Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART TWO CHAPTER 26
in society cast dubious glances on his wife; he did not want to understand, and did
not understand, why his wife had so particularly insisted on staying at Tsarskoe,
where Betsy was staying, and not far from the camp of Vronsky’s regiment. He
did not allow himself to think about it, and he did not think about it; but all the
same though he never admitted it to himself, and had no proofs, not even suspicious
evidence, in the bottom of his heart he knew beyond all doubt that he was a deceived
husband, and he was profoundly miserable about it.
How often during those eight years of happy life with his wife Alexey Alexandrovitch
had looked at other men’s faithless wives and other deceived husbands
and asked himself: “How can people descend to that? how is it they don’t put an
end to such a hideous position?” But now, when the misfortune had come upon himself,
he was so far from thinking of putting an end to the position that he would not
recognize it at all, would not recognize it just because it was too awful, too unnatural.
Since his return from abroad Alexey Alexandrovitch had twice been at their country
villa. Once he dined there, another time he spent the evening there with a party
of friends, but he had not once stayed the night there, as it had been his habit to do
in previous years.
The day of the races had been a very busy day for Alexey Alexandrovitch; but
when mentally sketching out the day in the morning, he made up his mind to go to
their country house to see his wife immediately after dinner, and from there to the
races, which all the Court were to witness, and at which he was bound to be present.
He was going to see his wife, because he had determined to see her once a week to
keep up appearances. And besides, on that day, as it was the fifteenth, he had to give
his wife some money for her expenses, according to their usual arrangement.
With his habitual control over his thoughts, though he thought all this about his
wife, he did not let his thoughts stray further in regard to her.
That morning was a very full one for Alexey Alexandrovitch. The evening before,
Countess Lidia Ivanovna had sent him a pamphlet by a celebrated traveler in China,
who was staying in Petersburg, and with it she enclosed a note begging him to see
the traveler himself, as he was an extremely interesting person from various points
of view, and likely to be useful. Alexey Alexandrovitch had not had time to read
the pamphlet through in the evening, and finished it in the morning. Then people
began arriving with petitions, and there came the reports, interviews, appointments,
dismissals, apportionment of rewards, pensions, grants, notes, the workaday round,
as Alexey Alexandrovitch called it, that always took up so much time. Then there
was private business of his own, a visit from the doctor and the steward who managed
his property. The steward did not take up much time. He simply gave Alexey
Alexandrovitch the money he needed together with a brief statement of the position
of his affairs, which was not altogether satisfactory, as it had happened that during
that year, owing to increased expenses, more had been paid out than usual, and
there was a deficit. But the doctor, a celebrated Petersburg doctor, who was an intimate
acquaintance of Alexey Alexandrovitch, took up a great deal of time. Alexey
Alexandrovitch had not expected him that day, and was surprised at his visit, and
still more so when the doctor questioned him very carefully about his health, listened
to his breathing, and tapped at his liver. Alexey Alexandrovitch did not know
that his friend Lidia Ivanovna, noticing that he was not as well as usual that year,
192