Anna Karenina (Literature Classics Series). Leo Tolstoy

But since the gauntlet had been thrown down, he would take it up boldly and would demand the appointment of a special Committee to investigate and report upon the work of the Committee of Irrigation in the Zaraysk Province, but at the same time he would not yield an inch to those gentlemen who had raised the question. He would demand the appointment of a special Committee to inquire into the case of the subject races in that province. The case of the subject races had been accidentally raised at the Committee of June 2nd and had been energetically insisted on by Karenin, as a matter of urgency in view of their wretched condition. At the Committee this question had caused conflict between several Ministries. The Ministry opposed to Karenin had argued that the condition of the subject races was most flourishing and that the projected rearrangement might destroy their prosperity, while, if there was really anything unsatisfactory, it all resulted from the neglect by Karenin’s Department of the measures prescribed by the law. Now Karenin meant to demand, first, that a new Commission should be formed to investigate locally the conditions of the subject races; secondly, should those conditions prove to be such as they appeared to be from the official reports already received, that another scientific Commission should be appointed to study the causes of this deplorable condition of the subject races, in the following aspects: (a) Political, (b) Administrative, (c) Economic, (d) Ethnographic, (e) Material, and (f) Religious; thirdly, that information should be demanded from the hostile Department concerning the measures it had taken during the last ten years to avert the unfavourable conditions to which the subject races were now exposed; and fourthly, that the Department in question should be required to explain why it had acted in direct contradiction to the meaning of the fundamental and organic law (Vol. — , Article 18, and footnote to Article 36), as appeared from the statements submitted to the Committee and numbered 17015 and 18308, of 5th December 1863 and 7th June 1864. A flush of animation suffused Karenin’s face as he rapidly wrote out a summary of these ideas. Having covered a sheet of foolscap he rose, rang, and sent off a note to his Chief Secretary, asking for some necessary references that had to be looked up.

      After walking up and down the room he again looked at the portrait, frowned, and smiled contemptuously. He once more took up the book on the Eugubine Tables, and, having reawakened an interest in them, at eleven o’clock went to bed, and when as he lay there he remembered what had occurred with his wife, it no longer appeared to him in such gloomy colours.

      Chapter 15

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      THOUGH Anna had angrily and obstinately contradicted Vronsky when he said that her position was an impossible one, in the depths of her soul she felt that the situation was a false one and wished with all her heart to put an end to it. On her way back from the races, in a moment of excitement — in spite of the pain it caused her — she had told her husband everything, and she was glad she had done so. After he left her, she told herself that she was glad she had told him, that now everything would be definite — at any rate, the falsehood and deception would no longer exist. She thought it quite certain that her position would be cleared up for good. Her new position might be a bad one but it would be definite, and there would be no vagueness or falsehood. The pain she had inflicted on herself and her husband would now, she thought, be compensated for by the fact that the matter would be settled. She saw Vronsky that same evening, but did not tell him what had passed between her and her husband, though he would have to be told before her position could be settled.

      When she woke up in the morning the first thing that came into her mind was what she had said to her husband, and it now appeared so terrible that she could not understand how she had been able to utter such strange and coarse words and could not imagine what result they would have. But the words had been spoken and Karenin had gone away without saying anything.

      ‘I saw Vronsky and did not tell him. Just as he was going away I wished to call him back and tell him, but changed my mind, because my not having done so at first would have appeared strange. Why did I not tell him?’

      And in answer to this question a hot blush of shame spread all over her face. She knew what had stopped her, knew she had been ashamed. The situation which the night before had appeared to be clearing up now seemed quite hopeless. She dreaded the disgrace, which she had not considered before.

      When she thought of what her husband would do, the most terrible fancies came into her head. She fancied that presently the steward would come and turn her out of the house and that her disgrace would be proclaimed to all the world. She asked herself where she would go when turned out, and found no answer.

      When she thought about Vronsky, she imagined that he did not love her, that he was beginning to find her a burden, and that she could not offer herself to him; and in consequence she felt hostile toward him. She felt as if the words she had used to her husband, which she kept repeating in imagination, had been said by her to every one and that every one had heard them.

      She had not the courage to look into the eyes of the people she lived with. She could not make up her mind to call her maid, and still less to go down and face her son and his governess.

      The maid, who had long been listening at the door, at last came in of her own accord. Anna looked inquiringly into her eyes and blushed with alarm. The maid begged pardon and said she thought she had heard the bell.

      She brought a dress and a note. The note was from Betsy, who reminded her that she (Betsy) was that day expecting Lisa Merkalova and the Baroness Stolz, with their admirers Kaluzhsky and old Stremov, to a game of croquet.

      ‘Do come, if only to study manners and customs. I expect you,’ she wrote in conclusion.

      Anna read the note and sighed deeply.

      ‘I don’t want anything, anything at all,’ she said to Annushka, who was moving the bottles and brushes on the dressing-table. ‘I will get dressed and come down at once. I want nothing, nothing at all.’

      Annushka went out, but Anna did not get dressed. She remained in the same position with head and arms drooping. Every now and then her whole body shuddered as she tried to make some movement or to say something, and then became rigid again. ‘Oh, my God! My God!’ she kept repeating, but neither the word God or my had any meaning for her. The thought of seeking comfort in religion, though she had never doubted the truth of the religion in which she had been brought up, was as foreign to her as asking Karenin for help would have been. She knew that she could find no help in religion unless she was prepared to give up that which alone gave a meaning to her life. She was not only disturbed, but was beginning to be afraid of a new mental condition such as she had never before experienced. She felt as if everything was being doubled in her soul, just as objects appear doubled to weary eyes. Sometimes she could not tell what she feared and what she desired. Whether she feared and desired what had been, or what would be, and what it was she desired she did not know.

      ‘Oh, dear! What am I doing!’ she said to herself suddenly, feeling pain in both sides of her head. When she came to her senses she found that she was clutching her hair and pressing her temples with both hands. She jumped up and began pacing up and down the room.

      ‘Coffee is ready, and Ma’m’selle and Serezha are waiting,’ said Annushka, coming in again and finding Anna in the same position.

      ‘Serezha? What of Serezha?’ Anna asked, reviving suddenly, as for the first time that morning she remembered the existence of her son.

      ‘It seems he has got into trouble,’ answered Annushka with a smile.

      ‘Into trouble, how?’

      ‘You had some peaches in the corner room; it seems he has eaten one of them on the quiet.’

      The thought of her son at once took Anna out of the hopeless condition she had been in. She remembered that partly sincere but greatly exaggerated rôle of a mother living for her son which she had assumed during the last five years; and felt with joy that in the position in which she found herself she had still one stay, independent of her relations with her husband and Vronsky. That stay was her son. Whatever position she might accept she could not give up her son.