Anna Karenina
“You look after him,” the colonel shouted to Yashvin, pointing to
Vronsky; and he went down below to the soldiers.
“Why weren’t you at the races yesterday? I expected to see you there,”
said Vronsky, scrutinizing Serpuhovskoy.
“I did go, but late. I beg your pardon,” he added, and he turned to the
adjutant: “Please have this divided from me, each man as much as it
runs to.” And he hurriedly took notes for three hundred roubles from
his pocketbook, blushing a little.
“Vronsky! Have anything to eat or drink?” asked Yashvin. “Hi, something
for the count to eat! Ah, here it is: have a glass!”
The fête at the colonel’s lasted a long while. There was a great deal
of drinking. They tossed Serpuhovskoy in the air and caught him again
several times. Then they did the same to the colonel. Then, to the
accompaniment of the band, the colonel himself danced with Petritsky.
Then the colonel, who began to show signs of feebleness, sat down on a
bench in the courtyard and began demonstrating to Yashvin the
superiority of Russia over Prussia, especially in cavalry attack, and
there was a lull in the revelry for a moment. Serpuhovskoy went into
the house to the bathroom to wash his hands and found Vronsky there;
Vronsky was drenching his head with water. He had taken off his coat
and put his sunburnt, hairy neck under the tap, and was rubbing it and
his head with his hands. When he had finished, Vronsky sat down by
Serpuhovskoy. They both sat down in the bathroom on a lounge, and a
conversation began which was very interesting to both of them.
“I’ve always been hearing about you through my wife,” said
Serpuhovskoy. “I’m glad you’ve been seeing her pretty often.”
“She’s friendly with Varya, and they’re the only women in Petersburg I
care about seeing,” answered Vronsky, smiling. He smiled because he
foresaw the topic the conversation would turn on, and he was glad of
it.
“The only ones?” Serpuhovskoy queried, smiling.
“Yes; and I heard news of you, but not only through your wife,” said
Vronsky, checking his hint by a stern expression of face. “I was
greatly delighted to hear of your success, but not a bit surprised. I
expected even more.”
Serpuhovskoy smiled. Such an opinion of him was obviously agreeable to
him, and he did not think it necessary to conceal it.
“Well, I on the contrary expected less—I’ll own frankly. But I’m glad,
very glad. I’m ambitious; that’s my weakness, and I confess to it.”
“Perhaps you wouldn’t confess to it if you hadn’t been successful,”
said Vronsky.
“I don’t suppose so,” said Serpuhovskoy, smiling again. “I won’t say
life wouldn’t be worth living without it, but it would be dull. Of
course I may be mistaken, but I fancy I have a certain capacity for the
line I’ve chosen, and that power of any sort in my hands, if it is to
be, will be better than in the hands of a good many people I know,”
said Serpuhovskoy, with beaming consciousness of success; “and so the
nearer I get to it, the better pleased I am.”
“Perhaps that is true for you, but not for everyone. I used to think so
too, but here I live and think life worth living not only for that.”
“There it’s out! here it comes!” said Serpuhovskoy, laughing. “Ever
since I heard about you, about your refusal, I began.... Of course, I
approved of what you did. But there are ways of doing everything. And I
think your action was good in itself, but you didn’t do it quite in the
way you ought to have done.”
“What’s done can’t be undone, and you know I never go back on what I’ve
done. And besides, I’m very well off.”
“Very well off—for the time. But you’re not satisfied with that. I
wouldn’t say this to your brother. He’s a nice child, like our host
here. There he goes!” he added, listening to the roar of “hurrah!”—“and
he’s happy, but that does not satisfy you.”
“I didn’t say it did satisfy me.”
“Yes, but that’s not the only thing. Such men as you are wanted.”
“By whom?”
“By whom? By society, by Russia. Russia needs men; she needs a party,
or else everything goes and will go to the dogs.”
“How do you mean? Bertenev’s party against the Russian communists?”
“No,” said Serpuhovskoy, frowning with vexation at being suspected of
such an absurdity. “_Tout ça est une blague_. That’s always been and
always will be. There are no communists. But intriguing people have to
invent a noxious, dangerous party. It’s an old trick. No, what’s wanted
is a powerful party of independent men like you and me.”
“But why so?” Vronsky mentioned a few men who were in power. “Why
aren’t they independent men?”
“Simply because they have not, or have not had from birth, an
independent fortune; they’ve not had a name, they’ve not been close to
the sun and center as we have. They can be bought either by money or by
favor. And they have to find a support for themselves in inventing a
policy. And they bring forward some notion, some policy that they don’t
believe in, that does harm; and the whole policy is really only a means
to a government house and so much income. _Cela n’est pas plus fin que
ça_, when you get a peep at their cards. I may be inferior to them,
stupider perhaps, though I don’t see why I should be inferior to them.
But you and I have one important advantage over them for certain, in
being more difficult to buy. And such men are more needed than ever.”
Vronsky listened attentively, but he was not so much interested by the
meaning of the words as by the attitude of Serpuhovskoy who was already
contemplating a struggle with the existing powers, and already had his
likes and dislikes in that higher world, while his own interest in the
governing world did not go beyond the interests of his regiment.
Vronsky felt, too, how powerful Serpuhovskoy might become through his
unmistakable faculty for thinking things out and for taking things in,
through his intelligence and gift of words, so rarely met with in the
world in which he moved. And, ashamed as he was of the feeling, he felt
envious.
