Anna Karenina - Part 3

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.