Leo Tolstoy

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

  So as not to depend on the Levins for the trip, Darya Alexandrovna sent to the village to hire horses; but Levin, learning of it, came to reprimand her.

  ‘Why do you think your trip is unpleasant for me? And even if it was unpleasant, it is still more unpleasant that you’re not taking my horses,’ he said. ‘You never once told me you had decided on going. And to hire in the village is, first of all, unpleasant for me, but the main thing is that they’ll promise to get you there and won’t do it. I have horses. And if you don’t want to upset me, you’ll take mine.’

  Darya Alexandrovna had to consent, and on the appointed day Levin prepared a four–in–hand and a relay, assembling it from work and saddle horses, not very handsome, but capable of getting Darya Alexandrovna there in a day. Now, when horses were needed both for the departing princess and for the midwife, this was difficult for Levin, but by the duty of hospitality he could not allow Darya Alexandrovna to hire horses while in his house, and, besides, he knew that the twenty roubles Darya Alexandrovna would be asked to pay for the trip were very important for her; and he felt Darya Alexandrovna’s money matters, which were in a very bad state, as if they were his own.

  On Levin’s advice, Darya Alexandrovna started out before dawn. The road was good, the carriage comfortable, the horses ran at a merry pace, and on the box beside the coachman sat the clerk, whom Levin sent along instead of a footman for safety’s sake. Darya Alexandrovna dozed off and woke up only as they were approaching an inn where the horses were to be changed.

  After having tea with the same rich muzhik–proprietor with whom Levin had stayed on his way to Sviyazhsky’s, and talking with the women about children and with the old man about Count Vronsky, whom he praised very much, Darya Alexandrovna set off again at ten o’clock. At home, busy with the children, she never had time to think. But now, during this four–hour drive, all the previously repressed thoughts suddenly came crowding into her head, and she thought about the whole of her life as never before, and from all different sides. She herself found her thoughts strange. First she thought of her children, about whom she still worried, though the princess, and above all Kitty (she relied more on her), had promised to look after them. ‘What if Masha starts her pranks again, and what if Grisha gets kicked by a horse, and what if Lily’s stomach gets still more upset?’ But then the questions of the present were supplanted by questions of the near future. She began thinking that they ought to rent a new apartment in Moscow for the next winter, the furniture in the drawing room should be changed and a fur coat should be made for the oldest daughter. Then came thoughts of the more distant future: how she was going to send the children into the world. ‘Never mind about the girls – but the boys?

  ‘Very well, I can busy myself with Grisha now, but that’s because I’m now free myself, I’m not pregnant. Naturally, there’s no counting on Stiva. With the help of good people, I will send them out; but if there’s another child …’ And it occurred to her how incorrect the saying was about a curse being laid upon woman, that in pain she would bring forth children.[6] ‘Never mind giving birth, but being pregnant – that’s the pain,’ she thought, picturing her last pregnancy and the death of that last child. And she remembered her conversation with the young peasant woman at the inn. To the question whether she had children, the beautiful young woman had cheerfully replied:

  ‘I had one girl, but God freed me, I buried her during Lent.’

  ‘And aren’t you very sorry about her?’ Darya Alexandrovna had asked.

  ‘Why be sorry? The old man has lots of grandchildren. Nothing but trouble. No work, no nothing. Just bondage.’

  This answer had seemed repulsive to Darya Alexandrovna, despite the young woman’s good–natured prettiness, but now she inadvertently recalled those words. Cynical as they were, there was some truth in them.

  ‘And generally,’ thought Darya Alexandrovna, looking back at the whole of her life in those fifteen years of marriage, ‘pregnancy, nausea, dullness of mind, indifference to everything, and, above all, ugliness. Kitty, young and pretty Kitty, even she has lost her good looks, but when I’m pregnant I get ugly, I know it. Labour, suffering, ugly suffering, that last moment … then nursing, the sleepless nights, the terrible pains…’

  Darya Alexandrovna shuddered at the mere recollection of the pain from cracked nipples that she had endured with almost every child. ‘Then the children’s illnesses, this eternal fear; then their upbringing, vile inclinations’ (she remembered little Masha’s crime in the raspberries), ‘education, Latin – all of it so incomprehensible and difficult. And on top of it all, the death of these same children.’ And again there came to her imagination the cruel memory, eternally gnawing at her mother’s heart, of the death of her last infant boy, who had died of croup, his funeral, the universal indifference before that small, pink coffin, and her own heart–rending, lonely pain before the pale little forehead with curls at the temples, before the opened, surprised little mouth she had glimpsed in the coffin just as it was covered by the pink lid with the lace cross.

