As in “War and Peace,” so in “Anna Karénina,” we shall find Count
Lyof Tolstoï himself just as his own confessions have allowed us to
point him out. As in “War and Peace,” all the chief personages will
have some of his characteristics, and Vronsky and Konstantin Levin, in
turn, represent him in some peculiar aspect, in the same way as Nikolaï
Rostof, Prince Andréi, and Count Pierre. Thus, in the discourse where
Count Vronsky proposes a re-organization of his landed property, and
claims that it must be based on the agreement between the _muzhik_ and
his former lord, Count Tolstoï propounds a theory which he long held,
but which he has since gone beyond; for, as we shall soon see, he has
reached Communism.
In the same way we recognize the ideas of “My Religion” in Levin’s
resistance of the patriotic outburst, or, to use his language, the
unreflecting enthusiasm which rouses the Russian youth, and drives one
of the characters of the story, Vronsky, to enlist of his own accord
for the defence of the Serbian cause. While protesting by his own
abstention, and also by his tirades against the Slav committees and the
enlistment, Konstantin Levin is already applying the doctrine which
Count Tolstoï will formulate in the maxim, “Do not engage in war,” and
on which he will make the following comment: “Jesus has shown me that
the fifth temptation that deprives me of my welfare is the distinction
made by us between our compatriots and foreign nations. I must believe
in that. Consequently, if in a moment of forgetfulness I experience
a feeling of hostility against a man of another nationality, I must
not fail to recognize, in my thoughtful moments, that this feeling is
false. No longer, as formerly, can I justify myself by the superiority
of my people to others; by the ignorance, the cruelty, or the barbarity
of another people. I cannot refrain, at the first opportunity, from
endeavoring to be more affable to a foreigner than to one of my
countrymen.” And if Vronsky behaves differently from Konstantin Levin,
it is not because Tolstoï wishes to offset the conduct of the one to
the views of the other. In reality, it is not from conviction, it is
from despair, that Vronsky enlists. He goes away so as to forget,
amid the excitement--or, as Pascal said, the _divertissement_--of a
soldier’s life the impression of the inward drama which has disturbed
his soul to its foundation, and which, by a fatal, but unexpected,
conclusion, has just bespattered him with blood.
The romance of “Anna Karénina” is the history of an adulterous amour:
the climax of the amour is suicide. Is this suicide in the novelist’s
mind a moral penalty? That would be a wholly barbarous conception,
a sort of divine judgment such as would have been imagined by a
story-teller in the Middle Ages, and Tolstoï seems to have wished to
forestall such a vulgar interpretation of his narrative. There are
in the romance other criminal amours, and it is without any sign of
punishment that the wholly immoral relationship between the Princess
Betsy and her lover leads them to scandalous conduct. On the other
hand, the passion which unites Anna Karénina and Vronsky is a sincere,
profound, almost solemn passion, in spite of the illegality of their
behavior. The hearts of these two lovers are culpable but lofty.
Besides, the more sympathy the author of the romance shows in their
presentation, the more powerful is the lesson which he desires to draw
from their moral torment. All the plan and all the interest of the work
are here. What agonies of remorse this illegal union, so passionately
desired, brings upon the guilty woman! What deep mortifications and
what vulgar discomfitures, what deadly humiliations and what prosaic
irksomeness, spring from this false situation, and ultimately make it
so odious, so painful, that way of escape has to be found by an act of
madness in a moment of despair!
Yet never were more conditions united to facilitate this union outside
the law. Vronsky’s rank is too lofty for him to fear public opinion:
he makes it, as it were, a point of honor to defy it, and he instals
his mistress in his splendid domain as though she were his legitimate
wife. Without much apparent difficulty, he makes his friends and his
family treat his _liaison_ with respect. Anna Karénina, on her part,
loves Vronsky with a perfect passion, which is only intensified and
not chilled by the feeling of sacrifices undergone. All that she asks
from her lover in return is to be loved by him. She has made it a point
of honor on her part to refuse the advantages of a divorce which her
husband, Alekséi Karénin, at first offers to have pronounced against
himself. She refused from a double reason of delicacy: she did not wish
to add this gratuitous insult to the wrongs of which she is guilty
towards this disagreeable, but upright, man; above all, she does not
wish that a suspicion of calculation should cast its shadow over the
feeling which she has towards the count.
