"What makes you think so?" he asked, stopping short.

"It"s just as it was at Countess Paul"s, sir. They gave the baby medicine, and it turned out that the baby was simply hungry: the nurse had no milk, sir."

Alexey Alexandrovitch pondered, and after standing still a few seconds he went in at the other door. The baby was lying with its head thrown back, stiffening itself in the nurse"s arms, and would not take the plump breast offered it; and it never ceased screaming in spite of the double hushing of the wet-nurse and the other nurse, who was bending over her.

"Still no better?" said Alexey Alexandrovitch.

"She"s very restless," answered the nurse in a whisper.

"Miss Edwarde says that perhaps the wet-nurse has no milk," he said.

"I think so too, Alexey Alexandrovitch."

"Then why didn"t you say so?"

"Who"s one to say it to? Anna Arkadyevna still ill..." said the nurse discontentedly.

The nurse was an old servant of the family. And in her simple words there seemed to Alexey Alexandrovitch an allusion to his position.

The baby screamed louder than ever, struggling and sobbing. The nurse, with a gesture of despair, went to it, took it from the wet-nurse"s arms, and began walking up and down, rocking it.

"You must ask the doctor to examine the wet-nurse," said Alexey Alexandrovitch. The smartly dressed and healthy-looking nurse, frightened at the idea of losing her place, muttered something to herself, and covering her bosom, smiled contemptuously at the idea of doubts being cast on her abundance of milk. In that smile, too, Alexey Alexandrovitch saw a sneer at his position.

"Luckless child!" said the nurse, hushing the baby, and still walking up and down with it.

Alexey Alexandrovitch sat down, and with a despondent and suffering face watched the nurse walking to and fro.

When the child at last was still, and had been put in a deep bed, and the nurse, after smoothing the little pillow, had left her, Alexey Alexandrovitch got up, and walking awkwardly on tiptoe, approached the baby. For a minute he was still, and with the same despondent face gazed at the baby; but all at once a smile, that moved his hair and the skin of his forehead, came out on his face, and he went as softly out of the room.

In the dining room he rang the bell, and told the servant who came in to send again for the doctor. He felt vexed with his wife for not being anxious about this exquisite baby, and in this vexed humor he had no wish to go to her; he had no wish, either, to see Princess Betsy. But his wife might wonder why he did not go to her as usual; and so, overcoming his disinclination, he went towards the bedroom. As he walked over the soft rug towards the door, he could not help overhearing a conversation he did not want to hear.

"If he hadn"t been going away, I could have understood your answer and his too. But your husband ought to be above that," Betsy was saying.

"It"s not for my husband; for myself I don"t wish it. Don"t say that!" answered Anna"s excited voice.

"Yes, but you must care to say good-bye to a man who has shot himself on your account...."

"That"s just why I don"t want to."

With a dismayed and guilty expression, Alexey Alexandrovitch stopped and would have gone back un.o.bserved. But reflecting that this would be undignified, he turned back again, and clearing his throat, he went up to the bedroom. The voices were silent, and he went in.

Anna, in a gray dressing gown, with a crop of short cl.u.s.tering black curls on her round head, was sitting on a settee. The eagerness died out of her face, as it always did, at the sight of her husband; she dropped her head and looked round uneasily at Betsy. Betsy, dressed in the height of the latest fashion, in a hat that towered somewhere over her head like a shade on a lamp, in a blue dress with violet crossway stripes slanting one way on the bodice and the other way on the skirt, was sitting beside Anna, her tall flat figure held erect. Bowing her head, she greeted Alexey Alexandrovitch with an ironical smile.

"Ah!" she said, as though surprised. "I"m very glad you"re at home. You never put in an appearance anywhere, and I haven"t seen you ever since Anna has been ill. I have heard all about it--your anxiety. Yes, you"re a wonderful husband!" she said, with a meaning and affable air, as though she were bestowing an order of magnanimity on him for his conduct to his wife.

Alexey Alexandrovitch bowed frigidly, and kissing his wife"s hand, asked how she was.

"Better, I think," she said, avoiding his eyes.

"But you"ve rather a feverish-looking color," he said, laying stress on the word "feverish."

"We"ve been talking too much," said Betsy. "I feel it"s selfishness on my part, and I am going away."

She got up, but Anna, suddenly flushing, quickly caught at her hand.

"No, wait a minute, please. I must tell you...no, you." she turned to Alexey Alexandrovitch, and her neck and brow were suffused with crimson. "I won"t and can"t keep anything secret from you," she said.

Alexey Alexandrovitch cracked his fingers and bowed his head.

"Betsy"s been telling me that Count Vronsky wants to come here to say good-bye before his departure for Tashkend." She did not look at her husband, and was evidently in haste to have everything out, however hard it might be for her. "I told her I could not receive him."

"You said, my dear, that it would depend on Alexey Alexandrovitch," Betsy corrected her.

"Oh, no, I can"t receive him; and what object would there...." She stopped suddenly, and glanced inquiringly at her husband (he did not look at her). "In short, I don"t wish it...."

