“Go with this note to Countess Vronskaya’s place, you know? and bring
an answer back immediately,” she said to the messenger.
“And I, what am I going to do?” she thought. “Yes, I’m going to Dolly’s,
that’s true or else I shall go out of my mind. Yes, and I can telegraph, too.”
And she wrote a telegram. “I absolutely must talk to you; come at once.”
After sending off the telegram, she went to dress. When she was dressed
and in her hat, she glanced again into the eyes of the plump, comfortable-
looking Annushka. There was unmistakable sympathy in those good-
natured little gray eyes.
“Annushka, dear, what am I to do?” said Anna, sobbing and sinking
helplessly into a chair.
“Why fret yourself so, Anna Arkadyevna? Why, there’s nothing out of the
way. You drive out a little, and it’ll cheer you up,” said the maid.
“Yes, I’m going,” said Anna, rousing herself and getting up. “And if
there’s a telegram while I’m away, send it on to Darya Alexandrovna’s …
but no, I shall be back myself.”
“Yes, I mustn’t think, I must do something, drive somewhere, and most
of all, get out of this house,” she said, feeling with terror the strange turmoil
going on in her own heart, and she made haste to go out and get into the
carriage.
“Where to?” asked Pyotr before getting onto the box.
“To Znamenka, the Oblonskys’.”
Chapter 28
It was bright and sunny. A fine rain had been falling all the morning, and
now it had not long cleared up. The iron roofs, the flags of the roads, the
flints of the pavements, the wheels and leather, the brass and the tinplate of
the carriages—all glistened brightly in the May sunshine. It was three
o’clock, and the very liveliest time in the streets.
As she sat in a corner of the comfortable carriage, that hardly swayed on
its supple springs, while the grays trotted swiftly, in the midst of the
unceasing rattle of wheels and the changing impressions in the pure air,
Anna ran over the events of the last days, and she saw her position quite
differently from how it had seemed at home. Now the thought of death
seemed no longer so terrible and so clear to her, and death itself no longer
seemed so inevitable. Now she blamed herself for the humiliation to which
she had lowered herself. “I entreat him to forgive me. I have given in to
him. I have owned myself in fault. What for? Can’t I live without him?”
And leaving unanswered the question how she was going to live without
him, she fell to reading the signs on the shops. “Office and warehouse.
Dental surgeon. Yes, I’ll tell Dolly all about it. She doesn’t like Vronsky. I
shall be sick and ashamed, but I’ll tell her. She loves me, and I’ll follow her
advice. I won’t give in to him; I won’t let him train me as he pleases.
Filippov, bun shop. They say they send their dough to Petersburg. The
Moscow water is so good for it. Ah, the springs at Mitishtchen, and the
pancakes!”
And she remembered how, long, long ago, when she was a girl of
seventeen, she had gone with her aunt to Troitsa. “Riding, too. Was that
really me, with red hands? How much that seemed to me then splendid and
out of reach has become worthless, while what I had then has gone out of
my reach forever! Could I ever have believed then that I could come to such
humiliation? How conceited and self-satisfied he will be when he gets my
note! But I will show him…. How horrid that paint smells! Why is it they’re
always painting and building? Modes et robes, she read. A man bowed to
her. It was Annushka’s husband. “Our parasites”; she remembered how
Vronsky had said that. “Our? Why our? What’s so awful is that one can’t
tear up the past by its roots. One can’t tear it out, but one can hide one’s
memory of it. And I’ll hide it.” And then she thought of her past with
Alexey Alexandrovitch, of how she had blotted the memory of it out of her
life. “Dolly will think I’m leaving my second husband, and so I certainly
must be in the wrong. As if I cared to be right! I can’t help it!” she said, and
she wanted to cry. But at once she fell to wondering what those two girls
could be smiling about. “Love, most likely. They don’t know how dreary it
is, how low…. The boulevard and the children. Three boys running, playing
at horses. Seryozha! And I’m losing everything and not getting him back.
