Leo Tolstoy

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

  ‘Yes, but what is her relation to Kaluzhsky?’

  Betsy unexpectedly laughed, gaily and irrepressibly, something that rarely happened with her.

  ‘You’re encroaching on Princess Miagky’s province. It’s the question of a terrible child.’* And Betsy obviously tried to restrain herself but failed and burst into the infectious laughter of people who laugh rarely. ‘You’ll have to ask them,’ she said through tears of laughter.

  ‘No, you’re laughing,’ said Anna, also involuntarily infected with

  * Tolstoy literally translates the French saying: jeter son bonnet par–dessus les moulins, meaning to throw caution to the winds.

  * Literal translation of the French enfant terrible.

  laughter, ‘but I never could understand it. I don’t understand the husband’s role in it.’

  ‘The husband? Liza Merkalov’s husband carries rugs around for her and is always ready to be of service. And what else there is in fact, nobody wants to know. You see, in good society one doesn’t speak or even think of certain details of the toilette. It’s the same here.’

  ‘Will you be at Rolandaki’s fete?’ Anna asked, to change the subject.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Betsy replied and began carefully filling the small, translucent cups with fragrant tea. Moving a cup towards Anna, she took out a slender cigarette, put it into a silver holder, and lit it.

  ‘So you see, I’m in a fortunate position,’ she began, no longer laughing, as she picked up her cup. ‘I understand you and I understand Liza. Liza is one of those naive natures, like children, who don’t understand what’s good and what’s bad. At least she didn’t understand it when she was very young. And now she knows that this non–understanding becomes her. Now she may purposely not understand,’ Betsy spoke with a subtle smile, ‘but all the same it becomes her. You see, one and the same thing can be looked at tragically and be made into a torment, or can be looked at simply and even gaily. Perhaps you’re inclined to look at things too tragically.’

  ‘How I wish I knew others as I know myself,’ Anna said seriously and pensively. ‘Am I worse than others or better? Worse, I think.’

  ‘Terrible child, terrible child!’ Betsy repeated. ‘But here they are.’

  XVIII

  Footsteps were heard and a man’s voice, then a woman’s voice and laughter, and the expected guests came in: Sappho Stolz and a young man radiant with a superabundance of health, the so–called Vaska. It was evident that he prospered on a diet of rare beef, truffles and Burgundy. Vaska bowed to the ladies and glanced at them, but only for a second. He came into the drawing room after Sappho, and followed her across the room as if tied to her, not taking his shining eyes off her, as if he wanted to eat her up. Sappho Stolz was a dark–eyed blonde. She walked with brisk little steps in her high–heeled shoes and gave the ladies a firm, mannish handshake. Anna had not met this new celebrity before and was struck by her beauty, by how extremely far her costume went, and by the boldness of her manners. On her head, hair of a delicately golden colour, her own and other women’s, was done up into such an edifice of a coiffure that her head equalled in size her shapely, well–rounded and much–exposed bust. Her forward movement was so impetuous that at every step the forms of her knees and thighs were outlined under her dress, and the question involuntarily arose as to where, at the back of this built–up, heaving mountain, her real, small and shapely body actually ended, so bare above and so concealed behind and below.

  Betsy hastened to introduce her to Anna.

  ‘Can you imagine, we nearly ran over two soldiers,’ she began telling them at once, winking, smiling, and thrusting her train back in place, having first swept it too far to one side. ‘I was driving with Vaska … Ah, yes, you’re not acquainted.’ And, giving his family name, she introduced the young man and, blushing, laughed loudly at her mistake, that is, at having called him Vaska to a stranger.

  Vaska bowed to Anna once again, but said nothing to her. He turned to Sappho:

  ‘You’ve lost the bet. We came first. Pay up,’ he said, smiling.

  Sappho laughed still more gaily.

  ‘But not now,’ she said.

  ‘Never mind, I’ll get it later.’

  ‘All right, all right. Ah, yes!’ she suddenly turned to the hostess, ‘a fine one I am … I quite forgot … I’ve brought you a guest. Here he is.’

  The unexpected young guest whom Sappho had brought and forgotten was, however, such an important guest that, despite his youth, both ladies rose to meet him.[17]

  This was Sappho’s new admirer. He now hung on her heels, just as Vaska did.

  Soon Prince Kaluzhsky arrived, and Liza Merkalov with Stremov. Liza Merkalov was a slender brunette with a lazy, Levantine type of face and lovely – unfathomable, as everyone said – eyes. The character of her dark costume (Anna noticed and appreciated it at once) was perfectly suited to her beauty. She was as soft and loose as Sappho was tough and collected.

  But to Anna’s taste Liza was far more attractive. Betsy had said of her to Anna that she had adopted the tone of an ingenuous child, but when Anna saw her, she felt it was not true. She was indeed an ingenuous, spoiled, but sweet and mild woman. True, her tone was the same as Sappho’s; just as with Sappho, two admirers followed after her as if sewn to her, devouring her with their eyes, one young, the other an old man; but there was something in her that was higher than her surroundings – there was the brilliance of a diamond of the first water amidst glass. This brilliance shone from her lovely, indeed unfathomable, eyes. The weary and at the same time passionate gaze of those dark–ringed eyes was striking in its perfect sincerity. Looking into those eyes, everyone thought he knew her thoroughly and, knowing, could not but love her. When she saw Anna, her face suddenly lit up with a joyful smile.

