Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Four/Chapter 17

by Leo Tolstoy

CHAPTER XVII

When he returned to his lonely room, Alekseï Aleksandrovitch involuntarily recalled, little by little, the conversations that had taken place at the dinner and in the evening. Darya Aleksandrovna's words about pardon merely aroused his vexation. Whether he should apply the Christian rule to his case or not, was a question too difficult to be lightly decided; besides, he had already considered this question, and decided it in the negative. Of all that had been said that day, the remark of that good stupid Turovtsuin had made the liveliest impression on his mind:—

He did bravely, for he challenged the other man and killed him.

Evidently all approved this conduct; although out of politeness they had not said so openly.

"However, this matter is ended; it is useless to think about it," said Alekseï Aleksandrovitch to himself; and giving no more thought to anything except the preparations for his departure and his tour of inspection, he went to his room and asked of the Swiss who showed him the way if he had seen his valet. The Swiss said his valet had only just gone out. Alekseï Aleksandrovitch ordered tea to be brought, and sitting down at the table opened a railway guide and began to study the departure of trains for his journey.

"Two telegrams," said his valet, returning and coming into the room. "Will your Excellency please excuse me, I have only just stepped out?"

Alekseï Aleksandrovitch took the telegrams and opened them; the first announced the nomination of Stremof to the place for which he had been ambitious.

Alekseï Aleksandrovitch threw down the despatch, and with a flushed face began to walk back and forth through the room.

"Quos vult perdere dementat," said he, applying quos to all those who had taken part in this nomination. He was not disturbed by the fact that he himself had not been nominated, that he had evidently been outwitted; but it was incomprehensible to him—amazing—that they could not see that Stremof, that babbler, that speechifier, was the least fitted of all men for the place. Could they not understand that they were ruining themselves, that they were destroying their prestige, by such a choice?

"Some more news of the same sort," he thought with bitterness as he opened the second telegram. It was from his wife; her name, "Anna," in blue pencil, was the first thing that struck his eyes.

I am dying. I beg you to come; I shall die easier if I have your forgiveness.

He read these words with scorn, and threw the paper on the floor.

That there was some piece of trickery, some deception, in this, admitted of no doubt in his mind at first thought.

"There is no deceitfulness of which she is not capable. She must be on the eve of her confinement, and it is her sickness. But what can be her object? To legalize the child? to compromise me? to prevent the divorce? But what does it mean, 'I am dying'?"

He re-read the telegram, and suddenly realized its full meaning.

"If it is true,—if the suffering, the approach of death, have caused her to repent sincerely, and if I should call this pretense, and refuse to go to her, that would not only be cruel, but foolish, and all would blame me."

"Piotr, order a carriage; I am going to Petersburg!" said he to the valet.

Alekseï Aleksandrovitch decided to go to Petersburg and to see his wife. If her illness was a pretense, he would say nothing and go away again; on the other hand, if she were really ill unto death, and wanted to see him before she died, he would forgive her; and, if he reached her too late, he could at least pay his last respects to her.

During the journey he gave no more thought of what he should do.

Alekseï Aleksandrovitch, tired and dusty with his night in the coach, reached Petersburg in the mist of the early morning. He rode along the still deserted Nevsky Prospekt,- looking straight before him, without thinking of what was awaiting him at home. He could not think about it, because as soon as he tried to imagine what might be, he could not drive away the suggestion that his wife's death would put a sudden end to all difficulties of his situation.

The bakers, the closed shops, the night izvoshchiks, the dvorniks sweeping the sidewalks,—all passed like a flash before his eyes; he noticed everything, in his endeavors to stifle the thought of what was before him—of what he dared not hope for and yet hoped for.

He reached his house; an izvoshchik and a carriage with a coachman asleep were standing before the door.

As he entered the vestibule Alekseï Aleksandrovitch, as it were, snatched at a decision from the most hidden recess of his brain, and succeeded in mastering it. It was to this effect: "If she has deceived me, I will be calm and go away again; but if she has told the truth, I will do what is proper."

The Swiss opened the door even before Alekseï Aleksandrovitch rang the bell; the Swiss Petrof, known as Kapitonuitch, presented a strange appearance, dressed in an old coat and slippers without any cravat.

"How is the baruinya?"

"In the night there was a change for the better."

Alekseï Aleksandrovitch stopped short and turned very pale; he now realized how deeply he had hoped for her death.

"And how is she?"

Karnei, the servant in morning dress, came quickly down the stairs.

"Very low," he said. "There was a consultation yesterday, and the doctor is here now."

"Take my things," said Alekseï Aleksandrovitch, a little comforted to learn that there was still hope of death; and he went into the reception-room.

