Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Five/Chapter 16
CHAPTER XVI
When Levin came up-stairs again his wife was sitting in front of the new silver samovar, behind the new teaset, reading a letter from Dolly, with whom she kept up a brisk correspondence. Old Agafya Mikhaïlovna, with a cup of tea, was cozily sitting at a small table beside her.
"You see your lady has asked me to sit here," said the old woman, looking affectionately at Kitty.
These last words showed Levin that the domestic drama which had been going on between Kitty and Agafya Mikhaïlovna was at an end. He saw that, notwithstanding the chagrin which Agafya Mikhaïlovna felt at resigning the reins of government to the new mistress, Kitty was victorious, and had just made peace with her.
"Here I have been looking over your letters," said Kitty, handing her husband an illiterate-looking envelop. "I think it is from that woman .... you know ... of your brother's. .... I have not read it, but this is from Dolly .... imagine it; she has been to take Grisha and Tania to a children's ball at the Sarmatskys'. Tania was dressed like a little marchioness."
But Levin was not listening. With a flushed face he took the letter from Marya Nikolayevna, his brother Nikolaï's discarded mistress, and began to read it. This was already the second time that she had written him. In her first letter she told him that Nikolaï had sent her away without reason, and she added, with touching simplicity, that she asked no assistance and wanted nothing, though she was reduced to penury, but that the thought of what Nikolaï Dmitritch would do without her in his feeble condition was killing her. She begged his brother to look out for him.
Her second letter was in a different tone. She said that she had found Nikolaï Dmitrievitch and was living with him again in Moscow, that she had gone with him to a provincial city, where he had received an appointment. There he had quarreled with the chief, and immediately started for Moscow; but on the way he had been taken so violently ill that he would probably never leave his bed again. "He constantly calls for you, and, besides, we have no money," she wrote.
"Read what Dolly writes about you," Kitty began; but, when she saw her husband's dejected face, she suddenly stopped speaking. Then she said:—
"What is it—what has happened?"
"She writes me that Nikolaï, my brother, is dying. I must go to him."
Kitty's face suddenly changed. The thought of Tania as a little marchioness, of Dolly, and all, vanished.
"When shall you go?"
"To-morrow."
"May I go with you?" she asked.
"Kitty! what an idea!" he replied, reproachfully.
"Why what an idea?" she exclaimed, vexed to see her proposal received with such bad grace. "Why, pray, should I not go with you? I should not hinder you in any way. I ...."
"I am going because my brother is dying," said Levin. "Why should you go?"
"For the same reason that you do." ....
"At a time so solemn for me, she thinks only of the discomfort of being left alone," said Levin to himself, and this excuse for taking part in such a solemn duty angered him.
"It is impossible," he replied sternly.
Agafya Mikhaïlovna, seeing that a quarrel was imminent, quietly put down her cup and went out. Kitty did not even notice it. Her husband's tone wounded her all the more deeply because he evidently did not believe what she said.
"I tell you, if you go, I am going too. I shall certainly go with you. I certainly am going," said she, with angry determination. "Why is it impossible? Why did you say that?"
"Because God knows when or in what place I shall find him, or by what means I shall reach him. You would only hinder me," said he, doing his best to retain his self-control.
"Not at all. I don't need anything. Where you can go, I can go too, and ...."
"Well! If it were for nothing else, it would be because of that woman, with whom you cannot come in contact." ....
"Why not? I know nothing about all that, and don't want to know. I know that my husband's brother is dying; that my husband is going to see him; and I am going too, because ...."
"Kitty! don't be angry! and remember that in such a serious time it is painful for me to have you add to my grief by showing such weakness,—the fear of being alone. There, now, if it would bore you to be alone, go to Moscow." ....
"You always ascribe to me such miserable sentiments," she cried, choking with tears of vexation and anger. "I am not so weak.... I know that it is my duty to be with my husband when he is in sorrow, and you want to wound me on purpose. You don't want to take me." ....
"No! this is frightful! to be such a slave!" cried Levin, rising from the table, no longer able to hide his anger; at the same instant he perceived that he was doing himself harm.
"Why, then, did you get married? You might have been free. Why—if you repent already?"—and Kitty fled into the drawing-room.
When he went to find her, she was sobbing.
He began to speak, striving to find words not to persuade her, but to calm her. She would not listen, and did not allow one of his arguments. He bent over her, took one of her recalcitrant hands, kissed it, kissed her hair, and then her hands again; but still she refused to speak. But when, at length, he took her head between his two hands and called her "Kitty," she softly wept, and the reconciliation was complete.
It was decided that they should go together on the next day. Levin told his wife he was satisfied that she wished nothing but to be useful, and agreed that Marya Nikolayevna's presence with his brother would not be an impropriety; but at the bottom of his heart he was dissatisfied with himself and with her. He was dissatisfied with her because she would not let him go alone when it was necessary. And how strange it was for him to think that he who such a short time before had not dared to believe in the possibility of such a joy as her loving him, now felt unhappy because she loved him too well. And he was dissatisfied with himself because he had yielded in such a weak way. In the depths of his heart he was even more dissatisfied to think of the inevitable acquaintance between his wife and his brother's mistress. The thought of seeing his wife, his Kitty, in the same room with this woman, filled him with horror and repulsion.