‘You know that that is my only wish. But for that ...’
‘A divorce is necessary? I’ll write to him. I see that I can’t live like this ... But I will go with you to Moscow.’
‘It’s as if you’re threatening me. Yet there’s nothing I wish more than not to be separated from you,’ Vronsky said, smiling.
But the look that flashed in his eyes as he spoke those tender words was not only the cold, angry look of a persecuted and embittered man.
She saw that look and correctly guessed its meaning.
‘If it is like this, it is a disaster!’ said the look. It was a momentary impression, but she never forgot it.
Anna wrote a letter to her husband asking him for a divorce, and at the end of November, having parted with Princess Varvara, who had to go to Petersburg, she moved to Moscow with Vronsky. Expecting a reply from Alexei Alexandrovich any day, to be followed by a divorce, they now settled together like a married couple.
Part Seven
I
The Levins were already living for the third month in Moscow. The term was long past when, by the surest calculations of people who knew about such things, Kitty ought to have given birth; and yet she was still expecting, and there was no indication that the time was nearer now than two months ago. The doctor, the midwife, Dolly, her mother, and Levin especially, who could not think of the approaching event without horror, were beginning to feel impatient and anxious; Kitty alone was perfectly calm and happy.
She was now clearly aware of the new feeling of love being born in her for the future child who, for her, was already partly present, and she delighted in attending to this feeling. It was no longer wholly a part of her now, but sometimes lived its own life independent of her. It often caused her pain, but at the same time made her want to laugh with a strange new joy.
Everyone she loved was with her, and everyone was so kind to her, took such care of her, she saw so much of sheer pleasantness in all that was offered to her, that if she had not known and felt that it must soon end, she could not even have wished for a better or more pleasant life. The one thing that spoiled the charm of that life for her was that her husband was not the way she loved him and the way he used to be in the country.
She loved his calm, gentle, and hospitable tone in the country. But in the city he was constantly anxious and wary, as if fearing someone might offend him and, above all, her. There, in the country, obviously knowing he was where he belonged, he did not hurry anywhere and was never unoccupied. Here in the city he was constantly in a hurry, as though he might miss something, and he had nothing to do. And she pitied him. To others, she knew, he did not look pitiful; on the contrary, when Kitty watched him in company, as one sometimes watches a person one loves, trying to see him as a stranger, to define the impression he makes on others, she saw, even with fear of her own jealousy, that he was not only not pitiful but very attractive in his decency, his rather old-fashioned, bashful politeness with women, his powerful figure, and his - as it seemed to her - particularly expressive face. But she saw him not from the outside but from inside; she saw that here he was not his real self; there was no other way she could define his condition. Sometimes she reproached him in her heart for not knowing how to live in the city; sometimes she also admitted that it was truly difficult for him to arrange his life here in a satisfying way.
Indeed, what was there for him to do? He did not like to play cards. He did not go to the club. To keep company with merry men like Oblonsky - she now knew what that meant ... it meant drinking and going somewhere afterwards. She could not think without horror of where men went on such occasions. To go out in society? But for that she knew that one had to take pleasure in meeting young women, and she could not wish for that. To sit at home with her and her mother and sister? But however pleasant and enjoyable she found those ever identical conversations - ‘Alines and Nadines’, as the old prince called these conversations between sisters - she knew they had to be boring for him. What was left for him to do? To go on writing his book? He did try to do that, and in the beginning went to the library to take notes and references; but, as he told her, the longer he did nothing, the less time he had left. And besides, he complained to her that he had talked too much about his book here, and as a result all his thoughts about it had become confused and he had lost interest in them.
One advantage of this city life was that here in the city they never had any quarrels. Either because city conditions were different, or because they had both become more prudent and sensible in that respect, in Moscow they had no quarrels because of jealousy, something they had been very much afraid of when they moved to the city.
