Anna Karenina полностью

Thoughts of where she would go now - to the aunt who had brought her up, to Dolly, or simply abroad alone - and of what he was doing now, alone in his study, and whether this quarrel was the final one or reconciliation was still possible, and of what all her former Petersburg acquaintances would say about her now, and how Alexei Alexandrovich would look at it, and many other thoughts of what would happen now, after the break-up, came to her mind, but she did not give herself wholeheartedly to these thoughts. In her soul there was some vague thought which alone interested her, yet she was unable to bring it to consciousness. Having remembered Alexei Alexandrovich once again, she also remembered the time of her illness after giving birth, and the feeling that would not leave her then. ‘Why didn’t I die?’ - she remembered the words she had said then and the feeling she had had then. And she suddenly understood what was in her soul. Yes, this was the thought which alone resolved everything. ‘Yes, to die! ...

‘The shame and disgrace of Alexei Alexandrovich and of Seryozha, and my own terrible shame - death will save it all. To die - and he will repent, pity, love and suffer for me.’ With a fixed smile of compassion for herself, she sat in the chair, taking off and putting on the rings on her left hand, vividly imagining from all sides his feelings after her death.

Approaching steps, his steps, distracted her. As if occupied with arranging her rings, she did not even turn to him.

He went up to her, took her hand and said softly:

‘Anna, let’s go the day after tomorrow, if you like. I agree to everything.’

She was silent.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘You know yourself,’ she said, and at the same moment, unable to restrain herself any longer, she burst into sobs.

‘Leave me, leave me!’ she repeated between sobs. ‘I’ll go away tomorrow ... I’ll do more. What am I? A depraved woman. A stone around your neck. I don’t want to torment you, I don’t! I’ll release you. You don’t love me, you love another woman!’

Vronsky implored her to calm herself and assured her that there was not the shadow of a reason for her jealousy, that he had never stopped and never would stop loving her, that he loved her more than ever.

‘Anna, why torment yourself and me like this?’ he said, kissing her hands. There was tenderness in his face now, and it seemed to her that she heard the sound of tears in his voice and felt their moisture on her hand. And instantly Anna’s desperate jealousy changed to a desperate, passionate tenderness; she embraced him and covered his head and neck and hands with kisses.

XXV

Feeling that their reconciliation was complete, in the morning Anna briskly began preparing for departure. Though it had not been decided whether they would go on Monday or on Tuesday, since they had kept yielding to each other the night before, Anna actively prepared for departure, now completely indifferent to whether they left a day earlier or later. She was standing in her room over an open trunk, sorting things, when he, already dressed, came into her room earlier than usual.

‘I’m going to see maman right now. She can send me the money through Yegorov. And tomorrow I’ll be ready to leave.’

Good as her state of mind was, the mention of going to his mother’s country house stung her.

‘No, I won’t be ready myself,’ she said, and at once thought, ‘So he could have arranged to do it the way I wanted.’ ‘No, do it the way you wanted. Go to the dining room, I’ll come presently, as soon as I’ve sorted out the things I don’t need,’ she said, putting something else over Annushka’s arm, where a pile of clothes already hung.

Vronsky was eating his beefsteak when she came out to the dining room.

‘You wouldn’t believe how sick I am of these rooms,’ she said, sitting down beside him over her coffee. ‘There’s nothing more terrible than these chambres garnies.^dq They have no face to them, no soul. This clock, these curtains, above all this wallpaper - a nightmare. I think of Vozdvizhenskoe as a promised land. You’re not sending the horses yet?’

‘No, they’ll go after us. Are you going out somewhere?’

‘I wanted to go to Mrs Wilson, to take her some dresses. So it’s tomorrow for certain?’ she said in a cheerful voice; but suddenly her face changed.

Vronsky’s valet came to ask for a receipt for a telegram from Petersburg. There was nothing special in Vronsky’s receiving a telegram, but he, as if wishing to hide something from her, said that the receipt was in the study and quickly turned to her.

‘I’ll certainly be done with everything by tomorrow.’

‘Who was the telegram from?’ she asked, not listening to him.

‘Stiva,’ he answered reluctantly.

‘Why didn’t you show it to me? What secrets can there be between Stiva and me?’

Vronsky called the valet back and told him to bring the telegram.

‘I didn’t want to show it because Stiva has a passion for sending telegrams. Why send telegrams if nothing’s been decided?’

‘About the divorce?’