Android Karenina

The subject of the quarrel had been Vronsky’s decision to hire a slow-witted, middle-aged bachelor named Pyotr as a household servant. A

“Yes, but if our little freedoms are made possible only by the subjugation of other people, what ma

When he had come in to her yesterday evening, they had not referred to the quarrel, but both felt that the quarrel had been smoothed over, but was not at an end.

Today he had not been at home all day, and she felt so lonely and wretched in being on bad terms with him that she wanted to forget it all, to forgive him, and be reconciled with him; she wanted to throw the blame on herself and to justify him.

I am myself to blame. I’m irritable, I’m insanely jealous. I will make it up with him, and we’ll go away to somewhere in the country-no! To the moon! We shall return to the moon!

And perceiving that, while trying to regain her peace of mind, she had gone round the same circle that she had been round so often before, and had come back to her former state of exasperation, she was horrified at herself. “Can it be impossible? Can it be beyond me to control myself?” she said to herself, and began again from the begi

And to escape thinking any more, and being overcome by irritability, she rang, and ordered the boxes to be brought up for packing their things for lunar launch.

At ten o’clock Vronsky came in.

CHAPTER 12

WELL, WAS IT NICE?” she asked, coming out to meet him with a penitent and meek expression.

“Just as usual,” he answered, seeing at a glance that she was in one of her good moods. He was by now used to these transitions, and he was particularly glad to see it today, as he was in a specially good humor himself.

“What do I see? Come, that’s good!” he said, pointing to the boxes in the passage.

“Yes, we must launch. I went out for a drive, and became bewitched all over by the pale-orange light of the moon. I felt my soul drawn back to that place as the sure restorer of our happiness. There’s nothing to keep you, is there?”

“It’s the one thing I desire. I’ll be back directly, and we’ll talk it over; I only want to change my coat. Order some tea.”

He went into his room, and she rang to ask Pyotr for some tea. But as she waited for him to bring it, cringing at the crash of cup and kettle in the kitchen, A

When he came in she told him, partly repeating phrases she had prepared beforehand, how she had spent the day, and her plans for going away.

“You know it came to me almost like an inspiration,” she said. “Why wait here for the divorce? Won’t it be just the same up there? I can’t wait any longer! I don’t want to go on hoping, I don’t want to hear anything about the divorce. I have made up my mind it shall not have any more influence on my life. Do you agree?”

“Oh, yes!” he said, glancing uneasily at her excited face.

“Things shall be lovely on the moon. We shan’t have the threat of the Ministry hanging over us, and nor shall we rely on human labor, for surely the Moonies ca

“Let us not get ahead of things, A

“Ah, is that it, then? This is the reason you have dragged me back to Moscow, to this dreary life: so you can play the alien-slaying hero?”

Vronsky threw up his hands. “A

“There’s no meaning in it to you, because you care nothing for me. You don’t care to understand my life.”

For an instant she had a clear vision of what she was doing, and was horrified at how she had fallen away from her resolution to keep peace between them. But even though she knew it was her own ruin, she could not restrain herself, could not keep herself from proving to him that he was wrong, could not give way to him. “How is it,” she said, “though you boast of your straightforwardness, you don’t tell the truth?”

“I never boast, and I never tell lies,” he said slowly, restraining his rising anger. “It’s a great pity if you can’t respect…”

“Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be. And if you don’t love me anymore, it would be better and more honest to say so.”

“No, this is becoming unbearable!” cried Vronsky getting up from his chair; and stopping short, facing her, he said, speaking deliberately: “What do you try my patience for?” looking as though he might have said much more, but was restraining himself. “It has limits.”

“What do you mean by that?” she cried, looking with terror at the undisguised hatred in his whole face, and especially in his cruel, menacing eyes.

“I mean to say…” he was begi

“What can I want? I want love, and there is none. So then all is over.”

She turned toward the door.

“Stop! Stop!” said Vronsky, with no change in the gloomy lines of his brows, though he held her by the hand. “What is it all about? I said that we must bring Pyotr to serve us on the moon, and on that you told me I was lying, that I was not an honorable man.”

Pyotr, as if on cue, entered the room and tripped over the ottoman, sending the tea tray with its contents clattering across the floor.

“Yes, and I repeat that the man who reproaches me with having sacrificed everything for me,” she said, recalling the words of a still earlier quarrel, “that he’s worse than a dishonorable man-he’s a heartless man.”

“Oh, there are limits to endurance!” he cried, and hastily let go her hand. Pyotr rose unsteadily and gathered up the tea things to start again.

“He hates me, that’s clear,” A