Anna Karenina
“Society!” he said contemptuously, “how could I miss society?”
“So far—and it may be so always—you are happy and at peace. I see in
Anna that she is happy, perfectly happy, she has had time to tell me so
much already,” said Darya Alexandrovna, smiling; and involuntarily, as
she said this, at the same moment a doubt entered her mind whether Anna
really were happy.
But Vronsky, it appeared, had no doubts on that score.
“Yes, yes,” he said, “I know that she has revived after all her
sufferings; she is happy. She is happy in the present. But I?... I am
afraid of what is before us ... I beg your pardon, you would like to
walk on?”
“No, I don’t mind.”
“Well, then, let us sit here.”
Darya Alexandrovna sat down on a garden seat in a corner of the avenue.
He stood up facing her.
“I see that she is happy,” he repeated, and the doubt whether she were
happy sank more deeply into Darya Alexandrovna’s mind. “But can it
last? Whether we have acted rightly or wrongly is another question, but
the die is cast,” he said, passing from Russian to French, “and we are
bound together for life. We are united by all the ties of love that we
hold most sacred. We have a child, we may have other children. But the
law and all the conditions of our position are such that thousands of
complications arise which she does not see and does not want to see.
And that one can well understand. But I can’t help seeing them. My
daughter is by law not my daughter, but Karenin’s. I cannot bear this
falsity!” he said, with a vigorous gesture of refusal, and he looked
with gloomy inquiry towards Darya Alexandrovna.
She made no answer, but simply gazed at him. He went on:
“One day a son may be born, my son, and he will be legally a Karenin;
he will not be the heir of my name nor of my property, and however
happy we may be in our home life and however many children we may have,
there will be no real tie between us. They will be Karenins. You can
understand the bitterness and horror of this position! I have tried to
speak of this to Anna. It irritates her. She does not understand, and
to her I cannot speak plainly of all this. Now look at another side. I
am happy, happy in her love, but I must have occupation. I have found
occupation, and am proud of what I am doing and consider it nobler than
the pursuits of my former companions at court and in the army. And most
certainly I would not change the work I am doing for theirs. I am
working here, settled in my own place, and I am happy and contented,
and we need nothing more to make us happy. I love my work here. _Ce
n’est pas un pis-aller,_ on the contrary....”
Darya Alexandrovna noticed that at this point in his explanation he
grew confused, and she did not quite understand this digression, but
she felt that having once begun to speak of matters near his heart, of
which he could not speak to Anna, he was now making a clean breast of
everything, and that the question of his pursuits in the country fell
into the same category of matters near his heart, as the question of
his relations with Anna.
“Well, I will go on,” he said, collecting himself. “The great thing is
that as I work I want to have a conviction that what I am doing will
not die with me, that I shall have heirs to come after me,—and this I
have not. Conceive the position of a man who knows that his children,
the children of the woman he loves, will not be his, but will belong to
someone who hates them and cares nothing about them! It is awful!”
He paused, evidently much moved.
“Yes, indeed, I see that. But what can Anna do?” queried Darya
Alexandrovna.
“Yes, that brings me to the object of my conversation,” he said,
calming himself with an effort. “Anna can, it depends on her.... Even
to petition the Tsar for legitimization, a divorce is essential. And
that depends on Anna. Her husband agreed to a divorce—at that time your
husband had arranged it completely. And now, I know, he would not
refuse it. It is only a matter of writing to him. He said plainly at
that time that if she expressed the desire, he would not refuse. Of
course,” he said gloomily, “it is one of those Pharisaical cruelties of
which only such heartless men are capable. He knows what agony any
recollection of him must give her, and knowing her, he must have a
letter from her. I can understand that it is agony to her. But the
matter is of such importance, that one must _passer par-dessus toutes
ces finesses de sentiment. Il y va du bonheur et de l’existence d’Anne
et de ses enfants._ I won’t speak of myself, though it’s hard for me,
very hard,” he said, with an expression as though he were threatening
someone for its being hard for him. “And so it is, princess, that I am
shamelessly clutching at you as an anchor of salvation. Help me to
persuade her to write to him and ask for a divorce.”
“Yes, of course,” Darya Alexandrovna said dreamily, as she vividly
recalled her last interview with Alexey Alexandrovitch. “Yes, of
course,” she repeated with decision, thinking of Anna.
“Use your influence with her, make her write. I don’t like—I’m almost
unable to speak about this to her.”
“Very well, I will talk to her. But how is it she does not think of it
herself?” said Darya Alexandrovna, and for some reason she suddenly at
that point recalled Anna’s strange new habit of half-closing her eyes.
And she remembered that Anna drooped her eyelids just when the deeper
questions of life were touched upon. “Just as though she half-shut her
eyes to her own life, so as not to see everything,” thought Dolly.
“Yes, indeed, for my own sake and for hers I will talk to her,” Dolly
said in reply to his look of gratitude.
They got up and walked to the house.
Chapter 22
When Anna found Dolly at home before her, she looked intently in her
eyes, as though questioning her about the talk she had had with
Vronsky, but she made no inquiry in words.
