, do harm to his enemies, and thus be of the greatest use to the state. As soon as the servant set down the tea and left the room, Alexei Alexandrovich got up and went to his desk. Moving the portfolio of current cases into the middle, with a barely noticeable smile of self–satisfaction he took a pencil from the stand and immersed himself in reading a complex case he had sent for, having to do with the forthcoming complication. The complication was the following. Alexei Alexandrovich’s particularity as a statesman, that characteristic feature proper to him alone (every rising official has such a feature), which, together with his persistent ambition, reserve, honesty and self–assurance, had made his career, consisted in his scorn for paper bureaucracy, in a reducing of correspondence, in taking as direct a relation to living matters as possible, and in economy. It so happened that in the famous commission of June 2nd, a case had been brought up about the irrigation of the fields in Zaraysk province,[14] which belonged to Alexei Alexandrovich’s ministry and presented a glaring example of unproductive expenditure and a paper attitude towards things. He knew that this was correct. The case of irrigating the fields in Zaraysk province had been started by the predecessor of his predecessor. And indeed, a good deal of money had been and was still being spent on this case, altogether unproductively, and it was obvious that the whole case could lead nowhere. Alexei Alexandrovich, on taking over the post, understood this at once and wanted to get his hands on the case; but in the beginning, when he still felt himself not quite secure, he realized that this would be unwise, as it touched on too many interests; later, occupied with other cases, he simply forgot it. Like other cases, it went on by itself, by the force of inertia. (Many people lived off this case, in particular one very moral and musical family: all the daughters played stringed instruments. Alexei Alexandrovich knew this family and had given away the bride at the oldest daughter’s wedding.) To bring up the case was, in his opinion, unfair on the part of a hostile ministry, because in every ministry there were even worse cases which, according to a certain official decency, no one brought up. Now, since the gauntlet had been thrown down before him, he boldly picked it up and demanded that a special commission be appointed to study and inspect the work of the commission on the irrigation of the fields in Zaraysk province; but in return he would give those gentlemen no quarter. He also demanded that a special commission be appointed in the case of the settling of racial minorities.[15] The case of the settling of racial minorities had been brought up accidentally in the committee of June 2nd, and had been vigorously supported by Alexei Alexandrovich as brooking no delay owing to the lamentable situation of the minorities. In the committee this matter had served as a pretext for wrangling among several ministries. The ministry hostile to Alexei Alexandrovich had argued that the situation of the minorities was quite prosperous and the proposed reorganization might ruin their prosperity; and if there was anything wrong, it came from the failure of Alexei Alexandrovich’s ministry to carry out the measures prescribed by law. Now Alexei Alexandrovich intended to demand: first, that a new commission be set up which would be charged with investigating the conditions of the minorities on the spot; second, if it should turn out that the situation of the minorities was indeed as it appeared from official data available in the hands of the committee, another new expert commission should be appointed to investigate the causes of the dismal situation of the minorities from the (a) political, (b) administrative, (c) economic, (d) ethnographic, (e) material and (f) religious points of view; third, the hostile ministry should be required to supply information about the measures taken by that ministry over the last decade to prevent those unfavourable conditions in which the minorities now found themselves; fourth, and finally, the ministry should be required to explain why, as could be seen from the information in files No. 17015 and 18308, of 5 December 1863 and 7 June 1864, it had acted in a sense directly contrary to the meaning of the fundamental and organic law, Vol.––––––, art. 18 and note to art. 36. A flush of animation covered Alexei Alexandrovich’s face as he quickly noted down these thoughts for himself. Having covered a sheet of paper with writing, he got up, rang and sent a little note to his office manager about providing him with the necessary references. Getting up and pacing the room, he again glanced at the portrait, frowned and smiled contemptuously. After reading a bit more in the book on the Eugubine Tables and reviving his interest in them, Alexei Alexandrovic
h went to bed at eleven o’clock, and when, lying in bed, he recalled the incident with his wife, it no longer presented itself to him in the same gloomy light.

