Anna Karenina (tr. Constance Garnett)
by Leo Tolstoy
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman
Return to Part 3 of 4

After him rode a little man in the dress of a jockey. Sviazhsky
and Princess Varvara in a new char-a-banc with a big, raven-black
trottinghorse, overtook the party on horseback.

Anna's face suddenly beamed with a joyful smile at the instant
when, in the little figure huddled in a corner of the old
carriage, she recognized Dolly. She uttered a cry, started in the
saddle, and set her horse into a gallop. On reaching the carriage
she jumped off without assistance, and holding up her
riding-habit, she ran up to greet Dolly.

"I thought it was you and dared not think it. How delightful! You
can't fancy how glad I am!" she said, at one moment pressing her
face against Dolly and kissing her, and at the next holding her
off and examining her with a smile.

"Here's a delightful surprise, Alexey!" she said, looking round
at Vronsky, who had dismounted, and was walking towards them.

Vronsky, taking off his tall gray hat, went up to Dolly.

"You wouldn't believe how glad we are to see you," he said,
giving peculiar significance to the words, and showing his strong
white teeth in a smile.

Vassenka Veslovsky, without getting off his horse, took off his
cap and greeted the visitor by gleefully waving the ribbons over
his head.

"That's Princess Varvara," Anna said in reply to a glance of
inquiry from Dolly as the char-a-banc drove up.

"Ah!" said Darya Alexandrovna, and unconsciously her face
betrayed her dissatisfaction.

Princess Varvara was her husband's aunt, and she had long known
her, and did not respect her. She knew that Princess Varvara had
passed her whole life toadying on her rich relations, but that
she should now be sponging on Vronsky, a man who was nothing to
her, mortified Dolly on account of her kinship with her husband.
Anna noticed Dolly's expression, and was disconcerted by it. She
blushed, dropped her riding. habit, and stumbled over it.

Darya Alexandrovna went up to the char-a-banc and coldly greeted
Princess Varvara. Sviazhsky too she knew. He inquired how his
queer friend with the young wife was, and running his eyes over
the ill- matched horses and the carriage with its patched
mud-guards, proposed to the ladies that they should get into the
char-a-banc.

"And I'll get into this vehicle," he said. "The horse is quiet,
and the princess drives capitally."

"No, stay as you were," said Anna, coming up, "and we'll go in
the carriage," and taking Dolly's arm, she drew her away.

Darya Alexandrovna's eyes were fairly dazzled by the elegant
carriage of a pattern she had never seen before, the splendid
horses, and the ele gent and gorgeous people surrounding her. But
what struck her most of all was the change that had taken place
in Anna, whom she knew so well and loved. Any other woman, a less
close observer, not knowing Anna before, or not having thought as
Darya Alexandrovna had been thinking on the road, would not have
noticed anything special in Anna. But now Dolly was struck by
that temporary beauty, which is only found is, women during the
moments of love, and which she saw now in Anna's face. Everything
in her face, the clearly marked dimples in her cheeks and chin,
the line of her lips, the smile which, as it were, fluttered
about her face, the brilliance of her eyes, the grace and
rapidity of her move meets, the fulness of the notes of her
voice, even the manner in which, with a sort of angry
friendliness, she answered Veslovsky when he asked permission to
get on her cob, so as to teach it to gallop with the right leg
foremost--it was all peculiarly fascinating, and it seemed as if
she were herself aware of it, and rejoicing in it.

When both the women were seated in the carriage, a sudden
embarrassment came over both of them. Anna was disconcerted by
the intent look of inquiry Dolly fixed upon her. Dolly was
embarrassed because after Sviazhsky's phrase about "this
vehicle," she could not help feeling ashamed of the dirty old
carriage in which Anna was sitting with her The coachman Phiiip
and the counting-house clerk were experiencing the same
sensation. The counting-house clerk, to conceal his confusion,
busied himself settling the ladies, but Phiiip the coachman
became sullen, and was bracing himself not to be overawed in
future by this external superiority. He smiled ironically,
looking at the raven horse, and was already deciding in his own
mind that this smart trotter in the char-a-banc was only good for
promenade, and wouldn't do thirty miles straight off in the heat.

The peasants had all got up from the cart and were inquisitively
and mirthfully staring at the meeting of the friends, making
their comments on it.

"They're pleased, too; haven't seen each other for a long while,"
said the curly-headed old man with the bast round his hair.

"I say, Uncle Gerasim, if we could take that raven horse now, to
cart the corn, that 'ud be quick work!"

"Look-ee! Is that a woman in breeches?" said one of them,
pointing to Vassenka Veslovsky sitting in a side-saddle.

"Nay, a man! See how smartly he's going it!"

"Eh, lads! seems we're not going to sleep, then?"

"What chance of sleep to-day!" said the old man, with a sidelong
look at the sun. "Midday's past, look-ee! Get your hooks, and
come along!"

Chapter 18

Anna looked at Dolly's thin, care-worn face, with its wrinkles
filled ha with dust from the road, and she was on the point of
saying what she was thinking, that is, that Dolly had got
thinner. But, conscious that she herself had grown handsomer, and
that Dolly's eyes were telling her so, she sighed and began to
speak about herself.

"You are looking at me," she said, "and wondering how I can be
happy in my position? Well! it's shameful to confess, but I . . .
I'm inexcusably happy. Something magical has happened to me, like
a dream, when you're frightened, panic-stricken, and all of a
sudden you wake up and all the horrors are no more. I have waked
up. I have lived through the misery, the dread, and now for a
long while past, especially since we've been here, I've been so
happy! . . ." she said, with a timid smile of inquiry looking at
Dolly.

"How glad I am!" said Dolly smiling, involuntarily speaking more
coldly than she wanted to. "I'm very glad for you. Why haven't
you written to-me?"

"Why? ... Because I hadn't the courage.... You forget my position
. . ."

"To me? Hadn't the courage? If you knew how I ...I look at . .
."

Darya Alexandrovna wanted to express her thoughts of the morning,
but for some reason it seemed to her now out of place to do so.

"But of that we'll talk later. What's this, what are all these
buildings?" she asked, wanting to change the conversation and
pointing to the red and green roofs that came into view behind
the green hedges of acacia and lilac. "Quite a little town."

But Anna did not answer.

"No, no! How do you look at my position, what do you think of
it?" she asked.

"I consider ..." Darya Alexandrovna was beginning, but at that
instant Vassenka Veslovsky, having brought the cob to gallop with
the right leg foremost, galloped past them, bumping heavily up
and down in his short jacket on the chamois leather of the
side-saddle. "He's doing it, Anna Arkadyevna!" he shouted.

Anna did not even glance at him; but again it seemed to Darya
Alexandrovna out of place to enter upon such a long conversation
in the carriage, and so she cut short her thought.

"I don't think anything," she said, "but I always loved you, and
if one loves any one, one loves the whole person, just as they
are and not as one would like them to be...."

Anna, taking her eyes off her friend's face and dropping her
eyelids (this was a new habit Dolly had not seen in her before),
pondered, trying to penetrate the full significance of the words.
And obviously interpreting them as she would have wished, she
glanced at Dolly.

"If you had any sins," she said, "they would all be forgiven you
for your coming to see me and these words."

And Dolly saw that tears stood in her eyes. She pressed Anna's
hand in silence.

"Well, what are these buildings? How many there are of them!"
After a moment's silence she repeated her question.

"These are the servants' houses, barns, and stables," answered
Anna. "And there the park begins. It had all gone to ruin, but
Alexey had everything renewed. He is very fond of this place,
and, what I never expected, he has become intensely interested in
looking after it. But his is such a rich nature! Whatever he
takes up, he does splendidly. So far from being bored by it, he
works with passionate interest. He--with his temperament as I
know it--he has become careful and businesslike, a first-rate
manager, he positively reckons every penny in his management of
the land. But only in that. When it's a question of tens of
thousands, he doesn't think of money." She spoke with that
gleefully sly smile with which women often talk of the secret
characteristics only known to them--of those they love. "Do you
see that big building? that's the new hospital. I believe it will
cost over a hundred thousand; that's his hobby just now. And do
you know how it all came about? The peasants asked him for some
meadowland, I think it was, at a cheaper rate, and he refused,
and I accused him of being miserly. Of course it was not really
because of that, but everything together, he began this hospital
to prove, do you see, that he was not miserly about money.
C'est une petitesse, if you like, but I love him all the more for
it. And now you'll see the house in a moment. It was his
grandfather's house, and he has had nothing changed outside."

"How beautiful!" said Dolly, looking with involuntary admiration
at the handsome house with columns, standing out among the
different-colored greens of the old trees in the garden.

