Anna Karenina (Penguin) - Leo Tolstoy [428]
Why, when there was a storm in her soul and she felt she was standing at a turning point in her life that might have terrible consequences, why at such a moment she should have to pretend in front of a stranger, who would learn everything sooner or later anyway, she did not know; but having instantly calmed the storm within her, she sat down and began talking with the visitor.
‘Well, how are things? Did you get what was owed you?’ she asked Yashvin.
‘Oh, things are all right. It seems I won’t be getting the whole sum, and I have to leave on Wednesday. And when are you leaving?’ said Yashvin, narrowing his eyes and glancing at Vronsky, obviously guessing that a quarrel had taken place.
‘The day after tomorrow, I think,’ said Vronsky.
‘You’ve been intending to for a long time, though.’
‘But now it’s decided,’ said Anna, looking straight into Vronsky’s eyes, with a stare meant to tell him that he should not even think of the possibility of a reconciliation.
‘Aren’t you sorry for this poor Pevtsov?’ she went on talking with Yashvin.
‘I’ve never asked myself whether I’m sorry or not, Anna Arkadyevna. Just as in war you don’t ask whether you’re sorry or not. My whole fortune is here,’ he pointed to his side pocket, ‘and I’m a rich man now. But tonight I’ll go to the club and maybe leave it a beggar. The one who sits down with me also wants to leave me without a shirt, as I do him. So we struggle, and that’s where the pleasure lies.’
‘Well, and if you were married,’ said Anna, ‘how would your wife feel?’
Yashvin laughed.
‘That must be why I never married and never wanted to.’
‘And Helsingfors?’ said Vronsky, entering the conversation, and he glanced at the smiling Anna.
Meeting his glance, Anna’s face suddenly assumed a coldly stern expression, as if she were telling him: ‘It’s not forgotten. It’s as it was.’
‘Can you have been in love?’ she said to Yashvin.
‘Oh, Lord, more than once! But you see, one man can sit down to cards, but be able to get up when the time comes for a rendezvous. Whereas I can be busy with love, but not be late for a game in the evening. That’s how I arrange it.’
‘No, I’m not asking about that, but about the present.’ She was going to say ‘Helsingfors’, but did not want to say the word Vronsky had said.
Voitov came, the purchaser of the stallion. Anna got up and walked out.
Before leaving the house, Vronsky came to her room. She was about to pretend to be looking for something on the table but, ashamed of pretending, she looked straight into his face with cold eyes.
‘What do you want?’ she asked him in French.
‘Gambetta’s papers. I’ve sold him,’ he replied, in a tone that said more clearly than words, ‘I have no time to talk, and it gets us nowhere.’
‘I’m not guilty before her in anything,’ he thought. ‘If she wants to punish herself, tant pis pour elle.,dr But, as he went out, he thought she said something, and his heart was suddenly shaken with compassion for her.
‘What, Anna?’ he asked.
‘Nothing,’ she replied in the same cold and calm voice.
‘If it’s nothing, then tant pis,’ he thought, growing cold again, and he turned and went out. As he was leaving, he saw her face in the mirror, pale, with trembling lips. He would have liked to stop and say something comforting to her, but his legs carried him out of the room before he could think of what to say. He spent the whole day away from home, and when he came back late in the evening, the maid told him that Anna Arkadyevna had a headache and asked him not to come to her.
XXVI
Never before had a quarrel lasted a whole day. This was the first time. And it was not a quarrel. It was an obvious admission of a complete cooling off. How could he look at her as he had when he came into the room to get the papers? Look at her, see that her heart was breaking with despair, and pass by silently with that calmly indifferent face? He had not simply cooled towards her, he hated her, because he loved another woman - that was clear.
And, remembering all the cruel words he had said, Anna also invented the