  ‘Ah, how glad I am to see you!’ she said, going up to her. ‘Yesterday at the races I was just about to go to you, but you left. I wanted so much to see you precisely yesterday. Wasn’t it terrible?’ she said, looking at Anna with those eyes that seemed to reveal her entire soul.

  ‘Yes, I never expected it would be so upsetting,’ said Anna, blushing.

  The company rose just then to go to the garden.

  ‘I won’t go,’ said Liza, smiling and sitting down beside Anna. ‘You won’t go either? Who wants to play croquet!’

  ‘No, I like it,’ said Anna.

  ‘But how do you manage not to be bored? One looks at you and feels gay. You live, but I’m bored.’

  ‘Bored? You’re the gayest company in Petersburg,’ said Anna.

  ‘Maybe those who aren’t in our company are more bored; but for us, for me certainly, it’s not gay, it’s terribly, terribly boring.’

  Sappho, lighting a cigarette, went to the garden with the two young men. Betsy and Stremov stayed at tea.

  ‘Boring?’ said Betsy. ‘Sappho says they had a very gay time with you yesterday.’

  ‘Ah, it was excruciating!’ said Liza Merkalov. ‘We all went to my house after the races. And it was all the same people, all the same! All one and the same thing. We spent the whole evening lolling on the sofa. What’s gay about that? No, how do you manage not to be bored?’ She again turned to Anna. ‘One looks at you and sees – here is a woman who can be happy or unhappy, but not bored. Tell me, how do you do it?’

  ‘I don’t do anything,’ said Anna, blushing at these importunate questions.

  ‘That’s the best way,’ Stremov mixed in the conversation.

  Stremov was a man of about fifty, half grey, still fresh, very ugly, but with an expressive and intelligent face. Liza Merkalov was his wife’s niece, and he spent all his free time with her. Meeting Anna Karenina, he, who was Alexei Alexandrovich’s enemy in the service, being an intelligent man of the world, tried to be especially amiable to her, his enemy’s wife.

  ‘Don’t do anything,’ he repeated with a subtle smile, ‘that’s the best way. I’ve long been telling you,’ he turned to Liza Merkalov, ‘that to keep things
from being boring, you mustn’t think they’ll be boring. Just as you mustn’t be afraid you won’t fall asleep if you fear insomnia. And Anna Arkadyevna is telling you the same thing.’

  ‘I’d be very glad if I had said that, because it’s not only intelligent, but also true,’ Anna said, smiling.

  ‘No, tell me, why is it impossible to fall asleep and impossible not to be bored?’

  ‘To fall asleep you must work, and to be gay you also must work.’

  ‘But why should I work, if nobody needs my work? And I cannot and do not want to pretend on purpose.’

  ‘You’re incorrigible,’ said Stremov without looking at her, and again he turned to Anna.

  As he met Anna rarely, he could say nothing but banalities, but he uttered these banalities about when she was moving back to Petersburg, about how Countess Lydia Ivanovna loved her, with an expression which showed that he wished with all his heart to be agreeable to her and show his respect and even more.

  Tushkevich came in, announcing that the whole company was waiting for the croquet players.

  ‘No, please don’t leave,’ begged Liza Merkalov, learning that Anna was leaving. Stremov joined her.

  ‘It’s too great a contrast,’ he said, ‘to go to old Vrede after this company. And besides you’ll give her an occasion for malicious gossip, while here you’ll call up only other, very good, feelings, the opposite of malicious gossip.’ _,

  Anna reflected hesitantly for a moment. The flattering talk of this intelligent man, the naive, childlike sympathy that Liza Merkalov showed for her, and this whole accustomed social situation was so easy, while what awaited her was so difficult, that for a moment she was undecided whether she might not stay, whether she might not put off the painful moment of explanation a little longer. But, remembering what awaited her at home alone if she took no decision, remembering that gesture, which was terrible for her even in remembrance, when she had clutched her hair with both hands, she said good–bye and left.

  XIX

  Vronsky, despite his seemingly frivolous social life, was a man who hated disorder. While young, still in the corps, he had experienced the humiliation of refusal when, having got entangled, he had asked for a loan, and since then he had never put himself into such a position.

  To keep his affairs in order at all times, he would go into seclusion more or less frequently, some five times a year, depending on the circumstances, and clear up all his affairs. He called it squaring accounts or faire la lessive. *

  Waking up late the day after the races, Vronsky put on his uniform jacket without shaving or bathing and, laying out money, bills and letters on the table, set to work. When Petritsky, who knew that in such situations he was usually cross, woke up and saw his friend at the writing desk, he quietly got dressed and went out without bothering him.

