第一百二十四章 第二十三节
第二十三节
弗龙斯基的伤势虽未危及心脏，却极其危险。一连数日，他徘徊在生死边缘。第一次能够开口说话时，房间里只有他哥哥的妻子瓦里娅。
“瓦里娅，”他严厉地望着她说，“我是无意中开枪伤了自己的。请别再提这事，对谁都这么说。否则太荒谬了。”
瓦里娅没有回答他的话，俯身望着他，脸上带着欣喜的微笑。他的眼神清澈，没有发烧的迹象，但目光严厉。
“感谢上帝！”她说。“你不疼吗？”
“这儿有点疼。”他指着胸口。
“让我给你换绷带。”
他沉默着，咬紧宽阔的下颌，看着她为他换药。包扎完毕后，他说：
“我没有神志不清。请你设法别让人议论我是故意开枪。”
“没人这么说。只希望你别再‘无意中’开枪伤到自己了。”她带着探询的微笑说。
“当然不会了，但那样倒更好……”
他阴郁地笑了笑。
尽管这番话和笑容让瓦里娅惊恐不已，但当炎症消退、他开始康复时，他感到自己已摆脱了部分痛苦。他的行为仿佛洗刷了他之前感到的羞耻和屈辱。现在他能平静地思考阿列克谢·亚历山德罗维奇了。他承认对方的所有宽宏大量，但不再因此感到屈辱。此外，他又回到了生活的常规轨道。他看到了重新无愧于人前、按自己习惯生活的可能。但有一件事他始终无法从心中拔除，尽管他不断与之抗争——那就是失去她永不可追的悔恨，近乎绝望。既然他已赎清了对丈夫的罪孽，他就必须放弃她，今后永远不再介入她与丈夫的忏悔之间——这一点他已下定决心。但他无法从心中抹去失去她爱情的遗憾，无法从记忆中擦去那些他当时不懂珍惜、如今却以其全部魅力萦绕心头的幸福时刻。
谢尔普霍夫斯科伊为他安排了去塔什干的任命，弗龙斯基毫不犹豫地接受了这个提议。但随着离别的日期临近，他为履行自己认为的责任而付出的牺牲愈发苦涩。
他的伤口已经愈合，正四处奔走准备前往塔什干的事宜。
“再见她一面，然后把自己埋葬，就此死去，”他想。在一次告别拜访中，他对贝特西说出了这个想法。贝特西受命去见安娜，带回了否定的答复。
“这样更好，”弗龙斯基得到消息时想，“这是软弱，会耗尽我仅存的力量。”
第二天清晨，贝特西亲自来找他，说她从奥布隆斯基那里确凿得知，阿列克谢·亚历山德罗维奇已同意离婚，因此弗龙斯基可以去见安娜了。
他甚至没有费心送贝特西出门，忘了所有的决心，也不问何时能见她、她丈夫在哪里，就直接驱车前往卡列宁家。他跑上楼梯，什么人也没看见，什么事也不顾，脚步飞快几乎变作奔跑，冲进她的房间。他毫不考虑，也不管房里是否有人，就一把搂住她，开始亲吻她的脸、她的手、她的脖子。
安娜为这次会面做了准备，想过要对他说什么，但她什么也没来得及说出口；他的激情征服了她。她试图让他平静下来，也让自己平静下来，但为时已晚。他的情感感染了她。她的嘴唇颤抖了很久，一句话也说不出来。
“是的，你征服了我，我是你的了，”她终于说道，把他的手按在自己胸前。
“本该如此，”他说。“只要我们活着，就必须如此。我现在明白了。”
“没错，”她说，脸色越来越苍白，抱住了他的头。“但在发生这一切之后，其中总有些可怕的东西。”
“一切都会过去，一切都会过去；我们会非常幸福的。我们的爱，如果还能变得更强烈，就会因其中有些可怕的东西而更加坚固，”他说着抬起头，露出结实的牙齿微微一笑。
她也不禁报以微笑——不是回应他的话，而是回应他眼中的爱意。她握住他的手，用他的手抚摸自己冰凉的 cheeks 和剪短的头发。
“你头发这么短，我都不认识你了。你变得这么漂亮。像个男孩。但你多苍白啊！”
“是的，我很虚弱，”她微笑道。她的嘴唇又开始颤抖。
“我们去意大利；你会恢复健康的，”他说。
“难道我们真能像夫妻一样，单独生活，你的家人和你在一起吗？”她说着，凝视着他的眼睛。
“我只是觉得奇怪，为什么以前不是这样。”
“斯季瓦说他已同意一切，但我不能接受他的宽宏大量，”她说，目光梦幻般掠过弗龙斯基的脸。“我不要离婚了；现在对我来说都一样。只是我不知道他打算拿谢廖沙怎么办。”
他无法理解，在他们重逢的这一刻，她怎么能想起并考虑儿子和离婚的事。这一切有什么要紧？
“别谈这个，别想它了，”他说着，翻过她的手握在掌中，试图吸引她的注意；但她仍然没有看他。
“哦，我为什么没死！那倒好了，”她说，无声的泪水顺着双颊流下；但她努力微笑，以免伤到他。
在此之前，弗龙斯基一直认为，拒绝塔什干那个诱人又危险的任命是可耻且不可能的。但现在，他毫不犹豫地拒绝了，观察到高层对此举不满后，他立即从军队退役。
一个月后，阿列克谢·亚历山德罗维奇独自带着儿子留在彼得堡的宅邸里，而安娜和弗龙斯基已在未获得离婚许可、并且彻底放弃离婚念头的情况下出国了。
Vronsky’s wound had been a dangerous one, though it did not touch the
heart, and for several days he had lain between life and death. The
first time he was able to speak, Varya, his brother’s wife, was alone
in the room.
