Anna Karenina

nconsciously going over in his memory the conversations that had taken
place during and after dinner, Alexey Alexandrovitch returned to his
solitary room. Darya Alexandrovna’s words about forgiveness had aroused
in him nothing but annoyance. The applicability or non-applicability of
the Christian precept to his own case was too difficult a question to
be discussed lightly, and this question had long ago been answered by
Alexey Alexandrovitch in the negative. Of all that had been said, what
stuck most in his memory was the phrase of stupid, good-natured
Turovtsin—“Acted like a man, he did! Called him out and shot him!”
Everyone had apparently shared this feeling, though from politeness
they had not expressed it.

“But the matter is settled, it’s useless thinking about it,” Alexey
Alexandrovitch told himself. And thinking of nothing but the journey
before him, and the revision work he had to do, he went into his room
and asked the porter who escorted him where his man was. The porter
said that the man had only just gone out. Alexey Alexandrovitch ordered
tea to be sent him, sat down to the table, and taking the guidebook,
began considering the route of his journey.

“Two telegrams,” said his manservant, coming into the room. “I beg your
pardon, your excellency; I’d only just that minute gone out.”

Alexey Alexandrovitch took the telegrams and opened them. The first
telegram was the announcement of Stremov’s appointment to the very post
Karenin had coveted. Alexey Alexandrovitch flung the telegram down, and
flushing a little, got up and began to pace up and down the room.
“Quos vult perdere dementat,” he said, meaning by quos the persons
responsible for this appointment. He was not so much annoyed that he
had not received the post, that he had been conspicuously passed over;
but it was incomprehensible, amazing to him that they did not see that
the wordy phrase-monger Stremov was the last man fit for it. How could
they fail to see how they were ruining themselves, lowering their
prestige by this appointment?

“Something else in the same line,” he said to himself bitterly, opening
the second telegram. The telegram was from his wife. Her name, written
in blue pencil, “Anna,” was the first thing that caught his eye. “I am
dying; I beg, I implore you to come. I shall die easier with your
forgiveness,” he read. He smiled contemptuously, and flung down the
telegram. That this was a trick and a fraud, of that, he thought for
the first minute, there could be no doubt.

“There is no deceit she would stick at. She was near her confinement.
Perhaps it is the confinement. But what can be their aim? To legitimize
the child, to compromise me, and prevent a divorce,” he thought. “But
something was said in it: I am dying....” He read the telegram again,
and suddenly the plain meaning of what was said in it struck him.

“And if it is true?” he said to himself. “If it is true that in the
moment of agony and nearness to death she is genuinely penitent, and I,
taking it for a trick, refuse to go? That would not only be cruel, and
everyone would blame me, but it would be stupid on my part.”

“Piotr, call a coach; I am going to Petersburg,” he said to his
servant.

Alexey Alexandrovitch decided that he would go to Petersburg and see
his wife. If her illness was a trick, he would say nothing and go away
again. If she was really in danger, and wished to see him before her
death, he would forgive her if he found her alive, and pay her the last
duties if he came too late.

All the way he thought no more of what he ought to do.

With a sense of weariness and uncleanness from the night spent in the
train, in the early fog of Petersburg Alexey Alexandrovitch drove
through the deserted Nevsky and stared straight before him, not
thinking of what was awaiting him. He could not think about it, because
in picturing what would happen, he could not drive away the reflection
that her death would at once remove all the difficulty of his position.
Bakers, closed shops, night-cabmen, porters sweeping the pavements
flashed past his eyes, and he watched it all, trying to smother the
thought of what was awaiting him, and what he dared not hope for, and
yet was hoping for. He drove up to the steps. A sledge and a carriage
with the coachman asleep stood at the entrance. As he went into the
entry, Alexey Alexandrovitch, as it were, got out his resolution from
the remotest corner of his brain, and mastered it thoroughly. Its
meaning ran: “If it’s a trick, then calm contempt and departure. If
truth, do what is proper.”

The porter opened the door before Alexey Alexandrovitch rang. The
porter, Kapitonitch, looked queer in an old coat, without a tie, and in
slippers.

“How is your mistress?”

“A successful confinement yesterday.”

Alexey Alexandrovitch stopped short and turned white. He felt
distinctly now how intensely he had longed for her death.

“And how is she?”

Korney in his morning apron ran downstairs.

“Very ill,” he answered. “There was a consultation yesterday, and the
doctor’s here now.”

“Take my things,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch, and feeling some relief
at the news that there was still hope of her death, he went into the
hall.

On the hatstand there was a military overcoat. Alexey Alexandrovitch
noticed it and asked:

“Who is here?”

