Everyone was loudly expressing disapprobation, everyone was repeating a
phrase someone had uttered—“The lions and gladiators will be the next
thing,” and everyone was feeling horrified; so that when Vronsky fell
to the ground, and Anna moaned aloud, there was nothing very out of the
way in it. But afterwards a change came over Anna’s face which really
was beyond decorum. She utterly lost her head. She began fluttering
like a caged bird, at one moment would have got up and moved away, at
the next turned to Betsy.
“Let us go, let us go!” she said.
But Betsy did not hear her. She was bending down, talking to a general
who had come up to her.
Alexey Alexandrovitch went up to Anna and courteously offered her his
arm.
“Let us go, if you like,” he said in French, but Anna was listening to
the general and did not notice her husband.
“He’s broken his leg too, so they say,” the general was saying. “This
is beyond everything.”
Without answering her husband, Anna lifted her opera-glass and gazed
towards the place where Vronsky had fallen; but it was so far off, and
there was such a crowd of people about it, that she could make out
nothing. She laid down the opera-glass, and would have moved away, but
at that moment an officer galloped up and made some announcement to the
Tsar. Anna craned forward, listening.
“Stiva! Stiva!” she cried to her brother.
But her brother did not hear her. Again she would have moved away.
“Once more I offer you my arm if you want to be going,” said Alexey
Alexandrovitch, reaching towards her hand.
She drew back from him with aversion, and without looking in his face
answered:
“No, no, let me be, I’ll stay.”
She saw now that from the place of Vronsky’s accident an officer was
running across the course towards the pavilion. Betsy waved her
handkerchief to him. The officer brought the news that the rider was
not killed, but the horse had broken its back.
On hearing this Anna sat down hurriedly, and hid her face in her fan.
Alexey Alexandrovitch saw that she was weeping, and could not control
her tears, nor even the sobs that were shaking her bosom. Alexey
Alexandrovitch stood so as to screen her, giving her time to recover
herself.
“For the third time I offer you my arm,” he said to her after a little
time, turning to her. Anna gazed at him and did not know what to say.
Princess Betsy came to her rescue.
“No, Alexey Alexandrovitch; I brought Anna and I promised to take her
home,” put in Betsy.
“Excuse me, princess,” he said, smiling courteously but looking her
very firmly in the face, “but I see that Anna’s not very well, and I
wish her to come home with me.”
Anna looked about her in a frightened way, got up submissively, and
laid her hand on her husband’s arm.
“I’ll send to him and find out, and let you know,” Betsy whispered to
her.
As they left the pavilion, Alexey Alexandrovitch, as always, talked to
those he met, and Anna had, as always, to talk and answer; but she was
utterly beside herself, and moved hanging on her husband’s arm as
though in a dream.
“Is he killed or not? Is it true? Will he come or not? Shall I see him
today?” she was thinking.
She took her seat in her husband’s carriage in silence, and in silence
drove out of the crowd of carriages. In spite of all he had seen,
Alexey Alexandrovitch still did not allow himself to consider his
wife’s real condition. He merely saw the outward symptoms. He saw that
she was behaving unbecomingly, and considered it his duty to tell her
so. But it was very difficult for him not to say more, to tell her
nothing but that. He opened his mouth to tell her she had behaved
unbecomingly, but he could not help saying something utterly different.
“What an inclination we all have, though, for these cruel spectacles,”
he said. “I observe....”
“Eh? I don’t understand,” said Anna contemptuously.
He was offended, and at once began to say what he had meant to say.
“I am obliged to tell you,” he began.
“So now we are to have it out,” she thought, and she felt frightened.
“I am obliged to tell you that your behavior has been unbecoming
today,” he said to her in French.
“In what way has my behavior been unbecoming?” she said aloud, turning
her head swiftly and looking him straight in the face, not with the
bright expression that seemed covering something, but with a look of
determination, under which she concealed with difficulty the dismay she
was feeling.
“Mind,” he said, pointing to the open window opposite the coachman.
He got up and pulled up the window.
“What did you consider unbecoming?” she repeated.
“The despair you were unable to conceal at the accident to one of the
riders.”
He waited for her to answer, but she was silent, looking straight
before her.
“I have already begged you so to conduct yourself in society that even
malicious tongues can find nothing to say against you. There was a time
when I spoke of your inward attitude, but I am not speaking of that
now. Now I speak only of your external attitude. You have behaved
improperly, and I would wish it not to occur again.”
She did not hear half of what he was saying; she felt panic-stricken
before him, and was thinking whether it was true that Vronsky was not
killed. Was it of him they were speaking when they said the rider was
unhurt, but the horse had broken its back? She merely smiled with a
pretense of irony when he finished, and made no reply, because she had
not heard what he said. Alexey Alexandrovitch had begun to speak
boldly, but as he realized plainly what he was speaking of, the dismay
she was feeling infected him too. He saw the smile, and a strange
misapprehension came over him.
“She is smiling at my suspicions. Yes, she will tell me directly what
she told me before; that there is no foundation for my suspicions, that
it’s absurd.”
At that moment, when the revelation of everything was hanging over him,
there was nothing he expected so much as that she would answer
mockingly as before that his suspicions were absurd and utterly
groundless. So terrible to him was what he knew that now he was ready
to believe anything. But the expression of her face, scared and gloomy,
did not now promise even deception.
“Possibly I was mistaken,” said he. “If so, I beg your pardon.”
“No, you were not mistaken,” she said deliberately, looking desperately
into his cold face. “You were not mistaken. I was, and I could not help
being in despair. I hear you, but I am thinking of him. I love him, I
am his mistress; I can’t bear you; I’m afraid of you, and I hate
you.... You can do what you like to me.”
And dropping back into the corner of the carriage, she broke into sobs,
hiding her face in her hands. Alexey Alexandrovitch did not stir, and
kept looking straight before him. But his whole face suddenly bore the
solemn rigidity of the dead, and his expression did not change during
the whole time of the drive home. On reaching the house he turned his
head to her, still with the same expression.
“Very well! But I expect a strict observance of the external forms of
propriety till such time”—his voice shook—“as I may take measures to
secure my honor and communicate them to you.”
He got out first and helped her to get out. Before the servants he
pressed her hand, took his seat in the carriage, and drove back to
Petersburg. Immediately afterwards a footman came from Princess Betsy
and brought Anna a note.
“I sent to Alexey to find out how he is, and he writes me he is quite
well and unhurt, but in despair.”
“So _he_ will be here,” she thought. “What a good thing I told him
all!”
She glanced at her watch. She had still three hours to wait, and the
memories of their last meeting set her blood in flame.
“My God, how light it is! It’s dreadful, but I do love to see his face,
and I do love this fantastic light.... My husband! Oh! yes.... Well,
thank God! everything’s over with him.”