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Anna Karenina
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About This Book
Widely considered one of the best novels ever written, Anna Karenina is the tragic story of the aristocratic Anna's doomed affair with the wealthy Count Vronsky. Reflecting Russian morals of the time, as well as Tolstoy's personal feelings on infidelity, Anna Karenina explores themes of passion and fidelity, the impact that social norms have on personal choice, and the ramifications of choosing a life outside of that deemed acceptable by society.
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Chapter 1
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Everything was in confusion in the Oblonskysâ house. The wife had discovered that the husband was carrying on an intrigue with a French girl, who had been a governess in their family, and she had announced to her husband that she could not go on living in the same house with him. This position of affairs had now lasted three days, and not only the husband and wife themselves, but all the members of their family and household, were painfully conscious of it. Every person in the house felt that there was no sense in their living together, and that the stray people brought together by chance in any inn had more in common with one another than they, the members of the family and household of the Oblonskys. The wife did not leave her own room, the husband had not been at home for three days. The children ran wild all over the house; the English governess quarreled with the housekeeper, and wrote to a friend asking her to look out for a new situation for her; the man-cook had walked off the day before just at dinner time; the kitchen-maid, and the coachman had given warning.
Three days after the quarrel, Prince Stepan Arkadyevitch OblonskyâStiva, as he was called in the fashionable worldâwoke up at his usual hour, that is, at eight oâclock in the morning, not in his wifeâs bedroom, but on the leather-covered sofa in his study. He turned over his stout, well-cared-for person on the springy sofa, as though he would sink into a long sleep again; he vigorously embraced the pillow on the other side and buried his face in it; but all at once he jumped up, sat up on the sofa, and opened his eyes.
âYes, yes, how was it now?â he thought, going over his dream. âNow, how was it? To be sure! Alabin was giving a dinner at Darmstadt; no, not Darmstadt, but something American. Yes, but then, Darmstadt was in America. Yes, Alabin was giving a dinner on glass tables, and the tables sang, Il mio tesoroânot Il mio tesoro[1] though, but something better, and there were some sort of little decanters on the table, and they were women, too,â he remembered.
Stepan Arkadyevitchâs eyes twinkled gaily, and he pondered with a smile. âYes, it was nice, very nice. There was a great deal more that was delightful, only thereâs no putting it into words, or even expressing it in oneâs thoughts awake.â And noticing a gleam of light peeping in beside one of the serge curtains, he cheerfully dropped his feet over the edge of the sofa, and felt about with them for his slippers, a present on his last birthday, worked for him by his wife on gold-colored morocco. And, as he had done everyday for the last nine years, he stretched out his hand, without getting up, towards the place where his dressing gown always hung in his bedroom. And thereupon he suddenly remembered that he was not sleeping in his wifeâs room, but in his study, and why: the smile vanished from his face, he knitted his brows.
âAh, ah, ah! Oo! . . .â he muttered, recalling everything that had happened. And again every detail of his quarrel with his wife was present to his imagination, all the hopelessness of his position, and worst of all, his own fault.
âYes, she wonât forgive me, and she canât forgive me. And the most awful thing about it is that itâs all my faultâall my fault, though Iâm not to blame. Thatâs the point of the whole situation,â he reflected. âOh, oh, oh!â he kept repeating in despair, as he remembered the acutely painful sensations caused him by this quarrel.
Most unpleasant of all was the first minute when, on coming, happy and good-humored, from the theater, with a huge pear in his hand for his wife, he had not found his wife in the drawing room, to his surprise had not found her in the study either, and saw her at last in her bedroom with the unlucky letter that revealed everything in her hand.
She, his Dolly, forever fussing and worrying over household details, and limited in her ideas, as he considered, was sitting perfectly still with the letter in her hand, looking at him with an expression of horror, despair, and indignation.
âWhatâs this? this?â she asked, pointing to the letter.
And at this recollection, Stepan Arkadyevitch, as is so often the case, was not so much annoyed at the fact itself as at the way in which he had met his wifeâs words.
There happened to him at that instant what does happen to people when they are unexpectedly caught in something very disgraceful. He did not succeed in adapting his face to the position in which he was placed towards his wife by the discovery of his fault. Instead of being hurt, denying, defending himself, begging forgiveness, instead of remaining indifferent evenâanything would have been better than what he did doâhis face utterly involuntarily (reflex spinal action, reflected Stepan Arkadyevitch, who was fond of physiology)âutterly involuntarily assumed its habitual, good-humored, and therefore idiotic smile.
This idiotic smile he could not forgive himself. Catching sight of that smile, Dolly shuddered as though at physical pain, broke out with her characteristic heat into a flood of cruel words, and rushed out of the room. Since then she had refused to see her husband.
âItâs that idiotic smile thatâs to blame for it all,â thought Stepan Arkadyevitch.
