Anna, in a grey dressing gown, her short-cropped black hair growing again like a thick brush on her round head, was sitting on the couch. As always at the sight of her husband, the animation on her face suddenly vanished; she bowed her head and glanced round uneasily at Betsy. Betsy, dressed after the very latest fashion, in a hat that hovered somewhere over her head like a lampshade over a lamp, and in a dove-grey dress with sharp diagonal stripes going one way on the bodice and the other way on the skirt, was sitting by Anna. Holding her flat, tall figure erect and bowing her head, she met Alexei Alexandrovich with a mocking smile.
‘Ah!’ she said, as if surprised. ‘I’m very glad you’re home. You don’t show yourself anywhere, and I haven’t seen you since Anna became ill. I’ve heard all about your attentiveness. Yes, you are an amazing husband!’ she said with a meaningful and benign look, as though conferring an order of magnanimity on him for his behaviour towards his wife.
Alexei Alexandrovich bowed coldly and, after kissing his wife’s hand, asked about her health.
‘I think I’m better,’ she said, avoiding his eyes.
‘But your face seems to have a feverish colour,’ he said, emphasizing the word ‘feverish’.
‘We’ve talked too much,’ said Betsy. ‘I feel it’s been egoism on my part, and I’m leaving.’
She stood up, but Anna, suddenly blushing, quickly seized her hand.
‘No, stay a moment, please. I must tell you ... no, you,’ she turned to Alexei Alexandrovich, and the crimson spread over her neck and forehead. ‘I cannot and do not wish to keep anything concealed from you,’ she said.
Alexei Alexandrovich cracked his fingers and bowed his head.
‘Betsy was saying that Count Vronsky wished to come here and say goodbye before he leaves for Tashkent.’ She was not looking at her husband and was obviously hurrying to say everything, difficult as it was for her. ‘I said I could not receive him.’
‘You said, my friend, that it would depend on Alexei Alexandrovich,’ Betsy corrected her.
‘But no, I cannot receive him, and there’s no point in ...’ She suddenly stopped and glanced questioningly at her husband (he was not looking at her). ‘In short, I don’t want to ...’
Alexei Alexandrovich stirred and was about to take her hand.
Her first impulse was to pull her hand away from his moist hand with its big, swollen veins as it sought hers, but with an obvious effort she took it.
‘I am very grateful for your confidence, but ...’ he said, feeling with embarrassment and vexation that what he could resolve easily and clearly in himself, he could not discuss in front of Princess Tverskoy, who was for him an embodiment of that crude force which was to guide his life in the eyes of the world and which prevented him from giving himself to his feeling of love and forgiveness. He stopped, looking at Princess Tverskoy.
‘Well, good-bye, my lovely,’ said Betsy, getting up. She kissed Anna and went out. Alexei Alexandrovich saw her off.
‘Alexei Alexandrovich! I know you to be a truly magnanimous man,’ said Betsy, stopping in the small drawing room and pressing his hand once more especially firmly. ‘I am an outsider, but I love her and respect you so much that I will allow myself this advice. Receive him. Alexei Vronsky is the embodiment of honour, and he’s leaving for Tashkent.’
‘Thank you, Princess, for your concern and advice. But my wife will decide for herself the question of whether she can or cannot receive someone.’
He said this, out of habit, with a dignified raising of eyebrows, and at once reflected that, whatever his words might be, there could be no dignity in his position. And this he saw in the restrained, spiteful and mocking smile with which Betsy looked at him after his phrase.
XX
Alexei Alexandrovich bowed to Betsy in the reception room and went back to his wife. She was lying down, but, hearing his footsteps, hastily sat up in her former position and looked at him in fear. He saw that she had been crying.
‘I am very grateful for your confidence in me.’ He meekly repeated in Russian the phrase he had spoken in French when Betsy was there, and sat down next to her. When he spoke in Russian and used the intimate form of address, it was irrepressibly annoying to Anna. ‘And I am very grateful for your decision. I, too, suppose that, since he’s leaving, there’s no need for Count Vronsky to come here. However ...’
‘But I’ve already said it, so why repeat it?’ Anna suddenly interrupted him with an annoyance she had no time to restrain. ‘No need,’ she thought, ‘for a man to come and say good-bye to the woman he loves, for whom he wanted to destroy and did destroy himself, and who cannot live without him. No need at all!’ She pressed her lips together and lowered her shining eyes to his hands with their swollen veins, which were slowly rubbing each other.
‘Let’s not ever talk about it,’ she added more calmly.
‘I’ve left it for you to decide this question, and I’m very glad to see ...’ Alexei Alexandrovich began.
