Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy & Louise Maude

Author:Leo Tolstoy & Louise Maude [Tolstoy, Leo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781409059462
Publisher: Random House UK
Published: 2016-12-25T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

INVOLUNTARILY REVIEWING THE impressions left on his mind by the conversations at dinner and after, Karenin returned to his solitary room. What Dolly had said about forgiveness had merely vexed him. Whether or not to apply the Christian principle to his own case was too difficult a question to be lightly discussed, and Karenin had long since answered it in the negative. Of all that had been said the words of the silly good-natured Turovtsyn had sunk deepest into his mind — ‘He acted like a brick, challenged the other man, and killed him.’ Evidently everybody had agreed with that, though they were too polite to say so. ‘However, that point is settled and not worth thinking about,’ said Karenin to himself; and with nothing in his mind but his impending journey and his work of inspection, he went to his room and asked the door-keeper, who followed him, where his valet was. The man replied that the valet had just gone out. Karenin ordered tea, sat down at a table, took up a time-table, and began planning his journey.

‘Two telegrams,’ said the valet, entering. ‘Excuse me, your Excellency — I had only just gone out.’

Karenin took the telegrams and opened them. The first contained the news that Stremov had obtained the very appointment Karenin had been hoping for. He threw down the telegram and flushed. Rising he began to pace the room. ‘Quos vult perdere dementat,’ he thought, quos being those who had had a hand in making the appointment. He was vexed, not so much at having missed that post himself and at having been obviously passed over, as at the incomprehensible and surprising fact that they did not realize how much less suitable than anyone else was that voluble windbag, Stremov. How was it they did not see that by giving him that post they were ruining themselves and their own prestige?

‘Something else of the same kind,’ he thought bitterly, as he opened the second telegram. It was from his wife, and Anna, written in blue pencil, was the first word he saw. ‘I am dying. I beg and entreat you, come! I shall die easier for your forgiveness,’ he read. Smiling contemptuously, he threw down the telegram. His first thought was that beyond doubt it was only falsehood and cunning.

‘She would not hesitate at any deception. She was going to be confined; perhaps that is the illness. But what can they be aiming at? To legitimize the child, compromise me, and prevent a divorce?’ he reflected. ‘But there is something about dying. . . .’ he re-read the telegram, and was suddenly struck by the direct meaning of the words. ‘Supposing it is true?’ he said to himself. ‘If it is true, and at the moment of suffering and approach to death she is sincerely repentant, and I, believing it to be false, refuse to come? It would not only be cruel and everybody would condemn me, but it would be stupid on my part.’

‘Peter, keep the carriage! I am returning to Petersburg,’ he told the valet.

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