Anna Karenina (Literature Classics Series). Leo Tolstoy
I will not give up my son, that I cannot give him up, that without my son I cannot live even with the man I love, — that if I forsook my son I should act like a horrid disreputable woman. He knows that and knows that I have not the power to do it.’
‘ “Our life must go on as heretofore” ’ — she recalled another sentence of the letter. ‘That life was painful before, lately it had been dreadful. What will it be now? And he knows it all; knows that I cannot repent of breathing, of loving, knows that nothing but lies and deception can come of this arrangement, but he wants to continue to torture me. I know him; I know that he swims and delights in falsehood as a fish does in water. But no! I will not give him that pleasure, come what will. I will break this web of lies in which he wishes to entangle me. Anything is better than lies and deception!
‘But how? Oh God! oh God! Was a woman ever as unhappy as I am? … No, I shall break it off, break it off!’ she exclaimed, jumping up and forcing back her tears. And she went to the table to write him another note, though she knew in the depths of her soul that she would not have the strength to break anything off nor to escape from her former position, however false and dishonest it might be.
She sat down at her writing-table, but instead of writing she folded her arms on the table and put her head on them, and began to cry, sobbing with her whole bosom heaving, as a child cries.
She wept because the hopes of clearing up and defining her position were destroyed for ever. She knew beforehand that everything would remain as it was and would be even far worse than before. She felt that, insignificant as it had appeared that morning, the position she held in Society was dear to her, and that she would not have the strength to change it for the degraded position of a woman who had forsaken husband and child and formed a union with her lover; that, however much she tried, she could not become stronger than herself. She would never be able to feel the freedom of love, but would always be a guilty woman continually threatened with exposure, deceiving her husband for the sake of a shameful union with a man who was a stranger and independent of her, and with whom she could not live a united life. She knew that it would be so, and yet it was so terrible that she could not even imagine how it would end. And she cried, without restraint, like a punished child.
The approaching step of the footman recalled her to herself and hiding her face from him she pretended to be writing.
‘The messenger is asking for the answer,’ he said.
‘The answer? Yes, let him wait: I will ring,’ said Anna.
‘What can I write?’ she thought. ‘What can I decide alone? What do I know? What do I want? That I am in love?’ And she felt again a schism in her soul, and again was frightened by the feeling; so she seized the first pretext for action that occurred to her to divert her thoughts from herself. ‘I must see Alexis,’ as she called Vronsky in her thoughts. ‘He alone can tell me what to do. I shall go to Betsy’s and perhaps shall meet him there,’ quite forgetting that the evening before when she had told him she was not going to the Princess Tverskaya’s, he had replied that in that case he would not go either. She wrote to her husband:
‘I have received your letter. — A.,’ rang, and gave the note to the footman.
‘We are not going,’ she said to Annushka, who had just come in.
‘Not going at all?’
‘No, but don’t unpack till to-morrow, and let the carriage wait. I am going to see the Princess.’
‘What dress shall I put out?’
Chapter 17
THE croquet match to which the Princess Tverskaya had invited Anna was to be played by two ladies and their admirers. The two ladies were the chief representatives of a choice new Petersburg circle called, in imitation of an imitation of something, Les sept merveilles du monde [The seven wonders of the world]. These ladies belonged to a circle which, though higher, was entirely hostile to the set Anna frequented. Old Stremov — one of Petersburg’s influential men, and Lisa Merkalova’s adorer — was also officially hostile to Karenin. These considerations had made Anna reluctant to come, and it was to her refusal that the hints in Princess Tverskaya’s note had referred. But now the hope of seeing Vronsky had brought Anna.
She arrived at the Princess Tverskaya’s house before the other visitors.
Just as she arrived Vronsky’s footman, who with his well-brushed whiskers looked like a Gentleman of the Bedchamber, also came up. He stopped at the door, took off his cap, and let her pass. Anna saw him, and only then remembered that the evening before Vronsky had said that he was not coming. Probably he had sent a note to say so.
As she was taking off her outdoor things in the hall she heard the footman — who even pronounced his r’s like a Gentleman of the Bedchamber — say: ‘From the Count to the Princess,’ as he delivered the note.
She felt inclined to ask where his master was; she wanted to go home and write to him to come to her house, or to go to him herself But none of these things could be done. She heard in front of her the bell that announced her arrival, and the Princess Tverskaya’s footman was already standing half-turned toward her at an open door, waiting for her to enter the inner rooms.
‘The Princess is in the garden; she will be informed in a minute. Will you not come into the garden?’ said another footman in the next room.
The feelings of irresolution and indefiniteness were just the same as at home, or even worse, because she could do nothing; she could not see Vronsky but had to stay there, in this company of strangers so out of sympathy with her present mood. But she wore a costume that she knew suited her, she was not alone but surrounded by a ceremonious setting of idleness, and she felt easier than at home; she had no need to think of what to do. Everything did itself. When she met Betsy coming toward her in a white costume that struck Anna by its elegance, Anna smiled at her as usual. The Princess Tverskaya came accompanied by Tushkevich and a young girl, a relation, who to the great delight of her provincial parents was spending the summer with the grand Princess.
There must have been something unusual about Anna’s look, for Betsy noticed it at once.
‘I have slept badly,’ answered Anna, gazing at the footman, who she guessed was bringing Vronsky’s note.
‘How glad I am that you have come!’ said Betsy. ‘I am tired, and am going to have a cup of tea before they arrive. Won’t you and Masha go and look at the croquet-lawn where the grass is cut?’ she said to Tushkevich. ‘We can have a heart-to-heart talk over our tea. We’ll have a cosy chat, won’t we?’ she added in English, pressing the hand with which Anna held her sunshade.
‘Yes, especially as I cannot stay long. I must go to the old Countess Vrede — I promised to, ages ago,’ said Anna, to whom falsehood — so alien to her by nature — had now become so simple and natural in Society that it even gave her pleasure. Why she had said something she had not even thought of a moment before she could not have explained. Her only reason for saying it was that since Vronsky was not coming she must secure her freedom and try to see him in some other way. But why she had mentioned the old Lady-in-Waiting Vrede, to whom, among many other people, she owed a visit, she could not have explained; and yet as it happened she could have thought of nothing better had she tried to invent the most cunning means of seeing Vronsky.
‘No, I won’t let you go on any account,’ said Betsy, fixing her eyes intently on Anna. ‘I should be really hurt, if I were not so fond of you. It’s just as if you thought my company might compromise you! Please bring us tea in the little drawing-room,’ she said to the footman, screwing up her eyes as she always did when speaking to a footman.
She took the note from him and read it.
‘Alexis has failed us,’ she said in French. ‘He writes that he cannot come.’ She spoke in a natural and matter-of-fact tone, as if it never entered her head that Vronsky had any other interest