The World's Greatest Books - Volume 8 Part 30

"Bring ice at once," the doctor's voice was heard saying. Aleksei was startled to see in the boudoir, seated on a low chair, Vronsky, weeping with his hands over his face. And the latter was startled in turn as, disturbed by the doctor's words, he looked up and caught sight of the husband. He rose and seemed desiring to disappear, but with an evident effort said, "She is dying and the doctors say there is no hope. I am in your power, but allow me to stay and I will conform to your wishes."

Aleksei turned without replying and went to the door. Anna was talking clearly and gaily. Her cheeks were bright and her eyes gleamed. Rattling on incoherently, she suddenly recognised her husband, and looking terrified, raised her hands as if to avert a blow; but she said the next moment, "No, no, I am not afraid of him, I am afraid of dying. Aleksei, I have but a few moments to live. Soon the fever will return and I shall know nothing more, but now I understand everything. There is another being in me, who loved him and hated you, but now I am my real self. But no, you cannot forgive me. Go away, you are too good."

With one burning hand she pushed him away, with the other she held him.

Aleksei's emotion became uncontrollable. His soul was filled with love and forgiveness. Kneeling by the bed, he sobbed like a child. The doctors said that there was not one chance in a hundred of her living.

Vronsky returned to his home in an agony of soul. He tried in vain to sleep. Visions of the faces of Aleksei and Anna rose before him.

Suddenly his brain seemed to receive a shock. He rose, paced the room, went to the table, took from it a revolver, which he examined and loaded. Presently he held it to his breast and without flinching pulled the trigger. The blow knocked him down, but he had failed to kill himself The valet, who had heard the report, ran in, but was so frightened at the sight of his master lying on the floor wounded that he rushed out again for help. In an hour came Varia, Vronsky's sister-in-law, who sent for three doctors. They managed to put the wounded man to bed, and Varia stayed to nurse him.

_IX_

Vronsky's wound, though the heart was not touched, was so dangerous that for several days his life was in the balance. But gradually the crisis pa.s.sed, and as he recovered he felt calmed with the conviction that he had now effected redemption from his faults. He accepted without hesitation an appointment to a position in Tashkend. But the nearer the time came, the more irrepressible grew the desire to see Anna for a farewell. He sent her a message, and she waited for his coming. The visit was fatal. Anna had made up her mind what to say, but the presence of Vronsky instantly overcame her resolution, and when she could find words she said, "Yes, you have conquered me. I am yours."

A month later Aleksei was left alone with his son, and Anna went abroad with Vronsky.

The marriage of Levin and Kitty was a brilliant occasion. A difficulty for Levin before the marriage was the necessity of attending confession.

Like the majority of his fellows in society, he cherished no decided views on religion. He did not believe, nor did he positively disbelieve.

But there could be no wedding without a certificate of confession. To the priest he frankly acknowledged his doubts, that doubt was his chief sin, that he was nearly always in doubt. But the gentle and kindly priest exhorted him to cultivate the practice of prayer, and then p.r.o.nounced the formula of absolution.

In presence of a great a.s.sembly the wedding took place. The same priest who had heard the confession ministered for the marriage. He handed to each of the couple a lighted candle decorated with flowers. The chanting of an invisible choir resounded richly through the church, and when the liturgy was finished, the solemn benediction was read over the bridal pair. It was a great event in the fashionable world of Moscow.

_X_

Anna and Vronsky had been travelling for three months in Europe. As for Anna, she had revelled in the exuberance of her freedom from a disagreeable past, the events of which seemed like some frightful nightmare. She appeased her conscience to some extent by saying to herself: "I have done my husband an irreparable injury, but I also suffer, and I shall suffer." The prediction was soon fulfilled. Vronsky soon began to feel dissatisfied. He grew weary of lack of occupation in foreign cities for sixteen hours a day. Life soon became intolerable in little Italian cities, and Anna, though astonished at this speedy disillusionment, agreed to return to Russia and to spend the summer on his estate. They travelled home, but neither of them was happy. Vronsky perceived that Anna was in a strange state of mind, evidently tormented by something which she made no attempt to explain. By degrees she, on her part, realized that Vronsky was willing to absent himself from her society on various excuses. Quarrels became frequent, and at length alienation was complete.

