Part Two: Chapter 7

by Leo Tolstoy

　　Steps were heard at the door, and Princess Betsy, knowing it wasMadame Karenina, glanced at Vronsky. He was looking towards thedoor, and his face wore a strange new expression. Joyfully,intently, and at the same time timidly, he gazed at theapproaching figure, and slowly he rose to his feet. Anna walkedinto the drawing room. Holding herself extremely erect, asalways, looking straight before her, and moving with her swift,resolute, and light step, that distinguished her from all othersociety women, she crossed the short space to her hostess, shookhands with her, smiled, and with the same smile looked around atVronsky. Vronsky bowed low and pushed a chair up for her.

　　She acknowledged this only by a slight nod, flushed a little, andfrowned. But immediately, while rapidly greeting heracquaintances, and shaking the hands proffered to her, sheaddressed Princess Betsy:

　　"I have been at Countess Lidia's, and meant to have come hereearlier, but I stayed on. Sir John was there. He's veryinteresting."

　　"Oh, that's this missionary?"

　　"Yes; he told us about the life in India, most interestingthings."

　　The conversation, interrupted by her coming in, flickered upagain like the light of a lamp being blown out.

　　"Sir John! Yes, Sir John; I've seen him. He speaks well. TheVlassieva girl's quite in love with him."

　　"And is it true the younger Vlassieva girl's to marry Topov?"

　　"Yes, they say it's quite a settled thing."

　　"I wonder at the parents! They say it's a marriage for love."

　　"For love? What antediluvian notions you have! Can one talk oflove in these days?" said the ambassador's wife.

　　"What's to be done? It's a foolish old fashion that's kept upstill," said Vronsky.

　　"So much the worse for those who keep up the fashion. The onlyhappy marriages I know are marriages of prudence."

　　"Yes, but then how often the happiness of these prudent marriagesflies away like dust just because that passion turns up that theyhave refused to recognize," said Vronsky.

　　"But by marriages of prudence we mean those in which both partieshave sown their wild oats already. That's like scarlatina--onehas to go through it and get it over."

　　"Then they ought to find out how to vaccinate for love, likesmallpox."

　　"I was in love in my young days with a deacon," said the PrincessMyakaya. "I don't know that it did me any good."

　　"No; I imagine, joking apart, that to know love, one must makemistakes and then correct them," said Princess Betsy.

　　"Even after marriage?" aid the ambassador's wife playfully.

　　"'It's never too late to mend.'" The attache repeated theEnglish proverb.

　　"Just so," Betsy agreed; "one must make mistakes and correctthem. What do you think about it?" she turned to Anna, who, witha faintly perceptible resolute smile on her lips, was listeningin silence to the conversation.

　　"I think," said Anna, playing with the glove she had taken off,"I think...if so many men, so many minds, certainly so manyhearts, so many kinds of love."

　　Vronsky was gazing at Anna, and with a fainting heart waiting forwhat she would say. He sighed as after a danger escaped when sheuttered these words.

　　Anna suddenly turned to him.

　　"Oh, I have had a letter from Moscow. They write me that KittyShtcherbatskaya's very ill."

　　"Really?" said Vronsky, knitting his brows.

　　Anna looked sternly at him.

　　"That doesn't interest you?"

　　"On the contrary, it does, very much. What was it exactly theytold you, if I may know?" he questioned.

　　Anna got up and went to Betsy.

　　"Give me a cup of tea," she said, standing at her table.

　　While Betsy was pouring out the tea, Vronsky went up to Anna.

　　"What is it they write to you?" he repeated.

　　"I often think men have no understanding of what's not honorablethough they're always talking of it," said Anna, withoutanswering him. "I've wanted to tell you so a long while," sheadded, and moving a few steps away, she sat down at a table in acorner covered with albums.

　　"I don't quite understand the meaning of your words," he said,handing her the cup.

　　she glanced towards the sofa beside her, and he instantly satdown.

　　"Yes, I have been wanting to tell you," she said, not looking athim. "You behaved wrongly, very wrongly."

　　"Do you suppose I don't know that I've acted wrongly? But whowas the cause of my doing so?"

　　"What do you say that to me for?" she said, glancing severely athim.

　　"You know what for," he answered boldly and joyfully, meeting herglance and not dropping his eyes.

　　Not he, but she, was confused.

　　"That only shows you have no heart," she said. But her eyes saidthat she knew he had a heat, and that was why she was afraid ofhim.

　　"What you spoke of just now was a mistake, and not love."

　　"Remember that I have forbidden you to utter that word, thathateful word," said Anna, with a shudder. But at once she feltthat by that very word "forbidden" she had shown that sheacknowledged certain rights over him, and by that very fact wasencouraging him to speak of love. "I have long meant to tell youthis," she went on, looking resolutely into his eyes, and hot allover from the burning flush on her cheeks. "I've come on purposethis evening, knowing I should meet you. I have come to tell youthat this must end. I have never blushed before anyone, and youforce me to feel to blame for something."

