LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter 28

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      EARLY in the morning after the ball Anna sent a telegram to her husband to say that she was leaving Moscow that same evening.

      ‘Really I must, I must go,’ she said, explaining her altered plans to her sister-in-law in a tone suggesting that she had suddenly remembered so many things she had to do that it was not even possible to enumerate them all. ‘Really I had better go to-day.’

      Stephen Oblonsky was not dining at home, but promised to be back at seven to see his sister off.

      Kitty also had not come, but had sent a note to say that she had a headache. Dolly and Anna dined alone with the children and their English governess. Whether it is that children are inconstant or that they are sensitive and felt that Anna was not the same person to-day as she had been that other day when they had been so fond of her, and that she no longer took any interest in them, at any rate they suddenly left off playing with their aunt and loving her, and were not at all concerned about her leaving. Anna spent the whole morning preparing for her departure: writing notes to her Moscow acquaintances, making up accounts, and packing. It seemed to Dolly that Anna was not at ease in her mind, but in a state of anxiety that Dolly knew well from her own experience, a state which does not come on without a cause, but generally hides dissatisfaction with oneself. After dinner Anna went to her room to dress, and Dolly followed her.

      ‘How strange you are to-day!’ said Dolly.

      ‘I? Do you think so? I am not strange, but wicked. It sometimes happens to me. I feel ready to cry. It is very silly, but it will pass,’ said Anna hurriedly, and she bent her flushed face over the tiny bag into which she was packing a nightcap and some lawn handkerchiefs. Her eyes shone peculiarly and kept filling with tears. ‘I did not want to leave Petersburg, and now I do not want to leave here.’

      ‘You came here and did a good action,’ said Dolly, scrutinizing her attentively.

      Anna looked at her with her eyes wet with tears.

      ‘Do not say that, Dolly. I have done and could do nothing. I often wonder why people conspire to spoil me. What have I done and what could I do? There was enough love in your heart to forgive …’

      ‘But for you, God only knows what would have happened! How lucky you are, Anna,’ said Dolly. ‘Everything in your soul is clear and good.’

      ‘Every one has a skeleton in their cupboard, as the English say.’

      ‘What skeleton have you? Everything about you is so clear.’

      ‘I have one!’ said Anna, and unexpectedly following her tears, a sly humorous smile puckered her lips.

      ‘Well, at least your skeleton is a funny one and not a dismal one,’ said Dolly smiling.

      ‘No, it is a dismal one. Do you know why I am going to-day and not to-morrow? This is a confession of something that oppresses me, and I want to make it to you,’ said Anna, determinedly throwing herself back in an armchair and looking straight into Dolly’s eyes.

      And to her surprise Dolly saw that Anna was blushing to her ears and to the curly black locks on her neck.

      ‘Do you know,’ continued Anna, ‘why Kitty did not come to dinner? She is jealous of me. I have spoiled … I mean I was the cause of the ball being a torture instead of a pleasure to her. But really, really I was not to blame, or only a very little,’ she said, drawling out the word ‘very’ in a high-pitched voice.

      ‘Oh, how like Stiva you said that,’ remarked Dolly laughing.

      Anna was annoyed.

      ‘Oh no, no, I am not Stiva,’ she said frowning. ‘The reason I have told you is that I do not even for a moment allow myself to distrust myself.’

      But at the moment when she uttered these words she knew they were untrue: she not only distrusted herself but was agitated by the thought of Vronsky, and was leaving sooner than she had intended only that she might not meet him again.

      ‘Yes, Stiva told me that you danced the mazurka with him, and that he …’

      ‘You cannot think how queerly it came about. I only thought of arranging the match, and — suddenly it all came out quite differently… . Perhaps against my own will I …’

      She blushed and stopped.

      ‘Oh, they feel that at once!’ said Dolly.

      ‘But I should be in despair if there were anything serious in it on his side,’ Anna interrupted her. ‘I am sure that it will all be forgotten, and Kitty will no longer hate me.’

      ‘Well, do you know, Anna, to tell you the truth, I am not very anxious that Kitty should marry him. It is much better that it should come to nothing if he, Vronsky, is capable of falling in love with you in a day.’

      ‘Oh, my goodness! How stupid it would be,’ said Anna, and again a deep flush of pleasure suffused her face at hearing the thought that occupied her mind expressed in words. ‘So I am going away having made an enemy of Kitty, of whom I am so fond. Oh, what a darling she is! But you will put it right? Eh, Dolly?’

      Dolly could hardly repress a smile. She was fond of Anna, but it was pleasant to find that she too had a weakness.

      ‘An enemy? That is impossible.’

      ‘I should so like you all to love me as I love you; and now I love you still more,’ said Anna with tears in her eyes. ‘Oh dear, how silly I am to-day.’

      She dabbed her face with her handkerchief and began to dress.

      Oblonsky, smelling of wine and cigars, with his face red and happy, came in late, just as she was about to start.

      Anna’s emotion had spread to Dolly, who as she embraced her sister-in-law for the last time whispered: ‘Remember that I love and always shall love you as my best friend!’

      ‘I do not know why you should,’ said Anna, kissing her and trying to hide her tears.

      ‘You understood and understand me. Goodbye, my sweet one!’