XV
Though Anna had stubbornly and bitterly persisted in contradicting Vronsky when he told her that her situation was impossible and tried to persuade her to reveal everything to her husband, in the depths of her soul she considered her situation false, dishonest, and wished with all her soul to change it. Coming home from the races with her husband, in a moment of agitation she had told him everything; despite the pain she had felt in doing so, she was glad of it. After her husband left, she told herself that she was glad, that now everything would be definite and at least there would be no falsehood and deceit. It seemed unquestionable to her that now her situation would be defined for ever. It might be bad, this new situation, but it would be definite, there would be no vagueness or falsehood in it. The pain she had caused herself and her husband by uttering those words would be recompensed by the fact that everything would be defined, she thought. That same evening she saw Vronsky but did not tell him about what had happened between her and her husband, though to clarify the situation she ought to have told him.
When she woke up the next morning, the first thing that came to her was the words she had spoken to her husband, and they seemed so terrible to her now that she could not understand how she could have resolved to utter those strange, coarse words, and could not imagine what would come of it. But the words had been spoken, and Alexei Alexandrovich had left without saying anything. ‘I saw Vronsky and didn’t tell him. Even at the very moment he was leaving, I wanted to call him back and tell him, but I changed my mind, because it was strange that I hadn’t told him at the very first moment. Why didn’t I tell him, if I wanted to?’ And in answer to this question, a hot flush of shame poured over her face. She understood what had kept her from doing it; she understood that she was ashamed. Her situation, which had seemed clarified last night, now suddenly appeared to her not only not clarified, but hopeless. She became terrified of the disgrace which she had not even thought of before. When she merely thought of what her husband was going to do, the most terrible notions came to her. It occurred to her that the accountant would now come to turn her out of the house, that her disgrace would be announced to the whole world. She asked herself where she would go when she was turned out of the house, and could find no answer.
When she thought of Vronsky, she imagined that he did not love her, that he was already beginning to be burdened by her, that she could not offer herself to him, and she felt hostile to him because of it. It seemed to her that the words she had spoken to her husband, and which she kept repeating in her imagination, had been spoken to everyone and that everyone had heard them. She could not bring herself to look into the eyes of those she lived with. She could not bring herself to call her maid and still less to go downstairs to see her son and the governess.
The maid, who had been listening by the door for a long time, came into the room on her own. Anna looked questioningly into her eyes and blushed timorously. The maid apologized for coming in and said she thought she had heard the bell. She brought a dress and a note. The note was from Betsy. Betsy reminded her that she had Liza Merkalov and Baroness Stolz, with their admirers, Kaluzhsky and old Stremov, coming that morning for a croquet party. ‘Do come just to see it, as a study in manners. I’ll expect you,’ she ended.
Anna read the note and sighed deeply.
‘Nothing, I need nothing,’ she said to Annushka, who kept rearranging the flacons and brushes on the dressing table. ‘Go, I’ll get dressed now and come out. There’s nothing I need.’
Annushka left, but Anna did not begin to dress; she went on sitting in the same position, her head and arms hanging down, and every once in a while her whole body shuddered, as if wishing to make some gesture, to say something, and then became still again. She kept repeating: ‘My God! My God!’ But neither the ‘my’ nor the ‘God’ had any meaning for her. Though she had never doubted the religion in which she had been brought up, the thought of seeking help from religion in her situation was as foreign to her as seeking help from Alexei Alexandrovich. She knew beforehand that the help of religion was possible only on condition of renouncing all that made up the whole meaning of life for her. Not only was it painful for her, but she was beginning to feel fear before the new, never experienced state of her soul. She felt that everything was beginning to go double in her soul, as an object sometimes goes double in tired eyes. Sometimes she did not know what she feared, what she desired: whether she feared or desired what had been or what would be, and precisely what she desired, she did not know.
