Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Three/Chapter 19

by Leo Tolstoy

CHAPTER XIX

Vronsky, in spite of his worldly life and his apparent frivolity, was a man who detested confusion. Once, when still a lad in the School of Pages, he found himself short of money, and met with a humiliating refusal when he tried to borrow. He vowed that henceforth he would not expose himself to such a humiliation again, and he kept his word. In order to keep his affairs in order, he made, more or less often, according to circumstances, but at least five times a year, an examination of his affairs. He called this "straightening his affairs," or, in French, faire sa lessive.

The morning after the races Vronsky woke late, and without stopping to shave, or take his bath, put on his kitel, or soldier's linen frock, and, placing his money and bills and paper on the table, proceeded to the work of settling his accounts. Petritsky, knowing that his comrade was likely to be irritable when engaged in such occupation, quietly got up, and slipped out without disturbing him.

Every man acquainted, even to the minutest details, with all the complications of his surroundings, involuntarily supposes that the complications and tribulations of his life are a personal and private grievance peculiar to himself, and never thinks that others are subjected to the same complications of their personal troubles he himself is. Thus it seemed to Vronsky. And not without inward pride, and not without reason, he felt that, until the present time, he had done well in avoiding the embarrassments to which every one else would have succumbed. But he felt that now it was necessary for him to examine into his affairs, so as not to be embarrassed.

First, because it was the easiest to settle, Vronsky investigated his pecuniary status. He wrote in his fluent, delicate hand a schedule of all his debts, and adding them up found that the total amounted to seventeen thousand rubles, and some odd hundreds, which he let go for the sake of clearness. Counting up his ready-money and his bank-book, he had only eighteen hundred rubles, with no hope of more until the new year. Looking over the schedule of his debts, Vronsky classified them, putting them into three categories: first, the urgent debts, or, in other words, those that required ready money, so that, in case of requisition, there might not be a moment of delay. These amounted to four thousand rubles,—fifteen hundred for his horse, and twenty-five hundred as a guaranty for his young comrade, Venevsky, who had, in Vronsky's company, lost this amount in playing with a sharper. Vronsky, at the time, had wanted to hand over the money, since he had it with him; but Venevsky and Yashvin insisted on paying it, rather than Vronsky, who had not been playing. This was all very well; but Vronsky knew that in this disgraceful affair, in which his only participation was going as Venevsky's guaranty, it was necessary to have these twenty-five hundred rubles ready to throw at the rascal's head, and not to have any words with him. Thus, he had to reckon the category of urgent debts as four thousand rubles.

In the second category were eight thousand rubles of debts, and these were less imperative. These were what he owed on his stable account, for oats and hay, to his English trainer, and other incidentals. At a pinch, two thousand would suffice to leave him perfectly easy in mind. The remaining debts were to his tailor, and other furnishers; and they could wait. In conclusion, he found that he needed, for immediate use, six thousand rubles, and he had only eighteen hundred.

For a man with an income of a hundred thousand rubles,—as people supposed Vronsky to have,—it would seem as if such debts as these could not be very embarrassing; but the fact was that he had not an income of a hundred thousand rubles. The large paternal estate, producing two hundred thousand rubles a year, had been divided between the two brothers. But when the elder brother, laden with debts, married the Princess Varia Tchirkof, the daughter of a Dekabrist,^[1] who brought him no fortune, Alekseï yielded him his share of the inheritance, reserving only an income of twenty-five thousand rubles. He told his brother that this would be sufficient for him until he married, which he thought would never happen. His brother, who was in command of one of the most expensive regiments in the service and only just married, could not refuse this gift.

His mother, who possessed an independent fortune, kept twenty-five thousand rubles for herself and gave her younger son a yearly allowance of twenty thousand rubles; and Alekseï spent the whole of it. Recently the countess, angry with him on account of his departure from Moscow and his disgraceful liaison, had ceased to remit to him any money. So that Vronsky, who was accustomed to living on a forty-five thousand ruble footing, and having this year only twenty-five thousand, found himself in some extremity. He could not apply to his mother to help him out of his difficulty, for her letter which he had received the day before angered him by the insinuations which it contained: she was ready, it said, to help him along in society, or to advance him in his career, but not in this present life which was scandalizing all the best people.

His mother's attempt to bribe him wounded him in the tenderest spot in his heart, and he felt more coldly towards her than ever.

He could not retract his magnanimous promise given to his brother; although he felt now, in view of his rather uncertain relationship with Madame Karenin, that his magnanimous promise had been given too hastily, and that, even though he were not married, the hundred thousand rubles might stand him in good stead. But it was impossible to retract. The impossibility of taking back what he had given was made clear to him, especially when he remembered his brother's wife, when he remembered how this gentle, excellent Varia had always made him understand that she should not forget his generosity, and never cease to appreciate it. It would be as impossible as to strike a woman, to steal, or to lie.

There was only one possible and practicable thing, and Vronsky adopted it without a moment's hesitation: to borrow ten thousand rubles of a usurer,—there was no difficulty about this,—to reduce his expenses as much as he could, and to sell his race-horses. Having decided to do this, he immediately wrote a letter to Rolandaki, who had many times offered to buy his stud. Then he sent for his English trainer and the usurer, and devoted the money which he had on hand to various accounts. Having finished this business, he wrote a cold and sharp reply to his mother; and then, taking from his portfolio Anna's last three letters, he re-read them, burned them, and, remembering his last conversation with her, fell into deep meditation.

 

1. The Dekabrists were the revolutionists of December, 1825, who were banished at the time of the accession of the Emperor Nicholas.