Chapter 23

In order to carry through any undertaking in family life, there must necessarily be either complete division between the husband and wife, or loving agreement. When the relations of a couple are vacillating and neither one thing nor the other, no sort of enterprise can be undertaken.

Many families remain for years in the same place, though both husband and wife are sick of it, simply because there is neither complete division nor agreement between them.

Both Vronsky and Anna felt life in Moscow insupportable in the heat and dust, when the spring sunshine was followed by the glare of summer, and all the trees in the boulevards had long since been in full leaf, and the leaves were covered with dust. But they did not go back to Vozdvizhenskoe, as they had arranged to do long before; they went on staying in Moscow, though they both loathed it, because of late there had been no agreement between them.

The irritability that kept them apart had no external cause, and all efforts to come to an understanding intensified it, instead of removing it. It was an inner irritation, grounded in her mind on the conviction that his love had grown less; in his, on regret that he had put himself for her sake in a difficult position, which she, instead of lightening, made still more difficult. Neither of them gave full utterance to their sense of grievance, but they considered each other in the wrong, and tried on every pretext to prove this to one another.

In her eyes the whole of him, with all his habits, ideas, desires, with all his spiritual and physical temperament, was one thing—love for women, and that love, she felt, ought to be entirely concentrated on her alone. That love was less; consequently, as she reasoned, he must have transferred part of his love to other women or to another woman—and she was jealous. She was jealous not of any particular woman but of the decrease of his love. Not having got an object for her jealousy, she was on the lookout for it. At the slightest hint she transferred her jealousy from one object to another. At one time she was jealous of those low women with whom he might so easily renew his old bachelor ties; then she was jealous of the society women he might meet; then she was jealous of the imaginary girl whom he might want to marry, for whose sake he would break with her. And this last form of jealousy tortured her most of all, especially as he had unwarily told her, in a moment of frankness, that his mother knew him so little that she had had the audacity to try and persuade him to marry the young Princess Sorokina.

And being jealous of him, Anna was indignant against him and found grounds for indignation in everything. For everything that was difficult in her position she blamed him. The agonizing condition of suspense she had passed in Moscow, the tardiness and indecision of Alexey Alexandrovitch, her solitude—she put it all down to him. If he had loved her he would have seen all the bitterness of her position, and would have rescued her from it. For her being in Moscow and not in the country, he was to blame too. He could not live buried in the country as she would have liked to do. He must have society, and he had put her in this awful position, the bitterness of which he would not see. And again, it was his fault that she was forever separated from her son.

Even the rare moments of tenderness that came from time to time did not soothe her; in his tenderness now she saw a shade of complacency, of self-confidence, which had not been of old, and which exasperated her.

It was dusk. Anna was alone, and waiting for him to come back from a bachelor dinner. She walked up and down in his study (the room where the noise from the street was least heard), and thought over every detail of their yesterday’s quarrel. Going back from the well-remembered, offensive words of the quarrel to what had been the ground of it, she arrived at last at its origin. For a long while she could hardly believe that their dissension had arisen from a conversation so inoffensive, of so little moment to either. But so it actually had been. It all arose from his laughing at the girls’ high schools, declaring they were useless, while she defended them. He had spoken slightingly of women’s education in general, and had said that Hannah, Anna’s English protegee, had not the slightest need to know anything of physics.

This irritated Anna. She saw in this a contemptuous reference to her occupations. And she bethought her of a phrase to pay him back for the pain he had given her. ‘I don’t expect you to understand me, my feelings, as anyone who loved me might, but simple delicacy I did expect,’ she said.

And he had actually flushed with vexation, and had said something unpleasant. She could not recall her answer, but at that point, with an unmistakable desire to wound her too, he had said:

‘I feel no interest in your infatuation over this girl, that’s true, because I see it’s unnatural.’

The cruelty with which he shattered the world she had built up for herself so laboriously to enable her to endure her hard life, the injustice with which he had accused her of affectation, of artificiality, aroused her.

‘I am very sorry that nothing but what’s coarse and material is comprehensible and natural to you,’ she said and walked out of the room.

When he had come in to her yesterday evening, they had not referred to the quarrel, but both felt that the quarrel had been smoothed over, but was not at an end.

Today he had not been at home all day, and she felt so lonely and wretched in being on bad terms with him that she wanted to forget it all, to forgive him, and be reconciled with him; she wanted to throw the blame on herself and to justify him.

