Part 14 (1/2)

LISA. Never! I only wish you to have done with it all as completely as I have.

Enter nurse, with baby. Lisa takes the baby on her lap.

KAReNIN. What wretched people we are!

LISA [kissing baby] Why?

KAReNIN. When you married, and I heard of it on my return from abroad, and was wretched because I felt that I had lost you, it was a relief to me to find that you still remembered me. I was content even with that.

Then when our friends.h.i.+p was established and I felt your kindness to me, and even a little gleam of something in our friends.h.i.+p that was more than friends.h.i.+p, I was almost happy. I was only tormented by a fear that I was not being honest towards Fedya. But no! I was always so firmly conscious that any other relation than one of purest friends.h.i.+p with my friend's wife was impossible--besides which, I knew you--that I was not really troubled about that. Afterwards, when Fedya began to cause you anxiety, and I felt that I was of some use to you, and that my friends.h.i.+p was beginning to alarm you--I was quite happy, and a sort of vague hope awoke in me. Still later, when he became altogether impossible and you decided to leave him, and I spoke to you plainly for the first time, and you did not say ”No,” but went away in tears--then I was perfectly happy; and had I then been asked what more I wanted, I should have answered ”Nothing”! But later on, when there came the possibility of uniting our lives: when my mother grew fond of you and the possibility began to be realised; when you told me that you loved and had loved me, and then (as you did just now) that he no longer existed for you and that you love only me--what more, one would think, could I wish for? But no! Now the past torments me! I wish that past had not existed, and that there were nothing to remind me of it.

LISA [reproachfully] Victor!

KAReNIN. Lisa, forgive me! If I tell you this, it is only because I don't want a single thought of mine about you to be hidden from you. I have purposely told you, to show how bad I am, and how well I know that I must struggle with and conquer myself.... And now I've done it! I love him.

LISA. That's as it should be. I did all I could, but it was not I that did what you desired: it happened in my heart, from which everything but you has vanished.

KAReNIN. Everything?

LISA. Everything, everything--or I would not say so.

Enter footman.

FOOTMAN. Mr. Voznesensky.

KAReNIN. He's come with Fedya's answer.

LISA [to Karenin] Ask him in here.

KAReNIN [rising and going to the door] Well, here is the answer!

LISA [gives baby to nurse; exit nurse] Is it possible, Victor, that everything will now be decided? [Kisses Karenin].

Enter Voznesensky.

KAReNIN. Well?

VOZNESeNSKY. He has gone.

KAReNIN. Gone! And without signing the pet.i.tion?

VOZNESeNSKY. The pet.i.tion is not signed, but a letter was left for you and Elisabeth Andreyevna [Takes letter out of his pocket and gives it to Karenin] I went to his lodgings, and was told he was at the restaurant.

I went there, and Mr. Protasov told me to return in an hour and I should then have his answer. I went back, and then ...

KAReNIN. Is it possible that this means another delay? More excuses! No, that would be downright wicked. How he has fallen!

LISA. But do read the letter! [Karenin opens letter].

VOZNESeNSKY. You do not require me any longer?

KAReNIN. Well, no. Good-bye! Thank you ... [Pauses in astonishment as he reads].