“What’s done can’t be undone, and you know I never go back on what I’ve done. And besides, I’m very well off.”
“Very well off—for the time. But you’re not satisfied with that. I wouldn’t say this to your brother. He’s a nice child, like our host here. There he goes!” he added, listening to the roar of “hurrah!”—”and he’s happy, but that does not satisfy you.”
“I didn’t say it did satisfy me.”
“Yes, but that’s not the only thing. Such men as you are wanted.”
“By whom?”
“By whom? By society, by Russia. Russia needs men; she needs a party, or else everything goes and will go to the dogs.”
“How do you mean? Bertenev’s party against the Russian communists?”
“No,” said Serpuhovskoy, frowning with vexation at being suspected of such an absurdity. “Tout ça est une blague. That’s always been and always will be. There are no communists. But intriguing people have to invent a noxious, dangerous party. It’s an old trick. No, what’s wanted is a powerful party of independent men like you and me.”
“But why so?” Vronsky mentioned a few men who were in power. “Why aren’t they independent men?”
“Simply because they have not, or have not had from birth, an independent fortune; they’ve not had a name, they’ve not been close to the sun and center as we have. They can be bought either by money or by favor. And they have to find a support for themselves in inventing a policy. And they bring forward some notion, some policy that they don’t believe in, that does harm; and the whole policy is really only a means to a government house and so much income. Cela n’est pas plus fin que ça, when you get a peep at their cards. I may be inferior to them, stupider perhaps, though I don’t see why I should be inferior to them. But you and I have one important advantage over them for certain, in being more difficult to buy. And such men are more needed than ever.”
Vronsky listened attentively, but he was not so much interested by the meaning of the words as by the attitude of Serpuhovskoy who was already contemplating a struggle with the existing powers, and already had his likes and dislikes in that higher world, while his own interest in the governing world did not go beyond the interests of his regiment. Vronsky felt, too, how powerful Serpuhovskoy might become through his unmistakable faculty for thinking things out and for taking things in, through his intelligence and gift of words, so rarely met with in the world in which he moved. And, ashamed as he was of the feeling, he felt envious.
“Still I haven’t the one thing of most importance for that,” he answered; “I haven’t the desire for power. I had it once, but it’s gone.”
“Excuse me, that’s not true,” said Serpuhovskoy, smiling.
“Yes, it is true, it is true…now!” Vronsky added, to be truthful.
“Yes, it’s true now, that’s another thing; but that now won’t last forever.”
“Perhaps,” answered Vronsky.
“You say perhaps,” Serpuhovskoy went on, as though guessing his thoughts, “but I say for certain. And that’s what I wanted to see you for. Your action was just what it should have been. I see that, but you ought not to keep it up. I only ask you to give me carte blanche. I’m not going to offer you my protection…though, indeed, why shouldn’t I protect you?— you’ve protected me often enough! I should hope our friendship rises above all that sort of thing. Yes,” he said, smiling to him as tenderly as a woman, “give me carte blanche, retire from the regiment, and I’ll draw you upwards imperceptibly.”
“But you must understand that I want nothing,” said Vronsky, “except that all should be as it is.”
Serpuhovskoy got up and stood facing him.
“You say that all should be as it is. I understand what that means. But listen: we’re the same age, you’ve known a greater number of women perhaps than I have.” Serpohovskoy’s smile and gestures told Vronsky that he mustn’t be afraid, that he would be tender and careful in touching the sore place. “But I’m married, and believe me, in getting to know thoroughly one’s wife, if one loves her, as someone has said, one gets to know all women better than if one knew thousands of them.”
“We’re coming directly!” Vronsky shouted to an officer, who looked into the room and called them to the colonel.
Vronsky was longing now to hear to the end and know what Serpuhovskey would say to him.
