IV.
As in “War and Peace,” so in “Anna Karénina,” we shall find Count Lyof Tolstoï himself just as his own confessions have allowed us to point him out. As in “War and Peace,” all the chief personages will have some of his characteristics, and Vronsky and Konstantin Levin, in turn, represent him in some peculiar aspect, in the same way as Nikolaï Rostof, Prince Andréi, and Count Pierre. Thus, in the discourse where Count Vronsky proposes a re-organization of his landed property, and claims that it must be based on the agreement between the muzhik and his former lord, Count Tolstoï propounds a theory which he long held, but which he has since gone beyond; for, as we shall soon see, he has reached Communism.
In the same way we recognize the ideas of “My Religion” in Levin’s resistance of the patriotic outburst, or, to use his language, the unreflecting enthusiasm which rouses the Russian youth, and drives one of the characters of the story, Vronsky, to enlist of his own accord for the defence of the Serbian cause. While protesting by his own abstention, and also by his tirades against the Slav committees and the enlistment, Konstantin Levin is already applying the doctrine which Count Tolstoï will formulate in the maxim, “Do not engage in war,” and on which he will make the following comment: “Jesus has shown me that the fifth temptation that deprives me of my welfare is the distinction made by us between our compatriots and foreign nations. I must believe in that. Consequently, if in a moment of forgetfulness I experience a feeling of hostility against a man of another nationality, I must not fail to recognize, in my thoughtful moments, that this feeling is false. No longer, as formerly, can I justify myself by the superiority of my people to others; by the ignorance, the cruelty, or the barbarity of another people. I cannot refrain, at the first opportunity, from endeavoring to be more affable to a foreigner than to one of my countrymen.” And if Vronsky behaves differently from Konstantin Levin, it is not because Tolstoï wishes to offset the conduct of the one to the views of the other. In reality, it is not from conviction, it is from despair, that Vronsky enlists. He goes away so as to forget, amid the excitement—or, as Pascal said, the divertissement—of a soldier’s life the impression of the inward drama which has disturbed his soul to its foundation, and which, by a fatal, but unexpected, conclusion, has just bespattered him with blood.
The romance of “Anna Karénina” is the history of an adulterous amour: the climax of the amour is suicide. Is this suicide in the novelist’s mind a moral penalty? That would be a wholly barbarous conception, a sort of divine judgment such as would have been imagined by a story-teller in the Middle Ages, and Tolstoï seems to have wished to forestall such a vulgar interpretation of his narrative. There are in the romance other criminal amours, and it is without any sign of punishment that the wholly immoral relationship between the Princess Betsy and her lover leads them to scandalous conduct. On the other hand, the passion which unites Anna Karénina and Vronsky is a sincere, profound, almost solemn passion, in spite of the illegality of their behavior. The hearts of these two lovers are culpable but lofty. Besides, the more sympathy the author of the romance shows in their presentation, the more powerful is the lesson which he desires to draw from their moral torment. All the plan and all the interest of the work are here. What agonies of remorse this illegal union, so passionately desired, brings upon the guilty woman! What deep mortifications and what vulgar discomfitures, what deadly humiliations and what prosaic irksomeness, spring from this false situation, and ultimately make it so odious, so painful, that way of escape has to be found by an act of madness in a moment of despair!
Yet never were more conditions united to facilitate this union outside the law. Vronsky’s rank is too lofty for him to fear public opinion: he makes it, as it were, a point of honor to defy it, and he instals his mistress in his splendid domain as though she were his legitimate wife. Without much apparent difficulty, he makes his friends and his family treat his liaison with respect. Anna Karénina, on her part, loves Vronsky with a perfect passion, which is only intensified and not chilled by the feeling of sacrifices undergone. All that she asks from her lover in return is to be loved by him. She has made it a point of honor on her part to refuse the advantages of a divorce which her husband, Alekséi Karénin, at first offers to have pronounced against himself. She refused from a double reason of delicacy: she did not wish to add this gratuitous insult to the wrongs of which she is guilty towards this disagreeable, but upright, man; above all, she does not wish that a suspicion of calculation should cast its shadow over the feeling which she has towards the count.
