Anna Karenina - Part 3

But of late new inner relations had arisen between him and her,

which frightened Vronsky by their indefiniteness. Only the day

before she had told him that she was with child. And he felt

that this fact and what she expected of him called for something

not fully defined in that code of principles by which he had

hitherto steered his course in life. And he had been indeed

caught unawares, and at the first moment when she spoke to him of

her position, his heart had prompted him to beg her to leave her

husband. He had said that, but now thinking things over he saw

clearly that it would be better to manage to avoid that; and at

the same time, as he told himself so, he was afraid whether it

was not wrong.

"If I told her to leave her husband, that must mean uniting her

life with mine; am I prepared for that? How can I take her away

now, when I have no money? Supposing I could arrange.... But

how can I take her away while I'm in the service? If I say

that--I ought to be prepared to do it, that is, I ought to have

the money and to retire from the army."

And he grew thoughtful. The question whether to retire from the

service or not brought him to the other and perhaps the chief

though hidden interest of his life, of which none knew but he.

Ambition was the old dream of his youth and childhood, a dream

which he did not confess even to himself, though it was so

strong that now this passion was even doing battle with his love.

His first steps in the world and in the service had been

successful, but two years before he had made a great mistake.

Anxious to show his independence and to advance, he had refused a

post that had been offered him, hoping that this refusal would

heighten his value; but it turned out that he had been too bold,

and he was passed over. And having, whether he liked or not,

taken up for himself the position of an independent man, he

carried it off with great tact and good sense, behaving as though

he bore no grudge against anyone, did not regard himself as

injured in any way, and cared for nothing but to be left alone

since he was enjoying himself. In reality he had ceased to enjoy

himself as long ago as the year before, when he went away to

Moscow. He felt that this independent attitude of a man who

might have done anything, but cared to do nothing, was already

beginning to pall, that many people were beginning to fancy that

he was not really capable of anything but being a

straightforward, good-natured fellow. His connection with Madame

Karenina, by creating so much sensation and attracting general

attention, had given him a fresh distinction which soothed his

gnawing worm of ambition for a while, but a week before that worm

had been roused up again with fresh force. The friend of his

childhood, a man of the same set, of the same coterie, his

comrade in the Corps of Pages, Serpuhovskoy, who had left school

with him and had been his rival in class, in gymnastics, in their

scrapes and their dreams of glory, had come back a few days

before from Central Asia, where he had gained two steps up in

rank, and an order rarely bestowed upon generals so young.