"Isn't it fine? And from the house, from the top, the view is
wonderful."

They drove into a courtyard strewn with gravel and bright with
flowers, in which two laborers were at work putting an edging of
stones round the light mould of a flower-bed, and drew up in a
covered entry.

"Ah, they're here already!" said Anna, looking at the
saddle-horses, which were just being led away from the steps. "It
is a nice horse, isn't it? It's my cob; my favorite. Lead him
here and bring me some sugar. Where is the count?" she inquired
of two smart footmen who darted out. "Ah, there he is!" she said,
seeing Vronsky coming to meet her with Veslovsky.

"Where are you going to put the princess?" said Vronsky in
French, addressing Anna, and without waiting for a reply, he once
more greeted Darya Alexandrovna, and this time he kissed her
hand. "I think the big balcony room."

"Oh, no, that's too far off! Better in the corner room, we shall
see each other more. Come, let's go up," said Anna, as she gave
her favorite horse the sugar the footman had brought her.

"Et vous oubliez votre devoir," she said to Veslovsky, who came
out too on the steps.

"Pardon, j'en at tout plein les poches," he answered, smiling,
putting his fingers in his waistcoat pocket.

"Mais vous venez trop tard," she said, rubbing her handkerchief
on her hand, which the horse had made wet in taking the sugar.

Anna turned to Dolly. "You can stay some time? For one day only?
That's impossible!"

"I promised to be back, and the children . . ." said Dolly,
feeling embarrassed both because she had to get her bag out of
the carriage, and because she knew her face must be covered with
dust.

"No, Dolly, darling! ...Well, we'll see. Come along, come
along!" and Anna led Dolly to her room.

That room was not the smart guest-chamber Vronsky had suggested,
but the one of which Anna had said that Dolly would excuse it.
And this room, for which excuse was needed, was more full of
luxury than any in which Dolly had ever stayed, a luxury that
reminded her of the best hotels abroad.

"Well, darling, how happy I am!" Anna said, sitting down in her
riding- habit for a moment beside Dolly. "Tell me about all of
you. Stiva I had only a glimpse of, and he cannot tell one about
the children. How is my favorite, Tanya? Quite a big girl, I
expect?"

"Yes, she's very tall," Darya Alexandrovna answered shortly,
surprised herself that she should respond so coolly about her
children. "We are having a delightful stay at the Levins'," she
added.

"Oh, if I had known," said Anna, "that you do not despise me! . .
.

You might have all come to us. Stiva's an old friend and a great
friend of Alexey's, you know," she added, and suddenly she
blushed.

"Yes, but we are all . . ." Dolly answered in confusion.

"But in my delight I'm talking nonsense. The one thing, darling,
is that I am so glad to have you!" said Anna, kissing her again.
"You haven't told me yet how and what you think about me, and I
keep wanting to know. But I'm glad you will see me as I am. The
chief thing I shouldn't like would be for people to imagine I
want to prove anything. I don't want to prove anything; I merely
want to live, to do no one harm but myself. I have the right to
do that, haven't I? But it is a big subject, and we'll talk over
everything properly later. Now I'll go and dress and send a maid
to you."

Chapter 19

Left alone, Darya Alexandrovna, with a good housewife's eye,
scanned her room. All she had seen in entering the house and
walking through it, and all she saw now in her room, gave her an
impression of wealth and sumptuousness and of that modern
European luxury of which she had only read in English novels, but
had never seen in Russia and in the country. Everything was new
from the new French hangings on the walls to the carpet which
covered the whole floor. The bed had a spring mattress, and a
special sort of bolster and silk pillow-cases on the little
pillows. The marble wash-stand, the dressing-table, the little
sofa, the tables, the bronze clock on the chimneypiece, the
window-curtains, and the portieres were all new and expensive.

The smart maid, who came in to offer her services, with her hair
done up high, and a gown more fashionable than Dolly's, was as
new and expensive as the whole room. Darya Alexandrovna liked her
neatness, her deferential and obliging manners, but she felt ill
at ease with her. She felt ashamed of her seeing the patched
dressingjacket that had unluckily been packed by mistake for her.
She was ashamed of the very patches and darned places of which
she had been so proud at home. At home it had been so clear that
for six dressingjackets there would be needed twenty-four yards
of nainsook at sixteen pence the yard, which was a matter of
thirty shillings besides the cutting-out and making, and these
thirty shillings had been saved. But before the maid she felt, if
not exactly ashamed, at least uncomfortable.

Darya Alexandrovna had a great sense of relief when Annushka,
whom she had known for years, walked in. The smart maid was sent
for to go to her mistress, and Annushka remained with Darya
Alexandrovna.

Annushka was obviously much pleased at that lady's arrival, and
began to chatter away without a pause. Dolly observed that she
was longing to express her opinion in regard to her mistress's
position, especially as to the love and devotion of the count to
Anna Arkadyevna, but Dolly carefully interrupted her whenever she
began to speak about this.

"I grew up with Anna Arkadyevna; my lady's dearer to me than
anything. Well, it's not for us to judge. And, to be sure, there
seems so much love . . ."

"Kindly pour out the water for me to wash now, please," Darya
Alexandrovna cut her short.

"Certainly. We've two women kept specially for washing small
things, but most of the linen's done by machinery. The count goes
into everything himself. Ah, what a husband! . . ."

Dolly was glad when Anna came in, and by her entrance put a stop
to Annushka's gossip.

Anna had put on a very simple batiste gown. Dolly scrutinized
that simple gown attentively. She knew what it meant, and the
price at which such simplicity was obtairied.

"An old friend," said Anna of Annushka.

Anna was not embarrassed now. She was perfectly composed and at
ease. Dolly saw that she had now completely recovered from the
impression her arrival had made on her, and had assumed that
superficial, careless tone which, as it were, closed the door on
that compartment in which her deeper feelings and ideas were
kept.

"Well, Anna, and how is your little girl?" asked Dolly.

"Annie!" (This was what she called her little daughter Anna.)
"Very well. She has got on wonderfully. Would you like to see
her? Come, I'll show her to you. We had a terrible bother," she
began telling her, "over nurses. We had an Italian wet-nurse. A
good creature, but so stupid! We wanted to get rid of her, but
the baby is so used to her that we've gone on keeping her still."

"But how have you managed? . . ." Dolly was beginning a question
as to what name the little girl would have; but noticing a sudden
frown on Anna's face, she changed the drift of her question.

"How did you manage? have you weaned her yet?"

But Anna had understood.

"You didn't mean to ask that? You meant to ask about her surname.
Yes? That worries Alexey. She has no name--that is, she's a
Karenin," said Anna, dropping her eyelids till nothing could be
seen but the eyelashes meeting. "But we'll talk about all that
later," her face suddenly brightening. "Come, I'll show you her.
Wile est trls gentille. She crawls now."

In the nursery the luxury which had impressed Dolly in the whole
house struck her still more. There were little go-carts ordered
from England, and appliances for learning to walk, and a sofa
after the fashion of a billiard-table, purposely constructed for
crawling, and swings and baths, all of special pattern, and
modern. They were all English, solid, and of good make, and
obviously very expensive. The room was large, and very light and
lofty.

When they went in, the baby, with nothing on but her little smock
was sitting in a little elbow-chair at the table, having her
dinner of broth which she was spilling all over her little chest.
The baby was being fed, and the Russian nursery-maid was
evidently sharing he Neal. the wet- nurse nor the head-nurse were
there; they were in the next room, from which came the sound of
their conversation in the queer French which was their only means
of communication.

Hearing Anna's voice, a smart, tall, English nurse with a
disagreeable face and a dissolute expression walked in at the
door, hurriedly shaking her fair curls, and immediately began to
defend herself though Anna had not found fault with her. At every
word Anna said, the English nurse said hurriedly several times,
"Yes, my lady."

The rosy baby with her black eyebrows and hair, her sturdy red
little body with tight goose-flesh skin, delighted Darya
Alexandrovna in spite of the cross expression with which she
stared at the stranger. She posttively envied the baby's healthy
appearance. She was delighted, too, at the baby's crawling. Not
one of her own children had crawled like that. When the baby was
put on the carpet and its little dress tucked up behind, it was
wonderfully charming. Looking round like some little wild animal
at the grown-up big people with her bright black eyes, she
smiled, unmistakably pleased at their admiring her, and holding
her legs sideways, she pressed vigorously on her arms, and
rapidly drew her whole back up after, and then made another step
forward with her little arms.