Yes, I’m losing everything, if he doesn’t return. Perhaps he was late for the
train and has come back by now. Longing for humiliation again!” she said
to herself. “No, I’ll go to Dolly, and say straight out to her, I’m unhappy, I
deserve this, I’m to blame, but still I’m unhappy, help me. These horses,
this carriage—how loathsome I am to myself in this carriage—all his; but I
won’t see them again.”
Thinking over the words in which she would tell Dolly, and mentally
working her heart up to great bitterness, Anna went upstairs.
“Is there anyone with her?” she asked in the hall.
“Katerina Alexandrovna Levin,” answered the footman.
“Kitty! Kitty, whom Vronsky was in love with!” thought Anna, “the girl
he thinks of with love. He’s sorry he didn’t marry her. But me he thinks of
with hatred, and is sorry he had anything to do with me.”
The sisters were having a consultation about nursing when Anna called.
Dolly went down alone to see the visitor who had interrupted their
conversation.
“Well, so you’ve not gone away yet? I meant to have come to you,” she
said; “I had a letter from Stiva today.”
“We had a telegram too,” answered Anna, looking round for Kitty.
“He writes that he can’t make out quite what Alexey Alexandrovitch
wants, but he won’t go away without a decisive answer.”
“I thought you had someone with you. Can I see the letter?”
“Yes; Kitty,” said Dolly, embarrassed. “She stayed in the nursery. She has
been very ill.”
“So I heard. May I see the letter?”
“I’ll get it directly. But he doesn’t refuse; on the contrary, Stiva has
hopes,” said Dolly, stopping in the doorway.
“I haven’t, and indeed I don’t wish it,” said Anna.
“What’s this? Does Kitty consider it degrading to meet me?” thought
Anna when she was alone. “Perhaps she’s right, too. But it’s not for her, the
girl who was in love with Vronsky, it’s not for her to show me that, even if
it is true. I know that in my position I can’t be received by any decent
woman. I knew that from the first moment I sacrificed everything to him.
And this is my reward! Oh, how I hate him! And what did I come here for?
I’m worse here, more miserable.” She heard from the next room the sisters’
voices in consultation. “And what am I going to say to Dolly now? Amuse
Kitty by the sight of my wretchedness, submit to her patronizing? No; and
besides, Dolly wouldn’t understand. And it would be no good my telling
her. It would only be interesting to see Kitty, to show her how I despise
everyone and everything, how nothing matters to me now.”
Dolly came in with the letter. Anna read it and handed it back in silence.
“I knew all that,” she said, “and it doesn’t interest me in the least.”
“Oh, why so? On the contrary, I have hopes,” said Dolly, looking
inquisitively at Anna. She had never seen her in such a strangely irritable
condition. “When are you going away?” she asked.
Anna, half-closing her eyes, looked straight before her and did not
answer.
“Why does Kitty shrink from me?” she said, looking at the door and
flushing red.
“Oh, what nonsense! She’s nursing, and things aren’t going right with
her, and I’ve been advising her…. She’s delighted. She’ll be here in a
minute,” said Dolly awkwardly, not clever at lying. “Yes, here she is.”
Hearing that Anna had called, Kitty had wanted not to appear, but Dolly
persuaded her. Rallying her forces, Kitty went in, walked up to her,
blushing, and shook hands.
“I am so glad to see you,” she said with a trembling voice.
Kitty had been thrown into confusion by the inward conflict between her
antagonism to this bad woman and her desire to be nice to her. But as soon
as she saw Anna’s lovely and attractive face, all feeling of antagonism
disappeared.
“I should not have been surprised if you had not cared to meet me. I’m
used to everything. You have been ill? Yes, you are changed,” said Anna.
Kitty felt that Anna was looking at her with hostile eyes. She ascribed
this hostility to the awkward position in which Anna, who had once
patronized her, must feel with her now, and she felt sorry for her.
They talked of Kitty’s illness, of the baby, of Stiva, but it was obvious
that nothing interested Anna.
“I came to say good-bye to you,” she said, getting up.
“Oh, when are you going?”
But again not answering, Anna turned to Kitty.
“Yes, I am very glad to have seen you,” she said with a smile. “I have
heard so much of you from everyone, even from your husband. He came to