A divorce, however, would put an end to many sentimental doubts causing misunderstandings, and to many subtleties of behavior resulting only in collisions. Vronsky demands the divorce with all the strength of his generous pride. Anna Karénina scouts the idea of it with such jealous anxiety as a naturally noble woman can feel in preserving the remains of her dignity, which a shock of passion has thrown down and broken to fragments like a costly vase. This antagonism creates between the two lovers a secret source of bitterness. There are other latent troubles. By her marriage, Anna Karénina has a son from whom she is separated, whom she worships; and the slightest remembrance of him causes her heart to thrill with that same strange feeling which is the precursor of motherhood. In consequence of her amour with Vronsky, she has a daughter. By a singular anomaly she does not love the child of the man whom she loves: she is vexed with her daughter for occupying in some measure a place usurped, for monopolizing with her the maternal cares which it seems to her that the other child so grievously needs. If as a mother she has her whimsical but touching fits of jealousy, as a woman she has other fears, the absurdity of which does not prevent them from being very painful. She spends her time and gnaws her heart in trying to divine her lover’s attitude towards her. She knows that for her sake he has renounced a most brilliant future; she is afraid that she cannot fill his objectless existence; she sees in each attempted return to any occupation, to any distraction whatsoever, a proof of weariness, a confession of irksomeness, a sign of regret.
Vronsky, who has made absolute renunciation without thought of return, at last begins to suffer from this distrust: the more it grows, the more disappointment and secret vexation he feels. Here the loftiness of character which attaches him to his mistress, and which has made it easy for him to brave every thing for her, turns against the unfortunate woman, and impels him to resist the efforts which she makes to get fuller possession of him. It is easy to imagine what will be the outcome of this incessant struggle. Each day the angles become sharper, feelings become more touchy, actions rankle more painfully; these two beings, starting on the bright and free pinnacles of love, have descended, without being themselves aware of it, into the dark and suffocating regions of hate. The result of this inevitable decay of passion is made not less cruel, but more evident, by a wholly external complication. The divorce which at one time Alekséi Karénin had offered, he refuses when his wife, weary of such suffering, at last decides to ask him for it. Here it is that the future author of “My Religion” appears with his precise theory of the immorality of divorce. The group of mystics to which the deserted husband has been led to ask consolation of a religious kind declare, through the mouth of the Countess Lidia Ivanovna, that Alekséi Karénin cannot accede to his wife’s wishes, and grant her liberty, without falling himself into a state of mortal sin.
From the day when they learn of his refusal, Anna Karénina and Vronsky, in spite of themselves, rush straight towards separation. Anna, in her dread of it, precipitates it. Vronsky is nettled at her ever increasing restlessness; and before what seems to him pure ingratitude, he affects an indifference which he does not feel. Discussions, once rare, come in quick succession, and become quarrelsome. This daily conflict brings about an explosion, followed by a rupture.
Vronsky leaves her. He goes to his mother, the natural enemy of his mistress. As soon as she is alone, Anna Karénina feels as though torn in every fibre of her being: he must come back; she will fall on her knees before him; she will humiliate herself like a naughty child. She has written him to return, but she has not the strength to wait for him; she hurries to meet him, and stops at an intermediate station, when by a telegram she informs him of her arrival. The train arrives. Only the count’s valet appears, bringing a note in which Vronsky dryly announces that he is coming back. The tone of the note is interpreted by Anna as a new proof of the death of a love which in her alone has grown with time and possession. She tells herself that there is no more reason to live, and a series of fatal circumstances unite at this critical moment to hasten her to her death. She wishes to escape the inquisitive eyes of the loiterers at the station, who are struck by her strange behavior: she leaves the platform, and steps down upon the track. She remembers the terrible accident which a train-hand had met with at Moscow on the very day of her first meeting with Vronsky. A sort of reflex action takes place in her brain: a freight-train is coming along; she goes to meet it.
“She looked under the cars, at the chains and the brake, and the high iron wheels; and she tried to estimate with her eye the distance between the fore and back wheels, and the moment when the middle would be in front of her.
“‘There,’ she said, looking at the shadow of the car thrown upon the black coal-dust which covered the sleepers, ‘there in the centre he will be punished, and I shall be delivered from it all,—and from myself.’
