Anna Karenina — Chapter 188 in French
By Leo Tolstoy
Anna, avant le départ de Vronskï pour les élections, s’étant dit que les scènes qui se répétaient chaque fois qu’il devait s’absenter pouvaient le refroidir plutôt que l’attacher, avait résolu de faire les plus grands efforts pour supporter avec calme la séparation. Before Vronsky' s departure for the election, Anna, coming to the conclusion that the scenes which had always taken place every time he left her for a journey might serve to cool his love rather than attach him more firmly to her, resolved to control herself to the best of her ability, so as to endure calmly the separation from him. Mais le regard froid et impérieux avec lequel il lui annonça qu’il s’absentait, la blessa, et à peine était-il parti que ses bonnes résolutions s’évanouirent. But the cold, stern look which he had given her when he came to tell her about his journey had wounded her, and he was hardly out of her sight before her resolution was shaken.
Restée seule, elle commenta ce regard, y vit l’affirmation de son droit à la liberté, et, comme toujours, elle arriva à la même conclusion : à la conscience de sa déchéance. In her solitude, as she began to think over his cold look, which seemed to hint at a desire for liberty, she came back, as she always did, to one thing—to the consciousness of her humiliation.
« Il a le droit de partir où et quand il veut, et même de me quitter. "He has the right to go when and where he pleases. Non seulement partir, mais m'abandonner. Not only to go, but to abandon me. Il a tous les droits ; moi, je n’en ai aucun. He has all the rights, and I have none! Mais sachant cela il ne devrait pas agir ainsi… Et qu’a-t-il fait ? But as he knows this, he ought not to have done this. Et qu'a-t-il fait ? And yet what has he done? Il m’a regardée d’un œil froid, sévère. He looked at me with a hard, stern look. Évidemment c'est peu, c'est vague. Of course, that is vague, intangible. Évidemment c’est peu, c’est vague…, cependant, il ne me regardait pas ainsi autrefois ; et ce regard signifie beaucoup… Il se refroidit à mon égard… » pensa-t-elle. Still, he did not formerly look at me so, and it signifies much," she thought; "that look proves that he is growing cold toward me."
Malgré cette conviction, elle ne pouvait rien faire : elle ne pouvait en rien modifier leurs relations. And, although she was persuaded that he had begun to grow cold toward her, still there was nothing she could do, there was no change she could bring about in her relations toward him. Maintenant comme autrefois, elle ne pouvait le retenir que par l’amour et l’attrait. Just as before, she could retain his affections only by her love, by her fascination. En accumulant les occupations dans la journée, en prenant de la morphine la nuit, elle chercha à chasser la terrible vision de ce qu’il arriverait s’il cessait de l’aimer. And, just as before, the only way she could keep herself from thinking what would happen if he should abandon her, she busied herself incessantly all day; at night she took morphine.