‘Oh yes, I know him. I could not look at him without pity. We both know him. He is kind-hearted, but he is proud too, and now he is so humiliated. What moved me most is … (and here Anna guessed what would touch Dolly most) that two things tormented him. He is ashamed of the children, and that, loving you … yes, yes, loving you more than anything else in the world,’ she hurriedly went on, not listening to Dolly who was about to reply, ‘he has hurt you, hit you so hard. He kept saying, “No, no, she will not forgive me!” ’
Dolly, gazing beyond her sister-in-law, listened thoughtfully.
‘Yes, I understand that his position is dreadful; it is worse for the guilty than for the innocent one,’ she said, ‘if he feels that the misfortune all comes from his fault. But how can I forgive him, how can I be a wife to him after her? … Life with him now will be a torture for me, just because I love my old love for him …’ Sobs cut short her words.
But as if intentionally every time she softened, she again began to speak of the thing that irritated her.
‘You know she is young, she is pretty,’ she said. ‘You see, Anna, my youth and my good looks have been sacrificed, and to whom? For him and his children. I have served his purpose and lost all I had in the service, and of course a fresh, good-for-nothing creature now pleases him better. They probably talked about me, or, worse still, avoided the subject… . You understand?’
And hatred again burned in her eyes.
‘And after that he will tell me… . Am I to believe him? Never… . No, it’s all ended, all that served as a consolation, as a reward for my labours, my sufferings… . Will you believe me, I have just been teaching Grisha: it used to be a pleasure, and now it is a torment. What is the good of my taking pains, of working so hard? What use are the children? It is terrible, my soul has so revolted that instead of love and tenderness for him I have nothing but anger left, yes, anger. I could kill him …’
‘Dolly dearest! I understand, but don’t torture yourself. You are so deeply hurt, so upset, that you see many things in the wrong light.’
Dolly was silent, and for a moment or two neither spoke.
‘What am I to do? Think it over, Anna, help me! I have turned over in my mind everything I could think of, and can find nothing.’
Anna could not think of anything, but her heart responded to every word and every look of Dolly’s.
‘All I can say is,’ began Anna, ‘I am his sister and I know his character, his capacity for forgetting everything,’ she made a gesture with her hand in front of her forehead, ‘that capacity for letting himself be completely carried away, but on the other hand for completely repenting. He can hardly believe now — can hardly understand — how he could do it.’
‘No, he understands and understood,’ Dolly interrupted. ‘And I … you forget me … Does it make it easier for me?’
‘Wait a bit. When he was speaking to me, I confess I did not quite realize the misery of your position. I saw only his side, and that the family was upset, and I was sorry for him, but now having spoken with you I as a woman see something else. I see your suffering and I cannot tell you how sorry I am for you. But, Dolly dearest, I fully understand your sufferings — yet there is one thing I do not know. I do not know … I do not know how much love there still is in your soul — you alone know that. Is there enough for forgiveness? If there is — then forgive him.’
‘No,’ Dolly began, but Anna stopped her and again kissed her hand.
‘I know the world better than you do,’ she said. ‘I know men like Stiva and how they see these things. You think he spoke to her about you. That never happens. These men may be unfaithful, but their homes, their wives, are their holy places. They manage in some way to hold these women in contempt and don’t let them interfere with the family. They seem to draw some kind of line between the family and those others. I do not understand it, but it is so.’
‘Yes, but he kissed her …’
‘Dolly, wait a bit. I have seen Stiva when he was in love with you. I remember his coming to me and weeping (what poetry and high ideals you were bound up with in his mind!), and I know the longer he lived with you the higher you rose in his esteem. You know we used to laugh at him because his every third word was, “Dolly is a wonderful woman.” You have been and still are his divinity, and this infatuation never reached his soul… .’
‘But suppose the infatuation is repeated?’
‘It cannot be, as I understand …’
‘And you, would you forgive?’
‘I do not know, I cannot judge… . Yes, I can,’ said Anna, after a minute’s consideration. Her mind had taken in and weighed the situation, and she added, ‘Yes, I can, I can. Yes, I should forgive. I should not remain the same woman — no, but I should forgive, and forgive it as utterly as if it had never happened at all.’
‘Well, of course …’ Dolly put in quickly as if saying what she had often herself thought, ‘or else it would not be forgiveness. If one is to forgive, it must be entire forgiveness. Well now, I will show you your room.’ She rose, and on the way embraced Anna. ‘My dear, how glad I am you came! I feel better now, much better.’
Chapter 20
THE whole of that day Anna remained at home, that is at the Oblonskys’ house, and did not receive anybody, although several of her acquaintances who had heard of her arrival came to see her. She spent the earlier part of the day with Dolly and the children, and sent a note to her brother to be sure and come home to dinner. ‘Come,’ she wrote. ‘God is merciful.’
Oblonsky dined at home, the conversation was general, and his wife addressed him familiarly in the second person singular, which she had not done all these days. There was still the same estrangement in their manner to each other, but no longer any question of separating, and Oblonsky saw that explanation and reconciliation were possible.
Immediately after dinner Kitty came. She knew Anna, but only slightly, and came to her sister’s not without fear of how she might be received by this Petersburg Society woman whom everybody admired so much. But she noticed at once that Anna liked her. It was evident that her beauty and youth gave Anna pleasure, and before Kitty had time to regain her self-possession she felt not only that she was under Anna’s influence but that she was in love with her, as young girls often are with married women older than themselves. Anna was not like a Society woman or the mother of an eight-year-old son. The flexibility of her figure, her freshness, and the natural animation of her face appearing now in her smile, now in her eyes, would have made her look more like a girl of twenty had it not been for a serious and sometimes even sad expression in her eyes which struck Kitty and attracted her. Kitty felt that Anna was perfectly unaffected and was not trying to conceal anything, but that she lived in another, higher world full of complex poetic interests beyond Kitty’s reach.
After dinner, when Dolly had gone to her own room, Anna got up quickly and went to her brother who was just lighting a cigar.
‘Stiva,’ she said to him with a merry twinkle in her eye and making the sign of the cross over him as she indicated the door with a look. ‘Go, and may God help you.’ He understood, threw down his cigar, and disappeared through the door.
When Oblonsky had gone, she returned to the sofa where she had been sitting surrounded by the children. Whether because they saw that ‘Mama’ was fond of this aunt, or because they themselves felt her peculiar charm, first the two older children and then the younger ones, as is often the way with children, had even before dinner begun clinging to her, and now would not leave her side. And they started something like a game which consisted in trying to get as close to her as possible, to touch her, hold her