Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Six/Chapter 23
CHAPTER XXIII
Dolly was just feeling ready to go to bed when Anna came in, in her night costume.
All that day Anna had more than once been on the point of speaking intimately, but each time, after saying a few words, she had put it off, saying, "By and by; when we are alone, we will talk. I must tell you everything."
Now they were alone and Anna did not know what to talk about. She sat by the window looking at Dolly, and casting over in her mind that inexhaustible store of topics which she wished to talk about, and yet she could not find one to begin with. It seemed to her as if she had already told all that was in her heart to tell.
"Well, what about Kitty?" asked Anna, sighing deeply, and looking guiltily at Dolly. "Tell me the truth, Dolly; is she angry with me?"
"Angry? No," answered Dolly, smiling.
"Doesn't she hate .... does n't she despise me?"
"Oh, no; but you know this is one of the things people don't forgive."
"Yes, yes," said Anna, turning away and looking out of the open window. "But I was not to blame! And who is to blame? and what is there blameworthy about it? Could it have been otherwise? Now tell me? How do you think? Could you have helped being Stiva's wife?"
"Truly, I don't know; but you must tell me ...."
"Yes, yes! But finish telling me about Kitty. Is she happy? They say her husband is an excellent man."
"That's too little to say, that he's excellent; I don't know a better man."
"Oh, how glad I am! I am very glad. 'Little to say, that he 's an excellent man,'" she. repeated.
Dolly smiled.
"But now tell me about yourself," said Dolly. "I want a long talk with you. I have talked with ...."
She did not know what to call Vronsky—it was awkward to call him either count or Alekseï Kirillovitch.
"With Alekseï," said Anna. "Yes; I know that you talked with him. But I wanted to ask you frankly what you think of me.... of my life."
"How can I tell you at such short notice? I don't know what to say."
"No; you must tell me. ... You see my life. But you must not forget that you see us in summer with people, and we are not alone ....but we came in the early spring, we lived entirely alone, and we shall live alone again. I ask for nothing better than living alone with him. But when I imagine that I may live alone without him, absolutely alone, and this would be .... I don't see why this may not be frequently repeated, that he may spend half of his time away from home," she said, and, getting up, she sat down close by Dolly. "Oh, of course," she said quickly, interrupting Dolly, who was about to speak, "of course, I cannot keep him by force.... I don't keep him. To-day there's a race; his horses race; he goes. I am very glad! But you think of me; imagine my situation .... what is to be said about it?" She smiled. "But what did he talk with you about?"
"He spoke about a matter which I myself wanted to talk over with you; and it is easy for me to be an advocate of it,—about this: whether it is not possible or essential to"—Darya Aleksandrovna hesitated—"to improve, make your position legal .... you know how I look at .... but anyhow, if possible, a marriage must take place."
"You mean divorce?" said Anna. "Do you know, the only woman who came to see me in Petersburg was Betsy Tverskaya! Perhaps you know her. Au fond c'est la femme la plus depravée qui existe. She had a liaison with this Tushkievitch, deceiving her husband in the most outrageous way .... but she told me that she did not wish to know me, because my position was illegal! Don't think that I compare .... I know yo, dear heart.[1] But I could not help remembering it. Well, what did he say to you?"
"He said that he suffered both for you and for himself; maybe you will say that it is egoism, but what an honorable and noble egoism! He wishes to make his daughter legitimate, and to be your husband and with a husband's rights."
"What wife, what slave, could be more of a slave than I, in my position?" she interrupted angrily.
"The main reason that he wishes it is that you may not suffer."
"This is impossible. Well?"
"Well, to make your children legitimate, to give them a name."
"What children?" said Anna, not looking at Dolly, but half-closing her eyes.
"Ani, and those that may come to you."
"Oh, he can be easy; I shall not have any more."....
"How can you say that you won't have any more?"....
"Because I will not have any more;" and, in spite of her emotion, Anna smiled at the naive expression of astonishment, of curiosity, and horror depicted on Dolly's face. "After my illness the doctor told me...."
