Stepan Arkadyich took the letter, looked with perplexed astonishment at the dull eyes gazing fixedly at him, and began to read.
I see that my presence is burdensome to you. Painful as it was for me to become convinced of it, I see that it is so and cannot be otherwise. I do not blame you, and God is my witness that, seeing you during your illness, I resolved with all my soul to forget everything that had been between us and start a new life. I do not repent and will never repent of what I have done; but I desired one thing - your good, the good of your soul - and now I see that I have not achieved it. Tell me yourself what will give you true happiness and peace in your soul. I give myself over entirely to your will and your sense of justice.
Stepan Arkadyich handed the letter back and went on looking at his brother-in-law with the same perplexity, not knowing what to say. This silence was so awkward for them both that a painful twitch came to Stepan Arkadyich's lips as he sat silently, not taking his eyes from Karenin's face.
'That is what I wanted to tell her,' Alexei Alexandrovich said, looking away.
'Yes, yes,' said Stepan Arkadyich, unable to answer for the tears that choked him. 'Yes, yes. I understand you,' he finally got out.
'I wish to know what she wants,' said Alexei Alexandrovich.
'I'm afraid she doesn't understand her situation herself. She's no judge,' Stepan Arkadyich said, recovering. 'She's crushed, precisely crushed by your magnanimity. If she reads this letter, she'll be unable to say anything, she'll only hang her head lower.'
'Yes, but in that case what? How to explain ... how to find out her wish?'
'If you will allow me to express my opinion, I think it depends on you to point directly to the measures you find necessary in order to end this situation.'
'So you find that it must be ended?' Alexei Alexandrovich interrupted. 'But how?' he added, making an unaccustomed gesture with his hands in front of his eyes. 'I don't see any possible way out.'
'There's a way out of every situation,' Stepan Arkadyich said, standing up and becoming animated. 'There was a time when you wanted to break off ... If you're now convinced that you can't make each other happy...'
'Happiness can be variously understood. But let's suppose that I agree to everything, that I want nothing. What is the way out of our situation?'
'If you want to know my opinion,' Stepan Arkadyich said, with the same softening, almond-butter smile with which he had spoken to Anna. His kind smile was so convincing that Alexei Alexandrovich, sensing his own weakness and giving in to it, was involuntarily prepared to believe what Stepan Arkadyich would say. 'She will never say it outright. But there is one possibility, there's one thing she may wish for,' Stepan Arkadyich went on, 'that is - to end your relations and all memories connected with them. I think that in your situation it's necessary to clarify your new mutual relations. And those relations can be established only with freedom on both sides.'
'Divorce,' Alexei Alexandrovich interrupted with repugnance.
'Yes, I suppose it means divorce. Yes, divorce,' Stepan Arkadyich repeated, blushing. 'For a couple in such relations as yours, it's the most intelligent way out in all respects. What's to be done if they've discovered that life together is impossible for them? That can always happen.' Alexei Alexandrovich sighed deeply and closed his eyes. 'There's only one consideration here: does either of them wish to enter into a new marriage? If not, it's very simple,' said Stepan Arkadyich, freeing himself more and more from his embarrassment.
Alexei Alexandrovich, pinched with agitation, murmured something to himself and made no reply. Everything that appeared so simple to Stepan Arkadyich, Alexei Alexandrovich had thought over thousands and thousands of times. And it all seemed to him not only not simple but utterly impossible. Divorce, the details of which he already knew, seemed impossible to him now because his sense of dignity and respect for religion would not permit him to take upon himself an accusation of fictitious adultery, still less to allow his wife, whom he had forgiven and loved, to be exposed and disgraced. Divorce seemed impossible for other, still more important reasons as well.
What would happen to his son in case of divorce? To leave him with his mother was impossible. The divorced mother would have her own illegitimate family, in which his position and upbringing as a stepson would in all likelihood be bad. To keep him with himself ? He knew that this would be vengeance on his part, and he did not want that. But, apart from that, divorce seemed impossible to Alexei Alexandrovich, above all, because in consenting to a divorce he would be ruining Anna. What Darya Alexandrovna had said in Moscow - that in deciding on a divorce he was thinking only about himself and not thinking that by it he would be ruining her irretrievably - had sunk deeply into his soul. And, combining that with his forgiveness and his attachment to the children, he now understood it in his own way. To his mind, agreeing to a divorce, giving her freedom, meant depriving himself of his last tie to the life of the children he loved, and depriving her of her last support on the path to the good and casting her into perdition. If she were a divorced wife, he knew, she would join with Vronsky, and that liaison would be illegitimate and criminal, because according to Church law a woman may not remarry while her husband is alive. 'She'll join with him, and in a year or two either he will abandon her or she will enter a new liaison,' thought Alexei Alexandrovich. 'And, by agreeing to an illegitimate divorce, I would be to blame for her ruin.' He had thought it all over thousands of times and was convinced that the matter of a divorce was not only not very simple, as his brother-in-law said, but was completely impossible. He did not believe a single word Stepan Arkadyich said, he had a thousand refutations for every word of it, yet he listened to him, feeling that his words expressed that powerful, crude force which guided his life and to which he had to submit.