“Still I haven’t the one thing of most importance for that,” he
answered; “I haven’t the desire for power. I had it once, but it’s
gone.”
“Excuse me, that’s not true,” said Serpuhovskoy, smiling.
“Yes, it is true, it is true ... now!” Vronsky added, to be truthful.
“Yes, it’s true now, that’s another thing; but that _now_ won’t last
forever.”
“Perhaps,” answered Vronsky.
“You say _perhaps_,” Serpuhovskoy went on, as though guessing his
thoughts, “but I say _for certain_. And that’s what I wanted to see you
for. Your action was just what it should have been. I see that, but you
ought not to keep it up. I only ask you to give me _carte blanche_. I’m
not going to offer you my protection ... though, indeed, why shouldn’t
I protect you?—you’ve protected me often enough! I should hope our
friendship rises above all that sort of thing. Yes,” he said, smiling
to him as tenderly as a woman, “give me _carte blanche_, retire from
the regiment, and I’ll draw you upwards imperceptibly.”
“But you must understand that I want nothing,” said Vronsky, “except
that all should be as it is.”
Serpuhovskoy got up and stood facing him.
“You say that all should be as it is. I understand what that means. But
listen: we’re the same age, you’ve known a greater number of women
perhaps than I have.” Serpohovskoy’s smile and gestures told Vronsky
that he mustn’t be afraid, that he would be tender and careful in
touching the sore place. “But I’m married, and believe me, in getting
to know thoroughly one’s wife, if one loves her, as someone has said,
one gets to know all women better than if one knew thousands of them.”
“We’re coming directly!” Vronsky shouted to an officer, who looked into
the room and called them to the colonel.
Vronsky was longing now to hear to the end and know what Serpuhovskey
would say to him.
“And here’s my opinion for you. Women are the chief stumbling block in
a man’s career. It’s hard to love a woman and do anything. There’s only
one way of having love conveniently without its being a
hindrance—that’s marriage. How, how am I to tell you what I mean?” said
Serpuhovskoy, who liked similes. “Wait a minute, wait a minute! Yes,
just as you can only carry a _fardeau_ and do something with your
hands, when the _fardeau_ is tied on your back, and that’s marriage.
And that’s what I felt when I was married. My hands were suddenly set
free. But to drag that _fardeau_ about with you without marriage, your
hands will always be so full that you can do nothing. Look at Mazankov,
at Krupov. They’ve ruined their careers for the sake of women.”
“What women!” said Vronsky, recalling the Frenchwoman and the actress
with whom the two men he had mentioned were connected.
“The firmer the woman’s footing in society, the worse it is. That’s
much the same as—not merely carrying the _fardeau_ in your arms—but
tearing it away from someone else.”
“You have never loved,” Vronsky said softly, looking straight before
him and thinking of Anna.
“Perhaps. But you remember what I’ve said to you. And another thing,
women are all more materialistic than men. We make something immense
out of love, but they are always _terre-à-terre_.”
“Directly, directly!” he cried to a footman who came in. But the
footman had not come to call them again, as he supposed. The footman
brought Vronsky a note.
“A man brought it from Princess Tverskaya.”
Vronsky opened the letter, and flushed crimson.
“My head’s begun to ache; I’m going home,” he said to Serpuhovskoy.
“Oh, good-bye then. You give me _carte blanche!_”
“We’ll talk about it later on; I’ll look you up in Petersburg.”
Chapter 22
It was six o’clock already, and so, in order to be there quickly, and
at the same time not to drive with his own horses, known to everyone,
Vronsky got into Yashvin’s hired fly, and told the driver to drive as
quickly as possible. It was a roomy, old-fashioned fly, with seats for
four. He sat in one corner, stretched his legs out on the front seat,
and sank into meditation.
A vague sense of the order into which his affairs had been brought, a
vague recollection of the friendliness and flattery of Serpuhovskoy,
who had considered him a man that was needed, and most of all, the
anticipation of the interview before him—all blended into a general,
joyous sense of life. This feeling was so strong that he could not help
smiling. He dropped his legs, crossed one leg over the other knee, and
taking it in his hand, felt the springy muscle of the calf, where it
had been grazed the day before by his fall, and leaning back he drew
several deep breaths.
“I’m happy, very happy!” he said to himself. He had often before had
this sense of physical joy in his own body, but he had never felt so
fond of himself, of his own body, as at that moment. He enjoyed the
slight ache in his strong leg, he enjoyed the muscular sensation of
movement in his chest as he breathed. The bright, cold August day,
which had made Anna feel so hopeless, seemed to him keenly stimulating,
and refreshed his face and neck that still tingled from the cold water.
The scent of brilliantine on his whiskers struck him as particularly
pleasant in the fresh air. Everything he saw from the carriage window,
everything in that cold pure air, in the pale light of the sunset, was
as fresh, and gay, and strong as he was himself: the roofs of the
houses shining in the rays of the setting sun, the sharp outlines of
fences and angles of buildings, the figures of passers-by, the
carriages that met him now and then, the motionless green of the trees
and grass, the fields with evenly drawn furrows of potatoes, and the
slanting shadows that fell from the houses, and trees, and bushes, and
even from the rows of potatoes—everything was bright like a pretty
landscape just finished and freshly varnished.