“Her little red travelling-bag caused her to lose the moment when she could throw herself under the wheels of the first car: she could not detach it from her arm. She awaited the second. A feeling like that she had experienced once, just before taking a dive in the river, came over her, and she made the sign of the cross. This familiar gesture called back to her soul memories of youth and childhood. Life, with its elusive joys, glowed for an instant before her, but she did not take her eyes from the car; and when the middle between the two wheels appeared, she threw away her red bag, drawing her head between her shoulders, and, with outstretched hands, threw herself on her knees under the car. She had time to feel afraid. ‘Where am I? What am I doing? Why?’ thought she, trying to draw back; but a great, inflexible mass struck her head, and threw her upon her back. ‘Lord, forgive me all!’ she murmured, feeling the struggle to be in vain. A little muzhik was working on the railroad, mumbling in his beard. And the candle by which she read, as in a book, the fulfilment of her life’s work, of its deceptions, its grief, and its torment, flared up with greater brightness than she had ever known, revealing to her all that before was in darkness; then flickered, grew faint, and went out forever.”
Certainly when one reads this brutally frightful dénouement in the light of the motto of the book, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay,” one might be tempted to interpret Jesus’ word in its Judaic sense. Yet it would be a serious mistake. It is very certain that this sudden and tragic end in the novelist’s mind was meant for Anna Karénina’s deliverance: out of pity for her, he granted her the favor of death. Death alone could put an end to the torment of this soul, and this torment began with the sin. Here is the true punishment of guilty love: all the illusion which exalted the senses, as long as they are pastured in “love’s shadow,” as one of Shakspeare’s characters calls it, vanishes as soon as one is sated of love itself.
“What had been for Vronsky for nearly a year the only and absolute aim of his life, was for Anna a dream of happiness, all the more enchanting because it seemed to her unreal and terrible. It was like a dream. At last the waking came; and a new life began for her, with a sentiment of moral decadence. She felt the impossibility of expressing the shame, the horror, the joy, that were now her portion. Rather than put her feelings into idle and fleeting words, she preferred to keep silent. As time went on, words fit to express the complexity of her sensations still failed to come to her, and even her thoughts were incapable of translating the impressions of her heart. She hoped that calmness and peace would come to her, but they held aloof. Whenever she thought of the past, and thought of the future, and thought of her own fate, she was seized with fear, and tried to drive these thoughts away.
“‘By and by, by and by,’ she repeated, ‘when I am calmer.’
“On the other hand, when during sleep she lost all control of her imagination, her situation appeared in its frightful reality: almost every night she had the same dream. She dreamed that she was the wife both of Vronsky and of Alekséi Aleksandrovitch. And it seemed to her that Alekséi Aleksandrovitch kissed her hands, and said, weeping, ‘How happy we are now!’ And Alekséi Vronsky, he, also, was her husband. She was amazed that she could believe such a thing impossible; and she laughed when she seemed to explain to them that every thing would simplify itself, and that both would henceforth be satisfied and happy. But this dream weighed on her spirits like a nightmare, and she always awoke in a fright.”
That is the moral punishment. What keen psychology! What an admirable commentary, and what a powerful interpretation of the “surgit amari aliquid!” And it is not only her punishment as a woman which Tolstoï has described, it is also her punishment as a mother, when the separation, long postponed by the husband’s own will, becomes indispensable to the two paramours, both of whom have returned from the doors of death, and returned more morbidly, more hopelessly, in love with each other than ever before.
During the first part of this separation, Anna Karénina had wonted herself to think that it was her duty to give up all that had hitherto gone to make her happiness, and to leave in her husband’s hands as a compensation, such as it was, all the elements of her past happiness which she had exchanged for another kind. “I give up all that I love, all that I appreciate most in this world,—my son and my reputation!” She succeeds for some time in lulling, in deceiving, the maternal sentiment, in substituting in place of her affection for her son her tender and constant care for the daughter, the child of her liaison with Vronsky. But Vronsky is obliged suddenly to leave Italy where they have been together; he and Anna reach Petersburg; the mother is again in the neighborhood of the house where her son is living; she wishes to enter it, to see him; she begs for permission, and it is harshly refused; she determines to go to her husband’s at any cost, and make her way to the child by bribing the servants. The reader will not blame me for quoting this admirable scene.[53]
“She went to a neighboring shop and purchased some toys, and thus she formed her plan of action: she would start early in the morning before Alekséi Aleksandrovitch was up; she would have the money in her hand all ready to bribe the Swiss and the other servants to let her go up-stairs without raising her veil, under the pretext of laying on Serozha’s bed some presents sent by his god-father. As to what she should say to her son, she could not form the least idea: she could not make any preparation for that.