A uniform overcoat hung in the hall. Alekseï Aleksandrovitch noticed it, and asked:—

"Who is here?"

"The doctor, the nurse, and Count Vronsky."

Alekseï Aleksandrovitch went through the inner rooms. There was no one in the drawing-room; but the sound of his steps brought the nurse, in a cap with lilac ribbons, out of the boudoir.

She came to Alekseï Aleksandrovitch, and, taking him by the hand, with the familiarity that the approach of death permits, led him into the sleeping-room.

"Thank the Lord that you have come! She talks of nothing but you; always of you," she said.

"Bring some ice quick!" said the imperative voice of the doctor from the chamber.

Alekseï Aleksandrovitch went into her boudoir. On a little low chair by her table, sat Vronsky weeping, his face covered with his hands. He started at the sound of the doctor's voice, uncovered his face, and saw Alekseï Aleksandrovitch. The sight of the husband disturbed him so much that he sat back in his chair, crouching his head down between his shoulders as if he wanted to disappear out of sight; then, making a great effort, he rose and said:—

"She is dying; the doctors say that there is no hope. I am in your power. Only allow me to remain here. .... I will conform to your wishes in every other respect. I ...."

When he saw Vronsky in tears, Alekseï Aleksandrovitch felt the involuntary tenderness that the sufferings of others always caused him; he turned away his head without replying, and went to the door.

Anna's voice could be heard from the sleeping-room, lively, gay, and with clear intonations.

Alekseï Aleksandrovitch went in and approached her bed. She was lying with her face turned toward him. Her cheeks were bright red, her eyes brilliant; her little white hands, coming out of the sleeves of her nightdress, were playing with the corner of the coverlet. Not only did she seem fresh and well, but in the happiest frame of mind; she talked fast and loud, accenting her words with precision and nicety.

"Because Alekseï—I am speaking of Alekseï Aleksandrovitch—strange, isn't it, and cruel, that both should be named Alekseï?—Alekseï would not have refused me; I should have forgotten; he would have forgiven. .... Yes! why does he not come? He is good; he himself does not know how good he is .... Akh! Bozhe moï! what agony! Give me some water, quick! Akh! but that is not good for her, .... my little daughter. Well! then, very good; give her to the nurse. I am willing; that will be even better. Now when he comes, she will be hateful in his sight; take her away."

"Anna Arkadyevna, he has come; here he is," said the nurse, trying to draw her attention to Alekseï Aleksandrovitch.

"Oh, what nonsense!" continued Anna, without seeing her husband. "There! give the little one to me, give her to me! He hasn't come yet. You pretend that he will not forgive me because you do not know him. No one knows him, I alone.... His eyes, one must know them. Serozha's are very like them; that is why I can no longer look at them. Has Serozha had his dinner? I know he will be forgotten. Oh, do not forget him! Let Serozha be brought into the corner-chamber, and let Mariette sleep near him."

Suddenly she shrank back and was silent; and, with a look of terror, raised her arms above her head as if to ward off a blow. She had recognized her husband.

"No, no," she said quickly, "I am not afraid of him; I am afraid of dying. Alekseï, come here. I am in a hurry, because there is no time to be lost. I have only a few minutes to live; the fever will be upon me again, and I shall know nothing more. Now I am conscious; I understand everything and I see everything."

Alekseï Aleksandrovitch's wrinkled face expressed acute suffering; he took her hand, and he wanted to speak, but his lower lip trembled so that he could not utter a word, and his emotion hardly allowed him to glance at the dying woman. Every time that he turned his head toward her, he saw her eyes fixed on him with a humility and enthusiastic affection which he had never seen there before.

"Wait! you do not know. .... Wait, wait!" .... She stopped to collect her thoughts. "Yes," she began again, "yes, yes, yes, this is what I want to say. Do not be astonished. I am always the same .... but there is another I within me, her I fear: it is she who loved him, him, and hated you; and I could not forget what I had once been. That was not I! Now I am myself, entirely, really myself, and not another. I am dying, I know that I am dying; ask him if I am not. I feel it now; there are those terrible weights on my hand and my feet and on my fingers. ... My fingers! they are enormous, but all that will soon be over. ... One thing only is indispensable to me: forgive me, forgive me wholly! I am a sinner; but Serozha's nurse told me that there was a holy martyr—what was her name?—who was worse than I. I will go to Rome; there is a desert there. I shall not trouble anybody there. I will. only take Serozha and my little daughter No, you cannot forgive me; I know very well that it is impossible. Go away, go away! you are too perfect!"

She held him with one of her burning hands, and pushed him away with the other.