“The doctor, the midwife, and Count Vronsky.”

Alexey Alexandrovitch went into the inner rooms.

In the drawing-room there was no one; at the sound of his steps there
came out of her boudoir the midwife in a cap with lilac ribbons.

She went up to Alexey Alexandrovitch, and with the familiarity given by
the approach of death took him by the arm and drew him towards the
bedroom.

“Thank God you’ve come! She keeps on about you and nothing but you,”
she said.

“Make haste with the ice!” the doctor’s peremptory voice said from the
bedroom.

Alexey Alexandrovitch went into her boudoir.

At the table, sitting sideways in a low chair, was Vronsky, his face
hidden in his hands, weeping. He jumped up at the doctor’s voice, took
his hands from his face, and saw Alexey Alexandrovitch. Seeing the
husband, he was so overwhelmed that he sat down again, drawing his head
down to his shoulders, as if he wanted to disappear; but he made an
effort over himself, got up and said:

“She is dying. The doctors say there is no hope. I am entirely in your
power, only let me be here ... though I am at your disposal. I....”

Alexey Alexandrovitch, seeing Vronsky’s tears, felt a rush of that
nervous emotion always produced in him by the sight of other people’s
suffering, and turning away his face, he moved hurriedly to the door,
without hearing the rest of his words. From the bedroom came the sound
of Anna’s voice saying something. Her voice was lively, eager, with
exceedingly distinct intonations. Alexey Alexandrovitch went into the
bedroom, and went up to the bed. She was lying turned with her face
towards him. Her cheeks were flushed crimson, her eyes glittered, her
little white hands thrust out from the sleeves of her dressing gown
were playing with the quilt, twisting it about. It seemed as though she
were not only well and blooming, but in the happiest frame of mind. She
was talking rapidly, musically, and with exceptionally correct
articulation and expressive intonation.

“For Alexey—I am speaking of Alexey Alexandrovitch (what a strange and
awful thing that both are Alexey, isn’t it?)—Alexey would not refuse
me. I should forget, he would forgive.... But why doesn’t he come? He’s
so good he doesn’t know himself how good he is. Ah, my God, what agony!
Give me some water, quick! Oh, that will be bad for her, my little
girl! Oh, very well then, give her to a nurse. Yes, I agree, it’s
better in fact. He’ll be coming; it will hurt him to see her. Give her
to the nurse.”

“Anna Arkadyevna, he has come. Here he is!” said the midwife, trying to
attract her attention to Alexey Alexandrovitch.

“Oh, what nonsense!” Anna went on, not seeing her husband. “No, give
her to me; give me my little one! He has not come yet. You say he won’t
forgive me, because you don’t know him. No one knows him. I’m the only
one, and it was hard for me even. His eyes I ought to know—Seryozha has
just the same eyes—and I can’t bear to see them because of it. Has
Seryozha had his dinner? I know everyone will forget him. He would not
forget. Seryozha must be moved into the corner room, and Mariette must
be asked to sleep with him.”

All of a sudden she shrank back, was silent; and in terror, as though
expecting a blow, as though to defend herself, she raised her hands to
her face. She had seen her husband.

“No, no!” she began. “I am not afraid of him; I am afraid of death.
Alexey, come here. I am in a hurry, because I’ve no time, I’ve not long
left to live; the fever will begin directly and I shall understand
nothing more. Now I understand, I understand it all, I see it all!”

Alexey Alexandrovitch’s wrinkled face wore an expression of agony; he
took her by the hand and tried to say something, but he could not utter
it; his lower lip quivered, but he still went on struggling with his
emotion, and only now and then glanced at her. And each time he glanced
at her, he saw her eyes gazing at him with such passionate and
triumphant tenderness as he had never seen in them.

“Wait a minute, you don’t know ... stay a little, stay!...” She
stopped, as though collecting her ideas. “Yes,” she began; “yes, yes,
yes. This is what I wanted to say. Don’t be surprised at me. I’m still
the same.... But there is another woman in me, I’m afraid of her: she
loved that man, and I tried to hate you, and could not forget about her
that used to be. I’m not that woman. Now I’m my real self, all myself.
I’m dying now, I know I shall die, ask him. Even now I feel—see here,
the weights on my feet, on my hands, on my fingers. My fingers—see how
huge they are! But this will soon all be over.... Only one thing I
want: forgive me, forgive me quite. I’m terrible, but my nurse used to
tell me; the holy martyr—what was her name? She was worse. And I’ll go
to Rome; there’s a wilderness, and there I shall be no trouble to
anyone, only I’ll take Seryozha and the little one.... No, you can’t
forgive me! I know, it can’t be forgiven! No, no, go away, you’re too
good!” She held his hand in one burning hand, while she pushed him away
with the other.

