Chapter 28

When Alexey Alexandrovitch reached the race-course, Anna was already sitting in the pavilion beside Betsy, in that pavilion where all the highest society had gathered. She caught sight of her husband in the distance. Two men, her husband and her lover, were the two centers of her existence, and unaided by her external senses she was aware of their nearness. She was aware of her husband approaching a long way off, and she could not help following him in the surging crowd in the midst of which he was moving. She watched his progress towards the pavilion, saw him now responding condescendingly to an ingratiating bow, now exchanging friendly, nonchalant greetings with his equals, now assiduously trying to catch the eye of some great one of this world, and taking off his big round hat that squeezed the tips of his ears. All these ways of his she knew, and all were hateful to her. ‘Nothing but ambition, nothing but the desire to get on, that’s all there is in his soul,’ she thought; ‘as for these lofty ideals, love of culture, religion, they are only so many tools for getting on.’

From his glances towards the ladies’ pavilion (he was staring straight at her, but did not distinguish his wife in the sea of muslin, ribbons, feathers, parasols and flowers) she saw that he was looking for her, but she purposely avoided noticing him.

‘Alexey Alexandrovitch!’ Princess Betsy called to him; ‘I’m sure you don’t see your wife: here she is.’

He smiled his chilly smile.

‘There’s so much splendor here that one’s eyes are dazzled,’ he said, and he went into the pavilion. He smiled to his wife as a man should smile on meeting his wife after only just parting from her, and greeted the princess and other acquaintances, giving to each what was due—that is to say, jesting with the ladies and dealing out friendly greetings among the men. Below, near the pavilion, was standing an adjutant-general of whom Alexey Alexandrovitch had a high opinion, noted for his intelligence and culture. Alexey Alexandrovitch entered into conversation with him.

There was an interval between the races, and so nothing hindered conversation. The adjutant-general expressed his disapproval of races. Alexey Alexandrovitch replied defending them. Anna heard his high, measured tones, not losing one word, and every word struck her as false, and stabbed her ears with pain.

When the three-mile steeplechase was beginning, she bent forward and gazed with fixed eyes at Vronsky as he went up to his horse and mounted, and at the same time she heard that loathsome, never-ceasing voice of her husband. She was in an agony of terror for Vronsky, but a still greater agony was the never-ceasing, as it seemed to her, stream of her husband’s shrill voice with its familiar intonations.

‘I’m a wicked woman, a lost woman,’ she thought; ‘but I don’t like lying, I can’t endure falsehood, while as for him (her husband) it’s the breath of his life—falsehood. He knows all about it, he sees it all; what does he care if he can talk so calmly? If he were to kill me, if he were to kill Vronsky, I might respect him. No, all he wants is falsehood and propriety,’ Anna said to herself, not considering exactly what it was she wanted of her husband, and how she would have liked to see him behave. She did not understand either that Alexey Alexandrovitch’s peculiar loquacity that day, so exasperating to her, was merely the expression of his inward distress and uneasiness. As a child that has been hurt skips about, putting all his muscles into movement to drown the pain, in the same way Alexey Alexandrovitch needed mental exercise to drown the thoughts of his wife that in her presence and in Vronsky’s, and with the continual iteration of his name, would force themselves on his attention. And it was as natural for him to talk well and cleverly, as it is natural for a child to skip about. He was saying:

‘Danger in the races of officers, of cavalry men, is an essential element in the race. If England can point to the most brilliant feats of cavalry in military history, it is simply owing to the fact that she has historically developed this force both in beasts and in men. Sport has, in my opinion, a great value, and as is always the case, we see nothing but what is most superficial.’

‘It’s not superficial,’ said Princess Tverskaya. ‘One of the officers, they say, has broken two ribs.’

Alexey Alexandrovitch smiled his smile, which uncovered his teeth, but revealed nothing more.

‘We’ll admit, princess, that that’s not superficial,’ he said, ‘but internal. But that’s not the point,’ and he turned again to the general with whom he was talking seriously; ‘we mustn’t forget that those who are taking part in the race are military men, who have chosen that career, and one must allow that every calling has its disagreeable side. It forms an integral part of the duties of an officer. Low sports, such as prize-fighting or Spanish bull-fights, are a sign of barbarity. But specialized trials of skill are a sign of development.’

‘No, I shan’t come another time; it’s too upsetting,’ said Princess Betsy. ‘Isn’t it, Anna?’

‘It is upsetting, but one can’t tear oneself away,’ said another lady. ‘If I’d been a Roman woman I should never have missed a single circus.’

Anna said nothing, and keeping her opera glass up, gazed always at the same spot.

At that moment a tall general walked through the pavilion. Breaking off what he was saying, Alexey Alexandrovitch got up hurriedly, though with dignity, and bowed low to the general.

