Anna Karenina
Though he did not acknowledge it to himself, Alexey Alexandrovitch
always tried nowadays to secure the presence of a third person in his
interviews with his wife.
Chapter 27
Anna was upstairs, standing before the looking-glass, and, with
Annushka’s assistance, pinning the last ribbon on her gown when she
heard carriage wheels crunching the gravel at the entrance.
“It’s too early for Betsy,” she thought, and glancing out of the window
she caught sight of the carriage and the black hat of Alexey
Alexandrovitch, and the ears that she knew so well sticking up each
side of it. “How unlucky! Can he be going to stay the night?” she
wondered, and the thought of all that might come of such a chance
struck her as so awful and terrible that, without dwelling on it for a
moment, she went down to meet him with a bright and radiant face; and
conscious of the presence of that spirit of falsehood and deceit in
herself that she had come to know of late, she abandoned herself to
that spirit and began talking, hardly knowing what she was saying.
“Ah, how nice of you!” she said, giving her husband her hand, and
greeting Sludin, who was like one of the family, with a smile. “You’re
staying the night, I hope?” was the first word the spirit of falsehood
prompted her to utter; “and now we’ll go together. Only it’s a pity
I’ve promised Betsy. She’s coming for me.”
Alexey Alexandrovitch knit his brows at Betsy’s name.
“Oh, I’m not going to separate the inseparables,” he said in his usual
bantering tone. “I’m going with Mihail Vassilievitch. I’m ordered
exercise by the doctors too. I’ll walk, and fancy myself at the springs
again.”
“There’s no hurry,” said Anna. “Would you like tea?”
She rang.
“Bring in tea, and tell Seryozha that Alexey Alexandrovitch is here.
Well, tell me, how have you been? Mihail Vassilievitch, you’ve not been
to see me before. Look how lovely it is out on the terrace,” she said,
turning first to one and then to the other.
She spoke very simply and naturally, but too much and too fast. She was
the more aware of this from noticing in the inquisitive look Mihail
Vassilievitch turned on her that he was, as it were, keeping watch on
her.
Mihail Vassilievitch promptly went out on the terrace.
She sat down beside her husband.
“You don’t look quite well,” she said.
“Yes,” he said; “the doctor’s been with me today and wasted an hour of
my time. I feel that someone of our friends must have sent him: my
health’s so precious, it seems.”
“No; what did he say?”
She questioned him about his health and what he had been doing, and
tried to persuade him to take a rest and come out to her.
All this she said brightly, rapidly, and with a peculiar brilliance in
her eyes. But Alexey Alexandrovitch did not now attach any special
significance to this tone of hers. He heard only her words and gave
them only the direct sense they bore. And he answered simply, though
jestingly. There was nothing remarkable in all this conversation, but
never after could Anna recall this brief scene without an agonizing
pang of shame.
Seryozha came in preceded by his governess. If Alexey Alexandrovitch
had allowed himself to observe he would have noticed the timid and
bewildered eyes with which Seryozha glanced first at his father and
then at his mother. But he would not see anything, and he did not see
it.
“Ah, the young man! He’s grown. Really, he’s getting quite a man. How
are you, young man?”
And he gave his hand to the scared child. Seryozha had been shy of his
father before, and now, ever since Alexey Alexandrovitch had taken to
calling him young man, and since that insoluble question had occurred
to him whether Vronsky were a friend or a foe, he avoided his father.
He looked round towards his mother as though seeking shelter. It was
only with his mother that he was at ease. Meanwhile, Alexey
Alexandrovitch was holding his son by the shoulder while he was
speaking to the governess, and Seryozha was so miserably uncomfortable
that Anna saw he was on the point of tears.
Anna, who had flushed a little the instant her son came in, noticing
that Seryozha was uncomfortable, got up hurriedly, took Alexey
Alexandrovitch’s hand from her son’s shoulder, and kissing the boy, led
him out onto the terrace, and quickly came back.
“It’s time to start, though,” said she, glancing at her watch. “How is
it Betsy doesn’t come?...”
“Yes,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch, and getting up, he folded his hands
and cracked his fingers. “I’ve come to bring you some money, too, for
nightingales, we know, can’t live on fairy tales,” he said. “You want
it, I expect?”
“No, I don’t ... yes, I do,” she said, not looking at him, and
crimsoning to the roots of her hair. “But you’ll come back here after
the races, I suppose?”
“Oh, yes!” answered Alexey Alexandrovitch. “And here’s the glory of
Peterhof, Princess Tverskaya,” he added, looking out of the window at
the elegant English carriage with the tiny seats placed extremely high.
“What elegance! Charming! Well, let us be starting too, then.”
Princess Tverskaya did not get out of her carriage, but her groom, in
high boots, a cape, and black hat, darted out at the entrance.
“I’m going; good-bye!” said Anna, and kissing her son, she went up to
Alexey Alexandrovitch and held out her hand to him. “It was ever so
nice of you to come.”
Alexey Alexandrovitch kissed her hand.
“Well, _au revoir_, then! You’ll come back for some tea; that’s
delightful!” she said, and went out, gay and radiant. But as soon as
she no longer saw him, she was aware of the spot on her hand that his
lips had touched, and she shuddered with repulsion.
