FIFTY-EIGHT

 

 

Chapter 24

 

 

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THE congratulations at the Palace were over. Meeting as they were going out, acquaintances chatted about the latest news, the newly-awarded honours, and the changes among the highest officials.

 

‘How would it do to appoint Countess Mary Borisovna, Minister of War? and Princess Vatkovskaya, Chief of the Staff?’ said a grey-haired old man in a gold-embroidered uniform to a tall and beautiful Maid of Honour, in answer to her question about the promotions.

 

‘And me, aide-de-camp,’ replied the Maid of Honour with a smile.

 

‘Your post is already assigned to you: in the Ecclesiastical department with Karenin as your assistant.’

 

‘How do you do, Prince?’ added the old man, shaking hands with some one who had just come up.

 

‘What were you saying about Karenin?’ inquired the Prince.

 

‘He and Putyatov have received the Order of Alexander Nevsky.’

 

‘I thought he had it already.’

 

‘No. Just look at him,’ said the old man, pointing with his gold-trimmed hat to Karenin who, in Court uniform, with a new red ribbon round his shoulder, stood in the doorway with an important member of the State Council. ‘As happy and contended as a brass farthing,’ he added, pausing to shake hands with an athletic, handsome chamberlain.

 

‘No, he has aged,’ said the chamberlain.

 

‘From hard work. He is always writing projects now. He will not release that unfortunate fellow until he has expounded everything, point by point.’

 

‘Aged indeed! Il fait des passions! [He inspires passion!] I think that now the Countess Lydia Ivanovna is jealous of his wife.’

 

‘Oh, come! Please don’t say anything bad about the Countess.’

 

‘But is it bad that she is in love with Karenin?’

 

‘And is it true that his wife is here?’

 

‘Of course not here in the Palace, but she is in Petersburg. I met her and Alexis Vronsky walking arm in arm on the Morskaya.’

 

‘C’est un homme qui n’a pas . . . [That’s a man who has not . . .]’ began the chamberlain, but stopped short to make way for and to bow to a member of the Imperial family who passed by.

 

In this way they chattered unceasingly about Karenin, blaming him and laughing at him, while he, barring the way to the member of the State Council whom he had buttonholed, and not pausing for a moment for fear he might slip away, expounded point by point some financial project of his.

 

Almost at the same time that his wife had left Karenin, the most painful thing that can befall an official — the cessation of his ascent in the Service — had befallen him. That cessation was an accomplished fact, clearly visible to every one, though Karenin himself had not yet realized that his career was at an end. Whether it was his conflict with Stremov or the misfortune with his wife, or simply that he had reached his predestined limit — at any rate it had that year become obvious to every one that his career was over. He still held an important post, was member of many Commissions and Committees, but he was finished, and from him nothing further was to be looked for. Whatever he might say, whatever he might propose, he was listened to as if all he was proposing had long been known and was what no one wanted. But Karenin was not sensible of this: on the contrary, being now outside Government work, he saw more clearly than ever the defects and mistakes made by others, and considered it his duty to point out how those mistakes might be rectified. Soon after the parting with his wife he began writing a pamphlet on the new legal procedure — the first of an innumerable series of unwanted pamphlets on every administrative department which it was his fate to write.

 

But Karenin, far from noticing the hopelessness of his position in officialdom and being troubled by it, was more satisfied with his work than ever.

 

‘He that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife . . . but he that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord and how to please the Lord,’ says the Apostle Paul; and Karenin, who was now guided in all his actions by the Scriptures, often recalled that text. He thought that since he had been without a wife he had served the Lord by means of these very projects more than before.

 

The evident impatience of the Member of the Council did not trouble Karenin, who left off expounding his project only when the Councillor, profiting by a royal personage’s passing, slipped away.

 

Left alone, Karenin bowed his head, collecting his thoughts, and then turned absent-mindedly toward the door where he hoped to meet the Countess Lydia Ivanovna. ‘How strong and healthy they all are physically,’ he thought, glancing at the powerfully-built chamberlain with his well-brushed and perfumed whiskers, and at the red neck of a Prince in a tightly-fitting uniform, whom he had to pass on his way. ‘It is truly said that everything in the world is sin,’ he thought, again glancing out of the corners of his eyes at the chamberlain’s calves.

 

Moving his feet deliberately, Karenin, with his usual air of weariness and dignity, bowed to those gentlemen who were talking about him, and his eyes searched through the doorway for the Countess.