But the whole atmosphere of the nursery, and especially the
English nurse, Darya Alexandrovna did not like at all. It was
only on the supposition that no good nurse would have entered so
irregular a household as Anna's that Darya Alexandrovna could
explain to herself how Anna, with her insight into people, could
take such an unprepossessing, disreputable-looking woman as nurse
to her child.

Besides, from a few words that were dropped, Darya Alexandrovna
saw at once that Anna, the two nurses, and the child had no
common existence, and that the mother's visit was something
exceptional. Anna wanted to get the baby her plaything, and could
not find it.

Most amazing of all was the fact that on being asked how many
teeth the baby had, Anna answered wrong, and knew nothing about
the two last teeth.

"I sometimes feel sorry I'm so superfluous here," said Anna,
going out of the nursery and holding up her skirt so as to escape
the plaything standing In the doorway. "It was very different
with my first child."

"I expected it to be the other way," said Darya Alexandrovna
shyly "Oh, no! By the way, do you know I saw Seryozha?" said
Anna; screwing up her eyes, as though looking at something far
away. "But we'll talk about that later. You wouldn't believe it,
I'm like a hungry beggar-woman when a full dinner is set before
her, and she does not know what to begin on first. The dinner is
you, and the talks I have before me with you, which I could never
have with any one else; and I don't know which subject to begin
upon first. Mais je ne vous ferai grace de rien. I must have
everything out with you."

"Oh, I ought to give you a sketch of the company you will meet
with us," she went on. "I'll begin with the ladies. Princess
Varvara--you know her, and I know your opinion and Stiva's about
her. Stiva says the whole aim of her existence is to prove her
superiority over Auntie Katerina Pavlovna: that's all true; but
she's a good-natured woman, and I am so grateful to her. In
Petersburg there was a moment when a chaperon was absolutely
essential for me. Then she turned up. But really she is
goodnatured. She did a great deal to alleviate my position. I see
you don't understand all the difficulty of my position . . .
there in Petersburg," she added. "Here I'm perfectly at ease and
happy. Well, of that later on, though. Then Sviazhsky--he's the
marshal of the district, and he's a very good sort of a man, but
he wants to get something out of Alexey. You understand, with his
property, now that we are settled in the country, Alexey can
exercise great influence.. Then there's Tushkevitch--you have
seen him, you know--Betsy's admirer. Now he's been thrown over
and he's come to see us. As Alexey says, he's one of those people
who are very pleasant if one accepts them for what they try to
appear to be, et pais it est comme il faut, as Princess Varvara
says. Then Veslovsky ...you know him. A very nice boy," she
said, and a sly smile curved her lips. "What's this wild story
about him and the Levins? Veslovsky told Alexey about it, and we
don't believe it. Il est tres gentil et naif," she said agam with
the same smile. "Men need occupation, and Alexey needs a circle,
so I value all these people. We have to have the house lively and
gay, so that Alexey may not long for any novelty. Then you'll see
the steward--a German, a very good fellow, and he understands his
work. Alexey has a very high opinion of him. Then the doctor, a
young man, not quite a Nihilist perhaps, but you know, eats with
his knife ...but a very good doctor. Then the architect . . .
Une petite cour!"

Chapter 20

"Here's Dolly for you, princess, you were so  anxious to see
her," said Anna, coming out with Darya Alexandrovna onto  the
stone terrace where Princess Varvara was sitting in the shade at
an  embroidery frame, working at a cover for Count Alexey
Kirillovitch's easy- chair. "She says she doesn't want anything
before dinner, but please order  some lunch for her, and I'll go
and look for Alexey and bring them all in."

Princess Varvara gave Dolly a cordial and rather patronizing
reception, and began at once explaining to her that she was
living with Anna because she had always cared more for her than
her sister Katerina Pavlovna, the aunt that had brought Anna up,
and that now, when every one had abandoned Anna, she thought it
her duty to help her in this most difficult period of transition.

"Her husband will give her a divorce, and then I shall go back to
my solitude; but now I can be of use, and I am doing my duty,
However difficult it may be for me--not like some other people.
And how sweet it is of you, how right of you to have come! They
live like the best Of married couples; it's for God to judge
them, not for us. And didn't Biryuzovsky and Madame Avenieva . .
. and Sam Nikandrov, and Vassiliev and Madame Mamonova, and Liza
Neptunova ...Did no one say anything about them? And it has
ended by their being received by every one. And then, c'est un
interieur si joli, si comme il faut. Tout-a-fait a l'anglaise.
On se reunit le matin au breakfast, et pais on se separe. Every
one does as he pleases till dinner-time. Dinner at seven o'clock.
Stiva did very rightly to send you. He needs their support. You
know that through his mother and brother he can do anything. And
then they do so much good. He didn't tell you about his hospital?
Ce sera admirable--everything from Paris."

Their conversation was interrupted by Anna, who had found the men
of the party in the billiard-room, and returned with them to the
terrace. There was still a long time before the dinner-hour, it
was exquisite weather, and so several different methods of
spending the next two hours were proposed. There were very many
methods of passing the time at Vozdvizhenskoe, and these were all
unlike those in use at Pokrovskoe.

"Une partie de lawn-tennis," Veslovsky proposed, with his
handsome smile. "We'll be partners again, Anna Arkadyevna."

"No, it's too hot; better stroll about the garden and have a row
in the boat, show Darya Alexandrovna the river-banks." Vronsky
proposed.

"I agree to anything," said Sviazhsky.

"I imagine that what Dolly would like best would be a stroll--
wouldn't you? And then the boat, perhaps," said Anna.

So it was decided. Veslovsky and Tushkevitch went off to the
bathing-place, promising to get the boat ready and to wait there
for them.

They walked along the path in two couples, Anna with Sviazhsky,
and Dolly with Vronsky. Dolly was a little embarrassed and
anxious in the new surroundings in which she found herself.
Abstractly, theoretically, she did not merely justify, she
positively approved of Anna's conduct. As is indeed not
unfrequent with women of unimpeachable virtue, weary of the
monotony of respectable existence, at a distance she not only
excused illicit love, she positively envied it. Besides, she
loved Anna with all her heart. But seeing Anna in actual life
among these strangers, with this fashionable tone that was so new
to Darya Alexandrovna, she felt ill at ease. What she disliked
particularly was seeing Princess Varvara ready to overlook
everything for the sake of the comforts she enjoyed.

As a general principle, abstractly, Dolly approved of Anna's
action; but to see the man for whose sake her action had been
taken was disagreeable to her. Moreover, she had never liked
Vronsky. She thought him very proud, and saw nothing in him of
which he could be proud except his wealth. But against her own
will, here in his own house, he overawed her more than ever, and
she could not be at ease with him. She felt with him the same
feeling she had had with the maid about her dressing-jacket. Just
as with the maid she had felt not exactly ashamed, but
embarrassed at her darns, so she felt with him not exactly
ashamed, but embarrased at herself.

Dolly was ill at ease, and tried to fmd a subject of
conversation. Even though she supposed that, through his pride,
praise of his house and garden would be sure to be disagreeable
to him, she did all the same tell him how much she liked his
house.

"Yes, it's a very fine building, and in the good old-fashioned
style," he said.

"I like so much the court in front of the steps. Was that always
so?"

"Oh, no!" he said, and his face beamed with pleasure. "If you
could only have seen that court last spring!"

And he began, at first rather diffidently, but more and more
carried away by the subject as he went on, to draw her attention
to the various details of the decoration of his house and garden.
It was evident that, having devoted a great deal of trouble to
improve and beautify his home, Vronsky felt a need to show off
the improvements to a new person, and was genuinely delighted at
Darya Alexandrovna's praise.

"If you would care to look at the hospital, and are not tired,
indeed, it's not far. Shall we go?" he said, glancing into her
face to convince himself that she was not bored. "are you coming,
Anna?" he turned to her.

"We will come, won't we?" she said, addressing Sviazhsky. "Mais
il ne faut pas lapser le pauvre Veslovsky et Tushkevitch se
morfondre la dans le bateau. We must send and tell them."

"Yes, this is a monument he is setting up here," said Anna,
turning to Dolly with that sly smile of comprehension with which
she had previously talked about the hospital.

"Oh, it's a work of real importance!" said Sviazhsky. But to show
he was not trying to ingratiate himself with Vronsky, he promptly
added some slightly critical remarks.

"I wonder, though, count," he said, "that while you do so much
for the health of the peasants, you take so little interest in
the schools."

"C'est devenu tellement common, les ecoles," said Vronsky. "You
understand it's not on that account, but it just happens so, my
interest has been diverted elsewhere. This way then to the
hospital," he said to Darya Alexandrovna, pointing to a turning
out of the avenue.

