Chapter 17

The coachman pulled up his four horses and looked round to the right, to a field of rye, where some peasants were sitting on a cart. The counting house clerk was just going to jump down, but on second thoughts he shouted peremptorily to the peasants instead, and beckoned to them to come up. The wind, that seemed to blow as they drove, dropped when the carriage stood still; gadflies settled on the steaming horses that angrily shook them off. The metallic clank of a whetstone against a scythe, that came to them from the cart, ceased. One of the peasants got up and came towards the carriage.

‘Well, you are slow!’ the counting house clerk shouted angrily to the peasant who was stepping slowly with his bare feet over the ruts of the rough dry road. ‘Come along, do!’

A curly-headed old man with a bit of bast tied round his hair, and his bent back dark with perspiration, came towards the carriage, quickening his steps, and took hold of the mud-guard with his sunburnt hand.

‘Vozdvizhenskoe, the manor house? the count’s?’ he repeated; ‘go on to the end of this track. Then turn to the left. Straight along the avenue and you’ll come right upon it. But whom do you want? The count himself?’

‘Well, are they at home, my good man?’ Darya Alexandrovna said vaguely, not knowing how to ask about Anna, even of this peasant.

‘At home for sure,’ said the peasant, shifting from one bare foot to the other, and leaving a distinct print of five toes and a heel in the dust. ‘Sure to be at home,’ he repeated, evidently eager to talk. ‘Only yesterday visitors arrived. There’s a sight of visitors come. What do you want?’ He turned round and called to a lad, who was shouting something to him from the cart. ‘Oh! They all rode by here not long since, to look at a reaping machine. They’ll be home by now. And who will you be belonging to?…’

‘We’ve come a long way,’ said the coachman, climbing onto the box. ‘So it’s not far?’

‘I tell you, it’s just here. As soon as you get out…’ he said, keeping hold all the while of the carriage.

A healthy-looking, broad-shouldered young fellow came up too.

‘What, is it laborers they want for the harvest?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know, my boy.’

‘So you keep to the left, and you’ll come right on it,’ said the peasant, unmistakably loth to let the travelers go, and eager to converse.

The coachman started the horses, but they were only just turning off when the peasant shouted: ‘Stop! Hi, friend! Stop!’ called the two voices. The coachman stopped.

‘They’re coming! They’re yonder!’ shouted the peasant. ‘See what a turn-out!’ he said, pointing to four persons on horseback, and two in a char-a-banc, coming along the road.

They were Vronsky with a jockey, Veslovsky and Anna on horseback, and Princess Varvara and Sviazhsky in the char-a-banc. They had gone out to look at the working of a new reaping machine.

When the carriage stopped, the party on horseback were coming at a walking pace. Anna was in front beside Veslovsky. Anna, quietly walking her horse, a sturdy English cob with cropped mane and short tail, her beautiful head with her black hair straying loose under her high hat, her full shoulders, her slender waist in her black riding habit, and all the ease and grace of her deportment, impressed Dolly.

For the first minute it seemed to her unsuitable for Anna to be on horseback. The conception of riding on horseback for a lady was, in Darya Alexandrovna’s mind, associated with ideas of youthful flirtation and frivolity, which, in her opinion, was unbecoming in Anna’s position. But when she had scrutinized her, seeing her closer, she was at once reconciled to her riding. In spite of her elegance, everything was so simple, quiet, and dignified in the attitude, the dress and the movements of Anna, that nothing could have been more natural.

Beside Anna, on a hot-looking gray cavalry horse, was Vassenka Veslovsky in his Scotch cap with floating ribbons, his stout legs stretched out in front, obviously pleased with his own appearance. Darya Alexandrovna could not suppress a good-humored smile as she recognized him. Behind rode Vronsky on a dark bay mare, obviously heated from galloping. He was holding her in, pulling at the reins.

