Chapter 27

 

 

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AFTER the teacher’s lesson Serezha had a lesson from his father. Before his father came Serezha sat at the table playing with a pocket-knife and thinking. Among his favourite occupations was keeping a look out for his mother when he went out walking. He did not believe in death in general, and especially not in her death, despite what Lydia Ivanovna had told him and his father had confirmed, and therefore even after he had been told she was dead, he went on looking for her when on his walks. He imagined that every well-developed and graceful woman with dark hair was his mother. At the sight of any such woman a feeling of such tenderness awoke in his heart that he grew breathless and tears came to his eyes. He expected that at any moment she would approach and lift her veil. Then he would see her whole face, she would smile, embrace him, and he would smell her peculiar scent, feel the tenderness of her touch, and cry with joy as he had done one evening when he lay at her feet and she tickled him, while he shook with laughter and bit her white hand with the rings on the fingers. Later on, when he accidentally heard from his nurse that she was not dead, and his father and Lydia Ivanovna explained that to him she was dead because she was bad (which he could not at all believe, for he loved her), he continued to look out for and wait for her. There had been a lady with a purple veil in the Summer Garden to-day whom he had watched with a sinking heart as she came toward him along the path. The lady did not come up to them and disappeared somewhere. To-day Serezha was more than ever conscious of a flow of love for his mother in his heart, and now as he sat lost in thought, waiting for his father, he notched the whole edge of the table with his knife, looking before him with shining eyes and thinking about her.

 

Vasily Lukich roused him. ‘Your Papa is coming!’

 

Serezha jumped up, approached his father, kissed his hand, and looked at him attentively, trying to find some sign of his joy at receiving the Order of Alexander Nevsky.

 

‘Have you had a nice walk?’ asked Karenin, as he sat down in his arm-chair, drew toward him an Old Testament and opened it. Although Karenin had more than once told Serezha that every Christian ought to be well acquainted with Bible history, he often in Old Testament history had to consult the book, and Serezha noticed this.

 

‘Yes, Papa, it was very amusing,’ answered Serezha, sitting down sideways on his chair and beginning to rock it, which was forbidden. ‘I met Nadenka’ (Nadenka was Lydia Ivanovna’s niece, who was being educated at her aunt’s house). ‘She told me you had received another Order, a new one. Are you glad, Papa?’

 

‘First of all, don’t rock your chair,’ said Karenin. ‘Secondly, it’s not the reward but the work that is precious. I wish you understood that. You see, if you take pains and learn in order to get a reward, the work will seem hard; but when you work’ (Karenin said this remembering how he had sustained himself that morning by a sense of duty in the dull task of signing a hundred and eighteen papers) — ‘if you love your work, you will find your reward in that.’

 

Serezha’s eyes, that had been shining with affection and joy, grew dull and drooped under his father’s gaze. It was the same long-familiar tone in which his father always addressed him, and to which Serezha had already learnt to adapt himself. His father always talked to him, Serezha felt, as if he were some imaginary boy out of a book, quite unlike Serezha; and with his father he always tried to pretend to be that boy out of a book.

 

‘You understand me, I hope,’ said the father.

 

‘Yes, Papa,’ answered the boy, pretending to be that imaginary boy.

 

The lesson consisted in learning by heart some verses from the Gospels and repeating the beginning of the Old Testament. Serezha knew the Gospel verses pretty well, but whilst saying them he became so absorbed in the contemplation of a bone in his father’s forehead, which turned very sharply above the temple, that he became confused and put the end of one verse where the same word occurred after the beginning of another. It was evident to Karenin that the boy did not understand what he was saying, and this irritated him.