A tragedy happened on the railway. A woman went along the platform of the station and walked off on to the line. Like a madman a short time afterwards Vronsky rushed into the barracks where Anna's body had been carried. Her head was untouched, with its heavy braids of hair and light curls gathered about the temples. Her eyes were half closed and her lips were slightly opened as if she was about to speak, and to repeat the last words she had uttered to him: "You will repent."

The war with Turkey had broken out, and Vronsky, disgusted with his whole life, left for Servia.

ANTHONY TROLLOPE

The Warden

Few English men of letters have had an unhappier childhood than Anthony Trollope. Born in London on April 24, 1815, his home was made sordid by his father's misfortunes, and at Harrow and Winchester, where he was for nearly eleven years, his mean appearance subjected him to many dire humiliations. A final catastrophe in the fortunes of the elder Trollope drove the family to Belgium, where Anthony for a time acted as usher in a school at Brussels. But at the age of nineteen a Post-office appointment brought him back to London. The turning point in his career came in 1841, when he accepted the position of a cleric to one of the surveyors in the West of England. Here he developed an extraordinary energy and ability, and it was during this time, in 1847, that he published his first novel, "The Macdermots of Ballycloran."

"The Warden," published in 1855, was the first and in many ways the best of the famous six Ba.r.s.etshire series that caused Trollope to attract the notice of the reading public. Henry James says, "'The Warden' is simply the history of an old man's conscience, and Trollope never did anything happier than the picture of this sweet and serious little old gentleman."

The book is regarded as Trollope's masterpiece.

_I.--Hiram's Hospital_

The Rev. Septimus Harding was a beneficed clergyman residing in the cathedral town of Barchester.

Mr. Harding had married early in life, and was the father of two daughters. The elder, Susan, had been married some twelve years since to the Rev. Dr. Theophilus Grantly, son of the bishop, archdeacon of Barchester, and rector of Plumstead Episcopi, and a few months after her marriage her father became precentor of Barchester Cathedral. The younger daughter, Eleanor, was twenty-four years of age.

Now there are peculiar circ.u.mstances connected with the precentorship which must be explained. In the year 1434 there died at Barchester one John Hiram, who had made money in the town as a wool-stapler, and in his will he left the house in which he died and certain meadows and closes near the town for the support of twelve superannuated wool-carders; he also appointed that an alms-house should be built for their abode, with a fitting residence for a warden, which warden was also to receive a certain sum annually out of the rents of the said meadows and closes.

He, moreover, willed that the precentor of the cathedral should have the option of being also warden of the alms-house, if the bishop approved.

From that day to this the charity had gone on and prospered--at least, the charity had gone on, and the estates had prospered. The bedesmen received one shilling and fourpence a day and a comfortable lodging. The stipend of the precentor was 80 a year. The income arising from the wardenship of the hospital was 800, besides the value of the house.

Murmurs had been heard in Barchester--few indeed and far between--that the proceeds of John Hiram's property had not been fairly divided; the thing had been whispered, and Mr. Harding had heard it. And Mr. Harding, being an open-handed, just-minded man, had, on his instalment, declared his intention of adding twopence a day to each man's pittance.

Mr. Harding was a small man, now verging on sixty years. His warmest admirers could not say that he had ever been an industrious man; the circ.u.mstances of his life had not called on him to so; and yet he could hardly be called an idler. He had greatly improved the choir of Barchester, and taken something more than his fair share in the cathedral services. He was generous to all, but especially to the twelve old men who were under his care. With an income of 800 a year and only one daughter, Mr. Harding should have been above the world, but he was not above Archdeacon Grantly, and was always more or less in debt to his son-in-law, who had to a certain extent a.s.sumed the management of the precentor's pecuniary affairs.

Mr. Harding had been precentor of Barchester for ten years when the murmurs respecting the proceeds of Hiram's estate again became audible.

He was aware that two of his old men had been heard to say that if everyone had his own, they might each have their hundred pounds a year, and live like gentlemen, instead of a beggarly one shilling and sixpence a day. One of this discontented pair, Abel Handy, had been put into the hospital by Mr. Harding himself; he had been a stonemason in Barchester, and had broken his thigh by a fall from a scaffolding. (Dr. Grantly had been very anxious to put into it instead an insufferable clerk of his at Plumstead, who had lost all his teeth, and whom the archdeacon hardly knew how to get rid of by other means.) There was living at Barchester a young man, a surgeon, named John Bold, and both Mr. Harding and Dr.

