Anna Karenina (Penguin) - Leo Tolstoy [231]
‘Anything, only not divorce!’ Darya Alexandrovna replied.
‘But what is this “anything”?’
‘No, it’s terrible! She’ll be no one’s wife, she’ll be ruined!’
‘What can I do?’ said Alexei Alexandrovich, raising his shoulders and his eyebrows. The memory of his wife’s last trespass vexed him so much that he again became cold, as at the beginning of their conversation. ‘I thank you very much for your concern, but I must go,’ he said, getting up.
‘No, wait! You mustn’t ruin her. Wait, I’ll tell you about myself. I was married, and my husband deceived me. Angry, jealous, I wanted to abandon everything, I myself wanted ... But I came to my senses - and who saved me? Anna saved me. And so I live. My children are growing up, my husband comes back to the family, he feels he wasn’t right, becomes purer, better, and I live ... I forgave, and you must forgive!’
Alexei Alexandrovich listened, but her words no longer affected him. In his soul there arose again all the anger of the day when he had decided on divorce. He shook himself and spoke in a shrill, loud voice:
‘I cannot forgive, I do not want to, and I consider it unjust. I did everything for that woman, and she trampled everything in the mud that is so suitable to her. I am not a wicked man, I have never hated anyone, but her I hate with all the strength of my soul, and I cannot even forgive her, because I hate her so much for all the evil she has done me!’ he said with tears of anger in his voice.
‘Love those who hate you ...’ Darya Alexandrovna whispered shame facedly.
Alexei Alexandrovich smiled contemptuously. He had long known that, but it could not be applied in his case.
‘Love those who hate you, but to love those you hate is impossible. Forgive me for having upset you. Everyone has enough grief of his own!’ And, having regained control of himself, Alexei Alexandrovich calmly said goodbye and left.
XIII
When they got up from the table, Levin wanted to follow Kitty into the drawing room, but he was afraid that she might be displeased by such all-too-obvious courtship of her on his part. He remained in the men’s circle, taking part in the general conversation, but, without looking at Kitty, sensed her movements, her glances, and the place where she was in the drawing room.
He began at once, and without the slightest effort, to fulfil the promise he had given her - always to think well of all people and always to love everyone. The conversation turned to village communes, in which Pestsov saw some special principle which he called the choral principle.13 Levin agreed neither with Pestsov nor with his brother, who had some way of his own of both agreeing and disagreeing with the significance of the Russian commune. But he talked with them, trying only to reconcile them and soften their objections. He was not the least bit interested in what he said himself, still less in what they said, and desired only one thing - that they and everyone should be nice and agreeable. He now knew the one important thing. And that one thing was at first there in the drawing room, and then began to move on and stopped by the door. Without turning round, he felt a gaze and a smile directed at him and could not help turning. She was standing in the doorway with Shcherbatsky and looking at him.
‘I thought you were going to the piano,’ he said, approaching her. ‘That’s what I lack in the country: music.’
‘No, we were only coming to call you away, and I thank you,’ she said, awarding him a smile as if it were a gift, ‘for having come. What’s all this love of arguing? No one ever convinces anyone else.’
‘Yes, true,’ said Levin, ‘it most often happens that you argue hotly only because you can’t understand what precisely your opponent wants to prove.’
Levin had often noticed in arguments between the most