‘I beg for only one thing, I beg for the right to hope, to be tormented, as I am now; but if that, too, is impossible, order me to disappear, and I will disappear. You will not see me, if my presence is painful for you.’
‘I don’t want to drive you away.’
‘Just don’t change anything. Leave everything as it is,’ he said in a trembling voice. ‘Here is your husband.’
Indeed just then Alexei Alexandrovich, with his calm, clumsy gait, was entering the drawing room.
Having glanced at his wife and Vronsky, he went over to the hostess, sat down to his cup of tea, and began speaking in his unhurried, always audible voice, in his usual jocular tone, making fun of somebody.
‘Your Rambouillet is in full muster,’ he said, glancing around the whole company, ‘graces and muses.’13
But Princess Betsy could not bear this tone of his, which she called by the English word ‘sneering’, and, being an intelligent hostess, at once led him into a serious conversation on universal military conscription.14 Alexei Alexandrovich at once got carried away with the conversation and began, earnestly now, to defend the new decree against Princess Betsy, who attacked it.
Vronsky and Anna went on sitting by the little table.
‘This is becoming indecent,’ one lady whispered, indicating with her eyes Vronsky, Anna and her husband.
‘What did I tell you?’ Anna’s friend replied.
And not these ladies alone, but almost everyone in the drawing room, even Princess Miagky and Betsy herself, glanced several times at the two who had withdrawn from the general circle, as if it disturbed them. Alexei Alexandrovich was the only one who never once looked in their direction and was not distracted from the interest of the conversation that had started.
Noticing the unpleasant impression produced on everyone, Princess Betsy slipped some other person into her place to listen to Alexei Alexandrovich, and went over to Anna.
‘I’m always surprised at the clarity and precision of your husband’s expressions,’ she said. ‘The most transcendental notions become accessible to me when he speaks.’
‘Oh, yes!’ said Anna, radiant with a smile of happiness and not understanding a word of what Betsy was saying to her. She went over to the big table and took part in the general conversation.
Alexei Alexandrovich, after staying for half an hour, went up to his wife and suggested they go home together; but she, without looking at him, replied that she would stay for supper. Alexei Alexandrovich made his bows and left.
The Karenin coachman, a fat old Tartar in a glossy leather coat, had difficulty holding back the chilled grey on the left, who kept rearing up by the entrance. The footman stood holding the carriage door open. The doorkeeper stood holding the front door. Anna Arkadyevna, with her small, quick hand, was freeing the lace of her sleeve, which had caught on the hooks of her fur coat, and, head lowered, listened with delight to what Vronsky was saying as he saw her off.
‘You’ve said nothing; let’s suppose I also demand nothing,’ he said, ‘but you know it’s not friendship I need, for me there is only one possible happiness in life, this word you dislike so ... yes, love ...’
‘Love ...’ she repeated slowly with her inner voice, and suddenly, just as she freed the lace, added: ‘That’s why I don’t like this word, because it means too much for me, far more than you can understand,’ and she looked him in the face: ‘Good-bye!’
She gave him her hand, and with a quick, resilient step walked past the doorkeeper and disappeared into the carriage.
Her look, the touch of her hand, burned him through. He kissed his palm in the place where she had touched him, and went home, happy in the awareness that he had come closer to attaining his goal in that one evening than he had in the past two months.
VIII
Alexei Alexandrovich found nothing peculiar or improper in the fact that his wife was sitting at a separate table with Vronsky and having an animated conversation about something; but he noticed that to the others in the drawing room it seemed something peculiar and improper, and therefore he, too, found it improper. He decided that he ought to say so to his wife.
On returning home, Alexei Alexandrovich went to his study, as he usually did, sat in his armchair, opened a book about the papacy at a place marked by a paper-knife, and read till one o‘clock, as usual; only from time to time he rubbed his high forehead and tossed his head, as if chasing something away. At the usual hour, he rose and prepared for bed. Anna Arkadyevna was not home yet. Book under his arm, he went upstairs; but this evening, instead of the usual thoughts and considerations about official matters, his mind was full of his wife and something unpleasant that had happened with her. Contrary to his habit, he did not get into bed, but, clasping his hands behind his back, began pacing up and down the rooms. He could not lie down, feeling that he had first to think over this newly arisen circumstance.
