Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Six/Chapter 21
CHAPTER XXI
"No; the princess must be tired, and the horses will not interest her," said Vronsky to Anna, who had proposed to show Dolly the stable, where there was a new stallion that Sviazhsky wished to see. "You go there, and I will escort the princess back to the house. And, if you please," added he to Dolly, "we will talk a little on the way, if that will be agreeable."
"I know nothing about horses, so I shall very willingly go with you," said Darya Aleksandrovna.
She saw by Vronsky's face that he wanted something of her, nor was she mistaken. As soon as they had passed through the wicket-gate again into the park, he looked in the direction where Anna was gone, and, having convinced himself that they were out of her sight and hearing, he began:—
"You have guessed that I wanted to have a talk with you," said he, looking at her with his smiling eyes, "I am not mistaken in believing that you are Anna's friend, am I?"
He took off his hat, and, taking out his handkerchief wiped his head, which was growing bald.
Darya Aleksandrovna made no reply, and only gazed at him in alarm. Now that she was entirely alone with him, she suddenly felt terror-stricken; his smiling eyes and the stern expression of his face frightened her.
The most diverse suppositions as to what he might be wanting to talk with her about chased one another through her mind.
"Can it be that he is going to ask me to come with my children and make them a visit, and I shall be obliged to decline? or is it that he wants me to find society for Anna when she comes to Moscow? .... Or is he going to speak of Vasenka Veslovsky and his relations to Anna? Or can it be about Kitty, and that he wants to confess that he was to blame toward her?"
She thought over everything that might be disagreeable, but never suspected what he really wanted to talk with her about.
"You have such an influence over Anna, she is so fond of you," said he, "help me."
Darya Aleksandrovna looked timidly and questioningly into Vronsky's energetic face, which, as they passed under the linden trees, was now lighted up by the flecking sunbeams and then again darkened by the shadows, and she waited for him to proceed; but he, catching his cane in the paving-stones, walked in silence by her side.
"Of all Anna's friends, you are the only one who has come to see her—I do not count the Princess Varvara—I know very well it is not because you approve of our position; it is because you love Anna, and, knowing the cruelty of her position, want to help her. Am I right?"
"Yes," said Darya Aleksandrovna, shutting up her sunshade, "but ...."
"No," he interrupted, and he involuntarily stopped and obliged her to stop also, though he had no intention of putting his companion into an awkward situation. "No one feels more strongly and completely the cruelty of Anna's position than I do. And you will realize this if you will do me the honor to believe that I am not heartless. I am the cause of her being in this position, and therefore I feel it."
"I understand," said Darya Aleksandrovna, involuntarily admiring him for the honest and straight-forward way in which he said this. "But for the very reason that you feel yourself the cause I fear you are inclined to exaggerate," said she. "Her position in society is difficult, I admit."
"In society it is hell!" said he, frowning gloomily; "you can't conceive moral tortures worse than those which Anna endured at Petersburg during the fortnight we were there; and I beg you to believe...."
"Yes, but here? .... And so far neither she nor you feel the need of a society life." ....
"Society! why should I need it?" exclaimed Vronsky, scornfully.
"Up to the present time, and perhaps it will be so always, you are calm and happy. I see in Anna that she is happy, perfectly happy, and she has already told me that she is," said Darya Aleksandrovna, smiling.
And while she spoke the doubt arose in her mind: "Is Anna really happy?"
But Vronsky, it seemed, had no doubt on that score:—
"Yes, yes, I know that she has revived after all her sufferings. She is happy .... she is happy now. But I?" said Vronskv. "I am afraid of what the future has in store for us .... excuse me, do you want to go?"
"No, it is immaterial."
"Well, then, let us sit down here."
Darya Aleksandrovna sat down on a garden bench in a nook of the walk. He was standing in front of her.
