Anna Karenina

Chapter 23
On Monday there was the usual sitting of the Commission of the 2nd of
June. Alexey Alexandrovitch walked into the hall where the sitting was
held, greeted the members and the president, as usual, and sat down in his
place, putting his hand on the papers laid ready before him. Among these
papers lay the necessary evidence and a rough outline of the speech he
intended to make. But he did not really need these documents. He
remembered every point, and did not think it necessary to go over in his
memory what he would say. He knew that when the time came, and when
he saw his enemy facing him, and studiously endeavoring to assume an
expression of indifference, his speech would flow of itself better than he
could prepare it now. He felt that the import of his speech was of such
magnitude that every word of it would have weight. Meantime, as he
listened to the usual report, he had the most innocent and inoffensive air.
No one, looking at his white hands, with their swollen veins and long
fingers, so softly stroking the edges of the white paper that lay before him,
and at the air of weariness with which his head drooped on one side, would
have suspected that in a few minutes a torrent of words would flow from
his lips that would arouse a fearful storm, set the members shouting and
attacking one another, and force the president to call for order. When the
report was over, Alexey Alexandrovitch announced in his subdued, delicate
voice that he had several points to bring before the meeting in regard to the
Commission for the Reorganization of the Native Tribes. All attention was
turned upon him. Alexey Alexandrovitch cleared his throat, and not looking
at his opponent, but selecting, as he always did while he was delivering his
speeches, the first person sitting opposite him, an inoffensive little old man,
who never had an opinion of any sort in the Commission, began to expound
his views. When he reached the point about the fundamental and radical
law, his opponent jumped up and began to protest. Stremov, who was also a
member of the Commission, and also stung to the quick, began defending
himself, and altogether a stormy sitting followed; but Alexey
Alexandrovitch triumphed, and his motion was carried, three new
commissions were appointed, and the next day in a certain Petersburg circle
nothing else was talked of but this sitting. Alexey Alexandrovitch's success
had been even greater than he had anticipated.
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Next morning, Tuesday, Alexey Alexandrovitch, on waking up, recollected
with pleasure his triumph of the previous day, and he could not help
smiling, though he tried to appear indifferent, when the chief secretary of
his department, anxious to flatter him, informed him of the rumors that had
reached him concerning what had happened in the Commission.
Absorbed in business with the chief secretary, Alexey Alexandrovitch had
completely forgotten that it was Tuesday, the day fixed by him for the
return of Anna Arkadyevna, and he was surprised and received a shock of
annoyance when a servant came in to inform him of her arrival.
Anna had arrived in Petersburg early in the morning; the carriage had been
sent to meet her in accordance with her telegram, and so Alexey
Alexandrovitch might have known of her arrival. But when she arrived, he
did not meet her. She was told that he had not yet gone out, but was busy
with his secretary. She sent word to her husband that she had come, went to
her own room, and occupied herself in sorting out her things, expecting he
would come to her. But an hour passed; he did not come. She went into the
dining room on the pretext of giving some directions, and spoke loudly on
purpose, expecting him to come out there; but he did not come, though she
heard him go to the door of his study as he parted from the chief secretary.
She knew that he usually went out quickly to his office, and she wanted to
see him before that, so that their attitude to one another might be defined.
She walked across the drawing room and went resolutely to him. When she
went into his study he was in official uniform, obviously ready to go out,
sitting at a little table on which he rested his elbows, looking dejectedly
before him. She saw him before he saw her, and she saw that he was
thinking of her.
On seeing her, he would have risen, but changed his mind, then his face
flushed hotly--a thing Anna had never seen before, and he got up quickly
and went to meet her, looking not at her eyes, but above them at her
forehead and hair. He went up to her, took her by the hand, and asked her to
sit down.
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"I am very glad you have come," he said, sitting down beside her, and
obviously wishing to say something, he stuttered. Several times he tried to
begin to speak, but stopped. In spite of the fact that, preparing herself for
meeting him, she had schooled herself to despise and reproach him, she did
not know what to say to him, and she felt sorry for him. And so the silence
lasted for some time. "Is Seryozha quite well?" he said, and not waiting for
an answer, he added: "I shan't be dining at home today, and I have got to go
out directly."
"I had thought of going to Moscow," she said.
"No, you did quite, quite right to come," he said, and was silent again.
Seeing that he was powerless to begin the conversation, she began herself.
"Alexey Alexandrovitch," she said, looking at him and not dropping her
eyes under his persistent gaze at her hair, "I'm a guilty woman, I'm a bad
woman, but I am the same as I was, as I told you then, and I have come to
tell you that I can change nothing."
"I have asked you no question about that," he said, all at once, resolutely
and with hatred looking her straight in the face; "that was as I had
supposed." Under the influence of anger he apparently regained complete
possession of all his faculties. "But as I told you then, and have written to
you," he said in a thin, shrill voice, "I repeat now, that I am not bound to
know this. I ignore it. Not all wives are so kind as you, to be in such a hurry
to communicate such agreeable news to their husbands." He laid special
emphasis on the word "agreeable." "I shall ignore it so long as the world
knows nothing of it, so long as my name is not disgraced. And so I simply
inform you that our relations must be just as they have always been, and
that only in the event of your compromising me I shall be obliged to take
steps to secure my honor."
"But our relations cannot be the same as always," Anna began in a timid
voice, looking at him with dismay.
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When she saw once more those composed gestures, heard that shrill,
childish, and sarcastic voice, her aversion for him extinguished her pity for
him, and she felt only afraid, but at all costs she wanted to make clear her
position.
"I cannot be your wife while I..." she began.
He laughed a cold and malignant laugh.
"The manner of life you have chosen is reflected, I suppose, in your ideas. I
have too much respect or contempt, or both...I respect your past and despise
your present...that I was far from the interpretation you put on my words."
Anna sighed and bowed her head.
"Though indeed I fail to comprehend how, with the independence you
show," he went on, getting hot, "--announcing your infidelity to your
husband and seeing nothing reprehensible in it, apparently--you can see
anything reprehensible in performing a wife's duties in relation to your
husband."
"Alexey Alexandrovitch! What is it you want of me?"
"I want you not to meet that man here, and to conduct yourself so that
neither the world nor the servants can reproach you...not to see him. That's
not much, I think. And in return you will enjoy all the privileges of a
faithful wife without fulfilling her duties. That's all I have to say to you.
Now it's time for me to go. I'm not dining at home." He got up and moved
towards the door.
Anna got up too. Bowing in silence, he let her pass before him.
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