A divorce, however, would put an end to many sentimental doubts causing
misunderstandings, and to many subtleties of behavior resulting only in
collisions. Vronsky demands the divorce with all the strength of his
generous pride. Anna Karénina scouts the idea of it with such jealous
anxiety as a naturally noble woman can feel in preserving the remains
of her dignity, which a shock of passion has thrown down and broken to
fragments like a costly vase. This antagonism creates between the two
lovers a secret source of bitterness. There are other latent troubles.
By her marriage, Anna Karénina has a son from whom she is separated,
whom she worships; and the slightest remembrance of him causes her
heart to thrill with that same strange feeling which is the precursor
of motherhood. In consequence of her amour with Vronsky, she has a
daughter. By a singular anomaly she does not love the child of the man
whom she loves: she is vexed with her daughter for occupying in some
measure a place usurped, for monopolizing with her the maternal cares
which it seems to her that the other child so grievously needs. If as a
mother she has her whimsical but touching fits of jealousy, as a woman
she has other fears, the absurdity of which does not prevent them from
being very painful. She spends her time and gnaws her heart in trying
to divine her lover’s attitude towards her. She knows that for her
sake he has renounced a most brilliant future; she is afraid that she
cannot fill his objectless existence; she sees in each attempted return
to any occupation, to any distraction whatsoever, a proof of weariness,
a confession of irksomeness, a sign of regret.
Vronsky, who has made absolute renunciation without thought of return,
at last begins to suffer from this distrust: the more it grows, the
more disappointment and secret vexation he feels. Here the loftiness
of character which attaches him to his mistress, and which has made
it easy for him to brave every thing for her, turns against the
unfortunate woman, and impels him to resist the efforts which she makes
to get fuller possession of him. It is easy to imagine what will be
the outcome of this incessant struggle. Each day the angles become
sharper, feelings become more touchy, actions rankle more painfully;
these two beings, starting on the bright and free pinnacles of love,
have descended, without being themselves aware of it, into the dark
and suffocating regions of hate. The result of this inevitable decay
of passion is made not less cruel, but more evident, by a wholly
external complication. The divorce which at one time Alekséi Karénin
had offered, he refuses when his wife, weary of such suffering, at
last decides to ask him for it. Here it is that the future author of
“My Religion” appears with his precise theory of the immorality of
divorce. The group of mystics to which the deserted husband has been
led to ask consolation of a religious kind declare, through the mouth
of the Countess Lidia Ivanovna, that Alekséi Karénin cannot accede to
his wife’s wishes, and grant her liberty, without falling himself into
a state of mortal sin.
From the day when they learn of his refusal, Anna Karénina and Vronsky,
in spite of themselves, rush straight towards separation. Anna, in her
dread of it, precipitates it. Vronsky is nettled at her ever increasing
restlessness; and before what seems to him pure ingratitude, he affects
an indifference which he does not feel. Discussions, once rare, come in
quick succession, and become quarrelsome. This daily conflict brings
about an explosion, followed by a rupture.
Vronsky leaves her. He goes to his mother, the natural enemy of his
mistress. As soon as she is alone, Anna Karénina feels as though torn
in every fibre of her being: he must come back; she will fall on her
knees before him; she will humiliate herself like a naughty child. She
has written him to return, but she has not the strength to wait for
him; she hurries to meet him, and stops at an intermediate station,
when by a telegram she informs him of her arrival. The train arrives.
Only the count’s valet appears, bringing a note in which Vronsky dryly
announces that he is coming back. The tone of the note is interpreted
by Anna as a new proof of the death of a love which in her alone has
grown with time and possession. She tells herself that there is no
more reason to live, and a series of fatal circumstances unite at this
critical moment to hasten her to her death. She wishes to escape the
inquisitive eyes of the loiterers at the station, who are struck by
her strange behavior: she leaves the platform, and steps down upon the
track. She remembers the terrible accident which a train-hand had met
with at Moscow on the very day of her first meeting with Vronsky. A
sort of reflex action takes place in her brain: a freight-train is
coming along; she goes to meet it.
“She looked under the cars, at the chains and the brake, and the high
iron wheels; and she tried to estimate with her eye the distance
between the fore and back wheels, and the moment when the middle would
be in front of her.
“‘There,’ she said, looking at the shadow of the car thrown upon the
black coal-dust which covered the sleepers, ‘there in the centre he
will be punished, and I shall be delivered from it all,--and from
myself.’
