Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Two/Chapter 26
CHAPTER XXVI
The external relations of Alekseï Aleksandrovitch and his wife were the same as they had been. The only difference was that he was more absorbed in his work than he had been. Early in the spring he went abroad, as was his custom each year, to recuperate at the water-cure after the fatigues of the winter. He returned in July, as he usually did, and resumed his duties with new energy. His wife had taken up her summer quarters as usual in a datcha, or summer villa, not far from Petersburg; he remained in the city.
Since their conversation after the reception at the Princess Tverskaya's, he had said nothing more about his jealousies or suspicions; and the tone of raillery habitual with Alekseï Aleksandrovitch was to the highest degree useful to him in his present relations with his wife. He was somewhat cooler in his treatment of her, although he seemed to have felt only a slight ill-will toward her after that night's conversation which she had refused to listen to. In his relations to her there was a shade of spite, but nothing more. He seemed to say, "You have not been willing to have an understanding with me; so much the worse for you. Now you must make the first advances, and I, in my turn, will not listen to you."
"So much the worse for you," said he in his thought, like a man who should try in vain to put out a fire and should be angry at his vain efforts, and should say, "I have done my best for you; burn then!"
This man, so keen and shrewd in matters of public concern, could not see the absurdity of such behavior to his wife. He did not understand it because it was too terrible to understand his actual position. He preferred to bury the affection which he felt for his wife and child deep in his heart, as in a box locked and sealed. He, a watchful father, had begun toward the end of that winter to be singularly cold toward the child, speaking to him in the same bantering tone that he used toward his wife. When he addressed him he would say, "Ah, young man!"
Alekseï Aleksandrovitch thought and declared that he had never had so many important affairs as this year; but he did not confess that he had himself undertaken them in order to keep from opening his secret coffer which contained his sentiments toward his wife and his family, and his thoughts concerning them,—thoughts which grew more and more terrible to him the longer he kept them out of sight.
If any one had assumed the right to ask him what he thought about his wife's conduct, this calm and pacific Alekseï Aleksandrovitch would have made no reply, but would have been very indignant with the man who should dare to ask him such a question. And so his face always looked stern and haughty whenever any one asked how his wife was. Alekseï Aleksandrovitch did not wish to think about his wife's conduct and feelings, and therefore he did not think about them.
The Karenins' summer datcha was at Peterhof; and the Countess Lidya Ivanovna generally spent her summers in the same neighborhood, keeping up friendly relations with Anna. This year the countess had not cared to go to Peterhof, nor had she once called on Anna Arkadyevna; and as she was talking with Karenin one day, she made some allusion to the impropriety of Anna's intimacy with Betsy and Vronsky. Alekseï Aleksandrovitch stopped her harshly, and declared that for him his wife was above suspicion, and from that day he avoided the countess. He did not wish to see and he did not see that many people in society were beginning to give his wife the cold shoulder; he did not wish to comprehend and he did not comprehend why his wife especially insisted on going to Tsarskoye, where Betsy lived and from which it was not far to Vronsky's camp.
He did not allow himself to think about this, and he did not think; but at the same time, without any proof to support him, without actually acknowledging it to himself, in the depths of his soul he felt that he was a deceived husband; he had no doubt about it, and he suffered deeply.
How many times in the course of his eight years of happy married life, as he had seen other men's wives playing them false and other husbands deceived, had he not asked himself, "How did it come to this? Why don't they free themselves at any cost from such an absurd situation?" But now, when the evil had fallen on his own head, he not only did not dream of extricating himself from his own trouble, but he would not even admit it, would not admit it for the very reason that it was too horrible and too unnatural.
Since his return from abroad, Alekseï Aleksandrovitch had gone twice to his wife's datcha,—once to dine with her, the other time to pass the evening with some guests, but not once had he spent the night, as had been his custom in previous years.
The day of the races was extremely engrossing for Alekseï Aleksandrovitch; but when in the morning he made out the program of the day, he decided to go to his wife's datcha after an early dinner, and thence to the hippodrome, where he expected to find the court, and where it was proper that he should be seen. He went to see his wife because he had resolved, for the sake of propriety also, to visit his wife every week. Moreover, it was the fifteenth of the month, and it was his custom at this time to place in her hands the money for the household expenses.
