Page 36 of The Midnight Book Club
“When that was stripped away because people cast her out over her relationship with you, she had nothing left.”
“You say she had nothing left—she had me.”
“Exactly, butonlyyou.She’d lost her friends and her son, and then you were all she had.Today, a woman can get a divorce and uproot her life.She can choose a career over marriage or have both without being cut from her circle of friends.Anna didn’t have those options.”
Aurelia was warming up to her literary analysis but had to remind herself that she wasn’t writing a thesis paper; this was a discussion about someone Vronsky had known and loved, someone who’d been very real to him.
“Without society and her marriage, without the things she’d been raised to be, she was left to put all her energy into you and it destroyed her.You had an exterior life but Anna was trapped at home, waiting for you.”
“That does not paint a very flattering portrait of me,” he said, growing visibly upset.“I have always known that her position, her fall, was my fault.I acknowledged that to her countless times.Now there is even more to be ashamed of, it seems.”
“No, Alexei, I’m sorry—that’s not what I meant.It wasn’t her fault or yours.No one could blame you for what happened to Anna.She loved you, very deeply.But her choice to be with you, and her pride, tied you two together in an impossible future.Anna was a captive of her time, but so were you.”
Aurelia broke off, seeing Vronsky open his mouth as if to speak, but he stayed silent and she continued.
“Her limited choices affected you too, didn’t they?If she’d been free to get a divorce and stay in society, think what a difference that would have made for you and your life together.But fate—or Tolstoy—pitched you both into a battle you could never win, no matter what you did.”
Vronsky turned away and took in a deep breath.Aurelia thought of her mother’s words all those years ago—the indelible mark of his loss—and could only guess at what he was feeling.He nodded, once.Sensing that he needed time alone, she retreated to the top of the spiral staircase and looked back to see him stand and turn toward the window.She couldn’t tell whether he was gazing at the square outside or at his own reflection, but either way, he was deep in thought.
Aurelia spent the rest of the evening downstairs, talking with the others.Occasionally, she would look up to the mezzanine to see Vronsky standing and staring out the window or sitting on the window seat.Even though she enjoyed her other conversations, her mind kept drifting back to him and Anna.She worried that all she’d done was give him cold comfort, since he couldn’t change Anna’s death, not to mention the social barriers that had made them so unhappy.
When dawn arrived, Aurelia said her goodbyes to the characters as they disappeared back into their novels.Watching Vronsky disappear intoAnna Karenina, she felt terrible knowing that he was slipping right back into the grief and heartache that awaited him at the end of his novel.
21
Thenextdaywasquiet in the shop, giving Aurelia time to think back over her night with the characters.Once again she saw Vronsky looking out the window, again she saw how tortured he was by memories of Anna and her misery, and again she saw him disappearing into his novel at first light—pulled back to his tragic ending by some invisible thread.
It felt heartless to watch him return, knowing what he would face and yet being powerless to help him.She found herself thinking about fate, about being carried along by unseen forces.As their author, Tolstoy had dictated Vronsky’s and Anna’s fates; they were subject to his creativity.Aurelia knew that authors manipulated their characters at will, but it was amazing to see first-hand how that impacted a character who felt as human as anyone she’d met in the ‘real’ world.She wondered: if Vronsky could change anything about his life and the decisions he made (or was made to make by Tolstoy), what would he choose?
That night, as she greeted the other characters, Aurelia noticed that Vronsky was reserved and quiet.Eventually, he warmed up and began talking with the others, and Aurelia realized it wasn’t the first evening that he’d needed time to match everyone’s cheerful mood.She guessed it must take some work to shake off the weight of the emotions he was carrying at the end of his book before he could laugh and socialize with the group.Those first weeks and months after her mother’s and then Aunt Marigold’s death had been brutal—she couldn’t imagine how Vronsky managed to live in that dark place day after day.
After an hour or two of chatting with the other characters, Aurelia and Vronsky were once again sitting on the window seat, this time with Rachel and Marianne.When she asked her question, though, his answer wasn’t as satisfying as she’d hoped.
“It is a pointless exercise.Tolstoy wrote my life as he did, therefore why consider the impossible?”
“But for argument’s sake,” she said, addressing all three of the characters now.“If your life had been completely up to you, would you change anything that happened?”
“I think not, Aurelia,” Rachel said pensively.“I would not deign to consider myself a better judge—with only my own perspective on the world and the lives of those around me—of what ought or ought not to occur.”
“I would change things—certainly I would,” Marianne said with conviction.“I would never have given my heart to Willoughby and would have immediately left my heart open to Colonel Brandon.”
“Would you really, though?Was it not loving and losing Willoughby that helped you to open your heart to Colonel Brandon?”Rachel asked.“Your first instinct was to reject him—it therefore took time and experience to appreciate who he is.”
Aurelia smiled to hear that Rachel and Marianne had swapped stories about their old romances.
“I suppose that is true,” Marianne conceded.“It does seem hard, however, to have to go through the difficult hours and days to arrive at the pleasant ones.”
“It is a reflection of life, is it not?We cannot appreciate the good without experiencing the alternative,” said Rachel.
“I would change nothing,” Vronsky said suddenly.“If I changed one thing, it might have prevented me from meeting and loving Anna as I did.What if Tolstoy had chosen someone else to love her, and I was left to simply observe all that happened to her?This I could not tolerate.”
He took a moment to steady himself before continuing.
“I have experienced great unhappiness, that is true, and it could have been avoided if I had never loved Anna.But I have also experienced great happiness—to be loved so completely by a woman such as her.”
Marianne’s eyes brimmed with tears as she said, “That is something to be grateful for amid your sorrows.”
“As I said, I do feel that changing one aspect of my life might unbalance the rest and change aspects I was quite happy to have lived through.But perhaps—” Vronsky paused and then shook his head, chasing away a thought.