The ladies put up their parasols and turned into the side-path.
After going down several turnings, and going through a little
gate, Darya Alexandrovna saw standing on rising ground before her
a large pretentious-looking red building, almost finished. The
iron roof, which was not yet painted, shone with dazzling
brightness in the sunshine. Beside the finished building another
had been begun, surrounded by scaffolding. Workmen in aprons,
standing on scaffolds, were laying bricks, pouring mortar out of
vats, and smoothing it with trowels.

"How quickly work gets done with you!" said Sviazhsky. "When I
was here last time the roof was not on."

"By the autumn it will all be ready. Inside almost everything is
done," said Anna.

"And what's this new building?"

"That's the house for the doctor and the dispensary," answered
Vronsky, seeing the architect in a short jacket coming towards
him; and excusing himself to the ladies, he went to meet him.

Going round a hole where the workmen were slaking lime, he stood
still with the architect and began talking rather warmly.

"The front is still too low," he said to Anna, who had asked what
was the matter.

"I said the foundation ought to be raised," said Anna.

"Yes, of course it would have been much better, Anna Arkadyevna,"
said the architect, "but now it's too late."

"Yes, I take a great interest in it," Anna answered Sviazhsky,
who was expressing his surprise at her knowledge of architecture.
"This new building ought to have been in harmony with the
hospital. It was an afterthought, and was begun without a plan."

Vronsky, having finished his talk with the architect, joined the
ladies, and led them inside the hospital.

Although they were still at work on the cornices outside and were
painting on the ground-floor, up-stairs almost all the rooms were
finished. Going up the broad cast-iron staircase to the landing,
they walked into the first large room. The walls were stuccoed to
look like marble, the huge plate-glass windows were already in,
only the parquet floor was not yet finished, and the carpenters,
who were planing a block of it, left their work, taking off the
bands that fastened their hair, to greet the gentry.

"This is the reception-room," said Vronsky. "Here there will be a
desk, tables, and benches, and nothing more."

"This way; let us go in here. Don't go near the window," said
Anna, trying the paint to see if it were dry. "Alexey, the
paint's dry already," she added.

From the reception-room they went into the corridor. Here Vronsky
showed them the mechanism for ventilation on a novel system. Then
he showed them marble baths, and beds with extraordinary springs.
Then he showed them the wards one after another, the store-room,
the linen-room, then the heating-stove of a new pattern, then the
trolleys, which would make no noise as they carried everything
needed along the corridors, and many other things. Sviazhsky, as
a connoisseur in the latest mechanical improvements, appreciated
everything fully. Dolly simply wondered at all she had not seen
before, and, anxious to understand it all, made minute inquiries
about everything, which gave Vronsky great satisfaction.

"Yes, I imagine that this will be the solitary example of a
properly fitted hospital in Russia," said Sviazhsky.

"And won't you have a lying-in ward?" asked Dolly. "That's so
much needed in the country. I have often . . ."

In spite of his usual courtesy, Vronsky interrupted her.

"This is not a lying-in home, but a hospital for the sick, and is
intended for all diseases, except infectious complaints," he
said. "Ah! look at this," and he rolled up to Darya Alexandrovna
an invalid-chair that had just been ordered for the
convalescents. "Look." He sat down in the chair and began moving
it. "The patient can't walk--still too weak, perhaps, or
something wrong with his legs, but he must have air, and he
moves, rolls himself along...."  Darya Alexandrovna was
interested by everything. She liked everything very much, but
most of all she liked Vronsky himself with his natural,
simple-hearted eagerness. "Yes, he's a very nice, good man," she
thought several times, not hearing what he said, but looking at
him and penetrating into his expression, while she mentally put
herself in Anna's place. She liked him so much just now with his
eager interest that she saw how Anna could be in love with him.

Chapter 21

"No, I think the princess is tired, and horses don't interest
her," Vronsky said to Anna, who wanted to go on to the stables,
where Sviazhsky wished to see the new stallion. "You go on, while
I escort the princess home, and we'll have a little talk," he
said, "if you would like that?" he added, turning to her.

"I know nothing about horses, and I shall be delighted," answered
Darya Alexandrovna, rather astonished.

She saw by Vronsky's face that he wanted something from her. She
was not mistaken. As soon as they had passed through the little
gate back into the garden, he looked in the direction Anna had
taken, and having made sure that she could neither hear nor see
them, he began:

"You guess that I have something I want to say to you," he said,
looking at her with laughing eyes. "I am not wrong in believing
you to be a friend of Anna's." He took off his hat, and taking
out his handkerchief, wiped his head, which was growing bald.

Darya Alexandrovna made no answer, and merely stared at him with
dismay. When she was left alone with him, she suddenly felt
afraid; his laughing eyes and stern expression scared her.

The most diverse suppositions as to what he was about to speak of
to her flashed into her brain. "He is going to beg me to come to
stay with them with the children, and I shall have to refuse; or
to create a sew will receive Anna in Moscow.... Or isn't it
Vassenka Veslovsky and his relations with Anna? Or perhaps about
Kitty, that he feels he was to blame?" All her conjectures were
unpleasant, but she did not guess what he really wanted to talk
about to her.

"You have so much influence with Anna, she is so fond of you," he
said; "do help me."

Darya Alexandrovna looked with timid inquiry into his energetic
face, which under the lime-trees was continually being lighted up
in patches by the sunshine, and then passing into complete shadow
again. She waited for him to say more, but he walked in silence
beside her, scratching with his cane in the gravel.

"You have come to see us, you, the only woman of Anna's former
friends--I don't count Princess Varvara--but I know that you have
done this not because you regard our position as normal, but
because, understanding all the difficulty of the position, you
still love her and want to be a help to her. Have I understood
you rightly?" he asked, looking round at her.

"Oh, yes," answered Darya Alexandrovna, putting down her
sunshade, "but. . ."

"No," he broke in, and unconsciously, oblivious of the awkward
position into which he was putting his companion, he stopped
abruptly, so that she had to stop short too. "No one feels more
deeply and intensely than I do all the difficulty of Anna's
position; and that you may well understand, if you do me the
honor of supposing I have any heart. I am to blame for that
position, and that is why I feel it."

"I understand," said Darya Alexandrovna, involuntarily admiring
the sincerity and firmness with which he said this. "But just
because you feel yourself responsible, you exaggerate it, I am
afraid," she said. "Her position in the world is difficult, I can
well understand."

"In the world it is hell!" he brought out quickly, frowning
darkly. "You can't imagine moral sufferings greater than what she
went through in Petersburg in that fortnight ...and I beg you
to believe it."

"Yes, but here, so long as neither Anna ...nor you miss
society . . ."

"Society!" he said contemptuously, "how could I miss society?"

"So far--and it may be so always--you are happy and at peace. I
see in Anna that she is happy, perfectly happy, she has had time
to tell me so much already," said Darya Alexandrovna, smiling;
and involuntarily, as she said this, at the same moment a doubt
entered her mind whether Anna really were happy.

But Vronsky, it appeared, had no doubts on that score.

"Yes, yes," he said, "I know that she has revived after all her
sufferings, she is happy. She is happy in the present. But I? . .
. I am afraid of what is before us ...I beg your pardon, you
would like to walk on?"

"No, I don't mind."

"Well, then, let us sit here."

Darya Alexandrovna sat down on a garden-seat in a corner of the
avenue. He stood up facing her.

"I see that she is happy," he repeated, and the doubt whether she
were happy sank more deeply into Darya Alexandrovna's mind. "But
can it last? Whether we have acted rightly or wrongly is another
question, but the die is cast," he said, passing from Russian to
French, "and we are bound together for life. We are united by all
the ties of love that we hold most sacred. We have a child, we
may have other children. But the law and all the conditions of
our position are such that thousands of complications arise which
she does not see and does not want to see. And that one can well
understand. But I can't help seeing them. My daughter is by law
not my daughter, but Karenin's. I cannot bear this falsity!" he
said, with a vigorous gesture of refusal, and he looked with
gloomy inquiry towards Darya Alexandrovna.

She made no answer, but simply gazed at him. He went on:

"One day a son may be born, my son, and he will be legally a
Karenin; he will not be the heir of my name nor of my property,
and however happy we may be in our home life and however many
children we may have, there will be no real tie between us. They
will be Karenins. You can understand the bitterness and horror of
this position! I have tried to speak of this to Anna. It
irritates her. She does not understand, and to her I cannot speak
plainly of all this. Now look at another side. I am happy, happy
in her love, but I must have occupation. I have found occupation,
and am proud of what I am doing and consider it nobler than the
pursuits of my former companions at court and in the army. And
most certainly I would not change the work I am doing for theirs.
I am working here, settled in my own place, and I am happy and
contented, and we need nothing more to make us happy. I love my
work here. Ce n'est pas un pis-aller, on the contrary . . ."