  XV

  Though Anna had stubbornly and bitterly persisted in contradicting Vronsky when he told her that her situation was impossible and tried to persuade her to reveal everything to her husband, in the depths of her soul she considered her situation false, dishonest, and wished with all her soul to change it. Coming home from the races with her husband, in a moment of agitation she had told him everything; despite the pain she had felt in doing so, she was glad of it. After her husband left, she told herself that she was glad, that now everything would be definite and at least there would be no falsehood and deceit. It seemed unquestionable to her that now her situation would be defined forever. It might be bad, this new situation, but it would be definite, there would be no vagueness or falsehood in it. The pain she had caused herself and her husband by uttering those words would be recompensed by the fact that everything would be defined, she thought. That same evening she saw Vronsky but did not tell him about what had happened between her and her husband, though to clarify the situation she ought to have told him.

  When she woke up the next morning, the first thing that came to her was the words she had spoken to her husband, and they seemed so terrible to her now that she could not understand how she could have resolved to utter those strange, coarse words, and could not imagine what would come of it. But the words had been spoken, and Alexei Alexandrovich had left without saying anything. ‘I saw Vronsky and didn’t tell him. Even at the very moment he was leaving, I wanted to call him back and tell him, but I changed my mind, because it was strange that I hadn’t told him at the very first moment. Why didn’t I tell him, if I wanted to?’ And in answer to this question, a hot flush of shame poured over her face. She understood what had kept her from doing it; she understood that she was ashamed. Her situation, which had seemed clarified last night, now suddenly appeared to her not only not clarified, but hopeless. She became terrified of the disgrace which she had not even thought of before. When she merely thought of what her husband was going to do, the most terrible notions came to her. It occurred to her that the accountant would now come to turn her out of the house, that her disgrace would be announced to the whole world. She asked herself where she would go when she was turned out of the house, and could find no answer.

  When she thought of Vronsky, she imagined that he did not love her, that he was already beginning to be burdened by her, that she could not offer herself to him, and she felt hostile to him because of it. It seemed to her that the words she had spoken to her husband, and which she kept repeating in her imagination, had been spoken to everyone and that everyone had heard them. She could not bring herself to look into the eyes of those she lived with. She could not bring herself to call her maid and still less to go downstairs to see her son and the governess.

  The maid, who had been listening by the door for a long time, came into the room on her own. Anna looked questioningly into her eyes and blushed timorously. The maid apologized for coming in and said she thought she had heard the bell. She brought a dress and a note. The note was from Betsy. Betsy reminded her that she had Liza Merkalov and Baroness Stolz, with their admirers, Kaluzhsky and old Stremov, coming that morning for a croquet party. ‘Do come just to see it, as a study in manners. I’ll expect you,’ she ended.

  Anna read the note and sighed deeply.

  ‘Nothing, I need nothing,’ she said to Annushka, who kept rearranging the flacons and brushes on the dressing table. ‘Go, I’ll get dressed now and come out. There’s nothing I need.’

  Annushka left, but Anna did not begin to dress; she went on sitting in the same position, her head and arms hanging down, and every once in a while her whole body shuddered, as if wishing to make some gesture, to say something, and then became still again. She kept repeating: ‘My God! My God!’ But neither the ‘my’ nor the ‘God’ had any meaning for her. Though she had never doubted the religion in which she had been brought up, the thought of seeking help from religion in her situation was as foreign to her as seeking help from Alexei Alexandrovich. She knew beforehand that the help of religion was possible only on condition of renouncing all that made up the whole meaning of life for her. Not only was it painful for her, but she was beginning to feel fear before the new, never experienced state of her soul. She felt that everything was beginning to go double in her soul, as an object sometimes goes double in tired eyes. Sometimes she did not know what she feared, what she desired: whether she feared or desired what had been or what would be, and precisely what she desired, she did not know.

  ‘Ah, what am I doing!’ she said to herself, suddenly feeling pain in both sides of her head. When she came to herself, she saw that she was clutching the hair on her temples and squeezing them with both hands. She jumped up and began pacing.

