Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Seven/Chapter 28
CHAPTER XXVIII
The weather was clear. A fine, thick rain had fallen all the morning, but now it had just cleared off. The roofs and flagstones and harnesses and the metal-work of the carriages glittered in the May sunshine. It was three o'clock, the liveliest time in the streets.
Sitting in the corner of the comfortable calash, which swung easily on its elastic springs as it rolled swiftly along, drawn by a pair of grays, Anna, soothed by the monotonous rumble of the wheels and the hurrying impressions that she received in the fresh, pure air, reviewed the events of the past few days, and her situation seemed entirely different from what it had been at home. Now, the idea of death did not frighten her so much, and death itself did not seem to her so inevitable. Now she blamed herself for the humiliation to which she had stooped.
"I begged him to forgive me. I bent before him. I accused myself. Why did I? Can't I live without him?"And, leaving this question unanswered, she began to read the sign-boards mechanically.
"Kontor i sklad. Zubnoï Vratch[1]—Yes, I will tell Dolly all about it. She does not love Vronsky. It will be hard, shameful, .... but I will confess everything. She loves me. I will follow her advice. I will not allow him to treat me like a child. Philoppof—Kalatchi; they say they send those loaves as far as Petersburg. The water at Moscow is so good; ah! the wells of Muitishchensky!"
And she remembered how long, long ago, when she was seventeen, she had gone with her aunt to the monastery of Troïtsa.[2]
"They traveled with horses in those days. Was it really I, with the red hands? How many things which seemed then beautiful and unattainable are worthless to me now! What I was then, is passed forever beyond recall! And ages could not bring me back. Would I have believed then that I could have fallen into such debasement? .... How proud and self-satisfied he will be when he reads my note! But I will tell him. .... How disagreeable this paint smells! Why are they always painting and building? Modui i uborui. Fashionable Dressmaker," she read.
A man bowed to her; it was Annushka's husband.
"Our parasites, as Vronsky says. Ours? Why ours? Ah, if one could tear out the past by the root! But that's impossible; one can only avoid thinking about it. And I do that."
And yet, here she recalled her past with Alekseï Aleksandrovitch, and how she had driven him out of her memory.
"Dolly will think that I am leaving the second husband, and that I am, therefore, really bad. Do I want to be good? I cannot." .... And she felt the tears coming. And, seeing two happy young girls going by, she fell to wondering why they were smiling at each other. "Probably about love. They don't know how sad and wretched it is. .... The boulevards and the children! There are three little boys, playing horse. Serozha! my little Serozha. I shall lose all. I shall never have him again. .... Well, if he does not come back, all is indeed lost. Perhaps he missed the train, and has already reached home. Do I wish to humiliate myself still more?" she said, reproaching herself for her weakness. "No, I'm going to Dolly's. I shall say to her, 'I am unhappy, I am suffering; I deserve it; but I am so unhappy, help me!' Oh, these horses, this calash! how I hate to use them! they are his. I will never see them again!"
While thinking over what she should say to Dolly, and deliberately torturing her heart, she reached the house, and went up the steps.
"Is there any one here?" she asked, in the anteroom.
"Katerina Aleksandrovna Levina," answered the servant.
"Kitty, the same Kitty with whom Vronsky was once in love," thought Anna; "and he thinks of her with love, and is sorry that he did not marry her; and he thinks of me with hate, and is sorry that he ever met me.
When Anna arrived, the two sisters were talking over the subject of feeding babies. Dolly went alone to the drawing-room to receive the guest that had come to disturb their conversation.
"You have n't gone away yet? I was just going to your house," said Dolly, "I have a letter from Stiva to-day."
"We had a despatch," answered Anna, glancing round to see if Kitty was coming.
"He writes that he does not understand what Alekseï Aleksandrovitch requires, but that he will not come away till he has a definite answer."
"I thought you had company. May I read the letter?""Yes, .... Kitty," said Dolly, confused; "she is in the nursery. You know she has been very ill."
"I heard so. May I read the letter?"
"Certainly; I'll go and get it. Alekseï Aleksandrovitch does not refuse; on the contrary, Stiva is quite hopeful," said Dolly, stopping at the door.
"I neither hope nor want anything," said Anna.
"Does Kitty think it humiliating to meet me?" thought Anna, when she was left alone. "Perhaps she is right; but she who once loved Vronsky has no right to thrust it in my face, even if she is right. I know that a virtuous woman cannot receive me in my present position. I have given up everything for him, and this is my reward! Ah, how I hate him! Why did I come here? I am more wretched here than at home."
She heard the voices of the two sisters in an adjoining room.
"And what am I to say to Dolly? Delight Kitty with the spectacle of my misery? Submit to her condescension? Never! Even Dolly would n't understand. I will not say anything to her. All I should want to see Kitty for would be to show her that I am indifferent,—that I scorn every one and everything."
Dolly came in with the letter; Anna silently looked it through, and returned it.
"I knew all that," said she; "but it doesn't interest me at all."
"Now, why not? I have good hopes," said Dolly, looking critically at Anna. She had never seen her in such a strange state of irritation. "When do you go away?"
Anna half closed her eyes, and looked before her without answering.
"Is Kitty afraid of me?" she asked, after a moment, glancing toward the door, with heightened color.
"Akh, what nonsense! But she is nursing the baby .... it does not go very well yet I have been giving her some advice.... she will be delighted, and is coming directly," answered Dolly, awkwardly, not knowing how to tell a fib. "Oh, there she is now."When Kitty heard that Anna was there, she had not wished to appear; but Dolly had persuaded her. Controlling her repugnance, she went to the parlor, and, blushing as she approached Anna, she held out her hand.
"I am very glad," said she, in a trembling voice.
Kitty was confused by the struggle between her dislike of this wicked woman and her desire to be polite to her; but, as soon as she saw Anna's beautiful, attractive face, all her unfriendliness vanished.
"I should not have been surprised if you had refused to see me; I am used to everything," said Anna. "You have been very ill; yes, you have changed."
Kitty felt that Anna looked at her with dislike, and she attributed her unfriendliness to the awkward position in which she stood in regard to herself, having once been her especial favorite. Her heart was filled with compassion.
They talked of Kitty's illness, about her baby, and of Stiva; but evidently nothing interested Anna.
"I came to bid you good-by," she said to Dolly, as she rose.
"When do you go?"
But, without answering her, Anna turned to Kitty.
"Well, I am very glad to have seen you again," said she, with a smile. "I've heard so much about you from every one, and especially from your husband. He came to see me, and I liked him very much," she added, with a wicked emphasis. "Where is he?"
"He has gone to the country," answered Kitty, blushing.
"Give my love to him; now don't forget!"
"I will do it, certainly," said Kitty, simply, with a compassionate look.
"So, prashchaï, Dolly, good-by," said Anna, kissing her; and, shaking hands with Kitty, she hastened away.
"She is as fascinating as ever," remarked Kitty, to her sister, when Dolly rejoined Kitty. "And how beautiful she is! But there is something very painful about her.... terribly painful.""She does n't seem to be in her usual state to-day. I thought she came near bursting into tears, when I accompanied her into the anteroom."
- ↑ Office and warehouse. Surgeon-Dentist.
- ↑ The Troïtskaïa Lavra, or Trinity Laura, near Moscow, founded by St. Sergius in the fourteenth century in the time of the Grand Prince Simeon; the richest and most famous institution of its kind in Russia. At one time it had 700 monks and 110,000 souls, or male serfs.