Darya Alexandrovna noticed that at this point in his explanation
he grew confused, and she did not quite understand this
digression, but she felt that having once begun to speak of
matters near his heart, of which he could not speak to Anna, he
was now making a clean breast of everything, and that the
question of his pursuits in the country fell into the same
category of matters near his heart, as the question of his
relations with Anna.

"Well, I will go on," he said, collecting himself. "The great
thing is that as I work I want to have a conviction that what I
am doing will not die with me, that I shall have heirs to come
after me,--and this I have not. Conceive the position of a man
who knows that his children, the children of the woman he loves,
will not be his, but will belong to some one who hates them and
cares nothing about them! It is awful!"

He paused, evidently much moved.

"Yes, indeed, I see that. But what can Anna do?" queried Darya
Alexandrovna.

"Yes, that brings me to the object of my conversation," he said,
calms ing himself with an effort. "Anna can, it depends on
her.... Even to petition the Tsar for legitimization, a divorce
is essential. And that depends on Anna. Her husband agreed to a
divorce--at that time your husband had arranged it completely.
And now, I know, he would not refuse it. It is only a matter of
writing to him. He said plainly at that time that if she
expressed the desire, he would not refuse. Of course," he said
gloomily, "it is one of those Pharisaical cruelties of which only
such heartless men are capable. He knows what agony any
recollection of him must give her, and knowing her, he must have
a letter from her. I can understand that it is agony to her. But
the matter is of such importance, that one must passer par-dessus
toutes ces finesses de sentiment. Il y va du bonheur et de
l'existence d'Anne et de ses enfants. I won't speak of myself,
though it's hard for me, very hard," he said, with an expression
as though he were threatening some one for its being hard for
him. "And so it is, princess, that I am shamelessly clutching at
you as an anchor of salvation. Help me to persuade her to write
to him and ask for a divorce."

"Yes, of course," Darya Alexandrovna said dreamily, as she
vividly recalled her last interview with Alexey Alexandrovitch.
"Yes, of course," she repeated with decision, thinking of Anna.

"Use your influence with her, make her write. I don't like--I'm
almost unable to speak about this to her."

"Very well, I will talk to her. But how is it she does not think
of it herself?" said Darya Alexandrovna, and for some reason she
suddenly at that point recalled Anna's strange new habit of
half-closing her eyes. And she remembered that Anna drooped her
eyelids just when the deeper questions of life were touched upon.
"Just as though she half-shut her eyes to her own life, so as not
to see everything," thought Dolly. "Yes, indeed, for my own sake
and for hers I will talk to her," Dolly said in reply to his look
of gratitude.

They got up and walked to the house.

Chapter 22

When Anna found Dolly at home before her, she looked intently  in
her eyes, as though questioning her about the talk she had had
with Vronsky, but she made no inquiry in words.

"I believe it's dinner-time," she said. "We've not seen each
other at all yet. I am reckoning on the evening. Now I want to go
and dress. I expect you do too; we all got splashed at the
buildings."

Dolly went to her room and she felt amused. To change her dress
was impossible, for she had already put on her best dress. But in
order to signify in some way her preparation for dinner, she
asked the maid to brush her dress, changed her cuffs and tie, and
put some lace on her head.

"This is all I can do," she said with a smile to Anna, who came
in to her in a third dress, again of extreme simplicity.

"Yes, we are too formal here," she said, as it were apologizing
for her magnificence. "Alexey is delighted at your visit, as he
rarely is at anything. He has completely lost his heart to you,"
she added. "You're not tired?"

There was no time for talking about anything before dinner. Going
into the drawing-room they found Princess Varvara already there,
and the gentlemen of the party in black frock-coats. The
architect wore a swallow- tail coat. Vronsky presented the doctor
and the steward to his guest. The architect he had already
introduced to her at the hospital.

A stout butler, resplendent with a smoothly shaven round chin and
a starched white cravat, announced that dinner was ready, and the
ladies got up. Vronsky asked Sviazhsky to take in Anna
Arkadyevna, and himself offered his arm to Dolly. Veslovsky was
before Tushkevitch in offering his arm to Princess Varvara, so
that Tushkevitch with the steward and the doctor walked in alone.

The dinner, the dining-room, the service, the waiting at table,
the wine, and the food, were not simply in keeping with the
general tone of modern luxury throughout all the house, but
seemed even more sumptuous and modern. Darya Alexandrovna watched
this luxury which was novel to her, and as a good housekeeper
used to managing a household--although she never dreamed of
adapting anything she saw to her own household, as it was all in
a style of luxury far above her own manner of living--she could
not help scrutinizing every detail, and wondering how and by whom
it was all done. Vassenka Veslovsky, her husband, and even
Sviazhsky, and many other people she knew, would never have
considered this question, and would have readily believed what
every wellbred host tries to make his guests feel, that is, that
all that is well- ordered in his house has cost him, the host, no
trouble whatever, but comes of itself. Darya Alexandrovna was
well aware that even porridge for the children's breakfast does
not come of itself, and that therefore, where so complicated and
magnificent a style of luxury was maintained, some one must give
earnest attention to its organization. And from the glance with
which Alexey Kirillovitch scanned the table, from the way he
nodded to the butler, and offered Darya Alexandrovna her choice
between cold soup and hot soup, she saw that it was all organized
and maintained by the care of the master of the house himself. It
was evident that it all rested no more upon Anna than upon
Veslovsky. She, Sviazhsky, the princess, and Veslovsky, were
equally guests, with light hearts enjoying what had been arranged
for them.

Anna was the hostess only in conducting the conversation. The
con" versation was a difficult one for the lady of the house at a
small table with persons present, like the steward and the
architect, belonging to a completely different world, struggling
not to be overawed by an elegance to which they were
unaccustomed, and unable to sustain a large share in the general
conversation. But this difficult conversation Anna directed with
her usual tact and naturalness, and indeed she did so with actual
enjoyment, as Darya Alexandrovna observed. The conversation began
about the row Tushkevitch and Veslovsky had taken alone together
in the boat, and Tushkevitch began describing the last boat-races
in Petersburg at the Yacht Club. But Anna, seizing the first
pause, at once turned to the architect to draw him out of his
silence.

"Nikolay Ivanitch was struck," she said, meaning Sviazhsky, "at
the progress the new building had made since he was here last;
but I am there every day, and every day I wonder at the rate at
which it grows."

"It's first-rate working with his excellency," said the architect
with a smile (he was respectful and composed, though with a sense
of his own dignity). "It's a very different matter to have to do
with the district authorities. Where one would have to write out
sheaves of papers, here I call upon the count, and in three words
we settle the business."

"The American way of doing business," said Sviazhsky, with a
smile.

"Yes, there they build in a rational fashion . . ."

The conversation passed to the misuse of political power in the
United States, but Anna quickly brought it round to another
topic, so as to draw the steward into talk.

"Have you ever seen a reaping-machine?" she said, addressing
Darya Alexandrovna. "We had just ridden over to look at one when
we met. It's the first time I ever saw one."

"How do they work?" asked Dolly.

"Exactly like little scissors. A plank and a lot of little
scissors. Like this."

Anna took a knife and fork in her beautiful white hands covered
with rings, and began showing how the machine worked. It was
clear that she saw nothing would be understood from her
explanation; but aware that her talk was pleasant and her hands
beautiful she went on explaining.

"More like little penknives," Veslovsky said playfully, never
taking his eyes off her.

Anna gave a just perceptible smile, but made no answer. "Isn't it
true, Karl Fedoritch, that it's just like little scissors?" she
said to the steward.

"Oh, ja," answered the German. "Es ist ein ganz einfaches Ding,"
and he began to explain the construction of the machine.

"It's a pity it doesn't bind too. I saw one at the Vienna
exhibition, which binds with a wire," said Sviazhsky. "They would
be more profitable in use."

"Es kommt drauf an ...Der Preis vom Draht muss ausgerechnet
werden." And the German, roused from his taciturnity, turned to
Vronsky. "Das lasst sich ausrechnen, Erlaucht." The German was
just feeling in the pocket where were his pencil and the
note-book he always wrote in, but recollecting that he was at a
dinner, and observing Vronsky's chilly glance, he checked
himself. "Zu compliziert, macht zu viel Klopot," he concluded.

"Wunscht man Dorhots, so hat man auch Klopots," said Vassenka
Veslovsky, mimicking the German. "J'adore l'allemand," he
addressed Anna again with the same smile.

