Anna Karenina by graf Leo Tolstoy
Chapter 114
1642 words | Chapter 114
Connected with the conversation that had sprung up on the rights of
women there were certain questions as to the inequality of rights in
marriage improper to discuss before the ladies. Pestsov had several
times during dinner touched upon these questions, but Sergey Ivanovitch
and Stepan Arkadyevitch carefully drew him off them.
When they rose from the table and the ladies had gone out, Pestsov did
not follow them, but addressing Alexey Alexandrovitch, began to expound
the chief ground of inequality. The inequality in marriage, in his
opinion, lay in the fact that the infidelity of the wife and the
infidelity of the husband are punished unequally, both by the law and
by public opinion. Stepan Arkadyevitch went hurriedly up to Alexey
Alexandrovitch and offered him a cigar.
“No, I don’t smoke,” Alexey Alexandrovitch answered calmly, and as
though purposely wishing to show that he was not afraid of the subject,
he turned to Pestsov with a chilly smile.
“I imagine that such a view has a foundation in the very nature of
things,” he said, and would have gone on to the drawing-room. But at
this point Turovtsin broke suddenly and unexpectedly into the
conversation, addressing Alexey Alexandrovitch.
“You heard, perhaps, about Pryatchnikov?” said Turovtsin, warmed up by
the champagne he had drunk, and long waiting for an opportunity to
break the silence that had weighed on him. “Vasya Pryatchnikov,” he
said, with a good-natured smile on his damp, red lips, addressing
himself principally to the most important guest, Alexey Alexandrovitch,
“they told me today he fought a duel with Kvitsky at Tver, and has
killed him.”
Just as it always seems that one bruises oneself on a sore place, so
Stepan Arkadyevitch felt now that the conversation would by ill luck
fall every moment on Alexey Alexandrovitch’s sore spot. He would again
have got his brother-in-law away, but Alexey Alexandrovitch himself
inquired, with curiosity:
“What did Pryatchnikov fight about?”
“His wife. Acted like a man, he did! Called him out and shot him!”
“Ah!” said Alexey Alexandrovitch indifferently, and lifting his
eyebrows, he went into the drawing-room.
“How glad I am you have come,” Dolly said with a frightened smile,
meeting him in the outer drawing-room. “I must talk to you. Let’s sit
here.”
Alexey Alexandrovitch, with the same expression of indifference, given
him by his lifted eyebrows, sat down beside Darya Alexandrovna, and
smiled affectedly.
“It’s fortunate,” said he, “especially as I was meaning to ask you to
excuse me, and to be taking leave. I have to start tomorrow.”
Darya Alexandrovna was firmly convinced of Anna’s innocence, and she
felt herself growing pale and her lips quivering with anger at this
frigid, unfeeling man, who was so calmly intending to ruin her innocent
friend.
“Alexey Alexandrovitch,” she said, with desperate resolution looking
him in the face, “I asked you about Anna, you made me no answer. How is
she?”
“She is, I believe, quite well, Darya Alexandrovna,” replied Alexey
Alexandrovitch, not looking at her.
“Alexey Alexandrovitch, forgive me, I have no right ... but I love Anna
as a sister, and esteem her; I beg, I beseech you to tell me what is
wrong between you? what fault do you find with her?”
Alexey Alexandrovitch frowned, and almost closing his eyes, dropped his
head.
“I presume that your husband has told you the grounds on which I
consider it necessary to change my attitude to Anna Arkadyevna?” he
said, not looking her in the face, but eyeing with displeasure
Shtcherbatsky, who was walking across the drawing-room.
“I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it, I can’t believe it!” Dolly
said, clasping her bony hands before her with a vigorous gesture. She
rose quickly, and laid her hand on Alexey Alexandrovitch’s sleeve. “We
shall be disturbed here. Come this way, please.”
Dolly’s agitation had an effect on Alexey Alexandrovitch. He got up and
submissively followed her to the schoolroom. They sat down to a table
covered with an oilcloth cut in slits by penknives.
“I don’t, I don’t believe it!” Dolly said, trying to catch his glance
that avoided her.
“One cannot disbelieve facts, Darya Alexandrovna,” said he, with an
emphasis on the word “facts.”
“But what has she done?” said Darya Alexandrovna. “What precisely has
she done?”
“She has forsaken her duty, and deceived her husband. That’s what she
has done,” said he.
