________________________________________________
_ None but those who were most intimate with Alexey Alexandrovitch
knew that, while on the surface the coldest and most reasonable
of men, he had one weakness quite opposed to the general trend of
his character. Alexey Alexandrovitch could not hear or see a
child or woman crying without being moved. The sight of tears
threw him into a state of nervous agitation, and he utterly lost
all power of reflection. The chief secretary of his department
and his private secretary were aware of this, and used to warn
women who came with petitions on no account to give way to tears,
if they did not want to ruin their chances. "He will get angry,
and will not listen to you," they used to say. And as a fact, in
such cases the emotional disturbance set up in Alexey
Alexandrovitch by the sight of tears found expression in hasty
anger. "I can do nothing. Kindly leave the room!" he would
commonly cry in such cases.
When returning from the races Anna had informed him of her
relations with Vronsky, and immediately afterwards had burst into
tears, hiding her face in her hands, Alexey Alexandrovitch, for
all the fury aroused in him against her, was aware at the same
time of a rush of that emotional disturbance always produced in
him by tears. Conscious of it, and conscious that any expression
of his feelings at that minute would be out of keeping with the
position, he tried to suppress every manifestation of life in
himself, and so neither stirred nor looked at her. This was what
had caused that strange expression of deathlike rigidity in his
face which had so impressed Anna.
When they reached the house he helped her to get out of the
carriage, and making an effort to master himself, took leave of
her with his usual urbanity, and uttered that phrase that bound
him to nothing; he said that to-morrow he would let her know his
decision.
His wife's words, confirming his worst suspicions, had sent a
cruel pang to the heart of Alexey Alexandrovitch. That pang was
intensified by the strange feeling of physical pity for her set
up by her tears. But when he was all alone in the carriage Alexey
Alexandrovitch, to his surprise and delight, felt complete relief
both from this pity and from the doubts and agonies of jealousy.
He experienced the sensations of a man who has had a tooth out
after suffering long from toothache. After a fearful agony and a
sense of something huge, bigger than the head itself, being torn
out of his jaw, the sufferer, hardly able to believe in his own
good luck, feels all at once that what has so long poisoned his
existence and enchained his attention, exists no longer, and that
he can live and think again, and take interest in other things
besides his tooth. This feeling Alexey Alexandrovitch was
experiencing. The agony had been strange and terrible, but now it
was over; he felt that he could live again and think of something
other than his wife.
"No honor, no heart, no religion; a corrupt woman. I always knew
it and always saw it, though I tried to deceive myself to spare
her," he said to himself. And it actually seemed to him that he
always had seen it: he recalled incidents of their past life, in
which he had never seen anything wrong before--now these
incidents proved clearly that she had always been a corrupt
woman. "I made a mistake in linking my life to hers; but there
was nothing wrong in my mistake, and so I cannot be unhappy. It's
not I that am to blame," he told himself, "but she. But I have
nothing to do with her. She does not exist for me.
Everything relating to her and her son, towards whom his
sentiments were as much changed as towards her, ceased to
interest him. The only thing that interested him now was the
question of in what way he could best, with most propriety and
comfort for himself, and thus with most justice, extricate
himself from the mud with which she had spattered him in her
fall, and then proceed along his path of active, honorable, and
useful existence.
"I cannot be made unhappy by the fact that a contemptible woman
has committed a crime. I have only to find the best way out of
the difficult position in which she has placed me. And I shall
find it," he said to himself, frowning more and more. "I'm not
the first nor the last." And to say nothing of historical
instances dating from the "Fair Helen" of Menelaus, recently
revived in the memory of all, a whole list of contemporary
examples of husbands with unfaithful wives in the highest society
rose before Alexey Alexandrovitch's imagination. "Daryalov,
Poltavsky, Prince Karibanov, Count Paskudin, Dram ...Yes, even
Dram, such an honest, capable fellow.... Semyonov, Tchagin,
Sigonin," Alexey Alexandrovitch remembered. "Admitting that a
certain quite irrational ridicule falls to the lot of these men,
yet I never saw anything but a misfortune in it, and always felt
sympathy for it," Alexey Alexandrovitch said to himself, though
indeed this was not the fact, and he had never felt sympathy for
misfortunes of that kind, but the more frequently he had heard of
instances of unfaithful wives betraying their husbands, the more
highly he had thought of himself. "It is a misfortune which may
befall any one. And this misfortune has befallen me. The only
thing to be done is to make the best of the position."