After him rode a little man in the dress of a jockey. Sviazhsky and Princess Varvara in a new char-a-banc with a big, raven-black trotting horse, overtook the party on horseback.

Anna’s face suddenly beamed with a joyful smile at the instant when, in the little figure huddled in a corner of the old carriage, she recognized Dolly. She uttered a cry, started in the saddle, and set her horse into a gallop. On reaching the carriage she jumped off without assistance, and holding up her riding habit, she ran up to greet Dolly.

‘I thought it was you and dared not think it. How delightful! You can’t fancy how glad I am!’ she said, at one moment pressing her face against Dolly and kissing her, and at the next holding her off and examining her with a smile.

‘Here’s a delightful surprise, Alexey!’ she said, looking round at Vronsky, who had dismounted, and was walking towards them.

Vronsky, taking off his tall gray hat, went up to Dolly.

‘You wouldn’t believe how glad we are to see you,’ he said, giving peculiar significance to the words, and showing his strong white teeth in a smile.

Vassenka Veslovsky, without getting off his horse, took off his cap and greeted the visitor by gleefully waving the ribbons over his head.

‘That’s Princess Varvara,’ Anna said in reply to a glance of inquiry from Dolly as the char-a-banc drove up.

‘Ah!’ said Darya Alexandrovna, and unconsciously her face betrayed her dissatisfaction.

Princess Varvara was her husband’s aunt, and she had long known her, and did not respect her. She knew that Princess Varvara had passed her whole life toadying on her rich relations, but that she should now be sponging on Vronsky, a man who was nothing to her, mortified Dolly on account of her kinship with her husband. Anna noticed Dolly’s expression, and was disconcerted by it. She blushed, dropped her riding habit, and stumbled over it.

Darya Alexandrovna went up to the char-a-banc and coldly greeted Princess Varvara. Sviazhsky too she knew. He inquired how his queer friend with the young wife was, and running his eyes over the ill-matched horses and the carriage with its patched mud-guards, proposed to the ladies that they should get into the char-a-banc.

‘And I’ll get into this vehicle,’ he said. ‘The horse is quiet, and the princess drives capitally.’

‘No, stay as you were,’ said Anna, coming up, ‘and we’ll go in the carriage,’ and taking Dolly’s arm, she drew her away.

Darya Alexandrovna’s eyes were fairly dazzled by the elegant carriage of a pattern she had never seen before, the splendid horses, and the elegant and gorgeous people surrounding her. But what struck her most of all was the change that had taken place in Anna, whom she knew so well and loved. Any other woman, a less close observer, not knowing Anna before, or not having thought as Darya Alexandrovna had been thinking on the road, would not have noticed anything special in Anna. But now Dolly was struck by that temporary beauty, which is only found in women during the moments of love, and which she saw now in Anna’s face. Everything in her face, the clearly marked dimples in her cheeks and chin, the line of her lips, the smile which, as it were, fluttered about her face, the brilliance of her eyes, the grace and rapidity of her movements, the fulness of the notes of her voice, even the manner in which, with a sort of angry friendliness, she answered Veslovsky when he asked permission to get on her cob, so as to teach it to gallop with the right leg foremost—it was all peculiarly fascinating, and it seemed as if she were herself aware of it, and rejoicing in it.

When both the women were seated in the carriage, a sudden embarrassment came over both of them. Anna was disconcerted by the intent look of inquiry Dolly fixed upon her. Dolly was embarrassed because after Sviazhsky’s phrase about ‘this vehicle,’ she could not help feeling ashamed of the dirty old carriage in which Anna was sitting with her. The coachman Philip and the counting house clerk were experiencing the same sensation. The counting house clerk, to conceal his confusion, busied himself settling the ladies, but Philip the coachman became sullen, and was bracing himself not to be overawed in future by this external superiority. He smiled ironically, looking at the raven horse, and was already deciding in his own mind that this smart trotter in the char-a-banc was only good for promenade, and wouldn’t do thirty miles straight off in the heat.

