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FORTY-ONE

Chapter 4
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KARENIN after meeting Vronsky in his own porch went on as had been his intention to the Italian Opera. He sat through the first two acts and saw everybody that it was necessary for him to see. On his return home he carefully looked at the coat-stand, and noticing that no military coat hung there he went to his study as usual; contrary to his habit, however, he did not go to bed but walked up and down the room till three in the morning. The feeling of anger with his wife, who would not observe the rules of propriety and fulfil the only condition he had insisted on, that is, that she should not see her lover in his house, gave him no rest. She had not fulfilled his condition and he was obliged to punish her and carry out his threat: to divorce her and take away her son. He knew the difficulties connected with such a step: but he had said he would do it and was now obliged to do it. The Countess Lydia Ivanovna had hinted to him that that was the best way to get out of the situation, and he knew that of late the practice of divorce had been brought to such a state of perfection that he saw a possibility of overcoming the formal difficulties. Besides, misfortunes never come singly, and the affair of the subject races and the irrigation of the Zaraysk Province had caused Karenin so much unpleasantness in his official capacity that he had of late felt extremely irritable.
He did not sleep at all, and his wrath, increasing in a kind of gigantic progression, had reached its utmost limits by the morning.
He dressed in haste, and as if he were carrying a cup brimful of wrath and were afraid of spilling any and of losing with his anger the energy he needed for an explanation with his wife, he went to her room as soon as he knew that she was up.
Anna, who thought that she knew her husband so well, was struck by his appearance when he entered. His brow was knit, and his eyes, gloomily fixed before him, avoided looking at her; his lips were firmly and contemptuously closed. In his step, his movements, and the sound of his voice was such determination and firmness as his wife had never known in him. He entered her boudoir and without saying ‘Good morning!’ went straight to her writing-table, took up her keys, and opened the drawer.
‘What do you want?’ she exclaimed.
‘Your lover’s letters.’
‘They are not there,’ she said, closing the drawer; but this action proved to him that he had guessed rightly, and rudely pushing away her hand he quickly drew out a letter-case in which he knew that she kept her most important papers. She wished to snatch away the letter-case, but he thrust her aside.
‘Sit down: I must speak to you,’ he said, taking the letter-case under his arm and pressing it so tight with his elbow that his shoulder went up. Astonished and abashed, she silently looked at him.
‘I told you that I would not allow you to see your lover here.’
‘I wanted to see him in order . . .’
She paused, unable to invent a reason.
‘I do not go into particulars of why a woman wants to see her lover.’
‘I wanted, I only wanted . . .’ she said, flushing. His coarseness irritated her and gave her boldness. ‘Is it possible you do not feel how easy it is for you to insult me?’ she said.
‘It is possible to insult an honest man or an honest woman, but to tell a thief that he is a thief is only la constatation d’un fait [the statement of a fact].’
‘I have not seen this new trait of cruelty in you before.’
‘You call it cruelty when a husband gives his wife complete freedom while he affords her honourable shelter, on the one condition that she should observe the laws of propriety. Is that cruelty?’
‘It is worse than cruelty, it is — baseness, if you want to know!’ Anna exclaimed in a burst of anger, and rose to go.
‘No!’ he shouted in his squeaky voice, which now rose to a higher note than usual; and seizing her so tightly by the wrists with his large fingers that the bracelet he pressed left red marks, he forced her back into her seat.
‘Baseness? Since you wish to use that word — it is baseness to abandon a husband and a son for a lover and to go on eating the husband’s bread!’
Her head dropped. She did not say what she had said to her lover the day before, that Vronsky was her real husband and that he (Karenin) was superfluous, she did not even think it. She felt all the justice of his words and only said softly:
‘You cannot describe my position as being worse than I know it to be; but why do you tell me all this?’
‘Why do I tell you? Why!’ he went on just as angrily, ‘that you should know that as you have not fulfilled my wish that propriety should be observed, I shall take steps to put an end to this situation.’
‘Soon, very soon, it will come to an end of itself!’ she muttered, and at the thought of the nearness of death, which she now desired, tears again filled her eyes.
‘It will end sooner than you and your lover imagine! You want to satisfy animal passions . . .’
‘Alexis Alexandrovich! This is not only ungenerous, but not even gentlemanly — to hit one who is down.’
‘That’s all very well, but you think only of yourself! The sufferings of the man who was your husband do not interest you. What do you care that his whole life is wrecked and how much he has suf . . . suf . . . suffled!’
Karenin was speaking so rapidly that he blundered and could not pronounce the word, and at last said suffled.
That struck her as funny; but immediately after she felt ashamed that anything could seem funny to her at such a moment. And for the first time she felt for him and put herself for an instant in his place, and was sorry for him. But what could she say or do? She bowed her head in silence. He too was silent for a while and then again began in a less squeaky voice, coldly emphasizing certain chance words that had no special importance.
‘I came to tell you . . .’ said he.
