Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Seven/Chapter 25
CHAPTER XXV
Feeling that their reconciliation was complete, Anna the next morning eagerly made her preparations for departure. Although it was not yet definitely decided whether they should start on Monday or Tuesday, since both days had certain contingencies, Anna was busily making her preparations for the journey, feeling now perfectly indifferent whether they went a little sooner or a little later. She was engaged in her room taking various articles from an open trunk, when Vronsky, already dressed, came to her earlier than usual.
"I am going now to maman. Perhaps she can get me the money through Yegerof, and then I shall be ready to go to-morrow," he said.
She was feeling particularly cheerful, but his reference to his visit to his mother's datcha was like a stitch in the side.
"No; I shall not be ready myself;" and immediately she thought, "So then it was possible to arrange it so as to do as I wished."—"No; do just as you intended to. And now go to the dining-room, and I will join you as soon as I have taken out these unnecessary things," she added, giving something more to Annushka, whose arms were already laden with a heap of articles.
Vronsky was eating his beefsteak when she entered the dining-room.
"You can't realize how odious these apartments have become to me," she said, as she sat down by him. "Nothing is more detestable than these chambres garnies. There is no individuality in them, no soul. The clock, the curtains, and especially the wall-papers—they are a cauchemar. I think of Vozdvizhenskoye as of the promised land. Shall you not send on the horses in advance?"
"No, they will follow us. But were you going anywhere?"
"I wanted to go to the Wilsons'; I must get a gown. So it is decided that we go to-morrow, is it?" she added, in a joyous tone. But suddenly her face changed. Vronsky's valet came in, and asked him to sign a receipt for a despatch from Petersburg. Still there was nothing remarkable in Vronsky's receiving a telegram, but he acted as if he wanted to conceal something from her; and, saying that he would sign it in his library, he turned to her:—
"To-morrow without fail I shall have finished everything."
"From whom is the despatch?" she asked, not hearing him.
"From Stiva," answered the count, reluctantly.
"Why did n't you show it to me? What secret can there be between Stiva and me?"
Vronsky called the valet back, and ordered him to bring in the telegram.
"I did not care to show it because Stiva has a passion for telegraphing. Why need he send me a despatch to tell me that nothing was decided?"
"About the divorce?"
"Yes. He maintains that he cannot get a definite answer. Here, see for yourself."
Anna took the despatch with a trembling hand. It read as Vronsky had told her. At the end it said:—"Little hope; but I shall do everything possible and impossible."
"I told you yesterday that it was absolutely immaterial to me when I received the divorce, or whether I get it at all," said she, flushing, "so it is perfectly useless to hide anything from me. In the same way, he can hide from me his correspondence with women," thought she.
"Yashvin wanted to come this morning with Voïtof," said Vronsky. "It seems that he has been gambling again, and has won from Pyebtsof all he has and more than he can pay.... about sixty thousand rubles."
"No," said she, vexed because by this change in the conversation he so evidently insinuated that she was vexed. "Why do you think that this news interests me so much that you must hide it from me? I told you that I did not want to think about it, and I should wish that you had as little interest in it as I."
"It interests me because I like clearness."
"Clearness! But in love, not in mere outside show," she said, getting more and more angry, not at his words, but at the tone of cool calmness in which he spoke. "Why do you want a divorce?"
"Bozhe moï! Always 'love,'" thought Vronsky, frowning. "You know very well why; it is for your sake and for the children we may have."
"There will not be any more children."
"I am sorry for that."
"You feel the need of it, because of the children; but don't you have some thought of me?" said she, forgetting that he had just said "for your sake and the children's."
The question of the possibility of having children had been long vexatious and trying to her. She took his desire to have children as a proof of indifference toward her beauty.
"Akh! I said for your sake .... more than all for your sake; for I am convinced that your irritability comes largely from the uncertainty of your position," he answered, scowling with annoyance.
"Yes, now he has ceased to pretend, and all his cold hatred of me is plain to be seen," she said to herself, not hearing his words, but gazing with horror at a cold and cruel judge who looked out of his eyes, and mocked her.
"That is not the cause," said she; "and I do not understand how my irritability, as you call it, can be caused by the fact that I have come absolutely into your power. How is my position indefinite? It seems to me the contrary."
"I am sorry that you are not willing to understand," he replied, obstinately determined to express his thought. "Its uncertainty comes from this,—that you think that I am free."
