【有声英语文学名著】安娜卡列宁娜（32）

 THIRTY-TWO

 
This would happen: I, knowing beforehand that matters would never be allowed to reach a dangerous point, should have challenged a man in order to cover myself with false glamour 1. That would be dishonest, it would be false, it would be deceiving myself as well as others. No! a duel 2 is unthinkable and no one expects it of me. My aim is to safeguard my reputation, which I need for the uninterrupted pursuit of my career.’ His official pursuits, which had always appeared essential to Karenin, now assumed even greater importance.
 
Having considered and rejected the idea of a duel, Karenin turned his thoughts to divorce, the next expedient 3 of which some of the wronged husbands he remembered had availed themselves. Going over all the cases of divorce he knew — there were very many, and in the highest Society, with which he was well acquainted — Karenin could not recall one in which the purpose of the divorce was the one he had in view. In all these cases the husband had ceded 4 or sold the unfaithful wife, and the very person who according to law had no right to re-marry entered into fictitious 5, pseudo-legal relations with a pretended husband. Karenin saw that in his own case it would be impossible to obtain a legal divorce — that is, a divorce in which the guilty wife would be simply cast off. He knew that in their complex conditions of life it would not be possible to obtain those coarse proofs of a wife’s infidelity which the law demanded; he knew that in that life there was a certain convention of refinement 7 which would not allow him to bring forward such proofs, had they existed, because such an action would make him sink even lower than she in public opinion. To attempt a divorce could only lead to a lawsuit 8 and a scandal which would give his enemies great opportunity for calumny 9, and would lower his high position in Society. The chief object of his life, the settling of conditions with the least possible amount of disturbance 10, could not be furthered by divorce. Besides, it was evident that as a consequence of divorce the wife would break off relations with her husband and unite with her lover. In Karenin’s soul, however, despite the complete and contemptuous indifference 11 he thought he felt for his wife, there was one feeling left with regard to her: an objection to her being in a position to unite unhindered with Vronsky, so making her crime advantageous 12 to her. The very thought of it irritated him to such an extent that he groaned 13 with inner pain, rose, and changed his place in the carriage; and for a long while after that he sat wrapping his fluffy 14 rug round his bony, easily-chilled legs.
 
‘Besides a formal divorce, it would be possible to act as Karibanov, Paskudin, and that good-natured Dram did, and just separate,’ he resumed when he had grown calm again; but this measure would have all the inconvenience of a divorce-scandal, and would throw his wife into Vronsky’s arms just in the same way. ‘No, it is impossible, impossible!’ he said aloud, again wrapping the rug round his legs, ‘I cannot be unhappy, but she and he must not be happy.’
 
The jealousy 15 that had tormented 16 him during the period of uncertainty 17 had left him when his wife’s words had with great pain drawn 18 that aching tooth. But another feeling had now taken the place of the jealousy: it was a wish that his wife’s guilt 6 should meet with retribution. He did not acknowledge it to himself, but in the depths of his soul he wished her to suffer for impairing 19 his peace of mind and his honour. And having reviewed the possibilities of a duel, of divorce, and of separation, and having again rejected them, Karenin came to the conclusion that there was only one course to be followed: to keep her with him, hiding from the world what had happened, and taking all necessary steps to put a stop to her love-affair, and above all (though he did not confess this to himself) to punish her. ‘I must inform her of my decision, that after considering the painful situation in which she has placed her family, I think that an external status quo would be better for both parties than any other expedient, and that I am prepared to keep to that on the strict understanding on her part that she will obey my will and break off relations with her lover.’ In confirmation 20 of this decision, after it had already been reached, another powerful argument occurred to Karenin. ‘It is only by this course that I can conform with religion,’ said he to himself. ‘It is the only way that makes it possible for me not to disown my guilty wife and to give her a chance of repenting 21, and even, painful as it will be, to devote part of my powers to her redemption.’
 
Though Karenin knew that he could have no moral influence on his wife, that all his attempts to redeem 22 her would lead to nothing but lies, and although during the painful moments he had lived through he had not once thought of seeking guidance in religion, now that his decision was, as he imagined, in conformity 23 with religion, its sanction afforded him great satisfaction and even some comfort. It was pleasant to think that no one would have a right to say that in such an important crisis in his life he had not acted in accordance with that religion whose banner he had always held aloft amid general coldness and indifference.
 
Proceeding 24 to consider further details, Karenin could not even see why his relations with his wife should not remain almost the same as before. He could of course never again revive his respect for her; but there was no occasion for him to spoil his own life and to suffer just because she had proved a bad and unfaithful wife.
 