‘You’re not racing?’ the officer asked, chaffing him.

‘My race is a harder one,’ Alexey Alexandrovitch responded deferentially.

And though the answer meant nothing, the general looked as though he had heard a witty remark from a witty man, and fully relished la pointe de la sauce.

‘There are two aspects,’ Alexey Alexandrovitch resumed: ‘those who take part and those who look on; and love for such spectacles is an unmistakable proof of a low degree of development in the spectator, I admit, but…’

‘Princess, bets!’ sounded Stepan Arkadyevitch’s voice from below, addressing Betsy. ‘Who’s your favorite?’

‘Anna and I are for Kuzovlev,’ replied Betsy.

‘I’m for Vronsky. A pair of gloves?’

‘Done!’

‘But it is a pretty sight, isn’t it?’

Alexey Alexandrovitch paused while there was talking about him, but he began again directly.

‘I admit that manly sports do not…’ he was continuing.

But at that moment the racers started, and all conversation ceased. Alexey Alexandrovitch too was silent, and everyone stood up and turned towards the stream. Alexey Alexandrovitch took no interest in the race, and so he did not watch the racers, but fell listlessly to scanning the spectators with his weary eyes. His eyes rested upon Anna.

Her face was white and set. She was obviously seeing nothing and no one but one man. Her hand had convulsively clutched her fan, and she held her breath. He looked at her and hastily turned away, scrutinizing other faces.

‘But here’s this lady too, and others very much moved as well; it’s very natural,’ Alexey Alexandrovitch told himself. He tried not to look at her, but unconsciously his eyes were drawn to her. He examined that face again, trying not to read what was so plainly written on it, and against his own will, with horror read on it what he did not want to know.

The first fall—Kuzovlev’s, at the stream—agitated everyone, but Alexey Alexandrovitch saw distinctly on Anna’s pale, triumphant face that the man she was watching had not fallen. When, after Mahotin and Vronsky had cleared the worst barrier, the next officer had been thrown straight on his head at it and fatally injured, and a shudder of horror passed over the whole public, Alexey Alexandrovitch saw that Anna did not even notice it, and had some difficulty in realizing what they were talking of about her. But more and more often, and with greater persistence, he watched her. Anna, wholly engrossed as she was with the race, became aware of her husband’s cold eyes fixed upon her from one side.

She glanced round for an instant, looked inquiringly at him, and with a slight frown turned away again.

‘Ah, I don’t care!’ she seemed to say to him, and she did not once glance at him again.

The race was an unlucky one, and of the seventeen officers who rode in it more than half were thrown and hurt. Towards the end of the race everyone was in a state of agitation, which was intensified by the fact that the Tsar was displeased.

Chapter 29

Everyone was loudly expressing disapprobation, everyone was repeating a phrase some one had uttered—‘The lions and gladiators will be the next thing,’ and everyone was feeling horrified; so that when Vronsky fell to the ground, and Anna moaned aloud, there was nothing very out of the way in it. But afterwards a change came over Anna’s face which really was beyond decorum. She utterly lost her head. She began fluttering like a caged bird, at one moment would have got up and moved away, at the next turned to Betsy.

‘Let us go, let us go!’ she said.

But Betsy did not hear her. She was bending down, talking to a general who had come up to her.

Alexey Alexandrovitch went up to Anna and courteously offered her his arm.

‘Let us go, if you like,’ he said in French, but Anna was listening to the general and did not notice her husband.

‘He’s broken his leg too, so they say,’ the general was saying. ‘This is beyond everything.’

Without answering her husband, Anna lifted her opera glass and gazed towards the place where Vronsky had fallen; but it was so far off, and there was such a crowd of people about it, that she could make out nothing. She laid down the opera glass, and would have moved away, but at that moment an officer galloped up and made some announcement to the Tsar. Anna craned forward, listening.

‘Stiva! Stiva!’ she cried to her brother.

But her brother did not hear her. Again she would have moved away.

‘Once more I offer you my arm if you want to be going,’ said Alexey Alexandrovitch, reaching towards her hand.

She drew back from him with aversion, and without looking in his face answered:

‘No, no, let me be, I’ll stay.’

She saw now that from the place of Vronsky’s accident an officer was running across the course towards the pavilion. Betsy waved her handkerchief to him. The officer brought the news that the rider was not killed, but the horse had broken its back.

On hearing this Anna sat down hurriedly, and hid her face in her fan. Alexey Alexandrovitch saw that she was weeping, and could not control her tears, nor even the sobs that were shaking her bosom. Alexey Alexandrovitch stood so as to screen her, giving her time to recover herself.

‘For the third time I offer you my arm,’ he said to her after a little time, turning to her. Anna gazed at him and did not know what to say. Princess Betsy came to her rescue.

