‘No, he understands, he understood!’ Dolly interrupted. ‘But I ... you’re forgetting me ... is it any easier for me?’
‘Wait. When he was telling me about it, I confess, I still didn’t understand all the horror of your position. I saw only him and that the family was upset; I felt sorry for him, but, talking with you, as a woman I see something else; I see your sufferings, and I can’t tell you how sorry I am for you! But, Dolly, darling, though I fully understand your sufferings, there’s one thing I don’t know: I don’t know ... I don’t know how much love for him there still is in your soul. Only you know whether it’s enough to be able to forgive. If it is, then forgive him!’
‘No,’ Dolly began; but Anna interrupted her, kissing her hand once more.
‘I know more of the world than you do,’ she said. ‘I know how people like Stiva look at it. You say he talked with her about you. That never happened. These people may be unfaithful, but their hearth and wife are sacred to them. Somehow for them these women remain despised and don’t interfere with the family. Between them and the family they draw some sort of line that can’t be crossed. I don’t understand it, but it’s so.’
‘Yes, but he kissed her ...’
‘Dolly, wait, darling. I saw Stiva when he was in love with you. I remember the time when he would come to me and weep, talking about you, and what loftiness and poetry you were for him, and I know that the longer he lived with you, the loftier you became for him. We used to laugh at him, because he added “Dolly is a remarkable woman” to every word. You are and always have been a divinity for him, and this infatuation is not from his soul ...’
‘But if this infatuation repeats itself?’
‘It can’t, as I understand it ...’
‘Yes, but would you forgive?’
‘I don’t know, I can’t judge ... No, I can,’ said Anna, after some reflection; and having mentally grasped the situation and weighed it on her inner balance, she added: ‘No, I can, I can. Yes, I would forgive. I wouldn’t be the same, no, but I would forgive, and forgive in such a way as if it hadn’t happened, hadn’t happened at all.’
‘Well, naturally,’ Dolly quickly interrupted, as if she were saying something she had thought more than once, ‘otherwise it wouldn’t be forgiveness. If you forgive, it’s completely, completely. Well, come along, I’ll take you to your room,’ she said, getting up, and on the way Dolly embraced Anna. ‘My dear, I’m so glad you’ve come. I feel better, so much better.’
XX
That whole day Anna spent at home, that is, at the Oblonskys‘, and did not receive anyone, though some of her acquaintances, having learned of her arrival, called that same day. Anna spent the morning with Dolly and the children. She only sent a little note to her brother, telling him to be sure to dine at home. ‘Come, God is merciful,’ she wrote.
Oblonsky dined at home; the conversation was general, and his wife spoke to him, addressing him familiarly, something she had not done recently. There remained the same estrangement in the relations between husband and wife, but there was no longer any talk of separation, and Stepan Arkadyich could see the possibility of discussion and reconciliation.
Just after dinner Kitty arrived. She knew Anna Arkadyevna, but only slightly, and she now came to her sister’s not without fear of how she would be received by this Petersburg society lady whom everyone praised so much. But Anna Arkadyevna liked her, she saw that at once. Anna obviously admired her beauty and youth, and before Kitty could recover she felt that she was not only under her influence but in love with her, as young girls are capable of being in love with older married ladies. Anna did not look like a society lady or the mother of an eight-year-old son, but in the litheness of her movements, the freshness and settled animation of her face, which broke through now as a smile, now as a glance, would have looked more like a twenty-year-old girl had it not been for the serious, sometimes sad expression of her eyes, which struck Kitty and drew her to Anna. Kitty felt that Anna was perfectly simple and kept nothing hidden, but that there was in her some other, higher world of interests, inaccessible to her, complex and poetic.
After dinner, when Dolly went to her room, Anna quickly got up and went over to her brother, who was lighting a cigar.
‘Stiva,’ she said to him, winking merrily, making a cross over him, and indicating the door with her eyes. ‘Go, and God help you.’
He understood her, abandoned his cigar and disappeared through the door.
When Stepan Arkadyich had gone, she returned to the sofa, where she sat surrounded with children. Whether because the children had seen that their mother loved this aunt, or because they themselves felt a special charm in her, the elder two, and after them the young ones, as often happens with children, had clung to the new aunt even before dinner and would not leave her side. Something like a game was set up among them, which consisted in sitting as close as possible to her, touching her, holding her small hand, kissing her, playing with her ring or at least touching the flounce of her dress.
‘Well, well, the way we sat earlier,’ said Anna Arkadyevna, sitting back down in her place.
And again Grisha put his head under her arm and leaned it against her dress and beamed with pride and happiness.
‘So, now, when is the ball?’ she turned to Kitty.
‘Next week, and a wonderful ball. One of those balls that are always merry.’
‘And are there such balls, where it’s always merry?’ Anna said with tender mockery.
‘Strange, but there are. At the Bobrishchevs’ it’s always merry, and also at the Nikitins’, but at the Mezhkovs’ it’s always boring. Haven’t you noticed?’
‘No, dear heart, for me there are no longer any balls that are merry,’ said Anna, and Kitty saw in her eyes that special world that was not open to her. ‘For me there are those that are less difficult and boring ...’
‘How can you be bored at a ball?’
‘Why can’t I be bored at a ball?’ asked Anna.
Kitty noticed that Anna knew the answer that would follow.
‘Because you’re always the best of all.’
Anna was capable of blushing. She blushed and said:
‘First of all, I never am, and second, if it were so, what do I need it for?’
‘Will you go to this ball?’ asked Kitty.
‘I suppose it will be impossible not to go. Take it,’ she said to Tanya, who was pulling the easily slipped-off ring from her white, tapering finger.
‘I’ll be very glad if you go. I’d like so much to see you at a ball.’
‘At least, if I do go, I’ll be comforted at the thought that it will give you pleasure ... Grisha, don’t fuss with it, please, it’s all dishevelled as it is,’ she said, straightening a stray lock of hair Grisha was playing with.
‘I imagine you in lilac at the ball.’
‘Why must it be lilac?’ Anna asked, smiling. ‘Well, children, off you go, off you go. Do you hear? Miss Hull is calling you for tea,’ she said, tearing the children from her and sending them to the dining room.
‘And I know why you’re inviting me to the ball. You expect a lot from this ball, and you want everyone to be there, you want everyone to take part.’
‘Yes. How do you know?’
‘Oh! how good to be your age,’ Anna went on. ‘I remember and know that blue mist, the same as in the mountains in Switzerland. The mist that envelops everything during the blissful time when childhood is just coming to an end, and the path away from that vast, cheerful and happy circle grows narrower and narrower, and you feel cheerful and eerie entering that suite of rooms, though it seems bright and beautiful ... Who hasn’t gone through that?’