Part Five: Chapter 25

by Leo Tolstoy

　　When Alexey Alexandrovitch came into the Countess LidiaIvanovna's snug little boudoir, decorated with old china and hungwith portraits, the lady herself had not yet made her appearance.

　　She was changing her dress.

　　A cloth was laid on a round table, and on it stood a chinatea service and a silver spirit-lamp and tea kettle. AlexeyAlexandrovitch looked idly about at the endless familiarportraits which adorned the room, and sitting down to the table,he opened a New Testament lying upon it. The rustle of thecountess's silk skirt drew his attention off.

　　"Well now, we can sit quietly," said Countess Lidia Ivanovna,slipping hurriedly with an agitated smile between the table andthe sofa, "and talk over our tea."

　　After some words of preparation, Countess Lidia Ivanovna,breathing hard and flushing crimson, gave into AlexeyAlexandrovitch's hands the letter she had received.

　　After reading the letter, he sat a long while in silence.

　　"I don't think I have the right to refuse her," he said,timidly lifting his eyes.

　　"Dear friend, you never see evil in anyone!"

　　"On the contrary, I see that all is evil. But whether it isjust..."

　　His face showed irresolution, and a seeking for counsel, support,and guidance in a matter he did not understand.

　　"No," Countess Lidia Ivanovna interrupted him; "there are limitsto everything. I can understand immorality," she said, notquite truthfully, since she never could understand that whichleads women to immorality; "but I don't understand cruelty: towhom? to you! How can she stay in the town where you are? No,the longer one lives the more one learns. And I'm learning tounderstand your loftiness and her baseness."

　　"Who is to throw a stone?" said Alexey Alexandrovitch,unmistakably pleased with the part he had to play. "I haveforgiven all, and so I cannot deprive her of what is exacted bylove in her--by her love for her son...."

　　"But is that love, my friend? Is it sincere? Admitting that youhave forgiven--that you forgive--have we the right to work on thefeelings of that angel? He looks on her as dead. He prays forher, and beseeches God to have mercy on her sins. And it isbetter so. But now what will he think?"

　　"I had not thought of that," said Alexey Alexandrovitch,evidently agreeing.

　　Countess Lidia Ivanovna hid her face in her hands and was silent.she was praying.

　　"If you ask my advice," she said, having finished her prayer anduncovered her face, "I do not advise you to do this. Do yousuppose I don't see how you are suffering, how this has torn openyour wounds? But supposing that, as always, you don't think ofyourself, what can it lead to?--to fresh suffering for you, totorture for the child. If there were a trace of humanity left inher, she ought not to wish for it herself. No, I have nohesitation in saying I advise not, and if you will intrust it tome, I will write to her."

　　And Alexey Alexandrovitch consented, and Countess Lidia Ivanovnasent the following letter in French:

　　"Dear Madame,

　　"To be reminded of you might have results for your son in leadingto questions on his part which could not be answered withoutimplanting in the child's soul a spirit of censure towards whatshould be for him sacred, and therefore I beg you to interpretyour husband's refusal in the spirit of Christian love. I prayto Almighty God to have mercy on you.Countess Lidia"

　　This letter attained the secret object which Countess LidiaIvanovna had concealed from herself. It wounded Anna to thequick.

　　For his part, Alexey Alexandrovitch, on returning home from LidiaIvanovna's, could not all that day concentrate himself on hisusual pursuits, and find that spiritual peace of one saved andbelieving which he had felt of late.

　　The thought of his wife, who had so greatly sinned against him,and towards whom he had been so saintly, as Countess LidiaIvanovna had so justly told him, ought not to have troubled him;but he was not easy; he could not understand the book he wasreading; he could not drive away harassing recollections of hisrelations with her, of the mistake which, as it now seemed, hehad made in regard to her. The memory of how he had received herconfession of infidelity on their way home from the races(especially that he had insisted only on the observance ofexternal decorum, and had not sent a challenge) tortured him likea remorse. He was tortured too by the thought of the letter hehad written her; and most of all, his forgiveness, which nobodywanted, and his care of the other man's child made his heart burnwith shame and remorse.

　　And just the same feeling of shame and regret he felt now, as hereviewed all his past with her, recalling the awkward words inwhich, after long wavering, he had made her an offer.

　　"But how have I been to blame?" he said to himself. And thisquestion always excited another question in him--whether theyfelt differently, did their loving and marrying differently,these Vronskys and Oblonskys...these gentlemen of thebedchamber, with their fine calves. And there passed before hismind a whole series of these mettlesome, vigorous, self-confident men, who always and everywhere drew his inquisitiveattention in spite of himself. He tried to dispel thesethoughts, he tried to persuade himself that he was not living forthis transient life, but for the life of eternity, and that therewas peace and love in his heart.

　　But the fact that he had in this transient, trivial life made, asit seemed to him, a few trivial mistakes tortured him as thoughthe eternal salvation in which he believed had no existence. Butthis temptation did not last long, and soon there wasreestablished once more in Alexey Alexandrovitch's soul the peaceand the elevation by virtue of which he could forget what he didnot want to remember.