Part Four: Chapter 3

by Leo Tolstoy

　　"You met him?" she asked, when they had sat down at the table inthe lamplight. "You're punished, you see, for being late."

　　"Yes; but how was it? Wasn't he to be at the council?"

　　"He had been and come back, and was going out somewhere again.But that's no matter. Don't talk about it. Where have you been?With the prince still?"

　　She knew every detail of his existence. He was going to say thathe had been up all night and had dropped asleep, but looking ather thrilled and rapturous face, he was ashamed. And he said hehad had to go to report on the prince's departure.

　　"But it's over now? He is gone!"

　　"Thank God it's over! You wouldn't believe how insufferable it'sbeen for me."

　　"Why so? Isn't it the life all of you, all young men, alwayslead?" she said, knitting her brows; and taking up the crochetwork that was lying on the table, she began drawing the hook outof it, without looking at Vronsky.

　　"I gave that life up long ago," said he, wondering at the changein her face, and trying to divine its meaning. "And I confess,"he said, with a smile, showing his thick, white teeth, "this weekI've been, as it were, looking at myself in a glass, seeing thatlife, and I didn't like it."

　　She held the work in her hands, but did not crochet, and lookedat him with strange, shining, and hostile eyes.

　　"This morning Liza came to see me--they're not afraid to call onme, in spite of the Countess Lidia Ivanovna," she put in--"andshe told me about your Athenian evening. How loathsome!"

　　"I was just going to say..."

　　She interrupted him. "It was that Therese you used to know?"

　　"I was just saying..."

　　"How disgusting you are, you men! How is it you can't understandthat a woman can never forget that," she said, getting more andmore angry, and so letting him see the cause of her irritation,"especially a woman who cannot know your life? What do I know?What have I ever known?" she said; "what you tell me. And howdo I know whether you tell me the truth?..."

　　"Anna, you hurt me. Don't you trust me? Haven't I told you thatI haven't a thought I wouldn't lay bare to you?"

　　"Yes, yes," she said, evidently trying to suppress her jealousthoughts. "But if only you knew how wretched I am! I believeyou, I believe you.... What were you saying?"

　　But he could not at once recall what he had been going to say.These fits of jealousy, which of late had been more and morefrequent with her, horrified him, and however much he tried todisguise the fact, made him feel cold to her, although he knewthe cause of her jealousy was her love for him. How often he hadtold himself that her love was happiness; and now she loved himas a woman can love when love has outweighed for her all the goodthings of life--and he was much further from happiness than whenhe had followed her from Moscow. Then he had thought himselfunhappy, but happiness was before him; now he felt that the besthappiness was already left behind. She was utterly unlike whatshe had been when he first saw her. Both morally and physicallyshe had changed for the worse. She had broadened out all over,and in her face at the time when she was speaking of the actressthere was an evil expression of hatred that distorted it. Helooked at her as a man looks at a faded flower he has gathered,with difficulty recognizing in it the beauty for which he pickedand ruined it. And in spite of this he felt that then, when hislove was stronger, he could, if he had greatly wished it, havetorn that love out of his heart; but now, when as at that momentit seemed to him he felt no love for her, he knew that what boundhim to her could not be broken.

　　"Well, well, what was it you were going to say about the prince?I have driven away the fiend," she added. The fiend was thename they had given her jealousy. "What did you begin to tell meabout the prince? Why did you find it so tiresome?"

　　"Oh, it was intolerable!" he said, trying to pick up the threadof his interrupted thought. "He does not improve on closeracquaintance. If you want him defined, here he is: a prime,well-fed beast such as takes medals at the cattle shows, andnothing more," he said, with a tone of vexation that interestedher.

　　"No; how so?" she replied. "He's seen a great deal, anyway; he'scultured?"

　　"It's an utterly different culture--their culture. He'scultivated, one sees, simply to be able to despise culture, asthey despise everything but animal pleasures."

　　"But don't you all care for these animal pleasures?" she said,and again he noticed a dark look in her eyes that avoided him.

　　"How is it you're defending him?" he said, smiling.

　　"I'm not defending him, it's nothing to me; but I imagine, if youhad not cared for those pleasures yourself, you might have gotout of them. But if it affords you satisfaction to gaze atTherese in the attire of Eve..."

　　"Again, the devil again," Vronsky said, taking the hand she hadlaid on the table and kissing it.

　　"Yes; but I can't help it. You don't know what I have sufferedwaiting for you. I believe I'm not jealous. I'm not jealous: Ibelieve you when you're here; but when you're away somewhereleading your life, so incomprehensible to me..."

　　She turned away from him, pulled the hook at last out of thecrochet work, and rapidly, with the help of her forefinger, beganworking loop after loop of the wool that was dazzling white inthe lamplight, while the slender wrist moved swiftly, nervouslyin the embroidered cuff.

　　"How was it, then? Where did you meet Alexey Alexandrovitch?"Her voice sounded in an unnatural and jarring tone.

