Part Five: Chapter 23

by Leo Tolstoy

　　The Countess Lidia Ivanovna had, as a very young and sentimentalgirl, been married to a wealthy man of high rank, an extremelygood-natured, jovial, and extremely dissipated rake. Two monthsafter marriage her husband abandoned her, and her impassionedprotestations of affection he met with a sarcasm and evenhostility that people knowing the count's good heart, and seeingno defects in the sentimental Lidia, were at loss to explain.Though they were divorced and lived apart, yet whenever thehusband met the wife, he invariably behaved to her with the samemalignant irony, the cause of which was incomprehensible.

　　Countess Lidia Ivanovna had long given up being in love with herhusband, but from that time she had never given up being in lovewith someone. She was in love with several people at once, bothmen and women; she had been in love with almost everyone who hadbeen particularly distinguished in any way. She was in love withall the new princes and princesses who married into the imperialfamily; she had been in love with a high dignitary of the Church,a vicar, and a parish priest; she had been in love with ajournalist, three Slavophiles, with Komissarov, with a minister,a doctor, an English missionary and Karenin. All these passionsconstantly waning or growing more ardent, did not prevent herfrom keeping up the most extended and complicated relations withthe court and fashionable society. But from the time that afterKarenin's trouble she took him under her special protection, fromthe time that she set to work in Karenin's household lookingafter his welfare, she felt that all her other attachments werenot the real thing, and that she was now genuinely in love, andwith no one but Karenin. The feeling she now experienced for himseemed to her stronger than any of her former feelings.Analyzing her feeling, and comparing it with former passions, shedistinctly perceived that she would not have been in love withKomissarov if he had not saved the life of the Tsar, that shewould not have been in love with Ristitch-Kudzhitsky if there hadbeen no Slavonic question, but that she loved Karenin forhimself, for his lofty, uncomprehended soul, for the sweet--toher--high notes of his voice, for his drawling intonation, hisweary eyes, his character, and his soft white hands with theirswollen veins. She was not simply overjoyed at meeting him, butshe sought in his face signs of the impression she was making onhim. She tried to please him, not by her words only, but in herwhole person. For his sake it was that she now lavished morecare on her dress than before. She caught herself in reveries onwhat might have been, if she had not been married and he had beenfree. She blushed with emotion when he came into the room, shecould not repress a smile of rapture when he said anythingamiable to her.

　　For several days now Countess Lidia Ivanovna had been in a stateof intense excitement. She had learned that Anna and Vronskywere in Petersburg. Alexey Alexandrovitch must be saved fromseeing her, he must be saved even from the torturing knowledgethat that awful woman was in the same town with him, and that hemight meet her any minute.

　　Lidia Ivanovna made inquiries through her friends as to whatthose infamous people, as she called Anna and Vronsky, intendeddoing, and she endeavored so to guide every movement of herfriend during those days that he could not come across them. Theyoung adjutant, an acquaintance of Vronsky, through whom sheobtained her information, and who hoped through Countess LidiaIvanovna to obtain a concession, told her that they had finishedtheir business and were going away next day. Lidia Ivanovna hadalready begun to calm down, when the next morning a note wasbrought her, the handwriting of which she recognized with horror.It was the handwriting of Anna Karenina. The envelope was ofpaper as thick as bark; on the oblong yellow paper there was ahuge monogram, and the letter smelt of agreeable scent.

　　"Who brought it?"

　　"A commissionaire from the hotel."

　　It was some time before Countess Lidia Ivanovna could sit down toread the letter. Her excitement brought on an attack of asthma,to which she was subject. When she had recovered her composure,she read the following letter in French:

　　"Madame la Comtesse,

　　"The Christian feelings with which your heart is filled give methe, I feel, unpardonable boldness to write to you. I ammiserable at being separated from my son. I entreat permissionto see him once before my departure. Forgive me for recallingmyself to your memory. I apply to you and not to AlexeyAlexandrovitch, simply because I do not wish to cause thatgenerous man to suffer in remembering me. Knowing yourfriendship for him, I know you will understand me. Could yousend Seryozha to me, or should I come to the house at some fixedhour, or will you let me know when and where I could see him awayfrom home? I do not anticipate a refusal, knowing themagnanimity of him with whom it rests. You cannot conceive thecraving I have to see him, and so cannot conceive the gratitudeyour help will arouse in me.

　　Anna"

　　Everything in this letter exasperated Countess Lidia Ivanovna:its contents and the allusion to magnanimity, and especially itsfree and easy--as she considered--tone.

　　"Say that there is no answer," said Countess Lidia Ivanovna, andimmediately opening her blotting-book, she wrote to AlexeyAlexandrovitch that she hoped to see him at one o'clock at thelevee.

　　"I must talk with you of a grave and painful subject. There wewill arrange where to meet. Best of all at my house, where Iwill order tea as you like it. Urgent. He lays the cross, butHe gives the strength to bear it," she added, so as to give himsome slight preparation. Countess Lidia Ivanovna usually wrotesome two or three letters a day to Alexey Alexandrovitch. Sheenjoyed that form of communication, which gave opportunity for arefinement and air of mystery not afforded by their personalinterviews.