“And here’s my opinion for you. Women are the chief stumbling block in a man’s career. It’s hard to love a woman and do anything. There’s only one way of having love conveniently without its being a hindrance—that’s marriage. How, how am I to tell you what I mean?” said Serpuhovskoy, who liked similes. “Wait a minute, wait a minute! Yes, just as you can only carry a fardeau and do something with your hands, when the fardeau is tied on your back, and that’s marriage. And that’s what I felt when I was married. My hands were suddenly set free. But to drag that fardeau about with you without marriage, your hands will always be so full that you can do nothing. Look at Mazankov, at Krupov. They’ve ruined their careers for the sake of women.”
“What women!” said Vronsky, recalling the Frenchwoman and the actress with whom the two men he had mentioned were connected.
“The firmer the woman’s footing in society, the worse it is. That’s much the same as—not merely carrying the fardeau in your arms—but tearing it away from someone else.”
“You have never loved,” Vronsky said softly, looking straight before him and thinking of Anna.
“Perhaps. But you remember what I’ve said to you. And another thing, women are all more materialistic than men. We make something immense out of love, but they are always terre-à-terre.”
“Directly, directly!” he cried to a footman who came in. But the footman had not come to call them again, as he supposed. The footman brought Vronsky a note.
“A man brought it from Princess Tverskaya.”
Vronsky opened the letter, and flushed crimson.
“My head’s begun to ache; I’m going home,” he said to Serpuhovskoy.
“Oh, good-bye then. You give me carte blanche!”
“We’ll talk about it later on; I’ll look you up in Petersburg.”
Chapter 22
It was six o’clock already, and so, in order to be there quickly, and at the same time not to drive with his own horses, known to everyone, Vronsky got into Yashvin’s hired fly, and told the driver to drive as quickly as possible. It was a roomy, old-fashioned fly, with seats for four. He sat in one corner, stretched his legs out on the front seat, and sank into meditation.
A vague sense of the order into which his affairs had been brought, a vague recollection of the friendliness and flattery of Serpuhovskoy, who had considered him a man that was needed, and most of all, the anticipation of the interview before him—all blended into a general, joyous sense of life. This feeling was so strong that he could not help smiling. He dropped his legs, crossed one leg over the other knee, and taking it in his hand, felt the springy muscle of the calf, where it had been grazed the day before by his fall, and leaning back he drew several deep breaths.
“I’m happy, very happy!” he said to himself. He had often before had this sense of physical joy in his own body, but he had never felt so fond of himself, of his own body, as at that moment. He enjoyed the slight ache in his strong leg, he enjoyed the muscular sensation of movement in his chest as he breathed. The bright, cold August day, which had made Anna feel so hopeless, seemed to him keenly stimulating, and refreshed his face and neck that still tingled from the cold water. The scent of brilliantine on his whiskers struck him as particularly pleasant in the fresh air. Everything he saw from the carriage window, everything in that cold pure air, in the pale light of the sunset, was as fresh, and gay, and strong as he was himself: the roofs of the houses shining in the rays of the setting sun, the sharp outlines of fences and angles of buildings, the figures of passers-by, the carriages that met him now and then, the motionless green of the trees and grass, the fields with evenly drawn furrows of potatoes, and the slanting shadows that fell from the houses, and trees, and bushes, and even from the rows of potatoes—everything was bright like a pretty landscape just finished and freshly varnished.
“Get on, get on!” he said to the driver, putting his head out of the window, and pulling a three-rouble note out of his pocket he handed it to the man as he looked round. The driver’s hand fumbled with something at the lamp, the whip cracked, and the carriage rolled rapidly along the smooth highroad.
“I want nothing, nothing but this happiness,” he thought, staring at the bone button of the bell in the space between the windows, and picturing to himself Anna just as he had seen her last time. “And as I go on, I love her more and more. Here’s the garden of the Vrede Villa. Whereabouts will she be? Where? How? Why did she fix on this place to meet me, and why does she write in Betsy’s letter?” he thought, wondering now
