trying not to read what was so plainly written on it, and against his own
will, with horror read on it what he did not want to know.
The first fall—Kuzovlev’s, at the stream—agitated everyone, but Alexey
Alexandrovitch saw distinctly on Anna’s pale, triumphant face that the man
she was watching had not fallen. When, after Mahotin and Vronsky had
cleared the worst barrier, the next officer had been thrown straight on his
head at it and fatally injured, and a shudder of horror passed over the whole
public, Alexey Alexandrovitch saw that Anna did not even notice it, and had
some difficulty in realizing what they were talking of about her. But more
and more often, and with greater persistence, he watched her. Anna, wholly
engrossed as she was with the race, became aware of her husband’s cold
eyes fixed upon her from one side.
She glanced round for an instant, looked inquiringly at him, and with a
slight frown turned away again.
“Ah, I don’t care!” she seemed to say to him, and she did not once glance
at him again.
The race was an unlucky one, and of the seventeen officers who rode in it
more than half were thrown and hurt. Towards the end of the race everyone
was in a state of agitation, which was intensified by the fact that the Tsar
was displeased.
Chapter 29
Everyone was loudly expressing disapprobation, everyone was repeating
a phrase someone had uttered—“The lions and gladiators will be the next
thing,” and everyone was feeling horrified; so that when Vronsky fell to the
ground, and Anna moaned aloud, there was nothing very out of the way in
it. But afterwards a change came over Anna’s face which really was beyond
decorum. She utterly lost her head. She began fluttering like a caged bird, at
one moment would have got up and moved away, at the next turned to
Betsy.
“Let us go, let us go!” she said.
But Betsy did not hear her. She was bending down, talking to a general
who had come up to her.
Alexey Alexandrovitch went up to Anna and courteously offered her his
arm.
“Let us go, if you like,” he said in French, but Anna was listening to the
general and did not notice her husband.
“He’s broken his leg too, so they say,” the general was saying. “This is
beyond everything.”
Without answering her husband, Anna lifted her opera-glass and gazed
towards the place where Vronsky had fallen; but it was so far off, and there
was such a crowd of people about it, that she could make out nothing. She
laid down the opera-glass, and would have moved away, but at that moment
an officer galloped up and made some announcement to the Tsar. Anna
craned forward, listening.
“Stiva! Stiva!” she cried to her brother.
But her brother did not hear her. Again she would have moved away.
“Once more I offer you my arm if you want to be going,” said Alexey
Alexandrovitch, reaching towards her hand.
She drew back from him with aversion, and without looking in his face
answered:
“No, no, let me be, I’ll stay.”
She saw now that from the place of Vronsky’s accident an officer was
running across the course towards the pavilion. Betsy waved her
handkerchief to him. The officer brought the news that the rider was not
killed, but the horse had broken its back.
On hearing this Anna sat down hurriedly, and hid her face in her fan.
Alexey Alexandrovitch saw that she was weeping, and could not control her
tears, nor even the sobs that were shaking her bosom. Alexey
Alexandrovitch stood so as to screen her, giving her time to recover herself.
“For the third time I offer you my arm,” he said to her after a little time,
turning to her. Anna gazed at him and did not know what to say. Princess
Betsy came to her rescue.
“No, Alexey Alexandrovitch; I brought Anna and I promised to take her
home,” put in Betsy.
“Excuse me, princess,” he said, smiling courteously but looking her very
firmly in the face, “but I see that Anna’s not very well, and I wish her to
come home with me.”
Anna looked about her in a frightened way, got up submissively, and laid
her hand on her husband’s arm.
“I’ll send to him and find out, and let you know,” Betsy whispered to her.
As they left the pavilion, Alexey Alexandrovitch, as always, talked to
those he met, and Anna had, as always, to talk and answer; but she was
utterly beside herself, and moved hanging on her husband’s arm as though
in a dream.
“Is he killed or not? Is it true? Will he come or not? Shall I see him
today?” she was thinking.
She took her seat in her husband’s carriage in silence, and in silence
drove out of the crowd of carriages. In spite of all he had seen, Alexey
Alexandrovitch still did not allow himself to consider his wife’s real
condition. He merely saw the outward symptoms. He saw that she was
behaving unbecomingly, and considered it his duty to tell her so. But it was
very difficult for him not to say more, to tell her nothing but that. He
opened his mouth to tell her she had behaved unbecomingly, but he could
not help saying something utterly different.
“What an inclination we all have, though, for these cruel spectacles,” he
said. “I observe….”
“Eh? I don’t understand,” said Anna contemptuously.
He was offended, and at once began to say what he had meant to say.
“I am obliged to tell you,” he began.
“So now we are to have it out,” she thought, and she felt frightened.
“I am obliged to tell you that your behavior has been unbecoming today,”
he said to her in French.
“In what way has my behavior been unbecoming?” she said aloud,
turning her head swiftly and looking him straight in the face, not with the
bright expression that seemed covering something, but with a look of
determination, under which she concealed with difficulty the dismay she
was feeling.
“Mind,” he said, pointing to the open window opposite the coachman.
He got up and pulled up the window.
“What did you consider unbecoming?” she repeated.
“The despair you were unable to conceal at the accident to one of the
riders.”
He waited for her to answer, but she was silent, looking straight before
her.
“I have already begged you so to conduct yourself in society that even
malicious tongues can find nothing to say against you. There was a time
when I spoke of your inward attitude, but I am not speaking of that now.
Now I speak only of your external attitude. You have behaved improperly,
and I would wish it not to occur again.”
She did not hear half of what he was saying; she felt panic-stricken
before him, and was thinking whether it was true that Vronsky was not
killed. Was it of him they were speaking when they said the rider was
unhurt, but the horse had broken its back? She merely smiled with a
pretense of irony when he finished, and made no reply, because she had not
heard what he said. Alexey Alexandrovitch had begun to speak boldly, but
as he realized plainly what he was speaking of, the dismay she was feeling
infected him too. He saw the smile, and a strange misapprehension came
over him.
“She is smiling at my suspicions. Yes, she will tell me directly what she
told me before; that there is no foundation for my suspicions, that it’s
absurd.”
At that moment, when the revelation of everything was hanging over
him, there was nothing he expected so much as that she would answer
mockingly as before that his suspicions were absurd and utterly groundless.
So terrible to him was what he knew that now he was ready to believe
anything. But the expression of her face, scared and gloomy, did not now
promise even deception.
“Possibly I was mistaken,” said he. “If so, I beg your pardon.”
“No, you were not mistaken,” she said deliberately, looking desperately
into his cold face. “You were not mistaken. I was, and I could not help
being in despair. I hear you, but I am thinking of him. I love him, I am his
mistress; I can’t bear you; I’m afraid of you, and I hate you…. You can do
what you like to me.”
And dropping back into the corner of the carriage, she broke into sobs,
hiding her face in her hands. Alexey Alexandrovitch did not stir, and kept
