Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Four/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV
After meeting Vronsky on the porch, Alekseï Aleksandrovitch went, as he had planned, to the Italian opera. He sat through two acts, and saw every one whom he needed to see. Returning home, he looked carefully at the hat-rack, and, having assured himself that there was no uniform overcoat in the vestibule, went straight to his chamber.
Contrary to his usual habit, instead of going to bed, he walked up and down his room till three o'clock in the morning. Anger kept him awake, for he could not forgive his wife for not being willing to observe the proprieties, and for not fulfilling the one condition that he had imposed on her,—that she should not receive her lover in his house. She had not complied with his requirement, and he felt bound to punish her, carry out his threat, demand a divorce, and take away his son from her. He knew all the difficulties that would attend this action, but he had said that he should do it, and now he was bound to carry out his threat. The Countess Lidia had often said that this was the easiest way out of his position; and recently the practice of divorce had reached such a pitch of perfection that Alekseï Aleksandrovitch saw in it a means of escaping , its formal difficulties.
Moreover, misfortunes never come single; and the trouble arising from the organization of the foreign population, and the irrigation of the fields in the government of Zaraï, had caused Alekseï Aleksandrovitch so much unpleasantness in his office that for some time he had been in a perpetual state of irritation.
He passed the night without sleeping, and his anger increasing all the while in a sort of colossal system of progression, by morning was directed even to the most trivial object. He dressed hastily, and went to Anna as soon as he knew she was up. He was afraid of losing the energy which he needed for his explanation with his wife; it was as if he carried a full cup of wrath and was afraid of spilling it.
Anna believed that she thoroughly knew her husband; but she was amazed at his appearance as he came in. His brows were contracted, and his eyes looked gloomily straight ahead, avoiding hers. His lips were firm and scornfully compressed. Never had his wife seen so much decision as she saw now in his gait, in every motion, in the sound of his voice. He entered without wishing her good morning, and went directly to her writing-desk, and, taking the key, opened the drawer.
"What do you want?" cried Anna.
"Your lover's letters."
"They are not there," she said, closing the drawer. But he knew by her action that he had guessed aright, and, roughly pushing away her hand, he quickly seized the portfolio in which he knew Anna kept her important papers. She attempted to regain it, but he held it at a distance.
"Sit down; I want to speak to you," he said, placing the portfolio under his arm, and holding it so firmly with his elbow that his shoulder was raised by it.
Anna looked at him, astonished and frightened, but said nothing.
"I told you that I would not permit you to receive your lover in this house."
"I needed to see him to ...."
She stopped, unable to find a plausible explanation.
"I will not enter into details, and have no desire to know why a woman needs to see her lover."
"I wished, I only ...." she said, flashing up, and feeling that her husband's rudeness made her bold—"is it possible that you are not aware how easy it is for you to insult me?"
"One can insult only an honest man or an honest woman; but to tell a thief that he is a thief, is only la constatation d'un fait—the statement of a fact."
"That is a degree of cruelty that I never recognized in you.""Ah! you find a husband cruel because he gives his wife perfect freedom, gives her the protection of an honest, noble name on the sole condition that she respect the laws of propriety? You call that cruelty?"
"It is worse than cruelty; it is cowardice, if you insist on knowing," cried Anna, with an outburst of anger, and rising, she started to go.
"No," cried he, in his piping voice, which was now a tone higher than usual; and seizing her by the arm with his great, bony fingers so roughly that one of Anna's bracelets left a red print on her flesh, he forced her back into her place.
"Cowardice, indeed! If you wish to employ that word, apply it to her who abandons her son and husband for a lover, and nevertheless eats her husband's bread."
Anna bowed her head; she not only did not say what she had said the evening before to her lover, that he was her husband while her husband was in the way—she did not even think it. She appreciated all the justice of his words, and she replied in a low voice:—
"You cannot judge my position more severely than I do myself; but why do you say all this?"
"Why do I say this?" continued he as angrily as ever; "so that you may know that, since you have paid no attention to my wishes, and have broken the rules of propriety, I shall take measures to put an end to this state of affairs."
"Soon, very soon, it will terminate itself," said Anna, and again at the thought of that death which she felt near at hand, and now so desirable, her eyes filled with tears.
"Sooner even than you and your lover have dreamed of! You need to make atonement by keen suffering ...."
"Alekseï Aleksandrovitch! I do not say that this is not magnanimous; but it is not gentlemanly to strike one who is down."
"You only think of yourself: the suffering of one who has been your husband is of little interest to you; it is a matter of indifference to you that his life has been overthrown, that he su....su.... suffers ...."
Alekseï Aleksandrovitch spoke so rapidly that he stammered, and could not speak the word.[1]
This seemed ridiculous to Anna, but she immediately was ashamed of herself because anything could seem to her ridiculous at such a moment. For the first time, and for a moment, she felt for him, and entered into his feelings and pitied him. But what could she say or do? She bowed her head and was silent. He also was silent for a little, then began again in a less piercing and colder voice, emphasizing words of no special importance:—
"I came to tell you ...."
She glanced at him. "No, that proves it to me," she said to herself, as she remembered the expression of his face as he stammered over the word suffered. "No, how can a man, with his dull eyes, so full of calm self-satisfaction, feel anything."
"I cannot change," she murmured.
"I have come to tell you that to-morrow I am going to Moscow, and that I shall not enter this house again. You will learn of my determination from the lawyer who will have charge of the preliminaries of the divorce. My son will go to my sister," he added, recalling with difficulty what he wanted to say about the child.
"You want to take Serozha away so as to cause me pain," she cried, glaring at him; "you do not love him .... leave Serozha!"
"Yes, I have even lost my love for my son because the repulsion you inspire in me includes him; but I shall keep him, nevertheless. Good morning."
He was about to go, but she detained him.
"Alekseï Aleksandrovitch, leave Serozha with me," she whispered again; "that is all I ask of you; leave him with me till my .... I shall soon be confined. Leave him with me!"
Alekseï Aleksandrovitch flushed with indignation, pushed away the arm that held him back, and left her without replying.
- ↑ Pele ....pele ....pelestradal.