第一百四十七章 第二十三章
第二十三章
莉迪亚·伊万诺夫娜伯爵夫人在很年轻、很重感情的时候，嫁给了一个富裕的、地位很高的人，一个很好脾气、很快活、生活极其放荡的色鬼。婚后两个月，她的丈夫就抛弃了她，她对他热烈的爱情的表白，他不是用嘲弄、甚至敌意来回报，就是采取一种令人费解的态度，因为了解伯爵的善良心地，而又看不出多情的莉迪娅有什么缺点，人们便无法理解他这种态度。虽然他们离婚了，分居了，但是每当丈夫遇见妻子的时候，他总是对妻子抱着同样的莫名其妙的恶意的嘲弄态度。
莉迪亚·伊万诺夫娜早已不再钟情于她的丈夫了，但是从那时起，她就不断地在爱着什么人。她同时爱着好几个人，不论是男是女；凡是特别有名气的人，她几乎都爱过。她爱所有新近同皇室联姻的亲王和公主；她爱一个大主教、一个助理主教、一个牧师；她爱一个新闻记者、三个斯拉夫主义者、柯米萨罗夫、一个大臣、一个医生、一个英国传教士和卡列宁。这一切热情不断地此消彼长，但并不妨碍她同宫廷和上流社会保持极其广泛而又复杂的关系。但是自从卡列宁遭到不幸以后，她对他采取了特别保护的态度，自从她在卡列宁家里操劳，关心他的幸福以来，她就感觉到她的一切其他感情都不是真正的，现在她确实爱上了卡列宁一个人。她现在对他所怀有的感情，她认为比以前的任何感情都强烈。分析她的这种感情，并且同以前的热情相比较，她清楚地看出，如果柯米萨罗夫不搭救沙皇的性命，她是不会爱上他的；如果没有什么斯拉夫人问题，她也是不会爱上里斯蒂奇－库德日茨基的；但是她爱卡列宁却是爱他本人，爱他那崇高的、不为人所了解的心灵，爱她那悦耳的（在她听来）拖长的声调，爱他那疲倦的眼神，爱他的性格，爱他那青筋嶙峋的柔软白净的手。她不仅高兴见到他，而且还在他的脸上寻找她给他留下的印象的痕迹。她竭力想要得到他的欢心，不只是用言语，而且用她的全部身心。就是为了他，她现在才比以前更加注意修饰打扮了。她常常幻想着她还没有结婚，而他也是自由的。一听到他走进房间，她的心就兴奋得怦怦直跳；一听到他对她说一句亲热的话，她就禁不住高兴得眉开眼笑。
好多天来，莉迪亚·伊万诺夫娜伯爵夫人一直处于极度激动之中。她听说安娜和弗龙斯基到了彼得堡。阿列克谢·亚历山德罗维奇必须避免同她见面，必须使他根本不知道那个可怕的女人就在这个城里，而且他随时都可能遇见她，免得他受折磨。
莉迪亚·伊万诺夫娜通过她的熟人打听明白，那对“卑鄙下流的人”——她这样称呼安娜和弗龙斯基——打算做什么，于是这几天她就这样尽力指导她朋友的行动，使他不会碰到他们。那个年轻副官，弗龙斯基的朋友，她通过他了解到消息，而且他希望通过莉迪亚·伊万诺夫娜伯爵夫人获得一份特许，他告诉她，他们已经办完了事，明天就要走了。莉迪亚·伊万诺夫娜已经开始平静下来了，可是第二天早上，她接到了一封信，她恐怖地认出了笔迹。那是安娜·卡列宁娜的笔迹。信纸的纸质像树皮一样厚；在长方形的黄纸上边，有一个很大的花字，信纸上散发出一股好闻的香气。
“是谁送来的？”
“旅馆的听差。”
莉迪亚·伊万诺夫娜没有马上坐下来读信。她的激动引发了她常有的气喘病。当她恢复了平静，她读了下面这封用法文写的信：
伯爵夫人：
您心中充满的基督精神使我产生一种不可饶恕的胆量，给您写信。我因为同儿子分离而痛苦。我请求您允许我在动身以前见他一面。使您想起我，请您原谅。我写信给您，而不写信给阿列克谢·亚历山德罗维奇，只是因为我不愿意那个宽宏大量的人想起我而痛苦。我知道您是他的朋友，因此您会理解我。您能把谢廖沙送到我那里去吗？或者约定时间，我回到家里来，再不然，您能不能告诉我什么时候在什么地方我能看见他，只要见一面就成？我决不会遭到拒绝，我知道他所具有的那种宽宏大量。您无法想象我多么想见他，因此也无法想象您帮助我会怎样引起我的感激。
安娜
这封信里的一切都使莉迪亚·伊万诺夫娜感到恼火：信的内容，以及提到宽宏大量的地方，特别是那种——在她看来——随便的口气。
“告诉来人，没有回信。”莉迪亚·伊万诺夫娜伯爵夫人说，然后她立刻打开吸墨纸本，给阿列克谢·亚历山德罗维奇写信，说她希望一点钟的时候在宫廷觐见会上见到他。
“我要同您谈一件很要紧的令人痛苦的事情。我们就在那里商量好见面的地点。最好在我家里，我可以把茶准备成您喜欢喝的那样。一定要来。他放上十字架，但是也给予力量背起它。”她添上这样一句，以便使他有点思想准备。
莉迪亚·伊万诺夫娜伯爵夫人照例每天都要给阿列克谢·亚历山德罗维奇写上两三封信。她喜欢这种交往方式，这种方式比起当面交谈来可以更优雅、更神秘。
The Countess Lidia Ivanovna had, as a very young and sentimental girl,
been married to a wealthy man of high rank, an extremely good-natured,
jovial, and extremely dissipated rake. Two months after marriage her
husband abandoned her, and her impassioned protestations of affection
he met with a sarcasm and even hostility that people knowing the
count’s good heart, and seeing no defects in the sentimental Lidia,
were at a loss to explain. Though they were divorced and lived apart,
yet whenever the husband met the wife, he invariably behaved to her
with the same malignant irony, the cause of which was incomprehensible.
