________________________________________________
_ It was six o'clock already, and so, in order to be there quickly,
and at the same time not to drive with his own horses, known to
every one, Vronsky got into Yashvin's hired fly, and told the
driver to drive as quickly as possible. It was a roomy,
old-fashioned fly, with seats for four. He sat in one corner,
stretched his legs out on the front seat, and sank into
meditation.
A vague sense of the order into which his affairs had been
brought, a vague recollection of the friendliness and flattery of
Serpuhovskoy, who had considered him a man that was needed, and
most of all, the anticipation of the interview before him--all
blended into a general, joyous sense of life. This feeling was so
strong that he could not help smiling. He dropped his legs,
crossed one leg over the other knee, and taking it in his hand,
felt the springy muscle of the calf, where it had been grazed the
day before by his fall, and leaning back he drew several deep
breaths.
"I'm happy, very happy!" he said to himself. He had often before
had this sense of physical joy in his own body, but he had never
felt so fond of himself, of his own body, as at that moment. He
enjoyed the slight ache in his strong leg, he enjoyed the
muscular sensation of movement in his chest as he breathed. The
bright, cold August day, which had made Anna feel so hopeless,
seemed to him keenly stimulating, and refreshed his face and neck
that still tingled from the cold water. The scent of brilliantine
on his whiskers struck him as particularly pleasant in the fresh
air. Everything he saw from the carriage-window, everything in
that cold pure air, in the pale light of the sunset, was as
fresh, and gay, and strong as he was himself: the roofs of the
houses shining in the rays of the setting sun, the sharp outlines
of fences and angles of buildings, the figures of passers- by,
the carriages that met him now and then, the motionless green of
the trees and grass, the fields with evenly drawn furrows of
potatoes, and the slanting shadows that fell from the houses, and
trees, and bushes, and even from the rows of potatoes--everything
was bright like a pretty landscape just finished and freshly
varnished.
"Get on, get on!" he said to the driver, putting his head out of
the window, and pulling a three-rouble note out of his pocket he
handed it to the man as he looked round. The driver's hand
fumbled with something at the lamp, the whip cracked, and the
carriage rolled rapidly along the smooth highroad.
"I want nothing, nothing but this happiness," he thought, staring
at the bone button of the bell in the space between the windows,
and picturing to himself Anna just as he had seen her last time.
"And as I go on, I love her more and more. Here's the garden of
the Vrede Villa. Whereabouts will she be? Where? How? Why did she
fix on this place to meet me, and why does she write in Betsy's
letter?" he thought, wondering now for the first time at it. But
there was now no time for wonder. He called to the driver to stop
before reaching the avenue, and opening the door, jumped out of
the carriage as it was moving,and went into the avenue that led
up to the house. There was no one in the avenue; but looking
round to the right he caught sight of her. Her face was hidden by
a veil, but he drank in with glad eyes the special movement in
walking, peculiar to her alone, the slope of the shoulders, and
the setting of the head, and at once a sort of electric shock ran
all over him. With fresh force, he felt conscious of himself from
the springy motions of his legs to the movements of his lungs as
he breathed, and something set his lips twitching.
Joining him, she pressed his hand tightly.
"You're not angry that I sent for you? I absolutely had to see
you," she said; and the serious and set line of her lips, which
he saw under the veil, transformed his mood at once.
"I angry! But how have you come, where from?"
"Never mind," she said, laying her hand on his, "come along, I
must talk to you."
He saw that something had happened, and that the interview would
not be a joyous one. In her presence he had no will of his own:
without knowing the grounds of her distress, he already felt the
same distress unconsciously passing over him.
"What is it? what?" he asked her, squeezing her hand with his
elbow, and trying to read her thoughts in her face.
She walked on a few steps in silence, gathering up her courage;
then suddenly she stopped.
"I did not tell you yesterday," she began, breathing quickly and
painfully, "that coming home with Alexey Alexandrovitch I told
him everything ...told him I could not be his wife, that. . .
and told him everything."
He heard her, unconsciously bending his whole figure down to her
as though hoping in this way to soften the hardness of her
position for her. But directly she had said this he suddenly drew
himself up, and a proud and hard expression came over his face.
"Yes, yes, that's better, a thousand times better! I know how
painful it was," he said. But she was not listening to his words,
she was reading his thoughts from the expression of his face. She
could not guess that that expression arose from the first idea
that presented itself to Vronsky--that a duel was now
inevitable. The idea of a duel had never crossed her mind, and so
she put a different interpretation on this passing expression of
hardness.