'The only question is, on what conditions would you agree to grant a divorce. She wants nothing, she doesn't dare ask you, she leaves everything to your magnanimity.'
'My God! My God! Why this?' thought Alexei Alexandrovich, recalling the details of a divorce in which the husband had taken the blame upon himself, and, with the same gesture as Vronsky, he covered his face with his hands in shame.
'You're upset, I understand that. But if you think it over ...'
'And to him who strikes you on the right cheek, offer the left, and to him who takes your caftan, give your shirt,' thought Alexei Alexandrovich.
'Yes, yes!' he cried in a shrill voice, 'I'll take the disgrace upon myself, I'll even give up my son, but... isn't it better to let things be? However, do as you like ...'
And turning away from his brother-in-law, so that he would not see him, he sat on a chair by the window. He felt grieved; he felt ashamed. But along with grief and shame he experienced joy and tenderness before the loftiness of his humility.
Stepan Arkadyich was moved. He paused.
'Believe me, Alexei Alexandrovich, she will appreciate your magnanimity,' he said. 'But it looks as if it was the will of God,' he added and, having said it, felt that it was stupid, and barely managed to keep from smiling at his own stupidity.
Alexei Alexandrovich wanted to make some reply, but tears stopped him.
'It is a fatal misfortune and must be recognized as such. I recognize this misfortune as an accomplished fact and am trying to help her and you,' said Stepan Arkadyich.
When Stepan Arkadyich left his brother-in-law's room, he was moved, but that did not prevent him from being pleased at having successfully accomplished the deed, since he was sure that Alexei Alexandrovich would not take back his words. This pleasure was also mixed with a thought that had come to him, that when the deed was done, he would ask his wife and close acquaintances the question: 'What's the difference between me and the emperor? He makes alliances and no one benefits, I break alliances and three people benefit ... Or, what's the similarity between me and the emperor? When ... Anyhow, I'll come up with something better,' he said to himself with a smile.
XXIII
Vronsky's wound was danger
ous, though it had missed the heart. He lay for several days between life and death. When he was able to speak for the first time, his brother's wife, Varya, was the only one in his room.
'Varya!' he said, looking sternly at her. 'I shot myself accidentally. And please never speak of it and tell everybody the same. Otherwise it's too stupid!'
Without replying to what he said, Varya leaned over him and looked into his face with a joyful smile. His eyes were clear, not feverish, but their expression was stern.
'Well, thank God!' she said. 'Does it hurt anywhere?'
'Here a little.' He pointed to his chest.
'Then let me change your bandage.'
Silently clenching his broad jaws, he gazed at her while she bandaged him. When she finished, he said:
'I'm not delirious: please make sure there's no talk of me shooting myself on purpose.'
'But nobody says that. Only, I hope you won't accidentally shoot yourself any more,' she said with a questioning smile.
'It must be that I won't, though it would be better ...'
And he smiled gloomily.
Despite his words and smile, which frightened Varya so much, when the inflammation passed and he began to recover, he felt himself completely free of one part of his grief. By his act he had washed himself, as it were, of the shame and humiliation he had felt previously. He could think calmly now of Alexei Alexandrovich. He recognized all his magnanimity and no longer felt himself humiliated. Besides, he fell back into the old rut of his life. He saw the possibility of looking people in the eye without shame and could live under the guidance of his habits. The one thing he could not tear out of his heart, despite his constant struggle with this feeling, was the regret, reaching the point of despair, at having lost her forever. That now, having redeemed his guilt before her husband, he had to renounce her and never again stand between her with her repentance and her husband, was firmly resolved in his heart; but he could not tear out of his heart the regret at the loss of her love, could not erase from his memory the moments of happiness he had known with her, which he had valued so little then and which now pursued him in all their enchantment.
Serpukhovskoy came up with an assignment for him in Tashkent, and Vronsky accepted the offer without the slightest hesitation. But the closer the time of departure came, the harder became the sacrifice he was offering to what he considered his duty.
His wound had healed and he was already up and about, making preparations for his departure for Tashkent.
'To see her once and then burrow in and die,' he thought and, while making his farewell visits, he voiced this thought to Betsy. With this mission Betsy went to Anna and brought him back a negative reply.
'So much the better,' thought Vronsky, on receiving the news. 'This was a weakness that would have destroyed my last strength.'
The next day Betsy herself came to him in the morning and announced that she had received positive news through Oblonsky that Alexei Alexandrovich was granting a divorce and that he could therefore see her.
Without even bothering to see Betsy to the door, forgetting all his resolutions, not asking when it was possible or where the husband was, Vronsky went at once to the Karenins'. He raced up the stairs, seeing nothing and no one, and with quick strides, barely keeping himself from running, entered her room. And without thinking, without noticing whether there was anyone in the room, he embraced her and began covering her face, hands and neck with kisses.
Anna had been preparing for this meeting, she had thought of what she was going to tell him, but she did not manage to say any of it: his passion seized her. She wanted to calm him, to calm herself, but it was too late. His feeling communicated itself to her. Her lips trembled so that for a long time she could not say anything.
