第136章

Vronsky meant that after the duel - inevitable, he thought - things could not go on as before, but he said something different.

`It can't go on. I hope that now you will leave him. I hope' -he was confused, and reddened - `that you will let me arrange and plan our life. Tomorrow...' he was beginning.

She did not let him go on.

`But my child!' she shrieked. `You see what he writes! I should have to leave him, and I can't and won't do that.'

`But, for God's sake, which is better? To leave your child, or keep up this degrading situation?'

`To whom is it degrading?'

`To all, and most of all to you.'

`You say degrading... Don't say that. These words have no meaning for me,' she said in a shaking voice. She did not want him now to say what was untrue. She had nothing left her but his love, and she wanted to love him. `Don't you understand that from the day I loved you everything has changed for me? For me there is one thing, and one thing only - your love.

If that's mine, I feel so exalted, so strong, that nothing can be degrading to me. I am proud of my position, because... proud of being... proud...'

She could not say what she was proud of. Tears of shame and despair choked her utterance. She stood still and sobbed.

He felt, too, something swelling in his throat and twitching in his nose, and for the first time in his life he felt on the point of weeping.

He could not have said exactly what it was touched him so; he felt sorry for her, and he felt he could not help her, and with that he knew that he was to blame for her wretchedness, and that he had done something wrong.

`Isn't a divorce possible?' he said feebly. She shook her head, without answering. `Couldn't you take your son, and still leave him?

`Yes; but it all depends on him. Now I must go to him,' she said shortly. Her presentiment that all would again go on in the old way had not deceived her.

`On Tuesday I shall be in Peterburg, and everything can be settled.'

`Yes,' she said. `But don't let us talk any more of it.'

Anna's carriage, which she had sent away, and ordered to come back to the little gate of the Vrede garden, drove up. Anna said good-by to Vronsky, and drove home.

[Next Chapter] [Table of Contents] TOLSTOY: Anna Karenina Part 3, Chapter 23[Previous Chapter] [Table of Contents] Chapter 23 On Monday there was the usual session of the Commission of the 2nd of June.

Alexei Alexandrovich walked into the hall where the session was held, greeted the members and the president, as usual, and sat down in his place, putting his hand on the papers laid ready before him. Among those papers lay the necessary evidence and a rough outline of the speech he intended to make.

But he did not really need these documents. He remembered every point, and did not think it necessary to go over in his memory what he would say.

He knew that when the time came, and when he saw his enemy facing him, and studiously endeavoring to assume an expression of indifference, his speech would flow of itself better than he could prepare it now. He felt that the import of his speech was of such magnitude that every word of it would have weight. Meantime, as he listened to the usual report, he had the most innocent and inoffensive air. No one, looking at his white hands, with their swollen veins and long fingers, so softly stroking the edges of the white paper that lay before him, and at the air of weariness with which his head drooped on one side, would have suspected that in a few minutes a torrent of words would flow from his lips that would arouse a fearful storm, set the members shouting and attacking one another, and force the president to call for order. When the report was over, Alexei Alexandrovich announced in his subdued, delicate voice that he had several points to bring before the meeting in regard to the organization of the native tribes. All attention was turned upon him. Alexei Alexandrovich cleared his throat, and, without looking at his opponent, but selecting, as he always did while he was delivering his speeches, the first person sitting opposite him, an inoffensive little old man, who never had an opinion of any sort in the Commission, began to expound his views. When he reached the point about the basic and organic law, his opponent jumped up and began to protest. Stremov, who was also a member of the Commission, and was also stung to the quick, began defending himself, and an altogether stormy session followed; but Alexei Alexandrovich triumphed, and his motion was carried, three new commissions were appointed, and the next day, in a certain Peterburg circle, nothing else was talked of but this session. Alexei Alexandrovich's success had been even greater than he had anticipated.

Next morning, Tuesday, Alexei Alexandrovich, on awaking, recollected with pleasure his triumph of the previous day, and he could not help smiling, though he tried to appear indifferent, when the head clerk, anxious to flatter him, informed him of the rumors that had reached him concerning what had happened in the Commission.

Absorbed in business with the head clerk, Alexei Alexandrovich had completely forgotten that it was Tuesday, the day fixed by him for the return of Anna Arkadyevna, and he was surprised and received a shock of annoyance when a servant came in to inform him of her arrival.

Anna had arrived in Peterburg early in the morning; the carriage had been sent to meet her in accordance with her telegram, and so Alexei Alexandrovich might have known of her arrival. But, when she arrived, he did not meet her. She was told that he had not yet gone out, but was busy with the head clerk. She sent word to her husband that she had come, went to her own room, and occupied herself in sorting out her things, expecting he would come to her. But an hour passed; he did not come. She went into the dining room on the pretext of giving some directions, and spoke loudly on purpose, expecting him to come out there; but he did not come, though she heard him go to the door of his study as he parted from the head clerk.