Alekseï Aleksandrovitch's emotion^[1] had been all the time increasing, and now it reached such a degree that he could no longer control himself. He suddenly felt that what he had considered his spiritual discord was, on the contrary, a blessed state of the soul which imparted to him what seemed like a new and hitherto unknown happiness. He had not believed that the Christian law, which he had taken for a guide in life, ordered him to forgive and love his enemies; but now his soul was filled with joyous love and forgiveness to his enemies. He knelt beside the bed, he laid his forehead on her arm, the fever of which burned through the sleeve, and sobbed like a child. She bent toward him, placed her arm around her husband's bald head, and raised her eyes defiantly and proudly.

"There, I knew that it would be so. Now farewell, farewell all!.... They are coming back again. Why don't they go away? .... There! take off all these furs from me!"

The doctor disengaged her arms, laid her back gently on her pillows, and drew the covering over her. Anna made no resistance, looking all the while straight before her, with shining eyes.

"Remember that I have only asked your pardon; I ask nothing more Why doesn't he come?" she said, suddenly looking toward the door, toward Vronsky. "Come! come here, and give him your hand."

Vronsky came to the side of the bed, and, when he saw Anna, he hid his face in his hands again.

"Uncover your face; look at him, he is a saint," said she. "Yes, uncover your face! look at him!" she repeated in an irritated manner. "Alekseï Aleksandrovitch, uncover his face; I want to see him."

Alekseï Aleksandrovitch took Vronsky's hands and uncovered his face, disfigured by the expression of suffering and humiliation which it wore.

"Give him your hand; forgive him."

Alekseï Aleksandrovitch held out his hand to him, without trying to keep back the tears.

"Thank the Lord! thank the Lord!" said she; "now everything is right. I will stretch out my feet a little, like that; that is better. How ugly those flowers are! they do not look like violets," she said, pointing to the hangings in her room. "Bozhe moï! Bozhe moï! when will this be over? Give me some morphine, doctor; some morphine. Bozhe moï! Bozhe moï!"

And she tossed about on the bed.

 

The doctors said that this was puerperal fever and that there was not one chance in a hundred of her living. All that day there was fever, with alleviations of delirium and unconsciousness. Toward midnight she lay unconscious and her heart had almost ceased to beat.

The end was expected every moment.

Vronsky went home, but he came back the next morning to learn how she was. Alekseï Aleksandrovitch came to meet him in the reception-room, and said to him, "Stay; perhaps she will ask for you." Then he himself took him to his wife's boudoir. In the morning the restlessness, the rapidity of thought and speech, returned; but soon unconsciousness intervened again. The third day was much the same, and the doctors began to hope. On this day Alekseï Aleksandrovitch went into the boudoir where Vronsky was, closed the door, and sat down in front of him.

"Alekseï Aleksandrovitch," said Vronsky, feeling that an explanation was at hand, "I cannot speak, I cannot think. Have pity on me! Hard as it may be for you, believe me, it is still more terrible for me."

He was going to rise; but Alekseï Aleksandrovitch prevented him, and said:—

"Pray listen to me; it is unavoidable. I am forced to explain to you the feelings that guide me, and will continue to guide me, that you may avoid making any mistake in regard to me. You know that I had decided on a divorce, and that I had taken the preliminary steps to obtain one? I will not deny that at first I was undecided, I was in torment. I confess that the desire to avenge myself on you and on her pursued me. When I received the telegram, and came home, I felt the same desire. I will say more; I wished for her death. But...." He was silent for a moment, considering whether he would wholly reveal his thoughts—"but I have seen her and I have forgiven her. The happiness I feel at being able to forgive clearly shows me my duty. I have absolutely forgiven her. I desire to offer the other cheek to the smiter; I wish to give my cloak to him who has robbed me of my coat. I only ask one thing of God,—that He will not take away from me this joy of forgiving."

Tears filled his eyes. Vronsky was amazed at the calm, luminous face.

"This is my position. You may drag me in the mire, and make me the laughing-stock of creation; but I will not give up Anna for that, nor will I utter a word of reproach to you," continued Alekseï Aleksandrovitch. "My duty seems clear and plain to me: I must remain with her; I shall remain with her. If she wishes to see you, I shall inform you of it; but now I think it will be better for you to go away."

He rose; sobs choked his voice. Vronsky rose too, and, standing with bowed head and humble attitude, looked up at Karenin, without a word to say. He was incapable of understanding Alekseï Aleksandrovitch's feelings; but he felt that this was something too high for him, something even unapproachable for a person who looked on the world as he did.

 

1. Dushevnoye razstroyetstvo, spiritual derangement or discord.