 

He frowned and began an explanation that Serezha had heard many times already, and could never remember because he understood it too clearly; just as he could not remember that the word suddenly was an attribute of the manner of action. Serezha looked at his father with scared eyes, and could only think of whether his father would make him repeat what he had just said, as he sometimes did. This thought frightened him so much that he no longer understood anything at all. However, his father did not make him repeat it, but went on to the lesson from the Old Testament. Serezha related the events themselves quite well, but when he had to answer questions as to what some of the events symbolized, he knew nothing about it, though he had been punished before for not knowing this lesson. The part, however, about which he could not say anything at all but only floundered, cut the table, and rocked his chair, was that about the antediluvian patriarchs. He did not know any of them except Enoch, who was taken up to Heaven alive. Previously he had remembered the others’ names, but now he had quite forgotten them, chiefly because Enoch was his favourite in the whole Old Testament, and attached to Enoch’s being taken up to Heaven there was a long string of thought in his head, which now occupied his mind while he looked fixedly at his father’s watch-chain and a half-unfastened button of his waistcoat.

 

He did not in the least believe in death, which was so often mentioned to him. He did not believe that people he loved could die, nor above all that he himself would die. That seemed to him quite impossible and incomprehensible. But he was told that everybody would die; he had even asked people whom he trusted and they all confirmed it; his nurse too said so, though reluctantly. But Enoch had not died, so not everybody died, ‘and why should not anybody deserve the same in God’s sight, and be taken up to Heaven alive?’ thought Serezha. Bad people, that is to say those he did not like, might die; but the good ones might all be like Enoch.

 

‘Well, who were the patriarchs?’

 

‘Enoch, Enos . . .’

 

‘But you have already mentioned them. This is bad, Serezha, very bad! If you do not take pains to know what is most necessary for a Christian, then what can interest you? I am displeased with you, and Peter Ignatych’ — this was the chief educationalist — ‘is also displeased with you. . . . I shall have to punish you.’

 

His father and the educationalist were both displeased with Serezha, and he really learnt badly. Yet it could not at all be said that he was an incapable boy. On the contrary he was far more capable than the boys whom the educationalist set before him as models. His father from his point of view considered that the boy did not try to learn what he was being taught. As a matter of fact, he could not learn it. He could not, because there were more urgent demands on his soul than those put forward by his father and the educationalist. The two kinds of demands were opposed, and he was in direct conflict with his instructors. He was nine years old and quite a child, but he knew his soul, it was dear to him, and he guarded it as the eyelid guards the eye, and never let anyone enter his heart without the key of love. His instructors complained that he would not learn, yet his soul was overflowing with longing for knowledge. So he learnt, from Kapitonich, from his nurse, from Nadenka, and from Vasily Lukich, but not from his teachers. The water which his father and the educationalists expected would turn their mill-wheels had long since leaked out and was working somewhere else.

 

His father punished Serezha by not letting him go to see Lydia Ivanovna’s niece Nadenka, but this punishment turned out luckily for Serezha. Vasily Lukich was in good spirits and showed him how to make windmills. He spent all the evening working, and dreaming how a windmill could be made on which one could ride, either by seizing one of the sails or by tying oneself to it and spinning round. He did not think about his mother all the evening; but when in bed he suddenly remembered her, and prayed in his own words that to-morrow, on his birthday, she should stop hiding herself and should come to him.

 

‘Vasily Lukich! Do you know for what I have been praying extra?’

 

‘To learn better?’

 

‘No.’

 

‘For toys?’

 

‘No. You will never guess! It’s lovely, but a secret! When it comes true, I will tell you. You have not guessed.’

 

‘No, I can’t guess. You’d better tell me,’ said Vasily Lukich, smiling, which he rarely did. ‘Well, lie down, and I’ll put out the candle.’

 

‘But I can see better without a candle what I have been praying for! There, I nearly told you the secret!’ said Serezha with a merry laugh.

 

When the candle had been taken away he heard and felt his mother. She stood above him and caressed him with a loving look. But then windmills appeared, and a knife, and all became confused, and he fell asleep.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 28

 

 

 

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WHEN Vronsky and Anna reached Petersburg they put up at one of the best hotels: Vronsky separately on the first floor, and Anna with the baby, the nurse, and a maid, upstairs in a large suite consisting of four rooms.

