第85章

`O my sweet!' he said inwardly to Frou-Frou, as he listened for what was happening behind. `He's cleared it!' he thought, catching the thud of Gladiator's hoofs behind him. There remained only the last ditch, filled with water and two arsheenes wide. Vronsky did not even look at it, but anxious to come in a long way ahead began sawing away at the reins, lifting the mare's head and letting it go in time with her paces. He felt that the mare was at her very last reserve of strength; not her neck and shoulders merely were wet, but the sweat was standing in drops on her mane, her head, her sharp ears, and her breath came in short, sharp gasps. But he knew that she had strength left more than enough for the remaining two hundred sazhenes. It was only from feeling himself nearer the ground and from the peculiar smoothness of his motion that Vronsky knew how greatly the mare had quickened her pace. She flew over the ditch as though not noticing it. She flew over it like a bird; but at the same instant Vronsky, to his horror, felt that failing to keep up with the mare's pace, he had, he did not know how, made an abominable, unpardonable move in recovering his seat in the saddle. All at once his position had shifted and he knew that something awful had happened. He could not yet make out what had happened, when the white legs of a chestnut horse flashed by close to him, and Makhotin passed at a swift gallop. Vronsky was touching the ground with one foot, and his mare was sinking on that foot. He just had time to free his leg when she fell on one side, gasping painfully, and, making vain efforts to rise with her delicate, soaking neck, she fluttered on the ground at his feet like a shot bird. The clumsy movement made by Vronsky had broken her back. But that he only knew much later. At that moment he knew only that Makhotin had flown swiftly by, while he stood staggering alone on the muddy, motionless ground, and Frou-Frou lay gasping before him, bending her head back and gazing at him with her exquisite eye. Still unable to realize what had happened, Vronsky tugged at his mare's reins. Again she struggled all over like a fish, and, her shoulders making the wings of the saddle crackle, she rose on her front legs; but unable to lift her back, she quivered all over and again fell on her side. With his face hideous with passion, pale, his lower jaw trembling, Vronsky kicked her with his heel in the stomach and again fell to tugging at the rein. She did not stir, but thrusting her nose into the ground, she simply gazed at her master with her speaking eyes.

`A-a-a!' groaned Vronsky, clutching at his head. `Ah! what have I done!' he cried. `The race lost! And my fault! shameful, unpardonable!

And the poor darling, ruined mare! Ah, what have I done!'

A crowd of men, a doctor and his assistant, the officers of his regiment, ran up to him. To his misery he felt that he was whole and unhurt.

The mare had broken her back, and it was decided to shoot her. Vronsky could not answer questions, could not speak to anyone. He turned, and without picking up his fallen cap, walked away from the racecourse, unconscious of where he was going. He felt utterly wretched. For the first time in his life he knew the bitterest sort of misfortune, misfortune beyond remedy, and caused by his own fault.

Iashvin overtook him with his cap, and led him home, and half an hour later Vronsky had regained his self-possession. But the memory of that race remained for long in his heart, the cruelest and bitterest memory of his life.

[Next Chapter] [Table of Contents]TOLSTOY: Anna Karenina Part 2, Chapter 26[Previous Chapter] [Table of Contents] Chapter 26 The external relations of Alexei Alexandrovich and his wife had remained unchanged. The sole difference lay in the fact that he was more busily occupied than ever. As in former years, at the beginning of the spring he had gone to a foreign watering place for the sake of his health, being deranged every year with his strenuous winter work. And just as always he returned in July and at once fell to his usual work with increased energy.

Just as always, too, his wife had moved for the summer to a villa out of town, while he remained in Peterburg.

From the date of their conversation after the party at Princess Tverskaia's he had never spoken again to Anna of his suspicions and his jealousies, and that habitual tone of his of bantering mimicry was the most convenient tone possible for his present attitude to his wife. He was a little colder to his wife. He simply seemed to be slightly displeased with her for that first midnight conversation, which she had repelled.

In his attitude to her there was a shade of vexation, but nothing more.

`You would not be open with me,' he seemed to say, mentally addressing her; `so much the worse for you. Now you may beg as you please, but I won't be open with you. So much the worse for you!' he said mentally, like a man who, after vainly attempting to extinguish a fire, should fly in a rage with his vain efforts and say, `Oh, very well then! You shall burn for this!'

This man, so subtle and astute in official life, did not realize all the insanity of such an attitude to his wife. He did not realize it, because it was too terrible to him to realize his actual position, and he shut down and locked and sealed up in his heart that secret place where lay hid his feelings toward his family - that is, his wife and son. He who had been such a considerate father, had from the end of that winter become peculiarly frigid to his son, and adopted to him just the same bantering tone as he used with his wife. `Aha, young man!' was the greeting with which he met him.