“Yes, it was wonderful, noble!” said Dolly, glancing towards Turovtsin,
who had become aware they were talking of him, and smiling gently to him.
Levin glanced once more at Turovtsin, and wondered how it was he had not
realized all this man’s goodness before.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, and I’ll never think ill of people again!” he said
gaily, genuinely expressing what he felt at the moment.
Chapter 12
Connected with the conversation that had sprung up on the rights of
women there were certain questions as to the inequality of rights in
marriage improper to discuss before the ladies. Pestsov had several times
during dinner touched upon these questions, but Sergey Ivanovitch and
Stepan Arkadyevitch carefully drew him off them.
When they rose from the table and the ladies had gone out, Pestsov did
not follow them, but addressing Alexey Alexandrovitch, began to expound
the chief ground of inequality. The inequality in marriage, in his opinion,
lay in the fact that the infidelity of the wife and the infidelity of the husband
are punished unequally, both by the law and by public opinion. Stepan
Arkadyevitch went hurriedly up to Alexey Alexandrovitch and offered him
a cigar.
“No, I don’t smoke,” Alexey Alexandrovitch answered calmly, and as
though purposely wishing to show that he was not afraid of the subject, he
turned to Pestsov with a chilly smile.
“I imagine that such a view has a foundation in the very nature of
things,” he said, and would have gone on to the drawing-room. But at this
point Turovtsin broke suddenly and unexpectedly into the conversation,
addressing Alexey Alexandrovitch.
“You heard, perhaps, about Pryatchnikov?” said Turovtsin, warmed up by
the champagne he had drunk, and long waiting for an opportunity to break
the silence that had weighed on him. “Vasya Pryatchnikov,” he said, with a
good-natured smile on his damp, red lips, addressing himself principally to
the most important guest, Alexey Alexandrovitch, “they told me today he
fought a duel with Kvitsky at Tver, and has killed him.”
Just as it always seems that one bruises oneself on a sore place, so Stepan
Arkadyevitch felt now that the conversation would by ill luck fall every
moment on Alexey Alexandrovitch’s sore spot. He would again have got his
brother-in-law away, but Alexey Alexandrovitch himself inquired, with
curiosity:
“What did Pryatchnikov fight about?”
“His wife. Acted like a man, he did! Called him out and shot him!”
“Ah!” said Alexey Alexandrovitch indifferently, and lifting his eyebrows,
he went into the drawing-room.
“How glad I am you have come,” Dolly said with a frightened smile,
meeting him in the outer drawing-room. “I must talk to you. Let’s sit here.”
Alexey Alexandrovitch, with the same expression of indifference, given
him by his lifted eyebrows, sat down beside Darya Alexandrovna, and
smiled affectedly.
“It’s fortunate,” said he, “especially as I was meaning to ask you to
excuse me, and to be taking leave. I have to start tomorrow.”
Darya Alexandrovna was firmly convinced of Anna’s innocence, and she
felt herself growing pale and her lips quivering with anger at this frigid,
unfeeling man, who was so calmly intending to ruin her innocent friend.
“Alexey Alexandrovitch,” she said, with desperate resolution looking
him in the face, “I asked you about Anna, you made me no answer. How is
she?”
“She is, I believe, quite well, Darya Alexandrovna,” replied Alexey
Alexandrovitch, not looking at her.
“Alexey Alexandrovitch, forgive me, I have no right … but I love Anna as
a sister, and esteem her; I beg, I beseech you to tell me what is wrong
between you? what fault do you find with her?”
Alexey Alexandrovitch frowned, and almost closing his eyes, dropped his
head.
“I presume that your husband has told you the grounds on which I
consider it necessary to change my attitude to Anna Arkadyevna?” he said,
not looking her in the face, but eyeing with displeasure Shtcherbatsky, who
was walking across the drawing-room.
“I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it, I can’t believe it!” Dolly said,
clasping her bony hands before her with a vigorous gesture. She rose
quickly, and laid her hand on Alexey Alexandrovitch’s sleeve. “We shall be
disturbed here. Come this way, please.”