And he began passing in review the methods of proceeding of men
who had been in the same position that he was in.
"Daryalov fought a duel...."
The duel had particularly fascinated the thoughts of Alexey
Alexandrovitch in his youth, just because he was physically a
coward, and was himself well aware of the fact. Alexey
Alexandrovitch could not without horror contemplate the idea of a
pistol aimed at himself, and never made use of any weapon in his
life. This horror had in his youth set him pondering on dueling,
and picturing himself in a position in which he would have to
expose his life to danger. Having attained success and an
established position in the world, he had long ago forgotten this
feeling; but the habitual bent of feeling reasserted itself, and
dread of his own cowardice proved even now so strong that Alexey
Alexandrovitch spent a long while thinking over the question of
dueling in all its aspects, and hugging the idea of a duel,
though he was fully aware beforehand that he would never under
any circumstances fight one.
"There's no doubt our society is still so barbarous (it's not the
same in England) that very many"--and among these were those
whose opinion Alexey Alexandrovitch particularly valued--"look
favorably on the duel; but what result is attained by it? Suppose
I call him out," Alexey Alexandrovitch went on to himself, and
vividly picturing the night he would spend after the challenge,
and the pistol aimed at him, he shuddered, and knew that he never
would do it--"suppose I call him out. Suppose I am taught," he
went on musing, "to shoot; I press the trigger," he said to
himself, closing his eyes, "and it turns out I have killed him,"
Alexey Alexandrovitch said to himself, and he shook his head as
though to dispel such silly ideas. "What sense is there in
murdering a man in order to define one's relation to a guilty
wife and son? I should still just as much have to decide what I
ought to do with her. But what is more probable and what would
doubtless occur--I should be killed or wounded. I, the innocent
person, should be the victim--killed or wounded. It's even more
senseless. But apart from that, a challenge to fight would be an
act hardly honest on my side. Don't I know perfectly well that my
friends would never allow me to fight a duel--would never allow
the life of a statesman, needed by Russia, to be exposed to
danger? Knowing perfectly well beforehand that the matter would
never come to real danger, it would amount to my simply trying to
gain a certain sham reputation by such a challenge. That would be
dishonest, that would be false, that would be deceiving myself
and others. A duel is quite irrational, and no one expects it of
me. My aim is simply to safeguard my reputation, which is
essential for the uninterrupted pursuit of my public duties."
Official duties, which had always been of great consequence in
Alexey Alexandrovitch's eyes, seemed of special importance to his
mind at this moment. Considering and rejecting the duel, Alexey
Alexandrovitch turned to divorce--another solution selected by
several of the husbands he remembered. Passing in mental review
all the instances he knew of divorces (there were plenty of them
in the very highest society with which he was very familiar),
Alexey Alexandrovitch could not find a single example in which
the object of divorce was that which he had in view. In all these
instances the husband had practically ceded or sold his
unfaithful wife, and the very party which, being in fault, had
not the right to contract a fresh marriage, had formed
counterfeit, pseudo-matrimonial ties with a self-styled husband.
In his own case, Alexey Alexandrovitch saw that a legal divorce,
that is to say, one in which only the guilty wife would be
repudiated, was impossible of attainment. He saw that the complex
conditions of the life they led made the coarse proofs of his
wife's guilt, required by the law, out of the question; he saw
that a certain refinement in that life would not admit of such
proofs being brought forward, even if he had them, and that to
bring forward such proofs would damage him in the public
estimation more than it would her.