“I believe it’s dinner time,” she said. “We’ve not seen each other at
all yet. I am reckoning on the evening. Now I want to go and dress. I
expect you do too; we all got splashed at the buildings.”
Dolly went to her room and she felt amused. To change her dress was
impossible, for she had already put on her best dress. But in order to
signify in some way her preparation for dinner, she asked the maid to
brush her dress, changed her cuffs and tie, and put some lace on her
head.
“This is all I can do,” she said with a smile to Anna, who came in to
her in a third dress, again of extreme simplicity.
“Yes, we are too formal here,” she said, as it were apologizing for her
magnificence. “Alexey is delighted at your visit, as he rarely is at
anything. He has completely lost his heart to you,” she added. “You’re
not tired?”
There was no time for talking about anything before dinner. Going into
the drawing-room they found Princess Varvara already there, and the
gentlemen of the party in black frock-coats. The architect wore a
swallow-tail coat. Vronsky presented the doctor and the steward to his
guest. The architect he had already introduced to her at the hospital.
A stout butler, resplendent with a smoothly shaven round chin and a
starched white cravat, announced that dinner was ready, and the ladies
got up. Vronsky asked Sviazhsky to take in Anna Arkadyevna, and himself
offered his arm to Dolly. Veslovsky was before Tushkevitch in offering
his arm to Princess Varvara, so that Tushkevitch with the steward and
the doctor walked in alone.
The dinner, the dining-room, the service, the waiting at table, the
wine, and the food, were not simply in keeping with the general tone of
modern luxury throughout all the house, but seemed even more sumptuous
and modern. Darya Alexandrovna watched this luxury which was novel to
her, and as a good housekeeper used to managing a household—although
she never dreamed of adapting anything she saw to her own household, as
it was all in a style of luxury far above her own manner of living—she
could not help scrutinizing every detail, and wondering how and by whom
it was all done. Vassenka Veslovsky, her husband, and even Sviazhsky,
and many other people she knew, would never have considered this
question, and would have readily believed what every well-bred host
tries to make his guests feel, that is, that all that is well-ordered
in his house has cost him, the host, no trouble whatever, but comes of
itself. Darya Alexandrovna was well aware that even porridge for the
children’s breakfast does not come of itself, and that therefore, where
so complicated and magnificent a style of luxury was maintained,
someone must give earnest attention to its organization. And from the
glance with which Alexey Kirillovitch scanned the table, from the way
he nodded to the butler, and offered Darya Alexandrovna her choice
between cold soup and hot soup, she saw that it was all organized and
maintained by the care of the master of the house himself. It was
evident that it all rested no more upon Anna than upon Veslovsky. She,
Sviazhsky, the princess, and Veslovsky, were equally guests, with light
hearts enjoying what had been arranged for them.
Anna was the hostess only in conducting the conversation. The
conversation was a difficult one for the lady of the house at a small
table with persons present, like the steward and the architect,
belonging to a completely different world, struggling not to be
overawed by an elegance to which they were unaccustomed, and unable to
sustain a large share in the general conversation. But this difficult
conversation Anna directed with her usual tact and naturalness, and
indeed she did so with actual enjoyment, as Darya Alexandrovna
observed. The conversation began about the row Tushkevitch and
Veslovsky had taken alone together in the boat, and Tushkevitch began
describing the last boat races in Petersburg at the Yacht Club. But
Anna, seizing the first pause, at once turned to the architect to draw
him out of his silence.
“Nikolay Ivanitch was struck,” she said, meaning Sviazhsky, “at the
progress the new building had made since he was here last; but I am
there every day, and every day I wonder at the rate at which it grows.”
“It’s first-rate working with his excellency,” said the architect with
a smile (he was respectful and composed, though with a sense of his own
dignity). “It’s a very different matter to have to do with the district
authorities. Where one would have to write out sheaves of papers, here
I call upon the count, and in three words we settle the business.”
“The American way of doing business,” said Sviazhsky, with a smile.
“Yes, there they build in a rational fashion....”
The conversation passed to the misuse of political power in the United
States, but Anna quickly brought it round to another topic, so as to
draw the steward into talk.
“Have you ever seen a reaping machine?” she said, addressing Darya
Alexandrovna. “We had just ridden over to look at one when we met. It’s
the first time I ever saw one.”
“How do they work?” asked Dolly.
“Exactly like little scissors. A plank and a lot of little scissors.
Like this.”
Anna took a knife and fork in her beautiful white hands covered with
rings, and began showing how the machine worked. It was clear that she
saw nothing would be understood from her explanation; but aware that
her talk was pleasant and her hands beautiful she went on explaining.
“More like little penknives,” Veslovsky said playfully, never taking
his eyes off her.
Anna gave a just perceptible smile, but made no answer. “Isn’t it true,
Karl Fedoritch, that it’s just like little scissors?” she said to the
steward.
“_Oh, ja,_” answered the German. _“Es ist ein ganz einfaches Ding,”_
and he began to explain the construction of the machine.
“It’s a pity it doesn’t bind too. I saw one at the Vienna exhibition,