"Cessez," she said with playful severity.

"We expected to find you in the fields, Vassily Semyonitch," she
said to the doctor, a sickly-looking man; "have you been there?"

"I went there, but I had taken flight," the doctor answered with
gloomy jocoseness.

"Then you've taken a good constitutional?"

"Splendid!"

"Well, and how was the old woman? I hope it's not typhus?"

"Typhus it is not, but it's taking a bad turn."

"What a pity!" said Anna, and having thus paid the dues of
civility to her domestic circle, she turned to her own friends.

"It would be a hard task, though, to construct a machine from
your description, Anna Arkadyevna," Sviazhsky said jestingly.

"Oh, no, why so?" said Anna with a smile that betrayed that she
knew there was something charming in her disquisitions upon the
machine that had been noticed by Sviazhsky. This new trait of
girlish coquettishness made an unpleasant impression on Dolly.

"But Anna Arkadyevna's knowledge of architecture is marvelous,'
said Tushkevitch.

"To be sure;I heard Anna Arkadyevna talking yesterday about
plinths and damp-courses," said Veslovsky. "Have I got it right?"

"There's nothing marvelous about it, when one sees and hears so
much of it," said Anna. "But, I dare say, you don't even know
what houses are made of?"

Darya Alexandrovna saw that Anna disliked the tone of raillery
that existed between her and Veslovsky, but fell in with it
against her will.

Vronsky acted in this matter quite differently from Levin. He
obviously attached no significance to Veslovsky's chattering; on
the contrary, he encouraged his jests.

"Come now, tell us, Veslovsky, how are the stones held together?"

"By cement, of course."

"Bravo! And what is cement?"

"Oh, some sort of paste ...no, putty," said Veslovsky, raising
a general laugh.

The company at dinner, with the exception of the doctor, the
architect, and the steward, who remained plunged in gloomy
silence, kept up a conversation that never paused, glancing off
one subject, fastening on another, and at times stinging one or
the other to the quick. Once Darya Alexandrovna felt wounded to
the quick, and got so hot that she positively flushed and
wondered afterwards whether she had said anything extreme or
unpleasant. Sviazhsky began talking of Levin, describing his
strange view that machinery is simply pernicious in its effects
on Russian agriculture.

"I have not the pleasure of knowing this M. Levin," Vronsky said,
smiling, "but most likely he has never seen the machines he
condemns; or if he has seen and tried any, it must have been
after a queer fashion, some Russian imitation, not a machine from
abroad. What sort of views can any one have on such a subject?"

"Turkish views, in general," Veslovsky said, turning to Anna with
a smile.

"I can't defend his opinions," Darya Alexandrovna said, firing
up; "but I can say that he's a highly cultivated man, and if he
were here he would know very well how to answer you, though I am
not capable of doing so."

"I like him extremely, and we are great friends," Sviazhsky said,
smiling good-naturedly. "Mais pardon, il est un petit peu toque;
he maintains, for instance, that district councils and
arbitration boards are all of no use, and he is unwilling to take
part in anything."

"It's our Russian apathy," said Vronsky, pouring water from an
iced decanter into a delicate glass on a high stem; "we've no
sense of the duties our privileges impose upon us, and so we
refuse to recognize these duties."

"I know no man more strict in the performance of his duties,"
said Darya Alexandrovna, irritated by Vronsky's tone of
superiority.

"For my part," pursued Vronsky, who was evidently for some reason
or other keenly affected by this conversation, "such as I am, I
am, on the contrary, extremely grateful for the honor they have
done me, thanks to Nikolay Ivanitch" (he indicated Sviazhsky),
"in electing me a justice of the peace. I consider that for me
the duty of being present at the session, of judging some
peasants' quarrel about a horse, is as important as anything I
can do. And I shall regard it as an honor if they elect me for
the district council. It's only in that way I can pay for the
advantages I enjoy as a landowner. Unluckily they don't
understand the weight that the big landowners ought to have in
the state."

It was strange to Darya Alexandrovna to hear how serenely
confident he was of being right at his own table. She thought how
Levin, who believed the opposite, was just as positive in his
opinions at his own table. But she loved Levin, and so she was on
his side.

"So we can reckon upon you, count, for the coming elections?"
said Sviazhsky. "But you must come a little beforehand, so as to
be on the spot by the eighth. If you would do me the honor to
stop with me."

"I rather agree with your beau-frere," said Anna, "though not
quite on the same ground as he," she added with a smile. "I'm
afraid that we have too many of these public duties in these
latter days. Just as in old days there were so many government
functionaries that one had to call in a functionary for every
single thing, so now every one's doing some sort of public duty.
Alexey has been here now six months, and he's a member, I do
believe, of five or six different public bodies. Du train que
cela va, the whole time will be wasted on it. And I'm afraid that
with such a multiplicity of these bodies, they'll end in being a
mere form. How many are you a member of, Nikolay Ivanitch?" she
turned to Sviazhsky--"over twenty, I fancy."

Anna spoke lightly, but irritation could be discerned in her
tone. Darya Alexandrovna, watching Anna and Vronsky attentively,
detected it instantly. She noticed, too, that as she spoke
Vronsky's face had immediately taken a serious and obstinate
expression. Noticing this, and that Princess Varvara at once made
haste to change the conversation by talking of Petersburg
acquaintances, and remembering what Vronsky had without apparent
connection said in the garden of his work in the country, Dolly
surmised that this question of public activity was connected with
some deep private disagreement between Anna and Vronsky.

The dinner, the wine, the decoration of the table were all very
good; but it was all like what Darya Alexandrovna had seen at
formal dinners and balls which of late years had become quite
unfamiliar to her; it all had the same impersonal and constrained
character, and so on an ordinary day and in a little circle of
friends it made a disagreeable impression on her.

After dinner they sat on the terrace, then they proceeded to play
lawn tennis. The players, divided into two parties, stood on
opposite sides of a tightly drawn net with gilt poles on the
carefully leveled and rolled croquet-ground. Darya Alexandrovna
made an attempt to play, but it was a long time before she could
understand the game, and by the time she did understand it, she
was so tired that she sat down with Princess Varvara and simply
looked on at the players. Her partner, Tushkevitch, gave up
playing too, but the others kept the game up for a long time.
Sviazhsky and Vronsky both played very well and seriously. They
kept a sharp lookout on the balls served to them, and without
haste or getting in each other's way, they ran adroitly up to
them, waited for the rebound, and neatly and accurately returned
them over the net. Veslovsky played worse than the others. He was
too eager, but he kept the players lively with his high spirits.
His laughter and outcries never paused. Like the other men of the
party, with the ladies' permission, he took off his coat, and his
solid, comely figure in his white shirt-sleeves, with his red
perspiring face and his impulsive movements, made a picture that
imprinted itself vividly on the memory.

When Darya Alexandrovna lay in bed that night, as soon as she
closed her eyes, she saw Vassenka Veslovsky flying about the
croquet-ground.

During the game Darya Alexandrovna was not enjoying herself. She
did not like the light tone of raillery that was kept up all the
time between Vassenka Veslovsky and Anna, and the unnaturalness
altogether of grown-up people, all alone without children,
playing at a child's game. But to avoid breaking up the party and
to get through the time somehow, after a rest she joined the game
again, and pretended to be enjoying it. All that day it seemed to
her as though she were acting in a theater with actors cleverer
than she, and that her bad acting was spoiling the whole
performance. She had come with the intention of staying two days,
if all went well. But in the evening, during the game, she made
up her mind that she would go home next day. The maternal cares
and worries, which she had so hated on the way, now, after a day
spent without them, struck her in quite another light, and
tempted her back to them.

When, after evening tea and a row by night in the boat, Darya
Alexandrovna went alone to her room, took off her dress, and
began arranging her thin hair for the night, she had a great
sense of relief.

It was positively disagreeable to her to think that Anna was
coming to see her immediately. She longed to be alone with her
own thoughts.

Chapter 23

Dolly was wanting to go to bed when Anna came in to see her,
attired for the night. In the course of the day Anna had several
times begun to speak of matters near her heart, and every time
after a few words she had stopped: "Afterwards, by ourselves,
we'll talk about everything. I've got so much I want to tell
you," she said.

Now they were by themselves, and Anna did not know what to talk
about. She sat in the window looking at Dolly, and going over in
her own mind all the stores of intimate talk which had seemed so
inexhaustible beforehand, and she found nothing. At that moment
it seemed to her that everything had been said already.

"Well, what of Kitty?" she said with a heavy sigh, looking
penitently at Dolly. "Tell me the truth, Dolly: isn't she angry
with me?"

