第130章

What Vronsky attacked first, as being the easiest, was his pecuniary position. Writing out on note paper in his minute handwriting all that he owed, he added up the amount and found that his debts amounted to seventeen thousand and some odd hundreds, which he left out for the sake of clearness.

Reckoning up his cash and the balance in his bankbook, he found that he had left one thousand eight hundred roubles, and nothing coming in before the New Year. Reckoning over again his list of debts, Vronsky copied it, dividing it into three classes. In the first class he put the debts which he would have to pay at once, or for which he must in any case have the money ready so that on demand for payment there would not be a moment's delay in paying. Such debts amounted to about four thousand: one thousand five hundred for a horse, and two thousand five hundred as surety for a young comrade, Venevsky, who had lost that sum to a cardsharper in Vronsky's presence. Vronsky had wanted to pay the money at the time (he had that amount then), but Venevsky and Iashvin had insisted that they would pay and not Vronsky, who had not played. So far, so good; but Vronsky knew that in this dirty business, though his only share in it was undertaking by word of mouth to be surety for Venevsky, it was absolutely necessary for him to have the two thousand five hundred roubles, so as to be able to fling it at the cheat, and have no more words with him. And so, for this first and most important division, he must have four thousand roubles.

The second class - eight thousand roubles - consisted of less important debts. These were principally accounts owing in connection with his race horses, to the purveyor of oats and hay, the Englishman, the saddler, and so on. He would have to pay some two thousand roubles on these debts too, in order to be quite free from anxiety. The last class of debts - to shops, to hotels, to his tailor - were such as need not be considered. So that he needed at least six thousand roubles, and he only had one thousand eight hundred for current expenses. For a man with one hundred thousand roubles of revenue, which was what everyone fixed as Vronsky's income, such debts, one would suppose, could hardly be embarrassing; but the fact was that he was far from having one hundred thousand. His father's immense property, which alone yielded a yearly income of two hundred thousand, was left undivided between the brothers. At the time when the elder brother, with a mass of debts, had married Princess Varia Chirkova, the daughter of a Dekabrist without any fortune whatever, Alexei had given up to his elder brother almost the whole income from his father's estate, reserving for himself only twenty-five thousand a year from it. Alexei had said at the time to his brother that the sum would be sufficient for him until he married, which he would probably never do. And his brother, who was in command of one of the most expensive regiments, and was only just married, could not decline the gift. His mother, who had her own separate property, had allowed Alexei every year twenty thousand in addition to the twenty-five thousand he had reserved, and Alexei had spent it all. Of late his mother, incensed with him on account of his love affair and his leaving Moscow, had given up sending him the money. And, in consequence of this, Vronsky, who had been in the habit of living on the scale of forty-five thousand a year, having only received twenty thousand that year, now found himself in difficulties.

To get out of these difficulties, he could not apply to his mother for money. Her last letter, which he had received the day before, had particularly exasperated him by the hints it contained that she was quite ready to help him to succeed in the world and in the army, but not to lead a life which scandalized all good society. His mother's attempt to buy him stung him to the quick and made him feel colder than ever toward her. But he could not draw back from the generous word when it was once uttered, even though he felt now, vaguely foreseeing certain eventualities in his liaison with Madame Karenina, that his generous word had been spoken thoughtlessly, and that, even though he were not married, he might need all the hundred thousand of income. But it was impossible to draw back. He had only to recall his brother's wife, to remember how that sweet, delightful Varia sought, at every convenient opportunity, to remind him that she remembered his generosity and appreciated it, to grasp the impossibility of taking back his gift. It was as impossible as beating a woman, or stealing, or lying. One thing only could and ought to be done, and Vronsky determined upon it without an instant's hesitation: to borrow money from a moneylender, ten thousand roubles, a proceeding which presented no difficulty; to cut down his expenses generally, and to sell his race horses. Resolving on this, he promptly wrote a note to Rolandaky, who had more than once sent to him with offers to buy horses from him. Then he sent for the Englishman and the moneylender, and divided what money he had according to the accounts he intended to pay. Having finished this business, he wrote a cold and cutting answer to his mother. Then he took out of his notebook three notes of Anna's, read them again, burned them, and, remembering their conversation on the previous day, he sank into deep thought.

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