‘Is it much further, Michael?’ she asked the clerk, to dispel the thoughts that frightened her.

 

‘They say it’s seven versts from this village.’

 

The calèche was descending the village street to a small bridge. A crowd of merry peasant women, with ready-twisted sheaf-binders hanging from their shoulders, were crossing the bridge, chattering loudly and merrily. The women stopped on the bridge, inquisitively scrutinizing the calèche. All the faces turned toward her seemed to Dolly to be healthy and bright, mocking her with their joy in life. ‘Everybody lives, everybody enjoys living,’ Dolly continued her reflections when, after passing the peasant women and having reached the top of the incline, they were going at a trot, the old calèche comfortably swaying on its soft springs, ‘and I, released as from a prison, from the world that is killing me with its worries, have only now collected my thoughts for a moment. Everybody lives: these women, and my sister Nataly, and Varenka, and Anna to whom I am going, — only not I!

 

‘And they are all down on Anna! What for? Am I better than she? I at least have a husband whom I love. Not as I wished to love, but still I do love him; but Anna did not love hers. In what is she to blame? She wishes to live. God has implanted that need in our souls. It is quite possible I might have done the same. I don’t even know whether I did well to listen to her at that terrible time when she came to me in Moscow. I ought then to have left my husband and begun life anew. I might have loved and been loved, the real way. And is it better now? I don’t respect him. I need him,’ she thought of her husband, ‘and I put up with him. Is that any better? I was still attractive then, still had my good looks,’ she went on, feeling that she wanted to see herself in a glass. She had a small travelling looking-glass in her bag, and felt inclined to take it out; but glancing at the backs of the coachman and the clerk who sat swaying beside him, she knew she would feel ashamed if one of them chanced to look round, and she did not take it out.

 

Yet even without looking in the glass she thought it might not be too late even now. She remembered Koznyshev, who was particularly amiable to her; Stiva’s friend the good-natured Turovtsin, who had helped her nurse her children when they had scarlet fever and who was in love with her; and then there was a very young man who considered — so her husband told her as a joke — that she was the handsomest of the three sisters. And the most passionate and impossible romances occurred to Dolly’s fancy. ‘Anna has acted excellently, and I at any rate shall not reproach her at all. She is happy, she is making another happy and is not dragged down as I am, but she is no doubt as fresh, clever, and frank as ever,’ she thought; and a roguish smile puckered her lips, chiefly because while thinking of Anna’s romance she invented an almost similar romance for herself with an imaginary, collective man who was in love with her. Like Anna, she confessed everything to her husband, and Oblonsky’s surprise and embarrassment at the announcement made her smile.

 

Wrapped in such dreams she reached the turning from the high road, which led to Vozdvizhensk.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 17

 

 

 

—>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<—

 

 

 

THE coachman stopped the horses and looked round toward a field of rye on the right, where some peasants sat beside a cart. The clerk wished to get down, but then, changing his mind, shouted authoritatively and beckoned to a peasant. The breeze, which they had felt while driving, died down when they stopped; and horse-flies settled on the sweating horses, which angrily tried to brush them off. The metallic sound of a scythe being hammered beside the cart ceased, and one of the peasants rose and came toward the calèche.

 

‘Look at him, stuck fast!’ shouted the clerk angrily at the peasant, who was slowly stepping with bare feet over the ruts of the dry, hard-trodden road. ‘Be quick!’

 

The curly-headed old man, with a piece of bast tied round his head, his rounded back dark with perspiration, increased his speed, approaching the calèche and put his sunburnt arm on the mud-guard.

 

‘Vozdvizhensk? The squire’s house? To the Count’s?’ he repeated. ‘There! When you have passed that bend turn to the left, and go right down the drive and you’ll knock up straight against it. But whom do you want? The squire?’

 

‘Are they at home, my good man?’ said Dolly vaguely, not knowing how to speak of Anna even to a peasant.

 

‘I expect so,’ said the peasant, shifting from one bare foot to the other, leaving in the dust a clear imprint of it with its five toes. ‘I expect so,’ he repeated, evidently desiring a talk. ‘More visitors arrived yesterday. Visitors! Just awful. . . . What do you want?’ He turned toward a lad beside the cart who was shouting something. ‘Quite right — a while ago they passed by here on horseback, to see the reaper. Now they must be at home again. And who may you be?’

 

‘We have come a long way,’ replied the coachman, climbing back on to the box. ‘And you say it’s not far?’

 

‘I tell you it’s just there, where you come out,’ and he went on rubbing his hand along the mud-guard of the calèche.