The peasants had all got up from the cart and were inquisitively and mirthfully staring at the meeting of the friends, making their comments on it.

‘They’re pleased, too; haven’t seen each other for a long while,’ said the curly-headed old man with the bast round his hair.

‘I say, Uncle Gerasim, if we could take that raven horse now, to cart the corn, that ‘ud be quick work!’

‘Look-ee! Is that a woman in breeches?’ said one of them, pointing to Vassenka Veslovsky sitting in a side saddle.

‘Nay, a man! See how smartly he’s going it!’

‘Eh, lads! seems we’re not going to sleep, then?’

‘What chance of sleep today!’ said the old man, with a sidelong look at the sun. ‘Midday’s past, look-ee! Get your hooks, and come along!’

Chapter 18

Anna looked at Dolly’s thin, care-worn face, with its wrinkles filled with dust from the road, and she was on the point of saying what she was thinking, that is, that Dolly had got thinner. But, conscious that she herself had grown handsomer, and that Dolly’s eyes were telling her so, she sighed and began to speak about herself.

‘You are looking at me,’ she said, ‘and wondering how I can be happy in my position? Well! it’s shameful to confess, but I… I’m inexcusably happy. Something magical has happened to me, like a dream, when you’re frightened, panic-stricken, and all of a sudden you wake up and all the horrors are no more. I have waked up. I have lived through the misery, the dread, and now for a long while past, especially since we’ve been here, I’ve been so happy!…’ she said, with a timid smile of inquiry looking at Dolly.

‘How glad I am!’ said Dolly smiling, involuntarily speaking more coldly than she wanted to. ‘I’m very glad for you. Why haven’t you written to me?’

‘Why?… Because I hadn’t the courage…. You forget my position…’

‘To me? Hadn’t the courage? If you knew how I…I look at…’

Darya Alexandrovna wanted to express her thoughts of the morning, but for some reason it seemed to her now out of place to do so.

‘But of that we’ll talk later. What’s this, what are all these buildings?’ she asked, wanting to change the conversation and pointing to the red and green roofs that came into view behind the green hedges of acacia and lilac. ‘Quite a little town.’

But Anna did not answer.

‘No, no! How do you look at my position, what do you think of it?’ she asked.

‘I consider…’ Darya Alexandrovna was beginning, but at that instant Vassenka Veslovsky, having brought the cob to gallop with the right leg foremost, galloped past them, bumping heavily up and down in his short jacket on the chamois leather of the side saddle. ‘He’s doing it, Anna Arkadyevna!’ he shouted.

Anna did not even glance at him; but again it seemed to Darya Alexandrovna out of place to enter upon such a long conversation in the carriage, and so she cut short her thought.

‘I don’t think anything,’ she said, ‘but I always loved you, and if one loves anyone, one loves the whole person, just as they are and not as one would like them to be….’

Anna, taking her eyes off her friend’s face and dropping her eyelids (this was a new habit Dolly had not seen in her before), pondered, trying to penetrate the full significance of the words. And obviously interpreting them as she would have wished, she glanced at Dolly.

‘If you had any sins,’ she said, ‘they would all be forgiven you for your coming to see me and these words.’

And Dolly saw that tears stood in her eyes. She pressed Anna’s hand in silence.

‘Well, what are these buildings? How many there are of them!’ After a moment’s silence she repeated her question.

