In order to carry through any undertaking1 in family life, there must necessarily be either complete division between the husband and wife, or loving agreement. When the relations of a couple are vacillating and neither one thing nor the other, no sort of enterprise can be undertaken.
Many families remain for years in the same place, though both husband and wife are sick of it, simply because there is neither complete division nor agreement between them.
Both Vronsky and Anna felt life in Moscow insupportable in the heat and dust, when the spring sunshine was followed by the glare of summer, and all the trees in the boulevards had long since been in full leaf, and the leaves were covered with dust. But they did not go back to Vozdvizhenskoe, as they had arranged to do long before; they went on staying in Moscow, though they both loathed2 it, because of late there had been no agreement between them.
The irritability3 that kept them apart had no external cause, and all efforts to come to an understanding intensified4 it, instead of removing it. It was an inner irritation5, grounded in her mind on the conviction that his love had grown less; in his, on regret that he had put himself for her sake in a difficult position, which she, instead of lightening, made still more difficult. Neither of them gave full utterance6 to their sense of grievance7, but they considered each other in the wrong, and tried on every pretext8 to prove this to one another.
In her eyes the whole of him, with all his habits, ideas, desires, with all his spiritual and physical temperament9, was one thing--love for women, and that love, she felt, ought to be entirely10 concentrated on her alone. That love was less; consequently, as she reasoned, he must have transferred part of his love to other women or to another woman--and she was jealous. She was jealous not of any particular woman but of the decrease of his love. Not having got an object for her jealousy11, she was on the lookout12 for it. At the slightest hint she transferred her jealousy from one object to another. At one time she was jealous of those low women with whom he might so easily renew his old bachelor ties; then she was jealous of the society women he might meet; then she was jealous of the imaginary girl whom he might want to marry, for whose sake he would break with her. And this last form of jealousy tortured her most of all, especially as he had unwarily told her, in a moment of frankness, that his mother knew him so little that she had had the audacity13 to try and persuade him to marry the young Princess Sorokina.
And being jealous of him, Anna was indignant against him and found grounds for indignation in everything. For everything that was difficult in her position she blamed him. The agonizing14 condition of suspense15 she had passed in Moscow, the tardiness16 and indecision of Alexey Alexandrovitch, her solitude--she put it all down to him. If he had loved her he would have seen all the bitterness of her position, and would have rescued her from it. For her being in Moscow and not in the country, he was to blame too. He could not live buried in the country as she would have liked to do. He must have society, and he had put her in this awful position, the bitterness of which he would not see. And again, it was his fault that she was forever separated from her son.
Even the rare moments of tenderness that came from time to time did not soothe17 her; in his tenderness now she saw a shade of complacency, of self-confidence, which had not been of old and which exasperated18 her.
It was dusk. Anna was alone, and waiting for him to come back from a bachelor dinner. She walked up and down in his study (the room where the noise from the street was least heard), and thought over every detail of their yesterday's quarrel. Going back from the well-remembered, offensive words of the quarrel to what had been the ground of it, she arrived at last at its origin. For a long while she could hardly believe that their dissension had arisen from a conversation so inoffensive, of so little moment to either. But so it actually had been. It all arose from his laughing at the girls' high schools, declaring they were useless, while she defended them. He had spoken slightingly of women's education in general, and had said that Hannah, Anna's English protegee, had not the slightest need to know anything of physics.
This irritated Anna. She saw in this a contemptuous reference to her occupations. And she bethought her of a phrase to pay him back for the pain he had given her. "I don't expect you to understand me, my feelings, as anyone who loved me might, but simple delicacy19 I did expect," she said.
And he had actually flushed with vexation, and had said something unpleasant. She could not recall her answer, but at that point, with an unmistakable desire to wound her too, he had said:
"I feel no interest in your infatuation over this girl, that's true, because I see it's unnatural20."
The cruelty with which he shattered the world she had built up for herself so laboriously21 to enable her to endure her hard life, the injustice22 with which he had accused her of affectation, of artificiality, aroused her.
"I am very sorry that nothing but what's coarse and material is comprehensible and natural to you," she said and walked out of the room.
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 justify23 him.
"I am myself to blame. I'm irritable24, I'm insanely jealous. I will make it up with him, and we'll go away to the country; there I shall be more at peace."
"Unnatural!" she suddenly recalled the word that had stung her most of all, not so much the word itself as the intent to wound her with which it was said. "I know what he meant; he meant-- unnatural, not loving my own daughter, to love another person's child. What does he know of love for children, of my love for Seryozha, whom I've sacrificed for him? But that wish to wound me! No, he loves another woman, it must be so."
And perceiving that, while trying to regain25 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 exasperation26, she was horrified27 at herself. "Can it be impossible? Can it be beyond me to control myself?" she said to herself, and began again from the beginning. "He's truthful28, he's honest, he loves me. I love him, and in a few days the divorce will come. What more do I want? I want peace of mind and trust, and I will take the blame on myself. Yes, now when he comes in, I will tell him I was wrong, though I was not wrong, and we will go away tomorrow."
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 the country.
At ten o'clock Vronsky came in.
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undertaking
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| n.保证，许诺，事业 | |
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loathed
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| v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的过去式和过去分词 )；极不喜欢 | |
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irritability
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| n.易怒 | |
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intensified
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| v.（使）增强， （使）加剧( intensify的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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grievance
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| n.怨愤，气恼，委屈 | |
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pretext
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| n.借口，托词 | |
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temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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lookout
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| n.注意，前途，瞭望台 | |
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audacity
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| n.大胆，卤莽，无礼 | |
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agonizing
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| adj.痛苦难忍的；使人苦恼的v.使极度痛苦；折磨(agonize的ing形式) | |
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suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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tardiness
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| n.缓慢；迟延；拖拉 | |
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soothe
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| v.安慰；使平静；使减轻；缓和；奉承 | |
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exasperated
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| adj.恼怒的 | |
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delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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laboriously
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| adv.艰苦地；费力地；辛勤地；（文体等）佶屈聱牙地 | |
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injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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irritable
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| adj.急躁的；过敏的；易怒的 | |
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25
regain
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| vt.重新获得，收复，恢复 | |
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exasperation
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| n.愤慨 | |
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horrified
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| a.(表现出)恐惧的 | |
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truthful
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| adj.真实的，说实话的，诚实的 | |
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