‘I am myself to blame. I’m irritable, I’m insanely jealous. I will make it up with him, and we’ll go away to the country; there I shall be more at peace.’

‘Unnatural!’ She suddenly recalled the word that had stung her most of all, not so much the word itself as the intent to wound her with which it was said. ‘I know what he meant; he meant— unnatural, not loving my own daughter, to love another person’s child. What does he know of love for children, of my love for Seryozha, whom I’ve sacrificed for him? But that wish to wound me! No, he loves another woman, it must be so.’

And perceiving that, while trying to regain her peace of mind, she had gone round the same circle that she had been round so often before, and had come back to her former state of exasperation, she was horrified at herself. ‘Can it be impossible? Can it be beyond me to control myself?’ she said to herself, and began again from the beginning. ‘He’s truthful, he’s honest, he loves me. I love him, and in a few days the divorce will come. What more do I want? I want peace of mind and trust, and I will take the blame on myself. Yes, now when he comes in, I will tell him I was wrong, though I was not wrong, and we will go away tomorrow.’

And to escape thinking any more, and being overcome by irritability, she rang, and ordered the boxes to be brought up for packing their things for the country.

At ten o’clock Vronsky came in.

Chapter 24

‘Well, was it nice?’ she asked, coming out to meet him with a penitent and meek expression.

‘Just as usual,’ he answered, seeing at a glance that she was in one of her good moods. He was used by now to these transitions, and he was particularly glad to see it today, as he was in a specially good humor himself.

‘What do I see? Come, that’s good!’ he said, pointing to the boxes in the passage.

‘Yes, we must go. I went out for a drive, and it was so fine I longed to be in the country. There’s nothing to keep you, is there?’

‘It’s the one thing I desire. I’ll be back directly, and we’ll talk it over; I only want to change my coat. Order some tea.’

And he went into his room.

There was something mortifying in the way he had said ‘Come, that’s good,’ as one says to a child when it leaves off being naughty, and still more mortifying was the contrast between her penitent and his self-confident tone; and for one instant she felt the lust of strife rising up in her again, but making an effort she conquered it, and met Vronsky as good-humoredly as before.

When he came in she told him, partly repeating phrases she had prepared beforehand, how she had spent the day, and her plans for going away.

‘You know it came to me almost like an inspiration,’ she said. ‘Why wait here for the divorce? Won’t it be just the same in the country? I can’t wait any longer! I don’t want to go on hoping, I don’t want to hear anything about the divorce. I have made up my mind it shall not have any more influence on my life. Do you agree?’

‘Oh, yes!’ he said, glancing uneasily at her excited face.

‘What did you do? Who was there?’ she said, after a pause.

Vronsky mentioned the names of the guests. ‘The dinner was first rate, and the boat race, and it was all pleasant enough, but in Moscow they can never do anything without something ridicule. A lady of a sort appeared on the scene, teacher of swimming to the Queen of Sweden, and gave us an exhibition of her skill.’

‘How? did she swim?’ asked Anna, frowning.

‘In an absurd red costume de natation; she was old and hideous too. So when shall we go?’

‘What an absurd fancy! Why, did she swim in some special way, then?’ said Anna, not answering.

‘There was absolutely nothing in it. That’s just what I say, it was awfully stupid. Well, then, when do you think of going?’

Anna shook her head as though trying to drive away some unpleasant idea.

‘When? Why, the sooner the better! By tomorrow we shan’t be ready. The day after tomorrow.’

‘Yes…oh, no, wait a minute! The day after to-morrow’s Sunday, I have to be at maman’s,’ said Vronsky, embarrassed, because as soon as he uttered his mother’s name he was aware of her intent, suspicious eyes. His embarrassment confirmed her suspicion. She flushed hotly and drew away from him. It was now not the Queen of Sweden’s swimming-mistress who filled Anna’s imagination, but the young Princess Sorokina. She was staying in a village near Moscow with Countess Vronskaya.

‘Can’t you go tomorrow?’ she said.

‘Well, no! The deeds and the money for the business I’m going there for I can’t get by tomorrow,’ he answered.

‘If so, we won’t go at all.’

‘But why so?’

‘I shall not go later. Monday or never!’

‘What for?’ said Vronsky, as though in amazement. ‘Why, there’s no meaning in it!’

‘There’s no meaning in it to you, because you care nothing for me. You don’t care to understand my life. The one thing that I cared for here was Hannah. You say it’s affectation. Why, you said yesterday that I don’t love my daughter, that I love this English girl, that it’s unnatural. I should like to know what life there is for me that could be natural!’

