Love Does Not Ask Why
By Laura Schiller
Based on: Anna Karenina
Copyright: Leo Tolstoy's estate/Tom Stoppard
"Anna … are you awake?"
It took a long moment for Anna to recognize the quiet, masculine voice by her bedside, and an even longer time to understand what he had said. She felt weak as a kitten, drenched with sweat, her eyes heavy. When she opened them, the blur of a gray jacket and the glint of a pince-nez beside her bed confused her all the more.
"You … stayed," was all she could think of to say.
Her memories of the previous night were so strange, she wondered if it might have been a delusion brought on by her illness. She seemed to remember this man – Alexey Karenin, her husband, whom she had betrayed, who had been so coldly indifferent to everything except his own reputation – shaking hands with her lover across the bed. Could it possibly be true?
"I could not leave," he said.
As her vision slowly cleared, she saw that he was thin, pale, and had dark hollows around his eyes. His short dark hair stood on end, as she had only seen it do when he raked his hands through it after a particularly stressful day at the office. He looked as if he had been sitting there all night.
Vronsky, at this point, would have burst into passionate relief that she was recovered; he would have kissed her hands, cheeks and forehead, called her by a dozen endearments, scolded her for worrying him. But Vronsky was no longer there, and she did not blame him; she was glad he had gone to get some rest. In any case, she would have been embarrassed to let him see her like this, tousle-haired and unwashed. It was Karenin's behavior she could not understand.
"Why?" Her voice broke into a sob. "Why did you forgive me? Why didn't you leave me to die? If I were in your place, I could never … Why must you be so good when I have been so wicked?"
He interrupted her with an abrupt shake of his head, and that severe, bitter look she knew all too well – except that this time, it was directed at himself.
"Goodness had nothing to do with it," he replied. "If you knew how many times I have wished you both dead! But when I saw you lying there, I thought … if I had lost you … "
He hid his face in his hands, a vulnerable gesture that startled her all over again. She had been used to thinking of her husband as an emotionless machine; it had been such a convenient way to protect herself from guilt. No wonder he had wished her dead.
"I don't deserve you," she whispered.
He uncovered his face, looking down at her with tear-bright eyes.
"None of us deserved this."
And for the first time in weeks, months, more than a year, Alexey reached out to touch his wife. He brushed a warm hand over her clammy forehead, stroked her hair down to its ends, gently squeezed her hand. For the first time in Heaven knows how long, Anna was comforted.
She understood now, deep inside her heart, what she had once known only with her mind. She knew why Dolly had forgiven Stiva; why Alexey had forgiven her. You can't ask "Why?" about love, Vronsky had once told her. The miracle of love was that it was so often undeserved.
"May I have a pen and paper?" she asked, attempting a businesslike tone that was rather spoiled by the tear stains on her face. "I need to write a letter to – " She could not call that boy by the name he shared with her husband. "To Count Vronsky."
Alexey let go of her hand.
"To say goodbye," she added. "To tell him it is over between us."
She would tell him he was free now, free to advance his career in the army, to marry whatever wealthy young lady his mother chose. She knew he would miss her, but when all was said and done, he would be happier without the burdens of their affair. Already those dizzy moments in the garden and in his flat began to feel like fever-dreams, dreams from which she had been woken by the sound of her husband's tears.
"Oh, and … Alexey?"
"Yes?"
The change of simply speaking his name was unbelievable. He did not smile, but his entire face warmed and softened like a sunrise.
"Tell the nurse to bring our daughter here, and Seryozha also. I wish to see them."
Not her daughter, but theirs. Regardless of whose blood she shared, this baby should have a father. She saw by his smile – a real, honest-to-goodness smile on his tired face – that he did not miss her choice of words.