  ‘And all that for what? What will come of it all? That I, having not a moment’s peace, now pregnant, now nursing, eternally angry, grumpy, tormented myself and tormenting others, repulsive to my husband, will live my life out and bring up unfortunate, poorly educated and destitute children. Even now, if we weren’t with the Levins, I don’t know how we’d live. Of course, Kostya and Kitty are so delicate that we don’t notice it; but it can’t go on. They’ll start having children and won’t be able to help us; they’re in tight straits even now. Is papa, who has kept almost nothing for himself, to help us? And so I can’t set my children up myself, but only with the help of others, in humiliation. Well, and if we take the most fortunate outcome: the children won’t die any more, and I’ll bring them up somehow. At best they simply won’t turn out to be scoundrels. That’s all I can wish for. And for that so much torment, so much work … A whole life ruined!’ Again she recalled what the young peasant woman had said, and again the recollection was vile to her; but she could not help admitting that there was a dose of crude truth in those words.

  ‘Is it far now, Mikhaila?’ Darya Alexandrovna asked the clerk, to get her mind off these thoughts that frightened her.

  ‘Five miles from this village, they say.’

  The carriage drove down the village street on to a bridge. Along the bridge, with cheerful, ringing talk, went a crowd of merry peasant women with plaited sheaf–binders on their shoulders. The women stopped on the bridge, gazing curiously at the carriage. The faces turned to her all seemed healthy and cheerful to Darya Alexandrovna, taunting her with the joy of life. ‘Everybody lives, everybody enjoys life,’ she went on thinking, going past the women and on up the hill at a trot, again rocking pleasantly on the soft springs of the old carriage, ‘and I, released, as if from prison, from a world that is killing me with cares, have only now come to my senses for a moment. Everybody lives – these women, and my sister Natalie, and Varenka, and Anna, whom I am going to see – and only I don’t.

  ‘And they all fall upon Anna. What for? Am I any better? I at least have a husband I love. Not as I’d have wanted to love, but I do love him, and Anna did not love hers. How is she to blame, then? She wants to live. God has put that into our souls. I might very well have done the same. Even now I don’t know if I did the right thing to listen to her that terrible time when she came to me in Moscow. I ought to have left my husband then and started life over from the beginning. I might have loved and been loved in a real way. And is it better now? I don’t respect him. He’s necessary to me,’ she thought about her husband, ‘and so I put up with him. Is that better? I could still have been liked then, I still had some of my beauty,’ Darya Alexandrovna went on thinking and wanted to look in the mirror. She had a travelling mirror in her bag and would have liked to take it out; but looking at the backs of the coachman and the rocking clerk, she felt she would be embarrassed if one of them turned round, and so she did not take the mi
rror out.

  But even without looking in the mirror she thought it was still not too late. She remembered Sergei Ivanovich, who was especially amiable towards her, and Stiva’s friend, the kindly Turovtsyn, who had helped her take care of her children when they had scarlet fever and was in love with her. And there was also one quite young man who, as her husband had told her jokingly, found her the most beautiful of all the sisters. And Darya Alexandrovna pictured the most passionate and impossible love affairs. ‘Anna acted splendidly, and I am not going to reproach her. She’s happy, she makes another person happy, and she’s not downtrodden the way I am, but is probably as fresh, intelligent and open to everything as ever,’ she thought, and a sly, contented smile puckered her lips, particularly because, as she thought about Anna’s love affair, she imagined, parallel to it, an almost identical love affair of her own, with an imaginary collective man who was in love with her. She confessed everything to her husband, just as Anna had done. And Stepan Arkadyich’s astonishment and perplexity at the news made her smile.

  In such reveries she reached the turning from the high road that led to Vozdvizhenskoe.

  XVII

  The coachman reined in the four–in–hand and looked to the right, at a field of rye, where some muzhiks were sitting by a cart. The clerk was about to jump down, then changed his mind and shouted peremptorily to a muzhik, beckoning him over. The breeze they had felt during the drive became still when they stopped; horseflies covered the sweaty horses, who angrily tried to shake them off. The metallic ring of a scythe blade being hammered beside the cart became still. One of the muzhiks stood up and came over to the carriage.

  ‘See how rusty he is!’ the clerk shouted angrily at the barefooted muzhik stepping slowly over the bumps of the dry, untrampled road. ‘Come on, you!’

  The curly–headed old man, his hair tied with a strip of bast, his hunched back dark with sweat, quickened his pace, came up to the carriage and placed his sunburnt hand on the splash–board.

  ‘Vozdvizhenskoe? The master’s house? The count’s?’ he repeated. ‘Just beyond that little rise. There’s a left turn. Straight down the avenue and you run smack into it. Who is it you want? Himself?’

  ‘And are they at home, my dear man?’ Darya Alexandrovna said vaguely, not even knowing how to ask the muzhik about Anna.

  ‘Should be,’ said the muzhik, shifting his bare feet and leaving a clear, five–toed footprint in the dust. ‘Should be,’ he repeated, obviously willing to strike up a conversation. ‘There’s more guests came yesterday. No end of guests.. .What is it?’He turned to a lad who shouted something to him from the cart. ‘Ah, yes! They just passed here on horseback to go and look at a reaper. They should be home by now. And where are you from?…’ ‘Far away,’ said the coachman, getting up on the box. ‘So it’s nearby?’

  ‘I told you, it’s right here. Just beyond . ..’ he said, moving his hand on the splash–board.