  ‘Coffee’s ready, and Mamzelle and Seryozha are waiting,’ said Annushka, coming back again and finding Anna in the same position.

  ‘Seryozha? What about Seryozha?’ Anna asked, suddenly becoming animated, remembering her son’s existence for the first time that whole morning.

  ‘He’s been naughty, it seems,’ Annushka answered, smiling.

  ‘What has he done?’

  ‘You had some peaches on the table in the corner room, and it seems he ate one on the sly.’

  The reminder of her son suddenly brought Anna out of that state of hopelessness which she had been in. She remembered the partly sincere, though much exaggerated, role of the mother who lives for her son, which she had taken upon herself in recent years, and felt with joy that, in the circumstances she was in, she had her domain, independent of her relations with her husband and Vronsky. That domain was her son. Whatever position she was in, she could not abandon her son. Let her husband disgrace her and turn her out, let Vronsky grow cool towards her and continue to lead his independent life (again she thought of him with bitterness and reproach), she could not desert her son. She had a goal in life. And she had to act, to act in order to safeguard that position with her son, so that he would not be taken from her. She even had to act soon, as soon as possible, while he had not yet been taken from her. She had to take her son and leave. Here was the one thing she now had to do. She needed to be calm and to get out of this painful situation. The thought of a matter directly connected with her son, of leaving with him at once for somewhere, gave her that calm.

  She dressed quickly, went downstairs, and with a resolute stride entered the drawing room where, as usual, coffee and Seryozha with the governess were waiting for her. Seryozha, all in white, stood by the table under the mirror and, his back and head bowed, with an expression of strained attention which she knew in him and in which he resembled his father, was doing something with the flowers he had brought.

  The governess had an especially severe look. Seryozha cried out shrilly, as he often did: ‘Ah, mama!’ and stopped, undecided whether to go and greet his mother, abandoning the flowers, or to finish the garland and go to her with the flowers.

  The governess, having greeted her, began to tell her at length and with qualifications about Seryozha’s trespass, but Anna was not listening to her; she was thinking whether she would take her along or not. ‘No, I won’t,’ she decided. ‘I’ll go alone with my son.’

  ‘Yes, that’s very bad,’ said Anna and, taking her son by the shoulder, she looked at him not with a severe but with a timid gaze, which embarrassed and delighted the boy, and kissed him. ‘Leave him with me,’ she said to the astonished governess and, not letting go of her son’s hand, sat down at the table where the coffee was waiting.

  ‘Mama! I… I … didn’t.. .’ he said, trying to guess from her expression how he would be punished for the peach.

  ‘Seryozha,’ she said, as soon as the governess left the room, ‘that’s bad, but you won’t do it again?… Do you love me?’

  She felt tears coming to her eyes. ‘How can I help loving
him?’ she said to herself, peering into his frightened and at the same time joyful eyes. ‘And can it be that he will join with his father to punish me? Won’t he pity me?’ The tears ran down her cheeks and, to hide them, she got up impulsively and all but ran out to the terrace.

  After the thunderstorms of the past few days, cold, clear weather had set in. The bright sun shone through the washed leaves, but there was a chill in the air.

  She shivered both from the cold and from the inner horror that seized her with new force in the fresh air.

  ‘Go, go to Mariette,’ she said to Seryozha, who came out after her, and she began pacing the straw matting of the terrace. ‘Can it be that they won’t forgive me, won’t understand that all this could not be otherwise?’ she said to herself.

  She stopped and looked at the tops of the aspens swaying in the wind, their washed leaves glistening brightly in the cold sun, and she understood that they would not forgive, that everything and everyone would be merciless to her now, like this sky, like this greenery. And again she felt things beginning to go double in her soul. ‘I mustn’t, I mustn’t think,’ she said to herself. ‘I must get ready to go. Where? When? Whom shall I take with me? Yes, to Moscow, on the evening train. Annushka and Seryozha, and only the most necessary things. But first I must write to them both.’ She quickly went into the house, to her boudoir, sat down at the desk and wrote to her husband: