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TWENTY-ONE
Chapter 21
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THE temporary stable, a wooden structure, had been built close to the racecourse, and it was there his mare was to have been brought the day before. He had not yet been to look at her. During these last days he had not exercised her himself, but had entrusted it to the trainer, and therefore did not in the least know in what condition she had arrived or now was. Hardly had he stepped out of the calèche before his groom, who had recognized it from a distance, had called out the trainer. A lean Englishman in top boots and a short jacket, with only a tuft of beard left under his chin, came to meet him with the awkward gait of a jockey, swaying from side to side with his elbows sticking out.
‘Well, how is Frou-Frou?’ asked Vronsky in English.
‘All right, sir,’ came the answer from somewhere inside the man’s throat. ‘Better not go in, ‘ he added, touching his cap. ‘I have put a muzzle on her, and she is fidgety. Better not go in, it excites the mare.’
‘No, I’ll go in. I want to have a look at her.’
‘Come along,’ said the Englishman frowning and speaking as before without opening his mouth. Swaying his elbows and walking with his loose gait he led the way.
They entered a little yard in front of the shed. A smart, well-dressed lad in a short and clean jacket, with a broom in his hand, met them and followed them. In the shed five horses stood in the horse-boxes, and Vronsky knew that his principal rival, Makhotin’s sixteen-hand chestnut, Gladiator, was to have been brought that day and should be standing there too. Vronsky was even more anxious to have a look at Gladiator, whom he had never seen, than at his own mare; but he knew that horse-racing etiquette not only forbade his seeing it, but made it improper for him even to ask about it. As he went along the passage the lad opened the second horse-box to the left, and Vronsky caught sight of a big chestnut horse with white legs. He knew it was Gladiator, but like one who avoids seeing another’s open letter, he turned and went to Frou-Frou’s box.
‘Here is the horse of Mak . . . Mak . . . I never can pronounce his name,’ said the Englishman over his shoulder, pointing with his black-nailed thumb to Gladiator’s box.
‘Makhotin’s? Yes, that is my only serious rival,’ said Vronsky.
‘If you were riding him, I would back you,’ said the Englishman.
‘Frou-Frou is the braver, but the other is the more powerful horse,’ said Vronsky, smiling at the compliment to his riding.
‘In a steeplechase everything depends on the riding and on pluck,’ said the Englishman.
Vronsky felt that he not only had enough pluck (that is, energy and courage), but, what is much more important, he was firmly convinced that no one in the world could have more pluck than he had.
‘Are you quite sure that more training was unnecessary?’
‘Quite unnecessary,’ said the Englishman. ‘Please don’t talk loud. The mare is nervous,’ he added, nodding toward the closed horse-box before which they were standing, and from which was heard the trampling of hoofs among the straw.
He opened the door, and Vronsky entered the box, which was dimly lit by one small window. In the box stood a muzzled dark-bay mare stepping from foot to foot among the fresh litter. When he had got used to the dim light of the box, Vronsky again instinctively took in at one comprehensive glance all the points of his favourite mare. Frou-Frou was of medium size and by no means free from blemish. She was slenderly built. Her chest, though well arched, was narrow. Her hindquarters tapered rather too much, and her legs, especially her hind legs, were perceptibly bowed inwards. Neither fore nor hind legs were particularly muscular, but on the other hand she was extremely broad in the girth, now that she was lean from her strict training. Seen from the front, her canon bones were very fine and sharp, but unusually wide seen sideways. She appeared all the more narrow in build because so deep in the breadth. But she possessed in the highest degree a characteristic which made one forget all her defects. This was her thoroughbred quality — the kind of blood that tells, as they say in English. The muscles, clearly marked beneath the network of sinews, stretched in the fine, mobile skin, which was smooth as satin, seemed hard as bone. Her lean head with the prominent, bright, sparkling eyes, broadened out to her muzzle with its wide crimson nostrils. Her whole appearance, more especially about the head, was spirited yet gentle. She was one of those creatures who seem as if they would certainly speak if only the mechanical construction of their mouths allowed them to.
To Vronsky at any rate it seemed that she understood all he was feeling while looking at her.
As soon as Vronsky entered, she drew a deep breath and, turning her prominent eyes so that their whites became bloodshot, looked from the other side of the box at the newcomers, shook her muzzle, and stepped lightly from foot to foot.
