________________________________________________
_ The rain did not last long, and by the time Vronsky arrived, his
shaft-horse trotting at full speed nad dragging the trace-horses
galloping through the mud, with their reins hanging loose, the
sun had peeped out again, the roofs of the summer villas and the
old limetrees in the gardens on both sides of the principal
streets sparkled with wet brilliance, and from the twigs came a
pleasnat drip and from the roofs rushin streams of water. He
thought no more of the shower spoiling the race course, but was
rejoicing now that--thanks to the rain--he would be sure to fnd
her at home and alone, as he knew that Alexey Alexandrovitch, who
had lately returned from a foreign watering place, had not moved
from Petersburg.
Hoping to find her alone, Vronsky alighted, as he always did, to
avoid attracting attention, before crossing the bridge, and
walked to the house. He did not go up the steps to the street
door, but went into the court.
"Has your master come?" he asked a gardener.
"No, sir. The mistress is at home. But will you please go to
the frond door; there are servants there," the gardener answered.
"They'll open the door."
"No, I'll go in from the garden."
And feeling satisfied that she was alone, and wanting to take her
by surprise, since he had not promised to be there today, and she
would certainly not expect him to come before the races, he
walked, holding his sword and stepping cautiously over the sandy
path, bordered with flowers, to the terrace that looked out upon
the garden. Vronsky forgot now all thathe had thought on the way
of the hardships and difficulties of their positon. He thought
of nothing but her, and she wasin reality. He was just going in,
stepping on his whole foot so as not to creak, up the worn steps
of the terrace, when he suddenly remembered what he always
forgot, and what caused the most torturing side of his relations
with her, her son with his questioning--hostile, as he fancied -
eyes.
This boy was more onften than any one else a check upon their
freedom. When he was present, both Vronsky and Anna did not
merely avoid speaking of anything that they could not have
repeated before every one; they did not even allow themselves to
refer by hints to anything the boy did not understand. They had
made no agreement about this, it had settled itself. They would
have felt it wounding themselves to deceive the child. In his
presence they talked like acquiaintenances. But in spite of this
cautions, Vronsky often saw the child's intent, bewildered glance
fixed upon him, anda strange shyness, uncertainty, at one time
friendliness, at another, coldness and reserve, in the boy's
manner to him; as though the child felt that between this man and
his mother there existed some important bond, the significance of
which he could not understand.
As a fact, the boy did feel that he could not understand this
relation, and he tried painfully, and was not able to make clear
to himself what feeling he ought to have for this man. Whith a
child's keen instinct for every manifestation of feeling, he saw
distinctly that his father, his governess, his nurse,--all did
not merely dislike Vronsky, but looked on him with horror and
aversion, though they never said anything about him, while his
mother looked on him as her greatest friend.
"What does it mean? Who is he? How ought I to love him? If I
don't know, it's my fault; either I'm stipid or a naughty boy,"
thought the child. And this was what caused his dubious,
inquiring, sometimes hostile, expression, and the shyness and
uncertainty which Vronsky found so irksome. This child's presence
always and infallibly called up in Vronsky that thrange feeling
of enexplicable loathing which he had experinece of late. This
chil's presence called up both in Vronsky and in Anna a feeling
akin to the feeling of a sailor who sees by the compass that the
direction in which he is swiftly moving is far from the right
one, but that to arrest his motion is not in his power, that
every instant is carrying him further and further away, and that
to admit to himself his deviation from the right direction is the
same as admitting his certain ruin.
This child, with his innocent outlook upon life, was the compass
that showed them the point to which they had departed from what
they knew, but did not want to know.
This time Seryozha was not at home, and she was completely alone.
She was sitting on the terrace waiting for the return of her son,
who had gone out for his walk and been caught in the rain. She
had sent a manservant and a maid aout to look for him. Dressed
in a white gown, deeply embroidered, she was sitting in a corner
of the terrace behind some flowers, and did not hear him. Bending
her curly black head, she pressed her forhead against a cooler
watering pot that stood on the parapet, and both her lovely
hands, with the rings he knew so well, clasped the pot. The
beauty of her whole figure, her head, her nec, her hands, struck
Vronsky every time as something new nad unexpected. He stood
still, gazing at her in ecstasy. But, directly he would have
made a step to come nearer to her, she was aware of his presence,
pushed away the watering pot, and turned her flushed face towards
him.
"What's the matter? You are ill?" he said to her in French,
going up to her. He would have run to her, but remembering that
there might be spectators, he looked round towards the balcony
door, and reddened a little, as he always reddened, feeling that
he had to be afraid and be on his guard.
