第四十二章 第八章
第八章
亚历克西斯·亚历山德罗维奇并未觉得妻子与弗龙斯基同桌交谈有何不妥或失当之处。但当他注意到其他人对此事的反应时，才意识到这确实有失体统。于是他决定必须与妻子谈谈这件事。
回家后，亚历克西斯·亚历山德罗维奇如常走进书房，坐进矮椅，翻开那本关于教皇制度的书，读到夹着裁纸刀的地方，像往常一样一直看到凌晨一点。只是他不时揉揉高耸的额头，摇摇头，仿佛要驱散什么思绪。到了惯常就寝的时间，他起身准备更衣。安娜·阿尔卡季耶夫娜尚未回来。他夹着书上了楼。然而今夜，萦绕心头的并非平日那些公务细节与思虑，而是与妻子相关的不快之事。一反常态，他没有躺下，反背着手在房间里踱来加回。他无法入睡，深感有必要先将眼前的情形思虑清楚。
起初亚历克西斯·亚历山德罗维奇决定与妻子谈话时，还觉得这是件轻而易举的事。可当真正思考这个棘手问题时，却感到异常复杂艰难。
亚历克西斯·亚历山德罗维奇并非善妒之人。在他看来，嫉妒是对妻子的侮辱，人应当信任自己的配偶。至于为何必须信任——即认定年轻妻子会永远爱自己——他从未深究。他从不缺乏信心，因为他对妻子深信不疑，并认定这本就该如此。如今，虽然"嫉妒是可耻的，应当信任妻子"的信条并未动摇，但他却感到自己正面对某种不合逻辑、非理性的存在，不知该如何应对。亚历克西斯·亚历山德罗维奇直面着生活的真相——妻子可能爱上别人。这在他看来极不合理、难以理解，因为这就是生活本身。他毕生都在官场中生活工作，只接触生活的表象。每当真正遭遇生活本身时，他总会退缩。此刻他的感受，犹如一人正安稳地走过横跨深渊的桥梁，突然发现桥已断裂，脚下便是万丈深渊。那深渊就是生活本身，而那座桥则是亚历克西斯·亚历山德罗维奇赖以生存的虚假人生。他头一次直面妻子可能爱上他人的可能性，为此惊骇不已。
他并未更衣，只是以均匀的步幅来回踱步：穿过点着一盏灯的回音铮亮的餐厅地板，走过暗色客厅的地毯——那里新绘的巨幅肖像上，烛光在他脸庞上投下光影——最后踱进她的起居室，那里两支蜡烛映照着岳父母的画像、闺蜜们的照片，以及书桌上那些他再熟悉不过的精致小物件。他穿过起居室走到卧室门口，又折返回来。每次走到灯火通明的餐厅镶木地板时，他都会驻足自语："是的，必须解决这个问题，必须表明我的态度和决定。"然后转身。"可要表明什么？做什么决定？"他在客厅里自问，却找不到答案。"说到底，"他转向起居室时自问，"究竟发生了什么？没什么大不了。她不过与他长谈罢了。那又如何？上流社会的女子当然能与任何人交谈。况且嫉妒只会贬低我和她。"他走进起居室时这样告诫自己，可这个曾经重于泰山的准则此刻却轻如鸿毛、毫无意义。从卧室门口转身时，内心有个声音告诉他事实并非如此——既然旁人侧目，说明确有蹊跷。他在餐厅又自语道："是的，必须解决这个问题，表明我的态度……"走到客厅转角处又问："怎么解决？"再问："发生了什么？"自答："没什么。"又想起嫉妒是对妻子的侮辱；可回到客厅时又确信有事发生。他的思绪像身体一样循环往复，毫无新意。他察觉这点，揉揉额头，在妻子的起居室坐下。
望着她桌上的孔雀石吸墨台和未写完的信，他的思绪骤然转变。他开始揣度她此刻的所思所感。头一次如此真切地想象她的个人生活、她的思想、她的欲望——这种她应当拥有独立生活的想法令他惊恐万分，连忙驱散这念头。那正是他不敢窥探的深渊。设身处地体察他人心境，对亚历克西斯·亚历山德罗维奇而言是种陌生的精神训练。在他看来，这种精神活动有害无益，是危险的臆想。
"最糟的是，"他想，"正值我重要工作接近尾声之际"（他正思忖着当时提交的方案），"在我需要心平气和、全力以赴的关头，偏生出这等烦心事。可又能如何？我绝非那种缺乏勇气直面烦恼之人。"
"必须深思熟虑，做出决断，然后抛诸脑后。"他高声说道。
"她的感受如何，她心中经历了什么或正在经历什么——这与我无关；那是她良心的事，属于宗教范畴。"他自语道，为寻得安置这桩新变故的准则而稍感宽慰。
"因此，"亚历克西斯·亚历山德罗维奇思忖，"关于她的感受之类的问题，属于其良心范畴，与我无关。我的职责清晰明确。作为一家之主，我有责任引导她，因而也需部分承担责任；我必须指出察觉的危险，警告她，必要时要动用权威。我应当与她开诚布公地谈。"今夜要对妻子说的一切，此刻已在亚历克西斯·亚历山德罗维奇脑海中成型。思忖措辞时，他略感惋惜——要用宝贵的时间和心力处理家事，且收效甚微——尽管如此，腹稿的内容与形式已如汇报公文般清晰明确。
"我必须阐明以下几点：第一，阐明公众舆论与体面的重要性；第二，阐释婚姻的宗教意义；第三，必要时提及可能对儿子造成的伤害；第四，指出她本人可能遭遇的不幸。"亚历克西斯·亚历山德罗维奇交叉十指，指节嘎嘎作响。这个捻指节的坏习惯总能让他镇静下来，使思绪变得清晰——于此刻而言至关重要。
门外传来马车停靠的声响。亚历克西斯·亚历山德罗维奇停在房间中央。
楼梯上响起女子轻盈的脚步声。亚历克西斯·亚历山德罗维奇已准备好说辞，他交握手指站着，等待指节再次作响。一根指节发出脆响。
仅凭楼梯上轻盈的脚步声，他便知她已近在咫尺。尽管对自己的说辞颇为满意，面对即将到来的解释，他仍感到恐惧。
Alexey Alexandrovitch had seen nothing striking or improper in the fact
that his wife was sitting with Vronsky at a table apart, in eager
conversation with him about something. But he noticed that to the rest
of the party this appeared something striking and improper, and for
that reason it seemed to him too to be improper. He made up his mind
that he must speak of it to his wife.
On reaching home Alexey Alexandrovitch went to his study, as he usually
