第90章

Alexei Alexandrovich went up to Anna and courteously offered her his arm.

`Let us go, if you like,' he said in French, but Anna was listening to the general and did not notice her husband.

`He's broken his leg too, so they say,' the general was saying.

`This surpasses everything.'

Without answering her husband, Anna lifted her opera glass and gazed toward the place where Vronsky had fallen; but it was so far off, and there was such a crowd of people about it, that she could make out nothing. She put down the opera glass, and would have moved away, but at that moment an officer galloped up and made some announcement to the Czar.

Anna craned forward, listening.

`Stiva! Stiva!' she cried to her brother.

But her brother did not hear her. Again she would have moved away.

`Once more I offer you my arm if you want to be going,' said Alexei Alexandrovich, reaching for her hand.

She drew back from him with aversion, and without looking at his face answered:

`No, no, leave me alone - I'll stay.'

She saw now that from the place of Vronsky's accident an officer was running across the course toward the pavilion. Betsy waved her handkerchief to him. The officer brought the news that the rider was not killed, but that the back of the horse had been broken.

On hearing this Anna sat down hurriedly, and hid her face in her fan. Alexei Alexandrovich saw that she was weeping, and could not control her tears, nor even the sobs that were shaking her bosom. Alexei Alexandrovich stood so as to screen her, giving her time to recover herself.

`For the third time I offer you my arm,' he said to her after a short interval, turning to her. Anna gazed at him and did not know what to say. Princess Betsy came to her rescue.

`No, Alexei Alexandrovich; I brought Anna and I promised to take her home,' put in Betsy.

`Excuse me, Princess,' he said smiling courteously, but looking her very firmly in the face, `but I see that Anna's not very well, and I wish her to come home with me.'

Anna looked about her in a frightened way, got up submissively, and laid her hand on her husband's arm.

`I'll send to him and find out, and let you know,' Betsy whispered to her.

As they left the pavilion, Alexei Alexandrovich, as always, talked to those he met, and Anna had, as always, to talk and answer; but she was utterly beside herself, and moved hanging on her husband's arm, as though in a dream.

`Is he killed or not? Is it true? Will he come or not? Shall Isee him today?' she was thinking.

She took her seat in her husband's carriage in silence, and in silence drove out of the press of carriages. In spite of all he had seen, Alexei Alexandrovich still did not allow himself to consider his wife's real condition. He merely saw the outward symptoms. He saw that she was behaving unbecomingly, and considered it his duty to tell her so. But it was very difficult for him not to say more, to tell her nothing but that.

He opened his mouth to tell her she had behaved unbecomingly, but he could not help saying something utterly different.

`What an inclination we all have, though, for these cruel spectacles!

he said. `I observe...'

`Eh? I don't understand,' said Anna contemptuously.

He was offended, and at once began to say what he had meant to say.

`I am obliged to tell you...' he began.

`So now we are to have it out,' she thought, and she felt frightened.

`I am obliged to tell you that your behavior has been unbecoming today,' he said to her, in French.

`In what way has my behavior been unbecoming?' she said aloud, turning her head swiftly and looking him straight in the face, not with the bright expression that seemed covering something, but with a look of determination, under which she concealed with difficulty the dismay she was feeling.

`Be careful,' he said, pointing to the open window opposite the coachman.

He got up and pulled up the window.

`What did you consider unbecoming?' she repeated.

`The despair you were unable to conceal at the accident to one of the riders.'

He waited for her to retort, but she was silent, looking straight before her.

`I have already begged you so to conduct yourself in society that even malicious tongues can find nothing to say against you. There was a time when I spoke of your inward attitude, but I am not speaking of that now. Now I speak only of your external attitude. You have behaved improperly, and I would wish it not to occur again.'

She did not hear half of what he was saying; she felt panic-stricken before him, and was thinking whether it was true that Vronsky was not killed.

Was it of him they were speaking when they said the rider was unhurt, but that the back of the horse had been broken? She merely smiled with a forced smile when he finished, and made no reply, because she had not heard what he said. Alexei Alexandrovich had begun to speak boldly, but as he realized plainly what he was speaking of, the dismay she was feeling infected him too. He saw the smile, and a strange misapprehension came over him.

`She is smiling at my suspicions. Yes, she will tell me directly what she told me before; that there is no foundation for my suspicions, that the whole thing is absurd.'

At that moment, when the revelation of everything was hanging over him, there was nothing he expected so much as that she would answer mockingly, as before, that his suspicions were absurd and utterly groundless.

So terrible to him was what he knew that now he was ready to believe anything.

But the expression of her face, scared and gloomy, did not now promise even deception.

`Possibly I was mistaken,' said he. `If so, I beg your pardon.'

`No, you were not mistaken,' she said slowly, looking desperately into his frigid face. `You were not mistaken. I was in despair, nor could I help being in despair. I am listening to you, but I am thinking of him.

I love him, I am his mistress; I can't bear you; I'm afraid of you, and I hate you... You can do what you like to me.'