"Oh! as far as that goes, you can be perfectly easy," she said, turning from him, and beginning to drink her coffee. She took the cup, raising her little finger, and put it to her lips; and as she drank she looked at him, and by the expression of his face saw clearly that her motions and the sounds that she made in swallowing were repulsive to him.
"It is absolutely indifferent to me what your mother thinks, and how she intends to marry you off," said she, putting down the cup with trembling hand.
"We will not talk of that."
"Yes, we will too; and I assure you that a heartless woman, whether young or old,—your mother or anybody else,—does not interest me; and I don't want to know her."
"Anna, I beg you not to speak disrespectfully of my mother."
"A woman who has no conception of what the honor and happiness of her son consist in, has no heart."
"I repeat my request that you will not speak disrespectfully of my mother, whom I respect," reiterated the count, raising his voice, and looking severely at Anna.
She did not reply, but looked attentively at his face and his hands, and recalled with all its details, the scene of the evening before, and his passionate caresses "Just such caresses he has lavished, and will still continue to lavish, on other women," she thought."You don't love your mother. Those are simple words, words, words!" she said, looking at him with eyes full of hatred.
"If that is the case, it is necessary ...."
"It is necessary to decide; and I have decided," said she, and was preparing to leave the room, when the door opened, and Yashvin entered.
She stopped immediately, and bade him good-morning.
Why, when her soul was full of bitterness; when she felt that she was at the turning-point of her life, which might take a terrible direction,—why, at this moment, she had to dissimulate before a stranger, who sooner or later would know all, she could not tell; but, calming the inner tumult of her feelings, she sat down again, and began to talk with the guest,
"Well, how are your affairs? Have they paid you your debt?" she asked.
"No; not yet. Probably I shall not get it all. And I've got to leave Wednesday," said Yashvin, awkwardly, glancing at Vronsky, and evidently suspecting that a quarrel was in progress. "When do you leave?"
"Day after to-morrow, I think," said Vronsky.
"You have taken long to make up your minds."
"But now it is all decided," said Anna, looking straight into Vronsky's eyes with a look that told him how impossible it was to think of reconcihation.
"Did n't you feel sorry for that unlucky Pyebtsof?" asked Anna, addressing Yashvin.
"I have never asked myself whether I pitied a man or not, Anna Arkadyevna. My whole fortune is here," said he, pointing to his pocket. "Now I am a rich man, but I may come out of the club this evening a beggar. Whoever plays with me would gladly leave me without a shirt, and I him. Well! We engage in war, and that makes the fun."
"Well, but if you were married, how would it be for your wife?"
Yashvin laughed.
"But I am not married, and I don't expect to marry."
"But how about Helsingfors?" suggested Vronsky, joining in the conversation, and looking at Anna's smiling face. But as she met his glance her face suddenly assumed a set and cold expression, as much as to say to him: "I have not forgotten. It's still the same."
"And have n't you ever been in love?" she asked of Yashvin.
"Oh, Lord! plenty of times. Only remember, one may sit down to cards, but must be able to get up when the time comes for a rendezvous; but I interest myself in love-affairs in such a way that I need not be late to play my hand in the evening. And so I always arrange matters."
"You misunderstand; I did not ask about that, but about actual...." She wanted to say Helsingfors, hut she did not like to use a word which Vronsky had just spoken.
Voïtof came at this moment to see about a horse which he had bought; Anna got up and left the room.
Before he left the house, Vronsky went to her room. She pretended to look for something on the table, but then, being ashamed of this dissimulation, she looked him straight in the face. She asked him coolly in French, "What do you want?"
"The certificate for Gambetta; I have sold him," answered Vronsky, in a tone which said louder than words, "I have not time for explanations, nor would they lead to anything."
"I'm not to blame," thought he; "if she wants to punish herself, tant pis pour elle."
However, as he left the room he thought she said something to him, and his heart was suddenly touched with compassion for her,
"What is it, Anna?" he asked.
"I said nothing," she answered coldly and calmly.
"Nothing! tant pis," he said again to himself. On his way out, as he passed a mirror, he caught sight in it of her pale face and trembling lips. He was tempted to go back and say some comforting words to her, but he was already too far on his way. He passed the entire day outside the house; and when he came home the maid informed him that Anna Arkadyevna had a headache, and begged him not to disturb her.