Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Two/Chapter 11
CHAPTER XI
What had been for nearly a whole year the sole desire of Vronsky's life, changing all his former desires—what Anna had looked upon as an impossible, a terrible, and, therefore, the more a fascinating, dream of bliss, was at last realized. Pale, with quivering lower jaw, he stood over her, begging her to be calm, himself not knowing how or why.
"Anna! Anna!" he said, with trembling voice. "Anna! for God's sake!"....
But the more intensely he spoke the lower she hung her once proud, joyous, but now humiliated head, and she crouched all down, and dropped from the divan, where she had been sitting, to the floor at his feet. She would have fallen on the carpet had he not held her.
"My God! forgive me!" she sobbed, pressing his hands to her breast. She felt that she was such a sinner and criminal that nothing remained for her except to crouch down and beg for forgiveness; now there was nothing else for her in life but him, so that to him alone she turned her prayer for forgiveness. As she looked at him she felt her humiliation physically, and she could say no more.
But he felt exactly as a murderer must feel when he sees the lifeless body of his victim. This lifeless body was their love—the first epoch of their love. There was something horrible and repulsive in the recollection of the terrible price that they had paid for this shame. The shame in the presence of their spiritual nakedness oppressed her and took hold of him. But in spite of all the horror felt by the murderer in presence of the body of his victim, he must cut it in pieces, must bury it, must take advantage of his crime.
And, as with fury and passion the murderer throws himself on the dead body and drags it and cuts it, so he covered her face and shoulders with kisses. She held his hand and did not stir.
"Yes, these kisses were what had been bought with this shame! Yes, and this hand, which will always be mine, is the hand of my accomplice."
She raised his hand and kissed it. He fell on his knees, and tried to look into her face; but she hid it and said nothing. At last, as if trying to control herself, she made an effort to rise, and pushed him away. Her face was still as beautiful as ever; even so much the more was it pitiful.
"All is ended," said she; "I have nothing but thee, remember that."
"I cannot help remembering it, since it is my life. A moment before this happiness ...."
"What happiness?" she cried, with contempt and horror. And horror involuntarily seized him also, "For God's sake, not a word, not a word more."
She quickly got up and moved away from him, and with a strange expression of hopeless despair, such as he had never seen before, on her face, she stood aloof from him. She felt that at that moment she could not express in words the sense of shame, rapture, and horror at this entrance into a new life, and she did not wish to speak about it or vulgarize the feeling with definite words.
But even afterward, on the next day, on the third day, not only did she fail to find words in which to express the complication of these feelings, but she could not even find thoughts by which to formulate to herself all that was in her soul.
She said to herself:—
"No, I cannot now think about this; by and by, when I am calmer."
But this calmness never came. Every time when the questions arose: "What had she done? and what would become of her? and what ought she to do?" she was filled with horror, and she compelled herself not to think about them.
"By and by, by and by," she repeated, "when I am calmer."
On the other hand, during sleep, when she had no control of her thoughts, her situation appeared in its ugly nakedness. One dream almost every night haunted her. She dreamed that she was the wife both of Vronsky and of Alekseï Aleksandrovitch, and that both lavished their caresses on her, Alekseï Aleksandrovitch kissed her hands, and said, weeping, "How happy we are now!" Alekseï Vronsky, also, was there, and he was her husband. She was amazed that she had ever believed such a thing impossible; and she laughed as she explained to them that this was far simpler, that both would henceforth be satisfied and happy. But this dream weighed on her like a nightmare, and she always awoke in fright.