did, seated himself in his low chair, opened a book on the Papacy at
the place where he had laid the paper-knife in it, and read till one
o’clock, just as he usually did. But from time to time he rubbed his
high forehead and shook his head, as though to drive away something. At
his usual time he got up and made his toilet for the night. Anna
Arkadyevna had not yet come in. With a book under his arm he went
upstairs. But this evening, instead of his usual thoughts and
meditations upon official details, his thoughts were absorbed by his
wife and something disagreeable connected with her. Contrary to his
usual habit, he did not get into bed, but fell to walking up and down
the rooms with his hands clasped behind his back. He could not go to
bed, feeling that it was absolutely needful for him first to think
thoroughly over the position that had just arisen.
When Alexey Alexandrovitch had made up his mind that he must talk to
his wife about it, it had seemed a very easy and simple matter. But
now, when he began to think over the question that had just presented
itself, it seemed to him very complicated and difficult.
Alexey Alexandrovitch was not jealous. Jealousy according to his
notions was an insult to one’s wife, and one ought to have confidence
in one’s wife. Why one ought to have confidence—that is to say,
complete conviction that his young wife would always love him—he did
not ask himself. But he had no experience of lack of confidence,
because he had confidence in her, and told himself that he ought to
have it. Now, though his conviction that jealousy was a shameful
feeling and that one ought to feel confidence, had not broken down, he
felt that he was standing face to face with something illogical and
irrational, and did not know what was to be done. Alexey Alexandrovitch
was standing face to face with life, with the possibility of his wife’s
loving someone other than himself, and this seemed to him very
irrational and incomprehensible because it was life itself. All his
life Alexey Alexandrovitch had lived and worked in official spheres,
having to do with the reflection of life. And every time he had
stumbled against life itself he had shrunk away from it. Now he
experienced a feeling akin to that of a man who, while calmly crossing
a precipice by a bridge, should suddenly discover that the bridge is
broken, and that there is a chasm below. That chasm was life itself,
the bridge that artificial life in which Alexey Alexandrovitch had
lived. For the first time the question presented itself to him of the
possibility of his wife’s loving someone else, and he was horrified at
it.