  Every man, knowing to the smallest detail all the complexity of the conditions surrounding him, involuntarily assumes that the complexity of these conditions and the difficulty of comprehending them are only his personal, accidental peculiarity, and never thinks that others are surrounded by the same complexity as he is. So it seemed to Vronsky. And he thought, not without inner pride and not groundlessly, that anyone else would long ago have become entangled and been forced to act badly if he had found himself in such difficult circumstances. Yet he felt that to avoid getting entangled he had to do the accounts and clear up his situation there and then.

  The first thing Vronsky attacked, being the easiest, was money matters. Having written out in his small handwriting on a sheet of notepaper everything he owed, he added it all up and discovered that he owed seventeen thousand and some hundreds, which he dismissed for the sake of clarity. Then he counted up his cash and bank book and discovered that he had one thousand eight hundred left, with no prospect of getting

  * Doing the laundry.

  more before the New Year. Rereading the list of his debts, Vronsky wrote it out again, dividing it into three categories. To the first category belonged debts that had to be paid at once, or in any case for which he had to have ready cash, to be paid on demand without a moment’s delay. These debts came to about four thousand: one thousand five hundred for the horse, and two thousand five hundred as security for his young comrade Venevsky, who in his presence had lost that amount to a card–sharper. Vronsky had wanted to pay the money right then (he had had it on him), but Venevsky and Yashvin had insisted that they would pay it, not Vronsky, who had not even been playing. That was all very fine, but Vronsky knew that in this dirty business, which he had taken part in if only by giving verbal security for Venevsky, he had to have the two thousand five hundred ready to fling at the swindler and have no further discussions with him. And so, for this first and most important category, he had to have four thousand. In the second category, of eight thousand, there were less important debts. These were mostly debts to the racing stables, to the oats and hay supplier, to the Englishman, the saddler and so on. Of these debts he had to pay off some two thousand in order to be perfectly at ease. The last category of debts – to shops, hotels, the tailor – were of the sort not worth thinking about. Therefore he needed at least six thousand, and had only one thousand eight hundred for current expenses. For a man with an income of a hundred thousand, as everyone evaluated Vronsky’s fortune, such debts, it would seem, could not be burdensome; but the thing was that he was far from having a hundred thousand. His father’s enormous fortune, which alone had brought an annual income of two hundred thousand, had not been divided between the two brothers. At the time when the older brother, having a heap of debts, married Princess Varya Chirkov, the daughter of a Decembrist,[18] with no fortune at all, Alexei had given up to his older brother all the income from his father’s estates, reserving for himself only twenty–five thousand a year. Alexei had told his brother then that this money would suffice him until he married, which most likely would never happen. And his brother, commander of one of the most expensive regiments[19] and recently married, could not but accept the gift. On top of the reserved twenty–five thousand, his mother, who had her own fortune, gave Alexei some twenty thousand more, and Alexei spent it all. Lately, having quarrelled with him over his liaison and his leaving Moscow, she had stopped sending him the money. As a result, Vronsky, who was used to living on forty–five thousand a year and that year had received only twenty–five, now found himself in difficulties. He could not ask his mother for money in order to get out of these difficulties. Her latest letter, received the day before, had especially vexed him, as there were hints in it that she was ready to help him towards success in society and in the service, but not for a life that scandalized all good society. His mother’s wish to buy him had insulted him to the depths of his soul and cooled him still more towards her. But he could not renounce the generous words he had spoken, though he now felt, vaguely foreseeing some eventualities of his affair with Anna, that those generous words had been spoken light–mindedly, and that, unmarried, he might need the whole hundred thousand of income. But to renounce them was impossible. He had only to recall his brother’s wife, recall how that dear, sweet Varya reminded him at every chance that she remembered his generosity and appreciated it, to understand the impossibility of taking back what had been given. It was as impossible as stealing, lying, or striking a woman. One thing could and had to be done, which Vronsky resolved upon without a moment’s hesitation: to borrow ten thousand from a moneylender, which would be easy enough, to cut down his expenses in general, and to sell his racehorses. Having decided on that, he straight away wrote a note to Rolandaki, who had sent to him more than once with an offer to buy his horses. Then he sent for the Englishman and for the moneylender, and divided the money he had available into payments. After finishing these matters, he wrote a cold and sharp response to his mother’s letter. Then, taking three of Anna’s notes from his wallet, he reread them, burned them, and, recalling his talk with her the evening before, fell to thinking.

  XX

  Vronsky’s life wa
s especially fortunate in that he had a code of rules which unquestionably defined everything that ought and ought not to be done. The code embraced a very small circle of conditions, but the rules were unquestionable and, never going outside that circle, Vronsky never hesitated a moment in doing what ought be done. These rules determined unquestionably that a card–sharper must be paid but a tailor need not be, that one should not lie to men but may lie to women, that it is wrong to deceive anyone but one may deceive a husband, that it is wrong to pardon insults but one may give insults, and so on. These rules might not all be very reasonable or very nice, but they were unquestionable, and in fulfilling them Vronsky felt at ease and could hold his head high. Only most recently, in regard to his relations with Anna, had he begun to feel that his code of rules did not fully define all circumstances, and to envisage future difficulties and doubts in which he could no longer find a guiding thread.