Alexey Alexandrovitch advanced and would have taken her hand.

Her first impulse was to jerk back her hand from the damp hand with big swollen veins that sought hers, but with an obvious effort to control herself she pressed his hand.

"I am very grateful to you for your confidence, but..." he said, feeling with confusion and annoyance that what he could decide easily and clearly by himself, he could not discuss before Princess Tverskaya, who to him stood for the incarnation of that brute force which would inevitably control him in the life he led in the eyes of the world, and hinder him from giving way to his feeling of love and forgiveness. He stopped short, looking at Princess Tverskaya.

"Well, good-bye, my darling," said Betsy, getting up. She kissed Anna, and went out. Alexey Alexandrovitch escorted her out.

"Alexey Alexandrovitch! I know you are a truly magnanimous man," said Betsy, stopping in the little drawing-room, and with special warmth shaking hands with him once more. "I am an outsider, but I so love her and respect you that I venture to advise. Receive him. Alexey Vronsky is the soul of honor, and he is going away to Tashkend."

"Thank you, princess, for your sympathy and advice. But the question of whether my wife can or cannot see anyone she must decide herself."

He said this from habit, lifting his brows with dignity, and reflected immediately that whatever his words might be, there could be no dignity in his position. And he saw this by the suppressed, malicious, and ironical smile with which Betsy glanced at him after this phrase.

Chapter 20.

Alexey Alexandrovitch took leave of Betsy in the drawing room, and went to his wife. She was lying down, but hearing his steps she sat up hastily in her former att.i.tude, and looked in a scared way at him. He saw she had been crying.

"I am very grateful for your confidence in me." He repeated gently in Russian the phrase he had said in Betsy"s presence in French, and sat down beside her. When he spoke to her in Russian, using the Russian "thou" of intimacy and affection, it was insufferably irritating to Anna. "And I am very grateful for your decision. I, too, imagine that since he is going away, there is no sort of necessity for Count Vronsky to come here. However, if..."

"But I"ve said so already, so why repeat it?" Anna suddenly interrupted him with an irritation she could not succeed in repressing. "No sort of necessity," she thought, "for a man to come and say good-bye to the woman he loves, for whom he was ready to ruin himself, and has ruined himself, and who cannot live without him. No sort of necessity!" she compressed her lips, and dropped her burning eyes to his hands with their swollen veins. They were rubbing each other.

"Let us never speak of it," she added more calmly.

"I have left this question to you to decide, and I am very glad to see..." Alexey Alexandrovitch was beginning.

"That my wish coincides with your own," she finished quickly, exasperated at his talking so slowly while she knew beforehand all he would say.

"Yes," he a.s.sented; "and Princess Tverskaya"s interference in the most difficult private affairs is utterly uncalled for. She especially..."

"I don"t believe a word of what"s said about her," said Anna quickly. "I know she really cares for me."

Alexey Alexandrovitch sighed and said nothing. She played nervously with the ta.s.sel of her dressing-gown, glancing at him with that torturing sensation of physical repulsion for which she blamed herself, though she could not control it. Her only desire now was to be rid of his oppressive presence.

"I have just sent for the doctor," said Alexey Alexandrovitch.

"I am very well; what do I want the doctor for?"

"No, the little one cries, and they say the nurse hasn"t enough milk."

"Why didn"t you let me nurse her, when I begged to? Anyway" (Alexey Alexandrovitch knew what was meant by that "anyway"), "she"s a baby, and they"re killing her." She rang the bell and ordered the baby to be brought her. "I begged to nurse her, I wasn"t allowed to, and now I"m blamed for it."

"I don"t blame..."

"Yes, you do blame me! My G.o.d! why didn"t I die!" And she broke into sobs. "Forgive me, I"m nervous, I"m unjust," she said, controlling herself, "but do go away..."

"No, it can"t go on like this," Alexey Alexandrovitch said to himself decidedly as he left his wife"s room.

Never had the impossibility of his position in the world"s eyes, and his wife"s hatred of him, and altogether the might of that mysterious brutal force that guided his life against his spiritual inclinations, and exacted conformity with its decrees and change in his att.i.tude to his wife, been presented to him with such distinctness as that day. He saw clearly that all the world and his wife expected of him something, but what exactly, he could not make out. He felt that this was rousing in his soul a feeling of anger destructive of his peace of mind and of all the good of his achievement. He believed that for Anna herself it would be better to break off all relations with Vronsky; but if they all thought this out of the question, he was even ready to allow these relations to be renewed, so long as the children were not disgraced, and he was not deprived of them nor forced to change his position. Bad as this might be, it was anyway better than a rupture, which would put her in a hopeless and shameful position, and deprive him of everything he cared for. But he felt helpless; he knew beforehand that every one was against him, and that he would not be allowed to do what seemed to him now so natural and right, but would be forced to do what was wrong, though it seemed the proper thing to them.

Chapter 21.