He did not undress, but walked up and down with his regular tread over
the resounding parquet of the dining-room, where one lamp was burning,
over the carpet of the dark drawing-room, in which the light was
reflected on the big new portrait of himself hanging over the sofa, and
across her boudoir, where two candles burned, lighting up the portraits
of her parents and woman friends, and the pretty knick-knacks of her
writing-table, that he knew so well. He walked across her boudoir to
the bedroom door, and turned back again. At each turn in his walk,
especially at the parquet of the lighted dining-room, he halted and
said to himself, “Yes, this I must decide and put a stop to; I must
express my view of it and my decision.” And he turned back again. “But
express what—what decision?” he said to himself in the drawing-room,
and he found no reply. “But after all,” he asked himself before turning
into the boudoir, “what has occurred? Nothing. She was talking a long
while with him. But what of that? Surely women in society can talk to
whom they please. And then, jealousy means lowering both myself and
her,” he told himself as he went into her boudoir; but this dictum,
which had always had such weight with him before, had now no weight and
no meaning at all. And from the bedroom door he turned back again; but
as he entered the dark drawing-room some inner voice told him that it
was not so, and that if others noticed it that showed that there was
something. And he said to himself again in the dining-room, “Yes, I
must decide and put a stop to it, and express my view of it....” And
again at the turn in the drawing-room he asked himself, “Decide how?”
And again he asked himself, “What had occurred?” and answered,
“Nothing,” and recollected that jealousy was a feeling insulting to his
wife; but again in the drawing-room he was convinced that something had
happened. His thoughts, like his body, went round a complete circle,
without coming upon anything new. He noticed this, rubbed his forehead,
and sat down in her boudoir.
There, looking at her table, with the malachite blotting case lying at
the top and an unfinished letter, his thoughts suddenly changed. He
began to think of her, of what she was thinking and feeling. For the
first time he pictured vividly to himself her personal life, her ideas,
her desires, and the idea that she could and should have a separate
life of her own seemed to him so alarming that he made haste to dispel
it. It was the chasm which he was afraid to peep into. To put himself
in thought and feeling in another person’s place was a spiritual
exercise not natural to Alexey Alexandrovitch. He looked on this
spiritual exercise as a harmful and dangerous abuse of the fancy.
“And the worst of it all,” thought he, “is that just now, at the very
moment when my great work is approaching completion” (he was thinking
of the project he was bringing forward at the time), “when I stand in
need of all my mental peace and all my energies, just now this stupid
worry should fall foul of me. But what’s to be done? I’m not one of
those men who submit to uneasiness and worry without having the force
of character to face them.
“I must think it over, come to a decision, and put it out of my mind,”
he said aloud.
“The question of her feelings, of what has passed and may be passing in
her soul, that’s not my affair; that’s the affair of her conscience,
and falls under the head of religion,” he said to himself, feeling
consolation in the sense that he had found to which division of
regulating principles this new circumstance could be properly referred.
“And so,” Alexey Alexandrovitch said to himself, “questions as to her
feelings, and so on, are questions for her conscience, with which I can
have nothing to do. My duty is clearly defined. As the head of the
family, I am a person bound in duty to guide her, and consequently, in
part the person responsible; I am bound to point out the danger I
perceive, to warn her, even to use my authority. I ought to speak
plainly to her.” And everything that he would say tonight to his wife
took clear shape in Alexey Alexandrovitch’s head. Thinking over what he
would say, he somewhat regretted that he should have to use his time
and mental powers for domestic consumption, with so little to show for
it, but, in spite of that, the form and contents of the speech before
him shaped itself as clearly and distinctly in his head as a
ministerial report.
“I must say and express fully the following points: first, exposition
of the value to be attached to public opinion and to decorum; secondly,
exposition of religious significance of marriage; thirdly, if need be,
reference to the calamity possibly ensuing to our son; fourthly,
reference to the unhappiness likely to result to herself.” And,
interlacing his fingers, Alexey Alexandrovitch stretched them, and the
joints of the fingers cracked. This trick, a bad habit, the cracking of
his fingers, always soothed him, and gave precision to his thoughts, so
needful to him at this juncture.
There was the sound of a carriage driving up to the front door. Alexey
Alexandrovitch halted in the middle of the room.
A woman’s step was heard mounting the stairs. Alexey Alexandrovitch,
ready for his speech, stood compressing his crossed fingers, waiting to
see if the crack would not come again. One joint cracked.
Already, from the sound of light steps on the stairs, he was aware that
she was close, and though he was satisfied with his speech, he felt
frightened of the explanation confronting him....