An attempt at divorce could lead to nothing but a public scandal,
which would be a perfect godsend to his enemies for calumny and
attacks on his high position in society. His chief object, to
define the position with the least amount of disturbance
possible, would not be attained by divorce either. Moreover, in
the event of divorce, or even of an attempt to obtain a divorce,
it was obvious that the wife broke off all relations with the
husband and threw in her lot with the lover. And in spite of the
complete, as he supposed, contempt and indifference he now felt
for his wife, at the bottom of his heart, Alexey Alexandrovitch
still had one feeling left in regard to her--a disinclination to
see her free to throw in her lot with Vronsky, so that her crime
would be to her advantage. The mere notion of this so exasperated
Alexey Alexandrovitch, that directly it rose to his mind he
groaned with inward agony, and got up and changed his place in
the carriage, and for a long while after, he sat with scowling
brows, wrapping his numbed and bony legs in the fleecy rug.
"Apart from formal divorce, one might still do like Karibanov,
Paskudin, and that good fellow Dram--that is, separate from one's
wife," he went on thinking, when he had regained his composure.
But this step too presented the same drawback of public scandal
as a divorce, and what was more, a separation, quite as much as a
regular divorce, flung his wife into the arms of Vronsky. "No,
it's out of the question, out of the question!" he said again,
twisting his rug about him again. "I cannot be unhappy, but
neither she nor he ought to be happy."
The feeling of jealousy, which had tortured him during the period
of uncertainty, had passed away at the instant when the tooth had
been with agony extracted by his wife's words. But that feeling
had been replaced by another, the desire, not merely that she
should not be triumphant, but that she should get due punishment
for her crime. He did not acknowledge this feeling, but at the
bottom of his heart he longed for her to suffer for having
destroyed his peace of mind--his honor. And going once again over
the conditions inseparable from a duel, a divorce, a separation,
and once again rejecting them, Alexey Alexandrovitch felt
convinced that there was only one solution,--to keep her with
him, concealing what had happened from the world, and using every
measure in his power to break off the intrigue, and still more--
though this he did not admit to himself--to punish her. "I must
inform her of my conclusion, that thinking over the terrible
position in which she has placed her family, all other solutions
will be worse for both sides than an external status quo, and
that such I agree to retain, on the strict condition of obedience
on her part to my wishes, that is to say, cessation of all
intercourse with her lover." When this decision had been finale
adopted, another weighty consideration occurred to Alexey
Alexandrovitch in support of it. "By such a course only shall I
be acting in accordance with the dictates of religion," he told
himself. "In adopting this course, I am not casting off a guilty
wife, but giving her a chance of amendment; and, indeed,
difficult as the task will be to me, I shall devote part of my
energies to her reformation and salvation."
Though Alexey Alexandrovitch was perfectly aware that he could
not exert any moral influence over his wife, that such an attempt
at reformation could lead to nothing but falsity; though in
passing through these difficult moments he had not once thought
of seeking guidance in religion, yet now, when his conclusion
corresponded, as it seemed to him, with the requirements of
religion, this religious sanction to his decision gave him
complete satisfaction, and to some extent restored his peace of
mind. He was pleased to think that, even in such an important
crisis in life, no one would be able to say that he had not acted
in accordance with the principles of that religion whose banner
he had always held aloft amid the general coolness and
indifference. As he pondered over subsequent developments, Alexey
Alexandrovitch did not see, indeed, why his relations with his
wife should not remain practically the same as before. No doubt,
she could never regain his esteem, but there was not, and there
could not be, any sort of reason that his existence should be
troubled, and that he should suffer because she was a bad and
faithless wife. "Yes, time will pass; time, which arranges all
things, and the old relations will be reestablished," Alexey
Alexandrovitch told himself; "so far reestablished, that is, that
I shall not be sensible of a break in the continuity of my life.
She is bound to be unhappy, but I am not to blame, and so I
cannot be unhappy." _
Read next: Part Three: Chapter 14
Read previous: Part Three: Chapter 12
Table of content of Anna Karenina
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