“The next morning, at eight o’clock, Anna got out of her hired carriage and rang the doorbell of her former home.
“‘Go and see what is wanted! It’s some baruina,’ said Kapitonuitch, in overcoat and galoshes, as he looked out of the window and saw a lady closely veiled standing on the porch. The Swiss’s assistant, a young man whom Anna did not know, had scarcely opened the door before Anna thrust a three-ruble note into his hand.
“‘Serozha—Sergéi Aleksiévitch,’ she stammered; then she went one or two steps down the hall.
“The Swiss’s assistant examined the note, and stopped the visitor at the inner glass door.
“‘Whom do you wish to see?’ he asked.
“She did not hear his words, and made no reply.
“Kapitonuitch, noticing the stranger’s confusion, came out from his office and asked her what she wanted.
“‘I come from Prince Skorodumof to see Sergéi Aleksiévitch.’
“‘He is not up yet,’ replied the Swiss, looking sharply at the veiled lady.
“Anna had never dreamed that she should be so troubled by the sight of this house where she had lived nine years. One after another, sweet and cruel memories arose in her mind, and for a moment she forgot why she was there.
“‘Will you wait?’ asked the Swiss, helping her to take off her shubka. When he saw her face, he recognized her, and bowed profoundly. ‘Will your ladyship[54] be pleased to enter?’ he said to her.
“She tried to speak; but her voice failed her, and with an entreating look at the old servant she rapidly flew up the stairs. Kapitonuitch tried to overtake her, and followed after her, catching his galoshes at every step.
“‘Perhaps his tutor is not dressed yet: I will speak to him.’
“Anna kept on up the stairs which she knew so well, but she did not hear what the old man said.
“‘This way. Excuse it if all is in disorder. He sleeps in the front room now,’ said the Swiss, out of breath. ‘Will your ladyship be good enough to wait a moment? I will go and see,’ And opening the high door, he disappeared.
“Anna stopped and waited.
“‘He has just waked up,’ said the Swiss, coming back through the same door.
“And as he spoke, Anna heard the sound of a child yawning, and merely by the sound of the yawn she recognized her son, and seemed to see him alive before her.
“‘Let me go in—let me!’ she stammered, and hurriedly pushed through the door.
“At the right of the door was a bed, and on the bed a child was sitting up in his little open nightgown; his little body was leaning forward, and he was just finishing a yawn and stretching himself. His lips were just closing into a sleepy smile, and he fell back upon his pillow still smiling.
“‘Serozha!’ she murmured as she went towards him.
“Every time since their separation that she had felt an access of love for the absent son, Anna looked upon him as still a child of four, the age when he had been most charming. Now he no longer bore any resemblance to him whom she had left: he had grown tall and thin. How long his face seemed! How short his hair! What long arms! How he had changed! But it was still the same,—the shape of his head, his lips, little slender neck, and his broad shoulders.
“‘Serozha!’ she whispered in the child’s ear.
“He raised himself on his elbow, turned his frowzy head around, and, trying to put things together, opened wide his eyes. For several seconds he looked with an inquiring face at his mother, who stood motionless before him. Then he suddenly smiled with joy; and with his eyes still half-closed in sleep, he threw himself, not back upon his pillow, but into his mother’s arms.
“‘Serozha, my dear little boy!’ she stammered, choking with tears, and throwing her arms around his plump body.
“‘Mamma!’ he whispered, cuddling into his mother’s arms so as to feel their encircling pressure. Smiling sleepily, he took his hand from the head of the bed and put it on his mother’s shoulder and climbed into her lap, having that warm breath of sleep peculiar to children, and pressed his face to his mother’s neck and shoulders.
“‘I knew,’ he said, opening his eyes; ‘to-day is my birthday; I knew that you would come. I am going to get up now.’
“And as he spoke he fell asleep again. Anna devoured him with her eyes. She saw how he had changed during her absence. She would scarcely have known his long legs coming below his nightgown, his hollow cheeks, his short hair curled in the neck where she had so often kissed it. She pressed him to her heart, and the tears prevented her from speaking.