When she got her husband's letter, she knew then at the bottom of
her heart that everything would go on in the old way, that she
would not have the strength of will to forego her position, to
abandon her son, and to join her lover. The morning spent at
Princess Tverskaya's had confirmed her still more in this. But
this interview was still of the utmost gravity for her. She hoped
that this interview would transform her position, and save her.
If on hearing this news he were to say to her resolutely,
passionately, without an instant's wavering: "Throw up everything
and come with me!" she would give up her son and go away with
him. But this news had not produced what she had expected in him;
he simply seemed as though he were resenting some affront.
"It was not in the least painful to me. It happened of itself,"
she said irritably; "and see ..." She pulled her husband's
letter out of her glove.
"I understand, I understand," he interrupted her, taking the
letter, but not reading it, and trying to soothe her. "The one
thing I longed for, the one thing I prayed for, was to cut short
this position, so as to devote my life to your happiness."
"Why do you tell me that?" she said. "Do you suppose I can doubt
it? If I doubted . . ."
"Who's that coming?" said Vronsky suddenly, pointing to two
ladies walking towards them. "Perhaps they know us!" and he
hurriedly turned off, drawing her after him into a side path.
"Oh, I don't care!" she said. Her lips were quivering. And he
fancied that her eyes looked with strange fury at him from under
the veil. "I tell you that's not the point--I can't doubt that;
but see what he writes to me. Read it." She stood still again.
Again, just as at the first moment of hearing of her rupture with
her husband, Vronsky, on reading the letter, was unconsciously
carried away by the natural sensation aroused in him by his own
relation to the betrayed husband. Now while he held his letter in
his hands, he could not help picturing the challenge, which he
would most likely find at home to- day or to-morrow, and the duel
itself in which, with the same cold and haughty expression that
his face was assuming at this moment he would await the injured
husband's shot, after having himself fired into the air. And at
that instant there flashed across his mind the thought of what
Serpuhovskoy had just said to him, and what he had himself been
thinking in the morning--that it was better not to bind himself--
and he knew that this thought he could not tell her.
Having read the letter, he raised his eyes to her, and there was
no determination in them. She saw at once that he had been
thinking about it before by himself. She knew that whatever he
might say to her, he would not say all he thought. And she knew
that her last hope had failed her. This was not what she had been
reckoning on.
"You see the sort of man he is," she said, with a shaking voice;
"he . . .''
"Forgive me, but I rejoice at it," Vronsky interrupted. "For
God's sake, let me finish!" he added, his eyes imploring her to
give him time to explain his words. "I rejoice, because things
cannot, cannot possibly remain as he supposes."
"Why can't they?" Anna said, restraining her tears, and obviously
attaching no sort of consequence to what he said. She felt that
her fate was sealed.
Vronsky meant that after the duel--inevitable, he thought--things
could not go on as before, but he said something different.
"It can't go on. I hope that now you will leave him. I hope"--he
was confused, and reddened--"that you will let me arrange and
plan our life. To-morrow . . ." he was beginning.
She did not let him go on.
"But my child!" she shrieked. "You see what he writes! I should
have to leave him, and I can't and won't do that."
"But, for God's sake, which is betters.--leave your child, or
keep up this degrading position?"
"To whom is it degrading?"
"To all, and most of all to you."
"You say degrading ...don't say that. Those words have no
meaning for me," she said in a shaking voice. She did not want
him now to say what was untrue. She had nothing left her but his
love, and she wanted to love him. "Don't you understand that from
the day I loved you everything has changed for me? For me there
is one thing, and one thing only --your love. If that's mine, I
feel so exalted, so strong, that nothing can be humiliating to
me. I am proud of my position, because ...proud of being . . .
proud . . ." She could not say what she was proud of. Tears of
shame and despair choked her utterance. She stood still and
sobbed.
He felt, too, something swelling in his throat and twitching in
his nose, and for the first time in his life he felt on the point
of weeping. He could not have said exactly what it was touched
him so. He felt sorry for her, and he felt he could not help her,
and with that he knew that he was to blame for her wretchedness,
and that he had done something wrong.
"Is not a divorce possible?" he said feebly. She shook her head,
not answering. "Couldn't you take your son, and still leave him?"
"Yes; but it all depends on him. Now I must go to him," she said
shortly. Her presentiment that all would again go on in the old
way had not deceived her.
"On Tuesday I shall be in Petersburg, and everything can be
settled."
"Yes," she said. "But don't let us talk any more of it."
Anna's carriage, which she had sent away, and ordered to come
back to the little gate of the Vrede garden, drove up. Anna said
good-bye to Vronsky, and drove home. _
Read next: Part Three: Chapter 23
Read previous: Part Three: Chapter 21
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