________________________________________________
_ The external relations of Alexey Alexandrovitch and his wife had
remained unchanged. The sole difference lay in the fact that he
was more busily occupied than ever. As in former years, at the
beginning of the spring he had gone to a foreign watering-place
for the sake of his health, deranged by the winter's work that
every year grew heavier. And just as always he returned in July
and at once fell to work as usual with increased energy. As
usual, too, his wife had moved for the summer to a villa out of
town, while he remained in Petersburg. From the date of their
conversation after the party at Princess Tverskaya's he had never
spoken again to Anna of his suspicions and his jealousies, and
that habitual tone of his bantering mimicry was the most
convenient tone possible for his present attitude to his wife. He
was a little colder to his wife. He simply seemed to be slightly
displeased with her for that first midnight conversation, which
she had repelled. In his attitude to her there was a shade of
vexation, but nothing more. "You would not be open with me," he
seemed to say, mentally addressing her; "so much the worse for
you. Now you may beg as you please, but I won't be open with you.
So much the worse for you!" he said mentally, like a man who,
after vainly attempting to extinguish a fire, should By in a rage
with his vain efforts and say, "Oh, very well then! you shall
burn for this!" This man, so subtle and astute in official life,
did not realize all the senselessness of such an attitude to his
wife. He did not realize it, because it was too terrible to him
to realize his actual position, and he shut down and locked and
sealed up in his heart that secret place where lay hid his
feelings towards his family, that is, his wife and son. He who
had been such a careful father, had from the end of that winter
become peculiarly frigid to his son, and adopted to him just the
same bantering tone he used with his wife. "Aha, young man!" was
the greeting with which he met him.
Alexey Alexandrovitch asserted and believed that he had never in
any previous year had so much official business as that year. But
he was not aware that he sought work for himself that year, that
this was one of the means for keeping shut that secret place
where lay hid his feelings towards his wife and son and his
thoughts about them, which became more terrible the longer they
lay there. If any one had had the right to ask Alexey
Alexandrovitch what he thought of his wife's behavior, the mild
and peaceable Alexey Alexandrovitch would have made no answer,
but he would have been greatly angered with any man who should
question him on that subject. For this reason there positively
came into Alexey Alexandrovitch's face a look of haughtiness and
severity whenever any one inquired after his wife's health.
Alexey Alexandrovitch did not want to think at all about his
wife's behavior, and he actually succeeded in not thinking about
it at all.
Alexey Alexandrovitch's permanent summer villa was in Peterhof,
and the Countess Lidia Ivanovna used as a rule to spend the
summer there, close to Anna, and constantly seeing her. That year
Countess Lidia Ivanovna declined to settle in Peterhof, was not
once at Anna Arkadyevna's, and in conversation with Alexey
Alexandrovitch hinted at the unsuitability of Anna's close
intimacy with Betsy and Vronsky. Alexey Alexandrovitch sternly
cut her short, roundly declaring his wife to be above suspicion,
and from that time began to avoid Countess Lidia Ivanovna. He did
not want to see, and did not see, that many people in society
cast dubious glances on his wife, he did not want to understand,
and did not understand, why his wife had so particularly insisted
on staying at Tsarskoe, where Betsy was staying, and not far from
the camp of Vronsky's regiment. He did not allow himself to think
about it, and he did not think about it; but all the same though
he never admitted it to himself, and had no proofs, not even
suspicious evidence, in the bottom of his heart he knew beyond
all doubt that he was a deceived husband, and he was profoundly
miserable about it.
How often during those eight years of happy life with his wife
Alexey Alexandrovitch had looked at other men's faithless wives
and other deceived husbands and asked himself: "How can people
descend to that? how is it they don't put an end to such a
hideous position?" But now, when the misfortune had come upon
himself, he was so far from thinking of putting an end to the
position that he would not recognize it at all, would not
recognize it just because it was too awful, too unnatural.
Since his return from abroad Alexey Alexandrovitch had twice been
at their country villa. Once he dined there, another time he
spent the evening there with a party of friends, but he had not
once stayed the night there, as it had been his habit to do in
previous years.
The day of the races had been a very busy day for Alexey
Alexandrovitch; but when mentally sketching out the day in the
morning, he made up his mind to go to their country house to see
his wife immediately after dinner, and from there to the races,
which all the Court were to witness, and at which he was bound to
be present. He was going to see his wife, because he had
determined to see her once a week to keep up appearances. And
besides, on that day, as it was the fifteenth, he had to give his
wife some money for her expenses, according to their usual
arrangement.
