LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter 23

      VRONSKY had tried several times before, though never so definitely as now, to lead her on to a discussion of her position, and had always encountered the same superficiality and lightness of judgment with which she now replied to his challenge. It was as if there was something that she could not, and would not, make clear to herself, or as if as soon as she began to speak about this matter, she, the real Anna, withdrew into herself and another woman appeared who was strange and alien to him, whom he feared and did not like, and who resisted him. But to-day he decided to speak out.

      ‘Whether he knows or not,’ said Vronsky in his usual firm, calm tone, ‘that is not our business. We cannot … You cannot remain as you are, especially now.’

      ‘What would you have me do?’ she asked with the same light irony. She who had so feared that he might take her pregnancy too lightly now felt vexed that he deduced therefrom the necessity of doing something.

      ‘Tell him everything, leave him.’

      ‘Very well; suppose I do so!’ she said. ‘Do you know what the result will be? I will tell it you all in advance,’ and an evil light came into her eyes which a minute before had been so tender. ‘ “Ah, you love another and have entered into a guilty union with him?” ’ (mimicking her husband, she laid just such a stress on the word guilty as Karenin himself would have done). ‘ “I warned you of the consequences from the religious, civil, and family points of view. You have not listened to me. Now I cannot allow my name to be dishonoured …” ’ my name and my son she was going to say but could not jest about her son … ‘ “my name to be dishonoured” and something else of that kind,’ she added. ‘In short, he will tell me clearly and precisely in his official manner that he cannot let me go, but will take what measures he can to prevent a scandal. And he will do what he says, quietly and accurately. That is what will happen. He is not a man, but a machine, and a cruel machine when angry,’ she added, picturing Karenin to herself with every detail of his figure and way of speaking, setting against him everything bad she could find in him and forgiving him nothing, on account of the terrible fault toward him of which she was guilty.

      ‘But, Anna,’ said Vronsky persuasively and gently, trying to pacify her, ‘he must be told, all the same, and afterwards our action will be guided by his attitude.’

      ‘What then, run away?’

      ‘And why not run away? I think it is impossible to continue in this way. And not on my account, — I see that you suffer.’

      ‘Yes, run away, and for me to live as your mistress,’ she said maliciously.

      ‘Anna,’ he murmured with reproachful tenderness.

      ‘Yes,’ she continued. ‘Become your mistress and ruin my … everything.’

      She was again going to say ‘son’ but could not utter the word.

      Vronsky could not understand how she, with her strong honest nature, could endure this state of deception and not wish to escape from it; but he did not guess that the chief cause lay in the one word ‘son’ which she could not bring herself to utter. When she thought about her son and his future relations with the mother who had left his father, she was so terrified at what she had done that she did not reason, but woman-like only tried to comfort herself with false arguments and words in order that everything should remain as before and that she might forget the dreadful question of what would happen to her son.

      ‘I beg you, I entreat you,’ said she suddenly in quite an altered tone, sincerely and tenderly, taking him by the hand, ‘never to speak to me about that!’

      ‘But, Anna …’

      ‘Never. Leave it to me. I know all the degradation, all the horror of my position; but it is not so easy to settle the matter as you think. Leave it to me and listen to me. Never speak to me about it. Do you promise? … Yes, yes, promise! …’

      ‘I promise everything, but I cannot be at peace, especially after what you have told me. I cannot be at peace when you are not.’

      ‘I?’ she said. ‘Yes, I do suffer sometimes; but it will pass if you never speak to me about it. It is only when you speak to me about it that I suffer.’

      ‘I don’t understand …’ said he.

      ‘I know,’ she interrupted him, ‘how hard it is for your honest nature to lie and I pity you. I often think how you have ruined your life because of me.’

      ‘I was just thinking the same,’ he said; ‘wondering how you could sacrifice everything for my sake. I cannot forgive myself for your unhappiness.’

      ‘I unhappy?’ she said, drawing near to him and gazing at him with a smile of rapturous love. ‘I am like a hungry man to whom food has been given. He may be cold, his clothes may be ragged, and he may be ashamed, but he is not unhappy. I unhappy? No, this is my happiness… .’

      But she heard the voice of her son approaching, and glancing quickly round the verandah she rose hurriedly. Her eyes kindled with the light Vronsky knew so well, and with a rapid motion she raised her lovely hands, covered with rings, seized his head, gave him a long look, lifted her face with parted smiling lips, quickly kissed his mouth and both eyes, and then pushed him away. She was about to go but he held her back.

      ‘When?’ he whispered, gazing rapturously at her.

      ‘Tonight at one,’ she whispered, and with her quick light step went to meet her son.

      Serezha had been caught in the rain in the public gardens, and he and his nurse had taken shelter in the pavilion.

      ‘Well, au revoir,’ she said to Vronsky. ‘It will soon be time to start for the races. Betsy has promised to call for me.’

      Vronsky looked at his watch and hurried away.