Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Six/Chapter 18
CHAPTER XVIII
Anna looked at Dolly's tired, worn face, with the wrinkles powdered with dust, and was on the point of saying that she looked thin; but, realizing that she herself had grown more beautiful than ever, and that Dolly's eyes told her so, she sighed, and began to talk about herself.
"You are studying me," she said. "You are wondering if I can be happy in my position! Well, what can I say? It is shameful to confess it! but I .... I am unpardonably happy. What has happened is like a piece of enchantment; like a dream where everything was terrible, agonizing, and suddenly you wake up and realize that it was only a nightmare. I had been asleep, I had suffered awful agonies, and now that is all long, long past. And how especially happy I am now that we are together!" and she looked at Dolly with a timid, questioning smile.
"How glad I am!" Darya Aleksandrovna answered, more coldly than she wished. "I am glad for you; .... but why have you not written me?"
"Why? .... Because I did not dare. .... You knew my position."
"Not dare? to me! If you knew how I ...."
Dolly was about to tell her about the reflections she had had on the journey, but somehow it did not seem to her to be the fitting place. "We will have our talk by and by," she added. "What is that group of buildings, or little village rather?" she asked, wishing to change the conversation, and pointing to some green and red roofs which appeared through the acacias and lilac trees.
But Anna did not reply to her question.
"No, no! how do you feel about my position? What do you think of it? tell me!" Anna went on.
"I think...." began Darya Aleksandrovna; but at this instant Vasenka Veslovsky, in his short jacket, spurring the cob into a trot with his right leg and creaking terribly on the leather side-saddle, went dashing by them.
"It goes, Anna Arkadyevna," he shouted.
Anna did not even look at him, but again it seemed to Darya Aleksandrovna that it was impossible to begin on this long conversation in the carriage, and so she said less than she thought.
"I do not think about it at all," said she. "I love you and always have loved you. And when we love people so, we love them for what they are, not for what we wish they were."
Anna turned her eyes away from her friend's face, half closing them in order better to take in the meaning of the words. This was a new habit, which Dolly had never seen in her before. Apparently she interpreted her friend's answer as she wanted, and she looked at Dolly.
"If you have any sins, they will all be blotted out by this visit and by your kind words," she said, and Dolly saw that her eyes were dimmed with tears. She silently took her hand.
"What are those buildings? What a lot of them!" said Dolly again, after a moment of silence.
"Those are the roofs of our buildings,—our barns and stables," replied Anna. "Here our park begins. It was all neglected, but Alekseï has made it new again. He is very fond of this kind of occupation, and to my great surprise he has developed a passion for farming.[1] Ah, his is a rich nature! Whatever he undertakes he excels in. He not only does not get bored, but he is passionately interested in it. I do not know how, but he is making a capital farmer, so economical, almost stingy—but only in farm ways. For things of other sorts he will spend ten thousand rubles and never give it a thought."
She said this with that joyously crafty characteristic smile of women when they speak of the men they love, and the secret peculiarities which they alone know about.
"Do you see that large building? That is a new hospital. I think it will cost him more than a hundred thousand. It is his hobby just now. Do you know what made him build it? The peasants asked him to reduce the rent of some meadows, but he declined to do so, and I told him he was stingy. Of course, it wasn't altogether that, but everything taken together, so he began to build the hospital to prove my charge unjust; c'est une petitesse, perhaps, but I love him the better for it. Now in a moment you'll see the house. It was built by his grandfather, and the outside hasn't been changed at all."
"How beautiful!" cried Dolly, with involuntary surprise at the sight of a stately house ornamented with columns, and surrounded by a park filled with ancient trees of various shades of green.
"Isn't it beautiful? And the view from the second story is magnificent."
They came into the dvor, or court, paved with small stones and ornamented with flower-beds; two workmen were at this moment surrounding a bed filled with loam with roughly trimmed stones. They stopped under a covered entrance.
"Oh, they have already arrived," said Anna, as she saw the saddle-horses being led away. "Isn't that horse a pretty creature? that cob; he's my favorite. Bring him here and give him some sugar! Where is the count?" she asked of the two servants in livery who came hurrying out to receive them. "Ah, here he is!" added she, perceiving Vronsky with Veslovsky coming to meet them.
"Where shall we put the princess?" asked Vronsky of Anna, in French, and, without waiting for an answer, once more greeted Darya Aleksandrovna, and this time he kissed her hand,—"in the large balcony chamber, I suppose?"
"Oh, no, that is too far off. Better put her in the corner chamber. We shall see more of each other. Come, come," said she, giving her favorite horse some sugar which the lackey had brought.
"Et vous oubliez voire devoir," she added, turning to Veslovsky, who was already in the porch.
"Pardon, j'en at tout plein les poches," he replied, smiling, and thrusting his fingers into his waistcoat pocket.
"Mais vous venez trop tard," she replied, wiping her hand, which the horse had mouthed in taking the sugar.
Anna turned to Dolly,—
"You'll stay with us a long time," said she. "Only one day? That is impossible."
"That is what I promised,—and the children," answered the latter, ashamed at the wretched appearance of her poor little traveling-bag and at the dust with which she felt herself covered.
"No, Dolly, dushenka. .... However, we'll talk of that by and by. Come up to your room." And Anna conducted Dolly up-stairs.
The room was not the chamber of honor which Vronsky offered her, but one where she could be nearer Anna; but even this room, though they felt it needful to apologize for it, was furnished with a luxury such as she was not accustomed to, and which recalled the most sumptuous hotels that she had seen abroad.
"Well, dushenka! how glad I am!" said Anna, seating herself for a moment in her riding-habit. Tell me about your family. I saw Stiva just an instant, but he could not tell me anything about the children. How is my darling Tania? She must be a great girl!"
"Yes, very large," answered Dolly, laconically, astonished that she answered so coolly about her children. "We are all living charmingly with the Levins," she added.
"There! If I had known," said Anna, "that you wouldn't look down on me, .... you all would have come here. Stiva is an old and good friend of Alekseï's," said Anna, blushing.
"Yes! but we are so well .... " began Dolly in confusion.
"Well! I am so happy, I talk nonsense; only, dushenka, I am so glad to see you," said Anna, kissing her again. "But you would not tell me what you think about me; I want to know all. But I am so glad that you see me just as I am. My only idea, you see, is to avoid making people think that I am making any display. I don't want to make any display; I want simply to live and not do any harm to any one but myself. Am I not right about it? However, we'll talk of all this at our leisure. Now I'm going to change my dress; I will send you a waiting-maid."
- ↑ Khozyaïstvo