LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter 33

      KARENIN returned from the Ministry at four o’clock, but, as often happened, he had no time to go up and see his wife. He went straight to his study to receive some petitioners and sign a few documents brought by his private secretary. At the Karenins’ dinners there were usually about three visitors. This time there came an old lady, a cousin of Karenin’s; the Director of a Department; the Director’s wife; and a young man who had been recommended to Karenin for a post under him. Anna went into the drawing-room to entertain them. Exactly at five — the bronze clock (style of Peter I) had not finished striking — Karenin entered in evening dress with a white tie and two stars on his coat, as he had to attend an official meeting directly after dinner. Every moment of his life was filled up and apportioned, and in order to find time to perform all the tasks allotted to each day he observed the strictest regularity. ‘Without haste and without rest,’ was his motto. He entered the room, greeted everybody, and quickly sat down, smiling at his wife.

      ‘So my solitude has come to an end. You wouldn’t believe how uncomfortable’ — he put special emphasis on the word uncomfortable — ‘it is to dine alone!’

      At dinner he spoke a little about Moscow affairs with his wife, asking with an ironical smile after Stephen Oblonsky; but for the most part the conversation was general and dealt with Petersburg service and social affairs. After dinner he spent half an hour with his guests, and then, having again with a smile pressed his wife’s hand, went away to the Council. That evening Anna went neither to see the Princess Betsy Tverskaya, who having heard of Anna’s return had invited her, nor to the theatre, where she had a box for that evening. Her chief reason for not going was that a dress on which she had counted was not ready. Altogether, when, after her visitors had left, Anna busied herself with her toilet, she was much vexed. Before going to Moscow, she — being an adept at dressing on comparatively little money — left three dresses to be altered. She wanted them made up so that they should be unrecognizable, and they were to have been sent home three days ago; but she now found that two were not ready at all, while the third had not been done in the way she wished. The dressmaker came to explain that it was better as she had done it, and Anna lost her temper to such a degree that she afterwards felt ashamed. Completely to regain her composure, she went to the nursery and spent the evening with her son. She put him to bed herself, made the sign of the cross over him, and tucked him up. She was glad she had not gone out that evening but had spent it so pleasantly at home. She felt light-hearted and tranquil, and saw clearly that what in the train had appeared so important had merely been an ordinary and trivial incident of Society life, and that there was no reason for her to feel ashamed, or for anyone to blame her. She sat down by the fire with an English novel and awaited her husband. Exactly at half-past nine there was a ring at the front door, and he entered the room.

      ‘Here you are at last!’ she said, holding out her hand to him.

      He kissed it, and seated himself beside her.

      ‘In general, I see that your journey has been a success,’ said he.

      ‘Yes, quite,’ she replied, and related everything that had happened from the beginning: her journey with the Countess Vronskaya, her arrival, the accident at the railway station. Then she spoke of her pity, first for her brother and then for Dolly.

      ‘I don’t think that one can excuse such a man, even though he is your brother,’ remarked Karenin, severely.

      Anna smiled. She knew he had said that in order to show that no consideration of kinship could hinder the expression of his sincere opinion. She knew that trait in her husband’s character, knew and liked it.

      ‘I am glad it has all ended satisfactorily and that you are back again,’ he continued. ‘But what are they saying there about the new Statute I carried in the Council?’

      Anna had heard nothing about the Statute, and felt ashamed that she had so lightly forgotten what was of such importance to him.

      ‘Here, on the contrary, it has made quite a stir,’ he said with a self-satisfied smile.

      Anna saw that he wanted to tell her something pleasant to himself about that affair, and by questioning she led him on to tell her all about it. With the same self-satisfied smile he told her about the ovations he had received on account of the enactment of that Statute.

      ‘I was very, very pleased. It shows that at last a clear and reasonable view of the matter is beginning to be firmly held among us.’

      Having finished his second cup of tea and cream and his bread and butter, he rose and went into his study.

      ‘And have you not been out anywhere? You must have been dull,’ he said.

      ‘Oh no!’ she answered, rising and following him through the room to his study. ‘And what are you reading now?’ she asked.

      ‘I am now reading the Duc de Lille’s Poésie des enfers [Poetry of the underworld],’ he replied. ‘A very remarkable book.’

      Anna smiled, as one smiles at the weaknesses of people one loves, and slipping her hand under his arm walked with him to the study door. She knew his habit, which had become a necessity, of reading in the evening. She knew that in spite of his time being almost entirely absorbed by the duties of his post, he considered it incumbent on him to follow everything of importance that appeared in the world of thought. She also knew that really he was interested in political, philosophic, and theological books, and that art was quite foreign to his nature, yet in spite of this — or rather because of it — he never ignored anything that caused a stir in that sphere, but considered it his duty to read everything. She knew that in the sphere of politics, philosophy, and theology, Alexis Alexandrovich doubted and searched; but in questions of art, poetry, and especially music — which he did not at all understand — he held most definite and firm opinions. He liked talking of Shakespeare, Raphael, and Beethoven, and about the importance of the new schools of poetry and music, which in his mind were all classified with very logical exactitude.

      ‘Well, God bless you!’ she said at the door of the study, where a shaded candle and a bottle of water had been placed ready for him beside his armchair; ‘and I will go and write to them in Moscow.’

      He pressed her hand and again kissed it.

      ‘After all, he is a good man: truthful, kind, and remarkable in his own sphere,’ said Anna to herself when she had returned to her room, as if defending him from some one who accused him and declared it was impossible to love him. ‘But why do his ears stick out so? Or has he had his hair cut?’

      Exactly at midnight, when Anna was still sitting at her writing table finishing a letter to Dolly, she heard the measured tread of slippered feet, and Karenin entered, freshly washed, his hair brushed, and a book under his arm.

      ‘It’s time! It’s time!’ said he with a peculiar smile, going into their bedroom.

      ‘And what right had he to look at him as he did?’ thought Anna, remembering how Vronsky had looked at Karenin.

      When she was undressed she went into the bedroom, but on her face not only was there not a trace of that animation which during her stay in Moscow had sparkled in her eyes and smile, but on the contrary the fire in her now seemed quenched or hidden somewhere very far away.