‘No, Alexey Alexandrovitch; I brought Anna and I promised to take her home,’ put in Betsy.

‘Excuse me, princess,’ he said, smiling courteously but looking her very firmly in the face, ‘but I see that Anna’s not very well, and I wish her to come home with me.’

Anna looked about her in a frightened way, got up submissively, and laid her hand on her husband’s arm.

‘I’ll send to him and find out, and let you know,’ Betsy whispered to her.

As they left the pavilion, Alexey Alexandrovitch, as always, talked to those he met, and Anna had, as always, to talk and answer; but she was utterly beside herself, and moved hanging on her husband’s arm as though in a dream.

‘Is he killed or not? Is it true? Will he come or not? Shall I see him today?’ she was thinking.

She took her seat in her husband’s carriage in silence, and in silence drove out of the crowd of carriages. In spite of all he had seen, Alexey Alexandrovitch still did not allow himself to consider his wife’s real condition. He merely saw the outward symptoms. He saw that she was behaving unbecomingly, and considered it his duty to tell her so. But it was very difficult for him not to say more, to tell her nothing but that. He opened his mouth to tell her she had behaved unbecomingly, but he could not help saying something utterly different.

‘What an inclination we all have, though, for these cruel spectacles,’ he said. ‘I observe…’

‘Eh? I don’t understand,’ said Anna contemptuously.

He was offended, and at once began to say what he had meant to say.

‘I am obliged to tell you,’ he began.

‘So now we are to have it out,’ she thought, and she felt frightened.

‘I am obliged to tell you that your behavior has been unbecoming today,’ he said to her in French.

‘In what way has my behavior been unbecoming?’ she said aloud, turning her head swiftly and looking him straight in the face, not with the bright expression that seemed covering something, but with a look of determination, under which she concealed with difficulty the dismay she was feeling.

‘Mind,’ he said, pointing to the open window opposite the coachman.

He got up and pulled up the window.

‘What did you consider unbecoming?’ she repeated.

‘The despair you were unable to conceal at the accident to one of the riders.’

He waited for her to answer, but she was silent, looking straight before her.

‘I have already begged you so to conduct yourself in society that even malicious tongues can find nothing to say against you. There was a time when I spoke of your inward attitude, but I am not speaking of that now. Now I speak only of your external attitude. You have behaved improperly, and I would wish it not to occur again.’

She did not hear half of what he was saying; she felt panic-stricken before him, and was thinking whether it was true that Vronsky was not killed. Was it of him they were speaking when they said the rider was unhurt, but the horse had broken its back? She merely smiled with a pretense of irony when he finished, and made no reply, because she had not heard what he said. Alexey Alexandrovitch had begun to speak boldly, but as he realized plainly what he was speaking of, the dismay she was feeling infected him too. He saw the smile, and a strange misapprehension came over him.

‘She is smiling at my suspicions. Yes, she will tell me directly what she told me before; that there is no foundation for my suspicions, that it’s absurd.’

At that moment, when the revelation of everything was hanging over him, there was nothing he expected so much as that she would answer mockingly as before that his suspicions were absurd and utterly groundless. So terrible to him was what he knew that now he was ready to believe anything. But the expression of her face, scared and gloomy, did not now promise even deception.

‘Possibly I was mistaken,’ said he. ‘If so, I beg your pardon.’

‘No, you were not mistaken,’ she said deliberately, looking desperately into his cold face. ‘You were not mistaken. I was, and I could not help being in despair. I hear you, but I am thinking of him. I love him, I am his mistress; I can’t bear you; I’m afraid of you, and I hate you…. You can do what you like to me.’

And dropping back into the corner of the carriage, she broke into sobs, hiding her face in her hands. Alexey Alexandrovitch did not stir, and kept looking straight before him. But his whole face suddenly bore the solemn rigidity of the dead, and his expression did not change during the whole time of the drive home. On reaching the house he turned his head to her, still with the same expression.

‘Very well! But I expect a strict observance of the external forms of propriety till such time’—his voice shook—‘as I may take measures to secure my honor and communicate them to you.’

He got out first and helped her to get out. Before the servants he pressed her hand, took his seat in the carriage, and drove back to Petersburg. Immediately afterwards a footman came from Princess Betsy and brought Anna a note.

‘I sent to Alexey to find out how he is, and he writes me he is quite well and unhurt, but in despair.’

‘So he will be here,’ she thought. ‘What a good thing I told him all!’

She glanced at her watch. She had still three hours to wait, and the memories of their last meeting set her blood in flame.

‘My God, how light it is! It’s dreadful, but I do love to see his face, and I do love this fantastic light…. My husband! Oh! yes…. Well, thank God! everything’s over with him.’