Anna Karenina (Penguin) - Leo Tolstoy [124]
‘Anyhow, it’s already time,’ she said, glancing at her watch, ‘why doesn’t Betsy come! ...’
‘Yes,’ said Alexei Alexandrovich and, rising, he interlaced his fingers and cracked them. ‘I also came to bring you money, since nightingales aren’t fed on fables,’ he said. ‘You need it, I suppose.’
‘No, I don’t ... yes, I do,’ she said, not looking at him and blushing to the roots of her hair. ‘I suppose you’ll stop here after the races.’
‘Oh, yes!’ answered Alexei Alexandrovich. ‘And here comes the pearl of Peterhof, Princess Tverskoy,’ he added, glancing out of the window at the English equipage driving up, the horses in blinkers and the tiny body of the carriage extremely high-sprung. ‘What elegance! Lovely! Well, then we’ll be going as well.’
Princess Tverskoy did not get out of the carriage, only her footman, in gaiters, cape and a little black hat, jumped down at the entrance.
‘I’m off, good-bye!’ said Anna and, having kissed her son, she went up to Alexei Alexandrovich and offered him her hand. ‘It was very nice of you to come.’
Alexei Alexandrovich kissed her hand.
‘Well, good-bye then. You’ll come for tea, that’s splendid!’ she said and walked out, radiant and gay. But as soon as she no longer saw him, she felt the place on her hand that his lips had touched and shuddered with revulsion.
XXVIII
When Alexei Alexandrovich appeared at the races, Anna was already sitting in the pavilion beside Betsy, in that pavilion in which all of high society was gathered. She saw her husband from a distance. Two men, husband and lover, were the two centres of life for her, and she felt their nearness without the aid of external senses. She felt her husband’s approach from a distance and involuntarily watched him in the undulating crowd through which he moved. She saw how he came to the pavilion, now condescendingly responding to obsequious bows, now amicably, distractedly greeting his equals, now diligently awaiting a glance from the mighty of the world and raising his big, round hat that pressed down the tops of his ears. She knew all his ways and they were all disgusting to her. ‘Nothing but ambition, nothing but the wish to succeed - that’s all there is in his soul,’ she thought, ‘and lofty considerations, the love of learning, religion, are all just means to success.’
From his glances towards the ladies’ pavilion (he looked straight at his wife, but did not recognize her in that sea of muslin, ribbons, feathers, parasols and flowers), she realized that he was searching for her; but she deliberately ignored him.
‘Alexei Alexandrovich!’ Princess Betsy called to him. ‘You probably don’t see your wife: here she is!’
He smiled his cold smile.
‘There’s so much splendour here, one’s eyes are dazzled,’ he said and went into the pavilion. He smiled to his wife as a husband ought to smile, meeting her after having just seen her, and greeted the princess and other acquaintances, giving each what was due - that is, joking with the ladies and exchanging greetings with the men. Down beside the pavilion stood an adjutant-general whom Alexei Alexandrovich respected, a man known for his intelligence and cultivation. Alexei Alexandrovich began talking with him.
There was a break between races, and therefore nothing hindered the conversation. The adjutant-general condemned races. Alexei Alexandrovich objected, defending them. Anna listened to his high, even voice, not missing a word, and each of his words seemed false to her and grated painfully on her ear.
When the three-mile steeplechase began, she leaned forward and, not taking her eyes off Vronsky, watched him going up to his horse and mounting her, and at the same time listened to her husband’s disgusting, incessant voice. She was tormented by her fear for Vronsky, but tormented still more by the sound of her husband’s high and, as it seemed to her, incessant voice, with its familiar intonations.
‘I’m a bad woman, I’m a ruined woman,’ she thought, ‘but I don’t like to lie, I can’t bear lying, and lying is food for him’ (her husband). ‘He knows everything,