 

A young, healthy-looking, thick-set lad also came up.

 

‘Could I get a job, harvesting?’ he asked.

 

‘I don’t know, my lad.’

 

‘There, you see, when you’ve turned to the left you’ll knock straight up against it,’ said the peasant, evidently unwilling to let them go, and wishing to talk.

 

The coachman started, but hardly had they gone round the corner when the peasants called out to them.

 

‘Stop, friend! Stop!’ shouted two voices.

 

The coachman pulled up.

 

‘They are coming! Here they are themselves!’ cried the man, pointing to four persons on horseback and two in a char-a-banc coming along the road.

 

It was Vronsky with his jockey, Veslovsky and Anna on horseback, and Princess Barbara with Sviyazhsky in the char-a-banc. They had been for a ride and to see some newly-arrived reaping machines in operation.

 

When the calèche pulled up, the riders advanced at walking pace. Anna rode in front beside Veslovsky. She rode quietly, on a small sturdy English cob with a close-cropped mane and short tail. Dolly was struck by the beauty of her head with locks of black hair which had escaped under her top hat, her full shoulders and fine waist in the black riding-habit, and her whole quiet graceful bearing.

 

For a moment she thought it improper for Anna to be riding on horseback. In Dolly’s mind the idea of horse-riding for women was connected with youthful coquetry, which in her opinion was unsuitable to a woman in Anna’s position; but when she saw her closer she at once became reconciled to Anna’s riding. Despite her elegance, everything about Anna — her bearing, clothes and movements — was so simple, quiet, and dignified, that nothing could seem more natural.

 

At Anna’s side, on a heated bay cavalry horse, stretching out his fat legs and evidently admiring himself, rode Vasenka Veslovsky, wearing the Scotch bonnet with waving ribbons, and Dolly could not repress a merry smile on recognizing him. Behind them rode Vronsky. He was on a thoroughbred dark bay, which was obviously heated by galloping, and he was using the reins to hold it in.

 

Behind him rode a short man dressed as a jockey. Sviyazhsky and the Princess Barbara in a new char-a-banc, to which was harnessed a tall trotter, were overtaking the riders.

 

Anna’s face immediately brightened into a joyful smile when she recognized Dolly in the little figure pressed back in a corner of the old calèche. She gave an exclamation, started in her saddle and touched her horse into a gallop. Riding up to the calèche she jumped unaided from the horse and, holding up her habit, ran toward Dolly.

 

‘It’s what I thought, but dared not expect! What a pleasure! You cannot imagine how delighted I am!’ she cried, now pressing her face to Dolly’s and kissing her, now leaning back to gaze smilingly at her.

 

‘What joy, Alexis!’ she said, turning to Vronsky, who had dismounted and was walking toward them.

 

Vronsky, taking off his grey top hat, approached Dolly.

 

‘You can have no idea how pleased we are that you have come,’ he said, putting peculiar emphasis into his words, while a smile exposed his strong white teeth.

 

Vasenka Veslovsky, without dismounting, raised his cap and welcomed the visitor, joyously waving his ribbons above his head.

 

‘That is the Princess Barbara,’ Anna said, in answer to Dolly’s glance of inquiry when the char-a-banc came nearer.

 

‘Oh!’ said Dolly, and her face involuntarily expressed displeasure.

 

The Princess Barbara was her husband’s aunt, she had long known her and did not respect her. She knew that the Princess Barbara had all her life been a hanger-on to various rich relatives; but that she — a relation of Dolly’s husband — should now be living in the house of Vronsky, a perfect stranger to her, offended Dolly. Anna noticed Dolly’s expression, became confused, blushed, let her habit slip out of her hands, and stumbled over it.

 

Dolly walked up to the char-a-banc and coldly greeted Princess Barbara. She was acquainted with Sviyazhsky too. He asked how his friend the crank was getting on with his young wife, and having glanced at the ill-matched horses and the patched mud-guard of the calèche, offered the ladies seats in the char-a-banc.

 

‘I will go in that vehicle,’ he said. ‘My horse is a quiet one, and the Princess drives splendidly.’

 

‘No, stay as you are,’ said Anna, who had also come up, ‘and we two will go in the calèche,’ and giving Dolly her arm she led her away.