Countess Lidia Ivanovna had long given up being in love with her
husband, but from that time she had never given up being in love with
someone. She was in love with several people at once, both men and
women; she had been in love with almost everyone who had been
particularly distinguished in any way. She was in love with all the new
princes and princesses who married into the imperial family; she had
been in love with a high dignitary of the Church, a vicar, and a parish
priest; she had been in love with a journalist, three Slavophiles, with
Komissarov, with a minister, a doctor, an English missionary and
Karenin. All these passions constantly waning or growing more ardent,
did not prevent her from keeping up the most extended and complicated
relations with the court and fashionable society. But from the time
that after Karenin’s trouble she took him under her special protection,
from the time that she set to work in Karenin’s household looking after
his welfare, she felt that all her other attachments were not the real
thing, and that she was now genuinely in love, and with no one but
Karenin. The feeling she now experienced for him seemed to her stronger
than any of her former feelings. Analyzing her feeling, and comparing
it with former passions, she distinctly perceived that she would not
have been in love with Komissarov if he had not saved the life of the
Tsar, that she would not have been in love with Ristitch-Kudzhitsky if
there had been no Slavonic question, but that she loved Karenin for
himself, for his lofty, uncomprehended soul, for the sweet—to her—high
notes of his voice, for his drawling intonation, his weary eyes, his
character, and his soft white hands with their swollen veins. She was
not simply overjoyed at meeting him, but she sought in his face signs
of the impression she was making on him. She tried to please him, not
by her words only, but in her whole person. For his sake it was that
she now lavished more care on her dress than before. She caught herself
in reveries on what might have been, if she had not been married and he
had been free. She blushed with emotion when he came into the room, she
could not repress a smile of rapture when he said anything amiable to
her.
For several days now Countess Lidia Ivanovna had been in a state of
intense excitement. She had learned that Anna and Vronsky were in
Petersburg. Alexey Alexandrovitch must be saved from seeing her, he
must be saved even from the torturing knowledge that that awful woman
was in the same town with him, and that he might meet her any minute.
Lidia Ivanovna made inquiries through her friends as to what those
_infamous people_, as she called Anna and Vronsky, intended doing, and
she endeavored so to guide every movement of her friend during those
days that he could not come across them. The young adjutant, an
acquaintance of Vronsky, through whom she obtained her information, and
who hoped through Countess Lidia Ivanovna to obtain a concession, told
her that they had finished their business and were going away next day.
Lidia Ivanovna had already begun to calm down, when the next morning a
note was brought her, the handwriting of which she recognized with
horror. It was the handwriting of Anna Karenina. The envelope was of
paper as thick as bark; on the oblong yellow paper there was a huge
monogram, and the letter smelt of agreeable scent.
“Who brought it?”
“A commissionaire from the hotel.”
It was some time before Countess Lidia Ivanovna could sit down to read
the letter. Her excitement brought on an attack of asthma, to which she
was subject. When she had recovered her composure, she read the
following letter in French:
“Madame la Comtesse,
“The Christian feelings with which your heart is filled give me the, I
feel, unpardonable boldness to write to you. I am miserable at being
separated from my son. I entreat permission to see him once before my
departure. Forgive me for recalling myself to your memory. I apply to
you and not to Alexey Alexandrovitch, simply because I do not wish to
cause that generous man to suffer in remembering me. Knowing your
friendship for him, I know you will understand me. Could you send
Seryozha to me, or should I come to the house at some fixed hour, or
will you let me know when and where I could see him away from home? I
do not anticipate a refusal, knowing the magnanimity of him with whom
it rests. You cannot conceive the craving I have to see him, and so
cannot conceive the gratitude your help will arouse in me.
“Anna.”
Everything in this letter exasperated Countess Lidia Ivanovna: its
contents and the allusion to magnanimity, and especially its free and
easy—as she considered—tone.
“Say that there is no answer,” said Countess Lidia Ivanovna, and
immediately opening her blotting-book, she wrote to Alexey
Alexandrovitch that she hoped to see him at one o’clock at the levee.
“I must talk with you of a grave and painful subject. There we will
arrange where to meet. Best of all at my house, where I will order tea
_as you like it_. Urgent. He lays the cross, but He gives the strength
to bear it,” she added, so as to give him some slight preparation.
Countess Lidia Ivanovna usually wrote some two or three letters a day
to Alexey Alexandrovitch. She enjoyed that form of communication, which
gave opportunity for a refinement and air of mystery not afforded by
their personal interviews.