　　"We ran up against each other in the doorway."

　　"And he bowed to you like this?"

　　She drew a long face, and half-closing her eyes, quicklytransformed her expression, folded her hands, and Vronskysuddenly saw in her beautiful face the very expression with whichAlexey Alexandrovitch had bowed to him. He smiled, while shelaughed gaily, with that sweet, deep laugh, which was one of hergreatest charms.

　　"I don't understand him in the least," said Vronsky. "If afteryour avowal to him at your country house he had broken with you,if he had called me out--but this I can't understand. How can heput up with such a position? He feels it, that's evident."

　　"He?" she said sneeringly. "He's perfectly satisfied."

　　"What are we all miserable for, when everything might be sohappy?"

　　"Only not he. Don't I know him, the falsity in which he'sutterly steeped?... Could one, with any feeling, live as he isliving with me? He understands nothing, and feels nothing.Could a man of any feeling live in the same house with hisunfaithful wife? Could he talk to her, call her 'my dear'?"

　　And again she could not help mimicking him: "'Anna, ma chere;Anna, dear'!"

　　"He's not a man, not a human being--he's a doll! No one knowshim; but I know him. Oh, if I'd been in his place, I'd long agohave killed, have torn to pieces a wife like me. I wouldn'thave said, 'Anna, ma chere'! He's not a man, he's an officialmachine. He doesn't understand that I'm your wife, that he'soutside, that he's superfluous.... Don't let's talk of him!..."

　　"You're unfair, very unfair, dearest," said Vronsky, trying tosoothe her. "But never mind, don't let's talk of him. Tell mewhat you've been doing? What is the matter? What has been wrongwith you, and what did the doctor say?"

　　She looked at him with mocking amusement. Evidently she had hiton other absurd and grotesque aspects in her husband and wasawaiting the moment to give expression to them.

　　But he went on:

　　"I imagine that it's not illness, but your condition. When willit be?"

　　The ironical light died away in her eyes, but a different smile,a consciousness of something, he did not know what, and of quietmelancholy, came over her face.

　　"Soon, soon. You say that our position is miserable, that wemust put an end to it. If you knew how terrible it is to me,what I would give to be able to love you freely and boldly! Ishould not torture myself and torture you with my jealousy....And it will come soon but not as we expect."

　　And at the thought of how it would come, she seemed so pitiableto herself that tears came into her eyes, and she could not goon. She laid her hand on his sleeve, dazzling and white with itsrings in the lamplight

　　"It won't come as we suppose. I didn't mean to say this to you,but you've made me. Soon, soon, all will be over, and we shallall, all be at peace, and suffer no more."

　　"I don't understand," he said, understanding her.

　　"You asked when? Soon. And I shan't live through it. Don'tinterrupt me!" and she made haste to speak. "I know it; I knowfor certain. I shall die; and I'm very glad I shall die, andrelease myself and you."

　　Tears dropped from her eyes; he bent down over her hand and begankissing it, trying to hide his emotion, which, he knew, had nosort of grounds, though he could not control it.

　　"Yes, it's better so," she said, tightly gripping his hand."That's the only way, the only way left us."

　　He had recovered himself, and lifted his head.

　　"How absurd! What absurd nonsense you are talking!"

　　"No, it's the truth."

　　"What, what's the truth?"

　　"That I shall die. I have had a dream."

　　"A dream?" repeated Vronsky, and instantly he recalled thepeasant of his dream.

　　"Yes, a dream," she said. "It's a long while since I dreamed it.I dreamed that I ran into my bedroom, that I had to get somethingthere, to find out something; you know how it is in dreams," shesaid, her eyes wide with horror; "and in the bedroom, in thecorner, stood something."

　　"Oh, what nonsense! How can you believe..."

　　But she would not let him interrupt her. What she was saying wastoo important to her.

　　"And the something turned round, and I saw it was a peasant witha disheveled beard, little, and dreadful looking. I wanted torun away, but he bent down over a sack, and was fumbling therewith his hands..."

　　She showed how he had moved his hands. There was terror in herface. And Vronsky, remembering his dream, felt the same terrorfilling his soul.

　　"He was fumbling and kept talking quickly, quickly in French, youknow: Il faut le battre, le fer, le brayer, le petrir.... And inmy horror I tried to wake up, and woke up...but woke up inthe dream. And I began asking myself what it meant. And Korneysaid to me: 'In childbirth you'll die, ma'am, you'll die....'And I woke up."

　　"What nonsense, what nonsense!" said Vronsky; but he felt himselfthat there was no conviction in his voice.

　　"But don't let's talk of it. Ring the bell, I'll have tea. Andstay a little now; it's not long I shall..."

　　But all at once she stopped. The expression of her faceinstantaneously changed. Horror and excitement were suddenlyreplaced by a look of soft, solemn, blissful attention. He couldnot comprehend the meaning of the change. She was listening tothe stirring of the new life within her.