“Her little red travelling-bag caused her to lose the moment when she
could throw herself under the wheels of the first car: she could not
detach it from her arm. She awaited the second. A feeling like that
she had experienced once, just before taking a dive in the river, came
over her, and she made the sign of the cross. This familiar gesture
called back to her soul memories of youth and childhood. Life, with
its elusive joys, glowed for an instant before her, but she did not
take her eyes from the car; and when the middle between the two
wheels appeared, she threw away her red bag, drawing her head between
her shoulders, and, with outstretched hands, threw herself on her
knees under the car. She had time to feel afraid. ‘Where am I? What
am I doing? Why?’ thought she, trying to draw back; but a great,
inflexible mass struck her head, and threw her upon her back. ‘Lord,
forgive me all!’ she murmured, feeling the struggle to be in vain. A
little _muzhik_ was working on the railroad, mumbling in his beard.
And the candle by which she read, as in a book, the fulfilment of her
life’s work, of its deceptions, its grief, and its torment, flared up
with greater brightness than she had ever known, revealing to her all
that before was in darkness; then flickered, grew faint, and went out
forever.”
Certainly when one reads this brutally frightful _dénouement_ in the
light of the motto of the book, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay,” one
might be tempted to interpret Jesus’ word in its Judaic sense. Yet
it would be a serious mistake. It is very certain that this sudden
and tragic end in the novelist’s mind was meant for Anna Karénina’s
deliverance: out of pity for her, he granted her the favor of death.
Death alone could put an end to the torment of this soul, and this
torment began with the sin. Here is the true punishment of guilty
love: all the illusion which exalted the senses, as long as they are
pastured in “love’s shadow,” as one of Shakspeare’s characters calls
it, vanishes as soon as one is sated of love itself.
“What had been for Vronsky for nearly a year the only and absolute aim
of his life, was for Anna a dream of happiness, all the more enchanting
because it seemed to her unreal and terrible. It was like a dream. At
last the waking came; and a new life began for her, with a sentiment of
moral decadence. She felt the impossibility of expressing the shame,
the horror, the joy, that were now her portion. Rather than put her
feelings into idle and fleeting words, she preferred to keep silent.
As time went on, words fit to express the complexity of her sensations
still failed to come to her, and even her thoughts were incapable of
translating the impressions of her heart. She hoped that calmness and
peace would come to her, but they held aloof. Whenever she thought of
the past, and thought of the future, and thought of her own fate, she
was seized with fear, and tried to drive these thoughts away.
“‘By and by, by and by,’ she repeated, ‘when I am calmer.’
“On the other hand, when during sleep she lost all control of her
imagination, her situation appeared in its frightful reality: almost
every night she had the same dream. She dreamed that she was the wife
both of Vronsky and of Alekséi Aleksandrovitch. And it seemed to her
that Alekséi Aleksandrovitch kissed her hands, and said, weeping, ‘How
happy we are now!’ And Alekséi Vronsky, he, also, was her husband.
She was amazed that she could believe such a thing impossible; and
she laughed when she seemed to explain to them that every thing would
simplify itself, and that both would henceforth be satisfied and happy.
But this dream weighed on her spirits like a nightmare, and she always
awoke in a fright.”
That is the moral punishment. What keen psychology! What an admirable
commentary, and what a powerful interpretation of the “_surgit amari
aliquid!_” And it is not only her punishment as a woman which
Tolstoï has described, it is also her punishment as a mother, when
the separation, long postponed by the husband’s own will, becomes
indispensable to the two paramours, both of whom have returned from the
doors of death, and returned more morbidly, more hopelessly, in love
with each other than ever before.
During the first part of this separation, Anna Karénina had wonted
herself to think that it was her duty to give up all that had hitherto
gone to make her happiness, and to leave in her husband’s hands as a
compensation, such as it was, all the elements of her past happiness
which she had exchanged for another kind. “I give up all that I love,
all that I appreciate most in this world,--my son and my reputation!”
She succeeds for some time in lulling, in deceiving, the maternal
sentiment, in substituting in place of her affection for her son her
tender and constant care for the daughter, the child of her _liaison_
with Vronsky. But Vronsky is obliged suddenly to leave Italy where they
have been together; he and Anna reach Petersburg; the mother is again
in the neighborhood of the house where her son is living; she wishes
to enter it, to see him; she begs for permission, and it is harshly
refused; she determines to go to her husband’s at any cost, and make
her way to the child by bribing the servants. The reader will not blame
me for quoting this admirable scene.[53]
“She went to a neighboring shop and purchased some toys, and thus
she formed her plan of action: she would start early in the morning
before Alekséi Aleksandrovitch was up; she would have the money in her
hand all ready to bribe the Swiss and the other servants to let her
go up-stairs without raising her veil, under the pretext of laying on
Serozha’s bed some presents sent by his god-father. As to what she
should say to her son, she could not form the least idea: she could not
make any preparation for that.
