Anna Karenina

L >> Leo Tolstoy >> Anna Karenina


"Whether he knows or not," said Vronsky, in his usual quiet and
resolute tone, "that's nothing to do with us. We cannot...you
cannot stay like this, especially now."

"What's to be done, according to you?" she asked with the same
frivolous irony. She who had so feared he would take her
condition too lightly was now vexed with him for deducing from it
the necessity of taking some step.

"Tell him everything, and leave him."

"Very well, let us suppose I do that," she said. "Do you know
what the result of that would be? I can tell you it all
beforehand," and a wicked light gleamed in her eyes, that had
been so soft a minute before. "'Eh, you love another man, and
have entered into criminal intrigues with him?'" (Mimicking her
husband, she threw an emphasis on the word "criminal," as Alexey
Alexandrovitch did.) "'I warned you of the results in the
religious, the civil, and the domestic relation. You have not
listened to me. Now I cannot let you disgrace my name,--'"
"and my son," she had meant to say, but about her son she could
not jest,--"'disgrace my name, and'--and more in the same
style," she added. "In general terms, he'll say in his official
manner, and with all distinctness and precision, that he cannot
let me go, but will take all measures in his power to prevent
scandal. And he will calmly and punctually act in accordance
with his words. That's what will happen. He's not a man, but a
machine, and a spiteful machine when he's angry," she added,
recalling Alexey Alexandrovitch as she spoke, with all the
peculiarities of his figure and manner of speaking, and reckoning
against him every defect she could find in him, softening nothing
for the great wrong she herself was doing him.

"But, Anna," said Vronsky, in a soft and persuasive voice, trying
to soothe her, "we absolutely must, anyway, tell him, and then be
guided by the line he takes."

"What, run away?"

"And why not run away? I don't see how we can keep on like this.
And not for my sake--I see that you suffer."

"Yes, run away, and become your mistress," she said angrily.

"Anna," he said, with reproachful tenderness.

"Yes," she went on, "become your mistress, and complete the ruin
of..."

Again she would have said "my son," but she could not utter that
word.

Vronsky could not understand how she, with her strong and
truthful nature, could endure this state of deceit, and not long
to get out of it. But he did not suspect that the chief cause of
it was the word--_son_, which she could not bring herself to
pronounce. When she thought of her son, and his future attitude
to his mother, who had abandoned his father, she felt such terror
at what she had done, that she could not face it; but, like a
woman, could only try to comfort herself with lying assurances
that everything would remain as it always had been, and that it
was possible to forget the fearful question of how it would be
with her son.

"I beg you, I entreat you," she said suddenly, taking his hand,
and speaking in quite a different tone, sincere and tender,
"never speak to me of that!"

"But, Anna..."

"Never. Leave it to me. I know all the baseness, all the horror
of my position; but it's not so easy to arrange as you think.
And leave it to me, and do what I say. Never speak to me of it.
Do you promise me?...No, no, promise!..."

"I promise everything, but I can't be at peace, especially after
what you have told me. I can't be at peace, when you can't be at
peace...."

"I?" she repeated. "Yes, I am worried sometimes; but that will
pass, if you will never talk about this. When you talk about
it--it's only then it worries me."

"I don't understand," he said.

"I know," she interrupted him, "how hard it is for your truthful
nature to lie, and I grieve for you. I often think that you have
ruined your whole life for me."

"I was just thinking the very same thing," he said; "how could
you sacrifice everything for my sake? I can't forgive myself
that you're unhappy!"

"I unhappy?" she said, coming closer to him, and looking at him
with an ecstatic smile of love. "I am like a hungry man who has
been given food. He may be cold, and dressed in rags, and
ashamed, but he is not unhappy. I unhappy? No, this is my
unhappiness...."

She could hear the sound of her son's voice coming towards them,
and glancing swiftly round the terrace, she got up impulsively.
Her eyes glowed with the fire he knew so well; with a rapid
movement she raised her lovely hands, covered with rings, took
his head, looked a long look into his face, and, putting up her
face with smiling, parted lips, swiftly kissed his mouth and both
eyes, and pushed him away. She would have gone, but he held her
back.

"When?" he murmured in a whisper, gazing in ecstasy at her.

"Tonight, at one o'clock," she whispered, and, with a heavy
sigh, she walked with her light, swift step to meet her son.

Seryozha had been caught by the rain in the big garden, and he
and his nurse had taken shelter in an arbor.

