Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Four/Chapter 21
CHAPTER XXI
Betsy had not left the "hall" when Stepan Arkadyevitch appeared on the threshold. He had come from Eliseyef's, where they had just received fresh oysters.
"Ah, princess! you here? What a fortunate meeting! I have just been at your house."
"The meeting is but for a moment; I am going," replied Betsy, smiling, as she buttoned her gloves.
"Wait just a moment, princess; allow me to kiss your little hand before you put on your glove. Nothing pleases me so much, in returning to ancient ways, as the custom of kissing a lady's hand."
He kissed Betsy's hand.
"When shall we meet again?"
"You don't deserve to see me," replied Betsy, laughing.
"Oh, yes, I do! for I have become a very serious man. I regulate not only my own family affairs, but also other people's," said he, with a significant expression in his face.
"Ah! I am delighted to hear it," replied Betsy, instantly knowing that he referred to Anna.
Going back into the "hall," they stood in a corner.
"He is killing her," she whispered, with conviction. "It is impossible, impossible...."
"I am very glad that you think so," replied Stepan Arkadyevitch, shaking his head with sympathetic commiseration. "That is why I am in Petersburg."
"The whole town are talking about it," said she; "this situation is intolerable. She is fading away before our very eyes. He doesn't understand that she is one of those women whose feelings cannot be treated lightly. One of two things,—either he ought to take her away, and act decidedly, or else be divorced. But this is killing her."
"Yes, yes.... exactly ...." said Oblonsky, with a sigh. "I have come for that; that is to say, not entirely for that .... I have just been made chamberlain, so I had to show my gratitude; but the main thing was to arrange this matter."
"Well! may the Lord help you!" said Betsy.
Stepan Arkadyevitch accompanied the Princess Betsy to the door, once more kissed her wrist just above her glove, where the pulse beats, and after paying her such an impudent compliment that she did not know whether to laugh or take offense, he left her to go to his sister. He found her in tears.
In spite of the exuberance of his lively spirits, Stepan Arkadyevitch fell instantly and with perfect genuineness into the tone of sympathetic and poetical tenderness which suited his sister's frame of mind. He asked how she felt, and how she had passed the day.
"Wretchedly, very wretchedly! Night and day, the future and the past, all .... wretched," she replied.
"It seems to me, you have yielded to the blues. You must have courage; look life in the face. It is hard, I know, but...."
"I have heard that some women love men for their very vices," began Anna, suddenly; "but I hate him for his virtue. I cannot live with him. Understand me, the sight of him has a physical effect on me which drives me out of my mind. I cannot, cannot live with him! What shall I do? I have been unhappy before, and I thought it impossible to be more so, but this horrible state of things surpasses all that I could have imagined. Can you believe that, though I know how good and perfect he is, and how unworthy of him I am, still I hate him! I hate him for his magnanimity. There is absolutely nothing left for me but to ...."
She was going to add "die," but Stepan Arkadyevitch did not let her finish.
"You are ill and nervous, believe me; you exaggerate everything. There is really nothing so very terrible."
And Stepan Arkadyevitch smiled. No one except Stepan Arkadyevitch, meeting such despair, would have ventured to smile,—for it would have seemed rude,—but his smile was so full of kindness, and an almost effeminate sweetness, that, instead of irritating, it was calming and soothing; his gentle soothing words and smile acted like oil of sweet almonds. Anna at once felt the effect.
"No, Stiva," said she, "I am lost, lost! worse than lost. And yet, I am not yet lost: I cannot still say that all is over; on the contrary, I feel that all is not yet over. I seem like a cord too tightly stretched, which must break. But the end has not yet come, and it will be terrible."
"No, no; the cord can be carefully unstrung. There is no difficulty without some way out of it."
"I have thought it over, and thought it over, and I see only one...."
Again he saw by her look of dismay that the one way that she meant was death, and again he did not allow her to finish.
"No, listen to me; you cannot judge of your position so well as I. Let me tell you frankly my opinion." He smiled again cautiously, with his almond-oily smile. "I will begin at the beginning: you married a man twenty years older than yourself, and you married without love,—or, at least, without knowing what love was. It was a mistake—as well admit it."
"A terrible mistake!" said Anna,
"But, I repeat it, it was an accomplished fact. You then had, let us say, the misfortune to fall in love—not with your husband; that was a misfortune, but that, too, was an accomplished fact. Your husband knew it, and forgave it." After each sentence he stopped, as if to give her time to reply, but she said nothing. "Now, the question is, can you continue to live with your husband? do you wish it? does he wish it?"
"I know nothing about it, nothing."
"But you yourself have just said that you could no longer endure him."
"No, I did not say so. I deny it. I know nothing, I understand nothing."
"Yes! but allow me ...."
"You cannot understand it. I feel that I am precipitated, head first, into an abyss, and I may not save myself. I cannot."
"You will see that we can prevent you from falling, and from being crushed. I understand you. I feel that you are not able to express your feelings, your desires."
"I desire nothing, nothing—only to end all this."
"He sees this, and knows it. Do you suppose that he doesn't feel the strain as much as you do? You suffer, he suffers; and what way of escape is there from all this torture? Then, when a divorce would settle everything...."
Stepan Arkadyevitch with difficulty expressed his principal idea, and looked to Anna to see what effect it would have.
She said nothing and shook her head disapprovingly. But by the expression of her face, which suddenly lighted up with something of her former beauty, he saw that, if she did not wish this, it was because the thought of its being realized was too enticing.
"I am awfully sorry for you! how happy I should be if I could arrange it for you!" said Stepan Arkadyevitch. "Don't say a word! If God will only permit me to express all that I feel! I am going to find Alekseï Aleksandrovitch."
Anna looked at him out of her brilliant, thoughtful eyes, and did not reply.