‘There, you see how nervous she is,’ said the Englishman.
‘Oh, you darling!’ said Vronsky, stepping toward the horse and soothing her.
But the nearer he came the more nervous she grew. Only when he reached to her head did she suddenly calm down, and the muscles under her fine, delicate coat vibrated. Vronsky stroked her firm neck, adjusted a lock of her mane that had got on to the wrong side of her sharply-defined withers and brought his face close to her dilated nostrils, delicate as a bat’s wing. Her extended nostrils loudly inhaled and exhaled her breath, and she set back one of her finely-pointed ears with a start, and stretched out her black firm lips toward Vronsky, as if wishing to catch hold of his sleeve. But remembering her muzzle she gave it a jerk, and again began stepping from one of her finely chiselled feet to the other.
‘Be quiet, darling, be quiet!’ he said, again stroking her flank, and left the box with a joyful conviction that the horse was in the very best condition.
The mare’s excitement had communicated itself to Vronsky. He felt that the blood was rushing to his heart, and that he, like the horse, wished to move and to bite; it was both frightening and joyful.
‘Well then, I rely on you,’ said Vronsky to the Englishman. ‘You will be on the spot at half-past six.’
‘All right,’ said the Englishman. ‘And where are you going, my lord?’ he asked unexpectedly, addressing him as ‘my lord,’ which he hardly ever did.
Vronsky raised his head in amazement and looked as he knew how to, not into the Englishman’s eyes but at his forehead, surprised at the boldness of the question. But realizing that the Englishman in asking the question regarded him not as an employer, but as a jockey, he replied:
‘I have to see Bryansky, but I shall be home in an hour.’
‘How often have I been asked that question to-day?’ he thought, and blushed, a thing he rarely did. The Englishman looked at him attentively and, as if he knew where he was going, added: ‘The chief thing before a race is to keep cool: don’t be put out or upset.’
‘All right,’ said Vronsky smiling, and jumping into the calèche, he told the coachman to drive to Peterhof.
He had not gone many yards before the clouds, which had been threatening since morning, broke, and there was a downpour of rain.
‘This is bad!’ thought Vronsky, raising the hood of the calèche. ‘It was muddy before, but now it will be a swamp.’ Sitting alone in the closed calèche he drew out his mother’s letter and his brother’s note and read them through.
Yes, it was the same thing over and over again. They all, his mother and his brother and everybody, considered it necessary to interfere with his intimate affairs. This interference roused him to anger, a feeling he rarely experienced. ‘What business is it of theirs? Why does everybody consider it his duty to look after me? And why do they bother me? Because they see it is something they cannot understand. If it were an ordinary, empty Society intrigue they would let me alone. They feel that it is something different, that it is not a game, and that this woman is dearer to me than life. That is incomprehensible, and therefore it vexes them. Whatever our fate is or may be, we have made it and do not complain of it,’ he said, joining Anna and himself in the word ‘we.’ ‘No, they needs must teach us how to live. They have no conception of what happiness is, and they do not know that without love there is no happiness or unhappiness for us, for there would be no life,’ he thought.
He was angry with everybody for their interference, just because he felt in his soul that they were right. He felt that the love that united him with Anna was not momentary infatuation, which would pass, as Society intrigues do, without leaving any trace in the lives of the one or the other except pleasant or disagreeable memories. He felt all the torment of his and her position, all the difficulties they were surrounded by in consequence of their station in life, which exposed them to the eyes of the whole world, obliged them to hide their love, to lie and deceive, and again to lie and deceive, to scheme and constantly think about others while the passion that bound them was so strong that they both forgot everything but their love.
The recollection of incidents often repeated rose vividly in his mind, where lies and deceptions revolting to his nature had been necessary. He remembered most vividly having more than once noticed her feeling of shame at the necessity for this deception and lying. And he experienced a strange feeling which since his union with Anna sometimes overcame him. It was a feeling of revulsion against something, against Karenin, or against himself or against the whole word — he hardly knew which. But he always drove away this strange feeling. And now too, having given himself a shake, he continued the current of his thoughts:
‘Yes, formerly she was unhappy, but proud and calm; but now she cannot be calm and dignified, though she still seems so. Yes, this must be brought to an end,’ he decided.