"Well, _au revoir_," she said to Vronsky. "I must soon be getting
ready for the races. Betsy promised to fetch me."

Vronsky, looking at his watch, went away hurriedly.



Chapter 24


When Vronsky looked at his watch on the Karenins' balcony, he was
so greatly agitated and lost in his thoughts that he saw the
figures on the watch's face, but could not take in what time it
was. He came out on to the high road and walked, picking his way
carefully through the mud, to his carriage. He was so completely
absorbed in his feeling for Anna, that he did not even think what
o'clock it was, and whether he had time to go to Bryansky's. He
had left him, as often happens, only the external faculty of
memory, that points out each step one has to take, one after the
other. He went up to his coachman, who was dozing on the box in
the shadow, already lengthening, of a thick limetree; he admired
the shifting clouds of midges circling over the hot horses, and,
waking the coachman, he jumped into the carriage, and told him to
drive to Bryansky's. It was only after driving nearly five miles
that he had sufficiently recovered himself to look at his watch,
and realize that it was half-past five, and he was late.

There were several races fixed for that day: the Mounted Guards'
race, then the officers' mile-and-a-half race, then the
three-mile race, and then the race for which he was entered. He
could still be in time for his race, but if he went to Bryansky's
he could only just be in time, and he would arrive when the whole
of the court would be in their places. That would be a pity.
But he had promised Bryansky to come, and so he decided to drive
on, telling the coachman not to spare the horses.

He reached Bryansky's, spent five minutes there, and galloped
back. This rapid drive calmed him. All that was painful in his
relations with Anna, all the feeling of indefiniteness left by
their conversation, had slipped out of his mind. He was thinking
now with pleasure and excitement of the race, of his being
anyhow, in time, and now and then the thought of the blissful
interview awaiting him that night flashed across his imagination
like a flaming light.

The excitement of the approaching race gained upon him as he
drove further and further into the atmosphere of the races,
overtaking carriages driving up from the summer villas or out of
Petersburg.

At his quarters no one was left at home; all were at the races,
and his valet was looking out for him at the gate. While he was
changing his clothes, his valet told him that the second race had
begun already, that a lot of gentlemen had been to ask for him,
and a boy had twice run up from the stables. Dressing without
hurry (he never hurried himself, and never lost his
self-possession), Vronsky drove to the sheds. From the sheds he
could see a perfect sea of carriages, and people on foot,
soldiers surrounding the race course, and pavilions swarming with
people. The second race was apparently going on, for just as he
went into the sheds he heard a bell ringing. Going towards the
stable, he met the white-legged chestnut, Mahotin's Gladiator,
being led to the race-course in a blue forage horsecloth, with
what looked like huge ears edged with blue.

"Where's Cord?" he asked the stable-boy.

"In the stable, putting on the saddle."

In the open horse-box stood Frou-Frou, saddled ready. They were
just going to lead her out.

"I'm not too late?"

"All right! All right!" said the Englishman; "don't upset
yourself!"

Vronsky once more took in in one glance the exquisite lines of
his favorite mare; who was quivering all over, and with an effort
he tore himself from the sight of her, and went out of the
stable. He went towards the pavilions at the most favorable
moment for escaping attention. The mile-and-a-half race was just
finishing, and all eyes were fixed on the horse-guard in front
and the light hussar behind, urging their horses on with a last
effort close to the winning post. From the center and outside of
the ring all were crowding to the winning post, and a group of
soldiers and officers of the horse-guards were shouting loudly
their delight at the expected triumph of their officer and
comrade. Vronsky moved into the middle of the crowd unnoticed,
almost at the very moment when the bell rang at the finish of the
race, and the tall, mudspattered horse-guard who came in first,
bending over the saddle, let go the reins of his panting gray
horse that looked dark with sweat.

The horse, stiffening out its legs, with an effort stopped its
rapid course, and the officer of the horse-guards looked round
him like a man waking up from a heavy sleep, and just managed to
smile. A crowd of friends and outsiders pressed round him.

Vronsky intentionally avoided that select crowd of the upper
world, which was moving and talking with discreet freedom before
the pavilions. He knew that Madame Karenina was there, and
Betsy, and his brother's wife, and he purposely did not go near
them for fear of something distracting his attention. But he was
continually met and stopped by acquaintances, who told him about
the previous races, and kept asking him why he was so late.