‘These are the servants’ houses, barns, and stables,’ answered Anna. ‘And there the park begins. It had all gone to ruin, but Alexey had everything renewed. He is very fond of this place, and, what I never expected, he has become intensely interested in looking after it. But his is such a rich nature! Whatever he takes up, he does splendidly. So far from being bored by it, he works with passionate interest. He—with his temperament as I know it—he has become careful and businesslike, a first-rate manager, he positively reckons every penny in his management of the land. But only in that. When it’s a question of tens of thousands, he doesn’t think of money.’ She spoke with that gleefully sly smile with which women often talk of the secret characteristics only known to them—of those they love. ‘Do you see that big building? that’s the new hospital. I believe it will cost over a hundred thousand; that’s his hobby just now. And do you know how it all came about? The peasants asked him for some meadowland, I think it was, at a cheaper rate, and he refused, and I accused him of being miserly. Of course it was not really because of that, but everything together, he began this hospital to prove, do you see, that he was not miserly about money. C’est une petitesse, if you like, but I love him all the more for it. And now you’ll see the house in a moment. It was his grandfather’s house, and he has had nothing changed outside.’

‘How beautiful!’ said Dolly, looking with involuntary admiration at the handsome house with columns, standing out among the different-colored greens of the old trees in the garden.

‘Isn’t it fine? And from the house, from the top, the view is wonderful.’

They drove into a courtyard strewn with gravel and bright with flowers, in which two laborers were at work putting an edging of stones round the light mould of a flower bed, and drew up in a covered entry.

‘Ah, they’re here already!’ said Anna, looking at the saddle horses, which were just being led away from the steps. ‘It is a nice horse, isn’t it? It’s my cob; my favorite. Lead him here and bring me some sugar. Where is the count?’ she inquired of two smart footmen who darted out. ‘Ah, there he is!’ she said, seeing Vronsky coming to meet her with Veslovsky.

‘Where are you going to put the princess?’ said Vronsky in French, addressing Anna, and without waiting for a reply, he once more greeted Darya Alexandrovna, and this time he kissed her hand. ‘I think the big balcony room.’

‘Oh, no, that’s too far off! Better in the corner room, we shall see each other more. Come, let’s go up,’ said Anna, as she gave her favorite horse the sugar the footman had brought her.

‘Et vous oubliez votre devoir,’ she said to Veslovsky, who came out too on the steps.

‘Pardon, j’en ai tout plein les poches,’ he answered, smiling, putting his fingers in his waistcoat pocket.

‘Mais vous venez trop tard,’ she said, rubbing her handkerchief on her hand, which the horse had made wet in taking the sugar.

Anna turned to Dolly. ‘You can stay some time? For one day only? That’s impossible!’

‘I promised to be back, and the children…’ said Dolly, feeling embarrassed both because she had to get her bag out of the carriage, and because she knew her face must be covered with dust.

‘No, Dolly, darling!… Well, we’ll see. Come along, come along!’ and Anna led Dolly to her room.

That room was not the smart guest chamber Vronsky had suggested, but the one of which Anna had said that Dolly would excuse it. And this room, for which excuse was needed, was more full of luxury than any in which Dolly had ever stayed, a luxury that reminded her of the best hotels abroad.

‘Well, darling, how happy I am!’ Anna said, sitting down in her riding habit for a moment beside Dolly. ‘Tell me about all of you. Stiva I had only a glimpse of, and he cannot tell one about the children. How is my favorite, Tanya? Quite a big girl, I expect?’

‘Yes, she’s very tall,’ Darya Alexandrovna answered shortly, surprised herself that she should respond so coolly about her children. ‘We are having a delightful stay at the Levins’,’ she added.

‘Oh, if I had known,’ said Anna, ‘that you do not despise me!… You might have all come to us. Stiva’s an old friend and a great friend of Alexey’s, you know,’ she added, and suddenly she blushed.

‘Yes, but we are all…’ Dolly answered in confusion.

‘But in my delight I’m talking nonsense. The one thing, darling, is that I am so glad to have you!’ said Anna, kissing her again. ‘You haven’t told me yet how and what you think about me, and I keep wanting to know. But I’m glad you will see me as I am. The chief thing I shouldn’t like would be for people to imagine I want to prove anything. I don’t want to prove anything; I merely want to live, to do no one harm but myself. I have the right to do that, haven’t I? But it is a big subject, and we’ll talk over everything properly later. Now I’ll go and dress and send a maid to you.’