âBut whatâs to be done? Whatâs to be done?â he said to himself in despair, and found no answer.
1 My little treasure.
Chapter 2
Stepan Arkadyevitch was a truthful man in his relations with himself. He was incapable of deceiving himself and persuading himself that he repented of his conduct. He could not at this date repent of the fact that he, a handsome, susceptible man of thirty-four, was not in love with his wife, the mother of five living and two dead children, and only a year younger than himself. All he repented of was that he had not succeeded better in hiding it from his wife. But he felt all the difficulty of his position and was sorry for his wife, his children, and himself. Possibly he might have managed to conceal his sins better from his wife if he had anticipated that the knowledge of them would have had such an effect on her. He had never clearly thought out the subject, but he had vaguely conceived that his wife must long ago have suspected him of being unfaithful to her, and shut her eyes to the fact. He had even supposed that she, a worn-out woman no longer young or good-looking, and in no way remarkable or interesting, merely a good mother, ought from a sense of fairness to take an indulgent view. It had turned out quite the other way.
âOh, itâs awful! oh dear, oh dear! awful!â Stepan Arkadyevitch kept repeating to himself, and he could think of nothing to be done. âAnd how well things were going up till now! how well we got on! She was contented and happy in her children; I never interfered with her in anything; I let her manage the children and the house just as she liked. Itâs true itâs bad her having been a governess in our house. Thatâs bad! Thereâs something common, vulgar, in flirting with oneâs governess. But what a governess!â (He vividly recalled the roguish black eyes of Mlle. Roland and her smile.) âBut after all, while she was in the house, I kept myself in hand. And the worst of it all is that sheâs already . . . it seems as if ill-luck would have it so! Oh, oh! But what, what is to be done?â
There was no solution, but that universal solution which life gives to all questions, even the most complex and insoluble. That answer is: one must live in the needs of the dayâthat is, forget oneself. To forget himself in sleep was impossible now, at least till night-time; he could not go back now to the music sung by the decanter-women; so he must forget himself in the dream of daily life.
âThen we shall see,â Stepan Arkadyevitch said to himself, and getting up he put on a gray dressing gown lined with blue silk, tied the tassels in a knot, and, drawing a deep breath of air into his broad, bare chest, he walked to the window with his usual confident step, turning out his feet that carried his full frame so easily. He pulled up the blind and rang the bell loudly. It was at once answered by the appearance of an old friend, his valet, Matvey, carrying his clothes, his boots, and a telegram. Matvey was followed by the barber with all the necessaries for shaving.
âAre there any papers from the office?â asked Stepan Arkadyevitch, taking the telegram and seating himself at the looking glass.
âOn the table,â replied Matvey, glancing with inquiring sympathy at his master; and, after a short pause, he added with a sly smile, âTheyâve sent from the carriage jobbers.â
Stepan Arkadyevitch made no reply, he merely glanced at Matvey in the looking glass. In the glance, in which their eyes met in the looking glass, it was clear that they understood one another. Stepan Arkadyevitchâs eyes asked: âWhy do you tell me that? donât you know?â
Matvey put his hands in his jacket pockets, thrust out one leg, and gazed silently, good-humoredly, with a faint smile, at his master.
âI told them to come on Sunday, and till then not to trouble you or themselves for nothing,â he said. He had obviously prepared the sentence beforehand.
Stepan Arkadyevitch saw Matvey wanted to make a joke and attract attention to himself. Tearing open the telegram, he read it through, guessing at the words, misspelt as they always are in telegrams, and his face brightened.
âMatvey, my sister Anna Arkadyevna will be here tomorrow,â he said, checking for a minute the sleek, plump hand of the barber, cutting a pink path through his long, curly whiskers.
âThank God!â said Matvey, showing by this response that he, like his master, realized the significance of this arrivalâthat is, that Anna Arkadyevna, the sister he was so fond of, might bring about a reconciliation between husband and wife.
âAlone, or with her husband?â inquired Matvey.
Stepan Arkadyevitch could not answer, as the barber was at work on his upper lip, and he raised one finger. Matvey nodded at the looking glass.
âAlone. Is the room to be got ready upstairs?â
âInform Darya Alexandrovna: where she orders.â
âDarya Alexandrovna?â Matvey repeated, as though in doubt.
âYes, inform her. Here, take the telegram; give it to her, and then do what she tells you.â
âYou want to try it on,â Matvey understood, but he only said, âYes sir.â
Stepan Arkadyevitch was already washed and combed and ready to be dressed, when Matvey, stepping deliberately in his creaky boots, came back i...
Table of contents
- CONTENTS
- Part One
- Part Two
- Part Three
- Part Four
- Part Five
- Part Six
- Part Seven
- Part Eight
- Atlantic Magazine, November 1891
- About the Author
- About the Series
- Copyright
- About the Publisher