“The next morning, at eight o’clock, Anna got out of her hired carriage
and rang the doorbell of her former home.
“‘Go and see what is wanted! It’s some _baruina_,’ said Kapitonuitch,
in overcoat and galoshes, as he looked out of the window and saw a lady
closely veiled standing on the porch. The Swiss’s assistant, a young
man whom Anna did not know, had scarcely opened the door before Anna
thrust a three-ruble note into his hand.
“‘Serozha--Sergéi Aleksiévitch,’ she stammered; then she went one or
two steps down the hall.
“The Swiss’s assistant examined the note, and stopped the visitor at
the inner glass door.
“‘Whom do you wish to see?’ he asked.
“She did not hear his words, and made no reply.
“Kapitonuitch, noticing the stranger’s confusion, came out from his
office and asked her what she wanted.
“‘I come from Prince Skorodumof to see Sergéi Aleksiévitch.’
“‘He is not up yet,’ replied the Swiss, looking sharply at the veiled
lady.
“Anna had never dreamed that she should be so troubled by the sight of
this house where she had lived nine years. One after another, sweet
and cruel memories arose in her mind, and for a moment she forgot why
she was there.
“‘Will you wait?’ asked the Swiss, helping her to take off her
_shubka_. When he saw her face, he recognized her, and bowed
profoundly. ‘Will your ladyship[54] be pleased to enter?’ he said to
her.
“She tried to speak; but her voice failed her, and with an entreating
look at the old servant she rapidly flew up the stairs. Kapitonuitch
tried to overtake her, and followed after her, catching his galoshes at
every step.
“‘Perhaps his tutor is not dressed yet: I will speak to him.’
“Anna kept on up the stairs which she knew so well, but she did not
hear what the old man said.
“‘This way. Excuse it if all is in disorder. He sleeps in the front
room now,’ said the Swiss, out of breath. ‘Will your ladyship be good
enough to wait a moment? I will go and see,’ And opening the high door,
he disappeared.
“Anna stopped and waited.
“‘He has just waked up,’ said the Swiss, coming back through the same
door.
“And as he spoke, Anna heard the sound of a child yawning, and merely
by the sound of the yawn she recognized her son, and seemed to see him
alive before her.
“‘Let me go in--let me!’ she stammered, and hurriedly pushed through
the door.
“At the right of the door was a bed, and on the bed a child was sitting
up in his little open nightgown; his little body was leaning forward,
and he was just finishing a yawn and stretching himself. His lips were
just closing into a sleepy smile, and he fell back upon his pillow
still smiling.
“‘Serozha!’ she murmured as she went towards him.
“Every time since their separation that she had felt an access of love
for the absent son, Anna looked upon him as still a child of four,
the age when he had been most charming. Now he no longer bore any
resemblance to him whom she had left: he had grown tall and thin. How
long his face seemed! How short his hair! What long arms! How he had
changed! But it was still the same,--the shape of his head, his lips,
little slender neck, and his broad shoulders.
“‘Serozha!’ she whispered in the child’s ear.
“He raised himself on his elbow, turned his frowzy head around, and,
trying to put things together, opened wide his eyes. For several
seconds he looked with an inquiring face at his mother, who stood
motionless before him. Then he suddenly smiled with joy; and with his
eyes still half-closed in sleep, he threw himself, not back upon his
pillow, but into his mother’s arms.
“‘Serozha, my dear little boy!’ she stammered, choking with tears, and
throwing her arms around his plump body.
“‘Mamma!’ he whispered, cuddling into his mother’s arms so as to feel
their encircling pressure. Smiling sleepily, he took his hand from the
head of the bed and put it on his mother’s shoulder and climbed into
her lap, having that warm breath of sleep peculiar to children, and
pressed his face to his mother’s neck and shoulders.
“‘I knew,’ he said, opening his eyes; ‘to-day is my birthday; I knew
that you would come. I am going to get up now.’
“And as he spoke he fell asleep again. Anna devoured him with her eyes.
She saw how he had changed during her absence. She would scarcely have
known his long legs coming below his nightgown, his hollow cheeks, his
short hair curled in the neck where she had so often kissed it. She
pressed him to her heart, and the tears prevented her from speaking.
