said Alexei Alexandrovich. His face turned red in patches, and his dim eyes looked straight before him. Darya Alexandrovna at that moment pitied him with all her heart. `That indeed was what I did when she herself made known to me my humiliation; I left everything as of old. I gave her a chance to reform, I tried to save her. And with what result? She would not regard the least request - that she should observe decorum,' he said, getting heated. `One may save anyone who does not want to be ruined; but if the whole nature is so corrupt, so depraved, that ruin itself seems to her salvation, what's to be done?'
`Anything, only not divorce!' answered Darya Alexandrovna.
`But what is anything?'
`No, it is awful! She will be no one's wife; she will be lost!'
`What can I do?' said Alexei Alexandrovich, raising his shoulders and his eyebrows. The recollection of his wife's last act had so incensed him that he had become frigid, as at the beginning of the conversation.
`I am very grateful for your sympathy, but I must be going,' he said, getting up.
`No, wait a minute. You must not ruin her. Wait a little; I will tell you about myself. I was married, and my husband deceived me; in anger and jealousy I would have thrown up everything, I would myself... But Icame to myself again; and who did it? Anna saved me. And here I am living on. The children are growing up, my husband has come back to his family, and feels his fault, is growing purer, better, and I live on... I have forgiven it, and you ought to forgive!'
Alexei Alexandrovich heard her, but her words had no effect on him now. All the hatred of that day when he had resolved on a divorce had sprung up again in his soul. He shook himself, and said in a shrill loud voice:
`Forgive I cannot, and do not wish to, and I regard it as wrong.
I have done everything for this woman, and she has trodden it all in the mud to which she is kin. I am not a spiteful man, I have never hated anyone, but I hate her with my whole soul, and I cannot even forgive her, because I hate her too much for all the wrong she has done me!' he said, with tears of hatred in his voice.
`Love those that hate you...' Darya Alexandrovna whispered, timorously.
Alexei Alexandrovich smiled contemptuously. That he knew long ago, but it could not be applied to his case.
`Love those that hate you, but to love those one hates is impossible.
Forgive me for having troubled you. Everyone has enough to bear in his own grief!' And, regaining his self-possession, Alexei Alexandrovich quietly took leave and went away.
[Next Chapter] [Table of Contents]TOLSTOY: Anna Karenina Part 4, Chapter 13[Previous Chapter] [Table of Contents] Chapter 13 When they rose from the table, Levin would have liked to follow Kitty into the drawing room; but he was afraid she might dislike this, as too obviously paying her attention. He remained in the little ring of men, taking part in the general conversation, and, without looking at Kitty, he was aware of her movements, her looks, and the place where she was in the drawing room.
He did at once, and without the smallest effort, keep the promise he had made her - always to think well of all men, and to like everyone always. The conversation fell on the village commune, in which Pestsov saw a sort of special principle, called by him the choral principle. Levin did not agree with Pestsov, nor with his brother, who had a special attitude of his own, both admitting yet not admitting the significance of the Russian commune. But he talked to them, simply trying to reconcile and soften their differences. He was not in the least interested in what he said himself, and even less so in what they said; all he wanted was that they and everyone should be happy and contented. He knew now the one thing of importance;and that one thing was at first there, in the drawing room, and then began moving across, and came to a standstill at the door. Without turning round he felt her eyes fixed on him, and her smile, and he could not help turning round. She was standing in the doorway with Shcherbatsky, looking at Levin.
`I thought you were going toward the piano,' said he, going up to her. `That's something I miss in the country - music.'
`No; we only came to fetch you, and I thank you,' she said, rewarding him with a smile that was like a gift, `for coming. What do they want to argue for? No one ever convinces anyone, you know.'
`Yes; that's true,' said Levin; `it generally happens that one argues warmly simply because one can't make out what one's opponent wants to prove.'
Levin had often noticed in discussions between the most intelligent people that after enormous efforts, and an enormous expenditure of logical subtleties and words, the disputants finally arrived at the realization that what they had so long been struggling to prove to one another had long ago, from the beginning of the argument, been known to both, but that they liked different things, and would not define what they liked for fear of its being attacked. He had often had the experience of suddenly grasping in a discussion what it was his opponent liked and at once liking it too, and immediately he found himself agreeing, and then all arguments fell away as useless. Sometimes, too, he had experienced the opposite, expressing at last what he liked himself, which he was devising arguments to defend, and, chancing to express it well and genuinely, he had found his opponent at once agreeing and ceasing to dispute his position. He tried to say this.
She knit her brow, trying to understand. But directly he began to illustrate his meaning, she understood at once.
`I know: one must find out what he is arguing for, what is precious to him, then one can...'
She had completely guessed and expressed his badly expressed idea.
Levin smiled joyfully; he was struck by this transition from the confused, verbose discussion with Pestsov and his brother to this laconic, clear, almost wordless communication of the most complex ideas.