And for the first time the clear idea occurred to him that it was necessary to put an end to all this falsehood, and the sooner the better. ‘Throw up everything and let us two conceal ourselves somewhere alone with our love,’ said he to himself.
Chapter 22
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THE downpour did not last long, and as Vronsky approached his destination — with his shaft-horse at full trot pulling alone, and the trace-horses galloping over the mud with the traces loose — the sun appeared again, the roofs of the houses and the old lime trees in the gardens on both sides glittered with the moisture, and the water dripped merrily from the branches and ran down from the roofs. He no longer thought about the shower spoiling the racecourse, but was glad, because, thanks to the rain, he was sure to find Anna at home and alone, for he knew that Karenin, who had recently returned from a watering-place abroad, had not moved from Petersburg.
Hoping to find her alone, Vronsky, as usual, to attract less attention, alighted before crossing the little bridge that led to the house and walked on. He did not go straight to the entrance from the street but passed through the yard.
‘Has your master returned?’ he asked a gardener.
‘No, sir. The mistress is at home. Go in at the front door; the servants are there and will open it,’ replied the man.
‘No, I will go through the garden.’
Having made sure that she was alone, and wishing to take her by surprise (he had not promised to come that day and she would certainly not expect him to come before the races), he went, holding up his sword and stepping carefully along the sand-strewn flower-bordered path to the verandah facing the garden. Vronsky had now forgotten all his thoughts on the way, about the hardness and difficulty of his situation. He only thought that he would see her immediately, not merely in fancy, but alive, all of her — as she was in reality. He was already ascending the shallow steps of the verandah, stepping on the whole of his foot so as not to make a noise, when he suddenly remembered what he was always forgetting, the most painful part of his relations with her, namely her son, with his questioning and, as it seemed to Vronsky, inimical look.
That boy was a more frequent hindrance to their relations than anyone else. When he was present neither Vronsky nor Anna allowed themselves to speak about anything they could not have mentioned to every one or even to hint at things the boy would not have understood. They had not arranged this, but it had come about of itself. They would have considered it unworthy of themselves to deceive that child. In his presence they talked as acquaintances. Yet despite this caution Vronsky often noticed the child’s attentive and perplexed gaze fixed upon him and a strange timidity and unevenness — now caressing, now cold and bashful — in the boy’s manner toward him. It was as if the child felt that between that man and his mother there was some important relation which he could not understand.
And the boy really felt that he could not understand this relation. He tried but could not make out what he ought to feel toward this man. With a child’s sensitiveness to indications of feeling, he clearly saw that his father, his governess, and his nurse all not only disliked Vronsky but regarded him with fear and loathing, though they said nothing about him, while his mother regarded him as her best friend.
‘What does it mean? Who is he? How should I love him? If I don’t understand, it is my fault, I am a silly or a bad boy,’ thought the child, and that was the cause of his testing, questioning, and to some extent hostile expression and of the shyness and fitfulness Vronsky found so irksome. The presence of that child always aroused in Vronsky that strange feeling of unreasoning revulsion which had of late come to him. It evoked both in Vronsky and in Anna a feeling such as a sailor might have who saw by the compass that the direction in which he was swiftly sailing diverged widely from the right course but was quite unable to stop, and felt that every moment was taking him farther and farther astray, and that to acknowledge to himself that he was diverging from the right direction was tantamount to acknowledging that he was lost.
This child with his naïve outlook on life was the compass which showed them their degree of divergence from what they knew, but would not recognize, as the right course.
This time Serezha was not at home, and Anna was quite alone, sitting on the verandah waiting for the return of her son, who had gone for a walk and had been caught in the rain. She had sent a man and a maidservant to look for him and sat waiting. She wore a white dress trimmed with wide embroidery, and as she sat in a corner of the verandah behind some plants, did not hear Vronsky coming. Bowing her curly head she pressed her forehead against a cold watering-can that stood on the balustrade, and both her beautiful hands, with the rings he knew so well, were holding the can. The beauty of her whole figure, her head, her neck, and her arms, always struck Vronsky with new surprise. He stopped, gazing at her with rapture. But just as he was going to step toward her, she felt his nearness, pushed away the can, and turned her hot face toward him.
‘What is the matter? Aren’t you well?’ he said in French as he came up to her. He wished to run toward her, but remembering that there might be others near, turned to look at the verandah door and blushed, as he always did when he felt that he had reason to fear and to be circumspect.