With his habitual control over his thoughts, though he thought
all this about his wife, he did not let his thoughts stray
further in regard to her.
That morning was a very full one for Alexey Alexandrovitch. The
evening before, Countess Lidia Ivanovna had sent him a pamphlet
by a celebrated traveler in China, who was staying in Petersburg,
and with it she enclosed a note begging him to see the traveler
himself, as he was an extremely interesting person from various
points of view, and likely to be useful. Alexey Alexandrovitch
had not had time to read the pamphlet through in the evening, and
finished it in the morning. Then people began arriving with
petitions, and there came the reports, interviews, appointments,
dismissals, apportionment of rewards, pensions, grants, notes,
the workaday round, as Alexey Alexandrovitch called it, that
always took up so much time. Then there was private business of
his own, a visit from the doctor and the steward who managed his
property. The steward did not take up much time. He simply gave
Alexey Alexandrovitch the money he needed together with a brief
statement of the position of his affairs, which was not
altogether satisfactory, as it had happened that during that
year, owing to increased expenses, more had been paid out than
usual, and there was a deficit. But the doctor, a celebrated
Petersburg doctor, who was an intimate acquaintance of Alexey
Alexandrovitch, took up a great deal of time. Alexey
Alexandrovitch had not expected him that day, and was surprised
at his visit, and still more so when the doctor questioned him
very carefully about his health, listened to his breathing, and
tapped at his liver. Alexey Alexandrovitch did not know that his
friend Lidia Ivanovna, noticing that he was not as well as usual
that year, had begged the doctor to go and examine him. "Do this
for my sake," the Countess Lidia Ivanovna had said to him.
"I will do it for the sake of Russia, countess," replied the
doctor.
"A priceless man!" said the Countess Lidia Ivanovna.
The doctor was extremely dissatisfied with Alexey Alexandrovitch.
He found the liver considerably enlarged, and the digestive
powers weakened, while the course of mineral waters had been
quite without effect. He prescribed more physical exercise as far
as possible, and as far as possible less mental strain, and above
all no worry--in other words, just what was as much out of Alexey
Alexandrovitch's power as abstaining from breathing. Then he
withdrew, leaving in Alexey Alexandrovitch an unpleasant sense
that something was wrong with him, and that there was no chance
of curing it.
As he was coming away, the doctor chanced to meet on the
staircase an acquaintance of his, Sludin, who was secretary of
Alexey Alexandrovitch's department. They had been comrades at the
university, and though they rarely met, they thought highly of
each other and were excellent friends, and so there was no one to
whom the doctor would have given his opinion of a patient so
freely as to Sludin.
"How glad I am you've been seeing himl" said Sludin. "He's not
well, and I fancy ...Well, what do you think of him?"
"I'll tell you," said the doctor, beckoning over Sludin's head to
his coachman to bring the carriage round. "It's just this," said
the doctor, taking a finger of his kid glove in his white hands
and pulling it, "if you don't strain the strings, and then try to
break them, you'll find it a difficult job; but strain a string
to its very utmost, and the mere weight of one finger on the
strained string will snap it. And with his close assiduity, his
conscientious devotion to his work, he's strained to the utmost;
and there's some outside burden weighing on him, and not a light
one," concluded the doctor;raising his eyebrows significantly.
"Will you be at the races?" he added, as he sank into his seat in
the carriage.
"Yes, yes, to be sure; it does waste a lot of time," the doctor
responded vaguely to some reply of Sludin's he had not caught.
Directly after the doctor, who had taken up so much time, came
the celebrated traveler, and Alexey Alexandrovitch, by means of
the pamphlet he had only just finished reading and his previous
acquaintance with the subject, impressed the Raveler by the depth
of his knowledge of the subject and the breadth and enlightenment
of his view of it.
At the same time as the Raveler there was announced a provincial
marshal of nobility on a visit to Petersburg, with whom Alexey
Alexandrovitch had to have some conversation. After his
departure, he had to finish the daily routine of business with
his secretary, and then he still had to drive round to call on a
certain great personage on a matter of grave and serious import.
Alexey Alexandrovitch only just managed to be back by five
o'clock, his dinner-hour, and after dining with his secretary, he
invited him to drive with him to his country villa and to the
races.
Though he did not acknowledge it to himself, Alexey
Alexandrovitch always tried nowadays to secure the presence of a
third person in his interviews with his wife. _
Read next: Part Two: Chapter 27
Read previous: Part Two: Chapter 25
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