Anna Karenina (Literature Classics Series). Leo Tolstoy

tables — yes, and the tables sang “Il mio tesoro ” [“My darling ”] … no, not exactly “Il mio tesoro ” but something better than that; and then there were some kind of little decanters that were really women.’ His eyes sparkled merrily and he smiled as he sat thinking. ‘Yes, it was very nice. There were many other delightful things which I can’t just get hold of — can’t catch now I’m awake.’ Then, noticing a streak of light that had made its way in at the side of the blind, he gaily let down his legs and felt about with his feet for his slippers finished with bronze kid (last year’s birthday present, embroidered by his wife); and from nine years’ habit he stretched out his arm, without rising, towards where his dressing-gown usually hung in their bedroom. And then he suddenly remembered that, and why, he was not sleeping there but in his study. The smile vanished from his face and he frowned.

      ‘Oh dear, dear, dear!’ he groaned recalling what had happened. And the details of his quarrel with his wife, his inextricable position, and, worst of all, his guilt, rose up in his imagination.

      ‘No, she will never forgive me; she can’t forgive me! And the worst thing about it is, that it’s all my own fault — my own fault; and yet I’m not guilty! That’s the tragedy of it!’ he thought. ‘Oh dear, oh dear!’ he muttered despairingly, as he recalled the most painful details of the quarrel. The worst moment had been when, returning home from the theatre merry and satisfied, with an enormous pear in his hand for his wife, he did not find her in the drawing-room nor, to his great surprise, in the study, but at last saw her in her bedroom with the unlucky note which had betrayed him in her hand.

      She sat there: the careworn, ever-bustling, and (as he thought) rather simple Dolly — with the note in her hand and a look of terror, despair, and anger on her face.

      ‘What is this? This?’ she asked, pointing to the note. And, as often happens, it was not so much the memory of the event that tormented him, as of the way he had replied to her.

      At that moment there had happened to him what happens to most people when unexpectedly caught in some shameful act: he had not had time to assume an expression suitable to the position in which he stood toward his wife now that his guilt was discovered. Instead of taking offence, denying, making excuses, asking forgiveness, or even remaining indifferent (anything would have been better than what he did), he involuntarily (‘reflex action of the brain,’ thought Oblonsky, who was fond of physiology) smiled his usual kindly and therefore silly smile.

      He could not forgive himself for that silly smile. Dolly, seeing it, shuddered as if with physical pain, and with her usual vehemence burst into a torrent of cruel words and rushed from the room. Since then she had refused to see him.

      ‘It’s all the fault of that stupid smile,’ thought Oblonsky. ‘But what am I to do? What can I do?’ he asked himself in despair, and could find no answer.

      Chapter 2

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      OBLONSKY was truthful with himself. He was incapable of self-deception and could not persuade himself that he repented of his conduct. He could not feel repentant that he, a handsome amorous man of thirty-four, was not in love with his wife, the mother of five living and two dead children and only a year younger than himself. He repented only of not having managed to conceal his conduct from her. Nevertheless he felt his unhappy position and pitied his wife, his children, and himself. He might perhaps have been able to hide things from her had he known that the knowledge would so distress her. He had never clearly considered the matter, but had a vague notion that his wife had long suspected him of being unfaithful and winked at it. He even thought that she, who was nothing but an excellent mother of a family, worn-out, already growing elderly, no longer pretty, and in no way remarkable — in fact, quite an ordinary woman — ought to be lenient to him, if only from a sense of justice. It turned out that the very opposite was the case.

      ‘How awful! Oh dear, oh dear, how awful!’ Oblonsky kept repeating to himself and could arrive at no conclusion. ‘And how well everything was going on till now — how happily we lived! She was contented, happy in her children; I never interfered with her but left her to fuss over them and the household as she pleased… . Of course it’s not quite nice that she had been a governess in our house. That’s bad! There’s something banal, a want of taste, in carrying on with one’s governess — but then, what a governess!’ (He vividly pictured to himself Mlle Roland’s roguish black eyes, and her smile.) ‘Besides as long as she was in the house I never took any liberties. The worst of the matter is, that she is already … . Why need it all happen at once? Oh dear, dear, dear! What am I to do?’

      He could find no answer, except life’s usual answer to the most complex and insoluble questions. That answer is: live in the needs of the day, that is, find forgetfulness. He could no longer find forgetfulness in sleep, at any rate not before night, could not go back to the music and the songs of the little decanter-women, consequently he must seek forgetfulness in the dream of life.

      ‘We’ll see when the time comes,’ thought Oblonsky, and got up, put on his grey dressing-gown lined with blue silk, tied the cords and drawing a full breath of air into his broad chest went with his usual firm tread toward the window, turning out his feet that carried his stout body so lightly, drew up the blind and rang loudly. The bell was answered immediately by his old friend and valet, Matthew, who brought in his clothes, boots, and a telegram. He was followed by the barber with shaving tackle.

      ‘Any papers from the Office?’ asked Oblonsky, as he took the telegram and sat down before the looking-glass.

      ‘They’re on your table,’ answered Matthew with a questioning and sympathizing glance at his master — adding after a pause with a sly smile: ‘Some one has called from the jobmaster’s.’

      Oblonsky did not answer, but glanced at Matthew’s face in the looking-glass. From their looks, as they met in the glass, it was evident that they understood one another. Oblonsky’s look seemed to say: ‘Why do you tell me that? As if you don’t know!’

      Matthew put his hands into the pocket of his jacket, put out his foot, and looked at his master with a slight, good-humoured smile.

      ‘I ordered him to come the Sunday after next, and not to trouble you or himself needlessly till then,’ said he, evidently repeating a sentence he had prepared.

      Oblonsky understood that Matthew meant to have a joke and draw attention to himself. He tore open the telegram and read it, guessing at the words, which (as so often happens in telegrams) were misspelt, and his face brightened.

      ‘Matthew, my sister Anna Arkadyevna is coming to-morrow,’ he said, motioning away for a moment the shiny plump hand of the barber, which was shaving a rosy path between his long curly whiskers.

      ‘The Lord be thanked!’ said Matthew, proving by his answer that he knew just as well as his master the importance of this visit: namely, that Anna Arkadyevna, Stephen Arkadyevich’s favourite sister, might help to reconcile the husband and wife.

      ‘Is she coming alone, or with Mr. Karenin?’

      Oblonsky could not answer as the barber was busy with his upper lip; but he raised one finger, and Matthew nodded to him in the glass.

      ‘Alone. Would you like one of the upstairs rooms got ready?’

      ‘Ask Darya Alexandrovna.’

      ‘Darya Alexandrovna?’ Matthew repeated, as if in doubt.

      ‘Yes, tell her. Give her the telegram, and see what she says.’

      ‘You want to have a try at her?’ was what Matthew meant, but he only said: ‘Yes, sir.’

      Oblonsky was washed, his hair brushed, and he was about to dress, when Matthew, stepping slowly in his creaking boots, re-entered the room with the telegram in his hand. The barber was no longer there.

      ‘Darya Alexandrovna told me to say that she is going away. “He may do as he pleases”