“‘What are you crying for, mamma?’ he asked, now entirely awake. ‘What makes you cry?’ he repeated, ready to weep himself.
“‘I? I will not cry any more—it is for joy. It is all over now,’ said she, drying her tears and turning around. ‘Nu! go and get dressed,’ she added, after she had grown a little calmer, but still holding Serozha’s hand. She sat down near the bed on a chair which held the child’s clothing. ‘How do you dress without me? How’—she wanted to speak simply and gayly, but she could not, and again she turned her head away.
“‘I don’t wash in cold water any more; papa has forbidden it: but you have not seen Vasíli Lukitch? Here he comes. But you are sitting on my things.’ And Serozha laughed heartily. She looked at him and smiled.
“‘Mamma! dúshenka, golúbtchika!’ [dear little soul, darling], he cried again, throwing himself into her arms, as though he now better understood what had happened to him, as he saw her smile.
“‘Take it off,’ said he, pulling off her hat. And seeing her head bare, he began to kiss her again.
“‘What did you think of me? Did you believe that I was dead?’
“‘I never believed it.’
“‘You believed me alive, my precious?’
“‘I knew it! I knew it!’ he replied, repeating his favorite phrase; and, seizing the hand which was smoothing his hair, he pressed the palm of it to his little mouth, and began to kiss it.”
“Vasíli Lukitch, meantime, not at first knowing who this lady was, but learning from their conversation that it was Serozha’s mother, the woman who had deserted her husband, and whom he did not know, as he had not come into the house till after her departure, was in great perplexity. Ought he to tell Alekséi Aleksandrovitch? On mature reflection he came to the conclusion that his duty consisted in going to dress Serozha at the usual hour, without paying any attention to a third person—his mother, or any one else. But as he reached the door and opened it, the sight of the caresses between the mother and child, the sound of their voices and their words, made him change his mind. He shook his head, sighed, and quietly closed the door. ‘I will wait ten minutes longer,’ he said to himself, coughing slightly, and wiping his eyes.
“There was great excitement among the servants; they all knew that the baruina had come, and that Kapitonuitch had let her in, and that she was in the child’s room; they knew, too, that their master was in the habit of going to Serozha every morning at nine o’clock: each one felt that the husband and wife ought not to meet, that it must be prevented.
“Kornéi, the valet, went down to the Swiss to ask why Anna had been let in; and finding that Kapitonuitch had taken her up-stairs, he reprimanded him severely. The Swiss maintained an obstinate silence till the valet declared that he deserved to lose his place, when the old man jumped at him, and shaking his fist in his face, said,—
“‘Da! Vot! you would not have let her in yourself? You’ve served here ten years, and had nothing but kindness from her, but you would have said, “Now, go away from here!” You know what policy is, you sly dog. What you don’t forget is to rob your master, and to carry off his raccoon-skin shubas!’
“‘Soldier!’ replied Kornéi scornfully; and he turned towards the nurse, who was coming in just at this moment. ‘What do you think, Marya Yefimovna? He has let in Anna Arkadyevna, without saying any thing to anybody, and just when Alekséi Aleksandrovitch, as soon as he is up, will be going to the nursery.’
“‘What a scrape! what a scrape!’ said the nurse. ‘But, Kornéi Vasilyévitch, find some way to keep your master, while I run to warn her, and get her out of the way. What a scrape!’
“When the nurse went into the child’s room, Serozha was telling his mother how Nádenka and he had fallen when sliding down a hill of ice, and turned three somersaults. Anna was listening to the sound of her son’s voice, looking at his face, watching the play of his features, feeling his little arms, but not hearing a word that he said. She must go away, she must leave him: this alone she understood and felt. She had heard Vasíli Lukitch’s steps, and his little discreet cough, as he came to the door, and now she heard the nurse coming in; but unable to move or to speak, she remained as fixed as a statue.
“‘Baruina! Golúbtchika!’ [mistress, darling], said the nurse, coming up to Anna, and kissing her hands and her shoulders. ‘God sent this joy for our birthday celebration! You are not changed at all.’
“‘Ach! nurse [nyanya], my dear: I did not know that you were in the house,’ said Anna, coming to herself.
