even to use my authority. I ought to speak plainly to her.” And everything
that he would say tonight to his wife took clear shape in Alexey
Alexandrovitch’s head. Thinking over what he would say, he somewhat
regretted that he should have to use his time and mental powers for
domestic consumption, with so little to show for it, but, in spite of that, the
form and contents of the speech before him shaped itself as clearly and
distinctly in his head as a ministerial report.
“I must say and express fully the following points: first, exposition of the
value to be attached to public opinion and to decorum; secondly, exposition
of religious significance of marriage; thirdly, if need be, reference to the
calamity possibly ensuing to our son; fourthly, reference to the unhappiness
likely to result to herself.” And, interlacing his fingers, Alexey
Alexandrovitch stretched them, and the joints of the fingers cracked. This
trick, a bad habit, the cracking of his fingers, always soothed him, and gave
precision to his thoughts, so needful to him at this juncture.
There was the sound of a carriage driving up to the front door. Alexey
Alexandrovitch halted in the middle of the room.
A woman’s step was heard mounting the stairs. Alexey Alexandrovitch,
ready for his speech, stood compressing his crossed fingers, waiting to see
if the crack would not come again. One joint cracked.
Already, from the sound of light steps on the stairs, he was aware that she
was close, and though he was satisfied with his speech, he felt frightened of
the explanation confronting him….
Chapter 9
Anna came in with hanging head, playing with the tassels of her hood.
Her face was brilliant and glowing; but this glow was not one of brightness;
it suggested the fearful glow of a conflagration in the midst of a dark night.
On seeing her husband, Anna raised her head and smiled, as though she had
just waked up.
“You’re not in bed? What a wonder!” she said, letting fall her hood, and
without stopping, she went on into the dressing-room. “It’s late, Alexey
Alexandrovitch,” she said, when she had gone through the doorway.
“Anna, it’s necessary for me to have a talk with you.”
“With me?” she said, wonderingly. She came out from behind the door of
the dressing-room, and looked at him. “Why, what is it? What about?” she
asked, sitting down. “Well, let’s talk, if it’s so necessary. But it would be
better to get to sleep.”
Anna said what came to her lips, and marveled, hearing herself, at her
own capacity for lying. How simple and natural were her words, and how
likely that she was simply sleepy! She felt herself clad in an impenetrable
armor of falsehood. She felt that some unseen force had come to her aid and
was supporting her.
“Anna, I must warn you,” he began.
“Warn me?” she said. “Of what?”
She looked at him so simply, so brightly, that anyone who did not know
her as her husband knew her could not have noticed anything unnatural,
either in the sound or the sense of her words. But to him, knowing her,
knowing that whenever he went to bed five minutes later than usual, she
noticed it, and asked him the reason; to him, knowing that every joy, every
pleasure and pain that she felt she communicated to him at once; to him,
now to see that she did not care to notice his state of mind, that she did not
care to say a word about herself, meant a great deal. He saw that the inmost
recesses of her soul, that had always hitherto lain open before him, were
closed against him. More than that, he saw from her tone that she was not
even perturbed at that, but as it were said straight out to him: “Yes, it’s shut
up, and so it must be, and will be in future.” Now he experienced a feeling
such as a man might have, returning home and finding his own house
locked up. “But perhaps the key may yet be found,” thought Alexey
Alexandrovitch.
“I want to warn you,” he said in a low voice, “that through
thoughtlessness and lack of caution you may cause yourself to be talked
about in society. Your too animated conversation this evening with Count
Vronsky” (he enunciated the name firmly and with deliberate emphasis)
“attracted attention.”
He talked and looked at her laughing eyes, which frightened him now
with their impenetrable look, and, as he talked, he felt all the uselessness
and idleness of his words.
“You’re always like that,” she answered, as though completely
misapprehending him, and of all he had said only taking in the last phrase.
“One time you don’t like my being dull, and another time you don’t like my
being lively. I wasn’t dull. Does that offend you?”
Alexey Alexandrovitch shivered, and bent his hands to make the joints
crack.
“Oh, please, don’t do that, I do so dislike it,” she said.
“Anna, is this you?” said Alexey Alexandrovitch, quietly making an
effort over himself, and restraining the motion of his fingers.
“But what is it all about?” she said, with such genuine and droll wonder.
“What do you want of me?”
Alexey Alexandrovitch paused, and rubbed his forehead and his eyes. He
saw that instead of doing as he had intended—that is to say, warning his
wife against a mistake in the eyes of the world—he had unconsciously
become agitated over what was the affair of her conscience, and was
struggling against the barrier he fancied between them.
“This is what I meant to say to you,” he went on coldly and composedly,
“and I beg you to listen to it. I consider jealousy, as you know, a humiliating
and degrading feeling, and I shall never allow myself to be influenced by it;
but there are certain rules of decorum which cannot be disregarded with
impunity. This evening it was not I observed it, but judging by the
impression made on the company, everyone observed that your conduct and
deportment were not altogether what could be desired.”
“I positively don’t understand,” said Anna, shrugging her shoulders
—“He doesn’t care,” she thought. “But other people noticed it, and that’s
what upsets him.”—“You’re not well, Alexey Alexandrovitch,” she added,
and she got up, and would have gone towards the door; but he moved
forward as though he would stop her.
His face was ugly and forbidding, as Anna had never seen him. She
stopped, and bending her head back and on one side, began with her rapid
hand taking out her hairpins.
“Well, I’m listening to what’s to come,” she said, calmly and ironically;
“and indeed I listen with interest, for I should like to understand what’s the
matter.”
She spoke, and marveled at the confident, calm, and natural tone in
which she was speaking, and the choice of the words she used.
“To enter into all the details of your feelings I have no right, and besides,
I regard that as useless and even harmful,” began Alexey Alexandrovitch.
“Ferreting in one’s soul, one often ferrets out something that might have
lain there unnoticed. Your feelings are an affair of your own conscience; but
I am in duty bound to you, to myself, and to God, to point out to you your
duties. Our life has been joined, not by man, but by God. That union can
only be severed by a crime, and a crime of that nature brings its own
chastisement.”
“I don’t understand a word. And, oh dear! how sleepy I am, unluckily,”
she said, rapidly passing her hand through her hair, feeling for the
remaining hairpins.
“Anna, for God’s sake don’t speak like that!” he said gently. “Perhaps I
am mistaken, but believe me, what I say, I say as much for myself as for
you. I am your husband, and I love you.”
For an instant her face fell, and the mocking gleam in her eyes died
away; but the word love threw her into revolt again. She thought: “Love?
Can he love? If he hadn’t heard there was such a thing as love, he would
never have used the word. He doesn’t even know what love is.”
“Alexey Alexandrovitch, really I don’t understand,” she said. “Define
what it is you find….”
“Pardon, let me say all I have to say. I love you. But I am not speaking of
myself; the most important persons in this matter are our son and yourself.
It may very well be, I repeat, that my words seem to you utterly
unnecessary and out of place; it may be that they are called forth by my
mistaken impression. In that case, I beg you to forgive me. But if you are
conscious yourself of even the smallest foundation for them, then I beg you
to think a little, and if your heart prompts you, to speak out to me….”
Alexey Alexandrovitch was unconsciously saying something utterly
unlike what he had prepared.
“I have nothing to say. And besides,” she said hurriedly, with difficulty
repressing a smile, “it’s really time to be in bed.”
Alexey Alexandrovitch sighed, and, without saying more, went into the
bedroom.
