Countess Lydia Ivanovna had long ceased to be in love with her husband, but she never ceased being in love with someone. She was in love with several people at the same time, both men and women; she was in love with almost everyone who was particularly distinguished in some way. She was in love with all the new princesses and princes who had come into the tsar’s family. She was in love with one metropolitan, one bishop and one priest. She was in love with one journalist, with three Slavs, with Komisarov,34 with one minister, one doctor, one English missionary, and with Karenin. All these loves, now waning, now waxing, filled her heart, gave her something to do, but did not keep her from conducting very extensive and complex relations at court and in society. But once she took Karenin under her special patronage after the misfortune that befell him, once she began toiling in his house, looking after his well-being, she felt that all the other loves were not real, and that she was now truly in love with Karenin alone. The feeling she now experienced for him seemed stronger to her than all her former feelings. Analysing it and comparing it with the former ones, she saw clearly that she would not have been in love with Komisarov if he had not saved the emperor’s life, would not have been in love with Ristich-Kudzhitsky if there had been no Slavic question,35 but that she loved Karenin for himself, for his lofty, misunderstood soul, the high sound of his voice, so dear to her, with its drawn-out intonations, his weary gaze, his character, and his soft, white hands with their swollen veins. She was not only glad when they met, but sought signs in his face of the impression she made on him. She wanted him to like her not only for what she said, but for her whole person. For his sake she now took greater care with her toilette than ever. She caught herself dreaming of what might have happened if she were not married and he were free. She blushed with excitement when he came into the room; she could not suppress a smile of rapture when he said something pleasant to her.
For several days now Countess Lydia Ivanovna had been in the greatest agitation. She had learned that Anna and Vronsky were in Petersburg. Alexei Alexandrovich had to be saved from meeting her, he had to be saved even from the painful knowledge that this terrible woman was in the same town with him and that he might meet her at any moment.
Lydia Ivanovna, through her acquaintances, gathered intelligence about what those
‘Who brought it?’
‘A messenger from a hotel.’
It was some time before Countess Lydia Ivanovna could sit down and read the letter. Excitement had given her an attack of the shortness of breath she suffered from. When she calmed down, she read the following, written in French:
Mme la Comtesse: The Christian feelings that fill your heart inspire in me what is, I feel, the unpardonable boldness of writing to you. I am unhappy in being separated from my son. I beg you to allow me to see him once before my departure. Forgive me for reminding you of myself. I am addressing you and not Alexei Alexandrovich only because I do not want to make that magnanimous man suffer from any reminder of me. Knowing your friendship for him, you will understand me. Will you send Seryozha to me, or shall I come to the house at a certain appointed time, or will you let me know where I can see him outside the house? I do not anticipate a refusal, knowing the magnanimity of the person upon whom it depends. You cannot imagine the longing I have to see him, and therefore you cannot imagine the gratitude your help will awaken in me.
Everything in this letter annoyed Countess Lydia Ivanovna: the content, the reference to magnanimity and especially what seemed to her the casual tone.
‘Tell him there will be no reply,’ Countess Lydia Ivanovna said and at once, opening her blotting pad, wrote to Alexei Alexandrovich that she hoped to see him between twelve and one for the felicitations at the palace.