"I see that she seems happy," he repeated; and the doubt whether Anna was happy again rose in Darya Aleksandrovna's mind more strongly than ever. "But will it last? Whether we did right or wrong is a hard question; but the die is cast," he said, changing from Russian to French, "and we are joined for life; we are joined by the ties of love. We have one child, and we may have others. But the law and all the conditions of our state are such that there are a thousand complications, which Anna, now that she is resting after her afflictions and sufferings, does not see and will not see. It is natural; but I cannot help seeing. My daughter, according to the law, is not my daughter, but Karenin's, and I do not like this falsehood," said he, with an energetic gesture of repulsion, and looking at Darya Aleksandrovna with a gloomy, questioning face.
She did not reply, but simply looked at him. He continued:—
"To-morrow a son may be born—my son—and by law he would be a Karenin, and could, inherit neither my name nor my property, and, however happy we were here at home, and however many children we had, there would be no legal connection between me and them. They would be Karenins. You understand the cruelty, the horror, of this state of things? I try to explain this to Anna. It irritates her—she will not understand me, and I cannot tell her all. Now look at the other side. I am happy in her love, but I must have occupation. I have taken up my present enterprise, and I am proud of it, and consider it far more beneficial than the occupations of my former comrades at the court and in the service. And certainly I would not change my occupation for theirs. I work here, on my own place, and I am happy and contented, and we need nothing more for our happiness. I love my activity, cela n'est pas un pis aller; far from it."
Darya Aleksandrovna noticed that at this point of his explanation he became entangled, and she did not under stand very well his sudden pause, but she felt that, having fairly begun to speak of his intimate affairs concerning which he could not talk with Anna, he would now make a full breast of it, and that the question of his activities in the country belonged to the same category as his relations to Anna.
"And so I keep on," said he, growing more cheerful again, "The chief thing is that when one works one must have the persuasion that what one has done will not die with him, that he will have heirs .... but I have none. .... Conceive the feelings of a man who knows that his children and those of the wife he worships do not belong to him; that they belong to a man who hates them, and would never recognize them. Isn't it horrible?"
He was silent and deeply moved.
"Yes, of course," said Darya Aleksandrovna; "I understand this. But what can Anna do?"
"Well, that brings me to the purpose of this talk," said the count, controlling himself with effort. "Anna can get a divorce. It depends on her. .... If we are to petition the emperor to legitimize the children, a divorce is essential. But that depends on Anna. Her husband consented to that, and your husband had it all arranged some time ago, and I know that he now would not refuse; all it requires is for Anna to write to him. He said up and down that he would consent, if Anna would apply for it. Of course," he added, frowning, "this condition is one of those Pharisaic cruelties of which only heartless people are capable. He knows what torture all remembrance of him has for her, and so he exacts this letter from her. I understand that it is painful to her. But the reasons are so imperative that she must passer pardessus toutes ces finesses de sentiment. Il va du bonhenr et de l'existence d'Anna et de ces enfants.[1] I don't speak about myself, though it is painful, very painful, to me," said he, with a wrathful expression against whoever was responsible for this state of things. "And this is why I make bold to apply to you, princess, as to a very anchor of salvation. Help me to persuade Anna of the need of getting a divorce."
"Why, of course I will," said Darya Aleksandrovna, gravely, for she vividly recalled her last meeting with Alekseï Aleksandrovitch. "Of course I will," she repeated resolutely, as she thought of Anna.
"Exert your influence on her and induce her to write the letter. I do not wish, and indeed I find it almost impossible, to talk with her about this."
"Very well, I will speak to her. But why does she not think of it herself?" asked Darya Aleksandrovna, suddenly remembering Anna's strange new trick of half-closing her eyes. And then it occurred to her that Anna did this especially when any reference was made to the more intimate side of her life.
"She seems to try to shut her eyes to her whole life, as if to put it out of her mind," said Darya Aleksandrovna to herself "Yes, I will speak to her, certainly; both for your sake and for hers," repeated Dolly, in response to Vronsky's grateful look.
And they got up and went to the house.
- ↑ She ought to be above these excessive sensibilities; her happiness is involved, as well as her children's.