Dolly’s agitation had an effect on Alexey Alexandrovitch. He got up and
submissively followed her to the schoolroom. They sat down to a table
covered with an oilcloth cut in slits by penknives.
“I don’t, I don’t believe it!” Dolly said, trying to catch his glance that
avoided her.
“One cannot disbelieve facts, Darya Alexandrovna,” said he, with an
emphasis on the word “facts.”
“But what has she done?” said Darya Alexandrovna. “What precisely has
she done?”
“She has forsaken her duty, and deceived her husband. That’s what she
has done,” said he.
“No, no, it can’t be! No, for God’s sake, you are mistaken,” said Dolly,
putting her hands to her temples and closing her eyes.
Alexey Alexandrovitch smiled coldly, with his lips alone, meaning to
signify to her and to himself the firmness of his conviction; but this warm
defense, though it could not shake him, reopened his wound. He began to
speak with greater heat.
“It is extremely difficult to be mistaken when a wife herself informs her
husband of the fact—informs him that eight years of her life, and a son, all
that’s a mistake, and that she wants to begin life again,” he said angrily,
with a snort.
“Anna and sin—I cannot connect them, I cannot believe it!”
“Darya Alexandrovna,” he said, now looking straight into Dolly’s kindly,
troubled face, and feeling that his tongue was being loosened in spite of
himself, “I would give a great deal for doubt to be still possible. When I
doubted, I was miserable, but it was better than now. When I doubted, I had
hope; but now there is no hope, and still I doubt of everything. I am in such
doubt of everything that I even hate my son, and sometimes do not believe
he is my son. I am very unhappy.”
He had no need to say that. Darya Alexandrovna had seen that as soon as
he glanced into her face; and she felt sorry for him, and her faith in the
innocence of her friend began to totter.
“Oh, this is awful, awful! But can it be true that you are resolved on a
divorce?”
“I am resolved on extreme measures. There is nothing else for me to do.”
“Nothing else to do, nothing else to do….” she replied, with tears in her
eyes. “Oh no, don’t say nothing else to do!” she said.
“What is horrible in a trouble of this kind is that one cannot, as in any
other—in loss, in death—bear one’s trouble in peace, but that one must
act,” said he, as though guessing her thought. “One must get out of the
humiliating position in which one is placed; one can’t live à trois.”
“I understand, I quite understand that,” said Dolly, and her head sank.
She was silent for a little, thinking of herself, of her own grief in her family,
and all at once, with an impulsive movement, she raised her head and
clasped her hands with an imploring gesture. “But wait a little! You are a
Christian. Think of her! What will become of her, if you cast her off?”
“I have thought, Darya Alexandrovna, I have thought a great deal,” said
Alexey Alexandrovitch. His face turned red in patches, and his dim eyes
looked straight before him. Darya Alexandrovna at that moment pitied him
with all her heart. “That was what I did indeed when she herself made
known to me my humiliation; I left everything as of old. I gave her a chance
to reform, I tried to save her. And with what result? She would not regard
the slightest request—that she should observe decorum,” he said, getting
heated. “One may save anyone who does not want to be ruined; but if the
whole nature is so corrupt, so depraved, that ruin itself seems to be her
salvation, what’s to be done?”
“Anything, only not divorce!” answered Darya Alexandrovna
“But what is anything?”
“No, it is awful! She will be no one’s wife, she will be lost!”
“What can I do?” said Alexey Alexandrovitch, raising his shoulders and
his eyebrows. The recollection of his wife’s last act had so incensed him
that he had become frigid, as at the beginning of the conversation. “I am
very grateful for your sympathy, but I must be going,” he said, getting up.
“No, wait a minute. You must not ruin her. Wait a little; I will tell you
about myself. I was married, and my husband deceived me; in anger and
jealousy, I would have thrown up everything, I would myself…. But I came