 

Dolly was dazzled by the elegant equipage of a kind she had never seen, by the beautiful horses and the elegant, brilliant persons about her. But what struck her most was the change that had taken place in Anna, whom she knew and loved. Another woman less observant, who had not known Anna before, especially one who had not thought the thoughts that were in Dolly’s mind on the way, would not have noticed anything peculiar in Anna. But now Dolly was struck by that temporary beauty which only comes to women in moments of love, and which she now found in Anna’s face. Everything in that face: the definiteness of the dimples on cheeks and chin, the curve of her lips, the smile that seemed to flutter around her face, the light in her eyes, the grace and swiftness of her movements, the fullness of her voice, even the manner in which she replied — half-crossly, half-kindly — to Veslovsky, who asked permission to ride her cob that he might teach it to lead with the right leg when galloping — everything about her was peculiarly attractive, and she seemed to know it and to be glad of it.

 

When the two women took their seats in the calèche, both were seized with shyness. Anna was abashed by the attentively inquiring look Dolly bent upon her; Dolly, after Sviyazhsky’s remark about the ‘vehicle,’ felt involuntarily ashamed of the ramshackle old calèche, in which Anna had taken a seat beside her. Philip the coachman and the clerk shared that feeling. The clerk, to hide his embarrassment, bustled about, helping the ladies in, but Philip became morose and made up his mind not to be imposed upon by this external superiority. He smiled ironically as he glanced at the raven trotter of the char-a-banc, deciding that that horse was good for nothing but a promenade, and could not do its forty versts on a hot day at one go.

 

The peasants beside the cart all got up and looked with merry curiosity at the visitor, making their own comments.

 

‘Glad they are: have not met for a long time!’ said the curly-haired old man with the piece of bast tied round his head.

 

‘There now, Uncle Gerasim! That raven gelding would cart the sheaves in no time.’

 

‘Just look! Is that a woman in breeches?’ cried one, pointing to Vasenka Veslovsky, who was getting into the side-saddle.

 

‘No, it’s a man. See how easily he jumped up!’

 

‘I say, lads! It seems we are not to have a sleep!’

 

‘What chance of a sleep to-day?’ said the old man, blinking at the sun. ‘It’s too late! Take your scythes and let’s get to work.’

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 18

 

 

 

—>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<—

 

 

 

ANNA was looking at Dolly’s thin wan face with its dust-filled wrinkles, and wishing to tell her just what she thought: that Dolly looked thinner and worse. But remembering that her own looks had improved and that Dolly’s eyes had told her so, she sighed and began talking about herself.

 

‘You are looking at me,’ she said, ‘and wondering whether I can be happy, placed as I am? Well, what do you think? I am ashamed to confess it, but I . . . I am unforgivably happy! Something magical has happened to me: like a dream when one feels frightened and creepy, and suddenly wakes up to the knowledge that no such terrors exist. I have wakened up! I have lived through sufferings and terrors, but for a long time past — especially since we came here — I have been happy! . . .’ she said, looking at Dolly timidly and with a questioning smile.

 

‘I am so glad!’ answered Dolly, smiling, but in a colder tone than she intended. ‘I am very glad for your sake. Why did you not write to me?’

 

‘Why? . . . Because I did not dare . . . you forget my position.’

 

‘To me? You dared not? If only you knew how I . . . I consider . . .’

 

Dolly wanted to tell Anna what she had been thinking that morning; but for some reason it now seemed out of place. ‘However, we will talk about all that later. What is this? What are all those buildings? Quite a town!’ she asked, to change the subject, pointing to the red and green roofs visible above a living green wall of acacias and lilacs.

 

But Anna did not answer her.

 

‘No, no! What view do you take of my position? What do you think? What?’ she asked.

 

‘I imagine . . .’ Dolly began; but at that moment Vasenka Veslovsky, who had got the cob to lead with the right foot, galloped past in his short jacket, bumping heavily on the leathers of the side-saddle. ‘It goes all right, Anna Arkadyevna!’ he shouted. Anna did not even glance at him; but it still seemed to Dolly out of place to begin to discuss this big subject in the calèche, so she briefly replied:

 

‘I don’t take any view. I always loved you, and if one loves, one loves the whole person as he or she is, and not as one might wish them to be.’

 

Anna, turning her eyes away from her friend and screwing them up (this was a new habit of hers and unfamiliar to Dolly), grew thoughtful, trying thoroughly to grasp the meaning of the remark. Having evidently understood it in the sense she wished, she glanced at Dolly.

 

‘If you had any sins,’ she said, ‘they would all be forgiven you for coming here and for those words!’

 

And Dolly noticed that tears had started to her eyes. She silently pressed Anna’s hand.

 

‘But what are those buildings? What a lot of them there are!’ said she after a moment’s silence, repeating her question.