Grantly were well aware that to him was owing the pestilent rebellious feeling which had shown itself in the hospital; and the renewal, too, of that disagreeable talk about Hiram's estates which was again prevalent in Barchester. Nevertheless, Mr. Harding and Mr. Bold were acquainted with each other, and were friends in spite of the great disparity in their years; for John Bold--whose father had been a physician in London, who had bought property in Barchester and retired to die there--was not more than twenty-seven years old at this time.

John Bold was a clever man, but, having enough to live on since his father's death, he had not been forced to work for bread. In three years he had not taken three fees, but he frequently bound up the bruises and set the limbs of such of the poorer cla.s.ses as professed his way of thinking. Bold was a strong reformer. His pa.s.sion was the reform of all abuses, and he was thoroughly sincere in his patriotic endeavours to mend mankind. No wonder that Dr. Grantly regarded Bold as a firebrand and a demagogue, and would have him avoided as the plague. But the old Doctor and Mr. Harding had been fast friends and young Johnny Bold used to play as a boy on Mr. Harding's lawn.

Eleanor Harding had not plighted her troth to John Bold, but she could not endure that anyone should speak harshly of him; she cared little to go to houses where she would not meet him, and, in fact, she was in love. Nor was there any reason why Eleanor Harding should not love John Bold. His character was in all respects good; he had sufficient income to support a wife, and, above all, he was in love with her. Mr. Harding himself saw no reason why his daughter should not love John Bold.

_II.--The Barchester Reformer_

Bold had often expressed his indignation at the misappropriation of church funds in general, in the hearing of his friend the precentor, but the conversation had never referred to anything at Barchester.

He heard from different quarters that Hiram's bedesmen were treated as paupers, whereas the property to which they were, in effect, heirs, was very large, and being looked on as the upholder of the rights of the poor of Barchester, he was instigated by a lawyer, whom he had previously employed, to call upon Mr. Chadwick, the steward of the episcopal estates, for a statement as to the funds of the estate.

It was against Chadwick that his efforts were to be directed, but Bold soon found that if he interfered with Mr. Chadwick as steward, he must interfere with Mr. Harding as warden; and though he regretted the situation in which this would place him, he was not the man to flinch from his undertaking from personal motives.

Having got a copy of John Hiram's will, and mastered it, Bold next ascertained the extent and value of the property, and then made out a schedule of what he was informed was the present distribution of its income. Armed with these particulars, he called on Mr. Chadwick, who naturally declined to answer any questions and referred him to his attorneys in London.

Bold at once repaired to the hospital. The day was now far advanced, but he knew that Mr. Harding dined in the summer at four, that Eleanor was accustomed to drive in the evening, and that he might therefore probably find Mr. Harding alone. It was between seven and eight when he reached the precentor's garden, and as he raised the latch he heard the notes of Mr. Harding's violoncello; advancing before the house and across the lawn, he found him playing, and not without an audience. The musician was seated in a garden chair, and around sat, and lay, ten of the twelve old men who dwelt with him beneath John Hiram's roof. Bold sat down on the soft turf to listen, or rather to think how, after such harmony, he might best introduce a theme of so much discord. He felt that he had a somewhat difficult task, and he almost regretted the final leave-taking of the last of the old men, slow as they were in going through their adieus.

The precentor remarked on the friendliness of the visit. "One evening call," said he, "is worth ten in the morning. It's all formality in the morning; real social talk never begins till after dinner. That's why I dine early, so as to get as much as I can of it."

"Quite true, Mr. Harding," said the other; "but I fear I've reversed the order of things, and I owe you much apology for troubling you on business at such an hour. I wish to speak to you about the hospital."

Mr. Harding looked blank and annoyed. But he only said, "Well, well, anything I can tell you I shall be most happy--"

"It's about the accounts."

"Then, my dear fellow, I can tell you nothing, for I'm as ignorant as a child. All I know is that they pay me 800 a year. Go t Chadwick; he knows all about the accounts."