At the time when the racers had to go to the pavilion to receive
the prizes, and all attention was directed to that point,
Vronsky's elder brother, Alexander, a colonel with heavy fringed
epaulets, came up to him. He was not tall, though as broadly
built as Alexey, and handsomer and rosier than he; he had a red
nose, and an open, drunken-looking face.

"Did you get my note?" he said. "There's never any finding you."

Alexander Vronsky, in spite of the dissolute life, and in
especial the drunken habits, for which he was notorious, was
quite one of the court circle.

Now, as he talked to his brother of a matter bound to be
exceedingly disagreeable to him, knowing that the eyes of many
people might be fixed upon him, he kept a smiling countenance, as
though he were jesting with his brother about something of little
moment.

"I got it, and I really can't make out what _you_ are worrying
yourself about," said Alexey.

"I'm worrying myself because the remark has just been made to me
that you weren't here, and that you were seen in Peterhof on
Monday."

"There are matters which only concern those directly interested
in them, and the matter you are so worried about is..."

"Yes, but if so, you may as well cut the service...."

"I beg you not to meddle, and that's all I have to say."

Alexey Vronsky's frowning face turned white, and his prominent
lower jaw quivered, which happened rarely with him. Being a man
of very warm heart, he was seldom angry; but when he was angry,
and when his chin quivered, then, as Alexander Vronsky knew, he
was dangerous. Alexander Vronsky smiled gaily.

"I only wanted to give you Mother's letter. Answer it, and don't
worry about anything just before the race. Bonne chance," he
added, smiling and he moved away from him. But after him another
friendly greeting brought Vronsky to a standstill.

"So you won't recognize your friends! How are you, mon cher?"
said Stepan Arkadyevitch, as conspicuously brilliant in the midst
of all the Petersburg brilliance as he was in Moscow, his face
rosy, and his whiskers sleek and glossy. "I came up yesterday,
and I'm delighted that I shall see your triumph. When shall we
meet?"

"Come tomorrow to the messroom," said Vronsky, and squeezing
him by the sleeve of his coat, with apologies, he moved away to
the center of the race course, where the horses were being led
for the great steeplechase.

The horses who had run in the last race were being led home,
steaming and exhausted, by the stable-boys, and one after another
the fresh horses for the coming race made their appearance, for
the most part English racers, wearing horsecloths, and looking
with their drawn-up bellies like strange, huge birds. On the
right was led in Frou-Frou, lean and beautiful, lifting up her
elastic, rather long pasterns, as though moved by springs. Not
far from her they were taking the rug off the lop-eared
Gladiator. The strong, exquisite, perfectly correct lines of the
stallion, with his superb hind-quarters and excessively short
pasterns almost over his hoofs, attracted Vronsky's attention in
spite of himself. He would have gone up to his mare, but he was
again detained by an acquaintance.

"Oh, there's Karenin!" said the acquaintance with whom he was
chatting. "He's looking for his wife, and she's in the middle of
the pavilion. Didn't you see her?"

"No," answered Vronsky, and without even glancing round towards
the pavilion where his friend was pointing out Madame Karenina,
he went up to his mare.

Vronsky had not had time to look at the saddle, about which he
had to give some direction, when the competitors were summoned to
the pavilion to receive their numbers and places in the row at
starting. Seventeen officers, looking serious and severe, many
with pale faces, met together in the pavilion and drew the
numbers. Vronsky drew the number seven. The cry was heard:
"Mount!"

Feeling that with the others riding in the race, he was the
center upon which all eyes were fastened, Vronsky walked up to
his mare in that state of nervous tension in which he usually
became deliberate and composed in his movements. Cord, in honor
of the races, had put on his best clothes, a black coat buttoned
up, a stiffly starched collar, which propped up his cheeks, a
round black hat, and top boots. He was calm and dignified as
ever, and was with his own hands holding Frou-Frou by both reins,
standing straight in front of her. Frou-Frou was still trembling
as though in a fever. Her eye, full of fire, glanced sideways at
Vronsky. Vronsky slipped his finger under the saddle-girth. The
mare glanced aslant at him, drew up her lip, and twitched her
ear. The Englishman puckered up his lips, intending to indicate
a smile that anyone should verify his saddling.

"Get up; you won't feel so excited."

