Part Two: Chapter 8

by Leo Tolstoy

　　Alexey Alexandrovitch had seen nothing striking or improper inthe fact that his wife was sitting with Vronsky at a table apart,in eager conversation with him about something. But he noticedthat to the rest of the party this appeared something strikingand improper, and for that reason it seemed to him too to beimproper. He made up his mind that he must speak of it to hiswife.

　　On reaching home Alexey Alexandrovitch went to his study, as heusually did, seated himself in his low chair, opened a book onthe Papacy at the place where he had laid the paper-knife in it,and read till one o'clock, just as he usually did. But from timeto time he rubbed his high forehead and shook his head, asthough to drive away something. At his usual time he got up andmade his toilet for the night. Anna Arkadyevna had not yet comein. With a book under his arm he went upstairs. But thisevening, instead of his usual thought and meditations uponofficial details, his thoughts were absorbed by his wife andsomething disagreeable connected with her. Contrary to his usualhabit, he did not get into bed, but fell to walking up and downthe rooms with his hands clasped behind his back. He could notgo to bed, feeling that it was absolutely needful for him firstto think thoroughly over the position that had just arisen.

　　When Alexey Alexandrovitch had made up his mind that he must talkto his wife about it, it had seemed a very easy and simplematter. But now, when he began to think over the question thathad just presented itself, it seemed to him very complicated anddifficult.

　　Alexey Alexandrovitch was not jealous. Jealousy according tohis notions was an insult to one's wife, and one ought to haveconfidence in one's wife. Why one ought to have confidence--that is to say, complete conviction that his young wife wouldalways love him--he did not ask himself. But he had noexperience of lack of confidence, because he had confidence inher, and told himself that he ought to have it. Now, though hisconviction that jealousy was a shameful feeling and that oneought to feel confidence, had not broken down, he felt that hewas standing face to face with something illogical andirrational, and did not know what was to be done. AlexeyAlexandrovitch was standing face to face with life, with thepossibility of his wife's loving someone other than himself, andthis seemed to him very irrational and incomprehensible becauseit was life itself. All his life Alexey Alexandrovitch had livedand worked in official spheres, having to do with the reflectionof life. And every time he had stumbled against life itself hehad shrunk away from it. Now he experienced a feeling akin tothat of a man who, wile calmly crossing a precipice by a bridge,should suddenly discover that the bridge is broken, and thatthere is a chasm below. That chasm was life itself, the bridgethat artificial life in which Alexey Alexandrovitch had lived.For the first time the question presented itself to him of thepossibility of his wife's loving someone else, and he washorrified at it.

　　He did not undress, but walked up and down with his regular treadover the resounding parquet of the dining room, where one lampwas burning, over the carpet of the dark drawing room, in whichthe light was reflected on the big new portrait of himselfhanding over the sofa, and across her boudoir, where two candlesburned, lighting up the portraits of her parents and womanfriends, and the pretty knick-knacks of her writing table, thathe knew so well. He walked across her boudoir to the bedroomdoor, and turned back again. At each turn in his walk,especially at the parquet of the lighted dining room, he haltedand said to himself, "Yes, this I must decide and put a stop to;I must express my view of it and my decision." And he turnedback again. "But express what--what decision?" he said tohimself in the drawing room, and he found no reply. "But afterall," he asked himself before turning into the boudoir, "what hasoccurred? Nothing. She was talking a long while with him. Butwhat of that? Surely women in society can talk to whom theyplease. And then, jealousy means lowering both myself and her,"he told himself as he went into her boudoir; but this dictum,which had always had such weight with him before, had now noweight and no meaning at all. And from the bedroom door heturned back again; but as he entered the dark drawing room someinner voice told him that it was not so, and that if othersnoticed it that showed that there was something. And he said tohimself again in the dining room, "Yes, I must decide and put astop to it, and express my view of it..." And again at the turnin the drawing room he asked himself, "Decide how?" And againhe asked himself, "What had occurred?" and answered, "Nothing,"and recollected that jealousy was a feeling insulting to hiswife; but again in the drawing room he was convinced thatsomething had happened. His thoughts, like his body, went rounda complete circle, without coming upon anything new. He noticedthis, rubbed his forehead, and sat down in her boudoir.

　　There, looking at her table, with the malachite blotting caselying at the top and an unfinished letter, his thoughts suddenlychanged. He began to think of her, of what she was thinking andfeeling. For the first time he pictured vividly to himself herpersonal life, her ideas, her desires, and the idea that shecould and should have a separate life of her own seemed to him soalarming that he made haste to dispel it. It was the chasm whichhe was afraid to peep into. To put himself in thought andfeeling in another person's place was a spiritual exercise notnatural to Alexey Alexandrovitch. He looked on this spiritualexercise as a harmful and dangerous abuse of the fancy.

　　"And the worst of it all," thought he, "is that just now, at thevery moment when my great work is approaching completion" (he wasthinking of the project he was bringing forward at the time),"when I stand in need of all my mental peace and all my energies,just now this stupid worry should fall foul of me. But what's tobe done? I'm not one of those men who submit to uneasiness andworry without having the force of character to face them."

　　"I must think it over, come to a decision, and put it out of mymind," he said aloud.

　　"The question of her feelings, of what has passed and may bepassing in her soul, that's not my affair; that's the affair ofher conscience, and falls under the head of religion," he said tohimself, feeling consolation in the sense that he had found towhich division of regulating principles this new circumstancecould be properly referred.

　　"And so," Alexey Alexandrovitch said to himself, "questions as toher feelings, and so on, are questions for her conscience, withwhich I can have nothing to do. My duty is clearly defined. Asthe head of the family, I am a person bound in duty to guide her,and consequently, in part the person responsible; I am bound topoint out the danger I perceive, to warn her, even to use myauthority. I ought to speak plainly to her." And everything thathe would say tonight to his wife took clear shape in AlexeyAlexandrovitch's head. Thinking over what he would say, hesomewhat regretted that he should have to use his time and mentalpowers for domestic consumption, with so little to show for it,but, in spite of that, the form and contents of the speech beforehim shaped itself as clearly and distinctly in his head as aministerial report.

　　"I must say and express fully the following points: first,exposition of the value to be attached to public opinion and todecorum; secondly, exposition of religious significance ofmarriage; thirdly, if need be, reference to the calamity possiblyensuing to our son; fourthly, reference to the unhappiness likelyto result to herself." And, interlacing his fingers, AlexeyAlexandrovitch stretched them, and the joints of the fingerscracked. This trick, a bad habit, the cracking of his fingers,always soothed him, and gave precision to his thoughts, soneedful to him at this juncture.

　　There was the sound of a carriage driving up to the front door.Alexey Alexandrovitch halted in the middle of the room.

　　A woman's step was heard mounting the stairs. AlexeyAlexandrovitch, ready for his speech, stood compressing hiscrossed fingers, waiting to see if the crack would not comeagain. One joint cracked.

　　Already, from the sound of light steps on the stairs, he wasaware that she was close, and though he was satisfied with hisspeech, he felt frightened of the explanation confronting him...