Everything was upset in the Oblonskys’ house. The wife had discovered an intrigue between her husband and their former French governess, and declared that she would not continue to live under the same roof with him. This state of things had now lasted for three days, and not only the husband and wife but the rest of the family and the whole household suffered from it. They all felt that there was no sense in their living together, and that any group of people who had met together by chance at an inn would have had more in common than they. The wife kept to her own rooms; the husband stopped away from home all day; the children ran about all over the house uneasily; the English governess quarrelled with the housekeeper and wrote to a friend asking if she could find her another situation; the cook had gone out just at dinnertime the day before and had not returned; and the kitchen-maid and coachman had given notice.

On the third day after his quarrel with his wife, Prince Stephen Arkadyevich Oblonsky — Stiva, as he was called in his set in Society — woke up at his usual time, eight o’clock, not in his wife’s bedroom but on the morocco leather-covered sofa in his study. He turned his plump, well-kept body over on the springy sofa as if he wished to have another long sleep, and tightly embracing one of the pillows leant his cheek against it; but then suddenly opened his eyes and sat up.

‘Let me see — what was it?’ he thought, trying to recall his dream. ‘What was it? O yes — Alabin was giving a dinner-party in Darmstadt — no, not in Darmstadt but somewhere in America. Oh yes, Darmstadt was in America, — and Alabin was giving the party. The dinner was served on glass tables — yes, and the tables sang “Il mio tesoro” [“My darling”] … no, not exactly “Il mio tesoro” but something better than that; and then there were some kind of little decanters that were really women.’ His eyes sparkled merrily and he smiled as he sat thinking. ‘Yes, it was very nice. There were many other delightful things which I can’t just get hold of — can’t catch now I’m awake.’ Then, noticing a streak of light that had made its way in at the side of the blind, he gaily let down his legs and felt about with his feet for his slippers finished with bronze kid (last year’s birthday present, embroidered by his wife); and from nine years’ habit he stretched out his arm, without rising, towards where his dressing-gown usually hung in their bedroom. And then he suddenly remembered that, and why, he was not sleeping there but in his study. The smile vanished from his face and he frowned.

‘Oh dear, dear, dear!’ he groaned recalling what had happened. And the details of his quarrel with his wife, his inextricable position, and, worst of all, his guilt, rose up in his imagination.

‘No, she will never forgive me; she can’t forgive me! And the worst thing about it is, that it’s all my own fault — my own fault; and yet I’m not guilty! That’s the tragedy of it!’ he thought. ‘Oh dear, oh dear!’ he muttered despairingly, as he recalled the most painful details of the quarrel. The worst moment had been when, returning home from the theatre merry and satisfied, with an enormous pear in his hand for his wife, he did not find her in the drawing-room nor, to his great surprise, in the study, but at last saw her in her bedroom with the unlucky note which had betrayed him in her hand.

She sat there: the careworn, ever-bustling, and (as he thought) rather simple Dolly — with the note in her hand and a look of terror, despair, and anger on her face.

‘What is this? This?’ she asked, pointing to the note. And, as often happens, it was not so much the memory of the event that tormented him, as of the way he had replied to her.

At that moment there had happened to him what happens to most people when unexpectedly caught in some shameful act: he had not had time to assume an expression suitable to the position in which he stood toward his wife now that his guilt was discovered. Instead of taking offence, denying, making excuses, asking forgiveness, or even remaining indifferent (anything would have been better than what he did), he involuntarily (‘reflex action of the brain,’ thought Oblonsky, who was fond of physiology) smiled his usual kindly and therefore silly smile.

He could not forgive himself for that silly smile. Dolly, seeing it, shuddered as if with physical pain, and with her usual vehemence burst into a torrent of cruel words and rushed from the room. Since then she had refused to see him.

‘It’s all the fault of that stupid smile,’ thought Oblonsky. ‘But what am I to do? What can I do?’ he asked himself in despair, and could find no answer.

Anna Karenina (Maude Translation, Unabridged and Annotated)

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