"Angry? Oh, no!" said Darya Alexandrovna, smiling.

"But she hates me, despises me?"

"Oh, no! But you know that sort of thing isn't forgiven."

"Yes, yes," said Anna, turning away and looking out of the open
window. "But I was not to blame. And who is to blame? What's the
meaning of being to blame? Could it have been otherwise? What do
you think? Could it possibly have happened that you didn't become
the wife of Stiva?"

"Really, I don't know. But this is what I want you to tell me . .
."

"Yes, yes, but we've not finished about Kitty. Is she happy? He's
a very nice man, they say."

"He's much more than very nice. I don't know a better man."

"Ah, how glad I am! I'm so glad! Much more than very nice," she
repeated.

Dolly smiled.

"But tell me about yourself. We've a great deal to talk about.
And I've had a talk with . . ." Dolly did not know what to call
him. She felt it awkward to call him either the count or Alexey
Kirillovitch.

"With Alexey," said Anna, "I know what you talked about. But I
wanted to ask you directly what you think of me, of my life?"

"How am I to say like that straight off? I really don't know."

"No, tell me all the same.... You see my life. But you mustn't
forget that you're seeing us in the summer, when you have come to
us and we are not alone.... But we came here early in the spring,
lived quite alone, and shall be alone again, and I desire nothing
better. But imagine me living alone without him, alone, and that
will be ...I see by everything that it will often be repeated,
that he will be half the time away from home," she said, getting
up and sitting down close by Dolly.

"Of course," she interrupted Dolly, who would have answered, "of
course I won't try to keep him by force. I don't keep him indeed.
The races are just coming, his horses are running, he will go.
I'm very glad. But think of me, fancy my position.... But what's
the use of talking about it?" She smiled. "Well, what did he talk
about with you?"

"He spoke of what I want to speak about of myself, and it's easy
for me to be his advocate; of whether there is not a possibility
...whether you could not . . ." (Darya Alexandrovna hesitated)
"correct, improve your position.... You know how I look at it....
But all the same, if possible, you should get married...."

"Divorce, you mean?" said Anna. "Do you know, the only woman who
came to see me in Petersburg was Betsy Tverskaya? You know her,
of course? Au fond, c'est la femme la plus depraver qui existe.
She had an intrigue with Tushkevitch, deceiving her husband in
the basest way. And she told me that she did not care to know me
so long as my position was irregular. Don't imagine I would
compare ...I know you, darling. But I could not help
remembering ...Well, so what did he say to you?" she repeated.

"He said that he was unhappy on your account and his own. Perhaps
you will say that it's egoism, but what a legitimate and noble
egoism. He wants first of all to legitimize his daughter, and to
be your husband, to have a legal right to you."

"What wife, what slave can be so utterly a slave as I, in my
position?" she put in gloomily.

"The chief thing he desires ...he desires that you should not
suffer."

"That's impossible. Well?"

"Well, and the most legitimate desire--he wishes that your
children should have a name."

"What children?" Anna said, not looking at Dolly, and half
closing her eyes.

"Annie and those to come . . ."

"He need not trouble on that score; I shall have no more
children."

"How can you tell that you won't?"

"I shall not, because I don't wish it." And, in spite of all her
emotion, Anna smiled, as she caught the naive expression of
curiosity, wonder, and horror on Dolly's face.

"The doctor told me after my illness . . ."

  * * * * * * * * *

"Impossible!" said Dolly, opening her eyes wide.

For her this was one of those discoveries the consequences and
deductions from which are so immense that all that one feels for
the first instant is that it is impossible to take it all in, and
that one will have to reflect a great, great deal upon it.

This discovery, suddenly throwing light on all those families of
one or two children, which had hitherto been so incomprehensible
to her, aroused so many ideas, reflections, and contradictory
emotions, that she had nothing to say, and simply gazed with
wide-open eyes of wonder at Anna. This was the very thing she had
been dreaming of, but now learning that it was possible, she was
horrified. She felt that it was too simple a solution of too
complicated a problem.

"N'est-ce pas immoral?" was all she said, after a brief pause.

"Why so? Think, I have a choice between two alternatives: either
to be with child, that is an invalid, or to be the friend and
companion of my husband--practically my husband," Anna said in a
tone intentionally superficial and frivolous.

"Yes, yes," said Darya Alexandrovna, hearing the very arguments
she had used to herself, and not finding the same force in them
as before.

"For you, for other people," said Anna, as though divining her
thoughts, "there may be reason to hesitate; but for me ...You
must consider, I am not his wife; he loves me as long as he loves
me. And how am I to keep his love? Not like this!"

She moved her white hands in a curve before her waist with
extraordinary rapidity, as happens during moments of excitement;
ideas and memories rushed into Darya Alexandrovna's head. "I,"
she thought, "did not keep my attraction for Stiva; he left me
for others, and the first woman for whom he betrayed me did not
keep him by being always pretty and lively. He deserted her and
took another. And can Anna attract and keep Count Vronsky in that
way? If that is what he looks for, he will find dresses and
manners still more attractive and charming. And however white and
beautiful her bare arms are, however beautiful her full figure
and her eager face under her black curls, he will find something
better still, just as my disgusting, pitiful, and charming
husband does."

Dolly made no answer, she merely sighed. Anna noticed this sigh,
indicating dissent, and she went on. In her armory she had other
arguments so strong that no answer could be made to them.

"Do you say that it's not right? But you must consider," she went
on; "you forget my position. How can I desire children? I'm not
speaking of the suffering, I'm not afraid of that. Think only,
what are my children to be? Ill-fated children, who will have to
bear a stranger's name. For the very fact of their birth they
will be forced to be ashamed of their mother, their father, their
birth."

"But that is just why a divorce is necessary." But Anna did not
hear her. She longed to give utterance to all the arguments with
which she had so many times convinced herself.

"What is reason given me for, if I am not to use it to avoid
bringing unhappy beings into the world!" She looked at Dolly, but
without waiting for a reply she went on:

"I should always feel I had wronged these unhappy children," she
said. "If they are not, at any rate they are not unhappy; while
if they are unhappy, I alone should be to blame for it."

These were the very arguments Darya Alexandrovna had used in her
own reflections; but she heard them without understanding them.
"How can one wrong creatures that don't exist?" she thought. And
all at once the idea struck her: could it possibly,under any
circumstances, have been better for her favorite Grisha if he had
never existed? And this seemed to her so wild, so strange, that
she shook her head to drive away this tangle of whirling, mad
ideas.

"No, I don't know; it's not right," was all she said, with an
expression of disgust on her face.

"Yes, but you mustn't forget that you and I ...And besides
that," added Anna, in spite of the wealth of her arguments and
the poverty of Dolly's objections, seeming still to admit that it
was not right, "don't forget the chief point, that I am not now
in the same position as you. For you the question is: do you
desire not to have any more children; while for me it is: do I
desire to have them? And that's a great difference. You must see
that I can't desire it in my position."

Darya Alexandrovna made no reply. She suddenly felt that she had
got far away from Anna; that there lay between them a barrier of
questions on which they could never agree, and about which it was
better not to speak.

Chapter 24

"Then there is all the more reason for you to legalize your
position, if possible," said Dolly.

"Yes, if possible," said Anna, speaking all at once in an utterly
different tone, subdued and mournful.

"Surely you don't mean a divorce is impossible? I was told your
husband had consented to it."

"Dolly, I don't want to talk about that."

"Oh, we won't then," Darya Alexandrovna hastened to say, noticing
the expression of suffering on Anna's face. "All I see is that
you take too gloomy a view of things."

"I? Not at all! I'm always bright and happy. You see, je fais des
passions. Veslovsky . . ."

"Yes, to tell the truth, I don't like Veslovsky's tone," said
Darya Alexandrovna, anxious to change the subject.

"Oh, that's nonsense! It amuses Alexey, and that's all; but he's
a boy, and quite under my control. You know, I turn him as I
please. It's just as it might be with your Grisha.... Dolly!"--
she suddenly changed the subject--"you say I take too gloomy a
view of things. You can't understand. It's too awful! I try not
to take any view of it at all."

"But I think you ought to. You ought to do all you can."

"But what can I do? Nothing. You tell me to marry Alexey, and say
I don't think about it. I don't think about it!" she repeated,
and a flush rose into her face. She got up, straightening her
chest, and sighed heavily. With her light step she began pacing
up and down the room, stopping now and then. "I don't think of
it? Not a day, not an hour passes that I don't think of it, and
blame myself for thinking of it ...because thinking of that
may drive me mad. Drive me mad!" she repeated. "When I think of
it, I can't sleep without morphine. But never mind. Let us talk
quietly. They tell me, divorce. In the first place, he won't give
me a divorce. He's under the influence of Countess Lidia Ivanovna
now."