 

‘Ah, Alexis Alexandrovich!’ cried the old man with a malevolent gleam in his eyes as Karenin passed him bowing coldly. ‘I have not yet congratulated you,’ he went on, pointing to Karenin’s newly-awarded ribbon.

 

‘Thank you,’ replied Karenin. ‘What a beautiful day it is,’ he added, laying, as was his wont, peculiar stress on the word ‘beautiful’.

 

He knew that they were laughing at him, but he no longer looked for anything except hostility from them; he was already accustomed to it.

 

Having caught sight, just as she entered, of the Countess Lydia Ivanovna’s yellow shoulders emerging from her corset, and of her beautiful dreamy eyes summoning him, Karenin smiled, revealing his white impeccable teeth, and went up to her.

 

Lydia Ivanovna’s dress had cost her a great deal of trouble, as was the case with all her attire of late. Her purpose in dressing was now quite the reverse of what she had had in view thirty years ago. Then she had wished to adorn herself somehow, the more the better; now, on the contrary, she was obliged to be adorned so unsuitably to her age and figure, that she was only concerned that the incongruity between these adornments and her own appearance should not be too dreadful. As far as Karenin was concerned she attained her object, and to him she seemed attractive. In his eyes she was the only islet, not of kindly feeling only but of affection, in the ocean of hostility and ridicule which surrounded him.

 

As he now ran the gauntlet of those mocking eyes he was drawn toward her enamoured look as naturally as a plant is drawn toward the sun.

 

‘I congratulate you,’ she said, indicating the ribbon by a look.

 

Repressing a smile of pleasure, he shrugged his shoulders and closed his eyes, as if to say that it could not give him pleasure. The Countess Lydia Ivanovna knew very well that it was one of his greatest pleasures, though he would never confess it.

 

‘How is our angel?’ asked she, meaning Serezha.

 

‘I can’t say I am quite satisfied with him,’ replied Karenin, raising his eyebrows and opening his eyes. ‘And Sitnikov too is dissatisfied with him.’ Sitnikov was the tutor to whom Serezha’s secular education was entrusted. ‘As I told you, he shows a certain coldness toward those most important questions which should stir the soul of every man and child,’ he went on, speaking on the only subject which interested him outside the Service — the education of his son.

 

When with Lydia Ivanovna’s help he had returned to life and activity, he had felt it his duty to take his son’s education in hand. Never having occupied himself with educational matters before, he devoted some time to studying the matter theoretically. After reading several books on anthropology, pedagogics, and didactics, he formed a plan of education, and having engaged the best Petersburg educationalist for supervision, he set to work. And this undertaking occupied him continually.

 

‘Yes, but his heart! I see in him his father’s heart, and with such a heart a child can’t be bad!’ said Lydia Ivanovna, enthusiastically.

 

‘Perhaps. Well, as far as I am concerned I do my duty, which is all I can do.’

 

‘Will you come and see me?’ said the Countess after a pause. ‘We must talk over something painful to you. I would have given anything to save you from certain memories, but other people think differently. I had a letter from her. She is here in Petersburg.’

 

Karenin started at the reference to his wife, but immediately his face assumed a death-like immobility which showed utter helplessness in the matter.

 

‘I expected it,’ he said.

 

The Countess Lydia Ivanovna looked at him ecstatically, and her eyes filled with tears of rapturous admiration at the loftiness of his soul.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 25

 

 

 

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WHEN Karenin entered the Countess Lydia Ivanovna’s snug little boudoir, which was full of old china and had its walls covered with portraits, the hostess was not yet there.

 

She was changing her dress.

 

Upon a round table covered with a cloth stood a Chinese tea service and a silver kettle over a spirit lamp. Karenin glanced absent-mindedly at the numberless familiar portraits decorating the boudoir, and sitting down by the table opened a New Testament that was on it. The rustle of the Countess’s silk dress roused him.

 

‘Well, now we can sit down quietly,’ said she with an agitated smile, as she squeezed herself in between the table and sofa, ‘and have a chat over our tea.’

 

After a few words of preparation the Countess, breathing heavily and blushing, handed him the letter she had received.

 

When he had read the letter Karenin was silent for a long time.

 

‘I don’t consider that I have a right to refuse,’ he said timidly, raising his eyes.

 

‘My dear friend, you see no evil in anyone!’

 

‘On the contrary, I see that everything is evil. But is it right . . .’

 

His face expressed uncertainty and a desire for advice, support, and guidance in a matter he did not understand.