“No, no, it can’t be! No, for God’s sake, you are mistaken,” said
Dolly, putting her hands to her temples and closing her eyes.
Alexey Alexandrovitch smiled coldly, with his lips alone, meaning to
signify to her and to himself the firmness of his conviction; but this
warm defense, though it could not shake him, reopened his wound. He
began to speak with greater heat.
“It is extremely difficult to be mistaken when a wife herself informs
her husband of the fact—informs him that eight years of her life, and a
son, all that’s a mistake, and that she wants to begin life again,” he
said angrily, with a snort.
“Anna and sin—I cannot connect them, I cannot believe it!”
“Darya Alexandrovna,” he said, now looking straight into Dolly’s
kindly, troubled face, and feeling that his tongue was being loosened
in spite of himself, “I would give a great deal for doubt to be still
possible. When I doubted, I was miserable, but it was better than now.
When I doubted, I had hope; but now there is no hope, and still I doubt
of everything. I am in such doubt of everything that I even hate my
son, and sometimes do not believe he is my son. I am very unhappy.”
He had no need to say that. Darya Alexandrovna had seen that as soon as
he glanced into her face; and she felt sorry for him, and her faith in
the innocence of her friend began to totter.
“Oh, this is awful, awful! But can it be true that you are resolved on
a divorce?”
“I am resolved on extreme measures. There is nothing else for me to
do.”
“Nothing else to do, nothing else to do....” she replied, with tears in
her eyes. “Oh no, don’t say nothing else to do!” she said.
“What is horrible in a trouble of this kind is that one cannot, as in
any other—in loss, in death—bear one’s trouble in peace, but that one
must act,” said he, as though guessing her thought. “One must get out
of the humiliating position in which one is placed; one can’t live _à
trois_.”
“I understand, I quite understand that,” said Dolly, and her head sank.
She was silent for a little, thinking of herself, of her own grief in
her family, and all at once, with an impulsive movement, she raised her
head and clasped her hands with an imploring gesture. “But wait a
little! You are a Christian. Think of her! What will become of her, if
you cast her off?”
“I have thought, Darya Alexandrovna, I have thought a great deal,” said
Alexey Alexandrovitch. His face turned red in patches, and his dim eyes
looked straight before him. Darya Alexandrovna at that moment pitied
him with all her heart. “That was what I did indeed when she herself
made known to me my humiliation; I left everything as of old. I gave
her a chance to reform, I tried to save her. And with what result? She
would not regard the slightest request—that she should observe
decorum,” he said, getting heated. “One may save anyone who does not
want to be ruined; but if the whole nature is so corrupt, so depraved,
that ruin itself seems to be her salvation, what’s to be done?”
“Anything, only not divorce!” answered Darya Alexandrovna
“But what is anything?”
“No, it is awful! She will be no one’s wife, she will be lost!”
“What can I do?” said Alexey Alexandrovitch, raising his shoulders and
his eyebrows. The recollection of his wife’s last act had so incensed
him that he had become frigid, as at the beginning of the conversation.
“I am very grateful for your sympathy, but I must be going,” he said,
getting up.
“No, wait a minute. You must not ruin her. Wait a little; I will tell
you about myself. I was married, and my husband deceived me; in anger
and jealousy, I would have thrown up everything, I would myself.... But
I came to myself again; and who did it? Anna saved me. And here I am
living on. The children are growing up, my husband has come back to his
family, and feels his fault, is growing purer, better, and I live
on.... I have forgiven it, and you ought to forgive!”
Alexey Alexandrovitch heard her, but her words had no effect on him
now. All the hatred of that day when he had resolved on a divorce had
sprung up again in his soul. He shook himself, and said in a shrill,
loud voice:
“Forgive I cannot, and do not wish to, and I regard it as wrong. I have
done everything for this woman, and she has trodden it all in the mud
to which she is akin. I am not a spiteful man, I have never hated
anyone, but I hate her with my whole soul, and I cannot even forgive
her, because I hate her too much for all the wrong she has done me!” he
said, with tones of hatred in his voice.
“Love those that hate you....” Darya Alexandrovna whispered timorously.
Alexey Alexandrovitch smiled contemptuously. That he knew long ago, but
it could not be applied to his case.
“Love those that hate you, but to love those one hates is impossible.
Forgive me for having troubled you. Everyone has enough to bear in his
own grief!” And regaining his self-possession, Alexey Alexandrovitch
quietly took leave and went away.
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