Vronsky looked round for the last time at his rivals. He knew
that he would not see them during the race. Two were already
riding forward to the point from which they were to start.
Galtsin, a friend of Vronsky's and one of his more formidable
rivals, was moving round a bay horse that would not let him
mount. A little light hussar in tight riding breeches rode off
at a gallop, crouched up like a cat on the saddle, in imitation
of English jockeys. Prince Kuzovlev sat with a white face on his
thoroughbred mare from the Grabovsky stud, while an English groom
led her by the bridle. Vronsky and all his comrades knew
Kuzovlev and his peculiarity of "weak nerves" and terrible
vanity. They knew that he was afraid of everything, afraid of
riding a spirited horse. But now, just because it was terrible,
because people broke their necks, and there was a doctor standing
at each obstacle, and an ambulance with a cross on it, and a
sister of mercy, he had made up his mind to take part in the
race. Their eyes met, and Vronsky gave him a friendly and
encouraging nod. Only one he did not see, his chief rival,
Mahotin on Gladiator.

"Don't be in a hurry," said Cord to Vronsky, "and remember one
thing: don't hold her in at the fences, and don't urge her on;
let her go as she likes."

"All right, all right," said Vronsky, taking the reins.

"If you can, lead the race; but don't lose heart till the last
minute, even if you're behind."

Before the mare had time to move, Vronsky stepped with an agile,
vigorous movement into the steel-toothed stirrup, and lightly and
firmly seated himself on the creaking leather of the saddle.
Getting his right foot in the stirrup, he smoothed the double
reins, as he always did, between his fingers, and Cord let go.

As though she did not know which foot to put first, Frou-Frou
started, dragging at the reins with her long neck, and as though
she were on springs, shaking her rider from side to side. Cord
quickened his step, following him. The excited mare, trying to
shake off her rider first on one side and then the other, pulled
at the reins, and Vronsky tried in vain with voice and hand to
soothe her.

They were just reaching the dammed-up stream on their way to the
starting point. Several of the riders were in front and several
behind, when suddenly Vronsky heard the sound of a horse
galloping in the mud behind him, and he was overtaken by Mahotin
on his white-legged, lop-eared Gladiator. Mahotin smiled,
showing his long teeth, but Vronsky looked angrily at him. He
did not like him, and regarded him now as his most formidable
rival. He was angry with him for galloping past and exciting his
mare. Frou-Frou started into a gallop, her left foot forward,
made two bounds, and fretting at the tightened reins, passed into
a jolting trot, bumping her rider up and down. Cord, too,
scowled, and followed Vronsky almost at a trot.



Chapter 25


There were seventeen officers in all riding in this race. The
race course was a large three-mile ring of the form of an ellipse
in front of the pavilion. On this course nine obstacles had been
arranged: the stream, a big and solid barrier five feet high,
just before the pavilion, a dry ditch, a ditch full of water, a
precipitous slope, an Irish barricade (one of the most difficult
obstacles, consisting of a mound fenced with brushwood, beyond
which was a ditch out of sight for the horses, so that the horse
had to clear both obstacles or might be killed); then two more
ditches filled with water, and one dry one; and the end of the
race was just facing the pavilion. But the race began not in the
ring, but two hundred yards away from it, and in that part of the
course was the first obstacle, a dammed-up stream, seven feet in
breadth, which the racers could leap or wade through as they
preferred.

Three times they were ranged ready to start, but each time some
horse thrust itself out of line, and they had to begin again.
The umpire who was starting them, Colonel Sestrin, was beginning
to lose his temper, when at last for the fourth time he shouted
"Away!" and the racers started.

Every eye, every opera glass, was turned on the brightly colored
group of riders at the moment they were in line to start.

"They're off! They're starting!" was heard on all sides after
the hush of expectation.

And little groups and solitary figures among the public began
running from place to place to get a better view. In the very
first minute the close group of horsemen drew out, and it could
be seen that they were approaching the stream in twos and
threes and one behind another. To the spectators it seemed as
though they had all started simultaneously, but to the racers
there were seconds of difference that had great value to them.

Frou-Frou, excited and over-nervous, had lost the first moment,
and several horses had started before her, but before reaching
the stream, Vronsky, who was holding in the mare with all his
force as she tugged at the bridle, easily overtook three, and
there were left in front of him Mahotin's chestnut Gladiator,
whose hind-quarters were moving lightly and rhythmically up and
down exactly in front of Vronsky, and in front of all, the dainty
mare Diana bearing Kuzovlev more dead than alive.