“Varya,” he said, looking sternly at her, “I shot myself by accident.
And please never speak of it, and tell everyone so. Or else it’s too
ridiculous.”
Without answering his words, Varya bent over him, and with a delighted
smile gazed into his face. His eyes were clear, not feverish; but their
expression was stern.
“Thank God!” she said. “You’re not in pain?”
“A little here.” He pointed to his breast.
“Then let me change your bandages.”
In silence, stiffening his broad jaws, he looked at her while she
bandaged him up. When she had finished he said:
“I’m not delirious. Please manage that there may be no talk of my
having shot myself on purpose.”
“No one does say so. Only I hope you won’t shoot yourself by accident
any more,” she said, with a questioning smile.
“Of course I won’t, but it would have been better....”
And he smiled gloomily.
In spite of these words and this smile, which so frightened Varya, when
the inflammation was over and he began to recover, he felt that he was
completely free from one part of his misery. By his action he had, as
it were, washed away the shame and humiliation he had felt before. He
could now think calmly of Alexey Alexandrovitch. He recognized all his
magnanimity, but he did not now feel himself humiliated by it. Besides,
he got back again into the beaten track of his life. He saw the
possibility of looking men in the face again without shame, and he
could live in accordance with his own habits. One thing he could not
pluck out of his heart, though he never ceased struggling with it, was
the regret, amounting to despair, that he had lost her forever. That
now, having expiated his sin against the husband, he was bound to
renounce her, and never in future to stand between her with her
repentance and her husband, he had firmly decided in his heart; but he
could not tear out of his heart his regret at the loss of her love, he
could not erase from his memory those moments of happiness that he had
so little prized at the time, and that haunted him in all their charm.
Serpuhovskoy had planned his appointment at Tashkend, and Vronsky
agreed to the proposition without the slightest hesitation. But the
nearer the time of departure came, the bitterer was the sacrifice he
was making to what he thought his duty.
His wound had healed, and he was driving about making preparations for
his departure for Tashkend.
“To see her once and then to bury myself, to die,” he thought, and as
he was paying farewell visits, he uttered this thought to Betsy.
Charged with this commission, Betsy had gone to Anna, and brought him
back a negative reply.
“So much the better,” thought Vronsky, when he received the news. “It
was a weakness, which would have shattered what strength I have left.”
Next day Betsy herself came to him in the morning, and announced that
she had heard through Oblonsky as a positive fact that Alexey
Alexandrovitch had agreed to a divorce, and that therefore Vronsky
could see Anna.
Without even troubling himself to see Betsy out of his flat, forgetting
all his resolutions, without asking when he could see her, where her
husband was, Vronsky drove straight to the Karenins’. He ran up the
stairs seeing no one and nothing, and with a rapid step, almost
breaking into a run, he went into her room. And without considering,
without noticing whether there was anyone in the room or not, he flung
his arms round her, and began to cover her face, her hands, her neck
with kisses.
Anna had been preparing herself for this meeting, had thought what she
would say to him, but she did not succeed in saying anything of it; his
passion mastered her. She tried to calm him, to calm herself, but it
was too late. His feeling infected her. Her lips trembled so that for a
long while she could say nothing.
“Yes, you have conquered me, and I am yours,” she said at last,
pressing his hands to her bosom.
“So it had to be,” he said. “So long as we live, it must be so. I know
it now.”
“That’s true,” she said, getting whiter and whiter, and embracing his
head. “Still there is something terrible in it after all that has
happened.”
“It will all pass, it will all pass; we shall be so happy. Our love, if
it could be stronger, will be strengthened by there being something
terrible in it,” he said, lifting his head and parting his strong teeth
in a smile.
And she could not but respond with a smile—not to his words, but to the
love in his eyes. She took his hand and stroked her chilled cheeks and
cropped head with it.
“I don’t know you with this short hair. You’ve grown so pretty. A boy.
But how pale you are!”
“Yes, I’m very weak,” she said, smiling. And her lips began trembling
again.
“We’ll go to Italy; you will get strong,” he said.
“Can it be possible we could be like husband and wife, alone, your
family with you?” she said, looking close into his eyes.
“It only seems strange to me that it can ever have been otherwise.”
“Stiva says that _he_ has agreed to everything, but I can’t accept
_his_ generosity,” she said, looking dreamily past Vronsky’s face. “I
don’t want a divorce; it’s all the same to me now. Only I don’t know
what he will decide about Seryozha.”
He could not conceive how at this moment of their meeting she could
remember and think of her son, of divorce. What did it all matter?
“Don’t speak of that, don’t think of it,” he said, turning her hand in
his, and trying to draw her attention to him; but still she did not
look at him.
“Oh, why didn’t I die! it would have been better,” she said, and silent
tears flowed down both her cheeks; but she tried to smile, so as not to
wound him.
To decline the flattering and dangerous appointment at Tashkend would
have been, Vronsky had till then considered, disgraceful and
impossible. But now, without an instant’s consideration, he declined
it, and observing dissatisfaction in the most exalted quarters at this
step, he immediately retired from the army.
A month later Alexey Alexandrovitch was left alone with his son in his
house at Petersburg, while Anna and Vronsky had gone abroad, not having
obtained a divorce, but having absolutely declined all idea of one.
