Here, looking at her bureau, with the malachite blotter and a note she had begun sitting on top of it, his thoughts suddenly changed. He began to think about her, and about what she was thinking and feeling. For the first time he conjured up a vivid picture of her personal life, her thoughts and her desires, but the idea that she could and should have her own private life was so alarming to him that he hastened to drive it away. This was the abyss he was afraid of peering into. Putting himself into the thoughts and feelings of another person was a mental activity alien to Alexey Alexandrovich. He regarded this mental activity as pernicious, dangerous daydreaming.
‘And the worst thing of all’, he thought, ‘is that this pointless worry should befall me precisely now, when my work is nearing completion’—he was thinking of the project he was trying to launch just then—‘and when I need all the peace and inner strength I can muster. But what is to be done? I’m not one of those people who suffer anxiety and worry and lack the strength to confront them.’
‘I must think it over, come to a decision, and put it out of my mind,’ he said aloud.
‘Questions regarding her feelings, about what has gone on and might be going on in her soul are not my concern; they are a concern for her conscience, and appertain to religion,’ he told himself, feeling relief in the awareness that he had found the point in the statutes which covered the newly arisen circumstance.
‘And so questions about her feelings and so on,’ Alexey Alexandrovich said to himself, ‘are essentially questions for her conscience, which can be no concern of mine. But my duty is clearly defined. As the head of the family, I am the person whose duty it is to guide her, and therefore I am a person with a certain amount of responsibility; I must point out the danger I can see, caution her, and even exert my authority. I must be frank with her.’
And everything Alexey Alexandrovich planned to say to his wife now took clear shape in his head. As he thought over what he would say, he regretted that he would have to use his time and mental energy for domestic purposes, with so little to show for it; nevertheless, the form and sequence of the things he was going to say clearly and distinctly assembled themselves in his head, like a memorandum. ‘I must say and clearly articulate the following: firstly, explain the significance of public opinion and decorum; secondly, explain the religious significance of marriage; thirdly, if necessary, indicate the possible unhappiness for our son; fourthly, indicate her own unhappiness.’ And, interlocking his fingers, palms downwards, Alexey Alexandrovich stretched them, and the knuckles of his fingers cracked.
This gesture—the bad habit of joining his hands together and making his fingers crack—always soothed him and introduced a semblance of order, which he now so badly needed. A carriage could be heard driving up to the front door. Alexey Alexandrovich stood still in the middle of the drawing room.
A woman’s footsteps came up the stairs. Ready with his speech, Alexey Alexandrovich stood clenching his interlocked fingers to see if there would be another crack somewhere. Another knuckle did crack.
He could already feel her approaching from the sound of her light steps on the stairs, and although he was satisfied with his speech, he began to dread the impending discussion …
9
ANNA was playing with the tassels of her hood as she walked, her head bent. Her face radiated a bright glow, but it was not a merry glow—it was reminiscent of the terrible glow of a conflagration in the middle of a dark night. Seeing her husband, Anna lifted her head and smiled, as though she was waking up.
‘You’re not in bed? That’s a miracle!’ she said, throwing off her hood and proceeding, without stopping, into the dressing room. ‘It’s time to turn in, Alexey Alexandrovich,’ she called out from behind the door.
‘Anna, I need to talk to you.’
‘To me?’ she said in surprise before emerging from behind the door and looking at him.
‘Yes.’
‘What is going on? What is this about?’ she asked, sitting down. ‘Well, let’s talk, if we need to. But it would be better to go to sleep.’
Anna was saying whatever came to her lips, and as she listened to herself, she was surprised at her capacity for lying. How simple and natural her words were, and how convincing it seemed that she was just sleepy! She felt she was clad in the impenetrable armour of falsehood. She felt that some kind of unseen force was helping her and supporting her.
‘Anna, I must caution you,’ he said.
‘Caution me?’ she said. ‘About what?’
She looked at him so ingenuously and merrily that anyone who did not know her as her husband knew her would have been unable to notice anything unnatural, either in the sound or the meaning of her words. But it meant a great deal to him, knowing her as he did—knowing that she would always notice whenever he went to bed five minutes later than usual and ask the reason why, knowing that she would immediately share with him all her joys, amusements, and sorrows—to see now that she did not want to notice his state of mind, or say a single word about herself. He saw that the recesses of her soul, which had been open to him before, were now closed to him. Moreover, he realized from her tone that she was not even perturbed by this, and it was as if she were telling him directly: ‘Yes, closed, that’s how it should be, and will be from now on.’ The sensation he was experiencing now was like that which might be experienced by someone who has returned home and found his house locked. ‘But perhaps the key may yet be found,’ thought Alexey Alexandrovich.
‘I want to caution you,’ he said in a quiet voice, ‘that through imprudence and a lack of responsibility you may give society reason to talk about you. Your excessively lively conversation this evening with Count Vronsky’—he pronounced this name with slow, clear deliberation—‘attracted attention.’
While he was talking, he looked at her laughing eyes, whose impenetrability now frightened him, and felt the sheer futility and pointlessness of his words as he was speaking them.
‘You’re always like this,’ she answered, as though completely failing to understand him, and wilfully only understanding the last thing he said. ‘You don’t like it when I am glum, and you don’t like it when I am in high spirits. I wasn’t bored. Does that offend you?’
Alexey Alexandrovich shuddered, and he bent his hands back to make the knuckles crack.