She looked up at him. ‘No, it was an illusion,’ she thought, calling to mind the expression of his face when he blundered over the word suffled. ‘No! As if a man with those dull eyes and that self-satisfied immobility could feel!’
‘I cannot change anything,’ she whispered.
‘I have come to tell you that I am going to Moscow to-morrow and shall not return to this house again, and that you will hear my decision through the lawyer whom I shall employ in the divorce suit. My son will stay with my sister,’ said Karenin, making an effort to remember what he had wanted to say about his son.
‘You want Serezha in order to hurt me,’ she said, looking at him from under her brows. ‘You do not care for him. . . . Leave me Serezha!’
‘Yes, I have even lost my affection for my son, because he is connected with my repulsion for you. But all the same I shall take him away. Good-bye!’
And he was about to go, but now she stopped him.
‘Alexis Alexandrovich! Leave me Serezha!’ she whispered again. ‘That is all I have to say: leave me Serezha till my . . . I shall soon be confined, leave him!’
Karenin flushed, and pulling away his hand left the room.
Chapter 5
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THE famous Petersburg lawyer’s waiting-room was full when Karenin entered it. Three women: an old lady, a young lady, and a tradesman’s wife; and three gentlemen: one a German banker with a ring on his finger, another a bearded merchant, and the third an irate official in uniform with an order hanging from his neck, had evidently long been waiting. Two clerks sat at their tables writing, and the sound of their pens was audible. The writing-table accessories (of which Karenin was a connoisseur) were unusually good, as he could not help noticing. One of the clerks, without rising from his chair, screwed up his eyes and addressed Karenin ill-humouredly.
‘What do you want?’
‘I want to see the lawyer on business.’
‘The lawyer is engaged,’ replied the assistant sternly, and indicated with his pen the persons who were waiting.
‘Can he not find time to see me?’ said Karenin.
‘He has no spare time, he is always busy. Be so kind as to wait.’
‘Then I will trouble you to give him my card,’ said Karenin with dignity, seeing the impossibility of preserving his incognito.
The assistant took the card and, though he evidently did not approve of what he read on it, went out of the room.
Karenin approved in theory of public trial, but for certain high, official reasons he did not quite sympathize with some aspects of its application in Russia, and he condemned these applications as far as he could condemn anything that had been confirmed by the Emperor. His whole life had been spent in administrative activity, and therefore when he disapproved of anything his disapproval was mitigated by a recognition of the inevitability of mistakes and the possibility of improvement in everything. In the new legal institutions he disapproved of the position occupied by lawyers. But till now he had never had to deal with a lawyer and so had disapproved only in theory; now his disapproval was strengthened by the unpleasant impression he received in the lawyer’s waiting-room.
‘He will be here in a moment,’ said the assistant, and in fact, a minute or two later, in the doorway appeared the long figure of an elderly jurisconsult who had been conferring with the lawyer, followed by the lawyer himself.
The lawyer was a short, thick-set, bald-headed man, with a black beard tinged with red, long light-coloured eyebrows, and a bulging forehead. He was as spruce as a bridegroom, from his white necktie and double watch-chain to his patent-leather boots. His face was intelligent and peasant-like, but his dress was dandified and in bad taste.
‘Come in, please!’ said the lawyer to Karenin, and gloomily ushering his client in before him, he closed the door.
‘Won’t you take a seat?’ He pointed to a chair beside a writing-table covered with papers, and himself took the principal seat, rubbing his little hands with their short fingers covered with white hair and bending his head to one side. But hardly had he settled down when a moth flew across the table. The lawyer, with a rapidity one could not have expected of him, separated his hands, caught the moth, and resumed his former position.
‘Before I begin speaking of my case,’ said Karenin, who had followed the lawyer’s movements with astonishment, ‘I must mention that the business about which I have to speak to you must be strictly private.’
A scarcely perceptible smile moved the lawyer’s drooping reddish moustache.
‘I should not be a lawyer if I could not keep the secrets entrusted to me! But if you would like a confirmation . . .’
Karenin glanced at him and saw that his intelligent grey eyes were laughing, as if he knew everything in advance.
‘You know my name?’ continued Karenin.
‘I know you and, like every Russian, I know’ — here he again caught a moth — ‘your useful activity,’ said the lawyer bowing.
Karenin sighed, collecting his courage, but having once made up his mind he went on in his squeaky voice without timidity or hesitation, emphasizing a word here and there.
‘I have the misfortune,’ began Karenin, ‘to be a deceived husband, and I wish legally to break off relations with my wife — that is, to be divorced, but in such a way that my son should not remain with his mother.’
The lawyer’s grey eyes tried not to laugh but they danced with irrepressible glee, and Karenin saw that it was not only the glee of a man getting profitable business; there was triumph and delight, and a gleam resembling the evil-boding gleam he had seen in his wife’s eyes.
‘You want my assistance to obtain a divorce?’