For an instant she had a clear vision of what she was doing, and was horrified at how she had fallen away from her resolution. But even though she knew it was her own ruin, she could not restrain herself, could not keep herself from proving to him that he was wrong, could not give way to him.

‘I never said that; I said I did not sympathize with this sudden passion.’

‘How is it, though you boast of your straightforwardness, you don’t tell the truth?’

‘I never boast, and I never tell lies,’ he said slowly, restraining his rising anger. ‘It’s a great pity if you can’t respect…’

‘Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be. And if you don’t love me any more, it would be better and more honest to say so.’

‘No, this is becoming unbearable!’ cried Vronsky, getting up from his chair; and stopping short, facing her, he said, speaking deliberately: ‘What do you try my patience for?’ looking as though he might have said much more, but was restraining himself. ‘It has limits.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ she cried, looking with terror at the undisguised hatred in his whole face, and especially in his cruel, menacing eyes.

‘I mean to say…’ he was beginning, but he checked himself. ‘I must ask what it is you want of me?’

‘What can I want? All I can want is that you should not desert me, as you think of doing,’ she said, understanding all he had not uttered. ‘But that I don’t want; that’s secondary. I want love, and there is none. So then all is over.’

She turned towards the door.

‘Stop! sto-op!’ said Vronsky, with no change in the gloomy lines of his brows, though he held her by the hand. ‘What is it all about? I said that we must put off going for three days, and on that you told me I was lying, that I was not an honorable man.’

‘Yes, and I repeat that the man who reproaches me with having sacrificed everything for me,’ she said, recalling the words of a still earlier quarrel, ‘that he’s worse than a dishonorable man— he’s a heartless man.’

‘Oh, there are limits to endurance!’ he cried, and hastily let go her hand.

‘He hates me, that’s clear,’ she thought, and in silence, without looking round, she walked with faltering steps out of the room. ‘He loves another woman, that’s even clearer,’ she said to herself as she went into her own room. ‘I want love, and there is none. So, then, all is over.’ She repeated the words she had said, ‘and it must be ended.’

‘But how?’ she asked herself, and she sat down in a low chair before the looking glass.

Thoughts of where she would go now, whether to the aunt who had brought her up, to Dolly, or simply alone abroad, and of what he was doing now alone in his study; whether this was the final quarrel, or whether reconciliation were still possible; and of what all her old friends at Petersburg would say of her now; and of how Alexey Alexandrovitch would look at it, and many other ideas of what would happen now after this rupture, came into her head; but she did not give herself up to them with all her heart. At the bottom of her heart was some obscure idea that alone interested her, but she could not get clear sight of it. Thinking once more of Alexey Alexandrovitch, she recalled the time of her illness after her confinement, and the feeling which never left her at that time. ‘Why didn’t I die?’ and the words and the feeling of that time came back to her. And all at once she knew what was in her soul. Yes, it was that idea which alone solved all. ‘Yes, to die!… And the shame and disgrace of Alexey Alexandrovitch and of Seryozha, and my awful shame, it will all be saved by death. To die! and he will feel remorse; will be sorry; will love me; he will suffer on my account.’ With the trace of a smile of commiseration for herself she sat down in the armchair, taking off and putting on the rings on her left hand, vividly picturing from different sides his feelings after her death.

Approaching footsteps—his steps—distracted her attention. As though absorbed in the arrangement of her rings, she did not even turn to him.

He went up to her, and taking her by the hand, said softly:

‘Anna, we’ll go the day after tomorrow, if you like. I agree to everything.’

She did not speak.

‘What is it?’ he urged.

‘You know,’ she said, and at the same instant, unable to restrain herself any longer, she burst into sobs.

‘Cast me off!’ she articulated between her sobs. ‘I’ll go away tomorrow…I’ll do more. What am I? An immoral woman! A stone round your neck. I don’t want to make you wretched, I don’t want to! I’ll set you free. You don’t love me; you love someone else!’

Vronsky besought her to be calm, and declared that there was no trace of foundation for her jealousy; that he had never ceased, and never would cease, to love her; that he loved her more than ever.

‘Anna, why distress yourself and me so?’ he said to her, kissing her hands. There was tenderness now in his face, and she fancied she caught the sound of tears in his voice, and she felt them wet on her hand. And instantly Anna’s despairing jealousy changed to a despairing passion of tenderness. She put her arms round him, and covered with kisses his head, his neck, his hands.