‘Yes, time goes on; and time, which cures everything, will restore the old conditions,’ said Karenin to himself. ‘That is, it will restore them in so far that I shall not have this worry during the rest of my life. She must be unhappy, but I am not guilty and therefore I cannot suffer.’
 
 
 
 
 
Chapter 14
 
 
 
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BY the time he reached Petersburg Karenin had not only resolved to keep to his decision, but had mentally composed a letter to his wife. On entering the hall of his house he glanced at the letters and papers which had been sent from the Ministry and ordered them to be brought into his study.
 
‘Tell him to unharness; and no one is to be admitted,’ he said in answer to the hall-porter’s inquiry, accentuating with a certain pleasure the word admitted. It was a sign that he was in good spirits.
 
He paced twice up and down his study and then halted at the gigantic writing-table, on which his valet had already lit six candles. Cracking his fingers, he sat down and arranged his writing materials. With his elbow on the table and his head bent to one side he sat and thought for a minute, and then wrote without an instant’s pause. He did not begin by addressing her, and wrote in French, using the plural pronoun you, which in French does not sound as cold and distant as it does in Russian.
 
‘During our last conversation I expressed my intention of communicating my decision with reference to the subject of that conversation. Having carefully and fully considered everything, I now write to fulfil my promise. My decision is as follows: Whatever your actions may have been, I do not consider myself justified in severing the bonds with which a Higher Power has united us. A family must not be broken up through the caprice, perversity, or even crime, of one of the married couple, and our life must go on as heretofore. This is unavoidable for my sake, for yours, and for that of our son. I am perfectly convinced that you have repented, and are repenting, of the action which has led to this letter, and will completely co-operate with me to eradicate the cause of our discord and to forget the past. If not, you can yourself foresee what awaits you and your son. I hope to talk all this over with you in more detail at a personal interview. As the summer season is drawing to a close, I would ask you to return to Petersburg as soon as possible, and not later than Tuesday. All necessary preparations shall be made for your return. I beg you to note that I attach importance to this request of mine.
 
A. KARENIN.
 
 
 
‘P.S. — I enclose some money, which you may need for your expenses.’
 
He read the letter over and was satisfied with it, especially with having remembered to enclose the money; there was not a single cruel word or threat in it, yet it was not yielding in tone. Above all it provided a golden bridge for her to return by. Having folded the letter, smoothed it out with a massive ivory paper-knife, and put it and the money in an envelope — with the pleasure that the use of his well-arranged writing appliances always caused him — he rang.
 
‘Give this to the messenger, and tell him to take it to the country, to Anna Arkadyevna, to-morrow,’ he said, and got up.
 
‘Yes, your Excellency! Shall tea be served in the study?’
 