‘Just so! But I must warn you that there is a risk that I may be wasting your time. I have come only for a preliminary consultation. I wish for a divorce, but the form in which it can be obtained is of importance to me. It is quite possible that if the forms do not coincide with my requirements I shall forgo my legitimate desire.’
‘Oh, that is always so,’ said the lawyer, ‘that is always open to you.’
The lawyer looked down at Karenin’s feet, feeling that the sight of his irrepressible joy might offend his client. He glanced at a moth that flew past his nose and his hand moved, but did not catch it, out of respect for Karenin’s situation.
‘Although the general outline of our laws relating to this matter is known to me,’ continued Karenin, ‘I should like to know the forms in which such cases are conducted in practice.’
‘You wish me to state,’ the lawyer said, still not raising his eyes and adopting, with a certain pleasure, his client’s manner of speech, ‘the various methods by which your desire can be carried out?’
And on Karenin’s nodding affirmatively the lawyer continued, only occasionally casting a glance at Karenin’s face, which had grown red in patches.
‘Divorce, under our laws,’ he said, with a slight shade of disapproval of the laws, ‘as you are aware, may be granted in the following cases. . . . You must wait!’ he exclaimed, addressing his assistant who had looked in at the door; but he rose all the same, spoke a few words to his assistant, and sat down again. ‘In the following cases: physical defect in husband or wife; five years’ absence without news’ — and he bent one of his short hairy fingers — ‘and in cases of adultery,’ he uttered the word with evident pleasure. ‘These are subdivided as follows,’ and he went on bending down his thick fingers, though the cases and the subdivisions evidently could not be classed together, ‘physical defects in husband or in wife, and adultery of husband or of wife.’ As all his fingers had been used he straightened them all out and continued:
‘That is the theoretical view; but I suppose you have done me the honour of applying to me in order to learn the practical application of the law. Therefore, guided by the precedents, I have to inform you that cases of divorce all come to the following: — there is, I suppose, no physical defect or absence without news? . . .’
Karenin nodded affirmatively.
‘ — come to the following: adultery of husband or wife and the detection of the guilty party by mutual consent, or involuntary detection without such consent. I must add that the latter case is seldom met with in practice,’ and with a momentary glance at Karenin the lawyer became suddenly silent, like a man who when selling pistols has described the advantages of the different kinds, and waits for his customer’s decision.
But Karenin remained silent, and so he began again: ‘The most usual, simple, and reasonable way I consider to be adultery by mutual consent. I should not venture so to express myself were I talking to a man of undeveloped mind,’ said the lawyer, ‘but I expect it is comprehensible to you.’
Karenin was, however, so much upset that he did not at once understand the reasonableness of adultery by mutual consent and his perplexity was expressed in his looks; but the lawyer immediately helped him.
‘Two people can no longer live together — there is the fact. And if both agree about that, the details and formalities become unimportant, and at the same time it is the simplest and surest method.’
Karenin quite understood now. But he had religious requirements which hindered his acceptance of this method.
‘It is out of the question in the present case,’ said he. ‘Only one measure is possible: involuntary detection confirmed by letters which I have.’
At the mention of letters the lawyer pressed his lips together and gave vent to a high-pitched sound of pity and contempt.
‘Please remember that cases of this kind, as you know, are decided by the Ecclesiastical Department, and the reverend Fathers in such cases are keenly interested in the minutest details,’ he said, with a smile that showed his fellow-feeling with the reverend Fathers’ taste. ‘Letters may certainly serve as a partial confirmation, but direct evidence from witnesses must be produced. In general, if you do me the honour to entrust the case to me, leave me to choose the means which should be used. He who desires a result accepts the means of obtaining it.’
‘If it is so . . .’ Karenin began, growing suddenly pale; but at that moment the other suddenly rose and went to the door to speak to his assistant, who had again come to interrupt him.
‘Tell her we have not got a cheap sale on here!’ he said and came back again.
As he was returning he furtively caught another moth. ‘A fine state my furniture will be in when summer comes!’ he thought, and frowned.
‘Yes, you were saying . . .’he began.
‘I will write and let you know what I decide,’ said Karenin, rising and holding on by the table. After a short pause he said, ‘I may conclude from your words that a divorce could be obtained. I would also ask you to let me know your terms?’
‘It is quite possible, if you allow me full liberty of action,’ said the lawyer, without taking any notice of the last question. ‘When may I expect to hear from you?’ he added, moving toward the door, his eyes and patent-leather boots shining.
‘In a week’s time. And you will be so good as to let me know whether you are willing to undertake the case, and on what terms.’
‘Very well.’
The lawyer bowed deferentially, let his client pass out, and being left alone abandoned himself to his happy mood. He felt so cheerful that, contrary to his custom, he allowed a reduction to the bargaining lady and gave up catching moths, having made up his mind to have his furniture re-covered next winter with velvet, like Sigonin’s.