Darya Alexandrovna, sitting erect on a chair, turned her head,
following Anna with a face of sympathetic suffering.

"You ought to make the attempt," she said softly.

"Suppose I make the attempt. What does it mean?" she said,
evidently giving utterance to a thought, a thousand times thought
over and learned by heart. "It means that I, hating him, but
still recognizing that I have wronged him--and I consider him
magnanimous--that I humiliate myself to write to him.... Well,
suppose I make the effort; I do it. Either I receive a
humiliating refusal or consent.... Well, I have received his
consent, say . . ." Anna was at that moment at the furthest end
of the room, and she stopped there, doing something to the
curtain at the window. "I receive his consent, but my ...my
son? They won't give him up to me. He will grow up despising me,
with his father, whom I've abandoned. Do you see, I love . . .
equally, I think, but both more than myself--two creatures,
Seryozha and Alexey."

She came out into the middle of the room and stood facing Dolly,
with her arms pressed tightly across her chest. In her white
dressing-gown her figure seemed more than usually grand and
broad. She bent her head, and with shining, wet eyes looked from
under her brows at Dolly, a thin little pitiful figure in her
patched dressing-jacket and nightcap, shaking all over with
emotion.

"It is only those two creatures that I love, and one excludes the
other. I can't have them together, and that's the only thing I
want. And since I can't have that, I don't care about the rest. I
don't care about any thing, anything. And it will end one way or
another, and so I can't, I don't like to talk of it. So don't
blame me, don't judge me for anything. You can't with your pure
heart understand all that I'm suffering." She went up, sat down
beside Dolly, and with a guilty look, peeped into her face and
took her hand.

"What are you thinking? What are you thinking about me? Don't
despise me. I don't deserve contempt. I'm simply unhappy. If any
one is unhappy, I am," she articulated, and turning away, she
burst into tears.

Left alone, Darya Alexandrovna said her prayers and went to bed.
She had felt for Anna with all her heart while she was speaking
to her, but now she could not force herself to think of her. The
memories of home and of her children rose up in her imagination
with a peculiar charm quite new to her, with a sort of new
brilliance. That world of her own seemed to her now so sweet and
precious that she would not on any account spend an extra day
outside it, and she made up her mind that she would certainly go
back next day.

Anna meantime went back to her boudoir, took a wine-glass and
dropped into it several drops of a medicine, of which the
principal ingredient was morphine. After drinking it off and
sitting still a little while, she went into her bedroom in a
soothed and more cheerful frame of mind.

When she went into the bedroom, Vronsky looked intently at her.
He was looking for traces of the conversation which he knew that,
staying so long in Dolly's room, she must have had with her. But
in her expression of restrained excitement, and of a sort of
reserve, he could find nothing but the beauty that always
bewitched him afresh though he was used to it, the consciousness
of it, and the desire that it should affect him. He did not want
to ask her what they had been talking of, but he hoped that she
would tell him something of her own accord. But she only said:

"I am so glad you like Dolly. You do, don't you?"

"Oh, I've known her a long while, you know. She's very
goodhearted, I suppose, mais excessivement terre-a-terre. Still,
I'm very glad to see her."

He took Anna's hand and looked inquiringly into her eyes.

Misinterpreting the look, she smiled to him. Next morning, in
spite of the protests of her hosts, Darya Alexandrovna prepared
for her homeward journey. Levin's coachman, in his by no means
new coat and shabby hat, with his ill-matched horses and his
coach with the patched mud-guards, drove with gloomy
determination into the covered gravel approach.

Darya Alexandrovna disliked taking leave of Princess Varvara and
the gentlemen of the party. After a day spent together, both she
and her hosts were distinctly aware that they did not get on
together, and that it was better for them not to meet. Only Anna
was sad. She knew that now, from Dolly's departure, no one again
would stir up within her soul the feelings that had been roused
by their conversation. It hurt her to stir up these feelings, but
yet she knew that that was the best part of her soul, and that
that part of her soul would quickly be smothered in the life she
was leading.

As she drove out into the open country, Darya Alexandrovna had a
delightful sense of relief, and she felt tempted to ask the two
men how they had liked being at Vronsky's, when suddenly the
coachman, Philip, expressed himself unasked:

"Rolling in wealth they may be, but three pots of oats was all
they gave us. Everything cleared up till there wasn't a grain
left by cockcrow. What are three pots? A mere mouthful! And oats
now down to forty-five kopecks. At our place, no fear, all comers
may have as much as they can eat."

"The master's a screw," put in the counting-house clerk.

"Well, did you like their horses?" asked Dolly.

"The horses!--there's no two opinions about them. And the food
was good. But it seemed to me sort of dreary there, Darya
Alexandrovna. I don't know what you thought," he said, turning
his handsome, good-natured face to her.

"I thought so too. Well, shall we get home by evening?"

"Eh, we must!"

On reaching home and finding every one entirely satisfactory and
particularly charming, Darya Alexandrovna began with great
liveliness telling them how she had arrived, how warmly they had
received her, of the luxury and good taste in which the Vronskys
lived, and of their recreations, and she would not allow a word
to be said against them.

"One has to know Anna and Vronsky--I have got to know him better
now--to see how nice they are, and how touching," she said,
speaking now with perfect sincerity, and forgetting the vague
feeling of dissatisfaction and awkwardness she had experienced
there.

Chapter 25

Vronsky and Anna spent the whole summer and part of the winter
in the country, living in just the same condition, and still
taking no steps to obtain a divorce. It was an understood thing
between them that they should not go away anywhere; but both
felt, the longer they lived alone, especially in the autumn,
without guests in the house, that they could not stand this
existence, and that they would have to alter it.

Their life was apparently such that nothing better could be
desired. They had the fullest abundance of everything; they had a
child, and both had occupation. Anna devoted just as much care to
her appearance when they had no visitors, and she did a great
deal of reading, both of novels and of what serious literature
was in fashion. She ordered all the books that were praised in
the foreign papers and reviews she received, and read them with
that concentrated attention which is only given to what is read
in seclusion. Moreover, every subject that was of interest to
Vronsky, she studied in books and special journals, so that he
often went straight to her with questions relating to agriculture
or architecture, sometimes even with questions relating to
horse-breeding or sport. He was amazed at her knowledge, her
memory, and at first was disposed to doubt it, to ask for
confirmation of her facts; and she would find what he asked for
in some book, and show it to hinf.

The building of the hospital, too, interested her. She did not
merely assist, but planned and suggested a great deal herself.
But her chief thought was still of herself--how far she was dear
to Vronsky, how far she could make up to him for all he had given
up. Vronsky appreciated this desire not only to please, but to
serve him, which had become the sole aim of her existence, but at
the same time he wearied of the loving snares in which she tried
to hold him fast. As time went on, and he saw himself more and
more often held fast in these snares, he had an evergrowing
desire, not so much to escape from them, as to try whether they
hindered his freedom. Had it not been for this growing desire to
be free, not to have scenes every time he wanted to go to the
town to a meeting or a race, Vronsky would have been perfectly
satisfied with his life. The role he had taken up, the rate of a
wealthy landowner, one of that class which ought to be the very
heart of the Russian aristocracy, was entirely to his taste; and
now, after spending six months in that character, he derived even
greater satisfaction from it. And his management of his estate,
which occupied and absorbed him more and more, was most
successful. In spite of the immense sums cost him by the
hospital, by machinery, by cows ordered from Switzerland, and
many other things, he was convinced that he was not wasting, but
increasing his substance. In all matters affecting income, the
sales of timber, wheat, and wool, the letting of lands, Vronsky
was hard as a rock, and knew well how to keep up prices.

In all operations on a large scale on this and his other estates,
he kept to the simplest methods involving no risk, and in
trifling details he was careful and exacting to an extreme
degree. In spite of all the cunning and ingenuity of the German
steward, who would try to tempt him into purchases by making his
original estimate always far larger than really required, and
then representing to Vronsky that he might get the thing cheaper,
and so make a profit, Vronsky did not give in. He listened to his
steward, cross-examined him, and only agreed to his suggestions
when the implement to be ordered or constructed was the very
newest, not yet known in Russia, and likely to excite wonder.
Apart from such exceptions, he resolved upon an increased outlay
only where there was a surplus, and in making such an outlay he
went into the minutes" details, and insisted on getting the very
best for his money; so that by the method on which he managed his
affairs, it was clear that he was not wasting, but increasing his
substance.

In October there were the provincial elections in the Kashinsky
province, where were the