Karenin assented, and, toying with his paper-knife, went to his arm-chair, beside which a lamp was burning, and a French book about the Eugubine Tables was lying ready. Above the arm-chair hung a beautifully painted portrait of Anna by a celebrated artist. To Karenin the splendidly painted black lace on the head, the black hair, and the beautiful white hand with many rings on the third finger, suggested something intolerably bold and provocative. After looking at the portrait for about a minute he shuddered and his lips trembled and made a sound like ‘brr’ as he turned away. He sat down hurriedly and opened his book. He tried to read but could not awaken in himself the lively interest he had felt for the Eugubine Tables. His eyes were on the book but he was thinking about something else. He was not thinking of his wife but of a complication that had recently arisen in his official activity and at present constituted the chief interest of his work. He felt that he now saw more deeply than ever into that complication, and that a capital idea (he might say that without flattering himself) had occurred to him, which would disentangle the whole business, raise him in his official career, upset his enemies, and therefore be of the greatest value to the State. As soon as the footman, who had brought in the tea, had left the room, Karenin rose and went to the writing-table. Drawing toward himself the portfolio of current affairs, with a scarcely perceptible smile of self-satisfaction, he took a pencil from the stand and became absorbed in reading some intricate papers he had sent for, relating to the impending complication. The complication was this: Karenin’s official peculiarity, his characteristic trait (every successful official has his special trait), which together with his determined ambition, self-restraint, honesty, and self-confidence, had made him successful, consisted in a contempt for red-tape, a curtailment of correspondence, economy, and (as far as possible) a direct relation with real facts. It so happened that the important Committee of June 2nd had had brought before it the question of irrigation in the Zaraysk Province, which belonged to Karenin’s Department, and presented a striking example of unproductive expenditure and useless red-tape methods. Karenin knew that this was really so. The field-irrigation of the Zaraysk Province had been started by the predecessor of Karenin’s predecessor. A great deal of money had been and was being spent quite unproductively on that business, and it was evident that the scheme would lead to nothing. When Karenin had first taken up his present post he had at once realized this and had wished to stop it; but, till he felt himself firmly seated, he knew that it would not be wise to do so as too many interests were involved. Afterwards, being occupied with other matters, he had simply forgotten the business. Like all such matters it went on of itself, by inertia. (Many people lived by it, especially one very moral and musical family in which the daughters all played stringed instruments. Karenin was acquainted with that family and gave away one of the daughters at her marriage.) The raising of this question by a hostile Department was, in Karenin’s opinion, dishonest, because in every Ministry there were still graver matters which, out of recognized official decency, no one ever questioned. But since the gauntlet had been thrown down, he would take it up boldly and would demand the appointment of a special Committee to investigate and report upon the work of the Committee of Irrigation in the Zaraysk Province, but at the same time he would not yield an inch to those gentlemen who had raised the question. He would demand the appointment of a special Committee to inquire into the case of the subject races in that province. The case of the subject races had been accidentally raised at the Committee of June 2nd and had been energetically insisted on by Karenin, as a matter of urgency in view of their wretched condition. At the Committee this question had caused conflict between several Ministries. The Ministry opposed to Karenin had argued that the condition of the subject races was most flourishing and that the projected rearrangement might destroy their prosperity, while, if there was really anything unsatisfactory, it all resulted from the neglect by Karenin’s Department of the measures prescribed by the law. Now Karenin meant to demand, first, that a new Commission should be formed to investigate locally the conditions of the subject races; secondly, should those conditions prove to be such as they appeared to be from the official reports already received, that another scientific Commission should be appointed to study the causes of this deplorable condition of the subject races, in the following aspects: (a) Political, (b) Administrative, (c) Economic, (d) Ethnographic, (e) Material, and (f) Religious; thirdly, that information should be demanded from the hostile Department concerning the measures it had taken during the last ten years to avert the unfavourable conditions to which the subject races were now exposed; and fourthly, that the Department in question should be required to explain why it had acted in direct contradiction to the meaning of the fundamental and organic law (Vol. — , Article 18, and footnote to Article 36), as appeared from the statements submitted to the Committee and numbered 17015 and 18308, of 5th December 1863 and 7th June 1864. A flush of animation suffused Karenin’s face as he rapidly wrote out a summary of these ideas. Haying covered a sheet of foolscap he rose, rang, and sent off a note to his Chief Secretary, asking for some necessary references that had to be looked up.
 
After walking up and down the room he again looked at the portrait, frowned, and smiled contemptuously. He once more took up the book on the Eugubine Tables, and, having reawakened an interest in them, at eleven o’clock went to bed, and when as he lay there he remembered what had occurred with his wife, it no longer appeared to him in such gloomy colours.
 
 
 
 
 
Chapter 15
 
 
 
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THOUGH Anna had angrily and obstinately contradicted Vronsky when he said that her position was an impossible one, in the depths of her soul she felt that the situation was a false one and wished with all her heart to put an end to it. On her way back from the races, in a moment of excitement — in spite of the pain it caused her — she had told her husband everything, and she was glad she had done so. After he left her, she told herself that she was glad she had told him, that now everything would be definite — at any rate, the falsehood and deception would no longer exist. She thought it quite certain that her position would be cleared up for good. Her new position might be a bad one but it would be definite, and there would be no vagueness or falsehood. The pain she had inflicted on herself and her husband would now, she thought, be compensated for by the fact that the matter would be settled. She saw Vronsky that same evening, but did not tell him what had passed between her and her husband, though he would have to be told before her position could be settled.
 
When she woke up in the morning the first thing that came into her mind was what she had said to her husband, and it now appeared so terrible that she could not understand how she had been able to utter such strange and coarse words and could not imagine what result they would have. But the words had been spoken and Karenin had gone away without saying anything.
 
‘I saw Vronsky and did not tell him. Just as he was going away I wished to call him back and tell him, but changed my mind, because my not having done so at first would have appeared strange. Why did I not tell him?’
 
And in answer to this question a hot blush of shame spread all over her face. She knew what had stopped her, knew she had been ashamed. The situation which the night before had appeared to be clearing up now seemed quite hopeless. She dreaded the disgrace, which she had not considered before.
 
When she thought of what her husband would do, the most terrible fancies came into her head. She fancied that presently the steward would come and turn her out of the house and that her disgrace would be proclaimed to all the world. She asked herself where she would go when turned out, and found no answer.
 