"No, I'm quite well," she said, getting up and pressing his
outstretched hand tightly. "I did not expect...thee."
"Mercy! what cold hands!" he said.
"You startled me," she said. "I'm alone, and expecting
Ser;yozha; he's out for a walk; they'll come in from this side."
But, in spite of her efforts to be calm, her lips were quivering.
"Forgive me for coming, but I couldn't pass the day without
seeing you," he went on, speaking French, as he always did to
avoid using the stiff Russian plural form, so impossibly frigid
between them, and the dangerously intimate singular.
"Forgive you? I'm so glad!"
"But you're ill or worried," he went on, not letting go her hands
and bending over her. "What were you thinking of?"
"Always the same thing," she said, with a smile.
She spoke the truth. If ever at any moment she had been asked
what she was thinking of, she could have answered truly: of the
same thing, of her happiness and her unhappiness. She was
thinking, just when he came upon her of this: why was it, she
wondered, that to others ,to Betsy (she knew of her secret
connection with Tushkevitch) it was all easy, while to her it was
such torture? Today this thought gained special poignancy from
certain other considerations. She asked him about the races. He
answered he questins, and, seeing that she was agitated, trying
to calm her, he began telling her in the simplest tone the
details of his preparations for the races.
"Tell him or not tell him?" she thought, looking into his quiet,
affectionate eyes. "He is so happy, so absorbed in his races
that he won't understand as he ought, he won't understand all the
gravity of this fact to us."
"But you haven't told me what you were thinking of when I came
in," he said, interrupting his narrative; "please tell me!"
She did not answer, and, bending her head a little, she looked
inquiringly at him from under her brows, her eyes shining under
their long lashes. Her hand shook as it played with a leaf she
had picked. He saw it, and his face expressed that utter
subjection, that slavish devotion, which had done so much to win
her.
"I see something has happened. Do you suppose I can be at peace,
knowing you have a trouble I am not sharing? Tell me, for God's
sake," he repeated imploringly.
"Yes, I shan't be able to forgive him if he does not realize all
the gravity of it. Better not tell; why put him to the proof?"
she thought, still staring at him in the same way, and feeling
the hand that held the leaf was trembling more and more.
"For God's sake!" he repeated, taking her hand.
"Shall I tell you?"
"Yes, yes, yes . . ."
"I'm with child," she said, softly and deliberately. The leaf in
her hand shook more violently, but she did not take her eyes off
him, watching how he would take it. He turned white, would have
said something, but stopped; he dropped her hand, and his head
sank on his breast. "Yes, he realizes all the gravity of it," she
thought, and gratefully she pressed his hand.
But she was mistaken in thinking he realized the gravity of the
fact as she, a woman, realized it. On hearing it, he felt come
upon him with tenfold intensity that strange feeling of loathing
of some one. But at the same time, he felt that the turning-point
he had been longing for had come now; that it was impossible to
go on concealing things from her husband, and it was inevitable
in one way or another that they should soon put an end to their
unnatural position. But, besides that, her emotion physically
affected him, in the same way. He looked at her with a look of
submissive tenderness, kissed her hand, got up, and, in silence,
paced up and down the terrace.
"Yes," he said, going up to her resolutely. "Neither you nor I
have looked on our relations as a passing amusement, and now our
fate is sealed. It is absolutely necessary to put an end"--he
looked round as he spoke--"to the deception in which we are
living."
"Put an end? How put an end, Alexey?" she said softly.
She was calmer now, and her face lighted up with a tender smile.
"Leave your husband and make our life one."
"It is one as it is," she answered, scarcely audibly.
"Yes, but altogether; altogether."
"But how, Alexey, tell me how?" she said in melancholy mockery at
the hopelessness of her own position. "Is there any way out of
such a position? Am I not the wife of my husband?"
"There is a way out of every position. We must take our line," he
said. "Anything's better than the position in which you're
living. Of course, I see how you torture yourself over
everything--the world and your son and your husband."
"Oh, not over my husband," she said, with a quiet smile. "I don't
know him, I don't think of him. He doesn't exist."
"You're not speaking sincerely. I know you. You worry about him
too."
"Oh, he doesn't even know," she said, and suddenly a hot flush
came over her face; her cheeks, her brow, her neck crimsoned, and
tears of shame came into her eyes. "But we won't talk of him." _
Read next: Part Two: Chapter 23
Read previous: Part Two: Chapter 21
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