When she thought of Vronsky, it seemed to her that he did not
love her, that he was already beginning to be tired of her, that
she could not offer herself to him, and she felt bitter against
him for it. It seemed to her that the words that she had spoken
to her husband, and had continually repeated in her imagination,
she had said to everyone, and everyone had heard them. She could
not bring herself to look those of her own household in the face.
She could not bring herself to call her maid, and still less go
downstairs and see her son and his governess.
The maid, who had been listening at her door for a long while,
came into her room of her own accord. Anna glanced inquiringly
into her face, and blushed with a scared look. The maid begged
her pardon for coming in, saying that she had fancied the bell
rang. She brought her clothes and a note. The note was from
Betsy. Betsy reminded her that Liza Merkalova and Baroness
Shtoltz were coming to play croquet with her that morning with
their adorers, Kaluzhsky and old Stremov. "Come, if only as a
study in morals. I shall expect you," she finished.
Anna read the note and heaved a deep sigh.
"Nothing, I need nothing," she said to Annushka, who was
rearranging the bottles and brushes on the dressing table. "You
can go. I'll dress at once and come down. I need nothing."
Annushka went out, but Anna did not begin dressing, and sat in
the same position, her head and hands hanging listlessly, and
every now and then she shivered all over, seemed as though she
would make some gesture, utter some word, and sank back into
lifelessness again. She repeated continually, "My God! my God!"
But neither "God" nor "my" had any meaning to her. The idea of
seeking help in her difficulty in religion was as remote from her
as seeking help from Alexey Alexandrovitch himself, although she
had never had doubts of the faith in which she had been brought
up. She knew that the support of religion was possible only upon
condition of renouncing what made up for her the whole meaning of
life. She was not simply miserable, she began to feel alarm at
the new spiritual condition, never experienced before, in which
she found herself. She felt as though everything were beginning
to be double in her soul, just as objects sometimes appear double
to over-tired eyes. She hardly knew at times what it was she
feared, and what she hoped for. Whether she feared or desired
what had happened, or what was going to happen, and exactly what
she longed for, she could not have said.