‘If you have come to us, you, the only woman among Anna’s former friends - I don’t count Princess Varvara - I understand that you’ve done it not because you consider our situation normal, but because, realizing all the difficulty of that situation, you still love her and want to help her. Have I understood you rightly?’ he asked, turning to look at her.
‘Oh, yes,’ Darya Alexandrovna replied, folding her parasol, ‘but...’
‘No,’ he interrupted and stopped involuntarily, forgetting that he was thereby putting her into an awkward position, so that she had to stop as well. ‘No one feels all the difficulty of Anna’s situation more fully or strongly than I do. And that is understandable, if you do me the honour of considering me a man who has a heart. I am the cause of that situation, and that is why I feel it.’
‘I understand,’ said Darya Alexandrovna, involuntarily admiring him for having said it so sincerely and firmly. ‘But precisely because you feel yourself the cause of it, I’m afraid you exaggerate,’ she said. ‘Her situation in society is difficult, I understand that.’
‘It’s hell in society!’ he said quickly, with a dark frown. ‘It’s impossible to imagine moral torments worse than those she lived through for two weeks in Petersburg ... I beg you to believe that.’
‘Yes, but here, so long as neither Anna ... nor you feel any need of society ...’
‘Society!’ he said scornfully. ‘What need can I have of society?’
‘Then for so long - and that may mean for ever — you’ll be happy and at peace. I can see that Anna is happy, perfectly happy, she’s already had time to tell me so,’ Darya Alexandrovna said, smiling; and now, as she said it, she involuntarily doubted whether Anna was indeed happy.
But Vronsky, it seemed, did not doubt it.
‘Yes, yes,’ he said. ‘I know she has revived after all her sufferings; she’s happy. She’s happy in the present. But I? ... I’m afraid of what awaits us ... Sorry, would you like to move on?’
‘No, it makes no difference.’
‘Let’s sit down here then.’
Darya Alexandrovna sat down on a garden bench in the corner of the avenue. He stood in front of her.
‘I see that she’s happy,’ he repeated, and the doubt whether she was happy struck Darya Alexandrovna still more strongly. ‘But can it go on like this? Whether what we did was good or bad is another question. The die is cast,’ he said, going from Russian to French, ‘and we’re bound for our whole life. We’re united by the bonds of love, which are the most sacred thing for us. We have a child, we may have more children. But the law and all the conditions of our situation are such that thousands of complications exist that she doesn’t see and doesn’t want to see now, as she rests her soul after all her sufferings and ordeals. And that is understandable. But I can’t help seeing them. My daughter, according to the law, is not my daughter, she is - Karenin’s. I do not want this deceit!’ he said with an energetic gesture of negation, and he gave Darya Alexandrovna a gloomily questioning look.
She made no reply and only looked at him. He went on:
‘And tomorrow a son will be born, my son, and by law he is a Karenin, he is heir neither to my name nor to my fortune, and however happy we may be in our family and however many children we may have, there will be no connection between me and them. They are Karenins. You can understand the burden and horror of this situation! I’ve tried to say it to Anna. It annoys her. She doesn’t understand, and I can’t say everything to her. Now look at it from the other side. I’m happy in her love, but I must be occupied. I have found an occupation, and I am proud of that occupation and consider it nobler than the occupations of my former comrades at court and in the service. And I certainly would never exchange it for what they do. I work here, staying put, and I’m happy, content, and we need nothing more for happiness. I love this activity.
Darya Alexandrovna noticed that at this point of his explanation he became confused, and she did not quite understand this digression, but she sensed that once he had begun talking about his innermost attitudes, which he could not talk about with Anna, he would now say everything, and that the question of his activity on the estate belonged to the same compartment of innermost thoughts as the question of his relations with Anna.
‘And so, to continue,’ he said, recovering himself. ‘The main thing is that, as I work, I must be sure that my work will not die with me, that I will have heirs - and that is not the case. Imagine the situation of a man who knows beforehand that his children by the woman he loves will be not his but someone else’s, someone who hates them and does not want to know them. It’s terrible!’
He fell silent, obviously in great agitation.
‘Yes, of course, I understand that. But what can Anna do?’ asked Darya Alexandrovna.