 

‘They are the employees’ houses, the stud farm, and the stables,’ answered Anna. ‘And here the park begins. Everything had been neglected, but Alexis has had it all renovated. He is very fond of this estate, and — a thing I never expected of him — he is quite enthusiastic in managing the place. But of course his is such a talented nature! Whatever he takes up, he does splendidly! He is not only not bored, but passionately engrossed in his occupations. He has grown into a first-rate, prudent landlord, as I recognize; in farming matters he is even stingy, but only in farming. Where it is a question of thousands he does not count them,’ she said, with that joyous sly smile with which women often speak of the secret characteristics, discovered by them alone, of the man they love. ‘Do you see that big building? It is the new hospital. I think it will cost more than a hundred thousand roubles. That is his hobby just now. And do you know why he started it? The peasants asked him to let them some meadows at a reduced rent, I think, and he refused, and I reproached him with being stingy. Of course it was not that alone, but one thing with another caused him to start that hospital, to show, you know, that he is not stingy. C’est une petitesse [It is pettiness] if you like, but I love him the better for it! And now you will see the house in a moment. It was his grandfather’s, and it has not been altered at all on the outside.’

 

‘How fine!’ said Dolly, looking with involuntary surprise at a handsome house with a row of columns standing out among the variously tinted foliage of the old trees in the garden.

 

‘It is fine, is it not? And from upstairs the view is wonderful.’

 

They drove into a gravelled courtyard surrounded by flowers, where two men were making a border of rough porous stones round a well-forked flower-bed, and stopped beneath a roofed portico.

 

‘Ah, they’ve already arrived,’ said Anna, looking at the horses that were being led away from the front door. ‘Don’t you think that one is a beautiful horse? It is a cob, my favourite. . . . Bring it here, and get me some sugar. Where is the Count?’ she asked the two elegant footmen who had rushed out. ‘Ah, there he is!’ she went on, seeing Vronsky and Veslovsky coming out to meet her.

 

‘In which room are you putting the Princess?’ Vronsky asked in French, addressing Anna, and without waiting for her answer he once more welcomed Dolly, and this time he kissed her hand. ‘The large room with the balcony, I should think.’

 

‘Oh no! That’s too far off! The corner room will be better, we shall see more of one another there. Well, let’s go in,’ said Anna, who had given her favourite horse the sugar the footman had brought.

 

‘Et vous oubliez votre devoir [And you forget your duty],’ said she to Veslovsky, who was also standing in the portico.

 

‘Pardon! J’en ai tout plein les poches [Pardon me, my pockets are full of it],’ he answered with a smile, plunging his fingers into his waistcoat pocket.

 

‘Mais vous venez trop tard [But you have come too late],’ she said, wiping with her handkerchief the hand which the horse had wetted as it took the sugar.

 

Anna turned to Dolly. ‘How long can you stay? Only a day! That’s impossible.’

 

‘I have promised . . . and the children,’ answered Dolly, feeling embarrassed because she had to get her bag out of the calèche and because she knew her face was covered with dust.

 

‘No, Dolly darling! . . . Well, we will see. Come! Come along!’ and Anna led the way to Dolly’s room.

 

It was not the grand room that Vronsky had suggested, but one for which Anna apologized to Dolly. And this room needing an apology was full of luxuries, such as Dolly had never lived among, which reminded her of the best hotels abroad.

 

‘Well, dearest! How happy I am!’ said Anna, who in her riding-habit had sat down for a moment beside Dolly. ‘Tell me about yourselves. I meet Stiva in passing, but he can’t tell me about the children. How is my pet, Tanya? Grown a big girl, I suppose?’

 

‘Yes, quite big,’ answered Dolly shortly, and was herself surprised that she could talk so coldly about her children. ‘We are very comfortable at the Levins’,’ she added.

 

‘There now! Had I only known that you don’t despise me . . .’ said Anna, ‘you should all have come to us. You know Stiva and Alexis are old and great friends,’ she added and suddenly blushed.

 

‘Yes, but we are so comfortable . . .’ answered Dolly with embarrassment.

 

‘However, my joy makes me talk nonsense! But really, dear, I am so glad to see you,’ said Anna, kissing her again. ‘You have not yet told me how and what you think about me, and I want to know everything. But I am glad that you will see me just as I am. Above all, I don’t want you to think that I wish to prove anything. I don’t want to prove anything: simply I wish to live, not hurting anyone but myself. I have a right to do that, have I not? However, that needs a long talk, and we will talk it all well over later. Now I will go and dress and send you the maid.’