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Chapter 22.
The rain did not last long, and by the time Vronsky arrived, his
shaft-horse trotting at full speed and dragging the trace-horses gallop-
ing through the mud, with their reins hanging loose, the sun had peeped
out again, the roofs of the summer villas and the old limetrees in the
gardens on both sides of the principal streets sparkled with wet bril-
liance, and from the twigs came a pleasant drip and from the roofs
rushing streams of water. He thought no more of the shower spoiling
the race course, but was rejoicing now that—thanks to the rain—he
would be sure to find her at home and alone, as he knew that Alexey
Alexandrovitch, who had lately returned from a foreign watering place,
had not moved from Petersburg.
Hoping to find her alone, Vronsky alighted, as he always did, to
avoid attracting attention, before crossing the bridge, and walked to
the house. He did not go up the steps to the street door, but went into
the court.
“Has your master come?” he asked a gardener.
“No, sir. The mistress is at home. But will you please go to the
frond door; there are servants there,” the gardener answered. “They’ll
open the door.”
“No, I’ll go in from the garden.”
And feeling satisfied that she was alone, and wanting to take her
by surprise, since he had not promised to be there today, and she
would certainly not expect him to come before the races, he walked,
holding his sword and stepping cautiously over the sandy path, bor-
dered with flowers, to the terrace that looked out upon the garden.
Vronsky forgot now all that he had thought on the way of the hardships
and difficulties of their position. He thought of nothing but that he
would see her directly, not in imagination, but living, all of her, as she
was in reality. He was just going in, stepping on his whole foot so as not
to creak, up the worn steps of the terrace, when he suddenly remem-
bered what he always forgot, and what caused the most torturing side
of his relations with her, her son with his questioning—hostile, as he
fancied—eyes.
This boy was more often than anyone else a check upon their
freedom. When he was present, both Vronsky and Anna did not
merely avoid speaking of anything that they could not have repeated
before everyone; they did not even allow themselves to refer by hints
to anything the boy did not understand. They had made no agreement
about this, it had settled itself. They would have felt it wounding
themselves to deceive the child. In his presence they talked like ac-
quaintances. But in spite of this caution, Vronsky often saw the child’s
intent, bewildered glance fixed upon him, and a strange shyness, un-
certainty, at one time friendliness, at another, coldness and reserve, in
the boy’s manner to him; as though the child felt that between this
man and his mother there existed some important bond, the signifi-
cance of which he could not understand.
As a fact, the boy did feel that he could not understand this rela-
tion, and he tried painfully, and was not able to make clear to himself
what feeling he ought to have for this man. With a child’s keen instinct
for every manifestation of feeling, he saw distinctly that his father, his