“‘What are you crying for, mamma?’ he asked, now entirely awake. ‘What
makes you cry?’ he repeated, ready to weep himself.
“‘I? I will not cry any more--it is for joy. It is all over now,’ said
she, drying her tears and turning around. ‘_Nu!_ go and get dressed,’
she added, after she had grown a little calmer, but still holding
Serozha’s hand. She sat down near the bed on a chair which held the
child’s clothing. ‘How do you dress without me? How’--she wanted to
speak simply and gayly, but she could not, and again she turned her
head away.
“‘I don’t wash in cold water any more; papa has forbidden it: but you
have not seen Vasíli Lukitch? Here he comes. But you are sitting on my
things.’ And Serozha laughed heartily. She looked at him and smiled.
“‘Mamma! _dúshenka, golúbtchika!_’ [dear little soul, darling], he
cried again, throwing himself into her arms, as though he now better
understood what had happened to him, as he saw her smile.
“‘Take it off,’ said he, pulling off her hat. And seeing her head bare,
he began to kiss her again.
“‘What did you think of me? Did you believe that I was dead?’
“‘I never believed it.’
“‘You believed me alive, my precious?’
“‘I knew it! I knew it!’ he replied, repeating his favorite phrase;
and, seizing the hand which was smoothing his hair, he pressed the palm
of it to his little mouth, and began to kiss it.”
“Vasíli Lukitch, meantime, not at first knowing who this lady was,
but learning from their conversation that it was Serozha’s mother,
the woman who had deserted her husband, and whom he did not know,
as he had not come into the house till after her departure, was in
great perplexity. Ought he to tell Alekséi Aleksandrovitch? On mature
reflection he came to the conclusion that his duty consisted in going
to dress Serozha at the usual hour, without paying any attention to a
third person--his mother, or any one else. But as he reached the door
and opened it, the sight of the caresses between the mother and child,
the sound of their voices and their words, made him change his mind. He
shook his head, sighed, and quietly closed the door. ‘I will wait ten
minutes longer,’ he said to himself, coughing slightly, and wiping his
eyes.
“There was great excitement among the servants; they all knew that the
_baruina_ had come, and that Kapitonuitch had let her in, and that she
was in the child’s room; they knew, too, that their master was in the
habit of going to Serozha every morning at nine o’clock: each one felt
that the husband and wife ought not to meet, that it must be prevented.
“Kornéi, the valet, went down to the Swiss to ask why Anna had been
let in; and finding that Kapitonuitch had taken her up-stairs, he
reprimanded him severely. The Swiss maintained an obstinate silence
till the valet declared that he deserved to lose his place, when the
old man jumped at him, and shaking his fist in his face, said,--
“‘_Da! Vot!_ you would not have let her in yourself? You’ve served
here ten years, and had nothing but kindness from her, but you would
have said, “Now, go away from here!” You know what policy is, you sly
dog. What you don’t forget is to rob your master, and to carry off his
raccoon-skin _shubas_!’
“‘Soldier!’ replied Kornéi scornfully; and he turned towards the nurse,
who was coming in just at this moment. ‘What do you think, Marya
Yefimovna? He has let in Anna Arkadyevna, without saying any thing to
anybody, and just when Alekséi Aleksandrovitch, as soon as he is up,
will be going to the nursery.’
“‘What a scrape! what a scrape!’ said the nurse. ‘But, Kornéi
Vasilyévitch, find some way to keep your master, while I run to warn
her, and get her out of the way. What a scrape!’
“When the nurse went into the child’s room, Serozha was telling his
mother how Nádenka and he had fallen when sliding down a hill of ice,
and turned three somersaults. Anna was listening to the sound of her
son’s voice, looking at his face, watching the play of his features,
feeling his little arms, but not hearing a word that he said. She must
go away, she must leave him: this alone she understood and felt. She
had heard Vasíli Lukitch’s steps, and his little discreet cough, as he
came to the door, and now she heard the nurse coming in; but unable to
move or to speak, she remained as fixed as a statue.
“‘_Baruina! Golúbtchika!_’ [mistress, darling], said the nurse, coming
up to Anna, and kissing her hands and her shoulders. ‘God sent this joy
for our birthday celebration! You are not changed at all.’
“‘_Ach!_ nurse [_nyanya_], my dear: I did not know that you were in the
house,’ said Anna, coming to herself.
