She has gone away from us forever. She is...' Suddenly the shadow of the screen wavered, pounced on the whole cornice, the whole ceiling; other shadows from the other side swooped to meet it; for an instant the shadows flitted back, but then with fresh swiftness they darted forward, wavered, mingled, and all was darkness. `Death!' she thought. And such horror came upon her that for a long while she could not realize where she was, and for a long while her trembling hands could not find the matches and light another candle, instead of the one that had burned down and gone out. `No, anything - only to live! Why, I love him! Why, he loves me! This has been before and will pass,' she said, feeling that tears of joy at the return to life were trickling down her cheeks. And to escape from her panic she went hurriedly to his room.
He was asleep there, and sleeping soundly. She went up to him, and holding the light above his face, she gazed a long while at him. Now when he was asleep, she loved him so that at the sight of him she could not keep back tears of tenderness. But she knew that if he waked up he would look at her with cold eyes, convinced that he was right, and that before telling him of her love, she would have to prove to him that he had been wrong in his treatment of her. Without waking him, she went back, and after a second dose of opium she fell toward morning into a heavy, incomplete sleep, during which she never quite lost consciousness.
In the morning she was waked by a horrible nightmare, which had recurred several times in her dreams, even before her connection with Vronsky.
A little old man with unkempt beard was doing something, stooping over some iron, muttering meaningless French words, and she, as she always did in this nightmare (it was what made the horror of it), felt that this peasant was taking no notice of her, but was doing something horrible with the iron - over her. And she waked up in a cold sweat.
When she got up, the previous day came back to her as though veiled in mist.
`There was a quarrel. Just what has happened several times. Isaid I had a headache, and he did not come in to see me. Tomorrow we're going away; I must see him and get ready for the journey,' she said to herself. And learning that he was in his study, she went down to him. As she passed through the drawing room she heard a carriage stop at the entrance, and looking out of the window she saw the carriage, from which a young girl in a lilac hat was leaning out, giving some direction to the footman who was ringing the bell. After a parley in the hall, someone came upstairs, and Vronsky's steps could be heard passing the drawing room. He went rapidly downstairs. Anna went again to the window. She saw him come out on the steps without his hat and go up to the carriage. The young girl in the lilac hat handed him a parcel. Vronsky, smiling, said something to her.
The carriage drove away; he ran rapidly upstairs again.
The mists that had shrouded everything in her soul parted suddenly.
The feelings of yesterday pierced the sick heart with a fresh pang. She could not understand now how she could have lowered herself by spending a whole day with him in his house. She went into his room to announce her determination.
`That was Madame Sorokina and her daughter. They came and brought me the money and the deeds from maman. I couldn't get them yesterday. How is your head, better?' he said quietly, not wishing to see and to understand the gloomy and solemn expression of her face.
She looked silently, intently at him, standing in the middle of the room. He glanced at her, frowned for a moment, and went on reading a letter. She turned, and went deliberately out of the room. He still might have turned her back, but she had reached the door, he was still silent, and the only sound audible was the rustling of the note paper as he turned it.
`Oh, by the way,' he said at the very moment she was in the doorway, `we're going tomorrow for certain, aren't we?'
`You, but not I,' she said, turning round to him.
`Anna, we can't go on like this...'
`You, but not I,' she repeated.
`This is getting unbearable!'
`You... You will be sorry for this,' she said, and went out.
Frightened by the desperate expression with which these words were uttered, he jumped up and would have run after her, but on second thoughts he sat down and scowled, setting his teeth. This vulgar - as he thought it - threat of something vague exasperated him. `I've tried everything,'
he thought; `the only thing left is not to pay attention,' and he began to get ready to drive into town, and again to his mother's, to get her signature to the deeds.
She heard the sound of his steps about the study and the dining room. At the drawing room he stood still. But he did not turn in to see her; he merely gave an order that the horse should be given to Voitov if he came while he was away. Then she heard the carriage brought round, the door opened, and he came out again. But he went back into the porch again, and someone was running upstairs. It was the valet running up for his forgotten gloves. She went to the window and saw him take the gloves without looking, and, touching the coachman on the back, he said something to him. Then, without looking up at the window, he settled himself in his usual attitude in the carriage, with his legs crossed, and, drawing on his gloves, he vanished round the corner.
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TOLSTOY: Anna Karenina Part 7, Chapter 27[Previous Chapter] [Table of Contents] Chapter 27 `He has gone! It is the end!' Anna said to herself, standing at the window;and in answer to this question the impression of the darkness when the candle had flickered out and of her fearful dream, mingling into one, filled her heart with cold terror.
`No, that cannot be!' she cried, and crossing the room she rang the bell. She was afraid now of being alone, that, without waiting for the servant to come in, she went out to meet him.
`Inquire where the Count has gone,' she said.
The servant answered that the Count had gone to the stable.