The nervous agitation of Alexey Alexandrovitch kept increasing, and had
by now reached such a point that he ceased to struggle with it. He
suddenly felt that what he had regarded as nervous agitation was on the
contrary a blissful spiritual condition that gave him all at once a new
happiness he had never known. He did not think that the Christian law
that he had been all his life trying to follow, enjoined on him to
forgive and love his enemies; but a glad feeling of love and
forgiveness for his enemies filled his heart. He knelt down, and laying
his head in the curve of her arm, which burned him as with fire through
the sleeve, he sobbed like a little child. She put her arm around his
head, moved towards him, and with defiant pride lifted up her eyes.

“That is he. I knew him! Now, forgive me, everyone, forgive me!...
They’ve come again; why don’t they go away?... Oh, take these cloaks
off me!”

The doctor unloosed her hands, carefully laying her on the pillow, and
covered her up to the shoulders. She lay back submissively, and looked
before her with beaming eyes.

“Remember one thing, that I needed nothing but forgiveness, and I want
nothing more.... Why doesn’t he come?” she said, turning to the door
towards Vronsky. “Do come, do come! Give him your hand.”

Vronsky came to the side of the bed, and seeing Anna, again hid his
face in his hands.

“Uncover your face—look at him! He’s a saint,” she said. “Oh! uncover
your face, do uncover it!” she said angrily. “Alexey Alexandrovitch, do
uncover his face! I want to see him.”

Alexey Alexandrovitch took Vronsky’s hands and drew them away from his
face, which was awful with the expression of agony and shame upon it.

“Give him your hand. Forgive him.”

Alexey Alexandrovitch gave him his hand, not attempting to restrain the
tears that streamed from his eyes.

“Thank God, thank God!” she said, “now everything is ready. Only to
stretch my legs a little. There, that’s capital. How badly these
flowers are done—not a bit like a violet,” she said, pointing to the
hangings. “My God, my God! when will it end? Give me some morphine.
Doctor, give me some morphine! Oh, my God, my God!”

And she tossed about on the bed.

The doctors said that it was puerperal fever, and that it was
ninety-nine chances in a hundred it would end in death. The whole day
long there was fever, delirium, and unconsciousness. At midnight the
patient lay without consciousness, and almost without pulse.

The end was expected every minute.

Vronsky had gone home, but in the morning he came to inquire, and
Alexey Alexandrovitch meeting him in the hall, said: “Better stay, she
might ask for you,” and himself led him to his wife’s boudoir. Towards
morning, there was a return again of excitement, rapid thought and
talk, and again it ended in unconsciousness. On the third day it was
the same thing, and the doctors said there was hope. That day Alexey
Alexandrovitch went into the boudoir where Vronsky was sitting, and
closing the door sat down opposite him.

“Alexey Alexandrovitch,” said Vronsky, feeling that a statement of the
position was coming, “I can’t speak, I can’t understand. Spare me!
However hard it is for you, believe me, it is more terrible for me.”

He would have risen; but Alexey Alexandrovitch took him by the hand and
said:

“I beg you to hear me out; it is necessary. I must explain my feelings,
the feelings that have guided me and will guide me, so that you may not
be in error regarding me. You know I had resolved on a divorce, and had
even begun to take proceedings. I won’t conceal from you that in
beginning this I was in uncertainty, I was in misery; I will confess
that I was pursued by a desire to revenge myself on you and on her.
When I got the telegram, I came here with the same feelings; I will say
more, I longed for her death. But....” He paused, pondering whether to
disclose or not to disclose his feeling to him. “But I saw her and
forgave her. And the happiness of forgiveness has revealed to me my
duty. I forgive completely. I would offer the other cheek, I would give
my cloak if my coat be taken. I pray to God only not to take from me
the bliss of forgiveness!”

Tears stood in his eyes, and the luminous, serene look in them
impressed Vronsky.

“This is my position: you can trample me in the mud, make me the
laughing-stock of the world, I will not abandon her, and I will never
utter a word of reproach to you,” Alexey Alexandrovitch went on. “My
duty is clearly marked for me; I ought to be with her, and I will be.
If she wishes to see you, I will let you know, but now I suppose it
would be better for you to go away.”

He got up, and sobs cut short his words. Vronsky too was getting up,
and in a stooping, not yet erect posture, looked up at him from under
his brows. He did not understand Alexey Alexandrovitch’s feeling, but
he felt that it was something higher and even unattainable for him with
his view of life.