“‘I don’t live here; I live with my daughter. I came to give my best
wishes to Serozha, Anna Arkadyevna, _golúbtchika_.’
“The nurse suddenly began to weep, and to kiss Anna’s hand.
“Serozha, with bright, joyful eyes, and holding his mother with one
hand and his nurse with the other, was dancing in his little bare
feet on the carpet. His old nurse’s tenderness towards his mother was
delightful to him.
“‘Mamma, she often comes to see me; and when she comes’--he began; but
he stopped short when he perceived that the nurse whispered something
in his mother’s ear, and that his mother’s face assumed an expression
of fear, and at the same time of shame.
“Anna went to him.
“‘My precious!’ she said.
“She could not say the word ‘farewell’ [_proshcháï_]; but the
expression of her face said it, and he understood.
“‘My precious, precious Kutik!’ she said, calling him by a pet name
which she used when he was a baby. ‘You will not forget me; you’--but
she could not say another word.
“Only then she began to remember the words which she wanted to say
to him, but now it was impossible to say them. Serozha, however,
understood all that she would have said: he understood that she was
unhappy, and that she loved him. He even understood what the nurse
whispered in her ear: he heard the words ‘always at nine o’clock;’ and
he knew that they referred to his father, and that his mother must not
meet him. He understood this, but one thing he could not understand:
why did her face express fear and shame?... She was not to blame, but
she was afraid of him, and seemed ashamed of something. He wanted to
ask a question which would have explained this circumstance, but he did
not dare: he saw that she was in sorrow, and he pitied her. He silently
clung close to her, and then he whispered, ‘Don’t go yet! He will not
come yet awhile.’
“His mother pushed him away from her a little, in order to see if he
understood the meaning of what he had said; and in the frightened
expression of his face she perceived that he not only spoke of his
father, but seemed to ask her how he ought to think about him.
“‘Serozha, my dear,’ she said, ‘love him; he is better than I am; and I
have been wicked to him. When you have grown up, you will understand.’
“‘No one is better than you,’ cried the child, with sobs of despair;
and, clinging to his mother’s shoulders, he squeezed her with all the
force of his little trembling arms.
“‘_Dúshenka_, my darling!’ stammered Anna; and, bursting into tears,
she sobbed like a child, even as he sobbed.
“At this moment the door opened, and Vasíli Lukitch came in. Steps were
heard at the other door; and, in a frightened whisper, he exclaimed,
‘He is coming,’ and gave Anna her hat.
“Serozha threw himself on the bed, sobbing, and covered his face with
his hands. Anna took them away to kiss yet once again his tear-stained
cheeks, and then with quick steps hurried from the room. Alekséi
Aleksandrovitch met her at the door. When he saw her, he stopped and
bowed his head.
“Though she had declared a moment before that he was better than she,
the swift glance that she gave him, taking in his whole person, awoke
in her only a feeling of hatred and scorn for him, and jealousy on
account of her son. She hurriedly lowered her veil, and, quickening her
step, almost ran from the room. She had entirely forgotten in her haste
the playthings which, on the evening before, she had bought with so
much love and sadness; and she took them back with her to the hotel.”
In such scenes, in such moral analyses, as these, it is necessary
to look for the meaning and the drift of “Anna Karénina.” There is
also in the conduct of the husband, the statesman, Alekséi Karénin,
a constant lesson and significance which it would be easy to verify
with “My Religion” in hand. He is punished for having sacrificed every
thing to his ambition, even the love and the care of her whom he took
to be his wife. He does not fight a duel with Vronsky because he lacks
courage, but, above all, because religion lays it upon him as a duty
not to strive to kill his neighbor. He hates his guilty wife, even to
the point of wishing for her death, and of feeling disappointment when
he finds her alive after the travail which she dreaded so keenly; but
his heart softens at her delirium, at the words of repentance which
she speaks at the moment which she thinks is her last: he forgives her.
From the day when he has tasted the divine sweetness of mercy, he is
another man: he has found the meaning of life. Henceforth he will apply
the doctrine of Jesus: “‘I offer my other cheek to the smiter; I give
my last cloak to him who has robbed me; I ask only one thing of God,
that he will not take from me the joy of forgiving.’... Karénin rose:
sobs choked his voice. Vronsky rose too, and standing with bowed head
and humble attitude, looked up at Karénin without a word to say. He was
incapable of understanding Alekséi Aleksandrovitch’s feelings; but he
felt that such magnanimity was above him, and irreconcilable with his
conception of life.”