 

On the day they arrived Vronsky went to see his brother. There he met his mother, who had come from Moscow on business. His mother and his sister-in-law received him just as usual, asked him about his trip abroad and spoke of mutual acquaintances, but did not say a single word about his union with Anna. His brother, however, having come to see him next morning, asked about her, and Alexis Vronsky told him frankly that he regarded his union with her as a marriage, that he hoped to arrange a divorce for her, and would then marry her, and that meanwhile he considered her his wife, just like any other wife, and he asked his brother to say so to their mother and to his own wife.

 

‘If the world does not approve of it, I don’t care,’ said Vronsky, ‘but if my relatives wish to treat me as a relation, they must adopt a similar attitude toward my wife.’

 

The elder brother, who had always respected his younger brother’s opinions, was not sure whether he was right or wrong, until the world had decided the point; but for his own part he had nothing against it and went up with Alexis to see Anna.

 

In his brother’s presence Vronsky spoke to Anna merely as to a close acquaintance, as he always did in the presence of a third party; but it was assumed that his brother knew of their relations, and they spoke of Anna’s going to Vronsky’s estate.

 

Despite all his experience of the world, Vronsky, in the new position in which he found himself, was making a terrible mistake. He might have been expected to understand that Society was closed to him and Anna; but some sort of vague notion got into his head that though it used to be so in olden times, yet now, when there was so much progress (without noticing it, he had become an advocate of every kind of progress), public opinion had changed and it was possible that they would be received in Society. ‘Of course they will not receive her at Court, but intimate friends can and should see things the right way,’ he thought.

 

It is possible to sit for some hours with one’s legs doubled up without changing one’s position if one knows there is nothing to prevent one’s doing so, but if a man knows that he must sit with his legs doubled up he will get cramp, and his legs will begin to jerk and strain in the direction in which he would like to stretch them. This was what Vronsky experienced with regard to Society. Though in the depths of his soul he knew that Society was closed to them, he tried whether it would not change and whether it would not receive them. But he very soon noticed that though the great world was open to him personally, it was closed to Anna. As in the game of cat and mouse, the arms that were raised to allow him to get inside the circle were at once lowered to prevent Anna from entering.

 

One of the first Petersburg Society ladies he met was his cousin Betsy.

 

‘At last!’ she exclaimed joyfully when they met. ‘And Anna? I am so glad! Where are you staying? I can imagine how dreadful our Petersburg must appear to you after your delightful journey; I can picture to myself your honeymoon in Rome. And the divorce? Is it all arranged?’

 

He noticed that Betsy’s delight cooled down when she learnt that Anna had not yet been divorced.

 

‘They will throw stones at me, I know,’ she said, ‘but I shall come and see Anna. Yes, I will certainly come. You are not staying here long?’

 

And really she came to see Anna that same day; but her manner was very different from what it had formerly been. She was evidently proud of her boldness and wished Anna to appreciate the fidelity of her friendship. She did not stay more than ten minutes, chattering Society gossip, and as she was leaving said:

 

‘You have not told me when you will be divorced? Of course I have kicked over the traces, but others, straight-laced people, will give you the cold shoulder until you get married. And it is so simple nowadays! Ça se fait. [It is a thing that is done.] So you are leaving on Friday? I am sorry we shan’t see one another again!’

 

From Betsy’s tone Vronsky might have realized what he had to expect from Society, but he made another attempt with his relations. Of his mother he had no hopes. He knew that his mother, who had been so delighted with Anna when she first made her acquaintance, was now merciless toward her for having caused the ruin of her son’s career. But he placed great hopes on Varya, his brother’s wife. She, he thought, would cast no stones, but would simply and resolutely go and see Anna and receive her at her own house.

 

The day after his arrival Vronsky called on her, and having found her alone, expressed his wish.