Chapter 28
When Alexey Alexandrovitch reached the race-course, Anna was already
sitting in the pavilion beside Betsy, in that pavilion where all the
highest society had gathered. She caught sight of her husband in the
distance. Two men, her husband and her lover, were the two centers of
her existence, and unaided by her external senses she was aware of
their nearness. She was aware of her husband approaching a long way
off, and she could not help following him in the surging crowd in the
midst of which he was moving. She watched his progress towards the
pavilion, saw him now responding condescendingly to an ingratiating
bow, now exchanging friendly, nonchalant greetings with his equals, now
assiduously trying to catch the eye of some great one of this world,
and taking off his big round hat that squeezed the tips of his ears.
All these ways of his she knew, and all were hateful to her. “Nothing
but ambition, nothing but the desire to get on, that’s all there is in
his soul,” she thought; “as for these lofty ideals, love of culture,
religion, they are only so many tools for getting on.”
From his glances towards the ladies’ pavilion (he was staring straight
at her, but did not distinguish his wife in the sea of muslin, ribbons,
feathers, parasols and flowers) she saw that he was looking for her,
but she purposely avoided noticing him.
“Alexey Alexandrovitch!” Princess Betsy called to him; “I’m sure you
don’t see your wife: here she is.”
He smiled his chilly smile.
“There’s so much splendor here that one’s eyes are dazzled,” he said,
and he went into the pavilion. He smiled to his wife as a man should
smile on meeting his wife after only just parting from her, and greeted
the princess and other acquaintances, giving to each what was due—that
is to say, jesting with the ladies and dealing out friendly greetings
among the men. Below, near the pavilion, was standing an
adjutant-general of whom Alexey Alexandrovitch had a high opinion,
noted for his intelligence and culture. Alexey Alexandrovitch entered
into conversation with him.
There was an interval between the races, and so nothing hindered
conversation. The adjutant-general expressed his disapproval of races.
Alexey Alexandrovitch replied defending them. Anna heard his high,
measured tones, not losing one word, and every word struck her as
false, and stabbed her ears with pain.
When the three-mile steeplechase was beginning, she bent forward and
gazed with fixed eyes at Vronsky as he went up to his horse and
mounted, and at the same time she heard that loathsome, never-ceasing
voice of her husband. She was in an agony of terror for Vronsky, but a
still greater agony was the never-ceasing, as it seemed to her, stream
of her husband’s shrill voice with its familiar intonations.
“I’m a wicked woman, a lost woman,” she thought; “but I don’t like
lying, I can’t endure falsehood, while as for _him_ (her husband) it’s
the breath of his life—falsehood. He knows all about it, he sees it
all; what does he care if he can talk so calmly? If he were to kill me,
if he were to kill Vronsky, I might respect him. No, all he wants is
falsehood and propriety,” Anna said to herself, not considering exactly
what it was she wanted of her husband, and how she would have liked to
see him behave. She did not understand either that Alexey
Alexandrovitch’s peculiar loquacity that day, so exasperating to her,
was merely the expression of his inward distress and uneasiness. As a
child that has been hurt skips about, putting all his muscles into
movement to drown the pain, in the same way Alexey Alexandrovitch
needed mental exercise to drown the thoughts of his wife that in her
presence and in Vronsky’s, and with the continual iteration of his
name, would force themselves on his attention. And it was as natural
for him to talk well and cleverly, as it is natural for a child to skip
about. He was saying:
“Danger in the races of officers, of cavalry men, is an essential
element in the race. If England can point to the most brilliant feats
of cavalry in military history, it is simply owing to the fact that she
has historically developed this force both in beasts and in men. Sport
has, in my opinion, a great value, and as is always the case, we see
nothing but what is most superficial.”
“It’s not superficial,” said Princess Tverskaya. “One of the officers,
they say, has broken two ribs.”
Alexey Alexandrovitch smiled his smile, which uncovered his teeth, but
revealed nothing more.
“We’ll admit, princess, that that’s not superficial,” he said, “but
internal. But that’s not the point,” and he turned again to the general
with whom he was talking seriously; “we mustn’t forget that those who
are taking part in the race are military men, who have chosen that
career, and one must allow that every calling has its disagreeable
side. It forms an integral part of the duties of an officer. Low
sports, such as prize-fighting or Spanish bull-fights, are a sign of
barbarity. But specialized trials of skill are a sign of development.”
“No, I shan’t come another time; it’s too upsetting,” said Princess
Betsy. “Isn’t it, Anna?”
“It is upsetting, but one can’t tear oneself away,” said another lady.
“If I’d been a Roman woman I should never have missed a single circus.”
Anna said nothing, and keeping her opera-glass up, gazed always at the
same spot.
At that moment a tall general walked through the pavilion. Breaking off
what he was saying, Alexey Alexandrovitch got up hurriedly, though with
dignity, and bowed low to the general.
“You’re not racing?” the officer asked, chaffing him.
“My race is a harder one,” Alexey Alexandrovitch responded
deferentially.
And though the answer meant nothing, the general looked as though he
had heard a witty remark from a witty man, and fully relished _la
pointe de la sauce_.
“There are two aspects,” Alexey Alexandrovitch resumed: “those who take
part and those who look on; and love for such spectacles is an
unmistakable proof of a low degree of development in the spectator, I
admit, but....”
“Princess, bets!” sounded Stepan Arkadyevitch’s voice from below,