Anna Karenina (Penguin) - Leo Tolstoy [86]
She strained all the forces of her mind to say what she ought to say; but instead she rested her eyes on him, filled with love, and made no answer.
‘There it is!’ he thought with rapture. ‘When I was already in despair, and when it seemed there would be no end - there it is! She loves me. She’s confessed it.’
‘Then do this for me, never say these words to me, and let us be good friends,’ she said in words; but her eyes were saying something quite different.
‘We won’t be friends, you know that yourself. And whether we will be the happiest or the unhappiest of people - is in your power.’
She wanted to say something, but he interrupted her.
‘I beg for only one thing, I beg for the right to hope, to be tormented, as I am now; but if that, too, is impossible, order me to disappear, and I will disappear. You will not see me, if my presence is painful for you.’
‘I don’t want to drive you away.’
‘Just don’t change anything. Leave everything as it is,’ he said in a trembling voice. ‘Here is your husband.’
Indeed just then Alexei Alexandrovich, with his calm, clumsy gait, was entering the drawing room.
Having glanced at his wife and Vronsky, he went over to the hostess, sat down to his cup of tea, and began speaking in his unhurried, always audible voice, in his usual jocular tone, making fun of somebody.
‘Your Rambouillet is in full muster,’ he said, glancing around the whole company, ‘graces and muses.’13
But Princess Betsy could not bear this tone of his, which she called by the English word ‘sneering’, and, being an intelligent hostess, at once led him into a serious conversation on universal military conscription.14 Alexei Alexandrovich at once got carried away with the conversation and began, earnestly now, to defend the new decree against Princess Betsy, who attacked it.
Vronsky and Anna went on sitting by the little table.
‘This is becoming indecent,’ one lady whispered, indicating with her eyes Vronsky, Anna and her husband.
‘What did I tell you?’ Anna’s friend replied.
And not these ladies alone, but almost everyone in the drawing room, even Princess Miagky and Betsy herself, glanced several times at the two who had withdrawn from the general circle, as if it disturbed them. Alexei Alexandrovich was the only one who never once looked in their direction and was not distracted from the interest of the conversation that had started.
Noticing the unpleasant impression produced on everyone, Princess Betsy slipped some other person into her place to listen to Alexei Alexandrovich, and went over to Anna.
‘I’m always surprised at the clarity and precision of your husband’s expressions,’ she said. ‘The most transcendental notions become accessible to me when he speaks.’
‘Oh, yes!’ said Anna, radiant with a smile of happiness and not understanding a word of what Betsy was saying to her. She went over to the big table and took part in the general conversation.
Alexei Alexandrovich, after staying for half an hour, went up to his wife and suggested they go home together; but she, without looking at him, replied that she would stay for supper. Alexei Alexandrovich made his bows and left.
The Karenin coachman, a fat old Tartar in a glossy leather coat, had difficulty holding back the chilled grey on the left, who kept rearing up by the entrance. The footman stood holding the carriage door open. The doorkeeper stood holding the front door. Anna Arkadyevna, with her small, quick hand, was freeing the lace of her sleeve, which had caught on the hooks of her fur coat, and, head lowered, listened with delight to what Vronsky was saying as he saw her off.
‘You’ve said nothing; let’s suppose I also demand nothing,’ he said,