'Yes, you possess me and I am yours,' she finally got out, pressing his hand to her breast.
'It had to be so!' he said. 'As long as we live, it must be so. I know it now.'
'It's true,' she said, growing paler and paler and embracing his head. 'Still, there's something terrible in it, after all that's happened.'
'It will pass, it will all pass, we'll be so happy! Our love, if it could possibly grow stronger, would grow stronger for having something terrible in it,' he said, raising his head and revealing his strong teeth in a smile.
And she could not help responding with a smile - not to his words but to his enamoured eyes. She took his hand and stroked herself with it on her cold cheeks and cropped hair.
'I don't recognize you with this short hair. You're so pretty. Like a boy. But how pale you are!'
'Yes, I'm very weak,' she said, smiling. And her lips trembled again.
'We'll go to Italy and you'll get better,' he said.
'Is it really possible that we'll be like husband and wife, alone, a family to ourselves?' she said, peering into his eyes from close up.
'I'm only surprised that it could ever have been otherwise.'
'Stiva says he consents to everything, but I can't accept his magnanimity,' she said, looking pensively past Vronsky's face. 'I don't want a divorce, it's all the same to me now. Only I don't know what he'll decide about Seryozha.'
He simply could not understand how, at this moment of their reunion, she could think about her son, about divorce. Was it not all the same?
'Don't talk about it, don't think,' he said, turning her hand in his own and trying to draw her attention to himself; but she still would not look at him.
'Ah, why didn't I die, it would be better!' she said, and tears streamed silently down both her cheeks; but she tried to smile so as not to upset him.
To decline a flattering and dangerous assignment to Tashkent would have been, to Vronsky's former way of thinking, disgraceful and impossible. But now he declined it without a moment's reflection and, noticing the disapproval of his act in high places, he at once resigned his commission.
A month later Alexei Alexandrovich was left alone in his apartment with his son, and Anna went abroad with Vronsky without obtaining a divorce and resolutely abandoning the idea.
Part Five
* * *
I
Princess Shcherbatsky thought that to have the wedding before Lent, which was only five weeks away, was impossible, because half of the trousseau would not be ready by then; but she could not help agreeing with Levin that after Lent would be too late, since Prince Shcherbatsky's old aunt was very ill and might die soon, and the mourning would delay the wedding still longer. And therefore, deciding to divide the trousseau into two parts, a larger and a smaller, the princess agreed to have the wedding before Lent. She decided to prepare the smaller part of the trousseau at once and send the larger part later, and she was very angry with Levin for being quite unable to tell her seriously whether he agreed to it or not. This disposition was the more convenient as immediately after the wedding the young people were going to the country, where the things in the larger trousseau would not be needed.
Levin continued in the same state of madness, in which it seemed to him that he and his happiness constituted the chief and only goal of all that existed, and that there was no longer any need for him to think or worry about anything, that everything was being and would be done for him by others. He even had no plans or goals for his future life; he left it for others to decide, knowing that it would all be wonderful. His brother Sergei Ivanovich, Stepan Arkadyich and the princess directed him in what he had to do. He was simply in complete agreement with everything suggested to him. His brother borrowed money for him, the princess advised leaving Moscow after the wedding, Stepan Arkadyich advised going abroad. He agreed to everything. 'Do as you like, if it amuses you. I'm happy, and my happiness can be no greater or smaller whatever you do,' he thought. When he told Kitty of Stepan Arkadyich's advice about going abroad, he was very surprised that she did not agree to it, but had certain requirements of her own regarding their future life. She knew that Levin had work in the country that he loved. He could see that she not only did not understand this w
ork but had no wish to understand it. That did not prevent her, however, from considering this work very important. And therefore she knew that their home would be in the country and wanted to go, not abroad where she was not going to live, but where their home would be. This definitely expressed intention surprised Levin. But since it was all the same to him, he at once asked Stepan Arkadyich, as if it were his duty, to go to the country and arrange everything there as he knew how to do, with that taste of which he had so much.
'Listen, though,' Stepan Arkadyich asked Levin one day, after he came back from the country where he had arranged everything for the young people's arrival, 'do you have a certificate that you've been to confession?'
'No, why?'
'You can't go to the altar without it.'
'Ai, ai, ai!' Levin cried. 'I bet it's a good nine years since I last prepared for communion.[1] never thought of it.'
'You're a fine one!' Stepan Arkadyich said, laughing. 'And you call me a nihilist! This won't do, however. You've got to confess and take communion.'
'But when? There are only four days left.'
Stepan Arkadyich arranged that as well. And Levin began to prepare for communion. For Levin, as an unbeliever who at the same time respected the beliefs of others, it was very difficult to attend and participate in any Church rituals. Now, in the softened mood he found himself in, sensitive to everything, this necessity to pretend was not only difficult for him but seemed utterly impossible. Now, in this state of his glory, his blossoming, he had either to lie or to blaspheme. He felt himself unable to do either the one or the other. But much as he questioned Stepan Arkadyich whether it might not be possible to get the certificate without going to confession, Stepan Arkadyich declared that it was impossible.