Anna Karenina

Chapter 21
From the moment when Alexey Alexandrovitch understood from his
interviews with Betsy and with Stepan Arkadyevitch that all that was
expected of him was to leave his wife in peace, without burdening her with
his presence, and that his wife herself desired this, he felt so distraught that
he could come to no decision of himself; he did not know himself what he
wanted now, and putting himself in the hands of those who were so pleased
to interest themselves in his affairs, he met everything with unqualified
assent. It was only when Anna had left his house, and the English
governess sent to ask him whether she should dine with him or separately,
that for the first time he clearly comprehended his position, and was
appalled by it. Most difficult of all in this position was the fact that he
could not in any way connect and reconcile his past with what was now. It
was not the past when he had lived happily with his wife that troubled him.
The transition from that past to a knowledge of his wife's unfaithfulness he
had lived through miserably already; that state was painful, but he could
understand it. If his wife had then, on declaring to him her unfaithfulness,
left him, he would have been wounded, unhappy, but he would not have
been in the hopeless position--incomprehensible to himself--in which he
felt himself now. He could not now reconcile his immediate past, his
tenderness, his love for his sick wife, and for the other man's child with
what was now the case, that is with the fact that, as it were, in return for all
this he now found himself alone, put to shame, a laughing-stock, needed by
no one, and despised by everyone.
For the first two days after his wife's departure Alexey Alexandrovitch
received applicants for assistance and his chief secretary, drove to the
committee, and went down to dinner in the dining room as usual. Without
giving himself a reason for what he was doing, he strained every nerve of
his being for those two days, simply to preserve an appearance of
composure, and even of indifference. Answering inquiries about the
disposition of Anna Arkadyevna's rooms and belongings, he had exercised
immense self-control to appear like a man in whose eyes what had occurred
was not unforeseen nor out of the ordinary course of events, and he attained
his aim: no one could have detected in him signs of despair. But on the
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second day after her departure, when Korney gave him a bill from a
fashionable draper's shop, which Anna had forgotten to pay, and announced
that the clerk from the shop was waiting, Alexey Alexandrovitch told him
to show the clerk up.
"Excuse me, your excellency, for venturing to trouble you. But if you direct
us to apply to her excellency, would you graciously oblige us with her
address?"
Alexey Alexandrovitch pondered, as it seemed to the clerk, and all at once,
turning round, he sat down at the table. Letting his head sink into his hands,
he sat for a long while in that position, several times attempted to speak and
stopped short. Korney, perceiving his master's emotion, asked the clerk to
call another time. Left alone, Alexey Alexandrovitch recognized that he had
not the strength to keep up the line of firmness and composure any longer.
He gave orders for the carriage that was awaiting him to be taken back, and
for no one to be admitted, and he did not go down to dinner.
He felt that he could not endure the weight of universal contempt and
exasperation, which he had distinctly seen in the face of the clerk and of
Korney, and of everyone, without exception, whom he had met during
those two days. He felt that he could not turn aside from himself the hatred
of men, because that hatred did not come from his being bad (in that case
he could have tried to be better), but from his being shamefully and
repulsively unhappy. He knew that for this, for the very fact that his heart
was torn with grief, they would be merciless to him. He felt that men would
crush him as dogs strangle a torn dog yelping with pain. He knew that his
sole means of security against people was to hide his wounds from them,
and instinctively he tried to do this for two days, but now he felt incapable
of keeping up the unequal struggle.
His despair was even intensified by the consciousness that he was utterly
alone in his sorrow. In all Petersburg there was not a human being to whom
he could express what he was feeling, who would feel for him, not as a high
official, not as a member of society, but simply as a suffering man; indeed
he had not such a one in the whole world.
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Alexey Alexandrovitch grew up an orphan. There were two brothers. They
did not remember their father, and their mother died when Alexey
Alexandrovitch was ten years old. The property was a small one. Their
uncle, Karenin, a government official of high standing, at one time a
favorite of the late Tsar, had brought them up.
On completing his high school and university courses with medals, Alexey
Alexandrovitch had, with his uncle's aid, immediately started in a
prominent position in the service, and from that time forward he had
devoted himself exclusively to political ambition. In the high school and
the university, and afterwards in the service, Alexey Alexandrovitch had
never formed a close friendship with anyone. His brother had been the
person nearest to his heart, but he had a post in the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, and was always abroad, where he had died shortly after Alexey
Alexandrovitch's marriage.
While he was governor of a province, Anna's aunt, a wealthy provincial
lady, had thrown him--middle-aged as he was, though young for a
governor--with her niece, and had succeeded in putting him in such a
position that he had either to declare himself or to leave the town. Alexey
Alexandrovitch was not long in hesitation. There were at the time as many
reasons for the step as against it, and there was no overbalancing
consideration to outweigh his invariable rule of abstaining when in doubt.
But Anna's aunt had through a common acquaintance insinuated that he had
already compromised the girl, and that he was in honor bound to make her
an offer. He made the offer, and concentrated on his betrothed and his wife
all the feeling of which he was capable.
The attachment he felt to Anna precluded in his heart every need of
intimate relations with others. And now among all his acquaintances he had
not one friend. He had plenty of so-called connections, but no friendships.
Alexey Alexandrovitch had plenty of people whom he could invite to
dinner, to whose sympathy he could appeal in any public affair he was
concerned about, whose interest he could reckon upon for anyone he
wished to help, with whom he could candidly discuss other people's
business and affairs of state. But his relations with these people were
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confined to one clearly defined channel, and had a certain routine from
which it was impossible to depart. There was one man, a comrade of his at
the university, with whom he had made friends later, and with whom he
could have spoken of a personal sorrow; but this friend had a post in the
Department of Education in a remote part of Russia. Of the people in
Petersburg the most intimate and most possible were his chief secretary and
his doctor.
Mihail Vassilievitch Sludin, the chief secretary, was a straightforward,
intelligent, good-hearted, and conscientious man, and Alexey
Alexandrovitch was aware of his personal goodwill. But their five years of
official work together seemed to have put a barrier between them that cut
off warmer relations.
After signing the papers brought him, Alexey Alexandrovitch had sat for a
long while in silence, glancing at Mihail Vassilievitch, and several times he
attempted to speak, but could not. He had already prepared the phrase:
"You have heard of my trouble?" But he ended by saying, as usual: "So
you'll get this ready for me?" and with that dismissed him.
The other person was the doctor, who had also a kindly feeling for him; but
there had long existed a taciturn understanding between them that both
were weighed down by work, and always in a hurry.
Of his women friends, foremost amongst them Countess Lidia Ivanovna,
Alexey Alexandrovitch never thought. All women, simply as women, were
terrible and distasteful to him.
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