第181章

Alexei Alexandrovich pondered, and after standing still a few seconds he went in at the other door. The baby was lying with its head thrown back, stiffening itself in the nurse's arms, and would not take the plump breast offered it; and it never ceased screaming in spite of the double hushing of the wet nurse and the other nurse, who was bending over her.

`Still no better?' said Alexei Alexandrovich.

`She's very restless,' answered the nurse in a whisper.

`Miss Edwards says that perhaps the wet nurse has no milk,' he said.

`I think so too, Alexei Alexandrovich.'

`Then why didn't you say so?'

`Who's one to say it to? Anna Arkadyevna is still ill...' said the nurse discontentedly.

The nurse was an old servant of the family. And in her simple words there seemed to Alexei Alexandrovich an allusion to his position.

The baby screamed louder than ever, struggling and choking. The nurse, with a gesture of despair, went to it, took it from the wet nurse's arms, and began walking up and down, rocking it.

`You must ask the doctor to examine the wet nurse,' said Alexei Alexandrovich.

The smartly dressed and healthy-looking nurse, frightened at the idea of losing her place, muttered something to herself, and, covering her bosom, smiled contemptuously at the idea of doubts being cast on her abundance of milk. In that smile, too, Alexei Alexandrovich saw a sneer at his position.

`Luckless child,' said the nurse, hushing the baby, and still walking up and down with it.

Alexei Alexandrovich sat down, and with a despondent and suffering face watched the nurse walking to and fro.

When the child at last was still, and had been put in a deep bed, and the nurse, after smoothing the little pillow, had left her, Alexei Alexandrovich got up, and, walking awkwardly on tiptoe, approached the baby. For a minute he was still, and with the same despondent face gazed at the baby; but all at once a smile that moved his hair and the skin of his forehead, came out on his face, and he went as softly out of the room.

In the dining room he rang the bell, and told the servant who came in to send again for the doctor. He felt vexed with his wife for not being anxious about this charming baby, and in this vexed humor he had no wish to go to her; he had no wish, either, to see Princess Betsy. But his wife might wonder why he did not go to her as usual; and so, overcoming his disinclination, he went toward her bedroom. As he walked over the soft rug toward the door, he could not help overhearing a conversation he did not want to hear.

`If he hadn't been going away, I could have understood your refusal and his too. But your husband ought to be above that,' Betsy was saying.

`It's not for my husband - it's for myself I don't wish it. Don't say that!' answered Anna's excited voice.

`Yes, but you must care to say good-by to a man who has shot himself on your account....'

`That's just why I don't want to.'

With a dismayed and guilty expression, Alexei Alexandrovich stopped and would have gone back unobserved. But reflecting that this would be undignified, he turned back again, and, clearing his throat, he approached the bedroom. The voices were silent, and he went in.

Anna, in a gray dressing gown, with a crop of short clustering black curls on her round head, was sitting on a settee. The animation died out of her face, as it always did, at the sight of her husband; she dropped her head and looked round uneasily at Betsy. Betsy, dressed in the height of the latest fashion, in a hat that towered over her head like a shade on a lamp, in a dove-colored dress with crude oblique stripes, slanting one way on the bodice and the other way on the skirt, was sitting beside Anna, her tall flat figure held erect. Bowing her head, she greeted Alexei Alexandrovich with an ironical smile.

`Ah!' she said, as though surprised. `I'm very glad you're at home. You never put in an appearance anywhere, and I haven't seen you ever since Anna has been ill. I have heard all about it - your anxiety. Yes, you're a wonderful husband!' she said, with a significant and affable air, as though she were bestowing an order of magnanimity on him for his conduct toward his wife.

Alexei Alexandrovich bowed frigidly, and, kissing his wife's hand, asked how she was.

`Better, I think,' she said, avoiding his eyes.

`But you've rather a feverish complexion,' he said, laying stress on the word `feverish.'

`We've been talking too much,' said Betsy. `I feel it's selfishness on my part, and I am going away.'

She got up, but Anna, suddenly flushing, quickly caught at her hand.

`No, wait a minute, please. I must tell you... no, I mean you,'

she turned to Alexei Alexandrovich, and her neck and brow were suffused with crimson. `I won't and can't keep anything secret from you,' she said.

Alexei Alexandrovich cracked his fingers and bowed his head.

`Betsy's been telling me that Count Vronsky wants to come here to say good-by before his departure for Tashkend.' She did not look at her husband, and was evidently in haste to have everything out, however hard it might be for her. `I told her I could not receive him.'

`You said, my dear, that it would depend on Alexei Alexandrovich,'

Betsy corrected her.

`Oh, no, I can't receive him; and what object would there be in...'

She stopped suddenly, and glanced inquiringly at her husband (he did not look at her). `In short, I don't wish it....'

Alexei Alexandrovich advanced and would have taken her hand.

Her first impulse was to jerk back her hand from the damp hand with big swollen veins that sought hers, but with an obvious effort to control herself she pressed his hand.

`I am very grateful to you for your confidence, but...' he said, feeling with confusion and annoyance that what he could decide easily and clearly by himself, he could not discuss before Princess Tverskaia, who to him stood for the incarnation of that brute force which would inevitably control him in the life he led in the eyes of the world, and hinder him from giving way to his feeling of love and forgiveness. He stopped short, looking at Princess Tverskaia.