Before Betsy had time to walk out of the drawing-room, she was met in the doorway by Stepan Arkadyevitch, who had just come from Yeliseev"s, where a consignment of fresh oysters had been received.

"Ah! princess! what a delightful meeting!" he began. "I"ve been to see you."

"A meeting for one minute, for I"m going," said Betsy, smiling and putting on her glove.

"Don"t put on your glove yet, princess; let me kiss your hand. There"s nothing I"m so thankful to the revival of the old fashions for as the kissing the hand." He kissed Betsy"s hand. "When shall we see each other?"

"You don"t deserve it," answered Betsy, smiling.

"Oh, yes, I deserve a great deal, for I"ve become a most serious person. I don"t only manage my own affairs, but other people"s too," he said with a significant expression.

"Oh, I"m so glad!" answered Betsy, at once understanding that he was speaking of Anna. And going back into the drawing room, they stood in a corner. "He"s killing her," said Betsy in a whisper full of meaning. "It"s impossible, impossible..."

"I"m so glad you think so," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, shaking his head with a serious and sympathetically distressed expression, "that"s what I"ve come to Petersburg for."

"The whole town"s talking of it," she said. "It"s an impossible position. She pines and pines away. He doesn"t understand that she"s one of those women who can"t trifle with their feelings. One of two things! either let him take her away, act with energy, or give her a divorce. This is stifling her."

"Yes, yes...just so..." Oblonsky said, sighing. "That"s what I"ve come for. At least not solely for that...I"ve been made a Kammerherr; of course, one has to say thank you. But the chief thing was having to settle this."

"Well, G.o.d help you!" said Betsy.

After accompanying Betsy to the outside hall, once more kissing her hand above the glove, at the point where the pulse beats, and murmuring to her such unseemly nonsense that she did not know whether to laugh or be angry, Stepan Arkadyevitch went to his sister. He found her in tears.

Although he happened to be bubbling over with good spirits, Stepan Arkadyevitch immediately and quite naturally fell into the sympathetic, poetically emotional tone which harmonized with her mood. He asked her how she was, and how she had spent the morning.

"Very, very miserably. Today and this morning and all past days and days to come," she said.

"I think you"re giving way to pessimism. You must rouse yourself, you must look life in the face. I know it"s hard, but..."

"I have heard it said that women love men even for their vices," Anna began suddenly, "but I hate him for his virtues. I can"t live with him. Do you understand? the sight of him has a physical effect on me, it makes me beside myself. I can"t, I can"t live with him. What am I to do? I have been unhappy, and used to think one couldn"t be more unhappy, but the awful state of things I am going through now, I could never have conceived. Would you believe it, that knowing he"s a good man, a splendid man, that I"m not worth his little finger, still I hate him. I hate him for his generosity. And there"s nothing left for me but..."

She would have said death, but Stepan Arkadyevitch would not let her finish.

"You are ill and overwrought," he said; "believe me, you"re exaggerating dreadfully. There"s nothing so terrible in it."

And Stepan Arkadyevitch smiled. No one else in Stepan Arkadyevitch"s place, having to do with such despair, would have ventured to smile (the smile would have seemed brutal); but in his smile there was so much of sweetness and almost feminine tenderness that his smile did not wound, but softened and soothed. His gentle, soothing words and smiles were as soothing and softening as almond oil. And Anna soon felt this.

"No, Stiva," she said, "I"m lost, lost! worse than lost! I can"t say yet that all is over; on the contrary, I feel that it"s not over. I"m an overstrained string that must snap. But it"s not ended yet...and it will have a fearful end."

"No matter, we must let the string be loosened, little by little. There"s no position from which there is no way of escape."

"I have thought, and thought. Only one..."

Again he knew from her terrified eyes that this one way of escape in her thought was death, and he would not let her say it.

"Not at all," he said. "Listen to me. You can"t see your own position as I can. Let me tell you candidly my opinion." Again he smiled discreetly his almond-oil smile. "I"ll begin from the beginning. You married a man twenty years older than yourself. You married him without love and not knowing what love was. It was a mistake, let"s admit."

"A fearful mistake!" said Anna.

"But I repeat, it"s an accomplished fact. Then you had, let us say, the misfortune to love a man not your husband. That was a misfortune; but that, too, is an accomplished fact. And your husband knew it and forgave it." He stopped at each sentence, waiting for her to object, but she made no answer. "That"s so. Now the question is: can you go on living with your husband? Do you wish it? Does he wish it?"

"I know nothing, nothing."

"But you said yourself that you can"t endure him."

"No, I didn"t say so. I deny it. I can"t tell, I don"t know anything about it."

"Yes, but let..."

"You can"t understand. I feel I"m lying head downwards in a sort of pit, but I ought not to save myself. And I can"t ..."

"Never mind, we"ll slip something under and pull you out. I understand you: I understand that you can"t take it on yourself to express your wishes, your feelings."

"There"s nothing, nothing I wish...except for it to be all over."