******
"It is impossible," exclaimed Dolly, looking at Anna with wide-opened eyes. For her this was one of those discoveries, the consequences and deductions of which are so monstrous that at the first instant it touches only the feeling, that it is impossible to grasp it, but that it rouses momentous trains of thought.
This discovery, which explained for her how happened all these hitherto inexplicable families of one or at most two children, stirred up so many thoughts, considerations, and contradictory feelings that she could not say a word, and only gazed with wide-open eyea of amazement at Anna. It was the very thing of which she had dreamed, but now that she knew it was possible she was horror-struck. She felt that it was a quite too simple solution of a too complicated question.
"N'est ce pas immoral?" she asked, after a moment's silence.
"Why? Remember that I must choose between two things: either being pregnant, that is to say, sick, or being the friend, the companion, of my husband; for so I consider him. If that is a doubtful fact to you, it is not so to me," said Anna, in an intentionally superficial and frivolous tone.
"Yes, yes, but...." exclaimed Darya Aleksandrovna, hearing the very same arguments which she had brought up to herself, and no longer finding in them their former weight.
"For you, for other women," proceeded Anna, apparrently divining her thoughts, "there may be some doubt about this; but for me. .... Just think! I am not his wife; he will love me just as long as he loves me; and how, by what means, am I to keep his love? It is by this."
And she put out her white arms in front of her beautiful body.
With extraordinary rapidity, as always happens in moments of emotion, all sorts of thoughts and ideas went rushing through Darya Aleksandrovna's mind.
"I have not tried," she reasoned, "to attract Stiva to myself; he deserted me for some one else, and the first woman for whom he sacrificed me did not retain him by being always pretty and gay. He threw her over and took another. And will Anna be able to fascinate and retain Count Vronsky? If that is what attracts him, then he will be able to find women who dress even better and are more fascinating and merry-hearted. And however white, however beautiful, her bare arms, however beautiful her rounded form, and her animated face framed in her black hair, he will be able to find still better, more attractive women, just as my abominable, wretched, and beloved husband has done."
Dolly made no reply, and only sighed. Anna remarked this sigh, which signified dissent, and she proceeded. She had in reserve still more arguments, still stronger, and impossible to answer.
"You say that this is immoral. But this requires to be reasoned out," she went on saying. "You forget my position. How can I desire children? I don't say anything about the suffering, I am not afraid of that. But think what my children will be! Unfortunate beings, who will have to bear a name which is not theirs,—by their very birth compelled to blush for their father and mother."
"Well, this is the very reason why a divorce is necessary."
But Anna did not hear her. She wanted to produce the same arguments by which she had so many times persuaded herself.
"Why was the gift of reason bestowed on me, if I cannot employ it in preventing the birth of more unhappy beings?"
She looked at Dolly, but without waiting for any answer she went on:—
"I should always feel my guilt toward these unhappy children. If they do not exist, they will not know misery; but if they exist and suffer, then I am to blame."
These were the same arguments as Darya Aleksandrovna had used to herself, but now she listened and did not understand them. She said to herself:—
"How can one be culpable with regard to non-existent existences?" And suddenly the thought came, "Could it have been possibly any better if my darling Grisha had never existed?" and it struck so unpleasantly, so strangely, that she shook her head to chase away the cloud of maddening thoughts that came into her mind.
"No, I do not know; I believe it wrong," she said, with an expression of disgust.
"But you must not forget that you and I .... and moreover," added Anna, notwithstanding the wealth of her own arguments and the poverty of poor Dolly's, seeming somehow to recognize that this thing was immoral after all,—"you must not forget the main thing, that I am not now in the same position as you are. For you the question is, Do you wish to have more children? but for me, Do I desire them? This is the principal difference. You must know that I cannot desire them in my position."
Darya Aleksandrovna was silent. She suddenly became aware that such an abyss separated her from Anna that between them certain questions existed on which they could never agree, and which had best not be discussed.
- ↑ Dushenka moya.