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and will lavish, and longs to lavish on other women!” she thought.
“You don’t love your mother. That’s all talk, and talk, and talk!” she
said, looking at him with hatred in her eyes.
“Even if so, you must...”
“Must decide, and I have decided,” she said, and she would have
gone away, but at that moment Yashvin walked into the room. Anna
greeted him and remained.
Why, when there was a tempest in her soul, and she felt she was
standing at a turning point in her life, which might have fearful conse-
quences—why, at that minute, she had to keep up appearances before
an outsider, who sooner or later must know it all—she did not know.
But at once quelling the storm within her, she sat down and began
talking to their guest.
“Well, how are you getting on? Has your debt been paid you?” she
asked Yashvin.
“Oh, pretty fair; I fancy I shan’t get it all, but I shall get a good half.
And when are you off?” said Yashvin, looking at Vronsky, and unmis-
takably guessing at a quarrel.
“The day after tomorrow, I think,” said Vronsky.
“You’ve been meaning to go so long, though.”
“But now it’s quite decided,” said Anna, looking Vronsky straight
in the face with a look which told him not to dream of the possibility of
reconciliation.
“Don’t you feel sorry for that unlucky Pyevtsov?” she went on,
talking to Yashvin.
“I’ve never asked myself the question, Anna Arkadyevna, whether
I’m sorry for him or not. You see, all my fortune’s here”—he touched his
breast pocket—”and just now I’m a wealthy man. But today I’m going
to the club, and I may come out a beggar. You see, whoever sits down
to play with me—he wants to leave me without a shirt to my back, and
so do I him. And so we fight it out, and that’s the pleasure of it.”
“Well, but suppose you were married,” said Anna, “how would it
be for your wife?”
Yashvin laughed.
“That’s why I’m not married, and never mean to be.”
“And Helsingfors?” said Vronsky, entering into the conversation
and glancing at Anna’s smiling face. Meeting his eyes, Anna’s face
instantly took a coldly severe expression as though she were saying to
him: “It’s not forgotten. It’s all the same.”
“Were you really in love?” she said to Yashvin.
“Oh heavens! ever so many times! But you see, some men can play
but only so that they can always lay down their cards when the hour of
a rendezvous comes, while I can take up love, but only so as not to be
late for my cards in the evening. That’s how I manage things.”
“No, I didn’t mean that, but the real thing.” She would have said
Helsingfors, but would not repeat the word used by Vronsky.
Voytov, who was buying the horse, came in. Anna got up and went
out of the room.
Before leaving the house, Vronsky went into her room. She would
have pretended to be looking for something on the table, but ashamed
of making a pretense, she looked straight in his face with cold eyes.
“What do you want?” she asked in French.
“To get the guarantee for Gambetta, I’ve sold him,” he said, in a
tone which said more clearly than words, “I’ve no time for discussing
things, and it would lead to nothing.”
“I’m not to blame in any way,” he thought. “If she will punish
herself, tant pis pour elle.” But as he was going he fancied that she said
something, and his heart suddenly ached with pity for her.