  A young, hale, strapping fellow also came over.

  ‘Is there any work at the harvesting?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know, my dear.’

  ‘So just go left and you come straight to it,’ said the muzhik, obviously wishing to talk and reluctant to let the travellers go.

  The coachman started, but they had no sooner made the turn than they heard the muzhik shouting:

  ‘Wait! Hey, wait, man!’ two voices cried.

  The coachman stopped.

  ‘It’s them coming! There they are!’ cried the muzhik. ‘See them coming along!’ he said, pointing to four people on horseback and two in a char a banc moving along the road.

  It was Vronsky with his jockey, Veslovsky and Anna on horseback, and Princess Varvara and Sviyazhsky in the char a banc. They had gone for a ride and to see some newly arrived reaping machines at work.

  When the carriage stopped, the riders came on at a slow pace. At their head rode Anna beside Veslovsky. Anna rode calmly on a short, sturdy English cob with a cropped mane and short tail. Her beautiful head with black hair escaping from under the top hat, her full shoulders, her slender waist in the black riding habit, and her whole calm, graceful bearing struck Dolly.

  In the first moment it seemed improper to her that Anna should be on horseback. To Darya Alexandrovna’s mind, the notion of ladies on horseback was connected with the notion of light, youthful coquetry, which in her opinion did not suit Anna’s situation; but when she saw her closer up, she at once became reconciled with her horseback riding. In spite of her elegance, everything in Anna’s bearing and dress and movement was so simple, calm and dignified that nothing could have been more natural.

  Beside Anna on a fiery grey cavalry horse rode Vasenka Veslovsky, in his Scotch cap with its flying ribbons, his fat legs stretched forward, obviously admiring himself, and Darya Alexandrovna, recognizing him, could not suppress a gay smile. Behind them rode Vronsky. Under him was a dark bay thoroughbred, obviously excited from galloping. He worked the reins, trying to hold it back.

  After him rode a small man in a jockey’s outfit. Sviyazhsky and the princess, in a new char a banc drawn by a big black trotter, were overtaking the riders.

  Anna’s face suddenly lit up with a joyful smile as she recognized the small figure huddled in the corner of the old carriage as Dolly. She gave a cry, sat up in the saddle and touched her horse into a gallop. Coming up to the carriage, she jumped down unassisted and, holding the skirts of her riding habit, ran to meet Dolly.

  ‘I thought so but didn’t dare think it. What a joy! You can’t imagine what a joy it is for me!’ she said, first pressing her face to Dolly’s and kissing her, then drawing back and looking at her with a smile.

  ‘What a joy, Alexei!’ she said, turning to Vronsky, who had dismounted and was coming towards them.

  Vronsky, having taken off his tall grey hat, approached Dolly.

  ‘You won’t believe how glad we are that you’ve come,’ he said, giving the words he spoke a special significance and revealing his strong white teeth in a smile.

  Vasenka Veslovsky, without dismounting, took his cap off and greeted the visitor, joyfully waving the ribbons over his head.

  ‘That is Princess Varvara,’ Anna responded to Dolly’s questioning look, as the char a banc drove up.

  ‘Ah!’ said Darya Alexandrovna, and her face involuntarily showed displeasure.

  Princess Varvara was her husband’s aunt; she had known her for a long time and had no respect for her. She knew that Princess Varvara had spent her whole life as a sponger on wealthy relations, but the fact that she was now living off Vronsky, a man who was a stranger to her, offended her feelings for her husband’s family. Anna noticed the look on Dolly’s face, became embarrassed, blushed, lost hold of her skirt and tripped over it.

  Darya Alexandrovna went over to the halted char a banc and greeted Princess Varvara coldly. Sviyazhsky was also an acquaintance. He asked how his eccentric friend and his young wife were doing and, after a fleeting glance at the ill–matched horses and the carriage with its patched splash–boards, invited the ladies to ride in the char a banc.

  ‘And I’ll go in that vehicle,’ he said. ‘The horse is quiet, and the princess is an excellent driver.’

  ‘No, you stay as you were,’ said Anna, coming over, ‘and we’ll go in the carriage.’ And, taking Dolly by the arm, she led her away.

  Darya Alexandrovna stared wide–eyed at that elegant equipage, the like of which she had never seen before, at those superb horses, at the elegant, shining faces that surrounded her. But she was struck most of all by the change that had taken place in her familiar and beloved Anna. Another less attentive woman, one who had not known Anna before, and above all one who had not been thinking what Darya Alexandrovna had been thinking on the way, would not have noticed anything special about Anna. But Dolly was struck by that temporary beauty which women have in moments of love and which she now found in Anna’s face. Everything in her face – the distinctness of the dimples on her cheeks and chin, the set of her lips, the s
mile that seemed to flit about her face, her shining eyes, the gracefulness and quickness of her movements, the fullness of the sound of her voice, even the manner in which she replied with angry indulgence to Veslovsky, who asked permission to ride her cob in order to teach him to gallop on the right leg – everything was especially attractive, and it seemed that she herself knew it and rejoiced in it.