Vronsky noticed that Betsy's enthusiasm waned when she learned that no divorce had as yet taken place.
`People will cast a stone at me, I know,' she said, `but I shall come and see Anna; yes, I shall certainly come. You won't be here long, I suppose?'
And she did certainly come to see Anna the same day, but her tone was not at all the same as in former days. She unmistakably prided herself on her courage, and wished Anna to appreciate the fidelity of her friendship.
She only stayed ten minutes, talking of society news, and on leaving she said:
`You've never told me when the divorce is to be? Supposing I'm ready to fling my cap over the mill, other starchy people will give you the cold shoulder until you're married. And that's so simple nowadays.
Ca se fait. So you're going on Friday? Sorry we shan't see each other again.'
From Betsy's tone Vronsky might have grasped what he had to expect from the world; but he made another effort in his own family. His mother he did not reckon upon. He knew that his mother, who had been so enthusiastic over Anna at their first acquaintance, would have no mercy on her now for having ruined her son's career. But he had more hope of Varia, his brother's wife. He fancied she would not cast a stone, and would go simply and directly to see Anna, and would receive her in her own house.
The day after his arrival Vronsky went to her, and finding her alone, expressed his wishes directly.
`You know, Alexei,' she said after hearing him, `how fond I am of you, and how ready I am to do anything for you; but I have not spoken, because I knew I could be of no use to you and to Anna Arkadyevna,' she said, articulating the name `Anna Arkadyevna' with particular care. `Don't suppose, please, that I judge her. Never! Perhaps in her place I should have done the same. I don't and can't enter into that,' she said, glancing timidly at his gloomy face. `But one must call things by their names. You want me to go and see her, to ask her here, and to rehabilitate her in society; but do understand that I cannot do so. I have daughters growing up, and I must live in the world for my husband's sake. Well, I'm ready to come and see Anna Arkadyevna - she will understand that I can't ask her here, or I should have to do so in such a way that she would not meet people who look at things differently; that would offend her. I can't raise her...'
`Oh, I don't regard her as having fallen more than hundreds of women you do receive!' Vronsky interrupted her still more gloomily, and he got up in silence, understanding that his sister-in-law's decision was not to be shaken.
`Alexei! Don't be angry with me. Please understand that I'm not to blame,' began Varia, looking at him with a timid smile.
`I'm not angry with you,' he said still as gloomily; `but this is doubly painful to me. I'm sorry, too, that this means breaking up our friendship - if not breaking up, at least weakening it. You will understand that for me, too, it cannot be otherwise.'
And with that he left her.
Vronsky knew that further efforts were useless, and that he had to spend these few days in Peterburg as though in a strange town, avoiding every sort of relation with his own old circle in order not to be exposed to the annoyances and humiliations which were so intolerable to him. One of the most unpleasant features of his position in Peterburg was that Alexei Alexandrovich and his name seemed to meet him everywhere. He could not begin to talk of anything without the conversation turning on Alexei Alexandrovich, he could not go anywhere without risk of meeting him. So at least it seemed to Vronsky, just as it seems to a man with a sore finger that he is continually, as though on purpose, grazing his sore finger against everything.
Their stay in Peterburg was the more painful to Vronsky because he perceived all the time a sort of new mood he could not understand in Anna. At one time she would seem in love with him, and the next she would become cold, irritable, and impenetrable. She was worrying over something, and keeping something back from him, and did not seem to notice the humiliations which poisoned his existence, and which for her, with her delicate intuition, must have been still more unbearable.
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TOLSTOY: Anna Karenina Part 5, Chapter 29[Previous Chapter] [Table of Contents] Chapter 29 One of Anna's objects in coming back to Russia had been to see her son.
From the day she left Italy the thought of seeing him had never ceased to agitate her. And, as she got nearer to Peterburg, the delight and importance of this meeting grew ever greater in her imagination. She did not even put to herself the problem of how to arrange it. It seemed to her natural and simple to see her son when she should be in the same town with him.
But on her arrival in Peterburg she was suddenly made distinctly aware of her present position in society, and she grasped the fact that to arrange this meeting was no easy matter.
She had now been two days in Peterburg. The thought of her son never left her for a single instant, but she had not yet seen him. To go straight to the house, where she might meet Alexei Alexandrovich - that she felt she had no right to do. She might be refused admittance and insulted.
To write and so enter into relations with her husband - the thought of doing that made her miserable; she could only be at peace when she did not think of her husband. To get a glimpse of her son out walking, finding out where and when he went out, was not enough for her; she had so looked forward to this meeting, she had so much she must say to him, she so longed to embrace him, to kiss him. Seriozha's old nurse might be a help to her and show her what to do. But the nurse was not now living in Alexei Alexandrovich's house. In this uncertainty, and in efforts to find the nurse, two days had slipped by.