 

‘No,’ she interrupted him, ‘there are limits to everything! I understand immorality,’ she said, not quite sincerely, for she never could have understood that which leads women to immorality, ‘but I do not understand cruelty . . . and to whom? To you! How can she stay in the town you are in? But it’s quite true, “Live and learn”! And I am learning to understand your loftiness and her baseness.’

 

‘But who will throw the stone?’ said he, evidently pleased with his rôle. ‘I have quite forgiven her, and therefore cannot refuse her what her love for her son demands.’

 

‘But is it love, dear friend? Is it sincere? Granted that you have forgiven her, and do forgive her; but have we the right to act thus toward the soul of that angel? He thinks she is dead. He prays for her and asks God to forgive her her sins, and it is better so. But this . . . what will he think?’

 

‘I had not thought of that,’ said Karenin, evidently agreeing with her.

 

The Countess covered her face with her hands and remained silent. She was praying.

 

‘If you ask my advice,’ she said, when her prayer was ended and she uncovered her face, ‘I do not advise you to do it! Do I not see how you are suffering, how this has reopened all your wounds! Of course as usual you are not thinking of yourself. But what can it lead to? Renewed pain for yourself and pain for the child! If there is anything human left in her, she herself should not desire it. No, I advise you unhesitatingly not to allow it, and with your permission I will write to her.’

 

Karenin agreed, and the Countess Lydia Ivanovna wrote in French as follows:

 

‘MADAME! — To remind your son of you might lead to his asking questions which it would be impossible to answer without implanting in his soul a spirit of condemnation for what should be holy to him, and therefore I beg you to take your husband’s refusal in the spirit of Christian love. I pray the Almighty to be merciful to you. — COUNTESS LYDIA.’

 

 

 

This letter achieved the secret purpose which the Countess Lydia Ivanovna hid even from herself. It wounded Anna to the depths of her soul.

 

Karenin too, on returning home from Lydia Ivanovna’s, could not give his attention to his usual occupations nor find that spiritual peace of a believer who has found salvation, which he had felt before.

 

The memory of his wife who was so guilty toward him, and toward whom he was so saintly, as the Countess Lydia Ivanovna had justly told him, should not have upset him; but he was not at ease: he could not understand the book he was reading, could not drive away tormenting memories of his relations with her, and of the mistakes which, as it now appeared to him, he had committed in regard to her. The memory of the manner in which, when returning from the races, he had received her confession of unfaithfulness (especially the fact that he had demanded of her only external propriety and had not challenged Vronsky) tormented him like remorse. The memory of the letter he had written to her also tormented him; above all his forgiveness, which no one wanted, and his care for another man’s child, burned his heart with shame and regret.

 

He now felt a similar sense of shame and remorse when thinking of his whole past with her, and recalling the awkward words in which, after much hesitation, he had proposed to her.

 

‘But wherein am I to blame?’ he asked himself, and as usual that question suggested another: Did those others — those Vronskys and Oblonskys and those fat-calved chamberlains — feel differently, love differently, marry differently? And there rose before his mind’s eye a whole row of those vigorous, strong, self-assured men, who had always involuntarily attracted his curiosity and attention. He drove these thoughts from him, and tried to convince himself that he was not living for the present temporal life but for eternal life, and that his soul was full of peace and love. But the fact that in this temporary insignificant life he had committed, as it seemed to him, some trivial errors, tormented him as much as if the eternal salvation in which he believed did not exist. But this temptation did not last long, and soon that tranquil elevation, thanks to which he could forget the things he did not wish to remember, was re-established in his soul.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 26

 

 

 

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‘WELL, Kapitonich?’ said Serezha, as on the day before his birthday he returned rosy and bright from a walk, and gave his overcoat to the tall old hall-porter, who looked smilingly down from his height at the little fellow. ‘Well, has the bandaged official been to-day? Has Papa seen him?’

 

‘He has seen him. As soon as the secretary left, I announced him,’ answered the hall-porter with a wink. ‘Let me take it off for you.’

 

‘Serezha!’ said his tutor, a Slav, stopping in the doorway that led to the inner rooms, ‘take it off yourself.’ But Serezha, though he heard his tutor’s weak voice, paid no heed to it. He stood holding on by the porter’s shoulder-strap and looking into his face.

 

‘Well, and has Papa done what he wanted?’

 

The hall-porter nodded affirmatively.

 

The bandaged official, who had called seven times to petition Karenin about something, interested both Serezha and the hall-porter. Serezha had met him in the hall, and had heard him piteously begging the porter to announce him to Karenin, and saying that he and his children were face to face with death.

 

Since then, having again met the official in the hall, Serezha had become interested in him.