‘No, I am quite well,’ she said, rising and firmly pressing his outstretched hand. ‘I did not expect — you.’
‘Oh, heavens! What cold hands!’ he said.
‘You frightened me,’ she said. ‘I am alone and was expecting Serezha. He went for a walk; they will return this way.’
But though she tried to be calm her lips trembled.
‘Forgive me for coming, but I could not let the day pass without seeing you,’ he continued in French. In Russian the word you sounded cold and it was dangerous to say thou, so he always spoke French to her.
‘Why “forgive”? I am so glad!’
‘But you are ill or in trouble,’ he continued without releasing her hand, but bending over it. ‘What were you thinking about?’
‘Always about the same thing,’ she said with a smile.
She spoke the truth. Whenever, — at whatever moment, — she was asked what she was thinking about she could have answered without fail, ‘Always about my happiness and my unhappiness.’ Just now when he entered she was wondering why, for others, Betsy for instance (of whose secret relations with Tushkevich she knew), it was all easy, while for her it was so tormenting. For certain reasons this thought troubled her more particularly to-day. She inquired about the races. Vronsky answered her, and noticing that she was excited, in order to distract her thoughts began giving her in a very matter-of-fact way particulars of the preparations for the races.
‘Shall I tell him or not?’ she thought, looking at his calm, caressing eyes. ‘He is so happy, so full of his races, that he won’t understand it properly, won’t understand all the importance of the event for us.’
‘But you have not told me what you were thinking about when I came in,’ he said, breaking off his narration.
She did not answer, but, slightly bowing her head, looked at him from under her brows questioningly, her eyes shining from under their long lashes. Her hand, toying with a leaf that she had pulled off, trembled. He noticed this, and his face assumed that submissive, slavishly-devoted expression that had such an effect on Anna.
‘I see that something has happened. How can I be a moment at peace knowing that you have some sorrow which I am not sharing? Tell me, for Heaven’s sake!’ he repeated entreatingly.
‘I cannot forgive him if he does not understand all the importance of it. Better not tell him, — why put him to the proof?’ she thought, continuing to look at him in the same way and feeling that her hand with the leaf was trembling more and more.
‘For heaven’s sake!’ he repeated, taking her hand.
‘Shall I?’
‘Yes, yes, yes . . .’
‘I am pregnant,’ she said softly and slowly.
The leaf in her hand shook still more violently, but she did not move her eyes from his face, watching to see how he would take it. He grew pale, tried to say something, but stopped, dropped her hand, and bowed his head. ‘Yes, he understands its full significance,’ she thought, and gratefully pressed his hand.
But she was mistaken in thinking that he understood the importance of the news as she, a woman, understood it. It brought on with tenfold force an attack of that strange repulsion to — he knew not whom; but at the same time he felt that the crisis he had hoped for had now come, that concealment from the husband was no longer possible, and that somehow or other the unnatural situation must be quickly ended. But, besides this, her physical agitation communicated itself to him. He gave her a look full of emotion, humbly kissed her hand, rose, and began silently pacing up and down the verandah.
‘Yes,’ he said, resolutely approaching her. ‘Neither you nor I looked on our union as an amusement, and now our fate is sealed. We must end’ — he went on, looking round — ‘this falsehood in which we are living.’
‘End it? How are we to end it, Alexis?’ she said softly.
She was quiet now and her face shone with a tender smile.
‘By your leaving your husband and our uniting our lives.’
‘They are united already,’ she replied in a scarcely audible tone.
‘Yes, but entirely.’
‘But how, Alexis, teach me how?’ she said with pathetic irony at the inevitability of her position. ‘Is there any escape from such a position? Am I not my husband’s wife?’
‘There is a way out of every position. One has to take a decision,’ he said. ‘Anything would be better than the condition in which you are living. Don’t I see how you suffer from everything — Society, your son, and your husband?’
‘Oh, but not through my husband,’ she said with natural irony. ‘I don’t know him and don’t think about him. He does not exist.’
‘You are not speaking sincerely. I know you. You suffer from him too.’
‘But he does not even know,’ she said, and suddenly a vivid flush suffused her face. Her cheeks, her forehead, and her neck turned red, and tears of shame appeared in her eyes. ‘Do not let us speak of him.’
Chapter 23
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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.