Anna Karenina (Penguin) - Leo Tolstoy [230]
‘It seems she’s well, Darya Alexandrovna,’ Alexei Alexandrovich replied without looking at her.
‘Forgive me, Alexei Alexandrovich, I have no right... but I love and respect Anna like a sister; I beg you, I entreat you to tell me what’s wrong between you? What do you accuse her of?’
Alexei Alexandrovich winced and, almost closing his eyes, bowed his head.
‘I suppose your husband has told you the reasons why I consider it necessary to change my former relations with Anna Arkadyevna,’ he said, not looking in her eyes and glancing with displeasure at Shcherbatsky who was passing through the drawing room.
‘I don’t believe it, I don’t, I can’t believe it!’ said Dolly, clasping her bony hands before her with an energetic gesture. She got up quickly and placed her hand on Alexei Alexandrovich’s sleeve. ‘We’ll be disturbed here. Please, let’s go in there.’
Dolly’s agitation affected Alexei Alexandrovich. He got up and obediently followed her to the schoolroom. They sat down at a table covered with oilcloth cut all over by penknives.
‘I don’t believe it, I just don’t believe it!’ said Dolly, trying to catch his eyes, which avoided hers.
‘It’s impossible not to believe facts, Darya Alexandrovna,’ he said, stressing the word facts.
‘But what has she done?’ said Darya Alexandrovna. ‘What precisely has she done?’
‘She has scorned her obligations and betrayed her husband. That is what she has done,’ he said.
‘No, no, it can’t be! No, for God’s sake, you’re mistaken!’ said Dolly, touching her temples with her hands and closing her eyes.
Alexei Alexandrovich smiled coldly with his lips only, wishing to show her and himself the firmness of his conviction; but this ardent defence, though it did not shake him, rubbed salt into his wound. He spoke with increased animation.
‘It is rather difficult to be mistaken, when the wife herself announces it to her husband. Announces that eight years of life and a son - that it was all a mistake and that she wants to live over again,’ he said, sniffing angrily.
‘Anna and vice - I can’t put the two together, I can’t believe it.’
‘Darya Alexandrovna!’ he said, now looking straight into Dolly’s kind, agitated face and feeling that his tongue was involuntarily loosening. ‘I would have paid dearly for doubt to be still possible. When I doubted, it was hard for me, but easier than now. When I doubted, there was hope; but now there is no hope and even so I doubt everything. I doubt everything so much that I hate my own son and sometimes do not believe that he is my son. I am very unhappy.’
He had no need to say it. Darya Alexandrovna understood it as soon as he looked into her face. She felt sorry for him, and her belief in her friend’s innocence was shaken.
‘Ah, it’s terrible, terrible! But is it really true that you’ve decided on divorce?’
‘I’ve decided on the final measure. There’s nothing else for me to do.’
‘Nothing to do, nothing to do ...’ she said with tears in her eyes. ‘No, that’s not so!’ she said.
‘The terrible thing in this sort of grief is that, unlike anything else - a loss, a death - one cannot simply bear one’s cross. Here one must act,’ he said, as if guessing her thought. ‘One must get out of the humiliating position one has been put in: it is impossible to live as three.’
‘I understand, I understand that very well,’ said Dolly, and she bowed her head. She paused, thinking of herself, of her own family grief, and suddenly raised her head energetically and clasped her hands in a pleading gesture. ‘But wait! You’re a Christian. Think of her! What will become of her if you leave her?’
‘I have been thinking, Darya Alexandrovna, and thinking a great deal,’ Alexei Alexandrovich said. His face flushed in spots, his dull eyes looked straight at her. Darya Alexandrovna pitied him now with all her heart. ‘That is what I did after she herself announced my disgrace to me. I left everything as it had been. I gave her the chance to reform. I tried to save her.