With his ordinary power over his thoughts he gave this much consideration to his wife's affairs, but beyond this point he would not permit them to pass.
His morning had been extremely full of business. The evening before he had received a pamphlet, written by a famous traveler, who had recently returned from China and was now in Petersburg; a note from the Countess Lidya, accompanying it, begged him to receive this traveler, who seemed likely to be, on many accounts, a useful and interesting man. Alekseï Aleksandrovitch had not been able to get through the pamphlet in the evening, and he finished it after breakfast. Then came petitions, reports, visits, nominations, removals, the distribution of rewards, pensions, salaries, correspondence, all that "workaday labor," as Alekseï Aleksandrovitch called it, which consumes so much time.
Then came his private business, a visit from his physician and a call from his steward. The steward did not stay very long. He only brought the money which Alekseï Aleksandrovitch needed, and a brief report on the condition of his affairs, which this year were not very satisfactory, since it happened that in consequence of various outlays there had been a heavy drain upon him and there was a deficit.
But the doctor, who was a famous physician of Petersburg, and had come into very friendly relations with Alekseï Aleksandrovitch, took considerable time. Alekseï Aleksandrovitch had not expected him that day and was astonished at his visit, and still more so at the scrupulous care with which he plied him with questions, and sounded his lungs and punched and thumped his liver; Alekseï Aleksandrovitch was not aware that his friend, the Countess Lidya, troubled by his abnormal condition, had begged the doctor to visit him and give him a thorough examination.
"Do it for my sake," said the Countess Lidya Ivanovna.
"I will do it for the sake of Russia, countess," replied the doctor.
"Admirable man!" cried the countess.
The doctor was very much disturbed at Alekseï Aleksandrovitch's state. His liver was congested, his digestion was bad; the waters had done him no good. He ordered more physical exercise, as little mental strain as possible, and, above all, freedom from vexation of spirit; in other words, he ordered Alekseï Aleksandrovitch to do what was as impossible for him as not to breathe.
The doctor departed, leaving Alekseï Aleksandrovitch with the disagreeable impression that something was very wrong with him, and that there was no help for it.
On the way out, the doctor met on Karenin's steps his old acquaintance Sliudin, who was Alekseï Aleksandrovitch's chief secretary. They had been in the university together; but, though they rarely met, they were still excellent friends, and therefore to no one else than Sliudin would the doctor have expressed his opinion concerning the sick man so frankly.
"How glad I am that you have been to see him!" said Sliudin. "He is not well, and it seems to me ..... Well, what is it?"
"I will tell you," said the doctor, nodding to his coachman to drive up to the door. "This is what I say;" and, taking with his white hand the fingers of his dogskin glove, he stretched it out; "try to break a tough cord which is not stretched and it's hard work; but keep it stretched out to its utmost tension, and put the weight of your finger on it, it breaks. Now, with his too sedentary life, and his too conscientious labor, he is strained to the utmost limit; and besides, there is a violent pressure in another direction," concluded the doctor, raising his eyebrows significantly. "Shall you be at the races?" he added, as he got into his carriage.
"Yes, yes, certainly; it takes a good deal of time," he said in reply to something that Sliudin said, and which he did not catch.
Immediately after the departure of the doctor, who had taken so much time, the celebrated traveler appeared; and Alekseï Aleksandrovitch, aided by the pamphlet which he had just read, and by some previous information which he had on the subject, astonished his visitor by the extent of his knowledge and the breadth of his views.
At the same time the marshal [1] of nobility of his government was announced, who had come to Petersburg and wanted to talk with him. After his departure he was obliged to settle the routine business with his chief secretary, and finally to go out and make a serious and necessary call on an important personage.
Alekseï Aleksandrovitch had only time to get back to his five o'clock dinner with Sliudin, whom he invited to join him on his visit to the country and to the races.
Without exactly accounting for it, Alekseï Aleksandrovitch always endeavored lately to have a third person present when he had an interview with his wife.
- ↑ Gubernsky Predvodityel.