________________________________________________
_ Alexey Alexandrovitch took leave of Betsy in the drawing-room,
and went to his wife. She was lying down, but hearing his steps
she sat up hastily in her former attitude, and looked in a scared
way at him. He saw she had been crying.
"I am very grateful for your confidence in me." He repeated
gently in Russian the phrase he had said in Betsy's presence in
French, and sat down beside her. When he spoke to her in Russian,
using the Russian "thou" of intimacy and affection, it was
insufferably irritating to Anna. "And I am very grateful for your
decision. I, too, imagine that since he is going away, there is
no sort of necessity for Count Vronsky to come here. However, if
. . ."
"But I've said so already, so why repeat it?" Anna suddenly
interrupted him with an irritation she could not succeed in
repressing. "No sort of necessity," she thought, "for a man to
come and say good- bye to the woman he loves, for whom he was
ready to ruin himself, and has ruined himself, and who cannot
live without him. No sort of necessityI" She compressed her lips,
and dropped her burning eyes to his hands with their swollen
veins. They were rubbing each other.
"Let us never speak of it," she added more calmly.
"I have left this question to you to decide, and I am very glad
to see . . ." Alexey Alexandrovitch was beginning.
"That my wish coincides with your own," she finished quickly,
exasperated at his talking so slowly while she knew beforehand
all he would say.
"Yes," he assented; "and Princess Tverskaya's interference in the
most difficult private affairs is utterly uncalled for. She
especially . . ."
"I don't believe a word of what's said about her," said Anna
quickly. "I know she really cares for me."
Alexey Alexandrovitch sighed and said nothing. She played
nervously with the tassel of her dressing-gown, glancing at him
with that torturing sensation of physical repulsion for which she
blamed herself, though she could not control it. Her only desire
now was to be rid of his oppressne presence.
"I have just sent for the doctor," said Alexey Alexandrovitch.
"I am very well; what do I want the doctor for?"
"No, the little one cries, and they say the nurse hasn't enough
milk."
"Why didn't you let me nurse her, when I begged to? Anyway"
(Alexey Alexandrovitch knew what was meant by that "anyway"),
"she's a baby, and they're killing her." She rang the bell and
ordered the baby to be brought her. "I begged to nurse her, I
wasn't allowed to, and now I'm blamed for it."
"I don't blame . . ."
"Yes, you do blame me! My God! why didn't I die!" And she broke
into sobs. "Forgive me, I'm nervous, I'm unjust," she said,
controlling herself, "but do go away . . ."
"No, it can't go on like this," Alexey Alexandrovitch said to
himself decidedly as he left his wife's room.
Never had the impossibility of his position in the world's eyes,
and his wife's hatred of him, and altogether the might of that
mysterious brutal force that guided his life against his
spiritual inclinations, and exacted conformity with its decrees
and change in his attitude to his wife, been presented to~him
with such distinctness as that day. He saw clearly that all the
world and his wife expected of him something, but what exactly,
he could not make out. He felt that this was rousing in his soul
a feeling of anger destructive of his peace of mind and of all
the good of his achievement. He believed that for Anna herself it
would be better to break off all relations with Vronsky; but if
they all thought this out of the question, he was even ready to
allow these relations to be renewed, so long as the children were
not disgraced, and he was not deprived of them nor forced to
change his position. Bad as this might be, it was anyway better
than a rupture, which would put her in a hopeless and shameful
position, and deprive him of everything he cared for. But he felt
helpless; he knew beforehand that every one was against him, and
that he would not be allowed to do what seemed to him now so
natural and right, but would be forced to do what was wrong,
though it seemed the proper thing to them. _
Read next: Part Four: Chapter 21
Read previous: Part Four: Chapter 19
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