When she thought about Vronsky, she imagined that he did not love her, that he was beginning to find her a burden, and that she could not offer herself to him; and in consequence she felt hostile toward him. She felt as if the words she had used to her husband, which she kept repeating in imagination, had been said by her to every one and that every one had heard them.
 
She had not the courage to look into the eyes of the people she lived with. She could not make up her mind to call her maid, and still less to go down and face her son and his governess.
 
The maid, who had long been listening at the door, at last came in of her own accord. Anna looked inquiringly into her eyes and blushed with alarm. The maid begged pardon and said she thought she had heard the bell.
 
She brought a dress and a note. The note was from Betsy, who reminded her that she (Betsy) was that day expecting Lisa Merkalova and the Baroness Stolz, with their admirers Kaluzhsky and old Stremov, to a game of croquet.
 
‘Do come, if only to study manners and customs. I expect you,’ she wrote in conclusion.
 
Anna read the note and sighed deeply.
 
‘I don’t want anything, anything at all,’ she said to Annushka, who was moving the bottles and brushes on the dressing-table. ‘I will get dressed and come down at once. I want nothing, nothing at all.’
 
Annushka went out, but Anna did not get dressed. She remained in the same position with head and arms drooping. Every now and then her whole body shuddered as she tried to make some movement or to say something, and then became rigid again. ‘Oh, my God! My God!’ she kept repeating, but neither the word God or my had any meaning for her. The thought of seeking comfort in religion, though she had never doubted the truth of the religion in which she had been brought up, was as foreign to her as asking Karenin for help would have been. She knew that she could find no help in religion unless she was prepared to give up that which alone gave a meaning to her life. She was not only disturbed, but was beginning to be afraid of a new mental condition such as she had never before experienced. She felt as if everything was being doubled in her soul, just as objects appear doubled to weary eyes. Sometimes she could not tell what she feared and what she desired. Whether she feared and desired what had been, or what would be, and what it was she desired she did not know.
 
‘Oh, dear! What am I doing!’ she said to herself suddenly, feeling pain in both sides of her head. When she came to her senses she found that she was clutching her hair and pressing her temples with both hands. She jumped up and began pacing up and down the room.
 
‘Coffee is ready, and Ma’m’selle and Serezha are waiting,’ said Annushka, coming in again and finding Anna in the same position.
 
‘Serezha? What of Serezha?’ Anna asked, reviving suddenly, as for the first time that morning she remembered the existence of her son.
 
‘It seems he has got into trouble,’ answered Annushka with a smile.
 
‘Into trouble, how?’
 
‘You had some peaches in the corner room; it seems he has eaten one of them on the quiet.’
 
The thought of her son at once took Anna out of the hopeless condition she had been in. She remembered that partly sincere but greatly exaggerated rôle of a mother living for her son which she had assumed during the last five years; and felt with joy that in the position in which she found herself she had still one stay, independent of her relations with her husband and Vronsky. That stay was her son. Whatever position she might accept she could not give up her son.
 
Let her husband disgrace her, let Vronsky grow cold toward her and continue to live his own independent life (again she thought of him with bitterness and reproach), she could not give up her son. She had an aim in life and must act so as to ensure her position toward her son, while they had not yet taken him from her. She must take him away. That was the only thing to do at present. She must be calm and escape from this terrible situation.
 
The thought of decided action concerned with her son — of going away somewhere with him — made her feel calmer.
 
She dressed quickly and with determined steps entered the drawing-room, where Serezha and his governess were waiting breakfast for her as usual. Serezha, dressed all in white, was standing by a table under a looking-glass, and arranging some flowers he had brought, with bent head and back, showing that strained attention familiar to her in which he resembled his father.
 
His governess was looking exceptionally stern. Serezha exclaimed in a piercing voice, as he often did, ‘Ah! Mama!’ and stopped, hesitating whether to go and bid her good-morning and leave the flowers, or to finish the crown he was making and take it to her.
 
The governess began to give a long and detailed account of his misconduct, but Anna did not listen to her. She was wondering whether to take her also or not.
 
‘No, I won’t,’ she decided. ‘I will go alone with my son.’
 
‘Yes, that was very wrong,’ said Anna, and putting her hand on his shoulder she looked at him not with a severe but with a timid expression which confused and gladdened the boy. She kissed him.
 
‘Leave him to me,’ she said to the astonished governess, and still holding his hand she sat down at the breakfast table.
 
‘Mama! I . . . I . . . I . . .’ he said, trying to find out from her face what he was to expect for eating the peach.