　　He looked at her and was struck by a new spiritual beauty in herface.

　　"What do you wish of me?" he said simply and seriously.

　　"I want you to go to Moscow and ask for Kitty's forgiveness," shesaid.

　　"You don't wish that?" he said.

　　He saw she was saying what she forced herself to say, not whatshe wanted to say.

　　"If you love me, as you say," she whispered, "do so that I maybe at peace."

　　His face grew radiant.

　　"Don't you know that you're all my life to me? But I know nopeace, and I can't give to you; all myself--and love...yes. Ican't think of you and myself apart. You and I are one to me.And I see no chance before us of peace for me or for you. I seea chance of despair, of wretchedness...or I see a chance ofbliss, what bliss!... Can it be there's no chance of it?" hemurmured with his lips; but she heard.

　　She strained every effort of her mind to say what ought to besaid. But instead of that she let her eyes rest on him, full oflove, and made no answer.

　　"It's come!" he thought in ecstasy. "When I was beginning todespair, and it seemed there would be no end--it's come! sheloves me! She owns it!"

　　"Then do this for me: never say such things to me, and let us befriends," she said in words; but her eyes spoke quitedifferently.

　　"Friends we shall never be, you know that yourself. Whether weshall be the happiest or the wretchedest of people--that's inyour hands."

　　She would have said something, but he interrupted her.

　　"I ask one thing only: I ask for the right to hope, to suffer asI do. But if even that cannot be, command me to disappear, andI disappear. You shall not see me if my presence is distastefulto you."

　　"I don't want to drive you away."

　　"Only don't change anything, leave everything as it is," he saidin a shaky voice. "Here's your husband."

　　At that instant Alexey Alexandrovitch did in fact walk into theroom with his calm, awkward gait.

　　Glancing at his wife and Vronsky, he went up to the lady of thehouse, and sitting down for a cup of tea, began talking in hisdeliberate, always audible voice, in his habitual tone of banter,ridiculing someone.

　　"Your Rambouillet is in full conclave," he said, looking round atall the party; "the graces and the muses."

　　But Princess Betsy could not endure that tone of his--"sneering," as she called it, using the English word, and like askillful hostess she at once brought him into a seriousconversation on the subject of universal conscription. AlexeyAlexandrovitch was immediately interested in the subject, andbegan seriously defending the new imperial decree againstPrincess Betsy, who had attacked it.

　　Vronsky and Anna still sat at the little table.

　　"This is getting indecorous," whispered one lady, with anexpressive glance at Madame Karenina, Vronsky, and her husband.

　　"What did I tell you?" said Anna's friend.

　　But not only those ladies, almost everyone in the room, even thePrincess Myakaya and Betsy herself, looked several times in thedirection of the two who had withdrawn from the general circle,as though that were a disturbing fact. Alexey Alexandrovitch wasthe only person who did not once look in that direction, and wasnot diverted from the interesting discussion he had entered upon.

　　Noticing the disagreeable impression that was being made oneveryone, Princess Betsy slipped someone else into her place tolisten to Alexey Alexandrovitch, and went up to Anna.

　　"I'm always amazed at the clearness and precision of yourhusband's language," she said. "The most transcendental ideasseem to be within my grasp when he's speaking."

　　"Oh, yes!" said Anna, radiant with a smile of happiness, and notunderstanding a word of what Betsy had said. She crossed over tothe big table and took part in the general conversation.

　　Alexey Alexandrovitch, after staying half an hour, went up to hiswife and suggested that they should go home together. But sheanswered, not looking at him, that she was staying to supper.Alexey Alexandrovitch made his bows and withdrew.

　　The fat old Tatar, Madame Karenina's coachman, was withdifficulty holding one of her pair of grays, chilled with thecold and rearing at the entrance. A footman stood opening thecarriage door. The hall porter stood holding open the great doorof the house. Anna Arkadyevna, with her quick little hand, wasunfastening the lace of her sleeve, caught in the hook of her furcloak, and with bent head listening to the words Vronsky murmuredas he escorted her down.

　　"You've said nothing, of course, and I ask nothing," he wassaying; "but you know that friendship's not what I want: thatthere's only one happiness in life for me, that word that youdislike so...yes, love!..."

　　"Love," she repeated slowly, in an inner voice, and suddenly, atthe very instant she unhooked the lace, she added, "Why I don'tlike the word is that it means too much to me, far more than youcan understand," and she glanced into his face. "Au revoir!"

　　She gave him her hand, and with her rapid, springy step shepassed by the porter and vanished into the carriage.

　　Her glance, the touch of her hand, set him aflame. He kissed thepalm of his hand where she had touched it, and went home, happyin the sense that he had got nearer to the attainment of his aimsthat evening than during the last two months.