 

‘You know how fond I am of you, Alexis,’ she replied when she had heard him out, ‘and how ready I am to do anything for you; but I have kept silent because I knew I could be of no use to you and Anna Arkadyevna.’ She pronounced the formal ‘Anna Arkadyevna’ with peculiar precision. ‘Please don’t think I am condemning you. Not at all! Perhaps in her place I should have done the same. I do not and cannot enter into details,’ she added, looking timidly into his gloomy face. ‘But we must call things by their real names. You wish me to go and see her and to receive her, and so rehabilitate her in Society; but please understand that I cannot do it! I have daughters growing up, and I must move in Society, for my husband’s sake. Suppose I go to see Anna Arkadyevna; she will understand that I cannot ask her to my house, or must do it in such a way that she does not meet those who see things differently. That would offend her. I am not able to raise her . . .’

 

‘But I don’t consider that she has fallen lower than hundreds of people whom you do receive!’ said Vronsky still more gloomily, and rose in silence, having understood that his sister-in-law’s determination was final.

 

‘Alexis, don’t be angry with me! Please understand that it is not my fault,’ said Varya, looking at him with a timid smile.

 

‘I am not angry with you,’ he said just as gloomily, ‘but I am doubly pained. I am pained too because this breaks our friendship. No, not breaks it, but weakens it. You understand that for me too there can be no other course!’

 

With those words he left her.

 

Vronsky understood that it was vain to make any further attempts and that they would have to spend those few days in Petersburg as in a strange town, avoiding contact with their former world in order not to lay themselves open to unpleasantnesses and insults which were so painful to him. One of the most disagreeable features of his position in Petersburg was that Karenin seemed to be everywhere and his name in every mouth. It was impossible to start any conversation without its turning upon Karenin, impossible to go anywhere without meeting him. So at least it seemed to Vronsky, as a man with a sore finger feels that he is continually knocking that finger against everything as if on purpose.

 

The stay in Petersburg seemed to him still more trying because he noticed all the time in Anna a new and to him incomprehensible mood. At one moment she appeared to be in love with him, and at the next would turn cold, irritable, and impenetrable. Something tormented her and she hid it from him, appearing not to notice the insults that were poisoning his life, and which should have been still more painful to her with her acuteness of perception.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 29

 

 

 

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ONE of Anna’s reasons for returning to Russia was to see her son. From the day she left Italy the thought of that meeting did not cease to agitate her. The nearer they came to Petersburg the greater its joy and importance appeared. She did not ask herself how she should contrive it. It seemed to her natural and simple that she should see her son when she was in the same town with him. But on reaching Petersburg her present social position presented itself clearly to her, and she realized that it would be difficult to arrange the meeting.

 

She had been in Petersburg two days. The thought of her son did not leave her for an instant, but she had not yet seen him. She felt she had not the right to go straight to the house where she might encounter Karenin. Possibly they might even not admit her.

 

It was painful to her even to think of writing to and coming into contact with her husband: she could be calm only when she did not think of him. To meet her son when he was out for a walk, after finding out when and where he went, was not enough: she had been preparing herself so for that meeting, had so much to say to him, and so much wanted to embrace and kiss him! Serezha’s old nurse might have helped and advised her, but she was no longer in Karenin’s household. In this uncertainty, and in searching for the old nurse, two days had gone by.

 

Having heard about Karenin’s intimate friendship with the Countess Lydia Ivanovna, Anna on the third day resolved to write her a letter, which cost her much effort, and in which she intentionally mentioned that permission to see her son must depend on her husband’s magnanimity. She knew that if that letter were shown to him he, continuing his magnanimous rôle, would not refuse her request.

 

The commissionaire who delivered her letter brought back the most cruel and unexpected reply: that there would be no answer! Never had she felt so humiliated as when, having called in the commissionaire, she heard from him the full account of how he had waited and had then been told that there would be no answer. Anna felt herself humiliated and wounded, but she saw that the Countess Lydia Ivanovna was right from her own point of view. Her grief was the more poignant because she had to bear it alone. She could not share it with Vronsky and did not wish to. She knew that, though he was the chief cause of her misery, the question of her seeing her son would seem to him quite unimportant. She knew he would never be able to appreciate the depth of her anguish, and that his coldness if the matter were mentioned would make her hate him. And she feared that more than anything else in the world, and therefore hid from him everything concerning her son.