 

‘And was he very glad?’ he asked.

 

‘How could he help being glad? He nearly jumped for joy as he went away.’

 

‘And has anything been brought?’ inquired Serezha, after a pause.

 

‘Well, sir,’ said the porter, shaking his head and whispering, ‘there is something from the Countess.’

 

Serezha knew at once that the hall-porter was speaking of a birthday present for him from the Countess Lydia Ivanovna.

 

‘You don’t say so? Where is it?’

 

‘Korney has taken it in to your Papa. I should think it’s a fine thing.’

 

‘What size? About so big?’

 

‘Not quite, but a fine thing.’

 

‘A book?’

 

‘No, just a thing. Go, go! Vasily Lukich is calling you,’ said the hall-porter, hearing the approaching step of the tutor, and gently disengaging the little hand in the half-drawn-off glove which held him by his shoulder-strap, as he nodded and winked toward the tutor.

 

‘Vasily Lukich, one moment!’ said Serezha with that bright and affectionate smile which always overcame the conscientious Vasily Lukich.

 

Serezha was in too high spirits, too happy not to share with his friend the hall-porter another family joy about which he had heard from Lydia Ivanovna’s niece, whom he met walking in the Summer Gardens. This joy appeared to him particularly important because it coincided with the satisfaction of the official, and his own happiness that a present had been brought. To Serezha it seemed that this day was one on which everybody ought to be happy and gay.

 

‘Do you know, Papa has received the Order of Alexander Nevsky?’

 

‘Of course I do! People have already been calling to congratulate him.’

 

‘Well, and is he pleased?’

 

‘How can he help being pleased at the Tsar’s favour? It shows he’s deserved it,’ replied the hall-porter sternly and seriously.

 

Serezha grew thoughtful as he peered into the hall-porter’s face, which he had studied in minute detail — especially the chin which hung beneath the grey whiskers and which no one saw but Serezha, who always looked up at him.

 

‘And your daughter, has she been here lately?’

 

The hall-porter’s daughter was a ballet-dancer.

 

‘How can she come on week-days? They have to learn too, and so must you, sir! Go along!’

 

On entering the schoolroom, instead of sitting down to his lessons, Serezha told his tutor of his guess that the parcel that had been brought must be a railway train.

 

‘What do you think?’ he asked.

 

But Vasily Lukich only thought that Serezha must prepare his grammar lesson, as his teacher was coming at two.

 

‘Oh, but just tell me, Vasily Lukich!’ said Serezha, suddenly, after sitting down at the table with a book in his hand. ‘What is higher than the Alexander Nevsky? You know Papa has received the Order of Alexander Nevsky?’

 

Vasily Lukich replied that the Order of Vladimir was higher.

 

‘And higher still?’

 

‘The highest is the St. Andrew.’

 

‘And higher still?’

 

‘I don’t know.’

 

‘Even you don’t know!’ And Serezha, leaning his elbows on the table, began to reflect.

 

His reflections were most complex and varied. He imagined his father suddenly receiving the Orders of Vladimir and St. Andrew, and how much kinder in consequence he would be to-day at lesson-time, and how he himself when he grew up would receive all the Orders, and that they would invent one higher than the St. Andrew. As soon as it was invented he would gain it. A yet higher one would be invented, and he would immediately get that one too.

 

In these reflections time passed until the teacher arrived. The lesson on the attributes of Time, Place, and Manner of Action had not been learnt. The teacher was not only dissatisfied but also saddened. His sadness touched Serezha. He did not feel guilty for not having learned his lesson, for try as he would he positively could not do it. While the teacher was explaining, he believed him and seemed to understand, but as soon as he was left alone he positively could not remember or understand how so short and simple a word as suddenly could be an attribute of the manner of action; but all the same he was sorry he had grieved his teacher.

 

He chose a moment when the teacher was looking silently into the book:

 

‘Michael Ivanovich, when is your birthday?’ he suddenly asked.

 

‘You would do better to think of your work. Birthdays do not signify anything to reasonable beings. It is just a day like any other, on which we must work.’

 

Serezha looked attentively at his teacher, at his thin little beard and his spectacles which had slipped down the bridge of his nose, and became so engrossed in thought that he no longer heard what his teacher was explaining. He was aware that the teacher himself did not believe what he was saying; he felt that by the tone in which the words were uttered. ‘But why have they all agreed to speak in the same way about the dullest and most useless things? Why does he repulse me? Why does he not love me?’ he asked himself sadly, and could find no answer.