For the first instant Vronsky was not master either of himself or
his mare. Up to the first obstacle, the stream, he could not
guide the motions of his mare.

Gladiator and Diana came up to it together and almost at the same
instant; simultaneously they rose above the stream and flew
across to the other side; Frou-Frou darted after them, as if
flying; but at the very moment when Vronsky felt himself in the
air, he suddenly saw almost under his mare's hoofs Kuzovlev, who
was floundering with Diana on the further side of the stream.
(Kuzovlev had let go the reins as he took the leap, and the mare
had sent him flying over her head.) Those details Vronsky learned
later; at the moment all he saw was that just under him, where
Frou-Frou must alight, Diana's legs or head might be in the way.
But Frou-Frou drew up her legs and back in the very act of
leaping, like a falling cat, and, clearing the other mare,
alighted beyond her.

"O the darling!" thought Vronsky.

After crossing the stream Vronsky had complete control of his
mare, and began holding her in, intending to cross the great
barrier behind Mahotin, and to try to overtake him in the clear
ground of about five hundred yards that followed it.

The great barrier stood just in front of the imperial pavilion.
The Tsar and the whole court and crowds of people were all gazing
at them--at him, and Mahotin a length ahead of him, as they drew
near the "devil," as the solid barrier was called. Vronsky was
aware of those eyes fastened upon him from all sides, but he saw
nothing except the ears and neck of his own mare, the ground
racing to meet him, and the back and white legs of Gladiator
beating time swiftly before him, and keeping always the same
distance ahead. Gladiator rose, with no sound of knocking
against anything. With a wave of his short tail he disappeared
from Vronsky's sight.

"Bravo!" cried a voice.

At the same instant, under Vronsky's eyes, right before him
flashed the palings of the barrier. Without the slightest change
in her action his mare flew over it; the palings vanished, and he
heard only a crash behind him. The mare, excited by Gladiator's
keeping ahead, had risen too soon before the barrier, and grazed
it with her hind hoofs. But her pace never changed, and Vronsky,
feeling a spatter of mud in his face, realized that he was once
more the same distance from Gladiator. Once more he perceived in
front of him the same back and short tail, and again the same
swiftly moving white legs that got no further away.

At the very moment when Vronsky thought that now was the time to
overtake Mahotin, Frou-Frou herself, understanding his thoughts,
without any incitement on his part, gained ground considerably,
and began getting alongside of Mahotin on the most favorable
side, close to the inner cord. Mahotin would not let her pass
that side. Vronsky had hardly formed the thought that he could
perhaps pass on the outer side, when Frou-Frou shifted her pace
and began overtaking him on the other side. Frou-Frou's
shoulder, beginning by now to be dark with sweat, was even with
Gladiator's back. For a few lengths they moved evenly. But
before the obstacle they were approaching, Vronsky began working
at the reins, anxious to avoid having to take the outer circle,
and swiftly passed Mahotin just upon the declivity. He caught a
glimpse of his mud-stained face as he flashed by. He even
fancied that he smiled. Vronsky passed Mahotin, but he was
immediately aware of him close upon him, and he never ceased
hearing the even-thudding hoofs and the rapid and still quite
fresh breathing of Gladiator.

The next two obstacles, the water course and the barrier, were
easily crossed, but Vronsky began to hear the snorting and thud
of Gladiator closer upon him. He urged on his mare, and to his
delight felt that she easily quickened her pace, and the thud of
Gladiator's hoofs was again heard at the same distance away.

Vronsky was at the head of the race, just as he wanted to be and
as Cord had advised, and now he felt sure of being the winner.
His excitement, his delight, and his tenderness for Frou-Frou
grew keener and keener. He longed to look round again, but he
did not dare do this, and tried to be cool and not to urge on his
mare so to keep the same reserve of force in her as he felt that
Gladiator still kept. There remained only one obstacle, the most
difficult; if he could cross it ahead of the others he would come
in first. He was flying towards the Irish barricade, Frou-Frou
and he both together saw the barricade in the distance, and both
the man and the mare had a moment's hesitation. He saw the
uncertainty in the mare's ears and lifted the whip, but at the
same time felt that his fears were groundless; the mare knew what
was wanted. She quickened her pace and rose smoothly, just as he
had fancied she would, and as she left the ground gave herself up
to the force of her rush, which carried her far beyond the ditch;
and with the same rhythm, without effort, with the same leg
forward, Frou-Frou fell back into her pace again.