“‘I don’t live here; I live with my daughter. I came to give my best wishes to Serozha, Anna Arkadyevna, golúbtchika.’
“The nurse suddenly began to weep, and to kiss Anna’s hand.
“Serozha, with bright, joyful eyes, and holding his mother with one hand and his nurse with the other, was dancing in his little bare feet on the carpet. His old nurse’s tenderness towards his mother was delightful to him.
“‘Mamma, she often comes to see me; and when she comes’—he began; but he stopped short when he perceived that the nurse whispered something in his mother’s ear, and that his mother’s face assumed an expression of fear, and at the same time of shame.
“Anna went to him.
“‘My precious!’ she said.
“She could not say the word ‘farewell’ [proshcháï]; but the expression of her face said it, and he understood.
“‘My precious, precious Kutik!’ she said, calling him by a pet name which she used when he was a baby. ‘You will not forget me; you’—but she could not say another word.
“Only then she began to remember the words which she wanted to say to him, but now it was impossible to say them. Serozha, however, understood all that she would have said: he understood that she was unhappy, and that she loved him. He even understood what the nurse whispered in her ear: he heard the words ‘always at nine o’clock;’ and he knew that they referred to his father, and that his mother must not meet him. He understood this, but one thing he could not understand: why did her face express fear and shame?... She was not to blame, but she was afraid of him, and seemed ashamed of something. He wanted to ask a question which would have explained this circumstance, but he did not dare: he saw that she was in sorrow, and he pitied her. He silently clung close to her, and then he whispered, ‘Don’t go yet! He will not come yet awhile.’
“His mother pushed him away from her a little, in order to see if he understood the meaning of what he had said; and in the frightened expression of his face she perceived that he not only spoke of his father, but seemed to ask her how he ought to think about him.
“‘Serozha, my dear,’ she said, ‘love him; he is better than I am; and I have been wicked to him. When you have grown up, you will understand.’
“‘No one is better than you,’ cried the child, with sobs of despair; and, clinging to his mother’s shoulders, he squeezed her with all the force of his little trembling arms.
“‘Dúshenka, my darling!’ stammered Anna; and, bursting into tears, she sobbed like a child, even as he sobbed.
“At this moment the door opened, and Vasíli Lukitch came in. Steps were heard at the other door; and, in a frightened whisper, he exclaimed, ‘He is coming,’ and gave Anna her hat.
“Serozha threw himself on the bed, sobbing, and covered his face with his hands. Anna took them away to kiss yet once again his tear-stained cheeks, and then with quick steps hurried from the room. Alekséi Aleksandrovitch met her at the door. When he saw her, he stopped and bowed his head.
“Though she had declared a moment before that he was better than she, the swift glance that she gave him, taking in his whole person, awoke in her only a feeling of hatred and scorn for him, and jealousy on account of her son. She hurriedly lowered her veil, and, quickening her step, almost ran from the room. She had entirely forgotten in her haste the playthings which, on the evening before, she had bought with so much love and sadness; and she took them back with her to the hotel.”
In such scenes, in such moral analyses, as these, it is necessary to look for the meaning and the drift of “Anna Karénina.” There is also in the conduct of the husband, the statesman, Alekséi Karénin, a constant lesson and significance which it would be easy to verify with “My Religion” in hand. He is punished for having sacrificed every thing to his ambition, even the love and the care of her whom he took to be his wife. He does not fight a duel with Vronsky because he lacks courage, but, above all, because religion lays it upon him as a duty not to strive to kill his neighbor. He hates his guilty wife, even to the point of wishing for her death, and of feeling disappointment when he finds her alive after the travail which she dreaded so keenly; but his heart softens at her delirium, at the words of repentance which she speaks at the moment which she thinks is her last: he forgives her. From the day when he has tasted the divine sweetness of mercy, he is another man: he has found the meaning of life. Henceforth he will apply the doctrine of Jesus: “‘I offer my other cheek to the smiter; I give my last cloak to him who has robbed me; I ask only one thing of God, that he will not take from me the joy of forgiving.’... Karénin rose: sobs choked his voice. Vronsky rose too, and standing with bowed head and humble attitude, looked up at Karénin without a word to say. He was incapable of understanding Alekséi Aleksandrovitch’s feelings; but he felt that such magnanimity was above him, and irreconcilable with his conception of life.”